Tag: Opinion

MMA Fighter Opens Up on Being ‘Dead’ in Cage for 5 Minutes

There’s a saying in football that the scariest injuries are those that involve no physical contact. On November 3 in Houston, that extended to MMA.
During the second round of his fight with Charlie Ontiveros, Clovis “C.J.” Hancock, a 32-year-old fighti…

There’s a saying in football that the scariest injuries are those that involve no physical contact. On November 3 in Houston, that extended to MMA.

During the second round of his fight with Charlie Ontiveros, Clovis “C.J.” Hancock, a 32-year-old fighting for the regional Legacy Fighting Alliance promotion, collapsed onto his back and went into cardiac arrest. Then his kidneys failed.

Medical professionals rushed to his aid and later told Hancock he was dead for five long minutes inside the cage. Hancock doesn‘t remember anything from the second round until he woke up—luckily, doctors told him—in a hospital bed.

The culprit, Hancock said, wasn‘t anything that happened in the fight. It was instead the weight cut before that saw Hancock shed 45 pounds in about a week, including 15-20 pounds of water weight. While in the hospital, Hancock needed eight bags of saline to return to a safe hydration level.

Hancock is on the mend, but his MMA career is likely over.

“I probably won’t be able to fight again,” Hancock told Bleacher Report, “because I was stubborn.”

Hancock’s typical weight classes were 205 and 185 pounds, both substantially closer to his “walking around” weight of 215 pounds than the 170-pound welterweight class, where he fought November 3. But when LFA officials offered a date with Ontiveros, it was too enticing to pass up. Like Hancock, Ontiveros has experience in Bellator MMA, which occupies the space between shows like LFA and the UFC. Hancock understood the name value and felt he had a winnable fight on his hands. In any event, he had made the weight before.

“Going into the fight I knew he had three times as many fights as me, but I knew I had better wrestling and jiu-jitsu,” Hancock said.

Any advantages evaporated during his weight cut. Hancock had less time to prepare for Ontiveros than normal, forcing the double whammy of a massive weight loss on a compressed schedule. It was exacerbated by a fairly common mindset among fighters, one Hancock had as he sat endlessly in the sauna and moisture-leeching saltwater baths: that there is nothing they can’t endure. 

“I was getting dizzy and sick but I thought I could power through,” he said. “I knew weight cutting was dangerous, but I didn‘t know that anything like this would ever happen to me. I knew other people who went through something like this, but I was tough.”

From the opening moments of the contest, Hancock could feel that something was wrong.

“As soon as I clinched up with him, I knew I just wasn‘t there,” he said. “I had no strength. I remember the second round. I was feeling dizzy, but I thought I was fine.”

In a statement sent to MMA Fighting’s Marc Raimondi, LFA CEO Ed Soares suggested a body kick from Ontiveros, landed several seconds before Hancock fell, was the real reason for the collapse. 

“It’s a very unfortunate situation where C.J. Hancock took a body kick during his fight,” Soares‘ statement read. “After the kick landed, there was a few seconds delay, and then he collapsed in the cage.”

This would likely be the first time in recorded history a body kick caused death, cardiac arrest, kidney failure, severe dehydration or any combination thereof. The statement does not mention weight cutting.

In any case, soon after Hancock’s collapse, cutman David Maldonado signaled for aid. Personnel swarmed. CPR began. “I would say there were five minutes that he was dead,” Maldonado told MMA Fighting. “Him even having a [heart] rhythm, someone could argue and say that’s some form of life, but no. By the time there was anything reactionary or something like that, that looked more like a voluntary or self-propelled movement was not until he was almost in the ambulance. And even then, that was just one time.”

At one point, they shocked Hancock with a defibrillator. During a recent interview with a local TV station, he viewed the scene for the first time.

“They showed me a video of them giving me CPR in the cage,” he said. “That was tough to watch.”

 

Hancock is home now from the hospital, still taking painkillers and on total rest for the next six weeks. The event nearly killed him, but he suffered no permanent damage from the ordeal. He said he is leaning on his coaches, friends and girlfriend, Christine Ross, who kept worried fans and observers up to date. 

“My girlfriend has been here taking care of me,” Hancock said. “I just want to thank her and all my coaches and trainers.”

 

After he recuperates, barring complications, he’s right back to training. However, as MMA essentially requires at least a small weight cut, and Hancock can never cut weight again, his career in the sport is likely over. He does, however, plan to pursue Brazilian jiu-jitsu “superfights” where cutting weight is not necessary. Even so, he doesn‘t completely rule out a return to fighting, noting that “if a really great offer comes up, you never know.”

In the meantime, Hancock is seeking to better understand what happened and why he survived. Although punching, kicking, submissions and the like are the most outwardly dangerous of MMA staples, a quieter, less visible culprit may be even worse.

“Honestly, this has given me motivation and a push to show people said there was a reason I was brought back,” Hancock said. “Someone was looking out for me up there. There’s something else I have to do on this planet. I could be an advocate against weight cutting. Kids do that when they’re wrestlers. Maybe that’s why I came back. I’m not sure what it is yet, but I’m going to figure it out.”

Read more MMA news on BleacherReport.com

What Kind of Champion Will Georges St-Pierre Be for the UFC Middleweight Class?

The MMA world got its first look at Georges St-Pierre, Version 2.0, Saturday at UFC 217—and the early returns were spectacular.
St-Pierre not only defied the odds by taking the UFC middleweight title from Michael Bisping via technical submission,…

The MMA world got its first look at Georges St-Pierre, Version 2.0, Saturday at UFC 217—and the early returns were spectacular.

St-Pierre not only defied the odds by taking the UFC middleweight title from Michael Bisping via technical submission, he shocked us all with the style he used to do it.

Conventional wisdom said St-Pierre would have to employ a steady diet of takedowns and top control if he had any hope of defeating the larger, stand-up-oriented Bisping. In other words, most everybody expected a vintage GSP game plan, utilizing the same strategies he used from 2006 to 2013, as he built a legacy as the most dominant welterweight in the company’s history.

What folks saw in the Octagon last weekend was something radically different. Instead of that safe and steady wrestling-based action plan, GSP largely fought—and beat—Bisping on the feet, ultimately using strikes to set up the rear-naked choke that rendered The Count unconscious near the end of the third round.

It was, in a word, amazing.

In defeating Bisping the way he did, this 36-year-old reboot of St-Pierre simultaneously elevated expectations for the second phase of his career and stoked numerous questions about exactly what kind of middleweight champion he’s going to be.

Certainly there’s no shortage of challenges for him at 185 pounds—including interim champion Robert Whittaker and a murderer’s row of top contenders. On the other hand, trainer Freddie Roach has said he wants St-Pierre to return to 170. There is even some talk that this comeback could be one-and-done for him. 

For his part, GSP himself has been decidedly noncommittal about his future.

“This is not really my real weight,” St-Pierre told UFC color commentator Joe Rogan in the cage immediately after the fight. “I did it for the challenge.”

We know the UFC will want St-Pierre to unify the middleweight title by fighting Whittaker. UFC President Dana White said as much at the UFC 217 post-fight press conference. New Zealand native Whittaker, too, would no doubt like to score a lucrative matchup with St-Pierre, perhaps as soon as UFC 221 in Perth, Australia, on Feb. 11.

Leading up to the Bisping bout, St-Pierre had also said that his new UFC contract includes the stipulation that he must defend the 185-pound belt. But against whom?

Now that’s a fairly vexing question.

The answer will ultimately tell us a lot about how St-Pierre plans to approach this comeback.

UFC 217 certainly gave us some clues.

Perhaps most importantly, St-Pierre seemed refreshed and relaxed during his return to the Octagon after four years away. He appeared to legitimately enjoy the spectacle surrounding UFC 217, laughing his way through his final staredown with Bisping at Friday’s weigh-in.

This was in stark contrast to the guy who didn’t seem to be having any fun during his final welterweight title defenses in 2013. When he announced his extended hiatus following a particularly hard-fought split decision win over Johny Hendricks at UFC 167, St-Pierre indicated the pressures of being 170-pound champion had taken its toll on him, psychologically as well as physically.

The lengthy break looks to have done wonders for him.

He even appeared more carefree inside the cage.

St-Pierre’s vaunted athleticism was still there. So were his crisp jab and the active punching combinations that found their way to Bisping’s face more often than not. He even flashed just enough of his spinning kicks to remind us that before he fashioned himself into one MMA’s best offensive wrestlers, St-Pierre began his fighting life as a kyokushin karate stylist.

Was his willingness to mix it up on the feet with Bisping a sign that the new St-Pierre is going to offer a looser, more exciting product during his fights?

Or did he just gamble that it would be too difficult to consistently take the bigger man down and therefore was forced to beat him with striking?

If it was the latter, maybe he was right: St-Pierre had somewhat less success in the grappling department, where he was mostly unable to keep Bisping down. On the one occasion when St-Pierre did put himself in a good spot on the ground, Bisping cut him open on the bridge of the nose and forehead with a series of slashing elbows.

If you squint hard enough, the end result of this victory might even be a bit troubling, if you are a St-Pierre fan.

For starters, by winning the middleweight title, he’s essentially put himself back in the same position that drove him from the sport in the first place. He’s a UFC champion again, immediately faced with the task of warding off a gaggle of dangerous contenders.

Second, while he was able to surprise Bisping on the feet, St-Pierre’s biggest strength historically—his wrestling—was less effective. If he can’t recreate the same striking dominance against younger, more dangerous middleweight opponents, does that spell bad things for him?

Aside from Whittaker, the new middleweight titlist could face tough immediate challenges from former champions like Luke Rockhold and Chris Weidman as well as perennial top contenders such as Yoel Romero and Jacare Souza.

Is he really going to want to do that?

Now that St-Pierre is older and wiser, perhaps he’ll have learned to handle the stresses of being champion better than he could before. If not, there is little chance that he’ll be interested in diving back into the rinse-and-repeat schedule of defending the title against the toughest people in the world a few times a year.

Luckily for him, there are numerous other big-money bouts at his fingertips.

Depending on how things go in Anderson Silva’s upcoming bout against Kelvin Gastelum on Nov. 25, perhaps the Silva vs. St-Pierre superfight that never came together during their primes could finally be booked.

Bleacher Report’s Jonathan Snowden has already thrown his hat in the ring in favor of Conor McGregor. St-Pierre and McGregor could conceivably meet at either 170 or 185 pounds in a bout that would no doubt shatter the UFC’s previous pay-per-view record for buys.

There is also welterweight champion Tyron Woodley, who lacks a clear-cut next challenger after Stephen “Wonderboy” Thompson defeated Jorge Masvidal at UFC 217.

Considering what St-Pierre told Rogan, he may well still consider 170 pounds to be his “real weight.” If he gave up the middleweight title and returned to his old stomping grounds, it would certainly be for a superfight against McGregor or an immediate title shot against Woodley.

Does that mean it’s unreasonable to think St-Pierre has designs on becoming the fighting champion the middleweight class has been hungry for since Bisping won the title in June 2016?

Perhaps…perhaps not.

Just as it has always been, it’ll be hard to know exactly what’s in St-Pierre’s head until he decides to let the rest of the world in on it.

What we do know for sure after UFC 217 is that after four years away from the cage, he’s still got it.

What exactly will he do with it?

Stay tuned for that.

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UFC Isn’t Stupid Enough to Miss Out on Conor McGregor vs. St-Pierre…Right?

Heaving for breath and covered in his own blood, things were not looking up for Georges St-Pierre (26-2) in the UFC 217 main event. The former welterweight champion, best known as GSP, had done everything he does, popped his precise jab, thrown his spi…

Heaving for breath and covered in his own blood, things were not looking up for Georges St-Pierre (26-2) in the UFC 217 main event. The former welterweight champion, best known as GSP, had done everything he does, popped his precise jab, thrown his spinning karate kicks and even secured several takedowns.

It had all been for naught.

His opponent for his first bout back in the Octagon in almost four years, middleweight champion Michael Bisping (30-8), had taken all St-Pierre had to give and returned calm and collected fire. As the fight was moving into its third stanza, it seemed all but inevitable that his superior conditioning and size would slowly, surely win the day.

That’s when the left hook boomed in, right over the top of Bisping’s nearly blind right eye—the kind of shot that pulls fans to their feet and moves fighters, even exhausted ones covered in their own blood, to do increasingly horrible things to their foes.

There was a time, late in his first UFC run, when St-Pierre would have hesitated. He would have weighed the risks of charging in, with his mind doing Octagon calculus, perhaps missing the moment all together. An all-out effort to finish could fail. Bisping could be playing possum. The correct decision is to sit back, to accumulate points, to win on the scorecards, to never risk greatness.

That was the old GSP, the one who walked away with the sadness in his eyes, the one who no longer seemed comfortable in his vocation.

The new GSP charged in like a one-man SWAT team, with his eyes gleaming, Bisping’s glazed expression the chum in the water that inspired a frenzy of elbows and punches.

And then, as if by magic, he was on Bisping’s back. His arm, made slick by the blood, was snaking under the champion’s chin. Soon consciousness, the only hope Bisping was holding on to, had abandoned him as well.

St-Pierre was middleweight champion of the world.

“I thought I was doing well,” Bisping told Fox Sports after the fight. “He caught me with a good shot and wobbled me. He was strong. God bless him. Good for him. … This is a difficult sport. Respect to Georges. He beat me tonight. One team wins, and one team loses. Tonight was his night.”

In team sports, such a triumph is followed by downtime, an opportunity to unwind and process all that has just happened. Not in the UFC Octagon. Mere moments after having his hand raised, attention turned, not to what had transpired, but to what was next.

Welterweight champion Tyron Woodley, in the Fox Sports studio, staked his claim. Every middleweight contender looked at St-Pierre’s small frame, age, and wear and all but salivated. UFC President Dana White said GSP would remain at middleweight. The fighter himself told Joe Rogan this wasn’t his weight class but just an opportunity to challenge himself in his return.

“He’s not going to stay at middleweight,” former middleweight champion Chris Weidman opined on Fox Sports. “He’ll go back down now.”

No one said the only name that makes sense. No one mentioned Conor McGregor.

There are many reasons a fight between the two superstars is potentially a bad idea. The first 30, perhaps, are each pound that separates lightweight (where McGregor is the champion) from the middleweight class.

But while fanciful on the surface, the size difference isn’t nearly as extreme as it might seem. St-Pierre is no middleweight—not truly. Instead, he’s an enormously talented welterweight, a man whose skill, not his size, carried him to victory after victory. And McGregor, despite making his name at 145 pounds, is no small man. Only one inch in height and two inches in reach separate the two—hardly an insurmountable obstacle for a fighter of McGregor’s caliber.

St-Pierre would be the bigger man should the two meet at 170 pounds—but not so much bigger that the fight would be a farce.

GSP would, most likely, be a heavy favorite. Not only would his size pose problems for McGregor, but his skill set is strongest where the Irish superstar is weak. It’s easy to imagine the new middleweight champion, a man who just survived flush punches from a 185-pound man, walking through McGregor’s vaunted left hand, blasting a double leg takedown and hitting The Notorious until someone decides to find mercy in their heart and stop the fight.

But while the 30 pounds make a compelling case, the millions and millions of dollars a fight between the two men would generate surely makes it’s own loud argument. Earlier this year, McGregor got a taste of the income a superstar fighter can generate in a superfight when he boxed Floyd Mayweather Jr. in Las Vegas.

It was a ludicrous contest, one wherein the odds were stacked against him and the only victory likely to present itself was the trip to the bank to deposit one enormous check after another. Sound familiar?

The bout between Bisping and St-Pierre worked in part because of how beautifully their personalities interplayed. Bisping is the sport’s most likable jerk, a scamp with mischief glowing in his eyes, willing to say or do anything to keep things interesting. GSP is the consummate gentleman, the kind of man who apologizes for saying the word “balls” after a cage fight.

McGregor, at his core, is the Uber Bisping. Cocky beyond reason and articulate beyond compare, he would destroy St-Pierre in the weeks leading up to the fight. GSP, as is his wont, would smile awkwardly, grimace and plot his revenge in the cage.

It would be the greatest spectacle and biggest fight in the history of mixed martial arts. Surely not even the UFC, the company that missed out on GSP vs. Anderson Silva, Randy Couture vs. Fedor Emelianenko and Ronda Rousey vs. Cris Cyborg, would be foolish enough to mess this up?

There are no more Mayweathers on the horizon for McGregor. Nine-figure paydays are likely a thing of the past. The closest he could come is St-Pierre. They should make that fight immediately and never look back.

            

Jonathan Snowden is the author of The MMA Encyclopedia and covers combat sports for Bleacher Report.

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TJ Dillashaw KO of Cody Garbrandt Sets Stage for Demetrious Johnson Superfight

Bring on Mighty Mouse.
After TJ Dillashaw’s second-round KO of Cody Garbrandt put to rest one of the hottest feuds in men’s bantamweight history Saturday at UFC 217, there can be little doubt what should happen next.
If Dillashaw and men’s flyweight ch…

Bring on Mighty Mouse.

After TJ Dillashaw‘s second-round KO of Cody Garbrandt put to rest one of the hottest feuds in men’s bantamweight history Saturday at UFC 217, there can be little doubt what should happen next.

If Dillashaw and men’s flyweight champion Demetrious Johnson are serious about meeting each other in the Octagon, a deal must be struck to make it happen—and soon. Conditions aren’t going to get any more agreeable than this.

“Demetrious Johnson, I’m coming for you,” Dillashaw exclaimed in the cage after dispatching Garbrandt. “I’m breaking you. You got that [consecutive title defense] record that is fake. You know it. You should’ve been fighting me. You dodged me. I’m getting that belt. I’m coming to 125 [pounds], and I’m stopping your record.”

It’s rare that the UFC’s lightest-weight men’s divisions can produce an attraction worthy of the term “superfight.”

In Dillashaw vs. Johnson, however, the moniker fits. The pairing would amount to far and away the most compelling next available test for either champion and would likely be the most lucrative fight matchmakers could book under 155 pounds without calling Conor McGregor back from lightweight.

Dillashaw’s victory over Garbrandt made him just the ninth fighter in UFC history to twice win a title in the same weight class. In his mind, however, the 31-year-old California native was never truly dethroned as the 135-pound kingpin.

He lost his crown to a returning Dominick Cruz in January 2016. That defeat came via razor-close split decision, and Dillashaw remains convinced he never should have relinquished the belt.

In the wake of the loss, Dillashaw spent some time as an afterthought in the weight class he once ruled. Despite going 3-0 and serving opposite Garbrandt as a coach on a season of The Ultimate Fighter, it’s been a while since he was bantamweight’s focal point.

Most of the recent attention had been paid first to Cruz’s comeback from a series of potentially career-ending injuries and then to Garbrandt’s rise.

Garbrandt was hailed as a star in the making for the UFC after his easy victory over Cruz to win the title at UFC 207 in December 2016. For much of their ensuing feud, it seemed as though Dillashaw would serve merely as his natural foil.

The two had been training partners at California’s Team Alpha Male before Dillashaw made a high-profile and contentious split from the camp by moving his training to Colorado in late 2015. Garbrandt amplified those hard feelings during the run-up to their fight, lobbing a series of professional and personal attacks at Dillashaw.

The week of UFC 217, Garbrandt even took to his Instagram account to release a bit of footage appearing to show him knocking Dillashaw down during an old sparring session.

Early on Saturday night, it seemed their co-main event bout might be a repeat of that workout.

Garbrandt put Dillashaw down with a hard right hand near the end of the first round. Dillashaw got back to his feet just as the horn sounded to end the stanza but stumbled as he made his way back to the corner.

That near-finish allowed Garbrandt to find his swagger to begin the second. After Dillashaw grazed the top of his head with a kick, Garbrandt smoothed his hair and pulled off one of the mid-cage dance moves he used to wow the crowd in his win over Cruz.

The braggadocio was short-lived, though.

Just as the halfway point of the round passed, Dillashaw caught Garbrandt flush on the jaw with a counter right hook. The blow sent Garbrandt’s eyes rolling back in his head as he dropped to the canvas. Dillashaw followed him down, adding more strikes until referee Dan Miragliotta stepped in to stop the bout.

The victory put Dillashaw back on top and instantly gave him the political capital to announce he will next move down to flyweight to challenge the UFC’s longest-reigning champion.

Johnson has ruled the 125-pound class since winning a tournament to crown its inaugural titlist in September 2012. At UFC 216, he broke Anderson Silva’s longstanding record for consecutive UFC title defenses—at 11—when he defeated Ray Borg via highlight-reel fifth-round submission.

For the moment, Johnson has accomplished all he can in fights against the rank and file of the flyweight division. He’s been leaps and bounds ahead of his next best competition and requires a new challenge that might both push him athletically and cure fans of their apathy about the man who is the consensus pick as best pound-for-pound fighter in the world.

Dillashaw also could use something exciting to jump-start his second reign as 135-pound champ.

He could rematch with Garbrandt or take on the winner of Cruz’s upcoming bout with Jimmie Rivera at UFC 219.

Like Johnson, however, there’s nothing in his natural weight class that would be as interesting as the proposed interdivisional title scrap.

The UFC attempted to match Dillashaw and Johnson earlier this year, but the flyweight champ temporarily rejected the idea. Johnson said he would rather break the record for consecutive title defenses against a legitimate 125-pound contender.

Mighty Mouse has said all along, however, he would be game to meet the Dillashaw-Garbrandt winner once the record was in hand.

Dillashaw clearly remains interested in the bout. As does UFC President Dana White.

The fact Johnson originally turned down the idea of the fight even gives Dillashaw some verbal ammunition to lob in the lead-up.

“Demetrious can’t run from this one,” he said at the UFC 217 post-fight press conference. “This one’s too big. [Johnson] broke his record. He got to pad [his stats] and break his record. Now, let’s make some money.”

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GSP Stuns Michael Bisping at UFC 217, Is Among MMA’s Greatest of All Time

The GOAT. The greatest of all time.
The first was Fedor Emelianenko. Then it was Anderson Silva, but Chris Weidman sent him tumbling from the top.
It was Jon Jones and would have likely stayed that way for a long time, except for his inability avo…

The GOAT. The greatest of all time.

The first was Fedor Emelianenko. Then it was Anderson Silva, but Chris Weidman sent him tumbling from the top.

It was Jon Jones and would have likely stayed that way for a long time, except for his inability avoid screwing things up.

And now we’ve pretty much settled on Demetrious Johnson, though doubters still exist due to the strength of the 5’3″ fighter’s competition (and because of that weird thing where males look down upon other males who are small in stature).

Those names are the four most often mentioned. You know who you never hear about? Georges St-Pierre. Not anymore, at least. St-Pierre used to be “in the mix” back in the day, before he decided to go on hiatus and UFC President Dana White started burying him as a guy who “didn’t want to fight” every chance he got.

Before UFC 217, St-Pierre was decreasingly mentioned as the greatest welterweight in history, which is somewhat mind-boggling and most certainly insulting.

And now, after he defeated Michael Bisping at UFC 217 by third-round submission Saturday night at Madison Square Garden, St-Pierre isn’t just the new middleweight champion. He’s back in the mix. He’s a contender for greatest of all time. A possible GOAT. And he’s the fourth fighter in UFC history to capture a championship in two weight classes.

St-Pierre returned after a four-year layoff to fight in the UFC 217 main event. He moved up a weight class, appearing mostly like a more muscular version of the guy we remember from back in the day. He was slower, of course, which is a thing that happens when you’re carrying around more muscle and when you’re four years older.

And maybe he looked a little rusty, too, in the beginning of the fight. It was kind of like he needed a little WD-40 to get the creaks out. The lubricant came in the form of a knockdown when St-Pierre closed out the first round by putting Bisping on the canvas with a combo that started with his patented Superman jab, the same jab we watched him use to great effect in capturing and carrying the welterweight title.

The second round went more in Bisping’s favor, as the champion darted and weaved, and tagged St-Pierre with great strikes. Bisping even got up from under a visibly tiring St-Pierre after a takedown, which is a thing that never used to happen to St-Pierre.

It made you feel like maybe St-Pierre was running out of gas, or maybe he’d run out of time altogether. His corner forgot to give him back his mouthpiece before the third round, which would normally qualify as the weirdest thing to happen in that one-minute space except for the fact Bisping’s cup had somehow broken and so his corner was forced to MacGyver his underwear into holding the cup in place.

The third round started, and Bisping looked good—just kept on right where he left off—then suddenly he was on his back again and fighting to stay conscious as St-Pierre tried to make him unconscious.

And Bisping, ever the tough guy, lasted through the ground-and-pound, but he wasn’t able to react when St-Pierre quickly moved to his back and sunk in one of those rear-naked chokes that makes your throat hurt even though you’re watching at home. Bisping, because he is who he is, refused to tap out and opted to have his own lights turned out, his eyes slowly closing as he watched the final glimmer of light and his improbable championship reign slip away.

Georges St-Pierre. Middleweight champion.

St-Pierre joined Randy Couture, BJ Penn and Conor McGregor as a multi-division champion. He has more in common with Couture than the others, of course; Couture returned from a layoff after losing his UFC light heavyweight title to Chuck Liddell in 2006 by moving up to heavyweight and spanking Tim Sylvia around the Octagon to capture the heavyweight title. But Couture’s layoff was only a little over a year long, not four years, and Couture’s overall legacy is mixed at best.

St-Pierre’s legacy? It’s not mixed. He’s the greatest welterweight in history. He hasn’t lost a fight in 10 years. He’s only lost twice in 15 years. And if those things weren’t enough to give him a claim to being the greatest, he’s now done what many consider to be the ultimate sign of a true all-time great: gone up in weight, faced a bigger man, put him down and taken his title.

Maybe he’s not the greatest in your eyes. Maybe you think Johnson or Jones or Silva or Emelianenko have the edge. That’s fine. The thing about the GOAT debate is that it’ll never go away. We’ll never have a consensus. 

But here’s one thing for certain: If you overlook St-Pierre at this point, maybe you’re watching the wrong sport. 

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Rose Namajunas Pulled off ‘The Impossible’ by Taking out Unbeatable Joanna Champ

A few minutes after stunning Joanna Jedrzejczyk to win the UFC strawweight title, Rose Namajunas still couldn’t quite believe what she’d done.
“It feels like a movie right now,” Namajunas told color commentator Joe Rogan inside the Octagon after …

A few minutes after stunning Joanna Jedrzejczyk to win the UFC strawweight title, Rose Namajunas still couldn’t quite believe what she’d done.

“It feels like a movie right now,” Namajunas told color commentator Joe Rogan inside the Octagon after the particulars had been announced and UFC President Dana White had slung the title over her shoulder.

She was not alone.

Namajunas’ first-round stoppage of Jedrzejczyk on Saturday at UFC 217 sent shockwaves through the MMA world. Namajunas had come to their bout at Madison Square Garden as the biggest underdog on the pay-per-view card, while Jedrzejczyk was ensconced as one of the fight company’s most dominant champions.

But all it took was three minutes, three seconds to turn all that on its head.


Namajunas surprised Jedrzejczyk in the stand-up game early, dropping her to the canvas with a jab-cross combination roughly two minutes into the opening stanza of their fight. That time, Jedrzejczyk was able to get back to her feet, squirming away from Namajunas’ ground assault and using the cage to stand up.

When Namajunas caught her again less than a minute later, Jedrzejczyk was not so lucky.

It was a charging left hook that put the champ down for good. As Jedrzejczyk crumpled face-first on the mat against the fence, Namajunas poured on strikes from the top, ultimately forcing her opponent to tap out from the punishment.

The outcome was shocking for a couple of reasons.

First, because Jedrzejczyk had quickly established herself as a UFC fan favorite and the class of the organization’s 115-pound division. This was to be her sixth consecutive title defense, which would have moved her into a tie with Ronda Rousey for the most successful defenses of all time for a women’s champion.

She had jetted through a series of previous challengers that included the best contenders the strawweight division could offer. She defeated a smattering of strikers and grapplers while demonstrating a quirky, off-beat personal style and a singular viciousness that set her wholly apart in the world of women’s MMA. 

Secondly, if Namajunas was thought to have any chance at all against Jedrzejczyk, it wasn’t supposed to be in the striking department.

Since coming to the UFC in 2014, Jedrzejczyk’s bread and butter had been her technical and deadly accurate kickboxing game. By contrast, Namajunas’ skills—while perhaps better rounded—were not thought to be as sharp in that area.

Most expected Namajunas to try to ground Jedrzejczyk—to put her on the mat and attempt outgrapple her en route to a submission.

Instead, she beat the champion at her own game.

Jedrzejczyk had been brimming with confidence leading up to the fight. She taunted Namajunas throughout their pre-fight media obligations, even pressing her fist lightly against Namajunas’ face during the weigh-in.

When it was over, Namajunas indicated she hoped to strike a different tone with her own title reign.

“In many ways, Joanna showed me how to be a champion but also showed me how not to behave as a champion,” she said in an official UFC release. “I hope tonight changed some of her opinions about me.”

This was Namajunas’ second time fighting for the UFC title.

Her first chance came in the finale of The Ultimate Fighter Season 20, when she lost to Carla Esparza via third-round submission. At the time, Namajunas was just 22 years old and making her official Octagon debut after just shy of two years as a professional fighter.

Three months later, Jedrzejczyk defeated Esparza to become champion. Meanwhile, Namajunas went 4-1 during her next five fights, reclaiming No. 1 contender status with a second-round submission of Michelle Waterson in April.

During her second crack at UFC gold, Namajunas was not to be denied, though it didn’t look that way leading up to the fight.

She hadn’t responded to much of Jedrzejczyk’s trash talk at the media events. On fight night, Namajunas looked nervous during her walk to the cage, and her hand visibly shook as UFC PA announcer Bruce Buffer made her official introduction.

As the two met in the center of the cage for their final referee instructions, Jedrzejczyk crept right up in Namajunas’ face. When they separated, Namajunas appeared to shove her away.

The nervousness seemed to evaporate as soon as the fight started, with Namajunas landing a good low kick and a counter left hand in the early going. Jedrzejczyk also let loose with some of her own trademark ferocious combinations, but Namajunas was not flustered.

She continued to press forward and bring the action to the champion until finally forcing the stoppage.

Where the two fighters go from here is anyone’s best guess.

Jedrzejczyk had been so good and popular as champion that an immediate rematch could be in the offing. She has also talked about moving up to women’s flyweight when that division becomes a full-time addition to the UFC’s roster on Dec. 1.

With Namajunas as champion, strawweight’s top contenders—who had been picked off one by one during Jedrzejczyk’s reign—will all enjoy new life. Jessica Andrade’s victory over Claudia Gadelha in September solidified her status as No. 1 contender.

As the only woman to beat Namajunas since her loss to Esparza in December 2014, Karolina Kowalkiewicz could also make a good case. She took out Namajunas via split decision at UFC 201, and after back-to-back losses to Jedrzejczyk and Gadleha, she bounced back with a victory over Jodie Esquibel on Oct. 21.

Smart money may be on a rematch, however, as Namajunas and Jedrzejczyk still comprise the UFC’s best-known and best-liked 115-pound female fighters.

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