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Dana White Reportedly Denies That Tim Sylvia Has Already Signed Again with Zuffa

Dana White, according to Chris Palmquist of The Undergound and as tweeted by popular MMA journalist Ariel Helwani (see below), says that the hotly-rumored and widely-reported Tim Sylvia vs. Daniel Cormier fight is just that—a rumor.

Dana…

Dana White: Big Timmay isn’t signed to Strikeforce/Zuffa — mixedmartialarts.com/news/412857/Wh…

— Ariel Helwani (@arielhelwani) July 21, 2012

“Never a fact unless I say it,” the UFC president was quoted stating the denial in the report.

Fans eager to see the former UFC champion Sylvia tangle with rising Strikeforce Heavyweight Grand Prix winner Cormier have to hold their horses for the time being. For the meantime, it will be prudent to suspend their belief in the widely-reported four-fight contract that Sylvia has allegedly inked with Zuffa, and that he will be facing Cormier later this September.

Hopes ran high when White allegedly decided to give Sylvia another chance, after the latter’s highly-publicized campaign for him to be given another shot at the world’s leading MMA promotion—that he still deserves to be in its heavyweight roster.

Sylvia won the UFC heavyweight belt against Ricco Rodriguez via TKO in UFC 41 way back in 2003, then successfully defended it, also by TKO, versus Gan McGee. However, he was stripped off the title when he tested positive for stanozolol after his defense.

In 2006, he was finally allowed to reenter the UFC, and reclaimed the heavyweight title from Andrei Arlovski by TKO in the first round of UFC 59. Subsequently, he defended the title against challenger Jeff Monson by unanimous decision, but later lost it to Randy Couture.

Currently, Sylvia is on a tear, with three consecutive wins, the most recent being a 12-second, first round TKO (punches) of Randy Smith at NEF Fight Night 3 only last June.

This winning streak must have further spurred him, with the support of his fans, to book a return date with the Zuffa organization, and try his luck against the former elite Olympic wrestler in Cormier.

Well, fans now have the option of waiting for an official, or at least more categorical, statement on the matter—unless the MMA public should already accept White’s reported denial on The Underground as the final word on the now seemingly derailed hype train.

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Quinton Jackson Is Definitely Not on Chael Sonnen’s Level

Quinton “Rampage” Jackson, dressed in a white tank top and blue jeans, walked pass me one early morn of last April at the waiting area of Manila’s international airport. Except for one man beside me who quipped to his female companion…

Quinton “Rampage” Jackson, dressed in a white tank top and blue jeans, walked pass me one early morn of last April at the waiting area of Manila’s international airport.

Except for one man beside me who quipped to his female companions, “Look, that’s the guy from the UFC!” Jackson was initially largely unnoticed by the sparse crowd made up mostly of women and senior citizens.

To seize this rare chance (what’s he doing here?!), I immediately unzipped my belt bag to look for pen and paper to approach Rampage for an autograph (asking him for a short interview also crossed my mind). Unfortunately, there was paper but no pen.

I thought of having a cellphone photo taken with him, but that would be a little more tedious (for me) than just having him scribble his signature and perhaps a short greeting on a piece of paper. That would have entailed asking a stranger to take our photo, and what if he was in a bad mood or some kind of snob? (I’m a pretty shy guy. Just saying.)

Soon, from a distance I saw him meet a pretty Filipina on the sidewalk of the airport’s driveway. Soon, fans were having their photos taken with him, as he smilingly obliged. (So, he’s no snob after all.)

Finally, I saw him leave and speed away inside an SUV with his hot companion. (Yup, I think that’s an SUV, but I’m not really good at cars and their brands. But I’m pretty sure it was quite big, dark, tinted and ran on wheels. Again, just saying.)

Now, as reported and quoted by BJPenn.com, Jackson is in the news again with his trash talk repartee with Chael Sonnen, with the former firing the first shot* with,

I think Chael should keep his word and leave the UFC because that’s what he said he was gonna do if he lost. And he lost horribly. Bad! Chael sucks. He should go somewhere where people like his interviews, the way he talks shit on everybody. I can’t stand that boy. F!@k Chael.

Next, according to Opposingviews.com, Sonnen, now regaining his bluster, responded as an analyst on UFC Tonight with,

Rampage has one fight left in the UFC and he isn’t fighting me… He should stick to making box office disasters, and driving the wrong way on the freeway ramped up on Mountain Dew. He’s not on my level.

This nasty disagreement got me thinking that at least they share some commonalities.

They have this common— amateur wrestling background. And, they also share the same fate of losing championship fights twice, via stoppages, to a Silva; Jackson’s to Wanderlei in PRIDE FC and Sonnen’s to pound-for-pound king Anderson in the UFC.

I’m now also more regretful over my lost opportunity of having Jackson’s autograph or photo, of missing out on a souvenir of one who actually became a UFC champion, and eventually stopped and KO’d his Silva.

*Yup, they’ve really been going at each other for years. Please see embedded video. New video of Sonnen dissing Jackson is under FOX copyright and can not be viewed nor posted here.

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Shinya Aoki and Andrei Arlovski Grace ONE Fighting Championship Manila Presser

ONE Fighting Championship held a press conference yesterday at the Discovery Hotel in Pasig City, Metro Manila, Philippines for its ONE FC: Pride of a Nation, presenting internationally renowned fighters Shinya Aoki, Andrei Arlovski, Bibiano Fernandes,…

ONE Fighting Championship held a press conference yesterday at the Discovery Hotel in Pasig City, Metro Manila, Philippines for its ONE FC: Pride of a Nation, presenting internationally renowned fighters Shinya Aoki, Andrei Arlovski, Bibiano Fernandes, Gustavo Falciroli, Eduard “The Landslide” Folayang and Eric “The Natural” Kelly.

ONE FC CEO and owner Victor Cui—who shared to the media that his parents are Filipinos from the Southern province of Cebu—proclaimed that for the Singapore-based MMA company’s Philippine debut,

We have put together the greatest card in ONE FC history for our Manila event. When you put Shinya Aoki and Bibiano Fernandes on the same card, one can expect nothing less than an epic night of world-class MMA action like Manila has never seen before…We are beyond excited to hold this incredible card in such a passionate and pride driven city.

For the Filipino fight fans, the main event of “Asia’s largest MMA organization” pits DREAM Bantamweight Champion Bibiano Fernandes against CFC Australia Champion Gustavo Falciroli, with the venue being the historic SMART Araneta Coliseum in Quezon City. (The Araneta Coliseum also hosted the legendary boxing event “Thrilla in Manila” between Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier in 1975, among other important sporting and non-sporting events in the nation’s history.)

In the other matches, former UFC heavyweight champion Arlovski will face Soa Palelei of Australia. Another past UFC champion, Jens “Lil Evil” Pulver, will face undefeated Filipino fighter Eric Kelly.

Aoki and popular hometown fighter Folayang so far have unnamed opponents, which Cui said will be announced soon.

Clearly still the most world-famous fighters in the card, Aoki, Pulver and Arlovski aim to impress the Filipino fans with emphatic wins in their debut in Manny Pacquiao’s home country.

DREAM Lightweight Champion Aoki looks to rebound from his TKO loss in his last fight, against Eddie Alvarez in Bellator 66 last April. (Negotiations are still ongoing for a possible fight between Aoki and Kazushi Sakuraba, according to the Tobikan Judan’s interpreter.)

Little Evil Pulver wants to make it a two-fight winning streak, after winning his last match, at flyweight, last April.

Arlovski is currently running high on two consecutive knockout wins versus Ray Lopez and Travis Fulton, respectively, both in ProElite fights.

The Pit Bull commits not to repeat his folly versus legend Fedor Emelianenko, who knocked him out three years ago during their Affliction main event after he attempted an ill-timed flying knee. He vows,

I’m not going to jump again like I did to Fedor. I lost a lot of money. I learned from those fights.

Note: The ONE FC organizers advise MMA fans who plan to watch One FC: Pride of a Nation live to purchase tickets at TicketNet Philippines as early as possible to avoid the precedent in Indonesia, when there were fans who were not able to get inside the jam-packed fight venue of its Battle of Heroes event, after the tickets were sold out.

This upcoming event will be shown via live stream at www.onefc.com, at delayed telecast on ESPN Star Sports and local Philippine TV’s Channel 13 AKTV, which will run a series of build-up episodes beginning August 19.

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Shinya Aoki and Andrei Arlovski Grace ONE Fighting Championship Manila Presser

ONE FC CEO and owner Victor Cui—who shared to the media that his parents are Filipinos from the Southern province of Cebu—proclaimed that for the Singapore-based MMA company’s Philippine debut,

We have put together the greatest card in ONE FC history for our Manila event. When you put Shinya Aoki and Bibiano Fernandes on the same card, one can expect nothing less than an epic night of world-class MMA action like Manila has never seen before…We are beyond excited to hold this incredible card in such a passionate and pride driven city.

In the other matches, former UFC heavyweight champion Arlovski will face rising star Soa Palelei of Australia. Another past UFC champion, Jens Pulver, will face undefeated Filipino fighter Eric Kelly.

Aoki and popular hometown fighter Folayang so far have unnamed opponents, which Cui said will be announced soon.

Clearly still the most world-famous fighters in the card, Aoki, Pulver and Arlovski aim to impress the Filipino fans with emphatic wins in their debut in Manny Pacquiao’s home country.

Little Evil Pulver wants to make it a two-fight winning streak, after winning his last match, at flyweight, last April.

Arlovski is currently running high on two consecutive knockout wins versus Ray Lopez and Travis Fulton, respectively, both in ProElite fights.

I’m not going to jump again like I did to Fedor. I lost a lot of money. I learned from those fights.

The former UFC heavyweight titlist was the wackiest in the press conference, even imitating Gerard Butler’s King Leonidas character in the action movie “300” (when told by a reporter that they look alike) by extending his arms laterally and shouting, “This is Sparta!“

And this is ONE FC.

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PXC 31 Results: Crisanto Pitpitunge Snatches Title by KO, Tristan Arenal Wins

Crisanto “The Slugger” Pitpitunge hardly broke a sweat in knocking out Justin “The Shocker” Cruz to take the latter’s bantamweight belt in Pacific X-treme Combat 31 held last July 14 (Philippine time) at the Ynares Sports …

After feeling each other out early in the first round of their championship fight for the Guam-based MMA promotion, Pitpitunge threw a right straight which immediately felled Cruz. Prone on the canvas, the already knocked unconscious Cruz received a couple more punches before referee Tony D’ Angelo stepped in between the fighters.

With the win, the Team Lakay warrior joins flyweight titlist Ale “The Young Gun” Cali as the first pair of homegrown Pinoy champions of the PXC.

In the co-main event, Strikeforce veteran Tristan Arenal submitted via armbar Richie Redman of Legacy Gym with only 30 seconds remaining in the third and last round.

The southpaw Redman dominated the first round with heavy standup punches, which bruised and bloodied Arenal’s face. The second round saw Redman continuing to land his power punches, but Arenal appeared to land more strikes with his fists and feet for a close round.

In the third round, Arenal showed more activity and started landing more punches, apparently hurting Redman who went for a double-leg take down ostensibly to avoid more punishment on the feet.

Arenal responded with a guillotine choke attempt and jumped to guard. On the ground, Redman struggled to free his neck, but just when he had slipped off the hold, Arenal niftily transitioned to a successful armbar attempt.

With the win, Arenal rose from his loss to TUF 15 qualifier Jon Tuck at PXC 28 who knocked him out in the first round of their main event fight for PXC 28. (“Interestingly” in that fight, referee D’ Angelo was likewise delayed in stepping in between the already unconscious Arenal and the standing Tuck, with the latter landing more punches before the third man’s intervention.)

Arenal joined his teammate Alvin Cacdac, another Filipino-American who earlier submitted by rear naked choke Rex Wa-O in the first round, for the post-fight celebration.

The following are the complete fight results courtesy of Joma Giron of The Pinoy Fighter blog:

Crisanto Pitpitunge def. Justin Cruz 1st round, knockout (punch) Pitpitunge new PXC bantamweight champion

Tristan Arenal def. Richie Redman 3rd round, submission (armbar)

Trevin Jones def. Guzman Pia-yas 1st round, submission (rear-naked choke)

Troy Bantiag def. Joseph Mercado Unanimous decision

Alvin Cacdac def. Rex Wa-O 1st round, submission

Eugene Toquero def. Victor Torre 1st round, TKO (doctor’s stoppage)

Rolando Gabriel Dy def. Alde Alonzo De Soza 2nd round, submission (rear-naked choke)

Micky Favis def. Glen Ranillo Unanimous decision

Arex Montalban def. Jerry Legaspi 1st round, knockout

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Chael Sonnen’s Spinning Back-Fist or Pirrouete or Whatever That Really Was

Chael Sonnen may have been doing everything right down to plan. For all we MMA fans knew, he might have perfected that move after countless repetitions during his training leading to his UFC 148 middleweight title shot versus Anderson “The Spider…

And, after dominating another first round versus the pound-for-pound king Silva (his “first first” round was in the classic main event of UFC 117 almost two years ago), he may have believed that the time was right to unleash the strike that Shonie Carter utilized to finish Matt Serra in UFC 31 more than a decade past.

Early in the second round of their rematch two Saturday nights ago, away went Sonnen with a clockwise rotation beginning with the quick pivot of his lead left foot, then the twist of the hip and the lateral extension of his hind right arm with the clenched fist as his missile.

The fight video of the fancy move could have ended up immortalized in the executioner’s favor, if only it hit the intended target. Instead, it became an overzealous in-your-face slam dunk attempt that the ball bounced off the rim.

Next instance, Sonnen the Spinner bounced off the Octagon wall like a top slowing down to its last pirrouete, then dropped down to his butt, back propped against the fence.

Right there and then Sonnen’s face expressed a mix of weariness and fear of one who knew that it was the beginning of the end.

There he was sitting vulnerably supine and prone to downward projectiles from the dark tower looming above him.

It didn’t take long for the defending champion to respond with something straight to the point, unlike the circular and careless provocation of the challenger that hit nothing but air.

Proving that he was the better marksman, the champion’s knee flew straight like a well-aimed arrow and hit its bull’s-eye on Sonnen’s sternum.

Soon, Sonnen was crouched like a fetus in danger of getting aborted from Silva’s battering, until the merciful intervention of the third man.

So where did the idea of using that revolving “fragile little birdcage of bones”* against MMA’s most formidable striker come from?

Perhaps Sonnen was finishing sparring mates with it, and wanted to prove that unlike his mushy ground-and-pound, his spinning back-fist (surprise!) could actually stun and finish someone—including the Silva.

Or maybe Sonnen mistook Mikhail Baryshnikov for a Russian Combat Sambo master, and tested the latter’s famous maneuver that he saw on YouTube.

Well, unless Sonnen—or anyone more credible in his team—honestly and categorically confesses on its history, we’ll never really know.

*Pulitzer Prize winner Garry Wills’s description of a fist, from the fifth sentence of his essay “Muhammad Ali,” on page 331 of his book Lead Time: A Journalist’s Education (First Mariner Books edition 2004).

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