Tag: Tamdan McCrory

Report: 13 Fighters Released From UFC This Week

antonio-bigfoot-silva

As noted, UFC heavyweight contender Antonio “Bigfoot” Silva was released from the promotion this week.

Bigfoot joins a number of front office employees and management figures, including Tom Wright, Garry Cook and Marshall Zelaznik.

In terms of active fighters, Bigfoot wasn’t the only one to be released this week. According to a new report at MMAFighting.com, 12 additional fighters have also been cut from the promotion.

Below is the list of fighters reportedly released from the UFC this week:

* Shane Campbell
* Kevin Casey
* Cody East
* Glaico Franca
* Leonardo Augusto ‘Leleco’ Guimaraes
* Cory Hendricks
* Caio Magalhaes
* Enrique Marin
* Tamdan McCrory
* Kenny Robertson
* Antonio ‘Bigfoot’ Silva
* Sean Spencer
* Alberto Uda

antonio-bigfoot-silva

As noted, UFC heavyweight contender Antonio “Bigfoot” Silva was released from the promotion this week.

Bigfoot joins a number of front office employees and management figures, including Tom Wright, Garry Cook and Marshall Zelaznik.

In terms of active fighters, Bigfoot wasn’t the only one to be released this week. According to a new report at MMAFighting.com, 12 additional fighters have also been cut from the promotion.

Below is the list of fighters reportedly released from the UFC this week:

* Shane Campbell
* Kevin Casey
* Cody East
* Glaico Franca
* Leonardo Augusto ‘Leleco’ Guimaraes
* Cory Hendricks
* Caio Magalhaes
* Enrique Marin
* Tamdan McCrory
* Kenny Robertson
* Antonio ‘Bigfoot’ Silva
* Sean Spencer
* Alberto Uda

Tamdan “The Barn Cat” McCrory Is Back in the UFC and We Can’t Contain Our Excitement

(McCrory channels Mark Hunt with a walk-off knockout of Brennan Ward at Bellator 123. Bonus points go to whoever decided on Jumanji drums as the background music.) Following a six year absence from the octagon, Tamdan McCrory has returned, babayyy!!! All hail #TeamBarnCat!! For those of you who aren’t familiar with McCrory’s story, it’s perhaps […]

The post Tamdan “The Barn Cat” McCrory Is Back in the UFC and We Can’t Contain Our Excitement appeared first on Cagepotato.


(McCrory channels Mark Hunt with a walk-off knockout of Brennan Ward at Bellator 123. Bonus points go to whoever decided on Jumanji drums as the background music.)

Following a six year absence from the octagon, Tamdan McCrory has returned, babayyy!!! All hail #TeamBarnCat!!

For those of you who aren’t familiar with McCrory’s story, it’s perhaps one of the best in recent memory. McCrory first entered the UFC back in 2007, where his unusual, “nerdy” look and 6′ 4″ frame immediately singled him out as a unique fighter in the promotion’s welterweight division. Of course, putting away a veteran of the game like Pete Spratt via triangle choke in his promotional debut was also a surefire way to get noticed.

McCrory would pick up wins over Luke Cummo and Ryan Madigan during his two-year UFC tenure, but losses to Akihiro Gono, Dustin Hazelett, and finally John Howard would see him released from the promotion in August of 2009. McCrory would not be seen nor heard from again for the next five years, which, according to his recent interview with MMAFighting, was never really a part of his plan:

I never really meant to take all that time off. It’s just the way circumstances lead you in life. I got so far out of the mix. For a time, I didn’t want to fight. There were times I didn’t want to, then there were times I wasn’t able to, and there were other things…injuries, problems. I just could never get the momentum enough to get competitive, or I just couldn’t find the right fights, or I couldn’t find someone who’d fight me, or I couldn’t find somebody who’d want to pay me.

But McCrory eventually did return at Bellator 123, scoring my personal frontrunner for “Most Badass Knockout of the Year and Maybe Ever” over Brennan Ward. “The Barn Cat” lived up to his unusual/awesome nickname and beyond that night, blistering Ward with a pinpoint series of strikes that felled the former middleweight title challenger in just over 20 seconds. McCrory would follow up the incredible victory with an equally impressive (and quick) submission of Jason Butcher at Bellator 134 last February, and it seemed as if Tamdan McCrory: Bellator Champion was all but inevitable.

But it appears that McCrory has his sights set on something slightly bigger than a Bellator crown, as it was announced yesterday that he has re-signed with the UFC. In fact, he apparently turned down a Bellator title shot to fight for the sport’s premiere organization:

I left a title shot in [my last promotion] to come to the UFC. If I wanted to win that belt I could have stayed and done it, but I wanted to be back in the sport of MMA, not the MMA entertainment business.

Translation: “I wants them Reebok monies!!”

I would highly recommend giving Chuck Mindenhall’s piece on McCrory a read at some point in the near future, but for now, let’s all just celebrate the return of the sport’s most unassuming assassin.

The post Tamdan “The Barn Cat” McCrory Is Back in the UFC and We Can’t Contain Our Excitement appeared first on Cagepotato.

BTW, The Guy With the Coolest Nickname in MMA is Returning to Competition at Bellator 123


(Photo via Sherdog.) 

Truly great fighter nicknames are hard to come by in MMA. If they aren’t blatant attempts to sound intimidating using some well-worn cliche like “The Assassin” or “The Hitman”, they’re alliteration or pun-focused atrocities like “The Muscle Shark” Sherk or “Twinkle Toes” Trigg. I swear to God, if one more fighter calls themselves “The Pitbull”, I am going to walk into the nearest MMA gym with a fully loaded AK-47 and just start spraying bullets.

Worst of all, the nicknames many MMA fighters choose often fail to fit their personalities/fighting styles. Bob Sapp is not a “Beast.” Likewise, TUF 19 winner Corey Anderson does not beast 25/8, because the constraints of time prevent him from doing so. Justin McCully may be illiterate, but he is definitely not “The Nsane1.” And so on, and so forth.

But in the late aughts, there was one MMA fighter who rose to prominence in the UFC thanks largely to his inventive and more importantly appropriate nickname: Tamdan “The Barn Cat” McCrory.

What is a barn cat, exactly? Well, I’m glad you asked…


(Photo via Sherdog.) 

Truly great fighter nicknames are hard to come by in MMA. If they aren’t blatant attempts to sound intimidating using some well-worn cliche like “The Assassin” or “The Hitman”, they’re alliteration or pun-focused atrocities like “The Muscle Shark” Sherk or “Twinkle Toes” Trigg. I swear to God, if one more fighter calls themselves “The Pitbull”, I am going to walk into the nearest MMA gym with a fully loaded AK-47 and just start spraying bullets.

Worst of all, the nicknames many MMA fighters choose often fail to fit their personalities/fighting styles. Bob Sapp is not a “Beast.” Likewise, TUF 19 winner Corey Anderson does not beast 25/8, because the constraints of time prevent him from doing so. Justin McCully may be illiterate, but he is definitely not “The Nsane1.” And so on, and so forth.

But in the late aughts, there was one MMA fighter who rose to prominence in the UFC thanks largely to his inventive and more importantly appropriate nickname: Tamdan “The Barn Cat” McCrory.

What is a barn cat, exactly? Well, I’m glad you asked.

Having grown up in an aggressively rural town and worked on farms for years, I have dealt with the feral, disease-ridden beast known as the barn cat more than most. While not much different than your average household feline at first glance, I would place barn cats closer to the lynx or bobcat in terms of their attitude. They are paranoid, untrustworthy (even by a cat’s incredibly low standards), and prone to bouts of unprompted aggression, which makes sense when you realize that they only wind up on farms in the first place because their owners have actively chosen to abandon them there. I seriously cannot tell you how many times I have seen someone drive up to the edge of a cornfield and heave a cat out the window like it was yesterday’s garbage before peeling off like the cold-blooded scumbag they are.

But back to the man behind the nickname. After compiling a 3-2 record in his first five UFC bouts, McCrory all but vanished from MMA competition following his split decision loss to John Howard at UFC 101. Until yesterday morning, that is, when Luke Thomas broke the news that “The Barn Cat” will make his highly anticipated return to the cage at Bellator 123, a.k.a the card that the UFC totally *isn’t* trying to counter-program by holding a Fight Night card 10 miles down the street.

Speaking of nicknames, McCrory will face off against Brennan “The Irish Bad Boy” Ward, who according to our “What Your MMA Nickname Really Says About You” breakdown, is probably an asshole who isn’t even really from Ireland.

Featuring a featherweight title fight rematch between Pat Curran and Patricio “Pitbull”(*sigh*) Freire and the MMA return of Bobby Lashley, Bellator 123 goes down from the Mohegan Sun arena in Uncasville, CT on September 5th.

–J. Jones