Filed under: DREAM, Strikeforce, Bellator, NewsDespite a shortage of talent, the interest in women’s MMA seems to be stronger than ever, thanks in large part to Cris Cyborg, Ronda Rousey and Miesha Tate. Still, there are other talented women making hea…
Despite a shortage of talent, the interest in women’s MMA seems to be stronger than ever, thanks in large part to Cris Cyborg, Ronda Rousey and Miesha Tate. Still, there are other talented women making headlines out there, and they deserve some of our attention too.
Below is a roundup of news and notes from the world of women’s MMA.
* ProElite has signed an intriguing 135-pound fight for its upcoming card on Jan. 21 in Honolulu, Hawaii. Sara McMann, the 2004 Olympic silver medalist who has compiled a 4-0 MMA record thus far, will meet top-ranked Hitomi Akano on the undercard of the event headlined Kendall Grove vs. Ikuhisa Minowa. The 31-year-old McMann defeated Raquel Pa’aluhi via third-round submission in the first ProElite show back in August. Akano, who famously lost to an overweight Cris Cyborg in an Aug. 2009 Strikeforce bout, enters the fight with an 18-8 record and riding a two-fight winning streak. She recently defeated Roxanne Modaferri via unanimous decision in July.
* Megumi Fujii (pictured), one of the best pound-for-pound female fighters in the world, has agreed to meet Karla Benitez in the first-ever DREAM women’s bout. The fight will take place on the promotion’s New Year’s Eve show, which is being dubbed “DREAM – Fight for Japan: Genki Desu Ka! New Year! 2011.” Fujii (24-1) is 2-0 since suffering the first and only loss of her career to Zoila Gurgel at Bellator 34 last October. Benitez (6-1) will enter the bout looking to get back on track after losing her first pro MMA fight in her most recent bout in October.
* Speaking of Gurgel, the Bellator 115-pound champion, who underwent knee surgery to repair a torn ACL several weeks ago, tweeted recently that she is healing “ahead of schedule,” and if things keep up this way, she could be back in action in approximately five months.
* “Haywire,” starring Gina Carano, will be released in theaters on Jan. 20, so that means expect to see a whole lot more of Carano in the coming weeks. Which leads us to …
* Carano is featured in the latest edition GQ Magazine. More on that here. Now, if you’re wondering whether Carano will ever fight again, we asked Stephen Espinoza, the new EVP and GM of Showtime Sports, who also used to be Carano’s a lawyer, that very question on Monday’s episode of The MMA Hour.
“I’ve actually been trading calls with Gina,” he said. “She’s really, really focused on the film, on ‘Haywire.’ She just smiles and winks. You know her well enough. She’s got that sort of mysterious wink once in a while when she sort of says, I don’t know, but will sort of wink and you kind of feel like there’s something else there. But I know she is, in her heart, a fighter and always has that urge, just like any boxer does or anyone that is really committed to the sport. So if there is any opportunity to do so, I think you could see her [fight again] pretty quickly.”
* It feels like Rousey, who is still pushing for a fight against Miesha Tate at 135 pounds instead of Cris Cyborg at 145, continues to break barriers everyday. For example, she was a guest on Joe Rogan’s popular podcast, “The Joe Rogan Experience,” on Wednesday, which most MMA fighters can’t say, let alone any women’s MMA fighters. You can watch/listen to the show here.
In October 2010, UFC president Dana White tried to slow down the expectations for Jon Jones. The light-heavyweight talent had just run through veteran Vladimir Matyushenko and the buzz around him had grown to the point where people were trying to project him into the title picture.
White, though, would have none of it. Jones was going to fight Ryan Bader in early 2011 and still probably have to win another 2-3 fights after that before fighting for the belt, White said. Just three months later, circumstances caused him to reconsider.
In a perfect storm of a day, Jones blitzed Bader and White discovered he needed a challenger for Mauricio “Shogun” Rua when Rashad Evans got hurt and Quinton “Rampage” Jackson declined the fight on six weeks’ notice. Jones got the call and answered the challenge in historic fashion, annihilating Rua to capture the belt and become the youngest UFC champion in history.
Jones is the easy pick for fighter of the year, but in reality, his 2011 was more than that, arguably the finest single calendar year in MMA history.
Consider this: he became the first man in history to defeat three former UFC champs in a single year. But he didn’t just beat them, he finished each one of them (and choked out Bader for good measure).
If you like statistics, Jones’ dominance over the opposition can be proved numerically. In his four fights, he out-landed Bader, Rua, Jackson and Lyoto Machida by an obscene total of 233 to 56, according to FightMetric.
Keep in mind, those four came into their respective bouts with Jones with a combined winning percentage of .851, yet Jones won all 11 rounds against them and only Machida had any moments of success.
It’s not easy to select a defining moment for Jones in 2011, but his title victory was certainly a moment of clarity for all the remaining skeptics. From the opening touch of gloves until the time referee Herb Dean pulled Jones away signifying the end, Jones’ performance was nothing short of a masterpiece, MMA‘s equivalent of a perfect game.
Rua, a vaunted striker who was believed to have the standup advantage over Jones, was simply overwhelmed in every aspect. Jones out-landed him by a ridiculous amount, 102 to 11 by FightMetric’s count. He took him down on all three attempts. He passed his guard repeatedly. And finally, he finished the fight for good with a liver punch that crumpled Rua midway through the third.
Showcasing his versatility, Jones became the first man in a decade to make Jackson tap out when he scored a fourth-round submission in his first title defense. And he saved his most mature performance for last, navigating his way through a rocky first round against Machida before dropping him with a straight left and finishing him by choking him unconscious in the second.
The year saw Jones jump from prospect to champion in seemingly an instant. Just a few months before 2011 began, White thought Jones wasn’t yet ready to fight for the belt, but by the time it was over, White, like everyone else, had been converted.
“I don’t know how you deny the guy anymore,” he said. “He’s literally walked through everybody. He fought four times this year, probably the nastiest schedule in the history of the company. He’s incredible, man.”
And an easy choice for 2011’s Fighter of the Year.
2. Dan Henderson
When does time run out on Hendo? Judging from his 2011, it won’t be anytime soon. The 41-year-old insists he’s got a UFC title run in him, and his recent performances suggest he is indeed still a threat to either Jones or middleweight champ Anderson Silva. He started off the year in March by knocking out Rafael “Feijao” Cavalcante to take the Strikeforce light-heavyweight title. Months later, he moved to heavyweight and scored a TKO over Fedor Emelianenko, and he capped off his year by outlasting Rua in an all-time classic at UFC 139.
3. Ben Henderson
With dominant wins over Clay Guida, Jim Miller and Mark Bocek, Henderson proved that he belonged in the UFC’s lightweight division and that he was a legitimate challenger to current champ Frankie Edgar. Just as impressive as his performance was his quick climb back from disappointment. It was just about a year ago when he lost to Anthony Pettis during the infamous “Showtime kick” match. The victory was supposed to get Pettis a title shot, yet it’s Henderson who got there first.
4. Michael Chandler
It wasn’t a huge surprise when Chandler beat Marcin Held and Lloyd Woodard to advance to the Bellator lightweight tournament finals, but his tournament title win over Patricky “Pitbull” Freire raised some eyebrows, and then Chandler one-upped himself by toppling champ Eddie Alvarez in one of 2011’s best fights, a wild back-and-forth classic that Chandler closed out with a rear naked choke win.
5. (tie) Nick Diaz
What a wild ride 2011 was for Diaz, who earned early wins over Evangelista “Cyborg” Santos and Paul Daley before vacating his welterweight belt to move over to the UFC. He came to fight champ Georges St-Pierre, but never got the chance after he missed media commitments and the UFC removed him from the bout. As it turned out, St-Pierre ended up getting hurt and would have missed the match anyway, but Diaz decided to take a fight with BJ Penn and smashed him in a way that we’ve only see GSP do lately, building more anticipation for a possible future bout between the pair.
5. (tie) Junior dos Santos
There’s no way to keep the new UFC heavyweight champion off this list after he demolished Shane Carwin back in June, and then headlined one of the most important shows in UFC history in November. Sure, the 64-second knockout of Cain Velasquez at the inaugural UFC on FOX show seemed more than a bit anticlimactic, but it also put into perspective just how dominant dos Santos has been. Since signing with the UFC, he has never lost a round.
In October 2010, UFC president Dana White tried to slow down the expectations for Jon Jones. The light-heavyweight talent had just run through veteran Vladimir Matyushenko and the buzz around him had grown to the point where people were trying to project him into the title picture.
White, though, would have none of it. Jones was going to fight Ryan Bader in early 2011 and still probably have to win another 2-3 fights after that before fighting for the belt, White said. Just three months later, circumstances caused him to reconsider.
In a perfect storm of a day, Jones blitzed Bader and White discovered he needed a challenger for Mauricio “Shogun” Rua when Rashad Evans got hurt and Quinton “Rampage” Jackson declined the fight on six weeks’ notice. Jones got the call and answered the challenge in historic fashion, annihilating Rua to capture the belt and become the youngest UFC champion in history.
Jones is the easy pick for fighter of the year, but in reality, his 2011 was more than that, arguably the finest single calendar year in MMA history.
Consider this: he became the first man in history to defeat three former UFC champs in a single year. But he didn’t just beat them, he finished each one of them (and choked out Bader for good measure).
If you like statistics, Jones’ dominance over the opposition can be proved numerically. In his four fights, he out-landed Bader, Rua, Jackson and Lyoto Machida by an obscene total of 233 to 56, according to FightMetric.
Keep in mind, those four came into their respective bouts with Jones with a combined winning percentage of .851, yet Jones won all 11 rounds against them and only Machida had any moments of success.
It’s not easy to select a defining moment for Jones in 2011, but his title victory was certainly a moment of clarity for all the remaining skeptics. From the opening touch of gloves until the time referee Herb Dean pulled Jones away signifying the end, Jones’ performance was nothing short of a masterpiece, MMA‘s equivalent of a perfect game.
Rua, a vaunted striker who was believed to have the standup advantage over Jones, was simply overwhelmed in every aspect. Jones out-landed him by a ridiculous amount, 102 to 11 by FightMetric’s count. He took him down on all three attempts. He passed his guard repeatedly. And finally, he finished the fight for good with a liver punch that crumpled Rua midway through the third.
Showcasing his versatility, Jones became the first man in a decade to make Jackson tap out when he scored a fourth-round submission in his first title defense. And he saved his most mature performance for last, navigating his way through a rocky first round against Machida before dropping him with a straight left and finishing him by choking him unconscious in the second.
The year saw Jones jump from prospect to champion in seemingly an instant. Just a few months before 2011 began, White thought Jones wasn’t yet ready to fight for the belt, but by the time it was over, White, like everyone else, had been converted.
“I don’t know how you deny the guy anymore,” he said. “He’s literally walked through everybody. He fought four times this year, probably the nastiest schedule in the history of the company. He’s incredible, man.”
And an easy choice for 2011’s Fighter of the Year.
2. Dan Henderson
When does time run out on Hendo? Judging from his 2011, it won’t be anytime soon. The 41-year-old insists he’s got a UFC title run in him, and his recent performances suggest he is indeed still a threat to either Jones or middleweight champ Anderson Silva. He started off the year in March by knocking out Rafael “Feijao” Cavalcante to take the Strikeforce light-heavyweight title. Months later, he moved to heavyweight and scored a TKO over Fedor Emelianenko, and he capped off his year by outlasting Rua in an all-time classic at UFC 139.
3. Ben Henderson
With dominant wins over Clay Guida, Jim Miller and Mark Bocek, Henderson proved that he belonged in the UFC’s lightweight division and that he was a legitimate challenger to current champ Frankie Edgar. Just as impressive as his performance was his quick climb back from disappointment. It was just about a year ago when he lost to Anthony Pettis during the infamous “Showtime kick” match. The victory was supposed to get Pettis a title shot, yet it’s Henderson who got there first.
4. Michael Chandler
It wasn’t a huge surprise when Chandler beat Marcin Held and Lloyd Woodard to advance to the Bellator lightweight tournament finals, but his tournament title win over Patricky “Pitbull” Freire raised some eyebrows, and then Chandler one-upped himself by toppling champ Eddie Alvarez in one of 2011’s best fights, a wild back-and-forth classic that Chandler closed out with a rear naked choke win.
5. (tie) Nick Diaz
What a wild ride 2011 was for Diaz, who earned early wins over Evangelista “Cyborg” Santos and Paul Daley before vacating his welterweight belt to move over to the UFC. He came to fight champ Georges St-Pierre, but never got the chance after he missed media commitments and the UFC removed him from the bout. As it turned out, St-Pierre ended up getting hurt and would have missed the match anyway, but Diaz decided to take a fight with BJ Penn and smashed him in a way that we’ve only see GSP do lately, building more anticipation for a possible future bout between the pair.
5. (tie) Junior dos Santos
There’s no way to keep the new UFC heavyweight champion off this list after he demolished Shane Carwin back in June, and then headlined one of the most important shows in UFC history in November. Sure, the 64-second knockout of Cain Velasquez at the inaugural UFC on FOX show seemed more than a bit anticlimactic, but it also put into perspective just how dominant dos Santos has been. Since signing with the UFC, he has never lost a round.
Filed under: MMA Media Watch, UFC, Bellator, NewsSpike TV announced on Tuesday that beginning Friday, March 2, from 9:00 p.m. to midnight ET/PT it will air highlights from the past fourteen seasons of The Ultimate Fighter. “The Ultimate Fighter Fridays…
Spike TV announced on Tuesday that beginning Friday, March 2, from 9:00 p.m. to midnight ET/PT it will air highlights from the past fourteen seasons of The Ultimate Fighter. “The Ultimate Fighter Fridays,” as they are calling it, will be televised at the same time as TUF 15 live on FX, which debuts March 9.
The move comes as no surprise as Spike aired UFC programming on its network at the same time as the UFC’s debut on FOX and has already announced that it will do the same during the UFC’s second show on FOX on Jan. 28.
Interestingly enough, though, Bellator Fighting Championships, which is owned by Spike TV’s parent company, Viacom, will debut its sixth season on MTV2 on March 2, as well. However, according to David Schwarz, Spike TV’s Vice President of Communications, MTV2 has not decided which time slot it will use to air Bellator events. That could very well be based on the time slot FX uses to air TUF 15 next year.
“We have to monetize the library,” Schwarz said when asked about Spike’s decision to counter UFC programming on FOX. “The UFC prefers that we keep the library and run the library.”
Spike has the right to air old UFC programming for one more year before its contract with the promotion expires. The UFC could buy back the library to prohibit this from happening, but UFC president Dana White has already stated publicly that he is not interested in doing so.
Spike announced recently that Bellator will move to its airwaves come 2013.
Ueda & Nakamura. Photos not exactly to scale. (Pics: Sherdog.com)
While some MMA promotions are culling their divisions, Bellator is steadily adding depth to its ranks. The Spike-bound organization has announced the addition of two new fighters to their roster. Japanese standouts Masakatsu Ueda and Hiroshi Nakamura will make their Bellator debuts in the Season 6 Bantamweight tournament.
Nakamura went 3-1 in 2011 and comes into the tourney riding a pair of wins over Seiji Akao and Yoshiro Maeda. With his last six fights going the distance, “Iron” seems to have the sort of Fitch-level durability one needs to survive the grueling tournament format.
The pair join a nearly-completed tournament line-up of Alexis Vila, Marcos Galvao, Ed West, Rodrigo Lima, Luis Nogueira. Any favorites going in?
Ueda & Nakamura. Photos not exactly to scale. (Pics: Sherdog.com)
While some MMA promotions are culling their divisions, Bellator is steadily adding depth to its ranks. The Spike-bound organization has announced the addition of two new fighters to their roster. Japanese standouts Masakatsu Ueda and Hiroshi Nakamura will make their Bellator debuts in the Season 6 Bantamweight tournament.
Nakamura went 3-1 in 2011 and comes into the tourney riding a pair of wins over Seiji Akao and Yoshiro Maeda. With his last six fights going the distance, “Iron” seems to have the sort of Fitch-level durability one needs to survive the grueling tournament format.
Last week, it was announced that Bellator Fighting Championships would be changing the night they broadcast their weekly fights, beginning with their Season 6 tournaments in March 2012.
Instead of competing for an audience on Saturday nights, when most fans are preoccupied with UFC pay-per-views and college football, Bjorn Rebney in conjunction with Viacom, has determined the best night for the largest number of MMA fans to enjoy the show is Friday. Good choice? Perhaps.
Also airing on Friday nights starting in 2012 is the UFC’s flagship reality series, The Ultimate Fighter. In its fifteenth season, Zuffa decided to mix it up a bit in hopes of revitalizing fan interest and attracting new viewers by airing the fights live.
So will Bellator gain any ground if they’re still competing with the world’s largest MMA promotion? Will the in-house shenanigans, trash-talking coaches, and UFC brand be able to attract a larger audience than an entire night of live fights, some of which have been classified as ‘Super‘? Not only can we not be in two places at once, we can’t watch two television programs at the same time either. So, who wins the ratings war?
Last week, it was announced that Bellator Fighting Championships would be changing the night they broadcast their weekly fights, beginning with their Season 6 tournaments in March 2012.
Instead of competing for an audience on Saturday nights, when most fans are preoccupied with UFC pay-per-views and college football, Bjorn Rebney in conjunction with Viacom, has determined the best night for the largest number of MMA fans to enjoy the show is Friday. Good choice? Perhaps.
Also airing on Friday nights starting in 2012 is the UFC’s flagship reality series, The Ultimate Fighter. In its fifteenth season, Zuffa decided to mix it up a bit in hopes of revitalizing fan interest and attracting new viewers by airing the fights live.
So will Bellator gain any ground if they’re still competing with the world’s largest MMA promotion? Will the in-house shenanigans, trash-talking coaches, and UFC brand be able to attract a larger audience than an entire night of live fights, some of which have been classified as ‘Super‘? Not only can we not be in two places at once, we can’t watch two television programs at the same time either. So, who wins the ratings war?
If you’re the type of person who roots against Lebron James, Jon Jones, or the Los Angeles Lakers, chances are you’re probably going to slam the UFC as well. In which case, you and your buddies probably chat it up on the bar stools or at the water cooler about how The Ultimate Fighter is stale, annoying, and that one lousy fight doesn’t motivate you to watch fifty minutes of predictable Real World-esque antics sans hot chicks.
Bellator on the other hand, offers four fights that actually have meaning, scraps that can possibly materialize into Fight of the Year candidates. You’ll witness up-and-comers, veterans looking to bounce back, and everything in between battle it out for a novelty-sized check and a title belt — not because they want to be on TV, sign autographs and bang broads. From a fan’s perspective, there’s more to life than making chicken salad out of chicken sh*t.
While those arguments are logical enough in their own right, you’d be foolish to overlook the fact that MTV2 (Bellator’s home for one more year) is in roughly 80 million homes, while FX (TUF‘s new home) is sitting pretty at 98 million. When Bellator’s Spike deal kicks off in 2013, they’ll regain a slight edge in cable broadcast reach against FX, but for next year they’ll be at a clear competitive disadvantage.
Over the past decade, UFC has become synonymous with mixed martial arts. Audiences come to expect a certain level of production and sizzle from their MMA, which is something the UFC has been able to deliver better than anybody. For that reason alone, casual observers are betting on them to claim Friday nights as their own. Thanks in large part to their pioneering work with socialmedia, the brand loyalty held by the UFC is unrivaled, and unprecedented. While fans of other professional sports might have loyalty to their favorite teams and players, they don’t have the same emotional connection to the leagues themselves. (I doubt David Stern gets many requests from grown men asking to sit in his lap these days.)
Another reason no one in Vegas is worried about going toe-to-toe with Bellator is the fresh format in store which includes a voting system similar to American Idol where fans can choose who they want to see face next. Allowing viewers to hand-pick the next fight is reason enough to make TUF the Friday night go-to for MMA fans.
Why are ‘voting enabled’ shows so darn popular? Two reasons: We love watching people humiliate themselves (think of the Idol reject who is convinced of their talent) and we love feeling like we’re a part of something. When we vote, we believe that our voice matters thus strengthening our appreciation of the show. Who could resist a company that asks them what they want? The fifteenth season of TUF will prove this true.
So who do you think will win the ratings war on Friday nights in 2012? Will you tune in to watch another guy fight and lose to Hector Lombard, or are you more a fan of doors getting smashed and food getting inseminated? Whichever side you fall on, you can rest assured that if one starts bludgeoning the other to a bloody pulp, the other will tap out and live to see a new day (I’m hoping for Wednesday). There is far too much money at risk to settle for being number two in a world that only cares about numero uno.
Despite a shortage of talent, the interest in women’s MMA seems to be stronger than ever, thanks in large part to Cris Cyborg, Ronda Rousey and Miesha Tate. Still, there are other talented women making headlines out there, and they deserve some of our attention too.
In October 2010, 
Spike TV announced on Tuesday that beginning Friday, March 2, from 9:00 p.m. to midnight ET/PT it will air highlights from the past fourteen seasons of The Ultimate Fighter. “The Ultimate Fighter Fridays,” as they are calling it, will be televised at the same time as TUF 15 live on FX, which debuts March 9. 
