Tag: Caged In

UFC Is Trying to Sucker B.J. Penn out of Retirement by Using Josh Koscheck

Oh man, I love it when I have a fun story to kick off a day.The UFC—and Dana White in particular—really wants B.J. Penn to come back from his short-lived retirement and fight again.Penn is a huge fan favorite for the UFC, and White has done…

Oh man, I love it when I have a fun story to kick off a day.

The UFC—and Dana White in particular—really wants B.J. Penn to come back from his short-lived retirement and fight again.

Penn is a huge fan favorite for the UFC, and White has done everything he can do to goad Penn off the beach, short of sending a SWAT team into Hawaii to make a quick capture. He’s even repeatedly told the world that Penn is coming back, only to find out that Penn said no such thing at all.

Earlier this month, we saw Dana’s latest tactic: using other fighters to anger Penn and sucker him into a fight:

That attempt worked out just about as well as the rest of them, with Penn shooting Koscheck down in very public fashion.

@joshkoscheck I know it costs a lot of money to live that lavish lifestyle, big house, fast cars & you need big fights but sorry I’m not coming back anytime soon!

Oh well. You can’t say Koscheck didn’t give it the old college try. A fight between the most-hated and one of the most-loved welterweights in the world would have been the perfect kind of main event for a UFC on FOX show, or perhaps even a B-level pay-per-view. But it wasn’t to be.

Last night on Spike TV’s MMA Uncensored Live, Koscheck revealed the idea behind his public call-out of Penn:

Me and B.J. have a good relationship. It’s business, and, you know what? I like to have big fights. I think that B.J. is the type of fighter that would be a big fight for me. The UFC asked to try and stir up something. You know, I do my job well, and I went on to my Twitter account, and just kinda said, ‘Hey, B.J. Let’s do this fight.

I realize Penn is still retired and that this seems like a dead issue, but I’d still love to see this fight. Neither guy will be challenging for a title any time soon—or at least as long as Georges St-Pierre is the welterweight champion—so pairing them up with one another seems like perfect matchmaking to me.

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Ultimate Fighter Live Finale: Live Reaction and Play-by-Play

On Friday evening, the first season of the Ultimate Fighter Live on FX finally comes to a close. It started with 32 fighters vying for one of the 16 spots to live in the house. After 13 weeks of fighting, the field has been whittled down to just two co…

On Friday evening, the first season of the Ultimate Fighter Live on FX finally comes to a close. It started with 32 fighters vying for one of the 16 spots to live in the house. After 13 weeks of fighting, the field has been whittled down to just two competitors. 

The 10-fight card kicks off with a fight between Erik Perez and John Albert on Facebook. 

Then switch over to Fuel TV for four more fights before finally tuning into the finale on FX headlined by Martin Kampmann vs Jake Ellenberger. 

 

Official Card

Erik Perez vs. John Albert (Facebook)

Jeremy Larsen vs. Joe Proctor (Fuel TV)

Sam Sicillia vs. Christaiano Marcello (Fuel TV)

Chris Saunders vs. Myles Jury (Fuel TV)

Daron Cruickshank vs. Chris Tickle (Fuel TV)

John Cofer vs. Justin Lawrence (FX)

Pat Schilling vs. Max Holloway (FX)

Charles Oliveira vs. Jonathan Brookins (FX)

 

Ultimate Fighter Finales – Al Iaquinta vs. Mike Chiesa (FX)

 

Welterweight Title Eliminator – Martin Kampmann vs. Jake Ellenberger

Join Bleacher Report for a live discussion and play by play of the card. The night kicks off with the Facebook Prelims at 6:25 p.m. ET. The Fuel TV and FX portions will happen at 7:00 p.m. ET and 9 p.m. ET, respectively. 

 

Note: The entire card will be airing live for the West Coast. 

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The Ultimate Fighter Live Finale: 3 Things to Watch for

When all is said and done, Friday’s Ultimate Fighter Live Finale will have a lot more impact than you’d think.Sure, the card looks harmless enough. Plus, we’ve seen plenty of these Finale events over the years, and how long has it been since a TUF grad…

When all is said and done, Friday’s Ultimate Fighter Live Finale will have a lot more impact than you’d think.

Sure, the card looks harmless enough. Plus, we’ve seen plenty of these Finale events over the years, and how long has it been since a TUF graduate made an impact at the championship levels, anyway? 

But once you dig beneath the surface, you’ll discover some very intriguing questions lurking around. I’ll provide you with those questions in the following slides, as well as make my own attempt to answer them.

Join me, won’t you?

Begin Slideshow

Jake Ellenberger Doesn’t Plan on Waiting Around for His Title Shot

The UFC’s welterweight division is in a weird place these days.On one hand, the division is finally being replenished with contenders after being manually depleted by champion Georges St-Pierre over the past few years. Where there was once Josh Koschec…

The UFC’s welterweight division is in a weird place these days.

On one hand, the division is finally being replenished with contenders after being manually depleted by champion Georges St-Pierre over the past few years. Where there was once Josh Koscheck, Matt Hughes and B.J. Penn, there is now Johny Hendricks, Jake Ellenberger, Carlos Condit and Nick Diaz. That’s a good thing. 

The bad news? Everyone is in a holding pattern, at least until St-Pierre makes his planned November return and has his unification bout with interim champion Condit.

We know Hendricks already has a title shot, and he’s planning on sitting on the sidelines until St-Pierre and Condit settle things. That means he’s out of action until—judging by St-Pierre’s habit of fighting just twice a year—likely next April at the earliest. 

And now the winner of Friday’s fight between Jake Ellenberger and Martin Kampmann has also been promised a title shot. Granted, these title shots are not ironclad; they’re a way to add intrigue to a television card that may not otherwise be much of a draw. But what happens if the winner decides to wait until after Hendricks gets his own title shot next year? You’re looking at a layoff of longer than a year. 

Luckily, Ellenberger told Dann Stupp of MMAjunkie on Thursday that he’s not planning on playing that game.

It’d be a long wait. I’ve not been one who likes to wait, especially when I’m doing well…Me, I keep moving forward. I don’t want to sit out. My goal, the whole reason I’m in this sport, is to be a world champ. Getting to that (title) fight is ideal, but at the same time, I don’t want to sit out six months or even a year.

At the end of the day, Ellenberger may not have to wait. According to the official UFC twitter account, UFC president Dana White plans on making a big announcement during Thursday night’s weigh-ins.

 

 

What’s the big announcement? Given that he’s making it during the weigh-in show, I’m guessing it has something to do with the main event. Will be winner be given a shot at interim champion Carlos Condit, perhaps on the UFC on FOX show in August?

That would be interesting, wouldn’t it?

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Nick Diaz Was Paid $300,000 to Show Up for UFC 143 Press Conferences?

Remember back in September when Nick Diaz failed to show up for media obligations for his UFC 137 main event against Georges St-Pierre? We’re all familiar with the story by now, but let’s do a quick recap: As punishment, Diaz was pulled from the b…

Remember back in September when Nick Diaz failed to show up for media obligations for his UFC 137 main event against Georges St-Pierre? 

We’re all familiar with the story by now, but let’s do a quick recap: As punishment, Diaz was pulled from the bout and replaced with Carlos Condit. Diaz instead faced B.J. Penn, and that fight was moved to the main event after St-Pierre suffered an injury and Condit decided that he wanted to wait for his title shot.

Diaz lost a ton of money by not showing up for those media obligations. His contract gave him a percentage of the pay-per-view revenue, and he lost that cut after being pulled from the St-Pierre fight. All told, Diaz likely lost significantly more than $1 million, simply because he couldn’t do what every other fighter in the business considers part of his or her job.

That’s all ancient history at this point, though. But today, ESPN’s Brett Okamoto tweeted some interesting new information regarding the fine Diaz received as part of his failed marijuana test at UFC 143.

 

 

 

 

 

 

What are we looking at here? 

From what Okamoto is reporting—and as best as I can tell without personally talking to Kizer—Diaz was essentially paid a $300,000 bonus on top of his fight purse just for showing up to press conferences at UFC 143. As Okamoto says, the bonus may have been paid for more than just press conferences, but Kizer told Okamoto that he’s under the impression that the majority of the bonus was based on Diaz meeting media obligations.

This is an amazing deal, at least to me. Diaz was paid a large amount of money simply for doing the things that are supposed to be a requirement for fighters under UFC contract. And he was paid that money because he no-showed the press conferences in September.

Perhaps I’m in the wrong, but this doesn’t feel like much of a punishment. Sure, Diaz would have earned more than $300,000 from his pay-per-view cut, so he’s still out a lot of money from October. But he was paid this bonus because he didn’t show up in the first place. Does that seem weird to anyone else?

I can’t lie: Diaz has a pretty good thing going on. He refuses to play by the rules that every other fighter in the UFC abides by, and in the end he’s rewarded for it with a huge bonus.

That’s a good gig, if you can get it. And it only adds to the mystery and legend that is Nick Diaz.

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UFC 147 Making the Best of Bad Situation with Wanderlei Silva vs. Rich Franklin

There are plenty of big UFC events coming up in the summer and fall months.The biggest of the year, at least out of events that are currently planned, takes place in early July when Anderson Silva and Chael Sonnen hook up in the most anticipated rematc…

There are plenty of big UFC events coming up in the summer and fall months.

The biggest of the year, at least out of events that are currently planned, takes place in early July when Anderson Silva and Chael Sonnen hook up in the most anticipated rematch in UFC history. And then there’s the Jon Jones vs. Dan Henderson fight on September 1st; you can’t tell me you aren’t looking forward to that one, if only to see how the ageless wonder fares against one of the most talented fighters in the world.

Unfortunately, UFC 147 is not one of those anticipated events.

When it was first booked, UFC 147 looked like another major Brazil offering from the UFC. It was going to take place in a giant soccer stadium and would feature Silva going for revenge against the trash-talking Sonnen in front of his own countrymen. But issues with noise ordinances in Sao Paulo forced the event to move back to Rio de Janeiro. Then a United Nations summit put the kibosh on the soccer stadium concept.

And so Silva vs. Sonnen was moved to UFC 148 in Las Vegas, and Wanderlei Silva vs. Vitor Belfort was announced as the new main event for UFC 147. 

Silva vs. Belfort wasn’t a gigantic fight, by any means, but it had plenty of intrigue. The two coaches on the first season of The Ultimate Fighter: Brazil developed some true bad blood while filming the show, and while it didn’t have the cachet of a Silva-Sonnen rematch, it was still a decent enough main event.

But then Belfort broke his hand, forcing him out of the fight and into the operating room. 

The UFC looked long and hard for a replacement for Belfort. Most of the bigger-name fighters in the middleweight division already have fights booked, so they started looking at the light heavyweight division. What they ultimately found was an old, reliable light heavyweight who was planning on moving back to middleweight to face Cung Le at UFC 148: former middleweight champion Rich Franklin.

A rematch between Silva and Franklin isn’t the greatest main event in UFC history, but it’s not the worst. Not by a long shot. The first fight—which took place way back at UFC 99—was a fun bout between two experienced veterans. I think the rematch will be more of the same.

Another interesting aspect to the fight: It’s a 190-pound catchweight bout. Off the top of my head, it will be the first 190-pound fight in UFC history. We’ve seen Franklin compete in numerous 195-pound catchweight bouts—his first bout with Silva was contested at that weight, in fact—but never 190. When the first fight happened, Franklin was in the process of moving up to light heavyweight after seeing his middleweight future dimmed by two consecutive losses to Anderson Silva.

This time around, Franklin is on his way back down to the middleweight division he once ruled with an iron fist, while Wanderlei is already competing at middleweight. With less than a month to go until the fight, asking Franklin to get down to 185 would be quite the stretch, so 190 makes a lot of sense.

UFC 147 isn’t going to light the world on fire. It’s short on name value, long on untested Brazilian prospects, and with a co-main event of Fabricio Werdum vs. Mike Russow. But the UFC is making the best of a bad situation, and Franklin is once again proving that he’s willing to help his long-time employers out whenever he can. And Silva vs. Franklin 2 may not mean much for the future of the middleweight division, but I’m looking forward to it all the same.

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