Alex Caceres Not Worried about Being Overlooked at UFC 175

UFC bantamweight Alex “Bruce Leeroy” Caceres faces the biggest test of his career at UFC 175, taking on former WEC featherweight champion Urijah Faber in the night’s featured preliminary bout. The fight will give him the opportunity t…

Faber has defeated half of the current Top 10 on the UFC.com rankings, and Caceres understands that some people may be looking past him. Caceres had this to say about his upcoming fight:

“I’m always being a little overlooked going into any fight. With my lifestyle choices, I’m a standout character. People know who I am, and they enjoy watching my fights, but I’m not a mainstream person. I’m not really out there for those kinds of reasons, for fame, glitz, glamour and glory. I simply enjoy performing these actions. Whether I’m in front of a crowd doing it, or if I’m in a hole-in-the-wall gym, it makes no difference to me, and I’m going to be happy doing it.”

He doesn’t concern himself with trying to hype his fights the way some other fighters do. He is simply here to ply his trade, and would rather communicate through his art, saying:

“You don’t see me that much out there promoting myself, and taking selfies and getting out there and saying ‘Hey, look at me, I’m the best.’ I don’t necessarily believe in all that. I’m a very simple person. I’m just a human being that does martial arts, and when I get in there I’ll do it to the best of my ability.”

“It’s not a competition between me and the other person; if anything it’s just a competition with myself. I’m trying to beat myself to see if I’m better than who I am and see if I can achieve a higher level in this playing field.”

“Bruce Leeroy” is known for his relaxed fighting style, and he is one of the more calm and complacent fighters when he’s on his way to the cage. He attributes that to his understanding of the true nature of a fight, saying:

“The way I look at it, there are only two people inside the cage, and somebody has to lose. I don’t think there is any shame in losing inside the UFC cage, inside that Octagon. Just getting there is a feat by itself. And then to beat someone who has trained for you, and is a top athlete—whoever wins is the better man that night and only that night. You always have a lifetime to get back into it and do it again, and transform yourself and get better. You can’t expect to win all the time. There are only two people in there, and one of them has to lose.”

Caceres does not fight to appease the cageside judges. In fact, when he heard his cornermen saying that he had only 30 seconds left in the final round of his fight with Sergio Pettis, his initial thought was not that he needs to find a way to win; instead, it was that he only had 30 seconds left to do what he loves and that he better make the most of that time.

His entertaining style comes from his lack of fear or stress leading up to his fights. His goal is to achieve new heights through his martial arts skills, and being able to go in and compete and truly perform to his potential matters more than actually winning.

“I try to go in there with an empty mind and a full heart, so I don’t hesitate on the actions that I want to perform. I’m not going to hold back because I’m afraid of losing. I just want to do what I do and do it to the best of my abilities. I know with that attitude and that motivation, it will most likely lead me to victory, even though it’s not my main concern. It’s kind of like people who take life too seriously. You can’t get out alive, so you might as well just live.”

Mike Wellman is a contributor for Bleacher Report. All quotes are obtained firsthand unless otherwise noted.

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Can the UFC Survive Random Drug Testing?

In the prime of his fighting career, Georges St-Pierre—the former welterweight king and pound-for-pound great—walked away from MMA just eight months ago, citing personal issues.

Months after his departure, the MMA community gained gr…

In the prime of his fighting career, Georges St-Pierre—the former welterweight king and pound-for-pound great—walked away from MMA just eight months ago, citing personal issues.

Months after his departure, the MMA community gained greater insight on what St-Pierre’s concerns were partially hinged upon: the use of performance-enhancing drugs in MMA and the UFC.

As the months went by, it became readily apparent that those sentiments were not unique to St-Pierre. Several other fighters, such as Brian Stann—who claimed that PEDs were a big reason he retired from the sport as well—believe athletic commissions were not doing enough to combat banned substances in MMA, telling Ariel Helwani on The MMA Hour back in April (via MMAMania.com):

I’m 33 years old, and I have seen, in my own training, and in talking and knowing guys in the inner circle, I’ve known what guys are not on, and when they cycle on it. You can feel the difference in the gym and what big a difference it makes, and I do think there are a number of guys who are using just because the testing currently our athletic commissions is inadequate.

Dana White and the UFC have always been quick to claim sufficient and successful drug testing, often stating that the promotion completes its own testing separate of any athletic commission. White first told ESPN’s Michelle Beadle on Sportsnation in April:

PEDs have been cleaned up in the UFC. What people don’t realize is that the rule used to be that when commissions would test athletes, they’d do the main event and they’d have a couple of random tests. We’ve been testing everyone on the cards. Everyone’s being tested. It’s been a long time since anybody has tested positive for PEDs in the UFC.

St-Pierre didn‘t agree. He first told Helwani on The MMA Hour in March about how he indirectly disagreed with White’s sentiments (via MMAFighting.com):

The system is not in place. There are no guidelines. The way they test now, it’s not good. It’s not good the way they test. If you get caught on steroids right now, it’s because you’re very disorganized. It’s so easy to beat the test. It’s ridiculous. It’s not a real test.

It’s only taken Chael Sonnen, Wanderlei Silva, Vitor Belfort, Alistair Overeem and Antonio Silva, among others, to prove St-Pierre’s sentiments true—random drug testing is the way to go.

But for all the good random drug testing can provide MMA, it could do a lot of harm too.

Take Major League Baseball and the “steroids era,” for example. People weren’t as concerned about clean play as much as they were about seeing home run records be broken. They didn’t care that pitchers looked like they belonged on the cover of FITNESS Magazine as long as they were throwing heat and making dudes whiff.

Eventually the dirty stuff hit the fan and a bright light was cast upon the shadows that aided cheaters—baseball was officially impure. Much to the credit of the sport’s already established position in the United States, baseball managed to survive.

The UFC is big, but not MLB-big.

Currently the smelly, pimple-faced, rapidly growing teenager that it is, the UFC might not survive having some of its main attractions fall victim to random drug testing.

MMA is still currently illegal in the state of New York. An ongoing, debilitating battle with PED users is not a card the UFC can afford to hold in its hands as it tries to convince the Yankee-faithful of its credibility as a sport in the land of the free and the home of the brave.

That’s not to say that the sport shouldn’t implement random drug testing more often, though—it’s evidently successful in cleaning the sport and creating a more even playing field. But for a promotion that claims it cannot pay its lower-tier fighters more than $8,000 just to show up, there might not be enough money around to keep this party going once all the cool guys and girls have to go home.

Kristian Ibarra is a Featured Columnist at Bleacher Report. He also serves as the sports editor at San Diego State University’s student-run newspaper, The Daily Aztec. Follow him on Twitter at @Kristian_Ibarra for all things MMA.

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Ray Longo: Chris Weidman’s Repaired Knees Won’t Matter Against Lyoto Machida

For the first time in two years, Chris Weidman will enter the Octagon against somebody not named Anderson Silva.
The middleweight champion was originally scheduled to take on the surging Vitor Belfort at UFC 173. Elevated testosterone levels from…

For the first time in two years, Chris Weidman will enter the Octagon against somebody not named Anderson Silva.

The middleweight champion was originally scheduled to take on the surging Vitor Belfort at UFC 173. Elevated testosterone levels from Belfort and surgery on both of Weidman’s knees changed all of that.

Now slated to make his second title defense as the UFC middleweight king, Weidman will take his surgically repaired knees into the Octagon against Lyoto Machida on July 5 at the Mandalay Bay Events Center in Las Vegas for UFC 175.

Considering Weidman only had surgery in April, much of the MMA community was left wondering whether or not Weidman would be able to recover in time for his fight against The Dragon.

Weidman initially called his surgeries a success. He posted this photo on his Instagram profile after the surgery:

Weidman’s long-time trainer Ray Longo wasn’t as quick to claim victory with Weidman’s surgeries, telling Ariel Helwani on The MMA Hour:

As a trainer, I expected him, as far as I was told, to fly off the table and everything would be great. But he did have some pain in his knees maybe a week longer than I thought. When you’re in a fight, that week seems like it’s, you know, 18 years.

Middleweight champion or not, Weidman needs to be healthy against a rejuvenated Machida.

After a flash knockout and checking a leg kick against the former pound-for-pound best, Weidman’s wafer-thin, asterisk-ridden credibility as the champion would only dilapidate in losing to Machida. A dominant victory after two knee surgeries would placate any doubts and propel the 30-year-old Weidman into the same sentences as UFC light heavyweight champion Jon Jones and UFC featherweight champion Jose Aldo.

Now, just two weeks before his title fight, Longo explained to Helwani he thinks his fighter is going to be just fine.

He’s going to do it. Again, it did sound, I think, worse than it was and if anybody can do it, Weidman is the guy to do it. I think he’s dealt with adversity his whole life. You know, we have to trust in the doctors at that point and they said it wouldn’t be an issue. It started off a little rough, but I’ll tell you this, he rounded the corner. His knees feel great and he’s ready to go.

It may be difficult to tell if Longo is speaking truths or simply speaking in support of his fighter. Videos like the one below might help prove that Weidman will, in fact, be ready for his fight in July.

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Watch UFC Strawweight Claudia Gadelha Beat the Crap Out of Dudes on ‘Panico Na TV’

(Abs. Also pictured: Claudia Gadelha)

By Ryan Harkness

I think we all agree that The Ultimate Fighter has become a tired, worn out concept — to the point where even the fighters on the show don’t seem to give much of a crap any more. But women are doing their best to eliminate that not so fresh feeling from the show. TUF 18 featured bantamweight women alongside men, and TUF 20 (debuting in September) will be 100% 115-pound female goodness.

One fighter originally slated to appear on TUF 20 was Claudia Gadelha. Considered by many to be the ringer of the season, the undefeated BJJ black belt ended up being removed due to her inability to no speako de englis. But because of this switch-up, it now looks like she’ll get the honor of kicking off the women’s strawweight division when she fights ~~victim~~ opponent Tina Lahdemaki at UFC Fight Night 45 on July 16th.

It turns out that Claudia also has a bit of an interesting history: She is best known for a stint on Brazilian television where she fought dudes in the cage for a show called Panico Na TV. None of these guys were actually professional fighters and you can tell the goal isn’t to murderize each other. But speaking as an ill prepared TV host who once ‘fought’ Patrick Cote, this stuff can get pretty serious (at least for the poor bastards getting whupped).

Let’s take a look at some of these videos!

(Abs. Also pictured: Claudia Gadelha)

By Ryan Harkness

Let’s take a look at some of these videos!

The silliest and therefore best of the bunch. Three Panico Na TV hosts visit Claudia where she trains, and she beats all three like bongos. If you’ve only got time to watch one person get their ass whupped today, may I recommend host #3 (7:20 into the vid), who decides about halfway through that he no longer wants to do this skit.

Next page: More of Claudia hurting poorly prepared individuals!

UFC Mag: Bang Out 20 Clap Push-Ups

This post is excerpted from the June/July 2014 issue of UFC Magazine. Click here to subscribe! If you can’t do 12 controlled chest-to-the-ground push-ups, start there. Then level up to push-up chest touches on a Smith machine. Set the bar to a height that allows you to execute 20 reps. From a push-up position, lower your body to the bar until it touches your chest, and then push yourself away from the bar as rapidly as you can, attempting to create as much distance as possible between your hands and the bar. Regrab the bar and repeat.Rest for five days and then go at it again. This time set th … Read the Full Article Here

5 Reasons to Give Rignite Another Look

In the growing battle between social media management tools for small to medium size organizations, a few solutions are rising above the noise. These include HootSuite, Sprout Social and newcomer Rignite. Sure, there are other social media engagement platforms, but any solution that doesn’t include one of the top four social networks — Twitter, Facebook, […]

The post 5 Reasons to Give Rignite Another Look appeared first on John Janney.

Sure, there are other social media engagement platforms, but any solution that doesn’t include one of the top four social networks — Twitter, Facebook, Google Plus, and LinkedIn — is simply missing too much of the overall picture to be considered a serious contender.

I recently had the pleasure of speaking with Kim Cooper (@FullyMarketed) and Glen Kosaka (@glenkosaka) from Rignite and going through a demo of their software’s latest features. While you can get much of what Rignite offers in the way of basic social interaction from other solutions, this new platform is taking the idea of engagement to a new level. I was especially impressed with new features that I believe are giving Rignite a competitive edge.

1. Campaigns

Social media communicators don’t just want to engage with their audiences. They want their audience members to engage with their brands. Rignite’s Social Media Campaigns feature provides a tool to solicit engagement through Facebook comment contests, Twitter hashtag contests, and coupon campaigns.

For setting up a Twitter hashtag campaign, you draft a call to action such as “Post a photo of yourself with your favorite ice cream, mention @thecompany, and include the hashtag #GimmeIceCream for a chance to win a free ice cream.”

In Rignite’s system, you tell it what hashtag to look for and whether or not to require a photo to qualify for the contest. You also select the number of winners for the contest and your target goal for the number of contest entries. You can check to see if the hashtag is unique in case you want to avoid conflicts with other brands or campaigns, and you can cross promote the campaign on other social networks to help increase participation.

Once you launch the campaign and audience members start participating, the system will display a feed of qualifying entries based on these parameters. You and your team can rate and select winners and the system will publicly notify them on your social media channels.

Rignite’s Social Media Campaigns feature also offers metrics specific to each campaign. Segregating campaign-specific engagement metrics from general metrics is something unique in small to medium sized social media engagement solutions.

2. Shopify Integration

On May 27, Rignite announced that it now integrates with e-commerce solution Shopify. This integration helps Rignite users who sell products via Shopify track the performance of social media campaigns as they relate to the value of purchases and number of coupons used.

I don’t run a Shopify store, so I couldn’t personally demo this feature. However, integrating e-commerce tools and ROI metrics is a step in the right direction for any social media management platform. If I were going to setup an online store, I would seriously consider a Rignite + Shopify combo strategy.

3. Sentiment

Sentiment is not a new feature for Rignite. I saw this feature when I first demoed the solution several months ago. However, the ability to mark elements of online conversations as positive, negative, or neutral can be useful in measuring trends related to brand perception. This is especially important for highly competitive markets or products and services that contain potentially controversial elements.

Rignite’s sentiment analysis is not automatic. You’ll need to scroll through comments and mark each with an appropriate sentiment. This is likely manageable for small or medium size operations. However, if your online engagement volume is too high for manual sentiment analysis, you probably can afford SalesForce.com’s ExactTarget Marketing Cloud (Radian6).

I’m a sucker for useful metrics. The ability to track sentiment trends can tell you if your latest campaign or recent media coverage is helping or hurting your brand and to what degree. HootSuite’s free version and Sprout Social lack this feature, giving Rignite the advantage.

4. Unlimited Social Accounts

This feature is rather simple to explain and compare. HootSuite’s free version allows up-to five social media accounts. Sprout Social’s basic account allows up-to 20 and it’s mid-range level allows up-to 50. Rignite allows unlimited social profiles in all of its account levels, which is a huge plus for medium-sized organizations.

5. Price

Rignite just added a three-tier pricing model for users who want the new Campaign features. The mid-level account fee is $39/month, which is what Sprout Social used to charge for it’s basic level account. Sprout Social recently hiked the price of its basic level account from $39/month to $59/month — a 51.3% increase. If you like the Campaign and Sentiment features, you might get more bang for your buck from Rignite.

Conclusion

I was harsh in my first assessment of Rignite’s solution — and rightfully so. It was a new offering that lacked interesting metrics and competitive features (besides manual sentiment analysis). However, the addition of Campaigns and Shopify ROI integration to its system is giving it a much-needed competitive boost. If you haven’t checked out Rignite lately, I think it’s worth another look.

What I’ve come to realize is that each social media management solution offers unique advantages. Perhaps the perfect solution is to use different applications to accomplish different goals. Until an affordable platform offers everything everyone could possibly want, juggling multiple applications might be the way to go.

What do you think?

Do you think that social media communicators should stick with one platform or attempt to juggle multiple applications to achieve different objectives? Have you used or demoed Rignite, Sprout Social, or other solutions and what is your opinion of them?

Note: Rignite did not pay me to write this or offer to compensate me in any way for the review. Rignite did provide me with an extended trial to allow me to evaluate its new features. The images are from the demo and are used with permission.

The post 5 Reasons to Give Rignite Another Look appeared first on John Janney.