Fresh off his emphatic, one-sided victory over Neil Magny at UFC 190, a lot of people pined Demian Maia’s next fight to come against fellow grappling ace, Gunnar Nelson.
Turns out the UFC wanted to do that fight, too, for UFC Fight Night 76….
Turns out the UFC wanted to do that fight, too, for UFC Fight Night 76. But that fight is going to have to wait.
On Wednesday it was revealed during UFC Tonight that the Brazilian Maia suffered a nasty staph infection on his left leg, thus forcing him to turn down an offer to face Nelson in on Oct. 24 in Dublin, Ireland. The report also said that the “Wonderboy” Stephen Thompson was a no go a well to face Nelson, as he too is banged up.
According to the report, Iceland’s Nelson, who trains with Conor McGregor and is coming off a first-round submission victory over Brandon Thatch at UFC 189, would like to remain on the Dublin card. The UFC is currently looking for an opponent to face him.
Nelson fought on the last card held in Dublin, back at UFC Fight Night 46 on July 19, 2014, at the then O2 Arena.
After much debating as to who heavyweight champion Fabricio Werdum would face in his first legitimate title defense, it looks like he’ll draw a familiar foe.
On Wednesday, UFC Tonight’s Ariel Helwani reported that former champion Cain Velasq…
After much debating as to who heavyweight champion Fabricio Werdum would face in his first legitimate title defense, it looks like he’ll draw a familiar foe.
On Wednesday, UFC Tonight’s Ariel Helwani reported that former champion Cain Velasquez will get an immediate rematch with Werdum, following his loss UFC 188 loss to the Brazilian in June. UFC president Dana White confirmed to UFC Tonight that Velasquez/Werdum II is officially booked, yet a time and place is yet to be determined.
This will mark the third time Werdum and Velasquez have been paired up to fight one another. The two were originally supposed to make up the main event for UFC 180 in June 2014. However, that fight was postponed when Velasquez injured himself in training, thus opening up an interim title fight between Mark Hunt and Werdum in Mexico City, Mexico.
With Werdum winning the interim title fight, the UFC then rebooked the Velasquez fight for UFC 188, which took place on June 13 at the Arena Ciudad de Mexico. Though Velasquez came in as a heavy favorite, it was Werdum who wore down and outclassed Velasquez, scoring a third-round submission (guillotine) to unify the title.
Afterwards much was made about Velasquez succumbing to the high elevation of Mexico City, which sits over 7,000 feet about sea level.
After much debating as to who heavyweight champion Fabricio Werdum would face in his first legitimate title defense, it looks like he’ll draw a familiar foe.
On Wednesday, UFC Tonight’s Ariel Helwani reported that former champion Cain Velasq…
After much debating as to who heavyweight champion Fabricio Werdum would face in his first legitimate title defense, it looks like he’ll draw a familiar foe.
On Wednesday, UFC Tonight’s Ariel Helwani reported that former champion Cain Velasquez will get an immediate rematch with Werdum, following his loss UFC 188 loss to the Brazilian in June. UFC president Dana White confirmed to UFC Tonight that Velasquez/Werdum II is officially booked, yet a time and place is yet to be determined.
This will mark the third time Werdum and Velasquez have been paired up to fight one another. The two were originally supposed to make up the main event for UFC 180 in June 2014. However, that fight was postponed when Velasquez injured himself in training, thus opening up an interim title fight between Mark Hunt and Werdum in Mexico City, Mexico.
With Werdum winning the interim title fight, the UFC then rebooked the Velasquez fight for UFC 188, which took place on June 13 at the Arena Ciudad de Mexico. Though Velasquez came in as a heavy favorite, it was Werdum who wore down and outclassed Velasquez, scoring a third-round submission (guillotine) to unify the title.
Afterwards much was made about Velasquez succumbing to the high elevation of Mexico City, which sits over 7,000 feet about sea level.
After suffering his third straight loss in May against Mark Munoz, Luke Barnatt was issued his release from the UFC. Since that time the 27-year-old British fighter has been in a state of reflection as to what his next move should be.
On Mon…
After suffering his third straight loss in May against Mark Munoz, Luke Barnatt was issued his release from the UFC. Since that time the 27-year-old British fighter has been in a state of reflection as to what his next move should be.
On Monday, Barnatt appeared on The MMA Hour and talked about his short term plan, which includes fighting for an Italian promotion.
“Obviously I left the UFC a while back, and I’ve been searching for the right company to bring me forward, and the right people to take me forward,” said Barnatt, who was appearing on the show live from Spain. “I had a lot of offers coming in from loads of different places. It’s quite a surprising company, I think people will be surprised that I decided to go with a starter. But there’s a company out of Italy named Venator FC, the Venator Fighting Championship. They have had, I believe it’s five shows now. But they’re on the television on Fox, and they’ve been done like an Italian version of The Ultimate Fighter, where they’ve pitched Italians against each other. And they’ve done a 13-week series of this show, where they’ve built it up.
“And it’s become very popular over there, and now they’ve built a show off that. So they had a reality program around mixed martial arts in Italy, and now they’ve brought a big show to Italy called Venator FC, which now they’ve recruited me to fight their middleweight finalist of that tournament, against a guy named Mattia Schiavolin, the best middleweight in Italy. The No. 1 ranked middleweight, and they’ve recruited me to come in and fight for the middleweight title on December 12.”
That Venator event is slated to take place at the 105 Stadium in Riccione, Italy.
Barnatt (8-3) came off TUF 17, and he won his UFC debut against Collin Hart at the Finale in 2013. He followed that up with back-to-back finishes of Andrew Craig and Mats Nilsson before losing a split decision to Sean Strickland at UFC Fight Night 41 in Berlin, Germany. He then dropped a second split-decision against Roger Narvaez at UFC Fight Night 57, before losing a decision against Munoz in The Philippines.
“Bigslow” said that ultimately his goal is to end up back in the UFC within the next couple of years.
“It’s literally just a two-fight deal [with Venator],” he said. “We got two fights and the next show is in December, and they’re putting on a show in May, so there’s a little bit of a gap in between. But within that contract I’m not exclusively signed to Venator. I’m signed to them, and they’re my number one client, if you will, as a contractor. And then I can look for other organizations to work with them, and I’m looking for one more organization to fill in the void, to fill in the gap, because I’m looking to get as many as we can to get back into the UFC.”
Asked what other promotion he’s been talking to, Barnatt said he’s in “deep discussions” with South Africa’s largest MMA organization, the Extreme Fighting Championship (EFC), and that he would like to hold titles across continents.
“I’m literally looking for the fights I can get to take me back to the UFC.”
Barnatt, who will no longer train at Alliance for his European fights, said he’s been completely transparent with Venator and the EFC that his end goal is to end up back in the UFC. He said his desire to get back into the Octagon was why he didn’t consider signing with the UFC’s chief competition, Bellator.
“They’re obviously competitors or whatever you want to call it, and I have a lot of close friends who fight there and a lot of people I respect who fight there, but it wasn’t the right fit for me,” he said. “And I feel like my main goal was to be back in the UFC. My journey was very, very quick to the UFC. I mean, I’d been fighting barely two years when I got on The Ultimate Fighter, and through that process was with the UFC and had six fights there. It was very, very fast. I’ve only been doing the sport six years, and I was fighting Mark Munoz, and I wanted that fight, and I’m glad I had that fight.
“But it’s all been very quickly for me, and I felt like I handled it very well. I enjoyed my time with the UFC. I had some great fights and I learned a lot from it. I feel like once I get there again I’ll be a much better suited athlete for the sport, and I’ll do much better things.”
On Oct. 25, Dustin Poirier will once again brush up against the Irish. Only, this time instead of fighting a superstar Irishman in Las Vegas he’ll be fighting the guy who last beat the superstar in Dublin.
Poirier will face Joseph Duffy in the main event of UFC Fight Night 77 at the 3Arena. Duffy, who is 2-0 since debuting in the UFC at UFC 185 against Jake Lindsey, has become a cult figure in the fight game for being the last man to defeat McGregor. That happened in November of 2010, back when both men competed under the Cage Warriors banner.
Yet even if the plot is thick with parallels, Poirier himself doesn’t see a victory over Duffy as exorcising the McGregor demons. He appeared on Monday’s edition of The MMA Hour and said you can’t avenge a loss vicariously.
“It’s cool man, but to anybody who’s been in the sport a long time, MMA mathematics don’t really make sense,” Poirier told Ariel Helwani. “This guy could have beat Conor and it doesn’t really matter to me. Conor might beat him now. It’s just match-ups, styles and all that, where the guys were in their career and in their mindset going into that fight. So I don’t really care that he beat Conor, this is a whole different fight.”
After winning three in a row, Poirier lost to McGregor at UFC 178 last September via a first-round knockout. The loss prompted him to once again try his hand as a lightweight, a weight class he hadn’t fought in since his WEC days in 2010. Since making the move Poirier has looked terrific, scoring first round finishes of Carlos Diego Ferreira and Yancy Medeiros.
Poirier says that he has grown as a fighter since that McGregor loss, though he went through some tough introspection.
“When stuff like that happens, and you get close…if I had beat Conor that night I would have probably fought for the featherweight championship of the world, I’m sure,” he said. “So sitting back and thinking about it like that, that really hurt. I took a huge step back after that loss as far as title dreams. But I was confident going into those fights as well man. When you get back to the locker room after a fight like you get back there and say how is this happening? The way I feel, I’m the best in the world. How does this happen? But, that’s just part of growing.”
Asked why he has looked so good at 155 pounds, Poirier said it’s more than just doing away with the harsh weight cut.
“It’s because I’m a great fighter man, I’m a warrior,” he said. “And I’ve a lot through the ups and downs, through the highest of the highs and the lowest of the lows in this sport. I’ve been in the UFC for a while now. I think I fought my first fight in Zuffa in 2010. I’m 26 years old now, this will be my second main event. I’ve just been in a lot of big fights, and I’ve been in some good spots and some bad spots. I’m the kind of guy that grows, and that’s what I do everyday in the gym. Work on new stuff and stay relevant.”
Poirier trains at American Top Team in Coconut Creek, Fla., alongside a celebrity cast of accomplished fighters. One of them is welterweight champion Robbie Lawler, who has had a career resurgence in the UFC since coming over from Strikeforce. One of the things that Lawler attributes to his turnaround is his drastic rethinking of the way he trains. Most notably, Lawler, who for so long was part Pat Miletich’s crew in Bettendorf, Iowa, cut down on sparring in training.
Poirier says he’s done the exact same thing.
“Yes, I have, after the Conor fight. You know, I’ve come from pretty tough and rugged MMA gyms back in Louisiana when I started, so that was kind of taught to us at the beginning – that the harder you train, the harder you’ll fight. It’s just what we thought was right. And that’s not true. You’ve only got one brain and you’ve got to protect it. I’ve been doing this for awhile and I’ve got a lot of years left, and I’ve really got to protect it. That’s what I’m doing now. Don’t shy away from buying the expensive headgear and stuff like that and good equipment. And I’m not out there banging with these guys trying to show them who’s a real fighter. Before that’s what we used to do — who’s tougher, let’s go. But that doesn’t go on your record man.
“So now I look at it as training sessions to get better. I’m not sparring unless I have a fight coming up, and even right now I’m not sparring. I won’t start sparring for another three or four weeks. That comes along with growing in the fight game. I understand now that I don’t have to do that to be a better fighter. Taking days off is okay. I used to be crazy. I used to be a little bit mental and over-train and over think things, but now I’m finding the right way to do it.”
UFC Fight Night 77 will mark the second time Poirier has headlined a UFC card. Against Duffy, an undefeated boxer with a bit of a sheen to his name in the world of MMA, Poirier looks at it as an opportunity to break into the top ten.
Asked how he planned to beat the Irishman, Poirier said he could get it done in multiple ways.
“I really feel like I could submit him or knock him out,” he said. “I think I’m a better wrestler than him and for being a boxer, it’s not like he’s been knocking guys out. Even in his boxing. I’m not the kind of guy to talk trash or anything, but he looks like he fought all bums when he was boxing, so that’s not all that impressive to me as a fighter. As a fan maybe people will say, wow, he’s an undefeated boxer. But nobody he fought had a winning record I think, and, like I said, I’m not talking trash…I would have beat all those guys as well. I’ve been working on my boxing a lot. If he wants to box, we’ll box, and I’ll put on a show for the fans.”
On Oct. 25, Dustin Poirier will once again brush up against the Irish. Only, this time instead of fighting a superstar Irishman in Las Vegas he’ll be fighting the guy who last beat the superstar in Dublin.
Poirier will face Joseph Duffy in the main event of UFC Fight Night 77 at the 3Arena. Duffy, who is 2-0 since debuting in the UFC at UFC 185 against Jake Lindsey, has become a cult figure in the fight game for being the last man to defeat McGregor. That happened in November of 2010, back when both men competed under the Cage Warriors banner.
Yet even if the plot is thick with parallels, Poirier himself doesn’t see a victory over Duffy as exorcising the McGregor demons. He appeared on Monday’s edition of The MMA Hour and said you can’t avenge a loss vicariously.
“It’s cool man, but to anybody who’s been in the sport a long time, MMA mathematics don’t really make sense,” Poirier told Ariel Helwani. “This guy could have beat Conor and it doesn’t really matter to me. Conor might beat him now. It’s just match-ups, styles and all that, where the guys were in their career and in their mindset going into that fight. So I don’t really care that he beat Conor, this is a whole different fight.”
After winning three in a row, Poirier lost to McGregor at UFC 178 last September via a first-round knockout. The loss prompted him to once again try his hand as a lightweight, a weight class he hadn’t fought in since his WEC days in 2010. Since making the move Poirier has looked terrific, scoring first round finishes of Carlos Diego Ferreira and Yancy Medeiros.
Poirier says that he has grown as a fighter since that McGregor loss, though he went through some tough introspection.
“When stuff like that happens, and you get close…if I had beat Conor that night I would have probably fought for the featherweight championship of the world, I’m sure,” he said. “So sitting back and thinking about it like that, that really hurt. I took a huge step back after that loss as far as title dreams. But I was confident going into those fights as well man. When you get back to the locker room after a fight like you get back there and say how is this happening? The way I feel, I’m the best in the world. How does this happen? But, that’s just part of growing.”
Asked why he has looked so good at 155 pounds, Poirier said it’s more than just doing away with the harsh weight cut.
“It’s because I’m a great fighter man, I’m a warrior,” he said. “And I’ve a lot through the ups and downs, through the highest of the highs and the lowest of the lows in this sport. I’ve been in the UFC for a while now. I think I fought my first fight in Zuffa in 2010. I’m 26 years old now, this will be my second main event. I’ve just been in a lot of big fights, and I’ve been in some good spots and some bad spots. I’m the kind of guy that grows, and that’s what I do everyday in the gym. Work on new stuff and stay relevant.”
Poirier trains at American Top Team in Coconut Creek, Fla., alongside a celebrity cast of accomplished fighters. One of them is welterweight champion Robbie Lawler, who has had a career resurgence in the UFC since coming over from Strikeforce. One of the things that Lawler attributes to his turnaround is his drastic rethinking of the way he trains. Most notably, Lawler, who for so long was part Pat Miletich’s crew in Bettendorf, Iowa, cut down on sparring in training.
Poirier says he’s done the exact same thing.
“Yes, I have, after the Conor fight. You know, I’ve come from pretty tough and rugged MMA gyms back in Louisiana when I started, so that was kind of taught to us at the beginning – that the harder you train, the harder you’ll fight. It’s just what we thought was right. And that’s not true. You’ve only got one brain and you’ve got to protect it. I’ve been doing this for awhile and I’ve got a lot of years left, and I’ve really got to protect it. That’s what I’m doing now. Don’t shy away from buying the expensive headgear and stuff like that and good equipment. And I’m not out there banging with these guys trying to show them who’s a real fighter. Before that’s what we used to do — who’s tougher, let’s go. But that doesn’t go on your record man.
“So now I look at it as training sessions to get better. I’m not sparring unless I have a fight coming up, and even right now I’m not sparring. I won’t start sparring for another three or four weeks. That comes along with growing in the fight game. I understand now that I don’t have to do that to be a better fighter. Taking days off is okay. I used to be crazy. I used to be a little bit mental and over-train and over think things, but now I’m finding the right way to do it.”
UFC Fight Night 77 will mark the second time Poirier has headlined a UFC card. Against Duffy, an undefeated boxer with a bit of a sheen to his name in the world of MMA, Poirier looks at it as an opportunity to break into the top ten.
Asked how he planned to beat the Irishman, Poirier said he could get it done in multiple ways.
“I really feel like I could submit him or knock him out,” he said. “I think I’m a better wrestler than him and for being a boxer, it’s not like he’s been knocking guys out. Even in his boxing. I’m not the kind of guy to talk trash or anything, but he looks like he fought all bums when he was boxing, so that’s not all that impressive to me as a fighter. As a fan maybe people will say, wow, he’s an undefeated boxer. But nobody he fought had a winning record I think, and, like I said, I’m not talking trash…I would have beat all those guys as well. I’ve been working on my boxing a lot. If he wants to box, we’ll box, and I’ll put on a show for the fans.”
Everything you need to know about the UFC’s light heavyweight division is that Fabio Maldonado, that happy Brazilian who carries a Whac-a-Mole appeal for all opposition, is ranked No. 13. Hate on the rankings all you want, but that can’t be anything other than a red flag. Maldonado is 4-5 in his last nine bouts, with his only win in a year-and-a-half coming over Hans Stringer. Yet because that once glamorous division has become a modern day Detroit in the land of scales, that’s good enough for a spot on the rungs.
No?
Look at the rest of the ranked light heavies. Most Americans assume Jan Blachowicz (No. 12) reads tarot cards down on the Bowery. Two of the ranked were last-minute replacements that stuck. Patrick Cummins (No. 10) was a coffee barista who thrown in against Daniel Cormier. The best thing that Ilir Latifi (No. 15) had going for him back when he broke into the UFC was that he was Swedish when the promotion needed to fill a hole on a card in Sweden. His last victory came against…well, I’ll just say it: It was Hans Stringer. Stringer, it seems, is a physical hurdle for 205-pounders looking to get a number assigned to their name.
Stringer is ranked No. 16 (Note: This is strictly conjecture — the rankings only go up to 15).
Which brings us around to Ovince Saint Preux, who is fighting on Saturday night in Nashville against Glover Teixeira. He is currently No. 6, and he’s the only beacon in the bunch. Saint Preux is about the only “new” threat to emerge at LHW in a very, very long time. Yes, Anthony Johnson came screaming into contention, but he was familiar from his days miscast as a welterweight, and his winning streak extended back to WSOF. Phil Davis never got anywhere but Bellator, in part because of Anthony Johnson.
In that way OSP’s a kind of novelty. Should he win and do it emphatically, there’s at least one fresh face on the circuit making his way towards either the champion Cormier or the guy who turned light heavyweight into a group of has-beens and never-will-be’s, Jon Jones.
Part of the reason Mauricio Rua, Quinton Jackson, Teixeira, Antonio Rogerio Nogueira (ranked No. 11, BTW!) and Rashad Evans all feel like retreads is because Jones made them that way. He so thoroughly dominated his division before he was stripped of his belt earlier this year that he couldn’t help but steal the division’s mojo at the same time. He even beat Cormier, who many think is masquerading with the title until Jones returns.
In the meantime, there’s Ryan Bader, whom Jones beat badly and Cormier would like to. Bader is now booked to fight Evans, who hasn’t fought in 20 months. And there’s Alexander Gustafsson, whom Jones beat less convincingly and Cormier will get the chance to at UFC 192. And there’s Johnson whom Cormier beat and Jones was supposed to fight, and Jimi Manuwa who beat Blachowicz but lost to Gustafsson most ridiculously. He fights Johnson next. That is the extent of your drama for the time being. The light heavyweight division, once ruled by Ortiz’s and Liddell’s and Couture’s, has become a dried-up lakebed.
Which once again brings us around to OSP, that lone member of the new guard who isn’t a former champion or a leftover from Pride or anything like that. He isn’t a spring chicken. He’s 32 years old. But OSP’s new looking, even if Bader did beat him not all that long ago at UFC Fight Night 47 in Maine. Luckily, not a lot of people were watching (or cared). He has since defeated “Shogun” and Cummins, both of them first-round finishes. Now he has a chance to put an exclamation mark on his run with a win over Teixeira in his native Tennessee. Should he win he won’t likely feel like a threat to the throne, but at least there’s a fresh contender in a division that has long stopped producing such things.
Should he lose to Teixeira? It’s back to fishing for prospects in the once-thriving Salton Sea.
Everything you need to know about the UFC’s light heavyweight division is that Fabio Maldonado, that happy Brazilian who carries a Whac-a-Mole appeal for all opposition, is ranked No. 13. Hate on the rankings all you want, but that can’t be anything other than a red flag. Maldonado is 4-5 in his last nine bouts, with his only win in a year-and-a-half coming over Hans Stringer. Yet because that once glamorous division has become a modern day Detroit in the land of scales, that’s good enough for a spot on the rungs.
No?
Look at the rest of the ranked light heavies. Most Americans assume Jan Blachowicz (No. 12) reads tarot cards down on the Bowery. Two of the ranked were last-minute replacements that stuck. Patrick Cummins (No. 10) was a coffee barista who thrown in against Daniel Cormier. The best thing that Ilir Latifi (No. 15) had going for him back when he broke into the UFC was that he was Swedish when the promotion needed to fill a hole on a card in Sweden. His last victory came against…well, I’ll just say it: It was Hans Stringer. Stringer, it seems, is a physical hurdle for 205-pounders looking to get a number assigned to their name.
Stringer is ranked No. 16 (Note: This is strictly conjecture — the rankings only go up to 15).
Which brings us around to Ovince Saint Preux, who is fighting on Saturday night in Nashville against Glover Teixeira. He is currently No. 6, and he’s the only beacon in the bunch. Saint Preux is about the only “new” threat to emerge at LHW in a very, very long time. Yes, Anthony Johnson came screaming into contention, but he was familiar from his days miscast as a welterweight, and his winning streak extended back to WSOF. Phil Davis never got anywhere but Bellator, in part because of Anthony Johnson.
In that way OSP’s a kind of novelty. Should he win and do it emphatically, there’s at least one fresh face on the circuit making his way towards either the champion Cormier or the guy who turned light heavyweight into a group of has-beens and never-will-be’s, Jon Jones.
Part of the reason Mauricio Rua, Quinton Jackson, Teixeira, Antonio Rogerio Nogueira (ranked No. 11, BTW!) and Rashad Evans all feel like retreads is because Jones made them that way. He so thoroughly dominated his division before he was stripped of his belt earlier this year that he couldn’t help but steal the division’s mojo at the same time. He even beat Cormier, who many think is masquerading with the title until Jones returns.
In the meantime, there’s Ryan Bader, whom Jones beat badly and Cormier would like to. Bader is now booked to fight Evans, who hasn’t fought in 20 months. And there’s Alexander Gustafsson, whom Jones beat less convincingly and Cormier will get the chance to at UFC 192. And there’s Johnson whom Cormier beat and Jones was supposed to fight, and Jimi Manuwa who beat Blachowicz but lost to Gustafsson most ridiculously. He fights Johnson next. That is the extent of your drama for the time being. The light heavyweight division, once ruled by Ortiz’s and Liddell’s and Couture’s, has become a dried-up lakebed.
Which once again brings us around to OSP, that lone member of the new guard who isn’t a former champion or a leftover from Pride or anything like that. He isn’t a spring chicken. He’s 32 years old. But OSP’s new looking, even if Bader did beat him not all that long ago at UFC Fight Night 47 in Maine. Luckily, not a lot of people were watching (or cared). He has since defeated “Shogun” and Cummins, both of them first-round finishes. Now he has a chance to put an exclamation mark on his run with a win over Teixeira in his native Tennessee. Should he win he won’t likely feel like a threat to the throne, but at least there’s a fresh contender in a division that has long stopped producing such things.
Should he lose to Teixeira? It’s back to fishing for prospects in the once-thriving Salton Sea.
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