UFC Betting Sites – The Best MMA Online Bookies
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Chael Sonnen is the funniest man in mixed martial arts. His interviews are classics, his banter is second to none and he’s set to conquer the New York Times Bestseller’s List. He’s even funny in 140 characters or less. I’m not just talking it—I’l…
Chael Sonnen is the funniest man in mixed martial arts. His interviews are classics, his banter is second to none and he’s set to conquer the New York Times Bestseller’s List.
He’s even funny in 140 characters or less. I’m not just talking it—I’ll show you how Chael walks it, with his 10 funniest, meanest, most truth-to-power tweets.
We don’t know how Alistair Overeem’s licensing situation in Nevada is going to shake out until April 24, which means we don’t really know with 100 percent certainty who will face Junior dos Santos next month.That’s a weird feeling.UFC 146 isn’t that fa…
We don’t know how Alistair Overeem’s licensing situation in Nevada is going to shake out until April 24, which means we don’t really know with 100 percent certainty who will face Junior dos Santos next month.
That’s a weird feeling.
UFC 146 isn’t that far away, and we’re used to seeing plenty of promotion for title fights at this point. So you can imagine how weird it is for dos Santos, Frank Mir and Cain Velasquez, because they’re currently in the middle of a heavy training camp, all while not knowing exactly who their opponent is going to be next month.
The #RallyforHunt movement has been cute, but let’s be honest with ourselves: There’s very little chance Mark Hunt is given a title shot before Frank Mir. And rightly so. Mir appeared on Spike TV’s MMA Live Uncensored last night and said he’d probably be upset if the UFC picked Velasquez or Hunt to replace Overeem:
I mean, obviously I’d feel a little slighted. But both those guys are great fighters. I would never be mad at them for taking advantage of the situation. Would I be angry? Of course. I wouldn’t wanna be at my house on the night that’s announced. I would not be a happy individual. I would probably just stay away from my house for a couple of days.
Mir is the most credible challenger, and he’s also going to sell the fight to the mainstream audience better than any of the other selections. Velasquez was knocked out quickly by dos Santos the last time around, so there won’t be much interest in that fight unless he picks up a win.
And Hunt really isn’t a challenger. He hasn’t earned it in the cage, at least not yet. And despite the Internet and their love for all things Hunt, the vast majority of casual MMA fans would likely opt to hit the town on May 26th instead of sticking around the house and buying the pay-per-view.
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Like Doctor Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, there are two Jon Jones. There’s the guy the UFC pushes heavily in the media. You’ve seen him. He smiles a lot. He’s personable. He tries to say all the right things, even though, at just 24, they don’t always come out …
Like Doctor Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, there are two Jon Jones. There’s the guy the UFC pushes heavily in the media. You’ve seen him. He smiles a lot. He’s personable. He tries to say all the right things, even though, at just 24, they don’t always come out quite right. The template for this Jon Jones is clearly Georges St-Pierre, the likable Canadian champion who is the UFC’s biggest pay-per-view drawing card.
Then there is the Jon Jones who shows up to fight on Saturday nights. In the Octagon, you don’t see the public relations face of an otherworldly talent. You see the fighter. And that fighter is capital “M” mean. Jones means business in there and not the same way St-Pierre and every UFC fighter mean business. Jones will, plain and simple, hurt you. If he were an NFL player, Roger Goodell would have his agent on speed dial.
Nowhere was this more clear than his UFC 128 title win over Mauricio “Shogun” Rua. Jones flirted hardcore with the rule book in that fight. If it was a makeout session, you’d say he got to second base with the Unified Rules.
Jones palmed Rua’s face, headbutted him in the stomach, attempted what seemed to be a Von Erich style “Iron Claw” and targeted Rua’s surgically repaired knee over and over again. None of this was worthy of penalty. But it was noteworthy. People in the sport took notice—Jones wasn’t just looking to win, he was looking to do damage.
There’s also a swagger to Jones in the cage that simply doesn’t exist outside of it. On the outside, he can border on socially awkward. He hasn’t quite mastered the media yet and it’s very hard for someone that good to be the perpetually humble hero all the time. In the cage, though? That’s his canvas, a place he can truly be himself.
His creativity is legendary. Spinning elbows, German suplexes and brutal manhandlings can come at any time, from almost any angle. He’s got attitude to spare. Remember how he let Lyoto Machida fall helplessly to the mat after choking him unconscious? How he shrugged Rampage off of him at the end of a round? Like a man and a child, despite Page being full grown. These moments were small in scope, but intimate and oh-so-telling.
Jon Jones is a brutal and dangerous fighter. There is no lay and pray in Jones’ game. There’s no sprawl and brawl. There’s vicious violence of the kind rarely seen, even in the Octagon. We may see it against Rashad Evans in Atlanta. And I love it.
Jones can have his cake and eat it, too. Why not be the face of civility outside the cage and our greatest purveyor of incivility in it? Life is complicated—and so is Jon Jones.
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Those of you who have been reading my stuff for awhile know that I’m no fan of performance-enhancing drugs in MMA. With a bevy of recent high-profile failures, it’s becoming obvious that we’re nearing epidemic status.It’s long past time for the UFC to …
Those of you who have been reading my stuff for awhile know that I’m no fan of performance-enhancing drugs in MMA. With a bevy of recent high-profile failures, it’s becoming obvious that we’re nearing epidemic status.
It’s long past time for the UFC to get in front of the problem, but how?
As I’ve noted in previous posts here at Caged In, the institution of true, random testing would greatly curtail the usage of steroids and other PED.
Would it completely eliminate the problem? No.
In any athletic competition, there will always be guys willing to take the risk of failing in order to gain a performance advantage over his opponent. It’s just the way things are. We still see drug failures in Major League Baseball and the National Football League, and random testing is included as part of their Collective Bargaining Agreements.
No, it wouldn’t completely eliminate the issue. But if a fighter who’s considering taking stanozolol or testosterone realizes a UFC drug tester could, at any given moment, walk through the doors of his gym to collect a urine sample, you think it wouldn’t give him pause? It absolutely would.
Kevin Iole at Yahoo! takes things one step further, proposing heavier punishment for repeat offenders:
“The UFC should require PED abusers to agree to three random tests a year, plus tests within a week of signing a contract for a fight, one midway through camp and another post-fight.
“Even with such thorough testing, though, some fighters will beat it. Still, such a plan will greatly reduce the incidence of use and make the sport safer for those who choose to compete while clean.
“The policy should also include clear terms for future failed tests. Another positive test should mean a two-year ban from the UFC. One after that should result in a permanent ban.”
I love this idea. Absolutely, positively love it.
If the fear of random testing—and a full year spent on the shelf without earning money—won’t dissuade a fighter from taking PED to gain an edge on his opponent, then the idea that a failed test could effectively end his career in the UFC would almost certainly do so.
There will always be fighters like Alistair Overeem. He’s a guy who has been surrounded by a cloud of steroid suspicion for his entire career.
Overeem comes into the UFC and immediately gets involved in the November debacle surrounding a urine test, then fails a random test with highly elevated testosterone levels. From all accounts, it looks as though Overeem is going to attempt to use testosterone replacement therapy as a loophole to explain his steroid failure.
And you know what the crazy thing is? He’s probably going to get away with it. And that’s not a good thing, even though I want to see him fight Junior dos Santos just as much as the rest of the world does.
I understand the UFC’s position on the institution of a random drug-testing program. They don’t want to do it because it would be costly. It would be a giant hassle to issue two or three unannounced tests per year to the hundreds of fighters they have under contract with the UFC and Strikeforce.
But the thought of MMA coming under heavy public scrutiny due to rampant steroid usage is far worse. Zuffa has done wonders in taking the sport from the underground to the tip of the mainstream iceberg. It would be a shame to see even a fraction of that work undone by a drug scandal.
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If it seems like Jon Jones is getting a lot of attention as a potential UFC heavyweight contender, there’s a good reason for it. He’s got a big fight coming up next week at UFC 145, and make no mistake about it, Rashad Evans cannot be overlooked. He’s …
If it seems like Jon Jones is getting a lot of attention as a potential UFC heavyweight contender, there’s a good reason for it. He’s got a big fight coming up next week at UFC 145, and make no mistake about it, Rashad Evans cannot be overlooked. He’s a tough opponent for anyone, even a dominant fighter like Jones.
But that won’t stop fans from dreaming about the day when Jones steps in the cage to face off against the cream of the crop in the heavyweight division. It’s going to happen. Jones is cleaning out the light heavyweight division, and he’s going to continue to pack on muscle and size as he gets older.
So with that in mind, let’s take a look at how Jones would fare against the current top five ranked heavyweights in the UFC. Keep in mind that I’m assuming that Jones will put on weight and compete at 235 pounds or more. This isn’t the light heavyweight Jon Jones we’re talking about here, but rather, a hypothetical heavyweight version that has put on enough size to compete with some of the bigger heavyweights.
Ed Soares is one of the best managers in the game. It’s easy to see. Just look at the roster of fighters he currently manages: Anderson Silva, Lyoto Machida, the Nogueira Brothers. And take a look at the fighters he’s managed in the past before they mo…
Ed Soares is one of the best managers in the game. It’s easy to see. Just look at the roster of fighters he currently manages: Anderson Silva, Lyoto Machida, the Nogueira Brothers. And take a look at the fighters he’s managed in the past before they moved on to allegedly greener pastures: Jose Aldo, Junior dos Santos and more. Most of those names are current or former UFC champions.
Despite his deft managerial skills, Soares has been the butt of plenty of jokes from Chael Sonnen. That’s nothing new. Sonnen has taken verbal shots at just about every Brazilian in the game. It’s part of Sonnen’s game, and I think Soares understands that.
Behind the scenes, the relationship between Sonnen and Soares is much more cordial than you’d think. But that hasn’t stopped Soares from firing back at Sonnen in a public setting:
Hopefully people will understand that they shouldn’t do anything against Chael, just boo him. Let Anderson settle this with him in the Octagon. It will be very bad for Brazil if something were to happen to him. The guy is an idiot, but he is promoting the fight and it will be the greatest MMA fight of all time.
I’d like to point out one of the more prescient things Soares said: “He is promoting the fight.” That’s an important aspect to consider here. Soares understands the fight game better than just about anyone else, and he knows that you’ve gotta do things outside the box if you want to hype a fight and create interest in pay-per-view main events.
Those of you have seen the excellent Anderson Silva documentary “Like Water” will remember the scene where Soares listens to Sonnen on a conference call, shaking his head at the ludicrous things the middleweight came up with during his hype job for the first fight with Silva. Soares laughed along with the rest of us.
But in the same movie, Soares shook his head at Silva’s terse one-word responses to media questions regarding the fight. Silva wasn’t playing the game, and that could have a major effect on the pay-per-view buyrate of the show. Affecting the buyrate meant that Silva’s final purse was also being affected, because he’s paid a percentage of revenue from each of those PPV purchases.
“I don’t know if he doesn’t get it, or he just doesn’t care,” Soares said.
Soares is right. Silva’s never played the game. He seems to have little to no interest in building up the rivalry for public consumption, and that hurts him as a drawing card. It’s the one thing he’s missing from his legendary resume; he’s the best fighter in the world, but his nonchalant attitude towards hyping fights means there’s ultimately less interest in seeing him fight, at least from the perspective of the mainstream audience.
I’m not saying Silva needs to go into pro-wrestler mode. Sonnen is handling that well enough on his own, and we probably don’t need two guys doing the same thing. But Silva needs to start acknowledging that Sonnen has gotten under his skin and he wants to make him pay. If that’s not the case, he can still pretend.
Silva won’t do it, though. For whatever reason, he’s decided he’s not going to play the game. Thank God he’s got Ed Soares in his corner to do it for him.
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