(Jon Jones buys his first new car — a $190,000 2012 Bentley. For more pics of the UFC light-heavyweight champ’s new ride, head to MMAConvert.)
Some selected highlights from our friends around the MMA blogosphere. Starting today, we’ll be giving you guys short previews of each article we link to. We vouch for this stuff, so click, okay?
– My First Fight: Kenny Florian (MMA Fighting)
“Looking back, it’s crazy. The way that I trained, the way I ate, it was terrible. It was so far from what I do now…Ignorance is bliss, I guess, even when I was fighting on The Ultimate Fighter, weighing in at a chubby 178 pounds for a [185-pound fight], it was all kind of like I was just too dumb to know better.”
– Culinary Workers Union Creates Anti-UFC Website (The Fight Nerd)
“Maintained by the Culinary Workers Union, Local 226, the website uses the acronym of UFC to stand for “Unfit For Children” instead of the “Ultimate Fighting Championship.” Dana White’s many rants are listed in detail on this page across a series of sub-categories, including “Obscenities,” “Slurs” which features many of the comments DFW directed at Loretta Hunt among others, “Cheap Shots” which focuses on remarks about random people involved in entertainment and sports, and “Other $#@%!!!” which documents rude comments that UFC fighters have said about others, including Chael Sonnen’s negative thoughts on Brazil.”
– Hired Hero: An Interview Exclusive With UFC 136 Fighter Brian Stann, Part Two (MMA Mania)
“The fact of the matter is, I don’t care who you are. If I hit you on the chin, there’s a good chance you’re going out. Anderson possesses that same ability. He’s only a man. I don’t put any fighter on a pedestal of being unbeatable. I train with guys like Jon Jones every day who is every bit as devastating.”
– Dana White’s Hate List: 50 People Who Have Enraged the UFC Chief (BleacherReport/MMA)
“39. Cage Potato (Ben Goldstein)
Certain MMA websites and publications have angered Dana White in the past, but perhaps none made him more angry than when CagePotato.com’s Ben Goldstein linked to leaked photos of UFC ring girl Arianny Celeste’s Playboy magazine photos.
According to Goldstein, he later received a phone call from the UFC President himself.
“What kind of scumbag are you?” Goldstein recalls White opening the call with. He then went on a verbal tirade, ripping Goldstein for releasing the pictures early and ended the call with a promise to “F— you up worse than you’ve ever been f—ed before,” and hung up.
To this day, Cage Potato and the UFC remain on shaky ground.”
– The Top Ten Alterations to MMA History That 100% Occurred in a Parallel Universe (MiddleEasy)
“Bas gets drunk one night and stumbles into a Swedish night club. Nothing about that sentence should surprise you. Rutten is known to occasionally get down in random countries. The story goes Bas was restrained by security guards and was told to leave the club because he was entirely too boisterous. Bas agreed, but wanted to find his friend who was still inside in the place. Apparently the bouncers were in the mood to pick a fight with El Guapo and begin to shove him around the hallway. Within seconds, Bas was throwing enough hooks to level all security personnel within the vicinity. After Rutten knocked out essentially everyone in the hallway he was trapped in, he realized that eventually the same guys he KOd would gain consciousness and continue to pursue him.”
– All Kinds of Messages Sent by UFC With Second Show on Same Day as Japan Event (Fight Opinion)
“There’s a reason every other major sport in the world has off-seasons. Fans need breaks and the product right now does not need diluting. However, Zuffa has so many guys under contract and in order to keep guys from floating away to promoters like Bellator, you have to run a lot of shows. So, UFC had a decision to make — contract the schedule and run less shows in hopes of making them more special or run every week ala WWE and just grind things out. We’ve seen how well (not) it’s worked out for WWE. I give Zuffa credit for going all-in and sticking their necks out on the line but I don’t think it’s a very good move in terms of eliminating the ’specialness’ of their product.
The immediate impact of this decision to run multiple shows in different locations on the same night is the amount of stress it will put on the UFC production teams. They are already overworked and stretched to capacity. The more workload you place on them, the less variety there will be in the way the shows are produced. Just like WWE shows today largely look the same as they did a decade ago, UFC could fall right into that same trap. This opens the door up for mistakes being made.”
– What’s Next for UFC on Versus 6′s Winners and Losers? (NBC Sports MMA)
“Stefan Struve: Shane Carwin
Carwin needs to work his way back up the heavyweight ladder, and a fight against Struve would be a good test for him. Struve has been adding muscle to frame, so I would be curious to see how he would fare against a strong wrestler like Carwin.”
– Dominick Cruz vs. Demetrious Johnson: Lighter Weight Divisions Struggle With Fans (LowKick)
“Dominick Cruz and Demetrious Johnson both delivered solid performances on Saturday night during their main event, a fight that saw Cruz defend his bantamweight title for a fourth consecutive time. Cruz and Johnson, two of the fastest fighters in the UFC put forth a sustained pace that few fighters competing in the heavier weight classes could even dream about. Yet for some, the matchup between Johnson’s striking and Cruz’s wrestling, strength and tenacity wasn’t enough.
Are the more technical aspects of a fight such as Saturday’s main event lost on some fans or is it simply a matter of wanting to see two behemoths stand in the center of the cage and swing until one gets knocked out? Yes, this is an oversimplification of the issue, but when it’s all boiled down, there is a huge disconnect in fan appreciation between the heavier and lighter fighters.”
– Top 2011 MMA Television Ratings (So Far) (MMA Payout)
“On November 12th, the UFC’s debut on FOX will no doubt break the television ratings record for 2011, and quite possibly the all-time record of 4.3 million viewers held by Elite XC on CBS, which is to-date the most watched MMA event in history. So far in 2011 (as of October 4th), the UFC’s March 26th Fight Night 24 broadcast on Spike TV featuring Antonio Rogerio Nogueira vs. Phil Davis is the ratings leader with 2.2 million viewers. It was the highest rated event since the September 2009 broadcast of UFC Fight Night 19: Diaz vs. Guillard, which had 2.5 million viewers.”
– Dana White: “Melvin Guillard Was the Biggest Waste of Talent” (5th Round)
“I like Melvin and I like how he’s training hard. I always thought he was the biggest waste of talent and he really turned that around and I’m happy to see it…I’m excited to see him in there with Lauzon. If he beats Lauzon, it’s gonna be interesting to see who we end up pitting together to fight for the title next.”
– Phil Davis Caught Off-Guard by Mistaken Announcement of Match-Up With Machida (Five Ounces of Pain)
“All of this is news to me. I’m still recovering and training. That’s pretty much the story. I guess the boss must have looked to book me…I’m just not a go yet. I would love to be in there putting on a good show and fighting, but my leg just does not agree with that. You put a timetable on it, it just may not work. You’ve just got to play it by ear. I don’t want to tell the fans I’m going to be back next week, and then that turns into two weeks from now or two months from now.”