The world of mixed martial arts was rocked today with the announcement that Cristiane Santos tested positive for anabolic steroids.According to MMAJunkie.com, “Cyborg” has been suspended for one year and fined $2,500 by the California State Athletic Co…
The world of mixed martial arts was rocked today with the announcement that Cristiane Santos tested positive for anabolic steroids.
According to MMAJunkie.com, “Cyborg” has been suspended for one year and fined $2,500 by the California State Athletic Commission for testing positive for stanozolol metabolites following the defense of her Strikeforce Women’s Featherweight Championship title against Hiroko Yamanaka on December 17th.
Her win over Yamanaka at the Valley View Casino Center in San Diego has also been overturned on account of her positive test. Santos has the right to appeal the suspension.
CSAC executive officer George Dodd said about the suspension:
“Our primary concern is for the health and safety of fighters. Anabolic agents and other banned substances put not only the users of those agents at risk, but their opponents as well. The commission simply will not tolerate their use.”
Santos is widely considered to be the best female fighter in the sport and earned $66,000 for the Yamanaka knockout that took her just 16 seconds to pull off. The victory had been Santos’ 11th straight overall and fifth since joining Strikeforce. It was Santos’ third successful title defense and her first foray into a fight in 18 months, on the heels of a prolonged contract dispute.
Santos had long been suspected of “doping” in some form or fashion but had not tested positive until December.
Wanderlei Silva may be just a shell of his former self, but even that was more than enough for “The Axe Murderer” to crush Cung Le at UFC 139.”The Human Highlight Reel” came out as the aggressor early on, though his big swings resulted in misses that l…
Wanderlei Silva may be just a shell of his former self, but even that was more than enough for “The Axe Murderer” to crush Cung Le at UFC 139.
“The Human Highlight Reel” came out as the aggressor early on, though his big swings resulted in misses that left him dangerously vulnerable to Wanderlei’s vicious fists. That didn’t seem to bother Le, at least early on, as he showered Silva with spinning backfists and twirling kicks, each of which seemed to do more to rile the crowd than actually damage his experienced competitor.
Silva managed to cause some damage above one of Le’s eyes, seizing on the advantage in vision to fit in some big fists before the round came to a close.
The second round began peculiarly, as Silva slipped and fell back, though not for long enough for Le to gain any sort of advantage. After a bit of dancing, Silva slugged Le with a huge right hand, after which Le continued to come at Silva with kicks but ultimately left himself open for a Brazilian-style head bashing.
Which is precisely what happened.
Silva landed a huge right hand and a series of knees to Le’s face–enough to knock Le down and let Silva in with a flurry of fists to force referee Dan Stell to call the fight.
Silva still has a ways to climb up the Middleweight Division before he can even think about challenging fellow countryman Anderson Silva for the title belt. Even so, this is clearly a step in the right direction for Silva, who had dropped six of his previous eight fights and seven of 10, coming into Saturday’s action.
Le, on the other hand, can’t be at all pleased with how he performed in his UFC debut, though he figures to get at least another opportunity or two to prove that his multifaceted skill set and entertaining fighting style can actually work at the highest level of MMA.
At long last, Dan Henderson and Mauricio Rua met in the Octagon at UFC 139 and certainly didn’t disappoint, with Hendo earning a hard-fought victory by unanimous decision over Shogun in one of the greatest bouts in the history of mixed martial arts.The…
At long last, Dan Henderson and Mauricio Rua met in the Octagon at UFC 139 and certainly didn’t disappoint, with Hendo earning a hard-fought victory by unanimous decision over Shogun in one of the greatest bouts in the history of mixed martial arts.
The two former Light Heavyweight champions, Hendon in Strikeforce and Shogun in the UFC, bludgeoned and bloodied each other over five grueling rounds, after which both fighters congratulated each other and wondered which superstar would win on the judges’ scorecards.
So did everyone else at HP Pavilion in San Jose, Joe Rogan included.
The fight began with a spirited first round—and an even more spirited right hand from Hendo, who went in for a guillotine on Shogun but couldn’t quite pull it off, settling instead for a flurry of fists on his Brazilian challenger. Undeterred (this turned out to be a recurring theme), Shogun came back with a big blow of his own, turning the tables on Hendo by taking him to the mat and getting in a few punches for good measure.
Hendo appeared to be in troubled but managed to stave off an early defeat by hanging on to Rua’s leg. The two returned to their feet and traded a few blows until the horn sounded on a round that proved to be the entire fight in microcosm in the end.
From there, these two giants of the Light Heavyweight Division who had long hoped to meet in the Octagon, dished and absorbed punishment for four more edge-of-your-seat rounds. The second round came and went largely without incident as the combatants traded blows.
It wasn’t until the third round that the bout took a definitive turn, as Hendo clocked a weary Shogun with a pair of strong uppercuts before slugging him to the mat. Hendo wasted little time pouncing on Rua and unleashed his fists of fury, bloodying and bruising Shogun’s face without remorse.
Yet, after all that, Shogun persisted, fighting through a failed submission attempt by Hendo to get back on his feet, much to the amazement of the attendant crowd.
The tide turned in Shogun’s favor from that point on, as the big Brazilian seemed to regain his strength and composure with each passing second. Hendo spent the final two rounds in retreat, looking tired and injured, while a winded Rua strung together a series of full mounts with weary blows and ill-fated submission attempts sprinkled between the blood and sweat that dripped from his beaten brow.
In the end, it was Hendo whose performance curried greater favor from the judges at cage side, his big rounds coming off more convincingly than Shogun’s.
Now, with his return to the UFC after a 28-month hiatus a rousing success, Hendo will look forward to a shot at the Light Heavyweight Championship that eluded him in his previous stint, awaiting the winner of the Jon Jones-Lyoto Machida title fight at UFC 140 and hoping that Rashad Evans finds a way to knock himself out of the running once again.
As for Shogun, he has absolutely nothing to be ashamed of. He battled back from the brink of defeat to come within striking distance of another win over a big-ticket contender. If anything, the resilience that Rua demonstrated will only strengthen his profile among the ever-growing legions of MMA fans around the world.
Though he certainly wouldn’t have minded having more to show for his efforts on Saturday night than a severely swollen mug.
The real winners in all of this, though, were the fans, who were treated to arguably the greatest fight the UFC has ever seen. Somewhere, UFC president Dana White is smiling…and shouting into a microphone next to Joe Rogan.
Forget about predictions by mixed martial arts experts and veteran UFC combatants. If you want to know what’s going to happen when Cain Velasquez and Junior Dos Santos meet in the Octagon for UFC on FOX at the Honda Center in Anaheim, just “ask” UFC Un…
Forget about predictions by mixed martial arts experts and veteran UFC combatants. If you want to know what’s going to happen when Cain Velasquez and Junior Dos Santos meet in the Octagon for UFC on FOX at the Honda Center in Anaheim, just “ask” UFC Undisputed 3.
The newest Ultimate Fighting Championship video game, set for release in February of 2012, has already predicted that Velasquez will retain his Heavyweight Championship with a second-round TKO of Dos Santos, using a vicious display of ground-and-pound to finish off his Brazilian challenger.
That should come as no surprise, considering everyone and their mother has been pointing to Velasquez as the favorite in this fight. Velasquez is the far superior wrestler, having come up as an All-American on the mat at Arizona State, but has more than enough skill and strength as a striker to hang with JDS on his feet. If/when this bout goes to the ground, the odds will swing decisively in Velasquez’s favor, particularly given Dos Santos’ lack of live practice with his jiu jitsu in the Octagon.
Of course, it’s entirely possible that everyone is simply underestimating how good Dos Santos is as a striker, as he’s never had to put his jiu jitsu to much use. Similar thing were said about Jon “Bones” Jones heading into his recent fight with Quinton “Rampage” Jackson, except that Jones, rather than being untested as a grappler, had never had to deal with adversity in the Octagon.
Jones wasted little time in that fight reminding the MMA world exactly why he’d never had to handle damage—because he was that good at using his incredible length to avoid damage and beat the stuffing out of his opponents in the process.
Chances are, that won’t be the case with Dos Santos, if for no other reason than he’s not the more talented fighter in this matchup. That distinction belongs decisively to Velasquez, who will parlay his dominant 2010 win over Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira, Dos Santos’ jiu jitsu trainer and the top cop in his camp, into success in his first title defense.
Then again, if Velasquez falls flat, then perhaps we’ll have to reconsider just how accurate the new UFC video game is.
Ultimately, though, expect Velasquez to push all the right buttons in the Octagon to put Dos Santos out relatively early and retain his title belt in the process.
It’s never easy to see a legend like B.J. Penn bid farewell to his craft so abruptly, but watching him suffer another bludgeoning like he did at the hands of Nick Diaz at UFC 137 would have been even worse.His face swollen, bruised and bloodied from th…
It’s never easy to see a legend like B.J. Penn bid farewell to his craft so abruptly, but watching him suffer another bludgeoning like he did at the hands of Nick Diaz at UFC 137 would have been even worse.
His face swollen, bruised and bloodied from three rounds enduring Diaz’s fists of fury, “The Prodigy” announced to the attendant crowd at the Mandalay Bay Events Center in Las Vegas that he was calling it quits, saying that mixed martial arts had clearly passed him by and that he did not want to subject his children, one growing up and another on the way, to the horror of seeing their father suffer disfigurement and embarrassment in the Octagon.
For that, Penn deserves a particularly deferential tip of the hat. Too often in the world of professional sports do the very best athletes hang on too long, even after it’s become abundantly clear that they can no longer compete at anywhere near the level that made them mythical figures.
That same air of invincibility, that same unflappable confidence that drives the likes of Brett Favre and Tito Ortiz to reach the pinnacle of competition is the very same thing that leaves them hanging on for too long.
Of course, the imminent danger that Penn would have faced had he decided to press on was far greater than anything a top-flight athlete in a team sport would face, as dangerous as football and hockey may be. Only in combat sports like mixed martial arts is physical harm not only assured, but required.
And make no mistake about it, Penn is, or rather was, one of the greatest and most accomplished athletes to ever step into the Octagon. He is one of only two mixed martial artists in the history of the UFC to ever earn championships in more than one weight class, following Hall-of-Famer Randy Couture in that regard.
As such, Penn will be missed, both for his tremendous skill as a fighter and his consummate professionalism.
Could he have recovered from this defeat and risen back through the ranks of the UFC? Perhaps.
That same desire to be great that lifted Penn to the top of MMA could just as easily have propelled him back into the training room, back into the gym, to heal his body and hone his craft even further.
But, then again, there’s little doubt that he saw what happened to Ortiz, the “Huntington Beach Bad Boy” against Rashad Evans at UFC 133. Chances are, in that moment after the loss to Diaz, Penn realized that he didn’t want to bow out after winning only one of his last seven fights.
Even if Penn hadn’t been beaten so soundly or even if he’d emerged victorious from Sin City on Saturday, his decision to leave the UFC for good would have been just as respectable. In a rare display of humility and mortal wisdom among superstar athletes, B.J. Penn put his well-being and that of his family before personal glory.
And for that, MMA fans everywhere should bid Penn a fond farewell.
Matt Mitrione came into UFC 137 needing to pass an important test against Cheick Kongo to prove that he belonged among a loaded Heavyweight Division.And while “Meathead” came up short against “The Darkness”, there remains no shortage of hopeful light a…
Matt Mitrione came into UFC 137 needing to pass an important test against Cheick Kongo to prove that he belonged among a loaded Heavyweight Division.
And while “Meathead” came up short against “The Darkness”, there remains no shortage of hopeful light at the end of what is still a long and promising tunnel of a mixed martial arts career for the former NFL football player.
The key for Mitrione, now 5-1 after just six fights, is to learn from his first defeat and to improve those aspects of his game that he likely already knew were weaknesses coming in. To be fair, Mitrione didn’t necessarily do any one thing all that poorly, at least in relation to Kongo. The fight was close throughout, as reflected by the judges’ scorecards.
Mitrione’s only glaring folly was the slow, deliberate pace at which he fought, one that suited Kongo’s slow-footed style all too well. Coming into the bout, Mitrione’s best chance to win lay in his latent athleticism, which he’d put to superb use in making the transition from the gridiron to the Octagon.
Instead, Mitrione was a bit too plodding and perhaps too careful from the get-go, taking his time sizing up Kongo rather than trying to dictate terms with his superior speed and strength. Mitrione seemed to play right into the hands of his more experienced competitor, thereby showing his own lack in that very same department.
With that being said, Mitrione’s performance, while certainly disappointing, can hardly be characterized as a failure, particularly in the big picture. Though his age (33) would suggest otherwise, Mitrione’s MMA career is just getting started. He only figures to get better from here on out, now that he’s had the opportunity to face a quality opponent.
They may call Mitrione “Meathead”, but he certainly seems smart enough to realize that he has a great deal of work left to do, and driven enough to do what needs to be done to become a contender in the Heavyweight Division.
Wanderlei Silva may be just a shell of his former self, but even that was more than enough for “The Axe Murderer” to crush Cung Le at UFC 139.