DALLAS – Don’t come to a pre-fight media workout expecting to get a glimpse of a fighter’s game plan. Don’t even come looking for much of an actual workout. Certainly don’t come looking to be entertained.
Not unless Josh Barnett is on the schedule, apparently. Then come early, get a good seat, and enjoy the show.
On Thursday afternoon in a Hilton conference room, Barnett took an event that’s usually a forgettable photo op and turned it into sports theater. Drawing upon his extensive experience as a pro wrestler in Japan, he worked a full match with his sparring partner – “The Hammer” – on the small blue mat where other fighters had contented themselves with a few short minutes of shadow-boxing or mitt work.
Which is not to say he confined himself to that small mat. As Barnett and “Hammer” cranked one another’s arms and raked each other’s eyes, the action spilled out into the gallery, with Barnett tossing his counterpart into a punching bag at one point, just because. Because why not make full use of your environment?
Whether Barnett was trying to entertain us or himself, it was hard to say. When he finally ended the match (a brutal clothesline led to a figure-four leglock that forced “Hammer” to tap out, somewhat unfairly since there was no ring rope for him to crawl to or devious manager to help him), Barnett held court on the mat and cut a WWE-quality promo for members of the media.
The subject of this soliloquy? Hard times. And, to a lesser extent, the degree to which Brett Rogers does and does not understand them. For those of you who want to appreciate it in text form, it went a little something like this:
“Hard times have been on Josh Barnett. Dealing with athletic commissions. Everybody’s saying, ‘You did this and you did that. You’re the problem for this.’ That’s hard times. Hard times on my family. Hard times on my friends. Hard times on me. Hard times is not being able to get a fight. Hard times is, knowing the company, waking up one day and seeing they been sold to your competitor, not knowing what you’re going to do. Where’s my contract at? Where’s my money? Where’s my security? Who says I’m going to that shot now? Having that on your mind, that’s hard times.
And then, you get this big old Brett Rogers in front of you. He thinks he knows what’s tough. He thinks he’s going to make a name off of my head, so I got to get up every morning, break of dawn. I got to get those running shoes on, hit that concrete, get those miles under my feet. My knees are aching. My body is sore. I got guys like Hammer beating on me every single day. I got my body breaking down, my mind getting pushed. Feeling the effects of fourteen years of fighting. Feeling the effects of trying to put yourself in the best position you can be in. Wake up every day having to deal with that? That’s what hard times is about.
But I’m going to tell you what, Brett Rogers. Come Saturday, the American Airlines Arena, I’m going to give you a lesson in hard times. I’m going to take all that anger and all that pain – everything that I have been through, everything my family has been through, everything my coaches have been through (Amen) – and I’m going to put that on you. I’m going to put that on you, Brett Rogers, and I’m going to show you exactly what hard times is about. Because when you get in the ring with Josh Barnett – wooooooo! – who wants to see that, brother? Not you, Brett Rogers. Not you. You don’t want to see that. You don’t want to see that.”
And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how you end an open workout. With a 350-word rant.
For the sake of comparison, Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address was 278 words. Hamlet’s ‘To be or not to be’ soliloquy? 277 words. And neither Lincoln nor Shakespeare knew a wristlock from a wristwatch, so Barnett has that on them, too.
This, obviously, is the character of Josh Barnett. The persona. The real person is intelligent, witty, sarcastic, and self-effacing (when it serves him), but he also has a better grasp on English grammar.
And yet, in a way the Barnett character addressed the issues plaguing the real Barnett in a way that felt more genuine than what we’ve gotten used to hearing from him lately. If you bring up athletic commissions, failed steroid tests, or his rocky relationship with UFC president Dana White to the real Barnett, you can practically see the protective wall going up. The answers that come back to you are pre-packaged, and the questions, he doesn’t mind letting you know, are more than a little annoying to him.
Even though the “Hard Times” speech is a performance (and a pretty solid one, actually), it also feels weirdly real. Barnett actually has gone through some hard times lately, and even if they’re hard times mostly of his own making, the frustration is probably no less genuine. Why not turn them into a subject for this pro wrestler schtick? Maybe it’s even easier to confront it head-on when he does it this way, as an entertainer.
And make no mistake, Barnett is a born entertainer. Both Strikeforce and the UFC could use more guys like him, and he knows it. As long as he can back it in up in the cage, his talents as a showman may prove to be the saving grace at this pivotal time in a troubled career.
DALLAS – Don’t come to a pre-fight media workout expecting to get a glimpse of a fighter’s game plan. Don’t even come looking for much of an actual workout. Certainly don’t come looking to be entertained.
Not unless Josh Barnett is on the schedule, apparently. Then come early, get a good seat, and enjoy the show.
On Thursday afternoon in a Hilton conference room, Barnett took an event that’s usually a forgettable photo op and turned it into sports theater. Drawing upon his extensive experience as a pro wrestler in Japan, he worked a full match with his sparring partner – “The Hammer” – on the small blue mat where other fighters had contented themselves with a few short minutes of shadow-boxing or mitt work.
Which is not to say he confined himself to that small mat. As Barnett and “Hammer” cranked one another’s arms and raked each other’s eyes, the action spilled out into the gallery, with Barnett tossing his counterpart into a punching bag at one point, just because. Because why not make full use of your environment?
Whether Barnett was trying to entertain us or himself, it was hard to say. When he finally ended the match (a brutal clothesline led to a figure-four leglock that forced “Hammer” to tap out, somewhat unfairly since there was no ring rope for him to crawl to or devious manager to help him), Barnett held court on the mat and cut a WWE-quality promo for members of the media.
The subject of this soliloquy? Hard times. And, to a lesser extent, the degree to which Brett Rogers does and does not understand them. For those of you who want to appreciate it in text form, it went a little something like this:
“Hard times have been on Josh Barnett. Dealing with athletic commissions. Everybody’s saying, ‘You did this and you did that. You’re the problem for this.’ That’s hard times. Hard times on my family. Hard times on my friends. Hard times on me. Hard times is not being able to get a fight. Hard times is, knowing the company, waking up one day and seeing they been sold to your competitor, not knowing what you’re going to do. Where’s my contract at? Where’s my money? Where’s my security? Who says I’m going to that shot now? Having that on your mind, that’s hard times.
And then, you get this big old Brett Rogers in front of you. He thinks he knows what’s tough. He thinks he’s going to make a name off of my head, so I got to get up every morning, break of dawn. I got to get those running shoes on, hit that concrete, get those miles under my feet. My knees are aching. My body is sore. I got guys like Hammer beating on me every single day. I got my body breaking down, my mind getting pushed. Feeling the effects of fourteen years of fighting. Feeling the effects of trying to put yourself in the best position you can be in. Wake up every day having to deal with that? That’s what hard times is about.
But I’m going to tell you what, Brett Rogers. Come Saturday, the American Airlines Arena, I’m going to give you a lesson in hard times. I’m going to take all that anger and all that pain – everything that I have been through, everything my family has been through, everything my coaches have been through (Amen) – and I’m going to put that on you. I’m going to put that on you, Brett Rogers, and I’m going to show you exactly what hard times is about. Because when you get in the ring with Josh Barnett – wooooooo! – who wants to see that, brother? Not you, Brett Rogers. Not you. You don’t want to see that. You don’t want to see that.”
And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how you end an open workout. With a 350-word rant.
For the sake of comparison, Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address was 278 words. Hamlet’s ‘To be or not to be’ soliloquy? 277 words. And neither Lincoln nor Shakespeare knew a wristlock from a wristwatch, so Barnett has that on them, too.
This, obviously, is the character of Josh Barnett. The persona. The real person is intelligent, witty, sarcastic, and self-effacing (when it serves him), but he also has a better grasp on English grammar.
And yet, in a way the Barnett character addressed the issues plaguing the real Barnett in a way that felt more genuine than what we’ve gotten used to hearing from him lately. If you bring up athletic commissions, failed steroid tests, or his rocky relationship with UFC president Dana White to the real Barnett, you can practically see the protective wall going up. The answers that come back to you are pre-packaged, and the questions, he doesn’t mind letting you know, are more than a little annoying to him.
Even though the “Hard Times” speech is a performance (and a pretty solid one, actually), it also feels weirdly real. Barnett actually has gone through some hard times lately, and even if they’re hard times mostly of his own making, the frustration is probably no less genuine. Why not turn them into a subject for this pro wrestler schtick? Maybe it’s even easier to confront it head-on when he does it this way, as an entertainer.
And make no mistake, Barnett is a born entertainer. Both Strikeforce and the UFC could use more guys like him, and he knows it. As long as he can back it in up in the cage, his talents as a showman may prove to be the saving grace at this pivotal time in a troubled career.
DALLAS – At the UFC 131 pre-fight press conference in Vancouver last week, Yahoo! Sports reporter Kevin Iole began to ask Dana White a question about what he planned to do with the winner of the Strikeforce heavyweight Grand Prix, since that man would …
DALLAS – At the UFC 131 pre-fight press conference in Vancouver last week, Yahoo! Sports reporter Kevin Iole began to ask Dana White a question about what he planned to do with the winner of the Strikeforce heavyweight Grand Prix, since that man would arguably be the top heavyweight in MMA.
“Say that again?” White interrupted, before adding his own interpretation. “The winner of that tournament will be the best heavyweight in Strikeforce,” he stated flatly.
The accuracy of that statement is a matter of opinion and the subject of some debate. But even among the four big men set to square off in the latest installment of the eight-man tournament this Saturday night, a consensus is hard to come by.
Take Fabricio Werdum, for example. He entered the tournament with wins over three fellow participants, including Fedor Emelianenko and Alistair Overeem. But that doesn’t mean that he thinks all it will take is a Grand Prix championship to cement his status as the world’s best heavyweight.
“I think the winner will have to unify the titles,” he told MMA Fighting on Wednesday. “So the winner of the Grand Prix must fight the UFC heavyweight champion, and the winner of that will be the best heavyweight.”
Overeem – the current Strikeforce heavyweight champion and Werdum’s quarterfinal opponent on Saturday night – disagrees.
“[The winner] will be the best heavyweight in MMA,” he said. “You’ve got the top heavyweight fighters, and they’re here in one tournament. If you keep winning you go on, and if you end up on top, you’re on top.”
Even if the winner ends up facing the UFC champion immediately after the tournament, Overeem seems certain that the Strikeforce representative will come out on top, regardless of who holds the UFC strap by then.
“I think the winner of this will probably beat the UFC champion…whoever it is,” Overeem said. “This group of fighters, this top eight, is better than the top eight [heavyweights] in the UFC.”
Meanwhile, Brett Rogers, who is as high as a 3-1 underdog in his quarterfinal fight with Josh Barnett on this weekend’s card, is doing his best not to think about the question at all.
“Ultimately, I don’t even care,” he insisted. “People always ask me, ‘If you win this tournament, does that put you as the best?’ I’m not looking for that situation, because who is ultimately saying that I’m the best?”
While some would say that simply beating the man necessarily makes you the man (call it the Ric Flair doctrine, if you will), Rogers has heard that logic once before, and it doesn’t make any more sense to him this time around.
“I heard a lot of that when I fought Fedor. People were saying, ‘If you beat him, you’re the best.’ I’m like, man, what am I, like 10 or 11-0 at that period? You mean to tell me it’s like Mortal Kombat …where if I kill him I take all the souls he’s got? All I know is, I’m going to try and keep it real, keep the W’s high, and leave those L’s to the side.”
As for Barnett, the most senior fighter left in the tournament, he approaches the question with all the wry cynicism you’d expect from a guy with more than 14 years in the sport.
“I think the winner of this will get snubbed by a bunch of a-holes,” he said. “…I don’t know, rankings are rankings and that’s fine. It doesn’t matter what the media or anyone else thinks of my ranking. I’m still going to get paid more every time I beat people up.”
But then, just because Barnett claims not to care about rankings, that doesn’t mean he doesn’t have an opinion on them. He can understand why the UFC president would downplay the significance of the tournament, he said. But as for the true meaning of it all?
“I think it’s the best heavyweight in MMA,” said Barnett. “I think the way some of the rankings have been set up are absurd. I’m not going to get into that situation, as much as you would love for me to cut down fighter A or fighter B, but I think there have been some really arbitrary decisions made on certain individuals in the MMA world where they’ve been ranked way higher than they ever deserved to be. You get to where the ranking is based on fighter X’s win over fighter Y, when fighter Y was overrated to begin with. If you get a couple dogs up in the top ten, and then you get someone who really is decent and he gets some wins over questionable guys, then he’s climbing the ranks, or someone else is using him to climb the ranks. It’s a vicious cycle.”
Of course, maybe we’re getting ahead of ourselves to begin with. Now that Zuffa owns Strikeforce, there’s no guarantee it will even play out the tournament to completion, or that the winner will ever get a chance to prove himself against the top dog in the UFC if it does. Both seem likely, but, as Barnett put it, “I was 100 percent certain that Strikeforce wasn’t going to get sold, too. So there you go.”
Still, if there’s any chance of the that, don’t tell it to Werdum. He not only has his heart set on being the eventual tournament winner, but also on getting his day in the cage with the UFC champ as well.
“That’s going to happen, because that’s going to be the fight that fans are asking for,” he said. “That’s what every show wants, is the fight that fans want to watch.”
Jeff Monson has cost himself plenty of money over the years. Nobody has to tell him that. It’s not the tattoos. In another line of work being inked from head to toe with everything from anarchy symbols to a Soviet hammer and sickle might be detrimental to your career health.
But Monson is lucky. He’s in the line of work where tattoos are almost part of the uniform. When he fights Daniel Cormier in Strikeforce this Saturday night, it will probably barely merit a mention from the commentary team.
No, it’s not the tattoos that have cost Monson. Instead, it’s him. It’s the things he believes. Or rather, the things he does and says because of the things he believes. For these, he has probably paid a small fortune over the years, in ancillary income if not in fight purses.
“As far as sponsorships and making money? One hundred percent, it’s cost me,” said Monson. “I’ve had sponsors tell me they don’t want any part of it because of the things I say. I had stuff set up with a nutrition company and clothing company and stuff that I’ve lost because of it, and it’s cost me a lot of money. But at the end of the day, you’ve got to live with yourself. Some things are just right and wrong.”
In case the tattoos didn’t give it away, Monson freely identifies himself as an anarchist. Not that he thinks most people truly understand what that means, at least to him.
“It has such a bad connotation, like being an insurgent or a terrorist or a communist or something,” he said. “To me, it gets portrayed as something that it’s not. Anarchy is a society where everyone is free. Everyone has equal rights. Everyone has a voice.”
It’s not that he wants to live in a state of constant chaos and violence, he insisted, but rather in one where people decide amongst themselves how to live, without a government cracking the whip to keep them in line. He wants a peaceful orderly society, but he doesn’t want authority figures making sure it stays that way.
In other words, he wants a society that doesn’t exist and that some would argue can never exist, but he wants it anyway. When simply wanting it or marching in support of it — as he did in Paris a few weeks ago — doesn’t feel like enough, he believes in taking action. And here’s where the real trouble starts.
Take the incident at the Washington state Capitol building. It started when military convoys wanted to bring equipment through OIympia on its way to a port to get shipped overseas to Iraq, Monson said.
“The people of Olympia said no, we don’t support this, we don’t support the war,” he explained. “But the city council and the mayor, they overrode that, which shows you right there that we don’t have a true democracy. We’re supposed to have a representative democracy, where the people we elect are representing us, but how are they representing us if they’re not listening to what the people want?”
In protest, Monson spray-painted his message on the Capitol building late one afternoon. The anarchy symbol. The words “No war.” General pleas for peace.
It’s not that he thought it would immediately end the war in Iraq and bring about his ideal anarchist society, he said, but he wanted lawmakers to see it on their way to work the next morning. When the photos of Monson doing the spray-painting were published in ESPN the Magazine, law enforcement officials saw it too, and he had a problem on his hands.
Monson entered an Alford plea to charges of malicious mischief and was given work release and ordered to pay over $20,000 in restitution. He also got himself known in MMA circles for the wrong reasons. Major organizations weren’t exactly clamoring to take on a middle-aged heavyweight with legal problems and far-left political beliefs. Whether it was his personal baggage or simply the natural progression of the fight business, that’s debatable. But in a few short years he went from fighting for the UFC heavyweight title to competing on one small promotion after another, most of his fights visible only on the internet if at all.
“I’ve had a lot of people come up to me and say, ‘I watched your fight against [Tim] Sylvia in the UFC. What have you been up to since then?’ And I’m like, well, I’ve had about 25 fights since then. If you’re not on TV, nobody knows.
“It’s definitely frustrating, because in some of my recent fights I’ve beaten guys who are tough, who have wins over guys who are in the UFC, so it’s not like they’re easy fights. I’m not fighting just to be known or anything, but I am fighting to get a title. And if nobody knows what you’re doing, it’s tough to get a shot at a title.”
Now Monson is finally back in the big leagues with Strikeforce, and has the opportunity to make a big impression against the undefeated Cormier, a former U.S. Olympic wrestling team captain. But at 40 years old, time is running out on Monson, and he knows it. He might only have a couple good years left in him, so he has to make the most of them, he said.
“I want to win this fight obviously, but then my plan is to drop to 205 [pounds] and make a run at the title. My weight is pretty low already – right now it’s under 230 [pounds] – so cutting to 205 would be no big deal. I want to win this fight, see what happens from there, but drop down and make my run at a title. …That’s the only reason I fight. That’s it. The only reason I fight is to win a Strikeforce or UFC title. If there was no possibility that that would happen, I’d retire today.”
Then again, a part of him thought he’d already be retired. Two years ago when people asked him how much longer he’d continue fighting, he told them two more years. Then he fought five times in 2009 and nine times in 2010. The fight with Cormier will be his fourth this year, so it’s not as if he’s slowing down.
At the same time, he knows he can’t keep up that pace forever. He’s already fought well beyond the point where most fighters stop being competitive, and he doesn’t want to be another one of the guys who stays too long in a sport that offers few rewards for second place.
“As you get older, some things happen,” Monson said. “You’re not as fast. Maybe it takes you longer to recover. But good things come of it too. This is a brand new sport, and we forget that. What was baseball like twenty years after it was mainstream? It’s the same with us. In twenty years, these fights are going to be dinosaur fights. So I’m still learning new stuff and taking care of my body better. But I’m not going to do it if I can’t compete anymore. I’m not going to do it for a paycheck or just to walk around and say I’m an MMA fighter. If I can’t compete, that’ll be my last fight.”
The irony is, in order to get that shot at a major title, he has to go through the proper channels. He has to take what is, in the MMA world, about as corporate a gig as one can get. Fighting under the Zuffa banner means working for the man, in a sense. Not that he hasn’t already thought this one through, of course.
“I’m like everybody else. I live in a capitalist system, so that’s what I have to do. … I may not like it or agree it, but that’s our society. I’m trying to change it, but I’m not a hypocrite either. I know that I have to earn money to pay bills. I just happen to have a job that I enjoy, and I do feel blessed. If I could make any job for myself, this would be one of them.
“At the same time, these people paying me to fight, they’re making a hell of a lot more off the fighters than they’re paying them. They’re doing it to make a profit. In essence, they’re stealing from me. It’s like someone working in a shoe factory making shoes, that person doesn’t get paid what those shoes are worth. They get paid a fraction of it. They get paid the minimum they can get paid and stay living and employed and keep them from quitting. They’re wage slaves, just like I’m a wage slave.”
Again, probably not exactly what the bosses want to hear from a man who hopes to one day hold one of their major titles, but that’s Monson. That’s how he’s always been. He’s made his way in the sport for more than a decade without worrying too much about what other people want to hear. Why change now?
Jeff Monson has cost himself plenty of money over the years. Nobody has to tell him that. It’s not the tattoos. In another line of work being inked from head to toe with everything from anarchy symbols to a Soviet hammer and sickle might be detrimental to your career health.
But Monson is lucky. He’s in the line of work where tattoos are almost part of the uniform. When he fights Daniel Cormier in Strikeforce this Saturday night, it will probably barely merit a mention from the commentary team.
No, it’s not the tattoos that have cost Monson. Instead, it’s him. It’s the things he believes. Or rather, the things he does and says because of the things he believes. For these, he has probably paid a small fortune over the years, in ancillary income if not in fight purses.
“As far as sponsorships and making money? One hundred percent, it’s cost me,” said Monson. “I’ve had sponsors tell me they don’t want any part of it because of the things I say. I had stuff set up with a nutrition company and clothing company and stuff that I’ve lost because of it, and it’s cost me a lot of money. But at the end of the day, you’ve got to live with yourself. Some things are just right and wrong.”
In case the tattoos didn’t give it away, Monson freely identifies himself as an anarchist. Not that he thinks most people truly understand what that means, at least to him.
“It has such a bad connotation, like being an insurgent or a terrorist or a communist or something,” he said. “To me, it gets portrayed as something that it’s not. Anarchy is a society where everyone is free. Everyone has equal rights. Everyone has a voice.”
It’s not that he wants to live in a state of constant chaos and violence, he insisted, but rather in one where people decide amongst themselves how to live, without a government cracking the whip to keep them in line. He wants a peaceful orderly society, but he doesn’t want authority figures making sure it stays that way.
In other words, he wants a society that doesn’t exist and that some would argue can never exist, but he wants it anyway. When simply wanting it or marching in support of it — as he did in Paris a few weeks ago — doesn’t feel like enough, he believes in taking action. And here’s where the real trouble starts.
Take the incident at the Washington state Capitol building. It started when military convoys wanted to bring equipment through OIympia on its way to a port to get shipped overseas to Iraq, Monson said.
“The people of Olympia said no, we don’t support this, we don’t support the war,” he explained. “But the city council and the mayor, they overrode that, which shows you right there that we don’t have a true democracy. We’re supposed to have a representative democracy, where the people we elect are representing us, but how are they representing us if they’re not listening to what the people want?”
In protest, Monson spray-painted his message on the Capitol building late one afternoon. The anarchy symbol. The words “No war.” General pleas for peace.
It’s not that he thought it would immediately end the war in Iraq and bring about his ideal anarchist society, he said, but he wanted lawmakers to see it on their way to work the next morning. When the photos of Monson doing the spray-painting were published in ESPN the Magazine, law enforcement officials saw it too, and he had a problem on his hands.
Monson entered an Alford plea to charges of malicious mischief and was given work release and ordered to pay over $20,000 in restitution. He also got himself known in MMA circles for the wrong reasons. Major organizations weren’t exactly clamoring to take on a middle-aged heavyweight with legal problems and far-left political beliefs. Whether it was his personal baggage or simply the natural progression of the fight business, that’s debatable. But in a few short years he went from fighting for the UFC heavyweight title to competing on one small promotion after another, most of his fights visible only on the internet if at all.
“I’ve had a lot of people come up to me and say, ‘I watched your fight against [Tim] Sylvia in the UFC. What have you been up to since then?’ And I’m like, well, I’ve had about 25 fights since then. If you’re not on TV, nobody knows.
“It’s definitely frustrating, because in some of my recent fights I’ve beaten guys who are tough, who have wins over guys who are in the UFC, so it’s not like they’re easy fights. I’m not fighting just to be known or anything, but I am fighting to get a title. And if nobody knows what you’re doing, it’s tough to get a shot at a title.”
Now Monson is finally back in the big leagues with Strikeforce, and has the opportunity to make a big impression against the undefeated Cormier, a former U.S. Olympic wrestling team captain. But at 40 years old, time is running out on Monson, and he knows it. He might only have a couple good years left in him, so he has to make the most of them, he said.
“I want to win this fight obviously, but then my plan is to drop to 205 [pounds] and make a run at the title. My weight is pretty low already – right now it’s under 230 [pounds] – so cutting to 205 would be no big deal. I want to win this fight, see what happens from there, but drop down and make my run at a title. …That’s the only reason I fight. That’s it. The only reason I fight is to win a Strikeforce or UFC title. If there was no possibility that that would happen, I’d retire today.”
Then again, a part of him thought he’d already be retired. Two years ago when people asked him how much longer he’d continue fighting, he told them two more years. Then he fought five times in 2009 and nine times in 2010. The fight with Cormier will be his fourth this year, so it’s not as if he’s slowing down.
At the same time, he knows he can’t keep up that pace forever. He’s already fought well beyond the point where most fighters stop being competitive, and he doesn’t want to be another one of the guys who stays too long in a sport that offers few rewards for second place.
“As you get older, some things happen,” Monson said. “You’re not as fast. Maybe it takes you longer to recover. But good things come of it too. This is a brand new sport, and we forget that. What was baseball like twenty years after it was mainstream? It’s the same with us. In twenty years, these fights are going to be dinosaur fights. So I’m still learning new stuff and taking care of my body better. But I’m not going to do it if I can’t compete anymore. I’m not going to do it for a paycheck or just to walk around and say I’m an MMA fighter. If I can’t compete, that’ll be my last fight.”
The irony is, in order to get that shot at a major title, he has to go through the proper channels. He has to take what is, in the MMA world, about as corporate a gig as one can get. Fighting under the Zuffa banner means working for the man, in a sense. Not that he hasn’t already thought this one through, of course.
“I’m like everybody else. I live in a capitalist system, so that’s what I have to do. … I may not like it or agree it, but that’s our society. I’m trying to change it, but I’m not a hypocrite either. I know that I have to earn money to pay bills. I just happen to have a job that I enjoy, and I do feel blessed. If I could make any job for myself, this would be one of them.
“At the same time, these people paying me to fight, they’re making a hell of a lot more off the fighters than they’re paying them. They’re doing it to make a profit. In essence, they’re stealing from me. It’s like someone working in a shoe factory making shoes, that person doesn’t get paid what those shoes are worth. They get paid a fraction of it. They get paid the minimum they can get paid and stay living and employed and keep them from quitting. They’re wage slaves, just like I’m a wage slave.”
Again, probably not exactly what the bosses want to hear from a man who hopes to one day hold one of their major titles, but that’s Monson. That’s how he’s always been. He’s made his way in the sport for more than a decade without worrying too much about what other people want to hear. Why change now?
Due to technical difficulties, Falling Action comes to you a day later than usual, and for that we apologize.
But as long as you haven’t pushed all recollection of UFC 131 out of your mind in order to make room for the beautiful new memories you made on Sunday and Monday – in other words, as long as you have greater brain capacity than a golden retriever – we figure most of you ought to still be able to enjoy a thorough discussion of this past weekend’s winners, losers, and everything in between.
Biggest Winner: Junior dos Santos
We knew the big Brazilian could box even before he turned Shane Carwin’s face into ground beef. What we (okay, I) wondered was, could he stay on his feet and out of the clinch enough to put those skills to work? Against former Division II national champion wrestler Carwin, the answer for dos Santos, much like it is for every question asked of the Kool-Aid Man, was: ohhhhh yeah. He picked Carwin apart with his jab and kept the fight at a safe distance (well, safe for him, extremely dangerous for Carwin). He even showed off some spiffy defensive wrestling on the few occasions where Carwin got in close enough to test him. UFC heavyweight champion Cain Velasquez is quicker and more explosive than Carwin, so that will be a different kind of challenge, but dos Santos showed us on Saturday that he’s more than deserving of the shot. Now if only we didn’t have to go six months between major heavyweight fights, this division might actually get somewhere.
Biggest Loser: Shane Carwin
It was as gutsy a performance as you’ll ever see, and with it he proved that he has the cardio and the heart to go the distance. At the same time, the closest he came to being competitive in this fight was when he landed one solitary left hook that made JDS go wobbly, and even then he couldn’t get close enough to follow up. Carwin did the one thing he couldn’t afford to do in this fight, which was hang out at the end of dos Santos’ jab. He got into a boxing match with a superior boxer, and the results were about what you’d expect from such a strategy. Again, any man who can take that kind of a beating and still keep coming is so tough that he borders on being mentally ill, so give Carwin his props for that. At the same time, he’s 36 years old and in the past eleven months he’s lost one title shot and one no. 1 contender fight. It’s starting to look like that interim title might be the only UFC belt he’s ever going to own.
Most Impressive in Defeat: Demian Maia
The Maia of three years ago would have gone into the fight with Mark Munoz looking to pull half-guard right away just to avoid the terrifying world of stand-up fighting as much as possible. That Maia was very good at what he did, but he was also limited. In a losing effort against Munoz he showed that he’s a much more complete fighter now, and he’s only getting better. You could make the argument that he’s a little too content to fight on the feet these days, which leaves his best weapon – his submissions game – tragically under-used. I wouldn’t argue with that, and maybe neither would Maia. My hope is that what we’re seeing now is just the swing of the pendulum as his overall game evolves. Maybe this loss will convince him to find a better balance in the future.
Least Impressive in Victory: Krzysztof Soszynski
In fairness, Mike Massenzio didn’t give him much to work with, but what did we expect? Massenzio took a short-notice fight in the weight class above his own and Soszynski still couldn’t do much more to him than stuff his takedowns and try to set up an offense that came only in short, tentative bursts. True, Massenzio didn’t make for much of a dance partner, but if Soszynski can’t do more with a size advantage like that against a short-notice opponent, that’s a little troubling. He got the decision win, but didn’t bump his stock much higher in the process. Let’s hope his next opponent gives him more to work with.
Most Frightening: Yves Edwards
It wasn’t so much the punch that put him out, but the way he went down that made me cringe. The back of Edwards’ head thudded off the mat with a sickening sound and he lay there motionless for several minutes afterward. That always makes for an unnerving sight, but the 34-year-old Edwards is such a beloved character in this sport that it made it even tougher than usual to sit there and wait for him to show signs of recovery. Those kinds of knockouts are the scariest and probably the most dangerous. The blow Edwards took to the back of the head as a result of the fall seemed much worse and more damaging than the punch itself, and yet there was really nothing anyone could do to prevent it or soften the impact. The referee – or in this case, a compassionate opponent like Stout – can stop a fighter from taking needless punches after he’s out, but nobody can do anything about the effects of gravity on a suddenly unconscious man.
Most Surprising: Dave Herman
Giving up nearly thirty pounds to a monstrous jiu-jitsu specialist, all while claiming that jiu-jitsu “doesn’t work,” didn’t seem like a recipe for success. But to Herman’s credit he took Jon Olav Einemo’s best shots and gave back more than the big man could handle. Less surprising than Herman’s victory was just how fun the fight was to watch. It had so many ups and downs and ebbs and flows that it made eight minutes of fighting feel like twenty. Only, you know, in the good way. Enjoy your Fight of the Night bonus money, gentleman. You both earned it.
The ‘Be Careful What You Wish For’ Award: Kenny Florian
The move down to featherweight sounded like a pretty hellish, but business-savvy one for KenFlo. He saw the writing on the wall at lightweight and realized that if he didn’t want to turn into a gatekeeper, he needed to find a fresh start in a new division. The win over a very tough Diego Nunes at 145 pounds accomplished that. He has a new life as a featherweight and will “more than likely” get a crack at Jose Aldo now, according to Dana White. At the same time, a five-round fight with Aldo is going to be a tough night of work. I know Florian wants the challenge, and he might as well find out sooner rather than later if he’s up for it, but I hope he knows what he’s in for when he starves himself for a chance to get in the cage with that little buzz-saw.
Most Charismatic: Mark Munoz
The great thing about Munoz is that he’s a powerful, smash-mouth kind of fighter, but with a Labrador’s enthusiasm for life and everything in it. Even when he’s talking about getting rocked by Maia, his tone and expression suggest that he thought it was kind of fun, like going down a scary water slide. That kind of zeal for everything is infectious, and it makes it impossible not to like him. With the decision over Maia he has three straight victories under his belt, with each win more impressive than the last. He might not ever be champion, or even a top contender, but I can’t honestly say that I care. He’s just so fun to have around. And yeah, he’s a pretty good fighter, too.
Due to technical difficulties, Falling Action comes to you a day later than usual, and for that we apologize.
But as long as you haven’t pushed all recollection of UFC 131 out of your mind in order to make room for the beautiful new memories you made on Sunday and Monday – in other words, as long as you have greater brain capacity than a golden retriever – we figure most of you ought to still be able to enjoy a thorough discussion of this past weekend’s winners, losers, and everything in between.
Biggest Winner: Junior dos Santos
We knew the big Brazilian could box even before he turned Shane Carwin’s face into ground beef. What we (okay, I) wondered was, could he stay on his feet and out of the clinch enough to put those skills to work? Against former Division II national champion wrestler Carwin, the answer for dos Santos, much like it is for every question asked of the Kool-Aid Man, was: ohhhhh yeah. He picked Carwin apart with his jab and kept the fight at a safe distance (well, safe for him, extremely dangerous for Carwin). He even showed off some spiffy defensive wrestling on the few occasions where Carwin got in close enough to test him. UFC heavyweight champion Cain Velasquez is quicker and more explosive than Carwin, so that will be a different kind of challenge, but dos Santos showed us on Saturday that he’s more than deserving of the shot. Now if only we didn’t have to go six months between major heavyweight fights, this division might actually get somewhere.
Biggest Loser: Shane Carwin
It was as gutsy a performance as you’ll ever see, and with it he proved that he has the cardio and the heart to go the distance. At the same time, the closest he came to being competitive in this fight was when he landed one solitary left hook that made JDS go wobbly, and even then he couldn’t get close enough to follow up. Carwin did the one thing he couldn’t afford to do in this fight, which was hang out at the end of dos Santos’ jab. He got into a boxing match with a superior boxer, and the results were about what you’d expect from such a strategy. Again, any man who can take that kind of a beating and still keep coming is so tough that he borders on being mentally ill, so give Carwin his props for that. At the same time, he’s 36 years old and in the past eleven months he’s lost one title shot and one no. 1 contender fight. It’s starting to look like that interim title might be the only UFC belt he’s ever going to own.
Most Impressive in Defeat: Demian Maia
The Maia of three years ago would have gone into the fight with Mark Munoz looking to pull half-guard right away just to avoid the terrifying world of stand-up fighting as much as possible. That Maia was very good at what he did, but he was also limited. In a losing effort against Munoz he showed that he’s a much more complete fighter now, and he’s only getting better. You could make the argument that he’s a little too content to fight on the feet these days, which leaves his best weapon – his submissions game – tragically under-used. I wouldn’t argue with that, and maybe neither would Maia. My hope is that what we’re seeing now is just the swing of the pendulum as his overall game evolves. Maybe this loss will convince him to find a better balance in the future.
Least Impressive in Victory: Krzysztof Soszynski
In fairness, Mike Massenzio didn’t give him much to work with, but what did we expect? Massenzio took a short-notice fight in the weight class above his own and Soszynski still couldn’t do much more to him than stuff his takedowns and try to set up an offense that came only in short, tentative bursts. True, Massenzio didn’t make for much of a dance partner, but if Soszynski can’t do more with a size advantage like that against a short-notice opponent, that’s a little troubling. He got the decision win, but didn’t bump his stock much higher in the process. Let’s hope his next opponent gives him more to work with.
Most Frightening: Yves Edwards
It wasn’t so much the punch that put him out, but the way he went down that made me cringe. The back of Edwards’ head thudded off the mat with a sickening sound and he lay there motionless for several minutes afterward. That always makes for an unnerving sight, but the 34-year-old Edwards is such a beloved character in this sport that it made it even tougher than usual to sit there and wait for him to show signs of recovery. Those kinds of knockouts are the scariest and probably the most dangerous. The blow Edwards took to the back of the head as a result of the fall seemed much worse and more damaging than the punch itself, and yet there was really nothing anyone could do to prevent it or soften the impact. The referee – or in this case, a compassionate opponent like Stout – can stop a fighter from taking needless punches after he’s out, but nobody can do anything about the effects of gravity on a suddenly unconscious man.
Most Surprising: Dave Herman
Giving up nearly thirty pounds to a monstrous jiu-jitsu specialist, all while claiming that jiu-jitsu “doesn’t work,” didn’t seem like a recipe for success. But to Herman’s credit he took Jon Olav Einemo’s best shots and gave back more than the big man could handle. Less surprising than Herman’s victory was just how fun the fight was to watch. It had so many ups and downs and ebbs and flows that it made eight minutes of fighting feel like twenty. Only, you know, in the good way. Enjoy your Fight of the Night bonus money, gentleman. You both earned it.
The ‘Be Careful What You Wish For’ Award: Kenny Florian
The move down to featherweight sounded like a pretty hellish, but business-savvy one for KenFlo. He saw the writing on the wall at lightweight and realized that if he didn’t want to turn into a gatekeeper, he needed to find a fresh start in a new division. The win over a very tough Diego Nunes at 145 pounds accomplished that. He has a new life as a featherweight and will “more than likely” get a crack at Jose Aldo now, according to Dana White. At the same time, a five-round fight with Aldo is going to be a tough night of work. I know Florian wants the challenge, and he might as well find out sooner rather than later if he’s up for it, but I hope he knows what he’s in for when he starves himself for a chance to get in the cage with that little buzz-saw.
Most Charismatic: Mark Munoz
The great thing about Munoz is that he’s a powerful, smash-mouth kind of fighter, but with a Labrador’s enthusiasm for life and everything in it. Even when he’s talking about getting rocked by Maia, his tone and expression suggest that he thought it was kind of fun, like going down a scary water slide. That kind of zeal for everything is infectious, and it makes it impossible not to like him. With the decision over Maia he has three straight victories under his belt, with each win more impressive than the last. He might not ever be champion, or even a top contender, but I can’t honestly say that I care. He’s just so fun to have around. And yeah, he’s a pretty good fighter, too.
After an eventful night in Vancouver for UFC 131, the MMA Wrap-Up returns to look at how we ended up with so many lopsided scorecards after so many close fights.
Chances are that the answer will just depress you, so consider yourself warned.
After an eventful night in Vancouver for UFC 131, the MMA Wrap-Up returns to look at how we ended up with so many lopsided scorecards after so many close fights.
Chances are that the answer will just depress you, so consider yourself warned.
Filed under: UFCVANCOUVER, British Columbia – The moment the left hook landed on Yves Edwards’ jaw, the fight had been decided — even if Sam Stout didn’t realize it right away.
It took a moment for Edwards’ legs to stiffen up as his upper body pitch…
VANCOUVER, British Columbia – The moment the left hook landed on Yves Edwards‘ jaw, the fight had been decided — even if Sam Stout didn’t realize it right away.
It took a moment for Edwards’ legs to stiffen up as his upper body pitched slightly forward and then rocked back. He was already unconscious by then, but the whiplash motion of the fall sent his head snapping back when his body hit the mat. The sound of the back of Edwards’ head hitting the canvas was like someone smashing a car fender with a baseball bat — a sickening crash that echoed throughout the Rogers Arena.
Stout rushed in to add a finishing blow, but one look at Edwards and he knew it wasn’t necessary.
“I saw…he folded right up and went down and hit the back of his head pretty hard,” Stout said at the UFC 131 post-fight press conference. “I had my eyes right on his eyes and I saw them roll back, so I wasn’t going to go in and try to do any more damage than was necessary.”
It wouldn’t have been the first time a fighter added an unneeded blow to a downed opponent, but Stout explained that his respect for the MMA veteran Edwards made him reluctant to do any more damage than was absolutely necessary.
Besides, Stout added, the guy had given him one of his Oreos at Friday’s weigh-ins. What kind of person would he be if he poured on the punches after that?
“This is just a sport to me and I’m not somebody who’s trying to hurt anybody,” Stout said. “And Yves Edwards is a guy with class and I’ve respected him for a long time. He’s a good guy. He gave me a cookie at the weigh-ins. I’m not going to try and hurt a guy like that.”
UFC president Dana White called it “one of the nastiest knockouts I’ve ever seen,” which makes it only fitting that Stout earned the $70,000 Knockout of the Night bonus.
“I don’t think he even thought he had to go in there and finish him off,” White said. “When he hit him, I mean, it’s one of the most vicious knockouts in UFC history, if not the most vicious.”
Though Edwards lay motionless on the mat for several minutes after the knockout, he eventually left that Octagon under his own power. On Sunday morning he took to Twitter to assure fans that he was doing fine.
“Thank you everyone for all the support,” Edwards wrote. “I’m fine and appreciate your concern. Congrats @sammyjstout it was fun while it lasted. Great job!”
For Stout, the knockout victory was a joy and a relief after so many fights without one, and the emotion carried over into his post-fight celebrations, he admitted.
“I’ve been calling myself ‘Hands of Stone,’ and I haven’t knocked anybody out in the last five years, so I was starting to get a little worried about it,” said Stout, whose last KO win came in September of 2007 against Martin Grandmont in the TKO organization.
“It was definitely a big relief to get that knockout. It was a good feeling that I haven’t felt in a while and I think you can see if you go back and watch the tape of my celebration, it got extended a little bit. I was jumping up and down and screaming for a while. It feels good to be knocking people out again and I hope to keep it going.”
DALLAS – At the 
Jeff Monson
Due to technical difficulties, Falling Action comes to you a day later than usual, and for that we apologize. 
VANCOUVER, British Columbia – The moment the left hook landed on 