2013 saw an explosion in popularity for women’s MMA. Once considered nothing more than a niche in MMA, the women’s divisions have quickly become some of the most popular and exciting.
Women’s MMA certainly has its detractors, though, and one of them is…
2013 saw an explosion in popularity for women’s MMA. Once considered nothing more than a niche in MMA, the women’s divisions have quickly become some of the most popular and exciting.
Women’s MMA certainly has its detractors, though, and one of them is former Strikeforce and Pride heavyweight champion FedorEmelianenko.
Emelianenko said the following in a Russian interview with CTV.BY, per MMA Mania: “I respect the girls who defend the country’s honor at the Olympics, in wrestling, boxing. But I do not support female MMA. A woman must take care of the house, raise her children and be feminine. There a lot of different sports which help her in that, but MMA is not one of them.”
Expect UFC women’s bantamweight champion Ronda Rousey to provide a response should word of this get back to her. If you’ll recall, she agreed with her rival Miesha Tate in calling Georges St-Pierre “ignorant” for his thoughts on women’s MMA.
UFC president Dana White also infamously said he’d never allow women to fight in the Octagon.
Emelianenko‘s stance reflects that of someone with an old-school mentality, which means you’re likely to either agree with him completely or disagree entirely.
Voters for Maxim‘s Hot 100would definitely disagree with The Last Emperor’s opinion of femininity, as Rousey, Tate and Gina Carano all appear on this year’s list.
Regardless of whether you agree or disagree with him, it does seem odd that he’s OK with women wrestling and boxing but has a problem with combining the two into MMA.
MMA fans will have to get used to women’s MMA, as the next season of The Ultimate Fighter is set to feature the women’s strawweight division. The show will crown the first-ever UFC women’s strawweight champion, and the two teams will be coached by Anthony Pettis and Gilbert Melendez.
The UFC is in the fight business, but is also in the business of making money.
Although the topic of fighter pay routinely comes up, one level of fighter that’s almost never discussed as being underpaid are the UFC champions. That is until UFC featherw…
The UFC is in the fight business, but is also in the business of making money.
Although the topic of fighter pay routinely comes up, one level of fighter that’s almost never discussed as being underpaid are the UFC champions. That is until UFC featherweight champ Jose Aldo made some comments about feeling devalued.
Aldo is one of the top pound-for-pound fighters and is universally regarded as one of the most complete fighters in MMA today. Yet, the Brazilian doesn’t feel he’s being paid as much as he should be.
At first glance he does have some reason to complain.
Looking at the salaries of UFC 169, the last time Aldo competed, the featherweight champion made a cool $240,000 in disclosed pay. By comparison, both Alistair Overeem ($407,143) and Frank Mir ($200,000) made almost as much or more than the UFC champ. Both of those men were also in a “do or die” type of fight and are nowhere near relevant in their divisions.
But while Aldo has a point in that other fighters who are nowhere near the same level of him make just as much or more, he misses the mark with his complaints.
For one, the UFC has a focus on the bottom line and despite his success inside the Octagon, Aldo hasn’t found success outside the cage. (Source: MMA Payout)
UFC 169
UFC 163
UFC 156
UFC 142
230,000 buys
180,000 buys
330,000 buys
215,000 buys
These are the past four events in which Aldo either headlined, or was the co-main event. As you can see, Aldo has struggled mightily at the box office. By comparison, UFC heavyweight champ Cain Velasquez was able to pull 380,000 buys in a lopsided match-up with Antonio “Bigfoot” Silva.
Heck, even Ronda Rousey was able to drum up 450,000 pay-per-view buys in her first appearance as the headliner on a UFC card. Benson Henderson’s title defense against Anthony Pettis at UFC 163 scored 270,000 pay-per-view buys.
Even perhaps the most lopsided main event in UFC history, Anderson Silva vs. Stephan Bonnar, was able to take home 410,000 buys.
Whether you consider this a cause for concern about Aldo or the smaller weight classes in general is up for interpretation. The lighter weight classes have failed to become the highlight-reel attraction the UFC had in mind when purchasing the WEC, but Aldo hasn’t exactly burned the house down in his performances, either.
Buyrates aside, Aldo also brought up the idea of English-speaking versus fighters who can’t speak English in terms of marketability.
“We can feel that it can be bad for guys like me, RenanBarao and “The Spider” Silva because we can’t speak English fluently,” Aldo said (Bloody Elbow).
While I certainly understand that learning another language can be difficult, especially when you spend hours upon hours honing your fighting skills each day, the ability to speak English does matter when it comes to marketability.
After all, if you, the average American, worked at a French or German company, you’d be expected to learn the language (or at least some of it). Now is that fair to hold back fighters like Aldo and Barao due to their inability to speak English?
Absolutely not.
What should matter most is the level of talent a fighter has inside the Octagon, not their linguistic talents. But it’s clear that’s not the only thing that matters in today’s UFC. It may not even be the most important thing.
One need only look to fighters like ChaelSonnen and Nick Diaz as evidence that fighters can talk their way into championship fights.
If the audience can’t relate to you as a fighter, there’s little hope they will back you in terms of buyrates or merchandise sales. Aldo certainly has the skills to be one of the most popular fighters in the UFC, but the sad reality is that there’s a large selection of fans who won’t connect with Aldo based on his size or English-speaking ability.
The UFC featherweight champion has the right and reason to want a bigger paycheck; that’s not going to happen until he starts making the UFC a bigger paycheck.
Following his loss to Gegard Mousasi this past weekend, many in the MMA community were calling for Mark Munoz to hang up the four-ounce gloves.
But Munoz isn’t answering those calls and plans to continue his MMA career, according to his post-match…
Following his loss to GegardMousasi this past weekend, many in the MMA community were calling for Mark Munoz to hang up the four-ounce gloves.
But Munoz isn’t answering those calls and plans to continue his MMA career, according to his post-match press conference:
You’ve just go to pick up the pieces and keep going. It was a tough loss, but I think it doesn’t matter how many times you fall, but it’s how many times you pick yourself back up after a loss or a failure. So that’s what I’ll do.
Munoz may not be concerned with how many times he’s failed recently, but the UFC and fans are. Munoz is just 1-3 in his last four fights, and all three of those losses have come before the final bell. Chris Weidman stopped him in devastating fashion back in 2012, LyotoMachida dropped him with a head kick in the first round and Mousasi was able to get the first-round tapout in their contest.
Munoz has some of the best amateur wrestling credentials in the division, but his wrestling hasn’t translated very well to MMA. That was evident again as Mousasi completely negated the wrestling of Munoz en route to a submission victory.
“The Filipino Wrecking Machine” also believes that a knee injury may have played a role in his loss to Mousasi, per his official Facebook page.
Knee injury or not, it’s become pretty clear that Munoz isn’t a member of the middleweight elite at this point in his career. He was on a four-fight winning streak that put him in the title picture, but he has cited issues with depression and has simply faced better fighters.
After all, there’s no shame in losing to the likes of Weidman, Machida and Mousasi.
Still, Munoz is 36 years of age and is clearly on the down slope of his career. He can still be a gatekeeper between the upper and lower half of the division, but with a declining physical skill set combined with less-than-spectacular results in the cage, is that how we want to see one of the good guys of MMA go out?
Renan Barao may not have his UFC bantamweight title, but he does have a few avenues to go back to getting it.
The Nova Uniao product is still one of the best bantamweights on the planet and was likely just as shocked as everyone else by the effectivene…
Renan Barao may not have his UFC bantamweight title, but he does have a few avenues to go back to getting it.
The Nova Uniao product is still one of the best bantamweights on the planet and was likely just as shocked as everyone else by the effectiveness of TJ Dillashaw on Saturday night.
Dillashaw landed a huge right hand early and it was all him from that point on. Even though Barao was thoroughly dominated at UFC 173, I don’t believe he needs a “let’s go back to the drawing board” type of talk.
This was simply a case of Dillashaw being the better fighter at UFC 173. We could be seeing the beginning of a great rivalry if Barao can bounce back in his next fight and make his way back to a title shot.
Behold TJ Dillashaw, the true alpha male on a team of betas. Okay, so that’s not entirely true, the rest of Team Alpha Male are all excellent fighters in their own right.
But after UFC 173, one would have to assume Dillashaw could be labeled as the bes…
Behold TJ Dillashaw, the true alpha male on a team of betas. Okay, so that’s not entirely true, the rest of Team Alpha Male are all excellent fighters in their own right.
But after UFC 173, one would have to assume Dillashaw could be labeled as the best Team Alpha Male fighter ever.
Now before you scroll down to the bottom to light up the comments section about how Urijah Faber built the featherweight division or was king of the WEC for years, just hear me out.
I’ll start this off with a bit of compromise with the Faber fans; Faber’s time in the WEC is one of the most dominant runs in MMA history. Faber went 21-1 en route to help building the featherweight division to relevancy and virtually carrying the WEC brand on his back.
There’s also his time in the UFC to consider as well. Faber has been the best fighter outside of the champion in the bantamweight division during his time in the UFC. If your name isn’t Dominick Cruz, it goes without saying that you’re not going to win against Faber.
Yet, for all his accomplishments, the one thing that has eluded “The California Kid” is a UFC title. It’s a sentiment shared by many of his teammates as Chad Mendes and Joseph Benavidez have both fallen short in their previous title bids.
It’s not a feeling currently shared by Dillashaw, however.
That’s because Dillashaw did the impossible at UFC 173 by taking out the seemingly invincible RenanBarao. Dillashaw capped off a great performance by finishing Barao in the fifth round of their UFC 173 headlining bout.
Dillashaw didn’t lose a round the entire fight.
With the win, Dillashaw eclipsed the accomplishments made by his Team Alpha Male counterparts. For all the good Faber did while in the WEC, nobody remembers who wins the AFC/NFC Championship titles each year. It’s all about the Super Bowl.
And for Dillashaw, he has that equivalent to a Super Bowl ring.
He’s also entering the prime of his career at just 28 years of age. His improvements since Duane Ludwig began coaching him have not only shown in terms of wins, it’s shown in his performances as Dillashaw has looked better each time out.
Dillashaw has that signature win now that he’s defeated Barao and has the UFC gold to validate his status as the best of the bantamweight division. He’s also validated his status as the top fighter at Team Alpha Male.
Dan Henderson’s UFC 173 fight looked exactly like what it really was; a middleweight fighting a heavyweight.
The only problem was that it was being contested at light heavyweight, a weight class where Henderson shouldn’t be fighting.
It’d be one thing …
Dan Henderson‘s UFC 173 fight looked exactly like what it really was; a middleweight fighting a heavyweight.
The only problem was that it was being contested at light heavyweight, a weight class where Henderson shouldn’t be fighting.
It’d be one thing to be competitive in his fights, but two ugly decision losses to LyotoMachida and Rashad Evans combined with a disastrous night against VitorBelfort have left some nasty stains on Henderson’s recent UFC run.
Even in his win against Mauricio “Shogun” Rua, Henderson was getting thrashed until he landed a Hail Mary punch to drop the Brazilian.
Henderson’s gripes about weight cutting are well known, but he has seemingly been more open to a return to the middleweight division. After losses in four of his last five fights (that one win easily could’ve been a loss), there’s no time like the present for “Hendo” to drop back down to the weight division where he should be competing.
The UFC is in the fight business, but is also in the business of making money.