Did Dana White study voodoo from Michael Jackson or something? Because Bellator has had worse luck than than nearly any promotion in the history of MMA when it comes to launching a successful PPV.
In case the headline didn’t tip you off, Eddie Alvarez is out of Bellator 120—the promotion’s second attempt to break into the PPV market. His rubber match with Michael Chandler will have to wait.
(Well, in a way, MMA’s “greatest trilogy” did kind of end at Bellator 120…)
Did Dana White study voodoo from Michael Jackson or something? Because Bellator has had worse luck than nearly any promotion in the history of MMA when it comes to launching a successful PPV.
In case the headline didn’t tip you off, Eddie Alvarez is out of Bellator 120—the promotion’s second attempt to break into the PPV market. His rubber match with Michael Chandler will have to wait.
Sherdog’s Greg Savage broke the news on Twitter last night. Initially, Bellator CEO Bjorn Rebneydenied the rumor, saying the fight was still on. Less than 24 hours later, Bellator hasn’t officially announced anything but mediaoutlets are accepting Alvarez’s withdrawal as fact.
What’ll they do now? Hopefully they convert it to a free card on Spike, like they did with their last ill-fated PPV. It’s unlikely Rampage Jackson vs. King Mo, Tito Ortiz vs. Alexander Shlemenko, Michael Page vs. Rick Rainey [Editor’s note: They were charging money for that fight?] and Will Brooks vs. Nate Jolly will be worth the price of admission. Regarding the last fight, Brooks vs. Jolly, it’s speculated that Brooks will be bumped into the main event against Chandler but who can say for sure.
Before the fight, Jamie Varner told MMAFighting.com, “I know this guy is a very, very beatable guy. I’m bigger, I’m faster, I’m better in every position. I’m not too worried about what he brings to the table. If I go in there and perform to even half what I’m capable of, I should walk away with the W.” As you can see from the fight video, Jamie Varner was actually being pretty humble while assessing his opponent’s skills. After putting up nothing resembling a fight, Jolly was taken down and knocked out by the first punches that Varner landed.
It’s good to have you back, Jamie- even if most fans hadn’t even noticed that you left.
Before the fight, Jamie Varner told MMAFighting.com, “I know this guy is a very, very beatable guy. I’m bigger, I’m faster, I’m better in every position. I’m not too worried about what he brings to the table. If I go in there and perform to even half what I’m capable of, I should walk away with the W.” As you can see from the fight video, Jamie Varner was actually being pretty humble while assessing his opponent’s skills. After putting up nothing resembling a fight, Jolly was taken down and knocked out by the first punches that Varner landed.
It’s good to have you back, Jamie- even if most fans hadn’t even noticed that you left.
In other action, Paul Daley followed up on his impressive pre-fight trolling of the MMA media with a less impressive unanimous decision victory over fellow UFC castoff Luigi “The Italian Tank” Fioravanti at last night’s Ringside MMA 12. Daley had Fioravanti in trouble numerous times during the fight, but was unable to finish the American Top Team prospect. Daley told fans after the fight that he planned on taking some time away from competition. Considering that he’s fought seven times in the past year, I can’t exactly say I blame him.
So what impressed you the most last night? Varner’s quick thrashing of a local prospect? Daley’s victory against a competent opponent? Varner’s haircut? Daley’s troll job? Or perhaps it’s just the amount of questions I crammed into this paragraph.
It might go down as one of the shortest retirements in the history of the sport. One month ago, after losing a decision to late replacement Dakota Cochrane at a Titan Fighting Championships event, Jamie Varner took to his Twitter to tell fans that he’d…
It might go down as one of the shortest retirements in the history of the sport. One month ago, after losing a decision to late replacement Dakota Cochrane at a Titan Fighting Championships event, Jamie Varner took to his Twitter to tell fans that he’d had enough.
“I gave fighting another shot I need 2 thank u guys 4 ur support! But I just don’t have it anymore. Love u all but ull never c me fight again,” Varner wrote.
A short time later, that message was removed. Shortly after that, Varner was back in the gym, preparing to have another go at it Friday night at an XFC event on HDNet. Maybe it just goes to show that you should never say never, even on Twitter.
“I think, honestly, I just made an emotional decision and an emotional remark,” Varner told MMA Fighting this week. “I feel like I didn’t perform very well in that last fight. The guy just overpowered me. He wasn’t very good. I was much better than the guy, but I just got controlled. I didn’t like that feeling, and I just thought maybe it was time for me to hang it up.”
Of course, the former WEC lightweight champ didn’t hold that opinion for very long. Once he started to think about it, Varner decided that maybe his passion for the sport hadn’t evaporated after all. Maybe he’d just been hit with a few bad breaks, one right after another.
For starters, he said, his original opponent was pulled from the lineup just a few days before the bout. Then the replacement, Dakota Cochrane, couldn’t make the lightweight limit, so Varner had to fight at welterweight despite the fact that he’d already completed the bulk of his weight cut to get down to 155 pounds.
After getting overpowered by a bigger opponent, Varner said, frustration briefly got the better of him. Hence the tweet.
“Then I took a week off, came home to talk to my trainers, and they were like, ‘You shouldn’t have even taken that fight.’ It wasn’t in my weight class, and too many factors played into that. Maybe I was a little overtrained, too. Who knows? But I prepared for one guy, got a completely different guy, and then it wasn’t even in my weight class. I’m a lightweight. I have no business fighting a welterweight.”
But it wasn’t just a sober analysis of the need for weight classes that got Varner back in the cage so fast. Before the loss to Cochrane, he’d already signed to fight Nate Jolly on tonight’s XFC event, so retiring would mean backing out of his contract, which he wasn’t prepared to do, he said.
“XFC has been doing a lot of marketing, been doing a lot of social networking promoting this fight. The show must go on. Whether I have a good day or a bad day, the show must go on. I made a commitment, and I’m a man of my word.”
If that sounds like a man who’s feeling a little worn down, that’s not too far off. Two fights in the span of a month will take a toll on anyone, especially when one of those fights is a surprise move up in weight that you never planned on making. But for Varner, the retracted retirement proclamation was also at least partially driven by a general sense of fight fatigue.
“I’ve been doing this sport for ten years,” Varner explained. “I started training when I was 17, had my first fight when I was a senior in high school. I’ve been at it a long time. I started wrestling when I was 14, started boxing when I was 11. That’s a long time — 13 or 16 years — of competition and cuts and all that.”
At 27 years old, an age when most people are still working on getting established in a career, Varner is feeling the effects of his. Once the fight with Jolly is in the books, win or lose, he plans to take some time away and re-evaluate things. Maybe he’ll take a couple pro boxing matches, he said, or do some grappling tournaments just to get the competitive juices flowing again.
Not only has his recent run of fights had him feeling like he’s been “non-stop dieting,” it’s also left him “a little burnt out,” he said. But against Jolly he sees a good opportunity to get the taste of that last defeat out of his mouth, so at least he can take some time off with a win under his belt.
“I know this guy is a very, very beatable guy. I’m bigger, I’m faster, I’m better in every position. I’m not too worried about what he brings to the table. If I go in there and perform to even half what I’m capable of, I should walk away with the W.”
Whether he decides to stick around in the sport or just keep on walking afterwards, we’ll have to wait and see.
It might go down as one of the shortest retirements in the history of the sport. One month ago, after losing a decision to late replacement Dakota Cochrane at a Titan Fighting Championships event,