Nobody thought Gilbert Melendez would start his UFC career 1-3. The former Strikeforce lightweight champion had just been too good during a decade spent fighting elsewhere. By the time the UFC absorbed Melendez with the rest of Strikeforce at beginning of 2013, he’d amassed a record of 21-2 and had deeply ensconced himself among the […]
Nobody thought Gilbert Melendez would start his UFC career 1-3. The former Strikeforce lightweight champion had just been too good during a decade spent fighting elsewhere. By the time the UFC absorbed Melendez with the rest of Strikeforce at beginning of 2013, he’d amassed a record of 21-2 and had deeply ensconced himself among the […]
A mixed martial arts fight blogger lies in critical but stable condition after succumbing to the effects of a brutal 4-hour “liveblog” that nearly took his life Saturday.
Reports say that 31-year old Chip Chessworth, a quote unquote “MMA journalist” for FistFighter.com, sat down at his Brooklyn, NY apartment at 7:30 EST last night, with the assignment of “liveblogging” – or rapidly typing grammatically challenged round-by-round fight recaps — the UFC Fight Night 36: Machida vs Mousasi prelims for his website. A six pack of Red Stripe at his side, Chessworth was looking to shake off the memory of UFC 169, a “ten-decision, record-setting catastrophe” (as UFC President Dana White called it) that had claimed the lives of over 1,500 livebloggers earlier in the month, as well as report on what he hoped would be “a decent night of fights.”
“I had just spent my fourth straight Valentine’s Day alone, so I was really looking for some vicarious retribution in the form of a few sweet knockouts,” said Chessworth. Little did the lonely writer know that by the time the preliminary card was over, he’d be in a fight of his own. For his life.
Looking back on the ordeal, Chessworth says he should have realized that something was…off from the very first fight of the night. In a bout between UFC newcomers Douglas Silva de Andrade and Zuba…Zubariai Somethingorother, the liberal arts major said he could feel “a weird energy” in the crowd while watching the event on his 13” laptop screen.
“When Bruce Buffer is only spinning 90 degrees during the intros, you know you’re going to be in for a long night,” lamented Chessworth.
(“I eventually had to start eating my fingers for sustenance,” recounts horrified blogger from hospital bed.)
A mixed martial arts fight blogger lies in critical but stable condition after succumbing to the effects of a brutal 4-hour “liveblog” that nearly took his life Saturday.
Reports say that 31-year old Chip Chessworth, a quote unquote “MMA journalist” for FistFighter.com, sat down at his Brooklyn, NY apartment at 7:30 EST last night, with the assignment of “liveblogging” – or rapidly typing grammatically challenged round-by-round fight recaps — the UFC Fight Night 36: Machida vs Mousasi prelims for his website. A six pack of Red Stripe at his side, Chessworth was looking to shake off the memory of UFC 169, a “ten-decision, record-setting catastrophe” (as UFC President Dana White called it) that had claimed the lives of over 1,500 livebloggers earlier in the month, as well as report on what he hoped would be “a decent night of fights.”
“I had just spent my fourth straight Valentine’s Day alone, so I was really looking for some vicarious retribution in the form of a few sweet knockouts,” said Chessworth. Little did the lonely writer know that by the time the preliminary card was over, he’d be in a fight of his own. For his life.
Looking back on the ordeal, Chessworth says he should have realized that something was…off from the very first fight of the night. In a bout between UFC newcomers Douglas Silva de Andrade and Zuba…Zubariai Somethingorother, the liberal arts major said he could feel “a weird energy” in the crowd while watching the event on his 13” laptop screen.
“When Bruce Buffer is only spinning 90 degrees during the intros, you know you’re going to be in for a long night,” lamented Chessworth.
The next fight, between Ildemar Alcântara and Albert Tumenov, was similarly lackluster. Eerily similarly lackluster, you might even say. There were a few decent exchanges here, a decent scramble there, but the Brazilian crowd, know the world over for their fierce and uproarious nature when in group settings, seemed uncharacteristically calm. Not quiet of course, but restrained. Subdued even. It was a crowd not unlike the lethargic arena full of New Jersians present at UFC 169, and as the saying goes, “If it reminds you of Jersey, it’s probably terrible.”
At the start of fight 3, Chessworth placed an order to Ho-Tung’s Garden Palace. “Like I said, Valentine’s Day had just happened, so I had been binge-eating take out for a good six days. Last night, I had a hankering for Szechuan dumplings. Maybe some crab rangoons.”
As luck would have it, his dinner would arrive just as Felipe Arantes vs. Maximo Blanco was wrapping up. That coincidence would mark the only time that good luck would rear its head in Chip’s ensuing crawl to Hell and back. Chessworth rushed down the five floors that separated him from his deep fried, soy-glazed payday, made sure to tip the delivery driver, and returned to his Ikea floor model of an apartment moments later.
The Chinese food would have to wait, however, as the 4th prelim between Iuri Alcantara – brother of Ildemar – and Wilson Reis was already underway.“The worst part was knowing how soggy the rangoons were going to get if the fight lasted more than a couple of minutes,” Chessworth told reporters from his hospital bed.
And soggy would the rangoons get. The Alcantara-Reis fight would last fifteen long, excruciating minutes, rendering the wontons wrapped bits of deliciousness all but inedible. Although Chessworth was forced to discard half of the meal he so desperately needed, he was confident that the dumplings would be enough to save his already underwhelming fight-viewing experience.
Of course, one cannot properly eat Szechuan dumplings and liveblog at the same time, or vice versa. So despite the rumbling of his stomach and his mind’s insistence that no one was actually reading his crappy little liveblog anyway, Chessworth forged ahead. “Surely this Trinaldo-Ronson fight will end inside of two rounds,” Chessworth said to himself, his body already beginning to shutdown due to lack of sustenance.
The beer-drinking, cheese-pretzel consuming audience in attendance at Fight Night 36 would have the benefit of being able to call the ensuing fifteen minutes “boring and forgettable” in hindsight. Chessworth, however, could only stare out the window of his hospital room when asked to recount it later. “By the time it was over, calluses the size of golf balls had formed on four of my fingers,” said Chessworth while rapidly pressing his morphine button.
And by the time the judges scorecards for the next fight — a lightweight tilt between Rodrigo Damm and Ivan Jorge — were being read, Chessworth’s fingers had been stripped to the bone – partly because of all the typing, partly because Chessworth had been forced to consume them to stay alive. The dumplings were so close, yet so far out of reach for the liveblogger, who had now been glued to his chair for nearly three and a half hours.
The seemingly never-ending string of decisions had left Chessworth cold to his core and on the verge of starvation. His six-pack of Red Stripes gone, Chessworth knew that he could not turn back. For some reason, a fight between unknowns Joe Proctor and Cristiano Marcello had been selected as the featured fight of the prelims, and there was simply no way that Chessworth could skip what is considered “a marquee matchup” in today’s UFC landscape.
Chip awoke at Our Lady of Peaceful Slaughter hospital in Brooklyn some eight hours later. “I was told I made it halfway through the second round before I passed out due to blood loss,” said Chessworth. “I heard the main card was…OK.”
The $50 dollars Chessworth had received from Fist Fighter for covering the event would surely ease the pain, but the $10,000 it had taken to replace the blogger’s middle and index fingers with cadaver ligaments would be “a hefty expenditure moving forward to say the least,” added Chessworth.
A lawsuit with the UFC appears to be inevitable as well. Chessworth told reporters after the incident that he’d be willing to forgive the promotion if it “cancelled my Fight Pass subscription and reimbursed me the 10 dollars,” but when asked about the likelihood of that happening, UFC President Dana White was quoted as saying, “He wants his [expletive] ten dollars back?! Tell that [expletive] [expletive] I’ll see him in [expletive] court….[expletive].”
Seven fight. Seven decisions. Four and a half hours of Hell. And now, a battle in court on the horizon. All in the name of what Chessworth still refers to as “the most exciting sport on the planet.”
If there’s one thing all MMA fans can agree on, it’s the fact that they love a finish. That’s exactly why the UFC should institute a bonus for fighters to finish fights on all their cards. Fighters already pocket a cool $50,000 for Knockout of the Night and Submission of the Night along with both […]
If there’s one thing all MMA fans can agree on, it’s the fact that they love a finish. That’s exactly why the UFC should institute a bonus for fighters to finish fights on all their cards. Fighters already pocket a cool $50,000 for Knockout of the Night and Submission of the Night along with both […]
To say the UFC had an off night with UFC 169 would be an understatement. True, the card was record-breaking, but in the worst way possible. It featured more fights ending in a decision than any other fight card in UFC history. So many fights going to the judges isn’t a result of just bad luck. There are a few factors at play when a fight goes to a decision.
First, the fighters could be so evenly matched they either complement or negate one another. The former can result in a match like Dan Henderson vs. Shogun Rua or, to delve further into MMA’s past, Tyson Griffin vs. Clay Guida. The latter kind a fight—one between negating styles of equally matched fighters—results in any dime-a-dozen decision that features long bouts of stalling against the cage or ineffective, listless striking. The kind of fights the UFC presented to us in spades last night, and have been peddling on prelims (and even main cards) for a while now.
To say the UFC had an off night with UFC 169 would be an understatement. True, the card was record-breaking, but in the worst way possible. It featured more fights ending in a decision than any other fight card in UFC history. So many fights going to the judges isn’t a result of just bad luck. There are a few factors at play when a fight goes to a decision.
First, the fighters could be so evenly matched they either complement or negate one another. The former can result in a match like Dan Henderson vs. Shogun Rua or, to delve further into MMA’s past, Tyson Griffin vs. Clay Guida. The latter kind a fight—one between negating styles of equally matched fighters—results in any dime-a-dozen decision that features long bouts of stalling against the cage or ineffective, listless striking. The kind of fights the UFC presented to us in spades last night, and have been peddling on prelims (and even main cards) for a while now.
An aside: Some might say an evenly matched fight is the pinnacle of booking and Joe Silva should be commended every time we get a decision. In title fights and other circumstances, that’s fair enough. Prelims are a different matter. Putting two, equally mediocre guys together—who were both ripped from the regional teat too early in order to fill an ever-expanding schedule—resulting in a piss-poor decision does nothing in terms of booking. Fans won’t remember the fighter who won a 15-minute sparring match or clinch-fest, and if they do, they probably won’t want to see them fight again.
Second, the fighters could be risk-averse. Dana White admitted the UFC roster is bloated. Along with the ballooning roster came surprising cuts like Jon Fitch and Yushin Okami. Top ten fighters get canned like the lowliest of one-and-done jobbers. Under such circumstances, it’s no surprise that the UFC’s athletes would rather fight the safe fight and take as few risks as possible, which usually means a forgetful decision win that doesn’t please the fans.
Third, and this might be controversial to the meat-headed “WHY DON’T YOU STEP INTO THE CAGE, BRO” fans, the fighters might not be very good. They might be C-level fighters that were called up to the big leagues way to soon—fighters that are too green and put on performances that belong at a local show, not the “Super Bowl of MMA.” These fighters go into the Octagon and put on graceless performances akin to awkward middle school photos.
Decisions aren’t inherently inferior though. We shouldn’t malign a fight for going to the judges. Some of the greatest fights in MMA history were decisions. Jon Jones vs. Alexander Gustafsson went to a decision, as did Dan Henderson vs. Shogun Rua, Gilbert Melendez vs. Diego Sanchez, and “the fight that saved the UFC,” Forrest Griffin vs. Stephan Bonnar I, as well as many others.
Instead, we should malign the booking, or the fighting style(s), or the UFC’s insistence on polluting their cards with sub-UFC level fighters.
It’s one of the worst problems the UFC has at this point in time. It has many names. Theft, robbery, incompetence, but one name stands above the rest. Controversy. The UFC is not perfect. It has many areas where it’s great in, but one …
It’s one of the worst problems the UFC has at this point in time. It has many names. Theft, robbery, incompetence, but one name stands above the rest. Controversy. The UFC is not perfect. It has many areas where it’s great in, but one very bad area that sticks out like a sore thumb. That’s the […]
An artist’s rendering of what Askren’s ground and pound might look like (Photo: Sherdog.com)
I’m not going to say that this was the most boring Bellator card in recent memory, but I will tell you that my DVR got tired of recording it and gave up before the Welterweight title fight had even begun. One of the risks of live televised fights is that they’ll go over the allotted time frame, particularly during a decision-laden event like Bellator 64. For those fans who don’t appreciate the nuances of champion Ben Askren’s suffocating ground game, having the evening’s finale blotted from your television may have been a blessing in disguise.
This season’s Bantamweight tournament kicked off with a quarterfinal pairing of undefeated twenty year old Rodrigo Lima and the seasoned Hiroshi Nakamura. Lima found himself on his back throughout the fight, but took no rest on the canvas as he tirelessly worked for every submission in the book. Nakamura—whose 87% win-by-decision record could compete with any of the UFC’s top grinders—kept all four limbs out of serious danger and stifled Lima’s ground game long enough to launch some ground and pound in the third frame. His takedowns and top control, coupled with a point awarded for absorbing a pair of unintentional knees to the nuts, were enough to bring home the unanimous 29-27 decision.
An artist’s rendering of what Askren’s ground and pound might look like (Photo: Sherdog.com)
I’m not going to say that this was the most boring Bellator card in recent memory, but I will tell you that my DVR got tired of recording it and gave up before the Welterweight title fight had even begun. One of the risks of live televised fights is that they’ll go over the allotted time frame, particularly during a decision-laden event like Bellator 64. For those fans who don’t appreciate the nuances of champion Ben Askren‘s suffocating ground game, having the evening’s finale blotted from your television may have been a blessing in disguise.
This season’s Bantamweight tournament kicked off with a quarterfinal pairing of undefeated twenty year old Rodrigo Lima and the seasoned Hiroshi Nakamura. Lima found himself on his back throughout the fight, but took no rest on the canvas as he tirelessly worked for every submission in the book. Nakamura—whose 87% win-by-decision record could compete with any of the UFC’s top grinders—kept all four limbs out of serious danger and stifled Lima’s ground game long enough to launch some ground and pound in the third frame. His takedowns and top control, coupled with a point awarded for absorbing a pair of unintentional knees to the nuts, were enough to bring home the unanimous 29-27 decision.
In other Bantamweight tourney action, underdog Travis Marx showed little fear in welcoming Masakatsu Ueda to the U-S-of-A. The Japanese fighter was the heavy favorite in his promotional debut, but not heavy enough to deal with the size and strength of his opponent. Marx ragdolled Ueda with a massive slam in the first round, but the former Shooto champ was unfazed by the throw and started working for a kimura on impact. Marx escaped and continued to use his wrestling and strength advantage to win the grappling exchanges and maintain control when jockeying for position on the ground. All three judges scored the fight for Marx 29-28.
Brazilians Marlon Sandro and Alexandre Bezerra squared off to see who would advance to the Featherweight tournament finals. Sandro was able to get off early and often in round one, finding a home for his hands and taking ‘Popo’s’ legs out from under him with kicks while Bezerra looked to counter with a big left that never came. The exchanges played out the same in round two with both men throwing but neither unloading on their opponent. Bezerra took over as the aggressor in the final frame, driving in on Sandro and suplexing him to the mat. After a bizarre standup by referee Yves Lavigne—which came as the two dueled for leglocks—Popo rocked his hero twice with heavy hands, but it wasn’t enough to overcome the two round deficit. Sandro took home the split decision victory and will move on to the finals.
The definition of love is knowing how the Ben Askren-Douglas Lima bout played out and still watching it for you bastards. Askren employed his grappling-heavy attack to take Lima’s stand-up out of the equation, and while the challenger was able to delay some of “Funky’s” takedowns he could not keep off of his back for any significant length of time. Askren’s ground and pound was more active than it was damaging, but he dominated Lima for all five rounds. Lima attempted sweeps and threatened with multiple armbars, but he could never seize control of the fight from from the champ. Both the 50-45 decision and the boos from the audience were unanimous. The win marks six straight victories via scorecard for Askren, a fitting end to the evening’s action.
Ben Askren def. Douglas Lima via unanimous decision (50-45, 50-45, 50-45)
Marlon Sandro def. Alexandre Bezerra via split decision (29-28, 28-29, 29-28)
Travis Marx def. Masakatsu Ueda via unanimous decision (29-28, 29-28, 29-28)
Hiroshi Nakamura def. Rodigo Lima via unanimous decision (29-27, 29-27, 29-27)
Prelims:
Mike Richman def. Chris Horodecki via knockout (punches) at 1:23 of Round 1
Chad Laprise def. Josh Taveirne via submission (triangle choke) at 2:48 of Round 1
Kyle Prepolec def. Lance Snow via submission (arm-bar) at 2:54 of Round 1
Elias Theodorou def. Rich Lictawa via verbal submission (blindness) at 0:33 of Round 3
Nordine Taleb def. Matt Secor via unanimous decision (30-27, 30-27, 30-24)
Taylor Solomon def. Jason Fischer via via technical submission (rear-naked choke) at 4:59 of Round 3
(“I eventually had to start eating my fingers for sustenance,” recounts horrified blogger from hospital bed.)
