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UFC 175 PPV Is a Major Test of UFC’s Strength

It’s no secret that UFC 175 is the biggest event the Ultimate Fighting Championship has put together so far in 2014. The promotion has gone all-in by placing two title fights on one card, as Chris Weidman and Ronda Rousey will defend their b…

UFC is also in a fight of its own. Not against another promotion but rather dwindling pay-per-view figures that have continued into 2014. UFC 175 will be an interesting test of the current strength of the promotion as a whole.

One of the big storylines this year is the fact that UFC is suffering from dropping PPV buyrates. This is not a new trend, as the issue first began to rear its head back in 2013.

A review of the PPV buyrate figures provided by MMAPayout.com shows that numbers were up and down throughout most of the year. Bright spots in the forms of UFCs 158, 159, 162 and 168 stand out as the only events for which UFC cracked the 500,000-buyrate threshold.

One interesting point about those cards is that each one featured a fighter who is no longer competing. Georges St-Pierre (UFC 158) Chael Sonnen (UFC 159) and Anderson Silva (UFC 162 and 168) are all away from the sport for one reason or another. They were some of the most important names of the sport at the time.

Whether intentionally or not, the baton has been passed to today’s fighters, and results haven’t been great.

UFC 175 does feature two individuals who were a part of the biggest cards of 2013. Weidman and Rousey helped carry some of the more successful events of 2013. However, they did not do it alone, and this weekend’s card is missing some key components of those nights.

Weidman is fighting Lyoto Machida, who has never been a huge PPV draw. Rousey is facing off against Alexis Davis instead of coming off a season of The Ultimate Fighter with Miesha Tate. These two factors can drastically affect the success of this fight card. If fans don’t show interest in Machida and Davis as foils to the champions, then this show’s numbers will not break the current trend.

As Dave Walsh of MMANuts.com stated, “UFC 175 is a chance for both [Rousey and Weidman] to not only prove themselves in the cage, but to prove themselves as legitimate stars and champions. They’ll have to do it without the help of Anderson Silva, which should make this a lot more interesting.”

Another blow to this card occurred with the removal of Sonnen vs. Vitor Belfort. That rivalry was a major talking point which was broken up by Sonnen’s failed drug tests, retirement and eventual termination from the promotion. Losing that fight weakens the undercard of an event that even features Urijah Faber in the preliminaries.

UFC 175 is about more than two champions looking to walk out of the Octagon with their belts in tow. This card will help understand how UFC’s scheduling model has affected the interest in their current product.

If Ronda Rousey and Chris Weidman really are two of the biggest stars that this sport has to offer, then PPV numbers will support that “fact.” If not, UFC will find itself in an interesting position that will need to be addressed one way or another.

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Dana White Wants B.J. Penn to Retire If He Loses to Frankie Edgar

B.J. Penn will forever be known as one of the most dominant lightweight champions MMA and the UFC have ever seen. That doesn’t mean the 35-year-old welterweight and lightweight champion should fight forever, though.
Win or lose, UFC preside…

Win or lose, UFC president Dana White thinks he needs to step in before allowing Penn to continue his career.

“This is B.J.’s last fight possibly,” White said on Tuesday on Fox Sports 1. “If he wins, we’ll see what he does from there, but if he loses, I will actually push for him to retire.”

Scheduled to make his return to the octagon—this time at 145 pounds—against Frankie Edgar, many are left to wonder what version of Penn they’ll see.

Will it be the guy who dismantled Joe Stevenson, Sean Sherk, Kenny Florian and Diego Sanchez in his run as the lightweight champion?

Or will it be the guy who only captured one victory in his last six Octagon appearances?

Since 2010, Penn has only seen his hand raised once—a knockout over Matt Hughes, who went on to retire just one year after.

It wouldn’t be fair to completely disparage Penn as a force in the featherweight division, especially since he spent the last two years of his fighting career scrapping with much bigger, stronger fighters at 170 pounds.

It’s possible that fighting smaller, but faster, fighters at 145 pounds is all that Penn needs to recapture the dominance he once enjoyed as a lightweight.

But considering the issues he had with a faster fighter in Frankie Edgar back in August and April of 2010—when Penn was only 31-years-old—it’s highly unlikely that fans will see “The Prodigy” return to his former glory.

Win or lose, Penn’s legacy as one of the best fighters to ever grace the Octagon will last forever.

“It could be possibly watching Michael Jordan playing his last basketball game,” White said. “It could be Tiger Woods’ last golf game.”

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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Johny Hendricks: Added Weight Won’t Help Georges St-Pierre in Rematch

Rumor has it that former UFC welterweight champion Georges St-Pierre has spent some of his time away from the cage adding some extra muscle.
St-Pierre first got the rumor-mill going when he posted this photo, captioned “Working on putting on some muscl…

Rumor has it that former UFC welterweight champion Georges St-Pierre has spent some of his time away from the cage adding some extra muscle.

St-Pierre first got the rumor-mill going when he posted this photo, captioned “Working on putting on some muscle mass,” onto his Instagram profile:

MMAfighting’s Ariel Helwani later confirmed on Twitter.

It turns out that current UFC welterweight champion Johny Hendricks doesn’t care—there’s no way he sees himself losing to St-Pierre, 200 pounds or not, for a second time.

He told MMA Fight Corner (via MMAFighting):

“I’ve heard GSP’s been watching my fights. Re-watching stuff because he’s going to have to put himself in more danger to hurt me, to mess up my game. That puts him in trouble. He’s been able to get away with so much because he’s been able to out-wrestle people. He can’t out-wrestle me. He can’t out-strength me. No matter how much weight he puts on. I think he’s at 201 pounds right now. They said he’s beefing up because he felt weak against me. He’s going to feel weak, even if he’s at 201.”

It’s difficult to imagine St-Pierre any bigger than he was when he first fought Hendricks. Already known as one of the bigger, more muscular fighters at 170-pounds, it may not be ideal for St-Pierre to add all that weight and still be athletic enough to perform at welterweight.

No worries, though—there’s another division that could suit St-Pierre and his newfound muscle mass just fine.

St-Pierre always cited the need to increase muscle mass as one of the major reasons a superfight between he and Anderson Silva never came to fruition. He was in the midst of one of the most dominant championship runs the UFC has ever seen and simply didn’t have the time to walk away and train for a move up in weight class.

Walking away from the sport and tearing his ACL might just be what St-Pierre needed to finally make the move to middleweight.

Sure, St-Pierre would be giving up quite a bit of height in moving up to middleweight, but the Firas Zahabi-trained fighter shouldn’t have too much trouble coping with height, so long as he retains most of his speed and tactical prowess.

A move up in division probably wouldn’t sit well with Hendricks, considering he still hasn’t technically defeated the Canadian superstar. But, while Hendricks is cognitive of the fact he didn’t see his hand raised in his bout with St-Pierre back at UFC 167 in November, he feels that the way he fought against St-Pierre warranted a new champion.

“There’s a sense of me that I sort of felt like Robbie Lawler was my title defense because of the Georges St-Pierre fight,” Hendricks said of his victory over Lawler for the vacant UFC welterweight title. “That’s the way I’m looking at it. It’s not technically my title defense but I’ve got the same mindset.”

In reality, it’s probably in Hendricks’ best interest to simply move on from that St-Pierre fight—he’s got a torn bicep and a flock of new challengers to worry about.

Lawler and Matt Brown are scheduled to face off on July 26 to determine the No. 1 contender upon Hendricks’ return. Rory MacDonald just proved to the world that he doesn’t always have to sit back and coast in his victory against Tyron Woodley. Even Woodley, who woefully underperformed in his last bout, is taking no time off to redeem himself in his next fight against Dong Hyun Kim—a welterweight currently riding a four-fight winning streak with back-to-back TKO finishes.

The overflowing crop of challengers hasn’t stopped Hendricks from thinking about certain fighters more than others, though.

Hendricks is currently on the mend from a torn bicep he suffered before his title fight with Lawler. He won the title, but not at full strength —part of him wonders what could have been had he been closer to 100 percent at UFC 171.

“Don’t get me wrong, I’ll throw with whoever’s the No. 1 contender. I’ll fight them. I’m not going to run away from that, but there’s a part of me that wants to see how I can do against Robbie Lawler, healthy. Then again, there’s part of me that wants to sort of train for Matt Brown or Rory MacDonald or whoever else is out there.”

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For BJ Penn, a Win over Frankie Edgar Would Breathe New Life into His Career

There is no doubt in anyone’s mind that B.J. Penn is a future UFC Hall of Famer. His mixed martial arts career began inside the Octagon at UFC 31, and over the course of his career he elevated the lightweight division to its marquee status and is one of only two men to hold UFC titles in two weight classes. A win over Frankie Edgar at the TUF 19 Finale on Sunday could add a new chapter to the legacy of “The Prodigy.”

Since losing the UFC lightweight title to Frankie Edgar in April of 2010, and the rematch that August, he ventured back up to welterweight with his 21-second starching of Matt Hughes at UFC 123. The win was thought by many to be the beginning of a career resurgence for the former champion.

He fought to a draw in his next bout against Jon Fitch at UFC 127, in a very close fight that he was competitive in. He followed that up with a decision loss to Nick Diaz, where after a surge of action in the first round, he couldn’t keep up with the blistering pace of Diaz, and by the end was doing little more than absorbing punishment. The resurgence hadn’t come, and it became clear that the days of licking his opponent’s blood off his gloves were in the past.

The loss to Diaz was an emotional one for B.J., who told Joe Rogan during his post-fight interview that it would probably be the last time we saw him in the cage, and he didn’t want to go home “looking like this” anymore. It seemed very likely that we had seen The Prodigy fight for the final time.

He returned a year later after to answer a challenge from Rory MacDonald. MacDonald picked him apart in the fight en-route to a unanimous decision, leaving Penn in a familiar spot of being badly beaten and dejected. Going into his third fight with Edgar, Penn has won just one of his last six fights.

The variable that needs to be considered is the move to featherweight that Penn will be making for the first time in his career. Those thorough beatdowns by Diaz and MacDonald occurred at 170 pounds, which despite the victories over Hughes was never a good fit for Penn.

A “motivated BJ Penn” is a saying that has almost become lore in the mixed martial arts world, similar to “Prime Chuck Liddell” or “Wanderlei in Pride.” Motivation to train has always been the biggest hurdle for Penn to get over in his career. Making the cut to 145 pounds will necessitate Penn to stay active and will push him to train hard.

Although Penn doesn’t have any personal animosity towards Edgar, a few statements made recently have gotten under his skin.

“It’s not really an emotional thing, but I’ve seen that he really wants to make me retire,” Penn said on the pre-fight conference call. “And how am I going to feed myself and feed my kids if I retire? But I’ll remember that next Sunday when we step in the ring.”

The losses to Edgar eat away at Penn, and he was willing to make the drop to featherweight to avenge them. Penn is 35 years old. He isn’t the youngest fighter in the world, but he isn’t so advanced in age that a good performance seems out of the question.

He’s got a tough task ahead against the man who took his belt, and it really will take a motivated B.J. Penn to get past Edgar. We may see Frankie Edgar come out and use his speed and footwork to outbox Penn just like he did in their first two fights. But, we may see a lean, scrappy B.J. Penn storm out of the gate looking to finish his adversary quickly and decisively.

And should he defeat the No. 3-ranked featherweight, the rest of the Top 10 is no walk in the park either. Defeating Frankie Edgar would create some seriously interesting fights in the featherweight division. Put a newly invigorated B.J. Penn against fighters like Cub Swanson or Chan Sung Jung and you have main event fights that would draw some eyeballs.

He has spent some time with the Nova Uniao team in preparation for this fight, and a win over Edgar would put him right back into the forefront of the minds of MMA fans who marveled at his destruction of the lightweight division from 2007-2009.

Penn has already earned his place as one of the pound-for-pound greats and was arguably the best lightweight fighter of all time. He’s got a chance to prove that he still has what it takes to get it done and reclaim the glory that he reveled in as one of the most feared fighters in the UFC. A victory would certainly breathe new life into his already prodigious career.

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UFC 175: Is Uriah Hall a Pretender or Contender?

It took all of five minutes and one jaw-dropping knockout against Adam Cella in his second fight on The Ultimate Fighter for MMA fans to buy into Uriah Hall as the frontrunner to win the 17th season of the tournament.
A quick knockout over Bubba McDani…

A quick knockout over Bubba McDaniel and a TKO against Dylan Andrews in his next two fights had fans buying into Hall as a genuine contender in the division once ruled by pound-for-pound great Anderson Silva.

Hall had people thinking less of how he would fare against fellow TUF finalist Kelvin Gastelum in the finale and more about how soon the Jamaican-born fighter would find himself standing across the Octagon with a dude wearing gold around his waist.

He was a contender.

Back-to-back split-decision losses to Gastelum and John Howard had most people, including UFC president Dana White, questioning their original judgments and wondering what happened to the guy that was flattening his opponents out just a few months prior.

“I love Uriah Hall,” White said in his media scrum after Hall’s loss to Howard at UFC Fight Night 26 last August. “I have a great relationship with this kid. He’s one of the nicest human beings you can ever meet. He’s not a fighter, man.”

Whether it be the jitters from being surrounded by thousands of fight fans or the step-up in competition, one thing was certain: Hall was quickly becoming one of the biggest disappointments in TUF history.

He was quickly re-dubbed a pretender.

White was quick to point to Hall’s nice demeanor inside the cage as the crux of his disappointing performances.

“It’s a mental thing. He was this killer that everybody was afraid of on TUF and then he comes into the big show where it all really matters and where you’re going to make, you know, this is going to make your livelihood and everything else and he turns into this different person. This super nice guy.”

White went on to elaborate on why being a nice guy like Hall doesn’t pay off in this business:

“You’re in a fight. You’re here to use your martial arts to win this competition and move forward. You’re not here to high-five and hug. That’s great. It’s one of the things I love about the sport—the sportsmanship that’s displayed, sometimes before, during and after a fight. But, it gets to a point where it gets ridiculous and that’s not what people are sitting at home to watch, that’s not what people paid to come into this building to watch.”

It hasn’t been all bad for Hall inside the UFC cage—he managed to stop Chris Leben back at UFC 169. Though most would be quick to disparage the victory—arguing it had more to do with a past-his-prime Leben realizing he was two years beyond his retirement age than Hall’s performance itself—it’s worth noting that this was the first time Hall seemed comfortable under the bright lights that only the UFC can flash.

Hall has an opportunity to ride this newfound wave of comfort further this Saturday at UFC 175 when he squares off against a 9-2 Thiago Santos. A loss, whether it be a split decision or knockout, would all but eliminate the “pretender or contender” discussion. A win keeps it alive.

Hall’s split-decision losses in the Octagon thus far are not inherently frustrating—they were close fights that could have just as easily seen his hand raised at the end. That’s not who fight fans wanted to see, though—they wanted the guy who was making us feel sorry for the guy standing across from him.

Until people see that guy return, videos (like the one below) that showcase his above-average hand movement and lightning-quick spinning back-kicks won’t matter much to anybody—they’ll forever brand him a pretender in the UFC’s middleweight division.

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Brian Stann Says UFC Had No Other Option Than to Fire Chael Sonnen

Don’t expect Brian Stann to come to the defense of his former opponent and colleague Chael Sonnen.
The retired middleweight and Fox UFC analyst was asked on Twitter Monday if he thought Sonnen’s firing was “just,” and he said he think…

Don’t expect Brian Stann to come to the defense of his former opponent and colleague Chael Sonnen.

The retired middleweight and Fox UFC analyst was asked on Twitter Monday if he thought Sonnen’s firing was “just,” and he said he thinks it was. According to Shaun Al-Shatti of MMA Fighting, Sonnen, who tested positive for a total of five banned substances in his two recent random drug tests, was terminated by the UFC and Fox Sports this week.

The former United States Marine has been a consummate professional throughout his WEC and UFC tenure, and he worked alongside Sonnen at the analyst desk on UFC broadcasts. Sonnen defeated Stann at UFC 136 in October 2011 and handed Stann his first loss since his drop to middleweight.

Stann spoke to Ariel Helwani on The MMA Hour back in April about his motivations for retiring, and he cited the lack of effective drug testing in the sport along with facing off against too many opponents who may have been using performance-enhancing drugs as partial reasons for his exit from fighting, saying:

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 by our athletic commissions is inadequate.

Stann was awarded the Silver Star for valor in combat for his actions throughout the course of an ambush by insurgents during the Iraq War, so he is no stranger to adversity. Stann’s last opponent inside the Octagon, Wanderlei Silva, ran from a random drug test when it was required by the Nevada State Athletic Commission for the proposed bout with Sonnen.

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