Author: Ben Fowlkes

My First Fight: Jorge Rivera

Filed under: UFC, FanHouse ExclusiveOn Nov. 13, MMA veteran Jorge Rivera will attempt to extend his three-fight winning streak against Alessio Sakara at UFC 122 in Oberhausen, Germany. But before he finds out what his future holds, Rivera took a look b…

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On Nov. 13, MMA veteran Jorge Rivera will attempt to extend his three-fight winning streak against Alessio Sakara at UFC 122 in Oberhausen, Germany. But before he finds out what his future holds, Rivera took a look back at his past with us for a new feature on MMA Fighting where fighters revisit their very first professional MMA bout to tell us what they remember now, and what they’ve learned since.

The year was 2001. Jorge Rivera, then 29 years old, had come down from Milford, Mass. to Chester, W. Va. for one simple reason.

“I really just wanted to know how good I was, because I honestly had no idea. It turned out the other guy was much better.”

Yves Edwards: ‘I Want to Leave Behind a Body of Work I Can Be Proud Of’

Filed under: UFC, FanHouse ExclusiveOld-school MMA fans still say plenty of great things about Yves Edwards. He appreciates it, in a way.

A part of him likes the fact that people still remember his string of dominant years around the middle of the de…

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Old-school MMA fans still say plenty of great things about Yves Edwards. He appreciates it, in a way.

A part of him likes the fact that people still remember his string of dominant years around the middle of the decade. And it’s nice to hear some of them say that, had the UFC had a lightweight title in circulation back then, he might very well have held it.

It’s nice, but it’s not enough. Not now.

“People can say I was the uncrowned lightweight champ, but it sucks being the uncrowned champ of anything,” he says. “You don’t have the belt, and you never had it. I can’t put ‘uncrowned lightweight champion’ on my resume. That hurts so bad. That really still hurts, to tell you the truth.”

Mike Swick Sore, but Optimistic After Experimental Treatment

Filed under: UFC, NewsTwo days after undergoing an experimental treatment for his ongoing esophageal issues, UFC welterweight Mike Swick told MMA Fighting on Thursday that he’s “optimistic” about his fighting future for the first time in a long time.

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Two days after undergoing an experimental treatment for his ongoing esophageal issues, UFC welterweight Mike Swick told MMA Fighting on Thursday that he’s “optimistic” about his fighting future for the first time in a long time.

“I can tell already from waking up this morning that it’s already improving,” Swick said. “Pretty much, the way it was before I woke up miserable every day.”

Swick said it will still be a few more days before he knows for sure whether the botox injection in his esophagus had the desired effect of paralyzing his esophageal muscles in order to stop the spasms. While the treatment, which involved probing into his throat while he was sedated but semi-conscious, was “not super-pleasant,” he said, things are already looking up.

Efrain Escudero Hopes to Fight His Way Back Into UFC With Shine Fights Deal

Filed under: UFCEfrain Escudero didn’t dance around his reasons for deciding to sign with Shine Fights after being cut by the UFC following his most recent loss.

“I was offered pretty good money and for [a contract] that wasn’t for more than one year,…

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Efrain Escudero didn’t dance around his reasons for deciding to sign with Shine Fights after being cut by the UFC following his most recent loss.

“I was offered pretty good money and for [a contract] that wasn’t for more than one year,” Escudero told MMA Fighting on Wednesday afternoon. “Eventually I want to make my run back to the UFC and prove to Dana White and everybody else that I can do the job they hired me to do.”

The chance to sign a year-long, three-fight deal rather than get locked down in a longer agreement played a major role in his decision-making process, said Escudero, who described the decisions facing him after his release from the UFC following a loss to Charles Oliveira in Sepember as “very difficult.”

“Why they released me, I have no idea,” Escudero said. “Do I feel bad? Yes, I feel bad. But I have to put it aside. We don’t live in the past.”

Release of Quieroz Highlights UFC’s Need for Consistent Drug Policy

Chances are most MMA fans hadn’t heard much about Vinicius Quieroz (5-2) before this week. The Brazilian Chute Boxe product made his Octagon debut at UFC 120 in London, losing via third-round submission to Rob Broughton on the unaired preliminaries. …

Chances are most MMA fans hadn’t heard much about Vinicius Quieroz (5-2) before this week. The Brazilian Chute Boxe product made his Octagon debut at UFC 120 in London, losing via third-round submission to Rob Broughton on the unaired preliminaries.

It wasn’t the greatest start to a stint in the UFC, but it wasn’t deemed an offense worthy of dismissal. Not until the UFC’s independent drug testing nabbed him for using the steroid Stanozolol, that is.

Then he was not only fired from the organization but also forced to forfeit “an undisclosed discretionary bonus.”

The fact that he was given a bonus in the first place tells you the UFC wasn’t wholly unhappy with his performance in the cage. The fact that he was fired after the positive test result tells you that the UFC really is serious about cracking down on steroid users, just as long as those users are the kind of guys it can jettison without hurting the bottom line.

At UFC Gym, Art ‘One Glove’ Jimmerson Finds an Unexpected Home

Filed under: UFC, FanHouse ExclusiveIf you ask Art Jimmerson now, he’ll admit that he never thought the UFC would still be around nearly two decades from the night he stepped into the Octagon for the first and last time. He certainly never thought that…

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If you ask Art Jimmerson now, he’ll admit that he never thought the UFC would still be around nearly two decades from the night he stepped into the Octagon for the first and last time. He certainly never thought that, seventeen years after his short, but memorable bout with Royce Gracie at UFC 1, he’d be teaching boxing at a UFC gym in Rosemead, Calif.

And yet here he is, now 47 years old and retired from boxing, sitting on some heavy bags next to a cage not so unlike the one he saw for the first time, along with the American public, in November of 1993.

“I remember my manager told me, ‘Man this thing ain’t going anywhere. It’s too far out there.’ That’s how it seemed at the time, but now look at it,” he says and gestures at the expansive gym around him. “Who knew, right?”

Not Jimmerson. Not back then. He was a former Golden Gloves champion riding a 15-fight win streak. He’d had nearly 30 fights as a pro, and his career seemed like it was finally on the verge of taking off. Fighting a bunch of karate teachers and toughmen in front of a couple thousand people in Denver sounded like a relatively easy night of work.