The UFC has signed a new long-term deal with motorcycle giants Harley-Davidson and will be bringing a pay-per-view to their hometown of Milwaukee in August. UFC President Dana White announced on Thursday that the promotion has inked a new contract with…
The UFC has signed a new long-term deal with motorcycle giants Harley-Davidson and will be bringing a pay-per-view to their hometown of Milwaukee in August. UFC President Dana White announced on Thursday that the promotion has inked a new contract with Harley-Davidson, continuing a long-running partnership between the promotion and the most well known and […]
Wrestling haters of MMA, your prayers have been answered.Ben “Smooth” Henderson handled Jim Miller with some difficulty, but he survived the submission attempts and delivered the most punishment that any man has ever inflicted on Miller en route to his…
Wrestling haters of MMA, your prayers have been answered.
Ben “Smooth” Henderson handled Jim Miller with some difficulty, but he survived the submission attempts and delivered the most punishment that any man has ever inflicted on Miller en route to his electrifying unanimous decision win over the AMA Fight Club phenom this past Sunday at UFC on Versus 5.
Miller was seen as a win away from a Clay Guida, a Melvin Gullard or maybe even the winner of Edgar vs. Maynard 3 at UFC 136 if he wanted Frankie Edgar or Gray Maynard, but Henderson did what nobody else had done to Miller up to that point, and it’s now attracted quite the conversation.
The same opponents for whom Miller would’ve been lined up are now the opponents for whom Henderson is lined up for if he wished, which asks the question:
“Is The Smooth One good enough to win the belt one day?”
In answering this question with an emphatic, “Yes, he is,” I’d like to also pose a counter-question:
“Is there any good reason to think Ben Henderson will never win the belt one day?”
Now, to that counter-question, I say there is probably one or two good reasons, one being Guillard and the other possibly being Guida, but Miller was also a reason why Bendo would never win the belt.
Guillard is a better striker than Bendo, and Guida could be a much more aggressive threat on the ground than Bendo, but it seems as though it will take a sledgehammer, a sniper-rifle or a trio of Showtime Kicks from Roy Nelson to put the former WEC lightweight champion down.
With Henderson’s improving striking skill set, his already scary submission offense and his indescribably-frighteningly-superb submission defense, it seems unfathomable to believe that Henderson will end his UFC run without winning the UFC lightweight title at least once.
He has the talent and the skills, and now all he needs to do is shut down the men standing between him and either Edgar or Maynard.
When Chris Lytle left the Bradley Center in Milwaukee, WI on Sunday night, not only was he the winner of the main event of the UFC on Versus 5 fight card, but he was $130,000 richer in bonus money, the owner of two UFC records as well as the owner of a…
When Chris Lytle left the Bradley Center in Milwaukee, WI on Sunday night, not only was he the winner of the main event of the UFC on Versus 5 fight card, but he was $130,000 richer in bonus money, the owner of two UFC records as well as the owner of a 2012 Harley Davidson. […]
Back in 2009, if you’d have asked any hardcore MMA fan to name the fighter who would have the best chance at knocking Georges St. Pierre from his perch atop the UFC’s welterweight mountain, they probably would’ve told that you Dan “The Outlaw” Hardy wa…
Back in 2009, if you’d have asked any hardcore MMA fan to name the fighter who would have the best chance at knocking Georges St. Pierre from his perch atop the UFC’s welterweight mountain, they probably would’ve told that you Dan “The Outlaw” Hardy was the man to do it.
Riding high on a four-fight win streak heading into his collision with St. Pierre in the spring of 2010, fans would’ve been hard pressed to name another mixed martial artist who had a better chance of stopping “Rush” than Hardy would.
Obviously, that’s not quite the way it happened. Instead of becoming the man who finally bested St. Pierre, Hardy would simply go on to join the rather long list of fighters who have come up short in their quest for welterweight gold.
In what has become Georges St. Pierre’s calling card, the champion would simply grind his way to a five-round unanimous decision over “The Outlaw.”
Having lost two fights since the title bout with St. Pierre, Hardy has gone from title contention all the way to now running the very real risk of being cut if he cannot put together a winning effort against Chris Lytle tomorrow night at UFC Live.
No matter how you look at this turn of events, however, one thing is certain: The UFC wants Dan Hardy to win this fight. Wait, let me rephrase that. The UFC needs Dan Hardy to win this fight.
Throughout history, humanity has been fascinated with secret weapons. The McGraw-Hill Science and Technology Dictionary defines a secret weapon as a weapon closely guarded or kept under concealment so as to be used before countermeasures can be t…
Throughout history, humanity has been fascinated with secret weapons. The McGraw-Hill Science and Technology Dictionary defines a secret weapon as a weapon closely guarded or kept under concealment so as to be used before countermeasures can be taken against it.
The British government had exploding rats and time bombs made to look like Chianti bottles in World War 2. Nikola Tesla proclaimed to have the technical know-how to invent a secret death ray in the 1930’s.
The United States of America deployed a super secret weapon of nightmarish proportions in Iraq capable of firing concentrated doses of invisible frequencies that could wither opposing soldiers and civilians into a primordial soup of human splatter in milliseconds. So what or who is the Ultimate Fighting Championship’s secret weapon?
Look no further than Charles Oliveira. Assembled on Oct. 17, 1989, in Sao Paulo, Brazil, Oliveira may be the UFC’s best-kept secret. With a total of 16 fights under his belt, the 5-foot-10 Brazilian Jiu Jitsu/Muay Thai practitioner has left a trail of destruction in his wake.
If Quentin Tarantino rewrote the American crime classic Pulp Fiction with an MMA twist, he’d probably cast Dana White as Marsellus Wallace, Stephan Bonnar as Vincent Vega, and Jon Bones Jones as Jules Winnfield.
White’s character would send Bonnar and Jones to retrieve the UFC’s secret weapon-a mysterious silver briefcase with a transcendental glimmer that revealed the source of Charles Oliveira’s fighting spirit.
Somewhere in between all of this, chance would have Bonnar and Bones dining in a crowded restaurant where Rashad Evans was staging an outlandish robbery and coupe de grace.
Evans would make his way to Bones and Bonnar’s table, attempt to steal the briefcase along with Bones’s wallet, and live to regret his not so serendipitous showdown with the UFC light heavyweight champion.
The movie would end as the briefcase arrived safely in Milwaukee, Wisc. on the eve of Charles Oliveira’s lightweight showdown with Donald Cerrone.
Is Charles Oliveira really the Ultimate Fighting Championship’s best-kept secret? We’ll let you decide!
Ben Henderson has come something of a long way in such a short time.Last year he had come off of two submission wins (one over Jamie Varner and one over Donald Cerrone) to face Anthony “Showtime” Pettis at WEC 53.Almost one year later, Henderson is com…
Ben Henderson has come something of a long way in such a short time.
Last year he had come off of two submission wins (one over Jamie Varner and one over Donald Cerrone) to face Anthony “Showtime” Pettis at WEC 53.
Almost one year later, Henderson is coming off of a loss to Pettis and a big UFC 129 win over Mark Bocek to face Jim Miller at UFC on Versus 5: Hardy vs. Lytle.
Now if there’s one thing you must know off the bat, it’s that both men have a way of going for the finish, and that way of going for the finish is the submission.
Miller scored his first real TKO-by-strikes-type win over Kamal Shalorus at UFC 128, and he has shown improvements in his striking as well as some beautiful Jiu-Jitsu and aggression in his offense.
The only problem with Henderson is that Henderson has been locked in some of the tightest submissions ever, and yet he’s looked like he was waiting on a cup of coffee with a stoic glare in his eyes.
He has shown a high threshold of pain when it comes to submissions, and even though his guillotine choke on Jamie Varner had the arm locked in as well, his power seemed all conspicuous when he forced Varner to tap from that tight submission.
Must he wear down Miller and try show his strength in submission form to beat his seasoned foe come Sunday?
Absolutely.
Standing with Miller might be a mistake, and much like Miller, Henderson is a master of submission offense even if the fight hits the ground.
However, Henderson’s only shot is to take the fight to the ground himself, or show that he can maintain his composure from off his back and transition to Miller’s back for either a rear naked choke attempt, the second Twister in the UFC, or even just a chance to flatten Miller out and lay in some ground and pound.
Anything is possible when two submission specialists take the fight to the ground, but Henderson may benefit from being the one to get it to the ground first.
Wrestling haters of