(An enormous head, filled with 12 pounds of cookie dough. Photo courtesy of Sherdog.)
We just wanted to share these quotes from Tito’s absolutely stunning broadcast debut at “Day of Reckoning,” collected from thesethreads on the UG:
Sobral/Sokoudjou
“Here we are with Seraldo Babalu, you did an awesome job, saw why you’re a black belt in jiu-jitsu, getting an awesome submission there, I want to tell me what you see, let’s go ahead and see by the fight, what you saw, in the ring.”
“You showed the dominance by getting the takedown and looking for a choke in that position. We know the weakness that you had, but you actually showed the heart and determination of a champion of how tough of a light heavyweight you really are, here in the Affliction card. What do you think of the future of you, um, future opponents?”
“Yes, and uh, my back will be better in about three months, so I know all the fans would love to see me and you get it on. You know what, you’re an awesome fighter, congratulations tonight. Everybody lets give a hand to Renato Babalu, one of the greatest light heavyweights, of the night.”
(An enormous head, filled with 12 pounds of cookie dough. Photo courtesy of Sherdog.)
We just wanted to share these quotes from Tito’s absolutely stunning broadcast debut at “Day of Reckoning,” collected from thesethreads on the UG:
Sobral/Sokoudjou
“Here we are with Seraldo Babalu, you did an awesome job, saw why you’re a black belt in jiu-jitsu, getting an awesome submission there, I want to tell me what you see, let’s go ahead and see by the fight, what you saw, in the ring.”
“You showed the dominance by getting the takedown and looking for a choke in that position. We know the weakness that you had, but you actually showed the heart and determination of a champion of how tough of a light heavyweight you really are, here in the Affliction card. What do you think of the future of you, um, future opponents?”
“Yes, and uh, my back will be better in about three months, so I know all the fans would love to see me and you get it on. You know what, you’re an awesome fighter, congratulations tonight. Everybody lets give a hand to Renato Babalu, one of the greatest light heavyweights, of the night.”
Belfort/Lindland
“Matt the Lindland Law…The Law Lindland.”
“Well, Belfort, we saw you with an astonishing left hand, that’s the left hand that I used to see you knock people out time and time again, we’re gonna go ahead and go over it. Walk me through it, show me exactly what you seen with this.”
“Well, like I said, you show your hand-speed time and time again Vitor, 185 pounds, lady and gentlemen, let’s give Vitor Belfort a round of applause, an awesome 105 pounder, you just beat the number two guy in the world, buddy, you’re on top of the world tonight!”
“Wow! That’s all I got to say. Vitor at 185 pounds. I don’t know. I see him beating the, uh, what was it, Anderson Silva. I see him picking him apart because you have two great boxers, and, man, that was amazing. That was the old Vitor Belfort that we all want to see. Him at 131 years old. He’s back for vengeance.”
Barnett/Yvel
“Well, here we go, we, here we go we got Josh Barnett, with a dominating fashion. Buddy, he said he wanted to stand up with you. You said you wanted to stand up with him. All the gameplans get thrown out and you shown the dominant heavyweight that you are. He wasn’t getting away from you. Walk me through the fight.”
“Well, alright, we’re gonna go ahead show some some action from around one right here. I want you to walk me through and how do you feel as you went through this stuff?”
“Well you should have your head high tonight, you did an awesome job, entertained every one of these fans. You did a great job, I’m proud of you buddy. Keep it up, let’s see the winner tonight, you’ll be next in line.”
“Well, you showed what type of champion you really are. Everybody lets give a hand to Josh Barnett, the baby-faced assassin, continuing his win career. Good job Josh! We’ll go back to you Sean.”
Fedor/Arlovski
“July 4th has come early.”
“I’m gonna have my interpreter here for Fedor Emelianenko. Everybody had questions on what type of heavyweight you were. You’ve showed it once on Tim Sylvia in 38 seconds. You’ve done it again against Andrei Arlovski in 3 minutes and 34 seconds. Let me tell you how you feelin right now.”
“Well there’s always been question from other promotions saying that you weren’t the best heavyweight in the world. Well, tonight, buddy, you’ve answered those questions. You tooken out two of the former UFC heavyweight champions and you are the best heavyweight… in my eyes and I believe every one of these guys’ eyes around the world… of tonight…”
“Well, we got to see, actually, Josh Barnett in the last fight, win in a decision. It looks like you two are going to be heading off and another chance for you to defend your heavyweight title. What do you think as Josh as your next opponent?”
“Well the millions that are watching at home and the fifteen thousand and more in audience tonight, ladies and gentlemen, the pound for pound best heavyweight in the world today, Fedor Emelianenko, the last emperor, congratulations buddy.”
Officially, Bellator canceled the PPV because Tito Ortiz withdrew from the main event bout versus Rampage Jackson, and not because of the PPV’s dubious chances of success. But the result is the same as if they had just canceled it outright: Bellator saves face.
Ortiz’s injury and the resulting cancellation of the PPV were a godsend for Bellator. Why? Let’s look at the most likely scenario for what could’ve happened if Bellator went on with their PPV — both if Ortiz had gotten injured and if he hadn’t.
Scenario 1, Ortiz doesn’t get injured and the PPV goes on:
Officially, Bellator canceled the PPV because Tito Ortiz withdrew from the main event bout versus Rampage Jackson, and not because of the PPV’s dubious chances of success. But the result is the same as if they had just canceled it outright: Bellator saves face.
Ortiz’s injury and the resulting cancellation of the PPV were a godsend for Bellator. Why? Let’s look at the most likely scenario for what could’ve happened if Bellator went on with their PPV — both if Ortiz had gotten injured and if he hadn’t.
Scenario 1, Ortiz doesn’t get injured and the PPV goes on: What happens here? The show probably bombs with 10k buys or fewer. Viacom realizes that, like Dana White said, there’s no value in Bellator.
Viacom either pulls the plug outright or scales down Bellator from hopeful claimant to the UFC’s throne into something akin to the toughman contests on FX. If this happened, Viacom would keep it around because it’d get decent enough ratings for the pittance it’d cost to produce the scaled down version of the show.
Scenario 2, Ortiz does get injured and the PPV still goes on: Attila Vegh replaces Ortiz against Rampage (even though Attila Vegh was “injured” and had to pull out of a fight on this PPV previously). The PPV bombs even worse.
Those two scenarios are both terrible for Bellator. The PPV, Ortiz or no, was destined for Affliction-level failure. Making the card free on Spike was the best option (and was from the onset of Viacom’s acquisition of former UFC “stars”).
The casuals don’t know Michael Chandler (despite the fact that he’s the face of Dave & Busters). The casuals don’t know Eddie Alvarez. The casuals don’t know most of the other fighters on the card either. Putting the entirety of the Bellator PPV card on Spike will help build their profiles a little more, or at the very least stop people from forgetting about them.
Furthermore, Bellator can use Rampage like he should’ve been used: To help get more ratings on Spike to draw more eyeballs to Bellator’s stable of talented, non-UFC-washout fighters.
Bjorn Rebney said that they were going to book a fight for Rampage “literally as quickly as possible.” Hopefully for Bellator’s sake, that means it’ll be on free television (unless they’re planning on producing an ad-hoc PPV solely to showcase an old, slow, whining, lazy Rampage versus some random can). Rampage, being Bellator’s fighter with the greatest name value — yeah, I know, that’s not saying much — can draw more viewers to the younger, more talented fighters on Bellator’s roster.
Allow me to make a comparison to pro wrestling history: #2 promotion WCW hired Hulk Hogan after he had left the WWE (then WWF) because he was a star. That star brought viewers to WCW, viewers who where then wowed by some the undercard matches between young, exciting wrestlers like Eddie Guerrero, Rey Mysterio Jr, and Chris Jericho — wrestlers who many casual fans might not have ever seen if the older, established Hogan hadn’t brought attention to WCW.
Of course, Bellator Rampage Jackson is no WCW Hulk Hogan — who was still the biggest star in wrestling at the time. Nevertheless, Bellator will build greater name value for their fighters by showcasing their big UFC acquisitions Tito and Rampage on free TV alongside the young, hungry, talented fighters. Canceling the PPV has allowed them to do that.
The cloud of Bellator’s PPV cancellation doesn’t have a silver lining because the entire cloud practically is a silver lining.
Of course, reality is a cruel mistress, and YAMMA Pit Fighting ended up happening despite the best efforts of an injury curse. Much like the aforementioned Heroes of Wrestling, Meyrowitz attempted to cash in on our love of nostalgia by booking a bunch of aging has-beens, never-weres, nobodies and ne’er-do-wells to compete in the promotion’s inaugural event. Never mind that half of the roster hasn’t been relevant in a decade (using “relevant” as loosely as possible in some cases), or that one of the fighters was best known for getting knocked out by a leg kick, or that another fighter was best known to casual fans for his stint on Celebrity Rehab; they’re going to brawl, you guys! Add on one of Brock Lesnar’s Team Deathclutch punching bags, the cheapest journeyman-for-hire you can find, an obese former Toughman Contest champion and some obscure Russians who dabble at sambo — because, you know, Fedor — and we’ll have all the tools for an exciting bankruptcy case after no one watches this. Tack on the incredibly cheesy, stuck-in-the-mid-90s “On the streets it’s against the law — in the pit it is the law” tagline, and laissez les bons temps rouler.
(God damn it, Tim. We will never forgive you for this.)
Of course, reality is a cruel mistress, and YAMMA Pit Fighting ended up happening despite the best efforts of an injury curse. Much like the aforementioned Heroes of Wrestling, Meyrowitz attempted to cash in on our love of nostalgia by booking a bunch of aging has-beens, never-weres, nobodies and ne’er-do-wells to compete in the promotion’s inaugural event. Never mind that half of the roster hasn’t been relevant in a decade (using “relevant” as loosely as possible in some cases), or that one of the fighters was best known for getting knocked out by a leg kick, or that another fighter was best known to casual fans for his stint on Celebrity Rehab; they’re going to brawl, you guys! Add on one of Brock Lesnar’s Team Deathclutch punching bags, the cheapest journeyman-for-hire you can find, an obese former Toughman Contest champion and some obscure Russians who dabble at sambo — because, you know, Fedor — and we’ll have all the tools for an exciting bankruptcy case after no one watches this. Tack on the incredibly cheesy, stuck-in-the-mid-90s “On the streets it’s against the law — in the pit it is the law” tagline, and laissez les bons temps rouler.
Of course, if that all doesn’t fail the groan test, then the “revolutionary new fighting surface” that will prevent stalling (i.e. ground fighting) will. Disregard the fact that a so-called MMA promoter thinks that ground fighting has no place in the sport, even though the majority of his fighters are wrestlers, sambo masters and jiu-jitsu practicioners, and focus on how the already brain-meltingly stupid gimmick is nothing more than the World Combat League bowl with a cage around the edges. If anyone is dumb enough to buy tickets to this fiasco, they’ll be completely unable to see anything that’s happening if someone has the gall to attempt a takedown in an MMA fight.
Which, of course, is exactly what the pit ended up causing. As soon as the fighters realized that they could use the incline to trip each other (i.e. immediately), the fights became an unwatchable evening of lay-and-pray, pit-and-quitTM and two unspeakably sad freak shows billed as “Masters Division Super Fights.” Ironically, the event was at least partially saved by the boneheaded decision to hold it in a state that only allowed the championship bout of the tournament to be longer than one round — at least in the eyes of anyone who tried to stay awake through it. On the streets, it’s certainly against the law, but only because lewd conduct is a real offense.
I could easily start this entry with a boatload of disclaimers regarding my view on Jon Jones’ decision to turn down a fight with Chael Sonnen at UFC 151, but they would ultimately be pointless. Was I shocked and kind of puzzled that the UFC outright cancelled the event because of his decision? Absolutely. Do I think Sonnen deserved a shot at Bones? No way in hell. But long before this will be published, before I even began to sit down and write this hopeless addendum, you, our loyal readers, have already made up your minds. Regardless of any justifications I may give, or any opinions I will state that will be misconstrued as concrete facts, there is simply no way that we will be in total agreement by the time this is over. So fuck it, here I go.
Jon Jones’ decision to pull out of UFC 151 was an embarrassment to the sport of MMA unlike any other, one that has literally not been matched by any champion in promotional history.
OK, now that the bitter, kneejerk-reacting members who peruse this site have officially stopped reading and taken to their keyboards with the fire of a thousand suns, let the rest of us mild-tempered, 46 chromosome-possessing individuals have a little chat.
Say what you want about oversaturation and UFC 151 being an abysmally weak card; I would have to agree with you. When your co-main event features a guy who hasn’t fought in the UFC in nearly a decade, you pretty much know what kind of card you’re looking at. But you don’t happen to know what other event was just a step above a Strikeforce Challengers card and suffered from a late replacement in the main event, do you? That would be UFC 147 folks, but Rich Franklin, God bless him, stepped up to partake in a match that next to no one wanted to see, that did next to nothing for his career, because he’s a fighter and he was called upon for a favor.
Although there have been conflicting reports, Dana White claims he informed Jon Jones before he made his decision that, if he didn’t accept the fight with Chael Sonnen, the event would be cancelled. All of the fighters on the card, not to mention thousands of fans, would be screwed out of money because a completely healthy fighter with an entire training camp behind him wouldn’t be willing to fight a middleweight coming off a loss on eight days notice. And Jones decided to anyway. This move would not earn him any fans.
And CHAEL SONNEN is not the issue here; he was simply the first man to offer his services when they were required, and earned my undying respect for putting his money where his mouth is in doing so. Would he have shit talked his way into an undeserved title shot, which is exactly what we were worried about when he announced his move? Yes, but he was willing to fight Jon fucking Jones, the most dominant light-heavyweight in over six years, FOR FREE. That is a fighter, ladies and gentleman. The fact that Sonnen was also the most winnable/relevant matchup for Jones of the guys who volunteered, which included fellow middleweight Chris Weidman, and lightweight Jamie Varner (lolz) is just icing on the cake. But again, Sonnen is not the issue.
The issue here is that Jon Jones and Team Jackson set a precedent with their decision yesterday, a precedent stating that Jones will not fight ANYONE without a full training camp to prepare for them. And that, my friends, is absolute bullshit behavior from a champion and supposed “pound for pound great” who won the belt on short notice to begin with. Jones should have accepted the fight regardless of Sonnen’s qualifications, if only to:
1. Shut Sonnen’s mouth forevermore.
2. Leave Sonnen with nowhere to go but back down to 185.
3. Prove that he can beat anybody, anytime, anyplace. You know, like a champion.
You say Sonnen wasn’t a “worthy” contender? Well who the hell is on eight days notice? Considering that Sonnen is basically Dan Henderson minus the KO power, Jones literally could not ask for a better late replacement matchup. Do you think Anderson Silva really thought Demian Maia, Patrick Cote, or Thales Leites had any business being in the same ring as him? Child please. But Silva took the fights. Sure, they were some of the worst fights the sport has ever seen, but the difference between Bones and Anderson is that one of them shut his mouth, signed the damn contract, and was willing to risk being upset for the sake of the card.
This bitch move on Jones’ part has only confirmed my worst fears that the robots over at Team Jackson have successfully drained away Jones’ ability to think independently, not to mention his self-confidence, like they do with every fighter that enters their gym not named Donald Cerrone, who would fight his mother for a bag of Doritos tomorrow if he caught her eyeballing him the wrong way.
Jones didn’t fight Sonnen for the same reason he won’t fight Anderson, he’s officially moved on to the “protect my legacy” point of his career, which in his mind is only accumulated through wins. And he’s partially right; wins do matter. Yet somehow, Randy Couture, Dan Severn, Mark Coleman, and Chuck Liddell have all become legends of the sport and UFC Hall of Famers despite the fact that they have accumulated 48 losses between them. Being able to handle defeat is what separates true fighters from the posers, for lack of a better word. It’s why George St. Pierre hasn’t lost a fight since getting upset by Matt Serra. Defeat builds character. It builds drive.
For a guy that claims to be all about personal sacrifice and a warrior mentality, Jon Jones sure has a warped view of those concepts.
I love MMA, but as this very Roundtable exemplifies, the sport has had its share of absurd, stupid moments. Frankly, it’s what you should expect from a young, fringe sport. Chances were taken that, in retrospect, should never have been considered to begin with. And there will always be certain athletes who behave bizarrely, to say the least. So with that in mind, I think the truly dumbest moment in MMA history has to be the product of a person or an entity that has a decent track record of intelligent decisions.
Sadly, this precludes me from nominating Ultimate Ball.
So with this in mind, I’m going to say that Dana White acquiescing to James Toney’s demands to fight in the UFC was the single dumbest moment in MMA history. Was it stupid on the level of Rampage living up to his nickname? No. But you expect a little more out of Dana White. (Then again, this is the same man who went on a homophobic tirade because Loretta Hunt published something he didn’t like. So maybe not.) The man had absolutely no reason to let Toney fight in the world’s preeminent MMA organization, let alone against a former champion in Randy Couture.
It’s not like Toney had been a fighting force at the time. The man had the physique of an elephant seal, and linguistic capabilities of a man suffering from Down syndrome after he’d had his tongue amputated. Toney was unable to communicate in anything resembling a language, resorting to unintelligible gibberish whenever he was in the vicinity of someone with a camera. He had absolutely no knowledge of wrestling, jiu-jitsu or anything other than his boxing pedigree, although he hinted at a devastating maneuver roughly translated to the “side check kick.”
While it’s possible that this was an even more exotic and deadly maneuver than the five finger death punch, we never got a chance to find out. James Toney failed to land a single strike in his bout against Couture, getting taken down, mounted, and finally – mercifully – submitted. Couture was then awarded his black belt in jiu-jitsu – an extraordinarily high honor which requires years of training, mastery and hardship – following a fight in which he submitted a beached marine animal. Toney presumably lumbered off to find a local taco stand. Dana White was probably pleased that Toney lost, and deeply, deeply ashamed that he allowed this farce to occur on a pay-per-view. None of it made any sense. It was the dumbest moment in MMA history.
When it comes to embarrassing the sport of Mixed Martial Arts, Josh Barnett is perhaps even more experienced then Tito Ortiz and Paul Daley combined. After being stripped of his UFC Heavyweight Championship for using a banned substance, one might think Barnett would have learned his lesson.
When Affliction was planning the third event for their fledgling promotion, I highly doubt they thought it’d be the last. A week or so before the event that was supposed to feature Barnett and Fedor Emelianenko in the heavyweight matchup of the century, Barnett tested for banned substances again during his required pre-fight screening.
In one fell swoop, Barnett took Affliction’s head right off their shoulders. Duncan MacLeod would have been proud of Barnett. Meanwhile, the rest of us were left to pick our jaws up off the floor. Without anyone except Vitor Belfort willing to step up and take on the Last Emperor — sound familiar? — Affliction’s dreams of being a big time promotion were heading right down the drain right beside their third event which never ended up coming to fruition.
Every sport has its embarrassing moments — bloopers that are occasionally celebrated in the form of compilations on the jumbo-tron during live events, while a musical bed of Yackety-Sax blares in the background. While that is acceptable for most sports, MMA is different. There is an aura of honor and respect by both the competitors and the fans. However, our sport is no different when it comes to blunders and calamities. There will always be “The Running Man” Kalib Starnes or the Dennis Hallman banana-hammock incident as well as Tim Silvia’s…well…Tim Silvia. Yet none of these were a bigger embarrassment than the main event from UFC 112.
The bout pitted the Michael Jordan of MMA, Anderson Silva, against Demian Maia as the headliners during the UFC’s first appearance in Abu Dhabi. Zuffa had recently sold a minority percentage to the Abu Dhabi-based Flash Entertainment and a temporary 11,000 seat open-air arena was constructed specifically for the event and was torn down a week after. The red carpet was rolled out for the UFC, and then Anderson Silva stepped into the Octagon and puked all over said red carpet.
The odds of The Spider winning were the same as Anthony Johnson looking like the love child of Lee Haney and Gabourey Sidibe, which is to say, certain. [Ed. note: Wow.] Silva was just coming off the demolition of LHW Forrest Griffin and was supposed to mow right through Maia. Silva dotted Maia early and often for the first two rounds, but then it all fell apart. Between rounds two and three Silva seemingly decided that it would be more entertaining to taunt Maia and dance like Gregory Hines for the remaining 15 minutes of the fight. It was sickening to watch Maia and his swollen-shut eyeball continue to press forward while Silva danced a jig and ridiculed his challenger.
It got so bad that the Abu Dhabi crowd started to cheer for Maia even though they all knew he didn’t have a chance to succeed. Martial arts are based in traditions of respect and honor, and clearly Anderson Silva had those qualities seized at customs while entering The United Arab Emirates, because he showed neither. Dana White left ringside after the fourth round, tossed the middleweight belt on the lap of Silva’s manager Ed Soares and told him to put it on the champion himself. White later said that it was the most embarrassed he had ever been since becoming the UFC president. So don’t expect any blooper reels to be played on the jumbo-tron at upcoming UFC events, because nobody’s laughing.
You want to turn Rowdy into Catwoman? Go for it; she’s already decided that she wants to make her beauty and her body part of her persona. Kaufman, however, isn’t cut out for it. And honestly, that’s not a diss on her looks. If Kaufman wanted to be a sex symbol, she could certainly put on the attitude and the skimpy clothing, and make it happen though the sheer power of will. (See also: Felice Herrig.) The problem is, we all know this is not Sarah Kaufman in her natural state. She’s a humble, understated woman, only concerned with competing in the sport she loves to the best of her abilities. Being sexy is not on her list of priorities as an MMA fighter. And yet, Showtime decided to inflict this embarrassing white bodysuit on her anyway, out of some misguided attempt at equal time.
These are the dark ages for women in MMA, and shit like this is to expected, I guess. I just hope I’m alive to see the day when women’s MMA is flourishing to the point where the athletes’ looks are a peripheral element of the experience, and not the entire promotional strategy.
MMA fighters aren’t exactly known for their fashion sense. So it should come as little surprise that most MMA t-shirt companies produce some pretty questionable designs. The rampant abuse of foil print, skulls, chains, tribal designs and nautical stars among most MMA t-shirts is bad enough on its own; even worse when you consider that they sell for thirty bucks a pop.
Which I guess makes it all the worse when a fighter makes his way to the cage covered in an “athletic fit” Old-English mess. Not only is the shirt revolting, but it’s going to sell for an outlandish sum of money, and be worn by every overweight Texas Roadhouse chef, milquetoast tech support geek and muscle-bound frat boy.
Perhaps the reason that we’ve never attempted an “Ugliest Walkout Shirts” post is because ranking these train wrecks is like ranking, well, actual train wrecks. No matter what order you place them in, you’re a total scumbag for attempting to rank a tragedy from most to least depressing. And besides, you’re clearly wrong about which one belongs at number three. For that reason, these will not be ranked, per se, but rather categorized. How you feel these shirts fall into place is up to you.
MMA fighters aren’t exactly known for their fashion sense. So it should come as little surprise that most MMA t-shirt companies produce some pretty questionable designs. The rampant abuse of foil print, skulls, chains, tribal designs and nautical stars among most MMA t-shirts is bad enough on its own; even worse when you consider that they sell for thirty bucks a pop.
Which I guess makes it all the worse when a fighter makes his way to the cage covered in an “athletic fit” Old-English mess. Not only is the shirt revolting, but it’s going to sell for an outlandish sum of money, and be worn by every overweight Texas Roadhouse chef, milquetoast tech support geek and muscle-bound frat boy.
Perhaps the reason that we’ve never attempted an “Ugliest Walkout Shirts” post is because ranking these train wrecks is like ranking, well, actual train wrecks. No matter what order you place them in, you’re a total scumbag for attempting to rank a tragedy from most to least depressing. And besides, you’re clearly wrong about which one belongs at number three. For that reason, these will not be ranked, per se, but rather categorized. How you feel these shirts fall into place is up to you.
Don’t worry, this won’t be the only Tapout shirt to make this list. The company that is responsible for more ILS than Muscle Beach has produced some downright disgusting t-shirts. We’ve said it before: Tapout has become the new Vuarnet or No Fear.
Taking the cake though has to be Ryan Bader’s UFC 119 walkout. I didn’t think it was possible to dislike anything related to ”Citizenship in a Republic“. I stand corrected.
Ugliest Affliction Shirt: Chris Leben‘s UFC 116 Walkout
Speaking of companies you’ll be seeing more than once, here’s our first Affliction eyesore. The only redeeming quality of this shirt is that the edges are already frayed, meaning it will fall apart much sooner than a normal t-shirt. Then again, if you’re the type of person who wears shirts like this, you probably won’t think that’s such a good thing.
Cain Velasquez is a proud Mexican-American with “Brown Pride” tattooed across his chest. I get how that means any shirt bearing his name is going to play off of his heritage. What I don’t get is why Dethrone wanted this shirt to look like the totally bitchin’ Myspace background of a fifteen year old from 2006.
Sorry Ace, but America’s colors are red, white and blue. And this shirt is hideous.
Ugliest Clusterfuck: Frank Mir’s UFC 107 Walkout
Put yourself in my position for a moment: I am expected to explain to someone with healthy eyesight- someone who is clearly capable of just looking at this mess- why this shirt is ugly. After two hours of trying to write something, I’ve decided that it’s probably for the best that I never look into a career as a guy who writes warning labels for coffee cups.
Ugliest Shirt to Never Be Worn: Aleksander Emelianenko’s “Affliction: Banned” Walkout
Most Half-Assed Shirt: James Toney’s UFC 118 Walkout
Judging by his performance at UFC 118, James Toney spent about twenty minutes studying the ground game leading up to his bout with UFC Hall-of-Famer Randy Couture. Judging by the image above, that’s roughly 5x longer than Twistd Apparel spent designing his walkout shirt. Besides, if you’re going to make something half-assed, at least make it realistic.
Hit that “next page” link for that other Emelianenko, the craziest shirt you’ll see all day, and some lifetime achievement awards for walkout shirt ineptitude…
Being an MMA fan ain’t easy sometimes. Hyped-up fights turn out to be snorefests, scandals damage the sport’s legitimacy, incredible parlay bets get wrecked by incompetent judging, forcing us to explain to our kids once again that Santa Claus most have lost our address this year. On today’s CagePotato Roundtable, we’re discussing the fights and moments that made us want to give up on MMA entirely and follow [*shudder*] baseball for a while. Let us know your own lowest fan-moment in the comments section, and if you have a topic for a future Roundtable column, send it it to [email protected].
It’s crazy how life goes full circle: When I was ten years old, Doug Flutie was my favorite NFL player. I begged my dad to buy me Flutie Flakes for breakfast, so that I too could grow up and be a successful, albeit undersized quarterback for a small market football team. My dad refused, which explains why I’m now a writer (You’re welcome, Andrew Luck). After all, I was too young to remember the real Doug Flutie, the Heisman Trophy winning Boston College quarterback who helped make the USFL somewhat relevant. Flutie may have still been a talented quarterback — especially for his age — but he had clearly lost a step by the time I started watching football.
Thirteen years later I was on the phone with my dad, talking about one of the most lopsided fights he had ever seen. I spent the entire conversation trying to convince him that the small, pudgy guy he just watched get destroyed by a no-name oddity was at one point the most dangerous fighter on the planet. As you may have guessed, I’m specifically referring to Fedor Emelianenko vs. Antonio Silva. But really, Fedor’s entire Strikeforce run can be summed up the exact same way. Perhaps Fedor was too old, perhaps the heavyweight division had simply caught up to him, or perhaps it was a combination of the two. But one thing is clear: By the time that Fedor made his way to Strikeforce, he was no longer the untouchable fighter that he had once been.
Even in his lone victory, a second round knockout against Brett Rogers, he was arguably losing the fight before connecting with the fight ending right hand. And Brett Rogers is no Apollo Creed; he’s barely a pimple on the ass of Vodka Drunkenski. He’s a gatekeeper in every sense of the word — just legitimate enough for EliteXC to have kept him away from a “prime” Kimbo Slice, but not legitimate enough to pose any threat of beating a true contender. We had all the warning signs that Fedor was going to be a bust signing after this fight, yet we chose to ignore them because hey, he won, right?
Being an MMA fan ain’t easy sometimes. Hyped-up fights turn out to be snorefests, scandals damage the sport’s legitimacy, incredible parlay bets get wrecked by incompetent judging, forcing us to explain to our kids once again that Santa Claus most have lost our address this year. On today’s CagePotato Roundtable, we’re discussing the fights and moments that made us want to give up on MMA entirely and follow [*shudder*] baseball for a while. Let us know your own lowest fan-moment in the comments section, and if you have a topic for a future Roundtable column, send it it to [email protected].
It’s crazy how life goes full circle: When I was ten years old, Doug Flutie was my favorite NFL player. I begged my dad to buy me Flutie Flakes for breakfast, so that I too could grow up and be a successful, albeit undersized quarterback for a small market football team. My dad refused, which explains why I’m now a writer (You’re welcome, Andrew Luck). After all, I was too young to remember the real Doug Flutie, the Heisman Trophy winning Boston College quarterback who helped make the USFL somewhat relevant. Flutie may have still been a talented quarterback — especially for his age — but he had clearly lost a step by the time I started watching football.
Thirteen years later I was on the phone with my dad, talking about one of the most lopsided fights he had ever seen. I spent the entire conversation trying to convince him that the small, pudgy guy he just watched get destroyed by a no-name oddity was at one point the most dangerous fighter on the planet. As you may have guessed, I’m specifically referring to Fedor Emelianenko vs. Antonio Silva. But really, Fedor’s entire Strikeforce run can be summed up the exact same way. Perhaps Fedor was too old, perhaps the heavyweight division had simply caught up to him, or perhaps it was a combination of the two. But one thing is clear: By the time that Fedor made his way to Strikeforce, he was no longer the untouchable fighter that he had once been.
Even in his lone victory, a second round knockout against Brett Rogers, he was arguably losing the fight before connecting with the fight ending right hand. And Brett Rogers is no Apollo Creed; he’s barely a pimple on the ass of Vodka Drunkenski. He’s a gatekeeper in every sense of the word — just legitimate enough for EliteXC to have kept him away from a “prime” Kimbo Slice, but not legitimate enough to pose any threat of beating a true contender. We had all the warning signs that Fedor was going to be a bust signing after this fight, yet we chose to ignore them because hey, he won, right?
If we chose to ignore the warning signs in his victory, then we refused to acknowledge that they even existed when he lost. His loss to Werdum? Don’t go saying Werdum managed to bait Fedor and submit him, like we knew he would if he had any chance of winning. Fedor just got caught, and that happens to everyone. His aforementioned loss to Antonio Silva? Whatever, we all know that Bigfoot Silva is too big and strong to lose. It’s funny how quickly the Fedor fans would resort to that justification, while simultaneously praising Fedor for his victories over foes even larger than Silva, such as Hong Man Choi, Semmy Schilt, Zuluzinho…you get the idea. By the time Fedor had woken up from the beating that the much smaller Dan Henderson gave him, the myth that Fedor would ever be untouchable again had been debunked. Sure, some of us were still crying “EARLY STOPPAGE!”; just like some children will insist that their dead goldfish moved before their parents flush it down the toilet.
Interestingly enough, Doug Flutie’s NFL career ended with Flutie successfully dropkicking an extra point — the only successful dropkick in the NFL since the 1941 NFL championship game. It’s not exactly winning the Super Bowl, but it’s the best possible way for the guy to have gone out. Likewise, Fedor has won two straight fights since being released, and will more than likely make it three against Pedro Rizzo on June 21. Is it the most glamorous way for him to finish out his career? Don’t be stupid. But it’s far less painful than watching him lose, which is all I ask for after his time spent in Strikeforce.
I’ve been to many live MMA events over the years, but few are as memorable as those early UFC’s in Louisiana. Most of the people in attendance were there to scream racial epithets at Tsuyoshi Kohsaka — nice place to hang your hat, Seth — so the few ‘real’ fans present had no trouble approaching fighters to shoot the shit after the fights. It was a golden time, but that doesn’t mean there weren’t any uncomfortable moments.
A former UFC champion several times over, Dan Severn was tapped for main event action at UFC 27: Ultimate Bad Boyz. Though he’d been incredibly active during his hiatus from the UFC, the sport had evolved exponentially in the three-plus years since “The Beast” had last stepped foot in the Octagon, and young guns like opponent Pedro Rizzo seemed cut from a different cloth. What followed the opening bell was my lowest moment as an MMA fan.
At forty-two years of age, Severn was clearly near the end of his run as a pro fighter, and he looked dangerously slow and timid against “The Rock.” Straight away Severn shot in, but his once-formidable takedown was thwarted when Rizzo simply stepped aside and gave him a little toss, sending the elder statesman careening to the floor like a chubby chick in an grape-stomping contest. From that moment on there was a sickening feeling in the air that an old man was going to get very hurt. It wasn’t how slowly Severn reacted to a grazing head kick that was concerning, it was that he never reacted. Moments later, a hard inside leg kick chopped Severn down on all fours, but he was quickly back to his feet. Another kick to the same spot caused immediate injury to Dan’s well-braced knee, forcing him to verbally submit while clutching his knee in agony, Peter Griffin-style.
As this was the final bout, everyone sat in their chairs for a moment, thankful that the bout ended so quickly yet disgusted that it had ever been booked in the first place. It was a depressing capper to the evening, and it made me question if there was anything sporting whatsoever about what I’d just watched. I felt ashamed to have been connected to the sport at that moment…then a few weeks later I found out that Randy Couture was coming back to the UFC, and I forgot all about poor Dan’s knee.
At least the UFC learned a valuable lesson: never sacrifice an aging champion to prove how far the sport has evolved.
I would love to give you a history lesson on how the Thai people stole their entire combat style from the Cambodian people but I’ll save that for another day. Today I’ll be honest and forthcoming with you. I’ve been a long time fan of MMA and perhaps really fell deeply in love with the sport because of a group of guys on a reality show called Tapout. However on March 11th, 2009, the entire MMA world was forced to swallow a tough pill in that Charles “Mask” Lewis had died in a horrific automobile accident involving himself, his female passenger, and a drunk driver.
Tapout was founded by Charles and Dan “Punkass” Caldwell, and it stood for something at one time. The industry-leading clothing brand went from $30,000 in sales in 1999 to around $200 million ten years later — sponsoring notable fighters such as Donald “Cowboy” Cerrone, Dan Lauzon, Pat Curran and many, many others along the way — and after Mask’s tragic death, I knew it was only a matter of time until his creation was sold. Lo and behold, on September 7th, 2010, barely a year after the death of one of their own, Tapout sold out to Authentic Brands Group in a major apparel merger. (Authentic Apparel would also purchase Silver Star Casting and MMA Apparel.) It might have been the obvious business move, the smart move, just not the one I think Mask would have made.
On August 11th, 2011, Tapout’s new parent company went after Tapout Cancer LLC, a non profit company which raises awareness and money through Brazilian Jujitsu. Surely now Tapout could go no lower, the brand that had once stood for greatness and the little guy trying to make a difference. Now they were attacking charity organizations for trademark infringement? Seriously? I don’t really know how you make steps to clean that much mud of your name but it seems they’re giving it their all because as reported earlier this month by MMAPayout, Tapout will donate a percentage of limited edition t-shirts to the Daniel James Miller Foundation.
That in my opinion is great news but only a small step in a very long road they have to recovery in the eyes of MMA fans everywhere.
Gentlemen, I have seen some dark things in my brief time on this earth. Tribal warfare, nuclear fallout victims, genetically mutated animal corpses, Cannibal Holocaust, Antichrist (twice), A Serbian Film, and a cult-led massacre that I may or may not have been a participant in. Fun fact: I was once at a 4th of July party where a man, tripping his balls off on mescaline mind you, proceeded to drag a deer carcass off the road and feast on it like it was the breakfast buffet at the local Holiday Inn. But none of those things come within eyeshot of the emotional trauma I suffered when I watched Mirko Cro Cop get Mirko Cro Copped by Gabriel Gonzaga at UFC 70: Nations Collide.
Let me set the scene for you: I was at a friend’s house, watching the fight on the big screen TV that I both worshiped and secretly hated my friend’s family for having the means to afford. Joining us was my friend’s father — an ex-member of the East Coast Mafia, my friend’s mom — a smoking-hot dog trainer, and their jackass brother-in-law — a MMA novice who was as dopey as he was clueless. The fight began alright enough, with Filipovic landing a solid body kick before getting taken down and spending a couple of minutes on his back. Not great, but I knew that Cro Cop was simply biding his time, waiting for the opportune moment to strike.
And then it happened.
As if God was playing some sick joke on me and me alone, Cro Cop was served fifty pounds (the approximate weight of one of “Napao’s legs” according to Wii Fit) of irony that I’m pretty sure gave me AIDS right then and there. The only reason I can’t confirm this is because I refuse to get tested, wear condoms, or give the prostitutes I have on call my actual name. Ignorance is truly bliss. Anyway, I have never witnessed a fight, aside from Silva/Leites perhaps, that left me with such a heavy sense of hopelessness and dread.
Cro Cop was and always will be a hero of mine; how can anyone state otherwise? His Wikipedia page reads like a Duke Nukem game synopsis and the highlights of Abraham Lincoln’s biography (specifically the passages involving vampire hunting) were mixed in a blender, set on fire, then thrown out of an airplane into a tornado that had just passed through an axe factory. And to see a legend like Mirko fall in such devastating, not to mention (because I already mentioned it) ironic fashion, just made me want to give up on this whole “normal” existence and fall back on the tragic, less refined ways of my past. But I can’t go back to that…not this time. I can’t…go…back…
Josh Hutchinson
The morning of July 22nd, 2009, I awoke to feelings of desperation, anger, depression, and at least 100 other emotions that words would never do justice to. I was very much looking forward to watching a great night of live fights sponsored by Affliction. Instead, like some kind of evil Santa, Josh Barnett rose from whatever circle of hell I’m sure he commands to snatch away the present we were receiving in Affliction: Trilogy.
If there are two things in this world that I love, they are my Thursday night Russian roulette tournaments with the local homeless, and live fights. Josh Barnett fucked up at least one of those for me. Naysayers be dammed, because in case you forgot, Affliction carried names like Fedor Emelianenko, Tim Sylvia, Andrei Arlovski, Ben Rothwell, Josh Barnett, Pedro Rizzo, Renato Sobral, Matt Lindland, Mark Hominick, Antonio Rogerio Nogueira, Vitor Belfort, (at least five of those names are still relevant) and many others. Hell, they even got Megadeth to perform, for some reason.
I still personally hold the belief that if Affliction: Trilogy had come to fruition; we would be staring down the barrel of two established promotions, competing with each other. That of course would mean a competing talent pool, exciting fights damn near every weekend, and none of the “my way or the highway” mind set the UFC has undertaken (ask Miguel Torres). That being said, I personally hold Josh Barnett responsible for all things bad in my life (as if I have much going on besides MMA). Therefore Nation, the next time that anything remotely bad happens to you — be it stubbing your toe, not being able to pay the rent on time, or your tool shed/meth lab blowing up *sigh*…again — I not only encourage you, but personally insist that you blame it entirely on Josh Barnett.
When you mix a bottle of Makers Mark, the internet and some free time alone there are only 2 possible destinations — Porno or YouTube — and after you finished with the former, you eventually arrive at the latter. Around 2004 or so, YouTube introduced many of us to the street fights of Kevin “Kimbo Slice” Ferguson and they were a sight to behold.
I actually felt like I was doing something illegal by even watching them because of the sheer brutality and the fact that the fights were taking place in a random backyard or parking lot. Being an MMA fan since the early days, I knew that he would only have a “puncher’s chance” if he ever found his way to the cage but that didn’t change the fact that he was intimidating. Kimbo was a scary dude and seemingly shared the same identity as Jules Winnfield’s wallet.
Fast forward several years and the sport of MMA was thriving while spawning stars like Chuck Liddell, Georges St. Pierre, and Anderson Silva. It was inevitable that MMA was going to be broadcast live on network TV. The growth of the sport combined with the athleticism and charisma of the competitors had escalated MMA to damn-near mainstream status. It was a natural progression and I knew it was coming. I just didn’t think that the very first prime-time network television MMA main event that everybody across America was going to be exposed to would feature none other than Kevin “Kimbo Slice” Ferguson. Back on May 31, 2008, every Tom, Dick & Harry who had little to no interest in “our” sport tuned into EliteXC and CBS touting Kimbo as the MMA flag-bearer. I wanted to puke.
Ratings peaked at 6.51 million viewers during the Kimbo VS James Thompson fight and to say the bout was a technical masterpiece would be like saying Attack of the Killer Tomatoes was Oscar worthy.
The fight was a brawl but to classify it as MMA and force-feed it to the masses of ill informed mouth-breathers was negligent in my opinion. The CBS suits got their ratings and didn’t care that the evolution of the sport was being hindered.
Though Kimbo and CBS did bring new eyeballs to the sport, ultimately the experiment failed for all involved. Kimbo was exposed as being what most of “us” already knew. CBS lost the demographic they craved when EliteXC went belly-up shortly thereafter and the public perception of MMA was damaged a little bit more.
It was on this day three years ago that Affliction held its second and final MMA event, “Day of Reckoning” in Anaheim California. It’s not that the event did poorly at the box office or that it didn’t feature great fights, because the show took in $1.5 million and with names like Fedor Emelianenko, Antonio Rogerio Nogueira, Vitor Belfort, Matt Lindland, and Josh Barnett, the line-up rivals any UFC card today. The problem was that the owners of the company tried to pay fighters whatever their asking price because they were friends with most of them, having sponsored them for years.
Case in point, when you are paying Tim Sylvia $800,000 to get KO’ed by Fedor (who only netted $300,000 for the feat), you may need a new business model.
The event, whose main event was broadcast as a pay-per-view with the undercard shown on HDNet, featured some exciting fights and some dramatic finishes by Emelianenko, Belfort, Barnett and Nogueira.
It was on this day three years ago that Affliction held its second and final MMA event, “Day of Reckoning” in Anaheim California. It’s not that the event did poorly at the box office or that it didn’t feature great fights, because the show took in $1.5 million and with names like Fedor Emelianenko, Antonio Rogerio Nogueira, Vitor Belfort, Matt Lindland, and Josh Barnett, the line-up rivals any UFC card today. The problem was that the owners of the company tried to pay fighters whatever their asking price because they were friends with most of them, having sponsored them for years.
Case in point, when you are paying Tim Sylvia $800,000 to get KO’ed by Fedor (who only netted $300,000 for the feat), you may need a new business model.
The event, whose main event was broadcast as a pay-per-view with the undercard shown on HDNet, featured some exciting fights and some dramatic finishes by Emelianenko, Belfort, Barnett and Nogueira.
(Video courtesy of YouTube/PRIDEFC17)
(Video courtesy of YouTube/odasidazenith)
Both of the promotion’s events earned approximately half of what they took in, which basically bled the company dry. When its main event fell through a few months later, thanks to a positive steroid test by Josh Barnett, Affliction wised up and decided that it was a t-shirt company, not an MMA promotion and pulled the plug, but not before throwing Barnett under the bus first by blaming him for the demise of Affliction’s MMA venture.
(Video courtesy of YouTube/AfflictionVideos)
As the promo for the event stated, “It took only 36 seconds for [Fedor] to take down a giant,” and it took just over a year for Affliction Entertainment to close up shop. “Affliction: Banned” was held July 19, 2008 at at the Honda Center in Anaheim, California. The third event, Affliction: Trilogy was to take place at the Honda Center in Anaheim, California on August 1, 2009 and was to feature a main event tilt between Barnett and Emelianenko.11 days before the event, the California State Athletic Commission announced that “The Babyfaced Assassin” was not granted a license for the bout due to a failed drug test. On July 24 Affliction, who was previously banned as a UFC sponsor because of their MMA promotion, announced that it had cancelled the event and that it was returning as a UFC sponsor.
