At UFC 135 this weekend, Jon Jones will defend his light heavyweight title for the first time against a former title holder in Quinton “Rampage” Jackson. The trash talk between the two fighters has been epic, so fans analysts, and even fellow figh…
At UFC 135 this weekend, Jon Jones will defend his light heavyweight title for the first time against a former title holder in Quinton “Rampage” Jackson.
The trash talk between the two fighters has been epic, so fans analysts, and even fellow fighters seem to be heavily anticipating this main event bout.
“Bones” is a massive favorite in this one, with the Vegas odds pitting him as a six to one favorite, a figure rarely seen not only in MMA, but really sports in general.
That raises the question: where would a Rampage win rank among all time upsets in MMA?
Let’s take a look inside at some of the biggest upsets in MMA history.
UFC 135 comes to you live from the Pepsi Center in Denver, Colorado, on September 24.In main event action, current UFC light heavyweight champion, Jon “Bones” Jones will defend his title for the first time against former champion, Quinton “Rampage” Jac…
UFC 135 comes to you live from the Pepsi Center in Denver, Colorado, on September 24.
In main event action, current UFC light heavyweight champion, Jon “Bones” Jones will defend his title for the first time against former champion, Quinton “Rampage” Jackson.
If the main event bout does not excite you, then a clash between welterweight hall-of-famer Matt Hughes and former No. 1 contender Josh Koscheck should send electricity through your veins.
Further action includes a heavyweight slug-fest between Travis Browne and the Brit, Rob Broughton.
Additionally, Nate Diaz will look to regain momentum in the lightweight division as he challenges the veteran, Takanori Gomi.
Rounding out the main card action will be an additional heavyweight match up between Ben Rothwell and the kick-boxing giant from New Zealand, Mark Hunt.
Please follow along as I dissect and predict the winners for the entire night’s card.
Enjoy the fights.
I welcome your comments.
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Amongst fans and a multitude of media outlets, it was assumed that Brock Lesnar was the biggest pay-per-view draw in the UFC.The former heavyweight champion was included in the May 2011 issue of ESPN The Magazine, which featured a listing of the highes…
Amongst fans and a multitude of media outlets, it was assumed that Brock Lesnar was the biggest pay-per-view draw in the UFC.
The former heavyweight champion was included in the May 2011 issue of ESPN The Magazine, which featured a listing of the highest paid athletes in 30 different sports.
Lesnar topped MMA with a whopping estimated earning of $5.3 million for two bouts in 2010. With such a high payout, many assumed Lesnar was the UFC’s biggest draw.
According to UFC president Dana White, this assumption is far from the truth.
“Georges St-Pierre is by far the biggest pay-per-view star in Mixed Martial Arts,” said White on Wednesday.
St-Pierre has come under harsh criticism as of late for failing to finish his last four fights.
Lately, the French Canadian has favored a methodical approach in taking opponents out of their comfort zones and coasting to unanimous decisions, which has brought about scrutiny from a multitude of fans.
Still, St-Pierre has remained dominant in his efforts, and he continues his neck-and-neck race with Anderson Silva in the bid for pound-for-pound supremacy.
As with any sport, people will always have their opinions, but the dollar signs don’t lie.
“For what it’s worth, people want to say (GSP) is this or that,” said White. “By far. By far the biggest pay-per-view star in MMA.”
St-Pierre has managed to attain mainstream sponsorships from notorious brands such as Gatorade and Under Armour. He has achieved more commercial success than any fighter in the history of the sport, and he doesn’t seem to be slowing down anytime soon.
For four years Georges St-Pierre has been the supreme talent of the welterweight division.
St-Pierre has ruled it accordingly, but there are three combatants who have been mentally victimized by the champ.
The three major victims I’ll get to late…
For four years Georges St-Pierre has been the supreme talent of the welterweight division.
St-Pierre has ruled it accordingly, but there are three combatants who have been mentally victimized by the champ.
The three major victims I’ll get to later.
St-Pierre to date has had 22 career fights—he’s only come up short twice, to Matt Hughes and Matt Serra. Those loses he would avenge in typical “Rush-esque” fashion.
St-Pierre is a world class MMA-ist in every sense of the word—Jiu-jitsu black belt, Gaidojutsu black belt, Kyokushin 3rd black belt, accomplished wrestler and he’s also well versed in Muay-Thai and boxing, not to mention his core strength.
One phrase comes to mind—all rounder.
Of late St-Pierre seems to have failed to finish four of his last opponents—all ending in unanimous decision wins, but somehow, St-Pierre has been able to wreak both mental and physical havoc on said fighters psyche.
Josh Koscheck is not on the list but it’s left to be seen whether he will suffer the same fate as the other three. He is set to throw down with Matt Hughes at UFC 135, that fight will give an indication on whether he too has succumbed to what I’d like to call “The GSP Fatigue”.
Let’s take a look at three casualties of “The GSP Fatigue:”
The UFC is universally recognized as the preeminent mixed martial arts promotion on the planet. Therefore, UFC bouts usually see the best competing against the best. Of these top level fighters, who has seen the most success?It is impossibl…
The UFC is universally recognized as the preeminent mixed martial arts promotion on the planet. Therefore, UFC bouts usually see the best competing against the best. Of these top level fighters, who has seen the most success?
It is impossible to objectively evaluate which fighters have had more success based on past competition. Such a process allows for too much subjectivity when comparing the value of different wins.
To avoid such subjectivity, the rankings in this article are based on each fighter’s record over .500 (wins minus losses). This process is more effective than simply comparing winning percentages because it factors in longevity.
Also, since any fighter with a better winning percentage but fewer wins above .500 than another fighter would have to win more than half of his fights to catch up, this list assumes that it is impossible to assume such success. For example, if fighter A is 11-3 (eight games over) and fighter B is 7-0 (seven games over), although B has a much better winning percentage, B would have to 4-3 in his next seven fights to match A; it is impossible to assume such success (see Brandon Vera).
For tiebreakers, overall winning percentage will be considered (7-0 > 9-2).
(Eder Jones wins fight, loses pie-eating contest.)
This Friday marks the official start of Autumn, and like clockwork, I’m catching a goddamned cold. There’s something about the change of seasons that seems to wreck my immune system, which has grown frail due to a life of solitary blogging and poor hygeine. So as I chug my Airborne/orange juice cocktail, let’s all take inspiration in these six men, who were way worse-off than I am now, and still managed to kick ass.
Method of victory: TKO (cut), 4:45 of round 2 In his own words: “I took the fight and I was really sick. I was so sick, after the first round I thought I was going to fall unconscious. And I told my cornerman, I’m like, listen, when the second round will start I will try a high kick in the beginning and if I don’t knock out my opponent, I want you to throw the towel. My cornerman look up at me like this, he said ‘Georges, I don’t have a towel, you’re gonna die in the ring.’
And I got so angry, I was like, I can’t believe this guy, he’s supposed to be my friend, he wants me to die in the ring. So I stood up, I hear the [bell], I fought through it, and by some kind of miracle I was able to cut the guy and to TKO him and the referee stopped the fight. I was completely exhausted. That was my toughest fight.”
(Eder Jones wins fight, loses pie-eating contest.)
This Friday marks the official start of Autumn, and like clockwork, I’m catching a goddamned cold. There’s something about the change of seasons that seems to wreck my immune system, which has grown frail due to a life of solitary blogging and poor hygeine. So as I chug my Airborne/orange juice cocktail, let’s all take inspiration in these six men, who were way worse-off than I am now, and still managed to kick ass.
Method of victory: TKO (cut), 4:45 of round 2 In his own words: ”I took the fight and I was really sick. I was so sick, after the first round I thought I was going to fall unconscious. And I told my cornerman, I’m like, listen, when the second round will start I will try a high kick in the beginning and if I don’t knock out my opponent, I want you to throw the towel. My cornerman look up at me like this, he said ‘Georges, I don’t have a towel, you’re gonna die in the ring.’
And I got so angry, I was like, I can’t believe this guy, he’s supposed to be my friend, he wants me to die in the ring. So I stood up, I hear the [bell], I fought through it, and by some kind of miracle I was able to cut the guy and to TKO him and the referee stopped the fight. I was completely exhausted. That was my toughest fight.”
RICH FRANKLIN vs. Aaron Brink @ IFC: Warriors Challenge 11, 1/13/01
Method of victory: TKO (foot injury), 2:42 of round 1; later changed to a no contest In his own words: “That’s the first time that somebody had flown me out to an event. At the time, the IFC was a California-based organization, and Aaron Brink was a California guy, so I was pretty much brought in to lose. But the interesting thing about that fight is I had gotten very sick beforehand. I was sitting in my hotel room about an hour-and-a-half before the event started, and I had over a 104-degree fever. I skipped the rules meeting, skipped all this stuff and basically just showed up to fight. And you can tell by looking at me on the tape that I was definitely not feeling good.
That was a long night of my life. And that’s actually when Monte Cox started managing me, after that fight. He and I had been at several shows together — I knew who he was, he knew who I was — and he liked me, and he said, ‘I pretty much saw you make about the stupidest decision you’ve ever made in your life tonight. If you’re interested, I’d be willing to manage you and make sure that things like that don’t continue to happen.’”
JOSE ALDO vs. Mark Hominick @ UFC 129, 4/30/11
Method of victory: Unanimous decision F*ck antibiotics: Following the fight, Aldo complained to his corner that he should have taken antibiotics, to which his cornerman replied, “Antibiotics would not have helped at all, you’re the champion kid, fuck antibiotics, everything is okay. You fought well, smooth and composed.” In his coach’s words: ”(Aldo) suffered a cut in one of his toes a week before the fight and got it infected with a bacteria. He was taking a dose of antibiotics and anti-inflammatory for three days, Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday before the fight so he’d not need to take anything else close to Saturday. I can’t say with 100% certainty that it affected his performance because I’m not a doctor. I give Hominick a lot more credit for enduring the fight than the fact that Aldo took these medications.”
Method of victory: KO, 2:58 of round 1 In his own words: [two weeks before Kim fight] ”My stomach was all fucked up, bro. The first couple days I was throwing up, my stomach hurt bad. I couldn’t sleep at night…This is my first day back training since probably last Friday, so it’s been seven days. I went to a friend’s wedding in Vegas last weekend, and I’m not exactly sure whether I ate something or whether I picked something up or what, but I got really sick. I was throwing up for a few days and was just, I was pretty messed up. I wasn’t able to eat or train for quite a while.” Greg Jackson adds: “It was so bad we were contemplating canceling the fight, just because he was really, really sick, he lost some weight, he’s not being able to train, and we’re really close to the fight, so it’s very dangerous. So we’ll see how it goes, and if he starts improving we’ll keep him in.”
Method of victory: TKO, 0:21 of round 1 In his own words: “I actually had a really bad fever the night before the fight. I did a steam room that I’m not used to doing to cut weight because I came in at about 224.5 (pounds) at the beginning of the week on Tuesday, and I like to be about 220.
So they have the nice salon down there at Mandalay Bay, and I hit that up. I was hitting the steam room, and I got a little moisture in my lungs. I was thinking nothing of it, but a couple days went by, and it got worse…Later that night I sweat the bed so bad. I had a fever. I’m still recovering from it…I haven’t really been able to celebrate my win. I haven’t felt that victory yet just because I’ve been so under the weather.”
TIM SYLVIA vs. Assuerio Silva @ Ultimate Fight Night 3, 1/16/06
Method of victory: Unanimous decision In his own words: “Not taking anything away from Assuerio, he’s a tough dude, obviously. I hit him a couple of times and couldn’t finish him. I was really sick for the fight. I got really sick Saturday and had problems holding my innards. When I was warming up, I had a few problems, and I actually had a few problems in the ring when I was fighting.
I don’t know what it was. It got really cold when we were outside working out and stuff, going back and forth from the room. I caught something, and I just couldn’t hold in my number twos…If you look at the fight you’ll see that when my shorts came down, you’ll see the wet mark in my underwear.”
Amongst fans and a multitude of media outlets, it was assumed that 
