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SEATTLE — UFC President Dana White met with the media following today’s UFC on FOX media press conference.In the media scrum, White discussed Ronda Rousey’s appointment as the UFC women’s bantamweight champion and much, much more. Check out the f…
SEATTLE — UFC President Dana White met with the media following today’s UFC on FOX media press conference.
In the media scrum, White discussed Ronda Rousey’s appointment as the UFC women’s bantamweight champion and much, much more.
Check out the full video above.
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Following the UFC on Fox 5 pre-fight press conference, Dana White spoke with attending media about a wide variety of topics. While most of the focus was on Ronda Rousey and this weekend’s event, there were some notable tidbits about the current happeni…
Following the UFC on Fox 5 pre-fight press conference, Dana White spoke with attending media about a wide variety of topics. While most of the focus was on Ronda Rousey and this weekend’s event, there were some notable tidbits about the current happenings with the UFC.
For those that were not aware, Shane Carwin was forced to pull out his fight with Roy Nelson at The Ultimate Fighter 16 Finale in Las Vegas after suffering a knee injury. They coached opposite of one another on the current season of The Ultimate Fighter on FX.
The 37-year-old heavyweight was already coming off an extended layoff due to back surgery that kept him out of action for over a year. The latest injury will keep him on the shelf even longer as he attempts to repair his body for one last run.
The UFC president isn’t too sure that the former UFC interim heavyweight champion can bounce back from such an injury.
“I dunno, man. I just talked to him the other day. He’s so depressed. He’s completely bummed out and depressed and I feel bad for the guy. It’s tough to bounce back,” White told Bleacher Report. “Especially cause he’s not getting any younger and having a major injury like that, it’s tough to bounce back from.”
Judging from his words and mannerisms, White doesn’t see an Octagon return as likely for Carwin, as his body just doesn’t seem to be holding up under the rigors of intense training.
The conversation then switched to Stephan Bonnar, who tested positive for Drostanolone following his UFC 153 bout against Anderson Silva. Bonnar stepped up on short notice to face Silva in order to save the Brazilian event, which suffered numerous injuries at the top of the card.
It was Bonnar‘s retirement fight and the second time that he’s tested positive for a banned substance during his UFC career. While it’s apparent that White is mad that Bonnar was using a performance-enhancing drug (PED), it’s pretty clear that the light heavyweight will always have a home in the UFC.
“I have not talked to Bonnar yet. I’m still mad at Bonnar. I’m mad. I’m mad at him. I don’t hate him. It’s not like I’ll never have a relationship with Stephan Bonnar again. He’ll always be with the UFC. His fight with Forrest, we’re all here because of that. But I’m mad at him. He should have told me.”
All quotes attained by Bleacher Report firsthand.
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Ronda Rousey is fighting Liz Carmouche and she’s expected to trample her—but what if Rousey doesn’t?What if the unthinkable happens and Rousey, the UFC’s poster-woman for women’s MMA, gets beaten? And what happens if she gets beaten badly?How bad…
Ronda Rousey is fighting Liz Carmouche and she’s expected to trample her—but what if Rousey doesn’t?
What if the unthinkable happens and Rousey, the UFC’s poster-woman for women’s MMA, gets beaten? And what happens if she gets beaten badly?
How badly? Like Mark Hominick vs. Jose Aldo or Joe Stevenson vs. BJ Penn badly. What on earth would happen then? Could women’s MMA really survive that?
No, it couldn’t.
If Rousey loses—even if it’s by a decision—WMMA in the UFC will almost definitely crash and burn.
UFC president Dana White was an outspoken critic of WMMA and once said that women would “never” fight in the UFC. Yet now, here they are, about to fight in the UFC.
Obviously, it’s no coincidence that as soon as an attractive, young, silver-tongued, female fighter showed up that he suddenly changed his tune; Ronda Rousey is an easy sell. Unfortunately, other prominent female fighters don’t have as much earning potential.
Zuffa (the company that owns the UFC and Strikeforce), throughout its voyage through WMMA, has shown that the only way it knows how to market a female athlete is through sex appeal. Why else would they have put Sarah Kaufman in that ridiculous white leather outfit?
The UFC needs Ronda Rousey for their female-fighter venture to be successful. It’s sad that when women are involved, sex appeal has to be part of the equation but that’s the unpleasant truth.
If Rousey‘s star is dimmed by a loss, or if it goes outright supernova by a devastating beatdown, Dana White’s tune will change. After all, his commitment to WMMA seems tepid at best. “We’re kind of playing with it,” he said. “I know this, over the next couple of years we’ve got fights in the 135-pound division, good fights. Ronda’s the champ and she’ll come in and we’ll see how this thing plays out.”
Should Carmouche win, White will likely deem that the foray into WMMA played out poorly, and the plug will in all likelihood be pulled. The upshot of the UFC’s WMMA experiment would be naught but for the disappointment of Zuffa brass.
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Normally, I sympathize with those who put true title contenders above potential draws.Why, you ask?I do so because at the end of the day, a contender must make sense, even to UFC president Dana White, who consistently reminds us that the best figh…
Normally, I sympathize with those who put true title contenders above potential draws.
Why, you ask?
I do so because at the end of the day, a contender must make sense, even to UFC president Dana White, who consistently reminds us that the best fights possible fall within his strategic plans for the UFC.
So for those who wish for a translation: yes, Yours Truly gets it.
Johny Hendricks earned his shot at Georges St-Pierre. Nick Diaz did not. Diaz must receive his license to compete and he must combat the best of the division before he talks about St-Pierre again.
Understandable as that sounds, however, someone needed to send St-Pierre that memo a while ago, because underneath his skin still lies Diaz. No one should dare question this, because if this wasn’t the case, why would St-Pierre request Diaz over the obvious title contender in Hendricks?
In St-Pierre’s mind, Hendricks deserves the title shot. Looking at it from St-Pierre’s perspective, however, handing Diaz some sort of punishment clearly gives him a deeper and more intense motivation.
With Hendricks, St-Pierre faces a bit of deja-vu in a tough fighter that St-Pierre will need to take the fight away from. St-Pierre will take the time to remind us of the difficulty of his competition while also keeping us wondering about if will take a fight with Anderson Silva down the road.
With Diaz, the picture differs, especially in terms of the fight itself. St-Pierre attacks with elbows, double-legs, a tough jab, a Kyokushin-based regiment that he still keeps at and a top game that few can match. Unlike Condit, meanwhile, Diaz starts a bit slowly, but he never relents, always attacks with his Jiu-Jitsu at every turn and fiercely intends to prove his doubters.
They are the ones who claim Diaz loses nine fights our of 10 when he faces a great wrestler. They are incredibly wrong.
Skill sets aside, though, everything about this boils down to the emotion of the fight, not the fight itself. Not even Josh Koscheck provoked such emotion out of St-Pierre. White knows this, the Fertita brothers know this and the Zuffa marketing machine knows exactly how to make casual fans care about it—even if the fight happens outside of Canada.
Before anyone rants and raves about Hendricks deserving the shot—and unquestionably, he does—take the bad blood into account. Remember that St-Pierre, a man who rarely ever asks for fights of his own accord, personally wanted and asked for this fight before Hendricks or Silva.
If the champion wants to settle his score with Diaz before taking Hendricks, then let the UFC build this potential gem of a title fight up and let the spotlights come to focus on arguably the greatest Canadian MMA athlete of all time.
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The UFC took a momentous leap forward into women’s mixed martial arts by officially making Ronda Rousey the promotion’s first ever female champion.UFC President Dana White awarded Rousey with the company’s inaugural women’s championship belt at the UFC…
The UFC took a momentous leap forward into women’s mixed martial arts by officially making Ronda Rousey the promotion’s first ever female champion.
UFC President Dana White awarded Rousey with the company’s inaugural women’s championship belt at the UFC on Fox 5 pre-fight press conference on Thursday. White also announced that “Rowdy” will make her Octagon debut opposite Liz Carmouche when the two headline February’s UFC 157 in Anaheim, California.
As a long-time proponent of women’s MMA, I have to say that I am quite impressed by the promotion’s faith in Rousey and in other emerging female fighters.
Even before the Olympic bronze medalist judoka became the first women’s UFC champ, White and company were already touting her as the biggest name in WMMA.
I have to give the promotion props for laying the groundwork so that Rousey and other female fighters could smoothly transition into the big show.
The company has shown a more enlightened view towards female fighters (and female athletes in general) that other sports should look to emulate. You’d be hard-pressed to find another major sport that actively integrates women into the fold, let alone one that would give a female athlete top-billing.
However, no amount of altruism can overshadow the fact that there’s money to be made by having a women’s division. But by the UFC saying that female fighters are just as marketable as male fighters, the promotion is basically leading the way for gender equality in major sports.
Rather than separating the sexes by relegating women to an entirely different entity, like the NBA does with the WNBA, the UFC has proven that a synergy between the genders has to occur in order to raise the popularity of female athletes. Women could certainly carry a promotion on their own, like Invicta FC, for example, but in order for female fighters to gain mainstream acceptance, they have to be cross-promoted with male fighters.
What’s brilliant about the UFC’s strategy is that, along with cross-promotion, the company is also immediately putting the women’s division to the test by having Rousey versus Carmouche headline a major pay-per-view event as the inaugural women’s UFC bout. This move will instantly garner the division a ton of interest and could possibly help to win over fans skeptical of WMMA.
The UFC’s integration of new divisions, such as the lighter weight classes, hasn’t always gone smoothly, mostly due to marketing failures.
When the promotion announced the addition of the bantamweight and featherweight divisions during the UFC-WEC merger, there was very little marketing done to hype the new additions. While the likes of Jose Aldo and Dominick Cruz gained some attention as their WEC titles transformed into UFC gold, the rest of the division received little hype.
Quietly, the new weight classes made their debuts as part of the non-televised preliminary card at The Ultimate Fighter 12 finale back in December 2010. If it wasn’t for a botched decision during a main card bout later that night between Leonard Garcia and Nam Phan (the second featherweight fight in UFC history), the new weight classes probably wouldn’t have received more than just a passing mention by MMA pundits.
Even with the addition of the flyweight division during this year’s four-man tournament, the UFC still hasn’t done that great of a job of hyping its lighter weight classes.
Luckily, the UFC has learned from its past mistakes.
The promotion is putting Rousey and the women’s division at the forefront of fans minds through constant exposure. When these two women enter the Octagon for their pay-per-view-headlining fight at UFC 157 next year, rest assured that the UFC will go hard on marketing.
Not only is the UFC leading the way for female fighters, but it’s also helping the entire sports world take a step forward by showing them that women and men can harmoniously compete under the same banner.
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Word came down Thursday afternoon that UFC welterweight champion Georges St-Pierre has asked for Nick Diaz as his next opponent, and, according to a tweet from journalist Ariel Helwani, UFC President Dana White is inclined to make it happen. (White sub…
Word came down Thursday afternoon that UFC welterweight champion Georges St-Pierre has asked for Nick Diaz as his next opponent, and, according to a tweet from journalist Ariel Helwani, UFC President Dana White is inclined to make it happen. (White subsequently confirmed the matchup to Bleacher Report.)
Will it sell? Sure will. Plenty of hype? The TV will need Ritalin. But in the end, this fight is all sizzle and no steak. Window dressing over a blank wall. And it’s the wrong decision by the UFC brain trust.
Forget all that talk about a superfight with Anderson Silva. That long-rumored, on-again, off-again matchup is tired, moldy and apparently unworkable. As far as I’m concerned, that one’s cold and in the ground where it belongs.
But there are plenty of other reasons why Diaz-GSP, if that is indeed the fight that gets made, is a matchmaking snafu.
First, Johny Hendricks (14-1) is on a five-fight UFC win streak. His last three victims overall: Jon Fitch (KO), Josh Koscheck (unanimous decision), Martin Kampmann (KO). Top contenders all. What’s more, the charismatic, good-natured man with the bowling balls for fists flattened Fitch and Kampmann in an average of 29 seconds.
But apparently, Dana White and Co. didn’t feel he was in a position to demand a title shot. So they gave it instead to Diaz, who is coming off a 12-month drug suspension and in his last fight lost an interim title bout to Carlos Condit (whom St-Pierre just soundly defeated).
When Helwani’s tweet reached him, Hendricks, predictably, was apoplectic.
I don’t really know what to say but please @danawhite give me a shot @georgesstpierre if u want a fight I will give him anything he can take
— Johny Hendricks (@JohnyHendricks) December 6, 2012
I can’t help but wonder what happened here. Do they truly believe Hendricks hasn’t done enough to earn a title shot?
Did White’s notorious temper and vindictiveness rear up again after Hendricks said five days ago that he wouldn’t fight again unless it was for the belt? Was this just White putting on his daddy pants to essentially force Hendricks to fight again before getting a title shot, and in the process show another fighter—needlessly—who the boss is?
The matchup, if it happens, also sends a fairly inconsistent message. Ever since defeating Kampmann, Hendricks has been quite vocal about wanting to face GSP. Doesn’t White welcome a willing challenger? One willing to step up anytime, anywhere, and all that Dana poetry? Isn’t that one of the things that riled him so much about the UFC 151 debacle?
And this is to say nothing of the actual fight. Hendricks has both the one-punch power and the strong college wrestling base to threaten a stoppage anytime and handle GSP’s takedowns and mat control, respectively.
Diaz, great fighter that he is, does not appear to have the physical or wrestling tools to get out of a bad ground position once St-Pierre puts him in it.
No, it’s not a good decision by the UFC. It’s not a good fight. And it’s not the right thing to do. Will I buy the pay-per-view? Of course. But it also may further erode the public’s faith in the UFC and the integrity of its decision making.
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