In addition to laying a physical beatdown on Luke Rockhold back at UFC on FX 8 (and earning himself the “Knockout of the Year” Potato Award in the process), Vitor Belfort has now doled out a verbal ass-whooping to the former Strikeforce middleweight champion in a recent interview with MMAFighting.
But nobody puts an old lion in a corner, as the saying goes, so when Belfort chose to respond to Rockhold, he did so with concise, unforgiving brutality:
That playboy is still in shock from the kick. He’s in shock. People are in shock. That’s the word. Lions don’t apologize for being lions.
(Knockout via TRT. Photo via Getty.)
In addition to laying a physical beatdown on Luke Rockhold back at UFC on FX 8 (and earning himself the “Knockout of the Year” Potato Award in the process), Vitor Belfort has now doled out a verbal ass-whooping to the former Strikeforce middleweight champion in a recent interview with MMAFighting.
But nobody puts an old lion in a corner, as the saying goes, so when Belfort chose to respond to Rockhold, he did so with concise, unforgiving brutality:
That playboy is still in shock from the kick. He’s in shock. People are in shock. That’s the word. Lions don’t apologize for being lions. I don’t. It is what it is.
For context: “Playboy” is a commonly used insult in Brazil meant to mock those who come from privileged backgrounds, because Brazil is such a backwards, impoverished place that actually having money and choosing to live there apparently warrants a tongue-lashing. But those weren’t even the best burns that Belfort went with. These were:
Eighteen years ago, I was in this game. I had to fight twice in one night. In 2004, I became the light heavyweight champion. I’m so glad that I’m still here, and I think that affects a lot of people, and give joy to a lot of people. A lot of guys, they are just mama’s boys with powder in their butts.
When you get knocked out, just shut your mouth, go to the gym and train. Eighteen years ago, all of these boys were in high school, and right now they think they are going to use me as a ladder? But the ladder is so high, the altitude is so high they cannot breathe. Hey bro, the altitude is too high.
There are literally dozens of gifs I could choose to describe the verbal pwnage I just witnessed (Kelso, victory dancing little girl, Spongebob chant) but I think this one adds a classy touch…
“Hey bro, the altitude is too high” just replaced “Where I come from, people like that get slapped” as my mantra, BTW.
(Awww…who could stay mad at that face? / Photo via joshpunkthomson)
This Saturday, lightweight veteran Josh Thomson leads off the UFC on FOX 12: Lawler vs. Brown broadcast with a fight against Bobby Green, and naturally, “The Punk” decided to talk a little trash in the media to build some heat. The problem is, his insults weren’t directed at Green, or anybody else in his weight class. Instead, Thomson used a Fox Sports interview as a platform to bury the UFC’s three heaviest divisions.
Basically, Thomson was arguing that it’s harder to come by a finish at 155 pounds or below (which is true), because the fighters are much more talented and well-rounded (which is debatable). And sure, maybe it could have come out better:
“You hit 185, 205, and heavyweight, those guys are always just good at like one thing, two things, but they’re not great all the way around. There’s ways to finish them. So if you’re a well-rounded athlete, you can finish those guys. You can find ways to finish those guys.
“With 55-pounders and below, good luck, man. Everybody’s good all around — they’re good wrestlers, they’re good jiu-jitsu guys, they’re good standup guys, they’re game to throw down and they’re always in shape. 170 is kind of like the limbo — like there’s some well-rounded guys in there…
“You start getting in the 185’s, 205, heavyweight, they start being one-dimensional, two-dimensional fighters. They’re not mixed martial artists. They’re not as good as the 55-pounders and below. They’re just not. To me that’s just a fact.
(Awww…who could stay mad at that face? / Photo via joshpunkthomson)
This Saturday, lightweight veteran Josh Thomson leads off the UFC on FOX 12: Lawler vs. Brown broadcast with a fight against Bobby Green, and naturally, “The Punk” decided to talk a little trash in the media to build some heat. The problem is, his insults weren’t directed at Green, or anybody else in his weight class. Instead, Thomson used a Fox Sports interview as a platform to bury the UFC’s three heaviest divisions.
Basically, Thomson was arguing that it’s harder to come by a finish at 155 pounds or below (which is true), because the fighters are much more talented and well-rounded (which is debatable). And sure, maybe it could have come out better:
“You hit 185, 205, and heavyweight, those guys are always just good at like one thing, two things, but they’re not great all the way around. There’s ways to finish them. So if you’re a well-rounded athlete, you can finish those guys. You can find ways to finish those guys.
“With 55-pounders and below, good luck, man. Everybody’s good all around — they’re good wrestlers, they’re good jiu-jitsu guys, they’re good standup guys, they’re game to throw down and they’re always in shape. 170 is kind of like the limbo — like there’s some well-rounded guys in there…
“You start getting in the 185′s, 205, heavyweight, they start being one-dimensional, two-dimensional fighters. They’re not mixed martial artists. They’re not as good as the 55-pounders and below. They’re just not. To me that’s just a fact.
“So you want to tell me ‘don’t leave it in the judges’ hands’ but where am I supposed to take this fight where this guy isn’t good? He’s good at stopping submissions, he’s good at wrestling, he’s good as standup and he’s generally in great shape. Tell me how when we start talking 55 and below, these guy are phenomenal athletes and they’re almost impossible to finish. People knock us for it, but guess what? Our weight classes are so much harder than the guys that are above us.”
My problem with Thomson’s opinion about larger fighters is that there are just too many obvious exceptions to take the claim seriously. From the champions (Chris Weidman, Jon Jones, Cain Velasquez) to the top contenders (Fabricio Werdum, Daniel Cormier, Ronaldo “Jacare” Souza, among many others), the heavier divisions are loaded with athletes who can hurt you from any position and always show up in shape.
Thomson interprets the lower finishing rate in the lighter divisions as a sign that the talent pool is higher there, the fighters are more well-rounded. But you can look at the same evidence and come to the exact opposite conclusion — the heavier fighters are better because they’re actually finishing each other. Only one thing’s for certain: Josh Thomson is not here to make friends.
“Right now [Belfort is] down in Brazil, or back in you know California, training his butt off and injecting anything that he wants to and loving it, and nobody’s testing him, or like his doctor — when I say his, I’m making quotation fingers ‘doctor’ — so he’s like dripping testosterone out of his eyeballs right now. How old was he when he first failed a drug test, like 18? For anabolic steroids? So he’s being using for 20 years. Your body doesn’t function naturally now. He’s what, 37 or 38? So like 18 years…
(We get it, dude, you’re scary. / Photo via gerbergear.com)
“Right now [Belfort is] down in Brazil, or back in you know California, training his butt off and injecting anything that he wants to and loving it, and nobody’s testing him, or like his doctor — when I say his, I’m making quotation fingers ‘doctor’ — so he’s like dripping testosterone out of his eyeballs right now. How old was he when he first failed a drug test, like 18? For anabolic steroids? So he’s being using for 20 years. Your body doesn’t function naturally now. He’s what, 37 or 38? So like 18 years.
“But there’s no possible way that he could compete at a high level against the Chris Weidmans, the me’s, the Luke Rockholds without chemically enhancing himself. There’s no way. I don’t care if he’s like, drinking Jesus’ blood like he says he is or whatever, it doesn’t work that way. Like, he’s been using steroids for like 15 or 20 years, and he still is using them. If he ever tries to get clean, he can’t compete at this level.”
First off, let’s applaud Kennedy for his use of “the me’s” in a hypothetical list of people that Belfort might fight. I’ve never seen that done before, and Kennedy managed to pull it off.
Beyond that, this is some of the most effective trash-talk I’ve seen in recent memory. It gives Kennedy moral high ground while simultaneously serving as a devastating personal attack, accusing Belfort of using steroids for decades. (And loving it!) Plus, invoking Jesus’s name makes it personal. No matter what happens between Belfort and Weidman, the Phenom will likely want to fight Kennedy next — which is the whole point.
Guys, the MMA vs. boxing debate is over, and we lost. MMA is such an obscure freak show that boxing’s biggest star has never even heard of the UFC’s (allegedly) biggest star, but he assumes that “Ronda” is a man’s name because WHY IN THE FUCK WOULD ANYBODY ASK A MALE FIGHTER IF HE COULD BEAT UP A FEMALE FIGHTER? This Ronda person must be a man. The alternative would be preposterous. Some bad motherfuckers have girls names, you know?
So while UFC president Dana White, Joe Rogan, and various fans and media dumbasses have discussed the fantasy matchup of Rowdy vs. Money May, Floyd has just been living his life, blissfully unaware, hiring women to carry his money suitcases. But fighting women in a ring or cage, for money? How sick do you have to be to even come up with something like that?
Guys, the MMA vs. boxing debate is over, and we lost. MMA is such an obscure freak show that boxing’s biggest star has never even heard of the UFC’s (allegedly) biggest star, but he assumes that “Ronda” is a man’s name because WHY IN THE FUCK WOULD ANYBODY ASK A MALE FIGHTER IF HE COULD BEAT UP A FEMALE FIGHTER? This Ronda person must be a man. The alternative would be preposterous. Some bad motherfuckers have girls names, you know?
So while UFC president Dana White, Joe Rogan, and various fans and media dumbasses have discussed the fantasy matchup of Rowdy vs. Money May, Floyd has just been living his life, blissfully unaware, hiring women to carry his money suitcases. But fighting women in a ring or cage, for money? How sick do you have to be to even come up with something like that?
(If you can’t recite Philippians 4:13 without Googling it first, you’re not a real fan of MMA. / Photo via FightParrot)
Dustin Holyko is not a racist or a criminal. He’s just a regular guy with an “SS” lightning-bolt tattoo on his back, “WHITE PRIDE” inked on his biceps, and one of the longest rap sheets outside of Krazy Horse Bennett. That’s basically the story that Holyko is sticking to in the wake of his firing from World Series of Fighting.
In case you haven’t been following this story, here’s the basic outline: On Saturday, the World Series of Fighting 11 NBC broadcast included a prelim bout between local Florida fighter Dustin Holyko and Neiman Gracie; Holyko lost by second-round submission. After noticing his unfortunate tattoos, BloodyElbow’s Brent Brookhouse did some digging and learned that Holyko had been arrested for everything from domestic battery (three times!) to animal cruelty, and is currently on probation for an “escape” charge in 2012, according to the Florida Department of Corrections.
Apparently, World Series of Fighting knew none of this before they booked Holyko, who was hired sight-unseen, without any sort of background check. After the controversy went public, WSOF immediately cut ties with the fighter, and released the following statement to Sherdog:
“Honestly, we were not aware of Dustin Holyko’s criminal record or any potentially offensive tattoos prior to him competing at WSOF 11. He was licensed by the Florida commission prior to the fight, and it was his third professional fight under their jurisdiction. That said, with the information that has since come to light, we immediately elected to terminate our relationship with Mr. Holyko.”
Sherdog adds that Holyko had been charged with 16 criminal offenses in total, according to public records, and that he’d been arrested as recently as April 23rd due to a probation violation. But of course, none of those arrests are Holyko’s fault — and neither are the offensive tattoos. Here are some quotes from a new MMAJunkie interview with Holyko, which paints the fighter as a standup guy who you’d be happy to bring home to mom…
(If you can’t recite Philippians 4:13 without Googling it first, you’re not a real fan of MMA. / Photo via FightParrot)
Dustin Holyko is not a racist or a criminal. He’s just a regular guy with an “SS” lightning-bolt tattoo on his back, “WHITE PRIDE” inked on his biceps, and one of the longest rap sheets outside of Krazy Horse Bennett. That’s basically the story that Holyko is sticking to in the wake of his firing from World Series of Fighting.
In case you haven’t been following this story, here’s the basic outline: On Saturday, the World Series of Fighting 11 NBC broadcast included a prelim bout between local Florida fighter Dustin Holyko and Neiman Gracie; Holyko lost by second-round submission. After noticing his unfortunate tattoos, BloodyElbow’s Brent Brookhouse did some digging and learned that Holyko had been arrested for everything from domestic battery (three times!) to animal cruelty, and is currently on probation for an “escape” charge in 2012, according to the Florida Department of Corrections.
Apparently, World Series of Fighting knew none of this before they booked Holyko, who was hired sight-unseen, without any sort of background check. After the controversy went public, WSOF immediately cut ties with the fighter, and released the following statement to Sherdog:
“Honestly, we were not aware of Dustin Holyko’s criminal record or any potentially offensive tattoos prior to him competing at WSOF 11. He was licensed by the Florida commission prior to the fight, and it was his third professional fight under their jurisdiction. That said, with the information that has since come to light, we immediately elected to terminate our relationship with Mr. Holyko.”
Sherdog adds that Holyko had been charged with 16 criminal offenses in total, according to public records, and that he’d been arrested as recently as April 23rd due to a probation violation. But of course, none of those arrests are Holyko’s fault — and neither are the offensive tattoos. Here are some quotes from a new MMAJunkie interview with Holyko, which paints the fighter as a standup guy who you’d be happy to bring home to mom…
On his tattoos: “When I was 18, I went to prison, and I got white pride tattooed on my arms because prison is pretty racially separated. I am proud of my race, but I’m not racist or any kind of Nazi. One of my trainers, Mike Vasquez, he’s Puerto Rican and Spanish, and he’s like a dad to me. A lot of my training partners and friends are from different races. I have not a racist bone in my body at all.”
On one of his domestic battery charges, which resulted from a fight between an ex and a recent girlfriend: “The cops came, and somehow, I ended up going to jail for it. I never laid a finger on anybody, and that’s where the whole domestic thing comes from.”
On the animal cruelty charge, which resulted from Holyko punching a neighbor for hurting his pitbull, while his pitbull and the neighbor’s pitbull were fighting, or something like that?: “We got in a big fight, (and other neighbors from the same house) actually jumped me and beat me up pretty good. That night, I get charged with animal cruelty, and I got three battery charges. In the process of everything going, the girl that I was with got hit; she was trying to break everything up. Never once told the cops, ‘He hit me.’ She didn’t know how she got hit; somehow she got elbowed trying to break up the fight and get everybody off of me. And they charged me with domestic violence. All the charges got dropped, too.”
On the “escape” charge, which he caught for walking away from a police car in handcuffs following a drunken brawl in Daytona: “I was trying to be funny,” he said. “There was some chicks there, and a couple of my buddies. They sat us on the curb when they were doing their reports, and they weren’t paying attention. So (my friends) were like, ‘C’mon.’ It was kind of a joke. I got out, walked away, and I tried to hang out in the clubs with handcuffs on; we were all laughing. Next thing I know, the cops catch up to me, slam me on the ground and bring me back. They charged me with a misdemeanor, but the state attorney got a hold of it and jacked it up to a second-degree escape charges, which I could have done 15 years over that.”
On his wild past: “I’d like to sit here and make excuses here and there, but I did what I did. I made a lot of mistakes. I was a dumb kid. Until a few years ago, I turned my life around. I’m still not perfect. I’m sure everybody out there has probably has drank a little too much and done something stupid. The ones that don’t change and keep doing it, those are the ones that are just dumb. I changed my life around.”
On his fighting future: “I make plenty of money*. I’m cool with it or without it. I’d love to have the opportunity, but if not, I’m still going to do me.”
* Holyko runs a successful tree-cutting business, by the way. “If you saw my house, you’d think I’m a lawyer,” he said. “I work really hard.”
And finally, here’s WSOF matchmaker Ali Abdelaziz, trying to shift some of the blame on BloodyElbow:
“We don’t do background checks on people. But if something comes up, and it’s something we need to know about, I believe us and the media are all part of the team. If the guy who wrote the story knew about the information, he should have told us before the fight. I know it’s not his job, but to protect our sport and grow, if anybody has information about this kind of behavior, they should let us know. We don’t tolerate this; we had no idea this kid had this behavior or a tattoo or an affiliation, but he will never fight for the WSOF again. It’s embarrassing, and that will never happen again.”
MMAMayhemRadio‘s Ashley Luther caught up with Quinton “Rampage” Jackson following his Bellator 120 decision win against King Mo, and first off, I just want to congratulate Rampage for making it through a two-minute segment with a female reporter without getting his hump on. (Although he did give us a new quote to add to his interview highlight reel: “I don’t beat ladies…I just beat it up.” Quinton, you classy son of a bitch.)
With Rampage’s next fight in Bellator uncertain, Luther asked him who he’d like to fight next. Jackson’s answer time-warped us back to the MMA glory days of 2009-2010:
“Actually, to be honest, I want to fight somebody else that’s on my pissed-off list. I got two more guys. I got Titties, and I got James Toney. I want to fight one of those guys, honestly…I just want to beat up everybody who’s been pissing me off.”
MMAMayhemRadio‘s Ashley Luther caught up with Quinton “Rampage” Jackson following his Bellator 120 decision win against King Mo, and first off, I just want to congratulate Rampage for making it through a two-minute segment with a female reporter without getting his hump on. (Although he did give us a new quote to add to his interview highlight reel: “I don’t beat ladies…I just beat it up.” Quinton, you classy son of a bitch.)
With Rampage’s next fight in Bellator uncertain, Luther asked him who he’d like to fight next. Jackson’s answer time-warped us back to the MMA glory days of 2009-2010:
“Actually, to be honest, I want to fight somebody else that’s on my pissed-off list. I got two more guys. I got Titties, and I got James Toney. I want to fight one of those guys, honestly…I just want to beat up everybody who’s been pissing me off.”
“Titties” of course is Darrill Schoonover, the soft-spoken heavyweight who became a target of Rampage’s on TUF 10 simply because his body had developed earlier than the other boys. James Toney is the gibberish-speaking boxing champ who Randy Couture choked out at UFC 118, and who later called Rampage a “slave to the white man” who “got the Klu Klux Klan behind him.” I gotta be honest — I would happily pay money to see James Toney get humiliated in another MMA fight. And if any promotion is crazy/desperate enough to put it together on pay-per-view, it’s Bellator, right?
