UFC welterweights may now have to deal with the fact a title fight is unlikely in the immediate future. Tyron Woodley seems set on fighting Georges St-Pierre or Nick Diaz, but that might provide some very interesting fights. Although the championship may be tied up, we already know Stephen Thompson is willing to fight again
UFC welterweights may now have to deal with the fact a title fight is unlikely in the immediate future. Tyron Woodley seems set on fighting Georges St-Pierre or Nick Diaz, but that might provide some very interesting fights. Although the championship may be tied up, we already know Stephen Thompson is willing to fight again if passed over. Yesterday ‘Wonderboy’ called for the winner of Demian Maia vs. Carlos Condit if required.
In the interim, ex-champion Robbie Lawler needs to get back in the saddle. Following the knockout loss to Woodley at UFC 201, ‘Ruthless’ has reportedly called UFC president Dana White. ‘Ruthless’ had squeaked past ‘The Natural Born Killer’ at UFC 195 and was unable to get going against Woodley.
Lawler vs…
According to Damon Martin of FOX Sports, the former welterweight champion is calling for a fight ASAP. Obviously the crushing loss to ‘The Chosen One’ has motivated Lawler to get back in the octagon quick.
Any Takers?
Lawler’s requests have led to another popular veteran answering the call. Yep, Donald Cerrone has offered to fight the former champion at UFC 205. The pay-er-view event will feature the first ever UFC show to be held in New York, at the famed Madison Square Garden no less. ‘Cowboy’ starched Rick Story at UFC 202 for his third straight win, shortly after signing a new eight-fight contract with the promotion.
Although he’d then talked about dropping down to lightweight, the fan friendly Cerrone once again proves he’s willing to fight anyone, anywhere.
Donald Cerrone vs. Robbie Lawler?
Why not book this fight? The UFC’s debut in New York has a ton of great potential fights, and Lawler vs. Cerrone would be a great seller on the main card. Both guys have proved to be thoroughly entertaining in the past. The November 12 card is yet to have any bouts officially booked.
The Octagon return for former UFC welterweight kingpin Georges St-Pierre has never been closer, as news came this week that ‘Rush’ could return as soon as December’s UFC 206 from Toronto in his home country of Canada. St-Pierre has been teasing a return to mixed martial arts (MMA) for some time now; however, nothing concrete has
The Octagon return for former UFC welterweight kingpin Georges St-Pierre has never been closer, as news came this week that ‘Rush’ could return as soon as December’s UFC 206 from Toronto in his home country of Canada.
St-Pierre has been teasing a return to mixed martial arts (MMA) for some time now; however, nothing concrete has yet to surface indicating that the return is officially in the books. While the former 170-pound champ has a plethora of supporters across the world, one man who is not on the ‘GSP’ support team is UFC President Dana White.
In a recent appearance on ‘The Herd’ on Thursday courtesy of FOX Sports, White admitted that he just doesn’t believe ‘GSP’ possesses the ‘drive and that desire that he once had’ to be the best in the combat sports world.
“I don’t care how big you are or how much money you make or how much money you bring into the company — if you don’t want to fight anymore, you shouldn’t fight anymore. This is a sport you’re all in, you can’t be wishy-washy.
“That’s why when people talk about, ‘Oh, Georges St-Pierre’s coming back; Georges St-Pierre doesn’t have that ‘I want to be a world champion’ attitude anymore.
“He doesn’t have that drive and that desire that he once had. And if you don’t have that, no, you shouldn’t fight.”
The UFC President clearly doesn’t have the confidence that his former top pay-per-view (PPV) draw will once again reign as the undisputed pound-for-pound best mixed martial artist in the world like he once did, but we may get the opportunity to find out if White’s views are in fact correct if St-Pierre decides to step into the Octagon at UFC 206 in his native Canada.
What are your thoughts? Do you agree with White’s statements that ‘GSP’ will return ‘wishy-washy’? Or will the Canadian phenom return just as dominant a force as he was when he left nearly three years ago?
In this life you get out what you put in, right? That seems like Day One karmic thought.
If you’re willing to put in work, you’ll get results. As you get results, you’ll see opportunities increase and positive outcomes will flow from …
In this life you get out what you put in, right? That seems like Day One karmic thought.
If you’re willing to put in work, you’ll get results. As you get results, you’ll see opportunities increase and positive outcomes will flow from that until you’re on top of the world in all the manners you seek.
If you agree with that notion, take a look at UFC on FOX 21 and reconsider. The top of that card cares not for your understandings of karma or of balancing work and rewards.
In the main event, Demain Maia, he of the late-career resurgence built on mauling people with unmatched jiu-jitsu prowess, will battle Carlos Condit in a fight that might guarantee a title shot, but might not.
Maia has been out there for years now hitting takedowns, controlling, choking and squeezing until people’s faces explode. His success has been amassed with very little resistance, to the tune of five straight wins and an 8-2 run at welterweight dating back to 2012.
But no one’s really paying attention. At least no one who matters, like Dana White or Joe Silva.
Maia is respected but not beloved for his approach, largely because it’s technical and masterful but rarely enthralling to an untrained eye. A casual fan sees a mild Brazilian hugging an opponent and dragging him to the mat, dominating him positionally on the way to a decision or submission, and it simply doesn’t resonate the way a Robbie Lawler head kick or a Nick Diaz punching flurry does.
The result is that Maia hasn’t lost since early 2014 but doesn’t seem to be any closer to a title fight now than he was when he dropped to welterweight in the first place. Everyone knows what he’s doing is remarkable, but no one cares enough to push him into a championship chase.
Contrast that against the work of co-main eventer Anthony Pettis, who fights Charles Oliveira shortly before Maia hits the cage. Pettis is dropping a weight class after losing three straight fights at 155 pounds, where he was once champion. As recently as 2014 Pettis looked unbeatable. He plugged ample holes in his wrestling game to provide for a safe space in which his flashy striking could be maximally effective.
At least that’s what it looked like.
His second title defense, against Rafael dos Anjos, revealed a harsh truth about Pettis in the form of his distaste for the utter grind of it all. Dos Anjos mauled him, wrestling him against the cage and wearing him down to a nub before taking his title in a fairly shocking unanimous decision.
Not long after, Eddie Alvarez replicated the plan to beat Pettis. Then EdsonBarboza simply outgunned him in a standup battle, something no one ever thought would happen to him, sending him toppling into irrelevance and a new weight class.
But here he is right alongside Maia at the top of a pretty solid Fox card, despite not matching up even remotely in terms of his recent merits.
It all makes one wonder about the idea of winning and losing in the UFC and what it provides a fighter at the end of the day. Is the sport at a point where winning ugly is not that much better than losing pretty, if it’s better at all? Does entertainment really supersede sport for the UFC?
Probably so.
It’s not any secret that the promotion exists to make money. After all, this is an entity that’s given you a pointless Nate Diaz/Conor McGregor rematch and a steroid-exempted Brock Lesnarin the past six weeks; anyone still crying meritocracy after that can ask TyronWoodley how played out that whole notion is for more.
Yet in a situation such as UFC on FOX 21, where the stakes aren’t so big, the money to be made is not so far beyond ignoring and where Maia has so bluntly earned his placement at the top of the card while Pettis has so bluntly floundered his way to similar exposure, is it not a little disheartening to see these two treated with the same pomp and circumstance?
Also probably so.
This isn’t an indictment of the UFC’s matchmaking policies, because this isn’t even in the top-100 most egregious choices they’ve ever made. It’s not to discredit Pettis, a great talent with Wheaties box good looks and championship skills that have simply gone AWOL for the past few fights.
It’s just to draw some attention to the relative absurdity of the game at times, where a man who has been utterly unstoppable for years and has really only ever lost against the elite of the elite is talked about in the same vein as a man who isn’t yet 30 and has already been repeatedly exposed to the point that a weight class reinvention was needed.
MMA is a weird sport, and it definitely does not much care for your understandings of karma, work and rewards. You’ll see that much on the marquee in Vancouver this weekend.
UFC President Dana White appeared as a guest on the latest episode of WWE Hall Of Famer Ric Flair’s podcast and spoke about his attempts to work with WWE Chairman Vince McMahon over the years.
“I’ve been working, or trying to work with Vince for years,” said White. “It was obviously very difficult, Vince is a maniac.”
White continued and as he has for years in a number of interviews, spoke highly of the guy who turned his father’s regional pro wrestling promotion into a worldwide conglomerate.
“He’s a f*cking competitor, man. That’s what he is. If you look at what Vince McMahon has accomplished in all of his years, and to still be on top, still doing it, the guy’s got enough money,” said White of NcMahon’s work ethic and success over the years. “He’s in it because he loves it. He’s in it because he’s passionate about it.”
White mentioned allowing Ronda Rousey to do the WrestleMania appearance was one example of him working with McMahon in the past. Another example given was obviously the shocking Octagon return of Brock Lesnar at last month’s UFC 200 pay-per-view.
White made it clear that if nothing else, McMahon has his respect.
“[Vince] is a f*cking maniac, he’s an animal,” said White. “He’s a competitor, he wants to win. That’s his nature and I respect it.”
The full episode of Ric Flair’s podcast, which features the Dana White interview, as well as an interview with former WWE Superstar and Olympic gold medalist Kurt Angle, by clicking here.
UFC President Dana White appeared as a guest on the latest episode of WWE Hall Of Famer Ric Flair’s podcast and spoke about his attempts to work with WWE Chairman Vince McMahon over the years.
“I’ve been working, or trying to work with Vince for years,” said White. “It was obviously very difficult, Vince is a maniac.”
White continued and as he has for years in a number of interviews, spoke highly of the guy who turned his father’s regional pro wrestling promotion into a worldwide conglomerate.
“He’s a f*cking competitor, man. That’s what he is. If you look at what Vince McMahon has accomplished in all of his years, and to still be on top, still doing it, the guy’s got enough money,” said White of NcMahon’s work ethic and success over the years. “He’s in it because he loves it. He’s in it because he’s passionate about it.”
White mentioned allowing Ronda Rousey to do the WrestleMania appearance was one example of him working with McMahon in the past. Another example given was obviously the shocking Octagon return of Brock Lesnar at last month’s UFC 200 pay-per-view.
White made it clear that if nothing else, McMahon has his respect.
“[Vince] is a f*cking maniac, he’s an animal,” said White. “He’s a competitor, he wants to win. That’s his nature and I respect it.”
The full episode of Ric Flair’s podcast, which features the Dana White interview, as well as an interview with former WWE Superstar and Olympic gold medalist Kurt Angle, by clicking here.
UFC President Dana White and WWE chairman Vince McMahon haven’t always seen eye to eye, but White made it clear recently that he has a great deal of respect for the professional wrestling power player.
In an interview on WWE Hall of Famer Ric Flair’s p…
UFC President Dana White and WWE chairman Vince McMahon haven’t always seen eye to eye, but White made it clear recently that he has a great deal of respect for the professional wrestling power player.
In an interview on WWE Hall of Famer Ric Flair’s podcast (h/t Damon Martin of FoxSports.com), White discussed the past difficulties of negotiating with McMahon but said they have made significant strides in that area:
I think Vince and definitely Stephanie [McMahon] and Triple H—Stephanie and Triple H are always great, always cool to work with—Vince has been very difficult in the past but the past several years he’s been much better. He’s a [expletive] maniac, he’s an animal, he’s a competitor, he wants to win. That’s his nature and I respect it.
The potentially lessened tension between White and McMahon has manifested itself in recent years, as the two sides have seemingly been more open to working together.
UFC gave megastar Ronda Rousey permission to appear in a segment with The Rock, Stephanie and Triple H at WrestleMania 31. Also, WWE allowed Brock Lesnar to compete at UFC 200.
White revealed that making those crossovers happen was the highlight of his interactions with McMahon:
If you look at what Vince McMahon has accomplished in all of his years and to still be on top and still be doing it. The guy’s got enough money, he’s in it because he loves it, he’s in it because he’s still passionate about it. I would say that this last Brock deal and when Ronda went over did the WWE WrestleMania, those were the two out of all the years of dealing with Vince and everybody, those were probably the two best experiences.
Although the Rousey and Lesnar situations may have simply been one-off agreements, there is a great deal of value in WWE and UFC having a working relationship moving forward.
There is plenty of overlap in terms of the viewing audiences for both products, and each company allowing its stars to work with the other could drum up interest in combat sports and sports entertainment.
It is well known that Rousey is a huge wrestling fan, and the fact that Lesnar competed for UFC while under contract with WWE suggests that the door may be open for Rousey to do something similar with WWE down the line.
UFC’s Conor McGregor has also been outspoken and critical of WWE recently, which has caused speculation that he could be setting the stage to do some work with the company at some point.
UFC and WWE are both giants in their own right, but if White’s comments are indicative of warmer relations between the two sides moving forward, the companies have a chance to be more lucrative and successful than ever before.
Listen to Ring Rust Radio for all of the hot wrestling topics. Catch the latest episode in the player below (warning: some language NSFW).
UFC president Dana White appeared on a recent edition of “The Herd” on FOX Sports 1 and boldly proclaimed that the return of Ronda Rousey will be big business.
Act…
UFC president Dana White appeared on a recent edition of “The Herd” on FOX Sports 1 and boldly proclaimed that the return of Ronda Rousey will be big business.
Actually, record-breaking business.
White said that once the former UFC female bantamweight champion decides to fight again, she will score bigger pay-per-view numbers than that of the recent Conor McGregor-Nate Diaz series of fights.
“I think that Ronda Rousey’s return will be the biggest pay-per-view we’ve ever done,” White said.
That includes UFC 196, which was watched by a reported 1.5 million buys, for the first meeting between McGregor and Diaz.
White did not provide any more update as to when that return might be, though he previously ruled the former Olympic bronze medalist out of the November UFC 205 debut in New York City’s Madison Square Garden.
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The UFC President clearly doesn’t have the confidence that his former top pay-per-view (PPV) draw will once again reign as the undisputed pound-for-pound best mixed martial artist in the world like he once did, but we may get the opportunity to find out if White’s views are in fact correct if St-Pierre decides to step into the Octagon at UFC 206 in his native Canada.
In this life you get out what you put in, right? That seems like Day One karmic thought.
