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The Question: Can Conor McGregor Versus Floyd Mayweather Actually Happen?

Like a cockroach that just won’t die, the oft-discussed Floyd Mayweather (49-0) versus Conor McGregor (21-3) fight was once again pitched to the public on Saturday. On both sides of the Atlantic, McGregor in a pay-only media appearance and Mayweather o…

“I have my eyes on one thing right now, and that’s Floyd Mayweather,” McGregor told MMA Fighting’s Ariel Helwani during a pay-per-view interview in Manchester, England. “That fight is more than just being explored. There’s a lot of steps, but it’s the fight to make. It’s the fight I want.”

Mayweather echoed those sentiments in a Sky Sports 1 interview before the Carl Frampton vs. Leo Santa Cruz fight in Las Vegas.

“That’s the only fight that will get me back in the ring,” the retired boxer, who has applied for several trademarks related to a potential 50th professional victory, told the world.

And, while the dueling interviews generated headlines, obstacles to the fight remain firmly in place. Though they seem similar, there are significant structural differences separating boxing and mixed martial arts that might torpedo this fight before discussions ever really get started.

Can this fight really happen? And, perhaps more importantly, should it? Veteran reporters Josh Gross and Jonathan Snowden have spent years digging into the financial realities of combat sports, and join forces to tackle one of the most compelling questions plaguing modern fight promotion.

Josh Gross: Is there any quibbling with the notion that nothing is impossible in the fight game when enough money is involved?

Acknowledging the various contractual and regulatory differences between the way boxers and mixed martial artists go about their business, and the problems that oil-water mix could present in seeing this through, the answer is yes this spectacle can really happen because many millions of dollars at stake.

If Mayweather Promotions in conjunction with McGregor Promotions in conjunction with the Ultimate Fighting Championship can actually make it work at the negotiating table, that alone will be a feat.

The potential of massive gate receipts and obscene pay-per-view revenue are the only reasons this is even in discussion, of course.

We know it’s not about competition or legacy or proving a point; it’s a straight cash grab that will likely entice many, many people in the end. It will also expose a new set of hurdles that could cause it to fall apart because overseeing Mayweather-McGregor will require regulatory chutzpah.

Inherent issues of health and safety are at play, just as they would be if roles were reversed and an inexperienced Mayweather was coaxed into a cage against the Irishman.

On its face an all-time great boxer taking on a fighter whose talent and success as a mixed martial artist has netted him an 0-0 record in the ring would be a non-starter.

But, money.

If, for example, Nevada, California or New Jersey refuse to regulate the contest, where besides an offshore barge could the vested parties take the fight and not become a punchline? There are many risks here, Jonathan.

Which roadblocks (financial, regulatory or otherwise) could end up the promotion killer, and is it appropriate for this to be attempted in the first place?

Jonathan Snowden: I think the biggest road block should be McGregor’s lack of anything resembling professional boxing experience. Like Mayweather or not, he’s an extraordinarily gifted pugilist. Allowing him to fight a novice, even a famous one, is reprehensible and dangerous.

Then again, as you say, money tends to talk loudly enough to drown out decency and sportsmanship. Nevada, the best of a dodgy lot, allowed Muhammad Ali to fight long after it was clear he was deteriorating badly. The money here is big enough that regulators will cast their eyes down and live with it.

The real problem will be money. More specifically, it will be UFC’s involvement in the process. If McGregor was a free agent (or a boxer), I believe they would easily come to terms on an arrangement that would make the rich much richer.

But, believe it or not, the boxing business is built on minuscule margins. When Mayweather fights, there is very little room for promoters to wet their beaks. The bulk of the revenue, from pay-per-view, to foreign television and concessions is shared by the fighters. The promoter can do well if the event is a success—but the top fighters are always going to walk away with most of the money.

As you reported at ESPN years ago, UFC runs a very different system, using a business model based closely on the WWE’s. The UFC pockets almost all of the revenue, sharing less than 20 percent with the fighters.

That leaves a gulf filled with tens of millions of dollars separating the UFC from Mayweather’s expectations. While a top boxing star can command upwards of 75 percent of the revenue, sources say Mayweather’s split is closer to 90 percent. That doesn’t leave much room for his own promoter to present a decent undercard and still make money. It leaves no space for UFC to insert itself into the event.

These are basic, systemic problems. If they are to be overcome, someone will have to bend. No one involved is used to that. Who, Josh, do you think is most likely to show some flexibility for the sake of the spectacle?

Gross: 1) Dana White. 2) Conor McGregor. 3) Floyd Mayweather.

The UFC is already bending in ways it never would for MMA, such as making an “official” money offer through the media. Why? The new regime needs to hit big earnings figures the next 18 months to meet “earn-outs,” the first of which would pay $175 million in June if UFC increases its revenue by 61 percent from the year before. That means it needs to make $275 million compared to $170 million it produced EBITDA from 2015 to 2016. There’s another $75 million waiting for bigger growth in 2018.

So yes the UFC has a ton of incentive to latch on to Mayweather-McGregor because it would be expected pull in the public and generate huge business, the first billion dollar fight. Even a smaller piece of that take than its usual haul from MMA contests puts the UFC in a great spot. It hold some chips, including no small thing in contractual control over McGregor’s ability to compete in unarmed combat for money.

There is risk, though, because of the stark differences of the two businesses you spelled out, a potential rift with its biggest star if it gets in the way of the Mayweather fight, butting up closely to the Muhammad Ali Boxing Reform Act, and the potential that McGregor puts his high-flying MMA career in peril by engaging in this boxing bout.

McGregor has always been a risk taker. Anyone who commands so much has to be. He’d easily come down from his early $100 million demands to get the payday and exposure. He risks putting himself through humiliation and potential physical damage for the prospect of boxing Mayweather, but like Muhammad Ali that’s part of what makes him who he is.

Last is Mayweather. Unless he’s been negligent with his career earnings, he shouldn’t need another payday. But he wants that big number, and feels like its owed to him. This is the man who appears intractable in this equation. Mayweather wants that 50-0? OK. Getting it on 0-0 McGregor doesn’t say much about his competitive drive. I suspect if it doesn’t happen Mayweather will laugh about the time he screwed around with these UFC clowns, including the guy who carried his bags.

Add in the flexibility of a regulator like the state of Texas and the attractiveness of hosting at Jerry’s World and you’ve got the makings of an extravaganza on your hands.

Then what? Tell me this: After the opening bell how long will it take set in that the fight was a bad idea?

Snowden: It wouldn’t take long for onlookers, and likely McGregor himself, to realize he’d made a terrible mistake. While he’s shown precision and power in the UFC cage, the skill and expertise of a top professional boxer is unmatched in the realm of combat sports.

Mayweather’s dazzling footwork, timing, speed and uncanny instincts would make life exceedingly difficult for McGregor from the very beginning of the fight. Everything, from the ring to the range would be different, including gloves literally twice as big as the ones McGregor wears in the UFC Octagon.

Martial artists initiate attacks from long distances, the threat of a kick or takedown opening up opportunities that simply don’t exist in boxing. A disciplined fighter like Mayweather would shred any such attempt to pieces. While not known for his power at 147 pounds, he would land the kind of clean punches that leave a lasting presence. Nate Diaz, a much less gifted boxer, gave McGregor fits, often easily countering his wild blows with punches that accumulated quickly.

In some ways, this fight reminds me less of a traditional athletic contest and more of a spectacle Josh in intimately familiar with. While the stakes and the prize money will be higher, this fight would be more Muhammad Ali vs. Antonio Inoki than it would be Ali’s epic matches with Joe Frazier.

It’s easy to see the allure of this fight, especially for Mayweather. For him, it’s an enormous pay day with a minimal risk. It’s the UFC and McGregor who should pause to consider the implications.

For Conor, an embarrassing performance may further dent a reputation that was scuffed after a loss to Diaz, a fighter who was seemingly settling into journeyman status. It’s hard to sell a fighter as cool, brash and cocky when the world has seen him swing hopelessly at air for 36 minutes.

UFC would have even more to lose with such a bout. Not only does it risk the reputation of its top star in a fight that seems all but unwinnable, it also puts the company’s hard earned pay structure at risk. Allowing McGregor to call the shots and upset the apple cart invites other to do the same. It’s a gamble that only makes sense if the company truly believes McGregor can win and that it can control his rights in the ensuing chaos.

The UFC’s $4 billion asking price made sense when it was a promotion with a carefully controlled pay roll. Opening that Pandora’s Box for a one-time jack pot against Mayweather is reckless in the extreme. UFC President Dana White is a gambler, but beyond the blackjack table he’s also a winner. From the revenue to result, this is Mayweather’s fight to lose—and that’s why White will never allow it to happen.

Gross: I’m not nearly as confident as you that the UFC can pass up collecting a cut of Mayweather-McGregor. Generating blockbuster money is all that matters to the new ownership right now, and this easily is the biggest spigot they can open at the moment.

If it goes the way the fighters want (all they seem to care about is the same thing the UFC cares about), few people among the many who pay an exorbitant sticker price to watch will pick Mayweather to lose against this wild Irishman.

Here lies the only bit of charm that comes with the idea of this contest: Based on McGregor’s profound track record in big moments anything can happen.

Mystic Mac calls out Mayweather, and somehow engineers it into a reality? If he can manage to do that, why can’t McGregor go the distance? Or gives the crowd a glimmer of something miraculous when a left hand meets its mark?

That’s the fairy tale people will buy if this falls into place, which remains fantasy enough.

Jonathan Snowden and Josh Gross cover combat sports for Bleacher Report.

Read more MMA news on BleacherReport.com

Porn, Pain and Donald Trump: The Rebirth of Mixed Martial Arts Legend Tito Ortiz

Former UFC light heavyweight champion Tito Ortiz can remember the day his life changed. March 21, 2013 was remarkable for many reasons, but mostly because he didn’t sit alone in his bed and cry.
That had become more common than he’d like to recall as a…

Former UFC light heavyweight champion Tito Ortiz can remember the day his life changed. March 21, 2013 was remarkable for many reasons, but mostly because he didn’t sit alone in his bed and cry.

That had become more common than he’d like to recall as a litany of tragedy dotted the ruined map of his supposedly perfect life. Days on tour with his favorite bands Limp Bizkit and Korn were long gone, replaced by a collection of injuries, indignities and calamities that might have been comical had they not hurt so damn bad.

The 42-year-old Hall of Famer, who fights Chael Sonnen Saturday night on Spike TV for Bellator, had added a neck surgery to his long list of ailments a few months earlier, ending his UFC career. The mother of his twin boys, celebrity porn star Jenna Jameson, had left for a party in Las Vegas and hadn’t come back in over a week.

“My relationship and my body gave out. It was the hardest time of my life,” Ortiz told Bleacher Report in an exclusive interview. “…I realized she was bringing me down. She was draining me. Jenna was mentally f—ing me. Telling me, ‘You’re a piece of s–t. You’re a piece-of-s–t dad. You’re just like your father.’ Just ripping me down, tearing me down. Eventually I realized, enough is enough.”

On the worst days he cried. On the best, he looked to a higher power.

“This is all a test from God,” he told himself. “To see what kind of person I really am and what kind of character I possess.”

His career, the one that had pulled him from the wreckage of poverty and less organized violence and made him rich, was all but over. Red overwhelmed his MMA record at Wikipedia— and red isn’t good.

Pain was the one constant of his life, both the kind that made him “pop Vicodins like candy” and the kind that had him scurrying to his phone to continue domestic arguments when he was supposed to be training. Fighting, his one reprieve from the whirlwind drama of his TMZ life, was suddenly no longer a safe space.

The proud pioneer was reduced by many to a human meme, the man who butchered names in his ill-fated foray into announcing and made excuses for the poor performances that seemed to have supplanted the good ones on a permanent basis.

“Being in a tumultuous, turbulent relationship will break anyone down,” his long-time girlfriend Amber Nichole Miller said. “You’re human. It was oil and vinegar with Jenna. I don’t think he knew what a real relationship was. He was so used to chaos that chaos had become normal. Tito was in such a dark place, and he didn’t know how to accept real love.

“We had been friends over the years. UFC was very small back when I was a ring girl and he was champion. And the man I knew was so sweet and so kind. The man he’d become in that relationship was the polar opposite. He was very guarded and not whole. I could tell by the way he carried himself. He wasn’t available the way he used to be.

“I reached out to him and he admitted, ‘I’m not doing OK. This is really hard.’ He went from ‘Yeah, let’s party’ to raising two kids. He had to be present 24 hours a day and figure it out.”

It was easy to sit there, an overwhelmed single father, and bitterly ponder the past and fear the future. The fight industry has torn many lives asunder, and giving into despair required no action at all. The downward spiral welcomed his descent with open arms.

Instead, on that fateful day in March, Ortiz got up, got a restraining order against Jameson and got on with the business of living his life.

“I saw a wounded bird and tried to help her,” Ortiz said. “But she was one person I couldn’t fix. I met a wonderful, beautiful human being, but drugs got to her. Her mind is really dark. Really, really dark. I wish she would get help and do what the court says so she can see our kids. They are seven now, going to be eight. And she hasn’t seen them since they were three.

“It’s sad, it’s really sad. But I had to make that decision for my kids, because there were drugs and a lot of things they shouldn’t have been around. My mother made the same decision for me when I was 13 years old. I could have either been in jail or dead. But I’m where I am right now. And I’m very thankful to my mother for that. She’s been sober for over 24 years. She made a difference—and I wanted to make the same decision for my kids.”

For the first time in years, light shined into Ortiz’s life. It didn’t happen immediately. Replacing chaos with order never does. But slowly and surely, the old Tito emerged from his protective shell. As his life mended, so did his body. And, if you know anything about old fighters, you can guess what happened next.

“I told Amber, ‘I think I want to fight.’ I’m only 38 years old and I still have it,” Ortiz said. “My body’s in good shape. I’m in good shape. Let’s give this a try.”

That decision, made three years ago, led Ortiz to this moment, a final fight against Sonnen, a fellow loudmouth who himself stood on the foundation Tito built and raised the fine art of trash-talking to new heights. But it started with a VHS tape and a familiar face.

In high school, Ortiz had wiped the mat with a wrestler named Jerry Bohlander. So, imagine his surprise as a junior college standout, when he saw his former opponent on television laying waste to overmatched opponents in the UFC Octagon.

Ortiz had already spent some time training with the UFC’s original bad boy, Tank Abbott, in 1996. Though he never put on gloves or took a punch, the sessions gave him some understanding of what the sport was all about.

“Tank defending a shot from me was almost like getting in a fight with him,” Ortiz said with a laugh. “You learn to be tough real quick.”

Training with Abbott hadn’t given Ortiz much hope for a future in the fight game. He was too big and too strong for smaller men to contend with. But Jerry Bohlander? If Bohlander could thrive, Ortiz knew he could too. The UFC’s decision to divide the athletes into weight classes solidified his commitment. He was going to give cage fighting a chance.

Despite an early loss to Bohlander’s teammate Guy Mezger at UFC 13, Ortiz’s potential was obvious to all. He was big, strong and mean on the mat. More than that, he had that something you couldn’t quite put a finger on. In a sport filled with self-effacing men looking to show their respect, to each other and the arts, Ortiz brought much-needed showman’s flair.

“Bleached hair, flames on the shorts. I was the bad boy,” he said. “I tried to split the difference between Muhammad Ali and Hulk Hogan. I came around at the same time as “Stone Cold” Steve Austin, and we both feuded with our boss. I brought pro wrestling to fighting.”

Although his attempts seem quaint in a world where fighters star in nationwide commercials and appear on late-night television, Ortiz was the first to really market himself. He printed up his own baseball cards to autograph for fans and worked hard on crafting his image.

And then there were the T-shirts.

Long before Reebokian ubiquity reigned, Ortiz donned a shirt with a lewd or funny phrase after each win. They were products of their time—he readily admits he couldn’t get away with “I Just F—ed Your Ass” or “Gay Mezger is My Bitch” today and wouldn’t want to. But in the late 1990s, not only did fans eat it up, but it also created the sponsorship market that would become an important income source for many UFC fighters for years.

“I worked at a porno novelty store called Spanky’s and got a call from a production company named Extreme Associates,” Ortiz said. “They told me they’d give me $5,000 to wear their shirt after the fight. S–t, $5,000? I was only getting paid seven grand to fight! Of course I said yes.”

Frank Shamrock’s retirement in 1999 left a space open at the top of the sport—one Ortiz was happy to fill. He beat the fearsome Wanderlei Silva to become the UFC’s light heavyweight champion and ruled the division for three years. By the time his manager, Dana White, convinced high school friend Lorenzo Fertitta to buy the promotion in 2001, Ortiz had become the UFC’s marquee star.

“This was family,” Miller said. “When I started in 2001, we all knew each other. We all knew each others’ families. We traveled together. We ate together. Because it was so small.

“They were partners and friends. Chuck Liddell slept on Tito’s couch and Dana would come over and hang out. They would talk about how they were going to make it bigger. It was a friend situation. Tito is an emotional guy, and he takes friendship and bonds that he has with people very seriously. But money kind of breaks up friendships, unfortunately.”

As the UFC grew into a $4 billion business, Ortiz’s bank account didn’t expand at a corresponding rate. And, while other fighters were just happy to be there doing what they loved, Ortiz knew that time in the spotlight was short and big paydays were paramount.

“They were selling all these pay-per-views, and I was making .05 percent. It didn’t make sense to me,” he said. “Boxers were making 40 percent of the pay-per-view, and I was lucky to get a few dollars. I didn’t understand that. That’s what hurt my career with UFC. I remember talking to Dana about the numbers Mike Tyson was doing. He was making $30 million to fight, and I said, ‘Dana, how come I ain’t making that kind of money?’ He said, ‘Tito, when you become champion and draw those kind of numbers, you’ll make that money.’

“But it didn’t happen. We were doing a million pay-per-view buys when I fought Chuck Liddell. I wasn’t making no $30 million. I wasn’t making no $10 million. I wasn’t even making $5 million. I was getting held down, and that’s when I started speaking up. And the more I spoke up, the more I got pushed down.”

The resulting battle was one of the most fierce in UFC history.

“He was painted as a pain in the ass, someone who is hard to work with,” Miller said. “Because he stood up for himself and wasn’t just a yes man, happy to be Dana’s best buddy and accepting whatever they handed him. That’s not how it works. Tito, Randy (Couture), Chuck, they were building the UFC together with Zuffa. The reason the company became huge was because you had characters like Tito making it exciting.”

Ortiz, the reigning UFC champion, became his own promoter’s target in the press. Fights over money were recast and presented to the public as Ortiz being scared to compete. Liddell, Ortiz’s former friend and training partner, was White’s preferred champion—and he made no effort to hide it.

“I was being called a p–sy by Dana. I was afraid to fight Chuck. I was the worst champion they’d ever had. And all these people bought into this s–t because Dana was on television saying it all the time,” Ortiz said. “All I could do was fight. I couldn’t compete with him because he put himself on television every time he possibly could. His voice was a lot louder than mine.

“It made me scratch my head. I was his top star, but he was out to ruin me. They wanted to make Chuck their champion because Chuck wasn’t saying no to them. Chuck wasn’t saying no to fighting for $150 grand. All he wanted to do was fight for the belt. Well, I have six of them in my trophy case. But my bank account was the No. 1 thing I concentrated on.”

Holdouts became a regular part of doing business, and an appearance on Donald Trump’s Celebrity Apprentice made Ortiz more confident than ever that he was doing things the right way. Ortiz spent weeks picking Trump’s brain and left convinced that his personal brand was the most valuable thing he owned.

“I spent the entire time asking him questions,” Ortiz said. “I asked him how he became a billionaire, and he said, ‘Tito, you never stop working. From the moment I get up to the moment I go to bed at night, I work. And when I sleep, which isn’t that much, I have people working for me.’ He told me that if I wanted to make it big, I had to treat my name like it was a business.”

While White rocked his world emotionally, and Couture and Liddell did so in the cage, his own body was the real culprit in Ortiz’s athletic decline. He’s had eight major surgeries, including fusions on his back and neck, and has suffered, by his count, at least 26 concussions.

“I pushed myself way too hard and tore my body apart,” Ortiz said. “I did all these things because I didn’t want to let Dana and Lorenzo down. I didn’t want to let the fans down. I went in there injured at least 90 percent of the time. Sometimes seriously injured.”

It’s a battle he’s fought since 2003, when he first hurt his back shooting a double-leg takedown in preparation for a title fight with Couture. Pain shot through him that day, and he called White to tell him he might not be able to fight.

That’s when he was introduced to the Medrol Dosepak, an anti-inflammatory steroid that masked the pain. He made it through to the fight with Couture but lost his first bout in four years and was no longer UFC champion.

“I thought my world was over,” he said. But instead of rest and recovery, Ortiz responded the only way he knew how—by hitting the gym and putting in the work. Drugs would become a regular part of his life. Problems weren’t treated—they were hidden. But when the time came to pay the piper, the price was very high.

After a bout with Lyoto Machida, the last on his UFC contract, not even pills could completely hide Ortiz’s discomfort. Time off from the sport changed little. Eventually, after watching the technique performed on a cadaver, he had surgery on his back, one he had to pay for himself because he was no longer employed by the UFC.

“It’s very rough on your body, and many of the promoters don’t cover surgeries for the wear and tear that breaks you down over the years,” Miller said. “It’s super scary that these guys don’t have full medical coverage. And they are afraid to ask, because if they rock the boat, they can be out of a job.”

Ortiz returned to UFC in 2009, but his bad luck didn’t change much. He drove his own head into the mat training for Forrest Griffin at UFC 106 and couldn’t feel his extremities. But the magic anti-inflammatories once again did their work, and Ortiz dragged himself to the Octagon, losing a split decision. His first neck surgery, a fusion of the C4 and C5 vertebrae, soon followed.

This would become the story of his career, following him to Bellator where he suffered a detached retina after his bout with Stephan Bonnar and another neck surgery after losing a title fight with Liam McGeary in 2015.

Not willing to go out on anyone’s terms other than his own, Ortiz has battled back for one final fight.

“It makes me so happy to see his energy,” Miller said. “He’s light. He has this huge monster fight coming up, but he walks around like he doesn’t have a care in the world. It’s beautiful to see him enjoy his children and enjoy family. He was so afraid he would be bored after years of chaos. But he’s enjoying every moment of his life. He’s the man I knew he could be.”

Even better, she says, is Sonnen’s approach to the bout, spending hours with the media running Ortiz into the ground.

“He has has done nothing but lie,” Ortiz said. “Saying my car was repossessed. Saying I’m broke. Just recently he did an interview talking about my ex. I take that very personally. I’ve never done an interview talking about his wife or his family. Him saying anything about my personal life pisses me off.”

The new Tito Ortiz is happy, spending his off time with his kids and on his boat. Sonnen’s personal attacks have him fuming—providing the fuel a content man needs to power his way into a fight. Thanks to his opponent, he’s found the mental space he needs to win.

“Tito likes it,” Miller said. “He likes to get emotional, to have them say something that gets in his head. It drives him. Tito’s best drive is a little bit of anger. I think that Chael knows that and honestly wants the best Tito. And he knows digging at him a little bit, on a personal level, will bring that out.”

What might have been a forgettable swan song has morphed into a grudge match.

“I killed myself in this camp,” Ortiz said. “That’s how serious this fight is for me. I’ve done everything I need to do to win. The idea of losing hasn’t even crossed my mind. I’m going to win. I’m going to dominate him. I’m going to show him the champion I truly am one last time.”

Jonathan Snowden covers combat sports for Bleacher Report.

Read more MMA news on BleacherReport.com

Conor McGregor, CM Punk, Ronda Rousey and the Best MMA Moments of 2016

With less than a week separating 2017 from it’s predecessor, it’s easy to look back and pick out the best fights and overall cards of the year gone by. After all, it’s relatively fresh in our minds, vivid and visceral as only combat sports can be.
But,…

But, over time, memories fade. UFC 199 and UFC 205 will be less distinct as the years pass, and specifics will disappear with the days.

What’s left, what really matters, are the moments.

Whether it was Kevin Randleman’s monstrous suplex on Fedor Emelianenko, Georges St-Pierre dropping to his knees to beg for a title shot or Ronda Rousey refusing to take Miesha Tate’s outstretched hand, MMA consistently delivers snapshots fans will never forget. 2016, of course, was no different.

What follows are six of our favorites during the year, a mix of the silly and the sublime. Collectively, they are what make MMA the greatest sport on Earth. If you have a different moment playing on repeat in your head, don’t be shy. Let us hear about it in the comments.

Begin Slideshow

Can Judo Star Kayla Harrison Be the Next Ronda Rousey?

Kayla Harrison knows the questions are coming. She doesn’t know when and doesn’t know exactly what form they will take. But in any interview she does about her burgeoning mixed martial arts career, Ronda Rousey will make an appearance.
Harrison would r…

Harrison would rather talk about her Fearless Foundation, her four-fight deal with the World Series of Fighting or her announcing appearance on its television broadcast Saturday. But after five years in the spotlight, she gets what’s coming and why.

“When I talk about Ronda, it makes headlines,” she said. “I understand.”

Rousey, who can be spotted in meme form all over the internet after her brutal loss to Amanda Nunes Friday at UFC 207, is the most famous fighter in a sport on the rise. Her fall, just as meteoric as her rise, has left a hole in an MMA world that is in desperate need of stars. Who better to fill it than her former roommate, a woman with whom she shared joy, betrayal and ramen noodles?

“There’s no problems between us,” Harrison said. “Ronda and I don’t have any beef or drama. We just live in two different worlds. I can go to the grocery store without somebody trying to take a picture of me. And I like the world I live in.”

It’s a natural narrative. In some ways, the endless comparisons between the two women even make sense. On the surface, it’s easy to see why someone would think Harrison was, once again, barreling down a path Rousey had blazed.

Both are top-level judo players and matriculated from the same school—Pedro’s Judo Center in Boston, Massachusetts. Both women are Olympic medalists. Rousey took home a bronze medal in 2008 and Harrison won gold in both 2012 and 2016. Both are blond, personable and unyielding on the mats.

“In other countries, women train with women and men with men,” Jimmy Pedro Jr., who coached both Harrison and Rousey, said. “We don’t have enough women for that. And I think that gives our women a competitive advantage. Kayla trains with all guys. So did Ronda. All day long, every day, Kayla’s fighting men. She’s moving men around.

“Men come in here and think they are going to take it easy on her. They realize after the first gripping exchange that this girl is a physical specimen. She’s as strong as many men. And, unless those men are at Olympic or national champion level, she tortures the guys who come here. Even if they are black belts.”

I was told to tread lightly, but Harrison is at ease discussing Rousey. She laughs at the idea that the two are enemies and is equally amused that the media finds Rousey so indecipherable. To her, Ronda is just the girl she grew up with, who defended her to bullies on judo message boards and with whom she experienced the highs and lows of competition and life in general.

“I read her diary, and she hated me,” Harrison admits. “I shouldn’t have done that, and I’m not proud of it. We were girls…She forgave me. We understand each other. We’ve both put our lives on hold, lost relationships and friendships. You have to be willing to sacrifice all of that. You have to let people think you’re a jerk or a b-i-t-c-h if you want to be successful.”

It’s that moment, when she couldn’t bring herself to say b—h, instead spelling it out like there was a second-grader listening in we needed to protect from himself, where Harrison and Rousey part ways. Rousey, when she used to do media, was often profane and obscene. Harrison? You could practically feel her blush across the phone.

“I probably could have said b—h. But that’s who I am,” Harrison said with a laugh. “My grandparents read every news piece that comes out about me. Can you imagine if I said a curse word? They would be so disappointed. Please don’t disappoint Meemee and Pawpee.”

Harrison is a natural conversationalist, jumping from topic to topic with verve and ease. You could see her thriving in the broadcast booth. But a cage fight? Even she doesn’t seem particularly sure.

“I’m scared to get into a cage and have them lock the door behind me,” Harrison said. “And nobody gets out until someone is beaten to a pulp. That’s a scary thought. But at the same time, I’m a fighter. I’m a survivor. I’ll find a way.”

MMA, Harrison realizes, is a different beast than judo. While many of the movements are the same, the strategies and execution differ by miles. Much of what she does best is predicated on Pedro’s proprietary gripping system. Converting throws and submission holds that require a firm hold on a judogi into those possible in MMA competition will be a serious challenge.

“I do a lot of hip throws, uchimata or harai goshi, and those work without the gi,” Harrison said. “It’s what I’m known for in judo. For eight years, I’ve been practicing uranage, which is kind of like a big pro wrestling throw. I’d love to Rock Bottom somebody. That could happen if someone tries to clinch with me, which I don’t see happening. But we’ll see. This is all just speculative. I have no idea what will happen.”

She’s begun work with a boxing coach, focusing on the movements and technique she’ll need in her new career. As yet, however, things haven’t gotten physical. In 2017, she will start training in earnest. To paraphrase Mike Tyson, she has a plan—but she hasn’t been hit in the face yet. And she’s not looking forward to it.

“I have the average human response,” she said. “I’m not looking forward to getting punched in the face. I think it’s normal not to be excited about it, right? At the same time, it’s a new journey for me. Part of me is excited.”

While much will change, other things will stay the same. Harrison will remain with the Pedros, with training supplemented by local kickboxing instructor Mark DellaGrotte and jiu-jitsu ace Renzo Gracie. Other gyms have expressed interest. UFC reached out about signing a fight contract. For Harrison, it’s all about loyalty and comfort.

“I’ve trusted them this far in my career and been pretty successful,” she said. “Why wouldn’t I continue to trust them now?”

The Pedros, famously, turned down a request from Rousey to train her for MMA in 2009. Since then, they’ve grown more accustomed to the sport, working with former judo pupils like Bellator’s Rick Hawn.

While the International Judo Federation hasn’t softened its stance on MMA, even asking Harrison not to fight, the Pedros are no longer hesitant to leap into the fray. Already running the best judo gym in the country, they have their sights locked on the world of fighting.

“The people in the game with a scientific approach have the most success,” Pedro said. “And we bring that to the game. We break down film and focus on strategy. What are the opponent’s strengths, and how can we take them away to win? We might fight 25 people in a judo tournament, and we have to have a plan for every one of them. In MMA, it’s one person and we have six months to prepare. It’s almost relaxing.”

For Harrison, the new adventure offers a much-needed reprieve from the daily grind of her current life. Every year, Pedro has her write down what she wants to accomplish. Right now, hanging on her refrigerator, is a list of goals headed by “Olympic Champion: Kayla Harrison.” On Sunday, that list gets tossed, and a new one goes up.

“Everything I did in Judo, I learned in the first six months at Pedro’s Judo Center. For the last 15 years, I’ve been doing the same things over and over again. I won two gold medals by mastering the basics,” she said. “Now I have to master the basics all over again, but this time in boxing, in jiu-jitsu, in wrestling, in Muay Thai. So I have my hands full for a little bit.

“The last year of my judo career, it was very, very hard for me mentally to get up and get excited for practice and get excited to do the same things I’ve been doing every day, twice a day for 20 years. I had to be especially disciplined because I wasn’t very motivated. I got burned out. But with this, I’m excited to go to practice and see what else I can learn. I’m excited about this new life.”

Jonathan Snowden covers combat sports for Bleacher Report.

Read more MMA news on BleacherReport.com

Is Ronda Rousey Broken or Ready to Roar Back? Her Past May Offer Some Clues

The kick the UFC doesn’t want you to see landed squarely on the neck, immaculately timed and perfectly placed. The result was instantaneous—the complete removal of UFC champion Ronda Rousey’s motor skill and higher-level functioning.
There were 5…

There were 56,214 people in attendance at Etihad Stadium in Melbourne, Australia, that night, the largest crowd in UFC history. But for a brief moment, silence reigned.

For the first time ever, a woman other than Rousey was UFC bantamweight champion. That fact required a bit of processing.

More than a mere fighter crashed to the mat that night in Australia. A legend fell as well. Maybe even a sport.

Rousey was women’s MMA. She dragged it, almost single-handedly, into the light, overruling UFC President Dana White‘s objection to having women fight in the promotion with her overwhelming combination of violence and good looks.

“Once in a lifetime does not apply to Ronda Rousey,” announcer Joe Rogan once said. “It’s once ever in human history.”

Now, more than a year later, Rousey will finally attempt to get up off the mat, to prove to herself and the world that she’s the champion we all wanted so badly for her to be. The division has played a game of hot potato with the championship in her absence, but new standard-bearer Amanda Nunes has the kind of well-rounded game Rousey lacks.

Is the woman who dominated a sport, carrying it on her back from the fringes to the spotlight with her indomitable will, still lurking inside a seemingly broken husk?

Rousey is not tipping her hand.

“I don’t care about anything except for winning this fight,” Rousey told the UFC 207 Embedded cameras in a brief appearance. “And I’m not spending energy on anything else.”

With her media boycott as firm as ever, we can only guess what she’s thinking and feeling. But, as is often the case, the key to predicting the future can be found in past.

Holly Holm, it turns out, didn’t care one bit about any of the bombast and hyperbole about the great Ronda Rousey. Hers was a victory for professional coaching, for the blur, stink and thrum of the gym, for orthodoxy over emotion, precision over power.

Rousey charged like a bull, at one point crashing into the cage in a wild attempt to do Holm harm, her own impotence only fueling her rage. The southpaw Holm, ever so calmly, stepped to the side, a tall blonde torero delivering doom one cracking left hand at a time.

Jimmy Pedro Jr., America’s first two-time Olympic judo medalist and Rousey‘s former coach, watched the fight from his home in Boston. It was a crystallization of all his fears, the reason he discouraged her from pursuing a career in mixed martial arts.

Time had proved him wrong. He could admit that much. MMA had made Rousey richer and more famous than a judo gold medal ever could. But just maybe, Holm had validated his concerns about his former protege entering the wacky world of professional prizefighting.

“The entire planet thought that Ronda was invincible,” he says. “She had all of this pressure to finish every fight—fast. For Ronda, it was no longer even just about winning. It was about annihilating people.

“She had all this fame, all this notoriety, all this feeling of invincibility. And, in that fight, she got hit early in the face, and it rocked her. That’s when panic and anxiety set in. And she didn’t have the ability to really think coherently the rest of the fight. When an athlete goes through an anxiety dump, they can’t function. They’re exhausted. And I think that’s what happened with Ronda.”

For the first time in her 13 fights as a professional mixed martial artist, Rousey truly got hit in the mouth. Her response, to put it kindly, disappointed.

“The loss to Holly Holm validated something she felt deeply,” her former strength and performance coach Leo Frincu says, “that she wasn’t good enough, that something was fundamentally wrong with her.

“In those seconds, everything she thought was true was proved wrong. Her entire world made no sense. Ronda’s reality was shattered. She was traumatized.”

A fighter battles more than her opponent across the ring. The first and hardest fight is with herself. It’s there that Rousey failed. And that, perhaps, was the most difficult part to swallow. She had spent her entire life proving others wrong. Proving them right, instead, was particularly galling.

Despite criticism of her striking technique and aptitude, Rousey had embraced her new identity as a boxer, Frincu says. She believed in it, in the idea she could create a new person from the ashes of the old.

As a judoka, Rousey was never happy. For all her success, she could never live up to the standard set by her mother, former world champion AnnMaria De Mars. Rousey had given her life to the sport, representing the United States in two Olympic Games. She even came close to winning a world championship of her own. But, in the end, it left her living out of her car after the 2008 Games, wondering what was next.

“Judo led her to rock bottom,” says 2012 and ’16 Olympic gold medalist Kayla Harrison, Rousey‘s former teammate and roommate. “I understand why she might have mixed feelings about it.”

Boxing was something new, something that was hers. Here she believed she could stand on her own, Frincu says, far from the shadow of her mother. Here was greatness to be seized on her terms.

Her professional coach, Edmond Tarverdyan, had fueled that illusion, eventually encouraging her belief that she could stand and trade with Holm, one of the best female boxers of all time.

“I bet she felt like a fraud,” Frincu says. “Or even more, the way she lost to Holm, Ronda probably felt like she can never escape her past, can never feel good about herself. Boxing, or her new and better self, let her down that night. That explains her suicidal thoughts and the reason she collapsed emotionally. It is a pretty lonely life being Ronda Rousey.”

As great as she’d been, when the lights were brightest, Rousey had failed to live up to expectations. Worse still, every weakness—every secret fear a fighter harbors about her own competence, heart and skill—was confirmed for all to see.

“There is pressure in judo, and you want to win, but it’s not like the whole world is watching you,” Harrison says. “Even at the Olympics, judo is not a mainstream sport in America. It’s not like she came home and people said, ‘Oh God, Ronda, you only got a bronze.’ They were like, ‘Oh God, Ronda, congrats!’

“Whereas in the Holm fight, it felt like do or die for her. There was so much pressure, and she was trying to please so many people. It caught up to her in that fight.”

Rousey hid her face upon her return from Australia, too crushed to face her public.

“I’m just really f–king sad,” she told ESPN The Magazine‘s Ramona Shelburne (warning: explicit language) one month after her shocking loss. “I just feel so embarrassed.”

While no one with her level of fame can truly escape, Rousey has done her best. She addressed the fight a single time in the media in a carefully controlled interview with Ellen DeGeneres that made international news for its revelation of suicidal thoughts.

“In that exact second, I’m like, ‘I’m nothing. What do I do anymore?'” a tearful Rousey, whose father Ron committed suicide when she was eight years old, told DeGeneres. “No one gives a s–t about me anymore without this.”

And, with that bombshell, Ronda Rousey—aspiring movie star, rising pop culture icon, endorser of products, creator of catchphrases and oh by the way the most famous fighter in the world—was gone.

Rousey was a top prospect from day one in the sport. Even back in 2010, she could have had her pick of top gyms and trainers. Instead, she focused on an unknown Armenian with no track record of success before she had arrived.

For months, she would stare longingly at Edmond Tarverdyan as he trained other, lesser fighters. It’s unclear, even as she tells the story in her autobiography, My Fight/Your Fight, why exactly that was.

But this man, the alpha dog in his own tiny yard, wanted no part of working with her. And that drove Rousey toward him, not away, much to the chagrin of her outspoken mother.

“He is extremely disrespectful to women,” De Mars told Pro MMA Now’s Dr. Rhadi Ferguson in 2015. “When she walked into his gym she had been a junior world gold medalist, Olympic medalist, world medalist in judo and he didn’t give her the time of day.

“And he has had that exact same pattern with many women in the gym and I have seen it with my own eyes where they train there and it’s basically a waste of their time. And they’re talked to in a way that just makes my jaw drop.”

Frincu, a keen student of psychology, believes it was Tarverdyan‘s disinterest, feigned or not, that attracted Rousey to him.

“He may not even know he does it,” Frincu says. “Maybe it’s cultural. Maybe that’s who he is and that’s how he treats women. It just happens that the worst thing that could happen to her is pairing up with that guy.

“She associates guilt and emotional blackmail and all this poison with love. That is love to her. To show anything different than that—to show respect, to treat her like a professional and a human being—that’s foreign to her.”

Tarverdyan still has no track record of success with fighters not named Ronda Rousey, but for a time, their partnership worked. Rousey was eons ahead of most of her opponents on the mat, a luxury that allowed her to focus her attention on the stand-up fighting that intrigued and excited her. It was an area she had never explored before and one that, despite her overwhelming success, allowed her to assume the role of dark horse.

“Each athlete is different and has her own way of being motivated,” Harrison says. “I think Ronda does best when she’s the underdog. You have something to prove, you have that bit in your mouth. You’re hungry.”

Rousey has written that her tumultuous relationship with Tarverdyan—one Frincu says could include dozens of messages and calls an hour, even in her off time—was making her a better fighter. His erratic and emotional coaching, she wrote in My Fight/Your Fight, helped prepare her for the vagaries of the cage:

Edmond is really good about pushing me to use my anger as a tool. In training, he will purposely ignore me or make comments to try to make me emotional, and put me in a situation where I have to suppress it…

He would intentionally do things to try to get me aggravated before I sparred. He would ignore or snap at me, and I would get upset because I didn’t understand why he was acting that way.

What Rousey saw as a calculated attempt at introducing chaos, others viewed as rank incompetence.

“I think Edmond is a terrible coach and I will say it publicly,” De Mars told Humberto Guida of LatiNation in 2015. “I think he’s a terrible coach. I think he hit the lottery when Ronda walked in there.”

“Every time I go in his gym, he used to say, ‘How are you?’ And I’d say, ‘How the f–k do you think I am? I’m in your f–king gym and I f–king hate you!'” she said in a section of the video later removed from the internet but transcribed by Bloody Elbow.

“I would run him over with my car if there wasn’t a law against it,” she continued. “I hate that guy! He’s like the most worthless human being God ever put on this earth.”

The breaking point for Frincu came during shooting for The Ultimate Fighter in June 2013.

Rousey is an emotional person on her best day.

“She cries six times a day,” De Mars says. “And that’s just when she loses her phone.”

But this, Frincu says, was different. Rousey and teammate Marina Shafir were emotional wrecks, all jangly nerves and inexplicable fear. Their hair, he says, was falling out, and the vibe was all wrong.

“The way he talked to her—wow, what I witnessed,” Frincu says. “The way he talked to everybody, going on these rants. Cursing about how terrible she is. I didn’t feel physically safe. I’m a guy who can take care of himself, but I felt uncomfortable. The next morning I took a plane and I left.”

Tarverdyan did not respond to interview requests for this story.

Like Frincu and almost everyone else in her life, the support structure Rousey had created for herself during the taping of the show soon vanished. The “Four Horsewomen,” Rousey‘s posse of friends, left Tarverdyan‘s Glendale Fighting Club for more emotionally healthy homes. After all, when not forced into the foxhole, most soldiers aren’t keen on taking fire day after day.

“It’s all emotional,” Frincu says. “There’s no logic in that camp. And that makes it very unstable. It’s like walking on eggshells. It’s terrible. It’s so stressful to be in that camp. It’s supposed to be hard work. But it has to be rational. There has to be a plan. Everything there is rage and anger.”

More than ever, at least from the brief glimpse provided to Shelburne, emotion will be Rousey‘s guiding principle in the cage. Her motto, once “Retire Undefeated,” is now “F–k Them All.”

It’s a catchphrase designed to isolate Rousey from everyone on the outside. But all the bluster in the world can’t completely rebuild her emotional defenses. Shelburne wrote:

Rousey still cries sometimes as she relives details from the fight. It’s painful and embarrassing. But she is the one who kept saying yes to everything. She left herself vulnerable going into the fight, and Holm made her pay. Rousey‘s got to own that.

It’s easy to fall back down that shame spiral, but that’s not productive anymore. Now she has to train and feel strong again. To remember why she fights. That was the point of coming up to this cabin. Having a physical boundary is essential for someone who has trouble setting any limits on herself. It’s a way of compartmentalizing.

Tarverdyan‘s continued emphasis on Rousey‘s striking game, despite her failures in that realm, give some critics pause. Even between the only two rounds of the Holm fight, Tarverdyan never once suggested the best grappler in women’s MMA take the bout to the mat. Singularity of focus can work—but in this case it seems to be misplaced.

Just as off-putting are the stories Rousey is telling the world, and perhaps even herself, about the Holm fight. In Shelburne‘s ESPN story, she said she had only 44 days to prepare for UFC 193.

While the fight was rescheduled for an earlier date than originally planned, Rousey had more than 10 weeks to prepare. The standard fight camp is eight weeks long.

“It’s almost like there’s not a real world around her,” Frincu says. “Nobody keeps it real. It’s almost like a self-destructive organism.”

Frincu is concerned about reports from the Fight Network’s Robin Black and others that Rousey needed to be consoled after a staged staredown with Nunes at UFC 205, as well as with her refusal to confront the press she feels abandoned her when things were darkest.

And he’s not alone. Rousey, for the first time in her career, is only a slight favorite with oddsmakers listed on OddsShark, and many in the media are picking against her for the first time.

“She went MIA and blamed it on the media…it’s a little scary,” former boyfriend and UFC heavyweight Brendan Schaub told The Pony Hour podcast. “She also said something like this is one of my last ones, and whenever a fighter even hints that this might be the last one, they’re one foot in, one foot out, or both feet out. When they say that, they get annihilated, and if I hear that, I always take the other guy.”

Those closest to her from her judo days are less concerned and more confident in Rousey‘s ability to move ever forward.

“I don’t think there are unconquerable problems with her game or her character,” Harrison says. “It’s just a matter of getting back to basics and staying true to who she is. She’s a fighter first.

“She’s come back from losses before. She wasn’t undefeated in judo. She lost in the world championships and was able to come back at the Olympics and be successful. I know she’s capable of doing that again.”

Pedro, her former coach, agrees.

“I think she needed the time off. She needed to heal,” he says. “She was severely depressed. She needed the time to put things in perspective and realize, again, that everyone is human. Everyone gets beat. No one is invincible.

“When Ronda has something to prove to the world, she’s tough. It’s the way she was brought up. It’s part of her DNA. The Ronda that I know, you have to kill her. She’s never going to quit. If she’s alive and breathing, she’s still fighting.”

Pedro’s prediction: “I think she’s going to come out, win this fight and you may never see her again.”

Jonathan Snowden covers combat sports for Bleacher Report. All quotes and information obtained firsthand except as noted.

Read more MMA news on BleacherReport.com

Gray Maynard on the Most Exasperating Fight of His UFC Career with Ryan Hall

Professional prizefighters are not, typically, morning people. They conduct their business at night, whether in glitzy casinos, Indian reservations or National Guard armories. Fighters prepare their bodies to be at peak efficiency in the evenings&mdash…

But at 5 a.m. Sunday morning, roughly 10 hours after his 23rd MMA contest at The Ultimate Fighter 24 Finale, former UFC title contender Gray Maynard reached out. His loss to Ryan Hall, jiu-jitsu artist and professional flopper, rankled. He hadn’t slept, not a wink, and wanted to talk with somebody, anybody, who is willing to do a post-mortem on the most frustrating bout of his career.

“I’ve just been going over it in my head,” Maynard told Bleacher Report. “I checked it out on tape. It’s definitely frustrating. I get that you want to play keep away. But every time a guy gets within two feet, you can’t just sprint away or just drop to the floor. He literally just dropped down to the floor. To the f–king floor. I’ve never seen that in my life.”

When Maynard says he hasn’t seen something in the cage, that carries weight. He’s fought a collection of the sport’s best fighters, including top strikers, wrestlers and jiu-jitsu players. Frankie Edgar, Nate Diaz and Kenny Florian have all fallen to his potent combination of NCAA All-American wrestling and heavy hands.

Hall, however, is a different beast entirely.

A proponent of the 50-50 position in Brazilian jiu-jitsu, an esoteric leglock-heavy style that has earned him a bevy of wins in grappling contests, Hall is a fearsome submission artist. In his world, one spent on the mat in front of light crowds at grappling contests streamed on the internet for a niche audience, he’s as good as they come.

While some of Hall’s gymnastics were meant to be offensive in nature—something Maynard trained for with Wolfgang Steel at Xtreme Couture in Las Vegas—there were nearly as many somersaults with no discernible purpose other than avoiding contact. At times, he even sprinted across the cage to avoid a standing exchange.

According to MMAjunkie’s Steven Marrocco, Hall’s unorthodox style made it clear he wasn‘t looking for a conventional fight: “Hall made no effort to hide his desire to get the fight to the mat, repeatedly somersaulting to the ground as Maynard got within spitting distance of a punch…The dance wasn’t the most entertaining to watch; the audience certainly wasn’t amused after more than two rounds of it.”

Seven times in the first round alone Hall dropped to the mat when he sensed danger. On two other occasions, he turned his back and ran from the action. The rest of the fight played out in similar fashion, with Hall throwing kicks from long distance and then avoiding the fight entirely when Maynard closed in on him.

The tactics cost Maynard precious opportunities and, purposely or not, drained minutes off the clock, allowing Hall to cruise to an uneventful unanimous decision without ever really coming under fire. Fans booed him mercilessly, both in the arena and virtually on Twitter.

“Everyone who knew him told us that he was scared to death of getting punched in the face. But this is MMA. You’re bound to get punched a couple of times,” Maynard said. “I understand he’s good at jiu-jitsu. Here’s a job for him—he has to learn how to take me down. You can’t just drop to your butt. He’ll keep doing that as long as he can. But where are the rules at? Who is enforcing the rules?”

The team at Xtreme Couture had doubts when the UFC first offered the fight. Watching Hall on video, Maynard knew right away that “it’s going to be a f–king boring, awful fight.” They had seen him pull similar stunts in previous fights, though not to this extreme, and were afraid it was going to be the kind of fight that left audiences bored out of their skulls.

“We asked the ref (Chris Tognoni) in the locker room before the fight, what he was going to do,” Maynard said. “If he’s on his butt, how many times do you have to tell him to get up before you start taking action? And he told us there were rules against timidity, and that if he [Hall] avoided fighting, he was going to ding a point. Well, what was happening? The referee had no control.”

With the power of hindsight, Maynard says he would probably defy his coaches and common sense and leap into Hall’s guard. The few times Hall managed to get in on his ankles and the two engaged on the mat, Maynard didn’t feel like the jiu-jitsu ace felt all that strong.

“I should have seen if he was everything he claims to be,” he said. “I would have played the game a little bit more. We were going to test him. The plan was to push him up against the cage, get the double and test him in half guard. But I couldn’t get near him without him dropping to his back or running away. I was f–king tripping, wondering, ‘Is he really doing this?'”

If he had played Hall’s game, at least they would have been playing something. But Maynard maintains he shouldn’t have been forced to make that decision. The referee, instead, should have required Hall to engage as the Unified Rules require.

“I understand that he wants to avoid punishment,” Maynard said. “But we signed the dotted line to give the people a fight. They came to see a fight. If you want to do jiu-jitsu, that’s fine. Take me to the mat—if you can. There has to be rules in place to stop that from happening.”

Usually, after a tough loss, a fighter craves nothing more than getting back in the cage with the man who vanquished him. But Maynard has no interest in another Hall fight. For the 37-year-old, it was a waste of precious time in a career that is winding down.

“This was terrible. We didn’t give the people a good look. We didn’t give the sport a good look,” Maynard said. “I don’t want to fight that guy again. That was the most annoying bulls–t.”

Jonathan Snowden covers combat sports for Bleacher Report.

Read more MMA news on BleacherReport.com