Quinton “Rampage” Jackson is one of the best light heavyweight fighters in the history of the sport; easily in the top 5.Rampage once said he wants to be the highest-paid fighter that the sport had ever seen. It is no secret that he is very much a priz…
Quinton “Rampage” Jackson is one of the best light heavyweight fighters in the history of the sport; easily in the top 5.
Rampage once said he wants to be the highest-paid fighter that the sport had ever seen. It is no secret that he is very much a prize fighter, in it for the paycheck.
Now that he has accomplished so much, as a former champion and still a leading Pay Per View draw, fans hope that his motivation does not wane in the face of his upcoming opponent at UFC 130, Matt Hamill.
Hamill is hungry and motivated and has a style very similar to Jackson’s which should result in an explosive bout.
Although Rampage is the favorite heading into the bout, this is not going to be an easy fight for him.
If he wins, will it be one of his top 10 best victories of all time? If it is convincing enough, it certainly could be.
It’s a bout that we all wanted to see happen for a long time, ever since Shane Carwin earned his crack at Brock Lesnar with his UFC 111 win over Frank Mir, to be exact.But it’s a bout that we all thought would stay a fantasy and never truly surface …
It’s a bout that we all wanted to see happen for a long time, ever since Shane Carwin earned his crack at Brock Lesnar with his UFC 111 win over Frank Mir, to be exact.
But it’s a bout that we all thought would stay a fantasy and never truly surface as a legitimate fight, especially when Lesnar came off of a hard-fought split decision win in a bout with diverticulitis to survive a fatal and unquestionable 8-10 first round and submit Shane Carwin with a second-round “Death-Clutch” Arm Triangle choke at UFC 116.
Unfortunately for fans of the former WWE Champion, 2002 WWE King of The Ring, and former UFC Heavyweight Champion, MMA Junkie reports that diverticulitis has engaged in a rematch with the Minnesotan, and thus Lesnar will not be able to face fellow TUF 13 coach Junior “Cigano” Dos Santos at UFC 131.
Stepping in for Lesnar is one of the only two men that fans legitimately believe can and definitely could knock Dos Santos out, and with UFC Heavyweight Champion Cain Velasquez sidelined until the still-TBA UFC card slated to take place in Houston, that man is none other than Shane Carwin, who will be revamping his game plan to prepare for Dos Santos in lieu of a young and hungry Jon Olav Einemo.
It’s the bout we were close to never actually seeing, and since we now know that it will indeed happen, it’s about time for Yours Truly to run it down from top-to-bottom: this is the head-to-toe breakdown of Junior Dos Santos vs. Shane Carwin!
In an interview with Bloody Elbow’s Duane Finley, Roy Nelson predicted that Brock Lesnar would not end up fighting Junior Dos Santos at UFC 131…all the way back on Jan.uary 21. Don’t start bombarding Nelson on Twitter for …
In an interview with Bloody Elbow’s Duane Finley, Roy Nelson predicted that Brock Lesnar would not end up fighting Junior Dos Santos at UFC 131…all the way back on Jan.uary 21.
Don’t start bombarding Nelson on Twitter for the daily lottery numbers just yet since he didn’t predict that Lesnar would have his second bout with diverticulitis around this time.
Still, Nelson made some very intriguing predictions and assessments regarding the UFC heavyweight scene as the month of January was winding down.
He started the interview off by stating that “I think Brock Lesnar is done for.” Nelson then explained this rational by saying:
“I think Brock doing The Ultimate Fighter is one way to basically take a situation and make it win-win for him. I think Lesnar doing the show is a way to introduce Junior Dos Santos to the American fan base in the way the show does.”
That’s an interesting take on the coaching selection for season 13 of the show, and “Big Country” had plenty more to say from there:
“TUF introduces ‘stars in the making’ to the casual UFC fan and while JDS is the number one contender he still needs some help with the American fan base. So the conspiracy basically comes down to the fact that Shane Carwin has no one to fight in June.”
So Nelson had some knowledge about a UFC conspiracy, huh? And while Carwin eventually had a fight scheduled for UFC 131…Jon Olav Einemo was basically the same as fighting no one as far as a good portion of MMA fans were concerned.
“I think Brock Lesnar will walk off the TUF set and then Carwin will take his spot or Frank Mir will come in to “save the day” and fight JDS for title contention.”
For those that are really behind, Nelson is set to take on Frank Mir on the main card of UFC 130 at the end of the month. Big Country explains why Mir could still be a relevant heavyweight draw.
“The reason I believe Frank would be the guy is because Mir is coming off a win and I was already supposed to fight Shane so fans were already hyped to see it.”
Next, Nelson actually asserts that there is a good possibility that Carwin will face Dos Santos, while he will end up facing off against Mir.
“Or Carwin could move in to face JDS and I could still face Frank but it doesn’t really matter to me as to who fights who because all that really matters is the fans want to see me fight somebody.”
Nelson concluded with “A lot of things could happen over the next six weeks but it seems a bit off that Carwin doesn’t have an opponent right now and all of the top heavyweights are spoken for.”
It is probably not productive to ask Big Country about the truth to the world ending on May 21 of this year, but it is tough to argue that he made some pretty good calls about the UFC heavyweight scene back in the earlier part of this year.
Without the king of UFC pay-per-view, UFC 131 won’t reach 500k buys.Even though he is no longer the UFC heavyweight champion, Brock Lesnar is the undisputed pound-for-pound champion when it comes to selling pay-per-views.So far in his career, Lesnar ha…
Without the king of UFC pay-per-view, UFC 131 won’t reach 500k buys.
Even though he is no longer the UFC heavyweight champion, Brock Lesnar is the undisputed pound-for-pound champion when it comes to selling pay-per-views.
So far in his career, Lesnar has headlined three major events—UFC 100 and UFC 116, and UFC 121.
UFC 100 did over 1.6 million buys, UFC 116 did nearly 1.1 million buys, and UFC 121 drew in around 1.2 million buys.
The only other event to come close to that mark was UFC 114, which did somewhere between 950k and 1 million buys.
Now instead of Lesnar vs Junior dos Santos headlining, you have Shane Carwin vs dos Santos trying to bear the weight of UFC 131 on their shoulders.
For this pay-per-view to sell, it will really need some help from its supporting cast. To be frank, it just isn’t there.
You have a few named fighters there like Kenny Florian, Demian Maia, and Mark Munoz on the pay-per-view portion of the card, but will that be enough to help this event out?
No way.
While there are some that are arguing that Carwin vs dos Santos is a better match, it sure isn’t in the eyes of Dana White and the rest of Zuffa.
For nearly two months now, The Ultimate Fighter reality show has been getting whoever is watching it pumped up for Lesnar vs dos Santos. Now they have to settle for Carwin vs dos Santos.
With a let-down of a main event, combined with a relatively weak undercard, UFC 131 will be lucky to do half the buys it would have had Brock Lesnar still been headlining the card.
Do not be surprised at all if you see numbers for this event just slightly north of what UFC 130 does at the end of this month.
Despite not performing at 100 percent, he was still performing at a high enough level to wear UFC gold.Brock Lesnar accomplished what very few accomplished in only their 5th professional fight in any combat sport—win a major championship.The closest …
Despite not performing at 100 percent, he was still performing at a high enough level to wear UFC gold.
Brock Lesnar accomplished what very few accomplished in only their 5th professional fight in any combat sport—win a major championship.
The closest that comes to mind was when Leon Spinks, in his 8th professional fight, defeated the great Muhammad Ali for boxing’s heavyweight title.
What makes Lesnar’s accomplishment even more impressive is that he won the title when he was not firing on all cylinders.
After his being diagnosed with diverticulitis following his bout against Frank Mir at UFC 100 for the heavyweight title, the doctors treating Lesnar stated that with his illness, his body was only functioning at around 70 to 80 percent.
That is scary.
If Brock was able to do what he did while only performing at 80 percent of his natural physical ability, can you imagine what he would be capable of at 100 percent?
The only two losses in his career came against Frank Mir and Cain Velasquez.
In his loss to Mir, Lesnar was submitted with a knee bar. This was after he put a beating on Mir. Based on his follow-up performance against Heath Herring, it is safe to assume that he was healthy during that fight.
His loss against Velasquez came with the challenger to his title pounded his way to a TKO victory. The way Velasquez defeated Lesnar was not unlike the way Shane Carwin almost beat him.
The difference in the Velasquez fight was Brock did not display any sort of defense aside from putting his arms in front of his face. In the fight against Carwin, Lesnar did the same thing, only he utilized head movement to make a majority of Carwin’s punches miss their mark.
With this news breaking of his illness, one has to wonder if it had any affect on Lesnar’s performance against Velasquez. Everyone who saw that fight could notice there was something that just wasn’t right about Lesnar that night.
As this story develops, answers to these questions may come to light.
UFC 131 features two of the promotions best grapplers in the middleweight division, with former top contender and jui-jitsu ace Demian Maia set to face NCAA all-American wrestler Mark Muñoz.With both fighters riding a two-fight win streak coming…
UFC 131 features two of the promotions best grapplers in the middleweight division, with former top contender and jui-jitsu ace Demian Maia set to face NCAA all-American wrestler Mark Muñoz.
With both fighters riding a two-fight win streak coming into the June 11th event, this main card bout showcases the classic battle between Brazilian jiu-jitsu and wrestling, with the winner possibly entering the discussion for a shot at the title.
