Instead of focusing so heavily on the sports, let’s actually focus on the entertainment that Tim Sylvia has provided us over the years. Personally, I was still in high school during the Tim Sylvia Era. A friend had exposed me to his collection of UFC events, and I immediately became hooked. I won’t claim that I was the biggest fan of the then-heavyweight champion — even with my limited knowledge of MMA, I realized Sylvia was an unrefined fighter — but there was something inspiring about watching him compete. “The Maine-iac” managed to achieve the highest honor in his sport, despite being the last person on the planet who most people would look at and think “professional athlete.” And of course, his rivalry with Andrei Arlovski helped make things interesting, even when his fights occasionally weren’t.
Instead of focusing so heavily on the sports, let’s actually focus on the entertainment that Tim Sylvia has provided us over the years. Personally, I was still in high school during the Tim Sylvia Era. A friend had exposed me to his collection of UFC events, and I immediately became hooked. I won’t claim that I was the biggest fan of the then-heavyweight champion — even with my limited knowledge of MMA, I realized Sylvia was an unrefined fighter — but there was something inspiring about watching him compete. “The Maine-iac” managed to achieve the highest honor in his sport, despite being the last person on the planet who most people would look at and think “professional athlete.” And of course, his rivalry with Andrei Arlovski helped make things interesting, even when his fights occasionally weren’t.
I’m willing to bet that most of our readers in their mid-to-late twenties have identical stories. And though the times have changed — I’d never believe you if you told me I’d one day be covering this crazy sport — and MMA has evolved considerably, there’s still a part of me that would totally mark out over the sight of Tim Sylvia inside the Octagon one last time. The fact that he’d be getting re-signed merely one week after his old nemesis Andrei Arlovski found his way back into the UFC would only make things better.
To those of you who are rolling your eyes at the suggestion of trotting out Tim Sylvia to feed our love of nostalgia, I have to question whether that’s any more offensive than what we’re currently being asked to pay for on Fight Pass. Is a preliminary scrap featuring a fighter you actually recognize — and probably still care about — any less legitimate than, say, a top-ten heavyweight squaring off against a doughy light-heavyweight known for his Homer Simpson-esque ability to take punches and not much else? If you answered yes, perhaps the nicest thing that can be written about you is that you’re very, very gullible.
Tim Sylvia was never the ideal heavyweight fighter, but then again, the UFC was never strictly about fighting. The UFC — for better and for worse — is about sports entertainment. And Tim Sylvia — for better and for worse — has always entertained us.
To surprisingly little reaction this weekend, Bellator announced that the lineup for Bellator 120: Alvarez vs. Chandler 3 — also known as the promotion’s first pay-per-view event — has been set. (Bellator 120 goes down Saturday, May 17th, at the Landers Center in Southaven, Mississippi.) Don’t worry, Bellator has clearly learned from their whole “plan a pay-per-view around two old guys and some fading UFC castoffs” phase. But are there enough intriguing, quality fights on this lineup to justify paying for a Bellator event? Let’s look over the fight card and determine for ourselves.
All nine of the fights for Bellator 120 — four Spike preliminaries, five main card contests — have been ranked solely by my interest in watching them. If you disagree, feel free to write some terrible things about me in the comments section. I look forward to ignoring them.
I don’t think either fighter is even capable of a boring match, much less a boring match against each other. I could type paragraph after paragraph on how their first two encounters resulted in two of the greatest fights in our sport’s history, and how…oh why am I even trying to pretend that I’m not going to insert an Al Bundy GIF and move along to the next fight:
To surprisingly little reaction this weekend, Bellator announced that the lineup for Bellator 120: Alvarez vs. Chandler 3 — also known as the promotion’s first pay-per-view event — has been set. (Bellator 120 goes down Saturday, May 17th, at the Landers Center in Southaven, Mississippi.) Don’t worry, Bellator has clearly learned from their whole “plan a pay-per-view around two old guys and some fading UFC castoffs” phase. But are there enough intriguing, quality fights on this lineup to justify paying for a Bellator event? Let’s look over the fight card and determine for ourselves.
All nine of the fights for Bellator 120 — four Spike preliminaries, five main card contests — have been ranked solely by my interest in watching them. If you disagree, feel free to write some terrible things about me in the comments section. I look forward to ignoring them.
I don’t think either fighter is even capable of a boring match, much less a boring match against each other. I could type paragraph after paragraph on how their first two encounters resulted in two of the greatest fights in our sport’s history, and how…oh why am I even trying to pretend that I’m not going to insert an Al Bundy GIF and move along to the next fight:
The go-home show before a pay-per-view is extremely influential on buy rates, which is the only reason why I’m assuming this fight isn’t on the main card. These guys have been with Bellator for ages, and always produce fun, exciting fights. I’d be more than willing to pay for this one; not that I’m complaining about getting it on cable.
This fight is such a freak show, random, “Why We Can’t Have Nice Things” pairing that Ben Askren has already labeled it a work. Why wouldn’t I be looking forward to it?
(Preliminary Card) Mike Richman vs. Goiti Yamauchi
Back at Bellator 110, it appeared that these two would crush their opponents and meet up in the next round of Bellator’s featherweight tournament. It looked like such an obvious conclusion that I advised you all to bet money on both men winning. Naturally, neither guy advanced, so Bellator booked these two to kick off the preliminaries of their inaugural pay-per-view, because of course this is a thing that’s happening. As forced as this fight feels, I’m not going to act like I won’t at least watch it.
Call me crazy, but I firmly believe that Bellator’s “Sign the UFC’s leftovers” business model isn’t so much an attempt to gain viewers by trotting out guys that fight fans used to sort-of care about as it is an attempt to quell the “These guys haven’t beaten anybody!” criticisms of their roster. In other words, Cheick Kongo isn’t the guy they want, he’s the guy they want to lose to the guys they want. Because, let’s face it, Bellator Heavyweight Champion Vitaly Minakov’s victory over Cup-Cheick did more to establish him as a legitimate heavyweight to most fight fans than a victory over a stoic, doughy Russian they’ve never heard of would have. I’ll pause for you to make your own “Who is Vitaly Minakov?” jokes, I guess (I hope you feel really good about yourself for that super original joke, by the way).
Essentially, Bellator is using Kongo as a “jobber to the stars:” a guy who can beat the not-quite-readies, but isn’t a threat to beat any of the promotion’s top heavyweights. This means that every once in a while they’ll have to book him in squash matches against 6-1-1 nobodies so fans will continue to perceive him as a threat, making his losses against the fighters Bellator actually wants to push seem that much more significant. This fight is a necessary evil, is what I’m saying.
(Main Card) Alexander Shlemenko vs. Whoever Bellator Finds to Replace Tito Ortiz at the Last Minute
(Preliminary Card) Heavyweight Tournament Final: Alexander Volkov vs. Blagoi Ivanov
Yes, Bellator’s heavyweight bouts tend to quickly reduce themselves to two guys sloppily waltzing through a “What’s cardio?” display of all things garbage-ass, but I really like the stoic Russian with an “-ov” in his last name. He’s a beast, and should be a legitimate threat to Vitaly Minakov’s unblemished record.
(Main Card) Will Brooks vs. Nate Jolly
Leave it to Bellator to put a popcorn match on the main card of their first-ever pay-per-view. Nate Jolly has never fought for Bellator, and it’s not like he’s a name that casual fans would at least recognize. If they wanted to use the regional star to entice the locals to buy tickets, there’s no reason why they couldn’t put this fight on the preliminaries and bump Mike Richman vs. Goiti Yamauchi to the main card. Likewise, if they wanted to use this fight to get Will Brooks — a 13-1 fighter who has gone 5-1 in Bellator — over with the fans, then why not book Brooks against a fighter that the average Bellator fan would actually recognize?
I’m not trying to insult either fighter/say that the fight will be boring just because I’m not heavily invested in it/deny that climate change is real/whatever it is that MMA fans automatically assume whenever someone writes that they aren’t very interested in an upcoming fight, I’m just saying that I’m really not that interested in this bout.
MMA fighters are supposed to be tough. They’re supposed to Face the Pain, Never Back Down, Go Out on Their Shields, and embody every Gatorade commercial cliche you can think of. They’re supposed to believe that they’re indestructible, partly because they’ve been told their entire lives that they’re damn near invincible.
Which is all to say that most of us weren’t surprised when flyweight Junior Maranhao — despite falling off of his stool between the fourth and fifth rounds of his title fight at RFA 14 and needing his coaches to revive him — made the decision to answer the bell for round five. Professional fighters are rarely the best judges of their own mortality, making objective parties such as coaches, referees and cageside physicians all the more necessary to save a fighter from excessive damage; this makes it all the more disturbing when these parties are as reckless as they were at RFA 14, and when the Wyoming State Board of MMA refused to acknowledge that there even was anything wrong with the way that this match was handled (much to the shock of the Association of Boxing Commissions).
There have already been countless articles scorning the coaches, the referee and the cageside physicians who allowed Junior Maranhao to continue fighting. There have also been just as many articles scorning the Wyoming State Board of MMA for encouraging the exact things that athletic commissions are supposed to protect our sport from. But lost in our collective outrage is perhaps the biggest tragedy to come from this incident: that Junior Maranhao is still willfully ignorant to the fact that he was in any danger at all during RFA 14. In fact, Maranhao has gone as far as to defend the very people who failed him that night.
MMA fighters are supposed to be tough. They’re supposed to Face the Pain, Never Back Down, Go Out on Their Shields, and embody every Gatorade commercial cliche you can think of. They’re supposed to believe that they’re indestructible, partly because they’ve been told their entire lives that they’re damn near invincible.
Which is all to say that most of us weren’t surprised when flyweight Junior Maranhao — despite falling off of his stool between the fourth and fifth rounds of his title fight at RFA 14 and needing his coaches to revive him — made the decision to answer the bell for round five. Professional fighters are rarely the best judges of their own mortality, making objective parties such as coaches, referees and cageside physicians all the more necessary to save a fighter from excessive damage; this makes it all the more disturbing when these parties are as reckless as they were at RFA 14, and when the Wyoming State Board of MMA refused to acknowledge that there even was anything wrong with the way that this match was handled (much to the shock of the Association of Boxing Commissions).
There have already been countless articles scorning the coaches, the referee and the cageside physicians who allowed Junior Maranhao to continue fighting. There have also been just as many articles scorning the Wyoming State Board of MMA for encouraging the exact things that athletic commissions are supposed to protect our sport from. But lost in our collective outrage is perhaps the biggest tragedy to come from this incident: that Junior Maranhao is still willfully ignorant to the fact that he was in any danger at all during RFA 14. In fact, Maranhao has gone as far as to defend the very people who failed him that night.
During the aftermath of the fight, Maranhao offered his version of the events to MMAFighting.com. He chalked the entire situation up to fans overreacting to him clumsily missing his stool when he attempted to sit down; never mind that the video clearly shows he was already sitting down when he collapsed. Maranhao then goes on to offer these quotes:
“I think that the doctors made the right call. I think I would have gone crazy if they had stopped the fight.”
…
“I saw that some people are trying to blame the commission, the promoters or even my coaches, so I’m really upset about it,” he continued. “I want to make clear that nothing happened. It’s a mistake (to blame them), and it can hurt us.”
Before we go any further, let me be clear that I wasn’t expecting Maranhao to call for anyone’s license to be revoked. But to outright refuse to acknowledge that anything dangerous took place that night?
With all due respect to Maranhao, of course he would have been upset by a stoppage. That’s the entire point of having a doctor at cageside: to protect the fighter from taking excessive damage just because the fighter wants to keep competing. The fighters are trained to play Superman when they’re hurt, the doctors are trained to know the dangers of Second Impact Syndrome. Maranhao may have dodged a bullet on Friday night, but the reframing necessary to say that the situation was handled correctly is incredibly unsettling.
As for the argument that his coaches don’t deserve ridicule? If Maranhao insists on believing that his coaches would never put him in harm’s way for their own personal gain, perhaps he should look up “That Part of Muhammad Ali’s Career We Never Talk About.” You know which one: the one when Ali suffered lopsided beat-downs at the hands of Larry Holmes and Trevor Berbick — Holmes wound up beating Ali so badly that he actually cried after the fight for Ali – simply because his coaches knew they could still profit off of Ali’s legacy. For what it’s worth, Pat Healy also disagrees with Maranhao on this.
We can — and should — continue to talk about how the failures of leadership on display at RFA 14 could have gotten a fighter killed. But equally important is that the fighters involved at least acknowledge that situations like these are dangerous. We’re all in agreement that the system currently in place in Wyoming is broken, but we can’t actually fix it until the fighters the system is supposed to protect start advocating for themselves.
The man born as Jim Hellwig — famous for wrestling as The Ultimate Warrior in the WWE during the late eighties and early nineties — died last night in Arizona. His death comes just three days after being inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame, and one day after his final appearance on “Monday Night Raw.”
Professional wrestling is an art over-saturated in hyperbole; it’s an art where every wrestler is “the biggest” and/or “the best,” every event is “the most important,” and the phrase “the most” is uttered so frequently it practically loses meaning. Yet it’s hard to overstate the popularity that The Ultimate Warrior achieved, and the influence that he has had on any wrestling fan who grew up during the late eighties and early nineties. I know it’s lazy to compare professional wrestlers to superheroes, but for millions of kids like myself, The Ultimate Warrior was as close to a real-life superhero as it got. The Ultimate Warrior’s look and in-ring style — from his heavily-muscled physique and facepaint to his energetic entrances and quick, devastating matches — were convincingly brutal, and his intense, chaotic interview style was extremely unique. His WWE feuds against “Ravishing” Rick Rude, Hulk Hogan, The Undertaker, and Jake “The Snake” Roberts were nothing short of legendary.
(Highlights of The Ultimate Warrior’s best promos. Yes, clips from the Hulk Hogan “Crash the Plane” promo are at the very end.)
The man born as Jim Hellwig — famous for wrestling as The Ultimate Warrior in the WWE during the late eighties and early nineties — died last night in Arizona at the age of 54. His death comes just three days after being inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame, and one day after his final appearance on “Monday Night Raw.”
Professional wrestling is an art over-saturated in hyperbole; it’s an art where every wrestler is “the biggest” and/or “the best,” every event is “the most important,” and the phrase “the most” is uttered so frequently it practically loses meaning. Yet it’s hard to overstate the popularity that The Ultimate Warrior achieved, and the influence that he has had on any wrestling fan who grew up during the late eighties and early nineties.
I know it’s lazy to compare professional wrestlers to superheroes, but for millions of kids like myself, The Ultimate Warrior was as close to a real-life superhero as it got. The Ultimate Warrior’s look and in-ring style — from his heavily-muscled physique and facepaint to his energetic entrances and quick, devastating matches — were convincingly brutal, and his intense, chaotic interview style was extremely unique. His WWE feuds against “Ravishing” Rick Rude, Hulk Hogan, The Undertaker, and Jake “The Snake” Roberts were nothing short of legendary.
(Highlights of The Ultimate Warrior’s best promos. Yes, clips from the Hulk Hogan “Crash the Plane” promo are at the very end.)
As big of a star as The Ultimate Warrior was, his career could have been even bigger if it weren’t for his shaky, mercurial relationship with WWE owner Vince McMahon. There were his numerous departures from the WWE. There was tension over Jim Hellwig legally changing his name to the mononym “Warrior” and suing for the rights to his character (which he eventually won, by the way). There’s been Warrior’s refusal to work with the WWE on a career retrospective DVD, which lead the WWE to turn the project into The Self Destruction of The Ultimate Warrior; not to spoil it for you, but Warrior’s portrayal is less-than-flattering. And, of course, there were Warrior’s stints in WCW (as well as their cheap Warrior knockoff, The Renegade) and in Nu-Wrestling Evolution — the less said about those, the better.
But time has a way of healing all wounds, and The Ultimate Warrior would make amends with the WWE shortly before his death. Warrior is a playable character in WWE2K14, was inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame merely four days ago, and made one final appearance on “Monday Night Raw” the night before his death. In retrospect, the speech he gave on Raw was haunting: The Warrior essentially gave his own eulogy.
“No WWE talent becomes a legend on their own. Every man’s heart one day beats its final beat. His lungs breathe a final breath. And if what that man did in his life makes the blood pulse through the body of others, and makes them bleed deeper and something larger than life, then his essence, his spirit, will be immortalized. By the storytellers, by the loyalty, by the memory of those who honor him and make the running the man did live forever. You, you, you, you, you, you are the legend-makers of Ultimate Warrior. In the back, I see many potential legends. Some of them with warrior spirits. And you will do the same for them. You will decide if they lived with the passion and intensity. So much so that you will tell your stories and you will make them legends, as well. I am Ultimate Warrior. You are the Ultimate Warrior fans. And the spirit of Ultimate Warrior will run forever!”
Warrior is survived by his wife, Dana, and his two daughters. Feel free to share your favorite Ultimate Warrior memories in the comments section.
But can we please talk about how Brock Lesnar snapped The Undertaker’s undefeated Wrestlemania streak at Sunday night’s Wrestlemania XXX at 21 straight Wrestlemania victories? Because holy shit, Brock Lesnar snapped The Undertaker’s undefeated Wrestlemania streak, and I’d really like to talk about it.
(Your reaction. Enjoy it before it gets taken down.)
But can we please talk about how Brock Lesnar snapped The Undertaker’s undefeated Wrestlemania streak at Sunday night’s Wrestlemania XXX at 21 straight Wrestlemania victories? Because holy shit, Brock Lesnar snapped The Undertaker’s undefeated Wrestlemania streak, and I’d really like to talk about it.
I probably don’t speak for the majority of fans when I write that I was getting pretty sick of The Streak. It was next to impossible to get excited about his Wrestlemania matches when everyone already knew the routine: ‘Taker kicks out of his opponent’s finisher a few times, hits the tombstone, roll credits. (The irony of wrestling fans complaining about predictable booking, then celebrating The Streak wasn’t lost on me, either.) And let’s face it, if The Undertaker won on Sunday night after spending the overwhelming majority of the match on his back, it would have felt cheap.
Notable Achievements: Jobbed to James Terry on two different Strikeforce undercards. Almost worthy of a spot in MMA’s Weird-Stomach-Tattoo Hall of Fame. Almost. According to Wikipedia: “He is the current WSCA (Wyoming Sports Combat Association) Welterweight Champion.”
(This guy getting punched out by Jacob Volkmann has a Wikipedia page, yet Ilir Latifi does not. I *dare* you to identify him without using Google.)
Notable Achievements: Jobbed to James Terry on two different Strikeforce undercards. Almost worthy of a spot in MMA’s Weird-Stomach-Tattoo Hall of Fame. Almost. According to Wikipedia: “He is the current WSCA (Wyoming Sports Combat Association) Welterweight Champion.”
Frank Caraballo
(A Google Image search for Frank Caraballo will result in this picture, which I have deemed far more interesting than any pictures of the actual fighter.)
Notable Achievements: Won a fight on the Bellator prelims by flying knee against Donny Walker, a recently-released UFC veteran who went 0-2 in the promotion (and narrowly avoided a spot on this list). According to Wikipedia: “At Bellator LXVI, Frank defeated Donny Walker via flying knee KO in the fourth round and in doing so unified his NAAFS interim featherweight title with the real title to become the undisputed NAAFS featherweight champion.” You know a title is legitimate when it’s awarded to the winner of a bout taking place on the preliminary card of a different promotion’s show.
Notable Achievements: Was once married to Randy Couture, and currently has a 3-8 MMA record; those three victories come over ladies with a combined MMA record of 0-5. Not only lost a fight to a professional wrestling stall-hold, but almost died in said maneuver. According to Wikipedia: “Couture grew up on a ranch with her brother. She has played basketball, volleyball and track throughout her life.” Cool story, Wikipedia.
Rosen Dimitrov
(He’s the guy on the bottom; photo courtesy of Sherdog)
Notable Achievements: Apparently the baddest man in Bulgaria; possibly the author of his own Wikipedia page. According to Wikipedia: “With his twin brother Rumen Dimitrov they founded the organization TWINS MMA and they have enormous success by producing live events and by giving chance for all young fighters to participate and to show what they can.”
Notable Achievements: An honorable mention for our 50 Worst Fighters in UFC History tribute, making him the rare combination of talented enough to fight in the UFC, incompetent enough to be a UFC one-and-done, and completely, utterly unremarkable all at once. According to Wikipedia: “Brian Gassaway (born August 7, 1972) is an American mixed martial artist currently competing in the Welterweight division.” This is the only sentence in the entire entry, proving that even Brian Gassaway’s Wikipedia page knows next to nothing about Brian Gassaway.
Herbert Goodman
(Two of these three men would go on to have semi-relevant NFL careers.)
Notable Achievements: The anti-Herschel Walker, so to speak. Was a downright bad NFL running back with the Green Bay Packers before becoming a decent regional-level MMA fighter. Signed by Bellator to job to Hector Lombard, and was knocked out in well under one minute. According to Wikipedia: “In his two seasons in the NFL he ran the ball four times for -3 yards and fumbled twice.”
Mark Hughes
(This will make more sense in a second. Promise.)
Notable Achievements: Does being the brother of Matt Hughes count? Holds a victory in the UFC against Alex “The Fighting Al Bundy” Steibling; of course we aren’t making Steibling’s nickname up. According to Wikipedia: “Soon after fighting in the UFC, Mark decided that it just wasn’t for him and he went back to his family, the farm and his construction company (Hughes Construction).” This may be the Hughesiest sentence ever composed.
