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TUF 13 Finale Results: Was That Win Enough to Earn Clay Guida a Title Shot?

During last night’s finale of Season 13 of The Ultimate Fighter, Clay Guida grounded former WEC champ and Head Kicker Extraordinaire Anthony Pettis into the matt en route to a unanimous decision victory.Though Pettis looked respectable and may hav…

During last night’s finale of Season 13 of The Ultimate Fighter, Clay Guida grounded former WEC champ and Head Kicker Extraordinaire Anthony Pettis into the matt en route to a unanimous decision victory.

Though Pettis looked respectable and may have gotten the better of the striking exchanges, Guida’s takedowns, to the surprise of no one, were hard for Showtime to stop, and once on the ground, The Carpenter smothered all submission attempts.

Guida (29-11) has historically been considered a gatekeeper, even something of a lovable loser, in the UFC’s lightweight division. Always a fanbase darling, Guida was well known for repeatedly earning Fight of the Night honors in losing performances to top contenders.

But that may now be changing.

After joining Greg Jackson’s submission wrestling camp, things have seemed to snap into place for Guida, who is 4-1 since hooking up with Jackson. Jackson’s expert eye (especially for all things ground game) have apparently closed a lot of loopholes in The Carpenter’s game. And after defeating a highly regarded champion in Pettis, Guida is that much closer to his long-pursued shot at a UFC title.

So was that enough to earn him the winner of Gray Maynard vs. Frankie Edgar III? It got him close, but the answer is probably no. Or, at least a not yet.

One man still stands between Guida and his shot at the belt. His name is Jim Miller.

Guida is riding an impressive four-fight win streak, but Miller has won his last seven. Moreover, Miller’s only losses have come against the division’s No. 1 and 1a, Edgar and Maynard.

If Miller, like Guida a superb wrestler, can take care of business against Ben Henderson on Aug. 14, Guida should have his title eliminator. Since Maynard vs. Edgar will not happen until fall at the earliest, it looks like Guida will be cooling his heels for a while (at least if he plays it smart). And he deserves it.

We’ll see soon enough how the new and improved Guida handles cream-of-the-crop competition.

Read more MMA news on BleacherReport.com

MMA: The 20 Most Memorable Ring Entrances In History

Not every competitor feeds off the crowd and vice versa. But there are more than a few out there who do. Seeing as how MMA is a cold, hard, money-making business just like any other, personality goes a long way toward marketability, which in turn plays…

That is probably why so many fighters and their camps choose to invest a little (or a lot) of their time and energy into the ring entrance. It’s not a necessity, of course, and won’t make a bad fighter good, but if it gets fans and matchmakers to take notice, then it can’t help but help.

Here are the 20 most memorably ring entrances in MMA history. Some rankings are based on a single walkout, while others recognize a full body of work. And keep in mind, this isn’t a popularity contest, so a screaming crowd doesn’t necessarily equal a great entrance. Ditto an entrance song, as that was covered in a previous list.

And finally, if you’re a fan of Pride, you’re gonna like this list…just saying.

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UFC 131 Fight Card: Is Donald Cerrone A UFC Lightweight Title Threat?

On several occasions, Donald “Cowboy” Cerrone has found himself on the porch of greatness. But for whatever reason, he just can’t seem to get himself through the front door. At UFC 131 on June 11, Cerrone should take an emphatic&n…

On several occasions, Donald “Cowboy” Cerrone has found himself on the porch of greatness. But for whatever reason, he just can’t seem to get himself through the front door.

At UFC 131 on June 11, Cerrone should take an emphatic stride forward in the promotion against unheralded jiu-jitsu black belt Vagner Rocha, who is making his UFC debut as a replacement for the injured Mac Danzig. Predictably, plenty are calling it a quick night’s work for Cerrone.

That very well may be. But that may also be beside the point for the Cowboy. Given that Cerrone (14-3-1) has suffered all three of his losses in the only three fights that happened to be title shots, it’s kind of safe to say that, to this point, the Cowboy has found himself snakebitten on the big stage.

Putting it another way, I am inspired by the wise words of Heavy D from all those years ago (and you’ll pardon my paraphrasing here). The question is not whether Donald Cerrone can find success. The question is what is he gonna do with it.

One question for which we have an answer is whether Cerrone has the tools to contend. He most decidedly does. The 6’0” Cerrone uses his physical blend of Muay Thai and submission grappling to manhandle smaller opponents. With six fight of the night bonuses under his belt buckle, he is clearly not afraid to engage.

Cerrone is also on a three-fight win streak that could be evidence that, at age 28, he is putting it all together. In the first leg of the win streak, Cowboy avenged one of his three losses by outbrawling and ultimately outpointing Jamie Varner in front of a friendly Colorado crowd. In his most recent win, which was also his UFC debut, Cerrone showed very strong ground technique in choking out Paul Kelly in the second round.

In the latter, Cerrone’s influence from Greg Jackson’s Submission Fighting camp appeared particularly strong. Cowboy fans surely hope Jackson doesn’t imbue Cerrone with some of that risk aversion that has proven fairly unpopular in other cases. Something tells me fans won’t have to worry about that with Cerrone.

But I digress. Assuming Cerrone avoids the upset against Rocha, that should bump him up a notch or two in the division. Though it may not happen after UFC 131, Cerrone should eventually find himself in the top 10 and perhaps the top five. That is where the rubber will truly hit the road for the former bullrider from Colorado Springs. Will the Wizard of Albuquerque ultimately help shore up any mental or strategic soft spots that have left Cerrone short in the biggest spots? Can Cerrone rise with the cream of what has thus far proven a very impressive crop of WEC transfers at the lightweight division?

Donald Cerrone can (and probably will) beat up all the Vagner Rochas he wants to, but until he does it against top competition, his ultimate success will be an open question. This observer is thinking opportunity will knock again for Cerrone. We’ll see if he can answer the door.

Read more MMA news on BleacherReport.com

UFC 131 Main Event: 5 Questions Heading into Junior Dos Santos vs. Shane Carwin

By now, word of Brock Lesnar’s return bout with diverticulitis has surely reached any and all segments of the global population interested in receiving such news. And while it’s certainly reasonable for fans to lament his absence and wish for his retur…

By now, word of Brock Lesnar‘s return bout with diverticulitis has surely reached any and all segments of the global population interested in receiving such news. And while it’s certainly reasonable for fans to lament his absence and wish for his return to the Octagon, it is also a reasonable to push forward and look toward the new fight: Junior Dos Santos versus Shane Carwin.

Whether the new matchup is an upgrade over Lesnar-Dos Santos is obviously pure conjecture, the fact that it can even be a debate is encouraging. In examining the careers of these two heavy hitters, the fight seems almost too close to call. Here are five key questions that should help shape the discussion, not to mention the fight itself.

Stay with Bleacher Report for more UFC 131 news and analysis.

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Dana White, Chael Sonnen and the 25 Most Interesting Personalities in MMA

They don’t always drink beer.Or maybe they do. Either way, they are…the most interesting people in MMA.Some are current fighters. Some are long retired. Some are highly respected.Some are highly loathsome. Some work their magic outside the…

They don’t always drink beer.

Or maybe they do.

Either way, they are…the most interesting people in MMA.

Some are current fighters. Some are long retired. Some are highly respected.

Some are highly loathsome. Some work their magic outside the cage. Some are not fighters but still work their magic inside a cage, in the sense that they are incarcerated.

One thing (maybe the only thing) they all have in common is their interestingness. And I did this based more on personality and personal life than fighting style (sorry, Fedor).

Even if you have a different top 25, it’s pretty clear…these guys are interesting.

Please enjoy.

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Don Frye vs. Chuck Norris: Breaking Down the Greatest Fight That Never Was

Introducing first, fighting out of the red corner: Chuck Norris. And his opponent, fighting out of the other red corner: Don Frye. That’s right. Norris. Frye. The eminent karate master. The rugged wrestler. A shared love of winning. A shared repu…

Introducing first, fighting out of the red corner: Chuck Norris.

And his opponent, fighting out of the other red corner: Don Frye.

That’s right. Norris. Frye. The eminent karate master. The rugged wrestler. A shared love of winning. A shared repulsion for whining. Two mustaches. One victor.

It was the fight of the century. So why didn’t it happen?

First of all, how do you know it didn’t? Maybe the universe collapsed on itself from the force of their collision, causing a tear in the space-time continuum that erased that moment in history without our realizing it.

See, why didn’t that occur to you? With that kind of three-dimensional namby-pamby thinking, it’s not hard to see why you never made Texas Ranger.

But fine. Let’s assume it didn’t actually happen. Give the baby his bottle, is what I say. So when, or how, could it have gone down?

Let’s take a trip back to the year 1997. No one had yet realized that The Spice Girls were not especially attractive, and thus they ruled the pop charts. Titanic was teaching us all what it meant to truly love—and live. I knew a rich guy who owned something called a cellular telephone.

Chuck Norris was a Texas lawman who played by his own rules, unencumbered by what you and I, tucked away in those comfortable suburban enclaves, might consider acceptable. And in his spare time, he was still one of America’s foremost and most famous authorities on martial arts, or kara-TAY, as it was known in those days.

To wit, it was in 1997 that Norris became one of the first Westerners in the history of Tae Kwon Do to receive the rank of 8th Degree Black Belt Grand Master. It seemed that, at age 57, Norris was truly hitting his stride.

Meanwhile, that same year, another mustachioed man was kicking in the door of the combat sports ivory tower. A Mr. Don Frye was becoming quite a dominant force in the fledgling world of the Ultimate Fighting Championship. After fighting a mere 11 times in 1996, Frye fought only once in 1997, defeating Eric Valdez at Unified Shoot Wrestling Federation 5. Word is, after winning the Ultimate Ultimate 96 Tournament a year before, Frye left the UFC because he found the Octagon to be a little, ehhh, effeminate.

You can’t help but wonder what brand of mustache-on-mustache crime could have gone down between these two. Never mind the newspapers…THIS is the burning question of the day.

So let’s break this bad boy down…that is, if you’ve got the guts.

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