One of the most injury-riddled cards in UFC history has come and gone, as UFC 149 raided Alberta, Canada and left with a new interim bantamweight champion to show for it. The card provided an abundance of opportunities and a chance for one 135-lb. figh…
One of the most injury-riddled cards in UFC history has come and gone, as UFC 149 raided Alberta, Canada and left with a new interim bantamweight champion to show for it.
The card provided an abundance of opportunities and a chance for one 135-lb. fighter to stake his claim for Dominick Cruz’s championship belt.
Who rose to the occasion, seized the moment and emerged victorious?
Who shrunk away and shriveled under the bright lights?
Start the slideshow to see the real winners and losers from UFC 149: Faber vs. Barao.
Urijah Faber has it all. From his incredible talent as a mixed martial artist to his budding writing career to his envy-inducing physique (come on, I’m just saying what we have all thought at one point or another), Faber is missing nothing in his life….
Urijah Faber has it all.
From his incredible talent as a mixed martial artist to his budding writing career to his envy-inducing physique (come on, I’m just saying what we have all thought at one point or another), Faber is missing nothing in his life.
Well, maybe he is missing one thing.
One really, really important thing, to be exact.
Faber, for all his talent and popularity, has never held the UFC championship belt around his waist, a streak he hopes to break at UFC 149 when he squares off against Brazilian phenom Renan Barao.
In honor of Faber and other fighters like him who, despite massive popularity, have never had their share of the UFC belt, I present to you this slideshow.
At UFC 148, the most dominant UFC light heavyweight of all time (for now) called it quits after a storied career. Tito Ortiz, also known as “The Huntington Beach Bad Boy” and “The People’s Champ,” faced Forrest Griffin in a farewell fight which served …
At UFC 148, the most dominant UFC light heavyweight of all time (for now) called it quits after a storied career.
Tito Ortiz, also known as “The Huntington Beach Bad Boy” and “The People’s Champ,” faced Forrest Griffin in a farewell fight which served as the final page of the final chapter in the storybook that was his fantastic career as a mixed martial artist.
As a champion, Ortiz was undeniably dominant.
After winning the belt at UFC 25 against Wanderlei Silva, Ortiz went on to defend his strap five times before losing to Randy Couture more than three years later at UFC 44.
This streak remains the longest of its kind within the light heavyweight division and, while Ortiz did it against weaker opposition than the current UFC light heavyweight division holds, it remains one of the most impressive feats in UFC history.
Despite his dominance, Ortiz was hated by many fans, and his work inside the Octagon meant nothing to those who hated his arrogant demeanor.
After losing battles, Ortiz had a bad habit of blaming his performance on injuries. While these claims oftentimes had merit, fans, myself included, grew tired of the broken record that was Ortiz’s line of excuses.
Such character issues make one wonder: Is Ortiz done for real, or is he just in one of his “moods” and feeling like he needs some attention right now?
In this writer’s eyes, he is done, and he should be.
While I will admit Ortiz irked me like few other fighters, he seems to have changed his character for the better in his recent fights.
Going into his third and final battle against Griffin, Ortiz seemed focused and determined to end his career on a high note. Gone was the whining brat of past years— this Tito Ortiz was a reborn man and fighter, and I liked it.
In press conferences, Ortiz heard the question several times: “Are you really retiring?”
Each time, he answered with a definitive “Yes!” and said he had a family to take care of and a new career path to follow.
As I have mentioned, Ortiz is not shy about making excuses or deceiving us with his words. Fights he was “in the best shape of his life” for turned into fights in which he “had bulging disks and a cracked hand.”
This time though, on the topic of retirement, Ortiz spoke with a sincerity I had not previously detected in his voice. Even recently, when asked if a bout with Chuck Liddell would coax him back into the Octagon, Ortiz plainly said “no” and held firm on his response.
With his recent string of losses and sub-par performances under the UFC banner, I think that is the right decision.
A bout with Liddell is tantalizing, sure, but Ortiz, like he mentioned, has a family to care for. He has a job at ESPN lined up and waiting. He does not need to endanger himself, and he will not.
Ortiz is doing what more fighters need to do: he is getting out on his own terms and pulling the curtain on a storied career before it is sullied.
He would be insane to come back after leaving in such a manner, and I think that Ortiz left us a long time ago.
At Saturday’s Strikeforce: Rockhold vs. Kennedy, Luke Rockhold may have retained his middleweight title, but he did very little to change my opinion of him. Before the fight, I did not consider him a top 10 middleweight in the world. After the fi…
At Saturday’s Strikeforce: Rockhold vs. Kennedy, Luke Rockhold may have retained his middleweight title, but he did very little to change my opinion of him.
Before the fight, I did not consider him a top 10 middleweight in the world.
After the fight, I know he is not top 10 material.
I certainly am not going to rip on the man and devour his performance. After all, he won, easily handling an always-game opponent in Tim Kennedy.
That said, when was Tim Kennedy ever a top 10 fighter? Rockhold should have annihilated Kennedy, and he should have done so even more impressively than he did.
From Hector Lombard to Michael Bisping to the perennial champion Anderson Silva, the UFC is absolutely loaded with middleweights studs.
Luke Rockhold may be a stud according to the ladies (so I hear), but he is not a stud in the cage.
Let us peruse his resume:
His first eight fights were against fighters you probably have never heard of (and he still lost one of them via TKO). Still, everybody gets caught once in a while, so we will give him a pass on that loss early in his career.
To this end, he did what he needed to do: he won enough fights on the small-time shows to make it to the big show, and that is not a feat to take lightly; in fact, it is very impressive.
That said, we are talking about how he stacks up against the best of the best in the world, the cream of the crop at 185 lbs.
Rockhold’s last three fights were against Ronaldo “Jacare” Souza, Keith Jardine and Kennedy, in that order.
He beat Souza by a decision which some felt was controversial (I felt he won pretty clearly), Jardine via TKO and Kennedy via lazy decision.
The Souza win is quality, but the other two do not really prove anything to me other than that he continues to do what he has to do to be a good—but not top 10—fighter.
Knocking out Keith Jardine is like submitting Kimbo Slice; if you do not do it, you are doing something wrong, period.
The fashion in which he beat Kennedy was disappointing, to say the least. I wanted him to show off his extensive striking and grappling skills which I had heard so much about, but what I saw was a fighter looking to score points and simply get out of the cage with a win.
That is fine…if you are OK with maintaining a nice plateau in your career’s trajectory.
Rockhold had the chance to really prove something against Tim Kennedy, and he failed to do that. If he was constantly rocking Kennedy and attempting submissions but Kennedy was simply too resilient to be finished, I would be fine with that.
That was not the case, though. Kennedy offered little resistance at all, and a hungry fighter hell-bent on winning would have stuck it to him and ended the fight. Kennedy’s gameplan consisted of weak takedown attempts and haymakers, and any of the top 10 UFC fighters would have figured out a way around this bland attack.
The bottom line is this: Luke Rockhold is in the minor leagues of the UFC, if you will, and he still is not annihilating opponents. Hector Lombard is a perfect example of what he could be doing, and that difference is exactly why Lombard cracks the top 10 but Rockhold does not.
Luke Rockhold may be the best middleweight in Strikeforce, but he is mid-tier in the UFC.
He thinks he wants a part of the big time, but until he shows up bigger than he has thus far in his career, he is in for a rude awakening when he steps into the Octagon.
Luke Rockhold had a statement to make tonight.
A man who feels he does not quite get the credit he deserves as a top middleweight, Rockhold has been eager to get in the cage and show the world just how good he truly is.
At Strikeforce: Rockhold vs. Ken…
Luke Rockhold had a statement to make tonight.
A man who feels he does not quite get the credit he deserves as a top middleweight, Rockhold has been eager to get in the cage and show the world just how good he truly is.
At Strikeforce: Rockhold vs. Kennedy, the champion Rockhold had his chance to do just that, but did he make the most of it?
Start the slideshow to see the real winners and losers from Saturday night’s Strikeforce action.
Is there an echo in here?Give Chris Weidman the title shot already; I am tired of saying it!In March, I said Weidman is the man to take Anderson Silva’s belt. I was met largely with sarcastic remarks and snickers (and not the candy bar,…
Is there an echo in here?
Give Chris Weidman the title shot already; I am tired of saying it!
To me, those critics were justified at the time; Weidman was largely untested, and Silva was as dominant as ever.
Yesterday, July 10, I definitively claimed Mark Munoz would not be able to get going against Weidman, and the 28-year-old would do as he pleased, when he pleased.
Again, the majority laughed.
Look, this is mixed martial arts, and absolutely anything can happen in the cage. Predicting fights is as easy as predicting the weather or predicting heads or tails. Really, you can never say for certain how a fight will pan out.
The same can be said for fighters. A man who is dominant and impressive in one fight can come out flat-footed and lazy in his next outing; we have seen this story play out plenty of times in the Octagon. So, I do not blame you in the least for not listening to guys like myself who were high on Chris Weidman going into UFC on Fuel TV 4.
Mark Munoz had proven himself, and Weidman had not, so your assumptions were fair and justified.
That being said, when a fighter shows the skills Weidman has, and the ability to learn and adapt at an alarming rate, you have to say he is the real deal (and I mean the real real deal).
If you could build the perfect fighter, you would probably start with a world-class, stifling wrestling base.
Check.
Then you would snug up his jiu-jitsu skills, blending the ability to finish with the ability to maintain control while doing so.
Check.
Then, you would have to make sure his standup was at least good enough to stick around and pose a threat to setup that incredible wrestling base you have built.
Check (and in Weidman‘s case, it is looking even better than this).
The dude is unreal, and he may just be the biggest threat posed to the champion…ever.
His wrestling seems to be as good as, or better than, ChaelSonnen‘s, and we all saw what Sonnen was able to do to Silva for nearly 30 minutes total in their two matchups.
On top of this, Weidman has a much better submission game than Sonnen, and he is not afraid to constantly threaten with submissions once he has his opponent pinned.
Worrying about getting punched and elbowed is par for the course when you are on your back; worrying about getting your arm torn off or your neck constricted at all times adds a whole new dimension, one that Silva did not face against Sonnen.
It is not just that Weidman beat Mark Munoz that makes me say this; it is how he beat him.
Who has controlled Munoz like that before? If you did not know that Munoz was a Division I champion wrestler, would you even think he wrestled in college at all after seeing the fight?
If you did not know Munoz was a top five middleweight, would you even think he was top 10?
The ability to win is great, it is really all you need in the UFC, but the ability to make your opponents look horrible is what all the otherworldly fighters do.
Jon Jones does it, Georges St. Pierre does it, and, yes, Anderson Silva certainly does it.
So, can Weidman beat Silva, justifying his center-of-the-ring call-out of the champ after defeating Munoz?
Yes, he can, and you know what?
He will.
Call me crazy, but he has the style to do it, and styles make fights.
If anybody deserves the title shot right now, it is Chris Weidman, plain and simple.
Besides his impressive 5-0 streak in the Octagon, he poses the biggest threat to the champion right now.
Alan Belcher, Michael Bisping, Hector Lombard and Tim Boetsch, I am sorry, but Weidman did exactly what he needed to do tonight to leapfrog each and every one of you and earn himself a shot at the belt.
Do not fret though, my fine middleweight contenders. You will have the chance to fight “The Spider;” it just will not be for the belt.
At UFC 148, the most dominant UFC light heavyweight of all time (for now) called it quits after a storied career.