Tag: Caged In

Dana White Happy with TUF Brazil Ratings, Discusses Spoilers Being Revealed

It’s been an interesting week for the UFC’s operations in Brazil.The debut episode of The Ultimate Fighter: Brazil, which aired Sunday night on Globo TV across the country, pulled in a strong 12 million viewers. That number underscores the extreme popu…

It’s been an interesting week for the UFC’s operations in Brazil.

The debut episode of The Ultimate Fighter: Brazil, which aired Sunday night on Globo TV across the country, pulled in a strong 12 million viewers. That number underscores the extreme popularity of the sport and the promotion in the South American country, and it firmly cements Brazil as the current mecca of mixed martial arts.

It’s not all roses, however. The R7 Network is a major competitor for Globo TV in Brazil, and they weren’t happy when the UFC decided to sign a deal with Globo. In response, they released the names of what are alleged to be the finalists for the entire season of The Ultimate Fighter: Brazil.

That’s the kind of thing that would get a major network in a lot of trouble in the United States. Imagine if The Ultimate Fighter on FX were still a taped show. What would happen if Spike TV released the finalists for the show on their own website? 

I used to visit the Ultimate Fighter gym on a regular basis when the show was on Spike, mostly in the early days of filming the show. Before I ever stepped foot in the place, I was required to sign a non-disclosure agreement that said I wouldn’t reveal anything I learned until after the broadcast of the show.

If I broke that non-disclosure agreement? I’d be sued for a lot more money than I’ll likely ever be worth.

But White says Brazil is not like the United States when it comes to things like this (via MMAWeekly.com):

I don’t know if you saw this but another channel, another channel we were talking to, then went out and said these are the finalists in The Ultimate Fighter, and tried to like sabotage the whole show. The crazy thing is if you went out and did that, you think you’re hurting the UFC? You think you’re hurting Globo? Globo’s the top network in the country. You’re hurting the kids, the contestants of the show. That’s who you’re hurting, the guys in the competition.

Wanderlei Silva tweeted that the spoilers for the show were inaccurate. But regardless, White has a point: the only thing R7 did by revealing the finalists is lessen interest in the actual show itself, and that hurts the fighters on the show.

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The V: Why the UFC’s Long Absence Is Sucking My Soul Dry

In the Inferno, poet Dante Alighieri stands on the precipice of hell itself. Soon he will travel deep into the underworld, encountering the worst of humanity and witnessing their punishments. But before he begins this epic journey, he encounters t…

In the Inferno, poet Dante Alighieri stands on the precipice of hell itself. Soon he will travel deep into the underworld, encountering the worst of humanity and witnessing their punishments. But before he begins this epic journey, he encounters three mythical beasts. The lion, representing violence and pride. A lynx, symbolizing lust and sins of the flesh.

But worst of all was the she-wolf. The she-wolf was greed. Ravenously hungry, the more she had, the more she wanted. There was no end to her desires. Man, the poet was saying, once victim to the paralyzing power of avarice, can be consumed with wanting more.

Strangely enough, I understand people trapped in this spiral of despair. Not because of money, sex, or any otherworldly vice. My product is violence. Hardcore MMA fans call it the V. And I can’t get enough. Maybe that’s why the UFC’s long absence has sent me into a downward spin?

Years ago, the UFC was essentially a quarterly event. Every few months, the best fighters in the world would gather together in a small market city and try to do each other irreparable harm. And we loved it. It gave us our fill. 

As the years went by, the UFC grew. Dana White and the Fertittas found ways to bring the V we needed, a supply by then we couldn’t do without, to the masses. They upped the ante in a major way. And we consumed it all. Reality shows, numbered events, Spike TV specials—we loved them all. It was the violence business and business was good.

Last year, now running on all cylinders, the UFC promoted 27 mixed martial arts events. Twenty-seven! The most addicted were in a heavenly trance. You couldn’t go more than a couple of weeks without that boom, that pow, that punch, kick, wow! Life was good.

This year the UFC plans to promote more than 30 shows. It’s a golden age of mixed martial arts. But it comes with a catch. Between March 3, 2012 and April 14, 2012, there were no scheduled UFC events. None!

Now imagine my pain. It’s probably not hard if you are a fan. This is how football fans feel in the off season, but multiplied by 100. Because football fans are used to an off season. It’s par for the course. Sure, it’s a crushing disappointment, but one that comes every year. You can prepare for it.

Jonathan, you might say, why not fill the void with Bellator or another local event? And that makes sense. But once you’ve been mainlining heroin, can you really give yourself a high with some over the counter cold medicine?

I am here to speak out, as loudly as I can, about the lack of UFC in my life. I need that good V, the kind only the world’s best fighters can provide. Dana White—don’t let this happen again. You’ve made monsters of us all. Please never go away.

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UFC Heavyweight Cain Velasquez Knew He Wouldn’t Stay Undefeated Forever

Despite his one-minute loss to Junior dos Santos last November, Cain Velasquez remains one of the best heavyweights in the world.Actually, I’d say he’s the best overall heavyweight in the world, despite no longer holding the title. After all, anybody c…

Despite his one-minute loss to Junior dos Santos last November, Cain Velasquez remains one of the best heavyweights in the world.

Actually, I’d say he’s the best overall heavyweight in the world, despite no longer holding the title. After all, anybody can get clipped with the kind of punch Velasquez did. The loss doesn’t diminish his skills in the slightest.

Velasquez told Yahoo’s Kevin Iole that he knew he wouldn’t stay undefeated forever:

I’m a realist. I knew I wasn’t going to go through my career undefeated. That’s how this sport is. People lose. Even the best guys lose. I knew as soon as it was over, I had to pick myself back up and keep going forward. I do have some extra motivation now, for sure, but I wish that for that night things had gone differently and that the fans had gotten the fight they came to see.

That’s a smart line of thinking for any fighter in the game. The level of talent in the game today far surpasses, at least from an overall sense, the kind of heavyweight talent that existed back when Fedor Emelianenko was running up his undefeated record. You can be a dominant heavyweight and still run into someone with the power to put you on your back with an errant punch behind your ear.

Velasquez still has the best wrestling pedigree in the UFC’s heavyweight division, at least until Daniel Cormier makes his way over from Strikeforce. He also has brutal punching power, speed and a gas tank that will enable him to fight forever without getting tired.

I have a feeling Frank Mir‘s going to find this out the hard way when he faces off with Velasquez at UFC 146 in May.

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James Toney Says Rampage Jackson Is Now a Slave to the White Man

I remember clearly the first time I ever met James Toney.I was in Boston to cover UFC 118, and Toney was facing Randy Couture in his first (and only, it turns out) fight in the UFC.We went down to the convention center for open workouts on Wednesday. W…

I remember clearly the first time I ever met James Toney.

I was in Boston to cover UFC 118, and Toney was facing Randy Couture in his first (and only, it turns out) fight in the UFC.

We went down to the convention center for open workouts on Wednesday. Workouts are usually held at at a gym or even a hotel, depending on the size of the event in question. Six or eight of the main-card fighters gather and pretend to be enthused by hitting pads so that the photographers in attendance can take their photos, while the reporters wait for them to finish up with the routine so we can ask them questions.

Workouts this time were held at the same place as the Boston Fan Expo, right there in the Octagon that you see if you’re a fan walking around on the weekend. It was a nice setup.

And luckily Toney was in a fantastic mood. Which is to say that he was not in a fantastic mood.

After witnessing him verbally berate and threaten Ariel Helwani—which you can see on Ariel’s interview with Toney—I asked one of his crew members if I could get a few minutes of his time. I didn’t even really want to put Toney on camera. Just a few simple questions, spoken into a tape recorder.

James was standing behind the crew member. After I asked the question, he leaned around and said, in that charming English-but-not-English way of his, that I could kindly go jump off a bridge. Only he didn’t say those words, and he didn’t do it kindly.

I say all of this to make a point: When James Toney says stupid things, we shouldn’t be surprised. He’s a scary, imbalanced and possibly mentally insane individual. I hope Rampage Jackson considers this when he hears what Toney has to say about him these days: 

That’s what you get for being a slave to the white man. Don’t be scared. Step up and speak for yourself. That’s why I got paid the million-and-a-half dollars and am still getting paid by the UFC. You know what I’m sayin’? The highest paid fighter ever. You feel me, fat boy? Me. And you been there…what, twenty years and you’re getting paid pennies? While I make millions?

Let’s run Toney’s statements through the Truth Machine, shall we?

1. James Toney did not get paid a million-and-a-half dollars by the UFC. He was paid $500,000. Perhaps he got confused and was off by a mere million dollars. Who knows.

2. The only payments Toney still gets from the UFC are royalties from the sales of UFC 118 and other disc sets where his fight is included. These don’t amount to much.

3. James Toney is not the highest-paid fighter ever. I’d wager that he wasn’t even the highest-paid fighter on that card, because I guarantee you that Randy Couture made much, much more than his reported $250,000 due to the way he dispatched and embarrassed Toney. 

I love Toney just as much as the next guy. He’s fun to listen to because he’s absolutely insane and you never quite know what he says. But let’s be sure and not take things like this seriously.

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Steven Seagal Still Crazy, Believes He Trains Anderson Silva and Lyoto Machida

Steven Seagal is one of my favorite people in the history of the world. I’m sure this is the case for many of my readers here at Caged In.After all, he’s the guy who made such Academy Award-worthy material as Under Siege, Under Siege 2, Half Past Dead …

Steven Seagal is one of my favorite people in the history of the world. I’m sure this is the case for many of my readers here at Caged In.

After all, he’s the guy who made such Academy Award-worthy material as Under Siege, Under Siege 2, Half Past Dead and On Deadly Ground. And that’s not even counting his world-changing work on Steven Seagal: Lawman.

And so it comes as no surprise to me that Seagal is still trumpeting the excellent training he provides Anderson Silva and Lyoto Machida over at the Black House gym in California:

“There is a signature kick that I’ve taught them that they’ve knocked champions out with and won world championships with.”

Silva and Machida had no idea what a front kick to the face was before Seagal taught them how to use it! How could they know such a secret technique without being taught by the master himself?

Never mind the fact that both Silva and Machida threw the same kick—without the same knockout success, mind you—on numerous occasions long before they ever used it to finish their opponents. And never mind the fact that Machida did not win a world championship by beating Randy Couture with the kick.

We all know Machida learned his version of that kick from Daniel LaRusso anyway.

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Thiago Silva Says He’s Going to Kill or Die in Gustafsson Fight

Oh, Thiago Silva. We may never quite understand what makes you tick.Silva, if you’ll recall, is making his return after a year-long suspension. He didn’t test positive for steroids, but that’s only because he substituted his own urine for something dis…

Oh, Thiago Silva. We may never quite understand what makes you tick.

Silva, if you’ll recall, is making his return after a year-long suspension. He didn’t test positive for steroids, but that’s only because he substituted his own urine for something distinctly non-human during the actual test.

Yep, Silva used a Whizzer. And not the wrestling kind, either.

But Silva served his time, and now he’ll face Swedish light heavyweight wunderkind Alexander Gustafsson in the main event of UFC on Fuel on April 14th.

It’s a tall order for anybody in the light heavyweight division. Since suffering his only career loss to Phil Davis way back at UFC 112, Gustafsson has rattled off four consecutive finishes against an increasingly difficult level of talent. He’s considered by many to be a prospect on the level of Jon Jones, though he’s admittedly still a ways off from reaching the level of the current light heavyweight champion.

Silva thinks he’s ready for the challenge:

My prediction is that I will fight hard like a true warrior. Everybody knows my style. When I step in the Octagon, I go to kill or die, and I will do the same on April 14th, and I will be ten times more aggressive because this fight is very important for me.

When Silva says something like this, I completely believe him, because he’s a crazy and terrifying man. If I made a list of the top 10 scariest-looking fighters in the UFC, or a list of the top 10 fighters you wouldn’t want to meet in a dark, abandoned alley, Thiago Silva would be at the very tippy-top of that list.

I don’t think Silva will beat Gustafsson, but I do expect him to go out and turn it into a very entertaining and brutal battle. That’s what Thiago does best.

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