I may be wrong, but I’m pretty sure Georges St. Pierre and his camp are messing with us. In recent months, speculation that the UFC welterweight champion might soon retire after he fights Johny Hendricks this Saturday at UFC 167 has run rampant.
For the most part, St. Pierre himself and his head trainer Firas Zahabi have pretty much been the sources of this speculation, and since then they’ve attempted to discredit the rumor that they themselves got started. The latest “Georges should/might retire” item came from none other than St. Pierre’s long time mentor Kristof Midoux, a.k.a. the big old school fighter guy that recently appeared on the third episode of UFC Primetime: St. Pierre vs. Hendricks.
Midoux recently did an interview with French Canadian publication La Presse where he revealed that he told St. Pierre that, should he beat Hendricks in impressive fashion, the champion should retire right there in the Octagon. (Rough translation via Google/us):
“I said, after this, it’s over! Shine that night. Finish this guy in front of everyone. Shut the mouths of your critics. If you finish this guy, if you knock him out, then you will be free, you’ll be happy to take the microphone and tell everyone you’re done — to say that you will leave room for others.
“I told George, have the courage to take the microphone and say thank you to everyone. Those who do not understand are those who have nothing to understand, those who are selfish. It is time to think about him. This is the greatest gift that he could have. He could enjoy life, spend time with his family.
“I want it to happen like that. I really wish he doesn’t make the mistake of so many fighters. I do not want him to keep competing when he’s 35.”
(Georges St. Pierre, getting his lunch money stolen by Midoux and Zahabi. / Photo via LaPresse)
I may be wrong, but I’m pretty sure Georges St. Pierre and his camp are messing with us. In recent months, speculation that the UFC welterweight champion might soon retire after he fights Johny Hendricks this Saturday at UFC 167 has run rampant.
For the most part, St. Pierre himself and his head trainer Firas Zahabi have pretty much been the sources of this speculation, and since then they’ve attempted to discredit the rumor that they themselves got started. The latest “Georges should/might retire” item came from none other than St. Pierre’s long time mentor Kristof Midoux, a.k.a. the big old school fighter guy that recently appeared on the third episode of UFC Primetime: St. Pierre vs. Hendricks.
Midoux recently did an interview with French Canadian publication La Presse where he revealed that he told St. Pierre that, should he beat Hendricks in impressive fashion, the champion should retire right there in the Octagon. (Rough translation via Google/us):
“I said, after this, it’s over! Shine that night. Finish this guy in front of everyone. Shut the mouths of your critics. If you finish this guy, if you knock him out, then you will be free, you’ll be happy to take the microphone and tell everyone you’re done — to say that you will leave room for others.
“I told George, have the courage to take the microphone and say thank you to everyone. Those who do not understand are those who have nothing to understand, those who are selfish. It is time to think about him. This is the greatest gift that he could have. He could enjoy life, spend time with his family.
“I want it to happen like that. I really wish he doesn’t make the mistake of so many fighters. I do not want him to keep competing when he’s 35.”
Asked if he thought St. Pierre would take his advice and indeed retire Saturday night after fighting Hendricks, Midoux replied simply, “yes.”
After reading that interview, we thought that perhaps GSP was indeed considering retirement. But a couple of other recent interviews with the champion have made us consider another possibility: What if St. Pierre and his camp are using the retirement talk to A) hype the fight with Hendricks, and B) to serve as a distracting red herring only to announce big plans to continue fighting, perhaps at another weight class?
In an interview with Joe Ferraro conducted alongside teammate Rory “Mini-Rush” MacDonald, St. Pierre and the young contender said a couple interesting things. First off, they unequivocally said that they would never fight one another.
Then, St. Pierre gave some reasons why. Georges said that he has some plans for the future that he cannot talk about now but soon will announce, and also said that Rory will definitely become the new welterweight champion at some point.
In an interview with Yahoo! Sports’ Kevin Iole, St. Pierre didn’t sound like he wanted to retire but rather that he is hiding some super-fight plans up his sleeve.
“There are a lot of things I can’t tell you,” he said mysteriously.
“But I have plans. I’m ready for other things. We’ll see what happens. Moving up, moving down, fighting some other guy. I have big plans, but I can’t tell you everything. I just can’t give all of my secrets today.”
We doubt that St. Pierre is talking of retirement when he plays coy and smiles, promising “big” and “different” things. Also, what are the chances that the good ship GSP is so leaky as to have his head trainer, close friend and mentor all repeatedly/accidentally talk about his retirement? If they were doing so without the consent of the fighter, we’d imagine he’d get pretty upset about that.
So, if Firas and Midoux are all talking about retirement, but St. Pierre himself seems to be alluding to more fights, done differently, we’re guessing that this is all an elaborate ruse. Unfortunately, it’s worked.
Nothing against Johny Hendricks, but this writer is now suddenly rooting for GSP to win simply so we can see what top secret plans he’s got in mind. It would be the most interesting thing St. Pierre has done in a while, other than consistently and masterfully beat everyone up.
(“So if you win, your salary doubles from $22,000 to $44,000? And if it’s the best fight on the card, they give you a $50,000 bonus? Wow. That’s adorable, man.”)
Floyd Mayweather Jr.’s record $41.5 million guarantee for facing Canelo Alvarez in September elicited a series of reactions from the MMA community. Some fighters like Tito Ortiz made ridiculous comparisons (“What am I doing different from [Floyd Mayweather Jr.]?”). Others, like current UFC light-heavyweight champion Jon Jones knew it was more politically expedient to downplay any direct comparison between revenues in boxing and MMA (“Boxing has been around over 100 years…The foundation is set and the money is there. MMA is so new.”). But the question looms large — why is it that boxing can boast stratospheric paydays whereas MMA’s purses are deliberately obscured from public knowledge?
We could talk about the structure of modern boxing where there is competition between promoters (Bob Arum, Golden Boy, etc.) and TV networks (HBO, Showtime, etc.), which drives boxing purses up. Or we could focus on the formula for self-promoting fights that Oscar de la Hoya and Floyd Mayweather Jr. derived tremendous benefit from. The fact remains that with its limited 20-year history, MMA has much more in common with the monopolistic and mafia-controlled boxing of the 1950s and ‘60s than it does with modern boxing.
What the industry tends to ignore is that the passage of time is not what leads to progress. It was five years ago in 2008 that Jon Fitch was tossed overboard by the UFC for refusing to sign away his likeness rights away in perpetuity. While managers and fighters could have drawn a line in the sand, squared up with Zuffa and said “You’ve taken enough from us,” their response to the likeness rights situation was completely muted.
Thus, the precedent was set. MMA managers acting out of fear negotiated with the UFC by giving up something in exchange for nothing.
(“So if you win, your salary doubles from $22,000 to $44,000? And if it’s the best fight on the card, they give you a $50,000 bonus? Wow. That’s adorable, man.”)
Floyd Mayweather Jr.’s record $41.5 million guarantee for facing Canelo Alvarez in September elicited a series of reactions from the MMA community. Some fighters like Tito Ortiz made ridiculous comparisons (“What am I doing different from [Floyd Mayweather Jr.]?”). Others, like current UFC light-heavyweight champion Jon Jones knew it was more politically expedient to downplay any direct comparison between revenues in boxing and MMA (“Boxing has been around over 100 years…The foundation is set and the money is there. MMA is so new.”). But the question looms large — why is it that boxing can boast stratospheric paydays whereas MMA’s purses are deliberately obscured from public knowledge?
We could talk about the structure of modern boxing where there is competition between promoters (Bob Arum, Golden Boy, etc.) and TV networks (HBO, Showtime, etc.), which drives boxing purses up. Or we could focus on the formula for self-promoting fights that Oscar de la Hoya and Floyd Mayweather Jr. derived tremendous benefit from. The fact remains that with its limited 20-year history, MMA has much more in common with the monopolistic and mafia-controlled boxing of the 1950s and ‘60s than it does with modern boxing.
What the industry tends to ignore is that the passage of time is not what leads to progress. It was five years ago in 2008 that Jon Fitch was tossed overboard by the UFC for refusing to sign away his likeness rights away in perpetuity. While managers and fighters could have drawn a line in the sand, squared up with Zuffa and said “You’ve taken enough from us,” their response to the likeness rights situation was completely muted.
Thus, the precedent was set. MMA managers acting out of fear negotiated with the UFC by giving up something in exchange for nothing.
*****
Boxing was corrupt in the ‘50s — the mafia having gained control of the industry during the prohibition of the sport from 1830 to 1920 — and most fighters were simply objects to be used and discarded. (Of many available examples, 110% of Joe Louis’s purses were committed to other people, and the IRS still needed to be paid on top of that).
There were still people who pushed back, playing the dicey game of making certain compromises while maintaining a larger strategic aim. One such man was legendary trainer Cus D’Amato, understood to be the driving force behind world champions Floyd Patterson, Jose Torres and Mike Tyson. In Confusing the Enemy: The Cus D’Amato Story, a new biographical novel by Scott Weiss and Paige Stover, the strategy and tactics of D’Amato throughout different eras of boxing are explained — ideas that still apply to the embryonic mixed martial arts game today.
From 1949 to 1958, the International Boxing Club (IBC), led by Jim Norris, ruled the major divisions of boxing. From fixing matches to slicing and dicing up the fighter’s purses, Norris and the IBC ruled the roost with the compliance of shadowy organized crime figures in the background.
As Cus D’Amato groomed Floyd Patterson to be heavyweight champion of the world, he avoided opponents who were controlled by the IBC. Jim Norris of the IBC wanted a 50% interest in Floyd Patterson in exchange for headlining cards at Madison Square Gardens; D’Amato had no interest in serving Patterson up to the IBC on a silver platter.
Fortuitously, the New York State Athletic Commission (NYSAC) and the US Senate began putting heat on the IBC. D’Amato walked into Jim Norris’s office for a sit-down to get Floyd Patterson the big fights he deserved: “By keeping this fight out of the Garden and off of network television, we’re both leaving money on the table…How long are we gonna keep this up? Neither of us is getting where we wanna be.”
D’Amato and Norris worked out a compromise, but it was clear that the IBC was losing ground. When Rocky Marciano vacated the heavyweight title, D’Amato used the hard sell — bluffing a potential Patterson-Marciano fight with another promoter — to negotiate for Patterson to fight for the world title in November of 1956 for the staggering sum of $150,000. Eventually, the IBC was declared a monopoly by the courts and ordered dissolved.
D’Amato had earned scorn for opposing the IBC monopoly because his tactics kept both Floyd Patterson and Jose Torres inactive or facing unranked opponents. In the end, however, he prevailed, not just in that both Patterson and Torres became champions, but because in retirement, their careers extended beyond boxing: Patterson became chairman of the NYSAC and Jose Torres a respected writer and author.
*****
With the right representation at the right time, a talented MMA fighter can secure a better deal. PRIDE champion Fedor Emelianenko went from earning paltry purses of $15,000 to $20,000 under Russian Top Team manager Vladimir Pogodin to clearing $200,000 per fight plus win bonuses throughout 2004 thanks to agent Miro Mijatovic.
Fedor had been unhappy with Pogodin for quite a while, as Pogodin had been skimming money off the top. Mijatovic promoted Fedor’s fight against Yuji Nagata at Inoki-Bom-Ba-Ye 2003, giving Fedor a purse of $150,000. PRIDE was so terrified of the prospect of losing their heavyweight champion — and more importantly, the threat of competition from a new promotion — that the yakuza (organized crime) who ran PRIDE held Mijatovic hostage at gunpoint in order to extort the rights to Fedor of him.
Throughout 2004, Mijatovic was part of the management team that guided Fedor to record purses ($200,000 per fight plus win bonuses) and the PRIDE Heavyweight Grand Prix title. When the PRIDE brass attempted to bribe Mijatovic at the end of 2004 in order to control Fedor’s earnings, he refused and was dumped from Fedor’s management team by Vadim Finkelstein. The rest of this story, including PRIDE’s demise is, as we say, history.
The lesson throughout eras in combat sports is simple — when you control the consensus heavyweight champion, you can control the sport. This was not lost on Cus D’Amato, and it certainly wasn’t lost on Miro Mijatovic.
*****
Just about the only force that can reform MMA involves government intervention, the same way the US Senate investigated boxing. California attempted change in 2012 through Assembly Bill 2100, which was designed to prevent promoters from claiming unreasonable future merchandising rights, prevent unreasonable restrictions on fighters’ seeking outside sponsors and prohibit other onerous contract provisions.
While the legislation was doomed from its inception due to a variety of factors, the anti-AB2100 speakers are worth noting because of what they tell us about the current MMA landscape. Ronda Rousey adopted Zuffa’s stance and spoke out against the bill due to the simple matter of self-preservation: In 2012, she was champion in the sinking ship known as Strikeforce; in 2013, she became the champion of the newly-created women’s bantamweight division in the UFC. Matt Hughes, who spoke positively about Zuffa’s influence on the sport to the California Assembly, was rewarded for his loyalty by being hired in January 2013 as the UFC’s VP of Athlete Development & Government Relations.
The Federal Trade Commission’s investigation into Zuffa’s acquisition of Strikeforce fared no better than AB2100, with the case being closed in February 2012. It’s hard to believe that the Feds got a clear picture of the current MMA scene — limited leverage for negotiation; zero transparency into a promotion’s financials; no legit rankings for organizational titles; and no agency on the part of fighters no matter how big they are.
The irony is clear: Name brand Zuffa fighters with the most to gain from Federal intervention into MMA are conditioned from all sides to maintain a code of silence that diminishes their position.
*****
When Cus D’Amato first met 13-year old Mike Tyson, he was clear about his vision for Tyson’s future, “If you listen to me, I can make you the youngest heavyweight champion of all time.”
In an excerpt from Mike Tyson’s new autobiographyUndisputed Truth, Tyson reminisced on how D’Amato began conditioning him to overcome his fears, “Fear is the greatest obstacle to learning,” D’Amato tells him. “But fear is your best friend. Fear is like fire. If you learn to control it, you let it work for you. If you don’t learn to control it, it’ll destroy you and everything around you.”
Tyson overcame his fears to win the undisputed heavyweight title. No one knew better than Cus D’Amato that having the premier heavyweight in boxing meant that D’Amato could change the way the game was played, just as he had done before with Floyd Patterson. Tyson’s management team of Jim Jacobs and Bill Cayton helped solidify his financial status behind the scenes. But when Cus D’Amato and Jim Jacobs passed on, Tyson was rudderless in rough seas and succumbed to the vile influences of boxing, including Don King’s machinations.
Today, of course, the lessons from those bygone eras of boxing have been lost on today’s MMA fighters and managers. Instead of building up a fighter from the ground-level with emotional intelligence and a strong sense of self-worth, we see Ronda Rousey insecure to the point where she believed she’d be cut from her coaching gig on The Ultimate Fighter. We have Georges St-Pierre delicately trying to articulate his feelings about not being supported by Zuffa for attempting to get Johny Hendricks to go through with the VADA drug testing Hendricks had already agreed upon. We see Jon Jones being thrown under the bus by the Zuffa brass over the cancellation of UFC 151 in a way that diminished his market value by inciting the fans to further hate him.
Fighters and managers might win battles like getting a women’s division in the UFC or Jon Jones (supposedly) out-earning his NFL brothers, but they have lost sight of the war. In another five years, the only difference will be the influx of many new contenders to push out the current crop of Zuffa fighters, the same way Jon Fitch and Yushin Okami were kicked to the curb in 2013.
Instead of waiting for the sky to open up and the gods to bestow change upon the MMA landscape, fighters and managers have to look at ways to organize and start pushing back in a strategic manner at the right junctures. If more men like Cus D’Amato come along, they can outfox and out-hustle the dark forces of the industry, perhaps improving the sport (or forever changing it, as Miro Mijatovic did with PRIDE) for generations to come.
(McCullough vs. Cerrone: a great fight overshadowed by the shitstorm that was Filho vs. Sonnen II. / Photo via Getty)
In today’s CagePotato Roundtable we’re talking underrated fights — fights that deserve to be remembered as some of the best our sport has to offer, yet are rarely even brought up during the discussion. Obviously, Fight of the Year winners are disqualified from this list, and UFC Fight of the Night winners have been strongly discouraged from inclusion. Read on for our picks, and please continue to send your ideas for future CagePotato Roundtable topics to[email protected].
Until their recent rematch truly helped bring to light how incredible their first encounter was, I would argue that Eddie Alvarez vs. Michael Chandler at Bellator 58 was the most criminally underrated fight in MMA History. It wasn’t difficult to see why; the fight just happened to transpire on the same night that Dan Henderson defeated Mauricio Rua in a “Because PRIDE” classic at UFC 139, and being that Bellator plays Wes Mantooth to the UFC’s Ron Burgundy, Alvarez vs. Chandler was sadly overshadowed by its manlier, more mustachioed counterpart.
Contrary to popular opinion, however, I would additionally argue that Alvarez vs. Chandler surpasses Hendo vs. Rua in terms of pure excitement, and I say that as a guy who dug PRIDE more than Seth digs TNA Impact. For one, there was more than pride on the line for Chandler and Alvarez, there was a lightweight title. Sure, it was a Bellator lightweight title, but that’s worth like three MFC titles, dudes. And while Hendo vs. Rua was a goddamn barnburner in its own right, it never quite reached the fever pitch of the first round of Chandler vs. Alvarez.
(McCullough vs. Cerrone: a great fight overshadowed by the shitstorm that was Filho vs. Sonnen II. / Photo via Getty)
In today’s CagePotato Roundtable we’re talking underrated fights — fights that deserve to be remembered as some of the best our sport has to offer, yet are rarely even brought up during the discussion. Obviously, Fight of the Year winners are disqualified from this list, and UFC Fight of the Night winners have been strongly discouraged from inclusion. Read on for our picks, and please continue to send your ideas for future CagePotato Roundtable topics to[email protected].
Until their recent rematch truly helped bring to light how incredible their first encounter was, I would argue that Eddie Alvarez vs. Michael Chandler at Bellator 58 was the most criminally underrated fight in MMA History. It wasn’t difficult to see why; the fight just happened to transpire on the same night that Dan Henderson defeated Mauricio Rua in a “Because PRIDE” classic at UFC 139, and being that Bellator plays Wes Mantooth to the UFC’s Ron Burgundy, Alvarez vs. Chandler was sadly overshadowed by its manlier, more mustachioed counterpart.
Contrary to popular opinion, however, I would additionally argue that Alvarez vs. Chandler surpasses Hendo vs. Rua in terms of pure excitement, and I say that as a guy who dug PRIDE more than Seth digs TNA Impact. For one, there was more than pride on the line for Chandler and Alvarez, there was a lightweight title. Sure, it was a Bellator lightweight title, but that’s worth like three MFC titles, dudes. And while Hendo vs. Rua was a goddamn barnburner in its own right, it never quite reached the fever pitch of the first round of Chandler vs. Alvarez.
How good was Chandler vs. Alvarez 1? Good enough to pull over a million viewers for its (equally enthralling) rematch. A rematch which, by the way, went down on a last-minute clusterfuck of a card that was extremely underwhelming until Alvarez and Chandler saved it and possibly the promotion.
If we’re talking about underrated fights, let’s give some attention to MMA’s earlier days. There were a lot of great fights then — and I’m not just talking about the “classics” that are constantly cited as examples of MMA’s best fights. I’m talking about the underrated fights that offered an inkling into MMA’s future. One such fight is Keith Hackney vs. Royce Gracie.
When watching this fight in 2013, it seems kind of bland, but you have to look at the fight in its historical context. The fight took place at UFC 4 in 1994. Back then, Royce Gracie was a monster. In the young, borderline-illegal “sport” of MMA, Gracie was the closest thing there was to a Mike Tyson. He was untouchable, and he dispatched his opponents without effort — at least until Gracie met Kimo Leopoldo.
At UFC 3, Leopoldo exhausted Gracie to the point where the Brazilian couldn’t continue on in the tournament even though he had beaten Leopoldo with an armbar. Yes, Kimo was the first man to make Gracie look mortal…but Kimo was a roided-up monster. Keith Hackney couldn’t make that claim, and that’s why Keith Hackney vs. Royce Gracie was so awesome.
A karate guy with a little bit of boxing experience and some high school wrestling who ran a heating business managed to, at least briefly, stymie a living legend and a fighter who had been training to fight for his entire life.
If you haven’t seen the fight, here’s how it didn’t go down:
When Royce Gracie fought a striker, he took them down in comically easy fashion and then had his way with them. Strikers were hapless fish-out-of-water. Their sole purpose in the early days was to make “Gracie” Jiu-Jitsu look bullet-proof by getting their ass kicked.
Boxers? Nothing compared to a Gracie.
Karate men? Laughable!
But Hackney didn’t follow this precedent.
Yes, he lost, but he performed better against Royce Gracie than any striker had performed against a legit grappler at that point in UFC history. He stuffed several of Royce’s takedowns and even managed to land a few clean, powerful punches to Royce’s then unblemished face.
The fight wasn’t a barn-burner, but it’s underrated for what it was: A fight that showed the start of MMA’s progression.
Who doesn’t like a good ol’ fashioned fist fight where both competitors match up evenly?
Answer: Nobody; well at least nobody that visits Cagepotato.
Yet somehow, Nate Quarry vs Tim Credeur is rarely even brought up as one of the best fights in the history of our sport.
Both dudes were different stylistically yet they each shared a TUF background. Fans knew who they were because both fighters made an impression on the show; remember, this fight took place back when “fans” actually watched TUF. There was built-in name recognition to this curtain jerker on the main card of Fight Night 19 for both guys whether it was warranted or not. Oddly enough, this fight card served as the lead-in for TUF: HEAVYWEIGHTS starring Kimbo Slice #ratings.
What happened in the course of 15 minutes was nothing short of awesome. Round 1 saw the underdog, Credeur, drop his opponent and quickly follow him to the mat for a quick transition to an attempted RNC (not to be confused with the delicious BRC from El Pollo Loco; up yours East Coasters). Quarry was able to get back to his feet and then both men just started swinging. It was great and Credeur took the first frame.
Round 2 started with both guys throwing bombs until Quarry connected flush and sent Crazy Tim to the mat. Nate landed some solid GNP strikes from inside full guard. Although Credeur was taking punishment, he was constantly shifting his hips looking for a submission and returned fire with shots of his own from the bottom. Even though he was active from his back, Quarry knotted the fight at one round apiece.
In the final stanza it was clear that both men were tired and beat up but that is why this fight was my choice. Both Quarry and Credeur showed Arturo Gatti-esque balls and just kept swinging with Crazy Tim getting tagged several times. Though Credeur was eating punches and getting knocked down, he kept getting up. On wobbly legs, he continued to throw punches even though Quarry was getting the better of him. Quarry, for his efforts, had a mouse under his eye that looked like a Halloween-sized Snickers bar and his counter-punching was spectacular. The horn sounded and the two professionals embraced after giving the fans one hell of a slugfest.
Had this fight taken place only one year earlier, there is no doubt in my mind that it would have been Fight of the Year, and rightfully remembered as one of the greatest MMA slobber-knockers of all time. But instead, Diego Sanchez vs. Clay Guida took home 2009′s FotY, and this bout is only a footnote in our sport’s history — a great fight from an otherwise decent card that earned both competitors an extra $30k for their efforts (yeah, the Fight of the Night award for this event was only $30k. Feel old yet?).
Barnett’s PRIDE career was relatively brief and not particularly successful — he went 5-4 in the Japanese promotion from 2004-2006, including three separate losses to Mirko Cro Cop — but his run in the 2006 PRIDE Open Weight Grand Prix was a career highlight, and his opening round match against Aleksander Emelianenko is, in my opinion, the most under-appreciated heavyweight bout in PRIDE history.
At the time, Fedor’s spooky “little” brother had a reputation as a dead-eyed psycho with unreal power in his hands; three of his previous four wins were knockouts that lasted less than 30 seconds. Barnett’s best strategy would have been to take the fight to the mat at all costs and let his grappling advantage take over. But in a misguided (yet totally awesome) display of bravery, Barnett spends the majority of the ten-minute first round trading bombs with Emelianenko. What transpires is everything you’d want out of a heavyweight MMA fight — two behemoths standing toe to toe and testing each other’s ability to remain conscious.
The fact that Barnett survives a ten-minute boxing match against Aleks was a moral victory in itself. And after proving his point, Barnett got down to business in round two, tripping his now-gassed opponent to the canvas, passing to side control, softening Emelianenko up with some knees, and wrenching out a tap via Americana. After the fight, Josh declared that “pro wrestling is the strongest in the world” (!) and vowed that Fedor was already dead (!!!). The Japanese fans swooned, and so did I, watching the fight later on the Internet.
Of course, opening-round fights of any tournament tend to be easily forgotten, and the epic Final Four at PRIDE Final Conflict Absolute tends to overshadow everybody’s memory of the 2006 OWGP. (My God this Cro Cop!) But viewed on an individual basis, I think Barnett vs. Emelianenko was the most entertaining and competitive of the 15 fights that took place in that tournament — and it made me a Josh Barnett fan ever since.
Until his reign as UFC Lightweight champion ended with a whimper — OK, a verbal tap — rather than a bang, Benson Henderson had developed a well-earned reputation as a fighter who fans could count on to engage in compelling fights. In large part, this was often a product of the durability of Henderson, his sound technique in all areas and the equal competency of his opponents. On two occasions, however, he squared off against a foe who brought out the best in him and vice versa. The first example is obviously Anthony Pettis in their 2010 Fight of the Year. Of course, when the fight in question contains the pre-eminent highlight of the sport, it’s probably a little too high-profile for this roundtable. The second was Donald Cerrone.
Cerrone is also notorious for engaging in entertaining fights. Unlike Henderson, his tend to be more violent and one-sided. Such was the case in his second fight against Henderson at WEC 48; Henderson clinched him against the fence, kneed him in the head until Cerrone developed a nasty hematoma and finished the fight with a guillotine in the first round. However, Bendo and Cerrone’s first match was one of the greatest fights in MMA history. With then-WEC lightweight champion Jamie Varner injured, Henderson and Cerrone competed for the interim title at WEC 43. The first two rounds took place on the ground following Henderson takedowns, but Cerrone was extremely active off his back throughout the fight and almost secured a fight-ending guillotine in round one. The third round was less eventful, but in the fourth Henderson — who had been active with takedowns and top control — began to fade. Cerrone began to capitalize, first in the standup in round four and then on the ground in round five. In that final round, Cerrone attempted no less than six submissions, all which had the potential to end a fight. Henderson, however, managed to survive each one of them, earning him a reputation for being nigh-unsubmittable that would stick with him until his last fight. Many observers, including myself, believed Cerrone had taken a close decision on the strength of his submission activity. Naturally, Henderson won the controversial decision, through Christ who strengthens him — or at least influences judges to weigh top control too favorably.
The match won Fight of the Year from Sherdog, MMA Fighting and Sports Illustrated. Given the popularity of both fighters currently, it would easily be in the consideration for the best fight in MMA history if it took place today. Yet it’s still a relatively obscure fight because no one knew who the WEC guys were in 2009. That’s a shame, because this fight not only epitomized every single aspect of mixed martial arts you could ask for (save for a definitive finish), but it also began to establish the legitimacy of the WEC and its fighters. This fight, along with the ascendancy of guys like Urijah Faber, Miguel Torres, and Jose Aldo, helped pave the way for the inclusion of lighter-weight fighters in the UFC. But even deprived of its context, this is still a truly exceptional fight. You can watch some potato-quality footage of the entire five-rounder right here.
I’m under no delusions that Leonard Garcia is a UFC-caliber fighter, but I’ll be damned if I allow this discussion to conclude without anybody bringing up “Bad Boy.” His aggressive fighting style almost always translates into an entertaining, memorable brawl. But I don’t need to explain that to you; hell, you probably look forward to watching Leonard Garcia fight even more than Jared looks forward to updating his To-Do list.
Back in September, Leonard Garcia returned to action against Nick Gonzalez. It was the back-and-forth brawl that you’d expect from a Garcia fight, with Bad Boy eventually winning the fight by rear-naked choke. If this fight took place in the UFC, it would have been Fight of the Night, but since it took place under the Legacy FC banner, most of you probably didn’t even know that the fight took place until just now. Go ahead and check it out.
I think it’s a bit of a stretch to call this a Fight of the Year candidate (like some people are), but it definitely deserves to be mentioned during any discussion revolving around great fights from 2013. Instead, it will more than likely play second fiddle to an Al Bundy GIF during this year’s Potato Awards. Such is life, I guess.
Have a fight that you’d like to nominate? Feel free to share your pick in the comments section.
Cards like UFC Fight Night 32 are contributing to the death of MMA’s popularity in the US.
In case you haven’t noticed, the UFC’s numbers have been atrocious lately. UFC 165, a card headlined by the light heavyweight champion of the world and future of the company Jon Jones, drew a paltry 325,000 buys. Cain Velasquez vs. Junior Dos Santos III—the finale to the greatest trilogy in UFC heavyweight history—drew a slightly higher number at UFC 166.
Cards like UFC Fight Night 32 are contributing to the death of MMA’s popularity in the US.
In case you haven’t noticed, the UFC’s numbers have been atrocious lately. UFC 165, a card headlined by the light heavyweight champion of the world and future of the company Jon Jones, drew a paltry 325,000 buys. Cain Velasquez vs. Junior Dos Santos III—the finale to the greatest trilogy in UFC heavyweight history—drew a slightly higher number at UFC 166.
UFC Fight Night 30, the lone Fight Night that’s been featured on FOX Sports 2, only drew 122,000 viewers and was outdrawn by World Series of Fighting 6, which scored 161,000 viewers.
What about that event stood out? What about that event made people say, “I need to keep watching the UFC”?
The card was stacked with middling Brazilian fighters and prospects only the hardcore fans and journalists knew or cared about. Fans will say that the card was great because there were finishes, but that’s a short-sighted and extremely myopic view. Yes, four of the six bouts on the main card were finishes, but what’s a finish worth when nobody is watching?
The casual fan, the group on which the UFC’s growth and popularity in the United States is dependent, doesn’t care about finishes. The casual fan cares about names, about stars. The guy who wears tapout and does bicep curls in the squat rack talks about Kimbo Slice and Brock Lesnar, not about the intricacies of a setup for an armbar or a triangle.
Ask yourself this: What did UFC Fight Night 32 do to regain the swaths of casual fans who have tuned out of MMA since 2013?
Obviously, the UFC can’t put all the good stuff on free television because they make money on their PPVs. Still, that brings up another question. What “good stuff” do they have left to put on free TV that’ll draw what they were drawing on Spike?
Their stars are fading. Instead of creating new ones, they’re vomiting a stream of generic, EA sports create-a-fighters onto television screens across America. They’re expecting the casual fan to watch because it’s the UFC and the UFC is a good brand and they’re fights and fights are exciting. Everyone loves fights, right? It’s in our blood to love fighting. Or so the tired MMA-triumphalist rhetoric goes.
But it’s become apparent that that logic isn’t true. People aren’t tuning in for the novelty of “this UFC thing” anymore. They’ve moved on either because they’re waiting for Chuck Liddell’s or Kimbo Slice’s or Brock Lesnar’s next fight, or because the sport is too hard to follow, or because they never see it on TV because they don’t watch FS1, or because they see cards like UFC Fight Night 32 and just don’t care anymore.
This issue becomes even more complicated when you consider the question of overseas expansion. UFC Fight Night 32 was, obviously, a Brazil-centric card. The UFC is also eyeing expansionin many other countries. But is the UFC pursuing this goal because the US market is drying up, or is the US market drying up because of the UFC’s obsession with international growth?
The answer, for now, is elusive. When we see how the UFC closes out the year, we’ll know the bubble has burst if we see the UFC’s popularity in the US continue to wither.
It’s official: Bellator’s canceled pay-per-view was the greatest thing that ever happened to the promotion. (Called it!) According to a press release distributed today by Spike TV, Bellator 106: Chandler vs. Alvarez 2 delivered 1.1 million average viewers during the Spike telecast, which made it the most-watched event in Bellator history and the most watched mixed martial arts show on television this fall. As the release goes on to explain:
The “Chandler-Alvarez II” fight card peaked at 1.4 million viewers at 11:17pm and reached its high mark with Men 18-49 with a 1.1 rating for the Alvarez-Chandler bout. The telecast also ranked #2 in cable in its timeslot with Men 18-49.
For fans who missed the fight, or who recorded it but the end was cut off due to the extraordinary length of the event, Spike TV will replay the Chandler-Alvarez II main event bout on Friday, November 8 at 8:00pm ET/PT. The replay will lead into a live Bellator event featuring heavyweights Cheick Kongo vs. Peter Graham and a co-feature with lightweight contenders Joe Warren and Travis Marx.
Note to Bellator: Don’t brag about the “extraordinary length” of your event. That shit was nearly four hours long, and people almost died out here. (It’s worth noting that the audience peaked well before the main event had even begun.) On the plus side, it must feel amazing for Bellator to clown the UFC with that “most watched mixed martial arts show on television this fall” line, especially at a time when the UFC is probably kind of sensitive about that sort of thing.
It’s official: Bellator’s canceled pay-per-view was the greatest thing that ever happened to the promotion. (Called it!) According to a press release distributed today by Spike TV, Bellator 106: Chandler vs. Alvarez 2 delivered 1.1 million average viewers during the Spike telecast, which made it the most-watched event in Bellator history and the most watched mixed martial arts show on television this fall. As the release goes on to explain:
The “Chandler-Alvarez II” fight card peaked at 1.4 million viewers at 11:17pm and reached its high mark with Men 18-49 with a 1.1 rating for the Alvarez-Chandler bout. The telecast also ranked #2 in cable in its timeslot with Men 18-49.
For fans who missed the fight, or who recorded it but the end was cut off due to the extraordinary length of the event, Spike TV will replay the Chandler-Alvarez II main event bout on Friday, November 8 at 8:00pm ET/PT. The replay will lead into a live Bellator event featuring heavyweights Cheick Kongo vs. Peter Graham and a co-feature with lightweight contenders Joe Warren and Travis Marx.
Note to Bellator: Don’t brag about the “extraordinary length” of your event. That shit was nearly four hours long, and people almost died out here. (It’s worth noting that the audience peaked well before the main event had even begun.) On the plus side, it must feel amazing for Bellator to clown the UFC with that “most watched mixed martial arts show on television this fall” line, especially at a time when the UFC is probably kind of sensitive about that sort of thing.
Shortly after Bellator 106, Bellator CEO Bjorn Rebney said that he’d like to do the rubber-match between Eddie Alvarez and Michael Chandler on pay-per-view. Hopefully these Spike TV numbers will make him realize that not being on pay-per-view is what made the success of this event possible. Granted, not all of Bellator’s future shows will be able to draw as many eyeballs as this, but if they can occasionally put on events headlined by genuinely exciting fights, fans will tune in.
And just to clarify — Chandler vs. Alvarez is a genuinely exciting fight. Rampage vs Tito is not.
Officially, Bellator canceled the PPV because Tito Ortiz withdrew from the main event bout versus Rampage Jackson, and not because of the PPV’s dubious chances of success. But the result is the same as if they had just canceled it outright: Bellator saves face.
Ortiz’s injury and the resulting cancellation of the PPV were a godsend for Bellator. Why? Let’s look at the most likely scenario for what could’ve happened if Bellator went on with their PPV — both if Ortiz had gotten injured and if he hadn’t.
Scenario 1, Ortiz doesn’t get injured and the PPV goes on:
Officially, Bellator canceled the PPV because Tito Ortiz withdrew from the main event bout versus Rampage Jackson, and not because of the PPV’s dubious chances of success. But the result is the same as if they had just canceled it outright: Bellator saves face.
Ortiz’s injury and the resulting cancellation of the PPV were a godsend for Bellator. Why? Let’s look at the most likely scenario for what could’ve happened if Bellator went on with their PPV — both if Ortiz had gotten injured and if he hadn’t.
Scenario 1, Ortiz doesn’t get injured and the PPV goes on: What happens here? The show probably bombs with 10k buys or fewer. Viacom realizes that, like Dana White said, there’s no value in Bellator.
Viacom either pulls the plug outright or scales down Bellator from hopeful claimant to the UFC’s throne into something akin to the toughman contests on FX. If this happened, Viacom would keep it around because it’d get decent enough ratings for the pittance it’d cost to produce the scaled down version of the show.
Scenario 2, Ortiz does get injured and the PPV still goes on: Attila Vegh replaces Ortiz against Rampage (even though Attila Vegh was “injured” and had to pull out of a fight on this PPV previously). The PPV bombs even worse.
Those two scenarios are both terrible for Bellator. The PPV, Ortiz or no, was destined for Affliction-level failure. Making the card free on Spike was the best option (and was from the onset of Viacom’s acquisition of former UFC “stars”).
The casuals don’t know Michael Chandler (despite the fact that he’s the face of Dave & Busters). The casuals don’t know Eddie Alvarez. The casuals don’t know most of the other fighters on the card either. Putting the entirety of the Bellator PPV card on Spike will help build their profiles a little more, or at the very least stop people from forgetting about them.
Furthermore, Bellator can use Rampage like he should’ve been used: To help get more ratings on Spike to draw more eyeballs to Bellator’s stable of talented, non-UFC-washout fighters.
Bjorn Rebney said that they were going to book a fight for Rampage “literally as quickly as possible.” Hopefully for Bellator’s sake, that means it’ll be on free television (unless they’re planning on producing an ad-hoc PPV solely to showcase an old, slow, whining, lazy Rampage versus some random can). Rampage, being Bellator’s fighter with the greatest name value — yeah, I know, that’s not saying much — can draw more viewers to the younger, more talented fighters on Bellator’s roster.
Allow me to make a comparison to pro wrestling history: #2 promotion WCW hired Hulk Hogan after he had left the WWE (then WWF) because he was a star. That star brought viewers to WCW, viewers who where then wowed by some the undercard matches between young, exciting wrestlers like Eddie Guerrero, Rey Mysterio Jr, and Chris Jericho — wrestlers who many casual fans might not have ever seen if the older, established Hogan hadn’t brought attention to WCW.
Of course, Bellator Rampage Jackson is no WCW Hulk Hogan — who was still the biggest star in wrestling at the time. Nevertheless, Bellator will build greater name value for their fighters by showcasing their big UFC acquisitions Tito and Rampage on free TV alongside the young, hungry, talented fighters. Canceling the PPV has allowed them to do that.
The cloud of Bellator’s PPV cancellation doesn’t have a silver lining because the entire cloud practically is a silver lining.
