Former UFC heavyweight champion Cain Velasquez has a chance to jump right back into title contention when he faces fellow former champion Frank Mir at UFC 146 in late May. Despite his status as the heavy betting favorite, Velasquez has a tough fig…
Former UFC heavyweight champion Cain Velasquez has a chance to jump right back into title contention when he faces fellow former champion Frank Mir at UFC 146 in late May.
Despite his status as the heavy betting favorite, Velasquez has a tough fight on his hands. Mir is a crafty veteran and a very good all-around fighter. He has the ability to make you pay dearly if you make a mistake, so Velasquez will need to be on top of his game to come out with a win.
If Velasquez scores the win, he’ll face the winner of the main event between Junior dos Santos and Alistair Overeem. Dos Santos, if you’ll recall, beat Velasquez last November to capture the belt. So it should come as no surprise that Velasquez picked Dos Santos to beat Overeem when he joined Ariel Helwani on the MMA Hour today:
“I’m hoping dos Santos wins, because I definitely would love a rematch with him,” Velasquez said, adding, “I think he will. He’s an athletic guy. His boxing is really good.”
Velasquez went on to detail why he thinks Dos Santos will retain his title:
“I think in the clinch and in the distance — obviously the kicking range — Overeem will have a better shot. But in the punching range, dos Santos can win the fight whenever.”
I agree with Velasquez. If Overeem is able to stay out of the pocket and use his range effectively, there’s a very good chance he’ll be able to win the fight. But none of Dos Santos’ opponents have been able to do that thus far.
Overeem’s world-class kickboxing skills will give him a better chance than most at staying away from Dos Santos and his lethal hands, but I’m not sure he can do it long enough to last five rounds—or even stay conscious for more than two rounds.
Former UFC heavyweight champion Brock Lesnar made his return to World Wrestling Entertainment’s Monday Night Raw show on Monday night. You can watch the video above.Lesnar, who retired from MMA and the UFC after losing to Alistair Overeem at UFC 141 in…
Former UFC heavyweight champion Brock Lesnar made his return to World Wrestling Entertainment’s Monday Night Raw show on Monday night. You can watch the video above.
Lesnar, who retired from MMA and the UFC after losing to Alistair Overeem at UFC 141 in December, was making his first appearance in a WWE ring in eight years.
Lesnar came out at the end of the show. WWE star John Cena called out Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson after losing to The Rock at WrestleMania 28 on Sunday night. But instead of Johnson’s music, fans exploded when they heard Lesnar’s old theme music.
The former champion appeared wearing a new “Brock Lesnar” shirt that is heavily influenced by his Death Clutch clothing line. Jimmy John’s, a sponsor of Lesnar’s during his UFC run, even appeared on the back of the shirt.
It’s worth noting that Lesnar looked significantly smaller than he did during his UFC run, and it was obvious to the naked eye that he hasn’t really been working out for the past two months.
Lesnar slowly made his way to the ring and circled it before climbing inside. Cena tried to shake his hand, but Lesnar instead hoisted him up on his shoulders for his F-5 finishing move.
As I told you earlier today, Lesnar is done with mixed martial arts. Not for a few years. For good. I’m just thankful that we’ll still get a chance to be entertained by the man.
It looks like Gilbert Melendez will be facing Josh Thomson after all.After two months of speculation—a time period that included Melendez saying that he wouldn’t be fighting Thomson on May 19—MMAjunkie.com reported today that the pair of li…
It looks like Gilbert Melendez will be facing Josh Thomson after all.
It’s an unfortunate turn of events. We’ve discussed countless times how Melendez and his prodigious talents are wasted in the Strikeforce lightweight division. His rightful place is in the UFC, facing off against the best the world has to offer. But due to the new contract Strikeforce owners Zuffa signed with Showtime last fall, Melendez is stuck in a form of martial arts purgatory; he believes he’s the best lightweight in the world, but has zero chances to prove it due to the depleted talent roster in Strikeforce.
That’s a sad thing, for Melendez and MMA fans alike. Instead of facing the likes of Benson Henderson, Anthony Pettis and Frankie Edgar, Melendez is stuck fighting Josh Thomson for a third time.
Thomson isn’t a terrible opponent. He’s a serviceable fighter and a good lightweight. But he’s not a great lightweight, and that’s the type of fight that Melendez deserves at this point in his career. Thomson won his last fight against K.J. Noons in underwhelming fashion and lost to Tatsuya Kawajiri in the fight before that one.
Point being, Thomson is only considered a legitimate title contender because there are no other fighters in the company worthy of title contention. He’s the best of the rest, so to speak.
The unfortunate thing is that, according to my own sources, Dana White indeed had a UFC lightweight lined up to face Melendez, but the fight fell through. As a result, Melendez is stuck playing the same old song against the same old opponent. And what happens after Melendez disposes of Thomson, as I fully expect him to do? Who else can be dredged up in the Strikeforce lightweight division to face Melendez?
The answer? There is nobody. If Melendez beats Thomson, he’ll have zero legitimate opponents left. Sure, Zuffa can try to wrangle up another UFC lightweight to face Melendez in Strikeforce, but I’m not optimistic that will ever happen. To a man, I’ve heard UFC lightweights say they aren’t interested in moving over to Strikeforce. Being in the UFC, even in the middle of the pack, is a better option than moving to Strikeforce.
I realize there are contractual obligations the UFC must meet with Showtime. And I’m sure that if Dana White had his way, Melendez would have been in the UFC for six months or more at this point. But White’s hands are tied, and Melendez is the one paying the price. The only thing he can do at this point is finish up his Strikeforce contract and sign with the UFC when he becomes a free agent.
It’s high time to figure out a way to bring one of the best lightweights in the world to the UFC, where he can face challenging competition every three months. The fans deserve to see him facing the best, and Melendez deserves the chance to prove he’s the best.
Back on March 22, I wrote a piece detailing my belief that the winner of the June 1 bout between Martin Kampmann and Jake Ellenberger—and not the mercurial Nick Diaz—should be the next contender in line for a UFC welterweight title shot.Tod…
Back on March 22, I wrote a piece detailing my belief that the winner of the June 1 bout between Martin Kampmann and Jake Ellenberger—and not the mercurial Nick Diaz—should be the next contender in line for a UFC welterweight title shot.
The welterweight division is stacked and Jake Ellenberger and Martin Kampmann are going to fight for the chance to earn a title shot. They will headline the season finale of TUF Live on FX to crown the next Ultimate Fighter. There’s a lot at stake for the guys competing on this card at the Palms.
It’s the right move. We know that Georges St-Pierre will likely make his return to the Octagon in November, and he’ll face Carlos Condit to unify the welterweight and interim welterweight titles. We know that Nick Diaz is—at least as of right now—suspended for a year, and he’s possibly retired for good.
With Diaz out of the picture for the time being, the UFC will need to move to set up a challenger for the winner of the St-Pierre/Condit fight. Ellenberger and Kampmann are perfectly deserving candidates. Johny Hendricks is also a deserving contender, but he’s got a tough fight ahead next month against Josh Koscheck. If Koscheck were to win that bout, I can’t imagine him being put back in title contention, especially if St-Pierre beats Condit later in the year.
That leaves Ellenberger and Kampmann.
If not for two questionable decision losses to Jake Shields and Diego Sanchez, Kampmann would be riding a six-fight winning streak. When a fighter loses close and controversial decisions, the UFC’s response is to book them as though they won the fight despite the loss on his official record. That seems to be the case for Kampmann.
Ellenberger has a legitimate six-fight winning streak of his own, and his last loss came via a controversial decision to Condit in his UFC debut. The potential of a rematch with Condit and the chance to settle the question marks left by that fight makes him a perfect championship candidate.
Plenty of you believe Diaz should get the fights with Condit and St-Pierre. If he’s able to get his suspension reduced—and if he decides to continue fighting, as many believe he will—I suspect Diaz will get his chance. He’s one of the most popular fighters in the UFC, and that gives him an edge over guys like Kampmann and Ellenberger.
But in the meantime, Ellenberger and Kampmann will rightly get the chance to jump into championship contention. It’s the correct move.
We’re now three weeks away from one of the most anticipated UFC fights of 2012.The UFC 145 main event battle between Jon Jones and Rashad Evans has been a long time coming, and the build-up for the bout should begin reaching a fever pitch with Friday’s…
We’re now three weeks away from one of the most anticipated UFC fights of 2012.
The UFC 145 main event battle between Jon Jones and Rashad Evans has been a long time coming, and the build-up for the bout should begin reaching a fever pitch with Friday’s debut episode of UFC Primetime: Jones vs. Evans. The three-part series will follow Jones and Evans as they wrap up training camp and head to Atlanta to square off for the light heavyweight title.
Both fighters have spent the past year waging a verbal battle, with Evans spending plenty of time discussing how he used to handle Jones when the two were training partners under the tutelage of Greg Jackson.
“Rashad talks about the time he held me down in practice and how he was getting me to break mentally,” Jones told the Sun.
“I’ve eliminated all possibilities of that happening. I have my older brother here, I have Travis Brown here and I have a whole bunch of heavyweights that are a lot more powerful and big than Rashad and I’m having these guys hold me down in practice and try their hardest to break me mentally. Basically, I’m fighting from the worst position he could put me in and if he’s banking on breaking me mentally, he’s going to have a rude awakening when he realizes that’s just not going to happen.”
Nobody will ever truly know what used to happen between Jones and Evans during those sparring sessions. The only people who might be able to shed some light on the subject are the other Greg Jackson fighters, and none of them are talking.
Evans may have been the superior fighter during those days. He probably has the best chance of anyone else in the light heavyweight division at cracking the Jones mystery and handing him his first real defeat.
But there’s one thing for certain: Jones has improved drastically, in all aspects of the game, since the last time he and Evans trained together. Evans needs to expect a much better version of the Bones than the one he faced in New Mexico. If he doesn’t, he’ll be in for a short night.
Reports circulated over the weekend that former UFC heavyweight champion Brock Lesnar has signed a one-year contract to return to World Wrestling Entertainment.My own sources close to Lesnar and WWE confirm that Lesnar has signed a deal, but nobody tru…
Reports circulated over the weekend that former UFC heavyweight champion Brock Lesnar has signed a one-year contract to return to World Wrestling Entertainment.
My own sources close to Lesnar and WWE confirm that Lesnar has signed a deal, but nobody truly knows specifics. I haven’t been able to pin down an exact number of dates he’ll be required to work, but I was told he’ll probably appear in the wrestling promotion more often that you might think he would, and he’s going to make a whole bunch of money for doing so.
I also haven’t been told when he’ll debut, but I would expect it to happen on tonight’s Monday Night Raw television show.
Lesnar was a lock to return to pro wrestling once he finished up his months-long vacation after losing to Alistair Overeem at the tail end of 2011. The thing with Lesnar is that he doesn’t really have to do professional wrestling—at least not in the way you see old veterans of the pseudo-sport constantly returning to have “one more match” because they’re broke. Lesnar has money. He has a ton of money, actually, because he’s a spendthrift. He lives a very frugal lifestyle.
However, he also values security, both for himself and for his family, and so he’ll do this wrestling thing to pad his bank account for his family’s sake. He’ll complete a very low amount of contracted dates, but he’s not going to go above and beyond. WWE is notorious for demanding performers exceed their amount of requested dates, and Lesnar won’t be talked into doing more than the minimum required by his contract.
Where does the UFC stand in all of this?
It’s an interesting case. In reality, Lesnar left the UFC and is headed to its competitor, at least in terms of pay-per-view entertainment dollars. Dana White doesn’t usually allow something like this to happen, as witnessed in the Randy Couture case a few years ago. And yet White has gone on record in saying Lesnar is free and clear to do professional wrestling for the WWE.
Why is Lesnar being treated differently than Couture?
Firstly, he’s not going to a direct MMA competitor. White would be singing an entirely different tune if Lesnar “retired” from the UFC and then attempted to sign with Bellator.
Secondly, White is convinced—as am I—that Lesnar is never going to fight again. He’s disbanded the DeathClutch gym near his home and moved it to Minneapolis. He has no plans to incorporate much in the way of MMA training into his workout regime. If Lesnar thought there was any chance of a return 12 months down the road, he would continue working and refining his MMA game.
Lesnar will never be considered one of the greatest heavyweights of all time. He started too late and his medical issues prevented him from truly reaching whatever potential he may have had. We’ll never know what he could’ve been had he jumped into fighting straight out of college. Given what we know of his athletic history, it’s apparent Lesnar may have been one of the best fighters of all time with 10 or more years of solid training.
What we do know, however, is that Lesnar is a pretty good pro wrestler. And kudos to him for making the decision to get off the farm and back into the spotlight where he can entertain millions. I don’t know how long he’ll be there, but I’m pretty sure it’ll be awesome while it lasts.
Former UFC heavyweight champion Cain Velasquez has a chance to jump right back into title contention when he faces fellow former champion Frank Mir at UFC 146 in late May.