In the world of major free-agent signings in MMA, the UFC landing Hector Lombard was supposed to be a landmark deal, as the champion from Bellator jumped ship to sign with another organization while still holding the title. The deal Lombard signed repo…
In the world of major free-agent signings in MMA, the UFC landing Hector Lombard was supposed to be a landmark deal, as the champion from Bellator jumped ship to sign with another organization while still holding the title.
The deal Lombard signed reportedly paid him a $400,000 signing bonus, along with a $300,000 per fight starting purse along with points earned via pay-per-view bonuses. The cost for Bellator to match those numbers was just too high, and ultimately Lombard inked a deal with the UFC.
Coming into the UFC, Lombard was riding an incredible 24-fight win streak while also capturing and defending the Bellator middleweight title. Since joining the promotion, however, Lombard has fallen on much harder times.
His debut fight at UFC 149 was anything but impressive as Lombard dropped a split decision to Tim Boetsch. He bounced back with a vicious performance to knock out Brazilian submission specialist Rousimar Palhares last December, but then could not overcome the takedowns and ground control of middleweight contender Yushin Okami in his last fight at UFC on Fuel 8 in Japan.
If the numbers reported in his initial deal were correct, the UFC has spent upwards of more than $1 million dollars on Lombard, and thus far he’s produced a 1-2 record overall.
UFC president Dana White isn’t ready to give up on Lombard yet, however, and says that in this game sometimes there are going to be risks involved in signing a fighter from another promotion and the results can vary once they face the stiff competition in the Octagon.
“You can’t ever look at a guy as a mistake,” White said about Lombard when speaking to the media on Thursday. “If a guy gets to a certain level and you bring him in, and just because you were great in all these other shows. Like when people try to compare all these other shows to the UFC, it’s like you might be great in all these other shows, but when you fight here, you never know how great or not great a guy is going to be.”
White didn’t say if there was any chance Lombard would potentially be released or at risk of losing his job should he lose his next fight, but it’s hard to ignore the contract numbers if he can’t come away with a victory to bump his record to 2-2 overall in the UFC.
Lombard’s next fight has not been scheduled yet, but all signs are pointing toward him at least getting one more shot to prove himself in the UFC. Who he faces and how he performs will likely seal the deal on his future with the promotion.
Damon Martin is a Featured Columnist at Bleacher Report and all quotes were obtained first hand unless otherwise noted.
Matt Riddle recently found himself on the outside looking in when the UFC released him following his second positive test for marijuana after winning his fight at UFC on Fuel 7 in England. The former The Ultimate Fighter competitor first tested positiv…
Matt Riddle recently found himself on the outside looking in when the UFC released him following his second positive test for marijuana after winning his fight at UFC on Fuel 7 in England.
The former The Ultimate Fighter competitor first tested positive for the banned substance in 2012 at UFC 149. After facing a brief suspension, he returned to action and a win at UFC 154 last November.
Riddle is a legally licensed medical marijuana user in his home state of Nevada, but the drug remains on the banned list for all athletic competitions. After he tested positive for the drug a second time, the UFC opted to release him from his contract.
Addressing the subject on Thursday, UFC president Dana White said the reasons behind Riddle’s release go beyond simply testing positive for marijuana.
“Everybody’s going to have an excuse of why they were cut. Matt Riddle did an interview before that fight where he said ‘I smoke weed so that I don’t beat my children’ then he tests positive for it. He’s a f—king moron,” White said following the UFC 158 pre-fight press conference.
“That’s why he’s not here. He’s cut because he’s a moron.”
The interview in question comes from Riddle in early February, when he spoke to MMAMania.com about his marijuana use.
“It makes me happy. Honestly, it probably keeps me from beating my three kids because they’re always screaming and crying at me and my wife’s crazy and you know what life’s like,” Riddle stated.
The end result of Riddle’s pre-fight commentary along with his positive drug test results have landed him with a pink slip from the UFC. Following his release, Riddle stated in an interview that he would not return to the UFC even if he were asked to return after a few fights outside the organization.
“What I see happening is, a year or two from now the UFC calls me back after I’ve won probably like five or six fights, hopefully. And I’ll probably, at the time, say, ‘No,'” Riddle revealed.
White said he has no problem with Riddle’s choice and he’ll solve Riddle’s dilemma of choosing whether or not to return to the UFC.
“I’ll make it real easy for him, we just won’t ask him (to come back),” said White.
Since being released from the UFC, Riddle has recently signed a multi-fight deal with Legacy Fighting Championships.
Damon Martin is a Featured Columnist for Bleacher Report, and all quotes were obtained firsthand unless otherwise noted.
Georges St-Pierre is back to defending the UFC welterweight title with regularity and will attempt to do so again in the UFC 158 main event against archrival Nick Diaz.Diaz has been calling out St-Pierre for some time and will finally get his chance to…
Georges St-Pierre is back to defending the UFC welterweight title with regularity and will attempt to do so again in the UFC 158 main event against archrival Nick Diaz.
Diaz has been calling out St-Pierre for some time and will finally get his chance to challenge the Canadian titleholder despite losing in his most recent appearance against Carlos Condit.
St-Pierre and Diaz had been booked to fight in the past, but injuries and Diaz’s refusal to appear at media-related events led to the delay in the matchup coming to fruition.
Johny Hendricks is widely considered a more deserving top contender than Diaz and will meet Condit in the UFC 158 co-main event. Should Hendricks beat the former interim champion, it would appear likely that he’ll be next in line for a fight with the winner of the bout between St-Pierre and Diaz.
Another 170-pound contest between Jake Ellenberger and Nate Marquardt will be featured on the UFC 158 main card. Marquardt will be returning to the Octagon for the first time since leaving and becoming Strikeforce welterweight champion, a title which he lost in his latest fight against Tarec Saffiedine.
Saturday’s event will take place at the Bell Centre in Montreal. On Friday, the fighters will hit the scales at 4 p.m. ET. Video of the weigh-ins will be streamed live on the above video player.
After the weigh-ins, stay tuned to Bleacher Report for all the latest on UFC 158 and the rest of your MMA needs.
Mixed martial arts is a place where all sorts of cultures clash.Traditionalists, brawlers, grapplers, wrestlers, boxers; every and any walk of life can be found between the eight caged corners of the Octagon. For the most part, fighters—no matter…
Mixed martial arts is a place where all sorts of cultures clash.
Traditionalists, brawlers, grapplers, wrestlers, boxers; every and any walk of life can be found between the eight caged corners of the Octagon. For the most part, fighters—no matter where they’ve come from—show mutual respect for their opponents.
These are not those fighters. There are the guys who taunt and scream and bully. The fighters who can’t be bargained or reasoned with. The people who, to quote a particularly famous superhero, just want to watch the sport burn.
Montreal—Nick Diaz showed up for the UFC 158 pre-fight press conference and much like the recent media call for the event, the majority of the press conference was the Nick Diaz and Georges St-Pierre show. That dynamic didn’t change during …
Montreal—Nick Diaz showed up for the UFC 158pre-fight press conference and much like the recent media call for the event, the majority of the press conference was the Nick Diaz and Georges St-Pierre show. That dynamic didn’t change during UFC president Dana White’s media scrum that followed the press conference.
White wasted no time in addressing what went down inside Montreal’s Bell Centre on Thursday afternoon, saying, “In terms of craziness that was a 10 out of 10.”
When describing Diaz, the man that could potentially be the UFC’s welterweight champion at the end of the UFC 158 fight card, White said, “He is a fascinating human being, very tough to figure out. What’s important to most people he doesn’t care about. He’s a very unique individual. This is a guy who doesn’t give a shit and doesn’t play by the rules, he isn’t the norm.”
That unique personality could present some real problems for the UFC if Diaz does defeat St-Pierre on Saturday night, something that White addressed by saying that the promotion stops for no fighter, “We don’t change how we do business for one guy. Everybody else has to do it (promotional work).”
The worry of Diaz not showing up to his promotional duties is only one of the concerns the UFC has when it comes to the highly ranked welterweight. Another is the fact that Diaz has been popped twice for marijuana, each time resulting in a suspension. When asked if a third positive test for Diaz would result in a release from the UFC, White replied, “It’s not going to be good. I would say we would probably have to, wouldn’t you agree?”
While St-Pierre seemed frustrated at times by Diaz’s actions, White seemed to take things in stride, maybe because he had learned his lesson, “At one point it drove me crazy,” White said. “But now, it’s not like I came into this fight not knowing what was going to happen.
When you saw me at the press conference back in Vegas I was pissed and now? You have to assume, you have to prepare for things that are going to happen. I’d never seen somebody not show up for the press conference before, it’s never happened. So obviously the first time I was very pissed off. Now that it’s happened, I know what I do when people don’t show up for a press conference. You don’t show up for a press conference, you don’t fight.”
Somewhat surprisingly, White actually had some praise for Diaz, “I don’t want to diminish the open workouts, but you pick and chose your battles, I would prefer him to miss the open workouts than the press conference. Everybody wants to focus on the open workouts, but I think he’s done a pretty good job leading up to this fight, considering he’s Nick Diaz.”
While Diaz often bemoans the fact that his opponents and the UFC portray him as the bad guy, the boss doesn’t agree, “It’s not that he’s a bad guy. I don’t think Nick Diaz is a bad guy. His image that is portrayed, Nick Diaz has never been in trouble in his life. He has no police record, he has none of that stuff, he is a martial artist, he is everything he says he is, he’s just got this, let’s call it unique personality. I’ve never come across anybody like him. I think he has a distorted view of how people look at him. It’s crazy shit like today that make people think he’s the villain.”
While White may not think Diaz is a bad person, he does readily acknowledge that he and the UFC will most likely always be fighting a losing battle in Diaz’s mind, “Are we going to do anything that Nick Diaz likes? I highly doubt it. Nick Diaz is never going to come out and say, ‘you know what I really love the promotion leading up to this fight, the UFC has done a fantastic job of representing me and what I am.’”
It’s doubtful that the drama surrounding Nick Diaz and Georges St-Pierre will end when the final horn sounds on Saturday night inside the Bell Centre, but don’t think the UFC would have it any other way—after all, they knew what they were getting when they booked this fight.
The build-up to this weekend’s UFC 158 card has been nothing short of epic. Normally drab conference calls and pre-fight press conferences have been all the rage due to the ramblings of Nick Diaz, which have only served to bolster the buzz leading up t…
The build-up to this weekend’s UFC 158 card has been nothing short of epic. Normally drab conference calls and pre-fight press conferences have been all the rage due to the ramblings of Nick Diaz, which have only served to bolster the buzz leading up to this weekend’s clash between “The Stockton Bad Boy” and welterweight champion Georges St-Pierre.
While the main event is getting the lion’s share of attention, two other high-profile 170-pound tilts have made the card at UFC 158 one of the year’s most anticipated affairs. UFC President Dana White labeled Saturday night’s event at The Bell Centre an “un-official” welterweight tournament, due to having the top six fighters in the 170-pound weight class stepping into the Octagon.
The stacked welterweight showing in Montreal will mark the second time in less than a year the organization has assembled a card to showcase a particular weight class. In May of 2012 at UFC 146, the promotion went with an all heavyweight lineup on the pay-per-view portion of the event in what turned out to be one of the year’s strongest cards.
Much like UFC 158, the headlining bout featured a championship clash as Junior dos Santos squared off with Frank Mir. Rounding out the card were a collection of the UFC’s top big men as Cain Velasquez, Antonio Silva, Roy Nelson and Stefan Struve all saw action in Las Vegas. The event put the spotlight on a weight class the organization has been pushing to build for years, and the end result was a show that was successful on multiple levels.
While the welterweight division has been one of the deepest and most competitive under the UFC banner for years, Saturday night’s 170-pound throwdowns will serve a similar purpose to what the heavyweight lineup at UFC 146 was able to accomplish.
Title Pictures Become Clear as Contenders Rise and Fall
Aside from the title fight atop the billing at UFC 158, the clash between Carlos Condit and Johny Hendricks is set to determine the next contender to the welterweight crown. While there was previously speculation on this matter, at today’s pre-fight press conference for the event that streamed live on the company’s website, UFC President Dana White declared that the winner of Condit vs. Hendricks would get the next shot.
This is important because it keeps the divisional title picture moving. In a weight class as competitive as the welterweight division, the action needs to stay at a steady pace to ensure contenders move up and fighters lingering on the edge can breakthrough. Other weight classes in the UFC fold have experienced this backlog in previous years and it creates a blurred picture as to who is clearly standing in the title realm.
Another crucial bout in the welterweight pairings at UFC 158 comes between Jake Ellenberger and Nate Marquardt. “The Juggernaut” Ellenberger has won seven of his last eight showings, and a win over the former Strikeforce welterweight champion will solidify his position as a contender in waiting.
The same can be said for Marquardt. The 33-year-old Colorado-based fighter is looking to make a statement in his return to the Octagon. After being cut from the promotion in the fall of 2011, Marquardt has been on a mission for redemption.
The former No. 1 contender to the middleweight title made a move down to welterweight, looking to carve out a new lane in his career. A win over Ellenberger would certainly prove Marquardt deserves to be among the top of the divisional hierarchy in the 170-pound weight class.
While the winners will take a strong step towards a title opportunity, the losers of Saturday night’s dust-ups are going to face a tough road. A collection of fighters are waiting their turns to make strong runs, and in the aftermath of this weekend’s card, several spots will be available.
A similar comparison can be made to what happened at UFC 146. Former heavyweight champion Cain Velasquez was making his first appearance since suffering a first-round knockout at the hands of Junior dos Santos. The AKA staple locked up with Antonio “Big Foot” Silva in the night’s co-main event, stopping the Brazilian in less than a round due to his brutal ground-and-pound attack.
On the strength of the victory, White deemed Velasquez would be given the opportunity to rematch dos Santos for the heavyweight title. With both JDS and Velasquez competing on the same card, the decision to make the fight was an easy choice, and a transparent path UFC fans could follow.
A Group of Fighters on the Same Schedule
A difficult part of UFC matchmaker Joe Silva’s job is lining up bouts that fit into both fighter’s timelines. Often times, one fighter will have a lengthy lay-off while he waits for an opponent that makes sense to materialize. When the UFC schedules multiple bouts on a card featuring fighters in the same weight class, this makes things a bit easier in that department.
Aside from the three bouts previously mentioned in Montreal, there are three additional bouts laced throughout the undercard that features competitors in the 170-pound weight class. With the fighters on the undercard locking up and all being in similar places in the divisional standings, it is a relatively easy choice to match-up the winners and losers of those scraps.
It would make sense for the winner of Dan Miller vs. Jordan Mein to face the victor in the bout between Patrick Cote and Bobby Voelker. Granted, this idea hinges on the idea that no one will get injured and face a lengthy lay-off, but the theory is solid should all work out in normal fashion.
This exact scenario played out perfectly for the UFC during the heavyweight showcase when surging prospects Stefan Struve and Stipe Miocic both emerged victorious from their respective bouts at UFC 146. The Dutch “Skyscraper” submitted Lavar Johnson in quick fashion, and Miocic knocked the shine off of Shane Del Rosario’s seemingly bright future. With both fighters coming off solid wins, a matchup at UFC on Fuel TV 5 a few months later in September made perfect sense.
These particular situations could perhaps be the greatest benefit to a divisional showcase card. The fan base gets to watch prospects and contenders develop against the backdrop of the very best the weight class has to offer. This of course makes future matchups all the more intriguing because there is a familiarity with the fighters involved, and once fans are locked in, they will follow a fighter’s progression in good times and bad.
Two More Showcases I’d Like to See
With the heavyweight and welterweight divisions employing this method, I would love to see two other weight classes take this approach. Both the lightweight and featherweight divisions have heated up over the past two years—a card that would serve to highlight the best each weight class had to offer would be a strong move.
While both divisions have experienced their fair share of lulls, where movement towards the title is concerned, a showcase such as the one taking place this weekend in Montreal would be a solid remedy to the problem.
By putting the championship fight as the main event, and allowing the other top fighters in the weight class to sort things out in the same night, it’s only going to keep things moving in the right direction. Even if an upset occurs, the title changes hands and a rematch is granted, the fighter competing in the co-main event can squabble with the winner of the fight below him and it would not only make sense, but it would keep things moving despite the championship rematch.
On the other hand, the UFC has made a habit recently of putting together title fights that go outside the normal flow of a division. Therefore, the solution offered may not be perfect, but it does keep certain aspects of the division from being jammed up.
In the world of major free-agent signings in MMA, the UFC landing Hector Lombard was supposed to be a landmark deal, as the champion from Bellator jumped ship to sign with another organization while still holding the title.