Author: Mike Chiappetta

UFC Gold Couldn’t Possibly Define Michael Bisping’s Career

Imagine you work your whole life for a dream. To reach it, you have to compete against people taking shortcuts. Imagine those shortcuts lead them ahead of you. Imagine that dream falls away, likely never to return. Imagine a twist of fate suddenly goes…

Imagine you work your whole life for a dream. To reach it, you have to compete against people taking shortcuts. Imagine those shortcuts lead them ahead of you. Imagine that dream falls away, likely never to return. Imagine a twist of fate suddenly goes your way, and that dream is again in play.

Then imagine no one believes you can actually reach it.

In a strange way, this is what you’ve conditioned them to believe. Even if you’ve gone further and accomplished more than 99 percent of your competition, you’ve still always fallen short of the ultimate goal.

This is Michael Bisping’s UFC life today. 

At 37, he’s finally received the middleweight title shot that has long eluded him. That’s the good news. The bad news is that it comes with just two weeks’ notice and against an opponent who is younger and bigger and has already soundly defeated him. Last time they met, Luke Rockhold kicked Bisping in the head, knocked him down and choked him out with one arm.

It was both brutal and decisive. And yet here we are again, 16 months later, accepting this UFC 199 matchup as some kind of career achievement award for Bisping even though the reality is…well, it appears rather bleak.

This time around, according to some sportsbooks on Odds Shark, Rockhold is as much as a minus-1100 favorite. If you’re not the gambling type, rest assured that number isn’t common in UFC championship matches with a challenger ranked in the Top Five.

By comparison, when longtime middleweight kingpin Anderson Silva held the belt, only one time did he enter a fight with comparable odds—when he fought Demian Maia and danced and taunted his way to an uninspired yet lopsided victory.

“I have no pressure. I know I’m expected to lose this fight,” Bisping said during Thursday’s UFC 199 conference call. “The world is expecting me to lose this fight, and that’s so nice, that feels good. I haven’t had 10 weeks of evaluating footage and going through the emotional roller coaster. Feeling confident, feeling negative, feeling confident again, then negative again. I don’t have time for that s–t. I’m very, very confident. I’m in great shape. My weight is perfect.

“I’m expected to lose? That’s awesome.”

Ten years in the hurt business is something close to an eternity. Prospects come and go. Promotions arrive with fanfare before disappearing without a trace. Entire landscapes shift beneath your feet. 

Ten years in the major leagues is something else entirely. Bisping has seen the sport literally evolve before his eyes. 

When he started his UFC career, Tim Sylvia was the heavyweight champion. Rich Franklin was the middleweight champion, and the UFC lightweight division did not exist. 

From limited sanctioning to wrestling dominance to testosterone replacement therapy and beyond, Bisping has found ways to adapt to the prevailing winds of the moment, staying relevant for a full decade. He’s been controversial—even hated for his ability to talk his way under the skin of both fighters and fans alike—and has hung around so long that he’s won many of those same critics over through respect for his longevity and drive. 

And that is why for Bisping it should not matter, even though, of course, it does.

Here’s the thing about Bisping: Even if he wins, you couldn’t possibly define his career with one line. 

His career has been too rich in moments, too textured.

It’s been long forgotten that when he debuted in the UFC through The Ultimate Fighter 3 in 2006, Bisping was something of a wild card. He was an undefeated fighter but one without the wrestling pedigree that seemed critical during the heyday of ground-and-pound. During the show’s draft, he was chosen fifth out of the 16 contestants, with coaches Tito Ortiz and Ken Shamrock viewing Matt Hamill, Jesse Forbes, Kalib Starnes and Rory Singer as more promising prospects.

Big mistake. 

Bisping not only stormed through the competition with three straight stoppage wins, but he also became a dominant personality to match the colorful coaches.

His success was crucial for the breakthrough of the company in Europe, as he became one of the front men for the sport’s growth, opening up opportunities for both fighters and the local markets. Indeed, when the UFC brought an event to Bisping’s then-home city of Manchester, England in April 2007, it was largely because of his exploding star power there. The company hadn’t taken the Octagon outside the U.S. in nearly five years.

It was a formula the UFC would later replicate to great success with Alexander Gustafsson and Conor McGregor in tapping an exploding European market.

Bisping? He was the blueprint.

The rematch with Rockhold will be the 26th fight of Bisping’s UFC career, tying him with Gleison Tibau and putting him just one behind the co-record holders, Frank Mir and Ortiz.

It will also mark the 18th time he’s featured in either the main event or co-main event, and in every fight of his UFC career, he’s been on the main card, something only a handful with such longevity can boast.

If this timing wasn’t ideal—coming on short notice and shortly after Bisping wrapped a movie—it was better than the alternative of never. Bisping only received the opportunity after first alternate Ronaldo “Jacare” Souza pronounced himself unable to compete due to a knee injury.

“Mike, he’s a tough dude,” Rockhold said on the conference call. “He’s got balls. He took this fight, but this will not be his fairy tale. This will be his swan song.”

Maybe.

It’s almost certainly the Brit’s last chance for a UFC title, but if he falls short, it does nothing to blunt his importance during the promotion’s key years of growth.

So, he loses. Imagine that. 

Imagine you’ve worked your whole life for a moment that didn’t live up to its promise. Then imagine everything that’s come before it. 

He doesn’t have to. He did it. But if he wants to, Bisping can close his eyes and think back on it all, content in the knowledge that all he did was as important to his legacy as any precious metal.  

Read more MMA news on BleacherReport.com

Stipe Miocic Finally Breaks Veteran Stranglehold on UFC Heavyweight Title

Back in January, after a scheduled matchup between Stipe Miocic and Fabricio Werdum was postponed due to a Werdum injury, the Brazilian UFC heavyweight champ threw a little shade in the direction of the American challenger.
“I will fight against …

Back in January, after a scheduled matchup between Stipe Miocic and Fabricio Werdum was postponed due to a Werdum injury, the Brazilian UFC heavyweight champ threw a little shade in the direction of the American challenger.

“I will fight against you [Stipe Miocic] anytime after my recovery. I think you are a great fire fighter,” his tweet to Miocic read.

Turns out his tweet was one word too long. 

Miocic does work as a part-time firefighter/paramedic with the Oakwood Village and Valley View, Ohio, fire departments, but he was already a top-five heavyweight. Now he can say he’s the best, adding a new line to his resume as the UFC heavyweight champion.

It is a stunning result, simply based on the fact Miocic has never committed his life solely to training for MMA. There have been others in the modern era with jobs that have challenged for the belt—Brock Lesnar’s onetime rival Shane Carwin comes to mind—but no one else in this kind of situation has won the belt.

Part of the reason is that MMA is so multi-layered and complex that you can spend all day training the various disciplines, from muay thai to boxing to wrestling to jiu-jitsu. And all that comes before the stamina training and strength exercises. 

You can literally spend a lifetime absorbing some of these lessons.

Miocic, however, did it on his own terms, taking one of the most roundabout routes ever to a major MMA championship.

Miocic (15-2) had a background in amateur wrestling, competing at Cleveland State University and qualifying for the 2003 NCAA Division I Wrestling Championships. However, the next year, Miocic left the team to pursue his baseball interests. 

If a team had drafted him—and according to Bloody Elbow, there was interest from some teams—MMA may have never drawn Miocic.

Instead, he eventually found himself with a mean competitive streak but no outlet, and turned to MMA.

He debuted professionally in 2010, and within 20 months, was in the UFC.

This is a man who is not chronologically young—he is now 33 years old—but he is young in the game, a fresh and still somewhat raw talent who has more potential to unearth.

On Saturday night in Arena da Baixada in Curitibia, Brazil, before 45,000 screaming Brazilians rooting on Werdum, Miocic seemed as though he even surprised himself. As Werdum advanced wildly midway through the first round, Miocic backpedaled before planting his back foot and landed a short right that put Werdum down and out. As Miocic rushed in for some ground strikes, ref Dan Miragliotta immediately waved off the fight, and Miocic jumped the Octagon cage, into the waiting arms of his cornermen, all the while shouting, “I’m the world champion! I’m the world champion!” As if he was convincing himself by saying it out loud.

“He’s a lot quicker than I thought,” Miocic told the UFC on FOX crew after the fight. “I hit him with some shots, and he didn’t like it too much, and then I caught him with the right hand. I do have power. Some people don’t think I do, but I do.”

It’s not that people doubted his power; it’s that they’re still figuring out who Miocic is and what he brings into the octagon. 

True, he had not showed one-punch knockout power before Saturday night, but he had illustrated the effective use of the same counter right that put Werdum’s lights out. 

Everything else was slowly being unveiled, layers peeled away and used as needed to add flavor to the recipe.

There was no better time to show this other ingredient.

For the last decade, the top of the world MMA heavyweight division has been a merry-go-round, with the same familiar names coming and going and no new ones able to truly break through.

The division had gotten so stale that there had only been three heavyweight title bouts since October 2013, and one of them was an interim title bout.

For years, the division has been dominated by three names: Cain Velasquez, Junior dos Santos and Werdum.

In fact, there hasn’t been a UFC heavyweight championship fight without one of those three involved since UFC 116 in July 2010, when Brock Lesnar successfully defended the title in a win over Shane Carwin.

Ironically, Miocic was never the first option to face Werdum. Originally, the UFC heavyweight champ was penciled in against Velasquez in a rematch of the UFC 188 bout in which Werdum captured the belt.

However, the often-injured Velasquez bowed out with another injury, this time to his back, and Miocic slid into the open slot.

As the fight approached however, it seemed as though Werdum, who is known for his relaxed attitude, was a little too loose. 

In fact, he spent his own time and money creating and distributing masks with his face on them, and then, moments after the Friday weigh-in, complaining that the masks had been banned from the arena.

Most expected the fight to be the continuation of a late-career renaissance that had ranked among the great reclamation projects in MMA history. For the longest time, Werdum was considered talented but inconsistent, at one point struggling through a 5-4 stretch.

It was only after he was knocked out by Junior Dos Santos in October 2008 that he received a wakeup call, adding emphasis to his striking attack to go with his world-class ground game. The hard work rounded out his approach, and with opponents unable to take advantage of a clear deficiency, he quickly surged.

While he’d been favored against Miocic, the road back will be difficult. Werdum is 38, and it’s fair to question whether the downward slide is underway. 

At 33, Miocic isn’t a kid, but he has much less mileage on him, and much more momentum to ride.

On Saturday night, ESPN aired a documentary titled “Believeland” about the many disappointments in the Cleveland sports scene. The city hadn’t had a major sports championship since the Browns won the 1964 NFL title. Hours later, Miocic was shouting the city’s name above the silence of 45,000 quiet Brazilians.  

It was a statement in every way. The blue-collar, part-time firefighter and paramedic hasn’t just broken a curse or a divisional veteran stranglehold. He did more than that. For now, he is the best heavyweight in the world. 

Read more MMA news on BleacherReport.com

Stipe Miocic Finally Breaks Veteran Stranglehold on UFC Heavyweight Title

Back in January, after a scheduled matchup between Stipe Miocic and Fabricio Werdum was postponed due to a Werdum injury, the Brazilian UFC heavyweight champ threw a little shade in the direction of the American challenger.
“I will fight against …

Back in January, after a scheduled matchup between Stipe Miocic and Fabricio Werdum was postponed due to a Werdum injury, the Brazilian UFC heavyweight champ threw a little shade in the direction of the American challenger.

“I will fight against you [Stipe Miocic] anytime after my recovery. I think you are a great fire fighter,” his tweet to Miocic read.

Turns out his tweet was one word too long. 

Miocic does work as a part-time firefighter/paramedic with the Oakwood Village and Valley View, Ohio, fire departments, but he was already a top-five heavyweight. Now he can say he’s the best, adding a new line to his resume as the UFC heavyweight champion.

It is a stunning result, simply based on the fact Miocic has never committed his life solely to training for MMA. There have been others in the modern era with jobs that have challenged for the belt—Brock Lesnar’s onetime rival Shane Carwin comes to mind—but no one else in this kind of situation has won the belt.

Part of the reason is that MMA is so multi-layered and complex that you can spend all day training the various disciplines, from muay thai to boxing to wrestling to jiu-jitsu. And all that comes before the stamina training and strength exercises. 

You can literally spend a lifetime absorbing some of these lessons.

Miocic, however, did it on his own terms, taking one of the most roundabout routes ever to a major MMA championship.

Miocic (15-2) had a background in amateur wrestling, competing at Cleveland State University and qualifying for the 2003 NCAA Division I Wrestling Championships. However, the next year, Miocic left the team to pursue his baseball interests. 

If a team had drafted him—and according to Bloody Elbow, there was interest from some teams—MMA may have never drawn Miocic.

Instead, he eventually found himself with a mean competitive streak but no outlet, and turned to MMA.

He debuted professionally in 2010, and within 20 months, was in the UFC.

This is a man who is not chronologically young—he is now 33 years old—but he is young in the game, a fresh and still somewhat raw talent who has more potential to unearth.

On Saturday night in Arena da Baixada in Curitibia, Brazil, before 45,000 screaming Brazilians rooting on Werdum, Miocic seemed as though he even surprised himself. As Werdum advanced wildly midway through the first round, Miocic backpedaled before planting his back foot and landed a short right that put Werdum down and out. As Miocic rushed in for some ground strikes, ref Dan Miragliotta immediately waved off the fight, and Miocic jumped the Octagon cage, into the waiting arms of his cornermen, all the while shouting, “I’m the world champion! I’m the world champion!” As if he was convincing himself by saying it out loud.

“He’s a lot quicker than I thought,” Miocic told the UFC on FOX crew after the fight. “I hit him with some shots, and he didn’t like it too much, and then I caught him with the right hand. I do have power. Some people don’t think I do, but I do.”

It’s not that people doubted his power; it’s that they’re still figuring out who Miocic is and what he brings into the octagon. 

True, he had not showed one-punch knockout power before Saturday night, but he had illustrated the effective use of the same counter right that put Werdum’s lights out. 

Everything else was slowly being unveiled, layers peeled away and used as needed to add flavor to the recipe.

There was no better time to show this other ingredient.

For the last decade, the top of the world MMA heavyweight division has been a merry-go-round, with the same familiar names coming and going and no new ones able to truly break through.

The division had gotten so stale that there had only been three heavyweight title bouts since October 2013, and one of them was an interim title bout.

For years, the division has been dominated by three names: Cain Velasquez, Junior dos Santos and Werdum.

In fact, there hasn’t been a UFC heavyweight championship fight without one of those three involved since UFC 116 in July 2010, when Brock Lesnar successfully defended the title in a win over Shane Carwin.

Ironically, Miocic was never the first option to face Werdum. Originally, the UFC heavyweight champ was penciled in against Velasquez in a rematch of the UFC 188 bout in which Werdum captured the belt.

However, the often-injured Velasquez bowed out with another injury, this time to his back, and Miocic slid into the open slot.

As the fight approached however, it seemed as though Werdum, who is known for his relaxed attitude, was a little too loose. 

In fact, he spent his own time and money creating and distributing masks with his face on them, and then, moments after the Friday weigh-in, complaining that the masks had been banned from the arena.

Most expected the fight to be the continuation of a late-career renaissance that had ranked among the great reclamation projects in MMA history. For the longest time, Werdum was considered talented but inconsistent, at one point struggling through a 5-4 stretch.

It was only after he was knocked out by Junior Dos Santos in October 2008 that he received a wakeup call, adding emphasis to his striking attack to go with his world-class ground game. The hard work rounded out his approach, and with opponents unable to take advantage of a clear deficiency, he quickly surged.

While he’d been favored against Miocic, the road back will be difficult. Werdum is 38, and it’s fair to question whether the downward slide is underway. 

At 33, Miocic isn’t a kid, but he has much less mileage on him, and much more momentum to ride.

On Saturday night, ESPN aired a documentary titled “Believeland” about the many disappointments in the Cleveland sports scene. The city hadn’t had a major sports championship since the Browns won the 1964 NFL title. Hours later, Miocic was shouting the city’s name above the silence of 45,000 quiet Brazilians.  

It was a statement in every way. The blue-collar, part-time firefighter and paramedic hasn’t just broken a curse or a divisional veteran stranglehold. He did more than that. For now, he is the best heavyweight in the world. 

Read more MMA news on BleacherReport.com

UFC Sale Rumors: Would the UFC Improve Without Dana White and the Fertittas?

On Tuesday night, ESPN  that the UFC is in advanced talks to sell the promotion, hiring investment bank Goldman Sachs to represent it in discussions with at least four groups that have bid on an acquisition of the MMA global market leader.
Rumors …

On Tuesday night, ESPN  that the UFC is in advanced talks to sell the promotion, hiring investment bank Goldman Sachs to represent it in discussions with at least four groups that have bid on an acquisition of the MMA global market leader.

Rumors of a potential sale have occasionally surfaced over the last several years, but this is clearly the strongest report yet that the Zuffa ownership is considering cashing out, with ESPN citing a potential price tag of up to $4 billion.

But why now? The UFC is riding high, with UFC 200 around the corner, a couple of transcendent stars in Conor McGregor and Ronda Rousey, and its first New York state event since the ban was dropped on tap toward the end of the year. 

To mine the potential causes and reasons behind the possible deal, as well as what it might mean for the future, I’m joined by Bleacher Report MMA Lead Writer Chad Dundas.

Mike Chiappetta: Chad, I wasn’t surprised to hear this report, and I’m sure you weren’t surprised either. Like most good businesses, its leadership team is always looking for opportunities. Until now, they’ve always been the one snapping up properties, but there have always been signs it wouldn’t last forever. 

For one thing, the Fertitta brothers have the family business to run, recently taking their renamed gaming company, Red Rock Resorts, Inc., public. For another, those of us who have been around the UFC a long time have heard that Lorenzo Fertitta has always been interested in bringing an NFL team to Las Vegas. 

As Bleacher Report NFL writer Mike Freeman has written, “large swaths of ownership no longer see putting a team in Vegas as a problem.” Fertitta may think it’s time to pounce on this opportunity or simply sell when the market is high.

Chad Dundas: We’re dealing with a very fluid situation here, Mike. Even as I type this, our former Bleacher Report colleague Jeremy Botter is reporting that Zuffa is merely looking to sell a 10-15 percent stake in the UFC.

A move like that obviously wouldn’t be unprecedented. In January 2010, the parent company sold a 10 percent stake in the UFC to Flash Entertainment, a live-events promoter owned by the government of the United Arab Emirates. The Octagon has made a couple trips to the UAE since then, but mostly Flash has been a pretty silent partner.

As far back as the summer of 2015, rumors swirled that another deal could be in offing. A couple months ago, Bleacher Report’s Jonathan Snowden tweeted that Zuffa might have another suitor on the hook.

And look, even if this is just the Fertittas portioning off another small-ish side of flesh, the fact is that our friends in Las Vegas are going to sell the company store at some point. Despite the fact they’ve always seemed like lifers when the cameras are on, I’ve always gotten the impression that behind the scenes they were treating the UFC like a spec house.

And you’re right. If you’re looking to unload this thing, now would be a great time. Not only because of the positive developments you mentioned above, but because there’s at least some evidence to suggest the ride is about to get a lot rockier for ownership. There is that looming class action lawsuit, rumbles of an Ali Act for MMA coming in the near future and a labor force that isn’t going to get any less interested in getting a fair slice of the pie as time goes on.

If I were Dana White or one of the Fertittas, I might look up at the clock and wonder if midnight wasn’t just about to strike.     

Mike: The sale of a percentage rather than the whole thing does seem much more likely. After all, the UFC is still a very profitable business, one that allows the management team an almost-absurd level of control over its product and finances. Compare that to say, owning an NFL team, and there are so many rules and regulations to follow. Would the Fertitta brothers really rather do that than continue carving their own path? 

That seems unlikely. I can understand the interest in owning an NFL team and being the savior that brings the league to your hometown. Who wouldn’t want to do that? But doesn’t owning a league sound better than owning a team? It does to me. 

Another roadblock? By my understanding, the NFL prohibits ownership in any gambling interest, so the brothers would have to rid themselves of their stake in Red Rock Resorts, Inc., to go the NFL route. That seems awfully unlikely, too.

So a percentage of a portion seems the most logical outcome. White indirectly showed his hand that was the case when asked by NBC Sports’ Dan Patrick, saying, “Um, obviously if I’m in the middle of a deal right now, there’s a lot of confidentiality involved in it, but we’re working on expanding.”

But, if they did sell, what would the UFC look like? For all the grief Dana White receives, it’s hard to imagine the UFC without him. He’s been the chief hype man for over a decade, and he’s been very good at it, even if he’s taken a diminished role in the last year or two. I doubt a new controlling interest group would come in and immediately install their own people in every top role. There is too much of a learning curve involved to do that, but one thing we know in life is that everyone is replaceable. 

I wouldn’t expect the finished product to look vastly different. New ownership might come with new ideas for presentation, but fighting is still two men—or women—and a cage. If anything, maybe we could finally say goodbye to “Face the Pain.”

Chad: It’s fitting that you bring up “Face the Pain,” given that everything we know about the MMA industry in America today was created exactly in the image White and the Fertittas wanted. Bloodsport-style marketing? That’s them. Unfortunate relationship with bro culture? Them. Weird insistence that the whims of management and fans should come before the well-being of the actual fighters? Guess who.

I often wonder what would have happened if a crew of billionaires with slightly different sensibilities had bought the UFC all those years ago. Alas, now we’ll never know.

One day we will find out what life in the UFC is like without White and the Fertittas, though. That’s a certainty. Many of us kvetch long and loud about them—and they deserve it—but sometimes I wonder if we should be careful what we wish for.

If the company that bought the UFC was a faceless hedge fund or stuffy venture capital firm, would we end up pining for the fast-and-loose days where White shot from the hip and Fertitta showed up looking like he could out-bench-press most of the roster? Maybe. Maybe.

I doubt anyone who bought the UFC would suddenly come in with a more labor-friendly attitude, unfortunately. They would be buying the thing based on Zuffa’s revenue history and projections, after all. But someone who might bring a new vision for the sport? I’d be all in on that.

A guy can dream, can’t he? 

Mike: Yeah, I guess those are the things we wonder most about. What would a sale mean for the fans? What would it mean for the athletes? 

For the latter, the questions are numerous. Would it mean an increased schedule? A further watering-down of the product? More opportunities? Anything and everything is possible with a new perspective. It could be the best thing to happen to them, or the very worst. 

But one thing I do know is that the treatment of athletes isn’t likely to change without any concerted effort by them. A sale generally assumes any pre-existing deals. Reebok will stay, so will the Fox deal and those iron-clad contracts. Billion-dollar businesses aren’t known for magnanimity. 

So in the end, whether the UFC honchos sell the whole organization, or a part of it, or keep the ownership structure as is, it will be mostly “business as usual,” a term familiar to longtime fans of UFC acquisitions. Except this time, it will actually be that. Everyone is always open to tinkering with formula, even an ultra-successful one, but no one will toss it away and start from scratch.

Generally, fans don’t care about ownership teams. There are a few outliers. George Steinbrenner. Mark Cuban. Jerry Jones. Al Davis. Dana White and Co. fall into this category. They are characters who are weaved into the fabric of the sport. Even a sale wouldn’t change that.

Read more MMA news on BleacherReport.com

‘King’ Mo Lawal’s Bold Plan: Beat Phil Davis, Win Heavyweight Belt, Superfight

In a sport where the idealism of first often comes before the business of entertainment, it’s sometimes refreshing to hear the cold realism spouted by Muhammed “King Mo” Lawal, a man who is not the creator of the “money weight&r…

In a sport where the idealism of first often comes before the business of entertainment, it’s sometimes refreshing to hear the cold realism spouted by Muhammed “King Mo” Lawal, a man who is not the creator of the “money weight” term but certainly helped popularize it. 

In his 24 pro bouts, he’s competed 16 times as a light heavyweight and eight times as heavyweight, with little interest for the shiny gold belt that is often the obsession of his brethren. 

Ask most 30-something fighters if they have any particular goals to chase before retiring, and they’ll go straight for the belt. But Lawal?

“Nope,” he told Bleacher Report. “Just keep cashing checks. That’s it.”

By that metric, life has been pretty good for Lawal since signing with Bellator in 2012. Since his debut in January 2013, Lawal has been one of the most active fighters in major MMA, competing five times in 2013, four times in 2014 and five times in 2015. 

So far, though, 2016 has drawn a blank, but he’s finally getting his first start this Saturday when he takes on Phil Davis in the main event of Bellator 154. 

While the bout was designed to determine the No. 1 contender to current light heavyweight champion Liam McGeary, Lawal has a backup plan in the works. It’s just an off-the-cuff idea, but it goes something like this:

  • Beat Phil Davis
  • Move up to heavyweight and take the belt
  • Face McGeary

“I like Liam, he’s cool, but let him fight somebody else,” he said. “I think he’s injured and still healing. Let him fight somebody else and then we can have a big-money fight. I can win the heavyweight title, then we can have a money fight. Heavyweight champ vs. light heavyweight champ at a catch weight of like 215 [pounds].”

In this scenario, the utility of the belt is more important than its perceived value; it’s simply the drawing card to a big-money fight.

While that may veer from the romantic notion of a golden belt, it’s more in line with its actual use as a promotional prop, and generally speaking, a fighter who understands the business side of the sport has a better chance to maximize his value.

Still, Lawal’s got some work to do before he gets there. 

Davis was a top-10 world-ranked light heavyweight before signing with Bellator via free agency, and according to FightMatrix, which uses a proprietary algorithm to rank fighters across organizations, he’s held steady, currently ranked No. 6 in the division. (Comparatively, Lawal sits a few spots behind at No. 10.) 

Last time out, Davis scored the first official KO of his career, knocking out Francis Carmont following a left hook. Color Lawal unimpressed.

“When he’s throwing punches, he’s backing up. He threw that Hail Mary versus Carmont,” he said. “It’s a big left hook, but he was arm-punching and shifted into it. [Boxing legend] Jack Dempsey had this thing called the ‘shift’ where he’d step and throw a right hand, and then step with the left and throw a left hand. You’re shifting stances. He did that into a left and knocked out Carmont, but that’s the only time I’ve ever really seen him commit with a big shot. The only time.”

Not surprisingly, fighters about to fight disagree on their assessments of each other. Neither was dismissive of the other’s skills, but each offered his own interpretation.

“He’s a slugger and a wrestler so he brings a very unique skill set to the table because very few guys who have his kind of punching power have his level of wrestling,” Davis told Bleacher Report. “So that’s what makes him unique, but I think I have a more rounded game.”

That moderate boast could hardly be called inflammatory, but Lawal took exception to its premise as much as its accuracy. By his own estimation, he believes he is better able to make his own game work within the context of the fight.

“Phil can think that. He might be more well-rounded, but who cares?” he said. “I don’t see it. I see average stand-up, average wrestler, a little above-average grappling. 

“Anyway, it’s not about how well-rounded your game is, it’s about how you can make the s–t work for you,” he continued. “Look at Robbie Lawler vs. Rory MacDonald. Who’s more well-rounded? Rory’s a better wrestler. Rory has better grappling, Rory has good stand-up. So who’s more well-rounded? Probably Rory. But who won the f–king fight? Robbie. So you can say you’re more well-rounded. That’s great. We’ll see how much that matters when the cage closes.”

The dynamics of the fight do favor Lawal in one significant way: His wrestling pedigree—he was a collegiate All-American and a world-ranked amateur wrestler—makes it likely he can force Davis to stand with him, and he’s vowed to do just that.

The collision course between the two is a long time in the making. From the time Davis signed, it seemed obvious it would happen, and then last September, both were involved in a four-man, one-night tournament. Both won their opening-round matches, but Lawal could not continue due to a rib injury. 

In a way, the delay could prove a blessing, as it gave the matchup more time to simmer. Conversely, it also ramps up expectations. 

A win over Davis will lead to plenty of possibilities. Lawal can fight McGeary. He can fight heavyweight champ Vitaly Minakov. He can fight Tito Ortiz, with whom he recently had a confrontation (warning: link contains NSFW language).

“Man, the guy’s won three fights in 10 years,” he said. “You think this matchup helps him or helps me? That lowers my brand. It helps his brand. What’s beating him going to do for me? Three wins in 10 years? That’s like one win every three years. Come on, man.”

OK, cross that one off the list. Unless the money talks the right way, perhaps. 

At 35, Lawal doesn’t see a finish line in his future yet, but he knows it’s not too far off in the distance. When it gets boring, he’ll stop. Until then, he’ll keep cashing checks.

Read more MMA news on BleacherReport.com

After 4th Straight Win, It’s Now or Never for Alistair Overeem’s UFC Title Hopes

In a division where advanced age seems to be a strength, there is no end in sight to Alistair Overeem’s UFC title hopes.
For most heavyweights, there will always be more chances until everything completely falls apart—for Exhibit A, see An…

In a division where advanced age seems to be a strength, there is no end in sight to Alistair Overeem’s UFC title hopes.

For most heavyweights, there will always be more chances until everything completely falls apart—for Exhibit A, see Antonio “Bigfoot” Silva—and at least for right now, the 35-year-old Overeem still has more to offer.

But in the UFC, timing is often more important than anything else. Find yourself in the right place at the right time, and your life can completely change.

Look no further than the top of the heavyweight division for that.

Stipe Miocic has a modest two-fight win streak to his credit but finds himself fighting for the belt on May 14 only because actual No. 1 contender Cain Velasquez was injured. The UFC has holes to plug, and sometimes it’s not as important to be the perfect piece as it is to be the best available one.

Overeem may be about to find himself in the very advantageous position of checking both of those boxes.

After Sunday’s spectacular second-round TKO win over Andrei Arlovski—his fourth straight victory—Overeem boasts the second-best streak in the division behind champ Fabricio Werdum’s. And with the title fight between Werdum and Miocic just a week away, Overeem is perfectly situated on a parallel timeline for return.

With only one missing major title on his decorated resume, he wasted no time in reminding the UFC brass of that fact.

“We’re going to get that belt in November. November 12 at Madison Square Garden,” he told the fans at Ahoy Rotterdam in his adopted home country of the Netherlands. “We’re going to let Werdum and Stipe do their thing, and then we’re going to get the belt, and next year we’ll be defending the belt here at Amsterdam Arena.”

Everyone loves a man with a plan, but the UFC has not yet committed to anything past Werdum-Miocic.

Still, given the stagnancy in the heavyweight title picture over the last few years— Velasquez, Frank Mir, Junior Dos Santos, Antonio Silva and Werdum have been the only players involved in the last five years—the UFC should be chomping at the bit to get some fresh blood involved.

Even better if that name is one that many audiences are familiar with.

Overeem has been a mainstay of heavyweight combat for a decade, capturing belts in Strikeforce, DREAM and K-1, and as recently as in 2012, he was set up to fight Dos Santos for the UFC belt until failing a random drug test and dashing his own hopes.

While he is no longer in the “Ubereem” phase of those days, his game has shown some maturation in the past two years, with more emphasis on defense and self-preservation to go with the sustained bursts of violence that became his trademark.

That’s exactly how he wrote the ending against Arlovski, holding his Team Jackson-Winkeljohn teammate to 29 strikes landed on 46 attempts while landing 33 of his 41 own attempted strikes, according to FightMetric.

The end came with a sequence that flashed his creativity and agility, as he used a crane kick-left hook combo to floor Arlovski before finishing with a hail of ground strikes.

Overeem spoke about his mindset at the post-fight press conference:

We know he has very dangerous hands, he’s got a very dangerous acceleration. He’s tough, he’s a fighter, he’s a former champ, he has a lot of experience, fought a lot of top guys. Definitely, pick your shots and don’t be too hasty. Of course, we were fighting at home, so maybe there is crowd pressure. Just be relaxed, just do your thing. Be in the moment. Be with the flow. I’m in very good shape at the moment. I’m in peak shape. If I’m flowing, I do a lot of damage. That was just the main thing: Just be in your flow, and the finish or the domination will come automatically.

Those instincts led to a combination you simply don’t see out of big men, just another highlight-reel moment to add to his long list of them.

Overeem now appears poised to follow up on the momentum of the moment to push for the title fight. While he still may have a few years ahead of him, he’s also quite cognizant of how long it’s taken to return to this point.

Heavyweight MMA can be decided on a single strike.

He’s experienced that himself, suffering two crushing comeback defeats against Antonio Silva and Travis Browne, both in 2013, that set him back and forced him to rebuild himself.

At the time, Overeem was mostly left for dead, with many of the sport’s observers believing that his chin had been compromised beyond repair after years of combat sports. In addition, there was a belief that Overeem—a long-rumored, once-busted performance-enhancing drug user—would be further affected by the UFC’s institution of year-round drug testing through the United States Anti-Doping Agency.

Instead, he has shown late-career evolution with a finely refined approach.

After over 50 MMA fights and 15 kickboxing fights, Overeem has a collection of belts that few combat sports athletes can ever hope to match. But there remains one gaping hole in that collection, one that he imminently plans to address.

“I believe the ride is up,” he told Fox backstage announcer John Gooden after the fight. “I believe the next fight will be for the UFC heavyweight title. The preparation will commence this week. We’ll take one day off, and on Tuesday, I’ll be back in the gym working my butt off for that title.”

Read more MMA news on BleacherReport.com