(This guy, on roids? I’m sorry, but I’m going to need a little more evidence before I render my verdict.)
I’m confused, Potato Nation. You see, this morning I typed in “side effects of steroids” into Google, and took a look at roughly the first ten results. All of the common side effects were listed: Acne, man boobs, shrunken testicles, you know, the good stuff. Most of the websites even covered the long term effects: the aggression, the sterility, yadda yadda yadda. But not a one of those websites listed memory loss as a side effect, yet not a one of the MMA fighters who have been busted for the stuff in recent years seem to remember doing it.
I’ve always been extremely regimented with my diet and would not use anything that could harm my body or my performance inside the octagon. And it wasn’t different this time. I never had the intention to cheat. I’ve got almost 30 fights in my career, most of them in the UFC. I have been subjected to several surprise tests, and there was never anything wrong. Besides, I knew that I would be tested after the fight in Australia because it is standard in the UFC. I have a clear conscience, but accepted the punishment. The rules are there for everyone and must be followed.
I consulted with my doctor, and he will go over all food supplements used in my preparation for the fight and the test results. I want to know exactly what happened that made the testosterone rate unusual in my body.
(This guy, on roids? I’m sorry, but I’m going to need a little more evidence before I render my verdict.)
I’m confused, Potato Nation. You see, this morning I typed in “side effects of steroids” into Google, and took a look at roughly the first ten results. All of the common side effects were listed: Acne, man boobs, shrunken testicles, you know, the good stuff. Most of the websites even covered the long term effects: the aggression, the sterility, yadda yadda yadda. But not a one of those websites listed memory loss as a side effect, yet not a one of the MMA fighters who have been busted for the stuff in recent years seem to remember doing it.
I’ve always been extremely regimented with my diet and would not use anything that could harm my body or my performance inside the octagon. And it wasn’t different this time. I never had the intention to cheat. I’ve got almost 30 fights in my career, most of them in the UFC. I have been subjected to several surprise tests, and there was never anything wrong. Besides, I knew that I would be tested after the fight in Australia because it is standard in the UFC. I have a clear conscience, but accepted the punishment. The rules are there for everyone and must be followed.
I consulted with my doctor, and he will go over all food supplements used in my preparation for the fight and the test results. I want to know exactly what happened that made the testosterone rate unusual in my body.
I’m sorry, there must have been a translation error when Palhares described his testosterone rate as “unusual.” Because a T/E ratio of over 9/1 is less “unusual” and more “the thing of nightmares.” Come to think of it, Palhares should consider changing his nickname to “The Thing of Nightmares.” Not only does the dude have a history of assholish behavior in the octagon that reads like a rap sheet, but now he’s apparently turning up the power knob on his vice grip arms of death to 11. I guess we can all take comfort in the fact that Hector Lombard was able to beat the piss out of Palhares despite having such a disadvantage in that department.
But seriously, Potato Nation, are any of you even buying this excuse anymore? Those of you who raised your hands can quietly exit the classroom, as you will not be receiving a gold star today.
After burying most of the UFC middleweight division in his last Yahoo! Sports column — including that poor, poorChris Weidman, who has done nothing to deserve such rough treatment — angry MMA blogger Michael Bisping returned last night with his latest missive, which attacks pretty much every aspect of Vitor Belfort‘s character, from the Brazilian’s physical appearance, to his controversial history of rabbit-punching, to his Rex Ryan-esque affection for his wife’s feet. (Meanwhile, Belfort claims that talking trash is dangerous because it can infect the person doing the talking as much as it can hurt the target. Pffft, whatever!)
On embarrassing fetishes:
“A fan tweeted me a link to Vitor in some Brazilian reality TV show, a clip where he’s in a bath kissing someone’s feet. [Ed. note: In case you’ve somehow never seen this clip before, those feet belonged to Vitor’s wife, Joana Prado.] It was pretty fruity stuff but, if he enjoyed sucking toes, he’s going to have the time of his life on January 19 because I’m going to kick him in the face all night long.” [Ed. note: You son of a bitch.]
On TRT and illegal punches:
“I’m thinking of asking Randy Couture if I can use him old nickname ‘the Natural’ just to make it clear I’m not one of these guys who is on TRT or any of that junk. Whenever someone asks me if I am on it, I give them a straight answer and if they ask me what I think of TRT I always say: ‘I think it is legalized cheating’…I don’t think it has a place in our sport and wish my opinion — and I think the majority of fans’ opinion — was shared by certain other fighters and the people who regulate our sport.
I was disappointed Vitor Belfort started talking in tongues when asked about TRT recently. He had a little more to say on Monday when he was asked directly about my concerns that all his recent UFC fights were won by illegal punches to the back of the head. In between lengthy references to the New Testament, Belfort basically said he doesn’t care if he hits opponents behind the head…
After burying most of the UFC middleweight division in his last Yahoo! Sports column — including that poor, poorChris Weidman, who has done nothing to deserve such rough treatment — angry MMA blogger Michael Bisping returned last night with his latest missive, which attacks pretty much every aspect of Vitor Belfort‘s character, from the Brazilian’s physical appearance, to his controversial history of rabbit-punching, to his Rex Ryan-esque affection for his wife’s feet. (Meanwhile, Belfort claims that talking trash is dangerous because it can infect the person doing the talking as much as it can hurt the target. Pffft, whatever!)
On embarrassing fetishes:
“A fan tweeted me a link to Vitor in some Brazilian reality TV show, a clip where he’s in a bath kissing someone’s feet. [Ed. note: In case you’ve somehow never seen this clip before, those feet belonged to Vitor’s wife, Joana Prado.] It was pretty fruity stuff but, if he enjoyed sucking toes, he’s going to have the time of his life on January 19 because I’m going to kick him in the face all night long.” [Ed. note: You son of a bitch.]
On TRT and illegal punches:
“I’m thinking of asking Randy Couture if I can use him old nickname ‘the Natural’ just to make it clear I’m not one of these guys who is on TRT or any of that junk. Whenever someone asks me if I am on it, I give them a straight answer and if they ask me what I think of TRT I always say: ‘I think it is legalized cheating’…I don’t think it has a place in our sport and wish my opinion — and I think the majority of fans’ opinion — was shared by certain other fighters and the people who regulate our sport.
I was disappointed Vitor Belfort started talking in tongues when asked about TRT recently. He had a little more to say on Monday when he was asked directly about my concerns that all his recent UFC fights were won by illegal punches to the back of the head. In between lengthy references to the New Testament, Belfort basically said he doesn’t care if he hits opponents behind the head.
How he’s gotten away with this in his career is a mystery to me, and I hope we have a strong referee who has the balls to do something about it — if it happens — with thousands of Belfort supporters screaming in the stands. And of course it is down to me to make sure I’m not put in a position where he can unloaded these kinds of shots.”
On chicken legs and chicken hearts:
“I’m looking forward to going to Brazil. I was there for just a few days before Christmas doing PR for this fight. I shook Vitor’s hand and we had a laugh about how at UFC 152 we were around each other quite a lot and got along great — and now we are fighting. It happens a lot in the UFC but it’s always a little strange.
I noticed he looked HUGE. Massive arms, chest and shoulders – a body for posing down at the beach – but then I noticed these little chicken legs sticking out of his arse. I thought: ‘He has the upper body of a lion but the legs of a chicken’.
And – now we are this close to the fight – I will say that he has heart of a chicken, too. He’s a professional bully. If you let him have his way he will rip you apart in short order, but if you fight back and get him tired, he backs down and does basically nothing.”
On back-stabbing:
“In Brazil, we didn’t do a formal press conference but, instead, I was in one room talking to Brazilian media and Belfort was in the next room doing interviews at the same time. I’d just given interviews talking about what a great challenge this was when one media guy said: ‘Wait, Vitor just described you as a hooligan and a thug.’
I didn’t believe him at first — sometimes media people, knowing my hard-earned reputation for embarrassing myself when I get emotional — will tell me stuff like that hoping for a reaction and a nice quote. But everyone in the room confirmed Vitor was sitting in the other room bitching me out like he was on ‘Real Housewives’ or something.
I was very surprised to be honest, because just a couple weeks before he’d been really cool about me training in a gym owned by his sponsors. I really appreciated that but after bitching me out he then sent me a text message saying: ‘Sorry, just hyping the fight.’
Now, I am all about hyping fights but don’t be two-faced. I prefer to fight and train emotionally. If I like an opponent or respect him, I tend not to do as well as I would if I felt I owed them a beating. I was already motivated, but now I want to really put on a show.”
Final predictions:
“Vitor has one or two rounds to beat me – or try to hit me behind the head – and then his gas tank will be empty and the fight will look like Rocky vs. that dead cow.
I’m going to force him to fight at a pace he couldn’t even fight at in his early 20s. He’s going to be miserable in there.”
(In the words of my life coach, “If you ask me one more fucking question about that fucking joke Eddie Alvarez, I will fuck you like you’ve never been fucked before.”)
The drama continues to unfold in the Eddie Alvarez/UFC/Bellator love triangle that last saw Bjorn Rebney and Co. break go Unfrozen Caveman Lawyer on their former lightweight champion’s ass. And as Bill Shakespeare would tell you himself, no love triangle would be complete without a little dash of comedy. Enter Rebney, who recently attempted to shed some light on the convoluted goatscrew that (Bellator) negotiations oft become in a recent interview with BloodyElbow radio. When Rebney previously told reporters that he had matched the UFC’s offer on Alvarez “word for word,” the general consensus seemed to be that Rebney was simply speaking in hyperbole, for how could Bellator match the pay-per-view stipulations of the UFC’s contract when they don’t in fact broadcast pay-per-view events to begin with?
Well, it turns out that — at least according to the man himself — Rebney was not tugging our respective dicks when he said “word for word”:
I didn’t anticipate that the UFC would come in where they came in. They came in at a dollar figure in terms of the $250,000 signing bonus and the $70,000 plus $70,000 and some of the terms that we felt very comfortable matching. To avoid any questioning, to avoid any conflict, we literally took the UFC contract, took it out of a PDF format and we changed the UFC name to Bellator and we signed it and we sent it back to Ed.
Call me unrealistic, but I’d like to believe that Rebney signed his name in poo, or at least wiped his ass with the reprinted contract before sending it back to Eddie. And then when Alvarez flipped to the last page of this foul smelling document, there was a photo of Rebney, performing said act of asswhipery. Because those are the kinds of shenanigans that people who don’t give a fuck are wont to do.
Much more from this interview after the jump.
(In the words of my life coach, “If you ask me one more fucking question about that fucking joke Eddie Alvarez, I will fuck you like you’ve never been fucked before.”)
The drama continues to unfold in the Eddie Alvarez/UFC/Bellator love triangle that last saw Bjorn Rebney and Co. break go Unfrozen Caveman Lawyer on their former lightweight champion’s ass. And as Bill Shakespeare would tell you himself, no love triangle would be complete without a little dash of comedy. Enter Rebney, who recently attempted to shed some light on the convoluted goatscrew that (Bellator) negotiations oft become in a recent interview with BloodyElbow radio. When Rebney previously told reporters that he had matched the UFC’s offer on Alvarez “word for word,” the general consensus seemed to be that Rebney was simply speaking in hyperbole, for how could Bellator match the pay-per-view stipulations of the UFC’s contract when they don’t in fact broadcast pay-per-view events to begin with?
Well, it turns out that — at least according to the man himself — Rebney was not tugging our respective dicks when he said “word for word”:
I didn’t anticipate that the UFC would come in where they came in. They came in at a dollar figure in terms of the $250,000 signing bonus and the $70,000 plus $70,000 and some of the terms that we felt very comfortable matching. To avoid any questioning, to avoid any conflict, we literally took the UFC contract, took it out of a PDF format and we changed the UFC name to Bellator and we signed it and we sent it back to Ed.
Call me unrealistic, but I’d like to believe that Rebney signed his name in poo, or at least wiped his ass with the reprinted contract before sending it back to Eddie. And then when Alvarez flipped to the last page of this foul smelling document, there was a photo of Rebney, performing said act of asswhipery. Because those are the kinds of shenanigans that people who don’t give a fuck are wont to do.
Now, I know less about contract stipulations/negotiations than I do about sexual harassment in the workplace (according to Break’s HR department, at least), but has anyone ever heard of this kind of maneuver being pulled with hundreds of thousands of dollars on the line before? Clearly Bjorn was surprised by how apparently low of an offer Alvarez received, but damn, I put more effort into the articles I copy/paste together for a living. This one, for instance.
And indeed, it was the lowball offer Alvarez received that in turn led to the current dispute between promotions:
The reality of the situation is Eddie and I had a really good working relationship for four years. I would hazard to even say we had a good friendship going for a lot of years. The last couple weeks have not been the highlight, the high water mark of that relationship. We entered into a contract with Eddie. In that contract, just like in the UFC deal, there’s what’s called a matching provision and what that means is when the contract comes to an end, you’ve got the right as the promoter that had the contract with the fighter to match it. What that requires is that you match all the material terms of the deal.
If Eddie had been presented with a Hector Lombard type of deal, I told Eddie after his fight with us where he knocked out Patricky Pitbull, he and I sat and had a drink, spent some time together after the fight. I said, ‘Look, dude. If you get a Hector deal, I’m just gonna wish you the best of luck, I’m gonna be your big fan and I’m gonna root for ya and I’ll just let you go. I’m not gonna match that deal because I don’t think we can monetize that deal.’
We scheduled a call last week and there were a series of attorneys, I think five or six for Ed and it was me and my partner on the phone and we talked through it and we recognized by the tone of what happened last week as did Ed’s team. I’m sure that it was headed in a bad direction. They indicated to us that they weren’t going to accept the match. It wasn’t 30 minutes after the call ended, it was 42 and Ed’s team filed a lawsuit against us in New Jersey and we filed a lawsuit against them. The lawsuits are not lawsuits because we dislike Ed. They just say, ‘Hey, we’re trying to enforce our contractual rights,’ and they’re lawsuit, which I have not yet read because I do not have a copy of it, I don’t know what it says but I’m assuming it makes whatever their claim is relative to not wanting the match to abide but they filed on us literally, I think it was within an hour of the phone call ending.
And as far as those pesky pay-per-view numbers Alvarez had been promised by both parties? Turns out, the UFC’s figures/points were just as hypothetical as Bellator’s. Again, according to Rebney.
The way that it would work is this: When you look at these contracts, what we are obligated to do, as per our matching rights just like what the UFC is obligated to do with their matching rights is you have to match any element of the contract that is guaranteed. So if the UFC says they’re gonna give Eddie Alvarez a $250,000 signing bonus and they say, ‘This is when the signing bonus will be paid,’ we have to do the same. If the UFC says, ‘We’re gonna pay you $70,000 to show and $70,000 to win, provided you are declared the winner of the bout by the applicable athletic commission blah, blah, blah,’ we have to provide that exact same opportunity for Ed.
So that’s the essence of what the matching is. There is no guarantee of pay-per-view in any way, shape or form in the agreement that was sent by the UFC. We’re held to the level of having to match a guarantee. We’re not held to a level of having to guarantee or having to match what was projected or what might happen. I think that’s the key misunderstanding. It’s not a matter of what could or might happen, it’s a matter of what’s guaranteed under the contract and that’s clearly understood and clearly the way it’s written.
Definitely an interesting development in what has quickly become one of the more prominent pieces of news currently floating around the MMA landscape.
Rebney went on to say that he harbored no ill-will towards Eddie and hoped that his promotion and the former champ could reconcile their differences in time for Bellator’s upcoming Spike debut. Rebney also stated that he was hopeful to try and book a rematch of Alvarez and the man who took his belt, Michael Chandler, somewhere down the line should Alvarez end up back in Bellator. In my opinion, this would be the only silver lining in the scenario where Alvarez sticks with Bellator. If I could tread so lightly, I would go as far as to say that the pair’s first fight sat atop Dan Henderson and Mauricio Rua‘s epic brawl at UFC 139 on my end of the year list, but that is neither here nor there.
But what say you, Potato Nation? Is Alvarez worth all the trouble? Or should Bellator simply let him go, being that he clearly wants no part of their business anymore?
When Jake Shields tested positive for having a banned substance in his system during his UFC 150 fight against Ed Herman last August, we assumed that the no-no substance was of the weed variety. Given some of his training partners and friends, it made perfect sense.
Here’s the thing: The sanctioning body of that fight, the Colorado Boxing Commission, never specified which banned substance Shields tested positive for. But Herman, who Shields beat by decision before the fight was changed to a No Contest, isn’t buying the marijuana story.
“I think Colorado is one of the HIPAA privacy states where they weren’t allowed to release what he tested positive for. I’m pretty sure it was for some type of performance enhancing substance, just by looking at his physique going in to the fight,” Herman told Bloody Elbow recently.
A lil Mary Jane to relax before fighting another trained professional is one thing, according to Herman, because, you know, all the cool kids do it. But “Short Fuse” is coming right out and accusing Shields of being more ‘roid monkey than stoner kid in an apparent effort to discredit him.
“He looked pretty puffed up and exhibited the common signs. As an athlete, you can recognize those signs. I can’t guarantee it, but I’m pretty positive that it was for some kind of performance enhancing drug. If it really was for marijuana, it’s a lot easier for a guy to come right out and say, ‘I smoked a joint, sorry,'” Herman continued to narc.
When Jake Shields tested positive for having a banned substance in his system during his UFC 150 fight against Ed Herman last August, we assumed that the no-no substance was of the weed variety. Given some of his training partners and friends, it made perfect sense.
Here’s the thing: The sanctioning body of that fight, the Colorado Boxing Commission, never specified which banned substance Shields tested positive for. But Herman, who Shields beat by decision before the fight was changed to a No Contest, isn’t buying the marijuana story.
“I think Colorado is one of the HIPAA privacy states where they weren’t allowed to release what he tested positive for. I’m pretty sure it was for some type of performance enhancing substance, just by looking at his physique going in to the fight,” Herman told Bloody Elbow recently.
A lil Mary Jane to relax before fighting another trained professional is one thing, according to Herman, because, you know, all the cool kids do it. But “Short Fuse” is coming right out and accusing Shields of being more ‘roid monkey than stoner kid in an apparent effort to discredit him.
“He looked pretty puffed up and exhibited the common signs. As an athlete, you can recognize those signs. I can’t guarantee it, but I’m pretty positive that it was for some kind of performance enhancing drug. If it really was for marijuana, it’s a lot easier for a guy to come right out and say, ‘I smoked a joint, sorry,’” Herman continued to narc.
Though his allegations lack hard evidence, Herman’s lay-logic does strike a common sense chord upon first hearing. If Shields had indeed only tested positive for marijuana, why not just come out and say that, since most fans don’t consider that a performance-enhancement or cheating?
That type of circumstantial vagueness is the stuff of witch trials, though. And besides, this writer isn’t so sure that any top-level fighter should be throwing stones in the banned substance glass house that most of them live in.
(“Psssh, you best drop that tough guy shit right now, Bigfoot, because I can see the future and it doesn’t look good for you.”)
I feel really bad for Frank Mir’s brain. While it is quite an impressive brain when compared to many of its MMA counterparts, it is clearly beginning to wear under the stress of some pent-up, masochistic desires. It has been beaten into unconsciousness in every one of Mir’s six MMA losses, including two particularly brutal/carried-out beatings at the hands of Brock Lesnar and Shane Carwin — both of whom have hands bigger than the average newborn deer — yet it still keeps coming back for more. Most recently, Mir’s brain stepped in on short notice to get kneaded like a fresh Arepa by Junior dos Santos at UFC 146, to the point that its host body was shooting invisible free throws by the end of the night. Twas a sad sight indeed.
And it appears as if Cormier is more than willing to play huckleberry to Mir’s twisted desires, as the champ recently stated that — once he gets past Whatshisname Iknowthis at the final Strikeface event in January — he would still like to settle some unfinished business with Mir’s masochistic brain.
(“Psssh, you best drop that tough guy shit right now, Bigfoot, because I can see the future and it doesn’t look good for you.”)
I feel really bad for Frank Mir’s brain. While it is quite an impressive brain when compared to many of its MMA counterparts, it is clearly beginning to wear under the stress of some pent-up, masochistic desires. It has been beaten into unconsciousness in every one of Mir’s six MMA losses, including two particularly brutal/carried-out beatings at the hands of Brock Lesnar and Shane Carwin — both of whom have hands bigger than the average newborn deer — yet it still keeps coming back for more. Most recently, Mir’s brain stepped in on short notice to get kneaded like a fresh Arepa by Junior dos Santos at UFC 146, to the point that its host body was shooting invisible free throws by the end of the night. Twas a sad sight indeed.
And it appears as if Cormier is more than willing to play huckleberry to Mir’s twisted desires, as the champ recently stated that — once he gets past Whatshisname Iknowthis at the final Strikeface event in January — he would still like to settle some unfinished business with Mir’s masochistic brain.
Well, right now, Jon Jones and Chael Sonnen are fighting on April 27th. If I come out of this fight un-injured and victorious, I will take a little bit of time to chill and then get back into training for my next fight. When I come in, I am going to stay at heavyweight and I really want to fight Frank Mir. That is the fight I want. I would love for it to be on the FOX show here in San Jose. April 20th, fight Frank Mir, on FOX have it be a free broadcast and that will help expose me and get more fans behind me who may not know me.
That is what I want right now. That is the fight I have trained for, and would be excited to train for it again; Mir wants the fight, I think it would be a great fight. It’s like we are doing Joe Silva’s job for him.
Although it was previously rumored by none other than Dana White that Cormier could possibly be next in line for Jon Jones, it seems like the man himself has quite the opposite in mind. Then again, who are we kidding? Cormier will likely break both his hands on the face of whoever he’s fighting next, so let’s just prepare ourselves for that scenario before we get concerned with anything else.
Cormier also stated in the interview that he “wasn’t intimidated” by the kickboxing background of his opponent, who I now see is named Dion Starling. So there’s that.
Last month, Mark Hominick announced that “The Machine” has been unplugged. The Canadian striker ended his ten-year MMA career with a record of 20-12, including nine wins by KO/TKO, seven by submission, and three Fight of the Night awards during his stint in the WEC and UFC.
A former kickboxer, Hominick submitted Yves Edwards in his first Octagon appearance in 2006, and later collected victories over such notables as Jorge Gurgel, Bryan Caraway, Yves Jabouin, and Leonard Garcia. An impressive first-round TKO win over former Team Tompkins teammate George Roop in January 2011 was Hominick’s fifth win in a row, making him a fast-rising star in the UFC’s new featherweight division, and earning him a title shot against champion Jose Aldo.
Today, Hominick is the proud father of a one-and-a-half-year-old daughter — he and his wife have another girl on the way — and he is putting his experience and skill to good use at the Adrenaline Training Center in London, Ontario, Canada. He and fellow Shawn Tompkins protégé Chris Horodecki started the gym about four years ago and are working closely with Adrenaline’s burgeoning pro fighters. Hominick says he is also excited about the possibility of working as part of UFC Canada.
Just a few weeks after hanging up his little gloves, Mark “The Machine” Hominick spoke with CagePotato.com about the very best opponents he faced across a number of categories…
Strongest:Jose Aldo. It was like he had two fists in one. When he hit with his right hand, he hit like a heavyweight. And his explosiveness, that was the biggest difference, I noticed. I’m normally good with distance and being able to fade from a shot, but he can close the distance with not just speed, but with power.
Fastest:Yves Jabouin. I fought him at WEC 49. It was Fight of the Night and one of the best fights of the year. It was just a back-and-forth battle. Speed is where I normally have the advantage, and I felt he almost matched me there. It was like I was fighting a mirror image.
(Photo courtesy of Getty Images)
Last month, Mark Hominick announced that “The Machine” has been unplugged. The Canadian striker ended his ten-year MMA career with a record of 20-12, including nine wins by KO/TKO, seven by submission, and three Fight of the Night awards during his stint in the WEC and UFC.
A former kickboxer, Hominick submitted Yves Edwards in his first Octagon appearance in 2006, and later collected victories over such notables as Jorge Gurgel, Bryan Caraway, Yves Jabouin, and Leonard Garcia. An impressive first-round TKO win over former Team Tompkins teammate George Roop in January 2011 was Hominick’s fifth win in a row, making him a fast-rising star in the UFC’s new featherweight division, and earning him a title shot against champion Jose Aldo.
Today, Hominick is the proud father of a one-and-a-half-year-old daughter — he and his wife have another girl on the way — and he is putting his experience and skill to good use at the Adrenaline Training Center in London, Ontario, Canada. He and fellow Shawn Tompkins protégé Chris Horodecki started the gym about four years ago and are working closely with Adrenaline’s burgeoning pro fighters. Hominick says he is also excited about the possibility of working as part of UFC Canada.
Just a few weeks after hanging up his little gloves, Mark “The Machine” Hominick spoke with CagePotato.com about the very best opponents he faced across a number of categories…
Strongest:Jose Aldo. It was like he had two fists in one. When he hit with his right hand, he hit like a heavyweight. And his explosiveness, that was the biggest difference, I noticed. I’m normally good with distance and being able to fade from a shot, but he can close the distance with not just speed, but with power.
Fastest:Yves Jabouin. I fought him at WEC 49. It was Fight of the Night and one of the best fights of the year. It was just a back-and-forth battle. Speed is where I normally have the advantage, and I felt he almost matched me there. It was like I was fighting a mirror image.
Toughest Chin:Hatsu Hioki. We fought for five rounds [at TKO 28 in February 2007]. I hit him with some big shots, and he just kept coming.
Heaviest Hands:Jose Aldo was the first guy to really drop me in my career. I fought 25 kickboxing bouts, never got dropped — ever — and he dropped me, I think, three times in the fight. That’s how hard he hits.
Best Wrestler: Mike Brown.I fought him when I was 19 years old in a small show; I think it was in a square cage — one of those types of shows. I don’t think I even knew how to spell wrestling, let alone wrestle competitively. The pressure and skill he had was something I’d never seen before.
Best Defense:Hioki again. He’s very durable, very calculating. I kept pushing the action the whole time, and he kept coming back. That’s the kind of battle I win — the war of attrition, especially in a five-round bout — but he stayed with me the whole bout.
Best Leg Strikes: Aldo. I mean, he’s one of the best leg kickers in the game, no matter what weight class. He’s got the hips that people talk about; he can turn over those hips very fast.
Most Dangerous Submissions:Rani Yahya. He’s an Abu Dhabi world champion. I trained with him before the bout, so I knew how good he was on the ground. It was one of those fights where, if it was on the feet, I was going to knock him out, and if it was on the ground, he was going to submit me. And we both knew that.
Most Surprising Opponent: “The Korean Zombie” Chan Sung Jung. It was only a seven-second bout, but I didn’t think he had the power in his hands to knock anyone out. I had seen some of his bouts where he was in wars, trading punches — giving and taking — and he didn’t put anyone down.
Best game plan: Pablo Garza. I never thought in a million years that he’d take me down and try to hold me down for two rounds of the bout. I didn’t think he’d be able to take me down, first off, and from there keep me down.
Best Win: My most dominant win was against George Roop. There was a lot on the line. I knew going into that bout that if I won that, I’d be getting the Aldo title shot, so there was a lot of pressure. I went out there and really made a statement by knocking him out in the first round.
Worst Loss: How I ended my career, I guess. I fought for over eleven years and to go out on those terms…But I guess that’s what happens in a career, you know? It’s hard to end on a high note.
Best Overall: Aldo, there’s no question. He’s one of the greatest pound-for-pound fighters, and he shocked me a bit by throwing in his wrestling. He’s one of the best for a reason.
For past installments of our “Unforgettable” series, click here.
