MMA’s Great Debate Radio returns with Irish UFC star Conor McGregor as well as World Series of Fighting president and now fighter Ray Sefo as well as plenty of debate surrounding the fallout from UFC 163.
Jose Aldo defeated “The Korean Zombie” Chan-Sun…
MMA‘s Great Debate Radio returns with Irish UFC star ConorMcGregor as well as World Series of Fighting president and now fighter Ray Sefo as well as plenty of debate surrounding the fallout from UFC 163.
Jose Aldo defeated “The Korean Zombie” Chan-Sung Jung by TKO in the fourth round, but it came at the expense of a broken foot that he suffered in the opening moments of the fight. Will this layoff hurt Aldo more than any potential opponent would in his next bout?
Plus we discuss the controversial decision between LyotoMachida and Phil Davis, and how this might affect the Brazilian’s style going forward.
Also on the show today, Irish fighter ConorMcGregor stops by to discuss his upcoming fight at UFC Fight Night 26, and how much life has changed for him since making his UFC debut. This is a can’t miss interview.
World Series of Fighting president Ray Sefo talks about his decision to return to fighting on his own promotion’s card, as well as how this might just be the last trip to the cage during his historic fight career.
Today’s debate topics on the show include:
—Jose Aldo wins again but suffers a broken foot. Do you think injuries will be a bigger threat to him than any one opponent?
—Aldo says he would “love” to test the waters at lightweight. How do you like Aldo’s chances to be a force at 155 pounds?
—How did you score Phil Davis vs. LyotoMachida and was the final decision a robbery?
—Is LyotoMachida‘s style the biggest problem in all of this and should he change?
This is MMA’s Great Debate Radio for Tuesday, August 6, 2013
(If the embeddable player does not work please click HERE to listen to the show. Don’t forget to subscribe to the show via iTunesor listen on Stitcher Radio).
Ronda Rousey’s life may be traveling at a mile a minute, but right now, all the 26-year-old Olympic judoka can think about are the two heaping trays of desserts sitting behind her.
To her immediate right is a triple-stacked mousse. While the key lime v…
Ronda Rousey‘s life may be traveling at a mile a minute, but right now, all the 26-year-old Olympic judoka can think about are the two heaping trays of desserts sitting behind her.
To her immediate right is a triple-stacked mousse. While the key lime variety is certainly an attractive option, the tower of chocolate has captured her attention the most. But it’s not a craving that has attracted Rousey’s mind to the sugary treat—it’s figuring out the proper way to pluralize the scene before her.
“That’s good mousse,” she says to the waitress with a laugh. “That’s a good looking mousse, or meese.”
After discarding a possible “meeses” option thrown into the mix, the UFC women’s bantamweight champion settles in with a mixture of readiness and relief on her face. For Rousey, the interview will be her last on the UFC’s 2013 world media tour, and in a few hours, she will be boarding a plane back to California after what has been a whirlwind stretch of obligations.
This is certainly an interesting time in Rousey’s career.
From her upcoming stint as a coach on the reality show The Ultimate Fighter and subsequent rematch with her nemesis Miesha Tate at UFC 168 on Dec. 28, to a role in the next installment of the action-flick franchise The Expendables, there is never a dull moment for Rousey in and out of the cage.
It would be easy to understand if the talented young fighter struggled to keep her footing, but Rousey is handling the unpredictability of her life with remarkable poise.
Where the UFC has produced a handful of superstars in the past—and a current crop of high-profile fighters who are attempting to break through into the mainstream—Rousey is shattering boundaries and blazing trails no other fighter, male or female, has before.
She became the first woman to win a title under the UFC banner, establishing herself as a pay-per-view draw in the process. The card she headlined in February, UFC 157, drew an estimated 500,000 buys. While she didn’t eclipse the one million buys mark like WWE crossover star and former UFC heavyweight champion Brock Lesnar, it was a strong showing. It shattered the previous PPV record for a female fight (125,000 buys), which featured the daughters of Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier.
Outside of the Octagon, Hollywood came calling. From a rumored connection to the third installment of The Hunger Games to a confirmed role in the latest Sylvester Stallone vehicle, movie sets and red carpets could very well become commonplace in the near future.
Through it all, Rousey has continued to promote her fighting career with the same “never back down” attitude that immediately made her a fan favorite.
And while nothing the transcendent star says is pre-measured or sugarcoated, she is reaching a point where things once new are starting to blur together into one experience, and the repetition sets in—even the best questions, and certainly the worst, have all been asked before.
The constant pressures that come with being under a microscope 24/7 could end up cementing her future disposition, but the Rousey of here and now is determined to remain in the moment.
Walls will be constructed to keep whatever privacy she can hang on to intact, but before she becomes too hardened by the media storm, the brash champ has every intention of enjoying the ride and making her mark on the sport she loves.
She fully understands the road ahead could lead to tremendous opportunity outside of fighting, but she is adamant about making sure the doors she opensfor women’s MMA remain that way.
“That is the only reason why I did The Ultimate Fighter,” Rousey told Bleacher Report. “From a professional and career standpoint, there were no reasons I needed to do that show. Zero. I didn’t need it at all, but I want the division to be stable. I want it to survive me and I want to have some sort of legacy in this sport.
“We needed to bring attention to all these girls who are so passionate and train so hard. They are valiant fighters and extremely passionate about what they do. They offer so much the guys don’t, and I thought it was something people really needed to see. I thought The Ultimate Fighter could provide that vessel where people could start getting interested in these other women coming up.”
With the UFC set to begin its next begin endeavor with the launch of Fox Sports 1, Rousey was chosen to be front and center in the process.
Where Rousey goes, eyes follow, and by making her a coach on FS1’s first installment of the established reality series The Ultimate Fighter, the UFC made a huge effort to ensure its latest endeavor would hit the ground running.
The intensity of the situation skyrocketed when her originally scheduled opponent and coaching counterpart, Cat Zingano, was forced to withdraw due to injury and the aforementioned Tate was tapped to step in.
Suddenly, the already turbulent environment of filming a reality show became that much crazier, as Rousey battled to keep her personal feud with Tate on the shelf to focus on helping the collection of hungry fighters gunning for a life-changing opportunity.
“I haven’t seen any of the footage yet, but I’m aware that I’m going to look nuts,” she said. “These kids that I’m responsible for have everything that is important in their lives on the line, and if that isn’t something important enough to care about and cry about, then I don’t know what is. I have no filter with my emotions, and people are going to see exactly what I’m feeling. I don’t think that is a bad thing.
“They purposely put you in a situation where they throw curveballs at you all the time. They really want to get a rise out of you and really make you uncomfortable. It was so much emotional investment with every single fight, and it was repeated over and over and over again.”
With the media, both inside and outside of the sport, constantly knocking on her door, taking a role coaching on The Ultimate Fighter may not have seemed like too much of a stretch for Rousey, but it was one she came to understand in a much different light.
Cameras surrounded her at every moment, hoping to pick up the next great soundbite, and it tested the young star’s limits. That platform became her new norm, and it created an emotional conflict that forced her to reassess aspects of her career she had never thought to explore.
Throughout Rousey’s athletic career, working within the walls of gym have always provided some level of comfort and stability. She can control what happens on the mats, and as her profile has increased in the public view, Rousey can also dictate the access the outside world is allowed in that realm.
Yet on The Ultimate Fighter, those boundaries were stripped down, and what was once a place of Zen suddenly housed constant conflict.
“That environment is really meant to break you,” Rousey said. “The gym is the place where I really center myself and I’m able to put the world into perspective and calm down. When the cameras are on you nonstop, that changes. Even electrons change when they are watched constantly, and they really took my safe place and bastardized it to where I was dragging myself to the gym every day.
“They literally took my only safe place and made it something that I hated. I’m so thankful for being able to forge the relationships I did with my team, but you couldn’t pay me 10 million dollars to do that again. There is just no way. By the end, I was questioning my love for the sport. I’m just happy to get back home to my environment and have my gym be my reprieve again instead of it being a stage.”
Where other athletes strive to reach the forefront of the mainstream with glossy presentation and squeaky-clean manufactured soundbites, Rousey has done things her way. In an age where flawed anti-heroes have taken the helm in the driver’s seat of popular culture and produced a cultural shift in the perception of antagonist and protagonist, she has managed to stay step-for-step with the changing times.
Positive fan response to unapologetic and brazen may be absent in some of America’s traditional athletic institutions, but in a growing yet niche sport like mixed martial arts, Rousey’s approach has garnered rave reviews from the the fighting faithful.
“I decided long ago it is much better to be the bad guy or the heel because you have room for error,” Rousey said. “If you try to be perfect then you have to be perfect all the time. I always loved the heel so much better when I was a kid. “Rowdy” Roddy Piper was the best heel ever and I loved the bad guys because they are always more interesting. The way Heath Ledger played The Joker no one gave a damn about Batman. They are always more interesting and you always want to know more about them.”
Rousey’s other endeavors will allow her unique opportunities in the coming years, but that being said, she is a fighter and a champion first and foremost. While that means the most to her, the elements of her persona that make her one of the most polarizing figures in sports will continue to attract attention from all angles.
The ever-increasing interest is a symptom of the role she has chosen, but it doesn’t define her as an individual, and that is exactly the way she prefers to have it.
“People keep researching everything my name is on because you can’t categorize me or put me in any one box. No one is ever going to get it. They are going to spend a lot of time on the Internet trying to figure it out, which is going to make me money, so I’m going to keep talking.”
All quotes were obtained firsthand unless otherwise noted.
Australia native Bec Hyatt, a strawweight competitor, amassed a 4-1 record in her homeland before being signed to compete in the all-women Invicta FC promotion.
Although she sports a 1-2 record in the promotion, Hyatt remains one of the more popular fi…
Australia native Bec Hyatt, a strawweight competitor, amassed a 4-1 record in her homeland before being signed to compete in the all-women Invicta FC promotion.
Although she sports a 1-2 record in the promotion, Hyatt remains one of the more popular fighters.
It would seem as though Hyatt is enjoying the good life at the moment, but her story doesn’t come without struggle. The UG picked up on Hyatt’s story through the FACAA detailing her survival of extreme domestic abuse.
The story begins in typical fashion with Hyatt looking to change something in her life by venturing into kickboxing. It was through training that she would meet her future husband Dan Hyatt. Dan would go out of his way to help train Bec and the two eventually traded their gym relationship for a romantic one.
It’s here where the story begins to spiral out of control.
“Two months had passed (since they started dating) and I started seeing a side to Dan that I didn’t like,” Bec said. “He would lash out saying harsh things about Zake, saying he didn’t like the kid because he reminded him of Zake’s father. That’s when the arguments began.”
The arguing and relationship issues seemed to be on hold as Bec would find out she was pregnant with Dan’s child. As Bec explains though, the happiness wasn’t without malice.
Dan was happy and so was I, but now I see why Dan was happy. He had his power now. He owned me because no way would I leave him to be a single mum of two. He would remind me of that and tell me that no one would want me. He would tell me that I have ‘two kids to two different dads’ and I ‘should be thankful that he wants me’. He would say that I’m ‘used and abused’ and that I was ‘damaged goods’.
Bec added that what began with emotional torment would turn physical soon after.
“We would have arguments over Zake and he would shove me into walls, hold me down and smother me with pillows, he would spit on me and pour things like milk and tomato sauce on my head, this wasn’t the worst of it and there is so much more that I had to deal with,” Bec said.
This feeling of remorse is typical in physically abusive relationships as explained by Steven Stosny of Psychology Today. Stosny is a former professor at the University of Maryland, has appeared on countless TV programs, and has held hundreds of workshops.
“Early in the abuse cycle, a violent outburst is followed by a honeymoon period of remorse, attention, affection, and generosity, but not genuine compassion,” he said (Psychology Today).
Stosny continues with his reasoning behind why emotional damage is worse than the physical harm.
The other factor that makes emotional abuse so devastating is the greater likelihood that victims will blame themselves. If someone hits you, it’s easier to see that he or she is the problem, but if the abuse is subtle – saying or implying that you’re ugly, a bad parent, stupid, incompetent, not worth attention, or that no one could love you – you are more likely to think it’s your problem.
And that’s exactly what happened.
“The worst thing was that I believed him,” Bec said. “It was my fault and I deserved to be hit and spat on, I thought that I couldn’t leave and that nobody would ever want me. He had me believing that I really was ‘used goods’.”
There’s much more to Hyatt’s story including her packing everything up and moving with Dan to Queensland after getting married. She details how the housemate they had struggled with the ongoing arguing and abuse and how she eventually found a way out of the relationship.
It’s truly a tragic story but Bec sees it as a way to warn others not to fall into the same pitfalls she encountered. Working with FACAA and continuing to step into the cage despite what has transpired will no doubt help her cause along with giving motivation to those who desperately need some.
A bantamweight fight between Roland Delorme and Alex Caceres has been scheduled for UFC 165, which will take place this September 21 (H/T MMA Junkie for reporting the announcement).
The matchup is a very tantalizing one, not because it is particularly …
A bantamweight fight between Roland Delorme and Alex Caceres has been scheduled for UFC 165, which will take place this September 21 (H/T MMA Junkie for reporting the announcement).
The matchup is a very tantalizing one, not because it is particularly meaningful in the scope of the UFC bantamweight title picture, but because both Delorme and Caceres have been known to put on exciting bouts that see the action go everywhere.
Delorme, who will be defending his home turf in Canada, will enter the fight coming off of a competitive decision victory over Edwin Figueroa at UFC 161.
Since joining the UFC via The Ultimate Fighter,Delorme has posted a spotless 3-0 record, including a pair of submissions. He was knocked out in the first round of his UFC 149 match by Francisco Rivera, but the result was overturned when Rivera tested positive for a banned substance.
Like Delorme, Caceres comes into the bout on a winning note. Back in March he defeated Kyung Ho Kang in a back-and-forth affair, but the result was nullified when Caceres tested positive for marijuana after the fact.
Even so, the American is riding an official two-fight win streak, and holds a 3-3 UFC record overall.
Though neither Delorme nor Caceres has lit the MMA world on fire, both guys have shown flashes of tremendous upside, and both have exhibited an eagerness to mix it up with their opponents.
Putting them into the Octagon together should prove to be a good decision, as the fight should be competitive, and has some serious Fight of the Night (and Submission of the Night) potential.
The pairing also represents a terrific opportunity for both guys as the winner should be catapulted into a more high profile contest early next year.
Delorme vs. Caceres is the 13th match to be added to the UFC 165 fight card, which means it is probably the event’s last addition. But if that’s so, at least it is a good, albeit unheralded final addition.
Like me, there are plenty of you who years ago gave up the quest to make sense of the things that often come out of Tito Ortiz’s mouth.
You know as well as I do that Ortiz is an emotional man, and those emotions can often lead to the former UFC light h…
Like me, there are plenty of you who years ago gave up the quest to make sense of the things that often come out of Tito Ortiz‘s mouth.
You know as well as I do that Ortiz is an emotional man, and those emotions can often lead to the former UFC light heavyweight champion handing out nonsensical and often downright ludicrous statements like candy on Halloween.
Don’t believe me?
When Ortiz returned to the UFC in 2009 after an extended hiatus from the Octagon (and a personal feud with Dana White that teetered brilliantly on the edge between slightly interesting and completely embarrassing for all involved), he gave thanks to White, Lorenzo Fertitta and the UFC for helping build his brand. Here’s what Ortiz told Jim Rome (via Bloody Elbow) prior to his UFC 140 fight with Antonio Rogerio Nogueira:
I’m very, very thankful for Dana and Lorenzo. I don’t want to sound like a broken record but they’ve given so much to my family and to me as a fighter. I’ve given so much to make this happen. I’ve been with the UFC since day one. I fought with the UFC as an amateur, back in 1997, May 30. UFC 13. And I’ve only competed in the UFC, I’ve never competed anywhere else my whole career. I made my brand by the UFC. Thanks to Lorenzo and Dana for making that happen for me.
If you’re looking for something a little more recent, here’s what Ortiz told Bloody Elbow’s Steph Daniels in January of this year. Keep in mind that this was a mere seven months ago:
Dana and Lorenzo gave me the opportunity to make a brand of myself, and I’m so very thankful to them for that. I’ve used that opportunity, and have been exploring every possible avenue that I can, since. Dana and I had our ups and downs, but he taught me so much, and when I look back, I look back fondly. He taught me so much as a person, and especially as a business man, and I think him being one of my managers taught me valuable things that I can use for the future with the athletes that I’m managing. I have nothing but admiration and respect for them, and great feelings for the UFC.
Fast forward to last Thursday night, when Ortiz debuted as the surprise opponent for Quinton “Rampage” Jackson in a ceremony that had all the trappings of the professional wrestling industry that Jackson and Ortiz now call their part-time home.
Part of me suspected that Ortiz might be considering a return, particularly after he tweeted a photo of the Bellator corporate office in early July. That’s what happens when White decides that it’s up to him to determine when a fighter’s career should end. I realize that White typically has the best interest of his fighters in mind when he makes such a decision; Chuck Liddell was the first and best example. Is there a single person in the world, outside of Liddell and his immediate family, that wanted to see “The Iceman” get back in the cage and possibly have his light switch flipped off for the umpteenth time?
White lucked out. Liddell wanted to fight again, but he was willing to listen to his long-time friend. He stepped out of the cage and into the kind of no-show job that would make Tony Soprano beam with sheer glee. In exchange for quitting, Liddell drew a paycheck from Zuffa that will continue to the end of his days.
Ortiz was not so lucky. His much-publicized feud with White, which nearly resulted in a televised boxing match between the two, cast a pall over their relationship even after they patched things up and Tito returned to the Octagon. It was a rift that would never quite be completely repaired. When asked about the one thing he’d change if he could start over, Ortiz was quite revealing:
The only thing I can really think of would be the feuding with Dana. I said some things, based on emotion, and was acting in a defensive manner. I think now, I would say things a little differently, and handled things better. I wouldn’t have taken things so personally.
Ortiz didn’t want to retire from fighting. Despite going 1-7-1 since losing to Liddell in 2006, Ortiz clearly felt that he had more to offer the sport. If he could only heal the perpetual injuries that often popped up immediately after losing another fight, well, he would clearly be one of the best light heavyweights in the world once again.
Which is why we shouldn’t have been so surprised when Ortiz walked down the entrance ramp last week. I cannot remember, for the life of me, when something happened to Ortiz that was not quickly blamed on someone else.
Lose a fight? He tore his ACL two months ago, but didn’t tell anyone because he didn’t want to let the fans down. Instead, he claimed to be the healthiest and deadliest he’d been in his entire career.
Lose another fight? He has a broken neck. He shouldn’t even be fighting, but he’s risking his life for the fans because they mean everything to him.
Or, how about this:
I’m healthy, my mind is in a good place, I have a boss that I no longer have to fight with that has my back. I have a company that has my back. I don’t want a relationship that drags me down. I have a great family that has my back. I’m in a good place mentally, physically, emotionally, like no other.
I’ve been thinking (about returning) for a long time. I think it was after my last surgery when I bounced back only a month after surgery. Then I got knee surgery and I bounced back after three weeks. I was like ‘why is my body healing so fast?’ and then I realized what was around me, all the negative was gone. I had nothing but positive around me, it was a positive mindset, you can achieve a lot of things.
Put another way: His body was healing slowly from injuries because of Dana White and the negativity surrounding their relationship. Keep in mind that Ortiz gave this quote seven months after thanking White and the Fertittas for everything they did for him. Seven months after, Ortiz said that his relationship with White was the only thing he’d change about his career.
Now? Ortiz was happy to be in a promotion that took care of its fighters, unlike that terrible Zuffa company over in Vegas. Ortiz followed in Jackson’s footsteps, placing the blame for much that has transpired in his career at someone else’s doorstep and refusing to accept responsibility.
As if to add the cherry on top of the ridiculousness sundae, Ortiz claims that his body is healing more quickly now that he’s not with the UFC.
If ever there comes a time when Ortiz wonders to himself why people don’t take him or the things he says very seriously, well, all he needs to do is take a look back at the words that have come out of his own mouth over the past few years. Hell, even the last seven months will paint a clear picture, or at least as clear as it’s going to get when Ortiz is involved.
If Ortiz wants to fight again, that’s his decision. I’d hate to see his quality of life affected 15 or 20 years down the road simply because he felt like he could still compete in a violent sport that is altogether different than the one he debuted in back in the 1990s. But it’s his decision, and his alone.
I have just three requests:
That he chooses not to blame others if Jackson beats him in November.
That he doesn’t come down with another broken neck or ACL injury or broken skull that would’ve prevented him from taking the fight if he didn’t want to keep the fans happy.
And that he takes an honest-to-God truthful look at himself and decides that maybe, just maybe, Dana White had his best interests in mind in the first place.
It looks like Paul Daley’s dream return to the UFC won’t materialise after all. A lack of interest from the world’s top MMA promotion has led the British welterweight to re-sign with BAMMA just weeks after his departure from Bellator….
It looks like Paul Daley’s dream return to the UFC won’t materialise after all. A lack of interest from the world’s top MMA promotion has led the British welterweight to re-sign with BAMMA just weeks after his departure from Bellator.
Daley was a hot property at 170 pounds in 2009 when he joined the UFC. He instantly made his mark with some head-turning knockout wins over Martin Kampmann and Dustin Hazelett, proving his worth as one of the most dangerous and heaviest-handed fighters in all of MMA.
But all that came crashing down after a moment of madness following a frustrated three-round decision loss to Josh Koscheck in 2010 at UFC 113. After the final bell, with the match clearly lost, Daley punched Koscheck, earning him an instant dismissal from the promotion.
Three years fighting for other prominent MMA organisations, such as Strikeforce, Bellator and BAMMA, followed, resulting in some successes and a recent four-fight winning streak.
However, the fighter has never been far from controversy. In December 2012, shortly after starting a new contract with Bellator, Daley was denied a visa to fight in the US and rumours, which the fighter denied, suggested it was because of criminal charges related to a bar brawl he was facing in England.
Those issues never got resolved with relations between the two parties worsening after Daley aired his grievances over Bellator’s contract demands.
Two weeks ago Bellator finally released him, with the MMA media abuzz with talk of a return to the UFC.
Daley himself wasted no time in expressing his desire to return to the sport’s top promotion. However, UFC president Dana White showed a distinct lack of interest in the idea.
Perhaps the fighter, with visa issues and a history of discipline problems, came with just too much baggage for the UFC. In any case, he has signed a new deal with BAMMA, where he last fought in 2011, saying (H/T MMA Mania):
“I’m extremely happy to sign with a premier European promotion… BAMMA provides exciting match-ups for hardcore fans, with a TV production that appeals to mainstream viewers. I’m aiming to bring my own brand of fight entertainment into households around the world the only way I, Paul ‘Semtex’ Daley, know how … knockout victories.”
No date has been set for his return to BAMMA, although his fight against an unnamed opponent for Russian MMA promotion, Legend Fight Show 2, will still go ahead in November.
