Being labeled an aggressive UFC fighter is like being the tallest guy on the basketball team or the greediest banker on Wall Street.
So it goes in the Ultimate Fighting Championship. Not every fighter is a house of fire, but there’s an abiding sense of…
Being labeled an aggressive UFC fighter is like being the tallest guy on the basketball team or the greediest banker on Wall Street.
So it goes in the Ultimate Fighting Championship. Not every fighter is a house of fire, but there’s an abiding sense of combat in every fighter. I mean, this is fighting, after all—bloody, bloody fighting.
For a moment, let us lay down the burdens of things like technical prowess, individual success or concern for the longevity of your career or overall well-being. Let’s make Just Bleed Guy happy and focus solely on the aggression factor, and rank the five active UFC fighters (plus some honorable mentions) who bring the most of it to every engagement.
Individual success is indeed a factor, but the visual evidence of aggression is the top consideration. Official UFC stats on strikes landed per minute and/or submission attempts per 15 minutes are also part of the equation, but again they don’t provide the full picture.
Preference is also conferred on more recent performances, as well as fighters who bring aggression for the duration of their fights, as opposed to shorter bursts. Sorry, Robbie Lawler.
MMA fans loved to see fights finished. The quality of a card is often judged based upon how many fights wrap up inside the distance, and many will applaud major bouts ending in a matter of seconds.
Still, there is a clearly defined line there. Whi…
MMA fans loved to see fights finished. The quality of a card is often judged based upon how many fights wrap up inside the distance, and many will applaud major bouts ending in a matter of seconds.
Still, there is a clearly defined line there. While a clean knockout or submission is a very nice thing, there have been many stoppages over the years that, for one reason or another, have made aficionados squirm in their seats.
Coming off a few weeks of UFC action that have been chock-full of dramatic comebacks and one-punch knockouts, it’s worth taking a look back on some of the finishes that sent fans home unnerved.
Here are the top 10 scariest finishes in UFC history.
UFC Fight Night 107 may have lacked star power, but it still contained some pretty interesting fighters—and some doggone interesting fights.
The main event of the card, which aired Saturday on UFC Fight Pass, pitted heavy-striking light heavyweig…
UFC Fight Night 107 may have lacked star power, but it still contained some pretty interesting fighters—and some doggone interesting fights.
The main event of the card, which aired Saturday on UFC Fight Pass, pitted heavy-striking light heavyweight Jimi Manuwa against grinder Corey Anderson. With the card taking place at the O2 Arena in London, Englishman Manuwa was the crowd favorite.
The winner of the bout was looking at a big leap forward in the light heavyweight division, as was the victor in the co-main event, which featured welterweights Alan Jouban and Gunnar Nelson in a striker-grappler matchup.
As noted, there was no big star anchoring the card. But you don’t need star power to have a quality card—there was intrigue all up and down the lineup in London, and as usual, the final stat lines only reveal so much. These are the real winners and losers from UFC Fight Night 107.
UFC Fight Night 107 goes down Saturday from London, one of the world’s great metropolises.
With apologies to Jimi Manuwa and Corey Anderson, who do battle in the evening’s main event, this card, airing entirely on UFC Fight Pass, may lack the gle…
UFC Fight Night 107 goes down Saturday from London, one of the world’s great metropolises.
With apologies to Jimi Manuwa and Corey Anderson, who do battle in the evening’s main event, this card, airing entirely on UFC Fight Pass, may lack the gleam and charm of its host city.
A more apt analogy between event and host may be the Dickensian London of a bygone era. Let’s travel back to a time when the city was darker and harder, a labyrinth of thick walls, smokestacks and dark alleyways. This is the setting that gave birth to some of literature’s great unlikely heroes, icons like Oliver Twist and Sherlock Holmes.
In this context, we can move forward with our appreciation of UFC Fight Night 107. Several fighters, lesser-known to the casual fan but brimming with charisma and potential, are primed to burst from the shadows and stake their claims to the limelight.
The Louisiana native takes on grappler extraordinaire Gunnar Nelson in the evening’s co-main event. Jouban’s high-octane Muay Thai provides an exciting foil for a ground fighter like Nelson—or anyone else, for that matter.
Before his career began, the fighting gods swung low and blessed Jouban with two helpings of marketability. During the day, he works as a mild-mannered fashion model in Los Angeles. This is also where he trains, residing at the flagging but still potent Black House and the famed 10th Planet Jiu-Jitsu gym operated by Eddie Bravo (Joe Rogan, among others, also trains here).
Jouban is also good on the mic and social media, a self-effacing presence with the toughness to return fire on opponents and the acuity to always be looking for his next call-out.
Inside the cage, Jouban is a southpaw with stopping power in his left hand and foot. He’s a smart fighter on the whole but still lets himself get drawn into brawls, at which point he becomes fairly easy to hit. All the more fun for fans, if not for Jouban’s gray matter.
Wrestling is an improvement area, but he’s active off his back while on the ground and is better with submissions than he gets credit for.
Jouban is on a three-fight winning streak, most recently dispatching lightning rod Mike Perry. But Nelson is at a different level. If Jouban can pull the upset—he can be backed at 3-1, according to OddsShark—he’ll be ready for prime time. Like, TV prime time.
Amrikhani has a little bit of confidence to him. No unassuming person goes by a nickname like Mr. Finland. No, make no mistake. Amirkhani is very assuming.
He certainly assumes he’s going to win every time, and that instinct has been borne out in his young UFC career, during which time he’s undefeated. He has an even greater dose of swagger thanks to his move last year to the SBG Ireland gym. There, the Iranian-born Finn trains alongside lightweight champion and pound-for-pound swagtator Conor McGregor.
“Everybody in the featherweight [division] should be scared,” Amirkhani told Ken Hathaway and Matt Erickson of MMAjunkie. “When I step into the SBG, when I spend more time there, I’ll be a really dangerous fighter after this when I go there.”
This will be Amirkhani’s first bout with “more time” under his belt at SBG Ireland. It will be interesting to see how his striking chops have progressed in the 13 months since he last competed; unlike the standard European prospect, Amirkhani is a grappler first and foremost.
If he prevails in his fight with the anonymous Arnold Allen, and he’s the 5-6 favorite to win, he’ll keep a good thing going. Two of his three UFC wins to date came by stoppage, and one earned him a post-fight performance bonus. The well-rounded 28-year-old has the ability—and certainly the willingness—to be a high-wattage star from the UFC, particularly in Europe.
Probably the least well-known of this triad, the 23-year-old Englishman is one of the hottest up-and-comers in the lightweight division, be it in the UFC or anywhere else.
Bonecrusher has five knockouts to his name, which kind of gives you a sense of his specialty.
Diakiese was born in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and moved to England when he was 12. He splits his training time between Allstars Training Center and Atherton Submission Wrestling, but his speed and power are unteachable. As he has matured as a fighter, he has polished his gifts with technique and tempered his aggression with patience, becoming a well-rounded competitor in the process.
One thing that was just fine right from the start? His gift of hype. A relentless trash talker, he once compelled German fighter Nick Hein to block him on social media. He also made a few waves ahead of UFC Fight Night 107 by becaming the first UFC fighter to pose for a gay magazine.
This is a fairly tight three-month turnaround for Diakiese; his last fight came in December, and it was win over the similarly well-regarded Frankie Perez. He seems to like it that way, though. This is his third fight since joining the UFC in October.
If he can make an impression on this undercard against virtual unknown and injury fill-in Teemu Packalen, he might be able to take a leap to higher-profile slots on future cards.
Scott Harris writes about MMA for Bleacher Report.
Many things have changed since WME-IMG made their record purchase of the UFC last year. Matchmaking and building pay-per-views have been altered considerably, and the chase of the almighty dollar appears to be as prominent as anything that suggests MMA…
Many things have changed since WME-IMG made their record purchase of the UFC last year. Matchmaking and building pay-per-views have been altered considerably, and the chase of the almighty dollar appears to be as prominent as anything that suggests MMA is still a sport.
Some athletes under the promotion’s umbrella have shown up in movies or are going to, which is an interesting turn of events. Back in the days when the Fertittas ran things, any cinematic crossovers were purely coincidental and largely focused on the biggest stars the UFC had to offer.
When new ownership took over, they began to tout the possibility of commoditizing their fighters in the Hollywood realm with far greater regularity.
With that process underway, it’s hard not to think that licensing UFC stories for feature length adaptation won’t be far behind. There have been far too many remarkable happenings in the UFC over the years for such a profit-driven ownership group to ignore the potential to generate revenue that those stories have.
Realistically, some guys already have movies about them, and the UFC itself has dipped its toe into the short film waters in the past to great acclaim. It’s not going to be a far trip to start doing features.
If that’s the objective that WME-IMG has in mind and it’s the avenue they plan to go with the UFC, the following five stories might generate a little box office cheddar and get some butts in theatre seats when the time comes.
MMA has a wider universe than just the UFC. You probably know that, but do you really know it?
Yes, the UFC tends the strings for a massive portion of the sport’s athletic talent. But not all of it. They probably would if they could, but all that consu…
MMA has a wider universe than just the UFC. You probably know that, but do you really know it?
Yes, the UFC tends the strings for a massive portion of the sport’s athletic talent. But not all of it. They probably would if they could, but all that consumption would mean painful bloating for a company hell bent on a leaner profile.
Bellator, ONE Championship, World Series of Fighting and other shows major and minor, international and local have legitimate fighters on their rosters. Those fighters compete at a high level no matter what banner they’re under, and they deserve to be celebrated.
So, let’s do that right now. Let us identify and rank the 10 best fighters (and some honorable mentions besides) not currently confined to the Octagon. We even have video clips for the lesser-known fighters.
Rankings are based on records, accomplishments and level of competition, with emphasis on recent performance. Free agents who haven’t signed anywhere yet—e.g. Ryan Bader, Lorenz Larkin—are not included.
UFC Fight Night 107 goes down Saturday from London, one of the world’s great metropolises. 