Tag: Steve Mazzagatti

CagePotato Roundtable #5: If You Could Make One Change to the Unified Rules of MMA, What Would It Be?


(“From now on, all preliminary card fighters will be required to slam four shots of tequila before the start of each round.”)

After a one-week resting period, the CagePotato Roundtable is back up in that ass with another spirited debate. Today’s topic is “If you could make one change to the Unified Rules of MMA, what would it be?” Sitting in this week is Potato Nation comment-section all-star Nathan Smith (aka The12ozCurls) — and since it’s his first time, we’ll make the new guy go first. If you have a topic-suggestion for a future Roundtable column, please send it to [email protected], and shoot us your own MMA rule-change suggestions in the comments section…

Nathan “The12OzCurls” Smith
One of the reasons we love the sport of MMA is the absolute reality that a fight can end in the blink of an eye. We have all held off taking a leak or grabbing another beer until the end of a round because we all know that in the 30-90 seconds that we step away from the screen, the fight could be over. It has happened to all of us. You figure the last minute of the round is going to be uneventful just like the four minutes prior. You get up to snag another High Life and then you hear the collective “OOOOOHHHHHHHHH SHIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!” from the roomful of friends that have gathered in your man-cave garage to watch the latest UFC.

So I ask: How could it get better? Answer: By adding another way to win a fight in the blink of an eye, that is more painful than a Paul Harris ankle lock and more powerful than a 2005 Iceman overhand right.

I would change the rule that states that it is illegal to “intentionally throw your opponent out of the cage/ring.” Now let me preface this by saying it has to be a cage because pushing somebody over the top rope is for guys like Brock and Hillbilly Jim. Not only would I make chucking your opponent out of the Octagon legal, I would propose that you automatically win if you are able to successfully achieve that feat.


(“From now on, all preliminary card fighters will be required to slam four shots of tequila before the start of each round.”)

After a one-week resting period, the CagePotato Roundtable is back up in that ass with another spirited debate. Today’s topic is “If you could make one change to the Unified Rules of MMA, what would it be?” Sitting in this week is Potato Nation comment-section all-star Nathan Smith (aka The12ozCurls) — and since it’s his first time, we’ll make the new guy go first. If you have a topic-suggestion for a future Roundtable column, please send it to [email protected], and shoot us your own MMA rule-change suggestions in the comments section…

Nathan “The12OzCurls” Smith
One of the reasons we love the sport of MMA is the absolute reality that a fight can end in the blink of an eye. We have all held off taking a leak or grabbing another beer until the end of a round because we all know that in the 30-90 seconds that we step away from the screen, the fight could be over. It has happened to all of us. You figure the last minute of the round is going to be uneventful just like the four minutes prior. You get up to snag another High Life and then you hear the collective “OOOOOHHHHHHHHH SHIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!” from the roomful of friends that have gathered in your man-cave garage to watch the latest UFC.

So I ask: How could it get better? Answer: By adding another way to win a fight in the blink of an eye, that is more painful than a Paul Harris ankle lock and more powerful than a 2005 Iceman overhand right.

I would change the rule that states that it is illegal to “intentionally throw your opponent out of the cage/ring.” Now let me preface this by saying it has to be a cage because pushing somebody over the top rope is for guys like Brock and Hillbilly Jim. Not only would I make chucking your opponent out of the Octagon legal, I would propose that you automatically win if you are able to successfully achieve that feat.

I understand why this rule was implemented back in the stone ages of MMA: A) Because of the “open weight” format where dudes were typically outweighed by 50 to 500 lbs (see Keith Hackney vs. Emanuel Yarborough @ UFC 3), and B) because there were huge dudes with little to no training that were just plain batshit crazy (see Scott Ferrozzo @ UFC 8, 11 & 12).

Tank Abbott actually tried it back in 1996 at Ultimate Ultimate when the scrappy Cal Worsham was actually getting the better of the stand-up action during the opening seconds of their quarterfinal bout. Once Tank was able to get a hold of Worsham, he picked him up over his head and literally tried to heave him into the 3rd row of Birmingham, Alabama mouth-breathers in what appeared to be a bingo hall. But alas, Worsham held on to Tank’s head and the potential for the most awesome highlight in MMA history was thwarted.

Now that there are weight classes and the two fighters are at least similar in size — unless your opponent is Anthony Johnson — the feasibility of a guy actually heaving another man out of the cage has all but disappeared. (Though you can tell that Matt Hughes’s mind was heading in that direction against Carlos Newton.) So if it is damn near impossible to actually pull off, why not abolish the rule and give the fighters and the audience one more option for potential fireworks? We live for the “Holy Shit” moments of MMA, and what could possibly compare to a title changing hands when the champion is muscled overhead and Frisbee-d out of the Octagon?

I’m sure the rule will never change and even if it did, it’s hard to see it ever being put to use. But what if…what if?

“OOOOOOOOOOOOOH SHIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”

You would have to watch every UFC wearing an adult diaper with a full cooler beside you because you would never get up during a fight ever again.

Doug “ReX13” Richardson

If I could change one thing about the Unified Rules, it would be to get rid of the senseless “12 to 6″ elbow rule. The strike is no more damaging than one from another angle and it’s hard to officiate consistently, so what’s the argument for having such a rule?

Long, long ago (UFC 8), Gary “Big Daddy” Goodridge murdered a poor, gentle soul named Paul Herrera with a succession of elbows so terrifyingly violent that white people everywhere shut the fuck up about rap music and started being afraid of ultimate fighting. Herrera had tried a fireman’s carry, but wound up trapped in a Goodridge crucifix that surprised everyone involved. Goodridge paused a moment before unleashing a string of twelve billion of the angriest elbow strikes you’ve ever seen in the space of four seconds, scrambling Herrera’s emotional cortex and his ability to roll his Rs (a fate worse than death for a guy named “Herrera”).

The Association of Boxing Commissions (average age: dirt) saw this fight and soiled their Depends, and not even that nice boy Jon Jones can change their minds about the danger of elbows coming “from the ceiling to the floor.” Jones, of course, suffered a disqualification loss to Matt Hamill at the TUF 10 Finale, due to a combination of the silly 12-6 rule and the power of Steve “The ‘Stache” Mazzagatti to fuck up any fight, any time (but Mazz is a story for a different time).

Perhaps the best argument against the rule is that I’m still not quite sure what exactly is the wrong way to elbow somebody: Is it literally “ceiling to floor”, meaning an elbow is illegal if it follows the path of gravity straight down? Or is it 12-6 relative to the fighter throwing the elbow — from head to toes? Even watching fighters get warned or disqualified doesn’t help; it seems referees themselves don’t agree on how this rule should be interpreted.

Do we really need a rule so arbitrary, so capricious? No. So yeah, I’d definitely 86 the 12-6 elbow rule if I could change the Unified Rules.

Plus I’d move to allow knees on the ground. And add a cruiserweight division.

And whatever it was that Nick Diaz tested positive for, legalize that.

Fuck it, soccer kicks too.

“Suga” Chris Colemon

19. “The use of abusive language in the fighting area”

There are so many things to love about talking shit, but one of my favorite aspects of this unheralded art is the way it hurts people’s feelings.

I realize that MMA is a sport, not a soap opera, and that at the end of the day the most important factor in a fight is the skill of the combatants involved in the scrap, but all things being equal I’ll take a side of animosity to go with my ground-and-pound.

Why they ever forebade in-cage smack talk is beyond me. We’ve refined and restricted the act of fighting into a neatly packaged spectator sport, but when you boil things down there’s still a lot of emotion that goes into a fist fight. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy the professional demeanor of your GSP’s and Couture’s, but if I have to choose between 15 minutes of bowing and bro-hugs or watching two rabid, snarling fighters baring their teeth, I’m going with the dog fight all day.

Every fighter believes in his skills, but to tell your opponent that you’re going to fuck him up mid-fight and dare him to stop you really ups the ante. Succeed and you come off looking like a boss; fail and you come off looking like a tool. So I implore you, athletic commissions, let the fighters jaw all they want; their fists end up doing the real talking anyway.

Jared Jones

I’ve had it up to my eyeballs with the preferential treatment wrestlers receive in the sport of MMA. Not only are takedowns ranked next to Godliness as far as the judging criteria goes, but these sons of bitches are completely protected from a maneuver that is nothing short of dog shit in the real world. I’m talking about dropping to your knee, people. Sexual connotations aside, dropping to your knee or knees gets you killed in the streets, and the fact that wrestlers are allowed to use this flaw in the rules as a means for stalling fight after fight drives me fucking bananas. If a fighter has the fear of getting kneed into oblivion by his opponent while attempting their billionth sloppy takedown, then perhaps he would be a little more hesitant to essentially take the fight out of fighting. Hell, we might even see guys like Jon Fitch and Jake Shields try to engage on the feet, but perhaps I’m getting ahead of myself.

Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate the grappling aspect of MMA as much as the next guy, unless the next guy is Melvin Guillard of course, but this “no knees to a downed opponent” nonsense is about as blatant a case of nepotism in the MMA rule book as I have ever seen. If fighters were allowed to knee the head of a downed opponent, matches like Munoz/Okami, Hughes/Serra, and Brookins/Koch would have played out a lot differently. Mainly, they wouldn’t have sucked ass.

It’s as simple as this; mixed martial arts competition, at least in my opinion, is supposed to be held on a level playing field. Each form of fighting has its upsides and its pitfalls, which is why a given fighter must have more than one tool in his arsenal if he is to succeed in the sport nowadays. And allowing wrestlers to shoot for a takedown from halfway across the cage then intentionally hit the deck with no fear of a counter-attack inherently destroys that concept. Imagine not being able to punch Rousimar Palhares while he was diving for a life-shattering leglock, and you’d begin to understand how bullshit this rule is.

“No knees to a downed opponent” puts forth the notion that a given fighter doesn’t need to have even half-decent standup as long as they can hug their opponent for three rounds and take home a decision based on some warped idea of “octagon control.” Tito Ortiz will tell you the downside of having shit standup, and if that isn’t proof enough, just rewatch the TUF 15 preliminary fight between James Vick and Dakota Cochrane and tell me that that fight wouldn’t have ended within the first minute if Vick was allowed to throw some knees. The fear of God back needs to be put into these takedown artists, these lay-n-prayers, and these flip-floppers once and for all, and there’s only one way to do it.

Ben Goldstein

As much as I appreciate Jared’s dream to turn every UFC fight into a grisly re-creation of Arona vs. Sakuraba, I think it makes more sense to simply re-define what “grounded” means in MMA. There’s something very un-sporting — and really freakin’ dangerous — about soccer-kicking or kneeing a man in the head when he’s down, and I have no problem with that remaining illegal. But while some fighters unfairly game the system by dropping to a knee when they’re about to eat one in the face, it’s also currently allowable to simply put your hand down to escape a thrashing.

The worst recent example of this came during Rampage Jackson vs. Ryan Bader at UFC 144; click the image above and skip to the 4:58 mark. As you’ll see, Bader secures a clinch that places Rampage’s head in a very vulnerable spot. After Bader slams a knee up the middle, Jackson tags the mat with his left hand, effectively calling a time-out on getting his ass beat. With his options now limited, Bader decides to shoot for a single, and loses the position that could have — should have — ended the fight right then and there. That’s garbage, folks, and in my opinion, it’s the single biggest flaw in the unified rules. Two clarifications…

– Being on one knee should still count as a grounded safe-zone for fighters, but dropping there intentionally (as Jared described) should be treated as a violation of the current rule against timidity. It’s not a “wise” strategy, as Mike Goldberg claimed during the Rampage/Bader fight. It’s the very definition of “avoiding contact,” and referees should start giving warnings and point-deductions as soon as they see it happening.

– Upkicks should be allowed whether the recipient is technically grounded or not. The grounding rule is intended to prevent fighters from taking devastating head trauma from opponents who are on top of them, not to prevent amazing shit from happening.

Exclusive: UFC 143 Main Event Referee Steve Mazzagatti Talks Bitch Slaps, Sh*t Talking and Dana White Hate

By Elias Cepeda


(‘The Mazz’ making sure things don’t get started before the bell Saturday night.)

With all the talk of how the judges scored last weekend’s UFC 143 main event between Carlos Condit and Nick Diaz, CagePotato thought it would be interesting to shift the focus and speak with the man charged with mediating the fight – referee Steve Mazzagatti. In this exclusive conversation, the veteran top ref and occasional owner of one of the best mustaches in all of MMA, talks about Dana White’s hate for him, bitch slaps, shit talking and much more.

By Elias Cepeda


(‘The Mazz’ making sure things don’t get started before the bell Saturday night.)

With all the talk of how the judges scored last weekend’s UFC 143 main event between Carlos Condit and Nick Diaz, CagePotato thought it would be interesting to shift the focus and speak with the man charged with mediating the fight – referee Steve Mazzagatti. In this exclusive conversation, the veteran top ref and occasional owner of one of the best mustaches in all of MMA, talks about Dana White’s hate for him, bitch slaps, shit talking and much more.

Nick Diaz and Carlos Condit have had some intense staredowns before. When you know you’ve got to bring two guys like that together moments before they fight for final instructions, how do you approach it? Do you ready for yourself for any extracurricular activities between them, so to speak?

No, you know they are both very intense fighters. That’s what it is all about. It was a great stare down and those are part of the sport. Both guys are extremely fair fighters as well. I don’t think I’d ever seen them break one rule. Plus, they are not stupid. They were not going to push each other and all that. They didn’t ‘hook ‘em up,’ like I say to do. But they hooked you guys up [with a great fight] and that’s what it is all about. When I say, ‘hook ‘em up,’ it’s not just not just about touching gloves, it’s about those guys hooking it up in the fight and hooking up the fans with a great bout.

In the UFC 143 main event, we saw more slaps. Nick Diaz slapped Carlos Condit at least once with an open hand. What is the deal with slaps? We’ve seen fighters warned by referees about having their hands open during fights to prevent against eye pokes. But at the same time, a guy like Diaz or Fabricio Werdum back in his fight with Andrei Arlovski, have gotten away with slapping their opponents. Is it against the rules to slap your opponent in MMA or not?

Absolutely not; slapping is perfectly legal. We’ve seen it a lot. We’ve had some fighters slap the ears of their opponent while in full mount. Bas Rutten was a huge palm striker. MMA is an open-hand sport. What we are concerned about is fighters leading with their fingertips. That’s what Herb [Dean] was doing [in the UFC 143 bout between Josh Koscheck and Mike Pierce]. And exactly what he realized could have happened, did happen. It is just part of the sport. I’ve dealt with a lot of situations where guys got poked in the eye. I called a fight against Anthony Johnson for it [at UFC Fight Night 14 in 2008). In fact, had we had the ability to look at instant replay at that time, my call would have been overthrown. But in large part because of that fight, now we have instant replay in state of Nevada. It does help in those types of situations. Right call bad call.

So pokes to the eye are bound to happen. Obviously, a fist knuckle to the eye is legal – that can happen with a punch. But we have to be able to judge if it was a finger in the eye or a knuckle. I can understand why guys keep their hands open – they want to parry punches out of the way. What we are trying to keep from happening is them leading with the finger tips. The same thing can happen with heads. We see it in boxing all the time, where fighters lead with their heads and head butts happen. It’s not allowed and its called that — leading.

In other sports, like football and basketball, there are now all sorts of rules about so-called taunting and the like. One of the most interesting things about a Nick Diaz fight is how he talks trash to his opponent while they are fighting. What are the rules under unified MMA rules and did you during the UFC 143 main event or have you ever come close to penalizing fighters for any type of talking during a fight?

The rule states that fighters are not allowed to use foul language. That’s where I would use a warning. Fights are chess matches. These guys are trying to take each other out of their respective games and there’s a lot of talking that go on, not just with Nick Diaz. Believe me these guys have interesting conversations on the ground. I’ve seen and heard a guy get tagged hard by an elbow while on the bottom and tell his opponent, ‘that was awesome!’ I’ve also had guys say they were sorry to their opponent after hitting them with a big shot. I’ve seen guys apologize for putting a whooping on a dude (laughs) So these guys talk a lot and it’s just part of the game. Sometimes, like with Diaz, they want to get under each other’s skins.

That’s really interesting. But you said the rule states that no foul language is allowed by the competitors. Are you saying that Nick Diaz didn’t use any foul language with Carlos Condit at UFC 143?

(Laughs) I’m not going to say that. I didn’t feel there was any reason to intercede there. Everything that happened was part of the sport. He wasn’t foul.

Did Carlos Condit say anything back or was it just Diaz talking?

They had their ‘lil conversations.

As a referee, you’ve got so many things that you’ve got to be paying close attention to. Through all that, do you still develop a sense, or I should say, opinion, on who is winning or who has won, when it goes to a decision?

No, not at all. When I see the stuff go down, I can just appreciate all that goes into them being able to do what they do.

There are rules against timidity in MMA, correct? Fighters have to engage with one another. In the UFC 143 main event between Condit and Diaz, we had an interesting situation where, on the one hand, Condit literally turned his back to Diaz and ran away from him on multiple occasions. But on the other hand, he landed many strikes each round — enough to win the fight, in fact. Did it cross your mind at all, at least the first couple times you saw Condit turn his back and run away from Diaz, that you might need to tell him something or get involved in some way?

No, not at all. It never even crossed my mind. At worst, he was tactfully timid. Like you said, Condit landed a ton of shots, even though he was being elusive. We have lots of fighters that use that style. It’s a part of the evolution of the sport of MMA.

Not to harp on Diaz as if he is a ticking timebomb, but given that he’s been involved in at least one post-fight, in-ring brawl, were you preparing yourself in any way for one guy or team reacting poorly to the decision after it was announced and any ruckus breaking out? Expecting at the end, if any guy reacted poorly to decision?

I can’t say that I didn’t think about it, but I wasn’t worried about it at all. You’ve got to go with the flow in there. When you start thinking that certain things are going to happen you get caught off guard. Anything can happen at any time. You might get assigned a fight with two wrestlers and expect it to be a grappling battle and then they end up striking on their feet the whole bout.

With Condit and Diaz, as soon as the final bell rang, I could tell that they had emptied their cups. Very seldom does that sort of thing — an after fight scuffle, ever happen. MMA is an extremely respectful sport.

This isn’t a new topic but UFC President Dana White has been publicly critical of you in the past. How does it feel to know that the people who matter to you — your actual bosses, have enough confidence to still put you in charge of important fights like the UFC 143 main event, despite the protests of an influential person like Dana White?

We don’t work for the promoters; we work for the state in which the event is being held. I can understand his feelings. He’s got outcomes he wants to see. He’s a promoter. It’s just the way it goes. I’m in there to enforce the rules. I do that the best I can. Do we like actually enforcing the rules? No, we hate it. It throws a wrench in to the whole game. No one wants to see the referee get involved. I don’t want to stand fighters up; I don’t want to break them off cage. All I want to do is tell them to start and stop, and that’s exactly what happened in the Condit and Diaz fight. If every fight was like that I’d be extremely happy. Unfortunately, referees are not there to be liked. We are there to enforce rules, and when is that ever going to popular?

Video: Steve Mazzagatti’s Sexuality Questioned at UFC 140 Press Conference

(Props: UFC via CesarGracieJewJitsu)

As if the mutants at the ‘UFC on FOX’ press conference in Los Angeles weren’t scary enough, last month’s UFC 140: Jones vs. Machida presser at the Air Canada Centre in Toronto proved to be another example of why the fan-question portion of these things should probably be eliminated. First of all, it’s Keith Kizer, not Steve Kizer. And whether Kizer and Steve Mazzagatti are lovers is really nobody’s business except their own.

The next fan asks Dana if Jon Jones would be getting a superfight with Anderson Silva after he gets through Lyoto Machida — while Machida is right there in the room with him. Christ, just because Lyoto doesn’t speak English that well doesn’t mean he can’t hear it. Closing out the segment, the third question is about Steven Seagal, and the last one is a guy begging for an internship. And you know there was some goof in line for the mic who went home pissed off because he couldn’t ask Dana who he thought would win in a fight between Alistair Overeem and Grand Gigas Malus. Step it up, guys.

Previously: “I got every UFC fanboy’s wet dream here, the only thing that would make it better would be sitting in your lap right now.”


(Props: UFC via CesarGracieJewJitsu)

As if the mutants at the ‘UFC on FOX’ press conference in Los Angeles weren’t scary enough, last month’s UFC 140: Jones vs. Machida presser at the Air Canada Centre in Toronto proved to be another example of why the fan-question portion of these things should probably be eliminated. First of all, it’s Keith Kizer, not Steve Kizer. And whether Kizer and Steve Mazzagatti are lovers is really nobody’s business except their own.

The next fan asks Dana if Jon Jones would be getting a superfight with Anderson Silva after he gets through Lyoto Machida — while Machida is right there in the room with him. Christ, just because Lyoto doesn’t speak English that well doesn’t mean he can’t hear it. Closing out the segment, the third question is about Steven Seagal, and the last one is a guy begging for an internship. And you know there was some goof in line for the mic who went home pissed off because he couldn’t ask Dana who he thought would win in a fight between Alistair Overeem and Grand Gigas Malus. Step it up, guys.

Previously: “I got every UFC fanboy’s wet dream here, the only thing that would make it better would be sitting in your lap right now.”

Side Seat Driver, or, What the UFC Must do to Avoid an EliteXC Style Meltdown on FOX

No matter how many times young Dana White reminded him, Gary Shaw always found himself having the same conversation.

Alright boys, we’ve finally managed to ink a possibly sport changing deal here. I know we’re all excited, but let us not forget that this opportunity to shine can quickly become a bigger disaster than The Green Lantern. I’m looking at you, HEAT, you nearly screwed us all. But this time, we’ve got the fights, my God do we got the fights, to back up all our talk. So, do we want to be winners or losers?! Do we want to change the face of MMA, or kick dirt in its eyes?! Well then, here’s how we do it!!

No matter how many times young Dana White reminded him, Gary Shaw always found himself having the same conversation.

Alright boys, we’ve finally managed to ink a possibly sport changing deal here. I know we’re all excited, but let us not forget that this opportunity to shine can quickly become a bigger disaster than The Green Lantern. I’m looking at you, HEAT, you nearly screwed us all. But this time, we’ve got the fights, my God do we got the fights, to back up all our talk. So, do we want to be winners or losers?! Do we want to change the face of MMA, or kick dirt in its eyes?! Well then, here’s how we do it!!

First and foremost, neither of these men can be within seeing distance of our main event:

Not as judges, not as referees, not even as bathroom attendants should these men by any means be allowed in the building. Now Dana, I know that you complained before over your lack of influence when it comes to choosing the ref or judges for that matter, but I’m pleading to you, they have SCREWED US BEFORE. Didn’t one of them just write a book? Yeah, let’s get that guy for this one.

Secondly, we cannot play the drama card at any point during this event. It is cheap, unrealistic, and lumps us in with the likes of the WWE in the eyes of the casual audience member. No stare downs between contenders and champs, especially not immediately following the fight; this can only end in disaster. Let the fights do the talking, as we always have, because that’s where the real “drama” lies.

Speaking of the fights, can we possibly schedule more than one? We do not want to look like the American Idol of the sports world do we? If there’s one thing a crowded bar full of drunken men doesn’t want, it’s to be toyed with. And what if said fight ends in the opening minute? No offense Dana, but those screaming, profanity laced “talks” you and Joe have to kill time at the end of the free prelims aren’t jacking up your PPV sales.

Let’s be honest, except for a few select people out there, the pre fight talk is often the weakest aspect of our pay per views in general, if only because they are so damn predictable. Amidst the clichéd gladiator poses, we’re going to hear how well training has been going, how each fighter is ten times better than their last fight, and how there is absolutely a zero percent chance that either man will lose to the other. Let’s trim the fat and get on with what everyone’s tuning in for. Well, beside the interviews, we should just skip the interviews.

I know it’s early, but we are knocking on history’s doorstep here. This deal could equal validation. It could equal legalization in even the most stubborn of places. Heck, maybe even the anchors over at Sportscenter will talk about us with a tone that doesn’t reek of ignorance and condescension. And we’re lucky enough that this time it seems the people overseeing this deal having a fucking clue about how to run a business. So for now, let’s just take to our G5’s and consider how long it has taken us to get where we are.

-Danga

MMA Fix Monday Headlines

It is a somber day amongst the MMA community as we say a collective goodbye to “The Coach” Shawn Tompkins who passed away unexpectedly on Sunday, August 14th in Canada at the age of 37..

It is a somber day amongst the MMA community as we say a collective goodbye to “The Coach” Shawn Tompkins who passed away unexpectedly on Sunday, August 14th in Canada at the age of 37. MMA Fix has only grattitude and respect for Shawn Tompkins. We extend our hearts and support to the Tompkins family.

UFC on Versus 5 drew $539,000 at the gate with 6,751 in attendance.

Chris Lytle officialy retires following submission win over Dan Hardy at UFC on Versus 5.

Lorenzo Fertitta gives Dan Hardy at least one more chance in the UFC.

Ryan Couture will face Maka Watson at Strikeforce Challengers 19. Watson is currently (4-1) in his pro MMA record. 3 of his wins come via submission.

Following Ben Henderson‘s Unanimous Decision win over Jim Miller at UFC on Versus 5, Clay Guida campaigns for next title shot.

Chael Sonnen officially loses it, calls himself the champion defending his title against Brian Stann.

Ronda Rousey hopes to return to the Strikeforce cage immediately following her controversial win over Sarah D’Alelio where it appears, referee Steve Mazzagatti stopped the fight after being told by Rousey (and not hearing it himself) that D’Alelio verbally tapped at Friday night’s Strikeforce Challengers 18.