The elimination round is over.Sixteen UFC hopefuls advanced into the Ultimate Fighter house on Friday night’s debut episode of The Ultimate Fighter Live, and now, the hard part begins.They’ll be sequestered from society, locked up in a mansion with not…
The elimination round is over.
Sixteen UFC hopefuls advanced into the Ultimate Fighter house on Friday night’s debut episode of The Ultimate Fighter Live, and now, the hard part begins.
They’ll be sequestered from society, locked up in a mansion with nothing to do but train and annoy each other. Past Ultimate Fighter contestants have spoken about the difficulty of being locked away for six weeks, often naming that isolation as the worst part of being on the show.
The contestants on this season face an even greater challenge due to the live nature of the show. Instead of six weeks away from their families and friends, they’ll be stuck inside the house for 13 weeks. Expect plenty of madness as they start to get on each other’s nerves and miss the daily comforts of cell phones, Internet and television.
One thing they’ll have plenty of time for, though, is training. And so, as we prepare for the real fun to begin next Friday on FX, let’s take a look at the five contestants who have the best shot of seeing their way through to the finals and becoming the next Ultimate Fighter.
Super Fight League was supposed to be India’s introduction to big-time mixed martial arts. Production values! Dancing girls! Giant hosses throwing bones!Mixed martial arts, we are told, has universal appeal. Fighting, after all, is the most primal and …
Super Fight League was supposed to be India’s introduction to big-time mixed martial arts. Production values! Dancing girls! Giant hosses throwing bones!
Mixed martial arts, we are told, has universal appeal. Fighting, after all, is the most primal and natural form of human expression. The sport is huge in America, Canada, Japan and Brazil. Why not India?
That was the thought process that led to Super Fight League. India has a population of 1.2 billion people. If you captured even a fraction of the populace, there was money to be made.
But could Super Fight League have possibly made any fans today in Mumbai? Only if Indians enjoy absurd train wrecks as much as we do. Because, man, this show was a mess!
Can you make the case that Super Fight League is one of the most ridiculous cards of all time? You bet. Shall we proceed?
They stand across from each other, staring their opponent dead in the eyes. Each knows what the other wants to do. They both think they can outsmart the other man. It’s the fiercest battle in sports, and the participants don’t need to shoot a jump shot…
They stand across from each other, staring their opponent dead in the eyes. Each knows what the other wants to do. They both think they can outsmart the other man. It’s the fiercest battle in sports, and the participants don’t need to shoot a jump shot, lift a weight or throw a single punch.
Athletes are only on the periphery, the flesh and bones canvas for chemical artists in a high stakes game of chicken between dopers and doctors. It’s a contest that rages before every Olympic games and every regulated boxing or mixed martial arts bout.
Quinton Jackson let slip in Fighters Only magazine that he was the latest fighter using testosterone replacement therapy (TRT) a medical procedure designed for men with low testosterone to get back to normal levels. It’s often associated in professional athletics with former steroid users whose bodies have stopped producing testosterone naturally after years of receiving extra amounts in tablet, cream or injection form:
I went to see the doctor and he told me to talk to an age-management doctor. So I went and talked to them and they tested me and said my testosterone was low; they prescribed me testosterone, to bring my testosterone levels back up to levels where I can be like… so that I am the same as young people, like when I was 25…I started hitting it up pretty good, I still gotta take care of my knee but I feel like a 25 year old again. My sex life changed, I was back to five times a night like when I was 25, straight up. I got stronger, lifting weights. I was never good at lifting weights but I was doing everything, pull ups and stuff, everything with my top half.
Athletes like Jackson want to gain an edge, any edge over their opponent. This, of course, isn’t anything new. In the ancient Olympics, competitors used opium, special diets and supplements to take home a laurel wreath. In the gladiator pits, those about to fight to the death popped hallucinogens and stimulants to give themselves the best odds of victory.
And performance-enhancing drugs didn’t require death to be on the line. The French used to mix cocaine into their wine to help stimulate their cyclists. Across the generations and across continents, performance enhancement is the name of the game.
Today, we know a lot more about the potential risks of some of these behaviors. That hasn’t changed the desire to get one up on your opponent, only the method.
According to The Economist, the first drug test failure in Olympic history came in 1968. By 1976, 11 athletes were nabbed by scientists who were finally able to detect minute traces of steroids in an athlete’s urine. Four years later, amazingly, not a single athlete was caught using steroids. The battle was on.
On the ground in 2012, the drug police are pretty good about catching athletes who use chemicals to enhance their training or bodies. Using natural ingredients found in the human body is the new frontier. Blood transfusions to boost red blood cell counts, injections of designer viruses to increase muscle growth and other futuristic treatments we haven’t even heard of yet are the new battle ground.
It’s been going on for thousands of years. It will continue until we are all replaced in the ring, cage and playing field by our new robot overlords. It’s a never ending, losing battle for the UFC and other regulators. It makes sense to prevent the most dangerous drugs, to eliminate things with the potential for long-term harm. But you will never stop an athlete from trying to achieve human perfection.
It hasn’t been a good year for Quinton Jackson.First he got injured while training to fight Ryan Bader at UFC 144 in Japan. That sucked, but a doctor that either works or doesn’t work for the UFC—depending on which version of the story you listen…
First he got injured while training to fight Ryan Bader at UFC 144 in Japan. That sucked, but a doctor that either works or doesn’t work for the UFC—depending on which version of the story you listen to—told him that if he took testosterone replacement therapy, he would magically heal and be ready to fight Bader. Imagine that.
So he did it, and yes, he magically healed up. The only problem is that he still wasn’t able to do cardio, so he came in overweight for the Bader fight. He looked fat and listless and really, outside of a big slam in the second round that nearly killed Bader, didn’t really offer up much in the way of competition.
Then he came home and gave an ill-advised interview to Fighters Only where he revealed all about the TRT use. He also voiced a few other concerns. Things were building up inside of Jackson, and it was only a matter of time before something bad happened. That’s how it always is with Rampage.
Last night was the moment we’ve all been waiting for. Jackson finally let go on Twitter and said he wants out of the UFC.
@OldNickSuperchi the ufc makes billions off us all over the world,n pay us chump change! Boxers r boring but making buckets of money,THINK!
Well I’m hoping the @ufc just let me go so I can do my thang,they took my love of fighting after the Forest fight! #bloodtypeBpositive
@skanksideup y u care that its the ufc? I can fight better fights n a diff show!
To recap:
The UFC makes billions from shows around the world (the most they’ve ever made in a year was probably a quarter of that number, but don’t let that distract you from a great story).
They’ve stolen Rampage’s love of fighting—after he turned down a big fight on FOX television because he wanted to fight in Japan and the UFC gave him what he wanted. Oh, and this was after the UFC stuck by him after his last mental breakdown resulted in him leading California cops on a high-speed chase.
He can fight somewhere else and have more fun (and make 1/25th of his current salary while also getting stiffed on paychecks in the process).
Jackson has always been a headache and a thorn in the side of Dana White. But there was a time Jackson could deliver in the cage, and that’s simply not the case anymore. He’s a slow, plodding version of the killer he once was in the PRIDE rings. He’ll never be a championship contender because he just fancies himself a boxer.
I think Jackson has a solid future in the movie business, and it’s probably time for him to pursue that avenue. Even long-time Rampage fans have to be sick and tired of the complaining at this point.
I remember way back in the day when Bob Sapp was a terrifying mountain of a man.This was back in the PRIDE days, back before Bob realized he could find plenty of clueless promoters around the world who were willing to give him sacks filled with money i…
I remember way back in the day when Bob Sapp was a terrifying mountain of a man.
This was back in the PRIDE days, back before Bob realized he could find plenty of clueless promoters around the world who were willing to give him sacks filled with money in exchange for going into the ring or cage and embarrassing himself, and the sport of mixed martial arts, on a weekly basis.
I keep hoping that Bob’s gravy train will eventually end, but it’s showing no sign of slowing down any time soon despite going 1-8 in his last nine fights.
Bob’s got a thing he does—and it’s a thing that works very well—where he goes in the cage, gets punched in the face one time and turtles up like a baby until the referee puts an end to the sham. Bob collects his check and goes home.
It’s a good gig.
Bob’s going to lose another fight this weekend, this time for the Super Fight League in India. And he says he’s been training his ground game and—this is the best part of the joke—that he’s going to win the fight. From MMAHQ.com:
I‘ve been working on my ground skills. Putting in there upwards of 3 to 6 hours a day dedicated to training. And of course part of it is groundwork, and being that I am a striker, ground work for me is more for positioning and striking on the ground.
Definitely I am gonna go after him. And as you know when you get two guys in there that are as big as us, the fight will never last long. So expect to have my hand raised at the end.
The idea of Bob putting in three to six hours a day training his ground game is laughable at best, because there’s no way Bob is spending three to six hours a day doing anything remotely related to training.
He’s a farce, and a joke.
But so are the promoters who continue to put him on cards around the world, in hopes of getting a little bit of love from the hardcore fans who used to love watching Sapp put beatings on people half his size in Japan.
The thing is, we gave up a long time ago.
And it’s long past time for Bob, and the promoters who book him, to do the same thing.
After 14 seasons of The Ultimate Fighter, it was abundantly clear that the show’s formula was stale. It needed a new wrinkle, something that would drastically change things up and help draw fans back to the show that launched the careers of notable sta…
After 14 seasons of The Ultimate Fighter, it was abundantly clear that the show’s formula was stale. It needed a new wrinkle, something that would drastically change things up and help draw fans back to the show that launched the careers of notable stars like Forrest Griffin, Rashad Evans and Josh Koscheck.
Season 15 is giving the show the change it needed. No longer will the entire show be taped months in advance. Now, for the first time ever, each Friday night episode of the show on FX will feature live fighting. The fighter’s activities during the week leading up to the fight will be taped, but the action in the cage will play out in real time.
It’ll add a new level of drama to the show that hasn’t existed up until now. After all, there’s just something about live sporting action.
But before this latest batch of UFC hopefuls can move into the house and start preparing for a 13-week grind that will take them well into the summer months, they’ll have to compete in elimination fights to determine who goes into the house and who goes home. Those fights—all 16 of them—will air live tomorrow night on FX.
Let’s take a look at five fighters to watch out for during tomorrow night’s debut episode of the show and beyond.
They stand across from each other, staring their opponent dead in the eyes. Each knows what the other wants to do. They both think they can outsmart the other man. It’s the fiercest battle in sports, and the participants don’t need to shoot a jump shot, lift a weight or throw a single punch.