You have to hand it to Conor McGregor. The man is as smooth as silk, as slick as snot on a doorknob and as cool as polar bear feet.
He’s taking care of business as usual.
Most contenders would be hitting the panic button after hearing news of an …
You have to hand it to ConorMcGregor. The man is as smooth as silk, as slick as snot on a doorknob and as cool as polar bear feet.
He’s taking care of business as usual.
Most contenders would be hitting the panic button after hearing news of an injury that could put the biggest fight of their careers on ice. Not to mention, this news is coming a little over two weeks out from the actual fight.
Fox Sports’ Damon Martin, per Globo in Brazil, reported that UFC featherweight champion Jose Aldo suffered a rib injury during a sparring session on Tuesday. The injury is reportedly a fractured rib, which puts his blockbuster championship showdown with McGregor at UFC 189 in jeopardy.
While everyone else runs around like a chicken with its heads cut off, McGregor tweeted a picture of himself still in full training mode, busting out front splits like he’s on the set of a Jean-Claude Van Damme movie.
Injury news of this magnitude is devastating to the fight community, seeing as Aldo vs. McGregor was billed as the biggest featherweight fight in MMA history. The UFC reportedly spent millions of dollars in promotional efforts for the event, which received a world tour and one of the most ambitious theatrical hype trailers ever for an MMA fight.
When speaking with MMAFighting.com in May, UFC President Dana White said he expected the event to do over a million pay-per-view buys.
“Over a million PPV buys and we’ll probably break even. That’s how much money we’re spending. We’re spending lot of money. …It’s the most expensive commercial we’ve ever shot, but without a doubt the most bad ass commercial we’ve ever done.”
According to MMAFighting’sGuilherme Cruz, Aldo’s injury could possibly require three-to-four weeks of treatment.
He has yet to officially pull out of the fight.
JordyMcElroy is a featured columnist for Bleacher Report. He also is the MMA writer for FanRag Sports and co-founder of The MMA Bros.
Cain Velasquez wasn’t the only victim of Mexico City’s high altitude at UFC 188 on June 13. Lightweight contender Gilbert Melendez claims being 7,382 feet above sea level had a major impact on his performance against Eddie Alvarez, accordin…
Cain Velasquez wasn’t the only victim of Mexico City’s high altitude at UFC 188 on June 13. Lightweight contender Gilbert Melendez claims being 7,382 feet above sea level had a major impact on his performance against Eddie Alvarez, according to Marc Raimondi of MMA Fighting.
Melendez, who has years of experience competing in five-round bouts, doesn’t have a history of gassing out, but he was noticeably sluggish around the midway mark of the second round. Alvarez capitalized by securing crucial takedowns that ultimately led to his winning a split decision.
Melendez wishes he could have set up camp earlier in Mexico like Fabricio Werdum did for his bout against Velasquez. Refusing to take any chances of altitude ruining his title run, the Brazilian heavyweight contender arrived in Mexico a month early to prepare for the fight. The pre-planning and extra acclimation efforts obviously paid off for Werdum, who went on to defeat Velasquez and win the UFC title.
Despite arriving a couple of weeks early, Velasquez, who is widely considered one of the most conditioned athletes in MMA, stumbled around the cage in complete exhaustion after only one round of action.
During the UFC 188 post-fight press conference, he admitted he probably needed more time to acclimate to the altitude. When appearing on The MMA Hour, Melendez echoed those same feelings after his second consecutive loss, though he insisted an insufficient budget played a major role in his delayed arrival:
I wish I could have been there a month earlier. I wish I had a budget and pay that I could fly out all my training partners. Realistically, you can’t just get out there five, six weeks early. Maybe Fabricio did it. It would have been tough to fly all my partners, my coaches who actually have the business at the gym. It just didn’t make sense.
Melendez and Velasquez weren’t the only fighters on the UFC 188 fight card who cited a negative reaction to the altitude.
Andrew Todhunter stepped in as a late replacement for Hector Urbina against Albert Tumenov. However, he passed out two days prior to the weigh-ins while attempting to cut weight. The bout was canceled a day later. He blamed the high elevation for his body shutting down, per Raimondi.
According to his coach Trevor Wittman, Nate Marquardt had blood-pressure issues leading up to his middleweight bout with Kelvin Gastelum.
“It was probably the altitude,” he said, when also speaking with MMA Fighting.
Marquardt’s difficulties with the altitude in Mexico City speaks volumes to the conditions that fighters were competing in, since he constantly trains at high altitude in Denver.
Despite everything that happened, Melendez isn’t going to let one bad experience deter him from returning to Mexico, but he admits the UFC might have to sweeten the deal a bit for a second venture that high above sea level.
“It doesn’t mean I’m scared to go back there,” he said. “If the price was right, the stars were aligned, I would definitely go back.”
JordyMcElroy is a featured columnist for Bleacher Report. He also is the MMA writer for FanRag Sports and co-founder of The MMA Bros.
Bellator 138 featured a 51-year-old UFC Hall of Famer fighting against a 41-year-old street fighter turned MMA fighter. The end result was ridiculously underwhelming. Seriously, the fight was so bad it has caused many in the sports community to contemp…
Bellator 138 featured a 51-year-old UFC Hall of Famer fighting against a 41-year-old street fighter turned MMA fighter. The end result was ridiculously underwhelming. Seriously, the fight was so bad it has caused many in the sports community to contemplate whether or not it was fixed.
Check out this burn from Fox Sports 1’s Garbage Time host Katie Nolan.
But despite a sloppy performance, Kimbo Slice and Ken Shamrock took the Bellator promotion to new heights last Friday by breaking its all-time viewership record by 27 percent.
The promotion broke its all-time viewership record for Bellator 138, the Kimbo Slice vs. Ken Shamrock-led card, doing 1.58 million viewers on average for the three-hour presentation from the Scottrade Center in St. Louis. The highest quarter hour was the main event, which did 2.1 million viewers.
[…]
The number beat the previous record by 27 percent, beating the promotion’s old record of 1.24 million viewers on average for the Nov. 15 show that was headlined by Tito Ortizvs. Stephan Bonnar. The Ortiz vs. Bonnar main event did 1.84 million viewers for the peak quarter hour.
Kimbo defeated Shamrock by TKO at two minutes, 22 seconds in the first round after surviving an early takedown and a rear-naked choke attempt.
The Scottrade Center in St. Louis played host to the record-breaking event, which also featured Bellator stars Michael Chandler, Patricio Freire, Bobby Lashley and Daniel Straus.
JordyMcElroy is a featured columnist for Bleacher Report. He also is the MMA writer for FanRag Sports and co-founder of The MMA Bros.
Last Friday’s inevitable showdown between Kimbo Slice and Ken Shamrock was like watching an episode of Jersey Shore. We all knew it would be a train wreck, but we couldn’t look away.
So we watched as a 51-year-old UFC Hall of Famer stepped …
Last Friday’s inevitable showdown between Kimbo Slice and Ken Shamrock was like watching an episode of Jersey Shore. We all knew it would be a train wreck, but we couldn’t look away.
So we watched as a 51-year-old UFC Hall of Famer stepped into the cage against a 41-year-old street fighter turned MMA fighter. Neither had competed in the last five years.
“The World’s Most Dangerous Man” or “The World’s Oldest Man to Headline a Bellator Event” was ushered into the cage by members of his family and Road Warrior Animal, a professional wrestling legend. Meanwhile, Kimbo entered the cage, jumbo beard and all, with highlights of some of his best backyard knockouts playing on the big screen.
There was definitely excitement in the air, but it wasn’t the kind you’d expect from a major MMA promotion with a legitimate stable of talent. This had the rumblings of a spectacle. It took me back to the days of running through high school corridors alongside my classmates to catch the weekly brawl in the cafeteria.
To put it bluntly, the circus was in town.
Bellator 138 even received a cutesy title to go along with its headliner—“Unfinished Business.” It was a bit ironic considering Slice and Shamrock’s business was finished a long time ago. Shamrock had only won two fights in the last decade, and Kimbo had settled into a career of taking fights against no-named boxers.
Yet there they stood in the center of the cage serving as a headliner for a major MMA event. The bout started with Shamrock shooting in for a takedown and Kimbo falling backwards like a ton of bricks. He immediately transitioned to Kimbo’s back and sunk in the leg hooks, while attempting to slip his arm under Kimbo’s chin for a rear-naked choke.
After grimacing for a few seconds, Kimbohulked up and manually peeled Shamrock’s arm from his neck, allowing space for an escape. Once he made it back to his feet, Kimbo stalked Shamrock to the cage before dropping him with a thunderous right hand.
And that was all, folks. The bout ended, Kimbo and Shamrock hugged it out and the Scottrade Center in St. Louis emptied. It was the culmination of months of promotional effort behind a pair of non-contenders who might never fight again. Even the Bellator featherweight title fight between Patricio Freire and Daniel Weichel took a backseat to this grudge match.
Many aren’t convinced the fight was real to begin with. Here’s what UFC commentator Joe Rogan had to say about Kimbo’s first-round TKO over Shamrock on the Joe Rogan Experiencepodcast show:
That fight looked fake as f–k. There’s a couple things I don’t like about that fight. I don’t like that clinch. That long clinch that they had when they were mouth to ear. They were mouth to each other’s ears for a long f—–g time. To me, the whole thing… the entrance looked so suspect because he was shaking everybody’s hand. It didn’t look like he was about to go to a fight. It looked like he was about to go put on a performance.
UFC heavyweight Brendan Schaub echoed Rogan’s suspicions during the show:
If you watch Kimbo fight when he was in the UFC, when he was fighting Mitrione and Houston Alexander, that m———–r’s taking it serious. Now when he fought Ken Shamrock, he’s talking to him in the ring before the entrance. The baddest m———–r on the Earth really don’t talk like that.
Katie Nolan, the host of Fox Sports 1’s Garbage Time, didn’t hold back when criticizing the Bellator 138 main event, either.
If the fight was a ruse, Kimbo and Shamrock didn’t put much effort into making it enjoyable enough to warrant a rematch. We’ve seen better performances from WWE’s Eugene. This is where the conspiracy talk nosedives a bit for me.
My expectations are exceptionally low for both fighters during this twilight juncture in their careers. Shamrock, in particular, is in the post-twilight era of his career. Did people actually expect to be wowed in a professional fight between middle-aged men?
We weren’t witnessing Randy Couture or Dan Henderson here.
However, I would be naïve to completely ignore the spectacle-driven hype for this fight. The over-the-top trash-talking, embellished entrances and few punches thrown in the actual fight was a bit fishy.
But in the end, I keep getting brought back to the notion of sanity and professional competition. Shamrock wouldn’t purposely eat a free right hand from Kimbo Slice to throw a fight he’d gone all-in to train for—right?
JordyMcElroy is a featured columnist for Bleacher Report. He also is the MMA writer for FanRag Sports and co-founder of The MMA Bros.
Joanna Jedrzejczyk wasn’t too happy with Jessica Penne throwing her gifted necklace into the screaming crowd at Friday’s weigh-ins. So she gave Penne a gift she couldn’t toss to the wayside and ignore—a third professional l…
Joanna Jedrzejczyk wasn’t too happy with Jessica Penne throwing her gifted necklace into the screaming crowd at Friday’s weigh-ins. So she gave Penne a gift she couldn’t toss to the wayside and ignore—a third professional loss.
UFC Fight Night 69 served as the coming out party for the strawweight division’s first star.
Earlier this year, Jedrzejczyk staked her claim as the baddest 115-pound woman on the planet by using former UFC champ Carla Esparza as a punching bag and letting her limp body fall into the waiting arms of referee Don Turnage.
Berlin, Germany, played host to the inaugural title defense of Europe’s first female UFC champion. It was a car race, and all Penne saw was Jedrzejczyk’s smoke. The Octagon was left looking like a CSI crime scene as Jedrzejczyk punched, kicked and elbowed Penne’s face into cherry pudding. The official TKO stop time came at 4:22 in Round 3.
Here is what we learned from the UFC Fight Night 69 main event.
What We’ll Remember About the Fight
No one will be forgetting Christmas at the weigh-ins anytime soon. Call her Santa Jedrzejczyk because the champ was making it rain with gifts on Friday. She even brought a backup necklace as a gift offering after Penne flung the first one into the crowd.
As for the actual fight, we’ll remember Penne’s blood painting the white canvas like a bad graffiti job. Jedrzejczyk looked like the female version of Anderson Silva in showing off the wide gap in technical striking.
The rest of the strawweight division has quite a way to catch up to the multiple Muay Thai world champion. Against one of the more well-rounded opponents she’s fought thus far, Jedrzejczyk once again proved she was on another level.
We’ll also remember the trillion times Jedrzejczyk’s name was mispronounced during the live broadcast. Seriously though, just call her Joanna “Champion.”
What We Learned About Jedrzejczyk
Jedrzejczyk has the potential to really bring new eyes to the strawweight division. There is more to a combat sport than punching someone in the face. Jedrzejczyk is a champion that allows her personality to shine as well as her fighting.
She isn’t merely sitting on a podium giving rehearsed answers to questions with a stoic look on her face. There’s a certain aura about her that can’t be ignored. Listen to what UFC women’s bantamweight champ Ronda Rousey and top featherweight contender Conor McGregor had to say about her recently.
What We Learned About Penne
Penne falls on the same wavelength as Esparza and Tecia Torres, which isn’t exactly a bad place to be. All three fighters have been considered the cream of the crop in the strawweight division for quite some time, but like in every weight class, eventually someone comes along and raises the bar to a whole new level.
Jedrzejczyk has done that for the strawweight division, and the rest of the ladies, including Penne, are playing catch-up. Penne is one of the premier submission artists in the division, but her wrestling and striking have yet to evolve to a point where she can dictate the fight in other areas.
She basically looked like a fish out of water against Jedrzejczyk.
What’s Next for Jedrzejczyk
Jedrzejczyk sits alone on an island surrounded by empty waters. She’s simply in a class of her own. Perhaps her closest neighbors are Claudia Gadelha and Jessica Aguilar. Gadelha battled Jedrzejczyk to a split decision in December last year, and Aguilar has long been considered one of the top 115-pound fighters in the world.
The progression of Rose Namajunas is also something to keep your eye on.
Gadelha and Aguilar are slated to fight at UFC 190 on August 1 in a bout that could determine the next contender for the UFC title.
What’s Next for Penne
During a media lunch, per MMAFighting.com, Penne claimed she would rather have a rematch with former Invicta champ Michelle Waterson than fight Jedrzejczyk for the UFC title. This fight could finally come together depending on the outcome of Waterson’s upcoming UFC debut against Angela Magana.
Waterson submitted Penne two years ago for the Atomweight title.
If that bout falls through, however, Penne will likely hop back into the mixing bowl of contenders to fight one of her old housemates from The Ultimate Fighter 20.
So you want to be a fighter?
The lavish, luxurious lifestyle of a professional athlete coupled with punching someone in the face for a living sounds easy enough to the average tough guy who is grinding away in some no-name gym.
It isn’t until a f…
So you want to be a fighter?
The lavish, luxurious lifestyle of a professional athlete coupled with punching someone in the face for a living sounds easy enough to the average tough guy who is grinding away in some no-name gym.
It isn’t until a fighter makes it to the big stage that he learns his dreams aren’t quite what they seemed.
There is no mansion, robe and crown waiting on the other side for you in the fight business. Even for fighters who do make it to the UFC, a pot of gold isn’t guaranteed at the end of the rainbow. Some enter the fight business with a contingency plan to fall back on if their fighting career doesn’t pan out.
But then there are those like Bubba McDaniel, who saw his big break as a cast member on The Ultimate Fighter 17. He couldn’t imagine doing anything else in his life. So he went all-in as a fighter with literally nothing to fall back on. That was the first mistake, according to McDaniel when speaking with MMAFighting’s Marc Raimondi:
Man, I should have started trying to get into school or something like that along with it. I should have started to go, OK what can I do for when I’m done? What happens when I finish with MMA and get my next step together? I never did that. I was so focused on just getting to the UFC, just getting a fight in the UFC, having people know my name. That was my ultimate thing.
McDaniel, a former training partner of Jon Jones, ended his run on TUF 17 as part of UFC middleweight Uriah Hall’s highlight reel. But he bounced back on finale night with a submission win over fellow cast member Gilbert Smith.
It would be McDaniel’s only moment of triumph in the UFC, as he went on to lose back-to-back bouts against Brad Tavares and Sean Strickland. There was no opportunity for a third strike for the Texas native, who was promptly released after his second loss.
A general consensus among casual fans is that all UFC fighters are financially stable—an illusion created by the mainstream sports world. However, the sad reality is that fighters aren’t paid like other professional athletes. For every Georges St-Pierre and Ronda Rousey, there are tons of fighters like McDaniel who are starving from their pint-sized piece of the pie.
You also have to factor in the price of training camps, management, travel expenses and taxes. According to McDaniel, fighting is “not that glamorous.”
He is contemplating retirement after taking a regional fight with Marvin Babe for $1,500 in Oklahoma’s Fist of Fury promotion in March. A couple of fights before that, he took on Ron Fields at heavyweight in Indiana’s Extreme Combat Challenge for free.
Things really got hard for McDaniel last October in a fight against EmilianoSordi at Bellator 128, where he suffered a herniated disc. His right side was aflame of pain, and he experienced numbness in his hand. Fighting was already out of the question until he healed, but the injury also limited his opportunities to find work outside of fighting.
It was one of the toughest moments of his life.
After being cleared to fight and defeating Babe, McDaniel took on an extra job of doing siding and mowing lawns, which nets him $60 per day on average. The struggles reached the point of him actually volunteering to go to jail last week because he couldn’t afford to pay a $159 ticket for not wearing a seatbelt.
As an inmate for a day, he got the ticket removed and three free meals: “People are like what’s wrong with manual labor. Man, I’m doing it. What do you mean what’s wrong with it? I just don’t make as much as what it would be to sit in jail. That’s just the way it was. It was more economical for me to go to jail than it was to work.”
McDaniel is far from a bitter human being. He credits fighting for giving him a positive avenue in life. Without it, he believes he would likely be wasting away in a prison cell somewhere. But he also realizes his mistakes in pursuing the same dream that drives thousands of young athletes all around the globe.
To those individuals, McDaniel offers these words of advice: “Go to school, get an education, have a good job. Something like that. Have work skills that you can fall back on if MMA doesn’t work out for you.”
JordyMcElroy is a featured columnist for Bleacher Report. He also is the MMA writer for FanRag Sports and co-founder of The MMA Bros.
You have to hand it to Conor McGregor. The man is as smooth as silk, as slick as snot on a doorknob and as cool as polar bear feet.