Matthew Ryder | UFC Betting Sites - The Best MMA Online Bookies

Between Choices and Chance, the UFC Has Spread Itself Too Thin

It’s time for a little bit of real talk: at present, it’s an awful time to be a fan of the UFC. That’s not fun to hear, and unless you’re a born hater it’s not really the much fun to say about something many would profess …

But it’s reality.

Right now, here in 2012, being a UFC fan just isn’t a pleasant experience.

Too many cards with too many names and too many guys suffering too many injuries have left the promotion basically barren of anything interesting. More or less, in every way that things can go wrong—be they within control of Dana White and his front office, or beyond it—to this point in 2012, they have gone wrong.

In the midst of a new deal with the Fox family of networks, one that was said to be revolutionary, fights that would have fleshed out remarkable pay-per-view depth are now headlining forgettable cards all over the place. Nearly every week it seems a new event is happening, one that wasn’t really marketed all that well and just sort of sprung up out of nowhere.

These events will often be headlined by a fight that would have opened a traditional piece of purchased programming, or maybe even been on free TV as part of a prelim special. Given that such fights now headline, the fights beneath them are generally a dog’s breakfast of scrappy unknowns and TUF alumni gone wrong, and they’re happening so often it’s hard to keep track of who’s fighting who, when they’re fighting, and where it’s happening.

When not cluttering up television with a demanded number of fights that the promotion simply can’t meet, they’re still heading to pay-per-view with cards that, for the most part, look appealing on paper. Appealing until two-thirds of the guys fighting go down with injuries, and you’re left with meaningless catchweight fights between zombified veterans to try and pry $50 a pop from the hands of your fans.

Such is the yin and yang of the current problem in the UFC.

On the one hand, they signed the deal with Fox and have no one to blame but themselves for being spread too thin. They straight up do not have the depth of talent required to put on regular shows across three networks, but they’re trying to do it anyway.

On the other, there’s absolutely nothing they can do about the number of guys getting injured. The promotion put insurance in place for all of its fighters in 2011, and the result has been fewer guys getting in the cage with nagging injuries (or even severe ones) because they know they’re covered.

It’s unfortunate when you look through the summer and see some of the best cards becoming some of the worst due to guys dropping out, but it’s hard to complain when the company is doing so much to protect its athletes in ways they’ve never been protected before.

The fact is that the UFC is in a bad position, and it’s that combination of their own doing and the forces beyond their control that have landed them here.

If they weren’t on the hook for an absurd amount of live programming between Fox, FX, and Fuel TV—to say nothing of the monthly (or more) pay-per-view offerings—they wouldn’t be feeling the crunch of injuries so badly. Less free shows would mean more able bodies ready to jump in and take a fight to make it credible when someone goes down hurt.

Honestly, the Glover Teixeira incident notwithstanding, does the UFC really think anyone ever wanted to see Shogun Rua fight Brandon Vera? Is that a fight for a national mainstream audience? Is it a fight for anywhere?

The answer is no.

But there was no one else, so a guy who was essentially brought back from the dead just in time to almost lose to Elliott Marshall now gets a main event that’s arguably as prestigious as a pay-per-view slot.

Not that it matters now because the ink is long dry on the deal that got them here, but the UFC badly needs to take a step back from all this programming and identify some sort of consistency in their approach.

Limiting things to one pay-per-view a month, one Fox show per quarter, six FX shows a year, and only prelims on Fuel TV would be a reasonable place to start in my estimation. I’m not a TV executive though, and I’ve been told I’m an idiot more than once in my time on this earth, so what seems sensible to me might not click with everyone.

At the end of the day however, there has to be a better way than how the UFC is doing things right now. In the long run sure, this deal will probably pan out, more talent will be available, and everyone will look back on 2012 as nothing more than an unpleasant but necessary year in the growth of MMA.

Today, though? Today, the UFC is spread too thin, the combination of things they can control and things they can’t having conspired to absolutely bury them in negativity. And more than anyone it’s the fans that are suffering.

Read more MMA news on BleacherReport.com

UFC: Can Hector Lombard Succeed on MMA’s Biggest Stage?

In 2007 a decidedly younger and slightly less-hyped version of Hector Lombard very nearly signed with the UFC.A Cuban-born judoka with Olympic-level qualifications and a lengthy unbeaten streak to his name, he was a guy on a list of nice-to-haves in a …

In 2007 a decidedly younger and slightly less-hyped version of Hector Lombard very nearly signed with the UFC.

A Cuban-born judoka with Olympic-level qualifications and a lengthy unbeaten streak to his name, he was a guy on a list of nice-to-haves in a middleweight division that was only just beginning to realize what it had in kingpin Anderson Silva.

Fast forward five years, after visa issues halted Lombard’s initial chance to shine on the world’s biggest stage, he’s finally landed where many felt he belonged all along. He comes to the UFC with a Bellator title that he never lost, an even lengthier unbeaten streak to his credit, and the mantle of best middleweight never to set foot in the octagon firmly intact.

He’s also entering at a time when there’s really only one man—present top contender Chael Sonnen—to ever test Silva, who went from gifted titleholder in 2007 to living legend and all-time king of MMA in 2012. Many think Lombard could be the second guy to add his name to that list.

However, looking at history, it’s hard to see that Lombard will have an easy road to success in the UFC. Getting a win or even a win streak, much less jumping right in there with the best 185er who ever lived, may not be a foregone conclusion. Certainly not when one looks at big-name imports from other promotions in recent years.

Sure, many of the Strikeforce veterans who joined the UFC upon the Zuffa purchase have held their own. The likes of Fabricio Werdum and Alistair Overeem have collected wins, Nick Diaz is 1-1 with a highly-questioned loss, and a collection of heavyweights have shown they can hang with the UFC’s big boys.

On the other hand, there are plenty of big names and sexy records that have come to the UFC and fizzled out pretty quickly.

Jason “Mayhem” Miller went 0-2 (0-3 in his UFC career overall) despite his much-hyped signing, and was recently cut.

Yoshihiro Akiyama only has a job because he so wilfully puts himself in harm’s way, and was even willing to cut to 170lbs. just to keep the exciting fights coming. He’s 1-4 in the promotion.

Other highly-touted Japanese sensations like Hatsu Hioki and Kid Yamamoto have looked dreadful for the most part, even if their records don’t reflect drab outings in the cage.

To put it mildly, you simply don’t know how a man will react when you put him under the bright lights of the UFC. Octagon jitters are a real thing, and they effect even the coolest veterans with dozens of fights under their belt.

So is Hector Lombard different? The UFC seems to think so. A win over Tim Boestch at UFC 149 will likely earn him a shot at Silva, and that announcement came after he was pulled from making his debut as a network television headliner against a full-blown American hero in Brian Stann.

In a division not exactly rich with contenders, the UFC is betting huge on an aging guy whose biggest win is over Alexander Shlemenko. Tough to believe that hype.

It’s not that Lombard isn’t talented. Actually, looking at it on the surface, he’s probably more talented than any of the other imports who have skittered or outright failed. He’s remarkably powerful, throws strikes with utterly lethal intentions, and has a grappling background that will serve him well against the upper echelon of the UFC’s middleweight class.

Still, given the history of hyped failures in the UFC, it’s hard to believe he’s a viable challenger to the throne Silva has been perched upon since before Lombard almost signed the first time.

Read more MMA news on BleacherReport.com

UFC on FX 3: Can Charlie Brenneman Contend at 170?

Remember last year when Charlie Brenneman was on top of the world after he’d won in front of the troops during Fight for the Troops 2 in January and derailed the hype train that was Rick Story (who basically hasn’t recovered) on only a day&…

People began talking like he was fixing to break through, like his wrestling might carry him into the upper echelon of the welterweight division. This assertion came with complete ignorance to the fact that he never beat a top-10 guy in his career and has almost non-existent striking.

Nonetheless, it was fun while it lasted.

Unfortunately, Anthony Johnson happened. On one of the rare occasions that he made weight, Johnson almost headkicked Brenneman to death and sent him tumbling back down the ladder of the sport’s deepest division. He rebounded with a win over Daniel Roberts after, but he’s stuck firmly in purgatory at 170 lbs.

Still, with that signature win over Story and an impressive overall record, people wonder what Brenneman can be. A gatekeeper? An also-ran? A contender? None of the above?

It’s tough to say what Brenneman has ahead of him in MMA. He’s on the wrong side of 30 and doesn’t look to be moving in the right direction when it comes to developing the “mixed” part of his MMA game. He’s a wrestler, and a great one, but it’s wrestling or bust in his fights.

He’s also never beaten a name bigger than Story, who was oversold from the get-go anyway. Johnson smashed him, so did Johny Hendricks, and he couldn’t outpoint UFC washout John Howard in their meeting years ago.

As a result of his inability to win his bigger fights, he’s found himself on FX and Fuel TV-calibre cards, fighting guys like Jason High and Amilcar Alves. Friday night he’ll serve as a stern stylistic test for Erick Silva, a prospect that the UFC is incredibly high on due to his explosiveness and finishing power.

Definitely not something a contender finds himself doing.

And so it goes for Charlie Brenneman. He’s not really in a position to fit a role in the welterweight division, so he just fights guys and sees what happens. He doesn’t seem more than a couple wins away from top-10 status, but he doesn’t seem further than a couple of losses away from fighting on the regional circuit again, either.

So can he contend at 170 lbs.? Maybe. He has a better than average wrestling base, which is crucial to success in MMA. Work on his striking could really get him in the game, as could some wins over legitimate names. Even so, age and inability to rise to the occasion might play against him.

Regardless, there’s no better place to start than with an upset over Erick Silva.

Read more MMA news on BleacherReport.com

UFC: Forrest Griffin, Stephan Bonnar as TUF Coaches Would Help the Brand

Dana White has been talking a lot about The Ultimate Fighter “brand” recently. Some of that is likely channeling of his buddies at Fox, who undeniably have more experience in television than the Baldfather and are probably a lot better at m…

Dana White has been talking a lot about The Ultimate Fighter “brand” recently. Some of that is likely channeling of his buddies at Fox, who undeniably have more experience in television than the Baldfather and are probably a lot better at making simple things sound complicated, too.

The last time White was talking about brands, he was discussing the Rashad Evans brand. To those who don’t recall, he didn’t seem too keen on the concept.

This new approach, though, is part of the new age of the UFC, where MMA and network appeal have clumsily melded together in the early stages of a television deal that has basically nowhere to go but up. Denying that things haven’t been good is irresponsible and a little silly, but acting like they’re not going to improve over the next seven years and that the sky is falling is equally so.

The UFC has to live in this present, though, doing so with an eye to the future. They need to do things to bring new eyes to TUF and also get longtime fans fired up as well. Simply saying “this is a fight show” and suggesting you don’t watch if you don’t like fights is not helping anyone.

One idea floating around out there that could work? Making the first stars of the TUF era, Forrest Griffin and Stephan Bonnar, the coaches for the next go-round on FX.

White has already said he’s out on the idea. Out hard, too. Surely, he’s got some grand scheme where some rising star in some underpublicized division will match up with someone more marketable and create the greatest thing television has ever seen.

Except that was the plan this time, and it didn’t work. Like, it really didn’t work.

A Griffin-Bonnar season, while lacking any particular divisional significance and featuring two guys who are basically done, would prove a new dynamic.

Both guys are thoughtful, insightful, funny and quirky. That covers your reality TV angle.

The fact that they’re actually friends might be a welcome change of pace too. No mean mugging and lame one-upsmanship just because it feels like something that they should be doing for the camera.

They’ve also been in the game forever, so they have some concrete knowledge to pass on to the teams they select. That covers having the contestants learn something other than how to sleep in urine-soaked sheets over the course of the season.

Plus, and most importantly, they offer up history. With all due respect to Diego Sanchez, they are the original Ultimate Fighters. Their first fight is legendary. They put this entire sport on the map. That’s reality.

It’s a tough sell that coaches really make a difference to ratings or to people caring about TUF. The formula is what it is, and it produces some solid athletes for the UFC. The numbers are the numbers, whether its Brock Lesnar coaching or it’s Dominick Cruz. A big name will land a ratings spike for a week or two, but not over the course of a season.

So, with that in mind, why not throw a final bone to the two guys who laid the foundation for this show to even exist? On account of personality and pedigree alone, there is absolutely no way they can hurt the “brand” more than another vanilla season with coaches no one cares about anyway will.

Read more MMA news on BleacherReport.com

MMA: NSAC Proves Its Ineptitude Once Again

Let’s be real here: California is the state that nobody wants to deal with. The state athletic commission there is, as we say in Canada, a gong show.Botched weigh-ins, convoluted supplement rules, suspensions that don’t seem to take precede…

Let’s be real here: California is the state that nobody wants to deal with. The state athletic commission there is, as we say in Canada, a gong show.

Botched weigh-ins, convoluted supplement rules, suspensions that don’t seem to take precedent into account in any discernible way. They’re generally just the worst.

But you know what? If their neighbour in Nevada is the gold standard for commissions, you might as well pack up and go home now.

Combat sports as we know them are in the hands of one of the most hapless political organizations in the modern world, and everyone else is apparently following their lead.

Not. Good. News.

It’s easy to pick on athletic commissions. Part of that is because they do a tough job and have to make a lot of hard decisions. Then again, part of it is because they just make it so easy to pick on them.

For whatever good they do (which, as Dana White correctly states, is almost exclusively centered around fighter health and safety), they undo it twice as fast every time something controversial comes across their desks.

It’s almost like they’re trying to routinely strike out. A pro ball player with contact numbers like NSAC would never move past A-ball.

Take, for example, the May 21 hearing they held. On the same docket they managed to make two mistakes, for two different reasons, with two outcomes that made no concrete sense to anyone with the ability to think critically.

Up first, Chael Sonnen. Hero to some, heel to others, he’s as controversial as any man in the sport. He’s quick with a (obviously rehearsed) line, but he backs it up. He also got busted for high testosterone and a real estate scam in Oregon not that long ago.

In the midst of his legal troubles and issues with a potential performance enhancers, he basically proclaimed that the only mistake he made was not telling the commission he was using extra testosterone. That commission (surprise, it was California!) decided to suspend him, but they didn’t really know how long they wanted him to sit out.

He plead that he told NSAC director Keith Kizer all about his testosterone use, which was later refuted. That, in any sense, makes him a liar. He also sort of dragged the NSAC into his CSAC hearing for no particular reason.

Six months was decided upon as a fair number.

Now the No. 1 contender for Anderson Silva’s middleweight title and ready to compete in the biggest rematch in the history of the UFC, he requested a therapeutic use exemption for testosterone at UFC 148.

He was engaging and charming as he sat before Kizer and his cohorts, who only a year ago were abhorred by his blatant flouting of bureaucratic conventions.

Without any considerable sweating, they granted him his exemption and wished him the best in his pursuit of gold. Not that he didn’t deserve it, for every man deserves a chance to right past wrongs, but when the true kangaroo court got rolling soon after, it was where perspective ruled the day.

Moments later, notorious pothead and general source of unintentional comedy Nick Diaz entered the room to plead his case for high marijuana metabolite levels.

Follies aside, Diaz is among the most entertaining fighters in MMA, among the most honest athletes out there (perhaps to a fault), and a man who shares Sonnen’s ability to polarize fans.

As soon as he sat down, though, the witch hunt was on.

Pot is bad. You say you smoke pot. You can’t smoke pot. We’re taking a bunch of your money.

Granted it took about four hours to get that, complete with some legendary Diazisms along the way, but that’s what his hearing was.

Lacking the charm of Sonnen, and the inability to offer up creative misdirections and comedic one-liners, Diaz was left to speak truth and live with the consequences.

NSAC suspended him for a year and took 30 percent of his considerable UFC 143 purse, the purse from the event which triggered his positive test.

They cited marijuana as a performance enhancer, and also that Diaz was a repeat offender who openly admitted when probed that he didn’t learn his lesson the first time.

And the sport was saved from another cheating crook. Pats on the back all around. Great day’s work, gang.

Sonnen gets an exemption for something directly proven to enhance performance, Diaz gets a year and loses a veritable windfall of the other green stuff for being honest and willingly taking his lumps.

The reality in all this is that NSAC showed itself for what it is: an antiquated political body that’s more concerned with how much smoke a man can blow into their behinds than how much he held in his lungs a week before a fight.

Then again, isn’t that what politics is all about? Point proven.

Read more MMA news on BleacherReport.com

UFC: It’s Time to Strip Champions Who Can’t Defend Their Gold

Becoming a champion in MMA isn’t easy. It’s all on you. You have to strike, you have to wrestle, you have to grapple and you have to go out there and do it all better than someone else who’s just as hungry and well-trained. Look at a …

Look at a man’s face the first time Dana White straps that title around his waist. It looks like just about the sweetest thing one could possibly accomplish after a lifetime spent in gyms and on mats as a martial artist.

But you know what? If you can’t defend that title once you’ve got it, you shouldn’t have it. It’s a gots to go situation, and you gots to go.

There was a time when this wasn’t a viable argument, or at least there was nothing to suggest that such a radical solution was warranted. Unfortunately, as fighter pay increases, the UFC covers medical costs, and sponsorship and endorsement dollars climb higher than ever before, that time is no more.

The fact is that now, when a champion suffers an injury and could be out for an extended time, a division grinds to a halt. If it’s bad enough, two other guys will jump in and fight for an interim title—something that, theoretically, is the best of both worlds.

Except it’s not, because there has been an alarming trend of interim champions simply sitting and waiting for the real kingpin to return in hopes of unifying the titles in a big money tilt. That gives fans a paper champion who won’t defend, and an injured champion who can’t.

You might as well have no champion. It’s exactly the same thing.

Interim gold was once relevant. During a contract dispute, then-champion Randy Couture was destined to be replaced by Frank Mir or Minotauro Nogueira before he came back and threw a wrench into things with a loss to Brock Lesnar.

Shane Carwin also held interim gold and immediately unified it. Ditto for Georges St-Pierre. Andrei Arlovski and Couture (in another weightclass) are others who won an interim title and became undisputed champions fairly quickly.

However, that mindset is dying, if it’s not already dead. In search of big money and big fights, even the gamest competitors the sport has to offer have turned into men marking days on a calendar.

Both Carlos Condit and Nick Diaz said earlier this year that, should they hold the interim welterweight title, they’d each wait for St-Pierre’s return before fighting again. That’s two of the sport’s toughest, scrappiest, craziest guys saying they’d wait a year for a fight, and it’s what Condit is presently doing.

Upon the news that Dominick Cruz was hurt and Renan Barao would replace him against Urijah Faber for an interim title, there was collective groan. Faber hates Cruz, and will surely wait as long as he needs to for a unification bout and a shot at punching his nemesis in the face, while Barao is young and hungry and would probably wait forever to create his legacy against a man many see as the best 135er of his generation.

Two out of eight titles in the promotion with no one to defend them, replaced by interim champions who won’t fight or aren’t likely to.

That just won’t do.

If, as seems to be the trend, an injured champion can’t defend in the long term and an interim champion essentially sees himself as a placeholder contender, there just isn’t a point in maintaining that system. It’s become a way for fighters to hang around in title contention without fighting, and it robs the fans of exciting, meaningful fights while robbing the UFC of pay-per-view bank and exposure.

The UFC needs to strip a champion who suffers a long-term injury with the promise that, should they choose to upon return, they jump to the front of the line to fight whoever has their belt at that time. If they’d prefer, they can take a tune-up fight against a lower ranked opponent to shake the rust off, then jump the line for a shot at gold with a win.

In the meantime, guys who would have fought for the interim title can fight for the real thing with the understanding that they’ll defend it as the true champion on a regular schedule. No ducking, no waiting, no politics. You’re the champion, so fight like it. End of story.

It may seem harsh or unreasonable, but the winds are blowing in a direction that could soon make it necessary. If fighters—especially championship calibre fighters—aren’t willing to fight as soon as they get close to gold, it hurts everybody involved. Stripping a champion with the promise of a return fight as soon as he’s healthy probably still harms everybody involved, but it does so to a much smaller degree.

To paraphrase Rampage Jackson: It’s the Ultimate Fighting Championship, not the Ultimate Waiting Championship. If something so radical is the best way to keep the fights coming and the divisions relevant, so be it.

Read more MMA news on BleacherReport.com