The UFC’s end of year schedule for 2013 boasts some of the most stacked events in recent memory. This Saturday’s UFC 166 card, from the Toyota Center in Houston, is no exception.
Plenty of column inches have already been dedicated to breaki…
The UFC’s end of year schedule for 2013 boasts some of the most stacked events in recent memory. This Saturday’s UFC 166 card, from the Toyota Center in Houston, is no exception.
Plenty of column inches have already been dedicated to breaking down the main card fights, and obsessively examining the various pre-fight narratives.
If you thirst for more of the aforementioned pre-fight build, Bleacher Report’s MMA team has got you covered.
If you seek something more unorthodox, read on for my five bold predictions for UFC 166.
Cain Velasquez is the most dominant heavyweight on the planet.
Lofty though that distinction may be, it fails to capture just how good the UFC heavyweight champion is.
Given his relatively small size for a heavyweight, one could argue that Velasquez sh…
Cain Velasquez is the most dominant heavyweight on the planet.
Lofty though that distinction may be, it fails to capture just how good the UFC heavyweight champion is.
Given his relatively small size for a heavyweight, one could argue that Velasquez should be breathing the same air as Jon Jones and Georges St-Pierre in the pound-for-pound rankings.
Yet still questions remain for Velasquez, particularly when placed within the context of a rubber match with Junior dos Santos, the only man to best him.
Read on for three important questions we have about the heavyweight champion ahead of UFC 166.
There are good times ahead. I hope you’ve been saving your pennies, folks, because UFC 165 is the first of a string of stacked UFC pay-per-views on the horizon. Go break open your piggy banks.
Saturday night’s card, coming to us from the Ai…
There are good times ahead. I hope you’ve been saving your pennies, folks, because UFC 165 is the first of a string of stacked UFC pay-per-views on the horizon. Go break open your piggy banks.
Saturday night’s card, coming to us from the Air Canada Centre in Toronto, boasts a ton of outstanding fights, including Jon Jones vs. Alexander Gustafsson for the 205-pound strap, Renan Barao vs. Eddie Wineland for the interim bantamweight title and a heavyweight grudge match between Matt Mitrione and Brendan Schaub.
Here to help guide you through the action are Bleacher Report’s finest. The ineffable Scott Harris, the prodigious Sean Smith, the masterly Craig Amos, the transcendent Riley Kontek and me, the depressingly nondescript James MacDonald.
The staredown offers a glimpse into the minds of two fighters who are about to compete inside the cage.
It gives us a chance to assess where they are at mentally and gauge the authenticity of their rivalry, and, just occasionally, it functions as a pre…
The staredown offers a glimpse into the minds of two fighters who are about to compete inside the cage.
It gives us a chance to assess where they are at mentally and gauge the authenticity of their rivalry, and, just occasionally, it functions as a preview of what’s to come.
This list celebrates those staredowns that had you rubbing your mitts together in anticipation.
Before you proceed and prepare to complain, go in armed with the knowledge that no fighter is featured more than once.
In compiling the list, I realised that I could put together a top 25 just with the fights of Diego Sanchez and Clay Guida.
That would get a little boring, though.
That being said, feel free to offer your own suggestions in the comments section. You can include as many Sanchez and Guida staredowns as your heart desires.
Without further delay, read on for the top five staredowns in UFC history.
It is an occasionally-lamented fact that religion and mixed martial arts—and sport generally—are seemingly intertwined. Wherever there is a sanctioned fist fight, expressions of religiosity are sure to be found.
To some fans these declarati…
It is an occasionally-lamented fact that religion and mixed martial arts—and sport generally—are seemingly intertwined. Wherever there is a sanctioned fist fight, expressions of religiosity are sure to be found.
To some fans these declarations of faith are no doubt inspirational, but just as many are uncomfortable witnessing fighters preach a version of religious faith that could be perceived as self-serving.
Viewed from that perspective, it is easy to sympathise with those who seethe whenever God’s will is invoked in victory.
When Jon Jones thanks God for helping him strangle an opponent into an unconscious heap, some significant percentage of even the most devout must cringe.
Given the suffering that is routinely visited upon much of the world’s population, such self-centred professions of faith should sound like nails on a chalkboard to anyone with a rational bone in their body.
Is God really sitting up in the clouds rigging the outcomes of sporting contests, like some sort of celestial match-fixer, while waving his foam finger and chugging from a beer helmet?
This is the caricatured vision of those who grow weary of listening to countless celebratory declarations of faith.
Then again, perhaps my impatience in this context is a reflection of my own bias as a non-believer. To assume that all athletes pray for victory via divine intervention would be a little uncharitable of me.
Put another way, athletes Tim Tebow and Jon Jones may be more the exception than the rule. Some, like Benson Henderson, are more modest with their prayer wishes.
Speaking in 2010, the UFC’s current lightweight king stated simply: “Before my fights I pray for strength and honour.”
Other religious mixed martial artists are at pains to further minimise the role their faith plays when the cage door shuts.
In a 2012 interview with Ben Fowlkes, ChaelSonnen expressed disdain for the notion that his God would ever intervene in the outcome of a cage fight:
“You know, these guys want to talk about God. ‘Oh, I want to thank God. I want to thank God.’ Listen, I’m a God-fearing man, go to church every Sunday and have since I was a boy. But if I ever found out that God cared one way or another about a borderline illegal fist-fight on Saturday night, I would be so greatly disappointed that it would make me rethink my entire belief system.”
With such divergent views, the function of faith in MMA seems entirely dependent on one’s perspective.
If God really is treating mixed martial artists like his own personal collection of action figures, I would argue that issues like Testosterone Replacement Therapy are the least of our worries.
I can scarcely imagine a more potent performance enhancer than having an omnipotent deity on one’s side—all without having to worry about elevated levels of Yahweh, traces of Jesus metabolites or being granted God exemptions from the NSAC.
In truth, we needn’t even broach questions of ontology. The MMA section of Bleacher Report is hardly the place to examine religion’s truth claims, anyway.
With that in mind, it’s probably best to focus on terrestrial explanations for the role occupied by religious faith in MMA.
The issue of whether some otherworldly entity is on the other end of the line listening to one’s prayers isn’t necessarily relevant.
Held with sufficient conviction, simply believing in the efficacy of prayer may be beneficial in and of itself, even if one’s wishes are ultimately being relayed to a dial tone.
A belief doesn’t have to map neatly onto reality in order for it to confer certain benefits. Rather, faith could function much like a placebo, positively altering one’s state of mind, even if the belief itself isn’t objectively true.
A 2000 study by Jeong-Keun Park of Seoul University apparently demonstrated the positive effects of religious faith in Korean athletes, including reducing anxiety and aiding peak performance.
As one study participant pointed out:
“I always prepared my game with prayer. I committed all things to God, without worry. These prayers make me calmer and more secure and I forget the fear of losing. It resulted in good play.”
Jonathan Edwards, generally considered the greatest triple jumper of all time, was a famously devout Christian who lost his faith upon retiring from athletics.
In a 2007 interview about his de-conversion, the former Olympic champion echoed the findings of Park’s study:
“Looking back now, I can see that my faith was not only pivotal to my decision to take up sport but also my success…I was always dismissive of sports psychology when I was competing, but I now realise that my belief in God was sports psychology in all but name.”
It’s difficult for a non-believer—or perhaps even a moderate—to understand how empowering that kind of faith can be.
Those of us who can’t relate to that category of belief can only really speculate, which makes it easy for us to casually dismiss public expressions of faith as self-indulgent or narcissistic—they sometimes may indeed cross that line.
One might expect career setbacks to undermine a fighter’s belief system and expose the illusory nature of the placebo effect, but religious faith tends to be surprisingly resilient.
But almost all fighters lose, no matter how religious they are.
You might think that a televised beatdown would provoke pause for doubt, but adversity often reinforces faith, as though the robustness of one’s belief system is being tested.
As Matthew Syedpoints out in his book Bounce, which examines the psychology and neuroscience behind sporting success, it isn’t a coincidence that so many religious athletes are so self-assured, boasting the kind of self-belief that often appears unshakeable.
Possessing tunnel vision isn’t a positive attribute in life generally, but it has obvious benefits in the context of mixed martial arts, where a premium is placed on mental strength and single-mindedness.
Some of us may roll our eyes and tut whenever God is mentioned in a post-fight interview with Joe Rogan, but there is no doubt that religion plays a significant role in the success of many mixed martial artists.
We don’t have to like it, but it’s probably time to accept it.
The recent announcement of Bellator’s first pay-per-view event, featuring a main event between Quinton “Rampage” Jackson and Tito Ortiz on November 2, has generated plenty of debate over the past week or so.
While some might argue that ther…
The recent announcement of Bellator’s first pay-per-view event, featuring a main event between Quinton “Rampage” Jackson and Tito Ortiz on November 2, has generated plenty of debate over the past week or so.
While some might argue that there is no such thing as bad publicity, the MMA media’s reaction to the California-based promotion’s first foray into the pay-per-view realm would appear to challenge such popular wisdom.
Indeed, optimism seems to be in short supply for Bellator, with much of the MMA community anticipating abject failure.
But how is success or failure actually being defined in this context?
The consensus appears to be that anything over 100,000 pay-per-view buys would be considered a decent first effort by Bjorn Rebney and Co. By comparison, UFC 162 was estimated to have 550,000 PPV buys, according to mmafighting. The last UFC PPV that did not feature a championship match did an estimated 150,000 buys.
Unfortunately, as modest as that number might first appear, the chances of Bellator breaching that threshold are pretty slim, even with the recent addition of Michael Chandler vs. Eddie Alvarez.
Unless a time machine comes as part of the pay-per-view package, why should anyone care about Rampage Jackson vs. Tito Ortiz?
Not since Roddy Piper faced Hulk Hogan at Halloween Havoc ’97 has the phrase “Age in the Cage” been such an apt description of a main event.
Even Rebney hasn’t attempted to manufacture relevance.
In fairness, how could he? We’re talking about an organisation that prides itself on fighters establishing competitive relevance through the tournament format, yet a glorified exhibition has been given top billing.
Fans want stakes. It’s the reason why interim titles are created, why the UFC slaps on a No. 1 contender stipulation to otherwise meaningless bouts, why storylines are fabricated, etc.
We want consequences—even manufactured ones. We are generally willing to suspend disbelief if you just give us a reason to. The mere illusion of something being at stake is often sufficient to draw in viewers.
Admittedly, the addition of a lightweight title bout between Michael Chandler and Eddie Alvarez to the pay-per-view is a good move by Bellator, even if the “championship rematch clause” is a nauseatingly contrived promotional tool.
The first bout between the pair, in late 2011, was arguably one of the best the sport has ever seen. The hardcore fans will doubtless remember it and won’t hesitate to lay down some coin to see the sequel.
The problem is that neither Chandler nor Alvarez has any real pull with the casual fan. In fact, the latter is essentially a stranger to the Spike TV audience, having only just resolved a contract dispute with his employer.
Chandler vs. Alvarez is the biggest fight in the history of the organisation. Moreover, it is the biggest fight Bellator could conceivably book.
What message is being sent to the fans when the biggest fight in your organisation’s history is but an appetiser for an exhibition between two faded stars who can’t buy a win between them?
Try and wrap your head around that logic.
The good news for Bellator is that the event will receive plenty of coverage from the MMA media. If anything is going to carry the pay-per-view over the—admittedly arbitrary—threshold of 100,000 buys, it is sheer curiosity.
The bad news is that there is competition aplenty in October and November. Competing with Bellator for the combat sports fan’s dollar is Manny Pacquiao vs. Brandon Rios, Velasquez vs. Dos Santos 3 and UFC 167.
And with Bellator settling on a price point of $35-45—depending on the distributor—for an event that, to be blunt, simply isn’t worth that kind of money, it’s hard to imagine the casual fan being intrigued enough to shell out.
There’s still time to sell this card to the masses, but Bellator has already put itself at a disadvantage. Unless something changes, every Dana White media scrum in November will likely turn into a Viacom/Spike TV roast.
It is an occasionally-lamented fact that religion and mixed martial arts—and sport generally—are seemingly intertwined. Wherever there is a sanctioned fist fight, expressions of religiosity are sure to be found.