Author: Matt Saccaro

UFC 152 Results: After Loss to Michael Bisping, Can Brian Stann Be Called Elite?

Brian Stann is trumpeted as part of the middleweight elite—but he’s not and he never was.Yes, he’s a brave individual, an exciting, heavy-handed fighter, but saying he’s at the highest echelon of the middleweight division, and of the sport itself…

Brian Stann is trumpeted as part of the middleweight elite—but he’s not and he never was.

Yes, he’s a brave individual, an exciting, heavy-handed fighter, but saying he’s at the highest echelon of the middleweight division, and of the sport itself, is just so wrong.

Brian Stann is a plodding, one-dimensional brawler—and no, submitting the low-level journeyman Mike Massenzio does not make you a multi-faceted fighter.

Stann’s popularity and exaggerated stance in the division are simply a result of (overly) marketing him via the bullet-proof gimmick of the square-jawed marine/American war hero. 

After his UFC 152 loss to Michael Bisping—a loss that demonstrated just how far Stann’s abilities are behind Bisping’s and therefore the rest of the top-echelon middleweights—Stann is a mediocre 5-4 in the UFC. 

His biggest win is over another overhyped brawler in Chris Leben. The rest of his victories are over professional opponents such as Alessio Sakara and Rodney Wallace, as well as the perennially overrated former Sengoku champ Jorge Santiago.

And his losses?

His losses were to every step up in competition he ever had during his UFC tenure. 

His first fight was a  submission loss to Krzysztof Soszynski. To Stann’s credit, he worked on his takedown defense and submission defense enough to ward off the lower and mid-level fighters and won two straight after that. 

Then Stann lost to wrestling standout Phil Davis, which prompted Stann to drop to middleweight where he went on his heralded but ultimately unimpressive win streak over Massenzio, Leben and Santiago. 

After these fights he was outclassed by Chael Sonnen. He was taken down with ease and eventually submitted in the second round. 

One gimme fight over Sakara later, Stann was matched up with Bisping and lost. 

Saying such things are not to deride Brian Stann—who deserves praise and respect for risking his life in war—but simply to point out that he’s not an elite fighter, not even close. 

He has a bullet-proof, time-tested gimmick that’s being used by the UFC to its fullest. An elite fighter he’s not, but a star he’ll ultimately be if the UFC has its way and can cleverly make matches around Stann’s weaknesses and promote him to no end.

 

Read more MMA news on BleacherReport.com

UFC 153: Will Anderson Silva vs. Stephan Bonnar Ruin Silva’s Legacy?

The recently announced UFC 153 main event of Anderson Silva versus Stephan Bonnar seems like an easy win for Silva—and that’s the problem. In fact, the fight will do nothing but hurt Silva’s legacy as a fighter.Silva’s UFC accolades and phenomena…

The recently announced UFC 153 main event of Anderson Silva versus Stephan Bonnar seems like an easy win for Silva—and that’s the problem. In fact, the fight will do nothing but hurt Silva’s legacy as a fighter.

Silva’s UFC accolades and phenomenal, Neo-like moves have done little to sway the legions of critics. Their primary argument is as follows: Silva is the kingpin of the weakest division in the UFC. As such, he only looks good because he’s fighting lesser fighters. Patrick Cote, Demian Maia, Thales Leites, et al. do not legitimate contenders make, according to the naysayers.

Silva’s foray into the light heavyweight division, too, was studded with mediocrity. Silva was matched up with perennial journeyman and one-time Skeletor look-alike James Irvin as well as Forrest Griffin. Both men were clowned; Griffin even ran from the cage after the fight.

Silva only looked mortal at the hands of Chael Sonnen, who, as Silva detractors claim, was just a light heavyweight who moved down to a weight class with less talent and had success. 

Fortunately or unfortunately, anti-Silva arguments hold some water. That’s why the fight against Bonnar is so unfortunate. 

Yes, it’s great that Silva showed the vaunted “warrior spirit” and decided to fight but, ultimately, fighting Bonnar is more a bane than it is a blessing. 

Silva is expected to dominate Bonnar in a manner not seen in quite some time. Twitter was ablaze with joke tweets about just how bad of a beating Bonnar was in for. 

If Silva destroys Bonnar with one of the greatest highlight-reel finishes in the history of the UFC, it won’t be a big deal. He was supposed to do that. The win will only further perpetuate that belief that Silva’s greatness and godlike aura was built on the back of B-level fighters in a shallow weight class.

If Silva doesn’t win in devastating fashion, it’ll be a blow to his reputation and his legacy; “he couldn’t finish a semi-retired Stephen Bonnar? He SUCKS!” the notoriously fickle MMA fanbase would say.

And if he loses? Imagine the fallout from first Georges St.Pierre versus Matt Serra fight but worse—far worse (like, “Stay off all MMA sites and Twitter for a month or two to keep your sanity” worse).

Furthermore, the contenders in the middleweight division are no longer just the buzzing of flies compared to Silva.

Middleweight is undergoing a renaissance and fighters like Chris Weidman are leading the charge. 

Weidman obviously couldn’t have been moved from his fight with Tim Boetsch in December to UFC 153 due to an elbow surgery, but the fact of the matter is that Silva should be spending the twilight days of his career defending his title against valid challengers rather than gallivanting into a lackluster pay-per-view main event.

By fighting Bonnar, Silva is opening the door for critics to say that he’s ducking the valid challengers to the middleweight title in favor of an easier fight at a different weight class. Even if this isn’t true, rabid Silva-haters will latch onto it and never let it go; Silva will be a “ducker” on the level of Jon Jones.

The issues of Silva versus Bonnar and Silva’s Legacy are amplified by Silva’s age. He’s 37 years old now. Despite his intention to compete for several more years, he might not be able to do so at a high level (or at all). 

There are only so many Anderson Silva fights left—especially when he’s still young enough to bring it as hard as he can—it’d be a pity to waste any of them on a fight that ultimately means nothing and is tantamount to a pro-wrestling squash match both in importance and in practice.

 

Read more MMA news on BleacherReport.com

UFC 152 Fight Card: Will Nike Regret Signing Jon Jones?

Jon Jones’ recent and numerous faux paus have tarnished his image as a fighter. Are Nike execs now facepalming in the wake of Jones’ DWI and inept handling of his public relations?No—not by a long shot.While Jon Jones and Nike related parodies su…

Jon Jones’ recent and numerous faux paus have tarnished his image as a fighter. Are Nike execs now facepalming in the wake of Jones’ DWI and inept handling of his public relations?

No—not by a long shot.

While Jon Jones and Nike related parodies surfaced immediately after the UFC 151 debacle that resulted in the event’s cancellation, it matters not to the world’s most prestigious sports apparel company. 

Nike isn’t in the PR business.

They shouldn’t care about Jones’ DWI. They shouldn’t care that Jon Jones wouldn’t risk his net worth to fight Chael Sonnen. They shouldn’t care that Jon Jones’ official response to the UFC 151 crisis came off as extremely arrogant. And they shouldn’t care that Jones recently issued a selfish statement to the Associated Press.

This is where critics interject with a tired line like “but it makes Nike look bad for one of their sponsored athletes to behave in such a manner,” albeit with about a dozen more exclamation points and with fewer words spelled correctly.

Apparently, Nike doesn’t think it’s all that bad or else they would’ve canned Jones as well as the dozens of other athletes who have done less-than-ideal things during the duration of their sponsorships.

Despite the occasional removal of a sponsorship, Nike really doesn’t care what happens—they’re getting people’s money regardless.

Want proof?

Nike makes (or simply brands if you’re a cynic) the uniforms for the NFL, an organization not known for the honorable reputation of its athletes. 

Specifically, Nike sponsored convicted dog abuser Michael Vick in 2011. True, they did cancel Vick’s sponsorship in the immediate wake of the allegations against him, but ultimately Nike only spoke with their wallet.

Nike’s continued sponsorships of Ben Roethlisberger, Kobe Bryant and Tiger Woods amidst the sordid allegations against them all is further evidence that Jones isn’t the only athlete to come under fire while under the Nike umbrella. 

However, Nike isn’t to be condemned for honoring these sponsorships. Not all athletes are paragons of virtue, after all. 

Nike can spend sponsorship money however it wants—you’ll find no moralizing here.

But if you’re to tell me that Nike will regret sponsoring Jon Jones of all people when they’ve had plenty of other questionable characters representing their brand, you’re dead wrong. 

Nike is in the business of dollar signs. They need athletes who either excel at their chosen sport or excel at selling merchandise (usually they’re one in the same but there are exceptions). 

In the former respect, Nike has no choice but to sponsor Jones. 

He’s the next legendary mixed martial arts fighter and Nike, by sponsoring Jones, has shown that they want to be along for the ride, DWI and PR naivete notwithstanding. 

 

Read more MMA news on BleacherReport.com

UFC 2012: The Age of Money-First Fighters Will Kill the Sport of MMA

If antics like those pulled by Jon Jones concerning UFC 151 become commonplace, the sport will die a sad, swift, unheralded death.As I wrote previously, Jones—as well as UFC welterweight champ Georges St-Pierre, to a lesser extent—has helpe…

If antics like those pulled by Jon Jones concerning UFC 151 become commonplace, the sport will die a sad, swift, unheralded death.

As I wrote previously, Jones—as well as UFC welterweight champ Georges St-Pierre, to a lesser extent—has helped usher in what I call the age of the superstar, where fighters cease being true fighters and instead become pseudo-businessmen and advertising/PR moguls.

This was made clear by the chicanery surrounding UFC 151. After Dan Henderson withdrew due to injury, Jones refused to fight the UFC’s appointed challenger, Chael Sonnen, on eight days’ notice. As a result, the pay-per-view—without a viable main event—was canceled by Dana White and Zuffa. 

Jones’ defense of his actions was flimsy and poorly received. It centered around the fact that Jones wanted to protect his brand as a fighter; he wants to make his victories “look effortless” and “beautiful,” and that anything else would be a detriment to the Jon Jones name (and the Jon Jones wallet). 

Unfortunately for Jones, MMA fans don’t care about the strength of an athlete’s brand or what sponsorships they have. MMA fans want to see fights—not athletes whining over risks vs. rewards and the minutiae of their contracts. 

MMA started as a spectacle, not a sport. Thus, the men involved were fighters who were interested in beating people up and testing themselves, as opposed to their counterparts from other sports, who were primarily interested in endorsements and Wheaties boxes. 

This former attitude from fighters helped make the MMA and the UFC popular—there was no prima donna B.S., just the best guys fighting the best guys with no (or comparatively few) questions asked. 

This has changed. If a UFC champion won’t fight somebody, how can he really be called one of the toughest men on the planet? 

Even Tank Abbott, a sub-.500 fighter who has long since retired, is more of a fighter—he even fought in a backyard just to get even with Scott Ferrozzo. Abbott’s words in a post-fight interview with Sherdog after his loss to Paul Buentello in 2006 sum up what the early days of the sport were about:

Giant pay-days is not what it’s about for me…I’ve never been in it for the money. I’ve never been in it for anything but the love of fighting. All the people that blow their trumpets, it’s because they are those kind of people. Where were they when, guess what? After they beat somebody up—Like Buentello, where was he after he hit me with a punch? Was he waiting for the cops to come pick him up and take him to jail? Guarantee he wouldn’t do it, I would.

Street fighting and illegal activities aside, Abbott was a true fighter. He’d fight anyone, anywhere, anytime, for practically any price—as would any of the fighters from the old guard. To them, fighting and genuine competition meant more than legalese and sponsorship money. 

If Tank Abbott is too sordid and absurd for an example, how about Renzo Gracie?

After a career that saw Gracie fight numerous big names, people thought that he was retired. Alas, in April 2010, he came back to take on former UFC welterweight champion Matt Hughes at UFC 112. Gracie hadn’t fought in three years and was promptly dominated in a TKO loss.

However, Gracie didn’t complain. In fact, his answer to a post-fight interview question about taking an easier fight before fighting Matt Hughes summarized the attitude of the old guard with elegant simplicity. “What kind of fighter would I be if I did that?” he said.

MMA has traded men like this for men who cower behind contracts and big-name sponsors—men who are in the sport not to test themselves but to try to amass as much fame and wealth as possible. 

Bigger paydays are fine for fighters, but when money becomes the sole purpose of participating in MMA, the sport, as fans have known it since its inception, is compromised.

Jon Jones has pulled away the “fastest growing sports organization in the world” veneer that hid the disgusting inner workings of MMA; he’s shown that the soul of the sport is dying. It can only be saved if fighters remain fighters, and fights remain fights.

 

Read more MMA news on BleacherReport.com

Jon Jones and UFC 151: As the Money in MMA Increases, So Will the Headaches

MMA has entered the age of the superstar, but with mainstream appeal comes mainstream problems. One such problem was recently on display—the issue of a fight negatively influencing an athlete’s “brand image.”In a moment that instantly became…

MMA has entered the age of the superstar, but with mainstream appeal comes mainstream problems. 

One such problem was recently on display—the issue of a fight negatively influencing an athlete’s “brand image.”

In a moment that instantly became one of MMA’s most infamous, UFC light heavyweight champ Jon Jones refused to face Chael Sonnen on short notice at UFC 151 after Dan Henderson withdrew due to injury. This conundrum prompted the cancellation of the event and put egg on the face of the UFC and the sport of MMA as a whole.

Jones himself seemed nonchalant about the incident. 

“I take a lot of pride in the way I perform, and I want to put on the best performance possible every time I fight,” he told MMAjunkie after the event’s cancellation. “I don’t want to go out there just to win the fight. I want to go out there to dominate. I want to make it look effortless. I want it to be a beautiful thing.”

“You have to go in there prepared and know that you did your homework. I wouldn’t be the same warrior if I just jumped in there blindly and was cutting weight while I was trying to prepare for the fight…If I would have taken this fight, that would have been letting my ego get in the way and not using my intellect,” he said.

“This is a professional sport. It’s not just a backyard fight. You put everything on the line every time you step into the cage, and I now have a new mission. I’m all-in now, and I won’t give anything less than my full effort,” said Jones.

It is a line in the last paragraph that is the most telling; “This is a professional sport. It’s not just a backyard fight.“

Jones is absolutely right. MMA is a professional sport, and along with professional sports come professional sponsorships. 

Why should a man—nay, a superstar—who recently signed a deal with one of the world’s leading sports apparel companies in Nike put that sponsorship and his entire “brand” as an athlete on the line just to make his boss and the fans (the same fans who’d crucify him if he lost the fight, mind you) happy?

Jones isn’t the first fighter to behave in such a manner. 

UFC welterweight champion Georges St.Pierre, too, changed when he became more popular.

His cold, canned, calculated responses at press conferences and interviews have become one of his main characteristics. The fighting style that earned him the nickname “Rush”  was discarded in favor of one that preserved his pristine record and, more importantly, his power to attract big-name sponsors. 

Again, why should GSP—an athlete who has been sponsored by Under Armour, and appeared in commercials for Gatorade and ESPN—risk everything by trying to be more entertaining?

What would he accomplish? He’d please fans who, should he lose, would criticize him for having a poor game plan instead of praising him for changing his ways.

For the first time in the sport’s history, the pitfalls that await big-name fighters outside the cage are greater than the glory they can achieve inside the cage. It’s not worth putting your mainstream appeal and brand strength on the line just to win a fight. 

Gone are the days of the Tank Abbott who would fight anyone, anywhere, anytime, for practically any price. 

We are now entering the age of the superstar, where fights cease to be just fights and instead become calculated risks to increase one’s name value and bargaining power amongst the sportswear titans. 

 

Read more MMA news on BleacherReport.com

GSP vs. Anderson Silva: Why You Shouldn’t Care

Georges St-Pierre vs. Anderson Silva is a pointless one-off fight fight whose only purposes are to sell tickets, sell pay-per-views and drum up interest in the UFC brand.The fight shouldn’t happen, Anderson Silva’s insistence on fighting GSP—even…

Georges St-Pierre vs. Anderson Silva is a pointless one-off fight fight whose only purposes are to sell tickets, sell pay-per-views and drum up interest in the UFC brand.

The fight shouldn’t happen, Anderson Silva’s insistence on fighting GSP—even if GSP loses to Carlos Condit at UFC 154—notwithstanding (h/t Sport TV, with translation via Bloody Elbow).

GSP vs. Silva has zero long-term relevance (And no, settling who is higher in the “pound for pound” debate does not count as relevance.) and only serves to further delay the growth of the welterweight and middleweight divisions.

Middleweight is no longer the kiddie pool of the UFC as it had been in years past. Gone are the days of Patrick Cote challenging Anderson Silva for a title. Now, a list of bona fide contenders such as Chris Weidman, Michael Bisping and Alan Belcher is ready and willing to fight Silva.

The top of the welterweight division is also a log jam.

Georges St-Pierre suffered an ACL tear in late 2011 that has kept him on the sidelines. An interim title was created to keep the division running—or at least that’s what the idea was. When Carlos Condit defeated Nick Diaz for the interim strap, he decided he wouldn’t actually defended it during the duration of GSP’s injury, preferring to wait it out until the champ returned. 

Thus, the true welterweight title hasn’t actually been contested since April 2011 when St.Pierre fought Jake Shields. This is much to the dismay of perennial 170-pound contenders such as Johny Hendricks, Martin Kampmann and others.

Furthermore, Georges St-Pierre and Anderson Silva represent the precious few top draws the UFC has left. Why destroy one’s momentum to feed that of the other?

The issue of their momentum is compounded by the fact that both stars are reaching the ends of their primes. St-Pierre is 31 years of age; Silva is 37—they’re far from spring chickens.

Maybe the UFC is seeking to get a big PPV out of both fighters while they’re still on the roster, but it’s ultimately not something that’ll live up to expectations.

Chuck Liddell vs. Wanderlei Silva is a fight that perfectly parallels the hypothetical (but increasingly likely) Anderson Silva vs. GSP bout. 

Liddell vs. Wanderlei was the most called-for bout in MMA during the UFC vs. Pride days. Liddell was kicking a** and taking names in the UFC; Wanderlei Silva was doing very much of the same—except in more visceral, face-stomping fashion—in Pride.

Fans finally got what they wanted at UFC 79, in December 2007. The two icons fought one of the most exciting slugfests in the modern history of the UFC…but it just didn’t mean all that much. 

Liddell had lost two straight heading into the bout and would lose three more afterwards—each more brutal than the next. Wanderlei Silva was coming off two KO losses and would only go a mediocre 3-4 after the fight.

It was nice to finally see the fight happen, but what was the point? Fifteen minutes of entertainment and the satisfaction of saying, “I saw a washed-up Chuck Liddell fight a rapidly declining Wanderlei Silva”?

The same logic is applicable to GSP vs. Anderson Silva. 

Yeah, it’ll be fun to finally end all the speculation and see who is actually better, but it’d be much better for the long-term health of the sport to let GSP and Silva pass the torch to the next generation, rather than letting the torch go out. 

 

Read more MMA news on BleacherReport.com