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Some highlights from Thursday’s Bellator season finale at the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino in Hollywood, Florida, courtesy of John Sluder.
Part 1, below: Hector Lombard def. Alexander Shlemenko via unanimous decision. Continue to Bellat…
Some highlights from Thursday’s Bellator season finale at the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino in Hollywood, Florida, courtesy of John Sluder.
Part 1, below: Hector Lombard def. Alexander Shlemenko via unanimous decision.
Continue to Bellator 34 photo gallery pt. 2 (Frausto vs. Fujii)
Continue to Bellator 34 photo gallery pt. 3 (The best of the rest)
Sure, we tune in for the fights at the end of each episode, the trash-talk between the coaches, and Dana White occasionally showing up to kick somebody’s ass out of the house. But over 12 seasons of The Ultimate Fighter, it’s the peripheral characters that are responsible for the show’s best moments. Take this season, for example — would it be nearly as interesting if Coach GSP didn’t bring in a special guest every week to shake up his team? With that in mind, here’s our tribute to the under-appreciated minor players that have kept TUF on its toes for the last six years…
#9: Willa Ford
In an effort to inject some eye candy into their new reality show, the UFC cast model/singer/actress Willa Ford as the host of The Ultimate Fighter‘s first season. (Her main duty was to introduce those weird elimination challenges that marked the show’s early days.) Willa was gone by season two, leaving us with fond memories of a time when TUF‘s non-stop sweaty dudeness was occasionally broken up by a pretty face.
Dude flies in from Paris, shows up to the TUF gym drunk, and gives GSP’s entire team the worst beating of their lives. What’s not to like?
Sure, we tune in for the fights at the end of each episode, the trash-talk between the coaches, and Dana White occasionally showing up to kick somebody’s ass out of the house. But over 12 seasons of The Ultimate Fighter, it’s the peripheral characters that are responsible for the show’s best moments. Take this season, for example — would it be nearly as interesting if Coach GSP didn’t bring in a special guest every week to shake up his team? With that in mind, here’s our tribute to the under-appreciated minor players that have kept TUF on its toes for the last six years…
#9: Willa Ford
In an effort to inject some eye candy into their new reality show, the UFC cast model/singer/actress Willa Ford as the host of The Ultimate Fighter‘s first season. (Her main duty was to introduce those weird elimination challenges that marked the show’s early days.) Willa was gone by season two, leaving us with fond memories of a time when TUF‘s non-stop sweaty dudeness was occasionally broken up by a pretty face.
Dude flies in from Paris, shows up to the TUF gym drunk, and gives GSP’s entire team the worst beating of their lives. What’s not to like?
(Damn. As if the "Having to Fight GSP" curse wasn’t bad enough… / Image courtesy of fightmagazine.com)
By Jim "jimbonics" Isaacs So there I was, minding my own business, creating a masterpiece through MSPaint in honor of ReX13&…
(Damn. As if the "Having to Fight GSP" curse wasn’t bad enough… / Image courtesy of fightmagazine.com)
By Jim "jimbonics" Isaacs
So there I was, minding my own business, creating a masterpiece through MSPaint in honor of ReX13’s first Bellator article for the ‘Tater. Later that afternoon, after a WILD week in the comments section across all articles, I was honored with a “Comment of the Week” award and subsequently a subscription to FIGHT! Magazine. Sweet! It was the first thing I had won since a pinball contest in Nineteen Dickety-Two.
After a month of salivating and daily mailbox-checking, I had received no magazine. I was convinced I would not actually receive a prize, as hundreds of comments at CP over the past year alluded to. Then it happened. My mailbox was stuffed with bills I would never open, offers I would never respond to, and an extremely thick and glossy FIGHT! Magazine.
There is King Mo, in all his glory bling, staring at me. The first thought in my head was how he got his ass thoroughly beaten by Mousasi yet still won the belt based solely on takedowns. (Though he snared 11 of his 14 takedown attempts, if there was ever a fight to argue against the weight of takedowns in MMA scoring, it was that fight, but I digress). The second thought in my head was that he wouldn’t hold the belt very long, especially with the ultra-quick striker and BJJ black belt Feijão looming. I’m not saying, I’m just saying.
A month later the next magazine had wrestling specialist Kenny Florian on it. He went on to get Gray Maynarded. This got the wheels turning, and I decided to do a little investigating: Does the long-rumored FIGHT! Magazine Cover Curse actually exist?
Let’s start at the beginning, shall we?
(Where’s your glass trophy now, playboy? Props: thesun.co.uk)
By CagePotato contributor Jim Genia
In a perfect world, The Ultimate Fighter would give us an up close and personal look at some of the most promising mixed martial artists out there, vyi…
(Where’s your glass trophy now, playboy? Props: thesun.co.uk)
By CagePotato contributor Jim Genia
In a perfect world, The Ultimate Fighter would give us an up close and personal look at some of the most promising mixed martial artists out there, vying for greatness in the crucible of combat. But in reality, it’s become a perversion of manufactured drama and prefabricated stars — stars made bright not by the depth of the competition they must face but by the trouncing of whatever hapless wannabes a SpikeTV producer chose at the tryouts. You see, it stopped being about “who’s the best” a long time ago, and was twisted into “who makes for the best TV,” so what we get now is more Jersey Shore than Ultimate Fighting Championship, only instead of Snooki and JWoww’s cleavage we get an IFL champ or Sengoku veteran beating the ever-loving crap out of people with maybe a handful (if that) of fights.
That’s why, when a TUF winner loses in Octagon — sometimes after facing real UFC-level competition for the first time — it’s totally awesome! Because, sure, Michael Bisping, Joe Stevenson and Mac Danzig are tough, likeable guys, but don’t try to fool us into thinking they’re the definition of “badass” just because they defeated a personal trainer from New Orleans, a boxer from Maine and some kid who should be working on a farm. We’re not the ignorant general public flicking through the channels, we’re knowledgeable MMA fans. We know better!
Therefore, here, in no particular order, is a list of the ten greatest TUF winner fails of all time. It’s a list based not on animosity towards any particular fighter, but on animosity towards the Spike TV executive who skipped over the few hundred fighter hopefuls with real talent and real skill, and instead chose the clown with the funky hair, the drinking problem and the propensity for trashing houses…
Michael Bisping vs. Dan Henderson, UFC 100
British fighter Michael Bisping was a stud in the UK MMA scene (which is a lot like saying you’re a gold medalist in the Special Olympics) when he got the call to compete on TUF, and he took Season 3 top honors after beating, well, pretty much no one of note. But he continued to rack up wins on the pay-per-views, defeating such marginables as Elvis Sinosic, Charles McCarthy and Jason Day. However, TUF 9 saw him pitted against Dan Henderson as an opposing coach, and we were supposed to believe the inevitable Octagon conflict between them would be competitive. It wasn’t, and fans everywhere rejoiced over a knockout so devastating Bisping has no recollection of anything to do with the weekend of July 11, 2009 and about nine days before and after.
(The moral of the story? When Gina Carano does it, it’s awesome. When Paulo Filho does it, it’s terrible. / Photo courtesy of CombatLifestyle.com)
Anybody can be forgiven for missing weight by a half-pound — as long as it doesn’t become a …
(The moral of the story? When Gina Carano does it, it’s awesome. When Paulo Filho does it, it’s terrible. / Photo courtesy of CombatLifestyle.com)
Anybody can be forgiven for missing weight by a half-pound — as long as it doesn’t become a habit. But when an MMA fighter comes in a full four pounds heavy, as Efrain Escudero did this week for his doomed UFC Fight Night 22 bout against Charles Oliveira, it tends to raise some eyebrows. As we’ve done previously with steroid busts, we decided to catalog the worst scale-fails in MMA history, arranged by number of pounds over the limit. When the information was available, we also listed the punishments the fighters were given, along with their excuses for missing weight, which range from injuries to salt water to the dreaded "menstrual period." This is by no means a definitive list — but we’d like it be, eventually. So if you know of any other occasions where fighters missed weight by four pounds or more, or missed weight for multiple fights, please let us know in the comments section.
Nick Diaz @ EliteXC: Return of the King
Weigh-in date: 6/13/08
Weight: 169.5, 9.5 over limit
Punishment: Diaz forfeited a portion of his fight purse to his opponent, Muhsin Corbbrey.
Fight result: Diaz by third-round TKO
Excuse: After arriving in Hawaii, Diaz said he "went in the salt water and absorbed a lot of sodium or something." In Cesar Gracie’s version of the tale, Diaz got sick after accidentally ingesting the water. Nick reached out to Corbbrey when the weight-cut was looking grim, and made a deal to hold the bout at a catchweight.
Dale Hartt @ Ringside 7: No Escape
Weigh-in date: 6/17/10
Weight: 163.4 pounds, 8.4 over limit
Fight result: Hartt lost to Guillaume DeLorenzi by second-round TKO (shoulder injury)
("Wrestling should be a means to an end…You should be taking guys down so you can ground-and-pound the living piss out of them." Photo courtesy of the UFN 22 Weigh In Pics gallery on CombatLifestyle.com.)
If Cole Miller’s match again…
("Wrestling should be a means to an end…You should be taking guys down so you can ground-and-pound the living piss out of them." Photo courtesy of the UFN 22 Weigh In Pics gallery on CombatLifestyle.com.)
If Cole Miller‘s match against Ross Pearson at tonight’s UFC Fight Night 22 event is boring, it won’t be Cole’s fault. The lightweight standout prides himself on being an exciting fight-finisher, and has stopped three of his last four opponents by submission. Miller was a guest on the latest installment of CagePotato’s Bum Rush Radio Show, and gave us an earful about the growing trend of point-fighting "underachievers" in MMA and why judging in the sport sucks so badly. Check out an excerpt from Miller’s segment below, and please subscribe to The Bum Rush Show on iTunes!
CAGEPOTATO.COM: I just saw your interview with BJPenn.com, where you referred to Frankie Edgar as a "bouncy wrestler type" who doesn’t try to finish, and is content to just stick and move and score the occasional takedown for points. Was Frankie dominating BJ Penn really not that impressive to you?
COLE MILLER: No, I thought it was very impressive. I don’t think you can say anything about his skill set. It’s just more like, I look back at his past fights — and it’s not so much Frankie Edgar, it’s just a trend with all weight classes and all these fighters — and it’s becoming more like boxing where these guys are just trying to do enough to win the round. "Let’s do just enough to get by. Let’s get that 10 points. And then let’s get that 10 points again. Oh, I’m up two rounds to none? Man, let’s just ride this out. Let’s just survive and do enough to just stay competitive, and man, I got that 29-28 at the very least."
It’s like, that’s really what you came here to do? And I’m not talking so much about Frankie [in] this second BJ fight. I’m just using him as an example because it was a recent fight and he’s a guy that has a lot of decisions on his record. Man the guy can really box, the guy’s got awesome boxing, he’s got good footwork, he definitely comes in shape, and he didn’t look like a slouch on the ground, he’s very well rounded, so to say that you’re not impressed with somebody, especially a champion, I think that’s kind of silly…it’s more like the mental approach to fighting. I just think that guys should have more of a finishing outlook on fights. Doing enough to just get by, that’s not something that’s looked well upon.
You look at boxing, why is MMA outdoing it on pay-per-view for the most part? It’s not because people can appreciate the takedowns and the ground game all that much more, even though the general population is becoming more and more educated, it’s because people like to see fights finished. Boxing was not getting the knockouts and you weren’t seeing these devastating knockouts like you used to, and people stopped buying the pay per views because the general public doesn’t want to see 36 minutes of two guys both trying to do enough to win the rounds and get that 10, and get that 10, and get that 10….