Andrei Arlovski is coming home.
The former UFC heavyweight champ has reportedly signed a new fight deal that will bring him back to the UFC.
Bleacher Report was able to confirm the signing of Arlovski when reaching out to the UFC on Thursday. Th…
The former UFC heavyweight champ has reportedly signed a new fight deal that will bring him back to the UFC.
Bleacher Report was able to confirm the signing of Arlovski when reaching out to the UFC on Thursday. The UFC didn’t provide any specific details regarding the nature of the contract, but more details are sure to come.
UFC President Dana White also tweeted on Thursday night, welcoming the former champ back to the promotion:
Shortly after the confirmed signing, MMA Fighting reported that there have already been preliminary talks about possibly matching Arlovski against Brendan Schaub in his UFC return, but nothing has been finalized as of yet.
Arlovski, who turned 35 in February, hasn’t competed in the Octagon since March 2008. He left the UFC for an opportunity to fight for the now defunct Affliction promotion. Since leaving, Arlovski’s career has seen its share of ups and downs. After picking up back-to-back wins over Roy Nelson and Ben Rothwell, he went on a four-fight losing streak.
His MMA career has taken a nomadic path, leading him to various other promotions such as Strikeforce, ProElite, One FC and World Series of Fighting.
He lately seems to have righted the ship with consecutive wins over Mike Kyle and Andreas Kraniotakes.
The landscape has changed drastically since Arlovski’s UFC heyday. No longer is the heavyweight division a wasteland of underwhelming talent. From top to bottom, the division is now crowded with world-class talent and arguably its most dominant champ in UFC history, Cain Velasquez.
Arlovski was once considered one of the most beloved champs ever in the UFC. He now enters the heavyweight shark pool in an attempt at one last run at UFC gold.
As we mentioned last week in our profile of Muay Thai coach Said Hatim, Andrei Arlovski competed in his homeland of Belarus on Friday night, taking on German journeyman Andreas Kraniotakes in the headliner of Fight Nights: Battle on Nyamiha. Arlovski appeared loose and in control throughout the fight, which ended in the second round with a big right hand from The Pitbull and some follow-up shots on the ground. You can watch the fight above, which we’ve cued up to the TKO finish.
The match gave Arlovski his second straight win, and his fourth victory in his last five appearances. Hatim won his fight as well, stopping Artem Kazersky by second-round TKO. We’ll update this post if video of that match pops up on the Internet.
As we mentioned last week in our profile of Muay Thai coach Said Hatim, Andrei Arlovski competed in his homeland of Belarus on Friday night, taking on German journeyman Andreas Kraniotakes in the headliner of Fight Nights: Battle on Nyamiha. Arlovski appeared loose and in control throughout the fight, which ended in the second round with a big right hand from The Pitbull and some follow-up shots on the ground. You can watch the fight above, which we’ve cued up to the TKO finish.
The match gave Arlovski his second straight win, and his fourth victory in his last five appearances. Hatim won his fight as well, stopping Artem Kazersky by second-round TKO. We’ll update this post if video of that match pops up on the Internet.
Said Hatim (center) cuts weight on a treadmill in Minsk, Belarus this week with student Andrei Arlovski (right) and coach Dino Costeas (left) | Photos via HatimStyle
MMA has come quite far in the past decade but very few fighters are featured on national television, sponsored by big companies and able to focus 100% of their energy on the sport. Many more put in the blood, sweat and tears without the bright lights or big bucks, filled with and fueled by love and an inexplicable drive to simply be a better fighter.
They hold down full-time jobs, have families and are known only to those truly in the know. They are the heart and soul of MMA.
Said Hatim is one such fighter.
—
The idea was initially proposed half-heartedly. Former UFC heavyweight champion Andrei Arlovski had recently booked his next fight — a main event contest on the Battle in Minsk card in his home of Belarus on Nov. 29 — and jokingly asked his Muay Thai coach Said Hatim if he also wanted to fight on the card.
Said was a pro kickboxer and boxer for years and has coached and trained with high level fighters like boxer Mike Mollo, UFC veteran Clay Guida, top Bellator featherweight Mike Corey and TUF veteran Mark Miller but his lone, albeit successful, MMA fight had taken place five years ago. Since that time, Hatim has focused on coaching and submission grappling tournaments.
Sure, he’d make the trip to Europe with Arlovski to be in his corner as he usually does, but Hatim was now 38 years old and half a decade removed from his last fight. “The Pitbull” was suggesting that Hatim add to his coaching responsibilities on fight night with his own contest against a much younger competitor. Said didn’t hesitate.
“Andrei told me that he was fighting in a main event November 29 and asked me, ‘Oh, do you want to fight too?,’” Hatim recounts to CagePotato.
“We were joking like that. I said, ‘Yeah, I’ll fight.’”
Said Hatim (center) cuts weight on a treadmill in Minsk, Belarus this week with student Andrei Arlovski (right) and coach Dino Costeas (left) | Photos via HatimStyle
MMA has come quite far in the past decade but very few fighters are featured on national television, sponsored by big companies and able to focus 100% of their energy on the sport. Many more put in the blood, sweat and tears without the bright lights or big bucks, filled with and fueled by love and an inexplicable drive to simply be a better fighter.
They hold down full-time jobs, have families and are known only to those truly in the know. They are the heart and soul of MMA.
Said Hatim is one such fighter.
—
The idea was initially proposed half-heartedly. Former UFC heavyweight champion Andrei Arlovski had recently booked his next fight — a main event contest on the Battle in Minsk card in his home of Belarus on Nov. 29 — and jokingly asked his Muay Thai coach Said Hatim if he also wanted to fight on the card.
Said was a pro kickboxer and boxer for years and has coached and trained with high level fighters like boxer Mike Mollo, UFC veteran Clay Guida, top Bellator featherweight Mike Corey and TUF veteran Mark Miller but his lone, albeit successful, MMA fight had taken place five years ago. Since that time, Hatim has focused on coaching and submission grappling tournaments.
Sure, he’d make the trip to Europe with Arlovski to be in his corner as he usually does, but Hatim was now 38 years old and half a decade removed from his last fight. “The Pitbull” was suggesting that Hatim add to his coaching responsibilities on fight night with his own contest against a much younger competitor. Said didn’t hesitate.
“Andrei told me that he was fighting in a main event November 29 and asked me, ‘Oh, do you want to fight too?,’” Hatim recounts to CagePotato.
“We were joking like that. I said, ‘Yeah, I’ll fight.’”
And, like that, Hatim was locked in. No, he didn’t have his opponent’s name yet. That would come and change several times in the coming weeks.
But the Morocco native had no concern for external factors like that.
“I thought it would be fun to do, and I have a house that we’re remodeling,” he says matter-of-factly about the experience and fight purse he’d get.
By day, Hatim is a sous chef for the oldest continuously operating Italian restaurant in Chicago, Italian Village. By night, Hatim is the Muay Thai instructor of Team Dino Costeas in Chicago’s West Loop neighborhood.
Said is up and working by 6am in the kitchen, off to the gym for several hours of teaching by 5pm and then puts in a couple hours of his own training in afterwards before he heads to he and his wife’s new home late each night. Tonight, Said chugs an energy drink while he thinks about the double duty he’ll be pulling in about a month when he will first fight and then rush back to warm up and then corner Arlovski in his own main event bout in Belarus.
“It’s pretty interesting. I don’t know if I’m going to worry about him or myself more,” he wonders out loud.
“For me, I can’t say, ‘Oh I’m only going to worry about myself.’ I’m really going to help my boy over there for his big fight in the main event in his own home town.”
From left to right, Bellator heavyweight champ Vitaly Minakov, Dino Costeas, Said Hatim, unidentified likely Russian bad ass, Andrei Arlovski | Photo via HatimStyle
With that said, Hatim has been doing all he can to prepare himself for his own fight, against Artem Kazersky. Said has focused on conditioning and making sure that his weight is on point for the 61kg weight limit fight.
He’ll be undersized for certain in the fight. In a few weeks, Hatim will land in Minsk weighing 62kg. There will be no big weight cut the day of the fight.
Hatim adheres to the Bernard Hopkins stay-in-shape-all-year-round philosophy. And, despite giving up size, youth, home field advantage and all-around MMA experience, it’s that constant readiness that gives Said his confidence.
“You always want to stay in shape,” he says.
“You don’t know when the fight is going to happen. You could walk out of the gym and you might have to fight two guys that try to rob you. I’m always training like I’m going to fight tomorrow or even like I’ll have to fight tonight after I leave the gym. People sometimes ask me, why are you training so hard? This is me. This is how I grew up training. I want to be like this until I die. I don’t want to train easy. This is me. I want to go 100% in anything I do.”
As for fighting a Belarusian in Minsk, Hatim couldn’t care less. He also admits to not knowing much about his opponent, having recently received his name and a tape of fight footage.
“Actually, I don’t know much about him. I just received a video yesterday and I fell asleep watching it because I was so tired from training. He’s a good wrestler, I can tell,” he says.
As for fighting in front of a potentially hostile crowd with hometown judging always a possibility for his opponent, Hatim is similarly nonplussed.
“It don’t matter where you fight,” he says.
“It’s going to be a little bit harder because you’re fighting in someone else’s home town. They’ll have the crowd in their favor. Those things, though, don’t matter to me. I could fight anywhere. I could fight on the bus, on the train, in the bar. It doesn’t matter to me. If you’re a fighter, you’re a fighter. You put your hands up and you do what you do every day in the gym and that’s about it. There’s nothing new.”
Hatim’s apparent lack of stress about fighting again for the first time in years doesn’t appear to be the result of arrogance, though. His relaxed nature likely has more to do with having already fought hundreds of times before, going back to his youth, and indeed fighting his way out of poverty in Morocco.
After being granted a visa to come work in the United States, Hatim started from scratch in Chicago with no English and only his Muay Thai skills and a desperate willingness to work. He trained, got a job in a kitchen and fought.
He did all this until he worked his way up to being a chef and a kickboxing champ and coach. None of it was easy but neither was his training as a child at the gym he grew up in in his hometown of Rabat, Morocco’s capital.
There, Hatim and other students would hop steps and jump rope for so long that once or twice a year, someone’s Achilles tendon would snap. Everyone around them would continue the “warm up” and that fighter would be back a year later, after recovering, training again. On other days, the coach would load up the young fighters up in a van to run in the desert.
There was a catch. The van would dump the fighters out in the desert, miles and miles away from the gym, and drive away. Students had to run back to the gym under the North African sun before beginning their real workout for the day.
Hatim is quite aware that he could end up either winning or losing in Minsk. You’ll forgive him, however, if he isn’t daunted by the prospect of either.
Seeming almost superstitious the way many athletes are, Hatim gets a slight smile when asked if he has visualized how he thinks the fight will go.
“I do, in my head,” he says with a glimmer in his eye that betrays visions of, perhaps, knockout wins dancing in his head.
“But you’ve always got to respect the fighter that you’re going to fight. You always have to respect him. Nowadays, everyone trains hard and does whatever they can can to win the fight. Me too. I do anything I can to win a fight.
“It’s going to be a fight. If the punch goes to the face you need to be able to take it and move on. It is what it is. I’m ready for anything, is all I can tell you. Anytime.”
Said fights Friday, Nov. 29 on the Battle in Minsk undercard. Then, he will corner Andrei Arlovski in the main event.
At the UFC 165 post-fight presser last month, UFC president Dana White showered praise upon UFC interim bantamweight champion Renan Barao, calling him one of the best pound-for-pound fighters in the sport and remarking that the media hadn’t given enough credit to his eight-year, 32-fight undefeated streak, which has remained pristine since May 2005.
Barao has only tasted defeat once, and it was in the first fight of his career. The fact that he’s rebounded with the longest current undefeated streak in mixed martial arts — despite the fact that his first loss could have ruined his confidence forever — is absolutely amazing to me, as many young would-be prospects have crashed and burned in their debuts, never to be heard of again.
It got me thinking: What other mixed martial artists lost their first fight but then went on to have great success? I expected to bang out a list of ten fighters, but once I started doing the research, it blew my mind that some of the best fighters to ever compete in the sport, and a number of currently top 10-ranked fighters, actually lost their very first fight.
And so, I compiled a list of the top 24 MMA fighters of all time who lost their first fight. The list is based on accomplishments in the sport, overall skill level, and potential. Enjoy, and if I somehow missed somebody notable, please leave a comment below and explain why he or she should be included.
On July 26, 1996, at the age of 19 years old, Travis Fulton fought Dave Strasser in his MMA debut at Gladiators 1 in Davenport, Iowa, losing the fight via first-round submission. He then went on to win 249 fights, the most wins in mixed martial arts history. Fulton also holds the record for most fights (309) and most knockout wins (91) in MMA history.
Mind = blown.
Was Fulton a can crusher? Yes, yes he was. Or, should I say, yes he is, as he beat some nobody in his native Iowa just this past March. But you don’t win 249 MMA fights by accident, and Fulton deserves a place on this list based on volume alone.
(Renan Barao: Started from the bottom, now he here. / Photo via Getty)
At the UFC 165 post-fight presser last month, UFC president Dana White showered praise upon UFC interim bantamweight champion Renan Barao, calling him one of the best pound-for-pound fighters in the sport and remarking that the media hadn’t given enough credit to his eight-year, 32-fight undefeated streak, which has remained pristine since May 2005.
Barao has only tasted defeat once, and it was in the first fight of his career. The fact that he’s rebounded with the longest current undefeated streak in mixed martial arts — despite the fact that his first loss could have ruined his confidence forever — is absolutely amazing to me, as many young would-be prospects have crashed and burned in their debuts, never to be heard of again.
It got me thinking: What other mixed martial artists lost their first fight but then went on to have great success? I expected to bang out a list of ten fighters, but once I started doing the research, it blew my mind that some of the best fighters to ever compete in the sport, and a number of currently top 10-ranked fighters, actually lost their very first fight.
And so, I compiled a list of the top 24 MMA fighters of all time who lost their first fight. The list is based on accomplishments in the sport, overall skill level, and potential. Enjoy, and if I somehow missed somebody notable, please leave a comment below and explain why he or she should be included.
On July 26, 1996, at the age of 19 years old, Travis Fulton fought Dave Strasser in his MMA debut at Gladiators 1 in Davenport, Iowa, losing the fight via first-round submission. He then went on to win 249 fights, the most wins in mixed martial arts history. Fulton also holds the record for most fights (309) and most knockout wins (91) in MMA history.
Mind = blown.
Was Fulton a can crusher? Yes, yes he was. Or, should I say, yes he is, as he beat some nobody in his native Iowa just this past March. But you don’t win 249 MMA fights by accident, and Fulton deserves a place on this list based on volume alone.
Akihiro Gono was just 19 when the Japanese icon made his MMA debut in his home country against Yasunori Okuda in the first round of the Lumax Cup: Tournament of J’ 94, way back in April 1994. Like many of the fighters of the time, Gono wasn’t ready to defend submissions, and he tapped out to a first-round toe hold.
Gono may have lost the fight, but he would go on to have a very solid career that saw him compete in the UFC, PRIDE, Shooto, Pancrase, Sengoku, and finally Bellator, which would be his final stop.
In May 2012, after a solid 18-year run as a fan favorite, Gono fought for the last time against current Bellator lightweight champion Michael Chandler at Bellator 67, losing the fight via first-round KO.
Some will laugh that Minowaman is on this list, but he deserves to be after amassing a respectable 55-35-8 record during his cult-legendary career as a journeyman, where — like the great Fedor Emelianenko — he was notorious for fighting and beating larger opponents in the UFC, PRIDE, Dream and Pancrase, amongst other promotions.
However, he was also notorious for losing to some of them.
The first of his 35 losses came to Yuzo Tateishi via decision on March 30, 1996, at the Lumax Cup: Tournament of J ‘96 in Japan. It was the first of many career losses for Minowa, who started off his career 2-9-2 in his first 13 fights. To his credit though, he rebounded to eventually leave the sport with a winning record, and became a big star in PRIDE because he always put on exciting fights and feared no man.
The name “Minowaman” is always one that makes the hardcores’ hearts beat whenever anyone brings it up. Not bad for a guy who at first glance looked like he would contribute nothing in the sport.
(NOTE: The graphic in the video say his record was 3-1 but that tally likely referred to his amateur fights.)
Back on February 15, 1997 in – surprise, surprise – Iowa, a 24-year-old Shonie Carter got into his first professional MMA fight, the first of many for him.
It didn’t last long, however, as he was KO’ed by future five-time UFC vet Laverne Clark at Monte Cox’s Extreme Challenge 3, just nine seconds into the first round in what was the MMA debut of both men.
It became a classic KO in regional circuit MMA history.
Despite that early career loss, Carter then went on to have an unexpectedly awesome career where he attained 50 wins, including 26 by stoppage. He even made it to the Ultimate Fighting Championship and, in total, he fought six times in the UFC — one more than Clark, who knocked him out in that first battle.
One of those 26 aforementioned stoppage wins I mentioned — and one of the best KOs in UFC history — was his spinning back fist knockout of Matt Serra at UFC 31. Serra, who at the time was considered to be below Carter in the ranks, later defeated Georges St-Pierre at UFC 69 to win the UFC welterweight title. Carter, on the other hand, never quite made it to the top of the sport, to say the least, but at least he built a memorable persona as a stone-cold pimp.
Brian Ebersole’s first MMA bout took place on February 24, 2000 against Chris Albandia at TCC – Total Combat Challenge in Chicago. He lost the fight via decision.
He was just 18 years old.
However, despite the loss, Ebersole has gone on to have an awesome journeyman career that has seen him compile an excellent record of 50-15-1, 1 NC.
Ebersole finally made it to the UFC in 2012, upsetting Chris Lytle at UFC 127 and then winning three more in a row before a split decision loss to James Head at UFC 149 ended his win streak. He has sat out the past year with injuries.
But things are looking up for Ebersole, as he will finally make his return to the cage at UFC 167 against Rick Story. It’s a difficult matchup on paper, but it’s winnable. And even if he loses, the fans get to see the Hairrow — well hopefully, anyways — or at least one of those fancy cartwheel kicks. Make it happen, Brian.
On April 7, 2007, at UCW 7 in Winnipeg, Manitoba, two unknown Canadian women fought each other. One was Sarah Kaufman, who would later go on to win the Strikeforce women’s bantamweight champion and who will be making her UFC debut this Saturday at UFC 166, and the other was a 21-year-old Alexis Davis, who would eventually make it into the UFC as well.
On that night, Kaufman was the better woman, as she finished Davis via strikes in the third round. And Kaufman would demonstrate her superiority once again, defeating Davis via majority decision in March 2012 at Strikeforce: Tate vs. Rousey.
However, Davis looks to be on the rise, and she certainly showed her potential in defeating Rosi Sexton in her Octagon debut at UFC 161. If her and Kaufman ever meet for a trilogy match, it’s possible Davis might finally get a win over her rival.
Andrei Arlovski showed resiliency for the second fight in a row Saturday night in the World Series of Fighting (WSOF) 5 event in New Jersey, this time coming away with a win. Last March, Arlovski had his jaw broken after taking extra punches from Anthony Johnson when the referee allowed the first round to go on past the bell but fought on for the duration of the bout, ultimately losing a decision.
Saturday night, the recently un-retired Mike Kyle dropped Arlovski twice, once in the first and once in the third round, but “The Pitbull” came back each time and scored enough himself to be awarded winning scores of 29-28 by all three ringside judges. Arlovski took the fight on a month’s notice after Johnson himself was injured and had to pull out of the fight with Kyle.
“It was a great fight,” Arlovski said after the bout. “[Kyle is] a top fighter, and I really appreciate him for this fight.
In the WSOF 5 co-main event, middleweight David Branch won a decision over Danillo Villefort on the strength of dominating take downs and ground grappling. With the win, Branch has earned a shot at the WSOF middleweight belt. His opponent for the inaugural middleweight title bout has not yet been announced.
In heavyweight action, Derrick Mehmen knocked out Rolles Gracie in the second round. Throughout the first round, Gracie was able to stay safe and use his grappling effectively against Mehmen but in the second stanza, his opponent connected with a clean right hand on the feet that put Rolles out in unintentionally hilarious fashion.
In a strange turn of events, the New Jersey State Athletic Control Board officials called off a middleweight tournament bout between Elvis “The King” Mutapcic and Jesse “JT Money” Taylor just moments before the two were scheduled to hit the cage.
According the commission, Mutapcic took a prescription pill that had not been cleared for use.
(Former UFC heavyweight champion Andrei Arlovski [right] connects with a right on Mike Kyle Saturday night at WSOF 5 | Photo by Lucas Noonan/WSOF)
Andrei Arlovski showed resiliency for the second fight in a row Saturday night in the World Series of Fighting (WSOF) 5 event in New Jersey, this time coming away with a win. Last March, Arlovski had his jaw broken after taking extra punches from Anthony Johnson when the referee allowed the first round to go on past the bell but fought on for the duration of the bout, ultimately losing a decision.
Saturday night, the recently un-retired Mike Kyle dropped Arlovski twice, once in the first and once in the third round, but “The Pitbull” came back each time and scored enough himself to be awarded winning scores of 29-28 by all three ringside judges. Arlovski took the fight on a month’s notice after Johnson himself was injured and had to pull out of the fight with Kyle.
“It was a great fight,” Arlovski said after the bout. “[Kyle is] a top fighter, and I really appreciate him for this fight.
In the WSOF 5 co-main event, middleweight David Branch won a decision over Danillo Villefort on the strength of dominating take downs and ground grappling. With the win, Branch has earned a shot at the WSOF middleweight belt. His opponent for the inaugural middleweight title bout has not yet been announced.
In heavyweight action, Derrick Mehmen knocked out Rolles Gracie in the second round. Throughout the first round, Gracie was able to stay safe and use his grappling effectively against Mehmen but in the second stanza, his opponent connected with a clean right hand on the feet that put Rolles out in unintentionally hilarious fashion.
In a strange turn of events, the New Jersey State Athletic Control Board officials called off a middleweight tournament bout between Elvis “The King” Mutapcic and Jesse “JT Money” Taylor just moments before the two were scheduled to hit the cage.
According the commission, Mutapcic took a prescription pill that had not been cleared for use.
“There were some prescriptions that weren’t given to our doctors during the physicals and that weren’t approved by us, the commission,” a commission official said. “So since we don’t know what they are and what they do, we canceled the fight.
Mutapcic insisted he hadn’t taken any pills and that the inspecting New Jersey state commission officer may have mistaken him for his manager, who is currently using medication for a heart condition.
“I really don’t know what happened, what [the inspector] saw,” Mutapcic said. “She might have been taking some medication, herself. I put in a good 10-week training camp. I worked my ass off. I know Taylor’s ready. I’m not sure if she mistaken me for my manager, who has a heart prescription. He was the one that had it. We’re all dressed the same – same T-shirt, same hat. I mean, there’s four of us, and she’s pointing me out, that I took it. I say I’ll take a blood test. I’ll give a hair sample if they need it. I’ve got nothing in my system. I’m completely clean.”
Full WSOF 5 Results
Main Card
-Andrei Arlovski def. Mike Kyle via unanimous decision (29-28, 29-28, 29-28)
-Dave Branch def. Danillo Villefort via unanimous decision (30-27, 30-27, 30-27)
-Derrick Mehmen def. Rolles Gracie via KO, 2:40 of round 2
-Georgi Karakhanyan def. Waylon Lowe via submission (guillotine choke), 3:37 of round 1
Preliminary Card
-Rick Glenn def. Artur Rofi via unanimous decision (29-28, 29-28, 29-28)
-Jimmie Rivera def. Sidemar Honorio via unanimous decision (30-27, 29-28, 29-28)
-Richard Patishnock def. Gregor Gracie via unanimous decision (30-27, 29-28, 29-28)
-Ozzy Dugulubgov def. Andrew Osbourne via submission (achilles lock), 1:12 of round 2
-Neiman Gracie def. Darren Costa via submission (armbar), 3:57 of round 1
Eight seconds.
In life, eight seconds doesn’t isn’t really any grand significance of time, unless you just so happen to be a bullrider. Beyond that, however, most people wouldn’t look at eight seconds as anything more than a blink of time.
That’s not t…
Eight seconds.
In life, eight seconds doesn’t isn’t really any grand significance of time, unless you just so happen to be a bullrider. Beyond that, however, most people wouldn’t look at eight seconds as anything more than a blink of time.
That’s not the case for former UFC heavyweight champion Andrei Arlovski. Eight seconds was a very important amount of time for him, given what happened in his last fight.
Arlovski was battling Anthony Johnson in World Series of Fighting back in March when the first round was supposed to be over. Suspiciously, there was no final bell or horn to actually stop the action. Instead, Johnson cracked Arlovski with a huge punch that sent him tumbling back towards the canvas.
It was later revealed that the shot broke the Belarus native’s jaw.
Now to make it clear, the punch was clean, there was nothing done illegally from Johnson. The only problem is the punch shouldn’t have happened.
See, the punch from Johnson that connected flush with Arlovski’s jaw came during an eight second period after the first round should have ended.
A study of the first round between Arlovski and Johnson reveals that the round lasted five minutes and eight seconds, and the round is, of course, supposed to be over at the five minute mark.
Numerous emails to the New Jersey State Athletic Commission asking for a statement on the matter were exchanged just after the fight, but there was never an answer, excuse or reason why the eight second overage occurred.
Arlovski and his camp knew it happened, and normally those extra seconds ticking away probably wouldn’t matter—if not for the shattered jaw that happened during the extra time.
Now Arlovski is headed back to the scene of the crime. His fight this weekend at World Series of Fighting also takes place in New Jersey, where the same commission will oversee the proceedings.
Not wishing to stir the pot any further nearly six months after the incident happened, Arlovski takes the high road when talking about the New Jersey State Athletic Commission but it’s obvious that the sore feelings aren’t fading away just yet.
“In some respects the athletic commission in the last fight cost me health, it cost me money, it cost me time, so of course I’m happy to fight. I’m very happy to face Mike Kyle,” Arlovski said about his next fight. “For now I’m going to keep my mouth shut. You can see all the reasons the athletic commission was wrong, but I accept the athletic commission.”
As the conversation moves forward, there’s an angry tone in Arlovski’s voice because no matter how much he doesn’t want to say anything that could land him in hot water with the commission for his next fight, there are still bitter feelings about what happened in the fight with Johnson.
There’s no way to know if the fight would have gone any differently for Arlovski, but he’s haunted by the fact that those eight additional seconds in the round cost him a broken jaw and obviously lessened his chances of coming back in rounds two and three.
As he steps into his next fight against Mike Kyle this weekend, Arlovski plans on making it very easy on the timekeeper and the commission in general.
“F—k it, I’m ready to fight. I’m not going to leave this up to the New Jersey Athletic Commission or any athletic commission any more, f—k it,” Arlovski said with a growl. “I will try to hurt him. It’s nothing personal, it’s just business.”
If there is one other thorn in Arlovski’s side heading into the fight against Kyle it’s the perception out there that he has developed a glass jaw from being knocked out a few times in his career. It puts him into a rage when people try to say he can’t take a punch anymore and just can’t survive in the striking game with the elite punchers in MMA.
The one positive Arlovski says he can take away from the way his last fight ended is that he ended up with a broken jaw in the first round and still made it all the way to the final horn without ever giving up and never going down.
That’s for his own personal edification, by the way, because he doesn’t seem to care too much what anyone says about him. Arlovski does enjoy proving people wrong, however, and he wants to do it again this weekend.
“I think I will shut many f—king mouths who said I lost because I have a weak chin, a glass jaw,” Arlovski said. “I fought two more f—king rounds with a broken jaw. I don’t need to prove anything to anybody.”
Damon Martin is a Featured Columnist at Bleacher Report and all quotes were obtained firsthand unless otherwise noted.
Andrei Arlovski is coming home.
