The UFC is more stacked than it’s ever been.With the emergence of Jon Jones, Frankie Edgar and Dominick Cruz as perennial champions, a lot of fighters are being overlooked heading into 2012.But along with the UFC’s dynamic capitalization of the WEC’s B…
The UFC is more stacked than it’s ever been.
With the emergence of Jon Jones, Frankie Edgar and Dominick Cruz as perennial champions, a lot of fighters are being overlooked heading into 2012.
But along with the UFC’s dynamic capitalization of the WEC’s Bantamweight and Featherweight divisions, the sheer evolution of the modern day mixed martial artist has given fans and experts the privilege in witnessing top-notch bouts on an event-to-event basis.
With that said, beyond the explosive knockouts, come-from-behind victories, unprecedented upsets and toe-to-toe battles of 2011, it’s time to reign in the new year.
Wily veterans, top prospects and near-contenders are continuously fighting for their chances to revenge a championships loss, or spark a new era of excellence in their respective divisions.
Here are 15 fighters who have the opportunities to shock the UFC community and capture 2012 gold.
The UFC agreed a landmark deal with Fox on August 18th, 2011. They will get to show four events for free every year. The deal is looking to bring a lot of new fans to the UFC.As a kind of preview for the deal, the UFC put on UFC on Fox 1. The fight’s h…
The UFC agreed a landmark deal with Fox on August 18th, 2011. They will get to show four events for free every year. The deal is looking to bring a lot of new fans to the UFC.
As a kind of preview for the deal, the UFC put on UFC on Fox 1. The fight’s headline was Cain Velasquez facing Junior Dos Santos for the heavyweight title. The fight would only last just over a minute.
Just one week later, UFC 139 would take place and the main event—Shogun vs. Henderson—was viewed by many as the best fight ever! Many people asked Dana whether he regretted not putting this fight on Fox.
Dana stated that he was happy as it would have led to complaints, and that they needed to ease fans into UFC. This suggests Dana will keep certain fighters off the Fox channel for while. This slideshow will look at the fighters I don’t expect to see on Fox.
Anyone who saw the main event of “The Ultimate Fighter Finale” seems to agree that it was the worse performance of Jason “Mayhem” Miller’s career. UFC President Dana White was certainly among those disappointed with the way Miller looked in the Oc…
Anyone who saw the main event of “The Ultimate Fighter Finale” seems to agree that it was the worse performance of Jason “Mayhem” Miller’s career.
UFC President Dana White was certainly among those disappointed with the way Miller looked in the Octagon.
“It’s one of the most lopsided fights I’ve ever seen,” White told Heavy MMA‘s Megan Olivi after the event (transcription by MMA Mania).
Apparently, White did not even think that Mayhem won the first round, despite scoring a takedown and maintaining top position for a couple minutes.
“It’s one of the most lopsided fights I’ve ever seen. I’m disagreeing with people. I didn’t give ‘Mayhem’ Miller the first round. He had a quarter of a mount and didn’t do a thing and actually, Bisping was landing punches. I think Bisping landed more shots, did more damage,” White said.
“I go for damage and I think Bisping did more damage in the first round than Mayhem did,” he explained.
White then stated point blank that he is not sure if Miller deserves another fight in the UFC.
“I don’t know (if we’ll see Mayhem back in the UFC). We’ll see. He didn’t have a good performance against Georges St-Pierre and he definitely didn’t have a good performance against Michael Bisping,” White said.
Miller is just 1-3 under the Zuffa banner, with losses to Bisping and St-Pierre in the UFC, as well as being defeated in a Strikeforce middleweight title bout against Jake Shields in November of 2009.
Mayhem’s sole Zuffa win came when he scored a first round TKO over Tim Stout in April of last year. The fight was under the Strikeforce banner.
Once again, Jason “Mayhem” Miller got another chance to prove his worth in the UFC, and once again he failed to deliver. The big question now is what will Miller’s future hold for him in the UFC.Or to get even more specific: Will Miller have a future w…
Once again, Jason “Mayhem” Miller got another chance to prove his worth in the UFC, and once again he failed to deliver. The big question now is what will Miller’s future hold for him in the UFC.
Or to get even more specific: Will Miller have a future with the UFC?
In a post-fight interview with Heavy.com, UFC president Dana White stated, “I don’t know. We’ll see.” when asked if we would see Miller inside the Octagon again. White also stated that Miller’s loss to Michael Bisping was “one of the most lopsided fights I’ve ever seen”
For those of you who don’t remember, Miller made his Octagon debut at UFC 52 in 2005 against current UFC welterweight champion Georges St-Pierre. In that fight, Miller was handled by St-Pierre both standing and on the ground en route to losing a unanimous decision.
After the bout against St-Pierre, Miller went on to have success in various promotions including Icon Sport and DREAM. In his most recent bout before his fight Saturday night against Michael Bisping, Miller handily submitted a past-his-prime Kazushi Sakuraba in just over two minutes at DREAM 16.
Fast forward 15 months and Miller was given the opportunity to redeem himself inside the Octagon against Bisping. Many people believe that Miller won the first round, but then Miller completely gassed out. Until the referee finally stopped the beating in the third round, Miller did nothing but become a glorified punching bag for Bisping, and sprinkled in a takedown attempt here and there.
While Miller has a cult-like following and can draw in lots of fans, his recent performances have left much to be desired. When it comes to entertaining the fans, there aren’t many fighters out there who can do it better than Miller, but his in-cage performances have not been so good as of late.
Combine that with the fact that White isn’t sure about Mayhem’s future in the UFC and you shouldn’t be surprised if Miller’s second go in the UFC is just as short as his first.
At the Ultimate Fighter 14 season finale, coaches Michael Bisping and Jason Miller faced off in what was expected to be a close fight, but cardio issues caused Miller to slow down and Bisping was able to attack and get the TKO win.After the fight, Mill…
At the Ultimate Fighter 14 season finale, coaches Michael Bisping and Jason Miller faced off in what was expected to be a close fight, but cardio issues caused Miller to slow down and Bisping was able to attack and get the TKO win.
After the fight, Miller said that he is ready to put on a show and Dana White was interviewed and said that he didn’t know if Miller would be back.
What should be next for Miller?
He is a money-maker. He has a cult following, and people love him. A fight with Wanderlei Silva would be a great fight for not only Miller, but the fans as well.
Both men kind of train together when Wanderlei heads out to California to train with King’s MMA, but it doesn’t appear that there would be an issue between the two and that it would be a respectful fight. Both men are BJJ Black belts and are exciting to watch.
Silva is coming off of his win against Cung Le at UFC 139, but lost his previous fight to Chris Leben by KO. Miller, coming off of a loss to Bisping, has solidified his status in the middle of the division, and while Wanderlei has the bigger name based off of accomplishments, they are both at about the same position in the division and would make for a perfect showdown.
Both Silva and Miller’s futures are unknown with the organization. The UFC wants Silva to retire, and with his performance at UFC 139, that would not have been a bad fight to go out on, but with the new addition of Miller to the company and with the questions, this fight has so many positives about it.
Yes, it would be bad to be the loser in this fight, but all both men need to stay part of the organization is an exciting fight.
While there is a chance that this fight will not happen, there are a few fights for Miller that could happen. He could face guys like Nick Ring, Tom Lawlor, Steve Cantwell, Dongi Yang, etc.
There is no telling what to expect the UFC to do regarding Miller, but at the end of the day he is a wonderful talent who had an off night. Wanderlei Silva vs Jason Miller in 2012? Sure hope so!
At UFC 136, the UFC welcomed back Chael Sonnen, who had been suspended for a year and had his share of legal issues. With all of that behind him, he defeated Brian Stann in the second round by arm triangle choke, afterward calling out the champion Ande…
At UFC 136, the UFC welcomed back Chael Sonnen, who had been suspended for a year and had his share of legal issues. With all of that behind him, he defeated Brian Stann in the second round by arm triangle choke, afterward calling out the champion Anderson Silva.
It was then assumed that Sonnen was the No. 1 contender, and after a weird phase of Anderson’s representatives saying Sonnen didn’t deserve the fight, the UFC announced that Chael was indeed the No. 1 contender. Soon after, Silva ended up injured and out until June.
When that was announced, Sonnen had already said multiple times that he wanted to stay active, and that if someone could beat him, then they deserved the title shot. The UFC soon announced that Sonnen would be facing Mark Munoz at UFC on FOX 2, after Munoz did an interview discussing how they had wrestled each other in the past. At the World MMA Awards, Sonnen stated in an interview that he was not facing Munoz, and without actually saying it, he implied that he would be facing the winner of Michael Bisping vs. Jason Miller in The Ultimate Fighter finale.
Years ago, Sonnen defeated Miller by decision, but neither man is truly the same fighter that they were in that fight, and Sonnen has been wanting a fight with Bisping for a while now.
If Michael Bisping were to win and go on to face Chael Sonnen, this match up would be very bad for him. Bisping does have wrestling, and has decent stand-up, more technique than power. The problem is that Chael has some of the best wrestling in MMA, and his striking is very underrated, and always plays a big role in him setting up his take downs.
Bisping is good at picking his opponents apart, but when the pressure is put on him, it appears that he becomes overwhelmed, ex. vs. Dan Henderson, and vs. Wanderlei Silva. Chael always puts the pressure on and never backs off. This would be a fight where Chael would utilize his striking, and do what he does best and utilize his wrestling and ground and pound handing Bisping a loss.
Many people try to discredit the striking of Sonnen, when in fact he got the best of Silva on the feet when they fought, and before he went to college years ago, he wanted to give up wrestling to focus only on boxing. Him sticking to wrestling was a very wise choice.
If Sonnen were to rematch Miller, this would be the tougher of the two fights. Miller is an excellent grappler, and also has much improved stand up. The problem that Miller has had over the years is that he has always struggled against grapplers that were just a little bit better than him. Sonnen’s wrestling, and his dominate top control would be the difference maker in this fight. Miller would have to land a sub off of his back if he is going to win this fight. Sonnen has had his trouble’s with elite grapplers in his past. People hate on Sonnen for his submission defense, but if you go and see who exactly the losses were too, then odds are the hate would go down just a little bit on that topic.
It would be totally unfair to say that Chael would 100 percent defeat both men, because this is MMA and anything can happen, but when it comes down to it, the Sonnen vs Silva rematch is a must and Chael will do whatever it takes to get that fight.
When Sonnen’s father was on his death bed, he promised him that he would be champion, and defeating one of these two men will put him one step closer to his promise.
Anyone who saw the main event of “The Ultimate Fighter Finale” seems to agree that it was the worse performance of Jason “Mayhem” Miller’s career.