Rashad Evans’ days as a top light heavyweight contender may be over.Not because he’s not a good fighter anymore, but because we’ve already seen him face Jon Jones and we saw how that story ended. Evans is beginning the downside of his career, while Jon…
Rashad Evans’ days as a top light heavyweight contender may be over.
Not because he’s not a good fighter anymore, but because we’ve already seen him face Jon Jones and we saw how that story ended. Evans is beginning the downside of his career, while Jones is continually getting better.
I’m not sure we ever need to see that fight again. I can’t imagine it would go any better for Evans, and he might just fare far, far worse than he did in April. Which is to say he’d have very little chance at all.
But a drop to middleweight? That’s something I can get behind. Though he started his UFC run as a bloated heavyweight, Evans is still undersized even at light heavyweight because, well, 205 is his natural weight. I’ve always supported the idea of him dropping down to middleweight, and it looks like he’s finally giving the idea some consideration.
Anderson (Silva) is somebody I would love to fight because when it’s all said and done, whether you win or lose, to compete against the best in the sport is really what it’s all about. You know, if I can walk away from my career and say I competed against some of the best in the sport in my time and era, then I can wrap up and say I had a really great career. So if the opportunity comes, and that fight happens, yeah, I would drop to 185 to fight.
Now this is an idea, right? Give Evans one fight at middleweight against someone like, oh, Michael Bisping. That’s a rematch I wouldn’t mind seeing. Give the winner a fight against Anderson Silva. Everybody wins.
Today’s announcement that Jon Jones has been nominated for an ESPY Award—along with Anderson Silva, Floyd Mayweather and Andre Ward—should come as no surprise.Jones had a brilliant year. So brilliant, in fact, that he should rightly take ho…
Today’s announcement that Jon Jones has been nominated for an ESPY Award—along with Anderson Silva, Floyd Mayweather and Andre Ward—should come as no surprise.
Jones had a brilliant year. So brilliant, in fact, that he should rightly take home this award without even so much as calling for a vote.
But it’s not that simple, really. The ESPYS aren’t about who is most deserving. If that were actually the case, Silva would already have two of these trophies collecting sheet-rock dust in his new California home.
And the ESPYS certainly aren’t about putting on an entertaining television broadcast, but that’s another story for another day.
No, the ESPYS have always been about placating the mainstream. And, as much as we like to think that mixed martial artists are global superstars and household names, they’re just not. They’re gaining plenty of traction in the sporting world, the kind that should put them on more equal footing with boxers going forward, but it’s been a long, tough road, and there are plenty of miles left to travel.
But let’s look at the four nominees for the Fighter of the Year award and check out what they did over the past 12 months:
Floyd Mayweather: Beat Victor Ortiz and Miguel Cotto
Andre Ward: Beat Carl Froch
Jon Jones: Beat Rampage Jackson, Lyoto Machida and Rashad Evans
Anderson Silva: Beat Yushin Okami
I’m not really sure how one fight/win can qualify you for Fighter of the Year, but I suppose that’s one reason The ESPYS are a source of constant mockery.
Since last July—the date the voting period began—Jones is 3-0 against the best competition the UFC’s light heavyweight division had to offer, and he got those wins in dominant fashion. Mayweather is the only other fighter in the group deserving of a nomination, and I can’t place his level of competition even remotely close to what Jones faced.
If all is right with the world, Jones will win this award for his awesome accomplishments since last summer. But since it’s ESPN and the ESPYS, I won’t hold my breath.
B.J. Penn has never been the conservative type when it comes to speaking his mind.Penn usually says exactly what he feels, regardless of the consequences. It’s gotten him in trouble with Dana White in the past, but it’s also one of the things that ende…
B.J. Penn has never been the conservative type when it comes to speaking his mind.
Penn usually says exactly what he feels, regardless of the consequences. It’s gotten him in trouble with Dana White in the past, but it’s also one of the things that endears him to his legions of fans around the world.
Penn is scheduled to return from a short-lived retirement to face rising prospect Rory MacDonald at UFC 152 in September. On Tuesday afternoon, Penn made a proposal to MacDonald: he wants to get the Voluntary Anti-Doping agency involved:
. @rory_macdonald VADA anti-doping has offered to sponsor our upcoming fight.I’ve accepted and invite you to help me clean up the sport
Here’s a quick primer on VADA for those of you who aren’t quite sure what I’m talking about. It’s a non-profit organization created to promote clean athletes in boxing and mixed martial arts. In short, VADA handles extensive Olympic-style drug testing for athletes who request it.
MacDonald responded to Penn’s challenge a short time later:
@bjpenndotcom already worried BJ? honestly i think its a great idea 2, and im ready to do the testing for our fight aswell @danawhite
There’s one thing that both Penn and MacDonald are not considering here, though. I can’t imagine a scenario in which Dana White or Zuffa would sign off on the idea of VADA testing its athletes. The promotion prefers to allow local commissions to handle all drug testing of the fighters, and they’re not going to allow VADA to get involved simply because it would open the door for future involvement.
VADA has no regulatory control over the UFC. They can’t issue suspensions or fine fighters. So what happens if, god forbid, Penn or MacDonald fail a pre-fight drug screening handled by VADA? The UFC would quite obviously have to cancel a major fight for UFC 152, and they’d have to do it without official word from the Ontario commission.
I’ve been doing some thinking about the just-concluded (for now) career of Fedor Emelianenko and about what matters more in MMA: your total amount of wins or the level of competition you faced during your career.Lots of people – and I’ll include myself…
I’ve been doing some thinking about the just-concluded (for now) career of Fedor Emelianenko and about what matters more in MMA: your total amount of wins or the level of competition you faced during your career.
Lots of people – and I’ll include myself in this list – consider Emelianenko to be the greatest heavyweight in the short history of the sport. I’m not sure how you can come to any other conclusion, really. He coupled together two winning streaks of 16 and 11, marred only by a no contest with Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira back at PRIDE Final Conflict 2004.
PRIDE’s heavyweight division, at least when Emelianenko ruled it with an iron first, was the best in the world. This isn’t even a debate. The UFC had two or three heavyweights that mattered in rankings at the time, and the rest were in PRIDE. And Emelianenko faced and defeated nearly all of them.
Here’s a list of what I deem to be “quality wins” on Emelianenko’s record:
Ricardo Arona
Renato Sobral
Heath Herring
Semmy Schilt
Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira
Gary Goodridge
Mark Coleman
Kevin Randleman
Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira
Mirko Cro Cop
Mark Coleman
Mark Hunt
Tim Sylvia
Andrei Arlovski
Brett Rogers
Jeff Monson
Pedro Rizzo
Your definition of a “quality win” may be different than mine. Essentially, my list contains fighters who have had moderate success in mixed martial arts, which is why you don’t see names like Hong Man Choi or Wagner “Zuluzinho” Martins. I also excluded Matt Lindland because, well, he was a middleweight fighting a heavyweight. That shouldn’t count as a real win, even if Lindland is a tough competitor.
And so, out of Emelianenko’s 34 career wins, we find that only 17 are quality wins.
Emelianenko fought and defeated the best that PRIDE had to offer, but he also fought his fair share of scrubs. This wasn’t entirely his fault. Once you’ve beaten Nogueira two times, there’s very little desire to see a third fight. And Japan’s fighting ecosystem was often dependent on having fighters like Emelianenko square off in “freak show” fights, because that’s what the public wanted to see.
But now, the real question: Does the fact that half of Emelianenko’s wins came over lower-grade competition hurt his case as one of the greatest fighters of all time?
I think it does. And this is why fans wanted so very badly to see Emelianenko enter the UFC after the death of Affliction in 2009. They wanted to see him against the likes of Couture, Lesnar and Mir, the men considered to be the UFC’s top heavyweights at the time. Doing so would have given him a chance to cement his personal fighting legacy.
Emelianenko was the best heavyweight in the world, but only for his time. But is he the greatest fighter in the history of the sport, regardless of weight class? I don’t think so. The fact that half of his wins came against sub-par competition hurts him greatly when you’re having that discussion.
The sport is ever-evolving, changing like the tides. New heavyweights like Junior dos Santos and Cain Velasquez – fighters with all-around skill and extreme physical gifts – are changing the way we view heavyweights. It’s only a matter of time before Emelianenko is brushed to the side.
But that doesn’t mean he wasn’t the best. Because he was, once upon a time.
For the first time in history, the UFC ran shows on consecutive weekend nights last Friday and Saturday. It was the first time, in fact, that UFC matchmaker Joe Silva has not attended a UFC event since he was hired as matchmaker. That’s quite the strea…
For the first time in history, the UFC ran shows on consecutive weekend nights last Friday and Saturday. It was the first time, in fact, that UFC matchmaker Joe Silva has not attended a UFC event since he was hired as matchmaker. That’s quite the streak of attending events.
The pair of UFC cards also helped overshadow the retirement of a true legend: Fedor Emelianenko, who announced he was leaving the sport after his knockout win over Pedro Rizzo in Russia. Emelianenko talked to Inside MMA last night to discuss his reasons for leaving:
People will accept my decision. They gotta understand that it’s my decision and I’ve got to go. You shouldn’t be disappointed that I’m leaving. Life is going on. I want to thank everyone who has supported me. Eventually the time to go was coming. My time has come. We’ll try to make some new MMA stars.
Inside MMA’s Ron Kruck tweeted last night that the UFC is, after all of these years and all of the failed negotiations, still interested in signing Emelianenko to a contract:
Sources have told me the UFC is still interested in signing Fedor Ememlianenko.Personally I think he stays retired – @rkruck
Last weekend, M-1 Global’s website was hacked to display text that said Emelianenko had signed with the UFC and would face Brock Lesnar in his debut fight. It was the cruelest of pranks for MMA fans who’ve longed to see “The Last Emperor” strut into the Octagon to take on the modern fight game’s best heavyweights.
Emelianenko was asked on the show if Lesnar or any big-name opponent could lure him out of retirement:
I’m not promising, but anything is possible.
What do I think? I think Fedor stays retired. I can’t imagine M-1 having a change of heart and suddenly dropping the ridiculous co-promotion that they feel they’re entitled to, even after the tough last few years Fedor’s gone through. With that demand still in place, the UFC will never sign him to a deal.
But man, oh man, could you imagine it finally happening, after all of these years? And Lesnar would make a perfect first opponent. Fedor beats him, and he’ll likely scurry back to his farm or to wrestling or to football, and you’re only out two million bucks or so. If Lesnar beat Fedor, you’d have another player in the heavyweight division.
Clay Guida has been lambasted—by the fans, the media and by his own boss—for his performance against Gray Maynard last Friday night at UFC on FX 4.That’s a rare thing. Guida’s UFC career has been built and sustained by the fans who love his…
Clay Guida has been lambasted—by the fans, the media and by his own boss—for his performance against Gray Maynard last Friday night at UFC on FX 4.
That’s a rare thing. Guida’s UFC career has been built and sustained by the fans who love his all-out style. It’s that very style that arguably turned him into the most beloved lightweight on the UFC roster.
But it was his decision to abandon that style in favor of a points-based game plan against Maynard that turned the fans against him as the fight evolved on Friday night.
I understand the fan reaction. When Clay goes in the cage, you’re expecting an action fight. When something like the Maynard bout happens, it’s easy to be disappointed.
“I think sometimes judges get the misconception of what mixed martial arts really is,” Guida told MMAjunkie.com after the fight. “The guy who gets hit the least usually is the victor. I can’t wait to see the FightMetric of strikes that were landed versus strikes that were thrown. (It was) five rounds of fun.
Well, it wasn’t five rounds of fun. Not for Maynard and certainly not for the fans. It was difficult to watch, and outside of the final minute or so of the fourth round when Maynard lost his mind and went all Diaz Brothers on Guida, it was incredibly boring.
And there’s also the fact that Maynard actually out-struck Guida, landing 52 total strikes to 49 for Guida. Clay threw more punches — 327, to be exact — but throwing punches without landing them doesn’t count for much.
Guida went into more detail about his game plan:
“The goombahs in the crowd – the boos motivate me, and I was just getting into my groove,” Guida said. “(Should I use) the game plan that they’re used to from me, playing Rock ‘Em Sock ‘Em Robots and getting my head kicked off or punched in the face? Or stick to a smart strategy and don’t be there for big punches? I like my game plan that Greg and Coach (Mike Winkeljohn) and (Israel Martinez) came up with.”
There is absolutely nothing wrong with a game plan that involves getting hit in the face as few times as possible. In fact, I think it’s a great idea. Lyoto Machida made a career of it, and it worked to perfection for Carlos Condit against Nick Diaz.
But this wasn’t proper execution of that style. If you’re trying to tire out your opponent in the early rounds so that you can capitalize in the later rounds, you actually have to capitalize in the later rounds. Guida’s strategy wasn’t a bad one. Attempting to tire Maynard out was actually a pretty genius idea.
But Maynard didn’t tire out, and Guida’s strategy didn’t change. That’s the main issue I have with the fight. You can’t continue to try and wear down your opponent by running for five rounds, because time will eventually run out without you scoring any kind of major points in the eyes of the judges.
Rashad Evans’ days as a top light heavyweight contender may be over.