On April 9, 2005, the landscape of mixed martial arts was changed forever. That was the night that Stephan Bonnar fought Forrest Griffin in the TUF season 1 finale.In one of the greatest displays of human determination ever witnessed inside the cage, t…
On April 9, 2005, the landscape of mixed martial arts was changed forever. That was the night that Stephan Bonnar fought Forrest Griffin in the TUF season 1 finale.
In one of the greatest displays of human determination ever witnessed inside the cage, the two men gave everything they had and put on a spectacle for the world to see.
Stephan Bonnar came up short, and Forrest Griffin was declared the winner, but both fighters were given UFC contracts.
Their careers have continued on a similar note. Griffin has gone on to win (and lose) the UFC light heavyweight championship, while Bonnar has never even challenged.
Bonnar has fought the best of the best, but it seems that he just couldn’t quite reach that elite level. His losses consist mostly of current/former champions (Forrest Griffin, Rashad Evans, Lyoto Machida and Jon Jones).
At this point in his career, Bonnar is 35 and isn’t getting any younger. It’s fair to say that his best days are behind him.
However, he’s put together a nice three-fight winning streak, albeit against middling competition (Kyle Kingsbury, Igor Pokrajac and Krzysztof Soszynski).
Although he was never the most physically gifted fighter, he makes up for what he lacks in grit and determination. He’s earned his nickname “The American Psycho,” and fans know that he will never shy away from a good old fashioned brawl.
His counterpart, Forrest Griffin, is currently scheduled to fight Chael Sonnen at UFC 155. Although Griffin is coming off a win against Tito Ortiz, his career has taken a bit of a slide. (His exit of the cage and post-fight interview with Tito was just bizarre.) If Griffin loses against Sonnen (which I think is likely), it would be great to see Griffin and Bonnar go at it one more time.
Would the rematch live up to the first fight? Not likely. However, the world seems to love trilogies, and it just seems fitting that these two fight one last time to wrap everything up.
For all he’s done, and all that he’s given to the sport, Bonnar is owed at least one more big fight.
Jesse Katz has been a fan of martial arts for a long time. These days, when someone says they’re a fan of martial arts, you can probably assume that they’re talking about the Ultimate Fighting Championship, and you’d be right in most cases. The UF…
Jesse Katz has been a fan of martial arts for a long time.
These days, when someone says they’re a fan of martial arts, you can probably assume that they’re talking about the Ultimate Fighting Championship, and you’d be right in most cases. The UFC is the largest martial arts brand in the world, and they’re the ones doing the most to spread the good word of jiu-jitsu, kickboxing, karate and wrestling to the masses.
But Katz was a fan long before there was much of a UFC, and certainly long before Forrest Griffin and Stephan Bonnar waged a classic fight that would help launch the UFC into the mainstream and, as luck would have it, eventually lead to a signature line for Roots of Fight, the clothing company Katz founded earlier this year.
But we’ll get into that part of the story a little bit later.
Katz created Roots of Fight because he wanted to tell interesting stories about the history of martial arts. There were dozens—perhaps even hundreds—of prominent T-shirt companies flooding the market with all manner of skulls, angels wings, swords and crosses.
The formula for creating an MMA-themed shirt was fairly predictable: Take a fighter’s name, splash it across the top and then fill the rest of the shirt with tribal designs or armor or whatever else you think might represent cool dudes who fight for living. They weren’t pretty, but they were a license to print cash.
Katz wanted no part of that racket.
“I saw that there was a hole in this industry, where there just wasn’t anybody talking about the history of the sport,” Katz said. “I felt that I could do this mix of storytelling and apparel in an environment where there was nobody digging into it.”
Katz worked on the concept for Roots of Fight for over two years before finally launching the company early in 2012. “These are the early days,” Katz offers when I ask him what the formative days of his company were like. “We just launched this on January 17, so it’s only six months old.”
Katz’s products are unlike anything else on the market. For starters, they’re built on a foundation of clean and great design. They’re something you can wear in public without the fear of being pigeonholed as a violence-loving, beer-swilling bro.
But they’re also a great conversation starter, because they’re not just a collection of random images, clip art and known memes associated with mixed martial arts. They’re a jumping-off point into the history of fighting, not a celebration of the culture surrounding the UFC. That’s an important distinction.
“I think what separates us—and what we strive for in order to separate ourselves—is that we lead with story. We lead with having a point of interest. Every shirt that we make is part of a bigger story. Every component of what we do as a business is related to something that is rooted in an authentic moment or time or achievement of one of these icons, or the story of an icon,” Katz said. “This new sport of MMA moves very fast, and we didn’t see anybody else telling the history of it.
“So for us, we lead with this story explaining the rich history of all of these arts from around the world and how they’ve morphed into each other and evolved to culminate in what is today’s MMA. It just happens to lend itself really well to telling stories on T-shirts and carrying forward those stories.”
Katz’s first task for Roots of Fight was the creation of bloodlines. He matched up regions with disciplines: Israel with Krav Maga, France with savate, judo with Japan and so forth. He then anchored each of those bloodlines with an icon of the sport, to give each art its own gravity and to make a point: that these martial arts have a much bigger history than what you see on Saturday night inside the Octagon.
“Bruce Lee, Muhammad Ali, Mike Tyson. These guys are global icons. They’re not just combat sports figures. They’ve been able to transcend their sport, to reach people in every corner of the globe,” Katz said.
Tyson’s role in the Roots of Fight story is quite interesting. In his early years—and perhaps even the middle ones—Tyson wasn’t the easiest man in the world to work with. But that’s all changed in recent years, as Tyson has blossomed into a media and film darling, a Broadway attraction and a man far removed from the angry young warrior he was during his heyday.
Katz said that working with Tyson on his Roots of Fight line could not have been an easier experience. They were introduced to Tyson and his wife Kiki through a mutual friend, and Katz said the entire process could not have been simpler.
“We were introduced to them through a mutual friend. We had one conversation with Kiki,” Katz said. “And literally from talking to her on a Tuesday, we flew down the next day and ended up spending the day at their house with them and their children and family, and we had a phenomenal experience. They were extremely welcoming and supportive and warm. And they really liked the project.
There’s a heavy weight that comes with this. We’ve had the good fortune of having all of these icons entrust us with their legacies, with telling their stories in a way that is respectful and authentic. It’s quite a responsibility.”
Tyson said that he’s ultimately pleased with how Katz and his company handled his image.
“We wanted to do some kind of university style and varsity style of outfits. Basically something to represent the year I unified the titles,” Tyson recently told Complex. “It’s a real cool company and when they presented the idea I just thought it was awesome.
“They did shirts for Ali, Bruce Lee and a number of other fighters. There’s just a conglomerate of connections that they’ve been associated with. I’m just proud to be involved with him.”
All of the early Roots T-shirt lines focused on the legendary figures Tyson mentioned above, but the next story they’re telling is one that might be a bit more familiar to UFC fans: the legendary battle between Griffin and Bonnar from the first Ultimate Fighter finale on April 9, 2005.
Katz was introduced to the UFC by mutual friends Alex and Shannon Lee. Katz met with the company, showed them what he was working on and said the UFC was excited by what they’d seen. Katz was approached by the promotion about creating some exclusive content for the digital version of UFC Magazine.
“They wanted us to tell some stories about their past. So we collaborated and came up with this idea of something that fits with Roots of Fight, which is all about telling the history, and something that fit into their contemporary marketing plans. We arrived at this series telling stories of UFC legends. We went down and shot Randy Couture, Forrest and Urijah Faber, and just had some great pieces with them and some great storytelling.
“This was the pivotal fight for the company. It’s largely regarded—not just by people inside the company but also by people outside of it—as the fight that made the UFC and propelled them into the successful business they are today.”
Partnering with the UFC is a huge business opportunity for anyone operating in the mixed martial arts world, and Roots of Fight is no different.
“We’re very excited by it. I’m proud to be associated with the UFC. We’re telling the story of all of the individual arts and their history and their icons,” Katz said. “But really, this is not just the largest stage for this sport, but it also has practitioners that have become the best at all of these individual arts. It’s getting unbelievable practitioners in each style that are now competing in the UFC.
“And so it’s a perfect fit for us, both marketing-wise and story-wise. We like to talk about the icons of the sport and of the individual arts, but these are the stars of today and the icons of tomorrow. It’s an unreal partnership.”
It’s been a weird year for Stephan Bonnar. He’s been rolling in the cage in ways he hasn’t for a very long time, and yet away from it, he’s been unable to gain any traction whatsoever. Wants to fight Rampage Jackson? Not gonna h…
It’s been a weird year for Stephan Bonnar. He’s been rolling in the cage in ways he hasn’t for a very long time, and yet away from it, he’s been unable to gain any traction whatsoever.
Wants to coach The Ultimate Fighter against Forrest Griffin? No thanks, Stephan.
Wants to fight any name that will move him up the ranks? Sorry, pal, can’t help you.
After repeatedly having fires stomped out by the UFC before he can properly stoke them, the aging warrior seems to be in a place where retirement is his most viable option. When you’ve spilled as much blood as Bonnar has in the Octagon, you get to call those shots.
Make no mistake: the UFC doesn’t owe Bonnar anything.
Just as he did so much for the promotion in his first fight with Forrest Griffin, the promotion did plenty for him by keeping him around despite some slides and promising a career for life no matter what.
It’s been a two-way street.
But you know what? The UFC needs to put Stephan Bonnar in its Hall of Fame.
The fact of the matter is that the UFC Hall of Fame is, relatively speaking, a joke. Sure, the guys who are in it are deserving, but the joke comes from the guys who aren’t in there.
Guys like Frank Shamrock and Don Frye—legends in the sport who did incredible things to build the UFC—are openly unwelcome because of personal differences with Dana White.
There’s also the fact that there are no concrete guidelines to get in: No known voting protocols, no time on the calendar that inductions are known to happen, no known number of inductees that are to be brought on board at a given induction.
Plus the little issue of the Hall of Fame being run by a promoter rather than an independent panel—something no other pro sport does.
Qualms with the UFC Hall of Fame aside, though, it’s the best the sport has at the moment. And it’s where Bonnar belongs if it’s where his contemporaries are.
Ask anyone and they’ll say Forrest Griffin will be inducted upon his retirement. He was a TUF winner, a champion and one of the first marketable personalities of the promotion’s most significant boom. He also took part in what White calls the most important fight in UFC history, against Bonnar.
With that in mind, how can Bonnar not follow his friend and nemesis there?
Sure, he didn’t win titles or even any fights against a name bigger than Keith Jardine, but he was there when it mattered. He was a blood-and-guts warrior when the promotion needed one, and he always did it with a good quote, quick wit and an understanding of what he brought to the UFC.
That may not be enough to warrant Hall of Fame consideration—one massive fight and a willingness to bleed, admittedly, doesn’t sound that impressive on its own. However, one of the greatest pitfalls of the UFC Hall of Fame could become one of its greatest assets in the case of Bonnar—the unchallenged omnipotence of the UFC in deciding who gets in.
Other sports see plenty of guys who could warrant Hall of Fame consideration for things other than pure numbers, but because certain stats are seen as benchmarks, the individuals on voting committees tend to err on the side of caution with their selections.
Dana and company don’t have to do that. So why not put him in? Issues with the current UFC Hall of Fame system notwithstanding, it would be a great sendoff for a true warrior who deserves it.
He wasn’t an all-time great. He never held gold, and he never will.
But if what he did for the UFC was truly as important as White would have you believe, that glass plaque would be more meaningful in Bonnar’s hands than in the hands of any man who came before him—both for the UFC, and for the man holding it.
With the recent announcement that Roy Nelson and Shane Carwin have been named as the coaches for the next installment of The Ultimate Fighter series, the MMA universe immediately launched into a full-blow orgasmic ticker-tape parade complete with tons of flying confetti and a marching band belting out death metal tunes. Once I heard the news, it was as if my life instantaneously turned into a beer commercial and the entire Potato Nation was invited. There was a rad pool-party, barbeque, a plethora of hotties, endless alcohol, and an overall quest for fun.
Well . . . . . actually, none of that happened. In fact, when word spread that Nelson and Carwin would helm the next season of TUF, it was officially filed under “WTF?” Judging from the comment section, most of the CP brethren didn’t care for the choices either. TUF is coming off a season that saw the ratings dip lower than they ever had, which could partially be blamed on the move to FX and the dreaded Friday night time slot. Regardless of the variables for the ratings drop, something drastic needs to be done, but is anybody really convinced that Carwin and Nelson are the answer to TUF’s slow and painful demise? Let’s start from the beginning and take a look back to see if this runaway train can be coaxed back onto the main rail.
The Season That Started it All
The inaugural season of TUF featured future Hall of Famers Chuck Liddell and Randy Couture as the competing coaches who would go mano y mano at the PPV after the season finale. For fans of the UFC, that was good enough for most to initially tune in for the Fertitta-funded experiment. It still remains the best crop of young talent and personalities to ever grace the show; future stars like Forrest Griffin, Stephan Bonnar, Josh Koscheck, Chris Leben, Diego Sanchez, Mike Swick, Kenny Florian, and Nate Quarry were all complete unknowns vying for stardom in a fledgling sport. You mix in the whole “fatherless bastard” angle and the show was off and running even before the awe-inspiring climax between (pre TRT) FoGrif and The American Psycho. Even before that, we were treated to the greatest speech of all time that has since been condensed into a few words. “Do you wanna be a fighter?” Though there were other memorable moments from the seasons that followed, Zuffa should have quit while they were ahead because it would never be this good again. The unrefined personification of immature talent, undeniable aspirations and gonzo-sized balls oozed from the boob tube during every episode.
With the recent announcement that Roy Nelson and Shane Carwin have been named as the coaches for the next installment of The Ultimate Fighter series, the MMA universe immediately launched into a full-blow orgasmic ticker-tape parade complete with tons of flying confetti and a marching band belting out death metal tunes. Once I heard the news, it was as if my life instantaneously turned into a beer commercial and the entire Potato Nation was invited. There was a rad pool-party, barbeque, a plethora of hotties, endless alcohol, and an overall quest for fun.
Well . . . . . actually, none of that happened. In fact, when word spread that Nelson and Carwin would helm the next season of TUF, it was officially filed under “WTF?” Judging from the comment section, most of the CP brethren didn’t care for the choices either. TUF is coming off a season that saw the ratings dip lower than they ever had, which could partially be blamed on the move to FX and the dreaded Friday night time slot. Regardless of the variables for the ratings drop, something drastic needs to be done, but is anybody really convinced that Carwin and Nelson are the answer to TUF’s slow and painful demise? Let’s start from the beginning and take a look back to see if this runaway train can be coaxed back onto the main rail.
The Season That Started it All
The inaugural season of TUF featured future Hall of Famers Chuck Liddell and Randy Couture as the competing coaches who would go mano y mano at the PPV after the season finale. For fans of the UFC, that was good enough for most to initially tune in for the Fertitta-funded experiment. It still remains the best crop of young talent and personalities to ever grace the show; future stars like Forrest Griffin, Stephan Bonnar, Josh Koscheck, Chris Leben, Diego Sanchez, Mike Swick, Kenny Florian, and Nate Quarry were all complete unknowns vying for stardom in a fledgling sport. You mix in the whole “fatherless bastard” angle and the show was off and running even before the awe-inspiring climax between (pre TRT) FoGrif and The American Psycho. Even before that, we were treated to the greatest speech of all time that has since been condensed into a few words. “Do you wanna be a fighter?” Though there were other memorable moments from the seasons that followed, Zuffa should have quit while they were ahead because it would never be this good again. The unrefined personification of immature talent, undeniable aspirations and gonzo-sized balls oozed from the boob tube during every episode.
Season 2
Season 2 saw Rich Franklin coach opposite Matt Hughes, and since both men competed at different weight classes, they were obviously not going to fight at the conclusion of the season. This was a prime example of the UFC throwing shit against the wall to see if it would stick by parading two somewhat charismatic champions in front of the camera with hopes of gathering ratings/fans for the upcoming UFC 56 PPV. Although it was undoubtedly a less thrilling season than that of its predecessor, it did introduce to another future light heavyweight champion in Rashad Evans, who won the contract competing as a heavyweight, as well as such names as Joe Stevenson, Melvin Guillard, and future pound-for-pound punching bag GOAT Keith Jardine. And if not for Jardine, the worldmay have never learned that “The Dean of Mean” would make no sense if his last name was Johnson, a valuable take home indeed.
Season 3
Season 3 is one of my personal favorites because of the preconceived notions about coaches: Tito Ortiz and Ken Shamrock. Tito was working the crap out of “The Huntington Beach Bad Boy” gimmick and wore the black hat pretty damn well even though he desperately wanted to be accepted by everyone. On the other hand, Shamrock was the MMA legend who competed in the very first UFC tournament and was the founder of his own training facility – The Lion’s Den. Shamrock was supposed to be the more seasoned coach, but chose to bring in weight lifting specialists and opted to rewatch videos of his UFC fights instead of training during an infamous episode, among other baffling decisions. Tito, conversely, came across as a guy that was genuinely committed to making his team better fighters through technique (believe it or not) and some crazy conditioning drills involving piggyback rides and vacant floors of Las Vegas hotels. In the end, Tito TKO’d Ken in just over a minute and Michael Bisping began his quest to piss off everybody around the world en route to winning the LHW contract.
Season 4 – The Comeback
Season 4 came upon us with the familiar sound of a giant turd smacking against a cinder block divider. Luckily for the UFC, a Ram-Manesque New Yorker with a perfectly timed overhand right came along and the dookie kind of stuck. I am not exactly sure who came up with the idea of bringing back washed up fighters mixed with a few coulda-shoulda guys coupled with a blend of has-beens and never-weres, but I am certain it must have sounded phenomenal during the pitch meeting. This was the only other season that featured an abundance of talent (albeit fleeting talent) like the first season. Shonie Carter, Patrick Côté, Matt Serra, Travis Lutter, Jorge Rivera, Pete Sell, *cough convicted rapist *cough* Jeremy Jackson, Scott Smith, Din Thomas, Mikey Burnett, and (everybody’s favorite) Chris Lytle. All of these guys were waaaaaay professional for any of the usual drama to become too much of an issue, aside from Shonie’s batshit craziness, that is. There were no head coaches but instead guest coaches, and all the fighters shared instructors Mark DellaGrotte as their striking guru and Marc Laimon as the perceived submission specialist. Season highlights include a goggled Burnett self-concussing himself while running through some sheet rock (forgetting that code requires studs every 16 inches), Serra calling Laimon a pussy for never stepping into the real world of fighting and of course . . . . . this. After the season there would be a fundamental plummet to mediocrity.
Season 5, or, the Aforementioned Plummet to Mediocrity
Season 5 was back to a basic grudge match between BJ Penn and Jens Pulver. The session would have been pretty tense if Pulver actually won his “welcome back to the UFC” fight months prior. Instead, Jens got KTFO by a wild-eyed nobody (at the time) named Joe Lauzon. How do you remedy this issue? Make Lauzon a participant during the season and have BJ make the guys raise their hands if they did NOT want to be on Pulver’s team. We were also introduced to the unrefined, yet potent, skills of Nate Diaz (along with his brotherly inspired “Fuck You” demeanor towards Karo Parisyan) and some Ping-Pong skills that would make Forrest Gump puke. So, basically the entire thing resembled a trash can fire without the Doo Wop.
On the next page: Disgusting pranks, trans-Atlantic rivalry, and a pugilist named Slice.
(What?! You mean no more of this?! This isn’t happening. THIS ISN’T HAPPENING!!!)
For those of you who didn’t have the patience, the cable package, or the right list of websites to steal last night’s UFC on FUEL event from, we are sorry to inform you that you missed out on one hell of a show. James Te Huna and Joey Beltran set the UFC record for most significant strikes landed within a three round light heavyweight affair at 206, unfortunately giving us cancer in the process. Te Huna also set a record for most significant strikes landed in one round by a light heavyweight with 71 in the first. In the main event, Chris Weidman made Mark Munoz look like Houston Alexander on the mat*, holding him to zero significant strikes en route to a beautiful standing elbow KO in the second round ala Steve Bosse vs, you guessed it, Houston Alexander. Apparently under the belief that Weidman had covered his gloves in smelling salts, referee Josh Rosenthal allowed the New Yorker to land about a dozen or more unnecessary shots to a clearly unconscious and exponentially bleeding Munoz, causing this writer to scream at his television in honest to God horror for the first time in recent memory. As is usually the case with a free card, last night contained its fair share of ups and downs.
But perhaps the most disorienting moment of the night (aside from the few seconds I thought we had seen the last of Mark Munoz) came during the post-fight show, which featured Jay Glazer, Chael Sonnen, and CagePotato contributor/future UFC HOFer Stephan Bonnar. When the three finally calmed down and Sonnen had finished stroking Weidman’s ego with the fervor of a Taiwanese transsexual prostitute, Ariel Helwani was able to snag a short interview with UFC bossman Dana White. After White announced the coaches for The Ultimate Fighter: Billy no-mates vs. Banana Benders, Helwani proceeded to ask about the futures of the fighters that sat just a few feet behind him.
White declared that “He hadn’t even talked to Chael yet” and that “Only [Chael] knows what he wants to do,” but the real bombshell was dropped when White was asked about Bonnar. After skewering, then roasting Bonnar’s dreams of coaching the next season of The Ultimate Fighter opposite Forrest Griffin over an open flame, White claimed that the last time he and “The American Psycho” spoke, Bonnar was considering retirement.
What followed was a heartfelt, if not mildly confusing speech by Bonnar that more or less confirmed this.
(What?! You mean no more of this?! This isn’t happening. THIS ISN’T HAPPENING!!!)
For those of you who didn’t have the patience, the cable package, or the right list of websites to steal last night’s UFC on FUEL event from, we are sorry to inform you that you missed out on one hell of a show. James Te Huna and Joey Beltran set the UFC record for most significant strikes landed within a three round light heavyweight affair at 206, unfortunately giving us cancer in the process. Te Huna also set a record for most significant strikes landed in one round by a light heavyweight with 71 in the first. In the main event, Chris Weidman made Mark Munoz look like Houston Alexander on the mat*, holding him to zero significant strikes en route to a beautiful standing elbow KO in the second round ala Steve Bosse vs, you guessed it, Houston Alexander. Apparently under the belief that Weidman had covered his gloves in smelling salts, referee Josh Rosenthal allowed the New Yorker to land about a dozen or more unnecessary shots to a clearly unconscious and exponentially bleeding Munoz, causing this writer to scream at his television in honest to God horror for the first time in recent memory. As is usually the case with a free card, last night contained its fair share of ups and downs.
But perhaps the most disorienting moment of the night (aside from the few seconds I thought we had seen the last of Mark Munoz) came during the post-fight show, which featured Jay Glazer, Chael Sonnen, and CagePotato contributor/future UFC HOFer Stephan Bonnar. When the three finally calmed down and Sonnen had finished stroking Weidman’s ego with the fervor of a Taiwanese transsexual prostitute, Ariel Helwani was able to snag a short interview with UFC bossman Dana White. After White announced the coaches for The Ultimate Fighter: Billy no-mates vs. Banana Benders, Helwani proceeded to ask about the futures of the fighters that sat just a few feet behind him.
White declared that “He hadn’t even talked to Chael yet” and that “Only [Chael] knows what he wants to do,” but the real bombshell was dropped when White was asked about Bonnar. After skewering, then roasting Bonnar’s dreams of coaching the next season of The Ultimate Fighter opposite Forrest Griffin over an open flame, White claimed that the last time he and “The American Psycho” spoke, Bonnar was considering retirement.
What followed was a heartfelt, if not mildly confusing speech by Bonnar that more or less confirmed this.
“Put it this way, I have no interest in fighting the next big thing before the world realizes the talent of the guy,” Bonnar said, obviously referring to his fights against Jon Jones and Mark Coleman(see what I did there?):
I’ve been doing this eleven years, and I’ve been through the ringer. So I promised myself I’d put a nice streak together, and I said if I want my last fight, I’m gonna go back in there against someone with a lot of Twitter followers. The story of my career has been fighting a lot of the best guys right before they got on top, you know. So I said, ‘Hey, if I can’t get that big marquee fight then yeah, it’s God’s way of telling me to go do something else for a while.’
Sonnen immediately offered an empathetic shoulder rub, leading me to believe that Silva might have kneed Sonnen so hard that he literally unclogged about a decade’s worth of false machismo bullshit from his insides. Sharing our confusion, Glazer asked Bonnar to clarify.
Glazer: “Let’s clear this up. What are you saying here?”
Bonnar: “Hey who knows…um…”
Glazer: “It sounds like you’re saying you’re retiring.”
Bonnar: “Maybe they’ll still let me fight Forrest. Maybe there’s the chance that Rampage wants to fight again. That’s a fight I really wanted too. But, hey, if he doesn’t got a lot of Twitter followers, then maybe it’s God’s way of saying maybe do something else.”
I may not be a man of faith, but even I find it a little odd that Bonnar would coalesce an overseeing deity and a social networking device into the governing body upon which he bases his decision. Perhaps that’s why he has the nickname he has.
But on a serious note, and with all due respect to Roy Nelson and Shane Carwin, who out there would rather see two mid-to-upper-tier heavyweights duke it out over the two guys who’s first fight helped make the UFC what it is? Both Stephan and Forrest have now hinted at retirement, and what better way would it be to end their careers than in the exact fashion they truly started them? It would not only be the barnburner to end all barnburners, making Hendo/Rua look like a sissy fight between two theater nerds in the process**, but would make for a far more entertaining season than any other I could imagine. It could even make for the first time in UFC History that both fighters announced it would be their last fight in the months leading up to it. In a word, it would be legend.
And I for one, don’t give two shits that Stephan is 0-2 against FoGriff in his career. The first fight was razor-thin, and I honestly believe that, in this point in their respective careers, Bonnar has the best chance of beating Griffin now that he’s ever had. He’s put together three straight wins over decent competition, and has shown that he still has a few tricks up his sleeve when the odds are stacked against him. Forget a fight with that drama queen Rampage; his heart simply ain’t in it anymore, and Bonnar deserves better. THIS is the fight we should be clamoring for. Can you even imagine how epic the pranks alone would be, being that these two are both good friends and on their way out of the building? Screw mariachi bands and fire extinguishers, we’d be looking at full on tribal warfare.
Do what you gotta do, Potato Nation, be it a Twitter campaign, an occupy movement, or perhaps something that will actually work, to turn this hope of Bonnar’s into a reality. We owe him that much.
*Obvious exaggeration is obvious.
**This is clearly a joke as well. One that borders on blasphemy, but still. Take it sleazy.
(For his final masterpiece, Michelangelo decided to pay tribute to the Biblical hero’s fall from grace through the medium of hamstone. The results were shocking, yet delicious.)
As is likely the case for most of you, we here at CagePotato are more than willing to admit that we all but completely missed out on the failed experiment that was TUF Live. The placement of the show on Friday nights, the rehashed trash-talk and pranks between coaches; it just seemed all too played out and tired to really get us hooked. The fact that Dominick Cruz tore his ACL with only a couple episodes to go only furthered our belief that the season would have been a complete loss if not for the uplifting story of the season’s lightweight winner, Don Cheadle (or something like that).
So when Dana White informed USA TODAY Sports yesterday that the coaches for this season would be polar opposite heavyweights Roy Nelson and Shane Carwin, it more than piqued our interest. Aside from being the winner of the show’s tenth (and arguably least talent filled) season, TUF: Heavyweights, Nelson is by all accounts, one entertaining and funny sumbitch. Carwin, on the other hand, has shown before that he is up for a good joshing as long as it is not aimed at him. If you recall, the last time we got on Carwin’s bad side, Old Dad packed up his things, fled, faked his death, died his eyebrows, and attended his own funeral as a man named Phil Schiffley. The last we heard, he was still reporting on all things MMA from a one man vessel in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean out of fear that “The Engineer” was still looking for him. So clearly, the potential for hilarity between these two on the set is higher than Nelson’s cholesterol levels.
(For his final masterpiece, Michelangelo decided to pay tribute to the Biblical hero’s fall from grace through the medium of hamstone. The results were shocking, yet delicious.)
As is likely the case for most of you, we here at CagePotato are more than willing to admit that we all but completely missed out on the failed experiment that was TUF Live. The placement of the show on Friday nights, the rehashed trash-talk and pranks between coaches; it just seemed all too played out and tired to really get us hooked. The fact that Dominick Cruz tore his ACL with only a couple episodes to go only furthered our belief that the season would have been a complete loss if not for the uplifting story of the season’s lightweight winner, Don Cheadle (or something like that).
So when Dana White informed USA TODAY Sports yesterday that the coaches for this season would be polar opposite heavyweights Roy Nelson and Shane Carwin, it more than piqued our interest. Aside from being the winner of the show’s tenth (and arguably least talent filled) season, TUF: Heavyweights, Nelson is by all accounts, one entertaining and funny sumbitch. Carwin, on the other hand, has shown before that he is up for a good joshing as long as it is not aimed at him. If you recall, the last time we got on Carwin’s bad side, Old Dad packed up his things, fled, faked his death, died his eyebrows, and attended his own funeral as a man named Phil Schiffley. The last we heard, he was still reporting on all things MMA from a one man vessel in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean out of fear that “The Engineer” was still looking for him. So clearly, the potential for hilarity between these two on the set is higher than Nelson’s cholesterol levels.
And although Carwin did in fact take a year away from action following his UFC 131 loss to Junior Dos Santos to search the world over for Fowlkes, he also spent a good deal of time rehabilitating his back. Coincidentally, it was this very injury that forced him out of his original matchup with Nelson at UFC 125.
“Big Country” most recently found his way back to the win column with a first round knockout of Dave Herman at UFC 146. Just 2-3 in his past five, Nelson certainly won’t be looking at a title shot with a win over Carwin, but a victory would undoubtedly be one of the biggest, if not the biggest, of his Zuffa career.
And in other TUF coaching news…
For those of you who didn’t stick around to catch the post-fight show on FUEL TV last night, DW also announced that the coaches for the second international season of TUF, which will see fighters from the UK square off against Australia’s finest, will be TUF 9 winner Ross Pearson and TUF 6 standout George Sotiropoulus. Both men have fallen on hard times as of late, with G Sots dropping his past two to Dennis Siver (via decision) and Rafael Dos Anjos (via lawn chair KO). After dropping to featherweight following a 4-2 UFC stint at lightweight and scoring a unanimous decision victory over Junior Assuncao, Pearson most recently screwed our parlay over royally when he was knocked out by Cub Swanson in the second round of their tilt at UFC on FX 4.
So, Potato Nation, do these matchups do anything for you?
On April 9, 2005, the landscape of mixed martial arts was changed forever. That was the night that Stephan Bonnar fought Forrest Griffin in the TUF season 1 finale.
