If anything, UFC on Fox 3 is looking like it has the potential to surpass that of its first two cards in terms of excitement. Dana White announced via his Twitter last night that a battle between top welterweight contenders Josh Koscheck and Johny Hendricks has just been booked for the UFC’s third go-around on Fox, which is already set to feature a lightweight clash between Jim Miller and Nate Diaz, as well as a heavyweight sure to be slugfest pitting Pat Barry against Lavar Johnson. Yes, it’s looking like there is little stopping this card *cough* Jon Jones’ commentary *cough* from finally delivering a good lineup to the masses. The first Fox card had the fights, but failed to showcase enough of them, whereas the second card was simply too underwhelming to reel in any new fans, but the addition of Hendricks/Koscheck to this card will surely push it over the top.
Hendricks is coming off a 12 second knockout over former #1 contender Jon Fitch, which snapped a 5-0-1 streak Fitch had put together since dropping a unanimous decision to Georges St. Pierre back at UFC 87. Koscheck, however, is fresh off a controversial split decision victory over Mike Pierce at UFC 143. Despite being outsruck for the majority of three rounds, Koscheck was able to secure the decision by converting on two of his three takedown attempts, because that’s apparently all it takes these days.
If anything, UFC on Fox 3 is looking like it has the potential to surpass that of its first two cards in terms of excitement. Dana White announced via his Twitter last night that a battle between top welterweight contenders Josh Koscheck and Johny Hendricks has just been booked for the UFC’s third go-around on Fox, which is already set to feature a lightweight clash between Jim Miller and Nate Diaz, as well as a heavyweight sure to be slugfest pitting Pat Barry against Lavar Johnson. Yes, it’s looking like there is little stopping this card *cough* Jon Jones’ commentary *cough* from finally delivering a good lineup to the masses. The first Fox card had the fights, but failed to showcase enough of them, whereas the second card was simply too underwhelming to reel in any new fans, but the addition of Hendricks/Koscheck to this card will surely push it over the top.
Hendricks is coming off a 12 second knockout over former #1 contender Jon Fitch, which snapped a 5-0-1 streak Fitch had put together since dropping a unanimous decision to Georges St. Pierre back at UFC 87. Koscheck, however, is fresh off a controversial split decision victory over Mike Pierce at UFC 143. Despite being outsruck for the majority of three rounds, Koscheck was able to secure the decision by converting on two of his three takedown attempts, because that’s apparently all it takes these days.
Depending on the outcome, this matchup poses an interesting conundrum for Joe Silva. If Hendricks wins, you have to believe he’s done enough to warrant a title shot. He may not have a big name at this point in his career, but knocking off two former title challengers in a row would be enough to earn Urijah Faber title shots in the weight classes of his choosing for the rest of his natural born life, and possibly beyond that. If Koscheck wins, on the other hand, there isn’t really much to give him in return, outside of a possible match against interim champ Carlos Condit, who he was originally scheduled to face at UFC 143, while GSP recovers. Kos has fought the current welterweight champ twice to no avail, and suffered a broken orbital bone in his last attempt at UFC 124, so you can’t imagine that many people will be clamoring for yet another unnecessary trilogy to come to fruition.
Former welterweight title contender Josh Koscheck recently parted company with American Kickboxing Academy to set up his own training camp in Fresno, California. Some believe that this could be the signal for a potential fight with close friend and tra…
Former welterweight title contender Josh Koscheck recently parted company with American Kickboxing Academy to set up his own training camp in Fresno, California. Some believe that this could be the signal for a potential fight with close friend and training partner Jon Fitch, but it’s not.
In the past both combatants have made it perfectly clear that under no circumstances will they ever step into the Octagon to compete for honors or money.
“If there’s no one else for me to compete with at 170 other than Koscheck, I’m going to move up.
[…] “No chance (we will fight),” declared Koscheck. “It’s not worth it to me. I would rather step away from the sport than fight Jon Fitch.”
Those comments continue to hold true for the former NCAA Division-I standout as he continues to stand by his words regarding any future fights with Fitch now that he’s no longer a member of AKA.
That said, “Kos” did intimate that he and Fitch would continue to help each other out as they’ve done in the past, thus leading to the conclusion that his exit from the camp that he’s called home for six years will never leave the door open for a fight with Fitch.
Though, Koscheck who defeated Mike Pierce via split decision at UFC 143 does have his sights set on both the winner and loser of the main event card, newly-crowned interim titlist Carlos Condit and former Strikeforce welterweight champion Nick Diaz.
“Yeah, definitely. Why not? He’s a tough guy. It would be a good fight,” Koscheck stated of Diaz.
When asked about facing Condi, Koscheck said, “There’s a little bit of history with us and we were supposed to fight tonight. I’m down.”
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(When I open my eyes, I want to see that sign say ‘NOT an AKA affiliate.'”
If you were wondering why American Kickboxing Academy co-founder and head coach Javier Mendez wasn’t in Josh Koscheck’s corner Saturday night, it wasn’t because he had Super Bowl tickets.
Kos dropped a bombshell at the post-fight press conference that he has split from the San Jose-based camp and that he will now prepare for his future bouts in his Fresno AKA location – though he isn’t sure that he’ll keep the affiliation of the gym the same. He clarified with MMAWeekly that the decision to leave the gym was a result of a handful of slights Mendez made towards him and his teammates following losses the fighters incurred.
“This goes back from quite a bit, and history repeats itself. Whenever you have a guy for example whenever I had the loss against [Thiago] Alves and I took the fight on short notice with him, and after the fight I had a lot of friends come up to me and calling me saying ‘have you read this interview with Javier Mendez?’ and talking about me and my game plan. So I went online and I read this interview and I started to notice after all my teammates lost, it was the same thing,” Koscheck recalled. “[He’d say things like], ‘They didn’t listen to the game plan,’ — that he deferred it away from himself, and he threw us under the bus basically, saying that we didn’t listen to him and he tries to make himself look good, so it doesn’t reflect on him us losing. I’ve lost a lot of respect for Javier Mendez as a coach, as a person, because if you go back and listen to the history of the interviews of him after AKA guys have lost, the interviews he does, go back and look at the Cain Velasquez [fight], go back and look at the Josh Koscheck [fight], the other guys on that team, and see if you can find interviews where he refers to, ‘Oh I did my job,’ to make himself look good and they didn’t do theirs. That’s not a coach.”
(When I open my eyes, I want to see that sign say ‘NOT an AKA affiliate.’”
If you were wondering why American Kickboxing Academy co-founder and head coach Javier Mendez wasn’t in Josh Koscheck’s corner Saturday night, it wasn’t because he had Super Bowl tickets.
Kos dropped a bombshell at the post-fight press conference that he has split from the San Jose-based camp and that he will now prepare for his future bouts in his Fresno AKA location – though he isn’t sure that he’ll keep the affiliation of the gym the same. He clarified with MMAWeekly that the decision to leave the gym was a result of a handful of slights Mendez made towards him and his teammates following losses the fighters incurred.
“This goes back from quite a bit, and history repeats itself. Whenever you have a guy for example whenever I had the loss against [Thiago] Alves and I took the fight on short notice with him, and after the fight I had a lot of friends come up to me and calling me saying, ‘Have you read this interview with Javier Mendez?’ and talking about me and my game plan. So I went online and I read this interview and I started to notice after all my teammates lost, it was the same thing,” Koscheck recalled. “[He’d say things like], ‘They didn’t listen to the game plan,’ — that he deferred it away from himself, and he threw us under the bus basically, saying that we didn’t listen to him and he tries to make himself look good, so it doesn’t reflect on him us losing. I’ve lost a lot of respect for Javier Mendez as a coach, as a person, because if you go back and listen to the history of the interviews of him after AKA guys have lost, the interviews he does, go back and look at the Cain Velasquez [fight], go back and look at the Josh Koscheck [fight], the other guys on that team, and see if you can find interviews where he refers to, ‘Oh I did my job,’ to make himself look good and they didn’t do theirs. That’s not a coach.”
Kos says that another issue he had with Mendez is that he put getting exposure for his brand ahead of taking care of the fighters that made it a household name. Although he didn’t say it, it looks like there may have been more than meets the eye to the recent departure of longtime AKA coach Dave Camarillo, given the way he describes the atmosphere at the gym.
“There was a lot of poison going on around there and I’m really disappointed because we had a good thing going. It was a good thing and I think people’s egos got in the way. Well, not people just Javier, his ego got in the way, and too many cameras in the gym and him trying to build himself up and his brand — his AKA brand, which is fine. I understand that, but it should never take precedence over training guys. As a head coach of a gym and he says he’s the man, he’s the boss over there, he should have the responsibility to make the fighters as best as we possibly could be, but he never did that,” he maintains. “It’s because DeWayne Zinkin and Bob Cook recruited us to go there. That’s the only reason that everybody’s there, it’s not because of Javier Mendez, it’s not because of the gym AKA; it’s because of DeWayne Zinkin and Bob Cook. They built this thing. They brought the best guys in the world together. Bob Cook and Dave Camarillo they’re always responsible and they take their share of wins and losses and that’s what you’ve got to love about those guys. Bob Cook and Dave Camarillo, they’re loyal. You lose, guess what, it was all of our faults. They take the brunt of that. Javier is more concerned about the camp and looking good and who’s going to be the next guy to bring him money. I just can’t be around that anymore.”
As far as training with his former teammates like Jon Fitch, Cain Velasquez, Mike Swick, Luke Rockhold and Daniel Cormier goes, he says that they are still teammates regardless of whether or not they compete under the AKA banner or not and that they will continue to train together, just not under Mendez’s roof.
“Those guys are my brothers. They’ll be in my wedding. I know Fitch is going to have a baby soon, I’m going to go up there the day he has his baby. That’s my family. That’s my adopted family. We’ve bled together for eight years; that ain’t changing. I’m still going to train with them, but I will never step foot in AKA in San Jose again. I’m not really concerned about trying to create a camp; it’s going to happen. I get paid pretty well so I’ll pay guys to come in and train with me for a few weeks,” he says. ”If any fighters want to come train, my doors are open. I’ll give them a free place to live, and a great training atmosphere,” says Koscheck. I basically trained myself the whole last training camp. Actually more than that, it’s been the last three or four training camps, I trained myself. So it’s like, why be away from Fresno where I have two gyms I built, I have an amazing house, I have amazing family here and friends, and people that support me here. I can’t do that.
“Had I stayed there my career would only be one or two more fights. I think it affected me a lot. I knew I was going to make this announcement after the fight; I obviously wanted to win and have that opportunity to make that announcement at the press conference,” Kos explains, pointing out why he didn’t perform as well as he should have against Mike Pierce Saturday night. “I was going to do it in the Octagon. There’s a lot of emotion in this because this has been my life for eight years. Since I’ve been in the UFC and started my career training, I’ve been there and I don’t know anything different. It’s going to be a new change and a new chapter for me. New beginnings.”
Although some might assume that this development opens up the possibility of him fighting teammate Jon Fitch, Koscheck says that it still isn’t happening even if they aren’t fighting under the same affiliation.
“That ain’t ever going to happen. I’ll move up a weight class or I’ll just quit,” he says flatly. “Dana White, he’s great about it, he was joking with me at the press conference and I joked with him back and I said, ‘Good luck with that one, buddy.’ If me and Fitch became the number one contenders, if we were fighting edge to edge for the title for the number one contender [slot], then I could see why Dana would say ‘yeah you guys need to fight’ but I would probably just end up walking away from the sport. Because it doesn’t mean that much to me to fight a friend.”
Enigmatic UFC welterweight Nick Diaz shouldn’t retire. If he wises up and decides not to, Jon Fitch needs to be his next opponent.The fight between Nick Diaz and Jon Fitch would be the smartest match to make, as both men are coming off losses. It …
Enigmatic UFC welterweight Nick Diaz shouldn’t retire. If he wises up and decides not to, Jon Fitch needs to be his next opponent.
The fight between Nick Diaz and Jon Fitch would be the smartest match to make, as both men are coming off losses.
It would also be an easier sell than most other of Fitch’s fights, since Fitch seems to harbor a genuine dislike for Diaz.
However, the fight has an additional level of importance to it, aside from the matchmaking logistics of the welterweight division and pay-per-view buys.
The fight between Diaz and Fitch would be one that finally forces the MMA community to face the “exciting vs. boring” debate and settle it once and for all; MMA fans will move on and start a new era without fruitless debates about entertainment value after the fight is over.
Fitch is (wrongfully) a hated figure because he’s been successful in the UFC without providing fans with highlight reel KOs or submissions. Because of this, people think he’s a “boring” wrestler who only employs “lay and pray” tactics against his adversaries; he’s not really fighting, he’s competing/wrestling (so his detractors believe).
Some go as far as to consider a win achieved via wrestling and superior top control or “grinding” an opponent against the cage not a win at all—they call it not losing.
On the opposite side of Fitch is Diaz.
Diaz is a scrappy individual who talks trash, taunts and is always seeking to finish the fight quickly, and always puts on a show for the fans. As Bleacher Report lead MMA writer Jonathan Snowden noted, when Diaz is in the cage it’s not a sport, it’s a fight.
But which fighter and fanbase is “right”?
Is it better to be exciting or safe? Does it matter as long as you win?
Such questions would underline all of these issues heading into a Diaz-Fitch fight, and the questions would finally be resolved once one man’s hand is raised.
Either “lay and pray” would finally be vindicated to fans or would forever rest in the ash heap of MMA history.
UFC 143 opened up some very intriguing matchup possibilities in numerous weight classes. But perhaps none was more surprising or more interesting than the the one that opened up when Josh Koscheck announced that he would be splitting from the American …
UFC 143 opened up some very intriguing matchup possibilities in numerous weight classes. But perhaps none was more surprising or more interesting than the the one that opened up when Josh Koscheck announced that he would be splitting from the American Kickboxing Academy.
As long-time friends and training partners, Koscheck and Jon Fitch have utilized very similar techniques in many of their fights on their way to a combined UFC record that could make just about any other teammate duo look pathetic. It hasn’t always been flashy, and it has made some fans pretty angry to watch; but Koscheck and Jon Fitch just get the job done.
So, now that Koscheck and Fitch will no longer be training with one another, fans may finally be treated to the answer of one of MMA’s longest-running questions: “Who’s better—Josh Koscheck or Jon Fitch?”
Sure, a matchup between Koscheck and Diaz seemed to be the talk of the town following the fight, but that could happen down the road and still be just as intriguing. There’s no love or hate there; there’s no story.
But Koscheck versus Fitch has been built up in the minds of MMA fans for years!
Even UFC President Dana White has spoken out in the past about how he wants to see these guys go at it. He even wanted them to fight when they were teammates!
Now that the teammate card is gone from the deck, this fight makes all the sense in the world for numerous reasons.
With Koscheck coming off of back-to-back wins and Fitch coming off of a surprising loss to Johny Hendricks, these two are actually fairly close to one another in the rankings. Moreover, both of them needs a win against a top opponent to step up in the rankings given the tremendous amount of elite-level competitors who are currently vying for a title shot.
Fitch and Koscheck have lost a combined three fights to Georges St-Pierre. Fighting one another would be a show of good faith to the UFC, proving that they are willing to do anything that it takes to get another shot at the title.
The stylistic matchup between these two is very interesting, but even more intriguing would be seeing which one of these fighters has learned the weaknesses of the other more convincingly in training.
It’s not like these guys can’t go back to being friends immediately after the fight, but it’s time to give the fans what they’ve been hoping to see for years. Hopefully we’ll see Joe Silva and Dana White come together to make this thing happen sometime in 2012.
For more MMA news, fighter interviews and opinions, follow Nick Caron: @NicholasCaron
Filed under: MMA Media Watch, UFCSunday morning marked the airing of an Outside the Lines segment on ESPN that was denounced by UFC President Dana White before he had even seen it — a show that presented the UFC’s pay model as one that richly rewards …
Sunday morning marked the airing of an Outside the Lines segment on ESPN that was denounced by UFC President Dana White before he had even seen it — a show that presented the UFC’s pay model as one that richly rewards a handful of favorite stars while paying the majority of fighters as interchangeable drones.
White has already promised a response, and he’ll surely say that ESPN’s report contained incomplete information about how much the company pays its fighters. And he’ll surely be right, for the simple reason that the UFC, like many private businesses, keeps what it pays its workers confidential. ESPN deserves credit for attempting to uncover the closely guarded secret of how much UFC fighters actually make, but specific dollar amounts were lacking in this report.
For all the work that went into the Outside the Lines report, we still don’t know how much the UFC really pays its fighters.
“Outside the Lines has spoken with more than 20 current, former and potential UFC fighters, as well as agents and promoters,” ESPN’s John Barr said as he strolled around a cage in the televised segment. “To a person, they say UFC fighters have not received their fair share of the company’s rapidly increasing revenue. Nearly all of them also refused to speak on camera, for fear the UFC would blackball them.”
But the fact that ESPN couldn’t get any active fighters to speak — and especially to reveal specific dollar amounts — was the biggest flaw in the report. The report did make a strong case that highly paid UFC fighters make far more than low-level fighters make. In that respect the UFC follows a pay model similar to that of Hollywood studios, where a handful of stars make the bulk of the money, and the bit players are left with much less.
And while UFC co-owner Lorenzo Fertitta claimed that the UFC pays its fighters in the neighborhood of 50 percent of all the promotion’s revenues, ESPN’s investigation made a convincing case that the UFC actually pays less than that.
However, there were also some weaknesses of ESPN’s reporting, which pegged the actual amount the UFC pays its fighters as “roughly 10 percent of the revenue.”
ESPN.com initially reported that the median annual income for UFC fighters was $17,000 to $23,000 a year, citing figures compiled by Rob Maysey of the Mixed Martial Arts Fighters Association. ESPN later corrected that report and said the $17,000 to $23,000 figure was actually the median pay per fight, not per year. However, even those corrected numbers do not appear to include sponsorships, bonuses and other forms of income that UFC fighters make.
And median pay per fight isn’t necessarily a particularly telling statistic. Consider a low-level UFC newcomer who signs a contract that guarantees him $6,000 to show, and another $6,000 to win for his first fight, then $8,000 for his second fight and $10,000 for his third. If that fighter fights three times, wins all three fights and earns a $75,000 Knockout of the Night bonus in his third fight, his median pay per fight would only be $16,000. But his total pay for the three fights would be $123,000, for an average of $41,000 a fight.
For an example of an entry-level fighter who has cashed in big time with bonuses, look at Edson Barboza, who signed with the UFC in 2010 after having six pro fights in small regional promotions. Barboza’s “show money” is reportedly just $6,000 a fight. But Barboza has won all four of his fights, meaning he also got a $6,000 win bonus for all four fights, and Barboza has received three Fight of the Night bonuses and one Knockout of the Night bonus (including both Fight of the Night and Knockout of the Night on Saturday at UFC 142). Thanks to the UFC’s bonus-heavy pay structure, Barboza’s total take for his first four UFC fights is at least $348,000, even before any sponsorships or other sources of income.
Even without bonuses, entry-level fighters aren’t necessarily doing too badly. One such fighter is UFC featherweight Jim Hettes. Hettes was an unknown in MMA circles, fighting on the regional scene, until he caught a break in August and signed with the UFC on a deal that paid him $6,000 to show and $6,000 to win on his first fight, and then $8,000 to show and $8,000 to win on his second fight. Hettes won both fights, for a total take of $28,000, and is now looking like one of the brightest young prospects in the featherweight division.
For a 24-year-old like Hettes, making $28,000 in five months while fighting in the UFC, with a good chance of making a lot more than that in the future, is a dream come true. ESPN didn’t quote any active fighters complaining about their pay on the record and indicated that the inability to find such fighters was a sign that fighters were scared to speak out. But maybe the reality is most UFC fighters are OK with what they make.
In fact, when low-level fighters are released from the UFC because of losses they suffer in the Octagon, they almost universally express a desire to win enough fights in other promotions to earn the right to return to the UFC — which strongly suggests that they don’t view the contracts they’ve just been released from as onerous.
The handful of mid-level fighters who have been released from the UFC for reasons having to do with issues outside the Octagon (fighters like Jon Fitch, Nate Marquardt and Miguel Torres) also generally apologize for their transgressions and ask to return to the UFC. Again, that suggests that the contracts they were released from were better than the contracts they could earn in other promotions.
And the few prominent fighters who have become free agents, like Tito Ortiz, have generally decided when the dust settled that the grass was greener inside the Octagon than out of it. UFC Hall of Famer Ken Shamrock appeared in the Outside the Lines report, and it may not have been clear to viewers who aren’t MMA fans that Shamrock made millions of dollars in the UFC, or that Shamrock left the promotion because he wasn’t good enough to win inside the Octagon anymore, not because he objected to the terms of his contract. That was clarified, however, in the panel discussion that took place after Barr’s taped Outside the Lines report.
It is true that a handful of well-known fighters have been able to leave the UFC and make more money elsewhere. That includes former heavyweight champions Andrei Arlovski and Tim Sylvia, who both left the UFC to sign with Affliction in 2008. But Affliction fell apart after putting on just two fight cards, which suggests that its higher-paying business model didn’t work.
ESPN’s report would have been strengthened by addressing other promotions’ business models, including not only Affliction but also Bellator and other smaller American MMA organizations. The UFC is by far the biggest MMA promotion and therefore deserves to have by far the greatest scrutiny, but a comparison of the UFC’s pay scale with other promotions’ pay scales would have provided some valuable context.
Ultimately, as former UFC heavyweight champion Ricco Rodriguez said on Outside the Lines, “The UFC gives you the best opportunity.” It would be great to see more opportunities for more fighters, but at the moment, even if UFC pay is lacking, it beats the alternatives in MMA.
Former welterweight title contender Josh Koscheck recently parted company with American Kickboxing Academy to set up his own training camp in Fresno, California. Some believe that this could be the signal for a potential fight with close friend and training partner 
Sunday morning marked the airing of an Outside the Lines segment on ESPN that was denounced by