Tag: Michael Johnson

Armchair Matchmaker: ‘UFC on FX: Browne vs. Bigfoot’ Edition


(Having recently established himself as the alpha male, the Bigfoot eagerly races off into the jungles of Brazil to copulate with the herd’s last remaining female.)

We may be a few days removed from UFC on FX 5, but that doesn’t mean that the future has already been determined for the night’s biggest winners. Joe Silva and Sean Shelby may be the best in the biz, but even they could probably use a bit of matchmaking advice — or at least a backup plan– considering that half of the fights they book in the aftermath of this event will be cancelled due to injury, arrest, or a classic case of bitch wife. This is where the Armchair Matchmaker comes in, for what are sports without over analysis, needless speculation, and a headscratching appearance from Liam Neeson? By the end of this article, you will have witnessed at least one of these.

Here we go.

Antonio Silva: You might chalk this up to laziness, but pairing the rebounding “Bigfoot” against Stefan Struve seems like an awesome idea to us. We know Stefan called out Fabricio Werdum following his big win over Stipe Miocic at UFC on FUEL 5, but we think this matchup makes just as much sense, if not more. Both men have recently reestablished themselves at legitimate threats and Werdum 2.0 (you know, the one that can do this to people on the feet) seems like he would put on a clinic against either man. It would be a stretch to declare that either Struve or Silva are exactly title-worthy material yet, so let these two big men slug it out and give the winner a top contender. It’s a classic battle of Chin vs. Lankiness — Jay Leno vs. Conan O’Brien in an MMA ring, if you will — and would surely deliver an exciting finish inside the distance.


(Having recently established himself as the alpha male, the Bigfoot eagerly races off into the jungles of Brazil to copulate with the herd’s last remaining female.)

We may be a few days removed from UFC on FX 5, but that doesn’t mean that the future has already been determined for the night’s biggest winners. Joe Silva and Sean Shelby may be the best in the biz, but even they could probably use a bit of matchmaking advice — or at least a backup plan– considering that half of the fights they book in the aftermath of this event will be cancelled due to injury, arrest, or a classic case of bitch wife. This is where the Armchair Matchmaker comes in, for what are sports without over analysis, needless speculation, and a headscratching appearance from Liam Neeson? By the end of this article, you will have witnessed at least one of these.

Here we go.

Antonio Silva: You might chalk this up to laziness, but pairing the rebounding “Bigfoot” against Stefan Struve seems like an awesome idea to us. We know Stefan called out Fabricio Werdum following his big win over Stipe Miocic at UFC on FUEL 5, but we think this matchup makes just as much sense, if not more. Both men have recently reestablished themselves at legitimate threats and Werdum 2.0 (you know, the one that can do this to people on the feet) seems like he would put on a clinic against either man. It would be a stretch to declare that either Struve or Silva are exactly title-worthy material yet, so let these two big men slug it out and give the winner a top contender. It’s a classic battle of Chin vs. Lankiness – Jay Leno vs. Conan O’Brien in an MMA ring, if you will — and would surely deliver an exciting finish inside the distance.

Jake Ellenberger: He may have come away with a victory over a legit fighter in Jay Hieron on Friday, but Ellenberger’s performance was easily one of the most disappointing in recent memory, which is saying something considering he was just TKO’d in his last fight. Ellenberger seemed far too content to throw haymakers with the hope of a flash KO and never really went out of his way to try and obtain a finish, so there’d be no better way to light a fire under him for his next fight than to pair him with perennial trash-talking contender Josh Koscheck. Kos is coming off a close loss to Johnny Hendricks, who he ranked just above “Ingleburger” in a previous interview and would love the opportunity to prove all of us retarded, fighter-ranking assholes wrong anyway.

John Dodson: Although Dodson earned the right to fight newly-crowned flyweight champion Demetrious Johnson with his impressive second round knockout of Jussier Formiga, we’d rather see Dodson take on the drunken asshole that couldn’t keep quiet on Friday in a no holds-barred street fight to the death. If Dodson wins, we can never complain about another flyweight fight again. If he loses, we pack him and as many flyweights as humanely possible into an undersized car and let the hijinks ensue.

Justin Edwards: Edwards is four fights into his UFC career, yet we still don’t really know what to make of the guy. His 45-second victory over Neer was both impressive and unexpected, but again, it didn’t tell us much about him other than the fact that he has a nasty arm-in guillotine. Simply put, we need to see more of Edwards, and a fight that would show us a lot about the guy would be against a Dan Miller type fighter. Not only does Miller also possess one of the nastiest guillotines in the division — which he used to score his last victory — but he is a well rounded, middle-of-the-pack guy who would be the perfect litmus test for Edwards. Miller was expected to face Sean Pierson at UFC 152, but pulled out when he received word that his son Danny Jr. would be undergoing a much needed kidney transplant. Now that Danny Jr. appears to be in the clear for the time being, we imagine Dan could use some more help paying the bills, and a win over Edwards would be a solid step in the right direction.

Michael Johnson: The TUF 12 product was able to overcome some early difficulty against Danny Castillo (thanks in part to a slight mental error by “Last Call”) in the first round and scored the most vicious knockout of his career in the second. Now finding himself on a three fight win streak, Johnson could use a slight step up in competition to see if he can overcome adversity again. A clash against the ever-improving Matt Wiman would make sense. Wiman recently scored a huge upset over Paul Sass at UFC on FUEL 5, and like Johnson, could use another big victory to keep his name in circulation.

Mike Pierce: It was almost eerie how similar Pierce’s and Johnson’s performances were last Friday. Both men were rocked in the first round, only to release the Kraken (I TOLD YOU!) and deliver a spine-shattering knockout early in the second. Considering how terrible Pierce looked in his victory over Carlos Eduardo Rocha his last trip out, he has to be feeling like a boss right now and rightfully so. Pierce is now 7-3 in his UFC career, with all of his losses coming to title challengers, so why not toss him another former title challenger? After falling to a third round come from behind submission at the hands of Martin Kampmann, Thiago Alves was supposed to fight Yoshihiro Akiyama at UFC 149, but blah blah blah injury curse, so pairing him against Pierce seems like a pretty smart move to effectively destroy any hope one of these men has at a title shot (or another in Alves’ case).

Are there any matchups that you’d rather see, Potato Nation?

–J. Jones

UFC on FX 5: Is Michael Johnson the Best Hope for the Blackzilians?

Are the Blackzilians ever going to win UFC gold? As one of the most talent-heavy “super-camps” in mixed martial arts, the successes and failures of the Florida-based team (operated and represented by Authentic Sports Management) have been interesting s…

Are the Blackzilians ever going to win UFC gold?

As one of the most talent-heavy “super-camps” in mixed martial arts, the successes and failures of the Florida-based team (operated and represented by Authentic Sports Management) have been interesting subjects during the last two years.

Out of that entire talented group, only Ultimate Fighter-winner Michael Johnson happens to be riding a 3-0 winning streak in the UFC this year.

According to MMA Decisions, that streak currently places the young Blackzilians member in an extremely small group with the unlikely Matt Brown, Cub Swanson and Stefan Struve.

But does that mean that Johnson is his team’s best hope for the next year?

Hardly.

Sure, the Blackzilians‘ top fighters have collectively posted a losing record since the inception of the team. At a glance, their win-loss tally actually seems very mediocre.

Here’s how the Blackzillans‘ founders fared since starting the camp in March 2011:

• Rashad Evans: 2 wins, 1 loss
• Jorge Santiago: 2 wins, 2 losses
• Gesias “JZ” Cavalcante: 1 win, 2 losses, 1 no-contest
• Danillo Villefort: 1 win, 1 loss
• Yuri Villefort: 1 loss

Combined record: 6 wins, 7 losses, 1 no-contest

Other Blackzilians haven’t been much more effective, save a few notable standouts. As it stands, the biggest thing swaying the numbers is the fact that most new members of the Jaco Hybrid Training Center haven’t actually competed since they joined the team.

For added context, here’s how other Blackzilians have performed since signing up:

• Vitor Belfort: August 2012; 1 loss
• Michael Johnson: Summer 2012 (after UFC on FOX 3); 1 win
• Melvin Guillard: January 2012; 1 win, 2 losses
• Eddie Alvarez: January 2012; 1 win
• Miguel Torres: January 2012; 1 loss
• Anthony Johnson: Early 2011 (after UFC Fight Night 24); 4 wins, 1 loss

Combined record: 8 wins, 5 losses

But as usual, numbers never tell the whole story, and this group is simply far too new to be judged by the last couple of years as a team.

During the rest of the year and before the end of 2013, the UFC will see the return of several Blackzilians such as Alistair Overeem, Thiago Silva, Siyar Bahadurzada, Claude Patrick and Matt Mitrione.

To suggest that the team’s biggest success rides on Michael Johnson isn’t fair to the still-evolving lightweight, especially since he came within inches of losing to Danny Castillo.

Looking at it critically, Alistair Overeem will likely bring the most success to the Blackzilians, provided he is able to regain a license and rejoin the heavyweight title hunt.

By far, Overeem and Rashad Evans should be considered the Blackzilians‘ best chances for winning a UFC championship. Not only are they two of the most dangerous fighters in their respective divisions, but they’re also the two members of the team closest to title shots.

UFC welterweight Siyar Bahadurzada shouldn’t be overlooked either, as he’ll return from injury amid a seven-fight winning streak.

Plus, if Anthony Johnson gets his weight issues under control, settles in at light heavyweight and makes his way back into the UFC’s good graces, the entire division should be on notice.

Michael Johnson is definitely improving. If he’s brought along with sensible matchmaking, his youth and athleticism will help him rise through the lightweight ranks at a steady pace. But let’s not suggest that the entire hopes of the Blackzilians are riding on his shoulders alone.

[McKinley Noble is an MMA conspiracy theorist and FightFans Radio writer. His work has appeared in GamePro, Macworld and PC World. Talk with him on Twitter.]

Read more MMA news on BleacherReport.com

UFC Begins to Transplant Canceled UFC 151 Bouts. Spoiler Alert: None End Up On PPV.


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.

@SethFalvo

Josh Koscheck vs. Jake Ellenberger Confirmed as ‘UFC 151: Jones vs. Henderson’ Co-Main Event


(Koscheck doesn’t like curly blonde wigs for the same reason that Jon Jones doesn’t like fake UFC belts. It’s like, bro, you didn’t put in the work, okay? / Photo via Sherdog)

You can’t keep a good man down — or a bad one, either. Coming off his split-decision loss to Johny Hendricks in May, welterweight contender Josh Koscheck will try to bounce back against Jake Ellenberger in the co-main event of UFC 151: Jones vs. Henderson, September 1st in Las Vegas. Ellenberger is also coming off a defeat — his leave-from-ahead* knockout loss to Martin Kampmann at the TUF 15 Finale — which followed a six-fight win streak, including victories over Jake Shields and Diego Sanchez. So which top 170-pounder is going to wake up the next morning with two straight losses?

Koscheck hasn’t started talking trash to Ellenberger on twitter yet, but he did recently call you a sissy and pat his hair on the back. In other notable UFC 151 booking news…


(Koscheck doesn’t like curly blonde wigs for the same reason that Jon Jones doesn’t like fake UFC belts. It’s like, bro, you didn’t put in the work, okay? / Photo via Sherdog)

You can’t keep a good man down — or a bad one, either. Coming off his split-decision loss to Johny Hendricks in May, welterweight contender Josh Koscheck will try to bounce back against Jake Ellenberger in the co-main event of UFC 151: Jones vs. Henderson, September 1st in Las Vegas. Ellenberger is also coming off a defeat — his leave-from-ahead* knockout loss to Martin Kampmann at the TUF 15 Finale — which followed a six-fight win streak, including victories over Jake Shields and Diego Sanchez. So which top 170-pounder is going to wake up the next morning with two straight losses?

Koscheck hasn’t started talking trash to Ellenberger on twitter yet, but he did recently call you a sissy and pat his hair on the back. In other notable UFC 151 booking news…

– TUF 12 finalist Michael Johnson — who most recently gave TUF 13 winner Tony Ferguson his first loss in the UFC — will face Danny “Last Call” Castillo, who’s riding a three-fight win streak in the Octagon.

– Dennis Siver and Eddie Yagin have signed for a meeting in the featherweight division. Siver won a unanimous decision over Diego Nunes in his 145-pound debut in April, while Yagin is coming off of his massive upset of Mark Hominick at UFC 145.

– Takeya Mizugaki and Jeff Hougland will try to rebound from their recent losses (and improve their .500 UFC records) in a bantamweight contest.

– A lightweight bout between Dennis Hallman and Thiago Tavares has been moved to this card from UFC 150.

* The opposite of “come-from-behind,” obviously. But yeah, we need a better phrase for that.

GIF Party: ‘UFC on FOX 2: Evans vs. Davis’ edition


Swanson vs. Roop provided an early candidate for Side-Punchface of the Year. Props: UFC.com

Remember how last night, you invited your non-MMA fan friends over to introduce them to our sport? You spent the past week talking about how Chael Sonnen is one of the best trash talkers in professional sports, and how technical and talented these fighters were. You figured that after three fights that were guaranteed to be exceptional, your friends would be won over to MMA fandom. Then you’d continue to drink and be merry all night, and we’d all meet up here today for our traditional post-UFC event GIF party where we all high five over how awesome the fights were.

Well, it didn’t quite work out that way. Instead, you found yourself doing damage control as you watched three fights worth of sloppy brawling, wall and stall and Chael Sonnen’s blatant swaggerjacking of homage to “Superstar” Billy Graham. You tried to convince them that the fights are usually nothing like this, and that these guys gassing out and the end of the first round are world class athletes. Eventually, one of your friends said “I bet Pacquiao would destroy ANY of these guys” as the rest of your friends grabbed their coats and said they’d call you next time they wanted to watch the fights.

Okay, so last night sucked. But we’ve been planning this party all week, and we’ll be damned if we cancel it at this point. So grab an alcoholic beverage, put on your gaudiest Affliction shirt and join us for our traditional post-UFC event GIF Party.

As always, praise be to Zombie Prophet at IronForgesIron.com for the GIFS.


Swanson vs. Roop provided an early candidate for Side-Punchface of the Year. Props: UFC.com

Remember how last night, you invited your non-MMA fan friends over to introduce them to our sport? You spent the past week talking about how Chael Sonnen is one of the best trash talkers in professional sports, and how technical and talented these fighters were. You figured that after three fights that were guaranteed to be exceptional, your friends would be won over to MMA fandom. Then you’d continue to drink and be merry all night, and we’d all meet up here today for our traditional post-UFC event GIF party where we all high five over how awesome the fights were. 

Well, it didn’t quite work out that way. Instead, you found yourself doing damage control as you watched three fights worth of sloppy brawling, wall and stall and Chael Sonnen’s blatant swaggerjacking of homage to “Superstar” Billy Graham. You tried to convince them that the fights are usually nothing like this, and that these fighters gassing out and the end of the first round are world class athletes. Eventually, one of your friends said “I bet Pacquiao would destroy ANY of these guys” as the rest of your friends grabbed their coats and promised they’d call you next time they wanted to watch the fights.

Okay, so last night sucked. But we’ve been planning this party all week, and we’ll be damned if we cancel it at this point. So grab an alcoholic beverage, put on your gaudiest Affliction shirt and join us for our traditional post-UFC event GIF Party.

As always, praise be to Zombie Prophet at IronForgesIron.com for the GIFS.  

Joey Beltran vs. Lavar Johnson

Michael Johnson vs. Shane Roller

Charles Oliveira vs. Eric Wisely

 

Michael Johnson Was Confident He Did Enough to Beat Shane Roller

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CHICAGO — Watch below as Michael Johnson breaks down his unanimous decision win over Shane Roller at UFC on FOX 2. Johnson discusses if he was worried before the judges’ scorecards were announced, the trouble he faced in the third round, how much his camp helped with his wrestling and much more.

 

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Filed under: , , ,

CHICAGO — Watch below as Michael Johnson breaks down his unanimous decision win over Shane Roller at UFC on FOX 2. Johnson discusses if he was worried before the judges’ scorecards were announced, the trouble he faced in the third round, how much his camp helped with his wrestling and much more.

 

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