If you were looking forward to seeing Paul Daley competing under the Bellator banner, you’re out of luck for the time being. Daley has been arrested following an alleged bar fight and has been pulled from the upcoming welterweight tournament. Bel…
If you were looking forward to seeing Paul Daley competing under the Bellator banner, you’re out of luck for the time being. Daley has been arrested following an alleged bar fight and has been pulled from the upcoming welterweight tournament.
Bellator had originally hoped to match Daley up against Jon “War Machine” Koppenhaver after a fan vote chose those two fighters to be the first televised fight of the promotion’s season eight welterweight tournament, but that fight was postponed after War Machine was injured during training.
With the arrest, reported by ESPN.com, Daley has now been fully removed from the welterweight tournament. If convicted of the charges, Daley faces up to two years in prison.
Daley is no stranger to controversy. The heavy-handed striker saw his stint with the UFC come to an abrupt end when he sucker punched Josh Koscheck following the final horn of their bout in May 2010. The late punch led UFC president Dana White to proclaim at the post-fight press conference:
He’s done. I don’t give a s**t if he’s the best 170-pounder in the world. He’ll never come back here again…I’m probably the most lenient guys in sports. And this is probably one of the most lenient organizations. We’re all human, we all make mistakes, things happen. There’s no excuse for that. These guys are professional athletes. You don’t ever hit a guy blatantly after the bell like that whether you’re frustrated or not. It was probably one of the dumbest things I’ve ever seen…I don’t care if he fights in every show all over the world and becomes the best and everybody thinks he’s the pound-for-pound best in the world. He will never fight in the UFC ever again.
Daley found a home with Strikeforce following his release from the UFC and fought for that promotions welterweight title in April 2011, losing to then-champion Nick Diaz by a late first-round TKO. He would fight two more times for Strikeforce, losing both bouts before asking for and receiving his release from the promotion.
Daley is also infamous for missing weight, coming in over the limit six times since 2008.
Daley made his Bellator debut in July 2012, earning a TKO win over Rudy Bears in the first round of that matchup.
It is unclear as to what his future with Bellator is at this time, as the ESPN report states that Daley is unable to enter the United States due to the charges.
Over the past few days, we’ve witnessed a pair of rarely seen finishes in the octagon — a suplex KO and a flying reverse triangle — and after we here at CagePotato collectively picked our jaws up off the floor and found a clean pair of shorts, we got to thinking, what other techniques/finishes do we rarely come across in the MMA stratosphere? And more importantly, which of these techniques/finishes have we not devoted some sort of gif or video tribute to already?
Taking all of those factors into account, we came to the standing TKO, a finish so uncommon in MMA that we could only name a handful of occurrences before having to resort to the Interwebs for assistance. So in honor of the iron-jawed sumbitches who wouldn’t bow to defeat even when it was kneeing/punching/kicking them damn near to death, we’ve placed our favorite examples of this phenomenon below. Check ’em out after the jump and let us know which stoppages you thought were warranted and which ones could have gone on a little longer.
Over the past few days, we’ve witnessed a pair of rarely seen finishes in the octagon — a suplex KO and a flying reverse triangle — and after we here at CagePotato collectively picked our jaws up off the floor and found a clean pair of shorts, we got to thinking, what other techniques/finishes do we rarely come across in the MMA stratosphere? And more importantly, which of these techniques/finishes have we not devoted some sort of gif or video tribute to already?
Taking all of those factors into account, we came to the standing TKO, a finish so uncommon in MMA that we could only name a handful of occurrences before having to resort to the Interwebs for assistance. So in honor of the iron-jawed sumbitches who wouldn’t bow to defeat even when it was kneeing/punching/kicking them damn near to death, we’ve placed our favorite examples of this phenomenon below. Check ‘em out after the jump and let us know which stoppages you thought were warranted and which ones could have gone on a little longer.
Here at CagePotato HQ (read: my desk at work when the boss is in the crapper), we feel it only necessary to start writing the eulogy now, while the memories are still vivid, in an attempt to bring comfort to the grieving family and friends when the time comes. Let’s take a stroll down memory lane, shall we, and look back fondly at the most memorable moments in Strikeforce’s storied mixed martial arts history.
Frank Shamrock Gets a Friendly Stockton Greeting From Nick Diaz
In the spring of 2009, Strikeforce served up a hot matchup between former UFC champion and MMA legend Frank Shamrock and the future Strikeforce Welterweight champion and world-renowned trash talker Nick Diaz. As you can glean from the above photo and the ensuing nut grab you can see on YouTube at roughly the 3:23 mark, these two were about as cordial as a Kentucky Derby winner who had just spotted Alistair Overeem waiting in the stable with a knife and fork.
The remarkable thing about the whole ordeal was that Diaz remained true to himself at the risk of coming across as a disrespectful punk, not willing to play nice simply to placate other people, even if they did sign his paycheck. In all of the press conferences that have been held over the years, fighters have generally been pretty calm and polite — so much so that you have to wonder if they realize that the guy they’re shaking hands with is the same guy who’s getting paid to cave his face in come fight night. Not the Stockton, Calif. native, though, whoe’s about as subtle as he is media friendly. You’ll never have to guess what the Cesar Gracie product is thinking. This classic photo by Esther Lin is a reminder of just that.
(This belt means as much as the one Carlos Condit is carrying around. It’s funny how that works.)
Here at CagePotato HQ (read: my desk at work when the boss is in the crapper), we feel it only necessary to start writing the eulogy now, while the memories are still vivid, in an attempt to bring comfort to the grieving family and friends when the time comes. Let’s take a stroll down memory lane, shall we, and look back fondly at the most memorable moments in Strikeforce’s storied mixed martial arts history.
Frank Shamrock Gets a Friendly Stockton Greeting From Nick Diaz
In the spring of 2009, Strikeforce served up a hot matchup between former UFC champion and MMA legend Frank Shamrock and the future Strikeforce Welterweight champion and world-renowned trash talker Nick Diaz. As you can glean from the above photo and the ensuing nut grab you can see on YouTube at roughly the 3:23 mark, these two were about as cordial as a Kentucky Derby winner who had just spotted Alistair Overeem waiting in the stable with a knife and fork.
The remarkable thing about the whole ordeal was that Diaz remained true to himself at the risk of coming across as a disrespectful punk, not willing to play nice simply to placate other people, even if they did sign his paycheck. In all of the press conferences that have been held over the years, fighters have generally been pretty calm and polite — so much so that you have to wonder if they realize that the guy they’re shaking hands with is the same guy who’s getting paid to cave his face in come fight night. Not the Stockton, Calif. native, though, whoe’s about as subtle as he is media friendly. You’ll never have to guess what the Cesar Gracie product is thinking. This classic photo by Esther Lin is a reminder of just that.
Gina Carano vs. Cris Cyborg, The Biggest Women’s Fight In History
Before Ronda Rousey stole Dana’s heart, before Bellator ever had a woman’s tournament, and before Invicta FC ever promoted an entire fight card with nothing but female combatants, there was Gina Carano. The world loved her after being introduced to her on the revamped American Gladiators as “Crush.” From there she went on to become one of the most searched for people of the year — being named in Maxim‘s Top 20 Hot List didn’t hurt either. To say that the future Hollywood starlet had a following is a bit of an understatement. The buxom brunette was more than just a pretty face though, sporting an impressive 7-0 record heading into the inaugural Strikeforce women’s featherweight championship fight against the roid-fueled always-game Cristiane “Cyborg” Santos.
I’m a firm believer that more people were interested in seeing Carano fight than they were in WMMA. That being said, it doesn’t change the facts. Scott Coker had big brass balls to promote an MMA event with two women’s names on the marquee and broadcast it on Showtime to boot. At the time, no one had any real sense of how successful the ladies would be at selling tickets or drawing the coveted 18-34 year-old television viewers. That’s how it is when you’re blazing a trail.
The fight was lopsided and with literally only a second to spare in the first round, “Cyborg” punched her way to a TKO victory earning her a place in Strikeforce history as the first women’s champ. According to the events Wikipedia page, Coker’s gamble paid off.
The event averaged 576,000 viewers on the Showtime cable network. It peaked with 856,000 viewers for the night’s main event between Carano and Santos. The Carano vs. Cyborg event set a new MMA ratings record for Showtime, eclipsing a card headlined with Kimbo Slice and Tank Abbot, which averaged 522,000 viewers. It also more than doubled Strikeforce’s previous offering, Lawler vs. Shields, an event that averaged 275,000 viewers.
Arguably the Greatest Round in MMA: Nate Diaz vs. Paul Daley
Lately, when the UFC kicks off another abominable installment of The Ultimate Fighter, they host a special two-hour (or more!) season premiere wherein all the hopefuls are cheered on as they drink donkey ejaculate paired off and given one five-minute round in the Octagon to prove their mettle. Sadly, most of the neanderthals that drag their knuckles up the cage steps aren’t particularity familiar with clocks or the concept of time.
Again and again, we see guys completely oblivious to the beating they’ve been dished out and are content to clean their plate. All the while Dana and Lorenzo are baffled that the kids don’t just go for broke, swing for the fences, something (anything!) instead of pulling guard or playing patty-cake. In short, the fights to enter the TUF house are the polar opposite of the championship bout between Nick Diaz and Paul “Semtex” Daley.
These two middleweight bad boys had no intentions of leaving the opening frame, let alone leaving it in the hands of the judges. Fists flew with ill ambition. Caution was not only thrown to the wind, it had a jetpack strapped to its back and shot out of a cannon. If you didn’t know any better, you might’ve thought they were told the loser of the bout would have to spend a year in jail with War Machine because neither man seemed to conserve energy for the “championship rounds” — instead opting to kick it into high gear when the tide shifted in their favor.
This one round is a casual fan converter. Have your buddy from work/gym/AA meetings watch this and soon you’ll only have to pay half price for the next PPV.
On the next page: “Business as usual,” the fall of a legend, and the fight after the fight…
Although the UFC has easily secured the top position for “Most Interesting News of the Day,” their rivals over at Bellator have recently revealed a pretty unique feature of their own for their upcoming season on Spike TV. Besides the fact that they are completely exploiting War Machine’s less than positive personal history as a hype tool for his promotional debut*[AWESOME], Bjorn and the boys have debuted an interactive web series dubbed “Vote for the Fight,” which allows you to, wait for it, vote for the very first fight of their 2013 season on Spike TV.
Fans will be given the option to match up any of the following four fighters: Ben Saunders, Paul Daley, Douglas Lima, and our boy War Machine. In addition, Spike TV will be airing a new episode of the web series — which will provide some background and behind-the-scenes info on each of the participants — each Thursday.
Part 1 is above and Part 2 awaits you after the jump.
Although the UFC has easily secured the top position for “Most Interesting News of the Day,” their rivals over at Bellator have recently revealed a pretty unique feature of their own for their upcoming season on Spike TV. Besides the fact that they are completely exploiting War Machine’s less than positive personal history as a hype tool for his promotional debut*[AWESOME], Bjorn and the boys have debuted an interactive web series dubbed “Vote for the Fight,” which allows you to, wait for it, vote for the very first fight of their 2013 season on Spike TV.
Fans will be given the option to match up any of the following four fighters: Ben Saunders, Paul Daley, Douglas Lima, and our boy War Machine. In addition, Spike TV will be airing a new episode of the web series — which will provide some background and behind-the-scenes info on each of the participants — each Thursday.
An interesting side note is that none of these gentlemen will be appearing in Bellator’s next welterweight tournament. In fact, only two of them have ever met inside the cage before — Lima and Saunders — with Lima defeating Saunders by second round knockout at Bellator 57. One would think that Saunders would want a chance to earn some redemption against Lima or possibly face off against his fellow TUF 6 alum in War Machine, but according to his Twitter account, Saunders would much rather test the waters against arguably the most dangerous striker of them all: Paul “Semtex” Daley, who is fresh off a first round stomping of Rudy Bears in his Bellator debut. Lima, on the other hand, recently rebounded from his failed title bid against Ben Azzzzkren with a first round TKO win over Jacob Ortiz at Bellator 79.
But you don’t care about any of that. What you care about is who will War Machine be fighting next and will he actually make it to said fight without incarcerating himself in the mean time. The last time Machine aka Prison Mike was released from the clink, he broke Roger Huerta’s ribs and TKO’d that nail painting ninny in the third round, so you best believe that whoever he faces is going to get torn through like a bologna sandwich. We’d prefer if that someone was Askren, because everyone knows that the only one way to defend his narcolepsy-inducing lay-n-pray is with the savage, prison-based form of fighting known only as ape-n-rape, which War Machine has all but mastered by this point in his career. But we digress.
So what do you think, Potato Nation? Is Bellator’s new interactive feature a good thing for fans, or will they only screw things up worse than when they picked David Cook over David Archuleta? BUT D-ARCH WAS SOOO DREAMY!!
*Because when you think about it, prison is basically a limitless training facility to improve your MMA game if your willing to fork over the sanctity of your butthole every now and again. Reach for the stars, kids!
SPIKE will start their 2013 debut of Bellator with a main card bout featuring some of the promotion’s most popular welterweight fighters.As announced on Friday, Bellator will be hosting a “Vote For The Fight” campaign. Once the web series begins, it wi…
SPIKE will start their 2013 debut of Bellator with a main card bout featuring some of the promotion’s most popular welterweight fighters.
As announced on Friday, Bellator will be hosting a “Vote For The Fight” campaign. Once the web series begins, it will follow the training camps of Paul Daley, Ben Saunders, Douglas Lima and Jon “War Machine” Koppenhaver.
Depending on fan votes, two of those four fighters will have the distinction of being part of the first Bellator fight broadcast on SPIKE in 2013.
UFC and Strikeforce veteran Daley (30-12-2) made his debut with the company at Bellator 72, defeating his opponent by technical knockout in the first round. Since being cut from the UFC after attempting to hit Josh Koscheck after the end of their UFC 113 title eliminator, Daley has gone 7-3 in his last 11 fights.
Saunders, another UFC veteran, is currently 5-2 in Bellator with an overall 14-5-2 record. Like Daley, he also got back into the win column at Bellator 72 with a first-round knockout win over Brian Warren, who entered the match on a five-fight winning streak.
Lima recently won Bellator’s Season 5 Welterweight Tournament, but had a nine-fight winning streak snapped by champion Ben Askren. Lima rebounded this weekend at Bellator 79 by notching a third-round TKO victory, improving his professional MMA record to 22-5.
War Machine carries a 12-4 record, with his most recent win coming against Roger Huerta in November 2011. War Machine has previously competed twice in the UFC, where he ended a 1-1 stint with a first-round submission loss to Yoshiyuki Yoshida.
War Machine was later cut from the UFC not long after making public comments about former UFC middleweight champion Evan Tanner, who died in 2008 due to heat exposure during a camping trip in the desert region west of Palo Verde, California.
War Machine maintained to MMA Junkie that he suspected Tanner committed suicide, claiming that a “depressed” Tanner “never made [expletive] for money” and had “no chance for a comeback” after losing to Ultimate Fighter Season 3 winner Kendall Grove.
However, War Machine additionally drew the ire of UFC matchmaker Joe Silva after turning down a fight, which prematurely ended his 10-fight contract with the promotion:
“Joe Silva — he was pretty much on a power trip,” War Machine said. “He was like, ‘I already told you that I already have [Brandon Wolff] for War Machine. I don’t know who he is thinking he’s negotiating with me. You know what? I’m sick of this guy.’ Then he brought up the Evan Tanner thing. ‘He made a dumbass comment on Evan Tanner. He’s not supporting the UFC. You know what? War Machine is cut.’ And they cut me.”
After multiple arrests in Las Vegas and at least two accounts of alleged assault with a deadly weapon, War Machine was eventually imprisoned in the San Diego’s George Bailey Detention Facility for two years. He was released from jail on October 29, 2012.
Yes, the headline is 100% accurate. Perhaps the third time really is a charm, as Marius Zaromskis and Wachiim Spiritwolf finally had a fight last night that didn’t end with an eye poke just seconds into the fight or a highly questionable stoppage. We know, we’re just as excited as you are.
But first, let’s go over the tournament bouts. In the evening’s main event, judo black belt Karl Amoussou made quick work of Jackson MMA’s Bryan “The Beast” Baker. After an early accidental eye poke from Baker, the two traded blows throughout the opening frame. Then, after a failed Super KickTM from Baker, Amoussou locked in a nasty heel hook that earned the submission just fifty six seconds into the bout. Seriously, that’s how this one ended. Take a look:
Yes, the headline is 100% accurate. Perhaps the third time really is a charm, as Marius Zaromskis and Wachiim Spiritwolf finally had a fight last night that didn’t end with an eye poke just seconds into the fight or a highly questionable stoppage. We know, we’re just as excited as you are.
But first, let’s go over the tournament bouts. In the evening’s main event, judo black belt Karl Amoussou made quick work of Jackson MMA’s Bryan “The Beast” Baker. After an early accidental eye poke from Baker, the two traded blows throughout the opening frame. Then, after a failed Super KickTM from Baker, Amoussou locked in a nasty heel hook that earned the submission just fifty six seconds into the bout. Seriously, that’s how this one ended. Take a look:
Amoussou will now face Ben Askren for the welterweight title. Given his judo background, he may be able to keep “Funky” Ben from lying on top of him for five rounds. Just don’t count on it – we’ve probably said this before about one of Askren’s foes.
In the co-main event, Rudy “Bad News” Bears certainly lived up to his nickname, providing Bellator newcomer Paul “Semtex” Daley with a durable punching bag for two minutes and forty five seconds. The former UFC/Strikeforce contender was never really in danger while outstriking Bears, ending the fight with vicious knees before delivering a nasty left hook. Daley will be in the Season Seven Welterweight Tournament starting in September, while Rudy Bears drops to 14-11, going 1-4 in his last five outings.
In light-heavyweight tournament action, Attila Vegh managed to outstrike Emanuel Newton en route to a split decision victory. Newton managed to find success with body kicks and a suplex in the third round, but Vegh managed to stay on his feet and land combinations throughout the bout. The victory makes it seven in a row for Vegh. Also, Travis Wiuff managed to take Tim Carpenter down early and often en route to a unanimous decision victory. Wiuff sometimes can fight like the Jon Fitch of the Indie Leagues, but damn is he ever effective. If Wiuff can get past Attila Vegh, he’ll have earned his well deserved rematch against Bellator LHW “champion” Christian M’Pumbu.
As for Zaromskis vs. Spiritwolf, it ended without controversy, which is about all we can ask for at this point. It was just an added bonus that it wasn’t a bad fight. Spiritwolf shot in for takedowns throughout the bout – sometimes just to try to get Zaromskis to drop his hands, sometimes looking to put him on his back – but Zaromskis defended himself well. In the end, Marius Zaromskis landed strikes far more often than Spiritwolf, earning a split decision victory. Perhaps the new rule changes (specifically the new definition of “aggressive striking”) explain the third judge’s scorecard, as even though Zaromskis landed far more strikes, Spiritwolf’s strikes seemed to do more damage when they landed.
Full Results:
Main Card:
Karl Amoussou def. Bryan Baker via submission (heel hook), 0:56 Round One
Paul Daley def. Rudy Bears via TKO (strikes), 2:45 Round One
Attila Vegh def. Emanuel Newton via split decision
Travis Wiuff def. Tim Carpenter via unanimous decision
Marius Zaromskis def. Waachiim Spiritwolf via split decision
Preliminary Card:
Paul Barrow def. Jason Carapelluci via submission (rear-naked choke), 0:46 Round Three
Ben Saunders def. Brian Warren via TKO (knees), 0:22 Round One
Raul Amaya def. Kenny Moss via verbal submission (injury), 0:30 Round Two
Matt McCook def. Shannon Slack via split decision
Julien Williams def. Ryan DeRocher via technical submission (arm-triangle choke), 1:32 Round Two
SPIKE will start their 2013 debut of Bellator with a main card bout featuring some of the promotion’s most popular welterweight fighters.