UFC on Fox 3 is stacked up to be an exciting event which will determine the title shot standings for several of the rising stars in mixed martial arts today.The outcome of this event will most likely rank Diaz or Miller as next in line for a title shot…
UFC on Fox 3 is stacked up to be an exciting event which will determine the title shot standings for several of the rising stars in mixed martial arts today.
The outcome of this event will most likely rank Diaz or Miller as next in line for a title shot after Henderson and Edgar duke it out one more time for the lightweight championship belt.
May 5 may also solidify Josh Koscheck’s second chance at welterweight gold or give Johny Hendricks his first shot at the title once Condit and St. Pierre unify the welterweight belt at an unknown time.
I’m also looking forward to watching Rousimar Palahares try to enforce his brutal submission game on the Muay Thai talents of Alan Belcher. The winner of this fight could find themselves fighting for the number-one contender’s spot if they can bring home a W after this event.
It is without a doubt the purpose of this card to bring mainstream attention and glory to the next possible champions for the lightweight, welterweight and middleweight division. Here are my predictions about which fighters will be garnering all that fame.
People love to hate things. They might not admit it, but as a wise man once said, “Hating something always feels better than feeling nothing at all,” which is why you get people hating on or complaining about things that they’ll profe…
People love to hate things. They might not admit it, but as a wise man once said, “Hating something always feels better than feeling nothing at all,” which is why you get people hating on or complaining about things that they’ll profess to enjoy overall.
For all the praise the sport receives from diehards and the excitement it produces, there’s an astounding amount of negativity as well. Some of it is warranted, some of it isn’t. Most all of it is extreme.
It’s pretty routine to see Dana White’s Twitter absolutely cluttered with fans of his organization complaining to, or outright accosting, him about happenings in the sport. Ignorant to the fact that the president of a multimillion dollar organization doesn’t owe them a personal explanation or even a comment, they’ll actively troll him until he says something nasty in response. Then they’ll attack him for that.
That’s only one example, though. It’s not that long ago that MMA was on life support entirely, kept alive by exchanges and Internet forums. At that time, no one could have ever foreseen pay-per-views every month—sometimes twice a month—or on network television a half-dozen times a year.
A weekly reality show? Out of the question.
Fights all over the world, sometimes accompanied by thousands of fans flocking to an accompanying Fan Expo? Even crazier.
But those things are here.
The UFC recently went seven weeks between pay-per-views, and people complained aggressively. There was a time when seven months was customary. Let’s all relax here.
It raises the question of just how ungrateful fans of the sport have become. Sure, sports fans in general are far more likely to point out the foibles of their favourite club than bask in a winning streak, but MMA fans are in a different position.
Fans pay for the bigger fights, and that probably gives them a right to be vocal to a degree. Not to excess, though. Just because you paid $50 for something doesn’t mean you should go on Twitter and tell the head of the company how much it sucked after the fact. There’s never a guarantee that you’re buying something incredible when you buy something with as many variables as MMA.
Even so, UFC events deliver more often than they don’t. As White is so prone to respond, if you don’t like it, don’t buy it. It speaks volumes that the man would rather not have these people as fans than have to put up with silly complaints.
There’s also the reality that, with so many free fights happening now, with all PPV preliminary bouts being shown at no charge in one way or another and with the long-running TUF program on regularly (which gets a stunning amount of hate in its own right), the average MMA fan is getting his $50 worth per month even if the event he pays for doesn’t seem worth it on its own.
It’s not that it’s unreasonable for fans to be critical or to ask for the best possible product every time out. But it is unreasonable to act as though it’s an entitlement, that just because one considers themselves a fan that they should never have to suffer through a card that doesn’t live up to hype or some names getting shuffled around due to injury or whatever else.
It isn’t fair to call them the most ungrateful fans in sports, because all fans have a hint of ungratefulness to them. But it is fair to suggest that MMA fans aren’t always ungrateful for the right reasons, and the sport as a whole would be better served if that attitude became a thing of the past.
Although most of the MMA community is well aware of Alistair Overeem’s suspension, one man who has been out of the loop is Dana White. The UFC president first found out about the Nevada State Athletic Commission’s ruling while speaking to Jim…
Although most of the MMA community is well aware of Alistair Overeem’s suspension, one man who has been out of the loop is Dana White. The UFC president first found out about the Nevada State Athletic Commission’s ruling while speaking to Jim Rome.
Obviously, White wasn’t too optimistic about Overeem’s chances and chose to take the No. 1 contender out of his scheduled title match before an official ruling came down. Although White was surprised by the commission’s ruling.
“Nine months? Nine months isn’t as bad as I thought it would be. I thought he would get a year easily,” White said. (JimRome.com)
Rome presented Overeem’s defense to White, and the UFC president gave his initial thoughts on the matter of anti-inflammatory medicine causing the elevated testosterone levels.
Here’s the rules. If that’s the case, if he was on anti-inflammatories meds, whatever the deal was, you’re supposed to disclose that to the commission before the test whatever you’re taking. You’re supposed to disclose that to the commission before the test not after the test. (JimRome.com)
As one can tell by listening to the ongoing comments from White about the Overeem saga, the UFC President has been a bit rattled by the drug test failure. Perhaps White feels slighted on a personal level, as he shared an interesting conversation he and Overeem had prior to the failed test.
Before he went in there he sat down to lunch with me and my partner looked us in the face and said ‘I’m the most tested athlete in all of sports they can test me whenever they want to.” Well he flew in for the press conference, they tested him and now he’s on a 9 month suspension.(JimRome.com)
When presented with the question of whether or not he feels the heavyweight contender lied to him, White was quick to answer with a resounding “I know he lied to me.”(JimRome.com)
White has been very vague in discussing whether Overeem will have a future with the UFC once his suspension is over, but he did perhaps show his hand a bit by indirectly saying Overeem isn’t a guy with whom he wants to do business.
You know you sit down and you have these guys that you do business with and you say let’s sit down, be honest with me and let’s figure out how we can work together. And then they sit there and lie to your face. I don’t know. Not the kind of guys I want to do business with.(JimRome.com)
Stay tuned to BleacherReport.com for all the news regarding Overeem, White and the upcoming UFC 146 PPV.
Look, I know we’re reaching the point of over-saturation on this Alistair Overeem story. But the truth is, just when I’m ready to put it to bed and look forward to awesome things—like UFC 146, the biggest UFC card in history—somet…
Look, I know we’re reaching the point of over-saturation on this Alistair Overeem story. But the truth is, just when I’m ready to put it to bed and look forward to awesome things—like UFC 146, the biggest UFC card in history—something else happens to bring it right back to the forefront of the news cycle.
Today’s most relevant piece of news comes to you courtesy of Dana White, who appeared on Jim Rome’s nationally syndicated radio show this morning to discuss the Alistair Overeem situation. Rome asked White for his thoughts on the nine-month suspension handed down yesterday by the Nevada State Athletic Commission.
White confessed that it was the first time he was hearing the news due to a busy travel schedule. He said:
Yeah, it’s the first I’ve heard of that. I knew he was going before the commission, but I didn’t know what happened. I wasn’t optimistic about his chances. I didn’t think things were going to turn out very well for him. It’s just as I expected. Nine months? Nine months isn’t as bad as I thought it was going to be. I thought he would get a year. Easily a year.
White also said he’s unsure what Overeem’s future holds with the UFC, telling Rome:
We’ll see what happens. We’ll see what happens, man. He went before the commission. They gave him nine months. I’m sure he’s going to have to go in and test again. Before he went in there, he sat down to lunch with me and my partner. He said, “I’m the most tested athlete in all of sports. They can test me whenever they want.” Well, he flew in for the press conference, they tested him, and now he’s suspended for nine months.
Rome asked if White felt Overeem was lying to him.
“I do, yeah. I know he lied to me,” White said.
Do I think White will end up cutting Overeem from the UFC? No, I don’t.
I think Alistair will be back in the cage just in time for the big year-end show in December, just like the Nevada commission begged him to do yesterday.
But Overeem should understand that White is not happy with him, and most folks don’t get a second chance to anger the boss.
(We know Liddell has been training hard with other top talent, but a comeback probably wouldn’t be prudent)
It would be easy to call Chuck Liddell nuts for thinking he has a chance at beating current light heavyweight king Jon Jones at this point in his life, as he implies in a recent interview with Fuel TV (video after the jump). Simply going by “MMA math” alone, the former 205-pound ruler finished his career losing five out his last six fights, and three of those losses came against guys (Shogun, Rashad and Rampage) who were easily handled by Bones in subsequent matches.
“The only thing that would make me even think about coming back is if they gave me a shot at the title,” Liddell told Ariel Helwani. “So, we’ll see.” Well, hopefully we won’t see. You don’t have to be a neurologist to understand that a comeback fight against the world’s top-ranked light-heavyweight would put Chuck’s long-suffering brain in grave danger.
That said, we won’t mock retired fighters for retaining some of the same qualities that we loved about them when they were active. Over the course of Liddell’s 12-year career, the former college wrestler probably faced only three guys that he would not have been able to out-wrestle and win in safe, if boring fashion. Yet, the Iceman had so much guts, bravado, and love for the battle itself that he instead chose to slug it out almost all of the time. As a result, MMA fans got to witness some of the most exciting knockouts in the sport’s history — first with Liddell on the winning end, and then with him in the more painful role of victim.
(We know Liddell has been training hard with other top talent, but a comeback probably wouldn’t be prudent)
It would be easy to call Chuck Liddell nuts for thinking he has a chance at beating current light heavyweight king Jon Jones at this point in his life, as he implies in a recent interview with Fuel TV (video after the jump). Simply going by “MMA math” alone, the former 205-pound ruler finished his career losing five out his last six fights, and three of those losses came against guys (Shogun, Rashad and Rampage) who were easily handled by Bones in subsequent matches.
“The only thing that would make me even think about coming back is if they gave me a shot at the title,” Liddell told Ariel Helwani. “So, we’ll see.” Well, hopefully we won’t see. You don’t have to be a neurologist to understand that a comeback fight against the world’s top-ranked light-heavyweight would put Chuck’s long-suffering brain in grave danger.
That said, we won’t mock retired fighters for retaining some of the same qualities that we loved about them when they were active. Over the course of Liddell’s 12-year career, the former college wrestler probably faced only three guys that he would not have been able to out-wrestle and win in safe, if boring fashion. Yet, the Iceman had so much guts, bravado, and love for the battle itself that he instead chose to slug it out almost all of the time. As a result, MMA fans got to witness some of the most exciting knockouts in the sport’s history — first with Liddell on the winning end, and then with him in the more painful role of victim.
So yeah, Chuck loved to fight and had the confidence necessary to make him a champion. We can’t expect that he would lose that desire or hubris just because his friend and boss Dana White forced him to retire two years ago.
Once a warrior, always a warrior.
But with that said, no. Dana White, please continue to do whatever it takes to keep Chuck Liddell out of the cage now, especially against the likes of Jones. The world loves Liddell too much to see his lights turned out again. Pay him whatever it takes to remain an integral member of your executive team at Zuffa and maybe consider banning any media member who asks him about coming back. The guy deserves a cushy, well-paid do-nothing gig. Hell, we wish more former fighters had those types of opportunities.
Check out Liddell’s interview below. You have to give him credit for being very honest and open about where he’s at physically. “I have two problems,” Chuck said. “I probably can’t take a punch like I used to and I didn’t want to change my style. I mean, I could. I could start wrestling and try to control it and take less chances. But then I could still get hit hard…I wanted to go out fighting the way I like to fight — exciting and fun.”
As reported on MMAWeekly.com this morning, Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira and Cheick Kongo have been added to the UFC 149 fight card that will take place in Calgary on July 21.The Calgary Sun cited anonymous sources in announcing the news, but the fight was …
As reported on MMAWeekly.com this morning, Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira and Cheick Kongo have been added to the UFC 149 fight card that will take place in Calgary on July 21.
The Calgary Sun cited anonymous sources in announcing the news, but the fight was verified via the UFC Canada Official Twitter feed. The announcement came on the same day that UFC President Dana White hinted that Brazilian featherweight Champion Jose Aldo would most likely be pulled form that same card.
Aldo was originally announced as the headliner for the debut Calgary event with a challenger to be named later. The UFC announced via press conference yesterday that the Silva-Sonnen rematch that was tentatively set for UFC 147 in Brazil will now take place at UFC 148 in Las Vegas. This move leaves a big hole on the Brazil card, and many feel it will be filled by Aldo.
Nogueira (33-7-1) is currently recovering from a broken humorous he suffered after refusing to tap to a kimura lock in his last fight with Frank Mir at UFC 140 in December of 2011. Nogueira has had a tough time in the UFC with a 4-3 record.
Kongo (17-7-2) is also coming off a loss via TKO to Mark Hunt at UFC 144 in Japan.
If the Aldo fight is indeed moved off the Calgary card, the Canadian fans could be in for a very nice replacement as White has already mentioned that Jon Jones vs. Dan Henderson is the leading candidate to fill that slot.
UFC 149 Fight card To Date: (Subject to Change)
Thiago Alves vs Yoshihiro Akiyama – welterweight
George Roop vs *Antonio Carvalho – featherweight
*Nick Ring vs Court McGee – middleweight
Bryan Caraway vs *Mitch Gagnon – featherweight
*Mitch Clarke vs Anton Kuivanen – lightweight
Cheick Kongo vs Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira
* Canadian Fighter
Dwight Wakabayashi is a Featured Columnist for Bleacher Report MMA, MMA Editor at CKSN.ca and guest blogger for Sportsnet.ca.
People love to hate things. They might not admit it, but as 