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BJ Penn clears up his beef with the UFC regarding Nick Diaz: here. Nick Diaz talks pay loss for losing title-shot: here. Bellator 50 weigh-ins results: here. UFC Fight Night 25 weigh-ins results: here. Josh.
BJ Penn clears up his beef with the UFC regarding Nick Diaz: here.
Nick Diaz talks pay loss for losing title-shot: here.
Bellator 50 weigh-ins results: here.
UFC Fight Night 25 weigh-ins results: here.
Josh Koscheck calls Matt Hughes an “old man”: here.
Bobby Lashley signs 3 year Shark Fights contract: here.
Enjoy pics of Jersey Shore‘s Deena and Snooki making out below and: here.
Being a fan of any sport, team or athlete entails certain rules. You know what I’m talking about, here.If you’re a Yankees fan, then a Red Sox fan probably hates your guts. If you’re a Maple Leafs guy, chances are your neighbor, the H…
Being a fan of any sport, team or athlete entails certain rules. You know what I’m talking about, here.
If you’re a Yankees fan, then a Red Sox fan probably hates your guts. If you’re a Maple Leafs guy, chances are your neighbor, the Habs fan, and you don’t get along. If you’re a Cowboys fan and your dad is a Redskins kind of guy, chances are you don’t talk much over Thanksgiving dinner. And if you’re Lebron James, well, everyone sort of hates you. That’s just the way it works.
MMA fandom has it’s rules, too. There’s the general ones, like “Boo every close decision no matter what” and “There’s no such thing as the wrong moment to start a USA chant!”. The one I’d like to focus on today is one of the foundational rules of the modern MMA fan: everything is GSP’s fault.
Boring fights. Bad matchmaking. Lopsided title matchups. Angry fans. The Hindenberg crash. Anything you can think of, cynical MMA fans are already blaming GSP for it. You want to be a “hardcore” MMA fan and not just one of those TapouT wearing “casuals”? Time to break with all your friends, tell your girlfriend she’s a lovestruck idiot, and start hating you some GSP.
Case in point: this whole GSP/Nick Diaz fiasco that went down this past week.
When Nick Diaz failed to show up to the UFC 137 press conference, I think most people’s reaction was “surprising, but not shocking.” When Dana White bounced Diaz from the main event because of it, people’s jaws fell a little closer to the floor. And when White then re-inserted Diaz back into the event – this time as the co-main event – people were downright floored.
The only thing that wasn’t surprising was Nick Diaz finding a way to blame it all on that filthy, filthy coward GSP.
Of course, Diaz also blamed his handlers, the UFC, the media, and the very institution of press conferences themselves for his inability to be even basically aware of his own affairs. His accusations lose some of their sting when they’re half weed-induced paranoia – and that’s the reasonable half.
Back on topic: blame GSP. It’s all his fault. When he heard Nick Diaz was being dropped from the title fight he should have stood up, ripped off his pinstripe suit Hulk Hogan-style, and demanded the original fight be put back together, brotha! But he didn’t, clearly because he’s deathly afraid of Nick Diaz.
GSP should have stuck his neck out for the completely unreliable, disrespectful, arguably undeserving challenger who can’t stop talking smack about him. And he should have done it solely because he took the time out of training to do his job like an idiot while Diaz stayed home, broke in his new bong, and played “Call of Duty” like a real man!
But alas, St. Pierre didn’t stick up for Diaz because, see, he’s not a “real fighter”. Hey, don’t take my word for it. According to Diaz, a “real fighter” like BJ Penn would throw down if, say, Diaz called him a little b*tch on the streets. Whereas GSP would need at least 3 months to come up with a gameplan, do some gymnastics, and fly out to Oakland to train with the Amber Lamps guy.
“Not a true fighter”.
What a strange thing for a #1 contender to call the champion he’s challenging. What a strange thing for so many fans to call the biggest crossover star in Mixed Martial Arts history.
Ask those fans why they think that, and the answer usually boils down to “he’s boring! He fights safe! He doesn’t finish people anymore! He doesn’t dominate and put away over matched competition, the way Anderson Silva does!”. Yes, because Anderson Silva’s never been in a boring fight, and always goes for the finish – just ask Thales Leites, Patrick Cote, or Demian Maia.
Yes, some of St. Pierre’s most recent fights have gone to decision, and haven’t exactly been barn-burners either. Luckily, the rule applies itself here again. Forget reasonable expectations for a fight, forget analysis and good judgment and basic common sense. Is a GSP fight boring? Then blame GSP – it’s as simple as that.
Like when he fights Jake Shields, a guy with elite level BJJ, a reputation as a grinder, and a chin capable of withstanding a Dan Henderson haymaker. What are the odds GSP is going to finish that guy? He probably isn’t a tighter BJJ player, and he probably can’t punch harder than Dan freakin’ Henderson. Combine that with Jake’s rep for slow, plodding fights, and you have what sounds to me like a surefire decision on your hands.
I’ve just described the normal, rational though process. That process doesn’t apply in this case, because it ignores the golden rule: blame GSP.
On second thought, this rule doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to me. I need a little clarification here. GSP haters of the world: I turn to you.
Let’s assume the worst about him for a moment. Let’s assume everything you haters say about GSP is the gospel truth. Let’s assume for the moment that he’s a mentally weak, pillow-fisted front runner with a shaky set of whiskers and an aversion to risk, and in every fight he’s looking to jab, jab, double-leg to a decision win.
I have but two questions:
Why can’t this man be beat? If his strategy never changes, and he has all those obvious weaknesses, why can’t anybody beat him? Hell, why in the last three years – while fighting the toughest list of title challengers of any champion in MMA – has no one even come close?
And the second question: why is every boring fight entirely his fault? I mean Jake Shields said he was going to take GSP down and submit him. In the event, he didn’t connect on one single takedown. Why aren’t you guys mad at Jake for being so ineffective? Why don’t we hate him for not doing anything in that fight except trying to park his thumb in GSP’s eye socket?
Josh Koscheck said he was going to knock GSP out. For 25 minutes, GSP stood right in front of him, and he couldn’t get anything going, even before Georges broke his face. Don’t we hate him for abandoning his wrestling, abandoning his kickboxing, and forgetting to pull the trigger?
Dan Hardy knew he was going to fight GSP for months, and that his only chance to win was on the feet. Don’t we hate him for being so inadequate in his defensive wrestling?
For most fans, asking these sort of questions is both daunting, and unnecessary. Instead, let’s just agree to keep blaming GSP for the obvious reasons we’ll never admit to each other: he’s got a funny accent, our girlfriends would leave us for him, and he really doesn’t need or care about the support of hardcore MMA fans, the bastard.
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Former two-division champion B.J. Penn is set to face Nick Diaz at UFC 137, but as UFC middleweight Chael Sonnen would say, he isn’t looking to manufacture conflict.According to Penn, he was pressured into saying he was going to “beat Nick Diaz” in his…
Former two-division champion B.J. Penn is set to face Nick Diaz at UFC 137, but as UFC middleweight Chael Sonnen would say, he isn’t looking to manufacture conflict.
According to Penn, he was pressured into saying he was going to “beat Nick Diaz” in his countdown interview for UFC 137.
“They forced me to say, at the end of the whole thing, ‘you gotta say Nick Diaz’s name now, you gotta say his name,'” said Penn.
“I was like, ‘what?’ They were like, ‘Say you’re gonna beat Nick Diaz. Say you’re gonna beat Nick Diaz.’ And I said, ‘I’m gonna beat Nick Diaz.'”
Having trained with Diaz in the past, Penn has a lot of respect for the Cesar Gracie student, and he doesn’t want to falsify any grandiose hype leading up to the fight.
As the saying goes, it’s just business for “The Prodigy.”
Penn goes on to empathize with Diaz, who recently had his UFC title shot revoked for missing two scheduled press conferences.
He talks about the power of editing and being made into the villain when he was heading into his UFC 94 bout against Georges St-Pierre, which he feels would’ve happened to Diaz if he remained in the championship bout at UFC 137.
In response, UFC President Dana White released the uncut footage of Penn’s interview with the UFC promotional team to MixedMartialArts.com.
You be the judge.
Was Penn pressured into saying he would defeat Diaz?
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(The BJ Penn air freshener — perfect for whenever something smells fishy.)
BJ Penn, God bless him, has never been afraid to bump heads with his UFC bosses — and now a new feud is brewing between the Prodigy and the UFC’s hype-show producers. It all started earlier this week when Penn released a video blog discussing an experience he had shooting the Countdown special for UFC 137. Said Penn:
“I got a lot of respect for Diaz, I’ve trained with him. They forced me to say… ‘You gotta say Nick Diaz‘s name now, you gotta say his name.’ And I was like, ‘What?’ They were like, ‘Say you’re going to beat Nick Diaz.’ And I said, ‘I’m going to beat Nick Diaz.’ I wish…I would have said ‘at UFC 137 my hand is going to be raised.’ I don’t know if they’re going to come back and try to show Nick Diaz that, I don’t know what’s going on with that.”
Seems innocent enough — it’s not like the UFC coached Penn to attack Diaz personally, and declarative statements like these are a standard element of fight promotion. But it was still enough to rub Penn the wrong way. So you can imagine how he felt when Dana White himself released footage showing that Penn wasn’t really “forced” to say anything at that Countdown shoot. Check this out…
(The BJ Penn air freshener — perfect for whenever something smells fishy.)
BJ Penn, God bless him, has never been afraid to bump heads with his UFC bosses — and now a new feud is brewing between the Prodigy and the UFC’s hype-show producers. It all started earlier this week when Penn released a video blog discussing an experience he had shooting the Countdown special for UFC 137. Said Penn:
“I got a lot of respect for Diaz, I’ve trained with him. They forced me to say… ‘You gotta say Nick Diaz‘s name now, you gotta say his name.’ And I was like, ‘What?’ They were like, ‘Say you’re going to beat Nick Diaz.’ And I said, ‘I’m going to beat Nick Diaz.’ I wish…I would have said ‘at UFC 137 my hand is going to be raised.’ I don’t know if they’re going to come back and try to show Nick Diaz that, I don’t know what’s going on with that.”
Seems innocent enough — it’s not like the UFC coached Penn to attack Diaz personally, and declarative statements like these are a standard element of fight promotion. But it was still enough to rub Penn the wrong way. So you can imagine how he felt when Dana White himself released footage showing that Penn wasn’t really “forced” to say anything at that Countdown shoot. Check this out…
(Props: MixedMartialArts.com)
At the end of the clip, the producer asks Penn if he’ll defeat Nick Diaz, and Penn says “I will defeat Nick Diaz.” They ask him to say it again while mentioning the date of fight, and he does without hesitation. “Do you guys need that to make sure he signs the contract?” Penn asks with a laugh.
But that’s not the end of the story. Even though Penn’s take on the situation was apparently contradicted by this footage, he’s not letting it go so easily. Here’s the official response from Pedro Carrasco of BJPenn.com:
I have attached a video in response to the recent issue started by the article released on Mixedmartialarts.com…
If you watch it, it will show the UFC interviewer specifically instigating trash talking from BJ. While BJ’s recent recount may not have been 100% accurate based on what the video released allowed you to see, our video shows them asking for specific items from BJ in hopes to hype the fight.
So forgive us for a slightly innacurate recount of events, but as you can see, we are used to the UFC making requests that instigate a fighter to say things he would not normally say and for that reason BJ is somewhat sensetive to these types of baited interviews now.
That is all.
The video is below. Give it a look and tell us your opinion — should the UFC stop trying to build up rivalries out of thin air, or should pro fighters expect a certain amount of storyline-creation and manufactured heat as just part of the job?
Filed under: Fighting, UFC, BellatorMaybe you have heard of Rad Martinez, or maybe you skip past the headlines of fighters you don’t know. Surely, though, you are aware of Jake Shields, the recent UFC No. 1 contender.
Both of them are fighting this w…
Filed under: Fighting, UFC, Bellator
Maybe you have heard of Rad Martinez, or maybe you skip past the headlines of fighters you don’t know. Surely, though, you are aware of Jake Shields, the recent UFC No. 1 contender.
Both of them are fighting this weekend, Martinez at Bellator 50, and Shields in the main event of UFC Fight Night 25. This is worth noting because in different ways, both men are examples of courage and grace under immense stress. They are men who matter, with stories worth telling.
In a stretch of time that’s seen two ridiculous controversies: Nick Diaz self-sabotaging a title shot and blaming everyone else, and BJ Penn and the UFC bickering over allegedly forcing him to (gasp) say he would beat Diaz in their upcoming match, Martinez and Shields thankfully help bring the needle back in the other direction.
Shields lost his father just over two weeks ago, during the final preparations for his training camp. Sixty-seven-year-old Jack Shields had not only been the guiding force of Jake’s personal life, but his professional life as well, serving as his manager.
So it would have been understandable if Jake had opted out of the September 17 fight. Instead, he said in a statement that he made up his mind “within a few minutes” that he would continue on and face Jake Ellenberger. Why? As a tribute to his dad, of course.
“It took me a moment to figure out what I wanted to do, but I figured the right thing to do would be to continue to fight with him being my manager and my biggest supporter,” he said.
There are people all over the world who lose loved ones and are back at work a short time later. In this way, Shields is no different than anyone else. But then again, his job requires him to have full concentration at the risk of injury or unconsciousness.
There is a real danger in not having full commitment to the job at hand, so his presence at work is not quite the same as that of an ordinary Joe.
Ironically, Shields is a teammate and good friend of Diaz, who just threw away what might be the greatest opportunity of his life. Diaz doesn’t owe fighting to anyone, but his continuing refusal to accept any blame for his role in the UFC 137 main event switch is head-scratching.
Diaz wants the opportunities and wants the money, but doesn’t want most of the associated responsibilities that come with it. As Shields knows, it’s a package deal, which is why he continues to conduct his career with grace even under such personal stress.
They may be from the same camp, but Shields showed the ultimate in professionalism while Diaz was the exact antithesis.
Martinez lacks the name recognition of anyone else named here, but maybe that will one day change. On Saturday, the 9-2 featherweight will be fighting for the first time in a major promotion, signed after a recent heart-tugging ESPN profile that illustrated Martinez’s unwavering loyalty to his father.
Martinez’s dad Richard was involved in a car accident long ago that left him in a near-vegetative state, and for the last several years, Rad has been his primary caregiver, sacrificing time away from reaching his own MMA dreams in the process.
Now he gets a chance to take that first step towards reaching the heights of fighters like Shields and Diaz. It may be the beginning of one of MMA’s all-time feel-good tales, yet for now, it is overshadowed by stuff like the BJ Penn-UFC hype video controversy that should be a non-story.
At the end of the day, Penn’s complaint is that he was asked to directly state that he is going to beat Diaz. This is not a story, it’s not even interesting.
At the least, I can understand Penn’s sensitivity to the issue because in the past he’s trained with Diaz and holds him in some regard, but Fighter A saying he’s going to beat Fighter B is not disrespectful; it’s normal and expected. Diaz may see the world differently than I do, but I can’t imagine he will be shocked or offended to hear Penn say he plans to win. Penn said he would have been more comfortable saying, “My hand will be raised,” which is the same sentiment. This “controversy” is over semantics.
In Penn’s defense, maybe he didn’t intend to make a big deal out of it, mentioning it to an interviewer, but the story has spiraled since, with a video response from UFC, followed by another video release from BJPenn.com. It’s all pretty exhausting and frankly, boring.
So let’s turn attention back to the fights. Diaz vs. Penn will be one heck of a scrap, and it doesn’t need this bickering to promote it. Those two will have their turns soon enough. On Saturday there will be deserving fighters more worthy of the immediate spotlight. There is a place in the sport for everyone. We need our trash-talkers, our silent assassins and our hybrids. Rad Martinez and Jake Shields fall within the quiet scope of the spectrum, but that doesn’t mean they should be forgotten. In times like these, their professionalism and grace is a welcome change.
With the furor surrounding Nick Diaz’s no-shows at several press junkets, is there more to it than meets the eye? Could this be a carefully and meticulously orchestrated plan by the UFC or is it just what it was; Diaz no-showing for the reasons h…
With the furor surrounding Nick Diaz’s no-shows at several press junkets, is there more to it than meets the eye?
Could this be a carefully and meticulously orchestrated plan by the UFC or is it just what it was; Diaz no-showing for the reasons he’d stated earlier in the week?
Let’s take a closer look:
Remember Nate Marquardt? Well he was fired from the UFC for failing to get the medical clearance required for his fight with Rick Story at UFC on Versus 4. Diaz, on the other hand, is still in a job and is set to throw down with BJ Penn in the co-main event at UFC 137.
Marquardt’s actions were no different to Diaz’s; they both put their respective events in jeopardy, Marquardt gets sacked and Diaz gets a public slap on the wrist. Enough said.
Another thing to bear in mind, with a fight on the scale of that magnitude, why was it so hard for anyone to locate the whereabouts of Diaz?
When contact was finally made, White spoke about how Diaz had voiced his concerns about the main event; he couldn’t handle the pressure. I’d have thought that White would’ve known about Diaz and his extreme aversion to the media before signing him up for that fight?
Next, how come Cesar Gracie had no inkling of where his star pupil was holed up, especially with a fight in the offing that could’ve propelled Diaz to the heights of MMA greatness?
Also one minute Gracie was in total agreement with White’s decision to axe Diaz from the main event, and the next he was stating that the fight should’ve gone ahead. Make your mind up son.
And then there is St-Pierre, what part if any did he have to play in this supposed cloak and dagger affair? At the UFC 137 press conference, after hearing that Diaz had been pulled from the main event and that he’d now be fighting Carlos Condit, St-Pierre had this to say:
“I do believe Carlos Condit is more dangerous than Nick Diaz,” he said. “If they fought, I would put my money on Carlos Condit, so for me it’s a bigger challenge.”
I like the phrase: Bigger challenge, an apt way of trying to convince the fans that the Condit fight bears more significance than a Diaz fight would.
And finally we have the 209 son himself; suddenly Diaz comes out of the woodwork apprising the media of his reasons for failing to attend both press junkets while throwing a few derogatory comments and expletives St-Pierre’s way. Was this Diaz trying to hard sell a future St-Pierre vs. Diaz fight?
Now if it is/was a strategy contrived by the Zuffa hierarchy and Dana White in particular, and if it does go according to plan, it could well turn out to be a masterstroke by said persons.
For it to be an ingenious scheme St-Pierre would have to defeat Condit, and Diaz would have to be victorious against Penn. But as with anything in life, nothing is certain.
This could easily be upended in several ways; Condit and Penn both win their respective matches which means Penn fights for the championship. Or you could have St-Pierre vs. Penn or Condit vs. Diaz fighting for the championship.
There’s nothing wrong business-wise with the aforementioned match-ups; I’m sure the buy rates will suffice to assuage the UFC, but with a St-Pierre vs. Diaz fight, the UFC would’ve had much more to gain from a financial point of view.
And at this point in time, with the match-ups already in place for UFC 137, the Zuffa based company is sitting in a very comfortable position. The financial icing on the cake would be if this conjectural plan came to fruition. Now that would be a stroke of genius.
Maybe Diaz was playing the game all along, the same game that White has been so vociferous to point out in the past.
Remember this is all speculative and hypothetical.
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