The chance to compete for $100,000 is something that only happens to a very small fraction of MMA fighters. Mike Richman has now earned that opportunity after his victory over Alexandre Bezerra during Thursday night’s Bellator 92 event. Richman…
The chance to compete for $100,000 is something that only happens to a very small fraction of MMA fighters. Mike Richman has now earned that opportunity after his victory over Alexandre Bezerra during Thursday night’s Bellator 92 event.
Richman survived a borderline disastrous Round 1 which saw Bezerra, a Brazilian jiu-jitsu black belt, take his back with nearly three minutes left in the round. Richman stayed calm, though, and was able to make it out of trouble.
The striking abilities of the Minnesotan took over in Round 2 when Richman peppered “Popo” with punch after punch, bloodying the nose and evening the fight at one round a piece.
Round 3 would determine the winner, and what a back-and-forth round it was.
Richman started off strong again, out-striking Bezerra the same way he did in Round 2. But things took a sudden turn for the worst when Bezerra shot in and got another takedown. Bezerra took his back yet again and looked for the rear-naked choke over and over again.
Sensing the fight slipping away, Richman used every bit of strength and technique that he had in him to flip the positions, putting Bezerra on his back for the first time in the fight. With only about 1:15 left in the round, however, Richman knew he had to bring the fight back to the feet if he wanted to win the round. He did just that by standing up, forcing Bezerra to get back up with him.
An exhausted Bezerra looked for another takedown, but was unable to get Richman back to the mat. Richman unloaded once again, tagging Bezerra repeatedly before the round finally came to an end.
The split decision (29-28 Richman, 29-28 Bezerra, 29-28 Richman) told the story of this very close bout which pitted an excellent striker against an excellent grappler. On this night, the striker, Richman, did just enough to win and move on to the finals of the Bellator MMA featherweight tournament.
“[It was the] Biggest victory of my career,” Richman said in the post-fight interview in the cage on Spike TV. “He’s got a granite chin. I hit really hard and he took every shot of it.”
When asked about the other semifinal bout between FrodoKhasbulaev and Marlon Sandro, Richmancouldn’t pick a winner, but did give a vote of respect for both men.
“I’m so excited to bang with either of them,” Richman said.
Richman will now relax for a couple days before getting back into the gym at The Academy where he will prepare for the next “biggest fight of his career” in the finals of the Bellator featherweight tournament.
For more fighter interviews, news and opinions, please follow Nick Caron (@nicholascaron) on Twitter.
When news broke Wednesday that Eddie Wineland would be the next challenger for Renan Barao’s interim UFC bantamweight championship, the MMA community seemed to meet it with a collective, “Really?”Wineland, who is currently the No. 5 bantamweight i…
When news broke Wednesday that Eddie Winelandwould be the next challenger for RenanBarao‘s interim UFC bantamweight championship, the MMA community seemed to meet it with a collective, “Really?”
Wineland, who is currently the No. 5 bantamweight in the UFC, lost his first two bouts for the promotion in 2011 when he fell short in decisions to Urijah Faber and Joseph Benavidez. Since then, he has won back-to-back fights against Scott Jorgensen and Brad Pickett.
No disrespect for Wineland, who has been a top competitor within the division for years and is coming off perhaps the biggest win of his career over Brad Pickett at UFC 155, but considering that he has only won half of his past four fights, the decision to give him a title fight was a bit surprising to some.
Wineland isn’t the only one who is gunning for a title at the moment that most wouldn’t have predicted, however. Here are four other rather surprising contenders on the UFC roster.
Continued dominance from UFC champions Anderson Silva and Jon “Bones” Jones has prompted many to call for a bout to prove who is the pound-for-pound king of mixed martial arts. Even UFC president Dana White expressed interest in a Silva-Jon…
Continued dominance from UFC champions Anderson Silva and Jon “Bones” Jones has prompted many to call for a bout to prove who is the pound-for-pound king of mixed martial arts. Even UFC president Dana White expressed interest in a Silva-Jones bout after the promotion’s struggles to put together a similar fight between Silva and UFC welterweight champion Georges St-Pierre.
“Superfights” are nothing new to MMA, but they’re something that has rarely been seen in recent years, at least not from champions. However, the UFC knows a gold mine when it sees it.
That doesn‘t seem to ring true across all divisions, however. This is particularly true in the newly created women’s division of the UFC.
Despite having similar dominance within their divisions, the UFC does not seem quite as excited to put together a “superfight” between current UFC women’s bantamweight champion Ronda Rousey and former Strikeforce women’s featherweight champion Cristiane “Cyborg” Santos.
Santos, who recently left the promotion before ever making her debut due to ongoing contract disagreements that mostly revolved around her weight, is now signed with Invicta FC.
Some have called out the new division for its lack of depth and perhaps rightfully so. But it certainly doesn‘t help that the UFC doesn’t appear to be too worried about it. It has its queen, and her name is Ronda Rousey.
So why the discrepancy between the top males and top females?
Why do so many fans, even UFC executives themselves, care about the “superfights” between Silva and Jones or Silva and St-Pierre, but seem to have little interest in a Rousey-Cyborg superfight?
Aside from the obvious money-making opportunity that presents itself with a Silva-Jones fight as opposed to a Rousey-Santos fight, the answer to the above question may actually have to do with the UFC’s confidence in its women’s bantamweight champion.
Or should I say, lack of confidence.
It wasn’t long ago that Rousey was competing at 145 pounds in the Strikeforce featherweight division. Moving down in weight certainly makes her a more dangerous fighter; however, she was also crushing high-level opponents as a featherweight, so it’s not as if she’s incapable of moving back up for a fight with Santos.
The problem is that Santos’ power and raw athletic ability make her essentially the prototypical opponent to fight Ronda Rousey. While Rousey has been able to exert her will, particularly in the grappling game, against every opponent she has faced, things would be a lot different against Cyborg.
Rousey is currently the unquestioned top 135-pound female fighter on the planet, but ever since rumors of the potential bout with “Cyborg” surfaced, discussion of the former judo medalist moving back up to her original weight of 145 to meet her foe have been quiet. Instead, the UFC seems to want Santos, one of the most-built female fighters we have ever seen, to shred 10 pounds and become a bantamweight.
Anyone who has seen Cyborg fight would tell you that she is about as ripped as a woman can be at that weight. According to her manager, former UFC champion Tito Ortiz, Cyborg cannot safely make 135.
“I don’t think it’s going to happen,” Ortiz told Ariel Helwani on The MMA Hour (h/t Shaun Al-Shatti, MMAFighting.com)earlier this year. “It’s hard for women to cut that much weight. For a woman to be three-percent body fat, it’s not healthy.”
The obvious choice would be for Rousey to move back up to 145 for a fight, in the same way that Anderson Silva would likely be moving up to 205 to fight Jon Jones if that bout ever took place. But the UFC doesn‘t appear to want to make that happen.
Even if it’s the fight that makes sense, even if it ends the debate between the two, even if it’s the fight that that every fan of women’s MMA wants to say; none of that matters—they want Ronda Rousey to stay at 135 because, quite frankly, it’s the easiest way to protect her from ever having to fight Cyborg.
Somehow Ronda and her camp have done a great job of making Ronda look like the champion who fill fight anyone during this whole saga while simultaneously portraying Santos as a roided up freak who can’t cut any weight because she is cheating. It’s really quite brilliant.
In the end, a Rousey-Santos fight would only do one thing—put a threat on Ronda Rousey. And from a business standpoint, it doesn‘t make a whole lot of sense for the UFC.
If Rousey lost a fight to Santos, her legitimacy as the best female mixed martial artist in the world would be tarnished significantly. The fanfare would dwindle by massive amounts and it’d be very, very difficult to continue promoting her as a main event on pay-per-view.
There’s no question that Cyborg would be a respected champion if she were to win, but she doesn‘t have the “superstar” characteristics that Rousey does. For the UFC, Ronda Rousey is the perfect blend of a world-class fighter, an incredible trash talker, a pretty face and someone who can put butts in seats.
Santos just doesn‘t have that combination of traits and it could very well be that, along with the very realistic possibility that she actually beatsRousey, that stops this fight from ever happening.
To say that Hector Lombard’s run in the UFC has been disappointing so far would be an understatement. After losing his second fight in just three contests for the promotion, one has to begin to wonder—what’s next for the former Bellator champ?Mos…
To say that Hector Lombard‘s run in the UFC has been disappointing so far would be an understatement. After losing his second fight in just three contests for the promotion, one has to begin to wonder—what’s next for the former Bellator champ?
Most of us believe that Lombard still has that terrifying war-machine inside of him. The one who ran through the Bellator middleweight division like a hot knife through butter. We saw a glimpse of it in his fight against RousimarPalhares. But he simply didn’t have it against YushinOkami or Tim Boetsch.
If the UFC wants to continue to sell Lombard as a potential threat down the road for Anderson Silva, he’s going to need to step up, find the “old” Hector Lombard and start destroying people like he did during his five-plus-year unbeaten streak.
Here are three possible options for Hector Lombard going forward.
Wanderlei Silva made his MMA return to Japan on Saturday night for UFC on Fuel 8. But it wasn’t just Wanderlei Silva who returned and fought Brian Stann—Stann got locked in the cage with “The Axe Murderer.”The epic back-and-forth main event saw b…
Wanderlei Silva made his MMA return to Japan on Saturday night for UFC on Fuel 8. But it wasn’t just Wanderlei Silva who returned and fought Brian Stann—Stann got locked in the cage with “The Axe Murderer.”
The epic back-and-forth main event saw both men have their moments, with each dropping the other numerous times in the first round and a good-sized cut opening up on Stann‘s nose. Harnessing the glory from his Pride days, Silva eventually knocked out Stann in what can only be described as an early Fight of the Year candidate.
There was a lot of discussion that this could have been Silva’s final fight if he were to lose, but this kind of victory certainly changes that discussion. So what’s next for the former middleweight champion of Pride?
Here are three potential options for Silva going forward.
Oftentimes fans are “sold” a fight that simply doesn’t live up to the hype. Whether it’s a slow pace, the unexpected strategy of one of the competitors or just a mix of circumstances that leads to a “boring” fight, it is oftentimes difficult to live up…
Oftentimes fans are “sold” a fight that simply doesn’t live up to the hype. Whether it’s a slow pace, the unexpected strategy of one of the competitors or just a mix of circumstances that leads to a “boring” fight, it is oftentimes difficult to live up to the billing of a “can’t miss” fight.
The UFC on Fuel 8 main event between Wanderlei Silva and Brian Stann is not one of those fights. In fact, it’s the rare kind of scenario that an already-hyped fight actually exceeds expectations. These two warriors blew the roof off the Saitama Super Arena in Japan and turned in an early candidate for MMA Fight of the Year
It was billed as a stand-up war, and Silva and Stann delivered just that. Each fighter was dropped numerous times in the first round alone—a bloody frame which included Stann being cut deep on the bridge of his nose.
A little blood never stopped a Silver Star recipient, though, and Stann fought right on through, standing in the pocket and exchanging some hellacious shots back and forth with the former PRIDE champion. When they got into these flurries, it seemed like neither man would back down until one of them fell to the mat. Then they got back to their feet and did it all again.
It wasn’t until late in second round that Silva finally tagged Stann with a solid right hand, following it up with a left that dropped the “All-American” once and for all.
It wasn’t the most technical fight, but the heart and determination showed by these two combatants was incredible. Like Forrest Griffin and Stephan Bonnar years ago, we learned again Saturday night that there are no “losers” when the fight is this entertaining.
After a relatively uneventful undercard, Silva and Stann showed up and gave the fans what they paid for—an unbelievable finish to make UFC on Fuel 8 a memorable night.
Continued dominance from UFC champions