Author: Ben Fowlkes

With one eye swollen shut behind a pair of glasses, Clay Guida showed up to the post-fight press conference following his split decision loss on Friday night and calmly explained that he’d done exactly what he intended to do over the course of five rounds in the cage with Gray Maynard in Atlantic City. He hit while avoiding being hit, he said. He stuffed most of Maynard’s takedowns. He stuck to his game plan, and he frustrated Maynard.

“We kept him guessing. We were in and out. He was swinging for the fences; we weren’t there,” Guida said, adding, “I felt good about my performance.”

So then why did he finish the fight to a chorus of boos, and why did two of three judges score the fight for Maynard? According to Guida, it’s because some judges and fans have a “misconception” about the sport itself.

“I think mixed martial arts is, the guy who gets hit the least, usually is the victor. I can’t wait to see the Fightmetrics or whatever it is and see the strikes that I landed against the strikes that were thrown.”

But here’s one fight where the story told by the stats seems incomplete.

According to the numbers provided by Fightmetric, Maynard out-struck Guida just slightly in both significant strikes (49 landed out of 225 thrown by Maynard, compared with 45 of 321 for Guida) and in total strikes (52 of 229 for Maynard; 49 of 327 for Guida). Maynard also gets credit for the only takedown of the fight, as well as the only submission attempt.

But fights aren’t scored according to final striking stats. They’re scored one round at a time, and by judges who don’t have access to the numbers when they write their scores down. In the first two rounds Guida actually threw more and landed more. Maynard out-struck Guida in rounds three and five, and the two men landed the exact same number of strikes in round four, with Maynard getting the slight edge in significant strikes for that round (11 of 32 for Maynard; 10 of 54 for Guida). In terms of total number of strikes thrown, Guida out-worked Maynard in every single round, often by significant margins.

If you only had access to those numbers, you might think it was Guida who was on the attack all night. Unfortunately for him, that wasn’t the perception in the cage.

“He’d hit, and, it’s not even moving, it’s moving to the other end of the cage,” Maynard said of Guida’s strategy in the post-fight press conference. “A couple steps, I understand that. You’re still in the pocket. You’re still there, able to hit me. But you’ve got to understand, it’s a fight still. You can’t just go to the end of the cage and then back to the other end and back to the other end the whole time. You’ve got to give me a chance too.”

Giving Maynard a chance to punch him in the face clearly wasn’t in Guida’s plans, however. He stayed on the move, circling away from Maynard’s attacks, never remaining in one place long enough to allow Maynard to put together combinations. According to Guida, that was part of a calculated effort to nullify Maynard’s power, and it worked.

“We stuck to our game plan. We were unpredictable,” he said. “He’s a big, heavy puncher, man.”

And yet, spending so much of the fight avoiding striking exchanges tends to make a poor impression on the judges, who might not be keeping a close enough tally of strikes landed and strikes avoided to know that Guida was throwing more and, in some rounds, landing more than Maynard. To many fans — as well as to UFC president Dana White — Guida seemed to be doing more running than fighting, even if the numbers don’t exactly reflect that.

Still, don’t look for Guida to apologize for implementing his strategy. Even if he ended up in the loss column on Friday night, he expressed few regrets with how he got there.

“Our plan was to kind of get in on more singles and doubles, wear him down more, and just not sit in the pocket with him,” Guida said. “Even when we did we landed some good uppercuts, some good hooks. I landed a couple of straights. I felt confident in my combinations, but the dude hits like a Mack truck, man, so I didn’t want to be there for too much of it. A couple of times he whiffed and almost ran into the fence. I felt good about it. We’ll get him next time.”

Ariel Helwani spoke to UFC president Dana White on the FUEL TV post-fight show to get his reaction to the UFC on FX 4 main event between Gray Maynard and Clay Guida. While there might have been plenty of post-fight debate on Twitter, White saw no such controversy. He blasted Guida’s performance and his game plan, saying, “Some goof put in his head that running around in circles might win him the fight, and they were dead wrong.”

White also had strong words for the judges who saw it as a 48-47 split decision for Maynard. They had the right fighter winning, White said, but “how they had that fight that close…it was a blowout by Gray Maynard.”

According to White, Guida’s strategy in the fight was his undoing right from the start. “You don’t win a fight by running, ever,” White told Helwani, before adding that he was pleased to see referee Dan Miragliotta halt the fight in the fifth round to issue Guida a warning for timidity. “That’s what they’re supposed to do.”

Fedor Emelianenko is finished now. So he says. Fighter retirements are a little like break-ups: you have to wait a while, sometimes a long while, before you know if it’s going to stick. Assuming Emelianenko doesn’t go for some desperate reconciliation attempt on a New Year’s Eve fight card somewhere (the MMA version of the saddest one-night stand there is), his break-up with the sport will have ended after twelve memorable years — seven or eight of which were truly impressive — and a legion of tedious debates about his place among MMA greats.

Was he the best fighter this sport has ever known? Doubtful. I think that title belongs to Anderson Silva, who, for all we know, could still have several more good years left in him. How about the best heavyweight? Sure. That feels like a more comfortable claim. He dominated Pride back when that organization had the best big men in the world, then he came to the U.S. and beat the two fighters who had traded the UFC heavyweight strap back and forth during that same time period.

Emelianenko was one of MMA’s straddlers. He came up during one era of the sport — an era of specialists, but very few all-around mixed martial artists — and continued on into the next one, when nearly every opponent was in possession of both a ground game and a striking game, rather than faking one to set up the other. Emelianenko dominated the fighters of both eras. He did it as an undersized heavyweight, and he did it for a long, long time.

He was the best, in other words, at least among the heavyweights. He was also one of the most overrated fighters to ever strap on a pair of gloves, and probably one of the most blatantly mismanaged ones. It’s all a part of the complicated legacy he leaves behind. Fedor the great. Fedor the not-quite-that great. Fedor the cautionary tale.

Emelianenko never cared very much about legacy or rankings. That’s what he said, anyway, and of all the things he was capable of, guile never seemed like one of them. A certain subset of fans tried to make him into their own reluctant cult leader by worshipping his every move on internet forums, but to his credit, he seemed embarrassed by that attention, and maybe even a little annoyed at those who kept forcing it on him. No matter how many times he tried to tell us that he was just a simple man who happened to be very good at fighting, there were those who would settle for nothing less than a messiah.

But the enigmatic Russian was similarly passive and disinterested when it came to the direction of his own career. When it was time to make big decisions about his future following the sale and demise of Pride, he put his career into the hands of people who treated him as a commodity first and an athlete second. They were determined to squeeze every last ounce of value out of him while they could, and in the process they kept him out of the most compelling fights during what may have been the peak of his career.

It wasn’t all their fault. They caught some bad breaks here and there. They had what could have been a career-defining fight against Josh Barnett yanked out from under them by Barnett’s failed drug test. But with their demands for “co-promotion” — which, near as I can tell, consisted of splashing the M-1 Global logo on any flat surface they could find — they attempted to turn Emelianenko into a promotion unto himself. They created the impression that they were picking and choosing his fights, trying to keep him out of the tough ones while they shook his perfect record like a piggy back they were trying to extract the last few coins from.

When the breaks started going against Emelianenko, beginning with his shocking submission loss to Fabricio Werdum, they never stopped until he was thoroughly damaged goods. After remaining on the top of the mountain for years, suddenly he fell right off the cliff. He lost three straight before being bounced out of Strikeforce. The second loss, to Antonio Silva, seemed like it was the size difference finally catching up with him. The third loss, to Strikeforce light heavyweight champ and occasional middleweight contender Dan Henderson, seemed more like age.

If his career had ended there it would have been no less impressive. He continued on anyway, winning a few more mostly meaningless bouts in events propped up by the scaffolding of his fame. He ended it with a knockout of Pedro Rizzo, who was himself a fighter from a bygone era, and one who never quite learned to straddle the way his more successful contemporaries did.

That win won’t really matter, except perhaps to those who were there and got to share in the moment. In the Fedor canon, a knockout of the aging Rizzo falls somewhere above his wins over Zuluzinho and Hong-Man Choi, but far below his defeats of Mirko Filipovic and Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira. When you look at his record now, you see freakshows and you see fights. You see an amazing unbeaten streak that includes real wins over real opponents, as well as a few almost criminal ones against unconvincing fakers. Look closer, into the background, and you see handlers who tried to monetize that streak just a little too much, and ended up negotiating themselves right out of the big time. Somewhere in there is an excellent fighter, struggling to keep from being drowned out by the hype and the hate.

Emelianenko was great once. Maybe he could have been even greater if his management had gotten out of the way and given him a chance to find out. We’ll never know, and neither will he. I get the sense that we’re the only ones who even care. Emelianenko was one of the few fighters who never asked us to tell him how wonderful he was, and never seemed interested in listening when we told him anyway. That’s a part of his legacy too. The part that doesn’t care what we think. The part that just wanted to be a man when so many others tried to make him into a god.

Brian Ebersole has a plan for his future in the UFC, and it doesn’t involve the welterweight division. Though Ebersole will fight T.J. Waldburger at 170 pounds at Friday’s UFC on FX 4 event, he told Ariel Helwani on Monday’s episode of The MMA Hour that it could be the last time we’ll see him at that weight class for a while.

“I would like to go 4-0 in the UFC and then make a bid at lightweight,” said Ebersole, who’s currently riding a three-fight win streak since debuting in the UFC last year. “I fought lightweight in 2008 and 2009, for about a 12-month span. I was waking up at 172 pounds every day without really trying.”

For the bout with Waldburger, Ebersole said he stuck to a strict diet that helped him get most of the way down to the welterweight limit with little effort. “If I can keep that without getting back up to 200 pounds after this fight — so no bacon for me on Saturday morning — I think the next couple of months could be very telling,” he told Helwani.

Naturally, Ebersole already has some thoughts about who he might like to face in the 155-pound division, assuming his dietary discipline allows for the move. Ebersole said he’d like to start “at the top of the division,” adding: “I want someone that’s either beat Clay Guida or Clay Guida’s beat himself.”

“I wouldn’t mind beating up a Diaz, maybe Nate,” Ebersole continued. “Jim Miller’s a talented dude. I want to start up there. I don’t care if they’re coming off a win or coming off a loss, I just want to prove that I belong in that top ten, top 15.”

A fight with one of the Diaz brothers is of particular interest to Ebersole, he said, because “they’ve kind of got punk attitudes.”

“And to be fair,” he told Helwani, “I’ve seen Nick threaten you a time or two during interviews. I don’t really find that very professional or very kind.”

But before Ebersole can put too much thought into future opponents, first he has to get past Waldburger, who’s 3-1 in the UFC, with his only loss coming against Johny Hendricks. Ebersole described him as a “very talented submission guy,” and said he’s glad to be fighting someone closer to his prime after taking on veterans like Chris Lytle, Dennis Hallman, and Claude Patrick.

“It’s about time I fought someone in his 20s,” Ebersole said. “I think they’re just testing to see if I can beat a young guy. Whether it’s a young guy in the top ten or not is for everyone else to kind of determine. The kid, in my eyes, hasn’t really been totally beaten in the UFC. His fight with Hendricks was stopped early.”

Taking on a young fighter like Waldburger is, according to Ebersole, “kind of like fighting back in Australia…I can’t let this young kid make his name off me. So I’ve got to go out there and protect my reputation.”

But aside from his next fight and his future beyond it, one of the topics Ebersole really wanted to discuss with Helwani was the continuing saga of Bob Sapp, he said.

“I was actually going to bring him up before this day was over, because I was very entertained by his interview with you and his backpedaling and his justification of the sham that he is proceeding through the sport of MMA. My question to you is, why do these promoters think he’s worth 800 $50 tickets to their show?”

As Ebersole explained, many MMA events on the small circuit don’t charge as much as $50 for general admission seats, so it seems odd that they would regard Sapp’s efforts as being worth $30,000 for “one guy that’s not even going to fill five minutes of their time.”

What really bothers him is not simply that promoters are overpaying Sapp and underpaying other fighters, Ebersole said, but that Sapp puts forth such a minimum effort for such a price.

“It’s very bothersome that he just goes out and throws the fight. I understand what he’s saying about not getting hurt, but at least Shannon Ritch would grapple with you in an earnest effort to rip your heel off. He would go for a heel hook, and if you stacked him and started punching him he would tap. Or if you mounted him, he would tap without you even hitting him. At least he gave a half-assed effort. Bob’s going out there, ducking his head, grabbing the guy in a double-leg and actually pulling some semblance of side control usually, and it’s a bit gross.”

As far as his own immediate future is concerned, Ebersole said he’d soon be traveling to Thailand for a coaching job after his business in Atlantic City is concluded. He also suggested that he might be interested in coaching the UFC’s upcoming Australia vs. UK season of The Ultimate Fighter.

“I think it’d be a dream job, I really do,” said Ebersole, who lived and trained in Australia for years. “To be able to be in the house with such talented young guys, and be able to take from them and give back, I think we would feed off of each other quite well.”

People keep asking Wanderlei Silva how many more fights he has left in him. As if he knows. As if his body and his career are like a cell phone battery, buzzing every so often to let him know he’s down to the final 20 percent, then the final ten.

“I feel good,” he told MMA Fighting in a phone interview. “I train good. I go with the young guys I have here. I feel very good, but I train for one fight at a time. For how long? I don’t know, but the performance is going to tell. That will show whether I can still fight or not.”

This has been Silva’s refrain for years now. After more than 15 years as a pro and nearly 50 fights to his credit, people keep looking at him like a car that’s just about to break down. Maybe the next one will be his last, they say. Or the next one. Or the one after that.

His opponent in the main event of UFC 147 is in a similar position. Rich Franklin says he can’t get through an interview without people asking when he’s going to retire, so he knows the end must be near. What he doesn’t know is what he’s going to do once his fighting days are done. Silva doesn’t have that problem, he said.

“I know what I’m going to do. I have other plans, other businesses. I have things to do. But I love to fight. I love this sport. I love it, as hard as [it] is sometimes.”

And the way Silva fights, you better believe it can be hard. From his early days in the sport to the present, he fights like he has as little regard for his own body as he does for his opponent’s. You try doing that for 15 years and see if you don’t have trouble getting out of bed some mornings.

But no, Silva says. He feels fine. A little banged up some days, maybe, but never does he feel like he needs to quit, or like he just can’t make it into the gym. After all, he pointed out, he wasn’t the one who pulled out of this fight with an injury. It was Vitor Belfort who broke his hand and disappointed the Brazilian fans, he said.

“It’s a bad thing, because man, we sold 15,000 tickets over here,” Silva said. “Everybody want[ed] to see this fight. …When you have an important fight, you need to be careful with your training. You have to. I don’t know what the problem is.”

The good news is, at least he still gets to fight. At least three months of training wasn’t for nothing. As a bonus, now he gets a chance to avenge his earlier decision loss to Franklin at UFC 99, and he also gets an opponent who will give him the style of fight he likes. Last time, the two combined for Fight of the Night.

“I hope we fight the same this time,” Silva said. “The bonus check would come at a good time.”

But will it be the last time? Silva won’t say, maybe because he can’t. Lately, his wins seem to prove to him that he still has what it takes, while his losses only motivate him to keep trying for one more win. People keep asking him when he’s going to go, and the only answer he can give is: not yet.

Maybe it’s fitting that he should be facing Franklin, who keeps giving the same answer to the same question. It’s not as if a win will vault either into immediate title contention. It’s also not as it either of them needs another title in order to consider his career a success. They could both quit whenever they want to and walk away with their heads held high. But then, neither of them wants to. They’re still having too much fun.

And besides, said Silva, he has some unfinished business with Belfort, and he’s not going to let a broken hand get in the way.

“I still want that fight with him. He can run, but one time we’re going to fight. It’s going to happen. I will wait for him.”

I’ve got a proposition for you. I want to take off one of my Versace boat shoes, wrap it in barbed wire, then beat you about the face with it for a few minutes. Don’t worry, I’ll pay you for it, but it’s going to hurt, you’re going to be a mess at the end, and three months later I’m going to want you to do it all again. Do we have a deal?

If you answered yes, chances are you’re either a little bit crazy or else you’re Martin Kampmann. I guess it’s possible you could be both, but with an attitude like that, one thing you’re probably not is mired in long-term poverty. Just ask Kampmann, a man who’s willing to bleed for his cash, and whose efforts we recognize with the 2012 half-year GDP Award.

Those familiar with past winners of this award will note that there are a couple established methods for getting noticed by the GDP Award Committee (which, of course, meets biannually in a moving limousine). One way is to take an almost unreasonable number of fights in a very short time span, as Donald Cerrone did. The other is to make the most of very few fights by convincing someone to pay you an almost unreasonable amount for each one, as Tito Ortiz did.

Kampmann didn’t take either path. He fought twice in the first half of 2012, which is neither too much or too little. According to the official reported payouts from his win over Jake Ellenberger at the TUF: Live Finale, he made $42,000 to show and another $42,000 to win, which seems like a slight undervaluation of his skills but nothing worth writing your personal lobbyist about. So then, how did Kampmann prove himself to be worthy of the GDP Award? Were GDP Award committee members sipping too much complimentary champagne on the way to this year’s lobster brunch? Probably, yes, but that’s not why.

To put it simply, Kampmann suffered. In both his fight with Ellenberger and his fight with Thiago Alves in March, he made things as hard as possible on himself. His path to victory began with something that closely resembled defeat. He got beat up, sliced open, and tenderized like a fine piece of veal. He poured his blood out like it was cheap cognac. He ended both fights looking like he’d been run over by a top-of-the-line riding lawnmower, but he also ended them with his hand raised and bonus cash in his pocket. First it was a $50,000 Submission of the Night award for his guillotine of Alves, and then it was $40,000 for Knockout of the Night against Ellenberger. Put it together, and you’ve got yourself a pretty decent watch in exchange for the reorganization of your facial features.

Here’s where you’re saying to yourself: ‘Wait a tic, you immaculately-dressed, disarmingly-handsome international playboy. Last year, when Ortiz got this award, he pocketed $4,525.86 per second of cage time. Now you’re telling me that Kampmann gets it for getting beaten to a pulp for far less money?’

And yes, that is exactly what I’m saying. Because, I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but we’re still in a recession. It’s rough out there. People are struggling. Not the members of the GDP Award committee, of course. We’re all Armani-wearing elitists, so we’re doing just fine. But in an economy like this one, even we can recognize the value of a man willing to roll up his sleeves and open up his face in order to get paid. We appreciate a fighter like Kampmann, who will gladly give you a quarter-million bucks worth of pain and suffering for an $84,000 payout. He is a fighter for our time, a fighter willing to endure the worst to get to something slightly better.

If only there were more Kampmanns out there, well, no, the economy would probably still be screwed, but at least there would be far less complaining about it, which is what really bothers the members of this committee. Not to mention, he’s an excellent example for us all. If he can wade through buckets of his own blood to get that paper, maybe it’s not so unthinkable after all for committee members to begin opening the doors to their own Town Cars.

Honorable Mention: Lavar Johnson

Three fights in 2012, including two in the month of May alone. He may have ended that streak on a sour note, losing via submission to Stefan Struve, but we can’t deny the work ethic.

Dishonorable Mention: Bob Sapp

There are some things even the members of this committee won’t do for money. Not many, mind you, but some.