Even UFC: Macao won’t be saved from this year’s incredibly high rate of injuries as Korean bantamweight Kyung Ho Kang has dropped from the card.Fighters Only reports that Kang suffered a foot fracture and ligament damage after throwing a front kic…
Even UFC: Macao won’t be saved from this year’s incredibly high rate of injuries as Korean bantamweight Kyung Ho Kang has dropped from the card.
Fighters Only reports that Kang suffered a foot fracture and ligament damage after throwing a front kick during training. He will miss his Octagon debut on November 10th, forcing Alex “Bruce Leeroy” Caceres to wait for someone to step up on less than two weeks’ notice.
Kang expressed his regrets to Fighters Only, citing that the injury was his own fault:
“It was my own carelessness. [It’s] so bad,” he told Korean media. “This was such a big opportunity that I have been working really hard, sparring very hard, there were a lot of expectations and I had so many family and friends who bought tickets to fly to Macau. [It’s] hard for me to express in words about this situation… [it’s] so bad.”
Kang, who carries a 11-6 record on the Asian regional MMA circuit, expects to be ready for his first UFC fight in February or March.
Caceres is expected to fight on the main card during UFC on Fuel TV 6, which features a main-event match between middleweights Rich Franklin and Cung Le.
Caceres is 2-3 in the UFC and 7-5 overall, with his most recent fight ending in a submission victory against Damacio Page.
Just a matter of days before their China debut, the UFC has introduced another Asian guest ring girl who will grace the Octagon at the CotaiArena in Macau.As revealed on the UFC’s official Twitter account, Filipino-Chinese model Jessica Cambensy w…
Just a matter of days before their China debut, the UFC has introduced another Asian guest ring girl who will grace the Octagon at the CotaiArena in Macau.
As revealed on the UFC’s official Twitter account, Filipino-Chinese model Jessica Cambensy will be the second of two ring girls featured during UFC on Fuel TV 6:
Professionally referred to as “Jessica C,” the 24-year-old model’s resume includes projects for Canon, Sharp, Adidas, Clinique, L’Oreal, Max Factor, CosmoGirl, Marie Claire, Chevrolet and lingerie company Wacoal. While guest UFC ring girl Kang Ye-bin hails from Asia, Cambensy is a Chicago-born American.
Cambensy responded on Twitter with a greeting of her own:
Along with UFC: Japan’s Azusa Nishigaki—a former Miss Japan contestant and Sengoku ring girl—this makes the third guest Octagon Girl that the UFC has enlisted for their international events.
UFC on Fuel TV 6 is headlined by a main-event bout between former UFC middleweight champion Rich Franklin and former Strikeforce middleweight champion Cung Le, with additional main card fights featuring Thiago Silva, undefeated Stanislav Nedkov, Dong Hyun Kim and Paulo Thiago.
Franklin comes into the fight off a win over MMA legend Wanderlei Silva, who recently defeated Le in a “Fight of the Night” performance during UFC 139 in San Jose.
Le would rebound roughly seven months later with a decision victory over Patrick Cote at UFC 148 in Las Vegas. He currently holds a 1-1 record in the promotion since being called up from Strikeforce, where he accrued a 7-1 record in eight events dating back to 2006.
Le has reportedly been dealing with a broken foot during his training camp, which has hampered him ever since UFC 148.
During an interview on The MMA Hour, Le stated that he wouldn’t pull out of the fight because of the injury, despite the pain it was causing him. Citing his Asian fanbase as one key reason for staying in the match, Le called his upcoming bout with Franklin the “most important” of his career.
Once again, the injury bug has struck a UFC headliner. But this time, caution is being thrown to the wind as Cung Le is vowing to face Rich Franklin anyway.Under normal circumstances, this fight wouldn’t be happening.In the last year alone, several mai…
Once again, the injury bug has struck a UFC headliner. But this time, caution is being thrown to the wind as Cung Le is vowing to face Rich Franklin anyway.
Under normal circumstances, this fight wouldn’t be happening.
In the last year alone, several main-event fighters have been declared unfit to compete with ailments varying from strained elbows to torn knee ligaments. And yet, Le has spent his training camp suffering from a broken foot, meaning he’ll enter the Octagon in Macau at a distinct disadvantage.
As Le recently told MMA Fighting’s Ariel Helwani on The MMA Hour, the pain is bad enough that he regularly hurts himself practicing his signature kicks:
I’ve kicked a couple of training partners in the head and that hurt, but was OK. I’m hoping by fight time I’ll be 100 percent. Definitely, if this fight wasn’t in Macau, China, even if I was in a main event somewhere else, I’d give myself the right amount of time so my foot could really heal. I feel like martial arts basically started from China and my roots are the Chinese martial arts. This is why I do it.
With so many main events falling apart in 2012, you can bet that Dana White and the UFC brass are secretly glad that Le is “toughing it out” for the fans. And realistically, there’s nothing else that they can do but silently cross their fingers.
It’s extremely irresponsible on the part of everyone involved, and the situation drastically favors Franklin, who seems as healthy as ever.
But what choice does Zuffa have?
Regardless of the fact that the former Strikeforce middleweight champion is a South Vietnamese-born American, Le is the best draw that the UFC has for Macau right now.
With some star power generated from roles in American and Chinese films, a bronze-medal effort at the 1999 World Wushu Championships in Hong Kong, plus his track record as an undefeated kickboxing competitor, he’s pretty much the only man in the UFC who’s tailor-made to headline a card in the Chinese region.
Additionally, the MMA scene isn’t exactly brimming with Chinese talent. One-dimensional submission specialist Zhang Tiequan is the only Chinese-born fighter in the UFC roster, but limps into the bottom of the main card with a disappointing 1-3 record in his last four fights.
On paper, the rest of the night looks rather weak, a typical symptom of the UFC’s recent events. From bottom to top, the main card and preliminaries are filled with a lot of matches that seem like potential “loser-leaves-town” fights. Aside from the headliner, only Thiago Silva vs. Stanislav Nedkov and Dong Hyun Kim vs. Paulo Thiago carry any major interest.
If Le turns up injured, the UFC’s first event in the China is essentially wasted.
But for his own good, Le should’ve pulled out of the fight weeks ago.
Either way, it’s a no-win situation—and due to corporate pressure, a potential bonus check for company loyalty or perhaps just stubborn pride, the UFC is willingly letting an injured man walk into a cage to face one of the middleweight division’s most well-rounded strikers.
Le should be mindful of whether or not his decision will wind up turning his foot injury into a career-ending catastrophe. As long as he shows up to fight, it’s pretty clear that his employers aren’t terribly concerned.
[McKinley Noble is an MMA conspiracy theorist and FightFans Radio writer. His work has appeared in GamePro, Macworld and PC World. Talk with him on Twitter.]
If you thought that the frantic main card shuffles for events like UFC 149, UFC 151 and UFC 153 were bad, you haven’t seen anything yet.Now that the UFC has stretched itself from monthly pay-per-view events to supporting an additional three FOX Network…
If you thought that the frantic main card shuffles for events like UFC 149, UFC 151 and UFC 153 were bad, you haven’t seen anything yet.
Now that the UFC has stretched itself from monthly pay-per-view events to supporting an additional three FOX Network channels, expect many more main card-caliber fighters to turn down last-minute matches when Dana White and Joe Silva come calling.
For every man like Stephan Bonnar who’s got nothing to lose by taking a fight on a couple weeks’ notice, there will be far more who pass up the call, safe with the knowledge that saying “no” won’t hurt them terribly in the long run.
At best, they’ll simply get the Matt Mitrione treatment and Dana will bury them in the press.
And at the absolute worst, the UFC will cancel an entire event and stick the blame on the fighter who just didn’t want to compete without getting in a full training camp. That’s exactly what happened to Jon Jones after the champion refused to face Chael Sonnen at UFC 151 on eight days’ notice.
But just look at them now—instead of playing the blame game, Jones, Sonnen, and White are swapping jokes on the set of The Ultimate Fighter, as if all three of them didn’t play any part in the cancellation of a large-scale Las Vegas event two months ago.
Even though the UFC is desperate for quality cards (and counter-intuitively providing their fighters with expensive health insurance), stars like Rampage Jackson, Rashad Evans and Lyoto Machida aren’t worried about putting themselves before their employer.
After all, why should they risk coming into a fight out of shape, which is usually a solid recipe for racking up a loss?
Although the UFC will sometimes cut a losing fighter at the drop of the hat, the company apparently won’t fire anyone for declining a short-notice bout. Not ever.
If Jon Jones could “kill” an entire card and be rewarded that same year with an Ultimate Fighter stint and a high-profile main event against a proven draw in Chael Sonnen, there’s really nothing that Dana White can do when someone leaves him high-and-dry with a suddenly-depleted fight card.
So here’s some free advice for UFC fans: Always keep your receipts, and make sure you get refundable travel options for all your Octagon-based vacations.
After all, you never know when another rash of injuries is going to decimate a top-heavy UFC card. When it happens again (and it probably will), don’t expect too many popular UFC fighters to jump into matches they didn’t prepare for—after all these years, they can finally afford to be a little bit selfish.
[McKinley Noble is an MMA conspiracy theorist and FightFans Radio writer. His work has appeared in GamePro, Macworld and PC World. Talk with him on Twitter.]
Just a few days into filming The Ultimate Fighter, Jon Jones seems to have greatly softened his opinion on title contender Chael Sonnen.Although the UFC light heavyweight champion has openly criticized Sonnen’s trash-talking ways and use of testosteron…
Just a few days into filming The Ultimate Fighter, Jon Jones seems to have greatly softened his opinion on title contender Chael Sonnen.
Although the UFC light heavyweight champion has openly criticized Sonnen’s trash-talking ways and use of testosterone replacement therapy (TRT), Jones is now saying that his TUF nemesis has presented himself as a “classy” opponent.
Sporting a clean-shaven look, Jones elaborated further while sitting alongside Dana White during a UFC online chat, hosted by Metro PCS via Ustream on Tuesday night:
[Chael’s] not too bad. I thought it was going to be all trash-talk, but he’s actually being pretty decent and pretty classy. So, I think it’s going to make for a great show.
I actually don’t hate Chael anymore. He’s actually turning out to be OK. I’m not sure if he’s setting me up to really hate him—but right now, he’s being a pretty decent human.
White amusedly nodded his head during Jones’ second comment, indicating that he thinks Sonnen is likely setting up “Bones” for some sort of confrontation later in the coming weeks.
For his part, Sonnen joined the live chat later on—taking a seat next to Jones, who mock-attacked the former middleweight with a “pretend” choke, mimicking knees to the face.
Sonnen also answered a similar question, regarding what he thinks of Jones: “Y’know what, I think he’s a pretty good guy. He’s a pretty nice guy.”
Season 17 of The Ultimate Fighter will air next January, and will reportedly be moving off its usual Friday night slot on FX to a currently-undetermined weekday. White has also hinted that FX and the UFC are aiming to counter-program SPIKE’s own broadcasts of rival promotion Bellator MMA.
Jon Jones is extremely excited about his coaching staff for The Ultimate Fighter, which includes a former UFC champion and an NCAA Division I wrestling champion.As Jones revealed during a UFC live chat hosted Tuesday night by Metro PCS via Ustream…
Jon Jones is extremely excited about his coaching staff for The Ultimate Fighter, which includes a former UFC champion and an NCAA Division I wrestling champion.
As Jones revealed during a UFC live chat hosted Tuesday night by Metro PCS via Ustream, Frank Mir and Bubba Jenkins will be lending him a hand with his “All-Star team” during the next six weeks:
I have a great training staff. I have Frank Mir; he’s going to be our Jiu-Jitsu coach. I have “Stonehorse” [Lone] Goeman, who’s my original Muay Thai teacher; he’s going to be our Muay Thai coach…
Then I have Bubba Jenkins. He’s an NCAA national wrestling champion. He’s won literally every wrestling [championship] there is, except for the Olympics, and he’s going to be a really technical part of our team.
Frank Mir was originally scheduled to fight Strikeforce heavyweight Daniel Cormier as part of a November main event at Oklahoma City, but pulled out of the match five weeks ago due to a knee injury. Losing that bout was a factor in the card’s demise, along with a wrist injury suffered a few weeks later by Strikeforce middleweight champion Luke Rockhold.
Twenty-four-year-old Bubba Jenkins is famed for winning the 2011 NCAA Division I Championship at 157 pounds, along with a stellar wrestling career that’s netted him a 167-11 college record and five national championship. Rated as the No. 10 featherweight prospect by Bloody Elbow‘s 2012 World MMA Scouting Report, Jenkins is currently sporting a perfect 3-0 MMA record between stints at Tachi Palace Fights and the Resurrection Fight Alliance.
Even UFC: Macao won’t be saved from this year’s incredibly high rate of injuries as Korean bantamweight Kyung Ho Kang has dropped from the card.