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UFC 139 Results: Does Urijah Faber Need to Defeat Cruz to Preserve His Legacy?

A single question preoccupies the mind of bantamweight contender Urijah Faber. Who is The Man? However, this is no quest for answers that Urijah is on. The question, to Faber’s satisfaction, has already been answered. The Califo…

A single question preoccupies the mind of bantamweight contender Urijah Faber. Who is The Man?

However, this is no quest for answers that Urijah is on. The question, to Faber’s satisfaction, has already been answered. The California Kid feels it is his mission to share that answer with the world: He is The Man and if you weigh in at less than or equal to 136 lbs. in the UFC, Faber intends for you to help him make his case.

Faber is the consensus “face” of the lower weight divisions in MMA, overshadowing bantamweight champion Dominick Cruz and featherweight champion Jose Aldo, regardless of having losses recorded to both men.

Urijah Faber, though, believes he is 2-0 in his last two fights; on his win over Brian Bowles last night, the record agrees.

The fight previous, the decision loss to Cruz, is one that Faber hotly disputes. He has said that the judges ignored the impact fullness of his attacks and focused more on Cruz’s voluminous but ineffectual strikes.

With his win over former WEC champion and Brian Bowles, he has secured his chance to finish their trilogy, possibly in the context of a coaching run on The Ultimate Fighter later next year.

Does Faber need this win over Cruz to secure his legacy?

That depends on what expectations of Faber’s legacy are.

If his legacy is to be the man who led the charge of smaller fighters to prominence on the world stage, then yes, absolutely he needs to beat Dominick Cruz. Decisively.

The Ultimate Fighter tournament is about to inject some fresh blood into the lighter divisions and Faber needs to be defending the bantamweight strap against these hungry newcomers as interest in the weight class swells.

The weight class and Faber need each other. Faber’s presence and exciting fighting style will do much for MMA if he is holding the belt and headlining shows.

If his legacy were the steward who builds and nurtures the division, then I would say it is less important. The work he has done and the notoriety he has attained will be enough if, over the course of the next decade or so, Team Alpha Male produces the fighters that its potential portends.

In the end however, to be The Man, you must beat The Man and Urijah Faber will settle for nothing less.

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UFC 139 Results: Where Cung Le Went Wrong

At Sportsbook.com, Vietnamese Tae Kwon Do fighter Cung Le was favored to beat beloved legend Wanderlei “The Axe Murderer” Silva, who many fans considered past due on retirement. Cung entered fighting’s ultimate proving ground wi…

At Sportsbook.com, Vietnamese Tae Kwon Do fighter Cung Le was favored to beat beloved legend Wanderlei “The Axe Murderer” Silva, who many fans considered past due on retirement.

Cung entered fighting’s ultimate proving ground with an impressive record of seven exciting wins and zero losses.

Coming off an extended layoff, Cung looked nervous during the walkout before his hometown crowd in San Jose, CA. Though he won Fight of the Night honors for his performance, he fell to the brutal attack of The Axe Murderer’s swarming punches and knees.

Where did Cung Le go wrong? What could Le have done differently?

The core of Cung’s problem appeared to be his perception of his opponent and the specificity of his expectations going into the fight. He saw Wanderlei’s suspect chin as an opportunity.

Silva has lost six of his last 11 fights, four by KO. It seemed that Le envisioned highlight-reel wheel kick knockouts and was determined to make a big splash in front of his home crowd.

Tae Kwon Do is an art whose repertoire is 80 percent kicks. Kicks are much more resource-intensive than punches.

Le claimed the center of the octagon early in the first round, stalking the former PRIDE champion around the edge of the cage, throwing one potential fight finisher after another, into each, putting all.

When Le did stun Silva in the first, he went for a wheel kick but failed to close the deal. By the second round, he was tired and could not keep his kicks coming to hold The Axe Murderer at bay.

Le would have been better served to direct his kicks from Wanderlei’s head to his legs, thereby slowing the Brazilian’s rush, setting up the high kick and weakening Silva’s takedown defense, something Le could have leveraged in the third, had he made it.

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UFC 139 Results: Would Dan Henderson Beat Anderson Silva in a Rematch?

There are three things you need to make life hard for Anderson Silva: an adamantine chin, suffocating wrestling and uncompromising submission defense. Of course, having the apocalyptic punching power of Dan Henderson also helps. The best p…

The best place to beat Silva is on the ground. The problem is doing it quickly.

In a fight against Anderson Silva, the clock is not your friend. Be it on his feet, with his flawless counter-punching or off his back, utilizing long-limbed submissions, Anderson is the type of fighter to capitalize on his opponents’ mistakes.

They are bound to make them, and so, a fighter’s only bet is to finish the fight early. That no one has ever done this is no reason for Dan Henderson to try.

Since his always-appreciated destruction of Michael Bisping, Henderson added knockouts of Fedor Emelianenko, Rafael Cavalcante and Renalto Sobral to his resume.

While these fighters are clearly not in the same league as Silva’s, does anyone think, Emelianenko notwithstanding, they were in Henderson’s?

Henderson, a two-time Olympian, has some of the best wrestling in MMA. Henderson’s first round with Silva at UFC 82 had everyone thinking that the Brazilian’s reign was ending. He dominated Silva on the ground, blocking his airways and hammerfisting him to the temple while the champion clutched Henderson like a plank from the Titanic.

Then, in the second, Silva caught Henderson with a big shot, got on top of him and finished the fight, garroting him with a rear naked choke.

Opponents have since rocked Henderson on several occasions, but never finished him.

Henderson’s scramble with Rua, resulting briefly in Hendo locking up a true crucifix, has demonstrated his fluency with submissions and, presumably, how to defend them.

The fact is that Anderson Silva can beat any man on any given night. There is no fighter in the world that so clearly outclasses the champion that he unseats Silva as the favorite.

Nevertheless, Hendo has all the tools he needs to bring the title to Murrieta, CA.

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Jiu-Jitsu Is Now the Most Useless Discipline in MMA

A reporter at UFC 2 asked Ken Shamrock if it was tougher fighting in Japan or the United States. He replied that it was easier to fight in America. “Nobody knows Jiu-Jitsu over here.”The seeds of the modern-day MMA were planted in the Hermo…

A reporter at UFC 2 asked Ken Shamrock if it was tougher fighting in Japan or the United States. He replied that it was easier to fight in America. “Nobody knows Jiu-Jitsu over here.”

The seeds of the modern-day MMA were planted in the Hermosa Beach garage of Rorion Gracie, son of Helio, brother to Royce.

When he began teaching jiu-jitsu in California’s South Bay community, he attracted students that belonged to various karate, tae kwon do and boxing schools. All were fascinated by the exotic grappling-based style.

The story goes that the instructors of these other schools scoffed at the Gracie style and expressed their skepticism to their students. The result was a series of martial arts instructors, one after another, tapping on Gracie’s garage.

When Royce entered the Octagon, he won fight after fight, establishing Gracie jiu-jitsu as a dominant martial art.

The sport of MMA owes its existence to Gracie and the art of Brazilian jiu-jitsu, whose techniques like the rear-naked choke still enjoy wide success today. Ironically, in the intervening years, MMA has evolved in ways that diminish the value of the classic jiu-jitsu style.

The first such change was the introduction of the super fight at UFC 5. Today, all fights are what superfights were in the early days. In those tournament-style days of yore, the best fighters were sure to be exhausted by the time they met for the championship bout. By adhering to the classic jiu-jitsu principle of energy conservation, Royce Gracie did everything he could to ensure that he was the fresher fighter.

In the first superfight, his old nemesis Ken Shamrock was, like Gracie, rested and fresh, not having fought all night. Royce still won the superfight, but he spent 36 continuous minutes wearing Shamrock down before finishing him, the longest single round of combat in UFC history. This brings me to my second point.

The limiting of a fight’s time and breaking the fights into rounds pulls fighters apart and gives them a break just as a tap is within the jiu-jitsu practitioner’s reach. How many times have we seen a fighter locked in an inescapable submission saved by the bell seconds before a tap only to come back after a minute’s rest and seize the win?

Further, the prevalence of the stand up in MMA is antithetical to the spirit of classic jiu-jitsu, which guides its students to slow the pace of the fight, to make the opponent exhaust himself trying to get free and, in the process, create for the savvy jiu-jitsu practitioner the space needed to hit the submission.

The brilliance is in having your opponent exhaust himself attempting to do exactly what you want. With referees standing up fights whenever the pace slows, this technique is much more difficult to leverage.

Finally, a new grappling-based art has arisen, which meets the challenges of the rules in MMA. Submission wrestling for MMA incorporates the positional control of wrestling, with ground and pound and submissions for finishing the fight. No longer having the time to wait for an opponent to wear himself down, these fighters pound the strength from their opponents prior to locking up a strangle or lock.

The effectiveness of classic jiu-jitsu is without question. But with the changes in the rules of the sport it was founded on and the rise of new arts to meet these rules, class jiu-jitsu is being supplanted as the go-to grappling style for MMA fighters.

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MMA-Hopeful Jonathan Gary’s Big Introduction

Normally, Jonathan Gary would not let a difficult schedule get in the way of a good fight. However, when surveying the calendar leading him to his Nov. 19 challenge for the Tribelate title, one could not be blamed for considering the possibility t…

Normally, Jonathan Gary would not let a difficult schedule get in the way of a good fight.

However, when surveying the calendar leading him to his Nov. 19 challenge for the Tribelate title, one could not be blamed for considering the possibility that he had met his match.

Of course, that is before you get to know him.

Seven days from today, Gary will be competing against opponents unknown for the currently vacant 155-pound Tribelate title in Yokohama, Japan. Fortunately, performing hard duty in foreign lands is nothing new for Gary.

I had a chance to get to know the challenger prior to his upcoming fight.

Gary is a damage controlman aboard the U.S. Naval guided missile destroyer USS Mustin (DDG-89) stationed in Yokosuka, Japan. His duties include firefighting, flood-patching, and detection and decontamination of the ship and her personnel in the case of nuclear, biological or chemical warfare.

When at sea and not fighting these conditions, Gary spends his days training to do so. You see, unlike the soldier who fights the enemy who is trying to kill him, Gary must—in the event of a torpedo, for example—fight the 9,200 tons of concrete and steel dragging he and his shipmates to their deaths in the cold, alien depths.

That kind of resume toughens Gary mentally for handling adversity inside the ring. His schedule will also challenge him. His first crack at a title will be the very day after he returns from a four-month deployment at sea. This puts him up against several factors.

First is his schedule. Hours at sea are long; sailors generally work 12-hour shifts with added combat drills often digging into their off-time.

Gary sees only the bright side of this, saying, “Balancing training around the Navy schedule, it is hard, but it builds character because if you really want to pursue fighting, you have to be fully dedicated.”

At sea, time is not the only limited resource: gym equipment is minimal; he has no coach, no mats, and no regular training partners.

Again, Gary finds only the glory in the story, saying that it “is good to beat a guy that’s been training in the gym all the time, and I’ve been training in a 103-degree machinery space, just hitting the bag and doing push-ups and pull-ups on fuel oil pipes, and whatnot.”

Also, Gary has little control over his diet. He just has to eat what is served.

Gary talked about some of his favorite fighters. He admires Donald Cerrone’s striking and is a fan of Gray Maynard’s.

“He’s a real bully and I like his attitude,” Gary says of Maynard.

Amazingly, Gary also finds time to help those less fortunate. At a stop in Thailand, he sacrificed time that he could have been training to assemble relief packages for the Thai people who have suffered so much lately at the hands of nature.

Keep your eyes peeled for more Jonathan Gary on the horizon; he will be returning from the Navy shortly after his upcoming Tribelate victory, training full-time and looking to make it big, starting with the Ultimate Fighter tryouts this December.

Happy belated Veteran’s Day, Jonathan, and thank you for your service.

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7 Reasons It’s a Mistake to Not Bring Gilbert Melendez to the UFC NOW

Whether the UFC’s recent acquisition of Strikeforce is good or bad for the sport is a matter of open debate. For the fans, though, the thinning of boundaries between the two organizations it is a dream come true. Fights that were prev…

Alistair Overeem will be making his debut against Brock Lesnar in the heavyweight division; Dan Henderson, holder of the Strikeforce light heavyweight strap, is coming back to the UFC, looking to fight his way to Jon Jones; and who is not excited about Georges St. Pierre versus Strikeforce’s brash young welterweight champion Nick Diaz?

Strikeforce holds one champion who is not on track to make the jump, but needs to be. Strikeforce lightweight champion Gilbert “El Nino” Melendez is on a tear: 19 wins, two avenged losses and riding a five fight win streak.

Here is why the UFC needs to pull the trigger and bring this phenomenal fighter into the fold right now.

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