This image is a rare example of both foreshadowing the news and your reaction to it.
Giving yourself a nickname is one of the lamest things you can do, and MMA fighters are some of the most notable offenders. Perhaps I’m just a tad bit jaded from constantly seeing guys calling themselves “The Iceman” or “Hollywood” making their amateur MMA debuts, but I firmly believe that a nickname is something you have to earn. Face it, not everyone deserves the honor of being The White Mamba.
Which is all to say that I was already rolling my eyes at Jacob Volkmann when he announced during yesterday’s WSOF 3: pre-fight media call that he had changed his nickname. Even if he came up with something decent, I wouldn’t have liked his nickname – which is good because what he came up with is terrible.
The man you once knew as Jacob “Christmas” Volkmann would now like you to call him…
This image is a rare example of both foreshadowing the news and your reaction to it.
Giving yourself a nickname is one of the lamest things you can do, and MMA fighters are some of the most notable offenders. Perhaps I’m just a tad bit jaded from constantly seeing guys calling themselves “The Iceman” or “Hollywood” making their amateur MMA debuts, but I firmly believe that a nickname is something you have to earn. Face it, not everyone deserves the honor of being The White Mamba.
Which is all to say that I was already rolling my eyes at Jacob Volkmann when he announced during yesterday’s WSOF 3: pre-fight media call that he had changed his nickname. Even if he came up with something decent, I wouldn’t have liked his nickname – which is good because what he came up with is terrible.
The man you once knew as Jacob “Christmas” Volkmann would now like you to call him…
In fairness to Volkmann, I thought of a few reasons why this nickname actually makes sense:
– I actually look forward to Christmas, so he couldn’t keep calling himself that.
– Despite their reputation off-stage, Motley Crue’s music was pretty weak. Volkmann’s zero wins by knockout and eight decision victories stay true to this.
The elfin warrior tells AboveAndBeyondMMA.com that he didn’t deserve to be cut and is now on a mission to expose what he sees as the UFC’s unfair treatment of fighters.
“Well, I didn’t realize there was that much politics in martial arts, especially in the UFC. That was kind of frustrating. It’s not who is the best; it’s more of a political kind of BS,” he said.
“I was released after a loss against Bobby Green, which I should’ve never lost. It was kind of a fluke loss, going into the fight sick. I lost and then after that, they cut me. I was 6-2 at lightweight and they still cut me.
“You’ve got to know the right person, have the right manager in there. And your style determines if you stay in, too. The guys that stand and bang are the ones who are still fighting for the UFC. The ones that take the fights to the ground and focus more on the technique on the ground, they’re not in there because apparently the fans don’t like that.”
The elfin warrior tells AboveAndBeyondMMA.com that he didn’t deserve to be cut and is now on a mission to expose what he sees as the UFC’s unfair treatment of fighters.
“Well, I didn’t realize there was that much politics in martial arts, especially in the UFC. That was kind of frustrating. It’s not who is the best; it’s more of a political kind of BS,” he said.
“I was released after a loss against Bobby Green, which I should’ve never lost. It was kind of a fluke loss, going into the fight sick. I lost and then after that, they cut me. I was 6-2 at lightweight and they still cut me.
“You’ve got to know the right person, have the right manager in there. And your style determines if you stay in, too. The guys that stand and bang are the ones who are still fighting for the UFC. The ones that take the fights to the ground and focus more on the technique on the ground, they’re not in there because apparently the fans don’t like that.”
Volkmann is dead-on in saying that the UFC and the sport of MMA as a whole favors striking and strikers, and he goes on to include some interesting details about the UFC’s health coverage, but his whining tone probably distracts from any good points he has. No one begrudges someone for being upset at being fired, but excuse-making isn’t very sympathetic — especially from a boot-straps kind of conservative like Volkmann.
Volkmann has clearly shown that he’s a UFC-caliber fighter over the years, but he’s unfortunately not the first such guy to be cut after he goes on a downturn. First off, as we mentioned, Volkmann has been finished in two out of his last three bouts. Sure, maybe he was sick and injured in the last one but no one really ever cares about that. Also, he is 6-4 in the UFC — impressive for sure, but when half of those losses have come recently, he shouldn’t have been too shocked at being released.
Volkmann admits to being “very bitter,” over the firing but then displays a poor understanding of what poverty is.
“People always tell me, ‘You’re rich — you’re on TV!’ Are you kidding me? I made $54,000 two years ago, paid $9,000 in taxes, so that leaves me with $45,000. This last year, I made $50,000 and paid $8,000 in taxes. That leaves me with $42,000 — that’s barely above poverty. I have three kids and a wife I’m supporting.”
We’ve never gotten a crystal clear look at the UFC’s health care plans ever since they implemented one a few years ago, so tidbits of information are always great to get from fighters. Volkmann, now a lover scorned, claims that the coverage is too costly for fighters to do much good.
“They always claim that they treat the fighters so well. Yeah, they treat the top five per cent of the fighters well — the ones that are on the main card all the time. They don’t treat the rest of them very well. The healthcare plan is horrible, with a $1,500 deductible per injury — the catastrophic-injury insurance is not even really good insurance. There’s no retirement fund, there’s no signing bonus. You start off at six-and-six, you’re really not making too much money because you’re self-employed, so you’re paying the self-employment tax and you’re paying the regular tax and income tax. So you’re paying twice as much in tax. They claim they’re treating the fighters well, but they’re not, realistically.”
Rough sauce indeed. Many fighters get paid less than six and six to start, however, and lots of those are presumably in the World Series of Fighting.
What do you say, nation? Is Volkmann just mad because a black man is President and a white bald dude fired him? Or should his voice be heard on the matters of fighter compensation and job security?
World Series of Fighting’s next event — headlined by Andrei Arlovski vs. Anthony Johnson — takes place March 23rd at the Revel Casino in Atlantic City. The full lineup for that card is after the jump.
World Series of Fighting’s next event — headlined by Andrei Arlovski vs. Anthony Johnson — takes place March 23rd at the Revel Casino in Atlantic City. The full lineup for that card is after the jump.
***********
World Series of Fighting 2: Arlovski vs. Johnson
March 23rd, 2013
Preliminary Card
Waylon Lowe vs. Cameron Dollar
Rick Glenn vs. Alexandre Pimentel
Kris McCray vs. Danillo Villefort
Igor Gracie vs. Richard Patishnock
Ozzy Dugulubgov vs. Chris Wade
(In an even stranger turn of events, it was revealed that Vollkmann was actually required by law to wear that shirt whenever he was within a half mile of a playground.)
My God how the time flies. You might not have realized it — mainly because he is the type of fighter that screams “Facebook prelims” — but outspoken Minnesotan (new band name, called it) Jacob Volkmann has been fighting for the UFC for upwards of three years now, and has collected an impressive 6-4 record in the promotion. Outside of the octagon, Volkmann gained notoriety over the years for once threatening to rip off President Obama’s arm and subsequently receiving a visit from the Secret Service, an incident he would parlay into hundreds of thousands of tens of dollars in hideous, neon orange t-shirt sales.
But unfortunately for all of us Tea Party-supporting, lay-n-pray aficionados, Volkmann’s avant-garde experiment that dared combine the gripping excitement of wrestling clinics with the comic stylings of Neil Hamburger has come to an end, at least for now. Volkmann announced earlier today via his Twitter that he has been cut by the UFC following his loss to promotional newcomer Bobby Green at UFC 156:
(In an even stranger turn of events, it was revealed that Vollkmann was actually required by law to wear that shirt whenever he was within a half mile of a playground.)
My God how the time flies. You might not have realized it — mainly because he is the type of fighter that screams “Facebook prelims” — but outspoken Minnesotan (new band name, called it) Jacob Volkmann has been fighting for the UFC for upwards of three years now, and has collected an impressive 6-4 record in the promotion. Outside of the octagon, Volkmann gained notoriety over the years for once threatening to rip off President Obama’s arm and subsequently receiving a visit from the Secret Service, an incident he would parlay into hundreds of thousands of tens of dollars in hideous, neon orange t-shirt sales.
But unfortunately for all of us Tea Party-supporting, lay-n-pray aficionados, Volkmann’s avant-garde experiment that dared combine the gripping excitement of wrestling clinics with the comic stylings of Neil Hamburger has come to an end, at least for now. Volkmann announced earlier today via his Twitter that he has been cut by the UFC following his loss to promotional newcomer Bobby Green at UFC 156:
Volkmann’s loss at UFC 156 was his second in his past three fights. Combine that with Volkmann’s somewhat lackadaisical style and you’ve got yourself all the justification you need to send him adrift. However, ”Christmas” also stated on his Twitter account that the decision to cut him was that of Joe Silva’s, not Dana White’s, which means that Volkmann more than likely turned down a fight recently.
After starting his UFC career with a rocky 0-2 run in the welterweight division, Volkmann made the drop to lightweight in 2010 and put together five straight victories before getting caught in the patented Sassangle at UFC 146. Volkmann would rebound from the loss with his strongest octagon showing at UFC on FX 5, where he would score his only UFC finish by strangling WEC veteran Shane Roller inside of the first round.
Volkmann’s subsequent loss to Green at UFC 156 dropped him to 6-2 in the lightweight division. Meanwhile, Leonard Garcia still has a job despite losing his last 4 UFC contests. It just goes to show that “entertaining in defeat” will always trump “boring in victory” in the UFC. Not exactly a terrible business model if you ask us.
Pictured: Their approximate reactions to finding out “garbage-ass” was a real phrase.
One week ago, Ben published an article voicing concerns over how weak UFC 151’s main card was. But it was cool, because Jon Jones vs. Dan Henderson was going to be such an awesome fight. Two days ago, Jones vs. Henderson was scrapped and UFC 151 was canceled. [Ed. note: Damn, two days? Feels like we’ve been covering this forever.] Even though most of us acknowledged that the cancellation of the event was at least partially due to the garbage-assness of pretty much the entire card, we were too busy talking about Jon Jones ducking Chael Sonnen/Sonnen attempting to troll his way into an immediate title shot (depending on which side of the fence you’re on) to really delve into the issue. But now that the UFC has started to transplant the canceled UFC 151 fights to other cards, it’s time to take a closer look at that issue for a moment.
The bouts from UFC 151 are quickly being rescheduled for different cards, with UFC on FX 5 taking a significant chunk of them. As we covered in yesterday’s link dump, UFC 151’s planned co-main event, Jake Ellenberger vs. Jay Hieron, will now be the co-main event of UFC On FX 5. This won’t be the only fight from UFC 151’s main card that will now be padding UFC on FX 5 – Dennis Hallman vs. Thiago Tavares, Danny Castillo vs. Michael Johnson and Shane Roller vs. Jacob Volkmann will be moved to this card as well. UFC on Fuel TV 6 will now be featuring fights between bantamweights Takeya Mizugaki and Jeff Hougland and flyweights John Lineker and Yasuhiro Urushitani, while Kyle Noke and Charlie Brenneman will do the man dance on the undercard of UFC 152.
In case you haven’t noticed, it’s worth mentioning that absolutely none of these fights – three of which were on the pay-per-view portion of UFC 151, mind you – have made it to the main card of an upcoming pay-per-view. Now I understand that financially, most fighters who were expecting a paycheck on September 1 simply can’t afford to wait until November’s UFC 154 to fight again. But that’s not the issue: The issue is that the UFC could afford to move pay-per-view quality fights *makes this hand gesture* to free television in the first place.
Pictured: Their approximate reactions to finding out “garbage-ass” was a real phrase.
One week ago, Ben published an article voicing concerns over how weak UFC 151′s main card was. But it was cool, because Jon Jones vs. Dan Henderson was going to be such an awesome fight. Two days ago, Jones vs. Henderson was scrapped and UFC 151 was canceled. [Ed. note: Damn, two days? Feels like we’ve been covering this forever.] Even though most of us acknowledged that the cancellation of the event was at least partially due to the garbage-assness of pretty much the entire card, we were too busy talking about Jon Jones ducking Chael Sonnen/Sonnen attempting to troll his way into an immediate title shot (depending on which side of the fence you’re on) to really delve into the issue. But now that the UFC has started to transplant the canceled UFC 151 fights to other cards, it’s time to take a closer look at that issue for a moment.
The bouts from UFC 151 are quickly being rescheduled for different cards, with UFC on FX 5 taking a significant chunk of them. As we covered in yesterday’s link dump, UFC 151′s planned co-main event, Jake Ellenberger vs. Jay Hieron, will now be the co-main event of UFC On FX 5. This won’t be the only fight from UFC 151′s main card that will now be padding UFC on FX 5 – Dennis Hallman vs. Thiago Tavares, Danny Castillo vs. Michael Johnson and Shane Roller vs. Jacob Volkmann will be moved to this card as well. UFC on Fuel TV 6 will now be featuring fights between bantamweights Takeya Mizugaki and Jeff Hougland and flyweights John Lineker and Yasuhiro Urushitani, while Kyle Noke and Charlie Brenneman will do the man dance on the undercard of UFC 152.
In case you haven’t noticed, it’s worth mentioning that absolutely none of these fights – three of which were on the pay-per-view portion of UFC 151, mind you – have made it to the main card of an upcoming pay-per-view. Now I understand that financially, most fighters who were expecting a paycheck on September 1 simply can’t afford to wait until November’s UFC 154 to fight again. But that’s not the issue: The issue is that the UFC could afford to move pay-per-view quality fights *makes this hand gesture* to free television in the first place.
Dana White can point his fingers at Jon Jones and Greg Jackson and say “That’s the bad guy!” all he wants, but that certainly doesn’t make him the good guy in all of this. The fact that the UFC can give away bouts that they expected you to pay for without worrying about the revenue they’ll lose is essentially an admission that the bouts were never really worth your money in the first place. Essentially, it’s proof that, as we feared, over-saturation has reached its tipping point in the UFC and as a result, the main event of any given pay-per-view is the only fight worth paying for. Gone are the days when a fighter in the co-main event of a UFC pay-per-view was too big of a name for basic cable (Isn’t that right, Mike Russow?). It’s easy to make Jon Jones and Greg Jackson the scapegoats for the cancellation of UFC 151, but it’s nothing short of willful ignorance to continue to deny that over-saturation is a pandemic in the UFC.
With Jones vs. Belfort now headlining UFC 152 (151?), Dana White will more than likely use the “stacked” UFC 152 as “proof” that the UFC is still putting on stacked cards and that over-saturation is not an issue. On paper, he has a point; it’s hard to say that a card with two title fights isn’t a quality product. But let’s actually look at what we’re getting: A light-heavyweight title fight where the challenger earned the honor of fighting for a belt by simply being the first guy to say “Yeah, sure, I’ll do it,” a flyweight title fight that fans weren’t exactly excited for in the first place, and a middleweight scrap between two top-ten fighters who probably still won’t be getting a shot at Anderson Silva with a victory. Call me crazy, but I’m not seeing a stacked card here. I’m seeing a card that, up until Jon Jones was added on, was weaker than UFC 151.
I guess it would be pretty ironic of me to let the comments section fill up with complaints about how boxing died because champions were fighting unworthy challengers and the “one-fight cards” that ruined the sport. But to do that would be missing my own point, so instead I’ll propose a new rule: From now on, if you aren’t willing to complain with your wallet, you forfeit your right to complain with your keyboard. That should be enough to force the UFC to acknowledge over-saturation, and admission is the first step to recovery.
UFC lightweight Jacob Volkmann was on his way to coach wrestling practice at White Bear Lake High School in Minnesota last week when the school’s athletic director called him in for an impromptu meeting. If he didn’t know where this was headed based on past experience, he probably should have.
Following his most recent bout — a unanimous decision win over Efrain Escudero at UFC 141 in December — he again veered into political commentary in his post-fight remarks, this time telling UFC color commentator Joe Rogan that he wanted Obama to call him about scheduling a “glass-ectomy,” which, according to Volkmann, “is when you cut your belly button out and put a piece of glass in there so when you have your head up your butt you can see where you’re going.”
Once again, White Bear Lake High administrators were not amused. And once again, Volkmann was placed on paid administrative leave. But this time, he told MMA Fighting, he thought he had followed the rules that school officials had given him, thanks to some intentionally clever wording.
“They gave me four rules to follow, and I thought I followed them,” said Volkmann. “The first was, you’ve got to be respectful of people when you do your interviews, which is very vague. The second was, no interviews on school property. The third was, no White Bear Lake clothes during interviews, which is easy to follow. And the fourth was, I can’t tell people to go attack the [White Bear Lake High School Athletic Director] or the human resources lady, which is kind of a foolish rule.”
The way Volkmann saw it, the athletic director was wrong to accuse him of offering to give Obama a glass-ectomy.
“I said ‘Call me so we can schedule a glass-ectomy.’ Not saying for him, not saying for who. …I was trying to cover my butt. I purposely did that,” he said.
It apparently made little difference to school officials, who told Volkmann he’d be placed on administrative leave while they investigated the matter and decided what to do next.
For Volkmann, it’s just the latest chapter in the strange pseudo-political tale that’s come to define the last year of his MMA career. He’s become the guy fans know not so much for his fights, but for his statements afterward. The clip of his initial callout of Obama landed on “The Tonight Show,” and he was even visited by the Secret Service. He’s chosen to run with the attention, wearing a “Volkmann for President” t-shirt down to the cage and carving out time in his post-fight interviews to take shots at President Obama. And for those who don’t like politics mixed in with their sports?
“Too bad,” Volkmann said. “This is working, so I’m going to stick with it.”
But yet again Volkmann is finding that what works as an attention-getting routine in the UFC doesn’t always go over so well with his employers at a public high school, even if the two are entirely separate in his mind.
“The thing with my coaching job is, I don’t teach the kids politics; I teach them wrestling,” he said. “I do my best to teach them what I can with wrestling. And they don’t understand, I need to do and say what I can to get fans. Sometimes you have to say some kind of weird stuff to get people to notice you. Because you only have, what, 30 seconds out there with Joe Rogan? I have to say what I can in that 30 seconds to try and get people interested so they’ll look me up afterwards to figure out why I was saying it.”
Once you actually sit down and talk to him, however, it becomes clear that Volkmann’s anti-Obama routine isn’t just schtick. Ask him what, exactly, he dislikes about our current president, and he gives a heavy sigh before asking, “You ready?”
The tone itself tells you that you might as well get comfortable.
From the Obama administration’s mortgage refinancing policy to health care reform to government grants for green energy, Volkmann can hold court on any number of political topics, and he can even tell you how he was personally affected by many of those issues as a homeowner, a chiropractor, and Minnesotan. His political views aren’t limited to just jokes and quips, in other words, so why not make those the centerpiece of his public persona, rather than vaguely threatening statements that only earn him visits from the Secret Service and headaches at his coaching job?
Because, Volkmann explained, substantive political statements aren’t known for captivating the attention of the average sports fan. And that is, after all, the goal.
“I think I did it the right way, because who cares if I have a problem with a policy? That would have never made any news.”
You have to admit that he has a point. Clever sound bytes always get more airtime than policy discussion, and his way has generated its share of headlines so far. Of course, it’s also generated some problems, as his current predicament demonstrates.
The last time he was put on administrative leave from his coaching job, he said, it was over in a couple of weeks. This time he hopes to be back in the wrestling room even sooner, but school officials have given him no timeframe for a decision. In the meantime, he can’t have any contact with the wrestlers he coaches — not even to explain to them in his own words why he can’t be at practice. Sure, he still gets paid, but with a yearly assistant coach’s salary of $1,800, the job was never about money to begin with.
“I don’t make very much,” said Volkmann. “I do it more to give back to wrestling. I had so many coaches who helped me out, so I figured maybe this is a good way for me to give back and help some other kids out.”
Only now that he can’t do that — and now that his political views are threatening to overshadow his fighting ability in the eyes of many fans — even Volkmann thinks it might be time to give it a rest.
“To be honest, I’m probably not going to bring it up again unless Joe Rogan does, because it’s kind of like beating a dead horse at this point. I kind of made a comedy thing of it…and it’s kind of getting old.”
Then again, if someone puts a political question to him directly, Volkmann admitted, “I’m going to be honest, no matter what.”
UFC lightweight Jacob Volkmann was on his way to coach wrestling practice at White Bear Lake High School in Minnesota last week when the school’s athletic director called him in for an impromptu meeting. If he didn’t know where this was headed based on past experience, he probably should have.
Following his most recent bout — a unanimous decision win over Efrain Escudero at UFC 141 in December — he again veered into political commentary in his post-fight remarks, this time telling UFC color commentator Joe Rogan that he wanted Obama to call him about scheduling a “glass-ectomy,” which, according to Volkmann, “is when you cut your belly button out and put a piece of glass in there so when you have your head up your butt you can see where you’re going.”
Once again, White Bear Lake High administrators were not amused. And once again, Volkmann was placed on paid administrative leave. But this time, he told MMA Fighting, he thought he had followed the rules that school officials had given him, thanks to some intentionally clever wording.
“They gave me four rules to follow, and I thought I followed them,” said Volkmann. “The first was, you’ve got to be respectful of people when you do your interviews, which is very vague. The second was, no interviews on school property. The third was, no White Bear Lake clothes during interviews, which is easy to follow. And the fourth was, I can’t tell people to go attack the [White Bear Lake High School Athletic Director] or the human resources lady, which is kind of a foolish rule.”
The way Volkmann saw it, the athletic director was wrong to accuse him of offering to give Obama a glass-ectomy.
“I said ‘Call me so we can schedule a glass-ectomy.’ Not saying for him, not saying for who. …I was trying to cover my butt. I purposely did that,” he said.
It apparently made little difference to school officials, who told Volkmann he’d be placed on administrative leave while they investigated the matter and decided what to do next.
For Volkmann, it’s just the latest chapter in the strange pseudo-political tale that’s come to define the last year of his MMA career. He’s become the guy fans know not so much for his fights, but for his statements afterward. The clip of his initial callout of Obama landed on “The Tonight Show,” and he was even visited by the Secret Service. He’s chosen to run with the attention, wearing a “Volkmann for President” t-shirt down to the cage and carving out time in his post-fight interviews to take shots at President Obama. And for those who don’t like politics mixed in with their sports?
“Too bad,” Volkmann said. “This is working, so I’m going to stick with it.”
But yet again Volkmann is finding that what works as an attention-getting routine in the UFC doesn’t always go over so well with his employers at a public high school, even if the two are entirely separate in his mind.
“The thing with my coaching job is, I don’t teach the kids politics; I teach them wrestling,” he said. “I do my best to teach them what I can with wrestling. And they don’t understand, I need to do and say what I can to get fans. Sometimes you have to say some kind of weird stuff to get people to notice you. Because you only have, what, 30 seconds out there with Joe Rogan? I have to say what I can in that 30 seconds to try and get people interested so they’ll look me up afterwards to figure out why I was saying it.”
Once you actually sit down and talk to him, however, it becomes clear that Volkmann’s anti-Obama routine isn’t just schtick. Ask him what, exactly, he dislikes about our current president, and he gives a heavy sigh before asking, “You ready?”
The tone itself tells you that you might as well get comfortable.
From the Obama administration’s mortgage refinancing policy to health care reform to government grants for green energy, Volkmann can hold court on any number of political topics, and he can even tell you how he was personally affected by many of those issues as a homeowner, a chiropractor, and Minnesotan. His political views aren’t limited to just jokes and quips, in other words, so why not make those the centerpiece of his public persona, rather than vaguely threatening statements that only earn him visits from the Secret Service and headaches at his coaching job?
Because, Volkmann explained, substantive political statements aren’t known for captivating the attention of the average sports fan. And that is, after all, the goal.
“I think I did it the right way, because who cares if I have a problem with a policy? That would have never made any news.”
You have to admit that he has a point. Clever sound bytes always get more airtime than policy discussion, and his way has generated its share of headlines so far. Of course, it’s also generated some problems, as his current predicament demonstrates.
The last time he was put on administrative leave from his coaching job, he said, it was over in a couple of weeks. This time he hopes to be back in the wrestling room even sooner, but school officials have given him no timeframe for a decision. In the meantime, he can’t have any contact with the wrestlers he coaches — not even to explain to them in his own words why he can’t be at practice. Sure, he still gets paid, but with a yearly assistant coach’s salary of $1,800, the job was never about money to begin with.
“I don’t make very much,” said Volkmann. “I do it more to give back to wrestling. I had so many coaches who helped me out, so I figured maybe this is a good way for me to give back and help some other kids out.”
Only now that he can’t do that — and now that his political views are threatening to overshadow his fighting ability in the eyes of many fans — even Volkmann thinks it might be time to give it a rest.
“To be honest, I’m probably not going to bring it up again unless Joe Rogan does, because it’s kind of like beating a dead horse at this point. I kind of made a comedy thing of it…and it’s kind of getting old.”
Then again, if someone puts a political question to him directly, Volkmann admitted, “I’m going to be honest, no matter what.”
UFC lightweight