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Phil Baroni Wants to See Juiced-Up Fighters Kill Each Other

Phil Baroni doesn’t always say the smartest things.Look, I like Phil. He’s always been one of my guilty pleasures in the fight game. Part of that is due to his fighting style, which, if we’re being honest, hasn’t always led him to success in the cage.H…

Phil Baroni doesn’t always say the smartest things.

Look, I like Phil. He’s always been one of my guilty pleasures in the fight game. Part of that is due to his fighting style, which, if we’re being honest, hasn’t always led him to success in the cage.

He goes balls to the wall at all times, and that often leads to him gassing out and being picked apart on his feet.

And then there’s the entertainment aspect he brings to the cage, with the sequined robes, the outlandish sunglasses and the dancing.

Baroni was one of the first to bring the over-the-top buffoonery from the world of pro wrestling and incorporate it into mixed martial arts. Chael Sonnen’s current act may not be a direct descendant of what Baroni did in his career, but at worst it’s a sibling.

Baroni is no longer relevant in the fight game, if he was ever relevant in the first place. He got his shot in the UFC last year and promptly lost both of the fights they gave him. All told, he’s lost seven out of his last 11 bouts dating back to his much-hyped fight with Frank Shamrock in 2007.

You’re probably asking yourself why I’m talking about Baroni today, if he’s really so irrelevant in the fight game. I’m talking about him because Baroni gave an interview to Fight Sport Asia in which he was asked his thoughts on the current performance-enhancing drug epidemic sweeping the industry:

Guys should be able to do what ever it takes to be the strongest. Getting choked and kicked in the head is really bad for you, worse than pot, TRT or steroids. I don’t care who’s the cleanest, I wanna see the strongest, the fastest and the most gnarly fighters.

I don’t want to see who is the best at passing drug tests. Overeem isn’t the only guy taking s***, he just got caught. I wanna see the baddest mother f****** going at it. That’s why pride was the best. I wanna see a 205 (ripped) Wanderlei Silva kill dudes!

I hear a lot of fans say pretty much the same thing Baroni did here, and it’s almost always a stupid stance to take. In fact, I’d wager that 99 percent of the people who say they want to see fighters (or other athletes) legitimately using PEDs are simply doing it for a reaction.

And I think that’s Baroni’s angle here. It’s a way to get attention, and that’s something Baroni craves. Because there’s no way a person of sound thinking and right mind would possibly want to see a version of this sport where the guys who can afford testosterone or HGH are the guys who win fights.

That’s not a sport. Well, it is. But it’s a bloodsport, and it would never be taken seriously by a society that still has a tough time accepting the violence in mixed martial arts.

We’d be relegated back to holding events on Indian territory. The UFC would be banished from pay-per-view. It would regress 10 years and undo all of the hard work that Dana White, Lorenzo Fertitta and Zuffa have done in trying to make MMA a product that is acceptable to mainstream audiences.

You can see why Baroni’s statement is ridiculous, right? Because it is.

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Dana White: Tito Ortiz, BJ Penn Deserve to Be in the Hall of Fame

For all intents and purposes, the UFC’s Hall of Fame isn’t a real thing. Not like the hallowed halls of other sports. All of them have buildings, the places you can actually visit to see the roots of the sport you love and express your fandom by seeing…

There is no such place for the UFC Hall of Fame. Not yet, anyway. And there’s no set criteria.

If Lorenzo Fertitta and Dana White believe you should be in the Hall, well, you’ll be in the Hall. There’s no voting rights handed out to media or fellow fighters; just impress the bosses and you’re in.

But Fertitta and White have done a pretty remarkable job of keeping the Hall exclusive and only including worthy folks. There’s no Tim Sylvia’s here, folks. Of course, the flip side is also true, because Frank Shamrock still finds himself iced out of the honors due to a long-running disagreement with White and Fertitta.

We’re no closer to seeing the now-former “Mr. Decade of Braces” enter the UFC’s Hall, but we are getting close to two other legendary fighters being inducted: Tito Ortiz and BJ Penn.

White told media during a recent lunch gathering in Las Vegas that Penn and Ortiz deserve induction. If the boss thinks you deserve induction, there’s a pretty good chance you’re in.

“Despite my personal problems with Tito, he belongs in,” White told MMAFighting.com. “He was the champion when we first bought this thing. The fact that Tito is still here, Tito and I have had our moments, but it doesn’t change what he did for the company.”

White said the same logic applies for Penn, the ground-breaking lightweight who continues to insist that he’s retired after his October loss to Nick Diaz. White has repeatedly said that Penn will fight at least one more time.

“The thing about B.J. Penn is that what he brought to the lightweight division, there was a point in time when we first bought this company when people thought guys in the lighter weight divisions couldn’t be stars and couldn’t see pay-per-views and couldn’t cross over. B.J. Penn was definitely that first crossover guy for us.”

I completely agree with White on the merits of Penn and Ortiz being in the Hall of Fame. Given what we know about the Hall—that the only true requirement for entry is that you’ve been an important part of history—then both of these fighters are a no-brainer.

Frank Shamrock is also a no-brainer, but that’s another story for an entirely different day.

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Dana White Thought Alistair Overeem Would Get a Harsher Sentence

Look, I know we’re reaching the point of over-saturation on this Alistair Overeem story. But the truth is, just when I’m ready to put it to bed and look forward to awesome things—like UFC 146, the biggest UFC card in history—somet…

Today’s most relevant piece of news comes to you courtesy of Dana White, who appeared on Jim Rome’s nationally syndicated radio show this morning to discuss the Alistair Overeem situation. Rome asked White for his thoughts on the nine-month suspension handed down yesterday by the Nevada State Athletic Commission.

White confessed that it was the first time he was hearing the news due to a busy travel schedule. He said:

Yeah, it’s the first I’ve heard of that. I knew he was going before the commission, but I didn’t know what happened. I wasn’t optimistic about his chances. I didn’t think things were going to turn out very well for him. It’s just as I expected. Nine months? Nine months isn’t as bad as I thought it was going to be. I thought he would get a year. Easily a year.

White also said he’s unsure what Overeem’s future holds with the UFC, telling Rome:

We’ll see what happens. We’ll see what happens, man. He went before the commission. They gave him nine months. I’m sure he’s going to have to go in and test again. Before he went in there, he sat down to lunch with me and my partner. He said, “I’m the most tested athlete in all of sports. They can test me whenever they want.” Well, he flew in for the press conference, they tested him, and now he’s suspended for nine months.

Rome asked if White felt Overeem was lying to him.

“I do, yeah. I know he lied to me,” White said.

Do I think White will end up cutting Overeem from the UFC? No, I don’t.

I think Alistair will be back in the cage just in time for the big year-end show in December, just like the Nevada commission begged him to do yesterday.

But Overeem should understand that White is not happy with him, and most folks don’t get a second chance to anger the boss.

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Frank Mir Thinks Alistair Overeem Had a Viable Excuse

For all of the idiocy on display at yesterday’s Alistair Overeem hearing in Las Vegas—and there was plenty, to be sure—the biggest winner, in the end, was Frank Mir.After all, Mir’s the one who coasted into a title fight without having to b…

For all of the idiocy on display at yesterday’s Alistair Overeem hearing in Las Vegas—and there was plenty, to be sure—the biggest winner, in the end, was Frank Mir.

After all, Mir’s the one who coasted into a title fight without having to beat former champion Cain Velasquez. That would’ve been a tough fight for the Las Vegas resident, but now he’s able to bypass it entirely and go after yet another heavyweight title. And all because Overeem couldn’t pass a drug test when he knew roughly two months in advance that one would be headed his way the first time he made a public appearance in Las Vegas.

But perhaps I’ve been too hard on Overeem. Mir, appearing on the UFC’s weekly flagship news show UFC Tonight, said “The Reem” presented a reasonable explanation during Tuesday’s hearing:

I think this is the first time that he’s ever come up positive at tests, as far as I’m aware of. It seems like he had a viable explanation for what happened.

Everybody makes mistakes. We all do things that we’re not proud of. We’ve all made mistakes professionally or in our personal life that are not our greatest moments in life.

To sit there and ostracize somebody and never allow them to redeem themselves, I think would be very against humanity and our overall impression that I try to carry as a person.

I agree with Mir that Overeem will deserve a second chance. Despite the cloud of suspicion that has hovered over Alistair for the last few years, this is indeed the first time he’s actually failed a drug test. Once he’s served his suspension, he’ll be welcomed back in the UFC, and rightly so. Everyone deserves a chance to make something better of themselves.

I don’t agree with Mir’s assessment that Overeem had a reasonable explanation, however. Even if we believe Overeem is telling the truth about being unknowingly injected with testosterone, and even if we believe his shady “doctor” during testimony, there’s still one little matter being overlooked: Fighters are in complete control of what goes into their bodies. And by that I mean it’s their responsibility to know exactly what they’re taking.

The “I didn’t know what I was taking” defense has gained a lot of steam over the past two years, and I can’t understand why. It has never worked as a real defense, and never served as a way to get out of a suspension or clear your name.

It’s simply an excuse, a way to put the blame on someone else, and it’s ridiculous.

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The Weird Public Hearing That Bought UFC Star Alistair Overeem Three Months

There were plenty of strange things going on at Alistair Overeem’s hearing yesterday before the Nevada State Athletic Commission (NSAC). Overeem was in front of the commission after a surprise drug test at a March 27 press conference showed a testoster…

There were plenty of strange things going on at Alistair Overeem‘s hearing yesterday before the Nevada State Athletic Commission (NSAC). Overeem was in front of the commission after a surprise drug test at a March 27 press conference showed a testosterone-to-epitestosterone ratio of 14:1, more than twice Nevada’s legal limits.

Overeem had some ‘splaining to do, and the media sat rapt at the dog and pony show that unfolded.

We learned some startling things about the former K-1 champion who, eventually, had his application for a fight license denied, forcing the Dutch dynamo to sit out nine months and think about what he’s done.

We learned that Overeem sprinted away from a press conference promoting UFC 146, ostensibly to avoid a surprise drug test, jumping into a car that I can only hope was a Mini Cooper for comedic purposes. He was eventually located and escorted back by UFC officials.

We learned that he allowed a doctor to prescribe him a mystery cocktail of drugs that he injected without question, apparently not concerned at all about what he put into his Ferrari of a body.

We learned that, despite the endless jokes, he’s unafraid to make equine references like “I will get back on the horse” for the public record.

But one thing that many pundits have pointed out as odd, the fact that Overeem’s physician, Dr. Hector Molina, has been sued during the course of pursuing his vocation, is not strange at all. According to the American Medical Association, 61 percent of doctors will be sued before their careers end. Molina, as a surgeon and business owner, falls into a particularly high risk group:

The August report found that 42.2% of physicians were sued, with 22.4% sued twice or more. Rates varied by specialty, but general surgeons and obstetrician-gynecologists were most likely to be sued (69.2%). Family physicians and general internists had similar rates (38.9% and 34%). Pediatricians and psychiatrists were sued the least.

Physicians who had an ownership interest in a practice were at greater risk, with 47.5% reporting being sued, compared with 33.4% for those with no ownership interest.

What’s odd about Molina isn’t that he’s been sued. That’s a part of doing business in the medical world. What’s truly odd is his decision to inject Overeem, who he knew was a professional athlete, with a homebrew drug cocktail he testified was “a combination of Vitamin B-12, Dexamethosone, Toradol and an aqueous form of testosterone.”

When I go to the doctor and require prescription drugs, she writes the prescription, often prints out the instructions for usage, and sends me to a pharmacy to pick them up. She doesn’t whip out an unlabeled vial of her own special mix, inject me on the spot and leave the vial and two needles with me to use “as needed.”

In the end, the “I didn’t know defense” can only take you so far. It’s your responsibility to know. Period. The excuse, however, bought Overeem three months off of the typical punishment of one calendar year.

He will be back, some think conveniently, just in time to potentially headline the UFC’s next late December extravaganza—which just happens to be held in Nevada every year. Well played NSAC, well played.

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Chuck Liddell Would Come out of Retirement for a Title Fight with Jon Jones

Jon Jones might be the greatest light heavyweight of all time. In fact, if you’re asking me what I think, I’d say that considering who he’s beaten over the past 12 months and how he’s beaten them, there can be no question that Jones is the best the div…

Until Jones came along, Chuck Liddell was considered the best UFC light heavyweight champion of all time, knocking fools out left and right and striking fear deep into the hearts of every other fighter in the division. He was viewed like a Mike Tyson in his prime, the kind of fighter you expected to finish his opponent in violent fashion, and he delivered.

These days, Jones is the fighter to fear and the guy ruling the division with an iron fist. So it makes sense, then, that Liddell wouldn’t want to come out his UFC-mandated retirement unless it was for a title fight with the champ.

“The only thing that would make me even think about coming back is if they gave me a shot at the title,” Liddell told UFC Tonight. “I don’t want come back as a sideshow, you know? It’s just one of those things. It’s not something I want to do.”

I guess that officially puts the kibosh on any potential rumors of Liddell looking to return to the Octagon, because there’s no way he’d be anywhere close to a title fight if he decided to step back in the cage. Not that Dana White would allow his good friend to further risk his health by fighting again, anyway.

But you can help but wonder how a prime Liddell would fare against Jones, can you? Perhaps Jones would run through Liddell like he has so many other former champions. But maybe not. Maybe Liddell would wade through that gargantuan reach, get in the pocket and blast Jones on the chin.

Stranger things have happened.

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