Sometimes Christmas presents come a little early.For UFC newcomer Simeon Thoresen (16-2-1), that present didn’t come in wrapping or even in a gift bag.Instead, it came by a simple phone call.”It was just before Christmas when my manager broke the news …
Sometimes Christmas presents come a little early.
For UFC newcomer Simeon Thoresen (16-2-1), that present didn’t come in wrapping or even in a gift bag.
Instead, it came by a simple phone call.
“It was just before Christmas when my manager broke the news to me,” Thoresen told Bleacher Report.
“I had found out that I would be joining the UFC for a multi-fight contract. It feels great to be a part of the super league of MMA,” said Thoresen. “I feel that I am ready to step into the Octagon and show what I am capable of.”
Thoresen won’t have an easy task at hand when he arrives in Sweden for his UFC debut.
The Norwegian will meet Sweden’s own Besam Yousef (6-0), who will also be stepping inside the Octagon for the very first time.
Not only will Thoresen be stepping in Yousef’s home country, but he’ll be battling a man who’s never been defeated before.
However, according to Thoresen, an undefeated record doesn’t mean an opponent is unbeatable.
“I have fought in Sweden before,” said Thoresen. “That aspect of it doesn’t really concern me at all anymore.”
“I have fought 20 times in my career, so the days of being worried about an undefeated fighter are long gone,” said Thoresen. “Any fighter can be dangerous and it’s completely irrelevant to what their record is.”
Where there’s confidence, there’s also respect. Thoresen knows more than anyone that you can’t approach a fight overconfidently.
Doing so could lead to a quick departure from what he refers to as the super league of MMA.
“I know [Yousef] will be very determined to kick off his UFC career with a win. He’s seems like a strong guy with good all around skills. I am happy with the matchup,”said Thoresen. “Then again, I would be happy to fight anyone at my weight.”
“I’m an all-around fighter, too, and feel that I can dominate the fight. I’m not concerned about any particular area because it’s MMA and any area can be dangerous,” said Thoresen.
At the end of the night, Thoresen will do whatever it takes to have his hand raised. However, fans and those in attendance shouldn’t expect Thoresen to be overwhelmed with the amount of pressure involved with a UFC debut.
Instead of looking for the early knockout, Thoresen plans to control the pace of the fight and simply win at all costs.
“If I could give an answer to how I’m going to win, then I could give everyone the future lottery numbers,” said Thoresen. “I’m not bothered by which way I win.”
“As long as I win, I’ll be happy.”
For additional information, follow Garrett Derr onTwitter.
(Be warned, Dana, Barnett only comes as a package deal.)
Well, you can add Josh Barnett to the small list of people that Dana White has said will never fight in the UFC again, but will now likely fight in the UFC again. Money does strange things to people, doesn’t it?
Believe it or not, the man who once offered to urinate in DW’s mouth for a steroid test, and stated that he believed “a trained monkey” could do the UFC President’s job will almost definitely be getting a call from the UFC if he is able to walk away victorious from his upcoming Strikeforce Heavyweight tournament final match with Daniel Cormier on May 19th. Here’s what The Baldfather had to say:
The way that Showtime wants to do it is when that fight finally happens, whoever wins it, they wanna do another fight on Showtime, so that guy would probably come to the UFC. We’ll see what happens, you know? Josh and I have been playing nice with each other for a little while, since he got into the UFC. It’s more than just, ‘Does he win? Does he do this?’ You gotta be able to come to terms with the guy and be able to deal with him. If he wins the fight, I can’t see why he wouldn’t come here, unless we weren’t able to make a deal with him.
(Be warned, Dana, Barnett only comes as a package deal.)
Well, you can add Josh Barnett to the small list of people that Dana White has said will never fight in the UFC again, but will now likely fight in the UFC again. Money does strange things to people, doesn’t it?
Believe it or not, the man who once offered to urinate in DW’s mouth for a steroid test, and stated that he believed “a trained monkey” could do the UFC President’s job will almost definitely be getting a call from the UFC if he is able to walk away victorious from his upcoming Strikeforce Heavyweight tournament final match with Daniel Cormier on May 19th. Here’s what The Baldfather had to say:
The way that Showtime wants to do it is when that fight finally happens, whoever wins it, they wanna do another fight on Showtime, so that guy would probably come to the UFC. We’ll see what happens, you know? Josh and I have been playing nice with each other for a little while, since he got into the UFC. It’s more than just, ‘Does he win? Does he do this?’ You gotta be able to come to terms with the guy and be able to deal with him. If he wins the fight, I can’t see why he wouldn’t come here, unless we weren’t able to make a deal with him.
To be fair, Barnett did make it easier for Zuffa to axe Brett Rogers, and has passed every test put in front of him since pissing hot and subsequently crushing Affliction three years ago, so perhaps he has earned the right to fight in the sport’s highest promotion once again. The fact that he has made mincemeat out of his last eight opponents surely helps push forward this notion, but what do you think? Will we be seeing Josh Barnett in the UFC by the end of 2012?
A word to the wise, Dana: Be wary of outsiders with a history, either speculated or proven, of steroid usage. It can really come back and bite you in the arse.
Dan Henderson has a vested interest. Positioned with the option to fight either Lyoto Machida or Mauricio “Shogun” Rua, the former Pride light heavyweight and middleweight champion said no. Taking on Rua in a rematch of one of the best figh…
Dan Henderson has a vested interest.
Positioned with the option to fight either Lyoto Machida or Mauricio “Shogun” Rua, the former Pride light heavyweight and middleweight champion said no.
Taking on Rua in a rematch of one of the best fights in UFC history did not appeal to Henderson. Nor did a fight with Machida, the man who recently knocked out his former training partner Randy Couture.
Henderson passed on the fights because he has one goal. He wants to be UFC light heavyweight champion.
To win the title belt, he’ll have to beat the winner of the upcoming April 21 bout between champion Jon Jones and top contender Rashad Evans.
Henderson has his preference of opponent.
“I think Jon Jones is a better fight for me,” Henderson said to Bleacher Report’s Gary Herman. “His style matches up better. Jones will stand-up with me more.”
The former Greco-Roman Olympian gave a somewhat surprising answer as to why he is not as interested in fighting Evans.
“Rashad is real well-rounded,” Henderson said about the former UFC champion. “He’ll stand and bang with me a little, but he’ll be trying to put me on my back—a lot more than Jones would.”
Jones, however, appears to be the tougher fight. He has pretty much torn through the light heavyweight division. Jones is 9-1 in the UFC. The only loss was due to an illegal blow in a fight he was dominating against Matt Hamill. In the 10 bouts, Jones has not been seriously hurt.
“Jones is real awkward and kind of poses a different threat,” Henderson said. “He’s awkward, unorthodox and a little tougher to figure out, and that’s also what intrigues me about it—he’s different.”
Before announcing his intention to fight the winner of the Jones vs. Evans bout, UFC president Dana White gave Henderson the option of dropping down a weight class to fight for the middleweight championship.
In his prior UFC stint, Henderson lost to middleweight champion Anderson Silva. While he currently prefers the light heavyweight division, Henderson has not ruled out a return match with the champion.
Silva, however, already has a big fight coming up. In June, he is slated for a rematch against another of Henderson’s former training partners, Chael Sonnen.
In the first fight with Sonnen, Silva pulled off a spectacular submission victory in the fifth round. Sonnen thoroughly dominated Silva for the first 28 minutes before Silva locked in a triangle.
Henderson is looking forward to the June bout.
“As long as Chael fights the way he did the last time with the exception of the last couple of minutes,” Henderson said, “he’ll most likely win.”
Should Sonnen take the title, Henderson would not fight for the championship. He is, however, still interested in avenging the prior loss.
“I’m not real keen on fighting 185 right now unless it’s Anderson,” the former Strikeforce light heavyweight champion said, “so if Chael wins, I’d maybe still fight Anderson. Who knows?”
Before Henderson decides about a potential Silva rematch, he will first compete for the light heavyweight championship. As for who he expects the opponent to be, Henderson offered a cautious prediction.
“If I had to bet money, I’d put it on Jones,” Henderson said, “but I’d say Rashad has a real good chance. It’s going to be a close fight.”
In order to be the best, you have to beat the best.If you’re UFC veteran Mike Ciesnolevicz (19-4), the best is current UFC light heavyweight champion, Jon Jones.”If Jon Jones is the best guy right now, then that’s who I want to fight,” Ciesnolevicz tol…
In order to be the best, you have to beat the best.
If you’re UFC veteran Mike Ciesnolevicz (19-4), the best is current UFC light heavyweight champion, Jon Jones.
“If Jon Jones is the best guy right now, then that’s who I want to fight,” Ciesnolevicz told Bleacher Report.
“Everyone wants to be the best and, if you’re telling me he is the best, then that’s the guy I want to compete against.”
The only challenge for Ciesnolevicz is getting that opportunity.
As we know, these opportunities come few and far between.
For Ciesnolevicz, the hardest part isn’t necessarily getting in the Octagon with the youngest champion in UFC history, but the long journey back to the UFC.
“The hard part isn’t fighting Jon Jones at all. The hardest part is climbing back up the ladder,” said Ciesnolevicz. “In order to get to the top, I’d have to beat the 20 guys in front of me.”
“If I got in the Octagon with Jones, I would have nothing to lose. Everyone would expect me to get massacred. I have absolutely no fear of Jon Jones. He is a human like anyone else,” said Ciesnolevicz. “He can be beaten.”
Now four months post-surgery, Ciesnolevicz will begin his road to recovery in hopes of getting back to the premier stage of MMA.
It’s likely we could see “Mike C” squaring off as soon as the end of June into July if all goes as planned.
“I will be back competing by mid-summer and hope to fight two or three times by the end of the year,” said Ciesnolevicz. “I’m finally feeling healthy for the first time in a year.”
“Right now, I’m just focusing on me and getting healthy.”
For additional information, follow Garrett Derr onTwitter.
It wasn’t the UFC.But it was still one of the best fights we’ve seen all year.”I was super stoked from the second the weigh-ins began,” Lloyd Woodard (12-1) told Bleacher Report.If you haven’t caught on yet, Woodard is coming off one of the greatest Be…
It wasn’t the UFC.
But it was still one of the best fights we’ve seen all year.
“I was super stoked from the second the weigh-ins began,” Lloyd Woodard (12-1) told Bleacher Report.
If you haven’t caught on yet, Woodard is coming off one of the greatest Bellator performances of all time where he defeated Patricky Freire via Kimura at Bellator 62.
“I wanted to fight bad and I know he wanted to get out there and get things started too,” Woodard said. “We both wanted another shot at Michael Chandler and we both thought we could beat him.”
“I knew he was going to bring it. He’s a great striker and I pride myself in my striking as well. I knew it was going to be a battle and that’s why I brought it the way I did. I always try and bring the heat,” Woodard said.
Woodard certainly brought it in the opening frame but a series of strikes from Freire would quickly change the pace of the fight.
Instead of a dominating first round, Woodard found himself on his back as the opening round came to an end.
“The announcing always makes it sound much worse than it is. He’s got good hands so I can see why they were like that but I wouldn’t say I was badly hurt. But I did get hit,” Woodard said. “The number one mistake was that I started going backwards and I’m a fighter who comes forward.”
“He caught me but I was able to rebound. I went for the knee to return the favor to take him out and all of a sudden he went to taking me down. I didn’t expect that at all. I didn’t think he’d want to go to the ground. It probably scored him some points,” Woodard said.
After the action-packed opening round, just one question remained.
Who won the round?
“When I was fighting I thought he won the first round just because he ended up on top of me at the end of the round,” Woodard said. “I actually went back and watched it and I thought I won due to my striking, my aggression and when I was on top I did a lot more damage than what he did when he was on top.”
1:46 later, Woodard earned the 12th win of his career, pushing him one step closer towards his desired rematch with current lightweight champion, Chandler.
However, “Cupcake” Woodard will now take some additional time to enjoy his first win of 2012 and reminisce on what many consider one of the greatest fights of all time.
“I’m a fight fanatic so I know all of the great fights. That’s such an honor to even be considered in that category. You begin to think about it and you have your Forrest Griffin and Stephan Bonnar fight, the Pat Barry and Cheick Kongo bout,” Woodard said. “There are so many great moments like that and I think it’s impossible to pick just one.”
“It’s just an honor to be apart of one of the best fights of all time.”
For additional information, follow Garrett Derr onTwitter.
Despite being only 28 years old, Ben Saunders is the man most traveled in the Bellator Season 6 welterweight tournament kicking off tomorrow night. He holds a professional record of 12-4-0 which includes a seven-fight stint with the UFC, where he went …
Despite being only 28 years old, Ben Saunders is the man most traveled in the Bellator Season 6 welterweight tournament kicking off tomorrow night. He holds a professional record of 12-4-0 which includes a seven-fight stint with the UFC, where he went 4-3-0. There are some guys older than him and guys with more fights, but nobody else in the tournament has fought in the UFC—the NFL of MMA.
“It always, I’d say, plays its role as far as mental confidence for sure, I’ve been in there against the best in the world,” said Saunders on having fought for the UFC in the past.
Only one other fighter scheduled to fight in the Bellator welterweight tournament had fought in the UFC before, and that was Brian Foster. However, he was pulled from the event because he was not medically cleared as reported by MMAjunkie.com. The situation Foster is in could result in his retirement and it made Saunders reflect on how lucky he is.
“Anytime you get an injury you sit back and evaluate your life and your career and what you’re going to do and what’s going to happen, it can be depressing, it can be very scary at times,” Saunders said. “When that happened to him, it definitely made me be grateful and tell myself hey man whatever the hell you might be going through or might not be happy about or whatever, shut the hell up and suck it up because you’re still able to do what you want to do,” he continued. “They told me that he got pulled out and then and there that just completely changed my mood, it changed my mentality of everything and it kind of depressed me a little bit.”
Fighters have to deal with injuries and Foster’s situation definitely made Saunders reflect. Despite the impact Foster’s situation had on him, he’ll always give 100 percent and lay it all on the line in his fights, even if it is in a tournament where you need to be healthy to move on.
“I have a certain style that I bring to the cage, a certain aggressiveness, I come to fight. I can’t be thinking what if I do this or what if I do that and that injures me for the next round,” Saunders said. “I’m going to go out on my shield, there is no tournament to me, for me there is no point to even think of anything beyond what’s in front of me.”
Saunders’ attitude is probably a reflection of his passion for the martial arts and combat sports that began at a young age.
“From a very young age, I was like seven to eight years old, my oldest brother was taking karate and he’d come home and beat the crap out of me,” Saunders recalled. “He wouldn’t even beat the crap out of me as in we’d fight, I remember one particular point in time he was like, ‘Hey stand right there I want to show you something really cool’ and then he did a spinning back kick to my gut,” Saunders continued. “My older brother is probably one of the main reasons I got in to martial arts.”
Saunders fell in love with martial arts and was particularly fond of late martial artist Bruce Lee. Lee developed JeetKune Do, a martial arts system and philosophy in life. Lee inspired Saunders and he feels Lee is very much responsible for the popularity mixed martial arts has received today. Saunders is one of probably a handful of mixed martial artists whose base is in JeetKune Do.
“When I was 14 there was actually a JKD academy that opened up and I was able to convince my parents to let me get a job at McDonald’s to pay for it myself,” Saunders said. “That was the first time I actually started getting a true training, other than that throughout my life a lot of my style is self-taught.”
Tonight, Saunders will be taking on 9-0 fighter Raul Amaya and maybe you’ll get a chance to see some JeetKune Do elements come out in his fight. Amaya has a lot of submission wins. and although Saunders hasn’t seen many of his fights, he isn’t taking Amaya lightly.
“The one thing I will say is he’s got a lot of heart, he’s got maybe some power in his hands even if his technique is a little sloppy and he’s got conditioning at what not because he seems to be able to wear his opponents down and catch them later on in the fights,” Saunders said. “Stylistically he seems like a brawling wrestler, the thing I need to watch out for anybody I fight is it doesn’t matter who they are, everyone’s got a punchers chance,” he continued. “I just have to go out there and do what I do best, fight my fight, don’t let him fight his fight and my hand will be raised hopefully via knockout or submission before the third.”
I’m not sure if Saunders is superstitious or not, but he did tell me that the last time he fought in Connecticut for Bellator he was on the same card as his two teammates and all three guys won. Now almost a year later and in Connecticut, he is again fighting with two teammates on the same card.
Should Saunders win, he will move in to the semifinals of the tournament. If he wins the tournament this year, Saunders will get his shot at either a rematch with Douglas Lima or a fight with current Bellator title holder Ben Askren. Askren and Lima fight next week at Bellator 64. Saunders lost to Lima in the tournament finals last season.
Saunders welcomes a potential rematch with Lima, but isn’t a huge fan of fighting teammates either.
“I’m never too fond about fighting teammates man, I mean we do what we do because we are professionals and because we respect each other,” Saunders said. “If our paths cross again, you know what it’s going to be another great fight.”
You can catch Saunders tonight at 8:00 EST on MTV2 as he tries to move on to the semifinals of the tournament. Before concluding my conversation with him, Saunders urged fans to follow him on Twitter @bensaundersMMA and check out his walk out t-shirt at bensaundersmma.com.
Leon Horne is a writer for Bleacher Report and is part of the BR MMA Interview team,Follow @Leon_Horne
Sometimes Christmas presents come a little early.