After defeating Matt Hamil at UFC 130, UFC president Dana White announced that Quinton “Rampage” Jackson would likely be the next contender to face UFC light heavyweight champion, Jon Jones.But Jackson revealed he went into his bout with a fractured ha…
After defeating Matt Hamil at UFC 130, UFC president Dana White announced that Quinton “Rampage” Jackson would likely be the next contender to face UFC light heavyweight champion, Jon Jones.
But Jackson revealed he went into his bout with a fractured hand—an injury that could prevent him from competing for a title shot if he is not medically cleared.
Jackson elaborated on the injury during the UFC 130 post-fight press conference.
“Honestly, I hurt my hand in Japan back in December/Christmas, drunken around, fighting with my friend in the hallway. I thought it would heal up,” Jackson explained to reporters.
While the win wasn’t the most entertaining performance of Jackson’s career, it was enough to elevate himself into the title picture.
White said that should Jackson’s injury not prevent him from competing, he will be in line for a title bout with Jones.
But Jackson confidently stated he will be able to compete against Jones and accepted the bout.
Jones is currently out of action nursing an injury that has prevented him from training, but if both fighters heal properly and all goes according to plan, Jackson and Jones could be scheduled for a title bout in September or October.
Jackson, who previously held light heavyweight gold, relinquished the title over to Forrest Griffin at UFC 86—a controversial bout that some fans believe Jackson won. While he holds nothing against Jones, the fact that he has the belt has motivated Jackson to beat the 23-year-old and reclaim the belt that he feels he never lost.
“I still feel like I didn’t lose that belt, ” Jackson said.
“I don’t really know Jones, I don’t got nothing against him. He has my belt.”
According to MMAJunkie.com, Brock Lesnar underwent successful surgery to repair his second bout with diverticulitis. It is expected for the former UFC heavyweight champion to make a return in early 2012. UFC president Dana White said that Lesnar h…
According to MMAJunkie.com, Brock Lesnar underwent successful surgery to repair his second bout with diverticulitis. It is expected for the former UFC heavyweight champion to make a return in early 2012.
UFC president Dana White said that Lesnar had 12 inches of his colon removed during the surgery, and will have to recover for the rest of the year. White said he expects Lesnar to make his return next year.
“He said he’s a little sore, but the operation was a huge success,” White said during the UFC 130 telecast.
White added that Lesnar visited the Mayo Clinic last Thursday to go over some options for his recovery.
“He’s going to make some decisions as to what he’s going to do, but he’s in a good place right now,”
Lesnar was originally scheduled to face Junior dos Santos in the main event at UFC 131, after their coaching stint on The Ultimate Fighter, but was struck with the illness for a second time in his career.
Lesnar first contracted diverticulitis in 2009 during a hunting trip in Canada.
Lesnar made some changes to his diet and overall lifestyle in order to prevent from contracting the illness again, and returned to the UFC the following year.
But after complaining about suffering from symptoms, while preparing for his bout against dos Santos, Lesnar was diagnosed with the illness, once again, and was forced to withdraw from his bout.
Following his uninspiring performance against Frank Mir at UFC 130, Roy Nelson is expected to meet with UFC president Dana White later this week to discuss his future in the UFC. The one-sided loss to Mir has now put Nelson at 2-2 inside the Octag…
Following his uninspiring performance against Frank Mir at UFC 130, Roy Nelson is expected to meet with UFC president Dana White later this week to discuss his future in the UFC.
The one-sided loss to Mir has now put Nelson at 2-2 inside the Octagon, but it had not stopped “Big Country” from being any less cheerful than he was prior to his defeat, keeping the reporters who were present at the post-fight press conference entertained.
However, his boss seems to think otherwise about the mullet-wearing, rotund heavyweight.
“I thought it was terrible. I thought it was embarrassing.”
The former IFL heavyweight champion seemed to be on a roll upon his entrance into the UFC after earning a victory over Brendan Schaub to become The Ultimate Fighter Season 12 winner. He followed that up with another knockout win, this time over heavyweight prospect Stefan Struve.
But his recent string of losses has some critics questioning his credibility in the heavyweight division. And now, after showing obvious signs of fatigue in his bout with Mir, the idea of shedding some weight has now become an issue as well.
But Nelson doesn’t see his unorthodox size as an issue.
“I’ve just got to get bigger, stronger, faster—I think that’s really the only thing,” Nelson said.
“I just got outwrestled because my mindset was a little bit different. Mine was just ‘hit Frank in his face more than he hit me.’ I just got outwrestled.”
While some fans have requested for Nelson to possibly drop down to 205 lbs, White suggested he would rather see Nelson remain at heavyweight but weigh in much smaller than 260 lbs.
However, Nelson’s performance has resulted in a meeting with White, and whatever is decided for Nelson and his future in the UFC will likely not come without some criticism from the boss himself.
“I’m not happy about the performance from either [Nelson or Mir],” White said.
“When you’re the co-main or the main event, you’ve got to go out there and perform and look good. When you don’t, you’re going to hear my opinion about it—and the fans and the media, I’m sure.”
UFC 130 has just passed us by, and not everyone is happy with how the night went, UFC president Dana White included.Many fans were unimpressed with both the co-main event and the main event of the evening, finding them to be boring.White agreed with th…
UFC 130 has just passed us by, and not everyone is happy with how the night went, UFC president Dana White included.
Many fans were unimpressed with both the co-main event and the main event of the evening, finding them to be boring.
White agreed with this sentiment, particularly in reference to the co-main event of the evening, Frank Mir vs. Roy Nelson.
White remarked that he was unimpressed with both fighters, calling it “an ugly heavyweight fight” and “borderline embarrassing.”
Criticism of Roy Nelson’s performance is understandable. He looked gassed after the first round, and by the end of the fight he was completely exhausted. It was the worst he’s looked so far in the UFC, and maybe the worst he has looked in his whole career.
However, the criticism of Mir’s performance is unwarranted. He won the fight decisively. Mir’s wrestling looked as good as it has ever looked inside the Octagon. Frank might not have been able to finish Nelson, but he landed a bunch of big shots throughout the fight, and anyone who saw Roy’s fight with Junior Dos Santos knows he is a hard man to finish.
White has been a part of MMA for a long time now. Dana knows that Mir had a pretty good showing last night. The reason White is criticizing Mir is because the casual fans didn’t like the fight; Dana is siding with the fans.
This is not the first time this has happened.
White is often critical of fighters who fail to please the fans.
It has been evident for quite some time that White is not a big fan of Jon Fitch, Fitch being a fighter who regularly fails to finish fights.
Here are a couple quotes from White, following Fitch’s fight with B.J. Penn:
“Fitch is one of these guys that goes, ‘Oh, I want my respect,'” White said. “He just fought a 155-pound guy and went to a draw with him, and in my opinion, he lost the first two rounds—and he’s crying for a title shot?”
“You’ve got to get in there and decisively beat people. You have to have fans clamoring for you to fight for the title.”
First off, White calling B.J. Penn a 155-pound guy is disrespectful because B.J. was a champ at welterweight before he was a champ at lightweight. Dana was clearly trying to make B.J. seem like a less threatening fighter than he actually is in an effort to make Fitch’s performance seem less impressive.
Also, Fitch “crying” for a title shot was understandable because he was promised one if he beat Thiago Alves at UFC 117, which he did decisively.
Having fans clamoring for you to get a title shot is clearly a criteria that White is only applying to Fitch. How many fans were clamoring for people like Patrick Cote, Thales Leites, Brock Lesnar, Frankie Edgar or Dan Hardy to get title shots? I could drop more names, but I think the point is made.
White will turn on fighters at the drop of a hat, if the fans don’t like them.
Mir has been with the UFC for a decade. He has fought for the company 18 times and has been in a bunch of exciting fights.
After all that Mir has done for the UFC, you’d think he could count on White to have his back, but this is not the case.
Mir’s past two fights have been poorly received by the fans and, despite the fact that in both those fights the lack of excitement was more due to Mir’s opponents, White is already talking down about him.
MMA is still a young sport and so casual fans have trouble appreciating it’s subtleties.
Rather than obviously pandering to the fans by echoing their thoughts, White should be supporting his fighters and focusing on the positive aspects of their performances.
The casual fans are never going to be able to open their minds to all aspects of MMA if they keep seeing the President of the UFC parroting their close-mindedness.
At UFC 130, Kendall “Da Spyder” Grove took on middleweight newcomer Tim “The Barbarian” Boetsch in a preliminary fight aired on Spike TV. After being out-grappled and controlled by Boetsch almost the entire fight, Grove—th…
At UFC 130, Kendall “Da Spyder” Grove took on middleweight newcomer Tim “The Barbarian” Boetsch in a preliminary fight aired on Spike TV. After being out-grappled and controlled by Boetsch almost the entire fight, Grove—the winner of season three of The Ultimate Fighter—lost the fight by lopsided unanimous decision, with all three judges scoring the fight 30-27 for his opponent.
The disappointing performance by Grove came on the heels of his uninspiring, unanimous decision loss to Demian Maia at The Ultimate Fighter 12 Finale, and in the UFC, two losses in a row is sometimes enough to give you your walking papers. By that accord, no one should be surprised if Grove is cut from the UFC this week.
But should he be cut? If one looks at his mediocre 7-6 record inside the Octagon, then one might lean towards yes. After all, the UFC is all about housing the very best mixed martial artists in the world, and for a guy who has lost four of his last six fights, there probably isn’t room, even in a relatively shallow middleweight division and even if that fighter once won The Ultimate Fighter.
The UFC, by all their rights, should purge Grove from their active middleweight roster. But Zuffa, the parent company of the UFC, should not let him get away so quickly. Instead, they should make Grove the first UFC fighter to directly crossover to Strikeforce.
When the UFC purchased Strikeforce, Dana White was adamant that there would be no super-fights featuring the best Strikeforce fighters coming over to the UFC while they still had contracts with Showtime.
This shut off all possibilities of superstar Strikeforce champions like Alistair Overeem, Dan Henderson, Ronaldo “Jacare” Souza, Nick Diaz and Gilbert Melendez coming over to the big show, at least for the time being. Of course, once the Strikeforce fighter’s contracts were up with Showtime they were free to cross over, and Jason “Mayhem” Miller became the first one to do so, signing with the UFC just over a month ago.
But at the same time he said this, White also made it known that he wasn’t adverse to doing things the other way, with UFC fighters going to Strikeforce instead. An opportunity has presented itself for Grove to be the torchbearer of this.
Strikeforce, at present, has a relatively shallow middleweight division, especially with losing the personable and marketable Miller. Aside from middleweight kingpin Souza, the heavy-handed Robbie Lawler, American hero Tim Kennedy and the fighter-turned-actor Cung Le, there really isn’t much at 185 pounds in Strikeforce.
If Strikeforce is truly here to stay for at least a few more years, the promotion needs a new influx of middleweights because the fans are getting tired of stale rematches and want new challengers at 185 pounds, especially fighters they know. A UFC veteran like Grove, who is still only 28 years old, would be a good addition and a solid solution to this dilemma.
At 6’6” and only 185 pounds, Grove is a matchup nightmare for most middleweights, even if he has had mixed success in the cage up until this point. As seen in his submission victories over Jake Rosholt and Alan Belcher, and even in his recent loss over Boetsch, Grove’s long limbs have the capability to make fighters tap out at anytime.
And while he has been far from consistent inside the cage—he holds an overall record as a professional mixed martial artist of just 12-9—he has fought and defeated some talented fighters during his career, including the aforementioned Belcher and the late Evan Tanner.
It might not make sense to match him up with some of the top Strikeforce middleweights just yet, but at the very least, Grove would present a good challenge to the young guns trying to make a name for themselves on the Strikeforce Challengers cards.
After spending so many years developing and promoting him, Zuffa should not give up on Grove just now. He is just 28 and still has the opportunity to improve as a mixed martial artist. But it’s become obvious he is not talented enough for the UFC, at least not at this point in his career.
And after seeing Keith Jardine lose four fights in the UFC, win a few in smaller shows, and then take a short-notice (albeit controversial) draw over consensus top-15 light heavyweight Gegard Mousasi, exposing Mousasi’s porous takedown defence in the process, anything can happen in this sport.
So make Grove the first UFC fighter to directly crossover to Strikeforce, and let the chips fall where they may. At the very least, it would be an interesting experiment in seeing just what Zuffa is able to do now that they own the two biggest mixed martial arts promotions in the world.
It was just a few short weeks ago that I listed some of the more exciting bouts MMA has in store over the next few months. There is nothing better than going through a period where we are able to watch some great fights week in and week out. As I looke…
It was just a few short weeks ago that I listed some of the more exciting boutsMMA has in store over the next few months. There is nothing better than going through a period where we are able to watch some great fights week in and week out.
As I looked more closely at we have to look forward to I realized that the month of June is going to be insane. The UFC has three cards in June alone with a fourth (UFC 132) just two days into July.
Just as UFC 130 is ending, Dream will be hosting their first event in some time as they present Dream 17: Fight for Japan that will air on tape delay via HDNET on June 3. MMA needs to be successful in Japan even if it means that their best fighters will be snatched up the UFC eventually.
June 4 brings us what promises to be one of the more action-packed, balls-to-the-wall fights as Clay Guida will look to make life a living hell for the last reigning WEC lightweight champion Anthony Pettis. The two will meet in the main event of The Ultimate Fighter 13 Finale.
Just one week later, the UFC invades Vancouver for the second time in two years with UFC 131: Dos Santos vs. Carwin. Brock Lesnar was originally slated to face off against Dos Santos for the right to face UFC heavyweight champion Cain Velasquez, but was sidelined due to a recurrence of the diverticulitis that cost him a year away from action.
Strikeforce will continue with its Heavyweight Grand Prix on June 18 when they present Overeem vs. Werdum. The first round continues as Overeem will look to extract some revenge against Werdum who submitted him during their Pride days, many years and many pounds ago.
The Strikeforce Challenger Series continues on June 24 from Kent, Wash. This card is actually pretty loaded and includes UFC Hall of Famer Randy Couture‘s son Ryan as he continues to learn the ropes and follow in his father’s footsteps.
Bellator will offer up a solid card featuring four featherweight tournament quarterfinal bouts. The event will take place at the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel and Casino in Hollywood, Fla. Bellator 46 will mark host the debut of former Sengoku featherweight champion Marlon Sandro.
Last, but certainly not least, the UFC returns to the Versus Network with UFC on Versus 4: Marquardt vs. Johnson. The main event will feature the debut of Nate Marquardt’s run in the welterweight division. He will face another fighter who is gigantic for the 170-pound division in Anthony Johnson.
After defeating Matt Hamil at UFC 130, UFC president Dana White announced that Quinton “Rampage” Jackson would likely be the next contender to face UFC light heavyweight champion, Jon Jones.