In 2005, Mauricio “Shogun” Rua was a man who would not be denied.
He took the Pride FC middleweight division by storm, defeating Quinton “Rampage” Jackson, Antonio Rogerio Nogueira, Alistair Overeem and Ricardo Arona to claim th…
In 2005, Mauricio “Shogun” Rua was a man who would not be denied.
He took the Pride FC middleweight division by storm, defeating Quinton “Rampage” Jackson, Antonio Rogerio Nogueira, Alistair Overeem and Ricardo Arona to claim the 2005 Pride Middleweight Grand Prix title, not to mention the mantle of greatest middleweight in the world.
He was pure Chute Boxe, cut from the same cloth as stable-mate Wanderlei Silva, and he was young to boot.
The world was his oyster, and he was devouring it all with relish.
Hard to believe that in 2013, Shogun is 3-3 in his last six bouts in the UFC.
Since he handed LyotoMachida his first loss en route to claiming the UFC light heavyweight title, Shogun has lost every other fight. His last bout was a decision loss to Alexander Gustafsson, which was only two fights removed from Rua‘s war with Dan Henderson.
And on August 17 at UFC Fight Night, he’s going to fight a man who has the perfect style to defeat him: ChaelSonnen.
Make no mistake about it: This is a very winnable fight for Sonnen. His takedown game is still among the top of the division, and he’s gritty as hell. It is not outside the realm of possibility that Sonnen will take Shogun down every round and grind out a decision victory.
And that could be costly for Shogun.
Right now, he’s a man at a crossroads in his career. If he wins, his name regains some of that luster, which is all important.
If he loses, given the depth of the division, his name is going to be mentioned in the same sentence as the phrase “gatekeeper.”
That isn’t to say he couldn’t turn his career around. He’s only 31 years old with a wealth of experience.
But a loss to Sonnen would drop him many rungs down the ladder. And worse, it would make him look far older than he is.
When you consider the names in the division—men like Henderson, Machida, Gustafsson, Phil Davis, Glover Teixeira, Ryan Bader, Rashad Evans and reigning champion Jon Jones—Shogun is on the outer edge as it is.
He’s already lost to four of the Top 10. If Sonnen, a man who hasn’t posted a victory at light heavyweight in many years, manages to defeat him, Shogun would suddenly look like a man waiting at the bus stop.
Yet still, there is something about Shogun—something raw and dangerous. Every single victory he has earned in the UFC has come via KO/TKO. This fact makes him watchable, no matter how many fights he loses.
Will that be enough to keep him in the UFC should he lose to Sonnen? It probably would, given that White would hate to see Shogun added to the Bellator roster.
Still, posting more losses than victories hurts a fighter in the UFC. In the world of boxing, a big-name fighter like Shogun could get some tune-up fights to rebuild his career. He does not have that option under the Zuffa banner.
Many committed fans know Shogun and won’t be quick to write him off, but the public at large is fickle.
Add to that the amount of attention a fight with Sonnen draws due to the American’s gift for gab, and a loss would be a public affair. A fighter never wants to look powerless for 15 minutes, and being trapped under Sonnen for that long is not the image Rua wants to send to the millions of Fox viewers.
So, where would a loss to Sonnen leave him?
For starters, it would leave him looking vulnerable to up-and-coming fighters who would love to build a name out of his ruin. As far as the buying public is concerned, he would be barely visible—just out of the corner of their eye.
When you examine Sonnen, he is a basic fighter, nearly one-dimensional. He’s just so good at takedowns and maintaining top position that he doesn’t need to do much more to win.
If Shogun loses to that species of fighter, then he is going to be forced to re-examine his skill set and make some changes. He will have lost five of his last eight, and at that point, ignorance is no longer bliss.
All fighters go through periods of change; those who can adjust see a return to winning ways.
He already had to fight hard as a young man to get into the spotlight. He doesn’t want to wage that kind of war again as an older man.
If he doesn’t want to go back to the drawing board, Shogun needs to beat Sonnen.
If there is one issue that infuriates the powers that be at the UFC, it’s that of money. The way they manage and maintain their “bottom line” has always been a touchy subject.
Many believe it is simply a matter of greed, but if you&rs…
If there is one issue that infuriates the powers that be at the UFC, it’s that of money. The way they manage and maintain their “bottom line” has always been a touchy subject.
Many believe it is simply a matter of greed, but if you’ve followed Dana White and Zuffa, it becomes clear that most business decisions they make revolve around control.
It’s the one thing they have flatly refused to give up since the very beginning. They could have made a television deal far before FOX, but they wouldn’t give up control. They have long believed that no one understands the sport of MMA like they do, and when you consider just how much damage they have sustained in order to get the UFC where it is today, it’s hard to argue they were wrong.
In the early days, the idea of watching the UFC on free television was a pipe dream. When Zuffa purchased the company, many times it seemed as if they were trying to push a bolder uphill.
They did it by waging one battle at a time. First, it was getting sanctioning with the athletic commissions. Then, it was getting back on pay-per-view. The release of DVD’s came next, and all along, surviving to the next show loomed above all like a dark cloud.
They stuck to their guns, ground out year after year, then they made the first season of The Ultimate Fighter.
We all know the rest of the story. The UFC gets long overdue recognition, attracts more fans, TUF becomes a staple, PPV rates grow, etc.
But when a tale becomes a saga, some things get lost in the shuffle.
It’s always been about the fighters and the fights. People may not like White for whatever reason, but no one can deny that he is about the fights and nothing but the fights, so help him god.
And to be plain, the fights and the UFC are one in the same. One does not exist without the other.
After the fights come the fighters—and that is where things get a bit confusing.
White believes in his fighters just as much as he believes in the sport. He always has. In 2001 and 2003, White sent one of his biggest fighters, Chuck Liddell, to fight in Japan against the best that Pride FC had to offer. Back then, Pride FC was arguably bigger than the UFC, boasting a lineup such as Wanderlei Silva, Mauricio “Shogun” Rua, Fedor Emelianenko, Mark Kerr, Quinton “Rampage” Jackson and so on.
White sent Liddell there to prove that the UFC had the best fighters in the world. That venture with Pride FC was the closest the UFC has ever really come to co-promotion.
So, it’s not that he or anyone else at Zuffa don’t believe in the fighters under their banner, because they do.
“It’s nothing personal, it’s just business” as the saying goes.
After having spent so long fighting for the UFC, the company now manages every aspect of their business with the same passion they used to grow it.
Perhaps it’s that they will always need someone to fight, so they go from dispatching rival promotions to dealing aggressively with fighter sponsors.
There is one school of thought that says the sponsor tax ensures a level of consistency; that companies that can afford the tax are more reliable when it comes to paying the fighters.
After all, it’s not like there haven’t been instances where sponsors didn’t pay the fighters the money they were owed. Spencer Fisher and Rick Hawn are just two of many fighters who have been shorted the money they were due.
But UFC fighters like Fisher have had problems with sponsors since the tax was implemented.
So, maybe it’s something else.
Maybe it really boils back down to control; the UFC has it and they don’t want to give it up.
The UFC is able to make the fights the fans want to see because they have that control. If they didn’t, well one only needs to look to the world of boxing to see the results.
The only time when a fighter has any bargaining power is when they sit down to sign their contract. That is the time they negotiate to the best of their ability. After that, the UFC runs the show, and as it is their show, no one should argue.
But it seems like being far more flexible about sponsorships for their fighters would cost the UFC little while helping the fighters greatly.
Make no mistake about it; the fighters want to be great. They want to be legends known for legendary wars.
But it must be hard for fighters to do their utmost when they are distracted by monetary concerns. Financial difficulties are a reality that is terribly hard to deal with in normal life; when coupled with stepping into a cage, where one misstep can see a fighter seriously hurt (not to mention cut from the promotion), then it becomes that much harder.
Yes, fighting is a choice, but that does not mean that those fighters don’t have to contend with more than we can imagine before they set foot into hostile territory.
When a fighter is starting in the UFC, they are more often than not seeing most of their income from sponsorship dollars. It’s the thing that gives them the elbow room needed to overcome the losses and keep marching forward in pursuit of their dreams.
And the hard part comes when a sponsor is suddenly banned after a fighter has signed a contract. Most fighters starting in the UFC live by a budget, just like the rest of us. When a ban is imposed, it can drastically alter the life of a fighter, as detailed by Dan Hardy in an interview with bloodyelbow.com. Hardy said of the sponsor tax:
“That really hurt the fighters. I went from one fight, where I sold the space on the front of my shorts for $5,000, to six months later, going back to the same company, and only getting an offer of $1500 because of the sponsor fee. I refused it, because someone has got to set a standard. The problem is, when I turn it down, there’s another 10 fighters on the undercard that will take that offer, because there’s nobody else paying.”
Obviously, the UFC wants control of what sponsors are displayed on the shorts, caps and banners a fighter and his corner bring into the cage with them. It is their image as a corporation at sake. If a fighter steps into the cage proudly wearing the name of an adult bookstore, then many will say Zuffa endorses the adult entertainment industry, etc.
But then again, as reported by cagepotato.com, the UFC just signed Benjamin Brinsa, an undefeated fighter who has ties to the Neo-Nazi movement in Germany, so clearly they aren’t too worried about guilt by association.
So maybe the sponsorship tax wasn’t designed to help regulate the promotion of questionable sponsors or police their conduct in any way. The mechanism needed to do that is regulation, not taxation.
Dana White may still think as he did when he spoke on the subject in 2009, when he said: “We’re the most lenient sports organization on planet (expletive) earth. When was the last time you saw guys wearing whatever they want in the NFL, Major League Baseball, the NBA, World Cup Soccer?”
But that line of debate doesn’t really work when the league minimum in the NFL, as of 2013, was $405,000.00 per year for a rookie. And they get bonuses in the NFL as well. If new UFC fighters made even a fourth of that, there would be no one complaining about a lack of sponsors on a fighter’s shorts or shirts.
There has to be another way that allows for the fighters to get the sponsorship money available to them without the UFC losing control of the situation.
It’s hard to imagine that the UFC really needs the money the sponsor tax provides them. And if they say they do, they clearly don’t need it as much as the fighters do.
With all the negative talk about fighter pay floating around and the talk of bonuses versus a higher base line of pay for all fighters, doing away with the sponsor tax would be a good solution to many current problems.
First of all, there would be far fewer complaints about money. The fighters would be making more money in their careers at no cost to the UFC. Additionally, when fighters have an unrestricted cash flow from sponsors (be they small or large), it becomes an incentive to fight harder. It might be Bob’s Rib Shack today, but it could be Nike tomorrow.
Secondly, there would be fewer fighters distracted by financial hardship (which in turn allows all their focus to be on their training and the fight). It may seem like small peanuts, but a few extra thousand dollars here or there adds up and could mean the difference between a fighter getting to train full-time as opposed to part-time while working another job.
The UFC has long maintained that the pay scale and bonus situation is perfect just the way it is; that fighters who make more money are simply getting to “Eat what they kill.”
If that is indeed the case, then fighters should not see their potential to earn money from outside sources taxed as it is now. That is an income source that is of no detriment to the UFC. To step back and allow that money to flow where it is intended costs the company nothing, and helps the fighters a great deal.
The sponsor tax is not a necessary mechanism by which the UFC regulates sponsorship conduct, nor is it a means to make great fighters even greater. If anything, it’s a hindrance to the potential of up-and-coming fighters that simply sees a rich company made richer as a result.
Such monies are the spoils of the victory, so to speak. The fighters have earned that money through their own blood, sweat and tears, a notion that speaks directly to the ideal of eating what they kill.
Or, maybe it’s just as simple as American author and essayist Edward Abbey says: “Taxation: how the sheep are shorn.”
But I hope not. It would be unseemly to treat those fighters like sheep when they are really lions.
When Chris Weidman defeated Anderson Silva to become UFC middleweight champion, most fans were stunned. It was a shocking upset for many to say the least.
But now that we have some distance, it seems that most are wondering if it is permanent.
It&…
When Chris Weidman defeated Anderson Silva to become UFC middleweight champion, most fans were stunned. It was a shocking upset for many to say the least.
But now that we have some distance, it seems that most are wondering if it is permanent.
It’s always a tense moment for fans when it looks like there is going to be a moment of transition; a passing of the torch.
It was that way when Aaron Pryor defeated Alexis Arguello, when Randy Couture defeated Tito Ortiz, when Jermain Taylor defeated Bernard Hopkins and so on.
When a challenger takes the title by force, the first question that comes to mind is usually simple and predictable.
Can he keep the belt like his predecessor?
True ownership of a title is not usually accepted by the fans until the new champion has at least one title defense. Many times the sport of MMA has seen a champion dethroned only to see the new champion toppled in his next fight.
Georges St-Pierre defeated Matt Hughes, only to lose the belt to Matt Serra in his first fight as champion.
And it was the same with Carlos Newton, Ricco Rodriguez, Forrest Griffin, Rashad Evans and more.
Now, everyone is wondering if it will be the same for Chris Weidman. After all, his first title defense is going to be against the best MMA fighter in UFC history.
In examining the question, it broadens a bit. We all know who we are picking to win, but what result would be best for the UFC?
Silva has been a long-standing champion, the longest in UFC history. That kind of name recognition has been very good for the sport and the company.
People are attracted to things that seem constant. They like relying upon a standard, and Silva was a standard of excellence.
He was a champion they could depend on to defend the belt and look incredible doing it; when he wanted to.
Now that he’s been dethroned, people are unsure of what is next. A great many eyes are going to tune in to the rematch to see what happens when the dust settles.
Will it be a return to the status quo with Silva reclaiming the title? Or will they see Weidman cement his position as the new Sheriff on I-185?
In the past, a changing of the guard has been either a blessing or a curse. Gone is the feeling of stability that comes with a long-reigning champion, yet a new sense of wonder is established as well.
To be honest, if Weidman puts Silva down again, it opens up many new possibilities; men like Michael Bisping, ChaelSonnen and others suddenly seem to have a viable shot at winning the belt, which makes for some true drama.
If Silva conquers Weidman, well, a fight against Bisping seems like just another title defense for “The Spider.” And we’ve already seen him best Sonnen twice.
To be brutally honest, both outcomes are good for the sport. If forced to choose between the stability (and artistry) of Silva or the excitement that comes with a new champion and new drama, either hand is a winner.
But there is a third outcome that is desperately needed, no matter who wins the rematch; that of a great fight.
In their last bout, it looked like it was equal parts Silva clowning around and Weidman being a damn good fighter. Personally I favor the latter, but my perspective alone is good for nothing.
It’s what happens in the eyes of the masses that matters, and a great many believe Silva simply shot himself in the foot.
In the rematch, what the sport really needs is for Silva to come out filled with deadly purpose and energy due to the moment. He needs to come out and fight like a true challenger; hungry for something he’s never had.
For Weidman, he needs to go out there with the pure intent to prove to the world that last time was no fluke. He needs to make a statement that leaves no doubt, and that means he needs to try and crush Silva, annihilate him every second of every round.
If both men do this, then no matter who wins, we will have an honest result on a night when more eyes than ever are apt to be watching.
And for a company that proudly wears the label “As real as it gets,” nothing less than a real fight with real bad intentions will do.
After his defeat at UFC 162, Anderson Silva must have realized the enormity of his legend, his legacy. As soon as the talk of a rematch with Chris Weidman began, he was placed as a heavy betting favorite without a second thought.
That says something wh…
After his defeat at UFC 162, Anderson Silva must have realized the enormity of his legend, his legacy. As soon as the talk of a rematch with Chris Weidman began, he was placed as a heavy betting favorite without a second thought.
That says something when you consider that Weidmandidn’t just eek out a decision over Silva—he knocked him out.
Even though it was no doubt the upset of the year, many fans are marking it down as something far less. They say Silva did it to himself and won’t make the same mistake twice in the rematch.
But that’s just what the fans say.
Silva says that his in-cage antics of bravado and taunting are here to stay. He says it’s all part of the show, and it is his show, make no mistake about it. He says it all like a man who simply stumbled, nothing more.
Silva has nine fights left on his contract, and by all accounts, he’s found the fire to compete again.
But nine fights is a long time to go when you’re on the dark side of your thirties in one of the most demanding sports in the world. When you are in that position, sometimes the first stumble is the beginning of a hard fall.
After all, it’s not the first time the world of combative sports has seen a giant tumble. When one takes a step back and looks at Silva, you can see that he has much in common with one of his idols: Roy Jones Jr.
Like Jones, Silva has built a style of fighting that disregards some of the basic corner stones of the fight game. Jones never really used the jab, nor does Silva. Jones relied on his speed and unconventional defensive style in order to protect himself, and so does Silva.
Any time either man has stepped into combat, they decided to do things their own way, making up the rules as they went along. It was the magic of improvisation, and it was nothing short of spectacular.
But there is another similarity between Jones and Silva that is less flattering.
After Jones was knocked out by Antonio Tarver, he was quick to write it off as something that happens in the fight game; he just got caught, that’s all.
Then, he stepped back into the ring against Glen Johnson. It was supposed to be a comeback party for Jones; his chance to correct the idea that he was anything less than superhuman.
Then, Jones reverted to the same defensive style that had seen him conquer so many great fighters. It was almost arrogant, based upon the speed, reflexes and gall of a younger man who always defied convention.
Except this time, he got caught and knocked out again. The punch that felled him wouldn’t have come close at any other time previous to the Tarver KO, but he wasn’t the same man as before.
Now, Silva is saying that he’s not going to change his defensive style; it seems as if he’s going to train like before and fight like he did before, albeit taking Weidman a bit more seriously than before.
Silva has always taken pride in being able to avoid punches in a flamboyant manner, garnering praise and being compared to something magical. After doing it for so long, can he actually change if he needs to?
It’s hard to imagine Silva can’t make adjustments, to be honest. The man has proven to be head and shoulders above the rest, time and time again. But at age 38, and fresh off a hard KO loss, he might want to start making some changes now rather than later.
I know; to even presume to suggest that the great Anderson Silva might want to change his style a bit in order to defend himself is sheer arrogance. Who is anyone to make such an observation?
Well, fans of the man, for one. Silva has always been a treat to watch; he really does do the kinds of things no one else can. But the two things he cannot do are turn back the clock or unring a bell.
Make no mistake about it, the next time Silva steps into the ring, he will not be the same man as before. A knock out loss changes a fighter, just as age does. When the two come together at the same time, it can be a hard thing to deal with.
One of the great things about Methuselah-like Randy Couture, Bernard Hopkins and many others is that they were willing to make adjusts to their games as their careers wore on. They took stock of their abilities, learned from their losses and managed to make the changes needed to compensate for growing older.
What they didn’t do is ignore the impact a KO loss can have on a fighter; they developed a complete game that played to their strengths. In doing so, they protected the chinks in their armor that come with age and battle.
The simple truth is, unless Silva is willing to make some changes, he’s going to suffer more losses on his record before his contract is finished.
The opposition isn’t as scared of Silva anymore; a man looks far more human after he’s been defeated convincingly. They are going to be more daring and aggressive instead of passively waiting for Silva to take them out.
To be quite honest, we really won’t know how much time Silva has left as an elite fighter until we see how the rematch with Weidman unfolds. But the history of combative sports has shown that once a fighter is discovered to have chinks in his armor, future opposition grows bold.
But we do know one thing: nothing is going to be the same for Silva from this point forward.
We have no idea how much damage Weidman did to his psyche. We don’t know if that knockout will make him overly cautious and, thus, a more stationary target. And we don’t know how he’s going to react to facing a string of fighters that think they smell blood in the water.
In the past, when a pound-for-pound king was trounced, there were usually two outcomes. He came back more focused and determined than ever before (not to mention a whole lot wiser), or he simply fell apart.
Jones, with intent on proving himself to be the former, never regained his pre-Tarver edge. Back-to-back knockout losses to Tarver and Johnson signaled the end, although Jones simply refuses to see it.
Hopefully, the same fate will not befall Silva; but if it does, he will not be the first once-great to be pulled back into the fray due to the need of escaping the gravity of defeat, nor will he be the last.
On September 14 of this year, Floyd Mayweather Jr. will be taking on rising star Saul “Canelo” Alvarez. It’s a bout that will probably set the record for pay-per-view buys for combative sports in 2013.
While the sport of MMA has usual…
On September 14 of this year, Floyd Mayweather Jr. will be taking on rising star Saul “Canelo” Alvarez. It’s a bout that will probably set the record for pay-per-view buys for combative sports in 2013.
While the sport of MMA has usually garnered more total PPV buys in a calendar year than the sport of boxing, the biggest promotion in MMA, the UFC, still has yet to put on a card that eclipses boxing’s biggest shows.
The biggest PPV success the sport of MMA has enjoyed was UFC 100, which attracted anywhere from 1.5 to 1.75 million PPV buys—a number that was shockingly high and proof positive that the UFC had officially arrived as a legitimate contender for the hearts and pocket books of fight fans.
But, UFC 100 didn’t beat the best of boxing’s biggest PPV success, which was Oscar De La Hoya vs. Floyd Mayweather Jr., which pulled in a whopping 2.4 to 2.5 million buys back in 2007.
For years, the sport of boxing has outdone the UFC in cards that broke the 1 million mark. In 2012, boxing put up the only cards that truly exceeded the 1 million mark. UFC 148, the rematch between Anderson Silva and ChaelSonnen, pulled in around 925,000 to 1 million views even.
So, why is boxing able to beat MMA when it comes to promoting the biggest cards?
Sometimes, when a sport has garnered so much attention in such a short period of time, fans can find themselves suffering a kind of tunnel vision; a happy byproduct of being so thoroughly entertained in one area that all other considerations are render…
Sometimes, when a sport has garnered so much attention in such a short period of time, fans can find themselves suffering a kind of tunnel vision; a happy byproduct of being so thoroughly entertained in one area that all other considerations are rendered moot.
But that isn’t always a fortunate thing.
For a great many MMA fans, the notion of watching boxing seems stale and one-dimensional; like watching a game of checkers when one could be watching chess.
But that is honestly the worst kind of parallel when considering the world of professional boxing, yet it is also aptly describes the attitude many MMA fans have about the sweet science.
As a fan of both sports, I find myself amazed at how many incredible, jaw-dropping bouts in the world of boxing go unnoticed and unappreciated by the same MMA fans who are calling out for the kind of wars that helped pull the sport out of near extinction and into the mainstream.
For those fans, it is all about Dan Henderson vs. Mauricio “Shogun” Rua, Nick Diaz vs. Paul Daley or Chuck Liddell vs. Wanderlei Silva.
It’s not hard to understand the loyalty MMA fans have for their sport because boxing fans are the same way, but at a certain point, a fight becomes so great that it honestly surpasses such limitations, existing in a wholly different realm—that area where great fights can only be measured by other great fights, be they in MMA, boxing or wherever.
And that is what this piece is all about.
Here is a list of 10 fantastic fights from the world of boxing, each due the full attention of any serious fan of great fights, no matter which sport they come from.
In 2005, Mauricio “Shogun” Rua was a man who would not be denied.