Filed under: UFCAfter repeated attempts to talk his way into a fight with former UFC welterweight champion Matt Hughes went nowhere, it looks as though Josh Koscheck might finally get his wish — and it’s all thanks to Diego Sanchez’s hand injury.
After repeated attempts to talk his way into a fight with former UFC welterweight champion Matt Hughes went nowhere, it looks as though Josh Koscheck might finally get his wish — and it’s all thanks to Diego Sanchez’s hand injury.
Just an hour after UFC president Dana White announced on Twitter that Sanchez was out of the UFC 135 co-main event with a broken hand, Koscheck took to his Twitter to say he’d accepted the fight, and was merely waiting to find out if Hughes would do the same.
“:) got a fight in 21 days [expletive]……..” Koscheck wrote, presumably before double-checking his math and realizing that UFC 135 goes down in Denver on September 24. “Oh ya 19 days then or something like that!!!! Either way it looks like I am in to fight matt Hugh if he takes it????”
Knowing how the dynamic has played out in the past, however, there’s no guarantee Hughes will accept it. Koscheck, along with AKA teammates Jon Fitch and Mike Swick, launched a minor media campaign to get a fight with Hughes a couple years ago, but the former champ managed to brush off each challenge.
But now, with Sanchez pulled from the bout and the pressure mounting to find a suitable, willing opponent on short notice, Hughes may have few other options.
Koscheck, who hasn’t fought since his decision loss to welterweight champion Georges St. Pierre in December of 2010, was rumored to be a participant in the UFC 139 event scheduled for San Jose, Calif. in November. There was even talk that his return would take place at middleweight as part of a one-time jump in weight classes.
Of course, that was before Sanchez got injured and the chance to face Hughes dropped in his lap.
Koscheck seems to have no reservations about taking the bout, even with less than three weeks to prepare. Now it’s just a question of whether Hughes will be equally as eager.
You didn’t really think that “King” Mo Lawal — he of Team GDP, he of Team Thirsty — was going to return to action against Roger Gracie on Saturday’s Strikeforce card without some new nickname at his disposal, did you?
Oh, no. That wouldn’t be Lawal’s style. Not after being out of the cage for over a year. Not when he’s taking on a member of the famed Gracie family. As he told Ariel Helwani on Thursday’s edition of The MMA Hour, he’s come up with the perfect moniker to mark his return: Blackuraba.
As in, the black Sakuraba. “Hell yeah, ‘the Gracie Hunter,’ fool,” Lawal explained.
The former Strikeforce light heavyweight champ even has a new team to match his new nickname, but will it be enough to knock off the ring rust and get back in the win column?
The last time we saw Lawal in the cage was August of 2010, when he lost his 205-pound title to Rafael “Feijao” Cavalcante via third-round TKO. Since then he’s had surgery, he’s done his rehab, and he’s relocated his training camp to the friendly confines of the American Kickboxing Academy in San Jose, Calif., where longtime friend Daniel Cormier makes his home.
The move was “a breath of fresh air,” according to Lawal. What remains to be seen is whether it’s prepared him to deal with Gracie’s submission game, which has accounted for a slew of jiu-jitsu titles as well as all four of the Brazilian’s MMA victories.
“I’m not afraid to go to the ground with him,” Lawal said. “This ain’t Abu Dhabi. This ain’t [the Jiu-Jitsu World Championships]. This is MMA. Wherever the fight goes, I’m prepared to battle.”
And while Lawal, who came to MMA from wrestling, said he still thinks high-level grapplers hold major advantages over most opponents, he doesn’t seem terribly worried about Gracie’s ground skills, saying, “It’s going to be an interesting fight, but I think I’m going to smash him.”
The question Lawal and many other Strikeforce fighters are wondering is, what then?
The current Strikeforce light heavyweight champion, Dan Henderson, seems poised to make the leap to the UFC, which would leave yet another Strikeforce belt vacant.
“If I’m going to fight for the belt, I want to fight the champ, and that’s Dan,” said Lawal, who insisted he had no interest in owning a title that’s been vacated by the previous champ.
“The thing is, what’s the point? What’s the point of having the belt when it’s been vacated, and the person who vacated it is still fighting somewhere else within the same umbrella, but not the same organization?”
At least for the time being, it’s a conundrum that’s familiar to many fighters on the Strikeforce roster. The welterweight and heavyweight champs have already been removed from the picture by the Zuffa brass, and the same seems likely to happen in Lawal’s division, leaving him wondering what’s really at stake in these fights.
“It feels a little weird, because it’s not the same,” Lawal said. “It’s like a cancer patient, like a dying cancer patient. That’s how I feel like the organization is. We’re just waiting for it to die, to pass. As long as I can get my fights in and they’re still around, I want to get them in.”
After more than a year off, he’ll get his chance to get another one in this Saturday in Cincinnati. Considering the precarious position of the promotion he’s fighting for, he’d better make them count. Who knows how many more there will be under the Strikeforce banner, particularly for the losers.
You didn’t really think that “King” Mo Lawal — he of Team GDP, he of Team Thirsty — was going to return to action against Roger Gracie on Saturday’s Strikeforce card without some new nickname at his disposal, did you?
Oh, no. That wouldn’t be Lawal’s style. Not after being out of the cage for over a year. Not when he’s taking on a member of the famed Gracie family. As he told Ariel Helwani on Thursday’s edition of The MMA Hour, he’s come up with the perfect moniker to mark his return: Blackuraba.
As in, the black Sakuraba. “Hell yeah, ‘the Gracie Hunter,’ fool,” Lawal explained.
The former Strikeforce light heavyweight champ even has a new team to match his new nickname, but will it be enough to knock off the ring rust and get back in the win column?
The last time we saw Lawal in the cage was August of 2010, when he lost his 205-pound title to Rafael “Feijao” Cavalcante via third-round TKO. Since then he’s had surgery, he’s done his rehab, and he’s relocated his training camp to the friendly confines of the American Kickboxing Academy in San Jose, Calif., where longtime friend Daniel Cormier makes his home.
The move was “a breath of fresh air,” according to Lawal. What remains to be seen is whether it’s prepared him to deal with Gracie’s submission game, which has accounted for a slew of jiu-jitsu titles as well as all four of the Brazilian’s MMA victories.
“I’m not afraid to go to the ground with him,” Lawal said. “This ain’t Abu Dhabi. This ain’t [the Jiu-Jitsu World Championships]. This is MMA. Wherever the fight goes, I’m prepared to battle.”
And while Lawal, who came to MMA from wrestling, said he still thinks high-level grapplers hold major advantages over most opponents, he doesn’t seem terribly worried about Gracie’s ground skills, saying, “It’s going to be an interesting fight, but I think I’m going to smash him.”
The question Lawal and many other Strikeforce fighters are wondering is, what then?
The current Strikeforce light heavyweight champion, Dan Henderson, seems poised to make the leap to the UFC, which would leave yet another Strikeforce belt vacant.
“If I’m going to fight for the belt, I want to fight the champ, and that’s Dan,” said Lawal, who insisted he had no interest in owning a title that’s been vacated by the previous champ.
“The thing is, what’s the point? What’s the point of having the belt when it’s been vacated, and the person who vacated it is still fighting somewhere else within the same umbrella, but not the same organization?”
At least for the time being, it’s a conundrum that’s familiar to many fighters on the Strikeforce roster. The welterweight and heavyweight champs have already been removed from the picture by the Zuffa brass, and the same seems likely to happen in Lawal’s division, leaving him wondering what’s really at stake in these fights.
“It feels a little weird, because it’s not the same,” Lawal said. “It’s like a cancer patient, like a dying cancer patient. That’s how I feel like the organization is. We’re just waiting for it to die, to pass. As long as I can get my fights in and they’re still around, I want to get them in.”
After more than a year off, he’ll get his chance to get another one in this Saturday in Cincinnati. Considering the precarious position of the promotion he’s fighting for, he’d better make them count. Who knows how many more there will be under the Strikeforce banner, particularly for the losers.
Fight fans weren’t the only ones sorry to see Alistair Overeem pulled from the Strikeforce heavyweight Grand Prix in the midst of a contract dispute with Zuffa. Fellow tournament participant Josh Barnett said on this week’s edition of The MMA Hour that the Grand Prix had undoubtedly lost something in his eyes now that Overeem is gone from the field.
“I can’t speak for anybody else, but I know that I wanted to face him in the finals,” Barnett told Ariel Helwani on Thursday’s edition of the show.
According to Barnett, who is slated to take on Sergei Kharitonov in the Grand Prix semifinals on September 10, the fact that Overeem could be dropped from the tournament and released from his contract so suddenly got his attention for more than just competitive reasons.
“From a fighter perspective, it stinks,” he said. “You’d like to have the opportunity to fight the guy, plus he was the champ. Seeing the champion just get let go is kind of a jarring reminder, I guess, that you’re not really all that important.”
Barnett, who said that “nothing really surprises me” in MMA these days, had his own issues with the new Zuffa ownership when he requested permission to participate in a pro wrestling event in Japan, which his Strikeforce contract allows for, he said. Zuffa turned down the request, citing the proximity to the tournament semifinal match, which didn’t please his employers in Japan, Barnett said.
“They were upset. It was pretty much the biggest show of the year for them, and I was their main event.”
Still, Barnett has a full dance card back in the states, with the tournament nearing its conclusion and questions swirling about what Zuffa will decide to do with the winner. Barnett has to get by Kharitonov on Saturday, but he’ll also be keeping a close eye on the other semifinal match between alternate replacement Daniel Cormier and Antonio “Bigfoot” Silva.
Barnett said he was picking Cormier to win that fight despite Silva’s considerable size advantage.
“The thing about ‘Bigfoot,’ he’s a big guy and he’s agile for a big guy, but he’s not that agile and he’s not that athletic. In fact, being a big guy is probably his greatest asset.”
Silva suffers from acromegaly, which causes the enlargement of certain physical features, but which also might be his saving grace as a fighter, according to Barnett.
“You could almost say that I’m sure he’s had his issues growing up with a thing like gigantism, and all the difficulty that’s come from that. But gigantism is what actually allows him to be a decent fighter, because he doesn’t do anything particularly awesome, but he’s just massive,” said Barnett. “But all of his fights come down to him getting the takedown. Those are the ones he wins, and against Cormier I don’t think that’s going to happen.”
Barnett added that, ideally, he’d like to face Cormier in the tournament finals, if only to find out whether he’s capable of taking down the former U.S. Olympic wrestling team captain.
As for whether he’ll once again put his pro wrestling expertise on display at the open workouts, Barnett wasn’t ruling anything out, saying, “Who knows? I hate to disappoint.”
And though he said he caught some heat from some fans for seizing the microphone from Gus Johnson after defeating Brett Rogers in the Grand Prix quarterfinals, don’t expect Barnett to play along with the typical post-fight Q&A anytime soon.
“The interview moments to me, they’re stupid,” he said. “They’re a waste of time. Just give the guy the mic, let him say what he’s got to say, get him out of there, and let’s move on. But let’s keep it fresh, keep it original, keep things going instead of [saying], ‘Talk us through the end of this fight.’ Nobody gives a s–t. If you want to see the end of the fight, go hit rewind on your DVR. There’s about 18,000 slo-mos after you’ve won, so why don’t we get something more personal, more individual about the guy.”
For now, Barnett just has to make sure he’s on the right side of those slow-motion replays. Against a slugger like Kharitonov, even an experienced fighter could very easily end up as a highlight-reel victim if he isn’t careful.
Fight fans weren’t the only ones sorry to see Alistair Overeem pulled from the Strikeforce heavyweight Grand Prix in the midst of a contract dispute with Zuffa. Fellow tournament participant Josh Barnett said on this week’s edition of The MMA Hour that the Grand Prix had undoubtedly lost something in his eyes now that Overeem is gone from the field.
“I can’t speak for anybody else, but I know that I wanted to face him in the finals,” Barnett told Ariel Helwani on Thursday’s edition of the show.
According to Barnett, who is slated to take on Sergei Kharitonov in the Grand Prix semifinals on September 10, the fact that Overeem could be dropped from the tournament and released from his contract so suddenly got his attention for more than just competitive reasons.
“From a fighter perspective, it stinks,” he said. “You’d like to have the opportunity to fight the guy, plus he was the champ. Seeing the champion just get let go is kind of a jarring reminder, I guess, that you’re not really all that important.”
Barnett, who said that “nothing really surprises me” in MMA these days, had his own issues with the new Zuffa ownership when he requested permission to participate in a pro wrestling event in Japan, which his Strikeforce contract allows for, he said. Zuffa turned down the request, citing the proximity to the tournament semifinal match, which didn’t please his employers in Japan, Barnett said.
“They were upset. It was pretty much the biggest show of the year for them, and I was their main event.”
Still, Barnett has a full dance card back in the states, with the tournament nearing its conclusion and questions swirling about what Zuffa will decide to do with the winner. Barnett has to get by Kharitonov on Saturday, but he’ll also be keeping a close eye on the other semifinal match between alternate replacement Daniel Cormier and Antonio “Bigfoot” Silva.
Barnett said he was picking Cormier to win that fight despite Silva’s considerable size advantage.
“The thing about ‘Bigfoot,’ he’s a big guy and he’s agile for a big guy, but he’s not that agile and he’s not that athletic. In fact, being a big guy is probably his greatest asset.”
Silva suffers from acromegaly, which causes the enlargement of certain physical features, but which also might be his saving grace as a fighter, according to Barnett.
“You could almost say that I’m sure he’s had his issues growing up with a thing like gigantism, and all the difficulty that’s come from that. But gigantism is what actually allows him to be a decent fighter, because he doesn’t do anything particularly awesome, but he’s just massive,” said Barnett. “But all of his fights come down to him getting the takedown. Those are the ones he wins, and against Cormier I don’t think that’s going to happen.”
Barnett added that, ideally, he’d like to face Cormier in the tournament finals, if only to find out whether he’s capable of taking down the former U.S. Olympic wrestling team captain.
As for whether he’ll once again put his pro wrestling expertise on display at the open workouts, Barnett wasn’t ruling anything out, saying, “Who knows? I hate to disappoint.”
And though he said he caught some heat from some fans for seizing the microphone from Gus Johnson after defeating Brett Rogers in the Grand Prix quarterfinals, don’t expect Barnett to play along with the typical post-fight Q&A anytime soon.
“The interview moments to me, they’re stupid,” he said. “They’re a waste of time. Just give the guy the mic, let him say what he’s got to say, get him out of there, and let’s move on. But let’s keep it fresh, keep it original, keep things going instead of [saying], ‘Talk us through the end of this fight.’ Nobody gives a s–t. If you want to see the end of the fight, go hit rewind on your DVR. There’s about 18,000 slo-mos after you’ve won, so why don’t we get something more personal, more individual about the guy.”
For now, Barnett just has to make sure he’s on the right side of those slow-motion replays. Against a slugger like Kharitonov, even an experienced fighter could very easily end up as a highlight-reel victim if he isn’t careful.
Filed under: UFC, StrikeforceFor a week without any major event, we’ve still had an eventful few days in the MMA world. Between major announcements, post-fight fallout, and pre-fight Grand Prix build-up, there’s no shortage of available topics for the …
For a week without any major event, we’ve still had an eventful few days in the MMA world. Between major announcements, post-fight fallout, and pre-fight Grand Prix build-up, there’s no shortage of available topics for the old Twitter Mailbag.
Hit me up on Twitter @BenFowlkesMMA to ask your own question. Then hit me up again a few weeks later to complain about not getting an answer. It’s a vicious cycle.
@taylorloyal With Cain- Junior on 1st Fox card, sort out the rest of the division. Which fight(s) should determine the next contender?
It all depends what Zuffa decides to do with those Strikeforce heavyweights. In a perfect world, you’d hurry up and finish that Grand Prix tournament so the winner could immediately slide on over to the UFC and challenge for the belt. Sadly, ours is far from a perfect world, so it may not go down like that.
Of the existing UFC heavyweights, I’d match Frank Mir against Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira in a rematch, mostly because I have no idea what else you’d do with either of them at this point. Then I would pray for the stars to align on a Brock Lesnar-Alistair Overeem blockbuster, the mere thought of which is so awesome I have to take a pill to calm down if I even get started thinking about it.
Do either of those work as number one contender fights? Hard to say. If Lesnar beat Overeem, it’d be a little weird for him to get right back in a title fight after winning just one bout as a non-champion. If Overeem won (which I think is more likely), you couldn’t justify not giving him a crack at the belt.
Basically, here’s where I’d be as vague as possible about the stakes if I’m the UFC, then decide what to do once the dust clears. With Strikeforce fighters waiting in the wings, I think the UFC heavyweight division is on the verge of getting very, very interesting. It’s less a matter of which dream fights materialize, and more a matter of which ones materialize first.
@LoganasaurusRex who is the smartest fighter in the game? In terms of mma knowledge, game planning and just general smarts?
That’s essentially three different questions, but okay, I can handle it. As far as being a walking encyclopedia of MMA knowledge, I don’t think you can beat Mo Lawal. He seems to know every fight that every other fighter has had, and he can reconstruct them blow by blow. It’s actually kind of creepy, and it makes you think he does nothing but sit around and watch fights all day, which is only partially true.
When it comes to constructing and, more importantly, sticking to a game plan, I think it’s a tie between Randy Couture and Georges St. Pierre. Both of them are known for coming into a fight with a very specific strategy, and implementing it even when their opponents know it’s coming.
Overall intelligence? Well, that’s an impossible question simply because there are so many different types of intelligence. Shane Carwin’s an engineer in charge of whole city water systems, which sounds hard. Josh Barnett and “Mayhem” Miller are two of the most fun fighters to talk to, since they’re both quick-witted and interesting guys, and both are secret nerds in different ways. Kenny Florian seems like he could probably sit down with a number two pencil and ace the SATs tomorrow if he had to. And who knows, maybe Chael Sonnen could write a haiku that would make us all cry. He’s obviously got some creative talent kicking around in there.
@MattRoth512 Has anyone asked “How much fun was UFC 134 and was it your favorite event ever?” Because that’s my question for mailbag.
As a matter of fact they haven’t, so thank you for asking. The answers to your two questions are 1) so much fun, and 2) maybe not my favorite, but definitely one of the most memorable. If you ever get a chance to go to Rio, take it. The food is unbelievable, and the people are wonderful hosts. Better pack a good book or three, though. That flight is brutal.
@KevinMarshall what goes in the main event slot for UFC 139? And will we see Brock vs Overeem in 2011?
Another multiple question? I’m starting to feel like you guys are taking advantage of me. The problem with moving a title fight off one event and onto another is that you’re sort of obliged to replace it with a different title fight. Or at least, you’re obliged to do that if you don’t want to hear a ton of griping from fans.
The champ most likely to be ready by then would probably be Anderson Silva. If the UFC is interested in/capable of signing a rematch between Silva and Dan Henderson, now would be the time. I sure wouldn’t mind seeing it.
As for Lesnar and Overeem, you’re basically asking me to tell you if it’s going to rain three Saturdays from now. I could take a guess, but it would only be a guess. I know that, personally, I’d love to see that fight. I also know that getting both those guys in a cage right now is probably a little more complicated than strolling up to both and asking, in your best Undertaker voice, ‘You wanna do it?’
@TheFightingPost Do you think the TUF production changes will revitalize the show?
Admitting this makes me feel a little bit like a guy who’s just been suckered into playing a carnival game by a very talented barker, but yes, I actually do. For me, the reality show drama got old as soon as Shonie Carter was no longer around to bling the crap out of every surface in the house. That leaves the fights as the only source of interest, though it’s hard to get too fired up about watching a tournament unfold when you know it was all taped weeks and weeks ago.
If nothing else, the live fight format promises to make it feel more immediate, and maybe that will inject new life into the show. Sports on tape delay are only so interesting, and we’re quickly getting to the point where no one can stand to hear even one more argument among pro fighters about dirty dishes or missing cereal.
@michaelbond89 anderson silva wants 2 fight his clone? How do u see it goin down? A stand off? Double knockout? Simultaneous tap?
He says he wants that fight, but I have a sneaking suspicion that if Silva did come face to face with his clone he might change his mind. How do you look in your own eyes and summon that kind of pitiless brutality? How do you attack your own face with one of Steven Seagal’s deadly moves?
I think Silva and his clone would actually become great friends, splitting up household chores and taking turns giving interviews and making public appearances. Behind closed doors they’d be inseparable. Perfect training partners who always get each other’s jokes.
Then one day Chael Sonnen would drop by the gym and casually ask which one is the real Silva and which is the clone. Perplexed, they’d stare in horror at one another as it dawned on each that he could never be sure whether he was the original or merely a copy, nor could they be sure that it even mattered.
And as the two Silvas pondered this terrible riddle alone, yet together, the only sound in the distance would be Sonnen’s cruel laughter as he sped away in a car driven by his own impersonator, some guy with a Hispanic accent.
@VineStreetLife TMB:I don’t see any “bungalow throwin” in Quinton’s future @135. Agree?And is Jones as “off putting” in person as he seems?
I disagree. I think “Rampage” Jackson will absolutely come looking to throw them bungalows at UFC 135. I just don’t think he’ll land many of them.
As for Jon Jones, I wouldn’t say he’s off-putting at all. He’s a nice guy, and surprisingly mature for his age. If anything, he’s just a little too image-conscious, and much too sensitive to criticism. If you’re going to be in the spotlight, you’ve got to develop thicker skin.
@JasonRule what is your opinion of Cruz-Johnson on VS (besides that it’s a free fight) is Faber the only marketable 135er? why no ppv?
I wouldn’t say Faber is the only marketable bantamweight, but let’s face it, he is still the most marketable bantamweight. The problem is that, after relegating the lighter weight classes to a second-tier promotion for so long, the UFC needs time to build awareness about them among the general fan base.
Hopefully, the most recent Cruz-Faber bout made some of those people realize how exciting 135-pounders can be. Putting a 135-pound title fight on free TV provides another chance for the division to ease its way into the broader fan consciousness, even if it could be seen as mildly insulting to the champ.
If we’re being honest though, we have to admit that Cruz-Johnson is not a fight that, by itself, would sell a ton of pay-per-views right now. Maybe if we give the division time and space to grow, all while increasing its exposure via free TV and building new contenders, that will change.
@JeremyFM if penn defeats condit, what happens to the WW title picture? Could the ufc actually promote penn vs gsp 3?
First of all, I don’t see how B.J. Penn is going to beat Carlos Condit. He’s not going to surprise anyone with his wrestling after he let that cat out of the bag against Jon Fitch, and he tends to fade in the later rounds, while Condit only gets better. Then again, Penn has been full of surprises his whole career, both good and bad, so it’s a possibility we can’t rule out.
But even if Penn somehow put Condit away in the first round, I still think the UFC would have a hard time selling another GSP-Penn fight. The last one wasn’t exactly competitive, after all. As long as GSP is champion (and don’t forget, he’s got a tough fight with Nick Diaz coming up) people are going to push for him to face new challenges (cough*Anderson Silva*cough) rather than rehashing old battles.
@LiamOaf do you think either or Hendo or the Reem will sign with the UFC??
Yes and yes. Where else are they going to go? Unless they have dreams of opening up an Arby’s together somewhere, they’ll both end up in the Octagon. It’s the only rational, profitable move for big time MMA fighters.
@Jason_MMA 1 fight on Fox, which will probably last 7.5 minutes, in a 1 hour time slot. How should they fill the void?
FOX seems to be kicking around the idea of either airing a taped fight from the undercard or else showing some sort of highlight package of the night’s action. Of those options, going with another full fight is definitely preferable to a bunch of decontextualized clips of random violence among men the casual viewer has had no chance to get to know. If the goal is to introduce a new audience to MMA, it’s better to give them fewer full servings than a bunch of small samplings.
@Liver_Shot What’s your opinion on the beef between @Jonnybones and @Rampage4real ? Also, do you think ONE FC will revitalize Asian MMA?
There’s bound to be a little personality conflict between those two, but it also seems like a half-hearted and unnecessary effort to sell a fight that sells itself. It doesn’t matter what they think about each other, that fight is stylistically interesting enough that people will watch even if they never utter a contentious word to one another.
Every time you watch Jones it feels a little like peeking at a science experiment. How much will he have advanced since the last time we saw him? What’s the newest mutation in his game? You know he’s going to do something wild that we’ll all be talking about the following Monday, but you don’t know yet what it will be.
As for ONE FC, I’m glad there’s a new organization trying to do something in that market, but after watching the inaugural event I’m not sure I see it being a complete game-changer. I hope I’m wrong, though.
@joelsellsout Who is the Kurt Vonnegut of MMA fighters?
@noelluperon What IS the SF GP now? As the UFC picks the bits it likes from SF, does it matter winning this thing? Only for the winner?
It matters in the same way that it is always better to win than to lose, but with Overeem gone from the field you can’t even sort of claim that this tournament will determine the best heavyweight in MMA. That was a shaky claim to begin with, but it was kind of like my repeated assertions that The Rolling Stones were the best country-western band ever. Even though I didn’t completely believe it, at least it prompted interesting conversations.
But now that the GP has been reduced to a four-man field that features a promising, but relatively inexperienced alternate in the place of the organization’s heavyweight champ, we have to admit the tournament has lost a lot of its sparkle. That’s not to say that winning it will mean nothing. If Josh Barnett crushes Sergei Kharitonov and then “Bigfoot” Silva, he could roll right into the UFC will a full head of steam.
On the flip side, if injury withdrawals and bracket gerrymandering result in a Daniel Cormier vs. Chad Griggs finale, we’ll probably all just be happy to have it over with.
Filed under: UFCUFC president Dana White said on Friday that he was “literally betting everything” that Cain Velasquez and Junior dos Santos will deliver a quality fight for the UFC’s first event on the FOX network this November.
While this statement makes White just one more pro sports figure to misuse the word ‘literally’ (just saying, even if the fight’s a dud, White won’t wake up penniless in a vacant lot the next morning) he does still have a point.
The UFC is taking a major gamble putting this (and only this) fight on its first network show. But then, what did you expect? When you’re on the big stage, you might as well give it your best. In the UFC’s case, that’s a heavyweight title fight, the gravity of which any sports fan can immediately comprehend. Especially for those who only understand combat sports through the lens of boxing, the heavyweight strap is the grandaddy of them all, the biggest title in the world.
Now it’s coming to network TV in one dramatic roll of the dice. It’s a shrewd choice by the UFC for several reasons, even if it’s no sure thing.
Choosing how best to showcase the UFC to new viewers in a free, hour-long event on FOX must have been its own special challenge. On one hand, you want to give them something that feels appropriately important. As Bull Durham’s “Nuke” LaLoosh would say, you want to announce your presence with authority.
A title fight fits that bill nicely. Then again, a title fight also has the potential to go five full rounds, leaving very little room for anything else in a 60-minute network TV broadcast, once pre-fight packages, introductions, and commercials are factored in.
But come on, these are heavyweights we’re talking about. Not since Tim Sylvia dropped the belt via decision to Randy Couture in 2007 has a UFC heavyweight title fight gone the distance. Between Velasquez and dos Santos, it sure seems like somebody is liable to end the night face down on the mat before the judges have their say.
Of course, the promise of heavyweight power is both an asset and a liability in this case.
Say you spend weeks pumping up this fight on football and baseball broadcasts. Say you successfully suck in millions of casual sports fans who have never really sat down to watch an MMA fight before, let alone a huge UFC title fight. Say you beat those people over the head with how important and monumental this whole deal is, and say they buy into the hype. Then what happens if it’s over in 90 seconds?
On Friday’s media call FOX executives admitted they hadn’t yet decided what to do with any extra time. Maybe they’d show a fight from earlier in the night, they said, or maybe they’d run a highlight package.
There’s also the chance that they could run into the opposite scenario. Velasquez, being a wrestler, could always decide to play it safe and grind out JDS on the mat rather than stand up and play Russian roulette with the Brazilian striker. For his part, dos Santos has a bit of a reputation for stunning opponents early and then coasting in the later rounds.
Now matter how much “education” you do on FOX before the fight, network TV viewers might easily be underwhelmed by either scenario in their first exposure to MMA.
But then, such is the risk you take with any fight. There are no guarantees in MMA. How many times have we seen big fights turn out to be snoozers while lackluster pay-per-views become the fight card of the year?
Any fight the UFC could have offered up here would involve some potential downside. With a heavyweight title fight, at least White and company are signaling their willingness to put some of their best material on free TV. At least they aren’t saving it for pay-per-view, hoping the network audience will be content with action more suited to a Spike TV Fight Night event.
Instead, the UFC is kicking in America’s door with its first fight on network TV. It’s putting everything on the table and relying on the fighters to bring it home. And really, what else can you ask for? Promotion and pre-fight build-up is a big part of this business, but eventually it always comes down to what happens when the cage door closes and the hype-men take their seats on the outside. Eventually, it’s always about the fighters.
If you’re going to put your faith in anyone, you might as well put it in two evenly matched big men fighting for a title every sports fan understands. You might as well put the best you’ve got into the national spotlight, now that you’ve finally got it all to yourself for one precious hour.
Whether it lives up to the expectations or not, at least you won’t have to sit around years from now, wondering if you should have gone bigger when you had the chance.
Filed under: UFCRIO DE JANEIRO — They don’t charge enough for beers at the HSBC Arena. I never thought I’d lodge that particular complaint against any venue, but as I watched the hailstorm of half-full plastic cups that came down from the rafters afte…
RIO DE JANEIRO — They don’t charge enough for beers at the HSBC Arena. I never thought I’d lodge that particular complaint against any venue, but as I watched the hailstorm of half-full plastic cups that came down from the rafters after Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira beat Brendan Schaub, I was forced to admit that there was at least one upside to gouging event-goers on beer prices.
In the USA, fight fans would never throw away that much beer. Not after they paid nine dollars for it.
The most confusing part about the beer-throwing that went on at UFC 134 was the timing of it. Instead of chucking their brews in angry protest, as American fans might, Brazilians did it in celebration. Seconds after Big Nog’s upset victory, the first cup hit the apron surrounding the Octagon.
Splash. The UFC’s ringside officials looked up with baffled expressions. What kind of jerk throws a beer when their guy wins? you could almost hear them thinking. Then came the rest of the cups, sailing down like confetti.
After Mauricio “Shogun” Rua‘s win, one Brazilian reporter on press row watched as a nearly full cup landed upside down directly on the keyboard of his laptop — an impressive throw, really, and one that taught the rest of us an important lesson. After Anderson Silva‘s victory, ESPN.com reporter Chuck Mindenhall and I both immediately closed our laptops and covered them with our bodies, just in time to feel the foam sprinkling the backs of our necks. Didn’t these people ever drink any of their beer? I wondered.
For the American media members, the event might as well have been dubbed UFC 134: Cultural Differences. We knew they did things differently in Brazil. We just didn’t know how differently.
It wasn’t just the fans either, who were more vocal and more passionate than any crowd I’ve ever seen at an American MMA event. The reporters had their own style as well.
In the U.S. it’s generally accepted that you don’t cheer from press row. In Brazil, it’s no big deal to give a standing ovation to your favorite fighters, to shout encouragement during their fight, or to begin your questions at the post-fight presser by saying, ‘You’ve always been one of my idols…”
For the foreign press, just getting into the building that night had been a struggle. Since the HSBC Arena is a good hour outside of Ipanema, where the host hotel was, the UFC was kind enough to offer us a shuttle to and from the venue. A little over an hour before the first fight the shuttle dropped us off behind the arena, leaving us to wander the perimeter of the building looking for a way in. No one wanted to tell us that they didn’t know where we were supposed to pick up our credentials, so instead they just pointed to the next open door and said, ‘There.’
As in, go bother someone else.
By the time we finally found the Zuffa Will Call sign we’d been instructed to look for, we immediately understood how we’d managed to miss it for so long. Not only was the sign about the size of the top of a pizza box, it was obscured by the thousands of fans milling about in a festive mood on the sidewalk out front. Behind metal bars, and through a window that was barely bigger than a peephole, we received our credentials. Then an armed gentleman in a suit escorted us inside, and any illusion that this would be just another night of work in the MMA media was fully erased.
By the time the first fight began at 7 p.m., there was hardly an empty seat in the joint. Any reporter who’s ever tried to interview Thiago Alves knows all about ‘Brazilian time,’ but apparently it doesn’t apply on fight night.
I guess if you tell a Brazilian to meet you for lunch at noon, he shows up at 12:45. If you tell him to meet you for a fight, he’s there ten minutes early, staring impatiently at his watch.
Ian Loveland had the distinction of being the first fighter to walk out among this madness, and the raucous reception must have surprised him. This might have been the one fight the fans cared least about, since it was the only one lacking a Brazilian fighter, and still they cheered louder than some crowds did at WEC title fights.
At one point during the Loveland-Jabouin fight, a chant started up that seem to really tickle the Brazilian reporter sitting next to me.
“It’s the name of a soccer player,” he told me when I asked what it was all about. “He’s black, like Jabouin.”
“That’s it?” I said. “No other similarities?”
“No,” he said. “They don’t even really look alike.”
The chants would prove to be almost as much a part of the show as the fights. From the simple (David Mitchell probably didn’t realize an arena full of people was calling him a son of a…well, you know) to the unsettling (‘You’re going to die,’ set to the tune of ‘Whoomp! There It is,’ which was supposedly an even bigger hit in Brazil than in the U.S.), the Brazilian fans were never at a loss for words.
When they weren’t singing or chanting, they were doing the wave or else shouting along in unison with Bruce Buffer’s announcer schtick (sidenote: when a crowd knows every word of Buffer’s routine, even if they don’t speak English, you know they’re hardcore fans).
You wonder how much that kind of frenetic crowd support can really help a fighter, or hurt his opponent. It’s not like football, where crowd noise can directly contribute to penalties, so who cares if the fans are cheering for the other guy? At the same time, when Ross Pearson would tag Edson Barboza with a solid kick, the fans acted as if nothing had happened. When Barboza landed a glancing blow, they roared. Maybe that didn’t affect the judges’ decision, but in a fight that close it couldn’t have helped Pearson any.
The lone disappointment on the night for the Brazilian crowd was Luiz Cane‘s knockout loss to Bulgarian light heavyweight Stanislav Nedkov. At first they were stunned into a brief silence, then they booed, as if Nedkov had cheated somehow or else simply failed to follow the script. Then they apparently felt bad about booing, so they clapped politely. Not one to accept polite gestures gladly, Nedkov taunted them by putting his hand to his ear, Hulk Hogan-style, and the boos made an instant comeback.
If I was the beer-throwing type, here’s where I might have most tempted. But no. The Brazilians were apparently saving their cups for Nogueira’s win, which seemed to both surprise and exhilarate the entire arena.
For Nogueira, the party was just beginning. For Schaub, who made his way out of the cage sporting an eye that was already changing colors and an expression that seemed more confused than upset, the realization was just setting in.
Watching a losing fighter make his way past press row and back toward the locker rooms is always a touchingly sad moment, and so it was with Schaub. Just a few minutes earlier he had strutted into the cage like a giant, chest out and chin up in calm defiance. In defeat he seems to shrink inside of himself. You can almost see him looking for a way to disappear into the floor, to become invisible so that he might be alone with his own pain and disappointment for a little while.
Instead he has to make that long walk, where exuberant Brazilians gesture madly at him and shout in a language he doesn’t understand.
Suddenly it all seems like such an obviously bad idea. What was he thinking, coming to Rio to fight a Brazilian? Didn’t he know that this nightmare of a walk was waiting for him? Didn’t he know that they had come to celebrate his suffering, to baptize their heroes with beer, to sing him out of the arena with incomprehensible songs he would never hear again and would never forget?
Read Part I and Part II of Ben Fowlkes’ Postcards from Rio.
After repeated attempts to talk his way into a fight with former UFC welterweight champion Matt Hughes went nowhere, it looks as though Josh Koscheck might finally get his wish — and it’s all thanks to Diego Sanchez’s hand injury.
You didn’t really think that “King” 
Fight fans weren’t the only ones sorry to see 
For a week without any major event, we’ve still had an eventful few days in the MMA world. Between major announcements, post-fight fallout, and pre-fight Grand Prix build-up, there’s no shortage of available topics for the old Twitter Mailbag.
UFC president Dana White said on Friday that he was “literally betting everything” that 
RIO DE JANEIRO — They don’t charge enough for beers at the HSBC Arena. I never thought I’d lodge that particular complaint against any venue, but as I watched the hailstorm of half-full plastic cups that came down from the rafters after 
By the time we finally found the Zuffa Will Call sign we’d been instructed to look for, we immediately understood how we’d managed to miss it for so long. Not only was the sign about the size of the top of a pizza box, it was obscured by the thousands of fans milling about in a festive mood on the sidewalk out front. Behind metal bars, and through a window that was barely bigger than a peephole, we received our credentials. Then an armed gentleman in a suit escorted us inside, and any illusion that this would be just another night of work in the MMA media was fully erased.
The lone disappointment on the night for the Brazilian crowd was 