It was rampant speculation time across the interwebs on Friday, after yesterday’s announcement that Brock Lesnar’s diverticulitis has returned with a vengeance. “Is Brock done?” we all wondered aloud. Is Carwin vs. dos Santos actually a better fight? Can the UFC rebound from a couple of weeks that saw the main events of UFC 130, 131 and 133 all go up in smoke? And, dear God, are Urijah Faber and Dominick Cruz next to suffer some bizarre malady, causing a reshuffling of the only PPV still left in one piece? Nobody knows.
What we do know is this: Brock Lesnar turns 34 in July and twice now since 2009 he’s seen his career indefinitely sidetracked by being the world’s only millionaire athlete to get a near fatal disease from not eating enough vegetables. Age has never been particularly kind to jumbo-sized athletes and even for a professional wrestler, Lesnar’s job history has been pretty flighty over the years. So, while we can’t say with any kind of certainty that his MMA career might be over over, Lesnar’s second bout with a strange digestive infection nobody had ever heard of before two years ago can’t exactly be considered a good thing. Apparently, the first time he went through this the UFC forgot to tell us that diverticulitis is something that sticks around for the rest of your life. Whoops. But we digress. What it all means for Lesnar, dos Santos, Carwin and – most importantly – you, after the jump.
It was rampant speculation time across the interwebs on Friday, after yesterday’s announcement that Brock Lesnar’s diverticulitis has returned with a vengeance. “Is Brock done?” we all wondered aloud. Is Carwin vs. dos Santos actually a better fight? Can the UFC rebound from a couple of weeks that saw the main events of UFC 130, 131 and 133 all go up in smoke? And, dear God, are Urijah Faber and Dominick Cruz next to suffer some bizarre malady, causing a reshuffling of the only PPV still left in one piece? Nobody knows.
What we do know is this: Brock Lesnar turns 34 in July and twice now since 2009 he’s seen his career indefinitely sidetracked by being the world’s only millionaire athlete to get a near fatal disease from not eating enough vegetables. Age has never been particularly kind to jumbo-sized athletes and even for a professional wrestler, Lesnar’s job history has been pretty flighty over the years. So, while we can’t say with any kind of certainty that his MMA career might be over over, Lesnar’s second bout with a strange digestive infection nobody had ever heard of before two years ago can’t exactly be considered a good thing. Apparently, the first time he went through this the UFC forgot to tell us that diverticulitis is something that sticks around for the rest of your life. Whoops. But we digress. What it all means for Lesnar, dos Santos, Carwin and – most importantly – you, after the jump.
Dos Santos has also been thrust into kind of a tight spot here. Here he is coming off an altogether affable – if not star-making – turn on TUF 13 and for the second time in recent memory he’s seen a big-money fight fall through due to an injury to the other guy. Now he inherits a slightly lesser known but arguably more dangerous opponent. At this point, the dude should just be happy if Carwin makes it to the cage, but (in case you’re interested) he’s taking a “same shit, different opponent” kind of approach to this last-minute switcheroo.
“I got a little upset about this change, but I’m happy that the UFC got another opponent for me,” dos Santos told Sherdog this week. “Carwin is an excellent fighter and deserves all my respect. His boxing skills are great. It’s gonna be a great fight with tough blows from both sides. I would say that it will end by knockout.”
Dos Santos rightly opened as a pretty significant favorite over Carwin, who will be staring down the barrel of his own 11-month absence from the cage by fight night. Oddly though, at least some of the early money appears to be falling to Carwin. According to reports, dos Santos opened at around -265, but has since seen those odds shrink to -225. That means there are a significant number of gamblers who might just think Carwin can win here. Winning would be a great thing for The Engineer, who came within a breath of claiming the UFC heavyweight title at UFC 116 and still, still at some point needs to give us his side of how his name wound up on that one list we’ve all forgotten about already.
As for the company itself, well, this change pretty much couldn’t come at a worse time, what with the upcoming PPV schedule already ailing. To add insult to injury, TUF 13 ratings slipped again this week, further fueling our speculation that a season of reality TV was exactly the wrong way to try to promote Lesnar in the first place. During 2010, the big fella was the company’s biggest (and best paid) PPV draw. At this point though – even if he is able to return to active competition – you have to wonder just how much the UFC can count on him as a reliable future PPV draw.
There is no arguing that Brock Lesnar is the pound-for-pound king when it comes to selling pay-per-views. In the three events he has headlined, not a single one has raked in less than one million buys.On an open media call on Thursday, Brock reassured …
There is no arguing that Brock Lesnar is the pound-for-pound king when it comes to selling pay-per-views. In the three events he has headlined, not a single one has raked in less than one million buys.
On an open media call on Thursday, Brock reassured the members of the media that he will be back once this second battle with diverticulitis is over with.
There are only two guarantees in life—death and taxes.
Although Lesnar has every intention of coming back and once again being a force in the Octagon, nobody can say with 100 percent certainty that he will ever fight again.
If you look at the worst-case scenario, Brock would never step foot in the Octagon again. If that were to be the case, who could step in and become the new golden goose of the UFC? Here are a few options.
Jon Jones
He looked like an absolute beast when he took the light heavyweight title away from Shogun Rua at UFC 128, but his drawing power is still up in the air. UFC 128 only brought in around 450,000 buys.
Should a fight between “Bones” and Rashad Evans ever come to fruition, that would undoubtedly draw huge numbers considering all the trash talk between the two. But after that, it would seem like it would take a little time for Jones to become a superstar in the sport.
His front kick knockout of Vitor Belfort will forever live in infamy. But if you look at past trends, Silva’s biggest draw was at UFC 126, an event that drew an estimated 725,000 buys.
If Silva can look impressive against Yushin Okami at UFC Rio, there is a probability that he could become a huge draw.
Now with those two out of the way, the most likely fighter to become the biggest draw in the UFC would be Georges St-Pierre.
St-Pierre has been a solid second behind Lesnar when it comes to pay-per-view buys. Early estimates put UFC 129 drawing a little over one million buys.
When you take that and combine it with holding the record for the largest gate in UFC history, St-Pierre should be a no-brainer to take over the No. 1 slot.
But as everyone knows, MMA fans are fickle. Given St-Pierre’s last four performances, he may not be the drawing force he once was.
Fans across the globe may have been so impressed with Jones that he may be propelled to that spot.
If Silva makes the move to light heavyweight, that may be intriguing enough to bring more eyes to the events he headlines.
It’s been a tough week for the UFC. First, the main event for UFC 130, Frankie Edgar vs Gray Maynard III, was scrapped when both fighters sustained injuries.This left fight fans groaning as Quinton “Rampage” Jackson vs Matt “The Hammer” Hamill was prom…
It’s been a tough week for the UFC. First, the main event for UFC 130, Frankie Edgar vs Gray Maynard III, was scrapped when both fighters sustained injuries.
This left fight fans groaning as Quinton “Rampage” Jackson vs Matt “The Hammer” Hamill was promoted to the main event.
Then yesterday it was revealed that Brock Lesnar will be unable to headline UFC 131 because he has been stricken with diverticulitis.
Luckily for MMA fans, UFC 131’s main event has not been completely ruined. some would even say that it’s better.
Top contender Shane Carwin has stepped in to fight Junior Dos Santos for the No. 1 contender spot in the heavyweight division.
A fortnight on from what was undoubtedly a groundbreaking event for MMA as a sport, I thought it appropriate to revisit and analyse UFC 129 from a slightly different perspective to that which was presented during the euphoria of the imme…
A fortnight on from what was undoubtedly a groundbreaking event for MMA as a sport, I thought it appropriate to revisit and analyse UFC 129 from a slightly different perspective to that which was presented during the euphoria of the immediate aftermath.
1. WOW is all that needs to be said regarding the landmark event itself; if Brock Lesnar was judging the event on his TUF 13 poultry-based scale of chicken salad-chicken sh*t, this was definitely a large bowl of Chicken Caesar salad, consisting of organic free-range chicken, extra croutons and a shed load of dressing.
Dana inadvertently said it best in his vlog when he stated that the Rogers Centre looked “like the Dallas Cowboys stadium on steroids.” Steroids indeed, in the sense that the fans seated at the back of the upper tiers were definitely going home with a nosebleed (though I doubt Dana picked up on the irony of his statement).
Incidentally, how long does everyone think it will be before the UFC surpasses the 70,000 plus attendance record set by PRIDE in Japan?
2. Dana White is a hard man to gratify. In the extensive build-up to Saturday night’s unprecedented festivities, he seemed his customary chirpy self, eagerly anticipating this landmark occasion and busting everyone’s chops in his vlogs.
“Business as usual,” you might say. However, he appeared decidedly uptight at the post-fight presser (perhaps Dana was exhausted and had suffered a post-event adrenaline-dump, or maybe he had not consumed one of his beloved “Pink Berry” yoghurts and his blood sugar levels had crashed. This is all of course, pure conjecture).
This was somewhat baffling, given that he had just witnessed a seminal moment for the enterprise/sport that he has so vigorously nurtured, and very much befitting of the occasion, the event proved a resounding success (aside from the main event ironically, though this didn’t serve to tarnish the overall occasion given the calibre of the preceding fights).
Whatever the source of Dana’s downturn in mood, he will soon rejoice over the event.
3. The bulk of initial reaction to GSP’s performance was inevitably negative (even certain sections of the Ontario faithful were apparently raining down boos during the fight, indicative of the disappointment felt by his adoring Canadian public. I wonder if Wayne Gretzky ever received boos for failing to woo a Canadian crowd, maybe that’s one for Dana White to address given his penchant for comparing the two).
However, fans tend to judge those heralded as P4P greats more critically, harbouring insanely high expectations of the chosen few that ever grace this list or enter into its vicinity. To those that incessantly lambast the Canadian superstar, Dana will undoubtedly respond “if you don’t want to watch him, don’t buy the fu*k1ng PPV.”
What does appear slightly unjust, however, is the lack of sympathy afforded to Georges for the eye injury he sustained during the fight, which effectively rendered him blind out of his left eye.
Unfortunately for Georges, people’s perceptions were formulated by directly contrasting his latent cornea injury with the very prominent protuberance boasted by Mark Hominick.
4. On the one hand, Jose Aldo endured a battle that reminded us that this previously-perceived demigod is actually a mortal homo sapiens after all (akin to the impact of the Sonnen and Bigfoot fights on Anderson and Fedor, respectively).
On the other, it manifestly illustrated that Aldo possesses not only the skills but the heart of a champion, a prerequisite for any martial artist that aspires to acquire and retain the UFC gold strap. His ability to carve out victory in the face of adversity does not bode well for his prospective competitors that face a fully-fit version of “Scarface.”
The sole reservation over Aldo’s tenacious performance would be his apparent tampering with the cut under Hominick’s eye whilst on top position, constituting dirty play reminiscent of the infamous Arona vs Sakuraba incident back in 2005 (was I the only that spotted this? Or was I just hallucinating due to the fact that in England the bout aired at 4 a.m. by which point I was feeling rather deprived of slumber?).
5. Scarface vs Bulgehead (aka Aldo vs Hominick): One analyst commented, “Aldo took home the belt, whilst Hominick took home another head,” whilst another suggested that Hominick wanted to give birth at the same time as his pregnant missus, alluding to the rather sizable swelling that developed on his forehead during the fourth round.
Either way, when his newborn looks back at the baby photos in a decade’s time, she will forever be reminded of her father’s gruesome bulge, and consequently will always remember the name Jose Aldo.
6. Could Steven Seagal be legit?…It’s very easy to be skeptical as to Steven Seagal’s substantive input into the training of top level MMA fighters. It’s fair to say that following Anderson’s front-kick clinic on Vitor Belfort, most questioned whether Seagal had actually contributed to this violent yet highly-technical masterpiece, despite Anderson’s assertion in favour of the pony-tailed assassin.
I decided to conduct a little reconnaissance on the “Under Siege” protagonist, and discovered that he was once classed the highest-ranked Western martial artist in Japan. Sufficient credentials to impress me into attaching credence to Seagal’s proclamations.
Once may be a coincidence, but twice is beginning to seem rather convincing, so Machida’s support of “Master Seagal’s” assertions is beginning to vindicate his influence.
Either Seagal is a lucky charm, or he is paying these UFC luminaries to claim that he is instructing them, maybe with a view to resurrecting his acting career (just a conspiracy theory).
7. Despite Dana’s concerted efforts to convince us otherwise throughout the week leading up to the fight, Randy Couture was not a top ten LHW before the Machida fight. The basis for Dana’s claim was most tenuous.
Granted, he was riding a three-fight winning streak, but the calibre of adversary has to be taken into consideration; a one-dimensional, uneducated martial artist (though I use the term loosely) in James Toney, an aging (over-the-hill) Mark Coleman, and the perennial underachiever in Brandon Vera (unintentional rhyme).
Couture himself labelled the former two as “novelty” fights, whilst the general consensus was that he lost unanimously to Vera. This is not to detract from the legend that is Couture, but just to regain some sense of perspective on Dana’s tendency to overhype certain fighters.
8. Canadian MMA appears to be in pretty decent shape, attested to by the fact that the Canadians prevailed in six out of the 10 bouts in which they were involved, a significant improvement from the last time Canadians were pitted against their US counterparts at UFC 58 (only won three out of eight on that specific evening).
All the Tristar Canadians boasted aesthetically-pleasing stand-up skills, including a spinning back-fist KO and my personal favourite of MacDonald tossing around Diaz like the proverbial pancake.
9. Whilst nobody was blatantly robbed of a decision on Saturday evening, the inaugural provision of cage-side screens for the judges didn’t necessarily seem to enhance their capacity for scoring fights. The two scores of 48-47 in the main event were questionable.
The issue with judging was never that the arbiters had restricted vision, but rather that they are not adequately educated in the sport of MMA in order to be accurately scoring fights. And besides, judging will forever be subjective, screens or no screens.
10. As an aside, kudos to Britain’s principal MMA journalistic representative, Gareth A Davies, who was sat cage-side to witness the action unfold.
Gareth is becoming a prominent fixture and increasingly recognisable face at UFC events, which can only serve to be beneficial for British MMA (yes I’m British, which I’m sure most of you discerned from my spelling and slight patriotic bias).
Pat Barry is not taking the criticize of Brock Lesnar kindly.Fellow UFC heavyweight is obviously a little upset of the people that believe that Brock Lesnar is “ducking” Junior dos Santos.Barry hit up his Twitter account to send this out to all the “ha…
Pat Barry is not taking the criticize of Brock Lesnar kindly.
Fellow UFC heavyweight is obviously a little upset of the people that believe that Brock Lesnar is “ducking” Junior dos Santos.
Barry hit up his Twitter account to send this out to all the “haters.”
“TOTALLY OUT OF CHARACTER FOR ME – BUT MY FRIEND HAD A RELAPSE OF SOMETHING THAT ALMOST KILLED HIM AND LEFT HIS WIFE A WIDOW AND KIDS FATHERLESS! AAAAAAANYBODY GOT SOMETHING S****Y TO SAY ABOUT HIM DUCKING A FIGHT OR BEING SCARED, COME FIND ME AND I’LL HEAR YOU OUT EYE TO EYE!!”
Barry went on to also say the following to a specific fan that started hating on Lesnar:
“ILL BE IN PHILLY IN A FEW WEEKS COUSIN, AND IF U GOT THE SAND WE’LL CHAT THERE, U HEAR ME!!!”
It is nice to see fellow fighters standing up for each other.
Upon his return to the Octagon, Brock will have to climb his way back to the top of the heavyweight division.Brock Lesnar has been given many chances against the elite heavyweights in the UFC despite the fact he has only had a handful of fights in the …
Upon his return to the Octagon, Brock will have to climb his way back to the top of the heavyweight division.
Brock Lesnar has been given many chances against the elite heavyweights in the UFC despite the fact he has only had a handful of fights in the promotion.
Why? The only logical answer is the fact that he has a big name coming from the WWE. He has been able to draw the attention of professional wrestling connoisseurs and attract their eyes to the wonderful world of mixed martial arts.
But when he returns to action, the UFC will have a difficult time fast tracking him back to the top of the heavyweight division.
There are die-hard fans out there that would get upset if Brock is put back against the top of the division, which is beginning to have more and more stars on the rise.
The only thing that would seem to make sense would for the UFC to put Lesnar in the Octagon against the new breed of heavyweights to prove that he deserves to be among the elite of the division once again.
Odds are that won’t happen given the fact that nobody sells events like Lesnar, but how long can the UFC continue to push Brock straight to the top before the fans start to realize that it’s all about the money?
