Georges St-Pierre is a wanted man and the fighter who is hunting for his title looks to be at full health after a slight scare following his fight in Montreal last weekend. Johny Hendricks feared that he possibly broke his hand in the first round when …
Georges St-Pierre is a wanted man and the fighter who is hunting for his title looks to be at full health after a slight scare following his fight in Montreal last weekend.
Johny Hendricks feared that he possibly broke his hand in the first round when he was facing former UFC interim champion Carlos Condit at UFC 158.
After the fight, Hendricks remarked that he would likely head to the doctor on Monday, but that nothing would stop him from his ultimate goal of facing Georges St-Pierre for the UFC welterweight title later this year.
“There’s always ways to work around it, so I will. Nothing’s going to hold me back,” said Hendricks at the UFC 158 post fight press conference.
Luckily for Hendricks once he returned home from the fight, the swelling in his hand had gone down dramatically so he delayed the doctor’s visit another day. By Tuesday morning, the swelling had gone down even more and the final determination was no broken hand and no need to visit the doctor.
In addition to Hendricks’ own Twitter message, representatives from his management at Team Takedown additionally confirmed the good news to Bleacher Report on Tuesday, as well and sending along a picture of his hand two days after the swelling had gone down.
“The swelling had gone down a lot yesterday when he woke up,” the statement read. “Today it looks and feels even better so he didn’t feel it was necessary to go to the doctor. It’s feeling much better”
It now looks like Hendricks will be able to avoid any time off to deal with a hand injury and get back into training right away to begin preparation for his eventual showdown with St-Pierre later this year.
As far as a timeline goes for the fight to happen, that remains unknown at this time.
Following his win over Nick Diaz at UFC 158, St-Pierre remarked about the long training camp and how he hasn’t had much rest since returning from his knee surgery last year. St-Pierre’s immediate plans included a vacation far away from Montreal to allow his mind and body time to recover.
There will be no rest for the weary, however, now that Hendricks has a healthy hand and a goal in mind of taking out St-Pierre and capturing the UFC welterweight title by year’s end.
Damon Martin is a Featured Columnist for Bleacher Report and all quotes were obtained firsthand unless otherwise noted.
World Series of Fighting main event competitor Anthony Johnson has become a professional when it comes to tuning out the interference that seems to always buzz around his head. During his days in the UFC, when Johnson struggled to make weight while cut…
World Series of Fighting main event competitor Anthony Johnson has become a professional when it comes to tuning out the interference that seems to always buzz around his head.
During his days in the UFC, when Johnson struggled to make weight while cutting down to 170 pounds, he was routinely slammed on social networks, MMA fan forums and by journalists alike for not hitting the mark on weigh-in day.
Eventually, Johnson had to admit to himself that his body was being brutalized with the huge weight cuts that he had done for years, but the decision to move to light heavyweight was done because he knew it was the right time and not because he got tired of hearing everyone complain about it.
So after a successful campaign at 205 pounds, which included a knockout win in his World Series of Fighting debut, Johnson opted to take a fight at heavyweight against former UFC champion Andrei Arlovski. But as he gets ready for this fight, there’s a certain negative buzz that’s started to swirl again.
This time it’s about Johnson’s home camp in Florida and his teammates at the Blackzilians.
The team, which was brought together by Authentic Sports Management owner Glenn Robinson, has experienced some definite growing pains over the last few months, with many of its high-profile fighters suffering losses. From Rashad Evans to Alistair Overeem, the Blackzilians have struggled lately, and immediately, the rash judgment was made that the team is somehow a failure.
Every team in MMA goes through peaks and valleys and the Blackzilians are no different, and Johnson stands beside his teammates through victory and defeat.
“In this sport, you’re going to have your losses. That’s just the name of the sport, nobody can stay on top forever,” Johnson told Bleacher Report. “Even though we’ve had our losses, the team still trains hard and we still do our best and that’s all that matters. We don’t care about what everybody says. We know people are going to talk—let them talk, and we just keep it moving. You win some, you lose some; it’s all about can you bounce back.”
It’s easy for any fighter, or team for that matter, to let negativity seep in and infect what they are trying to do on a larger scale. Like a plague that sweeps through a village, Johnson refuses to let talk about his team serve as a black cloud to his preparation.
He knows how good his teammates are at the Blackzilians, and no team is going to win every fight, nor will this current downtrodden time continue forever. The key, as Johnson puts it, is to know how to tune out the negativity and just stay focused on the goal at hand.
“The world is built around being negative whenever something goes wrong. We’re not negative on each other,” said Johnson. “If one person loses, we all lose. We don’t see it as ‘oh, that guy lost’—no, we see it as we all lost. It’s a team thing, a family thing. No matter what, though, we keep pushing.
“We don’t care about what anybody has to say.”
Johnson’s next opponent has gone through many of the same trials and tribulations.
Less than seven years ago, Andrei Arlovski was standing on top of the world as the UFC heavyweight champion, but then he suffered a four-fight losing streak that had people calling for him to retire. Arlovski refused to listen and fired back with four wins in his next five fights with one ending in a no contest.
Just like the criticism his team has received, Johnson knows Arlovski won’t be defined by those that say he’s washed up or a shell of the heavyweight he once was when he ruled the UFC. Johnson knows Arlovski is a very dangerous opponent, and he’s approaching this fight like he’s the best in the world.
“Father time has kicked in. He’s not that same fighter that he was before, but he’s still a very dangerous man,” Johnson said about Arlovski. “He’s got his losses, and I’ve seen him when he first got on the scene in the UFC and was the champ. I saw when he won the belt and when he lost it, to his knockouts, but never judge a book by its cover.
“Just because he’s had his ups and downs, which fighter hasn’t? I just think about what that man can do to me, not what has happened to him.”
Whether Arlovski is a new man or the same man, and whether the entire Blackzilian team wins or loses in their next fights, Johnson is staying focused on what matters most and that’s coming away with a victory on Saturday night.
Damon Martin is a Featured Columnist at Bleacher Report and all quotes were obtained firsthand unless otherwise noted.
No one seemed surprised at the way the UFC 158 main event between Georges St-Pierre and Nick Diaz ended. Heading into the fight, Diaz had talked the bout up to astronomical levels and it seemed on the surface that maybe, just maybe, he was the fighter …
No one seemed surprised at the way the UFC 158 main event between Georges St-Pierre and Nick Diaz ended.
Heading into the fight, Diaz had talked the bout up to astronomical levels and it seemed on the surface that maybe, just maybe, he was the fighter to finally goad St-Pierre into a slugfest; especially after the last few weeks of verbal exchanges between the two fighters.
The real story however read much like the last five fights of St-Pierre’s career with him dominating en route to a five round decision. There were no flashy moments where it seemed like St-Pierre was almost ready to pounce and finish Diaz. To the contrary, for all the control and domination he had, St-Pierre’s suffocating and overwhelming style absolutely won him the fight, but didn’t ever put Diaz in any serious trouble.
St-Pierre has time and time again answered questions about his inability to close fighters down and put them away. He then says he’s always looking for the knockout or the submission, but fighters are tough and some just can’t be taken out so easily.
Regardless of style, St-Pierre’s one-sided victories still cemented him as one of the two best fighters on the planet for years alongside UFC middleweight champion Anderson Silva, but his legacy is starting to slip away, as crazy as that might sound.
Make no mistake, St-Pierre is as good as advertised and may be the most well-rounded fighter in the entire sport. His wrestling for MMA is better than virtually anyone in the world, and even Olympic-caliber grapplers can’t match his takedown rate. St-Pierre’s jab is one of the deadliest weapons in his arsenal with the way he snaps it out at an opponent the way a cobra cuts down its prey.
But for as good as St-Pierre is on paper, his inability to finish fights now has him relegated to the third position in virtually every pound-for-pound list in the sport behind Silva and UFC light heavyweight champion Jon Jones.
In comparison to Jon Jones, St-Pierre should trump him based on title defenses and wins alone. The Canadian just retained his welterweight title for the eighth-straight time, and it also marked his 19th win overall inside the Octagon.
Jones, meanwhile, has four title defenses since wrangling the belt away from Mauricio “Shogun” Rua in 2011. In his entire UFC career, Jones is 11-1 with the one defeat coming by way of disqualification due to illegal strikes against Matt Hamill.
What is the prevailing difference when looking at St-Pierre and Jones? It’s finishing rate, pure and simple.
Jones has decimated his opponents through 11 victories with eight finishes, and in his five title fights he’s taken out four of them by submission or TKO with only one reaching the final horn in the fifth round.
It was just a few years ago that all the MMA world could talk about when the word ‘superfight’ was echoed was Anderson Silva vs. Georges St-Pierre, but now that seems like an afterthought. Nowadays the only fight that seems to matter is Silva vs. Jones.
On Saturday night when the “typical” St-Pierre performance was brought up, UFC president Dana White even felt compelled to stand beside his champion’s style of fighting.
“I’m not defending Georges here, it’s not my job to defend him but I disagree. I think that Georges St-Pierre fought a great fight tonight,” said White at the UFC 158 post fight press conference. “He stood up with him and got the better of the stand-up most of the time that he was up. Nick Diaz has an awesome style with his hands. Nick Diaz, I don’t know if you could hear it over on the media side, hit Georges St-Pierre with a body shot that you don’t hear in fights and Georges took the shot. Georges took him down and controlled him on the ground. I thought Georges fought a great fight tonight.”
In theory, White is absolutely correct because St-Pierre controlled every facet of the game against Diaz at UFC 158. The reality, however, is a little different; in the fight game a finish counts for a lot more than a unanimous decision.
St-Pierre’s safe and strategic approach to fights will continue to get him wins, but if he’s not careful it may lose him a legacy.
It’s been more than four years since St-Pierre finished an opponent, and that win was still somewhat anti-climactic because his challenger at the time, B.J. Penn, retired between rounds. Now, in terms of impressive, literally wearing an opponent down to a nub and exhausting them to the point where they can’t continue is an extremely daunting task and St-Pierre did it in 20 minutes against one of the greats in MMA history.
Unfortunately, there was no highlight reel knockout. There was no emphatic thud as Penn hit the ground after a St-Pierre kick. There was just an image of Penn breathing heavy in the corner and his teammates throwing in the towel.
Reaching back even further, it was April 2008 when St-Pierre last beat an opponent with strikes to finish a fight. That was his rematch against Matt Serra, who knocked out St-Pierre a year earlier in one of the biggest upsets in UFC history.
It’s hard to criticize St-Pierre when in reality he’s doing nothing wrong. He’s going out and winning in emphatic fashion against fighters in one of the deepest divisions in the sport. St-Pierre also happens to be the biggest draw in all of MMA despite the fact that he doesn’t destroy opponents like Silva or Jones, and routinely draws huge numbers on pay-per-view.
The UFC 158 pay-per-view numbers are trending to the same tune as UFC 148: Silva vs. Sonnen 2 from last year, which was the UFC’s biggest show in all of 2012.
If the numbers hold up, St-Pierre probably shouldn’t care what anyone says about his style or how he approaches fights, and until someone can stop him from executing that game plan it becomes a case of if it’s not broken, why fix it?
Still, for all the popularity and pay-per-view buys, St-Pierre has always said he wants to go down as the greatest fighter of all time. If he can’t start closing down the best fighters in the world and putting a few exclamation points on his performances, he may just have to settle for No. 3 behind Anderson Silva and Jon Jones.
Damon Martin is a Featured Columnist for Bleacher Report and all quotes were obtained first hand unless otherwise noted.
UFC welterweight Nick Diaz took to Twitter late Sunday night revealing that he and some friends had been at least stopped by local police for some unknown reason. Diaz stated at the time, “f—k they got us,” but just minutes later, the tweet disap…
UFC welterweight Nick Diaztook to Twitter late Sunday night revealing that he and some friends had been at least stopped by local police for some unknown reason.
Diaz stated at the time, “f—k they got us,” but just minutes later, the tweet disappeared along with the picture. He did manage to post another picture to his Instagram account, which still remains with the caption: “We lost Alix and Vic.”
Now, less than 24-hours later, there is clarity on the situation and Diaz was not actually arrested or detained by police, but apparently, others in the car with him were taken into custody.
Sergeant David Moranz of the Citrus Heights Police Department confirmed to Bleacher Report on Monday after an initial report from TMZ.com that Diaz was a passenger in a car that was stopped around 11 p.m. PT after it traveled the wrong way down a one-way street. Moranz stated that Diaz was not the driver of the vehicle, only a passenger.
The driver of the car had his license checked and an outstanding misdemeanor warrant was found on his record and he was arrested at the scene. A second occupant in the car was found to have concentrated cannabis in their possession, and police also arrested that person as well.
Diaz, however, was not in any trouble and had no past incidents on his record that caused police to detain him any further.
According to the police, Diaz was very cooperative and complicit with their requests while they conducted their investigation, and he was released at the scene after the accompanying arrests were made.
The area of Citrus Heights, Calif. is about an hour north of Diaz‘s home area of Stockton and Lodi, where he lives and trains out of Cesar Gracie’s Jiu-Jitsu.
Diaz returned home on Sunday after suffering a unanimous decision loss to welterweight champion Georges St-Pierre in Montreal at UFC 158.
While he avoided legal trouble on Sunday, Diaz could create more issues for himself after revealing on Saturday night during the UFC 158 post-fight press conference that he’s never paid taxes. That issue could absolutely swing back around and hit Diaz with a lengthy legal battle if those statements are actually true.
Damon Martin is a Featured Columnist for Bleacher Report.
Former UFC light heavyweight champion Lyoto Machida is in a precarious position. He stands as the No. 1 contender at 205 lbs., but doesn’t have the desire to sit out for more than six months waiting to fight for the title. Machida earned the top slot i…
Former UFC light heavyweight champion LyotoMachida is in a precarious position. He stands as the No. 1 contender at 205 lbs., but doesn’t have the desire to sit out for more than six months waiting to fight for the title.
Machida earned the top slot in the division back at UFC 157 when he defeated Dan Henderson, and now will watch closely in late April when current UFC champion Jon Jones defends his title against ChaelSonnen.
The problem Machida is having right now is the fact that he doesn’t want to sit out for several months waiting for a shot at the belt while the rust gathers on his body. He’d love to stay active, but the problem is there’s no one near the top of the division for him to face right now.
“He doesn’t want to sit out, but unfortunately there’s no guys in the top 10 right now. There’s nobody really in the top 10 that doesn’t have a fight, so it’s a complicated situation,” Machida‘s manager Ed Soares told Bleacher Report recently.
“Because Lyoto‘s the No. 1 contender, but he doesn’t want to sit out six months before he fights. Now we’ve got to wait to see this Chael/Jones fight, I mean what if one of them gets hurt?”
Following his fight with Henderson in February, Machida went on a family vacation to Hawaii to relax, but he’s not returned and is awaiting word from the UFC on what comes next.
It’s a difficult situation because Machida will get the next shot at either Jones or Sonnen if he waits, and UFC president Dana White validated that over the weekend when he was asked if there was any chance UFC on Fuel 9 fighter Alexander Gustafsson could leapfrog him into contention with a win on April 6 over former Strikeforce champion GegardMousasi.
“He beat Dan Henderson,” White said referencing Machida‘s No. 1 contender spot. “Whether Dan wants to think that fight however it was done or whatever, he ran from me. You’ve got to be able to cut the guy off and stop him and finish him. If a guy moves too much and is too elusive, you’ve got to be able to stop him. Cut him off and stop him. Dan couldn’t do that, Dan lost the fight.”
There currently is not a single fighter in the top 10 of the UFC’s official rankings that isn’t already matched up with a fight or sitting out due to injury (Ryan Bader – who Machida already knocked out in 2012).
It appears the waiting game will have to be Machida‘s lot in life for now, but following UFC 159 in New Jersey, if he’s handed a bout agreement to face the winner later this year, it’s likely everything will get much better.
“We don’t know what’s going on yet,” said Soares. “Lyoto wants to stay busy, but we don’t know what’s going on yet.”
Damon Martin is a Featured Columnist for Bleacher Report and all quotes were obtained first hand unless otherwise noted.
UFC 158 took place on Saturday night as Georges St-Pierre once again showcased his dominance in victory by defeating Nick Diaz by unanimous decision.As always with any UFC show, the personality of the fighters shows through in their bouts, but sometime…
UFC 158 took place on Saturday night as Georges St-Pierre once again showcased his dominance in victory by defeating Nick Diaz by unanimous decision.
As always with any UFC show, the personality of the fighters shows through in their bouts, but sometimes just as much in the music they select when they walk out to the cage.
Some choose songs to get them pumped up and ready to fight while others will just select a random track.
At UFC 158, the main card fighters had a unique selection of tracks from St-Pierre’s signature French hip-hop to Carlos Condit’s standard Rage Against the Machine tune.
These are the songs that made up the soundtrack to UFC 158
(Please note: Some songs have explicit language and are considered NSFW)
Georges St-Pierre is a wanted man and the fighter who is hunting for his title looks to be at full health after a slight scare following his fight in Montreal last weekend.