Author: By Frank Curreri

LAS VEGAS, December 30 – Certain fights ramp up the human adrenaline-meter and live up to the hype. Friday night’s UFC 141 co-main event between Nate Diaz and Donald Cerrone at the MGM Grand Garden Arena was one of them.

But while Cerrone entered this contest red-hot and having plowed through his first four UFC foes, it was Diaz who turned the tables on the lightweight juggernaut, battering and bloodying Cerrone with pinpoint boxing combinations from start to finish.

In a clash of two fighters who rarely take a step backwards, Diaz was the far more aggressive hunter, unleashing a ridiculous volume of punches while holding his hands low with little regard for Cerrone’s return fire. It seemed like every couple of seconds, the southpaw Diaz was landing a flush right to Cerrone’s chin or a 1-2-3 combo that snapped Cerrone’s head back. The first round was particularly one-sided as Cerrone, normally one to impose his will, seemed unusually hesitant to let his hands go under such heavy fire.

“Listen, This kid is just trying to overwhelm you,” Greg Jackson counseled Cerrone in his corner after the first round. “This kid is overwhelming you.”

Cerrone found a slight vulnerability in the second round, repeatedly kicking Diaz’s legs out from under him. Cerrone never opted to follow Diaz to the canvas to test his ground skills versus the Cesar Gracie BJJ brown belt. Diaz always popped to his feet and simply continued with his blistering fistic assault.

“Thanks Donald Cerrone for the fight,” Diaz said to Joe Rogan afterward. “Sorry about all of the (stuff) that went down.”

The all-out war was as predictable as rats at a landfill. Diaz (15-7) had shoved Cerrone and slapped the cowboy hat off the native Coloradan’s head during a pre-fight staredown. Both fighters eschewed the traditional touching of the gloves to commence the fight, which was made more comical by referee Herb Dean’s instructions to them.

Said Dean to the fighters before the opening horn: “At this time you can touch gloves… (pregnant pause) … or not.”

Just for good measure, Diaz flipped the bird to Cerrone right before the third round. But when it was all said and done – when judges’ scores of 30-27, 30-27 and 29-28 had been announced — the ill will had been vented. Sportsmanship and an embrace ensued.

“Man, he brought it,” Cerrone said. “Tough dude. Vegas, thank you. That was the best I could give you all.” Watch Nate’s post-fight interview.

JOHNY HENDRICKS VS. JON FITCH

Up until tonight, despite amassing an 11-1 record against mostly high-level competition, Johny Hendricks had been something of an afterthought in the welterweight division. That perception changed in the blink of an eye as Hendricks uncorked a monster and nearly perfect overhand left – bringing all of his weight into the shot – that sent Jon Fitch falling to the canvas stiff as a statue.

Another clean left hand prompted referee Steve Mazzagatti to rush to the rescue and, in just 12 seconds flat, Hendricks had toppled the man widely considered to be the No. 2-ranked welterweight in the world.

“I feel awesome,” said the former two-time NCAA wrestling champion. “In every interview I said ‘I have a left hand.’ Everybody’s been counting me out. I knew if I hit him with it I could knock him out.”

Leading up to the bout, Fitch had been marching toward a rematch with 170-pound champ Georges St-Pierre. The hard-nosed Purdue University grad had been unbeaten in his past six contests but was caught off-guard by the tremendous hand speed of Hendricks, who became the first fighter to finish Fitch over the past nine years. Watch Hendricks’ post-fight interview.

VLADIMIR MATYUSHENKO VS. ALEXANDER GUSTAFSSON

Is Alexander Gustafsson a title contender at 205 pounds? He sure as heck looked like it Friday while TKO’ing the grizzled vet that is Vladimir Matyushenko. A stiff left jab by Gustafsson greeted Matyushenko as he charged in, sending the 40-year-old light heavy to the mat and covered up in the fetal position. A few punches later the referee halted the action and the 6-feet-4-inch Swede had pushed his record to 13-1, 5-1 in the UFC. With all but one of his wins coming via finish, Gustafsson’s only loss came to Phil Davis. Notably, Gustafsson teamed up with his conqueror for his most recent training camp, taking up residence in San Diego to train alongside Davis and under the direction of top trainer (Eric Del Fierro).

“It was my day today,” Gustaffson said, praising Matyushenko as “someone I looked up to. “It was my dream to fight in Vegas. It’s the biggest win of my life.” Watch Gustafsson’s post-fight interview.

JIMY HETTES VS. NAM PHAN

Perhaps taking a page from his stablemate, lightweight kingpin Frankie Edgar, Jimy Hettes set a furious pace and physically overwhelmed Nam Phan for almost all of their 15 minutes inside of the Octagon. To Phan’s credit, he refused to be finished, despite being on the receiving end of a vicious ground and pound assault in the first stanza. A bloodied Phan, a black belt in Brazilian jiu-jitsu, also had to fight off an armbar attempt and arm triangle in the bout, which had some wondering how it is possible that Hettes (who trains under Ricardo Almeida) is still ranked as a BJJ purple belt. Also a brown belt in judo, Hettes repeatedly utilized foot trips in the clinch to put Phan on the deck and harass him at every turn.

The unanimous decision nod kept Hettes unbeaten at 10-0. Phan fell to 17-11. Watch Hettes’ post-fight interview.

LAS VEGAS, December 30 – A vicious kick to the body by Alistair Overeem dropped Brock Lesnar to a knee nearly midway through the first round of their bout Friday night at the MGM Grand Garden Arena, and a storm of Overeem right hands ended not only their UFC 141 main event tussle, but also Lesnar’s brief, but spectacular, UFC career.

“My hat’s off to Alistair Overeem,” Lesnar said immediately following the stoppage at 2:26 of round one. “I’ve had a really difficult couple of years with my disease (diverticulitis) and I’m going to officially say ‘Tonight was the last time you’ll see me in the Octagon.’”

The announcement caps an illustrious and improbable MMA career that saw the 265-pound former pro wrestling star skyrocket to the top of the heavyweight division, winning the UFC belt in just his fourth pro fight. Yet, leading up to tonight’s fight, Lesnar had not competed in over a year and had undergone surgery on his colon.

“I want to thank the Fertittas and Dana White. Brock Lesnar is officially retired. I promised my wife and kids that if I won tonight I would get a title shot and then retire. But if I lost tonight …”

Mid-sentence, an emotional Lesnar walked away from the microphone without finishing his thoughts.

In victory, Overeem, the former Strikeforce, Dream, and K-1 champion who was making his Octagon debut, improved to 36-11, 1 NC. The Dutch fighter’s unbeaten streak now spans 12 fights and he has earned himself a date with newly minted heavyweight kingpin Junior dos Santos.

There are three certainties in life: death, taxes and Matt Riddle smiling and grinning wherever life takes him. Outside of the cage — and inside of it. Whether being hugged by a loved one, or punched in the face by a foe. In victory, and in defeat.

“If you watch a tape of me wrestling in high school you’ll see me with a big Kool-Aid grin on my face,” the 25-year-old Pennsylvania native recently said before a training session at Throwdown Training Center in Las Vegas. “Whether it was at states or nationals, I had a smile on my face. Even when I competed in Grappler’s Quest, I beat (world-class grappler) Ryan Hall and I’m smiling the entire time, having a good time, and he’s getting frustrated. That’s when I’m most dangerous, when I have a big grin on my face. Honestly, I wouldn’t want to be standing on the other side of that.”

As it turns out, Brazil’s Luis Ramos (19-7) will be the one “standing on the other side” of Riddle’s grin this Friday at UFC 141. The undercard bout comes at an interesting time for Riddle: He tied the knot with his fiancée, Lisa, two weeks ago.

If you’re thinking the wedding may have distracted Riddle, or disrupted his preparation, think again. Riddle wanted the wedding and an Octagon appearance to be bunched together.

“There was already a date for the wedding but I actually asked Joe Silva if I could fight December 30th. I figured that if I get the fight AFTER the wedding, then I wouldn’t have any bruises or cuts for the wedding,” said Riddle. “We wanted to get married before the end of the year so it worked out perfect.”

Before giving Riddle too much credit, realize that he didn’t have it so hard other than his three-a-day workouts. A wedding planner he was not.

 “All Lisa,” he said. “The only thing I picked was the food and the booze. And I couldn’t drink or eat, so it was kind of torturous.”

With a honeymoon on the horizon, Riddle (5-3) is for now completely focused on Ramos, who trains at one of the best camps in the world under trainer Andre Pederneiras.
“He’s a really good jiu-jitsu and judo practitioner,” Riddle said. “He likes to take people down and control them. He really doesn’t make too many mistakes. The thing is, I haven’t seen him really trying to finish the fight, and I’m going to be there to finish the fight. I’m going to try to knock him out or submit him. I hit really hard, so I’m pretty sure I can knock him out. That’s how he usually loses. I respect everything about him but I’m pretty sure I’m going to come out there and stuff the takedown. It’s my time now. His time is up.”

Clearly back-to-back decision losses have had little effect on Riddle’s confidence.

“My last two fights I’ve lost, but I’ve also learned more and become more confident and gained more experience,” he explained. “And I’ve put on great performances and had a blast in my last two fights. I didn’t go out there to win; I went out there to have fun. The last two guys I fought got cut up, went to the hospital and looked way worse than me.”

With durability as one of his hallmarks, Riddle is trying to become more of a technician and a strategist.

“You can’t fight at that pace all the time and I don’t plan on fighting at that pace all of the time. It’s impossible and it’s not good for you,” Riddle said. “But at the same time I like to pressure my opponents and push the pace to get people tired. Sometimes you have to take a little damage to dish out a little damage. It’s part of the game. That helps me because when somebody hits you as hard as they can, and you get back up and still keep coming at them, they get tired and start to think less of themselves. I know if I hit somebody as hard as I can and they just keep coming forward – it worries me. Because when I hit somebody as hard as I can I think they should drop.”

A father of twin girls, Allison and Amy, Riddle said parenting has lit a fire under him.

“When I get in there it just makes me a meaner person,” he said. “I need to take care of these kids and my wife. When I first started fighting in the UFC I was a pretty nice guy. Over the years I’ve gotten meaner and I think that’s a good thing. That’s the one thing that has changed about me a lot.”

Until our 20-minute conversation last week, I hadn’t crossed paths with Nam Phan in nearly a decade. Memory lane made us revisit a chance encounter that occurred long before I started working for the UFC and back when Phan was merely a rookie pro in mixed martial arts.

From the other end of the phone line, Phan initially briefed me on his most recent preparations for unbeaten Jimy Hettes and how he, raised by Vietnamese parents, relishes Pho but often deprives his taste buds of the heavenly (but carbohydrate-heavy) soup to make the featherweight limit. We talked about his MMA school in Orange County, California, and how he earned his black belt under Rick Estrada.

“No one really knows that I know jiu-jitsu,” said Phan (17-10), who has TKO’d four opponents in the past five years but only submitted one over that same span. “They think of me more as a boxer now, I guess. I was very heavy in the jiu-jitsu circuit but lately I’ve moved toward the UFC. But jiu-jitsu was a big passion of mine.”

I can personally vouch for this. When the widely feared Y2K computer glitches failed to materialize or end the world at the turn of the new millennium, I decided to spice up my life and give Brazilian jiu-jitsu a try. I was living in Utah at the time, working as a general assignment reporter for the Salt Lake Tribune. I began training under Pedro Sauer, a Rickson Gracie black belt who was a former race car driver and stockbroker who became something of a local cult hero after beating up a 250-pound Mr. Utah bodybuilder who had called him out.

For my second BJJ tournament, as a white belt, I made the 10-hour trek to Southern California.

“You do jiu-jitsu, too?” Phan asked.

“Yeah, I actually competed against you back in 2001,” I noted.

“Ah, King of the Hill!” Phan said, instantly recalling the name of the tournament.

Yep, King of the Hill, a tourney hosted by BJJ pioneer Rigan Machado. BJJ whiz and MMA veteran Javier Vazquez competed in an advanced division. There were also Division I wrestlers in the mix, and a purple belt named Dave Phillips who drove down with me (and later fought professionally). Long story short, I competed in a bracket with 17 or 18 guys, a combination of white and blue belts. I had five matches that day. One of my foes was a stocky Asian who stood out for his tree trunk legs and a laissez faire coolness before matches. After years of wrestling, intensity and aggression defined my pre-match warmups. Phan was joking and smiling with teammates before our match; I was psyching myself up as if he had deserved payback for something he said.

We took to the mat and shook hands. Phan was heavier but I was the superior wrestler. I shot a double leg, got excellent penetration and picked him up. By the time we hit the mat Phan had swiftly locked in on my right arm like a pit bull in a fight. Unable to get my arm back, and demonstrating my white beltness, I did exactly what you should not when trapped in a tight armbar: I stood up. Only I am not Rampage Jackson. Phan, all 155 or 160 pounds of him, was literally hanging from my right arm, cranking away with all his might, his thighs forming a visegrip on my limb. Blinded by adrenaline and pride, my stubborn instincts prevailed. I didn’t want to tap. That’s when the loud popping sounds started, signaling the onset of torn ligaments as my arm bent well beyond its intended range. Still, I refused to tap and Phan hung from my arm, until the referee had heard and seen enough. He stopped the match and declared Phan the winner.

“I remember!” Phan said of the experience.

Phan went on to win first place in the tournament, submitting all of his opponents. My elbow swelled considerably. I spent the long drive home and the next few days icing it incessantly. It was roughly two months before I regained normal use of my right arm, and even then some pain and swelling remained for many months thereafter. So I never forgot the name Nam Phan, the man who taught me the value of tapping and swallowing your pride. And the man who forced me to learn how to correctly defend an armbar.

Every time I competed in a no-gi tournament in California, Phan was there, usually finishing at the top of the podium in a heavier weight class. In the early 2000s, he was a super-dangerous submission artist.

“Kneebar was my favorite submission back then,” Phan said. “I love kneebars.”

Phan’s decorated grappling past is not as well known outside of California. The heavy-handed featherweight has developed a penchant for action-packed standup fights. Quite the contrast to his UFC 141 opponent, Pennsylvania’s Hettes (9-0).

“Jimy Hettes reminds me of myself five years ago,” Phan said. “I used to be so good that I would just submit everyone. But the reality is, you don’t submit everyone. And sometimes you will take a beating on your back! So you have to adapt. If you’re on bottom then you’re losing in MMA, so you have to change it up. I had to get my striking and wrestling better and be smarter. You know, I want my brain to last. After I’m done with fighting I want to be able to talk to my kids, I want to still know how to spell my name.”

Coming off the biggest win of his career – a decision over Leonard Garcia that avenged a highly controversial loss – Phan wants to close out 2011 with a bang. Exposure from being a semi-finalist on The Ultimate Fighter 12 and bouts with Garcia and Mike Brown have made him much more recognizable around town. But to sustain that clout, he must keep winning. And he might need to dust off those once-lofty Brazilian jiu-jitsu skills to beat Hettes.

But from the sound of things, Phan has other ideas.

“I’ve got to bring constant pressure and put a pounding on this kid,” he said.

Make liars of your detractors. Turn public perception on its head. Few feats are more gratifying to an athlete, with Danny Castillo being the latest example.

The Sacramento fighter won’t try to hide the humongous chip on his shoulder, the one that has firmly resided there since last December, when World Extreme Cagefighting (WEC) merged with the UFC. Castillo and company suddenly felt like second-class citizens among the UFC’s much more heralded lightweight division, like chum being served up to sharks.

“I’ll never forget all the naysayers who said we would just get rolled on,” the 32-year-old recently shared. “A bunch of people were saying that our lightweights wouldn’t be able to hack it, that WEC guys are just going to get ran through. But we’re doing a good job proving all those people wrong.”

“Good job” is right. The WEC’s big six of lightweights are comprised of Castillo, Benson Henderson, Donald Cerrone, Anthony Pettis, Anthony Njokuani and Shane Roller. They have combined for a stellar 12-5 record in the UFC over the past year, with a list of conquered foes that includes “name” fighters such as Clay Guida, Jim Miller, Charles Oliveira, Joe “Daddy” Stevenson and Dennis Siver. Henderson, 3-0 in the UFC, will fight Frankie Edgar at UFC 144 for the 155-pound world title. Cerrone, 4-0 under the UFC banner, goes for his fifth straight on Friday against Nate Diaz at UFC 141. Castillo (12-4 overall, 2-1 UFC) also competes on the New Year’s Eve ‘Eve’ card, against the aforementioned Njokuani (15-5, 1-1).

There is a certain ‘cannibal’ quality to the matchup and it is not lost on Castillo.

“Anthony Njokuani is a good guy. He and I started at the same time in the WEC,” Castillo said. “I want all of the guys that come over from the WEC to do well because that’s where I started my career. I have a WEC sweatshirt on right now as we speak! It says, “WEC Never Forget.” Unfortunately my next fight is against another WEC guy. It will be the first time two WEC (lightweights) are meeting in the UFC, but we’re professionals and one of us has to lose, and I don’t plan on that being me. Stylistically I like the fight.”

While Njokuani is coming off a win over Andre Winner, Castillo has won four of his past five. The win over Joe “Daddy” raised eyebrows, and his recent first round destruction of Shamar Bailey was perhaps Castillo’s finest hour as a pro.

“I felt fresh. I didn’t overtrain for that fight,” Castillo said. “I felt fresh, I listened to my body. It’s taken me four years as a pro to understand how to run a fight camp. There are no blueprints to teach you how to run a fight camp for your body. This time I did it correctly and it showed up in the fight.”

Castillo muscled Bailey with takedowns and pounded away on top with punches. He says there was a moment in the fight when he felt some of Bailey’s will vanish.

“There was a hammerfist that landed from half-guard,” Castillo said, “and right then and there I saw him look up and I knew right then that he didn’t really want to fight. That’s when you see me just letting go and throwing punches with abandon.”

In addition to his own purse, Castillo also walked away with 10 percent of his opponent’s fight purse because Bailey failed to make weight. Rather than pocket the funds, Castillo donated them to a Sacramento-based charity for homeless youth.

“I think it’s important for me to give back because wrestling kind of saved my life,” he said. “My last fight was on TV and I want to use that exposure that I’ve created for myself to do something good, to give back to some kids that are just like I was. When I was younger I was kind of a knucklehead who came to a fork in the road and could have gone either way. Fortunately I found wrestling and I was able to go to college. So if I could help some other kids then I’ll feel a little bit better about myself.”

Other people’s funny stories involve someone breaking wind in yoga class or fainting before a ‘will-you-marry-me’ proposal. Vladimir Matyushenko’s notion of funny is telling you about the time he got his nose broken in a professional fight.

No joke.

“I fought in Brazil in the Jungle Fights a few years ago against Carlos Barreto,” said the Belarus-born light heavyweight fighter. “It was in Manaus, in the Amazon. I got there and looked at him and thought, “Really, I’m gonna fight this guy?” He was a big guy (6’4”, 230 pounds) and I was fighting at heavyweight. We exchanged a few punches and he kicked me really hard. My hands were up, but he broke my freakin’ nose with his leg – but he broke his leg and I won the fight!! (laughs).

“He just fell down. He broke his leg or twisted his knee, I don’t know what happened, but he fell to the canvas and I was still standing. So I punched him a few times and they stopped the fight. He broke my nose but I won the fight.”

The blow left Matyushenko sporting a grossly crooked beak, but the plain-talking veteran’s sense of humor is as lively as ever. When you’ve been fighting 14 years professionally, and grew up scraping by in Belarus, you learn to see the lighter side of a very rigorous and often unforgiving sport. At 40 years of age, the barrel-chested pro is one of the UFC’s senior statesmen and he’s still formidable, as evidenced by him winning four of his past five bouts (Jon Jones being the lone blemish, far from something to be ashamed of).

Next up for Matyushenko, a former elite Russian wrestler who once beat U.S. icons Royce Alger and Kevin Jackson in the same tournament, is Alexander Gustafsson (12-1) of Sweden. The matchup is highly intriguing, partly because it harbors a potential referendum on just how good the highly-touted Gustafsson is, or isn’t. Jon Jones, the 205-pound kingpin, has looked superhuman inside the Octagon. But when fight fans are polled about which fighter stands the best chance of unseating him, Gustafsson’s name surfaces in the top five. The Swede knockout artist can match Jones’ length (Gustafsson is 6’5” to Jones 6’4”), but not Jones’ reach. Gustafsson is rather athletic and is dangerous with submissions as well.

Yet Matyushenko refrained from anointing Gustafsson as something special.

“He has a long reach, he’s young, athletic, whatever,” said Matyushenko (26-5), not sounding overly impressed, before stating the obvious. “I’m working my striking a lot, but I know if I take him down it will be a plus for me.”

Where does he rank Gustafsson among the light heavies?

“MMA has evolved so it helps to be tall with a long reach and at the same time be a strong guy, like Anderson Silva and Jon Jones,” Matyushenko said. “But there are other things involved. You have to be strong in your mind. Physically Gustafsson matches all the criteria, but can he do it? I guess that’s why people will be watching on TV, to see if he can do it.”

Since Matyushenko has faced Jones, I ask him whom he would peg as most threatening to the emerging superstar’s throne. I’m expecting one of the usual suspects to appear – former champ Rashad Evans or the unbeaten Phil Davis.

Who has the best chance to beat Jon Jones?

“Me,” Matyushenko says with a hearty chuckle, a glaring prognostication to anyone who watched Jones smash the Russian with elbows and finish their Aug. 2010 contest in under two minutes.

“I knew when I lost to him more than a year ago that he was The Real Deal,” Matyushenko said of Jones. “Do you want to step up and do it?”

Matyushenko continues to train in the Los Angeles area, working regularly with fighters such as Antoni Hardonk and Jared Hamman. He has also worked with Lyoto Machida and Fabricio Werdum, among others. Yet Matyushenko is not one to hop around from team to team, as many younger fighters do while proclaiming the variety helps their games.

“The camps don’t change,” he said. “When you have a good camp people come and go to you. I’m not the person who goes around and looks for people to train with; people come and train with me. I trained with Lyoto Machida for a long time. I was supposed to fight Gustafsson in August and I was training with Dan Henderson and Team Quest; we exchanged people, but then I got hurt.”

It is one of the downsides of being a week shy of 41; the body doesn’t heal and recuperate as quickly. Otherwise, Matyushenko thinks age stereotypes are exaggerated, though he concedes he used to believe in them when he was much younger.

“When I was 30 I thought, ‘Oh, it’s too late now,’” he said. “But to encourage the young fighters right now, no, it’s not too late. You can go very far (at an advanced age) but of course you need to take some precautions. There is a fine line between being in good shape and not being hurt. You have to rest more and train smart.”

He came to the U.S. many years ago with barely $100 in his pocket. He spoke virtually no English at the time.
 
“I bought a one-way ticket from New York to California and I’ve achieved so much, so I think it’s a big encouragement to kids. You can do whatever you want, especially right now,” he said. “The last two years have been good for me. I signed up with the UFC again, I bought a house, I got married in Vegas. My son graduated high school and he’s in the Air Force right now. I’ve got a dog. So a lot of good things have been happening. I’ve been working hard for many, many years and now finally I’m happy and where I’m supposed to be.

“MMA is on a roll and so am I. I am MMA and MMA is me. I like being part of me so I’ll stick around and do as much as I can do. This is what I do best. I don’t think there is anything I do better. If I find something that I do better, then I’ll probably quit or retire. But so far I enjoy it. I really enjoy being part of the UFC. Finally we’ve gotten through the tough times and I want to enjoy the ride.”