Three-and-a-half hours into the six-fight main card in Manila, after Neil Magny lost (then won) and an inspirational performance by Mark Munoz in his swan song fight (then a moving speech), Frankie Edgar became a nightmare of efficiency. In what was dubbed a “superfight” against former WEC champion Urijah Faber, Edgar was pretty freaking super. He sprinted to the cage and executed a game plan in a game so easily given to chaos.
What a determined effort that was.
And after 25 minutes of technical precision, all the bragging rights went to the UFC’s erstwhile lightweight champ. Biggie trumped Tupac. East beat West. Toms River flowed that much deeper than the Sacramento River. “The Answer” outclassed “The California Kid.” Edgar — who was fairly quiet in the lead-up to this super-quiet “superfight” in the far-off Philippines — made a point of reminding UFC president Dana White he was owed a title shot. At this point, the UFC should probably listen.
It should either be Edgar versus Conor McGregor — two diametrically opposed forces with a mile of technical appeal — or Edgar-Jose Aldo II, which would be par for the course since Edgar rematches just about everybody, and sometimes rematches the rematches.
Whatever the case, Edgar is primed to challenge for the featherweight belt again. Yet it’s all a little odd, this reshaping of perception. It wasn’t all that long ago that people considered Edgar one of the best pound-for-pound fighters in the game. That was back when he was vastly undersized in every fight and getting nicked up in his victories. These days he’s left out of that discussion for the most part, yet he’s walking out of the Octagon in near-mint condition.
And that’s the difference that has emerged with Edgar in the smaller frame; throughout his residency at 145 pounds he’s truly minimized the damage he takes. There was a time when Edgar would bleed at the touching of the gloves. Gray Maynard, who nearly killed him not once but twice, left his face a purple wheezing mess. Ditto Benson Henderson after a pair of five-round wars, one — at UFC 144 in Japan — which featured a brutal upkick that would have flattened lesser men.
People expected to wince through Edgar’s fights back in those days when we hailed him as great. Not anymore as he tiptoes back into that discussion. This version of “The Answer” contains the best parts of the former one (the flickering, countering, triple-jabbing, wrestling, combo-throwing dervish mania) without the nasty price tag (his chin, if you haven’t noticed, has become a mirage).
It’s true that Edgar didn’t win his featherweight debut at UFC 156 against Aldo, but he began to enact a change in philosophy. He began to deliver his punches in volume with a keen sense of self-preservation. He learned to utilize his quicks to this end. In last four fights — against Charles Oliveira, B.J. Penn, Cub Swanson and now Faber — Edgar dishes far more than he receives. He doesn’t have to bleed to know he’s in a fight. These days he just sticks to the script.
Maybe that’s why his striking coach Mark Henry was shouting out combinations for him to try in French on Saturday. Henry, who’s been with Edgar for years, has been pounding home the concepts of longevity since before Edgar dropped down. They communicate in various languages to remain unknowable in the course of a fight. It’s their thing. But the bigger point is that Edgar hears the instructions, and he adheres to his game plan. Has it worked? Edgar has looked more aware of himself — and more dominant — in his early-30s than he did in his late-20s.
Saturday was another example of Edgar at his finest. Faber, who has never lost a non-title fight, couldn’t get much going. Edgar, with the jagged movement of a lie detector test, peppered him from afar. He used his takedown attempts to effect, and controlled the space. He generally disrupted Faber’s rhythm, and — at times — rendered him helpless. He cruised to a victory against a guy who doesn’t get handled like that too often.
And when it was all said and done, Edgar looked like he could go another couple of rounds if need be. He didn’t show the signs of the struggle. It was the new Frankie Edgar showcasing himself in the “superfight” in Manila, the one who keeps his wits about him while carrying out an assignment.
So what should his next assignment be? To either avenge his last loss, or to upset the entire country of Ireland. This version of Frankie Edgar looks capable of either.
Three-and-a-half hours into the six-fight main card in Manila, after Neil Magny lost (then won) and an inspirational performance by Mark Munoz in his swan song fight (then a moving speech), Frankie Edgar became a nightmare of efficiency. In what was dubbed a “superfight” against former WEC champion Urijah Faber, Edgar was pretty freaking super. He sprinted to the cage and executed a game plan in a game so easily given to chaos.
What a determined effort that was.
And after 25 minutes of technical precision, all the bragging rights went to the UFC’s erstwhile lightweight champ. Biggie trumped Tupac. East beat West. Toms River flowed that much deeper than the Sacramento River. “The Answer” outclassed “The California Kid.” Edgar — who was fairly quiet in the lead-up to this super-quiet “superfight” in the far-off Philippines — made a point of reminding UFC president Dana White he was owed a title shot. At this point, the UFC should probably listen.
It should either be Edgar versus Conor McGregor — two diametrically opposed forces with a mile of technical appeal — or Edgar-Jose Aldo II, which would be par for the course since Edgar rematches just about everybody, and sometimes rematches the rematches.
Whatever the case, Edgar is primed to challenge for the featherweight belt again. Yet it’s all a little odd, this reshaping of perception. It wasn’t all that long ago that people considered Edgar one of the best pound-for-pound fighters in the game. That was back when he was vastly undersized in every fight and getting nicked up in his victories. These days he’s left out of that discussion for the most part, yet he’s walking out of the Octagon in near-mint condition.
And that’s the difference that has emerged with Edgar in the smaller frame; throughout his residency at 145 pounds he’s truly minimized the damage he takes. There was a time when Edgar would bleed at the touching of the gloves. Gray Maynard, who nearly killed him not once but twice, left his face a purple wheezing mess. Ditto Benson Henderson after a pair of five-round wars, one — at UFC 144 in Japan — which featured a brutal upkick that would have flattened lesser men.
People expected to wince through Edgar’s fights back in those days when we hailed him as great. Not anymore as he tiptoes back into that discussion. This version of “The Answer” contains the best parts of the former one (the flickering, countering, triple-jabbing, wrestling, combo-throwing dervish mania) without the nasty price tag (his chin, if you haven’t noticed, has become a mirage).
It’s true that Edgar didn’t win his featherweight debut at UFC 156 against Aldo, but he began to enact a change in philosophy. He began to deliver his punches in volume with a keen sense of self-preservation. He learned to utilize his quicks to this end. In last four fights — against Charles Oliveira, B.J. Penn, Cub Swanson and now Faber — Edgar dishes far more than he receives. He doesn’t have to bleed to know he’s in a fight. These days he just sticks to the script.
Maybe that’s why his striking coach Mark Henry was shouting out combinations for him to try in French on Saturday. Henry, who’s been with Edgar for years, has been pounding home the concepts of longevity since before Edgar dropped down. They communicate in various languages to remain unknowable in the course of a fight. It’s their thing. But the bigger point is that Edgar hears the instructions, and he adheres to his game plan. Has it worked? Edgar has looked more aware of himself — and more dominant — in his early-30s than he did in his late-20s.
Saturday was another example of Edgar at his finest. Faber, who has never lost a non-title fight, couldn’t get much going. Edgar, with the jagged movement of a lie detector test, peppered him from afar. He used his takedown attempts to effect, and controlled the space. He generally disrupted Faber’s rhythm, and — at times — rendered him helpless. He cruised to a victory against a guy who doesn’t get handled like that too often.
And when it was all said and done, Edgar looked like he could go another couple of rounds if need be. He didn’t show the signs of the struggle. It was the new Frankie Edgar showcasing himself in the “superfight” in Manila, the one who keeps his wits about him while carrying out an assignment.
So what should his next assignment be? To either avenge his last loss, or to upset the entire country of Ireland. This version of Frankie Edgar looks capable of either.
Benji Radach has been booked into fights that never materialized over the last four-and-a-half years. He’d do his training camps, get in shape, then get a call that the fight was scrapped for one reason or another. So he went to work. He went to Alaska in the winter months and worked as a pile buck, with a fight the furthest thing from his mind.
Of course, that’s when he got a call from Bellator to compete against Ben Reiter on two week’s notice. When he was looking for a fight, he couldn’t find one. When he stopped, a fight found him.
“Yeah, I was up working in Alaska, being a pile buck, just gnarly conditions with a foot of snow on the ground,” Radach says. “It was cold as hell, but it was $60 an hour, so, hey. I started getting in the gym a little bit. I was training one week, but it was really light. I didn’t know I was going to fight. And then Dennis [Hallman] calls me and he says, you want to take a fight? I was like, sure. He told me the guy, and sure enough, I just said what the hell man. I’m not in the worst shape but, I like this match-up with this guy. So I figured I could do pretty well, even if I am tired.”
Radach will make his return to the cage on Friday after long, long time away. The landscape has changed considerably since fought Ovince St. Preux in Strikeforce back in 2010. For instance, there is no Strikeforce anymore. The barnburner he had with Scott Smith, one of the better haphazard fights of the time, was over six years ago. The last time he won was at EliteXC against Murilo Rua, back when Kimbo Slice’s mystique crashed down with a short right jab from Seth Petruzelli.
Before that he was in the IFL, also defunct.
“I always had it in the back of my mind that I’d come back, but there were a few times where I was just like, man, am I done?” he says. “I had to ask myself that, because nothing was lining up. I didn’t know if I was kind of getting forced out or what, but nothing was lining up. Training wasn’t going good, and everything was just starting to pile up on me.
“But I just kept going to the gym here and there and coming back to it, and then this just kind of land on my doorstep. I couldn’t turn this down. Plus, this guy is undefeated, so I love the challenge of beating this guy on one week rather than several months of training.”
Reiter is a former collegiate wrestler from the University of Pennsylvania. It’s a daunting task to return from building docks in wild Alaska to thwarting takedown attempts in two weeks time. Even Radach describes his decision to step in on short notice as “not the smartest thing,” but he would love to finally get rid of the bad taste left in his mouth from the OSP fight in December 2010.
“I’ll do way better than my last fight, let’s put it that way,” he says. “That fight was the worst, I was just totally out of it. I wasn’t there mentally or physically and I pretty much took an ass kicking for some Christmas money. It wasn’t a good one. But the whole time I knew I could have done better. I thought I could beat the guy. It’s one of those things. When you’re in a bad jam and you need to make some money you kind of got to do what you’ve got to do and I just had to do that at the time. It was a big learning lesson.”
Radach has certainly battled to get back to the cage, and he’s had plenty of setbacks. He says he left his gig as the corporate director of instructor’s training LA Boxing when his grandfather got sick. With nobody else to look after him as he lay on his deathbed, Radach was set with the grim task.
“I saw him take his last breath,” he says.
He trains in Washington with Hallman. At 36 years old, he keeps in fight shape. But it’s been a long time without an opponent. The potboiler with St. Preux feels like eons ago. And all these years later, he’s still dealing with lingering injuries that never got sorted out.
You might remember Radach’s long list of maladies from back in the day. He was bitten by a brown recluse spider in 2004, which got infected and left a divot in his leg. He got his jaw broken by Chris Leben. He had surgery for a herniated disc. He faced the prospect of amputation when he got MRSA. And he had a bum knee.
That last one stays with him.
“My body feels good, strong, faster than it’s been and my strength’s through the roof,” he says. “But some of these injuries. I don’t have an ACL in my right leg, it’s loose, and eventually I’ll have to get a knee replacement. I’m just fighting without an ACL. I’ve done it before, but, what do you do when you’re not making tons of money fighting like you should? You just got to go with what you got.”
And that’s the Radach who returns four-and-a-half years later. The pile buck who worked on the docks in Alaska just a month ago, who has been waiting all this time to take off his shoes and fight again, who doesn’t have an ACL and just wants to stand and trade with a willing participant.
Will Reiter be that guy? It’s taken Radach over a thousand days to arrive at the Pechanga Resort and Casino to find out.
“I think he’s got some wrestling, but he’s got a ways to go still,” Radach says. “His hands aren’t the best, but I expect him to be better. I think he’s probably going to be better than his last fight [against Shamir Garcia], so I just got to keep touching him. Just keeping putting my hands on him and make him frustrated and take advantage.”
Benji Radach has been booked into fights that never materialized over the last four-and-a-half years. He’d do his training camps, get in shape, then get a call that the fight was scrapped for one reason or another. So he went to work. He went to Alaska in the winter months and worked as a pile buck, with a fight the furthest thing from his mind.
Of course, that’s when he got a call from Bellator to compete against Ben Reiter on two week’s notice. When he was looking for a fight, he couldn’t find one. When he stopped, a fight found him.
“Yeah, I was up working in Alaska, being a pile buck, just gnarly conditions with a foot of snow on the ground,” Radach says. “It was cold as hell, but it was $60 an hour, so, hey. I started getting in the gym a little bit. I was training one week, but it was really light. I didn’t know I was going to fight. And then Dennis [Hallman] calls me and he says, you want to take a fight? I was like, sure. He told me the guy, and sure enough, I just said what the hell man. I’m not in the worst shape but, I like this match-up with this guy. So I figured I could do pretty well, even if I am tired.”
Radach will make his return to the cage on Friday after long, long time away. The landscape has changed considerably since fought Ovince St. Preux in Strikeforce back in 2010. For instance, there is no Strikeforce anymore. The barnburner he had with Scott Smith, one of the better haphazard fights of the time, was over six years ago. The last time he won was at EliteXC against Murilo Rua, back when Kimbo Slice’s mystique crashed down with a short right jab from Seth Petruzelli.
Before that he was in the IFL, also defunct.
“I always had it in the back of my mind that I’d come back, but there were a few times where I was just like, man, am I done?” he says. “I had to ask myself that, because nothing was lining up. I didn’t know if I was kind of getting forced out or what, but nothing was lining up. Training wasn’t going good, and everything was just starting to pile up on me.
“But I just kept going to the gym here and there and coming back to it, and then this just kind of land on my doorstep. I couldn’t turn this down. Plus, this guy is undefeated, so I love the challenge of beating this guy on one week rather than several months of training.”
Reiter is a former collegiate wrestler from the University of Pennsylvania. It’s a daunting task to return from building docks in wild Alaska to thwarting takedown attempts in two weeks time. Even Radach describes his decision to step in on short notice as “not the smartest thing,” but he would love to finally get rid of the bad taste left in his mouth from the OSP fight in December 2010.
“I’ll do way better than my last fight, let’s put it that way,” he says. “That fight was the worst, I was just totally out of it. I wasn’t there mentally or physically and I pretty much took an ass kicking for some Christmas money. It wasn’t a good one. But the whole time I knew I could have done better. I thought I could beat the guy. It’s one of those things. When you’re in a bad jam and you need to make some money you kind of got to do what you’ve got to do and I just had to do that at the time. It was a big learning lesson.”
Radach has certainly battled to get back to the cage, and he’s had plenty of setbacks. He says he left his gig as the corporate director of instructor’s training LA Boxing when his grandfather got sick. With nobody else to look after him as he lay on his deathbed, Radach was set with the grim task.
“I saw him take his last breath,” he says.
He trains in Washington with Hallman. At 36 years old, he keeps in fight shape. But it’s been a long time without an opponent. The potboiler with St. Preux feels like eons ago. And all these years later, he’s still dealing with lingering injuries that never got sorted out.
You might remember Radach’s long list of maladies from back in the day. He was bitten by a brown recluse spider in 2004, which got infected and left a divot in his leg. He got his jaw broken by Chris Leben. He had surgery for a herniated disc. He faced the prospect of amputation when he got MRSA. And he had a bum knee.
That last one stays with him.
“My body feels good, strong, faster than it’s been and my strength’s through the roof,” he says. “But some of these injuries. I don’t have an ACL in my right leg, it’s loose, and eventually I’ll have to get a knee replacement. I’m just fighting without an ACL. I’ve done it before, but, what do you do when you’re not making tons of money fighting like you should? You just got to go with what you got.”
And that’s the Radach who returns four-and-a-half years later. The pile buck who worked on the docks in Alaska just a month ago, who has been waiting all this time to take off his shoes and fight again, who doesn’t have an ACL and just wants to stand and trade with a willing participant.
Will Reiter be that guy? It’s taken Radach over a thousand days to arrive at the Pechanga Resort and Casino to find out.
“I think he’s got some wrestling, but he’s got a ways to go still,” Radach says. “His hands aren’t the best, but I expect him to be better. I think he’s probably going to be better than his last fight [against Shamir Garcia], so I just got to keep touching him. Just keeping putting my hands on him and make him frustrated and take advantage.”
In the best-case scenario, Mark Munoz would go to Manila and walk through Luke Barnatt in front of his entire ancestry. He would do away with the last couple of losses where he was a shell of himself, and return to the “Donkey Kong” version that obliterated C.B. Dollaway and Chris Leben. He would remind everybody that he was a contender at 185 pounds, and that — despite evidence to the contrary — “The Filipino Wrecking Machine” is still a threat to the throne, even as frames himself on the sunset.
And yet, even if that best-case scenario comes to pass at UFC Fight Night 66, Munoz is calling it a career after the fight. His kids are growing. His wife is waiting. His gym, the Reign Training Center in Lake Forest, is sold. Nothing will change his mind.
“I still know there’s more in me — I don’t think, I know,” Munoz says. “And there’s a lot of speculation with people and critics and onlookers saying, ‘hey, I respect Mark Munoz, but he needs to retire.’ But they don’t know all the behind the scenes stuff. They don’t see me training in the gym with all the elite mixed martial artists that come through Reign Training Center. They don’t see that.
“But I need to be a man who does what he says and says what he does.”
What people have seen of late is a 37-year old man who has been slowly coughing up the ghost over the course of his last three fights. Munoz lost to Lyoto Machida (head kick), Gegard Mousasi (rear-naked choke) and Roan Carneiro (rear-naked choke), a string of losses that made the writing on the wall that much more legible.
Still, he has waiting a long time for the UFC to visit the Philippines, and he wasn’t about to pass up the opportunity to compete there. He’s made many trips to Manila and Quezon City as an ambassador of MMA and he arranged fundraisers to help when Typhoon Haiyan hit the country’s coasts. Since Munoz began fighting in the UFC in 2009, he’s become something of an icon over there. If he was going to fight one last time, why not make it the Philippines?
The poetry of his circumstances isn’t lost on him.
“It means the world. It really does,” he says. “This is where it all started for my family. I’ve been able to make a name for myself in this sport, and inspire and motivate Filipinos to get into mixed martial arts. It just means the world to me to be able to go back and represent the Philippines. It’s like a dream come true to go back and end my career there. It’s a chapter of my life I’ll forever cherish. Mixed martial arts, I will cherish that for the rest of my life. And to be able to end it in a country where it all started with my family…I love it. I couldn’t haven’t have asked for a better ending.”
Such an ending comes from a very late beginning. Munoz was a Division I wrestler at Oklahoma State, where he won a national championship as a senior. It wasn’t until he was 30 years old — at the urging of Urijah Faber, whom he was coaching at UC Davis — that he began competing professionally in MMA.
During a stretch from 2009-2011, Munoz won seven of his eight fights in the UFC, the one loss a narrow split decision against Yushin Okami. The run put him in a position to make a play for the belt. The last hurdle was a bout with Chris Weidman in July 2012. Everybody knows what happened. Weidman scored the knockout (and followed that up with a victory over then champion Anderson Silva) and Munoz never could reposition himself back into contention.
Munoz says he thinks about how far he could have gone if he’d started in MMA earlier in life, but ultimately he doesn’t get caught up in what could have been. “That did cross my mind a few times, but I would never take back the journey I’ve had,” he says. “I could think about and speculate about how my life would be if I’d gotten into everything at 22 years old, but I wouldn’t have my wife or my precious kids or all of that. I’m very thankful for what I have now. I’d rather celebrate what I have.
“I’ve done a lot, but I wanted that 12-pound gold strap around my waist. I wanted that so bad. But I have precious treasure at home. There are goals you set for yourself, [and] there are other goals you didn’t set that you accomplish. I didn’t think I would have a speaking career, but I do now.”
Munoz, who sold his Reign gym a couple of weeks ago, says he will segue into coaching wrestling. The UFC has been in contact with him about taking over the wrestling program and developing it. And as always, he’ll be doing myriad other projects at the same time. He has seminars and clinics that he runs. He gives inspirational speeches to businesses. His son’s high school has been in contact to step in and coach. He runs an anti-bullying campaign. He’s a father of four.
So, he says, win or lose, Saturday’s fight with Barnatt is the end of his professional career as a cagefighter.
“It’s tough because I didn’t have the year I wanted to last year,” he says. “I had a lot of injuries heading into fights. A lot of it was induced by my schedule and all the things I was doing. I was owning and operating Reign, all my speaking engagements, a lot of stuff.
“I don’t regret anything I do in my life, although there are a lot of things that happen. It’s all learning experience. It’s not about the destination, it’s not where you want to go, it’s about the journey. It’s about the process. It’s about everything you learn throughout.”
In the best-case scenario, Mark Munoz would go to Manila and walk through Luke Barnatt in front of his entire ancestry. He would do away with the last couple of losses where he was a shell of himself, and return to the “Donkey Kong” version that obliterated C.B. Dollaway and Chris Leben. He would remind everybody that he was a contender at 185 pounds, and that — despite evidence to the contrary — “The Filipino Wrecking Machine” is still a threat to the throne, even as frames himself on the sunset.
And yet, even if that best-case scenario comes to pass at UFC Fight Night 66, Munoz is calling it a career after the fight. His kids are growing. His wife is waiting. His gym, the Reign Training Center in Lake Forest, is sold. Nothing will change his mind.
“I still know there’s more in me — I don’t think, I know,” Munoz says. “And there’s a lot of speculation with people and critics and onlookers saying, ‘hey, I respect Mark Munoz, but he needs to retire.’ But they don’t know all the behind the scenes stuff. They don’t see me training in the gym with all the elite mixed martial artists that come through Reign Training Center. They don’t see that.
“But I need to be a man who does what he says and says what he does.”
What people have seen of late is a 37-year old man who has been slowly coughing up the ghost over the course of his last three fights. Munoz lost to Lyoto Machida (head kick), Gegard Mousasi (rear-naked choke) and Roan Carneiro (rear-naked choke), a string of losses that made the writing on the wall that much more legible.
Still, he has waiting a long time for the UFC to visit the Philippines, and he wasn’t about to pass up the opportunity to compete there. He’s made many trips to Manila and Quezon City as an ambassador of MMA and he arranged fundraisers to help when Typhoon Haiyan hit the country’s coasts. Since Munoz began fighting in the UFC in 2009, he’s become something of an icon over there. If he was going to fight one last time, why not make it the Philippines?
The poetry of his circumstances isn’t lost on him.
“It means the world. It really does,” he says. “This is where it all started for my family. I’ve been able to make a name for myself in this sport, and inspire and motivate Filipinos to get into mixed martial arts. It just means the world to me to be able to go back and represent the Philippines. It’s like a dream come true to go back and end my career there. It’s a chapter of my life I’ll forever cherish. Mixed martial arts, I will cherish that for the rest of my life. And to be able to end it in a country where it all started with my family…I love it. I couldn’t haven’t have asked for a better ending.”
Such an ending comes from a very late beginning. Munoz was a Division I wrestler at Oklahoma State, where he won a national championship as a senior. It wasn’t until he was 30 years old — at the urging of Urijah Faber, whom he was coaching at UC Davis — that he began competing professionally in MMA.
During a stretch from 2009-2011, Munoz won seven of his eight fights in the UFC, the one loss a narrow split decision against Yushin Okami. The run put him in a position to make a play for the belt. The last hurdle was a bout with Chris Weidman in July 2012. Everybody knows what happened. Weidman scored the knockout (and followed that up with a victory over then champion Anderson Silva) and Munoz never could reposition himself back into contention.
Munoz says he thinks about how far he could have gone if he’d started in MMA earlier in life, but ultimately he doesn’t get caught up in what could have been.? “That did cross my mind a few times, but I would never take back the journey I’ve had,” he says. “I could think about and speculate about how my life would be if I’d gotten into everything at 22 years old, but I wouldn’t have my wife or my precious kids or all of that. I’m very thankful for what I have now. I’d rather celebrate what I have.
“I’ve done a lot, but I wanted that 12-pound gold strap around my waist. I wanted that so bad. But I have precious treasure at home. There are goals you set for yourself, [and] there are other goals you didn’t set that you accomplish. I didn’t think I would have a speaking career, but I do now.”
Munoz, who sold his Reign gym a couple of weeks ago, says he will segue into coaching wrestling. The UFC has been in contact with him about taking over the wrestling program and developing it. And as always, he’ll be doing myriad other projects at the same time. He has seminars and clinics that he runs. He gives inspirational speeches to businesses. His son’s high school has been in contact to step in and coach. He runs an anti-bullying campaign. He’s a father of four.
So, he says, win or lose, Saturday’s fight with Barnatt is the end of his professional career as a cagefighter.
“It’s tough because I didn’t have the year I wanted to last year,” he says. “I had a lot of injuries heading into fights. A lot of it was induced by my schedule and all the things I was doing. I was owning and operating Reign, all my speaking engagements, a lot of stuff.
“I don’t regret anything I do in my life, although there are a lot of things that happen. It’s all learning experience. It’s not about the destination, it’s not where you want to go, it’s about the journey. It’s about the process. It’s about everything you learn throughout.”
The UFC Fight Pass archives are getting deeper, and the amount of streamed live events on the horizon is growing.
During Monday’s edition of The MMA Hour, the UFC’s Chief Content Officer and Director of International Development, Marshall Zelaznik, said that Fight Pass would begin streaming live Shooto Brazil events — possibly as early as this weekend at Shooto Brazil 54.
“We closed Shooto Brazil which, they’ve been around for 13 years, 50 events, with Jose Aldo, Renan Barao…I mean, when these guys were just raw, just tough fighters,” he told Ariel Helwani. “So we’ve closed that. We’re getting that library in. And we’re working as hard as we can to see if we can do this weekend’s Shooto event live on Fight Pass.”
Fight Pass is the UFC’s site for streaming live and archived fights. The site houses the libraries of defunct promotions such as Japan’s Pride FC, Strikeforce, the WEC and WFA, as well as current organizations such as Invicta FC. As of June 2014, Fight Pass has streamed live Invicta FC events, the latest which occurred on April 24.
Zelaznik said that the Fight Pass brass considers themselves “archivists,” and the Shooto Brazil is just the tip of the iceberg for live content they are working on.
“We got some more work to do, but if we can do it we’ll start screaming from the mountaintops, because Andre Pederneiras, who is the promoter there, he’s a good guy. He’s a solid guy. He’s put a good fight card together, so we’re trying to figure out how to get that in. But for sure, more live, more live. [UFC CEO] Lorenzo [Fertitta]’s on me every day — ‘what’s coming? What do we have live?’ — and we’re getting some operational production issues, but my guess is within the next 60 days you’ll see a lot of announcements. Probably the next 30 days, of more live inside Fight Pass.”
As for this weekend’s Shooto Brazil show, Zelaznik said the UFC was doing its best to stream the coverage live, but that right now it’s still up in the air.
“We don’t know,” he said. “You wouldn’t normally hear us talking about this. But I’m excited about it. I know Lorenzo is [too]. We just have some production. They produce the event live for Brazilian television, so we know there’s a live signal, but it’s making sure we can get it, and that we can get it in the quality we need and ensure that we have a consistent stream for everybody.”
In the main event of Sunday night’s Shooto card at the Hebraica gymnasium in Rio de Janeiro, Felipe Froes (10-2) meets Paulo Dantas (25-9-1) for the vacant featherweight title. Shooto Brazil lightweight champion and UFC veteran Ronys Torres (28-5) will face Benito Tavares (5-2) in a 160-pound catchweight bout in the co-main event. Luiz Cane (15-6, 1 no-contest), who fought in the UFC from 2007 to 2012, takes on Felipe Silva (2-1).
Even if this week’s event can’t be streamed live, Zelaznik said that going forward all future Shooto Brazil events would be.
The UFC Fight Pass archives are getting deeper, and the amount of streamed live events on the horizon is growing.
During Monday’s edition of The MMA Hour, the UFC’s Chief Content Officer and Director of International Development, Marshall Zelaznik, said that Fight Pass would begin streaming live Shooto Brazil events — possibly as early as this weekend at Shooto Brazil 54.
“We closed Shooto Brazil which, they’ve been around for 13 years, 50 events, with Jose Aldo, Renan Barao…I mean, when these guys were just raw, just tough fighters,” he told Ariel Helwani. “So we’ve closed that. We’re getting that library in. And we’re working as hard as we can to see if we can do this weekend’s Shooto event live on Fight Pass.”
Fight Pass is the UFC’s site for streaming live and archived fights. The site houses the libraries of defunct promotions such as Japan’s Pride FC, Strikeforce, the WEC and WFA, as well as current organizations such as Invicta FC. As of June 2014, Fight Pass has streamed live Invicta FC events, the latest which occurred on April 24.
Zelaznik said that the Fight Pass brass considers themselves “archivists,” and the Shooto Brazil is just the tip of the iceberg for live content they are working on.
“We got some more work to do, but if we can do it we’ll start screaming from the mountaintops, because Andre Pederneiras, who is the promoter there, he’s a good guy. He’s a solid guy. He’s put a good fight card together, so we’re trying to figure out how to get that in. But for sure, more live, more live. [UFC CEO] Lorenzo [Fertitta]’s on me every day — ‘what’s coming? What do we have live?’ — and we’re getting some operational production issues, but my guess is within the next 60 days you’ll see a lot of announcements. Probably the next 30 days, of more live inside Fight Pass.”
As for this weekend’s Shooto Brazil show, Zelaznik said the UFC was doing its best to stream the coverage live, but that right now it’s still up in the air.
“We don’t know,” he said. “You wouldn’t normally hear us talking about this. But I’m excited about it. I know Lorenzo is [too]. We just have some production. They produce the event live for Brazilian television, so we know there’s a live signal, but it’s making sure we can get it, and that we can get it in the quality we need and ensure that we have a consistent stream for everybody.”
In the main event of Sunday night’s Shooto card at the Hebraica gymnasium in Rio de Janeiro, Felipe Froes (10-2) meets Paulo Dantas (25-9-1) for the vacant featherweight title. Shooto Brazil lightweight champion and UFC veteran Ronys Torres (28-5) will face Benito Tavares (5-2) in a 160-pound catchweight bout in the co-main event. Luiz Cane (15-6, 1 no-contest), who fought in the UFC from 2007 to 2012, takes on Felipe Silva (2-1).
Even if this week’s event can’t be streamed live, Zelaznik said that going forward all future Shooto Brazil events would be.
One of the MMA’s most coveted prospects is headed to Bellator.
Three-time national wrestling champion and four-time All-American Ed Ruth has signed a contract to compete in the promotion. The former Penn State standout had been talking to se…
One of the MMA’s most coveted prospects is headed to Bellator.
Three-time national wrestling champion and four-time All-American Ed Ruth has signed a contract to compete in the promotion. The former Penn State standout had been talking to several promotions as he trains for the 2016 Olympics, but decided on Bellator in large part because of his rapport with president Scott Coker.
“I’ve known for a long time now that after I get Olympic gold around my neck, I was going to go get some MMA gold for my waist,” Ruth told MMA Fighting’s Ariel Helwani. “I’ve been talking with all the major organizations, and at the end of the day, I really believe in what Scott Coker is doing with Bellator. They’re signing the top talent, they’re putting on exciting fights, and they’re letting me secure my own sponsors.
“It will be a little while until I step into the cage for the first time, but when I do, everyone they put in front of me is in for a world of hurt.”
Ruth has been transparent about transitioning into MMA once his Olympic dream plays out, and with his decorated collegiate career at Penn State many believed him to be UFC bound. He was recruited to come in and help former light heavyweight champion Jon Jones prepare for his UFC 182 fight with Daniel Cormier, and has since said he would be committed to Greg Jackson’s gym in Albuquerque when he began training.
Coker posted a picture of him with Ruth and Aaron Pico in April at the World Cup LA.
Heading into the 2016 Olympic wrestling season, Ruth is currently ranked No. 1 at 86kg.
Perhaps the only thing stronger than Mark Hunt’s chin is referee John Sharp’s stomach for enduring its dismantling. UFC Fight Night 65’s main event was all about thresholds, which extended to the third man. Stipe Miocic socked, Hunt got rocked, and Sharp stood by in clean conscience.
Miocic, for his part, made one hell of a statement on Sunday morning in Adelaide. He landed a record number of strikes on Hunt, which is of course both historical and alarming in a UFC fight because…well…this was a heavyweight bout, where the punches have extra mustard yet the brains rattle just the same. Mercy got to the fight late. You hate to see that happen.
But Miocic made the most of his platform, and that’s the real story. The boos raining down from the 7,000 partisans were music to his ears. If the locals were booing him, it meant he was executing his game plan perfectly. Cleveland State wrestling has never flown too big Down Under.
And in the end it became an incredible display for both fighters. Hunt shown for his heart, Miocic for declaring himself ready. Ready for the robo-bull Cain Velasquez, who might have met his match in pace-pushing relentlessness. Or the parlay buster Fabricio Werdum, who fights Velasquez in June.
Ready for a title shot. Just more music to his ears.
Miocic looked like everything the UFC’s heavyweight division has longed for since Alistair Overeem — the man being eternally groomed for a title shot — began to tumble. If he didn’t do it in his last fight against Junior dos Santos (a fight he lost on the scorecards) last December, he presented himself as a true challenger in the wings. If there was a silver lining to the fight going on longer than it should have, it was that Miocic showed he had fuel for days. That he could match Velasquez’s cardio. That intensity stays with him for the duration.
It was a tremendous use of a Fight Pass main event.
At one point, during a particularly gratuitous volley of shots midway through, Miocic glanced at Sharp as if to say, “what are you waiting for?” Just then, as Sharp leaned in like a man battling cold feet, Hunt hit Miocic with an upstrike, just to show he was still around. Sharp let the fight go on, while an uneasiness fell over the viewing audience. Miocic continued to do what he was doing. Hunt, because he is made of tougher stuff than is good for him, lasted into the fifth round. By the time the fight was finally stopped, he had morphed into a different person. He was swollen shut and battered.
The truth is that Hunt — who turned 41 years old in March — isn’t likely to get another title shot. You wonder how many more times he can (or even wants to) go through what he just did with Miocic. It was an incredible show of heart to keep answering the bell the way he did.
Then again, the heavyweight division is brutal like that. It’s not meant for longevity. Miocic took a beating against JDS, but also dished one out. JDS took a couple of career-altering beatings from Velasquez. Travis Browne hacked Josh Barnett down dramatically, and Antonio Silva got vaporized by Andrei Arlovski, who himself is a resurrection story from a collection of knockouts dating back to Affliction. A heavyweight beating is like no other in the sport.
It is hard to establish a contender in a division that consumes itself so thoroughly. Yet if Miocic did anything in Adelaide, it was establish himself as a contender. There’s something to be said for the rarity of that feat.
Perhaps the only thing stronger than Mark Hunt’s chin is referee John Sharp’s stomach for enduring its dismantling. UFC Fight Night 65’s main event was all about thresholds, which extended to the third man. Stipe Miocic socked, Hunt got rocked, and Sharp stood by in clean conscience.
Miocic, for his part, made one hell of a statement on Sunday morning in Adelaide. He landed a record number of strikes on Hunt, which is of course both historical and alarming in a UFC fight because…well…this was a heavyweight bout, where the punches have extra mustard yet the brains rattle just the same. Mercy got to the fight late. You hate to see that happen.
But Miocic made the most of his platform, and that’s the real story. The boos raining down from the 7,000 partisans were music to his ears. If the locals were booing him, it meant he was executing his game plan perfectly. Cleveland State wrestling has never flown too big Down Under.
And in the end it became an incredible display for both fighters. Hunt shown for his heart, Miocic for declaring himself ready. Ready for the robo-bull Cain Velasquez, who might have met his match in pace-pushing relentlessness. Or the parlay buster Fabricio Werdum, who fights Velasquez in June.
Ready for a title shot. Just more music to his ears.
Miocic looked like everything the UFC’s heavyweight division has longed for since Alistair Overeem — the man being eternally groomed for a title shot — began to tumble. If he didn’t do it in his last fight against Junior dos Santos (a fight he lost on the scorecards) last December, he presented himself as a true challenger in the wings. If there was a silver lining to the fight going on longer than it should have, it was that Miocic showed he had fuel for days. That he could match Velasquez’s cardio. That intensity stays with him for the duration.
It was a tremendous use of a Fight Pass main event.
At one point, during a particularly gratuitous volley of shots midway through, Miocic glanced at Sharp as if to say, “what are you waiting for?” Just then, as Sharp leaned in like a man battling cold feet, Hunt hit Miocic with an upstrike, just to show he was still around. Sharp let the fight go on, while an uneasiness fell over the viewing audience. Miocic continued to do what he was doing. Hunt, because he is made of tougher stuff than is good for him, lasted into the fifth round. By the time the fight was finally stopped, he had morphed into a different person. He was swollen shut and battered.
The truth is that Hunt — who turned 41 years old in March — isn’t likely to get another title shot. You wonder how many more times he can (or even wants to) go through what he just did with Miocic. It was an incredible show of heart to keep answering the bell the way he did.
Then again, the heavyweight division is brutal like that. It’s not meant for longevity. Miocic took a beating against JDS, but also dished one out. JDS took a couple of career-altering beatings from Velasquez. Travis Browne hacked Josh Barnett down dramatically, and Antonio Silva got vaporized by Andrei Arlovski, who himself is a resurrection story from a collection of knockouts dating back to Affliction. A heavyweight beating is like no other in the sport.
It is hard to establish a contender in a division that consumes itself so thoroughly. Yet if Miocic did anything in Adelaide, it was establish himself as a contender. There’s something to be said for the rarity of that feat.
