Author: Ben Fowlkes

Mike Pyle: By the Time I’m Done with Hathaway, I’ll Have Some U.K. Fans

Filed under: UFC
For many American fighters, the prospect of heading across the pond to fight a British opponent in the U.K. sounds about as much fun as an IRS audit.

There’s the long flight to deal with, the significant time change, the near certaint…

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For many American fighters, the prospect of heading across the pond to fight a British opponent in the U.K. sounds about as much fun as an IRS audit.

There’s the long flight to deal with, the significant time change, the near certainty that your sponsor’s hat will be stolen off your head during your entrance, and, of course, a hostile crowd that’s unanimously in the other guy’s corner.

But for welterweight Mike Pyle, that only sweetens the deal.

“I love it,” said Pyle, who on Saturday faces up-and-coming British welterweight John Hathaway at UFC 120 in London. “I love that none of the fans are going to like me. That’s great. But I’m telling you, by the time I’m done with him, I’m going to capture some British fans, guaranteed. …And at least they speak English over there.”

Falling Action: Best and Worst of Strikeforce – Diaz/Noons II

Filed under: StrikeforceI can’t help but think that maybe, as a child, Nick Diaz saw one too many after-school specials about bullying and came away with the wrong message. Somehow, somewhere in the spooky corridors of his mind, the notion took route t…

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I can’t help but think that maybe, as a child, Nick Diaz saw one too many after-school specials about bullying and came away with the wrong message. Somehow, somewhere in the spooky corridors of his mind, the notion took route that you can’t allow yourself to respect anyone until after you’ve beaten them in a fight.

For instance, look at the way he was immediately capable of acting like a civil human being to KJ Noons after winning Saturday night’s bout. The same was true when he fought Frank Shamrock. Before that fight he wouldn’t even shake Shamrock’s hand, opting instead to give him the finger when Frank offered (though in fairness, in certain parts of Stockton the bird is one of those all-purpose gestures).

My point is, if the only way Diaz can treat someone with the respect he’d like for himself is to beat them up, he should probably go ahead and get in the cage with Jason “Mayhem” Miller. This stuff about throwing water bottles at him in the hallway of the HP Pavillion and trying to fight him when neither of them is getting paid, that’s bush league stuff. Not only is it unprofessional, it’s financially unsound.

Sarah Kaufman Looking to Prove Her Worth in Strikeforce Spotlight

Filed under: StrikeforceSarah Kaufman hears the same questions over and over these days. It gets a little tiresome at times, but she knows she brought it on herself. She’s the squeaky wheel who demanded some grease on live television.

“It was one of t…

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Sarah Kaufman hears the same questions over and over these days. It gets a little tiresome at times, but she knows she brought it on herself. She’s the squeaky wheel who demanded some grease on live television.

“It was one of those things that needed to be said at the time,” she told MMA Fighting this week. “If I was in the same situation again I would do it again, for sure.”

By it, of course, she means the moment right after her knockout slam of Roxanne Modafferi in her last Strikeforce 135-pound title defense when she took to the mic and called for her employer to stop relegating her fights to the small-time Challengers cards and start giving her the respect a champion deserves.

“I think I deserve it,” she said into the camera. “Put me on there.”

K.J. Noons Says Skill Will Make the Difference Against ‘Delusional’ Nick Diaz

Filed under: StrikeforceK.J. Noons doesn’t have to search very hard for an answer when you ask whether he regards his win over Nick Diaz as a true victory.

“Of course,” he snorts, as if he’s never even considered any other way of looking at it.

As i…

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K.J. Noons doesn’t have to search very hard for an answer when you ask whether he regards his win over Nick Diaz as a true victory.

“Of course,” he snorts, as if he’s never even considered any other way of looking at it.

As if Diaz hasn’t been making the opposing case ever since they first met with the EliteXC lightweight title on the line almost three years ago, when a doctor stoppage due to cuts after round one sent Diaz into a rage as Noons celebrated in the cage.

“That’s his opinion,” Noons says, shrugging off Diaz’s complaints. “And his opinion on how I celebrated the win, it had nothing to do with him. I didn’t give a sh-t about him. It had to do with being a martial artist and coming from a family where I’ve been at it for 20 years, and then winning a world title. That’s a huge accomplishment.”

Nick Diaz Still Trying to Finish What He Started With K.J. Noons

Filed under: Strikeforce, FanHouse ExclusiveIt’s a sunny Saturday afternoon in Lodi, Calif., and Nick Diaz isn’t taking any steps backwards. Not today. For five rounds of boxing, forward seems to be the only direction the Strikeforce welterweight champ…

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It’s a sunny Saturday afternoon in Lodi, Calif., and Nick Diaz isn’t taking any steps backwards. Not today. For five rounds of boxing, forward seems to be the only direction the Strikeforce welterweight champion knows. It doesn’t matter what you’re throwing at him. He’s going head first, full speed ahead until you make him stop or kill yourself trying.

“Straight down the middle, that’s it!” shouts Diaz’s boxing coach, Richard Perez.

With his snow-white hair and gregarious disposition, Perez is a little like Santa Claus in a sleeveless t-shirt. He leans against the cage and shouts more encouragement than instruction as Diaz bulls his way forward against a series of smaller, quicker sparring partners. They come bouncing in and go dragging out in rotating shifts. Perez tells them to circle. That’s what “this guy” will do, he says.

Everyone in Diaz’s gym on School Street in Lodi’s quaint little downtown district knows who “this guy” is, but no one says his name. Not once. They don’t need to.

In the UFC, Threat of Being Cut Weighs Heavily on Fighters’ Minds

Filed under: UFCTodd Duffee heard the rumors about a week before he heard the official word. There was chatter around the gym that he might be cut from the UFC. Fighters he knew who were under contract to other organizations started reaching out to him…

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Todd Duffee heard the rumors about a week before he heard the official word. There was chatter around the gym that he might be cut from the UFC. Fighters he knew who were under contract to other organizations started reaching out to him on behalf of their employers.

“I guess they had heard I’d already been cut,” Duffee said. “That was the first I’d heard of it.”

At first, he thought it was a joke. He’d suffered the first loss of his career at UFC 114 in May. Now it was early September. He felt sure these were just rumors, idle locker room gossip. Then he heard from his manager that the rumors were true, and that the UFC was releasing him from his contract.

“I thought it was a joke at first,” he said. “I mean, they’re not cutting me off one loss. They don’t do that. It didn’t make sense to me.”