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Nick Newell is one step closer to achieving his dream of competing for the Ultimate Fighting Championship…
Nick Newell is one step closer to achieving his dream of competing for the Ultimate Fighting Championship…
After the wildest week in UFC history, it felt good to regain some sense of normalcy. Khabib Nurmagomedov beat Al Iaquinta in the main event of UFC 223 . He’s the new UFC lightweight champion…
After the wildest week in UFC history, it felt good to regain some sense of normalcy. Khabib Nurmagomedov beat Al Iaquinta in the main event of UFC 223 . He’s the new UFC lightweight champion…
DENVER — Rose Namajunas is 30 minutes into a striking pad session when she yelps in pain. Ask any coach or fighter, and they’ll all tell you the same thing: Hearing that sound is a harrowing moment in a fight gym…
DENVER — Rose Namajunas is 30 minutes into a striking pad session when she yelps in pain. Ask any coach or fighter, and they’ll all tell you the same thing: Hearing that sound is a harrowing moment in a fight gym…
Will there come a point when we tire of seeing Cris Cyborg obliterate lesser competition simply because it’s the only way we get to see her in the UFC?
I don’t know the answer to that. I don’t even know if it’s a question we should be asking. Wha…
Will there come a point when we tire of seeing Cris Cyborg obliterate lesser competition simply because it’s the only way we get to see her in the UFC?
I don’t know the answer to that. I don’t even know if it’s a question we should be asking. What I do know is that Saturday night in Las Vegas we saw the latest chapter in a timeworn story.
Cyborg, the UFC’s women’s featherweight champion (and the division’s only member), beat Yana Kunitskaya via first-round bludgeoning to cap off a scintillating UFC 222. Poor Kunitskaya was a spirited foe, as so many of Cyborg’s opponents are, right up until the moment they realize all hope is gone. Kunitskaya even scored an ankle-pick takedown and kept Cyborg on the canvas for a minute or two before succumbing to a TKO.
But Kunitskaya was also a bantamweight making both her UFC promotional debut and featherweight debut in a late-ish notice bout promoted solely to achieve the UFC’s weird goal of having a title of some sort defended in every UFC pay-per-view main event.
She was Joe vs. the Volcano. She was the coyote trying to best the roadrunner. What I’m saying is: We knew the end before the beginning. The very announcement of the fight spoiled its conclusion. And for Kunitskaya, the conclusion came the moment Cyborg got off the canvas. Kunitskaya’s chance was gone, fleeting like the wind. It only took a couple of punches from Justino to turn Kunitskaya’s visage into that of an overmatched, scared competitor. She was in over her head, and she realized it.
And then it was done. Cyborg dropped her to the canvas. Kunitskaya covered her head in the ultimate sign of surrender. The fight was brief, and then it was gone.
None of this is Cyborg’s fault. She’s in the world’s premiere fighting organization. It’s where she should’ve been competing from the beginning. Or at least from the moment president Dana White decided women were marketable enough to put his company’s weight behind.
That she was kept outside the castle walls for so long because of a particularly nasty mix of misogyny and the desire to protect the star power of the UFC’s former golden girl, Ronda Rousey, is, at best, unfortunate.
It’s not her fault that no other woman in the UFC both (a) competes with regularity in her weight class and (b) is good enough to give her more than a reason to get a decent sweat going. Not even Holly Holm, who is indeed good, could do much beyond exhibiting the kind of grit and fortitude needed to last 25 minutes in the cage with Justino.
That Holm was lauded for the accomplishment is particularly indicative of Justino’s place in the world—merely not being forcibly turned ass over tea kettle was an admirable feat.
And, look: It’s not the UFC’s fault, either. It’s doing the best it can in promoting her. That is something, at least—especially when you consider White once compared her to a male fighter and stomped around on stage in one of the more embarrassing acts by a human executive in modern sports history.
Now, the company is pushing her as the terrifying force of nature she is. That’s something akin to progress, even if White still owes her a world of apologies for the hurt he caused over the years.
So what can the UFC do, if it’s already doing what it can? It could make a push to sign more top-tier featherweight fighters. The problem is, there’s no such thing. Sure, there are good fighters out there at 145 pounds, such as Invicta’s Megan Anderson. But Anderson and her ilk are merely good. And good, to speak plainly, is just not good enough.
Cyborg cannot and should not attempt to drop to bantamweight, either. I used to beat the “all she has to do is lose some muscle mass” drum, like many of you, and then I realized how dumb I sounded. Justino is someone who strains to make 145 pounds as it is; asking her to drop a further 10 pounds solely because we want to see her against better fighters is selfish. We shouldn’t do that anymore, especially when we’re all realizing how dumb weight cutting is in the first place.
There’s bantamweight champion Amanda Nunes. She looks like the best of the limited options. And still, she is yet another bantamweight fighter moving up. She’s a better bantamweight than anyone Justino has faced lately. But she’s still a bantamweight, and there isn’t much of a question as to who would win that fight. Justino is Nunes except, you know, much bigger, stronger and better in literally every way a person can be better at fighting than a peer.
What’s the answer? As I wrote earlier, I don’t know. I’m quite certain you don’t, either. Because it feels like this might be a situation where there are no good answers.
What we are left with is the privilege of seeing the greatest fighter in female mixed martial arts history while she plies her trade for the world’s biggest combat promotion. There was a time not long ago when that seemed out of the realm of possibility, and so I suppose one way to look at this thing is to just be grateful we’re able to see her in such a showcase. She deserves the platform. She deserves for the world to see her.
It’s something, at least.
But I can’t help wanting more than just something. More than repeated thrashings of inferior, smaller fighters. More than showcases. And I’m sure Justino would welcome more with open arms and flailing fists.
But maybe this is all there is.
The thing we, you and I and Justino, have to decide is: Is all there is enough to keep us happy?
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Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: Brock Lesnar might be coming back to the Ultimate Fighting Championship.
Every few years or so, the rumors start cropping up.
Brock still has the itch to fight.
Brock feels like he has unfinish…
Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: Brock Lesnar might be coming back to the Ultimate Fighting Championship.
Every few years or so, the rumors start cropping up.
Brock still has the itch to fight.
Brock feels like he has unfinished business in mixed martial arts.
Brock is ready to ditch scripted WWE combat for the real thing.
It is no coincidence that these rumors have begun circulating right as Lesnar’s current contract with WWE is coming to an end. Lesnar is a master negotiator and manipulator; he is a world-class businessman stuffed into an athletic body.
Lesnar isn’t a professional wrestler because he grew up a fan of the sport, like many others. He’s a professional wrestler because it was the path that offered him the ability to make the most money right out of college. He went back to pro wrestling after his first stint in the UFC because Vince McMahon wanted him back and wanted him back badly enough to offer him a massive contract that required him to work few days each year.
We did this same dance a few years ago. Lesnar, his contract with WWE coming to an end, attended a UFC event as Dana White‘s special guest. The speculation started mounting. In the end, Lesnar went on SportsCenter on March 24, 2015, and told the world that he’d re-signed with WWE. He said he felt great but that “something was mentally lacking,” and that he’d chosen to return to WWE because he could work part-time for full-time pay.
Of course, in 2016, Lesnar did return to UFC with the permission of Vince McMahon. He beat Mark Hunt and earned $2.5 million and failed a drug test and earned a one-year ban from the sport (and his win was turned into a no-contest), which was fine because he was retiring from mixed martial arts, anyway. He’d proved he could still hang with top-tier heavyweights. That’s all he wanted.
Except, maybe it wasn’t all he wanted. Because here we are, in 2018, and the hype for a Lesnar return to the UFC is building.
Paul Heyman, Lesnar’s on-screen WWE manager, was accosted by TMZ at the airport, and Heyman, never one to mince his words, said that Lesnar was primed for a WWE comeback. A few days later, right as the UFC event on Fox was beginning, Dana White posted a photo of he and Lesnar at the UFC’s offices in Las Vegas. Lesnar was wearing a UFC shirt; White was wearing the biggest smile you’ve ever seen.
On Wednesday, White went on Kevin Harvick’s SiriusXM show and said the chances of Lesnar fighting for the UFC in 2018 are “very, very good.”
But we’ve been here before. We’ve all gotten our hopes up and then had them dashed. We know in our gut that Lesnar is probably just using this idea of a UFC return to get McMahon to pony up even more cash for even fewer dates. After all, he’s done it before.
But this one feels different. It feels real.
It feels like it might actually happen. And it couldn’t come at a better time for the UFC.
The world’s largest fighting promotion has a superstar problem. By this, of course, I mean that they are sorely lacking superstars. Ronda Rousey has joined Lesnar in WWE. Conor McGregor is on the sidelines, and he might just stay there forever, counting his millions from the Floyd Mayweather farce. Jon Jones is out for a while and, unless USADA has mercy on him, might be out for a few years.
The UFC needs Lesnar. Badly.
Meanwhile, over in WWE, Lesnar is about to cede the top spot in the company to Roman Reigns. The two face off at WrestleMania, and a Reigns win over Lesnar is a certainty.
McMahon has sought to make Reigns his top superstar for several years now, but fan revolt has prevented it from coming to fruition. This year, McMahon is using Lesnar’s real-life contract negotiation ploys as a tool to get the fans in Reigns’ corner. We’ll know in the next few weeks if the blending of real life and fiction helps accomplish his goal.
But with Reigns pushing Lesnar out of that top company spot, there’s no real need for WWE to pay Lesnar the kind of money he’ll want. They will have used him to accomplish their goal: cementing Reigns as their top star right now and well into the future.
And then there’s Lesnar himself. His WWE contract technically expires after WrestleMania, but portions of it extend into August. It would prevent him from signing with the UFC outright until it expires.
While no one but Lesnar can say for certain what he’s thinking, a source close to his camp says his dalliance with the UFC isn’t a negotiation ploy. Not this time.
Lesnar wants to fight, and he wants to fight soon. As for potential opponents, the bout with Jones is obviously the biggest money fight the UFC has available—and perhaps the biggest money fight in UFC history—but Jones had his license in California revoked on Tuesday, and he still faces punishment from USADA over his failed test from last summer.
But there’s also Daniel Cormier, who—provided he beats Stipe Miocic for the heavyweight title this July—would serve as an ideal opponent for Lesnar’s return. Cormier vs. Lesnar for the UFC heavyweight title? That sounds like the perfect recipe for the superstar doldrums, even if the idea of Lesnar receiving a title shot after zero wins since 2018 is as ludicrous as it gets in this crazy sport. Cormier and Lesnar are friends, but you can bet your last dollar that both men would agree to that fight in a heartbeat.
Of course, there’s the possibility that we’re all being played, and that Lesnar will go on SportsCenter in a few weeks and announce that he’s sticking with WWE and retiring from MMA.
Or maybe we’ll get a Brock Lesnar fight week circus at least one more time.
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Yoel Romero went to Australia and buried Luke Rockhold in the Outback.
The UFC 221 main event was a fight for the interim middleweight championship, a fake belt constructed out of thin air because the UFC has this new thing where they believe a pay-per…
Yoel Romero went to Australia and buried Luke Rockhold in the Outback.
The UFC 221 main event was a fight for the interim middleweight championship, a fake belt constructed out of thin air because the UFC has this new thing where they believe a pay-per-view must be headlined by a title fight. So we had Romero, who lost his last shot at the interim middleweight title last summer when he was beaten by Robert Whittaker. Whittaker was promoted to undisputed middleweight champion when the real undisputed champion, Georges St-Pierre, decided his foray to middleweight would be a brief one and, in a rare display of grace, vacated the championship, which meant Whittaker got a promotion.
And then, as if the middleweight title picture couldn’t get any more convoluted, Romero missed weight for the UFC 221 main event, which meant he couldn’t win the belt even if he beat Rockhold.
And boy, did he beat Rockhold.
Romero is a weird cat. He might have a reputation for being a serial cheater, but even when he’s not staying on his stool too long or failing tests for performance-enhancing drugs, he just has a strange vibe that extends to his fighting style.
But the thing is, Romero is a terrifying dude.
In fact, outside of Francis Ngannou, Romero is probably the scariest fighter on the UFC roster. Maybe some of that is due to his quirkiness and unpredictability, both inside the Octagon and out. But a lot of it is due to sheer athleticism and the fact that Romero can be utterly docile one second and a raging force of nature the next.
Which is what we saw against Rockhold, the arrogant California boy who was absolutely sure Romero had nothing to offer him in the Octagon. Romero did a lot of fun hand movements in the first round, and he did some solid work on Rockhold’s leg, but Rockhold was never in any real danger.
But as it turns out, Romero was doing two things: lulling Rockhold into a false sense of security and saving his energy for the terrifying way he’d sprint at Rockhold in the second round, his arms whirling and flailing, swinging from the ground up in repeated attempts to separate Rockhold’s head from his shoulders and his soul from his body.
And that’s what happened in the third round. Romero knocked Rockhold face-first to the canvas. Rockhold was unconscious but awoke when his face hit the ground.
And then came the coup de grace: Romero rushed in with unnatural speed and landed an uppercut/hook that snapped Rockhold’s head backwards and ended his night. The referee was quick in waving it off, which is a thing Rockhold (and the rest of the world) should be quite thankful for.
After the fight, Romero came over to Rockhold, who was standing against the cage, and started talking to him. It appeared he was saying nice things, and he kissed Rockhold on the cheek. It was just another odd thing that Romero has done. Rockhold, still trying to reconnect his soul and body, looked like he wanted to be anywhere else in the world but right there with the dude who just slept him yakking in his face.
You can’t really blame Rockhold for feeling that way. Romero doesn’t act like other fighters act. He’s an absolutely breathtaking athlete—one of the best competitors to ever fight in the UFC—but his strange mannerisms and habits only serve to make him more unpredictable and terrifying.
As Romero talked with Jon Anik after the fight, he sat on the canvas talking about a variety of subjects, jumping from Jesus and soldiers to Whittaker and Rockhold. It was unclear what point he was trying to make, but it didn’t really matter. Romero gives us plenty of be critical about outside the cage, and he’s probably going to keep on doing things that make us shake our heads in confusion.
But he’ll also keep us shaking our heads at the things he’s capable of inside the cage. In the end, that’s the only thing that matters.
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