On Friday night, the controversial upstart promotion’s sixth event went down in Las Vegas and drew a plethora of combat sports stars, online influencers, and celebrities. Also on hand for the festivities was the UFC Hall of Famer who offered an interesting endorsement for Dana White’s latest pet project.
“I love it,” Cerrone said. “This is, like, if you just want to watch knockout, knockout, knockout, and hear CTE brain damage, this is the event” (h/t MMA Fighting).
The UFC CEO has been pushing Power Slap hard over the last couple of years despite continued criticism from professional fighters and fight fans who have labeled the quote-unquote “sport” as nothing more than a barbaric display lacking any legitimate athletic merit.
Former NSAC Chairman Admits Regret over Sanctioning Power Slap
The inherent danger of Power Slap has also been a hot-button issue considering the entire premise is to hit someone in the head as hard as you can with the recipient disallowed from defending themselves. Still, that didn’t stop the NSAC from sanctioning Power Slap, a decision Stephen Cloobec — the former chairman of the Nevada State Athletic Commission — quickly came to regret. “I made a mistake,” Cloobeck told The Associated Press. “I’m not happy about it.”
‘Cowboy’ Cerrone spent 16 years competing against some of the biggest names in mixed martial arts under both the WEC and UFC banners. His memorable wars with Benson Henderson, Nate Diaz, Anthony Pettis, Rafael dos Anjos, Edson Barboza, Jorge Masvidal, Robbie Lawler, Leon Edwards, Tony Ferguson, and Justin Gaethje earned him a spot in the UFC’s Hall of Fame class of 2023.
But even after more than 50 fights inside the cage, don’t expect to see ‘Cowboy’ step up to the Power Slap podium anytime soon.
“Not even I would do this,” Cerrone said with a laugh.
UFC Hall of Famer B.J. Penn is once again sharing his controversial opinion on chronic traumatic encephalopathy, otherwise known…
UFC Hall of Famer B.J. Penn is once again sharing his controversial opinion on chronic traumatic encephalopathy, otherwise known as CTE.
Penn, who holds the distinction of being one of the few fighters in promotional history to capture world titles in two different weight classes, has seen his illustrious mixed martial arts legacy overshadowed by a series of confusing and controversial statements. In addition to denying the existence of dinosaurs and COVID-19, ‘The Prodigy’ has also taken a strong stand against CTE, a neurodegenerative disease linked to repeated trauma to the head.
Athletes, particularly those competing in contact sports such as football, MMA, and boxing, are considered to be at considerable risk of showing symptoms of CTE, which occur in four stages, and generally appear eight to ten years after an individual experiences repetitive mild traumatic brain injuries. Those symptoms include behavioral problems, mood problems, and problems with thinking.
Many fight fans believe Penn, who officially retired from the sport in 2019 after 18 years of competing, is showing these signs in many of his social media posts, which are often nonsensical.
However, if you ask Penn about CTE, he will not only deny his symptoms, but he’ll outright deny the existence of the condition altogether.
“Do I have to keep telling you how fake CTE is? Ali, Frazier, Norton, foreman, Hagler, duran, Leonard, and Hearns never had it and they got a million times more than me each. CTE likes are a to cover up murders. Don’t make me tell you again kid,” Penn wrote on Instagram.
Guys claim to want to normalize talking about mental health, but the moment you ask about the holes in their brain pic.twitter.com/LkxzBgyU55
— Borrachinha Depot (@FullContactMTWF) July 17, 2023
While Penn has become something of a joke in the MMA community following his failed political career and questionable stances on scientific facts, many fight fans are concerned for his long-term health more than anything. Unfortunately, you can’t help anyone anymore than they are willing to help themselves.
BJ Penn (16-14-2 MMA) has sounded off that CTE is real labelling the theory “fake,” in a response to a comment he received on his most recent social media post. Penn hasn’t seen the inside of the cage since 2019 after to his unanimous decision loss to Clay Guida (38-23 MMA) at UFC 237. However, […]
BJ Penn (16-14-2 MMA) has sounded off that CTE is real labelling the theory “fake,” in a response to a comment he received on his most recent social media post.
However, it has been over 12 years since MMA fans last saw ‘The Prodigy’s’ hands raised inside that Octagon.
That win came against the legendary Matt Hughes (45-9 MMA) at UFC 123, as Penn managed knockout Hughs in emphatic fashion in round one.
BJ Penn denies the existence of CTE
The former UFC lightweight champion has claimed on his social media that there is no explanation for the existence of CTE, no more so than coronavirus.
Penn further denied that the likes of Muhammed Ali and Jim Brown ever had the condition despite contrary belief and evidence.
“What is CTE again? Did Ali have that? What about Jim Brown did he have that? CTE is as fake as the coronavirus,” BJ Penn stated.
When asked whether CTE is real or fake on another comment, Penn replied by questioning the validity of covid vaccine and whether that was real or fake.
“Real quick, is the coronavirus vaccine real or fake?”
Credit: BJ Penn’s Instagram
For many MMA fans it will be interesting to learn more about BJ Penn views on CTE and his reasons for not believing in it.
For a fighter who fought for so long and suffered a substantial amount of brain damage, it’s confusing to understand why Penn is so against the theory, could this potentially be an effect of CTE?
Do you agree or disagree with BJ Penn’s view on CTE?
MMA icon Frank Shamrock announced that he is donating his brain to help aid in the study of CTE. Shamrock, the first-ever UFC light heavyweight champion, went 23-10-2 over the course of his 15-year career. Last competing in 2009, Frank Shamrock has been a strong advocate for brain health in recent years. In a lengthy […]
MMA icon Frank Shamrock announced that he is donating his brain to help aid in the study of CTE.
Shamrock, the first-ever UFC light heavyweight champion, went 23-10-2 over the course of his 15-year career. Last competing in 2009, Frank Shamrock has been a strong advocate for brain health in recent years. In a lengthy social media post, the California native announced that he would be doing his brain to the Concussion Legacy Foundation, a non-profit organization that “works to advance studies into brain trauma in athletes and other significant at-risk groups.”
How Frank Shamrock Hopes to Help Advance CTE Research
Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy, or CTE, is a progressive and fatal brain disease associated with repeated traumatic brain injuries (TBIs), including concussions and repeated blows to the head. According to the Alzheimer’s Association, individuals who have experienced TBI in their early to midlife face a significantly higher risk of developing dementia.
Despite being a hot-button issue in sports over the last two decades, CTE research still has a long way to go as a diagnosis of CTE can only be made after death. There is also no cure for the fatal brain disease if an individual shows symptoms that include memory loss and thinking problems, confusion, and erratic behavior.
Frank Shamrock hopes to help advance the research of CTE so that we can better understand the signs and effects, particularly for those who compete in contact sports like football, boxing, and mixed martial arts.
Throughout his illustrious career, Frank Shamrock set a series of records that still stand to this very day. Aside from being the first fighter to win championships in the UFC, WEC, and Strikeforce, Shamrock still holds the record for the fastest submission in UFC light heavyweight history, coming just 16 seconds into his UFC Japan bout against Kevin Jackson in 1997. Shamrock also holds the distinction of headlining the promotion’s first event in Brazil.
Frank Shamrock squared off with other notable legends inside the Octagon such as Jeremy Horn, Tito Ortiz, Renzo Gracie, Phil Baroni, Cung Le, and Nick Diaz.
As we move further into the future of MMA and watch the sport grow into an absolute powerhouse, the issues of health and wellness for the athletes that make this sport so great is beginning to take center stage. CTE (Chronic traumatic encephalopathy), is a rising concern in contact sports. A degenerative disease that is brought on due to brain trauma, you can certainly bet that mixed martial artists and other combat sport participants are potential victims that this degenerative ailment will effect.
As we move further into the future of MMA and watch the sport grow into an absolute powerhouse, the issues of health and wellness for the athletes that make this sport so great is beginning to take center stage. CTE (Chronic traumatic encephalopathy), is a rising concern in contact sports. A degenerative disease that is brought on due to brain trauma, you can certainly bet that mixed martial artists and other combat sport participants are potential victims that this degenerative ailment will effect.
All that being said, fighters are still going to fight, boxers box, football players…football, and really that’s their right. If they’re aware of the risk and still go through with it then it can’t be helped. It’s their right after all. But it makes the importance of training smart all the more paramount in a sport where contact is absolutely certain. Which brings us to Vicente Luque and the brilliant sparring session caught on film last week.
The video of Vicente features the UFC welterweight in a hard sparring session with a training partner at Cerrado MMA. The two fighters throw caution to the wind and decide to bring the heat during their sparring session. It’s not uncommon to go through hard sparring during a training camp, but there’s hard sparring and then there whatever it is these guys decided to do. Check it out below.
A video posted by Vicente Luque (@luquevicente) onOct 21, 2016 at 1:43pm PDT
Training hard, especially if you’re going to enter into a combat situation, is certainly an important aspect of training. It teaches you to be calm under heavy fire and that you won’t break under pressure when the going gets rough. That being said, there’s a point of diminishing returns and continuous hard sparring, particularly in the gym, can lead to severe brain injury. Surprisingly most damage is done in the gym and if this kind of hard training trend continues then you can be sure that CTE cases will be on the rise in MMA.
What do you think of Vincente Luque and his hard sparring session?
Jonathan Salmon is a writer, martial arts instructor, and geek culture enthusiast. Check out his Twitter and Facebook to keep up with his antics.
(After 11 years in a sport marked by physical trauma, emotional turmoil, and financial misdealings, St-Pierre is beaten, but not broken. / Photo via Getty)
The key to understanding the way St-Pierre has conducted himself, both inside and outside the Octagon, goes back to his earliest origins growing up in the rural area of St. Isidore, Quebec, Canada:
“I went to a school where it was pretty rough — I’d get my clothes stolen, my cash. And at home life was pretty hard too. I had a difficult childhood,” said St-Pierre to an interviewer in 2006.
The upshot of these challenges translated into the single quality that defines GSP to this day — his relentless desire to please everybody around him. Not only was St-Pierre an absolute perfectionist with respect to his performance as a fighter, but he actively sought to cultivate positive relationships with all of the people he crossed paths with in life.
In a non-corporate environment, that character trait might have gone over better. In the shark tank of pimps, hustlers and thieves who infest the fight game, it made St-Pierre an easy mark for managers who felt entitled to take his money.
(After 11 years in a sport marked by physical trauma, emotional turmoil, and financial misdealings, St-Pierre is beaten, but not broken. / Photo via Getty)
The key to understanding the way St-Pierre has conducted himself, both inside and outside the Octagon, goes back to his earliest origins growing up in the rural area of St. Isidore, Quebec, Canada:
“I went to a school where it was pretty rough — I’d get my clothes stolen, my cash. And at home life was pretty hard too. I had a difficult childhood,” said St-Pierre to an interviewer in 2006.
The upshot of these challenges translated into the single quality that defines GSP to this day — his relentless desire to please everybody around him. Not only was St-Pierre an absolute perfectionist with respect to his performance as a fighter, but he actively sought to cultivate positive relationships with all of the people he crossed paths with in life.
In a non-corporate environment, that character trait might have gone over better. In the shark tank of pimps, hustlers and thieves who infest the fight game, it made St-Pierre an easy mark for managers who felt entitled to take his money.
TMZ.com broke the story of St-Pierre being forced to pay out $737,066.35 — and counting — to his former manager Shari Spencer. In a similar vein, GSP’s first manager, Stephane Patry, earned some hard cash after St-Pierre settled over Patry’s lawsuit with him.
“Georges St-Pierre has a lot of money, and he could walk away forever if that’s what he chose to do,” said UFC president Dana White during Friday’s conference call where GSP’s departure was announced to the media.
This statement begs the question — while GSP certainly never banked Mayweather money, how much of a hit did St-Pierre take from paying out 20 percent commissions to Patry and Spencer simultaneously? Will the courts mandate that Spencer gets to swallow up another 20 percent of his revenue for a portion of the time period since St-Pierre’s new co-managers, Rodolphe Beaulie and Philippe Lepage, took over in 2011?
Like Shakespeare’s King Lear, the UFC welterweight kingpin only seemed to discover just who he was dealing with by the time it was too late to do anything about it. Besides the transgressions from his managers, the UFC was happy to control many aspects of St-Pierre’s commercial deals from owning his video game likeness rights in perpetuity to refusing to allow St-Pierre to use UFC footage in the GSP documentary The Striking Truth. These were raw deals that will cost St-Pierre both in terms of his post-retirement earning potential and his reputation for decades to come.
It’s incredibly suspect that two days before GSP’s retirement announcement, Dana White told MMAFighting.com that St-Pierre was signing autographs at a mall. Was the financial hit the UFC would take from loss of pay-per-view, sponsors, and diminishment of the UFC brand in the eyes of television partners like Fox Sports incentive for the UFC to do everything in the organization’s power to retain GSP as champion? With Cain Velasquez out for a year, Chris Weidman as a new champion needing more build-up and lighter-weight champions not drawing big PPV numbers, St-Pierre’s exit couldn’t come at a worse time for the organization.
The most overlooked aspect of St-Pierre’s decision to retire comes down to risk of further traumatic brain injury (TBI). Tim Marchman of DeadSpin.com provided solid analysis that of the 875 strikes GSP has taken in his career, 412 have come in his last three fights. An athlete doesn’t need to be slurring their words or have a poor memory to be suffering the effects of repeated head trauma; depression, bouts of anger, and mood swings can be among the symptoms of TBI.
Georges St-Pierre’s tremendous desire for public validation of his talents was both his greatest strength as a fighter and his greatest weakness in terms of his personal health. He put it on the line for fans, media, and a promoter who were all just as likely to offer scathing criticism as they were to give him praise.
It’s possible that St-Pierre returns to MMA, just as so many other fighters have returned from retirement. In fact, it’s likely that GSP will go stir-crazy on the sidelines and want to restore his past status. St-Pierre will need a strong network of friends and family to pull him back from the brink — but no amount of external validation will overcome any internal dissonance within his soul.
We owe it to Georges St-Pierre to remember his life, career, and legacy as it happened, and not the revisionist or politically correct history that certain stakeholders in MMA might be selling. GSP needs to be remembered exactly as he the person he was: one of the greatest — if not the greatest — MMA fighter of all time.
UFC Hall of Famer B.J. Penn is once again sharing his controversial opinion on chronic traumatic encephalopathy, otherwise known…
BJ Penn (16-14-2 MMA) has sounded off that CTE is real labelling the theory “fake,” in a response to a comment he received on his most recent social media post. Penn hasn’t seen the inside of the cage since 2019 after to his unanimous decision loss to Clay Guida (38-23 MMA) at UFC 237. However, […]
MMA icon Frank Shamrock announced that he is donating his brain to help aid in the study of CTE. Shamrock, the first-ever UFC light heavyweight champion, went 23-10-2 over the course of his 15-year career. Last competing in 2009, Frank Shamrock has been a strong advocate for brain health in recent years. In a lengthy […]
