“Time, Time.”
There was nothing ambiguous about referee Dan Miragliotta’s booming instruction to Gegard Mousasi and Chris Weidman with 1:47 remaining in the second round of their middleweight co-main event at UFC 210.
It was the last truly coheren…
“Time, Time.”
There was nothing ambiguous about referee Dan Miragliotta‘s booming instruction to GegardMousasi and Chris Weidman with 1:47 remaining in the second round of their middleweight co-main event at UFC 210.
It was the last truly coherent moment of the fight.
Miragliotta believed he had seen an illegal knee from Mousasi and stopped the fight accordingly. The New Yorker looked to be in no condition to continue what had, to that point, been a compelling matchup between two of the top fighters in the division.
Miragliotta brought the ringside doctor in to check on Weidman and started the clock counting down the five minutes the injured fighter had to recover.
And then chaos ensued.
Miragliotta, in violation of New York State Athletic Commission rules that do not allow for use of instant replay, can clearly be heard asking ringside official “Big” John McCarthy to “look at the replay for me.” Apparently unaware of the rules in New York, McCarthy informed Miragliotta that the knees, initially thought to be illegal, were completely proper when viewed in super-slow motion.
“I thought I was going to win because of the illegal knee,” Weidman said at the post-fight press conference. “Then they looked at a replay…and see the legal knee, but in the state of New York, you’re not allowed to look, there’s no replays. It’s a crappy situation.”
After what felt like an endless delay, with UFC announcers and vice president of regulatory affairs Marc Ratner offering conflicting interpretations of the rules and arguing about what should happen next, Miragliotta talked with an unidentified female official outside the cage and came back in to wave the fight off.
Mousasi, originally thought to be the perpetrator, was given the win. Weidman, who may have exaggerated his injuries in the immediate aftermath thinking he was on his way to a disqualification win, suddenly found himself on a three-fight losing streak.
“When you make a decision, you can’t go back and change it,” an exasperated UFC on Fox analyst Kenny Florian said after the fight on Fox Sports 1. “The ref said it was an illegal knee, then someone told the ref that it was legal and Weidman can’t continue. You can’t make a decision in the Octagon and then change it. Both these guys lose. It was very confusing.”
At popular MMA blog Bloody Elbow, Tim Burke was as flabbergasted as everyone else:
So what do you do then? Weidman could have continued after all the time it took to figure it out, but it was a legal knee so it should have never been stopped in the first place. Mousasi got the win, which you could argue he probably would have got anyway because the knee destroyed Weidman. But that was so weird. The New York commission is concerned with fighter safety, and that’s fine, but them and Miragliotta made a mockery of a fight that Weidman was clearly winning up until then.
The rule in question, liberalizing the use of knees to the head in certain circumstances, is a new addition to the Unified Rules of Mixed Martial Arts for 2017 and hasn’t yet been approved in all jurisdictions. Perhaps because Miragliotta and McCarthy spend their lives traveling from state to state and officiating bouts under a number of different rulesets, they were unclear on how to proceed.
One thing is clear in practice—it’s a rule that is nearly impossible to enforce during the tumult of a typical MMA bout. Even with the benefit of replay, UFC color commentators Joe Rogan and Dominick Cruz had to see the sequence four times before they could agree it was legal.
“It’s certainly a lot to ask of the referee,” play-play announcer Jon Anik said, “to make that fine distinction in real time.”
The controversial finish was just one of many issues New York faced in what must have been a long week for regulators, who did not respond to interview requests.
What happens next is anyone’s guess. Weidman indicated he was considering an appeal of the commission’s rulin,g and there was much discussion of an immediate rematch. But, after the fight, UFC President Dana White confirmed that it was Mousasi‘s last bout under contract with the promotion.
Mousasi, in a scathing pre-fight interview, told Fox Sports’ Damon Martin that he was unhappy with his current compensation.
“I just see that VitorBelfort is making tons more money than me,” Mousasi said. “I defeated Dan Henderson, he’s making tons more money than me. I defeated Mark Hunt. He’s making $800,000 a fight. I can beat Michael Bisping and even before he was champion he was making a lot more than me. Why don’t I deserve to make some money?”
With the victory, Mousasi becomes the first free agent of the Scott Coker era at Bellator who you could reasonably make a case for the being the best fighter in his division. He has a history with UFC’s thriving rival from his days in Strikeforce and will likely court a big offer from a promotion in desperate need of marquee talent.
A man of few words and even fewer facial expressions, Mousasi had little to say after the bout.
“He can have the rematch, no problem,” the Dutch fighter said in the cage. “I was ready to continue the fight.”
While his speech did little to excite, the fight ended with a bloodied Weidman looking dazed and confused on the mat. That was a strong enough statement for Mousasi as he immediately becomes the most intriguing fighter on the market.
Jonathan Snowden is a Senior Writer who covers combat sports for Bleacher Report.
On Saturday, the UFC returns to London, a city that has long been a hotbed of the sport. That in itself comes as no surprise. British fans flock to fill arenas whenever the UFC comes to town, often buying tickets before the fight card has even been ann…
On Saturday, the UFC returns to London, a city that has long been a hotbed of the sport. That in itself comes as no surprise. British fans flock to fill arenas whenever the UFC comes to town, often buying tickets before the fight card has even been announced. Their appetite for UFC action remains, apparently, insatiable.
What is a surprising, however, is UFC’s decision to provide these loyal, rabid fans with an afterthought of a show. Even the main event, a battle between mid-tier light heavyweights JimiManuwa (16-2) and Corey Anderson (10-2), is little better than a time filler.
Has it come to this? Has UFC’s continued expansion and obligations to both television and the hardcore fans who’ve purchased their streaming Fight Pass service doomed fans to a succession of lackluster cards from now until eternity?
Veteran MMA scribes Jonathan Snowden and Chad Dundas tackle the question that will make or break an entire sport.
Jonathan Snowden: London is one of the world’s great cities. When I lived in Europe, we would fly there once every couple of months to soak it all in. There were unparalleled cultural opportunities and a diverse, interesting population, with people from all over the world who had come together to make their stand against ignorance and assorted nonsense. And also to drink beer. All the beer.
Suffice to say, I have strong feelings for London. But even if you don’t particularly care one way or another, it doesn’t really matter. Because, I think we can all agree, London deserves better than this abysmal UFC card.
Any place would.
Whether you live in L.A. (Los Angeles or Lower Alabama) or in the wild mountains of Montana, your town is too good for this dreadful show.
Every time I think the UFC has reached new lows, it manages to surprise me. The sport has been stretched thin, to the point of breaking. Stars are few and far between, and the generation that built the business is fading athletically. Their replacements, it seems, are making a fashionably late entrance.
I understand that intellectually. But my heart cries out all the same.
JimiManuwa—main eventer? Really? Arnold Allen vs. MakwanAmirkhani? I defy you to look me in the eye and pretend you know who those gentlemen are without a sneak peak at Tapology.
And they are on the main card!
Right now, the UFC has a market desperate for mixed martial arts. The O2 Arena, which attracts more paying fans than any other indoor stadium in the world, will be packed from floor to ceiling. People are buying this dreck.
But for how long?
Is this sustainable Chad? Can UFC continue to rely on its brand to sell an increasingly dismal product, both to fans overseas and the most hardcore fans in North America via UFC Fight Pass? At some point, the straw will pile up to the point the camel will have no choice but to collapse, right?
Chad Dundas: Even amid the trickle of lackluster fight cards the UFC has rolled out to begin 2017, this one stands out. Someday, people are going to be flipping through a stack (or an internet slideshow) of UFC event posters, will see the one juxtaposing the big glossy photos of Manuwa and Anderson and think, “Wait, there must be some mistake here.”
We’re still in the backwash of the UFC’s lucrative 2016, a year in which it fired a lot of promotional bullets in order to smash its own all-time annual pay-per-view sales record. At this point, though, it’s mid-March. The first quarter of the year is almost up, and yet a glance at the upcoming UFC schedule shows TV events headlined by Demetrious Johnson vs. Wilson Reis, Cub Swanson vs. ArtemLobov and Alexander Gustafsson vs. Glover Teixeira.
By the time we get through that stretch, it’ll be the end of May!
Granted, the mildly interesting UFC 210 (featuring Daniel Cormier’s light heavyweight title match against Anthony Johnson) is coming up on April 8, and then the fairly stacked two-title affair of UFC 211 on May 13, but still—this is a bad stretch for UFC.
It makes you feel for fans in London who jumped in early to buy tickets to see Fight Night 107 live, only to get walloped with a card that looks like something from the regional independent circuit that ought to air on AXS TV.
And you’re right, if I were a hardcore fan who was either attending this event or continuing to shell out a monthly subscription fee for Fight Pass, I’d be getting a little uneasy right about now.
If I were that fan, I’d love to know the long term strategy here. So far, new UFC owners at WME-IMG appear to be hacking away at the fight company’s roster—letting legitimate prospects like KyojiHoriguchi and Nikita Krylov walk—while serving up a menu of fight cards that will be remembered as one of the worst in the UFC’s modern history.
It would be nice at some point for somebody to let us know where all this is headed, lest those hardcore fans do indeed start thinking about voting with their wallets.
What do you think, Jonathan, will the UFC turn it around in the second half of 2017? Or should we all start getting used to Manuwa vs. Anderson as the new normal?
Jonathan: I wish I had comfort to provide, but considering the state of the world these days, I’m fresh out. Perhaps, in some weird way, UFC is mimicking the broader world, replacing former matchmaker Joe Silva’s carefully considered order with random corporate chaos.
Of course, UFC already had the loud-mouthed Twitter troll as president—so maybe life is imitating art after all?
Anyway, to actually answer your question, I’m afraid that things may not be getting better, because I’ve heard this song before. WME-IMG has a corporation’s soul. It’s dark, shriveled and crying out for cash like a zombie with eyes only for human brains.
WME-IMG, no doubt, sees how big boxing shows operate, with big main events surrounded by dreck and random television cards filled with prospects and the occasional has-been. They know that fight cards don’t have to be good to sell in quantity and have likely grasped that UFC could achieve the same financial return with much less effort and expense.
They’ve perhaps even intuited Silva and former UFC owner Lorenzo Fertitta’s darkest fiscal secret—they were fight fans who wanted to create the kind of quality top-to-bottom shows fanboys love. WME-IMG doesn’t have love in its heart for great fights. Heck, despite what Citizens United told us, corporations don’t even have hearts. They are driven by profit, loss and justifying the $4 billion paid for UFC last year. Quality is not job one.
As long as UFC fans in London and elsewhere are willing to pay a premium for the UFC brand no matter how obscure the fighters entering the Octagon are, WME-IMG will be happy to oblige them. If the UFC can garner consistent ratings with relative unknowns, the bean counters will be pleased to water down the shows until they are little more than gruel.
The power here rests with the consumer. After all, if you squint hard enough, you can find reasons to pretend everything is OK. Look, it’s Tim Johnson, an enormous man with a mustache. Is that Gunnar Nelson? Yes please.
Are fight fans willing to watch this thing become boxing, aesthetically, if not in the cage? How hard are you willing to squint in order to pretend this is still the sport we fell in love with?
Chad: Honestly, man, I’m not sure I’m willing to squint much more than I already do.
The fabric of this sport is vastly different now than when I found it. Things like the continually ballooning live event schedule, Reebok outfitting deal, Fight Pass and what in retrospect was a network television deal that asked the UFC to churn out an insane amount of content have all changed it—and not much of it for the better, in my opinion.
The vision you provide for the future of the sport is a sobering one, and all I can say is that I hope you’re wrong. I was initially bullish about the prospect of the WME-IMG era in the UFC, but the first few months of 2017 have moved me squarely into the undecided column.
I still think our new overlords can make this sport better. I’m just no longer sure they will.
Which brings us back to Manuwa vs. Anderson as an even partially defensible main event inside the Octagon.
To date, I’ve been astonished at the willingness of the sport’s hardcore fanbase to accept the many machinations of the UFC, fork over the consistently rising financial burden of being a fan and follow the twisting threads of an increasingly impenetrable schedule and do nothing but shower praise and line up for more.
How long can people keep up that level of enthusiasm? I’m guessing right up to the point that fights like Manuwa vs. Anderson become the rule instead of the exception.
I think fans are willing to sit through the doldrums of early 2017, but they’re damn sure hoping for a rebound.
But if what we’re seeing here is regression to a new, disappointing standard instead of a monetary lull in the action, I can’t imagine even the UFC’s most devout followers staying engaged forever. At least not to the level they currently are. Myself included.
Jonathan Snowden and Chad Dundas cover combat sports for Bleacher Report.
For years MMA fans around the globe waited for the return of a legendary, anthropomorphized demolition derby known only as “the old Vitor” Belfort. This mythical version of the baby-faced Brazilian fighter, the one who demolished David “Tank” Abbott an…
For years MMA fans around the globe waited for the return of a legendary, anthropomorphized demolition derby known only as “the old Vitor” Belfort. This mythical version of the baby-faced Brazilian fighter, the one who demolished David “Tank” Abbott and made the fearsome Wanderlei Silva look like he was moving in slow motion, was no mere man. He was a symbol, not of a particular style or method, but of an era, of a time when the sport was new and men weren’t afraid to rock both a mullet and some fashionably ripped blue jeans.
ThatVitorBelfort is not the same man who will fight Kelvin Gastelum on Saturday on Fox Sports 1. The “old Vitor” was a glimpse of the future, a two-fisted wrecking machine deadly enough that even some members of the famed Gracie family wanted nothing more than to be close to him, even offering the family name if that’s what it took to extend their legend into the next century.
Amazingly, that version of Belfort defied all logic and every preconceived notion of how aging works in athletics to make another run at glory in his 30s. With Belfort powered by the then-legal alchemy known as testosterone replacement therapy, only the otherworldly Anderson Silva and the unstoppable Jon Jones managed to prevent another UFC title reign. Every mere mortal in his path fell to either punch, kick or submission in one of the greatest multiyear runs in the sport’s history.
Even that return to form, the one that occurred before the Nevada Athletic Commission banned the use of TRT in 2014, is more than three years in the rear-view mirror. Glancing back at recent history reveals only red—three of his last four fights have been knockout losses, the only body hitting the floor Belfort‘s own. The new version of the “old Vitor” is long gone. In his place stands a Belfort who is merely old, a 39-year-old man whose bulging biceps have been replaced by the ultimate dad bod.
Does Belfort, ancient overnight, stand a chance against Gastelum, a fighter who might have given him a challenge on even his best day? Or has Father Time finally tracked him down after years of searching in vain?
Bleacher Report senior writer Jonathan Snowden found the perfect expert to help tackle this query. Yves Edwards, a lightweight stalwart from Belfort‘s generation who retired in 2014 after 66 career fights to become a Fox Sports analyst, knows what it feels like to stand atop the mountain only for your body to betray you. Together they’ll answer the only question that matters—can Belfortoutduel time itself en route to one final championship run?
Jonathan Snowden: Yves, I don’t want to say you are old, because you’re no doubt still plenty young enough to spin kick me in my big, stupid face. I’ll simply say this—you and VitorBelfort walked the same path at the same time, transitioning from student to master.
You both spent more than a decade in the sport and have stood across the cage from opponents who were literal children when you first launched your careers. And, ultimately, you both met roadblocks toward the end of your UFC runs.
What happens when you’re body stops doing what you tell it to do. Can Belfort be the same fighter he was at 30 again? And, if the answer is no, will he be the last to know? Is the fighter always last to know when it’s time to hang up the gloves?
Yves Edwards: We’ll get to see how much of the 30-year-old Vitor is still there. The miles add up, man. There are things you were once able to do, that you still believe you’re able to do because you still feel the same way physically on your best days. But you’re really not the same. The fighter doesn’t always recognize it until it’s too late.
I didn’t recognize I wasn’t the same physically until I was getting off the mat after being hit by Yancy Medeiros. Going back to look at it, that’s a punch I would have avoided or eaten like a sandwich when I was in my prime five or 10 years ago.
I recognized in that fight that something was different. But I still felt good. I felt that I was just as fast at the end of my career as I’d ever been. That’s the saddest part. Even thinking about it makes me sad. So I went out there and did it again, but I just couldn’t take the damage that I had taken in the past anymore. And that’s one of the first things to go—your chin.
I wasn’t a guy who’d taken a lot of damage, especially early in my career. You can look at my pre-fight and post-fight pictures from my days in the UFC. I went in beautiful and came out just as gorgeous. But in some of those latter fights, I took some shots I would have avoided in the past—and there is a limit to the number of punches you can take.
Once you reach that limit, then it’s “take a number, have a seat.” That limit is going to be different for everyone. Some people will be able to take 15,000 punches. For another guy, it might be 22,000. I don’t know if Vitor has reached his limit. We’ll see Saturday night.
Snowden: In stick-and-ball sports there’s a concept known as “veteran presence.” It’s what allows, for example, a linebacker to buy an extra couple of years on the football field by knowing exactly where to be on every play and developing a sixth sense that allows his mind to make up for any physical shortcomings.
There’s no doubt in my mind that fighters—especially those who end up having long careers like you did, the kind of career that spans the decades and multiple generations—get smarter as they age. Too often, in fact, they tend to figure things out just as their bodies start to feel the wear of years in the gym.
Can savvy save Belfort and get him out of the situations his declining physical tools help create?
Edwards: It’s tricky to rely on savvy for a guy like Vitor, because he’s only fighting the best fighters in the world and they know a lot of tricks too. But when you’re fighting a guy much younger than you are, you can make up for a lot of physical shortcomings with knowledge. You learn to recognize things before younger fighters will.
When you’ve had a lot of fights, you’ve seen these things before. You have a vision or an inclination, an idea of where things are headed. You can tell by the way a guy moves what he’s going to do, how he’s going to react when you do something to him. There’s a slight forewarning—so even if you’re a little slower than you used to be, you can do something about it. That comes with experience. And Vitor has a lot of that.
He’s been in there with the best guys on the planet for 20 years. I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s able to take advantage of that experience. If you’re a young guy like Kelvin Gastelum, you should stick to the fundamentals in a fight like this. There are no tricks there, and the fundamentals never change. That helps eliminate some of Vitor‘s experience edge.
Snowden: Knockouts tend to breed. This is science, of course. Physiologically we know that a concussion makes subsequent head injuries more likely and, over the time, a fighter’s chin takes a beating that it can’t ever recover from. An older fighter like Belfort, one who has seen some things in the gym and in the cage, eventually reaches a point where his chin just can’t withstand the rigors required to compete in this sport.
How does losing something you once counted on always being there impact a fighter psychologically? I’ve never lived through it, because it turns out pounding away at a keyboard isn’t all that dangerous. Is it hard to really get in there and give your all when you know, even if it’s just in the form of lingering doubt, that you might not walk away from even a single clean shot?
Edwards: You can’t let that stuff linger in your mind. If you do, you’re going to be hesitant and you won’t be able to take advantages of the opportunities that present themselves. I always used to say “when you step into the cage, you aren’t thinking about whether you left the iron on.” You’re only concerned about the guy in front of you, and you can’t be worried about anything else.
Getting into the cage, at least for me, was always nerve-racking enough. When you’re in the Octagon, you have to be in the moment and solely in the moment. You’ve got to be right there, right now.
A fighter, especially once they reach the level of fighting in the UFC, has to be completely focused on what’s happening. It’s what you’ve been drilling for. All the possibilities, everything that can possibly happen, you’ve prepared for it. If you stay in those moments, whatever they are, you can handle them and be successful.
You think about having been knocked out beforehand. It is something a fighter needs to be aware of. Vitor may think about it all week before the fight. But as the time to fight approaches, it’s going to be less and less on his mind. By the time he steps in the Octagon, he can’t think about it at all. He’s got to be ready to perform. If he is thinking about it, he’s going to get hit with a shot that puts him down. Then it will be up to him and his wife to think about what he wants to do next.
Snowden: You started your career in 1997 against someone named Todd Justice, just one year after Belfort burst onto the scene in the UFC. Putting aside the fact that there’s no way a real person could possibly be named “Todd Justice,” your generation has been on quite a journey.
When you started, there were still bareknuckle fights. State athletic commissions wanted no part in regulating the sport, and much of the best talent found itself in Japan. You’ve seen the rise and fall of the Pride Fighting Championships. You’ve watched the UFC introduce the sport in America and then nearly disappear in a cloud of lawsuits, angry politicians and cable executives.
Does it matter that Belfort comes from a time when UFC fighters rode the bus from the airport to the hotel, before the world “billions” was even a glimmer in someone’s mind? Is there something about being an old-school fighter that will give the old man even the slightest advantage over a fighter in his prime Saturday night?
Edwards: Todd Justice was a real name by the way. And when we started, Todd Justice, Vitor and myself, there was no money in MMA. We did it for the love of the competition. It was a puzzle to solve, a challenge in front of me that I had to figure it out. And if I did, the pleasure, enjoyment and excitement, the satisfaction with yourself made it all worth it.
Remember when you were a kid, when you would hang out with your friends and argue about who was faster? And then you’d actually race to prove it? Winning those races is what winning a fight is like, only magnified a million fold.
You put in the work. You did this. Nobody else did this for you. You appreciate all the help you received, but you have to go out there alone and do it. There’s nothing like it.
I think it’s good to not only know the sports history, but to have been a part of it. Guys like Vitor and I fought with no gloves on in no-holds barred matches. We fought under different rules. We’ve had every experience there is to be had in this fight game. It’s all about experience. Vitor has experienced everything this sport has to offer, both good and bad.
We had different experiences than the new generation of fighters. And there are fighters who are just there today because they have an athletic talent and it’s a way to be cool and make money. But for most of the fighters who move up the rankings, for all of the fighters who win championships, they are fighters.
It’s who they are. There’s no other way to explain it. They’re the person who is always going to push through and find a way. And if they can’t, they’re willing to die in the attempt. Vitor is that kind of fighter. So is Kelvin Gastelum. That’s what makes this fight so interesting on Saturday night.
Jonathan Snowden is Bleacher Report’s senior combat sports writer. Yves Edwards covers the UFC for Fox Sports 1 and will be in the studio Saturday night for Belfort vs. Gastelum on Fox Sports 1.
There was a time when being “the next Ronda Rousey” was MMA’s ultimate compliment. Once the UFC’s dominant champion at bantamweight, Rousey’s combination of fierce grappling and pinup looks helped catapult the sport right into the heart of the American…
There was a time when being “the next Ronda Rousey” was MMA‘s ultimate compliment. Once the UFC’s dominant champion at bantamweight, Rousey’s combination of fierce grappling and pinup looks helped catapult the sport right into the heart of the American mainstream.
Mackenzie Dern (2-0), who fights Friday night against Katherine Roy on AXS TV, has all the attributes to become Rousey’s successor as the queen of women’s MMA. Quick with a smile and easy on the eyes, Dern’s persistent positivity, indescribable accent (a combination of her dual roots in Brazil and Arizona) and God-given charisma turn heads wherever she goes.
“She’s incredible at what she does well,” former UFC welterweight champion Pat Miletich, who has called Dern’s early fights as a color commentator for AXS Television, said. ” She’s friendly, fun to talk to, marketable. Even today during weigh-ins, when most fighters are miserable, she was all smiles and having a good time.”
If looks alone could propel a star to success, there would be models lined up around the block at UFC headquarters for their shot at the limelight. But while the 23-year-old Dern’s beauty may be the first thing you notice, it’s her Brazilian jiu-jitsu that brought her to the dance.
Like Rousey, she was an athletic prodigy, winning competitions from an early age and dominating adults as a teenage blue belt. She moves on the mat like she was born for it—and perhaps she was. Her father, Wellington “Megaton” Dias, was a dominant player in the fledgling jiu-jitsu scene of the 1990s and started bringing his young daughter to the gym when she was just three years old.
“Her dad makes the difference,” Miletich said. “When I was young and coming up in this game ‘Megaton’ Dias was legendary in jiu jitsu. Having a guy like that as your dad, going to classes and learning from him, you’re going to great at that game.”
The results speak for themselves. Dern has won gold in every major grappling competition in existence, from the ADCC World Submission Grappling tournament to the Brazilian World Jiu-Jitsu Championship, dispatching not only every prominent woman in her weight class, but also giants like the gargantuan Gabi Garcia.
“Rolling with her is a really cool experience,” Dern’s teammate at the MMA Lab Lauren Murphy, a UFC bantamweight, said. “I always try to give her my best, and she’s almost always two steps ahead of me anyway. She’s fast and stronger than she looks.
“One thing she’s really good at is seeing submissions everywhere, which I know sounds like, ‘duh’, but it’s true. She’s not just a leg lock specialist, or only really good from her guard, or only good on top. She’s really, really good everywhere, in every position, so there’s no safe place or position to be on the ground with her. She moves a lot and transitions well and has a really good gas tank, so if you stop to breathe or think for a second she catches you.”
Being on the mat with Dern has proved to be an overwhelming experience for the top women grapplers in the sport. She tops the International Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu Federation’s rankings and was FLOGrappling’s 2016 “Black Belt of the Year.”
For MMA fighters unused to competing with top professionals, hitting the mat with Dern can be a truly terrifying experience—and her submission win over Montana Stewart with a modified Imanari choke last year did little to ease fears.
“People down there with her realize what a tight game on the ground actually is,” Miletich said. “There are gaps and holes in most people’s grappling, but they may not know it until they go up against a world-class person for the first time. That’s when you realize ‘holy s–t. I have nothing for this person.’ You go from fighting to win to literally trying to survive.”
Of course, in 2017, being called the “next Ronda Rousey” can feel a bit like a double-edged sword. After all, Rousey’s meteoric rise was followed by an equally spectacular fall. Her overall game could never match her spectacular ground work, something that, with time and enough tape study, opponents started taking advantage of.
Today, Rousey is a cautionary tale, a dominant athlete from one sport who failed to prepare an adequate backup plan to handle adversity in the cage. Dern, like Rousey, could easily rely on athleticism and otherworldly grappling to carry her her up the ladder—but Miletich believes it would be a huge mistake to stick solely with what she knows.
“It’s always going to come down to whether she can absorb the other parts of the game fully,” Miletich said. “Or at least well enough to keep really talented strikers at bay until she can get a takedown. No matter how good you are, you’re eventually going to run into someone who can stop what you do best.
“And that’s when you need to be well balanced. That’s the difference between a good fighter and a world champion who holds onto the belt.”
Dern’s pursuit of a well-rounded game has led her to John Crouch, a Royce Gracie black belt who has trained top fighters like former UFC champion Benson Henderson at the MMA Lab in her hometown of Glendale, Arizona. In addition to Henderson and male MMA stalwarts, the Lab’s Murphy and fellow UFC fighter Jocelyn Jones-Lybarger have provided Dern plenty of stiff competition as she attempts to navigate her new world.
“I feel like a white belt again,” Dern told FloGrappling last year. “I’m still learning how not to be scared of getting punched, to handle it. Also to not just be getting punched all the time, you know trying to moving my head. It’s going really good, I’m having fun.”
Dern is still an MMA neophyte. But that fact isn’t always obvious as you watch her train and fight. Her progress, Murphy says, is nothing shy of remarkable.
“Her stand-up game is getting better shockingly quick,” she said. “She’s not afraid to fail and willing to work on the skills she’s not great at. It’s pretty cool watching her throw combos in sparring that we’ve all been working on, or drill a certain wrestling shot until she gets it right.
“If she continues that, she could most definitely be incredibly successful in MMA. She’s tough and she hits hard. She’s already a wizard on the ground. Mackenzie has the potential to be a world champion.”
Despite her demonstrable excellence, however, there are some worrisome signs. Dern, who competes at 130 pounds in the grappling world, has twice struggled to make the 115-pound limit in MMA. The 125-pound flyweight class may be her ultimate home, but right now, it’s a division the UFC doesn’t promote.
That leaves Dern with the unenviable task of either being undersized at bantamweight or learning how to shed weight to make strawweight. While Miletich believes the proper solution is more weight classes, he says her refusal to give up jiu-jitsu competitions and bouncing around between multiple weights is also a major factor.
“Every time you have to cut weight it’s a mental and physical roller coaster,” he said. “Doing it for two combative sports is even harder. She goes up that big hill for a jiu-jitsu competition, comes down, then has to climb right back up another hill for MMA. It’s exhausting.
“I had a talk with her and said ‘Maybe it’s time to put the jiu-jitsu away. You’re a two-time world champion. Why not focus on this MMA thing for a while?’ At some point, she’s going to have to get this dialed in if she wants to go to the UFC.”
While Legacy Fighting Alliance is her current home, and the perfect place to develop her skill sets and solve lingering issues with her weight, there’s no doubt Dern has her sights locked in on the UFC.
“The UFC talked to us already,” Dern told MMA Junkie last year. “My team and my coaches, we talked with them, and we definitely want to be there. I’m hoping in 2017 I’ll be there. But I don’t want to get just thrown into the shark tank. I want to go in there being a shark. I don’t want to be the fish for the sharks.”
Jonathan Snowden covers combat sports for Bleacher Report. Dern fights Katherine Roy Friday at Legacy Fighting Alliance. The entire main card will be televised live on AXS TV at 9 p.m. ET / 6 p.m. PT.
For the first time since 2012, a new voice will call the action at a North American UFC event when Todd Grisham takes over the play-by-play duties for the UFC on Fox Sports 1, Sunday in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada.
A veteran of the WWE and ESPN, Grish…
For the first time since 2012, a new voice will call the action at a North American UFC event when Todd Grisham takes over the play-by-play duties for the UFC on Fox Sports 1, Sunday in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada.
A veteran of the WWE and ESPN, Grisham will partner with retired middleweight Brian Stann to provide live, blow-by-blow coverage of the event, headlined by heavyweights Travis Browne and Derrick Lewis.
Bleacher Report’s Jonathan Snowden sat down with Grisham days before his debut to talk about his career, the inimitable Vince McMahon and the unique challenges MMA presents to even the most experienced broadcaster.
Bleacher Report:A month or so ago, you changed Twitter handles and launched a new life. For people on the outside, a move like this appears so sudden. Did this happen out of the blue or had it been in the works for some time?
Todd Grisham: I’d been covering UFC for ESPN for five years. I’d done tons of UFC pay-per-views and some Fight Nights. So, I was familiar with the product and they were familiar with me. When my contract came up with ESPN two years ago, we had some preliminary conversations and I met with them. We almost came to an agreement then, but it didn’t work out.
My deal came up again and I reached out to them to fire talks back up. And here I am.
B/R: I know you’ve called Glory World Series kickboxing matches recently and filled in on play-by-play for the beloved, dearly departed Friday Night Fights. But MMA is such a complex beast. Did you have to try out or anything before they decided to bring you on board?
Grisham: I went out to Vegas and called some fights with Dominick Cruz and Daniel Cormier and met with the executive producer and (producer) Zach Candito. And I went out a second time and called some fights with Brian Stann. And, thanks to MMA Live, I’ve done work with Chael Sonnen and they’ve seen me interact with their athletes dozens of times.
B/R: It’s an interesting time to be joining the UFC team. Not only is there new ownership, but your signing came in the wake of longtime announcer Mike Goldberg’s departure. Has that timing been awkward in any way, with fans attaching your arrival with his departure?
Grisham: No, because I’m not replacing Mike Goldberg. He mostly called the big shows, the pay-per-views, and that’s the stuff Jon Anik is doing. If anything, I’m replacing what Jon did and doing the things he did before Goldberg left. So there hasn’t really been any backlash directed at me.
B/R: I’m going to out myself now as a longtime fan of professional wrestling, where you had your first big break as a commentator for WWE. How did you make that leap, from a local sports show in Tucson, Arizona, to a national brand seen all over the world?
Grisham: Like every single male, I was a huge fan of WWF when I was a kid. Saturday Night’s Main Event, all that stuff? I loved it. I had been the local sports guy in Tucson, covering the University of Arizona. That was our big beat. One day a viewer sent me an email that said WWE had an opening for on-air talent and that I’d be perfect for it, because I had been doing all these goofy high school football skits on Friday nights. So I took a shot and sent them a resume tape on VHS.
B/R: Wow. And they found your tape on what must have been quite a pile of auditions?
Grisham: I didn’t hear anything for a couple of months. Next thing you know, they call me out of the blue on a Friday and ask me to fly up to New York City for an audition on Monday. Went up there, did the audition and didn’t hear anything for a couple of months, and assumed I didn’t get the gig. Then, out of nowhere again, they called and made me an offer. I ended up being there for eight years.
B/R: WWE has quite an operation. That must have been quite an experience. What did you learn there that you’ve kept with you at ESPN and will bring with you to UFC?
Grisham: You’ve got to be entertaining. That was Vince McMahon’s big thing. (Does a McMahon impression) “Entertain me.”
There were times when a match would end early and I’d be at the Gorilla position, which is where Vince sits and the wrestlers gather before they go out to the ring. I remember him saying “Three minutes. We need three minutes from you. Go entertain the crowd.” I’d have to walk out in front of 18,000 people and figure out how to entertain them for a couple of minutes. It was crazy.
You learned from the best. I remember sitting there drinking coffee with Ric Flair and talking with Jerry “The King” Lawler. It was surreal. Having a beer with Harley Race. It was like being in the circus. I was on the road for eight years, 51 weeks a year. When you have a family, it’s hard and you start thinking about settling down a little bit.
B/R: When you read the wrestling media, the opposition party, in the parlance of our times, is a guy named Kevin Dunn.
Grisham: (Laughs)
B/R: He’s blamed for every decision hardcore fans don’t like and he’s kind of vilified. But when I look at WWE under his tenure as the producer of Monday Night Raw, I see a promotion and a television show on the cutting edge. The gold standards, in combat sports television, have always been HBO Boxing and WWE wrestling. Did you learn a lot under his wing as a broadcaster?
Grisham: WWE hires the best. The camera guys there have done Monday Night Football. They’ve done Super Bowls. They’ve done the Olympics. Kevin Dunn is probably the best producer I’ve ever worked with and I’ve been at ESPN for the last five years. So I don’t say that lightly.
At WWE, you’ve got to know what you’re talking about and you need to know how to do what you’re supposed to do. If you do your job, you’ll be fine. But it’s high-level work. The truck they have there is on par with Monday Night Football‘s truck. WWE was shooting in HD before Major League Baseball or the NHL.
They are always on the forefront of the latest technology and trends. WWE is on it. Even social media. Just look at the numbers. It’s insane. Everything they do, production-wise, is second-to-none. It’s actually very similar to UFC that way.
B/R: When you were an announcer for WWE, you weren’t in a journalist’s role. You were part of the show.
At ESPN, it was different. With Teddy Atlas there, giving his unvarnished opinions, there was always going to be a separation between the broadcaster and the promotion. He wasn’t shy about leveling criticism or praise as warranted. That was journalism.
This role with the UFC is kind of a hybrid. Fox Sports is the broadcaster, but the UFC produces its own shows. Do you have a feel yet for whether your role is more like WWE or more like ESPN boxing?
Grisham: This is my first show, so I don’t really know what’s going to come out of my mouth yet. No one has really told me what to say or what not to say, which was certainly how it worked at WWE. I’m just going to go out there and do what I do. Obviously UFC is the promoter and they do air the fights. I don’t actually know what to expect in that regard.
I’m a fan first and foremost. I went to UFC 14 in 1997 in Birmingham, Alabama, to watch Mark Coleman fight Maurice Smith. When I’m calling fights, no matter what it is, it’s my job to make the guys look as good as they can, tell their stories and make people care about them. Whether it’s WWE, football, boxing or UFC, that’s the main job of the “play-by-play guy.”
B/R: When you were getting your reps, calling these practice fights with Dominick Cruz and Brian Stann, what did you find was different about MMA? In boxing, to me, it seems like there’s usually time to settle in and tell the stories you want to tell. If the fight is well-matched, you’re going to be there a while. In MMA, things happen so quickly. Did you find yourself in a rush to use your material before it was all over?
Grisham: It was interesting, because when I’m calling a fight with Dominick Cruz, what am I going to say about what the fighters are doing on the ground that will be better than what Cruz has to say? So, especially when the action is on the ground, I’m going to sit back in my chair and maybe light up a cigarette and let him do his thing.
B/R: (Laughs)
Grisham: In kickboxing, anyone can see that one guy kicked the other guy in the leg. In boxing, even with Teddy Atlas, I would sometimes give my opinion about what was happening. He’d shut me down half the time, but I don’t think I’ll be trying that in UFC, especially when the fight is on the ground. There may be things happening on the ground that the regular fan doesn’t see. Things that are being set up that anyone who isn’t a Brazilian jiu-jitsu blackbelt doesn’t see. Whoever is in there with me, I don’t want to step on their toes.
B/R: What advice have the producers for Sunday’s show given you to help make this a smooth transition?
Grisham: Michael La Plante, Zach Candito and Craig Borsari have all been in touch. It’s such a difficult sport to broadcast. If you’re calling a football game, it’s a football game. With UFC, anybody can do all the prep work and get their backgrounds and their statistics. To me, the most difficult stuff are the things that happen in between. Stretching for 20 seconds when they need it before a break, making sure you read the promos at the right time. All the minute details you have to script out and plan so carefully. That’s where you can really shine or crash and burn.
B/R: And no one may even know if you’re doing well.
Grisham: If you’re shining, the average fan doesn’t even notice. You’re just reading a promo. But if you mess up and don’t talk about MetroPCS when you’re supposed to, the people in the truck notice. And there will be hell to pay.
B/R: Is it best if you call these fights in Halifax and no one even thinks about the fact there is a new guy in the booth? Is that a victory?
Grisham: Not quite at a referee level. They say with a good referee, you don’t even know he or she is there.
To me, the blow-by-blow announcer has to be there for that magic moment, that “Holy s–t” moment. That’s when people notice whether you’re good or not. If someone gets knocked cold, like to the frozen tundra, you can’t just say “a headkick knockout.” You have to show up for that. That doesn’t cut it. At least for me. That’s where you shine.
I’ll have to find that chemistry with whoever I’m working with. Sunday, it’s Brian Stann. And Brian has told me point blank, “If I feel a finish coming, I’m going to lay out and let you do your thing.”
In the wrestling business, they call it “getting your s–t in.” Brian’s going to get his s–t in, his People’s Elbow, which is breaking down the complex action. That’s what he does well. And he’s going to let me call the finish, which hypothetically I do well.
I don’t really have a catchphrase. I just need to get excited at the right times and not say anything stupid. That’s the low bar I’ve set for myself. Don’t f–k it up. That’s my goal.
Jonathan Snowden covers combat sports for Bleacher Report.
The UFC 208 card was likely beyond redemption when middleweight Ronaldo “Jacare” Souza submitted journeyman Tim Boetsch in the first round Saturday in Brooklyn, New York. Before the perennial contender did his thing, and thank goodness he did, 14 fight…
The UFC 208 card was likely beyond redemption when middleweight Ronaldo “Jacare” Souza submitted journeyman Tim Boetsch in the first round Saturday in Brooklyn, New York. Before the perennial contender did his thing, and thank goodness he did, 14 fighters had spent 105 minutes inside the UFC Octagon doing nothing of note.
When he was done darn near wrenching Boetsch’s shoulder out of its socket, four more fighters, ostensibly the best on the card, spent 45 more excruciating minutes teasing high-octane action that never materialized.
It was UFC at its absolute worst, arguably the least-impressive showing on pay-per-view since the dark ages before The Ultimate Fighter gave the sport a national platform and started a journey that turned a $2 million investment into billions of dollars for former owners Lorenzo and Frank Fertitta.
Worse than being bad, it was boring, hours of sports entertainment that didn’t seem to feature much in the way of entertainment or sport.
The dreadful event also served notice to the promotion’s new owners at WME-IMG that presenting mixed martial arts is, perhaps, not as foolproof as it seems. Sure, when you send Conor McGregor out to the cage, it’s an invitation to print money and no one in the audience sits on their hands. But, unfortunately, there are more Germaine de Randamies, the unknown fighter thrust into the spotlight in Brooklyn, than there are McGregors.
That’s sort of a problem.
Is this the sign of things to come? Has the UFC peaked and entered the beginning stages of a downward spiral? Or is this a blip that will be forgotten the moment a new star grabs the fans’ attention and refuses to let go? Veteran MMA reporters Jonathan Snowden and Chad Dundas pull out their crystal balls and take a guess at what the future holds for the promotion that has become synonymous with a sport.
Jonathan Snowden: I can already hear the knives sharpening on Twitter as readers prepare to engage their carefully cultivated sense of righteous indignation. MMA fans are very protective of our underdog sport and even the hint of doubt or negativity can lead to a furious response as men with egg-shaped avatars delve out internet justice.
And, truth be told, I understand. I’m even hesitant to share these fears. There’s a good chance that, in a year’s time, this will be embarrassingly wrong. After all, UFC had its biggest year ever last year financially and in Conor McGregor and Ronda Rousey, found living embodiments of its quest to go mainstream. Outside investors were all put throwing money at the Fertitta brothers just to be a part of this sport.
But I can’t help but feel the echoes of the past reverberate as I watch the new UFC brass turn a successful, carefully cultivated product into something that seems a little bit worse month after month. This doesn’t feel like a thriving enterprise. It feels like World Championship Wrestling, a promotion that went from being the hottest in the world in 1998 to losing tens of millions by 2000.
The UFC rose from obscurity on the back of a single cable-television reality show. The fall, as WCW showed, can happen just as fast. One day, WCW was selling out domes with the NWO and Bill Goldberg. The next, as documented by R.D. Reynolds and Bryan Alvarez in their book The Death of WCW, they were selling out to Vince McMahon for pennies on the dollar.
Despite obvious differences, I feel the same arrogance that sunk WCW in the UFC. The numbers don’t yet support a sense of doom and gloom. People are still watching and buying UFC. But, anecdotally, it reminds me of many other mainstream fads that lose steam with the fickle masses.
The promotion, once so successful because it had an intuitive sense for what would sell, seems completely disconnected from its fighters, fans and the casual audience that helped turn a niche spectacle into something your grandmother asks you about over Thanksgiving dinner.
Am I crazy Chad? Or is it starting to seem like UFC has lost its way?
Chad Dundas: You’re not crazy, but I’m also not quite ready to reinforce my Chuck Mindenhall-style newsboy cap with titanium in preparation for the sky to begin falling.
I agree that the first quarter of 2017 so far feels disconcerting, especially for people who’ve been around the sport long enough to witness its meteoric rise. The year’s first four events have served up a starvation diet of underwhelming headliners featuring the likes of Valentina Shevchenko, Dennis Bermudez and Germaine de Randamie.
Not exactly a who’s who of public affection and marketability.
Last Saturday’s flatly underwhelming UFC 208 was a backbreaker, considering its $60 price tag and nearly four-hour run time after all but one main card fight went to decision. As de Randamie and Holly Holm finished up their ugly main event scrap for the inaugural women’s featherweight title, I admit I began to wonder if the company might be in big trouble here, whether even hardcore fans will start tuning out during this extended down stretch.
But as of this writing, I have no reason to believe it’ll blossom into anything more than that: a down stretch, a rough first half, at worst a lackluster 2017.
We should avoid hitting the panic button just yet. These current doldrums may be fleeting. In fact, they aren’t even unexpected.
The UFC fired a lot of promotional bullets to make 2016 its most profitable year ever. During the first half of last year, the company was for sale after all, and during the second, executives may have been scrambling to justify the $4.2 billion WME-IMG paid to acquire it in July.
It didn’t take a financial analyst to forecast a rebuilding period to begin the new year, especially with Rousey, McGregor and Jon Jones all MIA.
Meanwhile WME-IMG is just getting started reshaping the company to its own image—with mass layoffs and high-profile departures adding to the unease. It’s still locked into the UFC’s existing broadcast deal with Fox, though, so there’s only so much the Hollywood mega-talent agency can do in the short term.
Honestly, I remain optimistic that the product will come out the other side of this regime change for the better. It might just take a year or two.
Is that too Pollyannaish, Jonathan? Should I be selling my copious stock holdings in the dietary supplement and black chain-link industries? Is a crash coming?
Jonathan: The stars aligned perfectly for UFC and helped the owners walk away with billions of dollars when the getting was good. New owners came in expecting growth to continue at an astronomical rate. Instead, they happily entered a bubble just as it was about to pop.
I don’t think a crash is imminent, but I do think 2016 was aberrational. A market correction is coming—and we’re seeing the beginning stages right now.
McGregor and Rousey are once-in-a-generation icons, and both peaked at the box office in the same magical year. Rousey has already faded into memory, and McGregor’s is the kind of swagger that can’t easily be duplicated, no matter how many fighters attempt to pull off his act. Worse, they risk diluting the original with dozens of copycats doing bad “who da f–k is that guy” impressions.
In some ways you can’t blame UFC for its ill-fated attempts at creating a new Rousey and a new McGregor. When something works in the entertainment industry, you knock it off.
A pretty blonde is drawing unprecedented attention? Bring on Paige VanZant.
A cocky Irishman is all the rage? Let’s all start sending pithy tweets and hope for the best!
The truth is, there is no formula for stardom in combat sports. It’s undefinable. You know it when you see it, and it takes on a different appearance each time.
The key isn’t recreating what’s currently working. After all, the next Mike Tyson wasn’t a fighter who resembled the dangerous knockout artist from the hood. It was pretty-boy Olympian Oscar De La Hoya. UFC’s problem is an inability to spot the potential stars in its midst and an insistence on pursuing handpicked favorites like Sage Northcutt or VanZant even as it becomes clear they won’t be able to climb the ladder all the way to the top.
At one point UFC matchmaker Joe Silva and President Dana White were keyed in on what fans wanted to see. They weren’t perfect, but their thumbs were often near the pulse if not on it.
But Silva is gone and White lives among the jet set, importing snow to Las Vegas and tipping card dealers more than he pays many of his fighters, according to the Las Vegas Review-Journal. Which begs the question, Chad—if UFC’s experts don’t understand the fans or how to build a star, what hope does WME-IMG, with no track record in the unique fight business, have?
Chad: If my time covering combat sports has taught me anything, it’s that you can’t really “make” mainstream crossover stars. Not even WWE can consistently pull that trick off, and McMahon and Co. have the luxury of literally scripting their own reality. In MMA, the degree of difficulty is that much higher because of—you know—legitimate athletics and stuff.
The rise of juggernauts like Rousey and McGregor takes more alchemy than science, and it’s a fool’s errand to think anyone can predict (or manipulate) when the next shiny new version will come along. Historically, though, someone—whether it be Chuck Liddell, Georges St-Pierre or Brock Lesnar— has always kept the ship afloat.
There will continue to be some boom and bust inherent in that system, but dating back to 2005 or so, the Fertittas always managed to keep profits trending upward. Did they cash out at just the right time? Maybe, but it’s not as though the honchos from WME-IMG were country rubes getting swindled in some back-alley shell game. They knew what they were buying.
If anything, the new owners are probably betting there’s a lot they can do more effectively than the old ones.
When the UFC’s current broadcast deal with Fox expires in 2018, for example, I fully expect WME-IMG to land a more lucrative one. That’s sort of what it does, after all.
I wager it’ll reduce the fight company’s overstuffed live schedule, thereby increasing the quality of individual events. Perhaps it’ll go a step further and put less emphasis on filler cable TV cards while better using network television to expand the UFC’s mainstream footprint.
I think WME-IMG can be both more surgical and more capable in continuing to expand the UFC brand into international markets. I think it can improve production values across the board. I think it can make better inroads with heavy-hitting corporate sponsors.
Perhaps more than anything else, it can likely use its vast entertainment-industry connections to get better exposure for new and existing UFC stars. Even if there isn’t another Rousey or McGregor in the immediate offing, WME-IMG can almost certainly do a better job getting the athletes it does have in front of the widest possible audiences.
As a fight promoter, isn’t that really all you can ask for?
Now, I admit I’m mostly just tossing coins in the wishing well here. It’s possible this whole thing could blow up in everyone’s face at any moment. It’s possible new stars don’t emerge just when the industry needs them. It’s possible hardcore fans might miss the Fertittas’ passion and turn away from what could be an increasingly corporate product.
The point is, I don’t know what’s going to happen—but I think there are as many reasons for optimism as for pessimism. As bad as the start of 2017 has been, I think it’s more likely to turn around than fizzle and die.
Jonathan Snowden and Chad Dundas cover combat sports for Bleacher Report.
“Time, Time.”