Author: Ben Fowlkes

Todd Duffee’s New Year’s Gamble

Filed under: JapanFor a certain kind of MMA fighter, New Year’s Eve in Japan represents a simple math problem. It’s about risk versus reward, money versus pain and embarrassment, and, more often than not, overflowing optimism versus some very long odds…

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For a certain kind of MMA fighter, New Year’s Eve in Japan represents a simple math problem. It’s about risk versus reward, money versus pain and embarrassment, and, more often than not, overflowing optimism versus some very long odds.

Mostly though, it’s about money.

That might not be the only reason Todd Duffee reportedly agreed to end a tumultuous 2010 with a fight against Alistair Overeem on this year’s Dynamite!! New Year’s Eve show, but it’s definitely one of the reasons.

By all indications, Duffee stands to make a nice chunk of change (somewhere in the neighborhood of $60,000, according to various internet reports) for shipping off to Tokyo at the last minute. For a guy who hasn’t fought since being released from the UFC following his first career loss to Mike Russow in May, the chance to end the year with some money in his pocket must seem like a difficult offer to refuse. But does that necessarily mean it’s a good idea?

The GDP Award

Filed under: Strikeforce, JapanThere are only two types of people who say they’ll get in the cage and fight for free: liars and psychos. You think you want to put on the gloves, get up in front of a screaming crowd, and get punched in the face for free…

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There are only two types of people who say they’ll get in the cage and fight for free: liars and psychos. You think you want to put on the gloves, get up in front of a screaming crowd, and get punched in the face for free on a Saturday night? Are you dense?

Naw, playa. Fighting, when done right, is a job. When done wrong, it’s a criminal offense, or at the very least a way to get kicked out of your favorite bar. The wise pugilist knows that if people are paying to see him, some of that money should find its way into his pocket, if only so he can pay for his stitches and Jägerbombs after the fight.

It is with this in mind that we award this year’s GDP Award (or as “King” Mo Lawal would say, the Get Dat Paper Award) for MMA’s most ambitious cash-stacking, money-making hustler to none other than Strikeforce heavyweight champ Alistair Overeem. [pause for confused applause]

A Special Holiday Greeting From MMAFighting.com

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With Christmas just around the corner, we wanted to pause a moment from our constant stream of MMA news and notes to wish you and your family a happy holiday season … in our own special way. Enjoy.

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With Christmas just around the corner, we wanted to pause a moment from our constant stream of MMA news and notes to wish you and your family a happy holiday season … in our own special way. Enjoy.

Moment of the Year: When Fabricio Met Fedor

Outside of his own camp, few people expected anything good to happen to Fabricio Werdum. He showed up in San Jose, Calif. as a 5-1 underdog against the world’s greatest heavyweight. He was, according to conventional wisdom, simply outmatched and underp…

Outside of his own camp, few people expected anything good to happen to Fabricio Werdum. He showed up in San Jose, Calif. as a 5-1 underdog against the world’s greatest heavyweight. He was, according to conventional wisdom, simply outmatched and underpaid. He was the grinning Washington Generals to Fedor Emelianenko‘s stoic Globetrotters.

This was not the supercharged heavyweight showdown MMA fans had been waiting for. This was a consolation prize. This was the Russian “Last Emperor” Emelianenko, the consensus number one heavyweight, taking on the UFC castoff Werdum in what was regarded by fans and media as little more than a tune-up before an inevitable showdown between Emelianenko and Strikeforce heavyweight champion Alistair Overeem.

Werdum was necessary, in a way, but in the days before the bout he had begun to seem like an extra, a prop. It was hard to watch him joking with his trainers and teammates in San Jose throughout the week without wondering if he really knew what he was in for on that Saturday night in June.

Fedor didn’t joke. Fedor barely smiled. In the afternoon he could be seen jogging through the streets of downtown San Jose like a business traveler trying to stick to some resolution that he would exercise even when on the road. Fedor was there to work.

My First Fight: Mike Pyle

Filed under: UFC, FanHouse ExclusiveIf you walked up to a 175-pound fighter with no pro bouts to his credit and asked him if he wanted to fight 205-pound Quinton “Rampage” Jackson for a hundred bucks on a week’s notice, chances are he’d look at you lik…

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If you walked up to a 175-pound fighter with no pro bouts to his credit and asked him if he wanted to fight 205-pound Quinton “Rampage” Jackson for a hundred bucks on a week’s notice, chances are he’d look at you like you’d just declared yourself to be the rightful king of England.

That’s today. That’s the state of the fight game in 2010. But back in Memphis, Tenn. in 1999, that exact same proposal didn’t seem so bad when it was put to Mike Pyle.

“I was set to fight someone in my weight class,” Pyle remembers. “I was 175 pounds soaking wet, with my gi on. My opponent had gotten hurt at a jiu-jitsu tournament a week before. Why the hell he was doing a jiu-jitsu tournament a week before, I don’t know, but the promoter…called me and said, ‘Hey, there’s a problem. Your boy got hurt, so how about Rampage?’ I was like, okay, let’s do it. That was all it took.”

Breakthrough Fighter of the Year

Filed under: UFC, WEC
Breakthrough Fighter is a category that’s easy to talk about but hard to define. What’s the difference between having a good year and a breakthrough year? Is it just a nicer way of saying that you sucked right up until January 1st…

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Breakthrough Fighter is a category that’s easy to talk about but hard to define. What’s the difference between having a good year and a breakthrough year? Is it just a nicer way of saying that you sucked right up until January 1st?

These are difficult questions, so to help me answer them I turned to MMA Fighting’s Ariel Helwani for a spirited, though friendly debate. At least it started out friendly. Then it quickly turned into every other debate we’ve ever had, which is to say long, fierce, and entertaining…from a distance.

By all means, let’s let Ariel start us off.

Ariel Helwani: Look, Ben, I already know what you’re going to say upon hearing my pick for Breakthrough Fighter of the Year: a bunch of fighters won four fights this year. A bunch of guys won titles. A bunch of guys won no. 1 contender spots. A bunch of guys were involved in potential Fight of the Year candidates. A bunch of guys added scintillating knockouts to their highlight reels.