Author: Brian D'Souza

Georges St-Pierre and UFC 206: The Main Event That Never Was

As Toronto gears up for UFC 206 on Saturday, fans are feeling a sense of letdown from the emaciated main card—originally intended to feature Anthony Johnson, Daniel Cormier and Rashad Evans—now headlined by Max Holloway vs. Anthony Pettis.
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As Toronto gears up for UFC 206 on Saturday, fans are feeling a sense of letdown from the emaciated main card—originally intended to feature Anthony Johnson, Daniel Cormier and Rashad Evans—now headlined by Max Holloway vs. Anthony Pettis.

There was, however, a sliver of hope we would see the return of a Canadian legend—Georges St-Pierre—in a gripping last-chance match to take the middleweight title from Michael Bisping.

“I was aiming for [UFC 206] in Toronto,” St-Pierre told me when he visited Toronto for The Gentlemen’s Expo in mid-November. “We had talks about fighting Michael Bisping. I even met [UFC President] Dana White personally.”

St-Pierre took things a step further, meeting Ari Emanuel and the other new owners of the UFC.

“They made an offer, we made a counteroffer, but we didn’t hear any response from them,” St-Pierre said.

Given St-Pierre’s roughly three-year absence from the Octagon, new ownership believed a large marketing budget was necessary to reintroduce him to new fans. To counter this, St-Pierre’s team floated a reasonable offer that was heavier on a split of UFC 206’s profits rather than looking for guaranteed money upfront.

Unfortunately, GSP remains frozen out of the picture, as negotiations with new UFC owners WME-IMG have broken down.

Many questions are buzzing around: Will St-Pierre, who is now 35 years old, return—and if so, why continue to take risks in a damaging, unforgiving arena like MMA?

“I was keeping myself in great shape,” St-Pierre said of his preparations for a potential match with Bisping.

On closer inspection, there were telltale bruises on his face from training.

“I’ve been sparring hard, until today. Today, I lost hope.”

This is where the skullduggery, the disingenuous nature of MMA promotion (former UFC matchmaker Joe Silva was notorious for his strongman politics), rears its head. As much as we want to believe there could be fair negotiations with both sides agreeing to split the difference, all kinds of ugly scenarios were possible.

“Maybe they were going to come back to us with the offer we made and say, ‘Now we want Georges St-Pierre to fight in Toronto!’ and if I say, ‘I’m not ready,’ they will say, ‘See? He’s not ready; he doesn’t want to fight.'” 

St-Pierre was prescient in suggesting that an unseen turn of events might require his services, as Ariel Helwani of MMA Fighting reported Nov. 25 that UFC 206 headliner Daniel Cormier was injured and scrapped from the card.

According to St-Pierre’s management, after UFC 206 lost its main event, there was no attempt to contact St-Pierre in order to reach a deal.

The complete silence from the UFC resulted in a much-publicized (and speculated on) appearance by St-Pierre at rival promoter Bellator’s Nov. 19 event.

Now the stakes are even higher with St-Pierre lending his name and support to the newly announced Mixed Martial Arts Athletes Association (MMAAA) helmed by Bjorn Rebney. The MMAAA is a newly formed association that seeks to empower active fighters financially and provide retired fighters with some measure of security. We have yet to see a concrete plan on how the MMAAA will achieve its goals, but St-Pierre is fully behind the association.

St-Pierre has a tattoo on his chest that he got when he was 16 years old. According to him, it means “jiu-jitsu.”

“It’s a yin and yang kind of thing. I can be very mean, very tough, very hard, but I can also be very gentleman-like.” Sensing a moment to promote his brand, St-Pierre smiled and pounced on the moment. “Gentlemen Expo. I can fit in here.”

Looking back, it seems like the young St-Pierre did not easily fit in anywhere, especially in school where he was frequently bullied often by his peers. Eventually, the day came when it was time to stand up for himself. I can recall a story about elementary school St-Pierre regaled me with the first time I interviewed him in Montreal days after he dispatched Matt Serra in a rematch to regain the UFC welterweight title in 2008.

“One day when school finished, I was with my friend. He was a nerd, you know? Not a fighter. We get out of the school to take the bus, and there were three guys lined up against the wall, like three to four years older than us. I pass by to get the bus, and I hear (makes spitting sound three times). I keep walking with my friend, and then I say, ‘Hey, Mathieu, I think they spit on us.’ He knows that I am crazy, so he says, ‘No no, no. They haven’t! They haven’t!’ And I’m like, ‘Turn around. Yeah, look at this, they spit on us. Let’s go back and ask them what’s their problem.’ And he was like, ‘No, you’re crazy. We’re going to get our ass kicked. I’m not going.'”

The young St-Pierre went back, pretending he had forgotten something and proceeded to sucker-punch one of his tormentors. The group quickly ganged up on him, and he got his “ass whooped.”

Although he’d shown his tough side when dealing with schoolyard bullies, it was his gentle tone, mannerisms and attitude that would separate him from many other fighters. Rather than allow negative circumstances to poison him, St-Pierre maintained a positive attitude and professed a message of not carrying anger.

“You know, it was a stupid story, but I am a very proud person, and even though I knew that it was not the right thing to do, they left me alone afterward because I was not an easy target,” St-Pierre told me in a quiet office in the Tristar Gym.

It’s amazing how his courage transcended beyond that single moment. How he’s grown into a man who faced incredible adversity and dispatched legends like Matt Hughes and BJ Penn in the Octagon, defending the UFC welterweight title nine times.

And yet, despite climbing to the steepest summit he could find, he seems to need other challenges. Perhaps now, it’s not prizefighting, but seeking to settle the score with the promoters who have exploited fighters, like St-Pierre, since the inception of the sport.

The $4 billion price tag WME-IMG paid for the UFC (sold by the Fertitta brothers) was a rude wake-up call.

UFC fighters now had a clear vision on how their pitiful purses stacked up to the compensation that had been available (also known as “social inequality aversion“). Rage boiled through the UFC roster, and the MMAAA has emerged as one unintended consequence.

You have to wonder about St-Pierre’s motivation for wanting to return. Is he jealous of Conor McGregor’s swagger? Does he miss the limelight that is now so lavishly heaped on Conor?

“Conor is actually very funny, very charismatic,” St-Pierre said. “It’s never been my game to [be outspoken] when I used to fight, and I was one of the most popular guys.”

St-Pierre retired from the sport with a stellar 25-2 record. Early in his career, he thrilled crowds by finishing tough opponents. But when he regained the UFC title against Matt Serra, he seemed to become more conservative, winning eight out of his next nine fights via decision.

Although many people questioned his ability to come back against a game opponent like Michael Bisping, St-Pierre said his coaches and his training partners who have seen him in the gym were not among them.

“I could fight in UFC again…fight in another organization…or never fight again.”

Never fight again?

An ordinary life can be hard when you’ve been riding tidal waves of adrenaline for years. Fighters develop an addiction to their sport that defies logic. Just look at former champions such as Penn or Anderson Silva for evidence: In their attempts at continued relevance, they seem to rack up more losses, with each one feeling more damning than the last.

“There are two things that motivate me to fight again: the legacy—the fight that elevates me and to be compensated the right way—to get my fair share,” St-Pierre said.

If you ask MMA fans about St-Pierre’s legacy, you would likely get myriad answers from “greatest welterweight of all time” to “the guy who ducked Anderson Silva.” St-Pierre has a significant resume, but the prospect of becoming a two-division champion against Bisping would have been a tempting way to redefine his impact on the sport.

The hardest thing to accept about retirement may be the loss of that sense of belonging. St-Pierre always seemed to be his most complete self when he was in the Octagon. Now, he has substitutes but no real replacement. And that’s a dangerous thing to try to resolve. There should be a happy ending for St-Pierre and other MMA fighters just like him.

Had he beaten Bisping, would he have just said, “One and done”? Other new challenges would beckon—remember, there is always a lure to hook fighters into overstaying their welcome. For instance, St-Pierre vs. McGregor would be a match of epic proportions—the former pay-per-view king vs. the current one—that elevates any numbered UFC PPV event into a Fight of the Decade-type affair.

Right now, however, GSP’s return to the UFC looks unlikely.

Last Wednesday, St-Pierre took part in a conference call to promote the newly announced Mixed Martial Arts Athletes Association with Cain Velasquez, Tim Kennedy, T.J. Dillashaw and Donald Cerrone. Although St-Pierre repeated the line he escaped his career “healthy and wealthy,” he knows of many fellow fighters who cannot say the same.

“They are not the same person that they were before,” he said on the call.

Almost everyone could have won had St-Pierre been the main attraction for UFC 206. Yet the moment—no matter how incredible it could have been—has now passed.

Read more MMA news on BleacherReport.com

Jon Fitch at the Crossroads: End of the Line as a UFC Contender

On July 5, Jon Fitch takes on Rousimar Palhares Jake Shields Josh Burkman in the tiebreaking rubber match of their epic rivalry. Fitch, one of the sport’s most dominant grapplers, is No. 9 on the list of fighters with the most wins in the UFC. De…

On July 5, Jon Fitch takes on Rousimar Palhares Jake Shields Josh Burkman in the tiebreaking rubber match of their epic rivalry. Fitch, one of the sport’s most dominant grapplers, is No. 9 on the list of fighters with the most wins in the UFC. Despite this, he is appearing in the World Series of Fighting 11 main card because of the UFC’s preference for newer, exciting and more marketable fighters.

Jon Fitch, speaking to Bleacher Report, had harsh words for the promotion’s strategy: “They want more of that soap opera drama, more of that 50-50 stuff on the feet. It takes too much to think about that complex grappling stuff.”

There was a point in time when many viewed Jon Fitch as the second-best welterweight in the world. Between 2003 and 2010, he boasted 21 wins with a single loss to then-UFC welterweight champion Georges St-Pierre. After losses to Johny Hendricks and Demian Maia, Fitch was cut from the UFC in February 2013. Fitch seemed to validate the UFC’s decision when he lost his WSoF debut to Josh Burkman.

At the time of his cut over a year ago, Fitch spoke out, calling the UFC a “hostile work environment” and saying he was neither wanted nor appreciated by the promotion. Most importantly, Fitch told MMAJunkie.com that many other UFC fighters were unable to vocalize their criticism because they were “absolutely terrified because the fighters to [the UFC] are just meat to be replaced easily.”

The UFC has made it a long-standing policy to place heads on the chopping block and deftly drop the axe. Besides Jon Fitch, a number of elite fighters have been cut over the years for one reason or another, including Matt Lindland, Yushin Okami and, most recently, Jake Shields.

In Martin Scorsese’s epic 2002 movie Gangs of New York, the character of Bill “The Butcher” Cutting speaks the lines that illustrate the power dynamics of the fight game:

You know how I stayed alive this long? All these years? Fear. The spectacle of fearsome acts. Somebody steals from me, I cut off his hands. He offends me, I cut out his tongue. He rises against me, I cut off his head, stick it on a pike, raise it high up so all on the streets can see. That’s what preserves the order of things. Fear.

For every transgression against the promoter’s whims, there must be swift consequences that reaffirm the pecking order. When Jon Fitch refused to sign away his lifetime video game likeness rights, he was cut from the UFC in November 2008. Fitch quickly caved and gave in to the UFC’s demands, but not before he became an example that helped coerce many UFC fighters into compliance.

In October 2012, Fitch was one of the first fighters to acknowledge the reality that sponsorships and appearance fees were drying up. The situation has not improved, as he tells it: “Seven years ago, I could make as much in sponsorship as I would make for my win bonus. You’d get three paychecks if you won—your win, your show and your sponsorship. Nowadays, you’re lucky to get 10 percent of what you used to get in sponsorship.”

Fitch attributes sponsorship money falling off a cliff to the oversaturation of shows spreading sponsorship money thin, the UFC’s sponsor tax and the prevalence of weak management lowballing its fighters.

“You had a lot of idiot ‘managers’ join the program who didn’t know what the hell they were doing and started selling sponsorships for like 250 or 500 bucks. Well now those sponsorship companies aren’t going to go back to the same amount they were at—$2,500 to $5,000.”

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As the marketplace stands, the UFC enjoys considerable clout compared to competing promotions. Not only does the UFC have the most recognized organizational titles in the sport, but a select few names on its roster earn multiples of what other organizations pay due to revenue from pay-per-view shows. The road to riches is laid out to all new UFC recruits: “Follow our plan, consistently win and watch your fortunes rise with our organization.”

In many ways, Jon Fitch surpassed expectations when he won eight fights in the UFC to earn his first title shot. After losing to Georges St-Pierre in August 2008, Fitch put together a four-fight win streak where he was promised a title shot if he beat Thiago Alves at UFC 117.

I asked if he had any guarantee of the title shot put in writing before the bout; Fitch explained that “there was no paperwork, but we were told before that it was for a title shot.”

Fitch beat Alves via decision, yet the reward failed to materialize. Without any true world titles governed by third-party rankings, MMA fighters are often strung along at a promoter’s whims in order to gain their shot at recognition.

Some fans and media members place the blame for Fitch’s situation solely at his feet and insist that had he fought in a more exciting style, he would have won the popularity necessary to earn the promoter’s favor:

Not only is Fitch overestimating his worth, he’s also remained frustratingly ignorant to why he’s not making more money.

There’s a reason why fighters like Nate Diaz, Joe Lauzon, Donald Cerrone, Michael Bisping, and even Josh Koscheck are constantly pushed by the UFC and heavily backed by loyal sponsors. Fans simply want to see them in action.

Win or lose, those fighters go full broke, constantly working to finish their opponents.

Fighters like Dan Hardy and Chris Leben epitomize the exciting brawls that fans love, but whether that style is sustainable or makes for good brain health post-retirement is another matter entirely. Hardy is also an example of a fighter who enjoys considerable favoritism with Zuffa, having dropped four fights in a row and not being cut from the promotion; he also scored a gig as a member of the UFC’s Europe and Middle East commentating team earlier this year.

As the situation stands, Fitch is concerned about the purity of what some no longer define as a sport. “I’m worried that if we don’t start taking MMA back towards a sport, we may just go full-on entertainment. Then what exactly is an MMA fighter? Why aren’t they just paying reality stars to fight?”

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At 36 years of age, Fitch faces stark realities at this juncture of his career. He struggled in his last WSoF bout, winning a split decision against the unheralded Marcelo Alfaya. Part of his woes are tied to finances, as he moved to Syracuse, New York, last year to run the MMA section of a state-of-the-art gym.

Fitch earned a steady salary and benefits at his new job, and claimed that teaching his mostly inexperienced charges helped refine his technique. However, there’s no replacing the roomful of killers at American Kickboxing Academy, and Fitch has moved back to California in preparation of facing Josh Burkman.

As it stands, time is not on his side. Even if he does clean house in WSoF, would he be accepted back into the cutthroat world of the UFC?

“It doesn’t sound like [the UFC] would have me back,” says Fitch. “What needs to happen is we need similar success from Bellator, WSoF, even ONE FC. When these shows become more of a presence and can pay comparable numbers.”

As the current landscape stands, Bellator is on an upswing with its recent pay-per-view debut at over 100,000 buys. WSoF is happy to rehabilitate fighters like Anthony Johnson and Andrei Arlovski for the UFC to sign but has also renewed a multiyear broadcast deal with NBC and is slated to have the July 5 WSoF Daytona Beach, Florida, show air on the main NBC network. ONE FC continues to make inroads in Asia, with American wrestler Ben Askren adding to the promotion’s value and name recognition in North America.   

There’s still talk of UFC uniforms, which would radically change the current sponsorship model and could further impede fighter earnings. Despite this, fighters and managers have few mechanisms push back from within and fear ending up blackballed. Still, the road to riches exists to give UFC stars like Jon Jones, Ronda Rousey and Chael Sonnen a fat bankroll in exchange for their compliance. They don’t earn Floyd Mayweather Jr. money, or even Manny Pacquiao money, for that matter, but the carrot is there to encourage enterprising fighters to make sacrifices today in exchange for a potential windfall in the future.

Tossing aside fighters who aren’t aligned with the UFC’s goals is a hallmark of the promotion. Fitch and recent WSoF signee Jake Shields were far from the first to be cut and won’t be the last. Sadly, even as Fitch’s time in the UFC has expired, he still serves the promotion in a key capacity: He is a stark reminder of what happens when you don’t play ball.

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Brian J. D’Souza is the author of the critically acclaimed book Pound for Pound: The Modern Gladiators of Mixed Martial Arts. You can check out an excerpt right here

Read more MMA news on BleacherReport.com

Frank Shamrock Talks Stark Realities Facing Former Fighters Like Chris Leben

Two weeks ago, former UFC fighter Chris Leben let rip with a vicious tweet that sent shock waves throughout the MMA community:

The tweet has since been deleted—replaced with the story that Leben acted out because he’d lost his dog—bu…

Two weeks ago, former UFC fighter Chris Leben let rip with a vicious tweet that sent shock waves throughout the MMA community:

The tweet has since been deleted—replaced with the story that Leben acted out because he’d lost his dog—but interest in the original message’s meaning has only snowballed. Ex-UFC fighter and fellow Ultimate Fighter alumni Nate Quarry chimed in with his own criticism of the UFC’s practices. Some fans blame Chris Leben for engineering his situation by making his own mistakes—including drug addiction and failure to pay income tax—while others question the promoter’s responsibility to former fighters.

Talking to former UFC champion Frank Shamrock uncovers stark realities about the life of a retired MMA fighter.

“I don’t think some guys realize that at some point, physically, they’ll be done, and at some point, their drawing power will be done,” says Shamrock. “In fact, they will literally stop overnight. There’s no backup, no union, no protection, no pension—there’s nothing to help them move to the next career.”

In January, Leben—loser of four straight fights in the UFC—announced his retirement from the sport. He’d played a pivotal role in the resurgence of the UFC as a contestant on the first season of Spike TV’s The Ultimate Fighter (TUF). During his professional career in the organization, he racked up numerous “Fight of the Night” and “Knockout of the Night” awards, but when he quit the sport, the bonus checks and the limelight abruptly faded away.

The size of Leben’s purses has been a matter of debate, but a fighter can have problems regardless of their career earnings. Fans need look no further than boxing superstar Manny Pacquaio to witness an example of a fighter earning multimillions in purses and falling victim to reckless spending and tax woes. Or the infamous Mike Tyson, who had $300 million in career earnings, but declared bankruptcy with $38.4 million in debt as of 2004.

Chris Leben’s salaries as a mid-tier fighter with the UFC likely represent the spare change floating in the recesses of Pacquiao or Tyson’s couch cushions. There was never any question that Leben would require a job to see him past his career as an MMA fighter, just as so many other prominent retired fighters have worked positions in broadcasting, coaching, running their own gyms or even selling luxury cars.

Says Shamrock, “At the end of the day, I’ve always made the bulk of my money teaching martial arts.”

When he retired, Leben told the public he was working as a coach at Victory MMA in San Diego, California. While Leben could have used his own earnings to get counseling or even reached out to UFC president Dana White via private channels, he chose to make his incendiary post on Twitter instead.

Leben’s actions are controversial in that the number one rule of being a member of this Fight Club is to never criticize the promotion in the public eye. UFC fighters know that discretionary bonuses, title shots, employment with Zuffa/FOX, continued employment with the UFC and other perks come down to earning the favoritism of the Zuffa brass. According to Leben’s Twitter account, Dana White and the UFC reached out to help him after he made his attention-grabbing Twitter post, although Leben’s management has been unresponsive when it comes to interview requests.

Frank Shamrock believes it’s in the promotion’s best interests to provide support to former fighters, especially exciting stars like Leben who contributed to the UFC’s financial success, “You look at the value that Leben has brought to the company and the money he has brought to the bottom line. You want to protect guys like that in the future, or at least pretend like you’re protecting them so the next generation will line up and do the same thing for you.”

Times have changed since The Ultimate Fighter debuted in 2005. TUF has shown continually diminishing returns in the ratings column and rarely produces fighters of the same caliber that the earliest seasons did. Spike TV had a nasty breakup with the UFC in 2011 and now broadcasts competing promotion Bellator. Three out of four of TUF’s first season finalists—Kenny Florian, Stephan Bonnar and Forrest Griffin—are retired from the sport.

Yet Chris Leben has yet to fully break away from the past. To paraphrase from Donnie Darko, he was born with tragedy flowing through his veins. On the UFC 89 Countdown show, he revealed that alcoholism ran through his family and outside of stints in the Army and jail, he’d never been sober for longer than two weeks straight since he was 13 years old.

“A lot of people who go into fighting aren’t well-adjusted,” says Shamrock, who revealed his own struggles coming from a broken home, dealing with alcoholism and time spent incarcerated in his autobiography Uncaged.

With his controversial tweet, Chris Leben pointed the finger at Zuffa for his troubles. In actuality, the UFC just ended up being a mechanism whereby the majority of fighters abandon the normalcy of typical jobs—like driving a truck—for the glamor of the stage. That they incur brain damage, lingering injuries or other hazards is about on par with professional sports like the NFL minus the benefits professional sports organizations often bestow through their players associations.

On paper, the UFC’s obligation to Chris Leben is no different than a casino’s responsibility to its patrons. Betting your life on hitting it big and expecting the prize to solve all your problems is a losing proposition for the vast majority of both casino patrons and fighters. The only one who consistently comes out ahead is the house—in this case, Lorenzo and Frank Fertitta, the majority owners of the UFC. Fighters have to be smart in using MMA as a platform for their own advancement rather than blindly believing that there is a plan to take care of them in the future.

The question now–is the UFC morally or socially obligated to pay for Chris Leben’s counseling? Offer him further advice to deal with his tax situation? Spring for rehab when stars need it like the WWE does? Is Leben entitled to financial assistance beyond the purses and bonuses he earned?

No matter what the UFC does, the organization has its back up against the wall: there are many more UFC fighters who will be retiring over the coming years, and the organization simply cannot address all of their personal or professional issues. As Nate Quarry has stated, the UFC is just a business that puts its own interests first and foremost.

Fighters have to be aware of what the current arrangement is, period.

“If you’re out there risking your body—your physical health—you’ve got to be compensated,” says Shamrock. “It’s got to be worth it to you and everybody else. And if it’s not, then don’t do it.

At the start of his career, one can imagine Chris Leben thought about winning the title and fulfilling the dream of standing on the top of the mountain, applause and accolades raining down. Now that his situation has changed for the worse, where is the light at the end of the tunnel?

“There’s no light in this industry because nobody has sparked it and maintained it,” says Shamrock. “There is a light in getting healthy personally.”

When the curtain falls, the performer must confront painful personal truths. Bright lights—dark shadows.

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Brian J. D’Souza (@Thracian_Books) is the author of the recently published book Pound for Pound: The Modern Gladiators of Mixed Martial Arts. You can check out an excerpt right here

Read more MMA news on BleacherReport.com