Author: Ben Fowlkes

Wanderlei Silva Isn’t Ready to Go Now, but Will He Ever Be?

Filed under: UFCSAN JOSE, Calif. — The old Wanderlei Silva is still in there somewhere. You know he is. You catch glimpses, like the shadow of the famous tattoo on the back of his head, now just barely showing through his hair. You see his old face lu…

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Wanderlei SilvaSAN JOSE, Calif. — The old Wanderlei Silva is still in there somewhere. You know he is. You catch glimpses, like the shadow of the famous tattoo on the back of his head, now just barely showing through his hair. You see his old face lurking there just beneath the taut mask of his new one, and you know.

He knows you, too. Better than you think. He knows what you’ve been saying about him. He knows you wanted him to quit after he got knocked out by Chris Leben in his last fight. He also knows you said it out of love and a genuine sense of compassion, and he’s not mad at you, even if you just don’t get it.

“After that last fight,” Silva said, “it’s normal.”

In other words, when he gets knocked out he fully expects the criticism and the retirement talk to start up again. But he’s not ready to go just yet, no matter what you or Dana White or even his peers say about it.

Ask Silva why he’s still getting in the cage at 35, now that he doesn’t need the fame or the money anymore, and he’ll tell you that it’s simple: he just wants to show us all that he can still fight.


“I don’t know how long, but I can do it right now,” he said.

And the knockouts? The increasing frequency with which he’s ended his nights asleep on the mat? The fights he has no memory of beyond one or two good blows? He takes worse than that in sparring, he said, as if that’s supposed to be somehow encouraging. Besides, the doctors look at him before and after every fight, and they tell him his brain is fine, he insisted.

“I think the punches make me more smart,” he joked. “They shake my head up.”

But it’s not a laughing matter to anyone else. Not to UFC president Dana White, who says he could still make money by putting weathered old fighters like Silva and Chuck Liddell into one brain-damaging brawl after another at the end of their careers, but “I don’t want to make one dollar of that kind of money.”

Not to former foe Dan Henderson, who himself added to Silva’s knockout total when he starched him back in 2007 — the second outright KO he’d suffered in a year’s time inside the Pride ring.

“I think his ability to take a punch has gone down,” Henderson said of Silva at Wednesday’s open workouts. “His chin isn’t there anymore, and with his style it’s not conducive to winning fights if you’re going to go out there and bang with guys and you can’t take a punch. It’s unfortunate. I was a big fan of his as well, and I loved watching him fight. But that happens I think to a lot of guys with that style — Chuck [Liddell] is the same way, that’s his style too. There just comes a time when you’ve got to realize that.”

Even Cung Le, Silva’s opponent at UFC 139 on Saturday night, agreed that the hits have taken their toll on “The Axe Murderer.”

“It’s true. You take a lot of damage and it adds up,” said Le. “But I don’t know. Some fighters, they pull another fight out of their back pocket and they rise to the occasion.”

Obviously, that’s what Silva is hoping for on Saturday night, but his aspirations don’t end there. His fans might be hoping that he can win one last battle and then ride off into the sunset, but he’s not. To hear him tell it, he’s nowhere near done — and that’s the scary part.

“My dream is, I start my career right now, because right now is another moment in this sport,” said Silva. “This sport is so big. I hope I’m still fighting for a couple more years.”

And sure, he’s had a great run. From when he first knocked out a teenage Muay Thai champion in a tournament in Brazil when he was 15, to the wars he waged in the Pride ring, he’s been to the mountaintop and back several times by now. Can’t he just be content with that, people wonder. Doesn’t he know that he has nothing left to prove in this sport?

The answer seems to be: not really. Because the people who make that claim are usually the same people who, with their very next breath, tell him he can’t do this anymore. And that’s what he’s trying to prove, Silva said. That those people are wrong. That he has not just one good fight, but several left in him.

“I have a great career,” he said. “I fought with the best guys in the world. I feel good about what I did in the past, but I know I can do better. I can still fight. I can be competitive right now.”

And if he can’t? If he steps into the cage with Le and ends up watching the ending on a big screen after the fact? What then?

Don’t expect him to doff his cap and announce that he’s had enough. Within the Silva camp, no one appears to be even considering that option. Of course, they assume he’s going to win, but even if he doesn’t get ’em this time, he’ll get ’em next time, said longtime trainer Rafael Cordeiro.

“His last fight, he was ready. He was. But now, I think it’s Wanderlei’s moment.”

This is part of the problem. Because you can’t simultaneously prepare for victory while also preparing for the consequences of defeat. And after spending your entire adult life pursuing one goal, you can’t give it up just because of one bad night. If you were the kind of person who could do that, you’d never have gotten here in the first place.

But the end is coming, as it comes for every fighter. Somewhere in that brain that has, by Silva’s reckoning, benefited from one good shaking after another, he knows this. He’s just doesn’t see any reason why the end has to come right now. Not that he’ll be any more ready in six months, or maybe even a year. Which makes you wonder: what’s it going to take? How will he recognize the end for what it is?

“Good question,” he said, after a pause. “In the moment, we’re going to know.”

And sometimes, sure, that’s the way it works. You see the exit coming and you know when to get off. Other times you find out later, when you see it in the rearview mirror. Then it only gets farther and farther away as you plow forward, trying to make up your mind about what to do next.

 

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UFC on FOX Peaks With 8.8 Million Viewers, but There’s a Lesson to Be Learned

Filed under: UFC, UFC on FOXShort but sweet. That’s one way to describe the 64-second Junior dos Santos-Cain Velasquez fight on FOX this past Saturday. At least, that’s how it must look to the UFC and the network now that the revised ratings info is ou…

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Short but sweet. That’s one way to describe the 64-second Junior dos Santos–Cain Velasquez fight on FOX this past Saturday. At least, that’s how it must look to the UFC and the network now that the revised ratings info is out.

According to SI.com, the hour-long broadcast began with 5.2 million viewers, then peaked with 8.802 million viewers during the brief but violent contest for the UFC heavyweight strap.

If you’re struggling to put those figures in perspective, this means that dos Santos-Velasquez is the most watched MMA fight in American TV history, knocking off the Kimbo Slice–James Thompson brawl on CBS, which lasted about ten times as long and peaked with two million fewer viewers. But while the numbers give the UFC and FOX reason to smile about the newfound partnership, there’s a lesson in these stats as well.

For starters, look at the ratings arc. The show began with around 5.2 million viewers, according to SI.com, and then proceeded to lose eyeballs during the 30-plus minutes of pre-fight promo pieces and analysis. That number jumped way up when the fight finally started, then immediately started to decline once it was over.

By the time Velasquez was face down on the canvas, viewers were on their way out. Four minutes after the end of the fight, the show was down to six million viewers and falling.

In other words, even network TV viewers are far more interested in action than in talk, and breathless post-fight analysis is the surest way to send them scrambling for the remote.

If you’re Dana White or Fox Sports Media Group Chairman David Hill, here’s where you’ve got to be wondering how big a number you could have had if the fight had only lasted a round or two. You’ve also got to be wondering about the wisdom of broadcasting just the one fight.

Hindsight being what it is, it’s easy to say that the Ben Henderson–Clay Guida fight would have been a ratings magnet as a lead-in for JDS-Velasquez, but that doesn’t make it any less true. A jump in numbers like the one FOX saw means that people were likely on the phone or the internet, telling their friends that the fighters were finally on their way to the cage and it was time to tune in. Imagine if those same people had been reaching out to one another during the seesaw bout between the two lightweights, encouraging their friends to get in on this appetizer before the main event.

Could it have broken 10 million viewers? Maybe. Probably. Would it have made the 64-second ending to the heavyweight scrap seem more like an exciting change of pace and less like a long climb for a short slide? Definitely.

Again, it’s easy to say that now that we know how the fights turned out, but at the same time, is anyone surprised to learn that so many viewers wanted more fighting and less talking?

If the UFC and FOX are smart, they’ll use this as a learning experience. Granted, they won’t always feel the need to do so much viewer education once this is no longer a network TV novelty, but clearly it’s the action that brings the viewers. Once the fists start flying, that’s when people start watching. As much as people might love his product, viewers are far more interested in seeing it for themselves than in hearing Dana White shout about it after the fact.

Still, if the UFC can pull 8.8 million viewers on network TV for a fight that barely lasted long enough for fans to compose a decent text message to their friends, imagine what it will pull once the deal begins in earnest and it can put together a show that’s more than just a teaser. If your biggest problem is that you leave your audience wanting more after your network debut, maybe you don’t have that many problems.

 

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The Cut List: Who’s in Desperate Need of a Win at UFC 139?

Filed under: UFCFresh off the UFC’s big network debut on FOX, the world’s premier MMA organization is back to doing what it knows best: pay-per-views.

On paper, UFC 139 looks like one of the better cards in recent months, but there’s no shortage of fi…

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Wanderlei SilvaFresh off the UFC’s big network debut on FOX, the world’s premier MMA organization is back to doing what it knows best: pay-per-views.

On paper, UFC 139 looks like one of the better cards in recent months, but there’s no shortage of fighters who need a win in a bad, bad way. Who are they, what are their chances, and what’s likely to become of them if they can’t pull out a W in San Jose on Saturday night? For answers, we turn to the Cut List.


Wanderlei Silva (33-11-1 1 NC, 3-6 UFC)
Who he’s facing: Cung Le
Why he’s in danger: UFC president Dana White has made it clear that he thinks Silva would be better off in retirement, and, you have to admit, the boss makes a compelling case. Silva’s 35 (but an old 35, in fighting years), he’s lost six of his last eight (and been knocked out in four of those six), and he really has nothing left to prove in this sport. What, is he going to become UFC middleweight champion? Not unless about 10 other UFC 185ers suddenly decide to go live in a monastery and live quiet, non-violent lives somewhere in Belgium. As great as Silva was, and as beloved as he still is by fans, there’s no reason for him to keep getting knocked out at this stage of his life. He doesn’t need the money or the prestige, and he’s too big a name to put in against lesser competition. That puts him in a tough spot, career-wise. If he can’t beat Le and show that his fists are still full of fury and his jaw is not made of glass, it might be time for White to sit him down and give him the Chuck Liddell speech.
Outlook: Grim. I’ll be honest, I don’t like his chances against Le. At least, not unless Le comes to this fight straight from a movie set. Silva still has the one-punch power, but Le has the ability to keep him at a distance and beat him up over several rounds. Once it’s over, I’d love to see Silva take his legacy and go home. He’s one of the all-time greats. There’s nothing left to prove.

Martin Kampmann (17-5, 8-4 UFC)
Who he’s facing: Rick Story
Why he’s in danger: On paper, he’s one defeat away from the dreaded three-fight losing streak. In reality, he’s probably the best losing welterweight the UFC has had over the last year. His current skid started when he lost a questionable decision to Jake Shields in October of 2010. Though you could make a case that Shields deserved to win that wrestling match, it’s harder to make an argument for Diego Sanchez, who looked like he’d gotten his face stuck in a ceiling fan by the end of his three-round battle with Kampmann. I’m still not sure how Sanchez got that decision, and I suspect Kampmann is equally baffled. That was in March of this year and this is Kampmann’s first trip back into the cage since then, so it would be nice if he could get his hand raised for the first time in a year and a half. Against Rick Story, however, he faces another opponent who’s not afraid to go out there and get his wrestle on. Can Story do to him what he did to Thiago Alves? If so, then a somewhat comically unfortunate losing streak could turn into a seriously concerning one.
Outlook: Optimistic. Even if Kampmann does drop a decision here, the UFC sees his talent and it isn’t going to cast him out so easily. I like his chances to stuff Story’s takedowns and force him into a kickboxing match, which Kampmann should win every time.

Jason Brilz (18-4-1, 3-3 UFC)
Who he’s facing: Ryan Bader
Why he’s in danger: Brilz has also lost two straight, but like Kampmann his is a losing skid with an asterisk. It started with a controversial decision loss against Antonio Rogerio Nogueira in a bout that many thought he deserved to win, and which Dana White held up as proof that the UFC knows what it’s doing when it puts together these fight cards, so maybe we shouldn’t judge them until they’re over. Despite the L on his record, the UFC could not have been more pleased with that Fight of the Night performance from Brilz. Unfortunately, he followed it up with a quick KO loss to Vladimir Matyushenko in April, so in the span of just 20 seconds some of that good will likely evaporated. But hey, anybody can catch one on the chin, right? That doesn’t mean he’s suddenly garbage. Trouble is, Brilz is facing fellow wrestler and fellow losing streak-owner Ryan Bader. It could easily turn into a snoozer of a wrestling match, and if it does the loser might feel the brunt of the UFC’s anguish over it. Then again, it could be the kind of fight where two wrestlers end up brawling for 15 minutes, and Brilz could, even in defeat, once again be White’s hero at the post-fight presser.
Outlook: Decent. Brilz is clearly a talented athlete, but he does not give one the impression that fighting is his life, probably because it isn’t. He’s got a job and a family, and this is more an interesting side gig for him. That might make the UFC reluctant to keep bringing him back if he gets knocked out here, and it also might make him less likely to get fired up about getting back on top.

Matt Brown (12-10, 5-4 UFC)
Who he’s facing: Seth Baczynski
Why he’s in danger: Look at his record. He pulled himself up from the brink with a decision win over John Howard, and he looked pretty good doing it, too. But that doesn’t change the fact that he’s lost three of his last four in the UFC, and most of the guys he has beaten in the Octagon have since been encouraged to seek their employment elsewhere. The win, in conjunction with his fighting style, give him a little breathing room, but not much. Baczynski’s already been cut from the UFC once, but came back and got a win in September to shore up his spot. If Brown can’t beat a guy on the cusp, the UFC might take a look at the numbers and decide it’s time to make room for some new blood at welterweight.
Outlook: Pessimistic. Brown has shown flashes of real talent followed by long stretches of mediocrity. What he needs right now is consistency. What he needs is a win followed by a bunch more wins. But my guess is that whether it happens now or a year from now, the UFC will soon decide that he’s had enough chances.

Shamar Bailey (12-4, 1-1 UFC)
Who he’s facing: Danny Castillo
Why he’s in danger: If your lone loss in the UFC is to Evan Dunham, you aren’t doing so badly. But if your lone win is over Ryan McGillivray, well, it kind of evens out. Bailey had a short, fairly undistinguished stay in Strikeforce and then started out hot in his run on TUF 13, but things didn’t go his way in reality TV-land. Still, he got a shot on the finale, won a decision, then lost a decision against his first real UFC opponent in Dunham. Now he faces Castillo in what could be a fight that sways the UFC one way or the other on him, and it’s a bout in which oddsmakers favor Castillo by a 3-1 margin.
Outlook: Grim. If he gets beat here — and chances are he will — the UFC has no shortage of hungry young lightweights out there just itching to get his spot. He’ll need to show them something memorable, or else prove the oddsmakers wrong with a win.

 

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Falling Action: Best and Worst of UFC on FOX

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Junior dos Santos and Cain VelasquezYou go to enough UFC events, you get a feel for the rhythm that they usually follow. From prelims to the Spike TV undercard to the main card to the main event, it’s a gradually building symphony of violence that follows a fairly predictable pattern.

But Saturday night’s UFC on FOX show was a completely different experience, for several reasons. It was essentially a nine-fight undercard, one right after the other, and then a main event that started at around 6:30 pm local time. By 6:45 we had our laptops packed up and press row was vacated. By 8 pm we were in the Honda Center media room, watching Pacquiao-Marquez while hammering away at our keyboards with one eye on the screen.

It was, in other words, a strange night. Like Dana White, I’m mostly just glad it’s over. Now we can get back to the normal fight night routine, which is at least exhausting in a familiar way. But first, the biggest winners, losers, and everything in between from the UFC on FOX debut.

Biggest Winner: Junior dos Santos
Say what you will about whether the quick finish was bad or simply not ideal for the UFC’s FOX debut, but you can’t blame JDS. Actually, I guess you could if you really wanted to, but you’d sound like a real jerk. It’s not his job to make fights last; his only concern was punching his opponent in the face until the referee told him to stop, and that’s exactly what he did. Right from the start dos Santos had no problem locating Velasquez’s face with his fist, and he did so without opening himself up for takedowns. He got away with a short night of work thanks to that big right hand of his. Considering the knee injury that he said he came into the fight with, that quick finish was the best-case scenario for “Cigano” even if it wasn’t exactly what the UFC hoped for. Now he’ll get to take some time, see to his injury, and wait for Brock Lesnar and Alistair Overeem to figure out who he’ll defend his brand new belt against. Who knows, maybe he’ll even become the rare heavyweight champ who can hang on to it for a little while.

Biggest Loser: Cain Velasquez
For starters, let’s ease up on the game plan criticism. The guy only got to fight for a minute. What, you thought he was going to shoot for a double-leg the moment “Big” John McCarthy got out of the way? Even if you want to get the fight to the mat, you can’t go into a heavyweight title bout telling yourself that you’ve got no prayer on the feet. Conceding that aspect of the fight to your opponent is a psychological kiss of death, so maybe we shouldn’t crucify Velasquez for daring to engage in even the briefest of striking exchanges with dos Santos. That said, the night couldn’t have gone much worse for the former champ. I’m not sure if the knee injury was worse than he let on, but he didn’t seem to have the intensity or the explosiveness that we’ve come to expect from him right out of the gates. Dana White put plenty of pressure on him to deliver the fireworks, so maybe it’s unfair of the UFC prez to then criticize Velasquez for not immediately turning the bout into a wrestling match. Velasquez seemed perfectly willing to try and give us the war we were promised, whether that was a good idea or not. Unfortunately for him, he ended up on the business end of the blitzkrieg.

Most Bizarre Sight: The Octagon’s Fresh Paint Job
Apparently the UFC and FOX felt that network TV viewers could handle seeing blood if it was coming out of a human being, but old plasma left over from the night’s previous bouts was more than they could bear. So after the Guida-Henderson bout had concluded and before dos Santos and Velasquez took the cage, a small crew of workers got out the paint and heat gun and erased those bloodstains before the FOX cameras caught sight of them. The thing is, the mat wasn’t even all that bloody. Sure, after nine fights some of the red stuff had spilled, but we’ve seen much worse inside the Octagon. Those “millions of new viewers” haven’t though, and as White said in the post-fight press conference, the UFC is looking to “ease into this.” Even if it means choking the poor cageside photographers with paint fumes.

Most Deserving of a Title Shot: Ben Henderson
Lately it’s seemed like nothing short of a dozen straight wins will earn you a crack at the lightweight belt, but Henderson has made the most of his three UFC bouts. After destroying Jim Miller and edging out a very game Guida, I don’t see how anyone could say he hasn’t earned his shot at Frankie Edgar. And, with Henderson’s all-around blend of skills, I don’t see how anyone could say this won’t be a thrilling bout when those two get together in Japan. At least you know that one will be televised.

Least in Need of a Title Shot: Clay Guida
The Duder might not like to hear it, but he’s probably never going to be a UFC champion. And that’s okay. Really, it is. He might not think so now, and he might not even think so ten years from now, but his legacy will be built on individual bouts rather than broad career achievements. His fights with Roger Huerta, Diego Sanchez, and this one with Henderson are battles that all of us (or at least those of us who actually saw them) will remember. Does it matter that he lost all three of those fights? Not really. That’s because when Guida gets an opponent he can exert his will on, the outcomes tend to be less spectacular. It’s when he fights superior, more gifted opponents that both are forced into a species of greatness. He doesn’t have to win them all to be loved by fans and admired by his peers. He doesn’t need a belt, either. No matter how badly he might want one.

Win Most Likely to Be Overturned: Robert Peralta over Mackens Semerzier
Initially it looked like both Peralta and Semerzier landed almost simultaneous punches, but it was Semerzier who got the worst of it. Upon further review, it was clear that a clash of heads was the real culprit. Peralta didn’t do it on purpose, and the lump on his forehead (which sprang up immediately) tells you that he didn’t escape from it unscathed either. Still, it was pretty obvious that Semerzier got a one-way ticket to Queer Street thanks to something that was definitely not a legal strike, and that’s grounds for an appeal. In a just world, the result of this fight will get changed to a no contest.

Alex CaceresMost Surprising: Alex Caceres
I was starting to wonder what the UFC saw in this kid, other than personality. He lost two straight after his stint on TUF, didn’t look very good in either bout, yet somehow still had a spot on the roster. But as it turns out, maybe he was just in the wrong weight class. Against Cole Escovedo in his bantamweight debut, “Bruce Leeroy” looked like an entirely different fighter. He kept Escovedo guessing on the feet, stymied his attacks all night, and had the confidence to throw some unconventional stuff out there in search of the victory. After winning the decision he showed up to the post-fight presser with an enormous grin on his face, looking like a kid who’d just been told that he was going to Disneyland (which just happened to be right down the street). I admit, it was refreshing to see a young fighter who actually seemed glad to talk to the media after a fight. Give him a couple years, though. See if he doesn’t change his mind about that.

Most Brutal Finish: DaMarques Johnson
He may not have earned the Knockout of the Night award for starching Clay Harvison in the first round, but he probably should have. I know, I know — there’s no small amount in politics involved in those, and the main event will get it over a prelim’er every time, but still. Johnson lunged in with a beautiful left uppercut that Harvison never saw, then followed up with a right hand that was so hard I almost expected Harvison’s childhood memories to come spilling out onto the mat. Granted, this was a fight Johnson was supposed to win, and win fairly easily, but it never hurts to make a memorable impression. Well, unless you’re Harvison. Then it hurts a lot.

 

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Junior dos Santos and Cain VelasquezYou go to enough UFC events, you get a feel for the rhythm that they usually follow. From prelims to the Spike TV undercard to the main card to the main event, it’s a gradually building symphony of violence that follows a fairly predictable pattern.

But Saturday night’s UFC on FOX show was a completely different experience, for several reasons. It was essentially a nine-fight undercard, one right after the other, and then a main event that started at around 6:30 pm local time. By 6:45 we had our laptops packed up and press row was vacated. By 8 pm we were in the Honda Center media room, watching Pacquiao-Marquez while hammering away at our keyboards with one eye on the screen.

It was, in other words, a strange night. Like Dana White, I’m mostly just glad it’s over. Now we can get back to the normal fight night routine, which is at least exhausting in a familiar way. But first, the biggest winners, losers, and everything in between from the UFC on FOX debut.

Biggest Winner: Junior dos Santos
Say what you will about whether the quick finish was bad or simply not ideal for the UFC’s FOX debut, but you can’t blame JDS. Actually, I guess you could if you really wanted to, but you’d sound like a real jerk. It’s not his job to make fights last; his only concern was punching his opponent in the face until the referee told him to stop, and that’s exactly what he did. Right from the start dos Santos had no problem locating Velasquez’s face with his fist, and he did so without opening himself up for takedowns. He got away with a short night of work thanks to that big right hand of his. Considering the knee injury that he said he came into the fight with, that quick finish was the best-case scenario for “Cigano” even if it wasn’t exactly what the UFC hoped for. Now he’ll get to take some time, see to his injury, and wait for Brock Lesnar and Alistair Overeem to figure out who he’ll defend his brand new belt against. Who knows, maybe he’ll even become the rare heavyweight champ who can hang on to it for a little while.

Biggest Loser: Cain Velasquez
For starters, let’s ease up on the game plan criticism. The guy only got to fight for a minute. What, you thought he was going to shoot for a double-leg the moment “Big” John McCarthy got out of the way? Even if you want to get the fight to the mat, you can’t go into a heavyweight title bout telling yourself that you’ve got no prayer on the feet. Conceding that aspect of the fight to your opponent is a psychological kiss of death, so maybe we shouldn’t crucify Velasquez for daring to engage in even the briefest of striking exchanges with dos Santos. That said, the night couldn’t have gone much worse for the former champ. I’m not sure if the knee injury was worse than he let on, but he didn’t seem to have the intensity or the explosiveness that we’ve come to expect from him right out of the gates. Dana White put plenty of pressure on him to deliver the fireworks, so maybe it’s unfair of the UFC prez to then criticize Velasquez for not immediately turning the bout into a wrestling match. Velasquez seemed perfectly willing to try and give us the war we were promised, whether that was a good idea or not. Unfortunately for him, he ended up on the business end of the blitzkrieg.

Most Bizarre Sight: The Octagon’s Fresh Paint Job
Apparently the UFC and FOX felt that network TV viewers could handle seeing blood if it was coming out of a human being, but old plasma left over from the night’s previous bouts was more than they could bear. So after the Guida-Henderson bout had concluded and before dos Santos and Velasquez took the cage, a small crew of workers got out the paint and heat gun and erased those bloodstains before the FOX cameras caught sight of them. The thing is, the mat wasn’t even all that bloody. Sure, after nine fights some of the red stuff had spilled, but we’ve seen much worse inside the Octagon. Those “millions of new viewers” haven’t though, and as White said in the post-fight press conference, the UFC is looking to “ease into this.” Even if it means choking the poor cageside photographers with paint fumes.

Most Deserving of a Title Shot: Ben Henderson
Lately it’s seemed like nothing short of a dozen straight wins will earn you a crack at the lightweight belt, but Henderson has made the most of his three UFC bouts. After destroying Jim Miller and edging out a very game Guida, I don’t see how anyone could say he hasn’t earned his shot at Frankie Edgar. And, with Henderson’s all-around blend of skills, I don’t see how anyone could say this won’t be a thrilling bout when those two get together in Japan. At least you know that one will be televised.

Least in Need of a Title Shot: Clay Guida
The Duder might not like to hear it, but he’s probably never going to be a UFC champion. And that’s okay. Really, it is. He might not think so now, and he might not even think so ten years from now, but his legacy will be built on individual bouts rather than broad career achievements. His fights with Roger Huerta, Diego Sanchez, and this one with Henderson are battles that all of us (or at least those of us who actually saw them) will remember. Does it matter that he lost all three of those fights? Not really. That’s because when Guida gets an opponent he can exert his will on, the outcomes tend to be less spectacular. It’s when he fights superior, more gifted opponents that both are forced into a species of greatness. He doesn’t have to win them all to be loved by fans and admired by his peers. He doesn’t need a belt, either. No matter how badly he might want one.

Win Most Likely to Be Overturned: Robert Peralta over Mackens Semerzier
Initially it looked like both Peralta and Semerzier landed almost simultaneous punches, but it was Semerzier who got the worst of it. Upon further review, it was clear that a clash of heads was the real culprit. Peralta didn’t do it on purpose, and the lump on his forehead (which sprang up immediately) tells you that he didn’t escape from it unscathed either. Still, it was pretty obvious that Semerzier got a one-way ticket to Queer Street thanks to something that was definitely not a legal strike, and that’s grounds for an appeal. In a just world, the result of this fight will get changed to a no contest.

Alex CaceresMost Surprising: Alex Caceres
I was starting to wonder what the UFC saw in this kid, other than personality. He lost two straight after his stint on TUF, didn’t look very good in either bout, yet somehow still had a spot on the roster. But as it turns out, maybe he was just in the wrong weight class. Against Cole Escovedo in his bantamweight debut, “Bruce Leeroy” looked like an entirely different fighter. He kept Escovedo guessing on the feet, stymied his attacks all night, and had the confidence to throw some unconventional stuff out there in search of the victory. After winning the decision he showed up to the post-fight presser with an enormous grin on his face, looking like a kid who’d just been told that he was going to Disneyland (which just happened to be right down the street). I admit, it was refreshing to see a young fighter who actually seemed glad to talk to the media after a fight. Give him a couple years, though. See if he doesn’t change his mind about that.

Most Brutal Finish: DaMarques Johnson
He may not have earned the Knockout of the Night award for starching Clay Harvison in the first round, but he probably should have. I know, I know — there’s no small amount in politics involved in those, and the main event will get it over a prelim’er every time, but still. Johnson lunged in with a beautiful left uppercut that Harvison never saw, then followed up with a right hand that was so hard I almost expected Harvison’s childhood memories to come spilling out onto the mat. Granted, this was a fight Johnson was supposed to win, and win fairly easily, but it never hurts to make a memorable impression. Well, unless you’re Harvison. Then it hurts a lot.

 

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In Fitting Twist, Ben Henderson and Clay Guida Stole the Show on Saturday

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ANAHEIM, Calif. — Ben Henderson said before Saturday’s fight that his goal was to make UFC president Dana White feel like he absolutely had to get the bout on primetime TV “some how, some way.” With his Fight of the Night performance in a winning effort against fellow lightweight Clay Guida, he may have done even better than that.

As Henderson and Guida hurled themselves across every square inch of the Octagon in a thrilling three-round battle before the main event, it was hard not to feel like the UFC was going to regret not getting this fight on live network. But then, there were network obligations to meet. FOX wanted the UFC to do just one fight — the heavyweight championship of the world — and so all the eggs were placed delicately in that one basket.

64 seconds after the start of the main event, well, you already know the fate of that particular basket.


We could argue about whether having a title fight that was over quicker than viewers could microwave their popcorn was a good thing for the sport and for the UFC, and I’m sure we will. What seems less debatable, at least to those of us who saw the Henderson-Guida bout, is that it was the lightweights who stole the show on Saturday night, even if they did it in the relative shadows of a live web stream.

White, somewhat understandably, was in no mood for criticism of the way the FOX broadcast was structured to focus only on the title fight.

“For anybody to bitch about this fight and how they didn’t get to see that fight — shut up,” he said in the post-fight press conference. “You should have bought tickets if you wanted to see all the fights and you don’t like to watch it on Facebook. Seriously, shut up. I don’t even want to hear it.”

In a way, he has a point. It’s not like the fight wasn’t available at all. If you have internet access and a Facebook account, you had every opportunity to watch Henderson and Guida beat the follicles off of one another for the full 15 minutes. If you were technologically incapable or simply felt like you couldn’t be bothered to sit down and watch a fight on a different glowing screen, you only have yourself to blame for missing a great fight.

But hindsight being what it is, one can imagine White waking up on Sunday morning and wondering, what if?

What if they’d decided to kick things off with the Henderson-Guida bout? What if they’d given the nation’s network TV audience a chance to flip out over the two high-energy lightweights, and given ratings a chance to build along with the intensity in the cage? What if Guida and Henderson had served as the night’s dramatic appetizer, and Junior dos Santos’ TKO of Cain Velasquez had been the swift and definitive grand finale?

It would have necessitated a very different broadcast, but it also would have resulted in a more successful one. Then again, it’s easy to be genius on Sunday morning, once you know the ratings and the results.

At the post-fight press conference a disappointed Guida had trouble finding much consolation in the fact that his was the most exciting fight on the card, and even the $65,000 bonus for Fight of the Night didn’t appear to cheer him up all the much after the decision loss.

However, he noted, “The reason I fight is to put smiles on people’s faces and get people cheering. I feel my fans with every punch I throw, and every time I get punched in the face I feel my fans.”

On Saturday night he gave his fans plenty to cheer about, even if they had to do it in front of a computer screen.

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In a way, that’s almost fitting for MMA and the UFC. After getting kicked off TV the sport and the company survived largely thanks to a small but passionate fan base on the internet. Those message-board fans helped keep the sport alive until it could get back in the public eye, and the UFC has since embraced every conceivable platform for getting as many fights to as many fans as possible.

On Saturday night the big story might have been network TV and the heavyweight championship, but it was the little guys on an internet stream that delivered the real bang for the buck. The good news is, once the UFC’s deal with FOX begins in earnest in 2012, it can give the mainstream a chance to find out that in MMA, unlike in boxing, it isn’t just the main event that matters.

 

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Filed under: ,

ANAHEIM, Calif. — Ben Henderson said before Saturday’s fight that his goal was to make UFC president Dana White feel like he absolutely had to get the bout on primetime TV “some how, some way.” With his Fight of the Night performance in a winning effort against fellow lightweight Clay Guida, he may have done even better than that.

As Henderson and Guida hurled themselves across every square inch of the Octagon in a thrilling three-round battle before the main event, it was hard not to feel like the UFC was going to regret not getting this fight on live network. But then, there were network obligations to meet. FOX wanted the UFC to do just one fight — the heavyweight championship of the world — and so all the eggs were placed delicately in that one basket.

64 seconds after the start of the main event, well, you already know the fate of that particular basket.


We could argue about whether having a title fight that was over quicker than viewers could microwave their popcorn was a good thing for the sport and for the UFC, and I’m sure we will. What seems less debatable, at least to those of us who saw the Henderson-Guida bout, is that it was the lightweights who stole the show on Saturday night, even if they did it in the relative shadows of a live web stream.

White, somewhat understandably, was in no mood for criticism of the way the FOX broadcast was structured to focus only on the title fight.

“For anybody to bitch about this fight and how they didn’t get to see that fight — shut up,” he said in the post-fight press conference. “You should have bought tickets if you wanted to see all the fights and you don’t like to watch it on Facebook. Seriously, shut up. I don’t even want to hear it.”

In a way, he has a point. It’s not like the fight wasn’t available at all. If you have internet access and a Facebook account, you had every opportunity to watch Henderson and Guida beat the follicles off of one another for the full 15 minutes. If you were technologically incapable or simply felt like you couldn’t be bothered to sit down and watch a fight on a different glowing screen, you only have yourself to blame for missing a great fight.

But hindsight being what it is, one can imagine White waking up on Sunday morning and wondering, what if?

What if they’d decided to kick things off with the Henderson-Guida bout? What if they’d given the nation’s network TV audience a chance to flip out over the two high-energy lightweights, and given ratings a chance to build along with the intensity in the cage? What if Guida and Henderson had served as the night’s dramatic appetizer, and Junior dos Santos’ TKO of Cain Velasquez had been the swift and definitive grand finale?

It would have necessitated a very different broadcast, but it also would have resulted in a more successful one. Then again, it’s easy to be genius on Sunday morning, once you know the ratings and the results.

At the post-fight press conference a disappointed Guida had trouble finding much consolation in the fact that his was the most exciting fight on the card, and even the $65,000 bonus for Fight of the Night didn’t appear to cheer him up all the much after the decision loss.

However, he noted, “The reason I fight is to put smiles on people’s faces and get people cheering. I feel my fans with every punch I throw, and every time I get punched in the face I feel my fans.”

On Saturday night he gave his fans plenty to cheer about, even if they had to do it in front of a computer screen.

%VIRTUAL-Gallery-139230%

In a way, that’s almost fitting for MMA and the UFC. After getting kicked off TV the sport and the company survived largely thanks to a small but passionate fan base on the internet. Those message-board fans helped keep the sport alive until it could get back in the public eye, and the UFC has since embraced every conceivable platform for getting as many fights to as many fans as possible.

On Saturday night the big story might have been network TV and the heavyweight championship, but it was the little guys on an internet stream that delivered the real bang for the buck. The good news is, once the UFC’s deal with FOX begins in earnest in 2012, it can give the mainstream a chance to find out that in MMA, unlike in boxing, it isn’t just the main event that matters.

 

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UFC Heavyweights Show Resolve in Pushing Through Injuries for FOX Debut

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ANAHEIM, Calif. — Junior dos Santos and Cain Velasquez had more in common heading into their UFC heavyweight title fight on Saturday night than either of them could have realized. While each was worried about his own lingering knee injury, neither had any way of knowing that the other was going through almost the exact same thing in the opposite locker room.

Dos Santos took the title with a 64-second TKO victory, but less than two weeks ago he could barely walk following an injury during his jiu-jitsu training, he told reporters.

“I got a very serious injury in my knee, my meniscus,” said the new champion. “You know, ten days ago I couldn’t walk very well. I stayed two days with [crutches], but I asked my doctor to help me because it’s the fight of my life and I can’t miss that fight.”

That doctor, Fabio Costa, told MMAFighting.com’s Ariel Helwani that dos Santos has a large lesion on his meniscus that will require surgery to fix, and which nearly forced him out of the bout entirely.


“Ten minutes before the fight he told us, ‘My knee, I have something in my knee.’ [We] said, ‘Calm down. You are a tough guy. You are our warrior. You can go.’ Now he’s the champion.”

Velasquez’s story remains a bit murkier, and the former champ seemed uninterested in shedding much light on the situation. Coming into the bout there were rumors that he’d suffered a rather serious knee injury in training and had almost been forced to withdraw from the fight as well. His camp denied those reports and Velasquez himself downplayed the extent of the injury in the post-fight press conference, saying he was suffering from “just little nagging injuries here and there, just the usual.”

But UFC president Dana White appeared to realize that it more than just bumps and bruises, saying that he’d have to wait for Velasquez to return to full strength before he could think about his immediate future in the UFC.

“Like he said, his knee’s bothering him. Let him get his knee better and we’ll go from there,” White said.

As for dos Santos, he was saved by physical therapy and “shots and medicines and lots of things,” he said. The injury disrupted his training, he said, and made him apprehensive about the possibility of going five full rounds, so the quick finish was an ideal outcome in his first shot at a major title, not to mention the first UFC bout ever broadcast on network TV.

“I’m feeling amazing. I can’t explain how I’m feeling. It was a really, really important fight for the whole MMA, and especially for me and for Cain Velasquez. But I’m really happy to win this fight. Now I’m the champion and it’s amazing.”

After the fight, White pointed to both dos Santos and Velasquez’s personal stories of struggles against the odds, saying they were the exactly the tales of resilience and perseverance that the UFC wanted to get across to new viewers in the FOX broadcast.

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Velasquez was the son of Mexican immigrants who went on to be an All-American wrestler at Arizona State, he pointed out, and dos Santos grew up in extreme poverty in Brazil where he could have easily turned to crime but “what does he say? ‘I used to sell ice creams and newspapers and then I washed dishes,'” White said. “…These are the stories we have to tell to mainstream America.”

Just by gritting their way through injuries and making it into the Octagon, both Velasquez and dos Santos continued to show just how resilient and determined they are. In that sense, each man wrote his own story of triumph on Saturday night, even if only of those stories had a happy ending.

 

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Filed under: ,

ANAHEIM, Calif. — Junior dos Santos and Cain Velasquez had more in common heading into their UFC heavyweight title fight on Saturday night than either of them could have realized. While each was worried about his own lingering knee injury, neither had any way of knowing that the other was going through almost the exact same thing in the opposite locker room.

Dos Santos took the title with a 64-second TKO victory, but less than two weeks ago he could barely walk following an injury during his jiu-jitsu training, he told reporters.

“I got a very serious injury in my knee, my meniscus,” said the new champion. “You know, ten days ago I couldn’t walk very well. I stayed two days with [crutches], but I asked my doctor to help me because it’s the fight of my life and I can’t miss that fight.”

That doctor, Fabio Costa, told MMAFighting.com’s Ariel Helwani that dos Santos has a large lesion on his meniscus that will require surgery to fix, and which nearly forced him out of the bout entirely.


“Ten minutes before the fight he told us, ‘My knee, I have something in my knee.’ [We] said, ‘Calm down. You are a tough guy. You are our warrior. You can go.’ Now he’s the champion.”

Velasquez’s story remains a bit murkier, and the former champ seemed uninterested in shedding much light on the situation. Coming into the bout there were rumors that he’d suffered a rather serious knee injury in training and had almost been forced to withdraw from the fight as well. His camp denied those reports and Velasquez himself downplayed the extent of the injury in the post-fight press conference, saying he was suffering from “just little nagging injuries here and there, just the usual.”

But UFC president Dana White appeared to realize that it more than just bumps and bruises, saying that he’d have to wait for Velasquez to return to full strength before he could think about his immediate future in the UFC.

“Like he said, his knee’s bothering him. Let him get his knee better and we’ll go from there,” White said.

As for dos Santos, he was saved by physical therapy and “shots and medicines and lots of things,” he said. The injury disrupted his training, he said, and made him apprehensive about the possibility of going five full rounds, so the quick finish was an ideal outcome in his first shot at a major title, not to mention the first UFC bout ever broadcast on network TV.

“I’m feeling amazing. I can’t explain how I’m feeling. It was a really, really important fight for the whole MMA, and especially for me and for Cain Velasquez. But I’m really happy to win this fight. Now I’m the champion and it’s amazing.”

After the fight, White pointed to both dos Santos and Velasquez’s personal stories of struggles against the odds, saying they were the exactly the tales of resilience and perseverance that the UFC wanted to get across to new viewers in the FOX broadcast.

%VIRTUAL-Gallery-139230%

Velasquez was the son of Mexican immigrants who went on to be an All-American wrestler at Arizona State, he pointed out, and dos Santos grew up in extreme poverty in Brazil where he could have easily turned to crime but “what does he say? ‘I used to sell ice creams and newspapers and then I washed dishes,'” White said. “…These are the stories we have to tell to mainstream America.”

Just by gritting their way through injuries and making it into the Octagon, both Velasquez and dos Santos continued to show just how resilient and determined they are. In that sense, each man wrote his own story of triumph on Saturday night, even if only of those stories had a happy ending.

 

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