Author: Matthew Ryder

UFC on FX 2: Which Fighter Has the Most to Gain?

Three years ago, Ian McCall was fresh off a loss to an up-and-coming bantamweight by the name of Dominick Cruz. He was dropped from the WEC roster, and went off to find his own path on smaller shows against smaller opponents. Since that time, Cruz has …

Three years ago, Ian McCall was fresh off a loss to an up-and-coming bantamweight by the name of Dominick Cruz. He was dropped from the WEC roster, and went off to find his own path on smaller shows against smaller opponents.

Since that time, Cruz has taken UFC gold and a spot as one of the best pound-for-pound fighters in mixed martial arts. McCall hopes to do the same this weekend in Australia, where he competes in the opening round of the promotion’s inaugural flyweight tournament.

As a 125-pounder, McCall has become one of the best in the world. Casual fans aren’t familiar with his work, but he’s undefeated since 2010 and campaigned aggressively for a chance to fight in the UFC.

He now has that chance and stands to gain more than anyone on the UFC on FX 2 card as a result.

It could be argued that Yasuhiro Urushitani is in a similar position, an unknown commodity to the casual fan who now has a shot to become a UFC champion, but McCall is a guy that people are going to take to quickly.

He’s incredibly talented and exciting, and he has the type of personality that people will enjoy seeing in the octagon. Exposure is all that stood in the way of him becoming a superstar, and now he’s going to get that on the biggest stage in the sport.

He’s something everyone can get behind: an entertaining winner with a good personality. If he’s able to become the first flyweight champion in the history of the UFC, the promotion should be jumping for joy.

Looking at his competition in the flyweight tournament, it’s as bland as it is stiff. Demetrious Johnson is rugged, but no one is hanging on what he has to say in an interview.

Joseph Benavidez is a little better, but still doesn’t really stand out. As mentioned, Urushitani is basically in the same boat as McCall, with the exception that he has a language barrier to overcome as well.

One of those four guys is going to be the champion. Sure, there are guys like John Dodson and Louis Gaudinot who have some flair, and you’d have to think the UFC is eyeing Jussier da Silva to join the ranks pretty soon, but someone in this flyweight tournament is coming out with a title.

If McCall is that man, he will gain more than any of his adversaries.

Benavidez and Johnson are already established as bantamweights, and have become reasonably well-known between the UFC and WEC. Worst case scenario for Urushitani is that he loses goes back to Shooto as a footnote in North American MMA history.

But for the man they call Uncle Creepy, a man with a legion of loyal underground followers and all the tools to become a huge star, the sky is the limit. The gains are there to be made, UFC on FX 2 is his chance to make them.

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UFC on FX 2: Is the Kampmann-Alves Winner Contender Material?

Joe Silva is a remarkably good matchmaker. He can take two guys you’ve never heard of, put them in the octagon and watch as they tear the house down. It’s a pretty rare thing that he misses when it comes time to put together a card. But som…

Joe Silva is a remarkably good matchmaker. He can take two guys you’ve never heard of, put them in the octagon and watch as they tear the house down. It’s a pretty rare thing that he misses when it comes time to put together a card.

But sometimes he hits an absolute home run.

For UFC on FX 2, he put together a headliner that is certain to clear the fence.

Welterweights Martin Kampmann and Thiago Alves are both known for putting on can’t-miss scraps, a pair of top-10 guys who come for war and usually end up spilling a little crimson. For fans of the standup game, this is about as good as it gets in MMA.

Both guys are also underrated grapplers, even if fans aren’t likely to see much in the way of a ground attack from either guy in Australia. Kampmann has perhaps the most underrated ground game in the division, and Thiago Alves holds a jiu-jitsu brown belt that really doesn’t get enough attention. Should they choose to engage there, it’s bound to be just as exciting.

But a big question heading into their meeting is whether or not they’re serious contenders at 170 lbs. Alves already had a crack at Georges St-Pierre and lost, while Kampmann has come close but been unable to get over the hump to get himself into the cage with the champ.

Realistically, any questions about the legitimacy of either man should be thrown out the window. Both have survived in the upper echelon of a wrestling-heavy division for years now, and they’ve done it with exciting fights and a penchant for producing entertaining violence.

All of Kampmann’s UFC losses have come to top-10 guys, and he was actually smashing guys as an undersized middleweight before he made the drop. Alves is in the same boat, with his most questionable UFC loss coming to Rick Story. They’ve both fought the best guys out there, and their winning percentages suggest that they are among the best guys out there.

With the welterweight division in flux, now is as good a time as any for the winner of Kampmann-Alves to make his push for gold. Interim champion Carlos Condit is planning on waiting for GSP to unify the titles, so whoever comes out ahead on FX could be matched up with Jake Ellenberger some time in the late summer with an eye on locking in the first contender for the winner of GSP-Condit.

Johny Hendricks and Josh Koscheck are also lurking, and could be involved in the matchmaking pyramid as well.

Regardless of how it all plays out, there is one certainty: whichever man survives the inevitable barnburner at UFC on FX 2 is definitely a contender. Be it Martin Kampmann or Thiago Alves, they’ll be fully deserving of a chance to talk title with a win.

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UFC 144 Results: 5 Questions We Have About Quinton "Rampage" Jackson

With excitement building about his return to Japan, Rampage Jackson caused alarm for his fans by missing weight for UFC 144. From there, it only got worse. He went on to lose his scheduled scrap with Ryan Bader and leaving Dana White wringing his hands…

With excitement building about his return to Japan, Rampage Jackson caused alarm for his fans by missing weight for UFC 144.

From there, it only got worse.

He went on to lose his scheduled scrap with Ryan Bader and leaving Dana White wringing his hands over losing one of his bankable light heavyweights.

The loss—his second in a row—combined with his routine talk of retirement, left many people with questions. Some of which include:

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UFC 144 Results: Jake Shields Needs a Little More Diaz in His Style

As Jake Shields stiffly welted away at Yoshihiro Akiyama in their UFC 144 feature bout, I turned to the friend I was watching the fight with and offered up a thought: “Jake really needs a little more Diaz in his style.” We went on to discus…

As Jake Shields stiffly welted away at Yoshihiro Akiyama in their UFC 144 feature bout, I turned to the friend I was watching the fight with and offered up a thought: “Jake really needs a little more Diaz in his style.”

We went on to discuss how baffling it is that Shields could work with the Diaz brothers so regularly and yet still be so robotic with his striking, and that the Diaz brothers could work with Shields and still be so faulty in their wrestling.

On paper, it’s a match made in heaven for training partners—insane boxers work with insane wrestlers, both sides develop two remarkable skills instead of just one. In reality, it’s become one of the greatest puzzles in MMA.

It’s a puzzle because Shields can take a punch, which is the foundation of that Stockton Slap style that’s become so prominent in the Diaz brothers’ combat approach.

Everyone raves about their hands, but it’s their chins which gives them the chance to be so open and aggressive. From there, it’s all about accurate punches in high volume and a stalking footwork that gets you from point A to point B long enough to dish out punishment.

Trash talk, optional.

Shields also has the cardio to adopt the punches-in-bunches style, and the athleticism to make it work. Any man who has NCAA wrestling titles, a Cesar Gracie black belt and a trophy case of MMA titles is a good athlete, and Shields has all of those things. Why hasn’t he tried to bring such an effective style of striking into his game?

The logical answer is that he continues to be hell bent on taking his man to the ground at all costs. Neither Diaz brother is interested in a ground fight, and as a result, they’re much more free with their hands.

For Shields, he wants to get people down and rough them up, so he needs to be a little more guarded with his standup to be in position to capitalize when a chance to shoot or clinch presents itself. As a result, he relies on slapping kicks from the outside and an underrated jab to set up his takedowns.

It’s hard to argue with that reasoning, because it’s worked for Shields for so long. He’s beaten the likes of Dan Henderson, Carlos Condit, Yushin Okami and Paul Daley, and that’s only a few of the big names on his hit list. But still, it’s hard to understand how a man could spend so much time working with elite strikers and still be so uncomfortable striking.

No one can stick a finger in his chest and tell him what to do, but most fans would probably say that a little bit more Diaz in his game wouldn’t be the end of the world for Jake Shields. He has all the tools to be as explosive and impressive on his feet as his Skrap Pack cohorts, so maybe that’s the thing to look into during training camp for his next tilt.

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UFC 144 Results: Does Edgar’s Loss Drop Him from the Pound-for-Pound Discussion?

For his entire career in mixed martial arts it seems as though Frankie Edgar has been overlooked. People didn’t think he deserved a lightweight title shot against BJ Penn. He got that shot anyway and won. People thought it was a fluke, and he had…

For his entire career in mixed martial arts it seems as though Frankie Edgar has been overlooked.

People didn’t think he deserved a lightweight title shot against BJ Penn. He got that shot anyway and won.

People thought it was a fluke, and he had to fight Penn again. He did, and he beat him even worse.

People said Gray Maynard had already beaten him, so he should fight him again. He did. Twice. Maynard couldn’t take the title from him, and his final seconds against Edgar saw him face down on the canvas eating punches and waiting to be saved by an official.

After all that, people finally started to say “hey, this Frankie Edgar is pretty good.”

At the front of the line was UFC president Dana White, anxious to make a few bucks off his scrappy champion by proclaiming him to be a real-life Rocky and one of the top pound-for-pound fighters in the world.

While you’d sometimes be wise to take White’s bold claims with a grain of salt, this was one that held some merit. Here was a guy who fought in the toughest division in the sport without cutting more than a few pounds, and got to the top against all odds.

People wanted him to lose; he won. People thought he couldn’t beat a legend; he did. People said he’d never overcome his nemesis; it happened.

Edgar was an undersized guy with a heart most of us only dream of, a fighter who an opponent would have to kill in order to beat him, and he held the hardest gold to keep in the UFC for almost two years. He defined the concept of pound-for-pound, because he got by against bigger, stronger opposition based solely on technique.

Good boxing. Good wrestling. Slick footwork.

He took physical gifts, perhaps aside from his speed, almost entirely out of the equation and managed to be the best in the world at his weight class.

Now, he no longer has a title. What does this change for him when it comes time to talk pound-for-pound rankings?

Truthfully, the answer should be nothing. Edgar is still the best in the world when it comes to besting bigger, scarier opponents that he really has no business beating.

That’s the core concept behind pound-for-pound: if you could make all things equal physically, who would be the best fighter in the world?

The answer to that is Anderson Silva, most likely, with Georges St-Pierre not that far behind. Then, belt or not, it’s hard to argue that Edgar doesn’t belong on their heels. Even in the loss that cost him that belt, it was razor thin and he lost to an enormous lightweight who got by on power and bulk for most of the fight.

People won’t agree with this, mostly because Edgar’s style isn’t for everyone. His picking and pawing frustrates a lot of fans, and if it wasn’t for his tremendous showings against Maynard many would be completely turned off by him.

However the fact remains that he’s still one of the best mixed martial artists in the world fighting in the toughest division in the sport, and he’s doing it at an epic size disadvantage.

Lightweight title be damned, if that’s not pound-for-pound greatness then nothing is.

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UFC 144 Results: 5 Fights to Get Kid Yamamoto Back on Track

For a long time, Kid Yamamoto was one of the baddest dudes in MMA. The UFC excitedly snapped him up upon introducing the bantamweight division to the promotion, but he’s gone 0-3 and may well be receiving a pink slip after another loss at UFC 144…

For a long time, Kid Yamamoto was one of the baddest dudes in MMA. The UFC excitedly snapped him up upon introducing the bantamweight division to the promotion, but he’s gone 0-3 and may well be receiving a pink slip after another loss at UFC 144.

In the event he doesn’t, here are some options for his next tilt if the UFC hopes to get him back on track.

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