March may ultimately be a dormant month for the UFC and Strikeforce, but this week is as busy as ever. With UFC on FX 2 slated for Friday night and the much-anticipated Strikeforce: Tate vs. Rousey women’s bantamweight title scrap scheduled for Saturda…
March may ultimately be a dormant month for the UFC and Strikeforce, but this week is as busy as ever. With UFC on FX 2 slated for Friday night and the much-anticipated Strikeforce: Tate vs. Rousey women’s bantamweight title scrap scheduled for Saturday night, fight fans have plenty to feast on this weekend.
Each morning here on the Caged In blog, I’ll take a look at the biggest stories from the previous day in the MMA world. It’s called the UFC Morning Update, and it starts right now.
This story could ultimately have far-reaching effects, and most of them won’t be good for the UFC. Jackson told Fighter’s Only that prior to UFC 144, a UFC doctor directed him to an anti-aging clinic where he was prescribed Testosterone Replacement Therapy.
…a lot of fights when I am injured I don’t tell anybody but the UFC knew this time because my doctor works for the UFC. Its good that the UFC knew because they look after you, they take care of you even if its just in training. Pride didn’t do that.
I almost pulled out but then 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, and it would help build my knee up.
There are plenty of UFC fighters currently on TRT, with Dan Henderson and Chael Sonnen being the most notable. I don’t agree with the practice and believe it’s an easy way for fighters to legally use performance enhancing drugs during training camp. But Jackson opened another can of worms with this quote, also from the Fighter’s Only interview:
So I spoke to the UFC and they were like ‘Yeah, a lot of fighters are probably doing it but not telling anyone.’
The former lightweight champion appeared on The MMA Hour with Ariel Helwani yesterday and said he may eventually drop to featherweight for a bout with Jose Aldo, but he has zero plans of doing so right now. Edgar also made his case for an immediate rematch and title shot against new champion Benson Henderson.
Former UFC light heavyweight champ Mauricio “Shogun” Rua told Brazilian outlet Tatame that he believes he and former PRIDE opponent Rampage Jackson will face each other one more time before they retire.
Fans, even fans of a cutting-edge sport like mixed martial arts, are traditionalists at heart. There is comfort in the familiar. It’s part of the appeal of sports. Ball players we are watching today are playing essentially the same games they played in…
Fans, even fans of a cutting-edge sport like mixed martial arts, are traditionalists at heart. There is comfort in the familiar. It’s part of the appeal of sports. Ball players we are watching today are playing essentially the same games they played in our grandparent’s day. That’s a beautiful thing.
Sometimes, though, fans need to be pulled, kicking and screaming, into the future. Sometimes you need a three-point line, a forward pass, to eliminate holding. Sometimes, in short, change is necessary. The UFC recognizes that, and this Friday plans to dump us, unceremoniously, right out of our comfort zone.
Big galoots? We can handle that. Nothing excites your average MMA fan more than two giant behemoths throwing heavy leather. Finely tuned, ripped and shredded athletes? We’ve got that too. After all, Georges St. Pierre has been a constant presence in our lives for years.
Two 125-pound scamps scurrying around the cage like two hyped up squirrels? Two competitors with a combined weight well under the UFC heavyweight limit?
That’s something different indeed. But the long promised flyweight division is finally making its UFC debut on FX this Friday. Are fight fans ready for a flyweight class?
“Just turn on your television and give it a chance,” Demetrius Johnson told Bleacher Report. “It’s like me telling someone they need to watch Dragon Ball Z and then telling me ‘Nah, nah, I’d rather watch Pokemon.’ Because Pokemon is more famous. Dude, just give us a chance…I’m pretty sure you won’t be disappointed…we don’t get tired, we don’t stop moving, we have submissions, and it’s always a great fight. Do you want to see two elephants fight? Or to see two jaguars fight?”
Johnson, who made it all the way to a title shot despite being dwarfed by opponents at bantamweight, is one of four men vying to become the first UFC flyweight champion. Later in the evening, Joe Benavidez will face Yasuhiro Urushitani, immediately after Johnson fights Ian McCall. The two winners will meet later in the year to crown the first champion.
McCall is the great unknown. Unlike Johnson and Benavidez, he didn’t pursue the big time, preferring to compete at 125 pounds, even if that meant doing so at the regional level. The ceiling is highest for McCall, at least in terms of star potential.
He has the real potential to fill the hipster niche Luke Cummo, Amir Sadollah, and Cody MacKenzie have pioneered with varying degrees of success. He’s charming and disarmingly funny. Best of all? McCall comes prepackaged with a great nickname (“Uncle Creepy”) and a great gimmick-a silent film villian’s curly cue mustache that he calls “a title belt for my face.”
“The first flyweight fight ever. Like you say, that’s something for the record books and for trivia questions,” McCall told Bleacher Report. “We have the chance to kind of etch our names into forever.”
Despite being the newcomer to the international scene, McCall certainly doesn’t lack confidence. When I sent out a call for questions, one came back from a fan that I thought could be interesting: “Ask McCall and Benavidez how it feels to know Brock Lesnar could pick up and curl either of them.” McCall didn’t hesitate to take that question head on.
“Brock Lesnar could probably bench press a house. He’s also boring and a douchebag,” Uncle Creepy said. “I was at Whole Foods the other day, I’m actually at Whole Foods two or three hours a day, and this guy comes up to me and says ‘I just don’t find the lightweights that exciting. I want to see someone get knocked out.’ We kind of talked and I understood his point of view. He’s not someone who watches this sport all the time. He’s just kind of a casual fan. The purists, the people who really enjoy this fight for what it is. They’re going to enjoy it more obviously.”
The truth is, the UFC is still struggling to sell the featherweight and bantamweight classes to fight fans. It’s been just over a year since the first featherweight fight in UFC history. Bantamweights followed shortly after.
As headliners, the two divisions have yet to set the world on fire. Over time, that could change. After all, smaller fighters dominate boxing and can pack them into arenas and make millions of pay per view. Joe Benavidez, the favorite in this four-man tournament, believes it is just a matter of time.
“All this stuff happens with time,” Benavidez said in an exclusive interview. “Look at the UFC when it first started. Not everyone respected it like they do now as a sport. And those guys were big. People are used to seeing the 205 pounders and heavyweights because they’ve been around for awhile. This (the flyweight division) is new stuff. I think the more fans see it, the more they will respect it. There’s no way you can watch one of our fights and not respect it….when it’s all over, they’ll probably end up favoring the smaller weight classes. Because the fights are so much more exciting and technical.”
Benavidez, a long time training partner of former featherweight champion Urijah Faber at Team Alpha Male, has lost only twice in his career-both times to bantamweight kingpin Dominick Cruz. Despite being, arguably, the second best fighter in the weight class, Benavidez had reached a ceiling of sorts. He’d lost to Cruz and wouldn’t fight his friend Faber. Changing weight classes opens up a new horizon for Benavidez, who has thought long and hard about what a UFC title would mean.
“To be crowned the first flyweight champion. To be a UFC champion? That’s a dream come true,” Benavidez said, echoing the other fighters in the tournament. “That’s been my goal since the very beginning. I have a picture of the UFC belt on my mantle. Just a photograph until I do get a real one. I look at it everyday. That’s the dream.
“That belt is going to be the first of its kind. Talk about a legacy,” Benavidez continued. I could practically see his eyes light up despite the continents between us. “That’s a legacy all in itself. The first flyweight champion. That’s something I’ll always be able to look back on. Set out on the road for all the other flyweights to come. That would be huge.”
Four little giants. Tiny titans. On the road to history. Check out the UFC on FX2, airing Friday at 9 PM EST, to watch the flyweight journey begin. Jonathan Snowden is the author of Total MMA: Inside Ultimate Fighting and The MMA Encyclopedia. He’s a regular contributor to Bleacher Report.
In some sports, former champions live forever as heroes. Even complete mediocrities—think Super Bowl-winning quarterback Trent Dilfer—spend their days and nights in an alternate universe where they are always the conqueror.Coworkers genu…
In some sports, former champions live forever as heroes. Even complete mediocrities—think Super Bowl-winning quarterback Trent Dilfer—spend their days and nights in an alternate universe where they are always the conqueror.
Coworkers genuflect and look on with awe. Men who were bounced from their jobs, even in disgrace, are always referred to, reverently, as “coach,” even decades after they last held a clipboard.
Nostalgia reigns in the world of sports. But not in the UFC. The sport of MMA, like boxing before it, eats its own. There is no graceful return to glory for the sport’s former champions.
Ask Ken Shamrock, still competing in his 40’s to make ends meet. Ask Don Frye, the UFC tournament winner still waiting for a call welcoming him back to the fold as part of the UFC Hall of Fame.
And ask Tim Sylvia, the former UFC heavyweight champion who wants so desperately to return to the Octagon that it makes me hurt for him.
“I’m sick and tired of watching a bunch of bums fight in the UFC,” the 35-year old Sylvia said. “Guys that I know I can beat… They told [manager Monte Cox], ‘Tim needs to keep winning. Keep putting wins together.’ I’ve done that and nothing happened. And there are guys in there I think are absolutely horrible…Yeah, I’ve got an attitude about it. I’m tired of it. I’ve got to make my own destiny.”
Sylvia has launched a Twitter campaign, hoping to get UFC President Dana White‘s attention. The desperation is palpable as Sylvia begs for fans to write to White, then retweets dozens of the messages—every single one of them.
“I’m very surprised how many fans have supported me through this process. And it won’t be done until it happens,” Sylvia said. Despite literally hundreds of messages, White has been uncharacteristically silent on the matter.
“I don’t expect it right off,” Sylvia continued. “It’s only been a week. I think after this goes on weeks, and weeks, and weeks, and weeks, I think something is going to happen. The fans are speaking right now. If the UFC wants to give the fans what they want, it’s going to happen.”
In some ways, this public cry for help is unseemly. It’s one thing for football player Emmitt Smith to spend his last season with the Arizona Cardinals instead of his beloved Dallas Cowboys. It would be quite another for him to go on Twitter to ask for a shot at a team’s practice squad.
Of course, Smith made millions in his NFL career and has the luxury of a retirement package and benefits. As a fighter, Sylvia has none of that. This is his only chance to make a living in the sport. And the clock is ticking.
“I truly believe if I was given the opportunity, I could go all the way to a title shot. There’s no doubt in my mind,” Sylvia said. “I could put five or six wins together in the UFC right now…But the fans need to keep doing what they are doing. Be on my side.”
Poor Tim Sylvia. He’s always wanted to be loved. In his heyday, he was champion twice between 2003 and 2006. He would often seek out fans in Las Vegas casinos, looking for the same kind of adoration he saw heaped out in huge doses to his contemporaries like Chuck Liddell.
But no one loves Goliath.
Every fighter knows fans are fickle. They will turn on a fighter with alarming speed. For Sylvia, a loss to Fedor Emelianenko in just seconds was the beginning. A weight gain that landed him in the super heavyweight division for several fights made things worse. Soon, a fighter who once ruled the UFC’s heavyweight division became a laughingstock.
There were jokes aplenty on message boards and plenty of funny Photoshops. That hurt. Even White and UFC owner Lorenzo Fertitta—men Sylvia felt he had a good relationship with when he was the company’s world heavyweight champion in the mid-2000’s—have seemingly turned their backs on him.
White, apparently, doesn’t look back on Sylvia’s reign with any nostalgia at all, calling the division at the time “sh*tty.” When the criticism comes from people you know personally, the knife cuts even deeper.
“Absolutely [it hurts]. It’s very irritating. He never said that when I was there…I thought I had a great relationship with everybody in the UFC,” Sylvia said. “It is hurtful. I busted my a** for years in his fights to become champion, not once, but twice…it’s not my fault the UFC didn’t bring in better guys to the division when I was there. That’s got nothing to do with me. I fought who they put in front of me. I never declined anybody.”
Sylvia has heard the speculation that he’s being used as an object lesson for others in the company. After all, he left the UFC to fight for competing organizations. He cashed some giant checks for fights outside of the promotion—but when Affliction went out of business, Sylvia was left without a home.
Is he part of a broader plan to strike fear into fighters’ hearts? To prevent them from ever considering leaving the UFC to fight elsewhere, knowing they will never be welcomed back? Sylvia doesn’t know for sure, but he does know the UFC has absolute power over whether or not he and others can earn a living in the fight game.
“I don’t know the thought processes of the head honchos at the UFC. But it’s swaying that way,” Sylvia said. “Look at [deposed former UFC champion Josh] Barnett. He’s been top five in the world since he left. Since he beat Randy [Couture]. I don’t think he’s left the top ten. But he hasn’t been in the UFC.”
To Sylvia, the answer to all of these complex problems can be found in 140 characters. Twitter can rescue his career from the fringes of the sport. If only fans will continue to work with him.
“Keep tweeting Dana White and Lorenzo Fertitta. They say they aren’t, but I know they are seeing all these tweets,” Sylvia said. “Just keep supporting me. I love you guys. In the past I’ve told fans, ‘If you don’t like me, to hell with you.’ But you know what? If you’re a fan of MMA, I love you no matter what.”
Sometimes, photographs don’t lie. Benson Henderson, the new world lightweight champion put a beating on Frankie Edgar Saturday night in Japan. If you don’t believe me, believe your own eyes. It was a sustained 25-minute attack, a whirlwind of hands, fe…
Sometimes, photographs don’t lie. Benson Henderson, the new world lightweight champion put a beating on Frankie Edgar Saturday night in Japan. If you don’t believe me, believe your own eyes. It was a sustained 25-minute attack, a whirlwind of hands, feet and knees— Hurricane Benson.
Despite that, this article isn’t about Ben Henderson. Plenty are whispering sweet nothings in his ear right now. He won’t miss a glowing tribute from the likes of me.
He was magnificent in victory, proving beyond a shadow of a doubt that he belongs in any conversation about the sport’s best fighters. But the true hero of the fight was the vanquished champion.
Edgar was, to borrow a phrase your parents might recall, simply marvelous. He’s barely 155 pounds but, make no mistake, he is a monster of a man. Watching Frankie Edgar fight is like sitting down with a great sports movie. Edgar seems intent on making his life a tribute to Rocky Balboa.
Fighting Edgar has to be a mental challenge of the highest order for his poor opponents. If you knock him down, at this point, you can’t even get excited. You just have to know, in your heart, that he’s going to pick himself back up off the mat and leap right back into the fray.
In every fight at lightweight, Edgar is over-matched. Look closely at his fight with Henderson. The two don’t just look one weight class apart. Henderson looks like a man and Edgar the perpetual boy. Until the fight begins. That’s when Edgar springs to life.
It’s almost unthinkable, in a sport where fighters cut massive amounts of weight to gain even the slightest edge in the Octagon, to compete at your own natural body weight. But, that’s exactly what Edgar does at lightweight, giving up as much as 20 pounds to his opponent.
Perhaps that’s the only way to make the fight fair? Perhaps that’s Edgar’s way of evening the odds. Because he’s an absolutely brilliant fighter, combining precision punches with an uncanny ability to upend his larger opponents.
Although he lost the decision to Henderson, it was as close as they come. Fight Metric, the official statisticians of the UFC, scored four of five rounds for Henderson. But all save one were close rounds that could have reasonably gone either way. For his part, UFC President Dana White had the fight for Edgar.
What’s next is anybody’s guess. Edgar seems content at lightweight. White wants the former champion to drop to 145 pounds; he’s actually talked about his champion dropping down a weight class for some time, even in the midst of an amazing run with the belt. Even then Edgar will be on the smallish side against a monster featherweight like Jose Aldo.
The truth? Most men Edgar’s size are bantamweights who compete at 135 pounds. That’s the true brilliance of Frankie Edgar. He’s able to compete at the highest level with men who dwarf him in the cage.
Now imagine what he might be able to do picking on someone his own size? It’s time for 135 and 145-pound fighters in the UFC to start sleeping with the lights on. A nightmare of a challenge may soon be heading your way.
It’s easy to get carried away after any halfway decent UFC show. Fans that get overly excited are quick to call even an average show an all-time great in the heat of the moment.That could be exactly what I’m doing here. But I don’t think so. Typically,…
It’s easy to get carried away after any halfway decent UFC show. Fans that get overly excited are quick to call even an average show an all-time great in the heat of the moment.
That could be exactly what I’m doing here. But I don’t think so. Typically, I’m the downer in the room, the one guy refusing to clap when there is a standing ovation. It’s not in me to love unconditionally. I make you earn it. And UFC 144 earned it.
This was one of the greatest fight cards in UFC history. Every bout on the main card delivered a memorable moment. So did an undercard that featured legitimate legends of Japanese MMA.
Traveling to a foreign locale can be stressful for a fighter. No one knows this better than former UFC champions Chuck Liddell and Tito Ortiz. Between them, the two MMA legends have fought outside of the United States 10 times, and made dozens of promo…
Traveling to a foreign locale can be stressful for a fighter. No one knows this better than former UFC champions Chuck Liddell and Tito Ortiz. Between them, the two MMA legends have fought outside of the United States 10 times, and made dozens of promotional trips to support the sport.
Jet lag? An issue.
Unfamiliar tongues and strange foods? Those can be issues as well.
Those are the basics. But there are also some potential issues that the UFC community needs to know about heading into Japan for UFC 144 this weekend. Luckily, Bleacher Report sat down with both men and had them play an unusual role—travel guide.
March may ultimately be a dormant month for the UFC and Strikeforce, but this week is as busy as ever. With UFC on FX 2 slated for Friday night and the much-anticipated Strikeforce: Tate vs. Rousey women’s bantamweight title scrap scheduled for Saturday night, fight fans have plenty to feast on this weekend.