As Sara McMann stood in the center of the Invicta cage this past Saturday night waiting to hear what the judges would have to say about the future of her undefeated record, she had no idea which way it might go. This was a problem…
As Sara McMann stood in the center of the Invicta cage this past Saturday night waiting to hear what the judges would have to say about the future of her undefeated record, she had no idea which way it might go. This was a problem she hadn’t dealt with in her former life as a wrestler. All the way through college and then at the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens, where she won a silver medal, she’d had the advantage of being able to look at a scoreboard and know who was winning. But in MMA she’d seen enough baffling decisions to know that you could never be sure where the judges would come down after three rounds of fighting.
“I really wasn’t sure,” she told MMA Fighting in a phone interview this week. “I still have a hard time with striking, gauging exactly how they score it. I thought I was doing well, but when I’m feeling it it’s hard to know how they’re interpreting it.”
How they interpreted it was in her favor. Between her aggressive flurries and her takedowns, all three judges thought McMann had done enough to beat Shayna Baszler in the Invicta FC 2 main event, improving her record to a perfect 6-0 and putting her in a position to fight for the organization’s first bantamweight title. But to hear the former Olympian tell it, it’s the route she took to get here — one punctuated with both tragedy and triumph — that matters more than the destination.
Back in 2010 McMann was still 0-0 in her MMA career, but she had a Strikeforce contract in hand and was all set to sign. At the time, the organization was widely considered to be the top destination for female fighters, so it only made sense that McMann would join the Strikeforce ranks and begin working her way toward a title.
“We had the deal all set up and [manager Monte Cox] called me and said, ‘Don’t sign that contract,’” McMann said. She couldn’t understand it. Strikeforce was the place to be, and Cox had been telling her all along that she belonged there.
“The thing was, it was for four fights over five years,” McMann said. They might be looking at an excruciatingly slow climb, and maybe one that a 30-year-old fighter couldn’t afford to lock herself into, even if McMann could understand the reasoning behind it.
“Essentially, on their side they didn’t want me to have two fights and be fighting for the title. That doesn’t help them and doesn’t help women’s fighting. It doesn’t look good, and it doesn’t help me if I’m inexperienced and don’t have much cage time.”
So fine, McMann turned down the Strikeforce offer and headed off to the smaller shows to get some experience. Four fights in five years? Try four fights in her first four months as a professional. After a decision win over Hitomi Akano in a ProElite event in January, she was 5-0 and clearly ready for tougher challenges. Invicta offered her just such an opportunity via the nine-year MMA vet Baszler. The fact that she got this chance on the main event of an all-female fight card, and after a gradual career progression, served to convince McMann that she’d made the right choice when she walked away from the Strikeforce deal.
“For me, it’s a lot more about the journey than the end result,” said McMann. “If I went and was fighting for the title after two fights, that wouldn’t be as meaningful for me. I’ve already gone through a full career in wrestling, and the reason I really deeply cared about it was because of how much time and heartache and everything else I had invested in it. That’s what makes it special. That’s what makes it feel so unbelievable.”
When McMann looks back on her wrestling career now, ‘heartache’ still feels like the most appropriate word to describe much of it. She took it up in ninth grade, mostly because she wanted to do some kind of sport and wrestling was the one she knew best, thanks to her older brother’s involvement in it. Plus, she’d heard of other women who wrestled at other schools. That was definitely a thing that happened. It just didn’t happen at her school.
“There were no other girls. Fifteen of my seventeen years wrestling, I spent wrestling with guys,” McMann said.
It taught her some important lessons. Lessons like, when you know you’re going to give up strength and speed advantages to your opponent, you can’t afford to also concede an edge in technique or conditioning. To even stand a chance against male opponents, you have to be better, tougher, and grittier, which McMann was. She had to be, both on and off the mats. After losing her brother to a violent murder early on in her college years, she suffered another loss right after the 2004 Olympics, when her fiance, Steven Blackford, was killed in a car accident.
McMann responded to both tragedies by seeking solace in training. Those years spent wrestling, from high school all the way up through the Olympics, are ones she looks back on now the way you look upon a difficult trip that you’re glad you took, but are also glad you don’t have to take again.
“It’s not like a prison sentence, but it’s almost more like a rite of passage,” she explained. “For me, I wouldn’t have had it any other way. For as long as I could, I enjoyed pushing myself as far as I could. And don’t get me wrong, the days where I knew we were having those black flag practices that were extremely hard, I went into practice nervous — really, truly nervous — because I knew how hard it was going to be. But those were the best times of my life. Battling with my teammates, I wouldn’t change any of that for the world.”
Wrestling for your country and fighting for yourself are two very different things, however. The pressure that comes with the Olympics is overwhelming for some athletes, though McMann found early on that she had a gift for “completely shutting that out” until after the match. But as a professional fighter, it’s about more than just wins and losses. It’s also about entertainment, about fan buzz, and about ensuring that, for one reason or another, people are willing to pay to see you hit and be hit.
Female MMA fighters got a chance to see that in action when Ronda Rousey — herself a former Olympian with only four professional fights to her credit — talked her way into a Strikeforce title fight this past March. A brutal first-round victory via armbar justified her place in the main event, but it was the hype she generated with pre-fight sound bytes that helped sell it. If McMann could take a page out of Rousey’s playbook, people told her, she could advance her MMA career in a hurry.
If she wanted to, she could do it. She’s certainly capable of it. McMann’s not only the mother of a three-year-old daughter and a former Olympian, but also an articulate, cerebral fighter with a Master’s Degree in Mental Health Counseling. She could set her sights on self-promotion and make waves in interviews, but she doesn’t.
Instead, the things you hear her say are how much she likes fellow fighters like Baszler, how nice it is that they can be training partners now that they’re done fighting each other, how much she owes to the female fighters who came before her. In other words, nothing that’s going to generate a forum post or an angry comment war when the quote appears in internet articles.
It might not be the best career move for a female fighter struggling for attention, but there’s more on McMann’s mind than fame and money, she said. When people tell her to use her interviews to stir the pot and manufacture a little controversy, she’s forced to admit, “that’s just not me.”
“I think, personally, just having the life experiences I’ve had, I know that at any moment it can all be gone. Then all the world and my daughter will be left with of me are the things I represented while I was here. I look at this as my legacy, what I leave for my daughter and my family.”
So far she’s got a silver medal and unblemished MMA record to show for her efforts. And she’s not done yet.
If you wanted to be generous, you could call it a testament to Jon Jones’s dominance as UFC light heavyweight champ. If you wanted to be something else, you could call it a sad state of affairs. Either way, UFC president Dan…
If you wanted to be generous, you could call it a testament to Jon Jones’s dominance as UFC light heavyweight champ. If you wanted to be something else, you could call it a sad state of affairs. Either way, UFC president Dana White is calling it a reality: the winner of Saturday night’s UFC on FOX 4 main event between Brandon Vera and Mauricio “Shogun” Rua will get the next shot at the light heavyweight title.
Because, hey, someone has to. It doesn’t necessarily have to be someone who the current champ has already throttled, but every great champ goes into reruns eventually. We just didn’t think it would happen this soon with Jones, or with this sort of baffling logic driving it forward.
Listening to White try to sell this fight as a number one contender bout, it was hard not to feel a little sympathy for a salesman with an impossible task. He did an admirable job, considering the circumstances, but even the best promoter can only bend perception so much before it snaps back into place. Just take a look at White’s best attempt to make this fight seem like the logical choice for crowning the next 205-pound challenger during today’s media call. Helpful edits in the parenthesis added by yours truly:
“‘Shogun’ Rua just came off a ‘Fight of the Year’ last year (edit: which he lost). He’s probably one of the best fighters of the last decade (edit:even though he’s 2-2 in this decade). Think about it. This guy knocked out [Quinton] ‘Rampage’ [Jackson] (edit:seven years ago), knocked out Chuck Liddell (edit: in the midst of Liddell’s career-ending losing streak), knocked out Mark Coleman (edit:when Coleman was 44 years old), knocked out Lyoto Machida (edit: after losing a decision to him), knocked out Forrest Griffin (edit: who has beaten just one fighter in the last four years not named Tito Ortiz), knocked out Alistair Overeem twice (edit: back when Overeem looked like something that the Overeem of today would pick his teeth with), submitted Kevin Randleman (edit: just saying, so did Ron Waterman). A win vs. [Vera] puts him right back in position, and then he’s probably the No. 2 guy in the world.”
See what I mean? As a general rule of thumb, if someone is trying to convince you of any given fighter’s greatness, the point where they mention a 2006 win over Randleman is the point where you know they’ve given up. In this case, it’s also an argument that misses the point entirely. We know Rua is/was a great fighter. We know he fought and beat many of this sport’s fiercest competitors. It’s just that, we also know that the Rua of 2011 was no match for the Jones of 2011, and the gap between them has likely only grown since then.
It’s the same if Vera wins. Only, you know, more so. Go ahead and point to his win over Frank Mir if you want to. It won’t make any of us forget that Jones needed just a shade over three minutes to break his face with elbows. Neither will it make us forget that Vera has won just one fight in his last four outings, or that the lone win came after he was nearly submitted by a guy who was then cut from the UFC after losing the decision. And now, after that, Vera’s one win away from a title shot? And without even a victory over Kevin Randleman to bolster his credentials? The mind reels at the thought of it.
Still, as nonsensical as this choice is, there is at least one way it could actually go well for the UFC. Dan Henderson could pull off the upset against Jones in September, and Rua could beat Vera exactly as easily as many of us are expecting. That would set up a rematch of one of the greatest (if not the greatest) fights the UFC has ever seen, this time with the title on the line. Or we could end up with the Jones-Rua rematch that no one has been asking for.
My guess is that the UFC’s real goal here is a little more short-term and short-sighted. With grumblings about mediocre fight cards growing louder, maybe White believes that calling this weekend’s main event on FOX a number one contender bout will make it seem instantly more appealing. The UFC still hasn’t put a title fight on network TV since that first little taste of the FOX deal last fall, but hey, you can call just about anything a number one contender bout in order to lend it some temporary significance. If you don’t like how that fight turns out, for one reason or another, maybe you change your mind later. Maybe you let Jones jump up to heavyweight. Maybe you pretend like this whole number one contender promise never happened, and maybe it’s not the first time you’ve done that very thing.
Regardless of how it turns out in the end, let’s give the UFC some credit for one thing. This announcement did succeed in getting people talking about Saturday night’s Rua-Vera fight. It just didn’t get them saying anything the UFC wants to hear.
Sara McMann kept her perfect record intact after an intense three-round battle with Shayna Baszler at Invicta FC 2, but it didn’t come easy. The judges awarded the former Olympic silver medalist wrestler a unanimous decision…
Sara McMann kept her perfect record intact after an intense three-round battle with Shayna Baszler at Invicta FC 2, but it didn’t come easy. The judges awarded the former Olympic silver medalist wrestler a unanimous decision victory (29-28, 30-27, 29-28), but Baszler made her earn it after staggering McMann with a hook in the final seconds and stinging her with sharp counter-punching throughout the fight.
“That was by far the toughest and most skilled fighter I have ever fought,” McMann said after the judges handed her the win. For anyone who saw Baszler nearly drop her in the waning moments of the bout, it wasn’t hard to believe.
Baszler appeared to be the more effective striker early on in the bout. While McMann leapt in with powerful flurries, Baszler was content to wait in the center of the cage and fire back with straight shots. It wasn’t until the second frame that McMann put her superior wrestling to work, though after putting Baszler on her back midway through the round she was nearly caught in a kneebar before rolling to escape and ending up stuck on bottom after a brief scramble.
McMann seemed to be firmly in control in the third and final round after taking Baszler down several times and out-muscling her in the clinch. But after a restart by referee John McCarthy in the final minute, Baszler connected with a short hook that had McMann on wobbly legs in the closing seconds. McMann staggered forward looking for a clinch as Baszler turned up the pressure, but McMann made it to the bell and claimed the victory on the scorecards after a thrilling display.
“I felt like I did enough to win, but I’m not sour and I’m not taking anything away from Sara McMann,” Baszler said. “…That’s what happens when you leave it to the judges.”
The win improved McMann’s record to a flawless 6-0, while Baszler dropped to 14-7 after a performance that earned both fighters ‘Fight of the Night’ honors, according to Invicta president Shannon Knapp. Two ‘Submission of the Night’ bonuses went to Alexis Davis, who locked up a rear-naked choke in the second round of her bout with Hitomi Akano, and Sarah D’Alelio, who put Vanessa Porto away with a first-round armbar.
Full results from Saturday night’s Invicta FC 2 event are below:
Sara McMann def. Shayna Baszler via unanimous decision (29-28, 30-27, 29-28) Alexis Davis def. Hitomi Akano via submission (rear-naked choke) at 3:41 of round two Liz Carmouche def. Kaitlin Young via submission (rear-naked choke) at 3:34 of round two Ayaka Hamasaki def. Lacey Schuckman via submission (armbar) at 4:45 of round three Amanda Nunes def. Raquel Pa’Aluhi via technical submission (rear-naked choke) at 2:24 of round one Sarah D’Alelio def. Vanessa Porto via submission (armbar) at 3:16 of round one Barb Honchak def. Bethany Marshall via TKO (punches) at 1:22 of round two Julia Budd def. Elina Nilsson via TKO (elbows) at 3:49 of round one Carla Esparza def. Sarah Schneider via TKO (punches) at 4:28 of round two Nicdali Rivera-Calanoc def. Angelica Chavez via unanimous decision (30-27, 29-28, 29-28) Raquel Pennington def. Sarah Moras via unanimous decision (30-27, 29-28, 29-28) Jessamyn Duke def. Suzie Montero via TKO (elbows) at 2:32 of round three Jocelyn Lybarger def. Cheryl Chan via unanimous decision (29-28, 29-28, 29-28) Liz McCarthy def. Jessica Philippus via TKO (doctor stoppage) at the end of round one
MMA Fighting has Invicta FC 2 results for Saturday night’s Invicta fight card from Memorial Hall in Kansas City, Kansas.In the main event, Shayna Baszler will square off against Sara McMann. Alexis Davis will face Hitomi Akano in …
MMA Fighting has Invicta FC 2 results for Saturday night’s Invicta fight card from Memorial Hall in Kansas City, Kansas.
Main Card Sara McMann def. Shayna Baszler via unanimous decision (29-28, 30-27, 29-28) Alexis Davis def. Hitomi Akano via submission (rear-naked choke) at 3:41 of round two Liz Carmouche def. Kaitlin Young via submission (rear-naked choke) at 3:34 of round two Ayaka Hamasaki def. Lacey Schuckman via submission (armbar) at 4:45 of round three Amanda Nunes def. Raquel Pa’Aluhi via technical submission (rear-naked choke) at 2:24 of round one Sarah D’Alelio def. Vanessa Porto via submission (armbar) at 3:16 of round one Barb Honchak def. Bethany Marshall via TKO (punches) at 1:22 of round two Julia Budd def. Elina Nilsson via TKO (elbows) at 3:49 of round one Carla Esparza def. Sarah Schneider via TKO (punches) at 4:28 of round two Nicdali Rivera-Calanoc def. Angelica Chavez via unanimous decision (30-27, 29-28, 29-28)
Prelim Card Raquel Pennington def. Sarah Moras via unanimous decision (30-27, 29-28, 29-28) Jessamyn Duke def. Suzie Montero via TKO (elbows) at 2:32 of round three Jocelyn Lybarger def. Cheryl Chan via unanimous decision (29-28, 29-28, 29-28) Liz McCarthy def. Jessica Philippus via TKO (doctor stoppage) at the end of round one
It’s Twitter Mailbag time again, and this time we have plenty of questions about Strikeforce’s heavyweight shakeup, the UFC’s recent run of bad luck, Anderson Silva’s superfight prospects, and who I would choose …
It’s Twitter Mailbag time again, and this time we have plenty of questions about Strikeforce’s heavyweight shakeup, the UFC’s recent run of bad luck, Anderson Silva’s superfight prospects, and who I would choose to be my purely hypothetical cornermen.
Got a question of your own? Fire up the Twitter and head to @BenFowlkesMMA. I’ll be there waiting, watching, silently judging. But first, on to this week’s questions.
Steve_Indigo @Steve_Indigo @benfowlkesMMA what does Mir gain by going to strikeforce?
You mean besides a paycheck? Well, he gets a chance to face a top heavyweight with a lot of momentum. He gets a fight that, should he win it (and I don’t think he will, though he probably disagrees), will put him right back in the conversation at the top of the division. He also gets to ingratiate himself to his employers, who really needed a big name heavyweight willing to move over and do a one-night-only engagement in Strikeforce. When you consider what his other options look like after a throttling at the hands of the UFC heavyweight champ, this is about the best he could hope for at this stage of his career. Again, I think he’s probably in for a rough night against Daniel Cormier, who presents a bad style match-up for Mir. But even if he loses, he goes down to a former Olympian who just beat Josh Barnett. That’s still better than starting over against some mid-level heavyweight who offers far more risk than reward. Ryan Young @YoungRyan4 @benfowlkesMMA Okay, so Daniel Cormier gets Frank Mir. Josh Barnett gets… #TMB
I texted Mr. Barnett asking him this very question just for you, Ryan. His response: “I get busy son.” Yeah, that’s pretty much how it goes when you try to get a straight answer out of Barnett. John Brinkman @jtbrinkman @benfowlkesMMA Does Shayna Baszler have a shot, or does Sara McMann take it walking away? #twittermailbag
With Baszler’s experience, she certainly has a shot in the Invicta main event. I just don’t think it’s a great shot, which is why my money’s on McMann this Saturday night. I mean that figuratively, of course. Literally, my money is an old Star Wars lunchbox buried in my backyard. sam mills @gingerballs2 @benfowlkesMMA what the heck is a esophageal spasm? Any chance of Swick picking his career back up ? #mailbag
The way Mike Swick explained it to me once, it’s an intense pain that makes him feel like he’s having a heart attack for several hours. The medical treatments he tried didn’t work, but now he says he’s controlling it with diet and has finally found a way to get the nutrition that a pro fighter needs. As for what he’ll look like after 910 days out of action, I have no idea. But if it’s possible to will oneself back to the elite level after so long out of action, Swick is the guy with the character and the work ethic to do it.
Punk Curmudgeon @punkcurmudgeon .@benfowlkesMMA how does TRT compare to “the Juice” in side effects and direct effect? #TMB
Having used neither, I have to take the endocrinologists I’ve spoken to at their word when they say that, if you could use anything, testosterone would be the preferred substance because it is just as effective, acts quickly, and carries fewer side effects than stuff like Stanozolol. The problem with testosterone, or so they tell me, is that once you start using it regularly your body stops producing its own testosterone. It will start up again in time, once you’re off the synthetic stuff, but it takes a little while. sonnysaggese @sonnysaggese @benfowlkesMMA What has a better chance of happening? Pacquiao Mayweather or GSP vs Silva?
I like the chances of a GSP-Silva fight coming together for two reasons: 1) neither of them is in jail right now, or likely to be placed there any time soon, and 2) the same things that makes the UFC an overbearing presence in the lives of MMA fighters at times also makes it uniquely capable of putting together the big, difficult fights. Boxing doesn’t have that. In boxing, the superstars are promotions unto themselves, and they find plenty of infuriating ways to avoid cooperating. The UFC might occasionally flash a dictator’s zest for total freaking control, but the upside of that (for fans, at least) is that the UFC is generally quicker to make the fights that people want to see.
Who’s going to tell Floyd Mayweather what to do? If he decides he doesn’t like it, he’ll just go find a different promoter. Anderson Silva doesn’t have that luxury, which seems both good and bad, sometimes all at once. Silva’s camp seems to think that a superfight with Georges St-Pierre is a good idea, and GSP has professed some support for that in the past. Even if they didn’t like it, Dana White could keep adding zeroes to their paychecks and pressuring them in public until they gave in. No one really has that leverage in boxing, for better or worse (but mostly worse).
Barry Williams @vamtnhunter @benfowlkesMMA Who would your hypothetical corner men be? I mean, besides KEITH FLORIAN?
I’d definitely want Joe Warren in my corner, because I love his enthusiasm. I also love the non-specific advice he typically shouts at Scott Jorgensen, such as, “Put your hands on him, Scotty!” Helpful? Maybe not, but still fun. Then, just to balance things out, I’d also bring in Greg Jackson, because there should be at least one person in my corner talking to me in a calm, high school guidance counselor voice. And, you know, giving real advice. Lastly, I’d bring in my podcast co-host Chad Dundas. Mostly because I think he’d get a real kick out of seeing the dynamic that unfolds between the other two.
Jose Paulo @ZePaulo85 @benfowlkesMMA I see DW complaining about refs and judges on a weekly basis, who’s responsibility is it, ultimately, to fix this problem?
If the various athletic commissions are actually going to regulate and oversee this sport, rather than simply pretend to, then it should be on them to make sure they have competent refs and judges. The trouble is, there are many different commissions, with different budgets and different levels of experience in dealing with combat sports. Some are far more capable than others. Some might as well not even exist.
White can complain all he wants, but he doesn’t have control over which refs and judges are hired by the commissions, nor should he. If anything, blasting Steve Mazzagatti as often as he does only ensures that commissions will keep bringing him back, because to keep him out would create an appearance of collusion between commission and promoter. Ideally, we’d have an independent international or, at the very least, a national body that regulates MMA and chooses/evaluates judges and refs. Sadly, we don’t have that, and we’re not making much progress toward it. For now, the athletic commissions are the best we have, and we need them to get better.
Dylan Lippincott @dylanlip @benfowlkesMMA do you see jones Henderson even being competitive. Jones dominated shogun and Hendo had hard time with him. #tmb
Jon Jones deserves to be the heavy favorite, but as long as Dan Henderson is awake I’m not going to write him off. He can wrestle and he can swat and those two attributes alone make him a man who deserves to be taken seriously. That said, the greatest threat to Jones’s title reign is still Jones himself. If he shows up motivated, prepared, and free from outside distractions, I think he puts Hendo away in the later rounds.
Jared @Orderx7 @benfowlkesMMA If you were in charge of the @UFCONFOX deal, what would you do differently to spark interest to the “casual” fan? #tmb
In a perfect world, I’d put bigger, better fights on the FOX cards and hope that the short-term loss in pay-per-view revenue paid off in a long-term popularity surge. Of all the UFC on FOX events so far, the only one to feature a fight that could have served as a legitimate pay-per-view headliner was the heavyweight championship fight between Cain Velasquez and Junior dos Santos. And that wasn’t even a true UFC on FOX event, but rather a little preview of what was to come. Except that it wasn’t a preview, because every network TV event since then has been noticeably lacking in star power and title fights. How excited does the UFC really expect casual fans to get about contender fights on cards that are just slightly better than the old Spike TV fight nights? I realize there are obstacles to putting title fights and pay-per-view draws on free TV, but I thought the FOX deal was supposed to be a game-changer. If you want to attract new fans, shouldn’t you be offering them your best stuff?
Johnny Bravo @JohnnyB91135352 @benfowlkesMMA Why should Bisping be considered for a title shot? Look at his record, he hasn’t beaten a single person in the top 10. #TMB
I hear this criticism a lot when it comes to Michael Bisping. Whenever he starts asking for a title shot, people want to know who he’s beaten. But when you put that question to Bisping, he responds with: ‘Who have I lost to?’ In his time as a UFC middleweight, he’s been knocked out by Dan Henderson (who’s now the number one contender at light heavyweight) and dropped two very close decisions to Wanderlei Silva (now a moneyweight) and Chael Sonnen (who’s had two middleweight title shots in the last two years). You have to admit, that’s not a bad list.
I agree that, as of now, Bisping has not earned a shot at Anderson Silva. But if he beats Brian Stann, who is a top-ten middleweight, that could change everything.
Kennen @Kennen_MMA @benfowlkesMMA Silva’s camp said no opponent makes sense for Silva right now. Unless its a catchweight with GSP. Is he intimidated by Jon J?
If he’s not, he probably ought to be. If I was an aging MMA legend closing in on 40, I’m not sure I’d be in any hurry to match skills with a bigger, younger phenom like Jones. At the same time, it does undermine his position to insist that GSP pack on the pounds for a superfight when Silva clearly has no desire to do the same. Right or wrong, I think we’re far more likely to see an eventual showdown between Silva and GSP than Silva and Jones. In the meantime, Silva and his camp should stop trying to play matchmaker and take a fight with Chris Weidman, assuming the UFC has the good sense to make it.
Max de Vries @MaxWdeVries @benfowlkesMMA Is Mir fighting Cormier the definitive end of Strikeforce? (TMB question of zourse)
It’s the definitive end of the Strikeforce heavyweight division, and thank God for that. As for the rest of the organization, I’d be as content as anyone to see it fold up and send its fighters over to the UFC, but I don’t think we’re there yet.
Matt Giesbrecht @MattGiesbrecht @benfowlkesMMA In an title fight between Jake Shields and Hector Lombard for Failing To Live Up To The Hype, who’s the pound-for-pound king?
Tough question. Shields has had more time to underwhelm us in the UFC, but then, did he really come in with that much hype? Didn’t we already know what Shields was all about, based on his last few Strikeforce fights, and didn’t he more or less just continue down that path in the UFC? On the other hand, Lombard definitely had some serious hype as a fast-paced finisher, and he didn’t even come close to living up to it against Boetsch. But then, it’s just one fight. Shouldn’t he be given another chance before we write him off as a product of false advertising?
I vote yes, which means until we see more of Lombard, we have to conclude that Shields has been the bigger disappointment. With a title fight that didn’t go his way, followed by the sudden passing of his father, he had a rough year in 2011. Maybe we should cut him some slack and wait to see what develops. But so far, there’s not much to get hyped about when you look at his UFC run.
Nick Raymond @NickolasRaymond @benfowlkesMMA #tmb If Strikeforce still exists when Melendez & Rockhold’s contracts run out, what are the chances they go to Bellator?
Here’s the big problem for Gilbert Melendez and Luke Rockhold, or at least here’s one of them: say their contracts do expire while Showtime is still in Strikeforce business. They can’t go to the UFC, so say they start negotiating with Bellator. Even though they’re both great fighters, at that point they won’t have the best negotiating position. Bellator knows what the situation is. It knows that neither of them really wants to be in Strikeforce, and yet can’t go the UFC. That cuts down the potential suitors, which probably decreases the value of the offers from all sides. In that case, Bellator’s best selling point might be that it won’t tell you who you can and can’t sign with once your contract is up.
Terry Shillito @TerryShillito @benfowlkesMMA #TMB UFC should be on every sat. night. Why cant the MMA media agree with this? It would still be less than MLB/NFL/NBA.
How anyone could look at the diminished quality of recent UFC events and not conclude that the organization is already spreading its talent too thin is beyond me, but okay, I’ll take the bait. You know one big difference between the team sports leagues you just mentioned and the UFC? The others have off-seasons. MMA doesn’t. Another difference? Those leagues don’t have business models that rely on convincing fans to pay $50 a pop to watch them on TV.
You also have to consider that the NFL, for example, has 32 teams, each with a 53-man roster. That’s 1,696 professional football players, not counting the practice squad guys. The UFC usually only carries somewhere around 300+ fighters on its roster. If you want, say, 50 events a year, each with ten fights, that means the UFC would have to make 500 fights each year. With two men to a fight, each fighter would have to fight around three times a year, which sometimes just isn’t possible, due to injuries and illnesses and, you know, life. To do what you suggest would necessitate either a major roster expansion (and let’s not forget that MMA is still a relatively new sport, without colleges feeding it talent the way they do for the NFL) or else a dream world in which no fighter ever pulls out injured or sick.
My point is, more is not always better. We want to see good MMA, with good MMA fighters. And if fans are being asked to pay premium prices for it, they’re going to demand a premium product in return. Diluting the product will only dilute the overall interest level, and that’s bad for everybody, from fighters to promoters to those of us who make a living covering this sport. Matthew Goldstein @mgold86 @benfowlkesmma TMB Q: At what point should the UFC cancel a fight card? UFC 149 probably hurt its brand more than canceling would have.
Say I’m putting on a play. I put up posters, stand on the street corner shouting about tickets, and do a bunch of interviews telling reporters how great my play is going to be. Then, right before it’s supposed to start, I look out from behind the curtain and see that only a handful of people have showed up. I decide maybe it’s not worth it, plus one of my actors is sick and I was going to have to use an understudy anyway. Screw it, I say. Play’s canceled. We’ll try it again when conditions are more ideal. My question to you is, how many people do you think will show up the next time?
Canceling an event should be a last resort. It enrages the people who did buy tickets, and tells potential future customers that there’s at least a chance that they’ll be clearing their calendars and shelling out their hard-earned dough for nothing. As my actor friend Sir Nigel Longstock once told me, “The show must go on, unless the police come in and arrest everybody five minutes before curtain.” I’m sure there’s a situation where the UFC might be forced to cancel an event, but a few injuries and some last-minute fight card reshuffling shouldn’t be reason enough to give up. Better to deliver what you promised, or at least give it your best shot, then to quit in advance and sow the seeds of doubt in the minds of your fans.
The UFC’s Calgary debut didn’t go so well. We all know that. Some of that was due to injuries and general bad luck. Some of it was poor performance. Some of it might have been due to the UFC’s crazy schedule this year. But the UFC did the best it could with what it had on the night of the event, and that was the right choice. Maybe some fans went home angry, and maybe some won’t buy a ticket the next time the UFC comes to town. But I don’t think those people would have been more pleased if the UFC had declined to even give it a shot just because it didn’t like the hand it had been dealt.
Dana White was “embarrassed” by UFC 149, while most fight fans were simply bored by it. It’s probably safe to say that this event won’t become a hit on DVD, but it still gives us plenty to think about across several di…
Dana White was “embarrassed” by UFC 149, while most fight fans were simply bored by it. It’s probably safe to say that this event won’t become a hit on DVD, but it still gives us plenty to think about across several different divisions. Here now are the biggest winners, losers, and everything in between after a bizarre night in western Canada.
Biggest Winner: Renan Barao The fight didn’t provide enough fireworks for the crowd in Calgary, but you can hardly blame Barao for that. Or, then again, maybe you can. He did shut down Urijah Faber’s offense for the full five rounds, but you could argue that he also made up for it with spinning head kicks and jumping knees. What’s not up for debate is the fact that he clearly earned that decision victory, and he did it by being the better fighter both tactically and physically. And what did he win? How about an interim title that looks nice, but is only slightly more meaningful than the belt Chael Sonnen used to carry around. That, and the right to challenge Dominick Cruz for the real bantamweight title once the champ is back to full health. It should make for an interesting clash of styles when it finally happens. I just can’t help but wonder how long we’ll have to wait to see it, and whether Barao will be convinced to put his jewelry up for grabs in the meantime. Might as well. Even if he loses it he can still get another one for a few hundred bucks on the UFC’s website.
Biggest Loser: Hector Lombard He came barreling into the UFC with a ton of hype behind him. Now that train is limping out of the station, destined for parts unknown. If you believe the stories floating around out there, Lombard has had no shortage of sparring sessions that were more exciting and decisive than his fight with Tim Boetsch. After three plodding rounds with only occasional fits of action, I found myself wishing that I was watching some of that training footage instead. Lombard might have won the staring contest with Boetsch, but he lost the split decision and a ton of career momentum. It’s the latter that will be the toughest for him to recover from. Dana White thinks he should consider a move down in weight, but it seems to me that the one-punch-and-wait strategy he employed against Boetsch wouldn’t go over any better as a welterweight. His problem was not that he was outmuscled; it was that he was outworked. We can write some of that off to Octagon jitters, but we can only do it once. If Lombard has any hopes of maintaining the reputation he came to the UFC with, he’d better make the next one count.
Most Impressive in Defeat: Court McGee I know some fans are still outraged by the decision, but even if you had McGee winning on your scorecard you have to admit that it was a close fight in the other guy’s hometown. Those will often go against the out-of-towner if he doesn’t do more to distinguish himself. Even in defeat, McGee showed off the same resiliency and pressure we’ve come to expect, and the proof was all over Ring’s face at the end of three rounds. McGee might not ever be a champion or even a regular on the main card at pay-per-view events, but you always know what you’re getting with this guy, and it’s a full night of work, win or lose.
Least Impressive in Victory: Cheick Kongo Kongo would have us believe that injuries were responsible for his decision to lean on Shawn Jordan for three full rounds. In other words, he was healthy enough to take the fight and get paid, but not healthy enough to give fans anything remotely close to what they came to see. That’s the problem with the post-fight injury mea culpa. It’s one thing if you get hurt during the fight. It’s another thing if you tell us that you showed up in a diminished capacity, asking people to pay full price for half a Kongo. Not that Shawn Jordan did much to improve the overall performance, of course. He tried the same takedown attempt over and over again, but the only time he got Kongo down was when the big Frenchman put himself there after screwing up an attempt to take Jordan’s back. Even then, Jordan couldn’t do anything with it, and they ended the fight by wheezing on one another against the fence. It’s an especially rough result for Kongo who, once again, failed to lift his own stock. It was much the same with his decision victory over Matt Mitrione last October, and also with his draw against Travis Browne the October before that. His last impressive win was the comeback KO of Pat Barry, and he had to toe the line between the conscious and the spirit world in order to make that one happen. If injuries are stifling him now, he might be better off taking some time and getting those problems fixed while he still has some measure of goodwill with the fans and the UFC. I’m not sure how much more of this kind of success he can stand.
Most Surprising (in a good way): Matt Riddle He said he wanted to make his bout with Chris Clements a memorable affair, and he did. If not for referee Josh Rosenthal’s unnecessary intervention after a body kick early in the fight, he might have even finished it sooner. Right from the start it was apparent that Riddle had come to entertain. He probably could have outwrestled Clements en route to a decision, but he opted not to. Instead he made a show out of it, finished with an arm triangle choke, then delivered the biggest laughs of the press conference when he called out Dan Hardy before relating a hilariously sincere tale from his first UFC loss that could have been entitled: Why I’ll Always Remember Manchester. If only every fighter had been as intent on entertainment as Riddle was, maybe Dana White wouldn’t have had to apologize for his company’s product at the end of the night.
Most Surprising (in a bad way): Brian Ebersole I think most of us expected the 4-1 favorite to make quick work of James Head after Ebersole agreed to delay his drop to lightweight in order to step in on short notice here. Instead he seemed to treat the fight like it was a Saturday morning sparring session, and he ended up on the wrong end of a split decision as a result. Ebersole’s quirky style often blurs the line between fighting and screwing around, but this time he might have taken it too far. He tried the same few techniques over and over again, with little to show for it, and never displayed much of a sense of urgency as a close fight headed into its final stages. It was as if he thought that all he had to do was show up and be Brian Ebersole, and the rest would take care of itself. Now he knows better, even if that lesson came at a cost.
Best Debut: Ryan Jimmo A seven-second KO, followed by a pretty decent rendition of the robot, punctuated by a drop into the splits? Yeah, that’s how you make a memorable impression in the UFC. Jimmo’s been criticized for some lackluster wins on the Canadian circuit, but he announced his presence with authority against Anthony Perosh. The only problem is, how is he supposed to follow that? Anything less than a flying knee knockout followed by a Carnival-quality sambo display in his next UFC fight will be a disappointment.
Most Bittersweet Legacy: Urijah Faber It’s starting to look like no matter how many cracks he gets at one title or another, Faber will never be able to add ‘UFC champion’ to his already impressive resume. Partly, that feels like an issue of semantics. He was the WEC titleholder back when it was essentially the featherweight version of being a UFC champ. But by the time the initials changed and the WEC disappeared forever it was too late for Faber, who is now 0-2 in UFC title shots and winless in his last five championship fights overall. What makes it feel vaguely unfair is the fact that Faber was the one who put the little guys on the map back when no one, including the UFC, thought much of anyone under 155 pounds. He carried that torch for a long time. It almost feels like he deserves to be thought of as a UFC champ somehow, even though it seems unlikely that he’ll ever actually win one at this point. Faber is 33 years old and closing in on a decade inside the cage. He’s still good enough to beat the vast majority of UFC bantamweights, and probably most of the featherweights, too. Anyone who beat Faber in the last six years earned the title of champion as a result. He’s got many such metrics that tell you how good he was, and still is. He just doesn’t have a UFC title to go along with it.
