One of the pioneers of women’s MMA, Gina Carano hasn’t stepped foot in the cage since August 2009, so she realizes it’s now or never if she plans on making a comeback.
The 31-year-old fighter-turned-actress appeared on Thursday night’s edition of…
One of the pioneers of women’s MMA, Gina Carano hasn’t stepped foot in the cage since August 2009, so she realizes it’s now or never if she plans on making a comeback.
The 31-year-old fighter-turned-actress appeared on Thursday night’s edition of The Arsenio Hall Show and revealed that she has never lost the passion to fight and is actually meeting with UFC president Dana White next week (transcript per MMA Fighting).
I love it. It’s something I can do that makes everything else disappear. I dream about it. I just didn’t know if I was ever going to get placed with the opportunity to make a comeback. So I’m either going to do it now or retire and say, I’m never going to do it. So now is the moment. … There’s not a workout that I go through that I’m not fighting somebody in my mind. And it’s never gone away.
While there will be no “bikinis only, jello MMA match” on the horizon, it appears that the star of action flick In the Blood (in theaters Friday) is still interested in reaching the pinnacle of the sport.
While Carano has never competed inside the Octagon, she is technically still under UFC contract since she competed under the Strikeforce banner, which was bought out by the UFC’s parent company—Zuffa, LLC—in March 2011.
Carano was 1-1 in Strikeforce, winning a unanimous decision over Elaina Maxwell in December 2006 and suffering a TKO at the hands of Cristiane “Cyborg” Justino in August 2009—the only loss of her career.
Also worth mentioning is that Carano hasn’t competed at bantamweight (135 pounds) since June 2006 and has competed as heavy as a 150-pound catchweight in December 2006.
Therefore, it would be interesting to see how difficult it would be for Carano to make bantamweight almost eight years later—the only women’s weight class that currently exists in the UFC.
Would signing Carano be a good move or little more than a publicity stunt by the UFC?
JohnHeinis is a Featured Columnist for Bleacher Report. He is also the MMA editor for eDraft.com.
From the moment Viacom purchased Bellator MMA, comparisons to the late 1990s promotional war between WWE and WCW have rarely been in short supply. At the risk of drawing the ire of B/R MMA’s readership by mentioning pro wrestling, the parallels b…
From the moment Viacom purchased Bellator MMA, comparisons to the late 1990s promotional war between WWE and WCW have rarely been in short supply. At the risk of drawing the ire of B/R MMA’s readership by mentioning pro wrestling, the parallels between UFC/Bellator and WWE/WCW are obvious.
A billion dollar company buys a majority stake in a small promotion with the aim of eventually challenging the industry leader. Said promotion gradually builds a fanbase by showcasing a mixture of homegrown talent and ageing stars.
That being said, the similarities have always seemed superficial. After all, MMA is a distinctly less pliable business than pro wrestling. Bringing in recognizable names is one thing, but controlling their in-cage destinies is another.
However, Bellator’s success in the ratings since moving to Spike TV in 2013 raises the question of whether the comparisons are more substantive than first thought. Indeed, the California-based promotion has bested the UFC’s Fox Sports ratings on more than one occasion.
This indisputable fact must mean that a genuine, highly competitive rivalry between the promotions is underway, right? Let’s take a closer look.
Intuitively, one would think that comparing television ratings is a simple exercise. Which number is bigger: x or y? There’s a little more to it than you might think, though. To contradict a popular expression, the numbers do occasionally lie.
Since moving to the fledgling Fox Sports channels in mid-2013, the UFC has struggled to match the ratings it achieved on Spike and FX.
From 2009-2011, UFC Fight Nights on Spike would regularly attract almost 2 million viewers for events that were often short on star power. In contrast, the organization’s best effort since moving to Fox Sports 1 is 1.7 million viewers, which was achieved with a star-studded event headlined by Chael Sonnen and Mauricio “Shogun” Rua on the channel’s launch.
Since then, ratings have fluctuated dramatically, even dropping as low as 122,000 for UFC Fight Night 30 on Fox Sports 2. Meanwhile, Bellator hasn’t dropped below 400,000 viewers since debuting on Spike.
Has Bellator really gained so much ground on the UFC within the past year? One can never really say for certain, but there are more plausible explanations for this illusion of promotional parity.
As I pointed out late last year, it takes time for a new channel to establish itself in the general consciousness. Just because Fox Sports and Spike are in a comparable number of homes, it does not mean that the channels provide comparable exposure.
Spike is an established television network with a built-in MMA audience as a result of its previous partnership with the UFC. Fox Sports, on the other hand, is still building its audience. The media-led notion that the channel would compete with ESPN was, and continues to be, a complete fantasy.
At its worst, ESPN’s SportsCenter quadruples the audience of the similarly themed Fox Sports Live. Is that because the latter is an inferior show or because SportsCenter is an established part of the average sports fan’s diet?
When Bellator CEO Bjorn Rebney claims to be winning the ratings war with the UFC, he is savvy enough to know better. It is exactly the kind of posturing one would expect from a fight promoter—“Rampage” Jackson might actually believe it when he says it, however.
What is surprising is that some of the media have been taken in by the idea that recent television ratings paint an accurate picture of Bellator’s standing in relation to the UFC.
Numbers are important, but they are occasionally trumped by common sense. When Bellator 105 attracted four times as many viewers as UFC Fight Night 30 on the same weekend last year, what conclusion should we have drawn?
Either Bellator has discovered a way to overcome the UFC’s prohibitive brand recognition and its superior product almost overnight or it can be explained with reference to the vagaries of television ratings.
The growth of Bellator is extremely important for the future of mixed martial arts. Currently, the sport’s success is defined by the UFC’s success. Given the uncertain nature of the market, that isn’t a comfortable place for the sport to be.
Unfortunately, that is the situation no matter what the television ratings might suggest. Both a quantitative and qualitative gulf exists between the UFC and Bellator, and obfuscating that fact isn’t going to alter the reality.
James MacDonald is a freelance writer and featured columnist for Bleacher Report. Follow James on Twitter.
A little over a week ago, Will Chope stepped off the scale after hitting his mark and lined up opposite Diego Brandao. He was to take on Brandao at Fight Night 38, hoping to build on an 0-1 UFC record against the former Ultimate Fighter winner.
Twenty-…
A little over a week ago, Will Chope stepped off the scale after hitting his mark and lined up opposite Diego Brandao. He was to take on Brandao at Fight Night 38, hoping to build on an 0-1 UFC record against the former Ultimate Fighter winner.
Twenty-four hours later, he was out of a job without having set foot in the cage.
That’s a fundamentally great approach to take to building the roster for any sport, be it the list of guys in the UFC or a squad in a team sport, but it’s definitely not an accurate representation of the way the UFC actually does business.
So no, the UFC doesn’t take a true hard line on domestic violence or other varieties of criminal behavior by its athletes. It takes a hard line on guys like Will Chope, who are basically irrelevant and can provide positive press when they’re made an example of. It takes a hard line when it suits them.
But that’s not what this is about.
It’s not about Chope, or his apparent reformation and desire to return to the promotion one day. It’s about the UFC’s handling of him, and of other similar potential public relations disasters dealt to the UFC by its roster of talent.
Let’s be realistic here: To fight in a cage for money, you have to be a little nutty. Not in a bad way or in a way that makes you a danger to society, but in a way that lets you ignore the dangers of your profession long enough to kill or be killed for 15 minutes on a Saturday night.
There’s also the fact that, if you took a random sample of 400 non-cagefighting people, a large portion of them would have something in their past, present or future that would be cause for concern.
That’s life.
Some people did something stupid when they were a kid, some are doing something stupid right now when they should be at work or school, some will do something stupid tomorrow or the next day.
Call it a human flaw.
When you add that natural proclivity for nuttiness in the average mixed martial artist and put together a roster of them that matches that random sample in size, you’re going to come across some interesting issues.
The thing for the UFC is that, for all that it does well, its approach to such issues always seems to be reactive and never proactive. It’s either finding out about a fighter’s checkered past and having to react, or it’s burying its head in the sand and waiting for it to all go away.
For a fight promotion that’s increasingly trying to professionalize itself, (perhaps unjustifiably) comparing itself to major sports and describing itself as a league, this is simply not a sensible way to approach a reality that is unavoidable.
People will do stupid things. Fighters are people. Fighters will do stupid things.
If you’re in charge of literally hundreds of them, you need to accept that equation and plan for it. If you don’t, it’s only a matter of time before one of them does something that you can’t solve with a roster cut and a neatly manicured press release.
Many have argued for fighter background checks, which would be both costly and impractical but may be the best solution in a perfect world. The world isn’t perfect though. Actually, that’s the idea that serves as the foundation for this whole problem in the first place.
Perhaps it’s more practical for the promotion to request a criminal record check and a vulnerable sector check (at least that’s what it’s called here in Canada) as many employers do in the real world.
A guy got busted with a few grams of pot as a college student in 2002? You’re probably not too worried about rostering him.
Another guy hit a woman with a bottle in a bar six months ago? Maybe he’s not UFC material right now, or ever.
That’s a simple step, but it’s inexpensive and practical. You could even put the cost on the incoming fighter, as it’s not prohibitive by any stretch and it’s pretty standard practice in the world of employment. In the same way that some companies test for drugs of recreation, others want to make sure you’re not a violent offender or a danger to society before they put you in the corner cubicle.
What the UFC has on its hands is different than a team sport, and it needs to be treated as such. There is no collective bargaining agreement because fighters are independent contractors, but there still needs to be room for some behavioral guidelines similar to those seen in a collectively bargained sport.
For the sake of professionalism, and the sake of getting out in front of a problem even more serious than that of Will Chope before it comes to its door, the UFC needs to establish some sort of true policy for incoming talent.
Going without it could prove to be crippling to the promotion’s image some day, be it when a fighter that didn’t get due attention does something outlandish or when a particularly intrepid reporter goes digging for dirt from the past and finds it.
It’s nice to focus on putting fights in Turkey and establishing TUF in India and go on talking about your global expansion plans, but sometimes the problems needing the most attention are right in your own yard.
Without that attention and an appropriate process in place, who knows what the UFC might wake up to find there the next time something like this comes up.
Lightweight champion Anthony Pettis and Gilbert Melendez will face off at the UFC’s year-end event in December.
UFC President Dana White today made the announcement during a special press conference in Puerto Rico. Pettis and his younger brother Sergio…
Lightweight champion Anthony Pettis and Gilbert Melendez will face off at the UFC’s year-end event in December.
UFC President Dana White today made the announcement during a special press conference in Puerto Rico. Pettis and his younger brother Sergio were also in attendance.
The UFC’s end-of-year event is one of the biggest of the year and typically takes place on the final weekend of December in Las Vegas.
White also “guaranteed” the UFC will run a show in Puerto Rico in 2015 and said Pettis would be involved. Pettis is of PuertoRican and Mexican ancestry but grew up in Milwaukee.
Before Pettis and Melendez step in the cage, they’ll serve as coaches for the 20th season of The Ultimate Fighter. The series features 16 female strawweights vying to become the first-ever UFC strawweight champion. The majority of the cast made the leap to the UFC when all-women’s promotion Invicta turned the rights to their contracts over to the UFC.
The Ultimate Fighter 20 marks the first time a UFC championship will be contested in the reality show tournament. It will begin airing on Fox Sports 1 in October.
Pettis captured the UFC belt last year with a first-round submission of Benson Henderson. He has been sidelined by injury ever since.
Melendez lost a close decision to Henderson in his first attempt at UFC gold last year. But he rebounded with a win over Diego Sanchez in a thrilling UFC 166 bout in October. Melendez became a free agent after the win and signed a term sheet with UFC rival Bellator when he could not come to an agreement with the UFC.
But the UFC matched Bellator‘s offer, keeping Melendez in the fold. The deal also likely made Melendez the highest-paid lightweight on the roster. As part of his new deal, Melendez was immediately named as the next challenger for Pettis. The coaching announcement for The Ultimate Fighter was made on the same day.
Oh, Twitter. You have provided us some entertaining moments over the years. You’ve given us insight into the lives of professional athletes like never before. You’ve become our go-to source for mixed martial arts news. And, in some cases, you have cost…
Oh, Twitter. You have provided us some entertaining moments over the years. You’ve given us insight into the lives of professional athletes like never before. You’ve become our go-to source for mixed martial arts news. And, in some cases, you have cost fighters their jobs and livelihoods.
Twitter has become part of the fabric of our lives. Few of us could imagine living without it in the same way it would be difficult to live without our phones or text messaging or Taco Bell.
Today, courtesy of Twitter’s new First Tweets tool, we’re taking a look back at some of the first steps taken on Twitter by fighters and other MMA personalities.
I don’t know whether to be sad about this or concerned. Probably a little bit of both.
But then again, that’s pretty much been the story of the last five years or so of Baroni’s career, where he’s gone 2-7 and elicited groans from fans every time he steps back in the cage because he needs the money.
One of the most deplorable human beings in mixed martial arts, Jon Koppenhaver (I refuse to call him “War Machine”) was on the set of a…movie when he discovered Twitter.
We all know what kind of movies Koppenhaver starred in. And now that I’ve forced these thoughts into my brain, I’m going to go in the living room and hit myself with a hammer until they disappear.
Sometimes the jokes write themselves. I have no words here.
Yeah, Dana White didn’t write his first tweet. You know how I know? Because everything is spelled correctly and there are no expletives.
Josh Barnett apparently only joined Twitter because the fans voted that he should. Oh, and because Twitter needed some more chaos and destruction.
Blackzilians photographer Ryan Loco, ladies and gentlemen.
Is there a more fitting first Pat Barry tweet? One of the funniest and most engaging UFC personalities wanted a po-boy, and who can blame him? Po boys, a staple of the New Orleans food scene, are delicious and not at all nutritious.
And now I’m hungry. Thanks, Pat.
This is Pat’s girlfriend, Rose, who will appear on Season 20 of The Ultimate Fighter. She’s a really fun fighter to watch. Also, she’s bad with the grammar and punctuation.
I had to point this out because Tito can’t spell and because it reeks of the same confusion that surrounds the rest of Ortiz’s life. This is his Twitter. Not the other one. This one. My neck is broken, and I’ll risk paralysis if I fight again. I’m fine and waiting for Bellator to give me a fight.
No, Mark Hunt. We did not know about your new Twitter account. Not until you tweeted about it, anyway.
This was before the first fight between Anderson Silva and Chael Sonnen, and so it is not surprising that Sonnen’s first usage of the social media service was to continue the expansion of his burgeoning trash-talking empire.
Look at this: Uriah Hall, a year before he would go on The Ultimate Fighter, using Twitter to identify himself to Dana White.
Andre Fili, I don’t even know what to say about your first tweet. You are far too young to speak of such things.
That’s Forrest Griffin for you: dragged kicking and screaming into the Twittersphere by a sponsor who wanted him to use it to further the company’s product.
This is actually T.J. Dillashaw’s first tweet: a retweet of Team Alpha Male leader Urijah Faber. In it, we see that Miesha Tate has just won the Strikeforce Women’s Bantamweight Championship, and Joseph Benavidez is so excited he can’t keep his eyes open.
This appears to be one of the first moments that Cormier revealed his move to mixed martial arts. Just a few months later, he would make his pro fighting debut for Strikeforce, and the rest is history. That’s a pretty good use of a first tweet, I’d say.
One imagines Vitor Belfort sitting in front of his MacBook Pro, coding his own website. No? OK.
Thankfully, Cat Zingano would likely go on to learn the correct name of the social-media service.
Yet another fighter who was forced to sign up for Twitter, but would go on to become a prolific user of the service.
What Jon Anik would “get into” is an eventual job with the UFC. So things seemingly worked out for him.
This one is great because it was the same day Jose Aldo would beat Mike Brown to capture the WEC Featherweight Championship. He hasn’t lost since.
Maybe it’s just me, but there’s probably a better way to refer to the act of opening up a new Twitter account than what Travis Browne chose here.
Well, I don’t know what any of this means.
Nate Diaz’s Twitter account would go on to be used for much more awesome things than this simple tweet in the years ahead.
Succinct and to the point. That’s what Dan Henderson is all about. And Sunday, he’ll do the thing against Shogun Rua in Brazil.
I close with my own, from way back in 2006, mostly because it is likely the single worst tweet ever.
The buzz surrounding former boxing champ turned MMA fighter Holly Holm has reached a fever pitch in recent weeks. Many have speculated as to whether or not Holm is the “huge announcement” opponent for Ronda Rousey that Joe Rogan previously hinted at, and her ongoing negotiations with the UFC seem to lend credence to this belief.
Of course, previous negotiations between Holm and the UFC have resulted in little more than a stalemate, with Holm’s manager, Lenny Fresquez, prematurely dubbing her “a franchise” among other ludicrous claims and earning the time-tested ire of Dana White. Things took a turn for the worst during yesterday’s edition of UFC Tonight, when White told Ariel Helwani that the negotiations between Fresquez were “not good at all” and that the UFC was “not interested whatsoever” in signing Holm.
This can only mean one thing: The UFC has signed Holly Holm.
(Photo via Getty.)
The buzz surrounding former boxing champ turned MMA fighter Holly Holm has reached a fever pitch in recent weeks. Many have speculated as to whether or not Holm is the “huge announcement” opponent for Ronda Rousey that Joe Rogan previously hinted at, and her ongoing negotiations with the UFC seem to lend credence to this belief.
Of course, previous negotiations between Holm and the UFC have resulted in little more than a stalemate, with Holm’s manager, Lenny Fresquez, prematurely dubbing her “a franchise” among other ludicrous claims and earning the time-tested ire of Dana White. Things took a turn for the worst during yesterday’s edition of UFC Tonight, when White told Ariel Helwani that the negotiations between Fresquez were “not good at all” and that the UFC was “not interested whatsoever” in signing Holm.
This can only mean one thing: The UFC has signed Holly Holm.
Don’t believe me? Ask Gilbert Melendez what it means when The Baldfather tells you he’s “no longer interested” in signing you. Ask Roy Nelson. Ask Kimbo f*cking Slice. The UFC has become notorious for trashing a fighter (or his management) one second and signing/re-signing them the next over the years –they don’t want you until they do — and while Melendez is clearly a more valued and recognizable commodity than Holm, let’s not act like the door has been closed on the former boxing champion, because very recent history has proven otherwise.
Considering that DW also told UFC Tonight that the UFC is not negotiating with either Cris Cyborg or Gina Carano despite reports to the contrary, all roads appear to lead to Holm (or that Canadian Olympian chick). OfficialCP Prediction: Holm and Rousey have already been booked as opposing coaches on the next, next, next season of The Ultimate Fighter and will fight in June of 2015. Or they’ve been booked as coaches on the next *international* season of TUF. Whatever, f*ck you.
From the moment Viacom purchased Bellator 