I am not going to sugarcoat this one folks: this sucks!In what was one of the year’s most anticipated bouts, Rory MacDonald is now out of his matchup with UFC legend BJ Penn due to a large cut sustained in training. Per Yahoo! Sports (via MMAWeek…
I am not going to sugarcoat this one folks: this sucks!
In what was one of the year’s most anticipated bouts, Rory MacDonald is now out of his matchup with UFC legend BJ Penn due to a large cut sustained in training.
Young prospect Rory MacDonald suffered a major cut in training that has forced him out of his scheduled fight at UFC 152 against B.J. Penn.
UFC president Dana White revealed the news to MMAWeekly.com after the conclusion of UFC on Fox 4 on Saturday night.
White stated that MacDonald’s cut was so bad that he will have no contact for the next month, pushing him out of the scheduled fight with Penn in September.
The cut was on MacDonald’s forehead and required more than 40 stitches to close.
Being so close to the event’s Sept. 22 date, it is unclear as of right now whether a replacement fighter will step in to face Penn or whether the bout will be canceled altogether.
Penn has mentioned that MacDonald was the perfect fighter to bring him out of retirement, so it is unlikely he will be motivated to continue with the young Canadian now out of action.
Another strong card takes a big hit with this one, folks, and injuries prevail again.
How does this one stack up to other recent injury-riddled matchups? Let me know in a comment, and we will discuss your thoughts!
If you are a fan of MMA, heavy metal music or general absurdity, follow me on Twitter @HunterAHomistek.
Lyoto “The Dragon” Machida’s next UFC fight will be for a title. With his darting karate style, Machida was able to land a crushing straight right hand to the jaw of Ryan Bader at UFC on Fox 4 Saturday in Los Angeles, and “The Dragon’s” fate was …
Lyoto “The Dragon” Machida’s next UFC fight will be for a title.
With his darting karate style, Machida was able to land a crushing straight right hand to the jaw of Ryan Bader at UFC on Fox 4 Saturday in Los Angeles, and “The Dragon’s” fate was sealed.
Dana White broke the news of Machida’s earned shot shortly after the event, so the question now is: Who will he face?
Light heavyweight champion Jon Jones is set to face legendary fighter Dan Henderson at UFC 151, so we know it will be one of these two men.
How does Machida stack up against each fighter? Start the slideshow to find out.
Two former contestants on The Ultimate Fighter took center stage at UFC on FOX 4, as Cole Miller battled Nam Phan in the night’s final preliminary bout. Whether it is against Leonard Garcia, Mike Brown or Cole Miller, Nam Phan has a knack for tur…
Two former contestants on The Ultimate Fighter took center stage at UFC on FOX 4, as Cole Miller battled Nam Phan in the night’s final preliminary bout.
Whether it is against Leonard Garcia, Mike Brown or Cole Miller, Nam Phan has a knack for turning his fights into high-octane slugfests.
In a fight that never hit the mat, Phan and Miller stood and traded bombs for the full 15 minutes, leaving the judges with a difficult decision.
Two out of three judges saw the fight for Phan, and he picked up his second UFC victory for the effort.
What We’ll Remember From the Fight
Nam Phan is incredibly fun to watch, and Cole Miller is game to throw down. The two featherweights battled toe-to-toe for 15 minutes, and the real winner of this fight was the fans who watched.
Neither fighter showed the truly elite skills of the division’s top dogs, but each proved that he deserves his spot on the UFC’s roster.
Cole Miller is a hit-or-miss fighter, and he was crisp with his striking but a little lazy with his striking defense against Phan. Phan landed left hooks at will, and Miller’s inability to avoid damage cost him the decision.
What we learned about Nam Phan
If you have seen Phan fight in the past, this fight taught you nothing new. The Vietnamese-American is an excellent boxer and he has a great chin, both of which were on display against Cole Miller.
For Phan, the win over Miller is certainly an achievement to be proud of, but it really did not show any new wrinkles or developments to his game.
What we learned about Cole Miller
Cole Miller is extremely tall for the featherweight division, and he used his reach effectively, but not often enough against Nam Phan.
Like with Phan, we really did not learn much from Miller. I would have liked to see him attempt to take the fight to the ground, but he played to Phan’s strengths, and that decision cost him the fight.
For Miller, this fight was another example of his squandered potential. While he looked good and made the fight competitive for its duration, he did not show the brilliance he has flashed in his past performances.
What’s next for Nam Phan
If the UFC brass is smart (and they are), Nam Phan is going to get another stand-up fighter in his next outing.
Phan is a solid fighter, but he is not good enough to contest the division’s upper ranks, so a fight with the winner of Max Holloway and Justin Lawrence makes sense for him moving forward. That fight will almost surely take place on the feet, and it will be another potential fight of the night matchup.
What’s next for Cole Miller
I always enjoy watching Cole Miller fight, but he is too often disappointing inside the Octagon.
Miller’s well-rounded game makes him a threat wherever the fight goes, but he always seems to play to his opponent’s strength instead of imposing his will and dictating the fight.
A loser-leaves-town matchup with Josh Grispi, who also lost earlier in the night, makes sense for Miller in his next bout.
“Wait, Dana White said WHAT?!”The collective Twitterverse could be heard (seen) uttering (typing) these words as news broke that White, on a UFC on FOX 4 conference call, declared that the winner of Saturday’s Shogun vs. Vera matchup was next in line f…
The collective Twitterverse could be heard (seen) uttering (typing) these words as news broke that White, on a UFC on FOX 4 conference call, declared that the winner of Saturday’s Shogun vs. Vera matchup was next in line for a shot at the light heavyweight title.
I will admit this: I too, was skeptical at first.
Skeptical like, cursing Dana White and the UFC’s logic skeptical.
But, I gave the reasoning some thought, and I have deduced three reasons why this bold, seemingly insane proclamation actually makes sense for the UFC.
Start the slideshow to see the method behind the UFC brass’s madness.
MMA is such a simple sport. Within any given division, you find fighters. These fighters strive for one goal: the title shot. The fighter who already has the title strives for a similar, but slightly different goal: He/she fights to k…
Within any given division, you find fighters. These fighters strive for one goal: the title shot.
The fighter who already has the title strives for a similar, but slightly different goal: He/she fights to keep the title.
Really, this is as simply as one can break down why fighters fight. They fight to win, and they win with hopes of gaining the privilege to challenge the division’s top dog and to hopefully become the top dog.
This is obvious.
What is not so obvious, however, is that not all wins are equal, and fighters are judged on an insanely strict scale which favors recent performances over anything else.
Yes, MMA is the ultimate “what have you done for me lately” sport.
There is a saying in the mixed martial arts world that says, “A fighter is only as good as his last fight,” and by-golly-gee-willickers is that an accurate statement.
Let us look to history for proof.
The year is 2010. Fedor Emelianenko, one of the sport’s best heavyweights, is on a tear of epic proportions.
The Russian juggernaut has not lost since the year 2000, and he is matched up with Fabricio Werdum, a UFC outcast, for what will certainly become his 28th straight victory.
The match begins.
Emelianenko drops Werdum with one of his patented power punches. Oh, we all knew this is how it would go. War Fedor!
Oh no! What is this?
Werdum has his legs wrapped around Fedor in a strange, three-sided polygon! How can it be?!
Terrible commentary aside, we all know what happened here.
Fedor got caught in Werdum’s triangle, and the greatest heavyweight of all time was forced to tap out.
Hey, it happens. In MMA, people are bound to get tapped out or knocked out once in a while, right?
For naysayers of Fedor, no, this is not the case.
Fedor immediately went from being the consensus best heavyweight of all time to a borderline top-10 fighter with the loss.
Remember that? Remember the “Machida Era?”
Remember when Todd Duffee was the greatest thing ever until an overweight cop knocked him out?
The fact is that a fighter truly is only as good as his last fight. If he looked spectacular, he is the greatest ever and a title challenger.
If he lost, he is a shell of his former self or simply not “ready for the big time.”
In other sports, teams have seasons of varying capacities.
For football teams, there is a 16-game slate to prove their dominance. In basketball, a team has 82 games to prove the same.
In MMA, a fighter is on a one-game season. The “next” fight is always the most important fight in a fighter’s life, and that is because critics and fans really only care about how good a fighter is right now.
That said, the system works. Sure, it is unfair to rule out a fighter simply because of one loss or one mental lapse, but if he or she is truly the best, the opportunity is there to get back on top.
This is a double-edged blade; just as one bad loss can make a fighter irrelevant, one huge win can propel a fighter to title contention.
In MMA, fighters live and die by this sword. It is those who wield it properly that find success.
MMA may be the ultimate “what have you done for me lately” sport, but this only adds to the drama and heart-pounding anticipation of each bout.
Every fight is important, every fight is the most important fight of a fighter’s life and every fight matters.
I have been saying this for quite some time now, but I will gladly say it again with conviction: The best fighters in the world fight under the UFC banner, period. At UFC 149, fight fans saw the Octagon debut of Hector Lombard, an insurmountable …
I have been saying this for quite some time now, but I will gladly say it again with conviction:
The best fighters in the world fight under the UFC banner, period.
At UFC 149, fight fans saw the Octagon debut of Hector Lombard, an insurmountable mountain of a man, a powerful and devastating knockout machine, a wondrous fighter with fists of steel!
Oh, wait, he is actually none of that? He’s just a 5’8″ middleweight who can throw a hard punch?
Wow.
To say Lombard’s UFC debut was disappointing is an understatement; he looked absolutely atrocious against Tim Boetsch.
This performance not only raised questions about Lombard as an elite middleweight, it certainly makes one wonder how legitimate the smaller organizations are as a breeding grounds for fighters.
If Lombard could look so good in Bellator but then flop immediately in the UFC, how good is Bellator, anyway?
Well, I am here to tell you that, even though I believe wholeheartedly in the strength of the UFC’s roster, there are still great fighters that have yet to sign with the MMA‘s premier organization.
Obvious fighters to point at are guys like Gilbert Melendez, Daniel Cormier and Josh Barnett, three Strikeforce fighters who could fit right in their respective divisions in the UFC.
Outside of them, there is Bellator’s Pat Curran, Michael Chandler and Ben Askren, three dominant fighters who rule the featherweight, lightweight and welterweight roost, respectively.
Both Curran and Chandler have shown a diverse skill set that makes them dangerous wherever a fight goes, and they have thoroughly outclassed their opponents inside the Bellator cage.
Askren, on the other hand, is a decision machine, capable of grounding almost any fighter in a grappling battle. While this is not the most exciting style, “lay n’ pray” works, and it has worked in the Octagon before and could certainly work again.
What I am saying is that, while Lombard certainly did not put in a good performance for the smaller organizations, it was, after all, just one fight. Maybe he is actually better than he looked against Boetsch. Maybe the UFC jitters got to him.
One cannot make such a broad generalization based on this performance, though, so let us refrain from doing so and give organizations like Bellator and Strikeforce the benefit of the doubt for just a while longer.
Even if Melendez, Cormier, Curran and Askren all migrate to the UFC and flop like Lombard, my argument still has a trump card:
The women.
I guarantee you the women outside the UFC are better than the ones inside the Octagon.
Good night, everybody.
If you are a fan of fighting, music or general absurdity, follow me on Twitter @HunterAHomistek.
I am not going to sugarcoat this one folks: this sucks!