Author: Jeremy Botter

James Toney Says Rampage Jackson Is Now a Slave to the White Man

I remember clearly the first time I ever met James Toney.I was in Boston to cover UFC 118, and Toney was facing Randy Couture in his first (and only, it turns out) fight in the UFC.We went down to the convention center for open workouts on Wednesday. W…

I remember clearly the first time I ever met James Toney.

I was in Boston to cover UFC 118, and Toney was facing Randy Couture in his first (and only, it turns out) fight in the UFC.

We went down to the convention center for open workouts on Wednesday. Workouts are usually held at at a gym or even a hotel, depending on the size of the event in question. Six or eight of the main-card fighters gather and pretend to be enthused by hitting pads so that the photographers in attendance can take their photos, while the reporters wait for them to finish up with the routine so we can ask them questions.

Workouts this time were held at the same place as the Boston Fan Expo, right there in the Octagon that you see if you’re a fan walking around on the weekend. It was a nice setup.

And luckily Toney was in a fantastic mood. Which is to say that he was not in a fantastic mood.

After witnessing him verbally berate and threaten Ariel Helwani—which you can see on Ariel’s interview with Toney—I asked one of his crew members if I could get a few minutes of his time. I didn’t even really want to put Toney on camera. Just a few simple questions, spoken into a tape recorder.

James was standing behind the crew member. After I asked the question, he leaned around and said, in that charming English-but-not-English way of his, that I could kindly go jump off a bridge. Only he didn’t say those words, and he didn’t do it kindly.

I say all of this to make a point: When James Toney says stupid things, we shouldn’t be surprised. He’s a scary, imbalanced and possibly mentally insane individual. I hope Rampage Jackson considers this when he hears what Toney has to say about him these days: 

That’s what you get for being a slave to the white man. Don’t be scared. Step up and speak for yourself. That’s why I got paid the million-and-a-half dollars and am still getting paid by the UFC. You know what I’m sayin’? The highest paid fighter ever. You feel me, fat boy? Me. And you been there…what, twenty years and you’re getting paid pennies? While I make millions?

Let’s run Toney’s statements through the Truth Machine, shall we?

1. James Toney did not get paid a million-and-a-half dollars by the UFC. He was paid $500,000. Perhaps he got confused and was off by a mere million dollars. Who knows.

2. The only payments Toney still gets from the UFC are royalties from the sales of UFC 118 and other disc sets where his fight is included. These don’t amount to much.

3. James Toney is not the highest-paid fighter ever. I’d wager that he wasn’t even the highest-paid fighter on that card, because I guarantee you that Randy Couture made much, much more than his reported $250,000 due to the way he dispatched and embarrassed Toney. 

I love Toney just as much as the next guy. He’s fun to listen to because he’s absolutely insane and you never quite know what he says. But let’s be sure and not take things like this seriously.

Read more MMA news on BleacherReport.com

Steven Seagal Still Crazy, Believes He Trains Anderson Silva and Lyoto Machida

Steven Seagal is one of my favorite people in the history of the world. I’m sure this is the case for many of my readers here at Caged In.After all, he’s the guy who made such Academy Award-worthy material as Under Siege, Under Siege 2, Half Past Dead …

Steven Seagal is one of my favorite people in the history of the world. I’m sure this is the case for many of my readers here at Caged In.

After all, he’s the guy who made such Academy Award-worthy material as Under Siege, Under Siege 2, Half Past Dead and On Deadly Ground. And that’s not even counting his world-changing work on Steven Seagal: Lawman.

And so it comes as no surprise to me that Seagal is still trumpeting the excellent training he provides Anderson Silva and Lyoto Machida over at the Black House gym in California:

“There is a signature kick that I’ve taught them that they’ve knocked champions out with and won world championships with.”

Silva and Machida had no idea what a front kick to the face was before Seagal taught them how to use it! How could they know such a secret technique without being taught by the master himself?

Never mind the fact that both Silva and Machida threw the same kick—without the same knockout success, mind you—on numerous occasions long before they ever used it to finish their opponents. And never mind the fact that Machida did not win a world championship by beating Randy Couture with the kick.

We all know Machida learned his version of that kick from Daniel LaRusso anyway.

Read more MMA news on BleacherReport.com

Thiago Silva Says He’s Going to Kill or Die in Gustafsson Fight

Oh, Thiago Silva. We may never quite understand what makes you tick.Silva, if you’ll recall, is making his return after a year-long suspension. He didn’t test positive for steroids, but that’s only because he substituted his own urine for something dis…

Oh, Thiago Silva. We may never quite understand what makes you tick.

Silva, if you’ll recall, is making his return after a year-long suspension. He didn’t test positive for steroids, but that’s only because he substituted his own urine for something distinctly non-human during the actual test.

Yep, Silva used a Whizzer. And not the wrestling kind, either.

But Silva served his time, and now he’ll face Swedish light heavyweight wunderkind Alexander Gustafsson in the main event of UFC on Fuel on April 14th.

It’s a tall order for anybody in the light heavyweight division. Since suffering his only career loss to Phil Davis way back at UFC 112, Gustafsson has rattled off four consecutive finishes against an increasingly difficult level of talent. He’s considered by many to be a prospect on the level of Jon Jones, though he’s admittedly still a ways off from reaching the level of the current light heavyweight champion.

Silva thinks he’s ready for the challenge:

My prediction is that I will fight hard like a true warrior. Everybody knows my style. When I step in the Octagon, I go to kill or die, and I will do the same on April 14th, and I will be ten times more aggressive because this fight is very important for me.

When Silva says something like this, I completely believe him, because he’s a crazy and terrifying man. If I made a list of the top 10 scariest-looking fighters in the UFC, or a list of the top 10 fighters you wouldn’t want to meet in a dark, abandoned alley, Thiago Silva would be at the very tippy-top of that list.

I don’t think Silva will beat Gustafsson, but I do expect him to go out and turn it into a very entertaining and brutal battle. That’s what Thiago does best.

Read more MMA news on BleacherReport.com

Freddie Roach Names the 5 Best Boxers in Mixed Martial Arts

Freddie Roach is a legend of the boxing game. He’s revered as a trainer of champions and has a brilliant mind for the sport.So when Roach names his five best boxers in mixed martial arts on Inside MMA, you know we’re going to pay attention.Here’s Roach…

Freddie Roach is a legend of the boxing game. He’s revered as a trainer of champions and has a brilliant mind for the sport.

So when Roach names his five best boxers in mixed martial arts on Inside MMA, you know we’re going to pay attention.

Here’s Roach’s list:

5. K.J. Noons
4. Nick Diaz
3. B.J. Penn
2. Georges St-Pierre
1. Anderson Silva

Roach has worked with four of the names on this list, so it’s no surprise they are included.

I respect Roach’s opinion on boxing, obviously, but he’s missing a few names on this list.

At least in terms of lightweights, Frankie Edgar is a much better boxer than Noons. Granted, Noons does have a pro boxing record, but he never really faced anyone of any value. I’d go as far as to say Noons wasn’t even considered a decent boxing prospect. He’s constantly vaunted as one of the best boxers in MMA, but I just don’t see it. Edgar is quicker, much more technical and strings together better combinations.

Junior dos Santos also deserves to be on this list. He has some of the best boxing in the world, not just in the heavyweight division, but in the entire sport. He’s a better boxer than St-Pierre for sure.

I can’t argue with Silva, Penn or Diaz being on this list. All three are excellent technical boxers, at least when it comes to translating the skill to MMA.

Read more MMA news on BleacherReport.com

Muhammed Lawal’s Strikeforce Release Shows Need for Comprehensive Twitter Policy

By all accounts, Muhammed “King Mo” Lawal had a pretty rough Tuesday.Lawal was first fined $39,000 and suspended for nine months by the Nevada State Athletic Commission during a hearing just a stone’s throw from the old Las Vegas Strip. This was a kick…

By all accounts, Muhammed “King Mo” Lawal had a pretty rough Tuesday.

Lawal was first fined $39,000 and suspended for nine months by the Nevada State Athletic Commission during a hearing just a stone’s throw from the old Las Vegas Strip. This was a kick in the pants for a guy who, by his own admission, has had more than 16 knee surgeries (with over $100,000 in medical bills) to treat the lingering staph infection that almost took his leg and his life. 

During the commission meeting, Lawal was asked by commissioner Pat Lundvall if he “speaks or writes English.” Keep in mind that this question, innocent or not, came nearly seven minutes into the commission meeting, so Lundvall was well aware that Lawal spoke English.

In all likelihood, Lundvall was simply trying to establish, for the record, that Lawal understood English. This is common practice in hearings like this one. But you also cannot fault Lawal for receiving the comments with a hint of racism.

Look, Pat Lundvall is not a racist. Is she a terrifying woman, akin to the scariest teacher you ever had during your middle school years? Yes. I’ve been to plenty of NSAC meetings, and Lundvall always managed to scare me just by showing up. She can be rude and condescending, but she’s not a racist.

So yes, I can understand why Mo lashed out the way he did.

I’m not sure why he was released from Strikeforce, however. These incidents involving Twitter never seem to have much of a center mass. Forrest Griffin made rape jokes, but a simple explanation allowed him to keep his job. Miguel Torres? Not so much.

Dana White himself regularly calls people much worse names than the one Lawal called Lundvall. 

Is it because Lundvall is a public official? If that’s the case, shouldn’t the same grace extend to Steve Mazzagatti?

A lot of this can be solved with a comprehensive Twitter policy. As of right now, there are no concrete rules as to what you can and cannot say on Twitter. UFC officials urge fighters to “use common sense” during meetings at the annual Fighter Summit in Las Vegas, but it’s becoming quite apparent that “using common sense” isn’t going to be a great rule of thumb going forward.

It’s quite easy to avoid stepping over the line when you know your job is in jeopardy if you do so. It becomes immensely difficult to avoid that line when it’s a nebulous, moving object. 

The UFC is a very smart company, and they are privately owned. They are allowed to hire and fire whomever they want, whenever they want and for whatever reason they want. If they believed King Mo crossed a line yesterday in directing his wrath at Lundvall, fine. That’s their prerogative. 

But it’s past time to make this thing easier on the fighters. If you’re going to encourage off-center Twitter behavior with financial rewards, you need to lay down some very specific ground rules governing what they can and cannot say. 

That way, when you bring down the hammer for dumb social media comments, you’ll at least have a reason.

Read more MMA news on BleacherReport.com

Dana White Is Right in Keeping Fedor Emelianenko out of the UFC

Fedor Emelianenko isn’t the fighter he once was. That’s a safe assumption at this point.Gone are the days when Emelianenko, a skinny fat guy if there ever was one, dominated the heavyweight ranks with an unreal combination of power and speed that few i…

Fedor Emelianenko isn’t the fighter he once was. That’s a safe assumption at this point.

Gone are the days when Emelianenko, a skinny fat guy if there ever was one, dominated the heavyweight ranks with an unreal combination of power and speed that few in the sport have ever been able to match, regardless of weight class.

Fedor, as we so lovingly call him, halted a three-fight losing streak with a pair of wins over Jeff Monson and Satoshii Ishii in November and December last year. The Russian recently said that we may ultimately see him fight inside the Octagon, but according to UFC president Dana White, that’s not the case.

“Not even a little bit,” told MMAJunkie.com. “That was a guy who was made an incredible offer, and they laughed at it. They aren’t laughing now.”

While I love the idea of finally seeing Emelianenko in a UFC cage after all these years, there’s really no point. The guy is a washed-up fighter. That’s not to say he was never any good, because he was quite obviously the pound-for-pound best fighter on the planet during his PRIDE heyday.

But these are no longer those days. Age and time catches up with every fighter. For some, it happens early, when a combination of training wear and tear and a life lived in nightclubs causes your skills to deteriorate before you’re ready. For others, like Randy Couture, life truly only begins in your 40s. 

Emelianenko is not Randy Couture. He’ll never beat the likes of Junior dos Santos, Alistair Overeem or Cain Velasquez, and—as my good friend E. Casey Leydon pointed out to me—his price tag is too high.

Five years ago, we’d be singing a different tune. But this is not five years ago. 

I’d like to remember Fedor as he once was, and not what he’s become over the past two or so years. If that means I never get to see him fight in the Octagon, I’m okay with that. 

You should be, too.

Read more MMA news on BleacherReport.com