Author: Chad Dundas

UFC Hot Prospect Mackenzie Dern Isn’t the Next Rousey, but She Shows Promise

For nearly three full rounds Saturday at UFC 222, it was hard to justify the hype around Mackenzie Dern.
The hot prospect had her hands full with Ashley Yoder, whose southpaw stance frustrated Dern throughout their women’s strawweight fight at T-Mobile…

For nearly three full rounds Saturday at UFC 222, it was hard to justify the hype around Mackenzie Dern.

The hot prospect had her hands full with Ashley Yoder, whose southpaw stance frustrated Dern throughout their women’s strawweight fight at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.

Yoder‘s athleticism and conditioning also allowed her to keep the bout standing and avoid Dern‘s vaunted Brazilian jiu-jitsu game.

With time ticking away in the final stanza, however, Dern finally fully committed on a takedown attempt and put Yoder on the mat. Once there, she moved effortlessly to her opponent’s back and applied a rear-naked choke that might well have finished the fight if she’d had more time to work.

As it stood, Dern finished the bout latched like an anaconda around Yoder‘s back, and the display earned her a split-decision victory (28-29, 29-28, 29-28) in her Octagon debut.

“I’m very hard on myself, so I really wanted to get the submission,” Dern said at the post-fight press conference, via Sherdog.com’s Tristen Critchfield. “I’m a jiu-jitsu girl, so I’m disappointed unless I get it. But I am also much more than just jiu-jitsu, so going out and fighting a lot of stand-up was fun, and I’m glad I got to show that side of my game.”

Now comes the hard part: living up to the considerable expectations that preceded her arrival in the UFC.

If the Yoder bout proved anything, it’s that it’s going to be a slow burn with Dern. Here’s hoping she gets the chance to take things at her own pace.

The 24-year-old is the daughter of decorated BJJ ace Wellington “Megaton” Dias and was a bona fide submission grappling prodigy by the time she was 14 years old. After winning jiu-jitsu world championships at every belt level—including a run of golds in both gi and no-gi competition—her transition to MMA in the summer of 2016 garnered significant media attention.

A 5-0 record on the independent circuit scored her a UFC contract and even enticed a few comparisons to former women’s bantamweight champion and pay-per-view powerhouse Ronda Rousey.

You could say the bar was set pretty high for the Phoenix native before she even set foot on the big stage.

Now that her initial appearance is finished, we can say emphatically that Dern isn’t the next Rousey, but she showed enough potential to keep us interested in whatever happens next. The most important factor in her evolution as an MMA fighter will be whether she can mature at her own pace or if matchmakers rush her into the spotlight.

Say this for Dern: When things are clicking, she has an exciting style.

Though she was largely overmatched in the striking game by Yoder, it didn’t stop Dern from routinely wading into the fray with her own powerful punching combinations.

She never solved the riddle of Yoder‘s left-handed style, but Dern was the aggressor for much of the fight. Coupled with the ever-present threat of her world-class submissions, that devil-may-care attitude makes her eminently watchable.

Granted, there was a lot to be skeptical of, as well. Dern‘s takedowns were nonexistent for the first 14-plus minutes of the fight, meaning she didn’t get the chance to show her best skills until the closing moments. She also wasn’t able to utilize the clinch to her advantage and got briefly dropped by a Yoder left hand that landed behind her ear in the second round.

But she won—which was the only must-have on Day 1—and Dern is still young enough to build significantly on her tremendous grappling base.

She lacks the pervasive killer instinct of Rousey, the obvious athleticism of Holly Holm or the fearsome power of Cris “Cyborg” Justino, but Dern has something worth paying attention to.

She’s likely not going to become the UFC’s next megastar, and it seems a long shot she’ll even become a champion. But her enthusiasm for competition is infectious, and the unique combination of her youth and popularity makes her the sort of fighter the UFC should want to cultivate.

If anything, she just needs more time to round out her striking game and takedowns. Against UFC competition, she will need to not only be able to hold her own with stand-up fighters much better than Yoder, but also be able to dictate the terms of where a fight takes place.

Otherwise, her deadly BJJ skills will sit unused like a Formula 1 car you can’t take out of the garage.

There may also be questions about which weight division becomes Dern‘s home. Twice during her rise to the UFC, she competed in catchweight affairs (at 118 pounds and 120 pounds, respectively) and fought once at flyweight (125 pounds).

This week, she kept onlookers in suspense by being the last UFC 222 fighter to hit the scales during Friday morning’s official weigh-in. Dern ultimately made the upper reaches of the strawweight limit at 116 pounds, but it remains to be seen where she will stick.

The UFC’s new women’s flyweight division is still finding its legs, with recently crowned champion Nicco Montano at the helm. A healthy crop of contenders are also there, including UFC stalwarts such as Valentina Shevchenko, Lauren Murphy, Alexis Davis and Liz Carmouche.

You could make the case Dern‘s size makes her a more natural flyweight than strawweight, but she won’t get a break in her level of competition if she moves up.

By advancing to the UFC so fast and at such a young age, she’s starting far behind top-level fighters such as 115-pound champion Rose Namajunas and former champ Joanna Jedrzejczyk. Because of it, her handlers are going to need the patience and restraint to bring her along slowly.

That could be easier said than done, though. Neither strawweight nor flyweight is a deep division. If Dern puts together a few consecutive wins, the UFC might find itself in the unenviable position of needing to leverage her marketability in every way it can.

Hopefully, that doesn’t result with Dern getting rushed into deep water, where she would surely take a beating from the UFC’s elite. 

That would be a waste, considering the obvious promise of her grappling pedigree.

Read more MMA news on BleacherReport.com

Is MMA’s Greatest Female Champ Wasting Her Best Years on No-Name Opponents?

Nearly two years in, the UFC’s Cyborg experiment still hasn’t quite found its stride.
In some ways, Saturday’s UFC 222 main event pitting women’s featherweight champion Cris “Cyborg” Justino against newcomer Yana Kunitskaya represents an unprecedented …

Nearly two years in, the UFC’s Cyborg experiment still hasn’t quite found its stride.

In some ways, Saturday’s UFC 222 main event pitting women’s featherweight champion Cris “Cyborg” Justino against newcomer Yana Kunitskaya represents an unprecedented high note in the relationship between the organization and MMA‘s greatest female fighter.

From another angle, it’s just business as usual: one more bout where the uber-talented Justino will spin her wheels against an unknown and overmatched opponent. As she approaches her 33rd birthday, it’s worth wondering if Cyborg is doomed to waste the best years of her career on these one-off squash matches.

To avoid that fate, something needs to change—and fast.

First, however, a bit more on the positive developments here:

UFC 222 gives Justino the rare chance to play hero, stepping in on short notice to save this weekend’s pay-per-view event after men’s 145-pound titlist Max Holloway dropped out with an injury in early February. Her makeshift bout against Kunitskaya may even fetch UFC 222 a decent buyrate—especially if Justino can replicate a semblance of the box-office success she had against Holly Holm at UFC 219 on Dec. 30.

On Tuesday Cyborg told MMAWeekly.com’s Damon Martin she hopes the move will usher in a new era of mutual respect and easier negotiations between herself and the fight company.

“There are not a lot of fighters who are willing to put their championship belt on the line with three weeks notice,” the native of Curitiba, Brazil said. “I am hoping that my actions will show the UFC that I am willing to do what is good for the company and that because of this we will see me get a little bit more of the marketing and exposure I have been campaigning for.”

If true, that would be a welcome departure.

Cyborg’s UFC career has been hamstrung by false starts, bad feelings and a lack of vision. Even before she arrived in the Octagon in 2016, she’d spent years feuding in the press with UFC President Dana White and former bantamweight champion Ronda Rousey. At times, White’s comments and Rousey‘s pot shots about Justino strayed over the line into bad taste.

In June 2017, White admitted to MMA Junkie’s John Morgan that the UFC had “made some mistakes” in its handling of Justino.

The Kunitskaya bout could signal a fresh start for all parties, which could only be a good thing.

On the other hand, to truly get Cyborg’s career out of the doldrums, the organization will have to demonstrate a cohesive plan for her moving forward. It has felt as though the world’s largest MMA promotion doesn’t really know what to do with the most dominant female fighter in the world.

After two fights at 140-pound catchweights during 2016, the UFC finally has Justino ensconced as its 145-pound champ. Unfortunately, it hasn’t yet built a legitimate featherweight division around her, so it’s left to scrounge up opponents from scratch each time matchmakers need to find her a fight.

Including Kunitskaya, three of Justino’s last four foes have been UFC debutants. That means she’s taking on opponents with little to no profile with UFC fans. Justino is carrying the entire promotional load into fights that offer her very little in return—besides a few easy paydays.

At least the risk has thus far also been minimal.

Justino, for example, is going off as a whopping -2000 favorite (bet $2,000 to win $100) over Kunitskaya among some oddsmakers, according to OddsShark. Also like many of Justino’s recent opponents, the 28-year-old Russian fighter is coming up from bantamweight, where she was most recently the Invicta FC champion.

That means nearly everyone expects Kunitskaya to be both outsized and outgunned in her short-notice bout against one of the sport’s most feared fighters. It could turn out to be a beatdown of historic proportions.

For Justino fans, perhaps part of the appeal is seeing her mow through a list of interchangeable nobodies, a la Mike Tyson in his prime. But from the standpoint of building an actual featherweight division or adding to her legacy as one of the Octagon’s all-time greats, it’s hard to see how any of these matchups help her.

The one exception in Justino’s recent past has been Holm. At least in that fight, Justino fought a woman of comparable size and star power. Cyborg won the fight via unanimous decision, while she and Holm reportedly scored some of the UFC’s best PPV numbers in 2017.

But Justino vs. Holm was also the highest-profile matchup the UFC could make at 145 pounds. Now that it’s over, the champion is once again at loose ends. 

She accepted this quick turnaround against Kunitskaya because she’ll be paid handsomely for what she believes will be a light night’s work. Simultaneously she can make the case to the UFC that any hard feelings that used to exist between them are now gone.

But what will become of Cyborg after this fight? What’s next? How can the UFC chart a meaningful course forward for a fighter who is well on the way to being one of the company’s biggest draws?

The obvious answer is that the UFC should take an active interest in signing more featherweights and in cultivating legitimate challengers for Justino’s belt. The Holm fight proved people will tune in to watch Cyborg when she has an able B-side. Replicating the success of UFC 219 two or three times a year would be huge not only for Justino, but for the UFC’s own slumping ratings and PPV buys.

There has been some talk of a potential Justino superfight against current bantamweight champion Amanda Nunes. Provided Nunes emerges victorious from her own upcoming title defense against Raquel Pennington at UFC 224 in May, it’s obviously in everyone’s best interest to make that fight happen.

If not—and if the UFC is unable or unwilling to build a 145-pound class around Cyborg—we might end up looking back on her career wondering if her prime years went to waste on overmatched, last-minute opponents.  

Read more MMA news on BleacherReport.com

Buy or Sell: Are Things Really ‘Going Well’ Between Conor McGregor and the UFC?

The relationship between the UFC and its biggest star, Conor McGregor, has never been more opaque than it is right now.
The lightweight champion hasn’t fought in the Octagon since November 2016, when he won the 155-pound title from Eddie Alvarez at UFC…

The relationship between the UFC and its biggest star, Conor McGregor, has never been more opaque than it is right now.

The lightweight champion hasn’t fought in the Octagon since November 2016, when he won the 155-pound title from Eddie Alvarez at UFC 205. In the wake of his mega boxing match against Floyd Mayweather Jr. in August 2017, McGregor has frequently been seen and heard on social media—including the recent claim he tried to “save” UFC 222—but hasn’t made any clear statements about what’s next for him.

UFC President Dana White has been only slightly more forthcoming. The fight company has announced a bout between interim lightweight champ Tony Ferguson and Khabib Nurmagomedov for UFC 223 in April but has been unwilling to confirm it will strip McGregor of his title in the process.

The latest reports offer little in the way of clarity.

Wrestling Observer Newsletter‘s Dave Meltzer wrote Thursday that negotiations are “going well” between the two parties and that the UFC may be planning to have McGregor do “two fights in 2018” (h/t Bloody Elbow’s Aaron Tabuena).

Meanwhile, TMZ Sports caught up with White and tried to ask him some pointed questions about the UFC’s plans for McGregor, but White only chuckled and repeated the same non-answers he gave during the introductory press conference for Ferguson vs. Nurmagomedov.

All of which raises a fleet of interesting questions and possibilities. Here to try to suss out which UFC-McGregor storylines to buy and which to sell are Bleacher Report lead MMA writer Chad Dundas and featured columnist Matthew Ryder.

                     

BUY or SELL? Things are “going well” between the UFC and McGregor right now.

Chad: I’m buying this, though only cautiously. First of all, Meltzer is a credible guy, and I believe him when he reports there are mostly positive feelings around negotiations.

The UFC and McGregor both drive hard bargains, but—aside from a couple minor dust-ups—they have always been able to come together to make business happen. They pulled off the impossible in Mayweather vs. McGregor, for Pete’s sake. Considering all the egos involved in that, anything else should feel like child’s play moving forward.

McGregor must also know his only long-term future is as an MMA fighter and in the UFC. Boxing will quickly turn into a dead end for him. If he’s serious about fighting again without engaging in a lengthy legal battle, I’m betting he will return to the UFC eventually. Anything else is most likely just posturing.

             

Matthew: I’m selling. I think things are “going well” between the UFC and McGregor the same way they are “going well” for me and hurricanes: As in, I’m not actively being hit by a hurricane, but that doesn’t mean one couldn’t come along and hit me at any time—at which point things would decidedly not be going well.

All is likely pretty quiet between the two sides, but once they get down to brass tacks, there will come a time when the UFC has to do some things it’s never done before to keep a fighter happy. It will have to cough up bigger-than-ever guaranteed fight purses or ownership in the company to keep McGregor happy, plus who knows what else. And you have to think that’s going to be a sticking point.

And when it sticks, Conor, the biggest star the sport has known and the man more deserving of special financial treatment than anyone in history, will balk. I don’t know where else he could go or what else he might do, but the past year has shown that if something other than MMA pays well enough for him to go there or do it, he will.

                            

BUY or SELL? The UFC will strip Conor McGregor of his title before UFC 223.

Chad: Sell. I have no idea what White and the UFC think they are doing with all this double-talk about the lightweight championship. It seems as though the promotion wants to have its cake and eat it too—billing Ferguson vs. Nurmagomedov as being for the “real” title while keeping McGregor ensconced as the company’s most marketable, most popular champion.

Unless things totally break down between the UFC and McGregor, I kind of get the impression the organization is OK with emerging from UFC 223 with two “real” lightweight champions. From a promotional standpoint, maybe that isn’t the worst idea in the world, even if it makes zero sense logically. If that’s the plan, it makes it imperative McGregor fights the winner. That could be a tall task.

           

Matthew: I’m buying this one. I’m keen on the theory that the UFC will allow Conor to hold the title until Tony and Khabib make weight and line up across the cage from one another, at which point it will strip Conor and name the UFC 223 bout’s winner the official champion.

By the time UFC 223 rolls around, the promotion is going to have a good idea whether it can lock up McGregor for a bout or two in 2018, and I believe company brass will cut bait on the “McGregor as real champion” narrative if that’s what it has to do. After all, Conor isn’t above showing up with a belt anyway—or outright stealing someone else’s—so it would have the promotional material it would need if he did come back to fight Ferguson or Nurmagomedov.

I happen to have $20 I never want to see again right here in my pocket, so I’m buying.

                    

BUY or SELL? The Ferguson-Nurmagomedov winner will be the “real” UFC lightweight champ.

Chad: Sell. White can try to market UFC 223 as being for the “real” title all he wants, but I have a feeling MMA fans likely won’t be as bullish on the idea. Everybody loves Ferguson’s flashy, devil-may-care skills and Nurmagomedov’s ice-cold demeanor, but for the foreseeable future, the path to being the world’s No. 1 155-pound fighter still runs through McGregor.

The Ferguson-Nurmagomedov winner won’t quite have Daniel Cormier’s problems. Neither has previously lost to The Notorious, while Cormier has lost twice to former light heavyweight champ Jon Jones. If I may boost a line from Ric Flair here: To be the man, you (still) have to beat the man.

            

Matthew: Sell. Sell, sell, sell. Sell. This is classic bogus White carnival barking. To be fair, I can’t hate him for it. He’s been inventing narratives and strong-arming discussions for so long it’s second nature to him. He cannot, however, simply bend the fabric of reality to meet his needs.

McGregor is the champion, and nobody has beaten him for that title. I’m still open to arguing he remains the true featherweight champion as well—in the same way Jones is still the rightful 205-pound champ, but all that is for another day. For these purposes, McGregor is simply the one and true UFC lightweight champion.

Ferg and Nurmy (buddy-cop show, anyone?) are big time in their own right, but until they beat McGregor you can’t consider either of them the “real champ.”

                            

BUY or SELL? McGregor’s next fight will be against the UFC 223 winner.

Chad: Sell! Oh, sweet mother, sell. Look, as I said at the top, I’m pretty confident McGregor will return to the UFC, but I damn sure don’t think he’s going to let the organization start dictating which people he will fight or when. Fact is, Ferguson and Nurmagomedov still represent that most poisonous combination in combat sports: a tough fight for the smallest potential financial return.

Two things we know for sure about McGregor. One, money talks. Two, at least thus far, every forward step he’s taken in his career has been bigger than the last. It’s unclear how he might top his boxing match against Mayweather, but it won’t be with a low-profile bout against T-Ferg or Nurmy.

If and when he returns to the Octagon, a third fight against Nate Diaz, a superfight against someone like Georges St-Pierre or jumping to welterweight to fight for the 170-pound title all make more financial sense.

                

Matthew: I’m setting myself up to feel like an idiot when “McGregor vs. Mayweather II: THIS TIME THERE ARE NO RULES!” is booked in the UFC in late summer, but what’s life without a bit of risk? I’ll buy.

There has become a general perception in MMA that McGregor is entirely focused on money. While that’s largely true, I’m not sure it’s entirely true. You have to remember McGregor built his legacy on beating the tar out of a boatload of short-notice replacements and never complained about it. In fact, his only UFC loss came to Nate Diaz on short notice.

I’m therefore not sure he’s a man who was never without competitive fire, and I’m not sure he’s a man without competitive fire these days. In fact, I am sure his opportunities to chase money and get rich were born of an unmatched competitive fire from 2014 to 2016. And I think that fire still burns—buoyed further by the claim he offered to fight Frankie Edgar at UFC 222.

I think it’s going to burn him right into a fight with the Ferguson-Nurmagomedov winner, and I can’t wait to see that.

                   

BUY or SELL? McGregor never fights again.

Chad: Sell. White closed out his interview with TMZ Sports with his common refrain that McGregor has so much money in the bank he might never return to combat sports. I admit that, initially, I wondered whether the Mayweather bout might be McGregor’s exit strategy from being a professional fighter. We know he harbors bigger goals—whether as a liquor mogul or as a fight promoter.

Still, at 29, McGregor ain’t done. There’s an essential part of him that craves the competition and the limelight that comes with fighting. It’s hard to get that rush anywhere else. It’s nearly impossible to get it anywhere that will pay him quite as handsomely. I fully believe McGregor will strap on the gloves again. Where? When? Against whom? Those are the real questions.

                

Matthew: Definitely selling that idea. Be it in the UFC or in a rematch against Mayweather, the Republic of Ireland’s favorite son will 100 percent fight again.

I don’t think he’s long for this fight game, though. He exhibits an awareness of the dangers of his chosen trade and his newfound “Diddy bread” is sure to make it easier to walk away.

I’ll say McGregor fights, in this order: the UFC 223 winner, Floyd Mayweather in MMA (I’m serious, and I hate myself for that), Nate Diaz and the welterweight champion, whoever that is at the time. Then he retires, richer than he could have dreamed he would ever be and with just enough to his legacy for people to remember him mostly fondly.

Read more MMA news on BleacherReport.com

Wait, What? Could We Actually See Jon Jones Back in the Octagon in 2018?

It’s been a minute since MMA fans heard anything of substance from Jon Jones, but the former UFC light heavyweight champion’s manager struck an optimistic tone this week.
With Jones’ hearing before the California State Athletic Commis…

It’s been a minute since MMA fans heard anything of substance from Jon Jones, but the former UFC light heavyweight champion’s manager struck an optimistic tone this week.

With Jones’ hearing before the California State Athletic Commission to adjudicate his second positive performance-enhancing drugs test set for February 27, Malki Kawa said this week he’s certain Jones will fight in the UFC again before the end of this year.

Or, at least, almost certain.

“I got to assume that by the end of March, for a fact, we will get this resolved and get an idea of what it’s looking like,” Kawa told Luke Thomas on SiriusXM radio. “I’d like to say about a 95-percent chance [he fights in 2018].”

That’s a cheery outlook for Jones, who could face up to a four-year ban after being flagged for a potential violation of the UFC’s anti-doping program in August 2017. Jones’ UFC 214 win over Daniel Cormier has already been converted to a no-contest and his 205-pound title stripped for the third time in his career.

So the idea the man who may be the Octagon’s most talented—and arguably most troubled—champion will get his latest personal drama cleared up in time to fight in 2018? That’s about as positive an outcome as Jones could hope to get.

But should fans share Kawa’s optimism? Is Jones really going to skate out of yet another career crisis with a slap on the wrist? And if he does, how will he be greeted on his return?

Here, Bleacher Report lead MMA writers Chad Dundas (that’s me) and Jonathan Snowden discuss what might become of Jonny Bones’ future.

 

Chad: It’s been six months since word leaked that Jones had failed another drug test. Since then, the former champ’s public statements have been reduced to a series of inspirational platitudes that infrequently pop up on his personal Twitter account. If the wheels of justice have turned at all in this case, it’s happened behind closed doors.

The first time Jones tested positive for PEDs—in July 2016—the United States Anti-Doping Agency ultimately handed him just a one-year ban, upholding his claim that he’d ingested the prohibited substances unintentionally while taking a tainted supplement. That was great news for Jones but also puts a lot of added scrutiny on this second failed test.

It’s unclear how Jones will defend himself from another PED allegation without going back to the tainted supplement well. Arguing Jones got ahold of another load of bad creatine (or, as the case may be, sexual enhancement products) would be the equivalent of saying lightning struck twice in the same spot. To buy it, you’d need to believe Jones is not only MMA’s best fighter but also it’s unluckiest.

Personally, I feel like that would be a lot to swallow. It’s also hard to believe that at least some MMA fans—many of whom have been looking for reasons to dislike Jones for years—would just forgive and forget. No matter what happens here, the guy’s legacy will be sporting a few dents.

Yet UFC drug czar Jeff Novitzky has been oddly supportive of Jones throughout this process. He’s said on multiple occasions that he doesn’t believe Jones knowingly took PEDs.

So, Snowden, what on earth is going on here? Will it surprise you to see Jones back in the cage in 2018? And do you think this second positive test can effectively be explained away?

Jonathan: The assumptions underlying the UFC’s more robust out-of-competition testing are that fighters had gotten too smart to be caught with the standard pre– and post-fight screenings. They knew exactly when, where and how they would be tested and adjusted their PED intake accordingly. A PED screening in the old UFC was little more than an IQ test—unless something went horribly wrong, fighters knew how to beat the system.

That’s what makes this failed drug test so odd for Jones. He wasn’t caught when USADA unexpectedly popped by his gym in Albuquerque, New Mexico. In fact, he’d passed several drug tests that quarter. Instead, he was flagged at the weigh-ins the day before his championship bout with Cormier, one of the few times he could be absolutely certain he’d face a test.

MMA editor Brian Oswald and I actually talked with Jones a couple of weeks before the fight. He was paranoid about accidentally consuming anything that could potentially lead to a false positive, to the point he refused our offer of an energy drink just to be on the safe side. Sure, he could have been lying to us. But when you combine this anecdotal evidence with the odd timing of his test failure, you can’t help but scratch your head in confusion.

It is, in a word, weird.

But no matter how strange it all seems, as American hero Steve Austin once said, Jones tested positive and “that’s the bottom line.” As you note, he’s talked his way out of one positive test already. USADA may not be so willing to listen a second time.

The wild card, of course, is that UFC badly needs Jones to compete. And UFC also employs USADA to conduct the tests and hand out the punishments.

It would be inappropriate to suggest the possibility that UFC could influence USADA‘s decisions, except they’ve given the impression of impropriety before.

In 2016, UFC was allowed to waive the requirement that Brock Lesnar re-enter the drug testing pool before his return at UFC 200. A normal fighter would have been required to face testing for four months before they could fight.

But Lesnar is a star, and UFC got what UFC wanted.

The rules also don’t seem to apply to Ronda Rousey, who according to USADA‘s website wasn’t tested a single time in 2017 despite never officially retiring from the sport. While there is no evidence of doping, a star fighter was given a long grace period where anything went. That destroys any illusion of an even playing field.

What do you think Chad? Will his star status give Jones extra leeway in what should be one of the few areas of a fighter’s life where no one gets preferential treatment? Or is that just the cynicism talking?

Chad: This is MMA, my man. Any amount of cynicism you possess has been hard-earned after years of watching our beloved sport waffle between circus sideshow hijinks and the occasional compulsion to go clean and disavow its misspent youth.

The UFC-USADA relationship isn’t ideal. Like most everything that happens in the upper echelon of MMA, it lacks transparency. But in the absence of evidence of any wide-spread malfeasance—above and beyond the Lesnar situation—I’m left to think the system mostly works as advertised.

Assuming Kawa’s confidence and Novitzky’s apparent support aren’t misplaced, it’s starting to seem likely Jones will find his way back to the Octagon sooner than expected. When he does, I have no doubt he’ll go right back to being among the most successful fighters in UFC history, no matter which weight class he chooses to enter.

History has already taught us Jones can likely reclaim the light heavyweight title whenever he wants it. With Cormier moving up to challenge Stipe Miocic for the heavyweight title this summer, will the 265-pound strap be in play for Jones as well? A potential move to heavyweight could make him an even bigger draw for the UFC moving forward. 

But we all know the true crux of this conversation, right? If Jones does return this year, most fans will merely be on the edge of their seats, waiting for him to run afoul of the rules all over again. That’s a sad commentary, but it’s the reality he’s made for himself.

Owing to a variety of out-of-the-cage transgressions, Jones has fought just once each year since 2014 and he’ll be 31 years old by the time he returns—even on Kawa‘s most optimistic timeline. Where once Jones was deemed a shoo-in to finish up as the greatest MMA fighter of all time, it’s now starting to feel like he’s burning precious daylight.

He still has enough time left in his athletic life to live up to the sky-high career expectations observers set for him while he was still a young up-and-comer.

But he doesn‘t have enough time left to do it and continue to be a screwup.

That’s why the biggest challenge of his career still awaits.

Read more MMA news on BleacherReport.com

Transgender Woman Anne Veriato to Make Her MMA Debut vs. Male Opponent

A transgender woman will fight a man at an MMA event in Brazil next month, marking perhaps the first publicized matchup of its kind in the history of the sport. 
Anne Veriato, a 21-year-old brown belt in Brazilian jiu-jitsu, will be making her MMA…

A transgender woman will fight a man at an MMA event in Brazil next month, marking perhaps the first publicized matchup of its kind in the history of the sport. 

Anne Veriato, a 21-year-old brown belt in Brazilian jiu-jitsu, will be making her MMA debut when she takes on Railson Paixao in a strawweight bout at Mr. Cage 34 on March 10.

As a transgender woman who has been competing against and beating men in jiu-jitsu tournaments since she was seven years old, Veriato said it never occurred to her to fight another woman.

“It’s only fair to fight men,” she told MMA Fighting’s Guilherme Cruz this week. “It never crossed my mind to fight a woman because I think I’m too good. … I don’t think it’s fair to fight women.”

Event promoter Samir Nadaf—who is also Veriato’s manager—agreed, and said he would only sign Veriato to compete in MMA if she agreed to a match against a man.

“This [fighter] is a phenom in jiu-jitsu,” Nadaf told Cruz. “[She] asked me for an opportunity. My answer was ‘I can give you an opportunity, but at Mr. Cage, men fight men, it doesn’t matter if you have a penis or not. If you were born a man, you’ll fight a man.’ [She] said ‘that’s exactly what I want.'”

The fight will be contested at 115 pounds and Veriato said she is hoping it is just the first in a long, successful MMA career.

“I know that a lot of people will talk [with] a lot of prejudice,” Veriato said. “There are a lot of people rooting for me, especially after they start to know my story, but some still don’t respect me. They think I just want attention. They will only respect me after I have a few fights.”

In the United States, transgender fighter Fallon Fox drew controversy while amassing a record of 5-1 from 2012-14, fighting against cisgender women—meaning athletes whose gender identity corresponds with their birth sex.

Before stepping away from the sport in 2015, Fox garnered support from some in the MMA community, but also drew criticism from some other fighters, including Ronda Rousey.

Mr. Cage 34 will be held in Manaus, Brazil.

Read more MMA news on BleacherReport.com

Anderson Silva: Making Sense of UFC Great’s Legacy After 2nd Failed Drug Test

Anderson Silva’s fighting career—at least as we know it—may already be over.
Details of Silva’s second failed drug test emerged this week, casting his future into peril. The former UFC middleweight champion faces a possible four-year ban af…

Anderson Silva‘s fighting career—at least as we know it—may already be over.

Details of Silva’s second failed drug test emerged this week, casting his future into peril. The former UFC middleweight champion faces a possible four-year ban after turning up positive for synthetic testosterone and a banned diuretic in a sample collected in October 2017.

His reps are apparently asking for a lighter sentence, arguing that Silva’s first test failures—for a pair of steroids in January 2015—didn’t fall under the auspices of the UFC’s current anti-doping policy and therefore shouldn’t count against him, according to Combate (h/t MMA Fighting’s Marc Raimondi). Silva, who initially denied knowingly taking performance enhancers, remained mum this week.

Even before this latest drug scandal, things had gotten pretty bleak for a guy once regarded as the best pound-for-pound fighter in the world.

Just 1-4-1 dating back to the loss of his title to Chris Weidman at UFC 162 in July 2013, Silva’s positive test knocked him out of a proposed fight against Kelvin Gastelum at UFC Fight Night 122. Not only was that bout scheduled to air exclusively on the UFC’s digital subscription service instead of pay-per-view, but the once-mighty Silva was a slight underdog to the up-and-coming Gastelum, per BookMaker.

Already 42 years old, any sort of significant suspension would likely be a death sentence for The Spider as an active fighter, at least in America. If this truly is the end of the road for one of the UFC’s greatest champions, how will the sport ultimately look upon his legacy?

Here, Bleacher Report lead MMA writers Chad Dundas (that’s me) and Jonathan Snowden try to sort it out.

Chad: Very few people seem to be able to find it in their hearts to offer a charitable view of Silva’s career at the moment, Jonathan. Former middleweight champion Michael Bisping—who beat Silva by unanimous decision in February 2016 and then replaced him in the fight against Gastelum in late 2017—said his drug test failures “completely destroy his legacy” during a media conference call prior to UFN 122.

Meanwhile, MMA Fighting’s Dave Doyle wrote Saturday that Silva had “disqualified himself” from consideration as greatest of all time and former foe Weidman told Raimondi that a second failed test “definitely tarnishes his legacy” and that his “whole career is in question.”

Former UFC color commentator and middleweight contender Brian Stann was slightly more bullish during a recent appearance with RJ Clifford and Ricky Bones on SiriusXM’s Fight Club.

“He’s still one of the best to ever do it,” Stann said. “In my eyes, there was a clear steroid era of this sport, and he was the best at it during that time. … I wish he would have retired sooner.”

Personally, I’m a bit torn. Silva ruled the 185-pound division with an iron fist from 2006-2013, amassing 10 successful title defenses while three times traveling up to light heavyweight to make mincemeat of larger competitors like James Irvin, Forrest Griffin and Stephan Bonnar.

Frankly, we’ve never seen anybody match that for sheer dominance.

His drug test failures came during the twilight of his 20-year MMA career, after he was into his late 30s/early 40s and had suffered a potentially career-ending leg injury against Weidman in their rematch at UFC 168.

So, if you told me that Silva turned to performance-enhancing drugs only as a beleaguered elder statesman, just trying to keep his battered body going and stay on pace with a new generation of fighters, I might believe it.

But part of me also agrees with guys like Stann and Weidman, in that multiple failed tests is enough for me to suspect Silva’s entire amazing body of work was built while operating outside the rules. Even if the bulk of that run took place during Stann’s so-called “steroid era,” for me it adds a mental asterisk. I can’t bring myself to consider him on par with other all-timers who haven’t tested positive for PEDs.


What say you?

Jonathan: This is a very complicated issue, one that inspires strong feelings on both ends of the spectrum.

Part of me agrees with cynics who believe all athletes seek advantages over their competitors and robust drug testing merely turns athletics into a chemical arms race. Why not, the argument goes, allow controlled use of performance-enhancing drugs, under a doctor’s care, and improve the capabilities of fighters across the board? After all, isn’t enhanced performance a good thing? If Silva was able to kick Vitor Belfort in the head because of drug use, well, he needs to share a little of the good stuff with others. He was the most dynamic fighter in the sport, a walking advertisement for PEDs if that’s what made it all possible.

Then again, PEDs can have serious consequences to long-term health, some of which may be unknown while the athlete is actively using them. And lines, even in a free-for-all, have to be drawn somewhere. When lives and livelihoods are at stake, athletes will make poor decisions about what to put in their bodies. We need regulation, and knowing that, why not play it safe and prohibit all substances that are potentially harmful to the human body? Better, this argument goes, safe than sorry (NSFW language in tweet).

Stann is right and wrong about the “steroid era.” UFC fighters have been subject to testing since 2002, when Nevada became the first state to do a post-fight screening (and also became the first state to catch a champion, when new heavyweight kingpin Josh Barnett popped hot that very night). For years, the UFC and state regulators met in the middle, testing only on the night of the fight. This eliminated the most egregious abuses while leaving months for a fighter to serve as a petri dish, building muscle and increasing recovery time in between fights. This seemed to work pretty well for everyone—at least everyone willing to cut corners when the hall monitor wasn’t watching.

This is the environment Silva came up in. He was subject to drug testing at each of his UFC fights. While we can’t say for certain he wasn’t abusing PEDs in his prime, we can say for sure he was never caught.

Testing under USADA is much more robust. While it’s still possible to get away with using drugs, especially expensive ones that clear your system quickly, it’s also much easier to get caught red-handed. Silva, clearly, is regularly reaching into the cookie jar. This is likely going to be the case for many fighters who came up in his era. As we learned during the testosterone replacement era of MMA, once you start using exogenous testosterone, it’s very difficult to stop.

The truth is, many of our heroes have been busted for PED use of various kinds. From Royce Gracie to Jon Jones, there is no MMA history if we erase the names of all the abusers from the books. Insert an asterisk if you must—but I say the man’s accomplishments stand.

Is my heart too soft to give him the scolding he may very well deserve? Am I going too easy on him, Chad?

Chad: No, that all seems reasonable to me. I also suspect that as more time passes and the memories of Silva’s test failures aren’t so fresh, it will be easier to look back on his many talents and enjoy their pure artistry.

Legacy-wise, you can’t merely write the guy out of the history books. He was too good and too important for too long—and as you pointed out, if you eliminate PED users from the story of MMA, there won’t be much of a story left to tell.

Instead, I favor a warts-and-all approach to honoring Silva’s accomplishments. We can marvel at the win streak, the skills and the terror he inspired in the opposition while still noting that he tested positive twice late in his career. We can still note that, like so many others, he likely overstayed his welcome.

Even though the implementation of the UFC’s revamped anti-doping policy hasn’t been perfect, I remain convinced we need aggressive, state-of-the-art drug testing in this sport. You mentioned the athlete health and safety concerns that must dominate nearly any discussion in combat sports. Any other approach wouldn’t be fair to fighters who want to do it cleanly while still competing at the highest level of the sport.

I shudder at the notion of MMA with no PED regulation. For me, it brings up dystopian visions where doping doctors are just as important and influential as top coaches and where the divide between haves and have-nots is even wider than it is today.

But I digress.

For Silva, I think it will be important to recognize his great abilities inside the cage while also noting his very human flaws. That’s about all you can ask of any athlete in the modern era.

One thing I wonder about is where he goes from here. While I support the UFC’s testing efforts, I also balk at the notion that the company can essentially impose a lifetime ban on an independent contractor who might still need to make a living.

If Silva is handed a lengthy ban in America and instead of calling it quits, he turns up in Japan, I’m not sure how I’ll feel.

On one hand, more power to the guy for still being able to make a buck. On the other hand, as he forges toward his mid-40s, it’ll be tough to watch a reduced version of him continue to risk his future health for short-term gain.

It’s an uneasy feeling I’m growing scarily accustomed to as an MMA fan in 2018.

Read more MMA news on BleacherReport.com