With Anderson Silva dethroned and Georges St-Pierre taking a break from fighting, Jose Aldo suddenly has a chance to become the most dominant UFC champion going.
At UFC 169, the featherweight champion will try to defend his UFC belt on a sixth consecut…
With Anderson Silva dethroned and Georges St-Pierre taking a break from fighting, Jose Aldo suddenly has a chance to become the most dominant UFC champion going.
At UFC 169, the featherweight champion will try to defend his UFC belt on a sixth consecutive outing. If he beats Ricardo Lamas on Saturday, Aldo would be tied with Jon Jones for the most consecutive title defenses inside the Octagon during a current title reign. Considering his stranglehold over the 145-pound class dates back to his WEC days, Aldo could make a case for being the top pound-for-pound fighter in the world this weekend.
Having won four straight fights, Lamas will be looking to end Aldo’s championship run. The 31-year-old has torn through his competition since joining the UFC roster and could present some problems for Aldo should he find a way to take the titleholder to the ground.
As this 145-pound championship bout approaches, here is a look at how Aldo and Lamas match up in all areas.
Don Frye told us that he’d be back after his UFC 168 installment of “Predator’s Predictions”, and since the only lie he ever told was that he’d call your mother the next day, “The Predator” has returned with UFC 169 in his crosshairs this time around.
What’s that, you say? There’s actually a different UFC event going down this weekend on Fox? THE PREDATOR HAS NOT THE TIME FOR YOUR MIDDLING CABLE TV CARDS. And if you don’t like how he does business, he’s sure there’s a Designing Women marathon with your name on it playing somewhere, bud.
After opening up this edition of “Predator’s Predictions” by alienating his dissenters as pathetic girlie-men and thanking Seth Macfarlane for bringing back Brian on Family Guy, Frye launches right into his usual mix of whiskey-soaked predictions and occasionally misogynistic insights. A few highlights:
–On Dominick Cruz’s latest injury: “I didn’t know Cruz had a groin.”
–On Ali Bagautinov: “Ali…Boobanov. He’s like the Tazmanian Devil on crack.”
–On Ricardo Lamas: “I remember Lorenzo from the hit TV show Renegade 17 years ago.”
–-On Ricardo Lamas, again: “You say that your favorite technique is ‘whatever wins me the fight.’ In your fight against Jose Aldo, I might recommend a baseball bat or a gun.”
–-On Renan Barao: “He looks like Veeter Belfort’s mini-me.”
If your voice doesn’t drop three octaves after watching this video, you’re either a eunuch or already dead.
Don Frye told us that he’d be back after his UFC 168 installment of “Predator’s Predictions”, and since the only lie he ever told was that he’d call your mother the next day, “The Predator” has returned with UFC 169 in his crosshairs this time around.
What’s that, you say? There’s actually a different UFC event going down this weekend on Fox? THE PREDATOR HAS NOT THE TIME FOR YOUR MIDDLING CABLE TV CARDS. And if you don’t like how he does business, he’s sure there’s a Designing Women marathon with your name on it playing somewhere, bud.
After opening up this edition of “Predator’s Predictions” by alienating his dissenters as pathetic girlie-men and thanking Seth Macfarlane for bringing back Brian on Family Guy, Frye launches right into his usual mix of whiskey-soaked predictions and occasionally misogynistic insights. A few highlights:
–On Dominick Cruz’s latest injury: “I didn’t know Cruz had a groin.”
–On Ali Bagautinov: “Ali…Boobanov. He’s like the Tazmanian Devil on crack.”
–On Ricardo Lamas: “I remember Lorenzo from the hit TV show Renegade 17 years ago.”
–-On Ricardo Lamas, again: ”You say that your favorite technique is ‘whatever wins me the fight.’ In your fight against Jose Aldo, I might recommend a baseball bat or a gun.”
–-On Renan Barao: “He looks like Veeter Belfort’s mini-me.”
If your voice doesn’t drop three octaves after watching this video, you’re either a eunuch or already dead.
Depending on your point of view, your heart either leapt or stopped cold last week, as Lorenzo Fertitta stood at a podium in New York and announced that the UFC planned to do 54 events during 2014.
Fifty-four.
It was a breathtaking number, a staggering…
Depending on your point of view, your heart either leapt or stopped cold last week, as Lorenzo Fertitta stood at a podium in New York and announced that the UFC planned to do 54 events during 2014.
Fifty-four.
It was a breathtaking number, a staggering increase from the 33 the UFC will have done by the end of 2013 and one that obviously meant the fight company would average more than an event per week during the next calendar turn.
Later, Fertitta said he misspoke.
The UFC CEO corrected himself in an interview with MMA Fighting’s Ariel Helwani, saying his organization’s fight cards would number “in the 40s” next year. Most of the upsurge, he added, would happen at overseas Fight Night shows that might not even air in the U.S.
If accurate, Fertitta’s recalibrated number simply represents the next step in the UFC’s ongoing international expansion plans. The faint whooshing sound you heard in response was American MMA fans sighing in unison—half of them with relief, half with disappointment.
No matter how you look at it though, 2014 will see yet another increase in the number of overall events from a promotion that at times appears hell bent on testing the limits of its own popularity.
Even it you’re one of those people who “can’t get enough” UFC, it occasionally feels like the fight company is on a mission to find out how much is too much.
Since its popularity exploded with the debut of “The Ultimate Fighter” in 2005, the UFC has steadily increased its annual crush of events—from five each year during 2003-04 to the 40-plus it forecasts for 2014. Simultaneously, it’s also drastically boosted the sheer volume of its programming hours, making nearly every fight it holds available to fans on television or Online.
Its fledgling broadcast deal with Fox now means the UFC has four separate tiers of live televised events, from pay-per-view broadcasts all the way down to occasional shows on Fox Sports 2. For each of those cards, fans—if they so desire—can watch somewhere in the neighborhood of six hours worth of content on a variety of channels and devices.
For hardcore fans, it has created a pugilistic wonderland where—even if you eschew off-brand products like Bellator, World Series of Fighting, Invicta and the weekly Friday broadcasts on AXS TV—there’s hardly ever a dull moment.
It also means the UFC continues to demand more and more of its fans, if not in PPV dollars then simply in the time it asks them to commit to following its many machinations.
At this point you couldn’t blame casual fans—the ones who might zone in and zone out at will—if they feel like keeping up with the UFC is like following a season of The Wire.
Miss an episode or two, and you end up feeling totally lost.
Take for example the case of Ricardo Lamas, who will fight Jose Aldo for the featherweight title at UFC 169 in February after appearing on exactly one previous UFC main card broadcast.
Hardcores are all over Lamas, who’s been stellar while going 4-0 in the Octagon since June 2011. There’s no doubt in their minds that he’s earned a shot at the championship after crafting a trio of impressive stoppages during those outings.
Casual fans, however, might not even know who Lamas is, considering that the bulk of his UFC bouts have aired on preliminary cards.
Not only will the Aldo fight be Lamas’ first appearance on a UFC pay-per-view, it will be his just his third showing on UFC TV, period. He fought in the first bout of a Fox broadcast back in January, but previous to that, his only televised UFC fight was on the now-defunct Fuel TV network.
His other pair of bouts were both Facebook prelims and so casual spectators would have to be following the thread pretty closely to remember him.
That doesn’t seem like a great situation for anyone—not Lamas, not Aldo and certainly not fans.
Now, imagine if he wins. As the UFC continues to add events to its schedule, cases like Lamas’ are only going to become more common. Great fighters will get put in big spots with little to no build.
Long story short, as the number of shows, the fighters on the payroll and the expectations on fans all continue to increase it gets more and more difficult to keep track of what the UFC is doing. At some point, a ceiling will be reached, a levy will break and fans will be forced to say no mas.
Perhaps the UFC will bump against that ceiling three years from now, or five.
Or perhaps it’s already there, now that not even the guy who owns the company seems to know exactly how many events are on tap for next year.
Turns out, next year’s bantamweight title unification bout between Renan Barao and Dominick Cruz is bigger than tradition.
The 135-pound championship fight will serve as the main even for UFC 169 on Feb. 1 in Newark, N.J., taking precedence over …
Turns out, next year’s bantamweight title unification bout between RenanBarao and Dominick Cruz is bigger than tradition.
The 135-pound championship fight will serve as the main even for UFC 169 on Feb. 1 in Newark, N.J., taking precedence over Jose Aldo’s featherweight title defense against Ricardo Lamas, according to a report Tuesday by MMA Junkie.com.
It is typical UFC policy on cards featuring multiple championship bouts that the heavier fighters are given top billing. By allowing Barao-Cruz to trump Aldo and Lamas’ 145-pound clash, the promotion effectively sends the message that this bantamweight title tiff will be something special.
The fight marks champion Cruz’s return to the Octagon after two years, four months away rehabbing injuries. In his absence, the talented 26-year-old Barao took control of the division, defeating Urijah Faber to claim the interim title at UFC 149 last July before skating through back-to-back title defenses.
Barao (31-1-1) opened as the betting favorite when the bout was announced last month, though Cruz (19-1) has never lost in the 135-pound division. Since dropping from featherweight in 2008, he’s gone 9-0, winning the WEC championship and then becoming the first-ever UFC 135-pound titlist when he defeated Scott Jorgensen in Dec. 2010.
The main impediment to Cruz’s success has been an inability to stay healthy, as he’s missed extended periods while nursing a series of knee injuries. His most recent defense of the bantamweight crown came in Oct. 2011, when he defeated current UFC flyweight champion Demetrious Johnson via unanimous decision.
At featherweight, Aldo (23-1) will be vying for the fifth consecutive defense of his UFC championship and his seventh straight defense overall, after winning the WEC title in Nov. 2009. The 145-pound champion and consensus top-five pound-for-pound fighter has won 16 fights in a row dating back to 2005.
Lamas (13-2) comes in riding a four-fight win streak in the UFC.
UFC 169 will be the company’s annual Super Bowl weekend show, typically regarded as one of the biggest MMA events of the year.
(“Let’s keep it goin’ for Paula Sack, folks. She’s beautiful, talented, *and* she can burp the alphabet in two languages.” / Photo via Getty)
The UFC confirmed last night that UFC 169 — the promotion’s Super Bowl Weekend card that’s scheduled for February 1st, 2014, in Newark — will be headlined by a pair of title fights in the featherweight and bantamweight divisions.
In the main event, 145-pound champ Jose Aldo will attempt to make his sixth UFC title defense against top contender Ricardo Lamas, who’s 4-0 in the UFC including stoppage wins against Cub Swanson and Erik Koch. Aldo is coming off his four-round shredding of Chan Sung Jung at UFC 163, which gave the Brazilian his 16th consecutive victory overall, as well as a broken foot.
In the co-main event, bantamweight champion Dominick Cruz will emerge from a 28-month hibernation to face Renan Barao, the interim champ (and Aldo’s Nova Uniao homeboy) who’s been steady wrecking fools in Cruz’s absence. UFC president Dana White has “made it pretty clear” that if Cruz has to pull out of this title unification bout with another injury, he’ll finally be stripped of his belt and Barao will be named the official champion.
Got any predictions, Potato Nation? And are two competitive title fights in the lighter weight classes just as interesting as one Jon Jones squash match?
(“Let’s keep it goin’ for Paula Sack, folks. She’s beautiful, talented, *and* she can burp the alphabet in two languages.” / Photo via Getty)
The UFC confirmed last night that UFC 169 — the promotion’s Super Bowl Weekend card that’s scheduled for February 1st, 2014, in Newark — will be headlined by a pair of title fights in the featherweight and bantamweight divisions.
In the main event, 145-pound champ Jose Aldo will attempt to make his sixth UFC title defense against top contender Ricardo Lamas, who’s 4-0 in the UFC including stoppage wins against Cub Swanson and Erik Koch. Aldo is coming off his four-round shredding of Chan Sung Jung at UFC 163, which gave the Brazilian his 16th consecutive victory overall, as well as a broken foot.
In the co-main event, bantamweight champion Dominick Cruz will emerge from a 28-month hibernation to face Renan Barao, the interim champ (and Aldo’s Nova Uniao homeboy) who’s been steady wrecking fools in Cruz’s absence. UFC president Dana White has “made it pretty clear” that if Cruz has to pull out of this title unification bout with another injury, he’ll finally be stripped of his belt and Barao will be named the official champion.
Got any predictions, Potato Nation? And are two competitive title fights in the lighter weight classes just as interesting as one Jon Jones squash match?
Depending on your point of view, your heart either leapt or stopped cold last week, as Lorenzo Fertitta stood at a podium in New York and announced that the UFC planned to do 54 events during 2014.