Medical suspensions have been released for UFC 140, including those given to main card fighters Lyoto Machida, Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira, Mark Hominick and Tito Ortiz. MMajunkie.com received the list of suspensions with Nogueira, Hominick and …
Medical suspensions have been released for UFC 140, including those given to main card fighters Lyoto Machida, Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira, Mark Hominick and Tito Ortiz.
MMajunkie.com received the list of suspensions with Nogueira, Hominick and Ortiz getting the longest suspensions at 60 days. Several other fighters also were suspended for 60 days.
Nogueira suffered a broken arm in his rematch with Frank Mir in the co-main event. During the fight, it appeared as if Mir had dislocated Nogueira’s shoulder due to a vicious kimura applied early in the first round. Later news revealed his arm had been broken. UFC officials have confirmed Nogueira will not need surgery and that he may be able to return to the cage within nine months.
Ortiz took on Antonio Rogerio Nogueira and was stopped in the first round due to body strikes. It appeared as if Ortiz had injured his ribs during the stoppage, which will cause him to need a chest x-ray and have an abdominal ultrasound done before his next fight.
Hominick was stopped just seven seconds into the first round, when Chan Sung-Jung knocked him out.
The main event featured former UFC light heavyweight champion Lyoto Machida going up against reigning UFC champion Jon “Bones” Jones. Machida was choked unconscious in the second round after a guillotine choke was applied by Jones.
Full list of suspensions: (Fighters with 60 day suspensions lost via TKO or submission. Fighters with 14-day suspensions done for precautionary reasons)
Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira: Suspended 60 days, needs clearance from orthopedic surgeon
Filed under: UFCJon Jones is the most dominant force in MMA today. Yes, more dominant than Anderson Silva or Georges St-Pierre. That became strikingly obvious at UFC 140, when Jones choked Lyoto Machida unconscious in under two rounds.
Jones has absolutely crushed each of his last six opponents, finished every one of them. The last three of them were former UFC champions, a feat unprecedented.
His win over Machida wasn’t the most lopsided of his recent run, but that actually made it more valuable as an assessment tool for those of us in the analysis business. Though he was never in any real trouble against Machida in the first round, it was clear he was a bit confused about the proper approach. Meanwhile, Machida was masterfully timing his attacks off counters and clearly felt comfortable with closing the distance between them.
This was the same Machida we had seen in his best days, when he was knocking out Rashad Evans and Thiago Silva, and there was nothing to suggest that Jones could suddenly figure things out between rounds after two months of preparation had left him looking a bit lost.
But whatever advantage Machida had was completely erased between rounds.
Jones made a few slight adjustments, re-took the center of the cage and suddenly seemed to understand everything that was in front of him. Machida landed nothing of any consequence in the round, and Jones drilled him once, cut him open with a slicing elbow, dropped him with a left hand, and finally finished him with a standing guillotine.
Among UFC champs, Jones has the longest streak of consecutive finishes, one that even heavyweight champ Junior dos Santos can’t match. Because of it, he’s the most dominant force in MMA, at least for now.
On to playing fantasy matchmaker…
Jon Jones
“Bones” will get a well-deserved vacation after four lengthy camps in 2011. Meanwhile, the UFC will wait to see how January’s Rashad Evans vs. Phil Davis fight plays out. If Evans wins and comes out unscathed, the UFC will sync him up with Jones for a long-awaited fight that is guaranteed to do big business. Prediction: Jones vs. Evans, with Memorial Day weekend of 2012 as the target date Lyoto Machida
Machida is likely still wondering what went wrong after a strong opening round against Jones, but he’s hardly the only one who’s ever been left scratching his head at how it had all gone awry so quickly. Upon losing, Machida is in a similar position from the one he had before being paired with Jones, with the prospect of waiting since no obvious pairing for him exists right now. He’s faced a lot of the big names, already, and several of the other possibilities are locked into other fights. Prediction: He faces Forrest Griffin
Frank Mir
For a second there, it seemed like Mir was going to be thrust into a replacement role against Brock Lesnar on short notice, but as long as Alistair Overeem passes his pre-fight drug screenings, he won’t be needed. It’s just as well. Mir would need more time to prep for Lesnar’s wrestling style, particularly when the fight would carry with it such major implications. If Cain Velasquez was ready to fight again soon, a Mir-Velasquez fight might make some sense, but he might need some more time off. And since the winner of Lesnar-Overeem will be moved into a title match with champ Junior dos Santos, options are limited. Prediction: Mir faces the loser of the Lesnar-Overeem fight
Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira
“Big Nog” is a proud man, but you have to wonder if pride is worth a broken bone and time spent on the sidelines when you’re 35 years old and in the twilight of your career. It’s easy for me to second-guess Nogueira here, so perhaps he thought he had one last escape attempt in him just before his arm cracked. That said, he apparently lucked out as the doctor he recently saw advised him against surgery, saying it would heal on its own in around five months. Still, add in time for a training camp and you’re looking at a minimum of an 8-9 month layoff for him. Prediction: Given the length of time away, it’s impossible to predict an opponent, but someone like Matt Mitrione or Roy Nelson might be a possibility.
Tito Ortiz
Tito Ortiz did a very smart thing before his fight with Antonio Rogerio Nogueira. He said he planned to retire in May 2002, 15 years from his first pro fight. That essentially meant that win or lose, he’d probably only fight once more after the Little Nog bout, which he lost by first-round TKO. It was smart because he basically publicly promised Dana White that they wouldn’t have to continue the very public debate about his possible retirement. In essence, White wouldn’t have to draw the line and be the bad guy since Ortiz drew it himself. That doesn’t change the fact that he’s 1-6-1 in his last eight fights, but it’s probably enough to get him one last fight before calling it quits. Prediction: I won’t even guess the opponent, but the UFC gives him a winnable style matchup against a mid-level opponent. Antonio Rogerio Nogueira
A couple weeks ago, after Mauricio “Shogun” Rua lost his fight with Dan Henderson, I predicted he would next fight Thiago Silva, but I completely whiffed on the possibility that he could line up a rematch of his 2005 bout with Little Nog, a bout which was one of the best bouts of that year. With both coming off wins, it’s now or never. Prediction: He faces Rua
Chan Sung Jung
The “Korean Zombie” is the UFC‘s Mr. Excitement, win or lose, creating amazing moments. The latest was his record-tying, seven-second knockout of Mark Hominick, a former No. 1 contender Jung isn’t quite ready for the title picture yet, but he’s starting to creep into the conversation. Prediction: He faces Ricardo Lamas Igor Pokrajac
Pokrajac looked good against the durable Krzysztof Soszynski, needing just 35 seconds to finish him in a KO. The win made him 3-1 in his last four, so let’s match the hard-hitting Croatian up with another striker and see what kind of magic they make. Prediction: He faces Brandon Vera.
A leopard can’t change his spots. That’s likely the first thing I’ll tell anyone in 15 years who asks me about Tito Ortiz. Sure, he’s calling himself “The People’s Champion” these days, but he’s “The Huntington Beach…
A leopard can’t change his spots.
That’s likely the first thing I’ll tell anyone in 15 years who asks me about Tito Ortiz. Sure, he’s calling himself “The People’s Champion” these days, but he’s “The Huntington Beach Bad Boy” to anyone who’s watched him for more than two fights, and that’s what he’ll be best known for.
In an era when his sport was essentially in the dark and needed a guy to sell tickets, it was Ortiz who did.
When the sport was evolving and no one knew whether striking or grappling was best, it was Ortiz who melded the two together to build on Mark Coleman’s invention of ground-and-pound.
At a time MMA needed a heel, a guy people loved to hate, Ortiz was there to flip them off and them beat them up afterwards
That’s how Ortiz will be remembered.
Ortiz has become an interesting figure in modern MMA. Gone are the days of a young fighter fuelled by his own brash machismo, now replaced by an aging veteran who remains competitive if often unsuccessful. He gets the business side of things, has repaired a ruined relationship with his employers and seems to genuinely love his fans.
Those are all aspects of his personality that will be remembered too.
It’s probably fair to say that Ortiz has been shaky in the last few years. He’s never had a “gimme” fight in his career though, and he always comes to fight.
If you’re like me, you probably get tired of him reminding you of that fact every time he’s in the cage, but he’s not wrong. Even still, 1-6-1 is nothing to write home about.
Truly, that won’t be what people remember about Ortiz. It’s remarkable to think that a fighter could finish his career on such a slide—at best he’ll win two of his final nine fights should he get a retirement bout and actually win it—and be recalled for the greatness that came before it.
But that’s what Ortiz has earned. At a time when MMA was a niche sport at best, he transcended it and was a face that people knew in sports, not just in his sport. That’s pretty remarkable, and hopefully he can appreciate it when his time comes.
The UFC’s streak of stellar fight cards continued in Toronto on Saturday night, and the Canadian fans showed all the intelligent appreciation we’ve come to expect of our MMA-crazed neighbors to the north. That’s good news for guys like Mark Bocek, who would have been booed out of the building in Las Vegas, but got treated like a conquering hero of technical grappling in the T-dot.
But now that UFC 140 is in the books, it’s time again to sift through the rubble to find the biggest winners, losers, and everything in between.
Biggest Winner: Jon Jones
Here’s a scary thought: what if Jones’ chin is as good as the rest of him? What if he can take a shot as well as he can give one, and still come back to slice you up with those killer elbows and smack you upside the head with kicks that he flicks out like jabs? Then who beats this guy? Probably nobody, if we’re being honest. The more confidence and experience he gains, the more of a nightmare he becomes for anyone in the light heavyweight division. Just as we’ve been saying for months, the biggest threat to his dominance is still, paradoxically, that very same dominance. When you’re beating people this easily, it would be almost natural to get complacent and over-confident and let hubris get the better of you. There are a thousand different ways for that to happen to a wealthy young pro fighter who seems to be headed for super-stardom, and so few ways for him to avoid it. Will Jones prove to be the exception rather than the rule? Maybe. If there’s one thing we know about the guy at this point, it’s that he’s exceptional.
Biggest Loser: Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira
Nothing about Big Nog suggests that he’s the type to tap to a kimura even when he realizes that you’ve got it locked up. We all probably suspected as much before this fight. Now we know it. We also know that he’s willing to pay the price for his own stubbornness, and he did. Considering all the surgeries and lingering injuries he’s dealt with in the past few years, he seems like the last person who needs a broken arm right now. But really, maybe this is a good thing for him. Maybe it will sideline him long enough to make him think about why he’s still doing this when it’s clearly taking a terrible toll on his body. After having surgery on both hips, Nogueira told us before the fight, he went two months where he couldn’t put his foot on the floor without searing pain. That’s two months per hip, and since he had the surgeries a couple months apart, it means he spent nearly half a year off his feet, then came back as soon as possible to fight professionally again because…well, that part’s still unclear. He’s a legend of the sport, and as he showed in those early moments against Mir, dude can still scrap. But how much trauma can you put your skeleton through before it’s just not worth it anymore? I don’t know, but I fear Nogueira might be determined to find out.
Too Reasonable For His Own Good: Chan Sung Jung
Not only did he apologize to the Canadian crowd for knocking out one of their own in seven seconds, he later attributed his own victory to more good luck than skill. That’s true in the sense that it was lucky for him to have faced an overly reckless version of the usually patient Hominick, but give yourself some credit. You don’t hear Duane Ludwig or Todd Duffee saying they were lucky to score their blitzkrieg knockouts, though sure, there had to be a little luck involved. You almost get the sense that even Jung didn’t expect himself to win that fight — certainly not that quickly, anyway. A win’s a win, even if it’s a result of your opponent screwing up. Take ’em however you can get em, Zombie.
Most Charmingly Delusional: Frank Mir He wasn’t dazed. No way. And Nogueira wasn’t close to stopping him. It was just a matter of time until he locked up the kimura and snapped his arm like a stale breadstick. If you believe all that, then you might also believe that it would be a good idea for Mir to fight Brock Lesnar in three weeks. Clearly, Mir is living in his own little world these days, but he is riding a three-fight win streak in that world, so maybe there’s something to it. Maybe success depends on making the most of your own illusions. It probably doesn’t hurt to be a 260-pound submissions expert, either.
Blackest Pot to Accuse Kettle of Same: Nik Lentz
According to the quotes sent out by the UFC, “The Carny” has suddenly come to the conclusion that holding an opponent down without doing any damage to him is a pretty cheap way to win. That he came to that conclusion right after Mark Bocek Lentz’d him, and not after he did more or less the same thing to Andre Winner, well, that’s probably no accident. “He did zero damage. That’s what fights are based on and he didn’t hurt me,” Lentz told the UFC, citing the Nick Diaz version of MMA scoring. “He did absolutely nothing to me except hold me down. That’s not what a fight is supposed to be. So what if he was on top, he did nothing.” Somewhere in England, Winner is sipping a cup of Earl Grey and having himself a good laugh.
Best Career-Saving Victory: Antonio Rogerio Nogueira
This is the problem with fighting a guy like Tito Ortiz. If you lose, it’s disastrous — especially if you’re already riding a two-fight losing streak, like Little Nog was. If you win, as he did, then people shrug and say, so what? All you did was beat Tito, and everybody’s done that lately. At least Nogueira did it in brutal fashion, and in a hurry. In the process he showed that he can still hurt people when he manages to stay upright. If he improves his wrestling enough to stay there against some of the better takedown artists in the division, he might string together a few wins that fans have no choice but to be impressed by.
Most Knockouts Per Round: Constantinos Philippou
He only fought the brilliantly-mustachioed Jared Hamman for about three minutes, but Philippou must have knocked him out at least three times in that span. Hamman showed incredible toughness and resiliency by continuing to rise and rise again, but Philippou had no trouble locating Hamman’s skull with his fist each time. Philippou is a frightening enough striker when your legs are firmly underneath you and your guard is up. The last place you want to be is wobbling around like a newborn fawn in front of a slugger like that.
Least Impressive in Victory: Brian Ebersole
He played it safe and did enough to win, but just barely. It was his least entertaining performance in the UFC so far, and one of the few fights to draw the ire of the uncommonly patient Toronto crowd. These people seemed to actually find some enjoyment in the Bocek-Lentz fight, but Ebersole and Claude Patrick pushed them just a little too far. As long as Ebersole doesn’t make a habit of it, we’ll let this one slide.
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Most Impressive in Defeat: Walel Watson
He dropped a split decision to Yves Jabouin on the prelims, but it could have easily gone the other way. Watson’s height and reach could prove to be serious weapons if he learns how to maximize their effectiveness. He’s not quite there yet, but he made some strides in the right direction against Jabouin, even if the judges didn’t see it his way. While it’s a bummer to go home with an L on your record, he shouldn’t get too down over this one. He’ll be back soon, and I’ll be eager to see it.
Least Convincing New Nickname: Tito Ortiz
He’s now calling himself “The People’s Champ,” supposedly because he’s tired of associating himself with the negativity represented by “The Huntington Beach Bad Boy.” That’s fine, but in order to be anybody’s champ you still have to win some fights. Ortiz has won just one of his last eight, and he wants to be the people’s champ? I guess, but only in the same way that the public pool is always a little sadder than the private pool at the health club. He still remains a popular, or at least well-known figure, and he deserves a place in the UFC’s insular little Hall of Fame for all he did to help build the sport and the brand. But if Dana White does decide to grant his wish and let him have one last fight in May just so he can call himself a 15-year veteran, it will be more an act of generous pity than anything else. No other fighter gets to lose this much and still stick around. But then, no other fighter is Tito Ortiz. For the sake of White’s sanity, that’s probably a good thing.
The UFC’s streak of stellar fight cards continued in Toronto on Saturday night, and the Canadian fans showed all the intelligent appreciation we’ve come to expect of our MMA-crazed neighbors to the north. That’s good news for guys like Mark Bocek, who would have been booed out of the building in Las Vegas, but got treated like a conquering hero of technical grappling in the T-dot.
But now that UFC 140 is in the books, it’s time again to sift through the rubble to find the biggest winners, losers, and everything in between.
Biggest Winner: Jon Jones
Here’s a scary thought: what if Jones’ chin is as good as the rest of him? What if he can take a shot as well as he can give one, and still come back to slice you up with those killer elbows and smack you upside the head with kicks that he flicks out like jabs? Then who beats this guy? Probably nobody, if we’re being honest. The more confidence and experience he gains, the more of a nightmare he becomes for anyone in the light heavyweight division. Just as we’ve been saying for months, the biggest threat to his dominance is still, paradoxically, that very same dominance. When you’re beating people this easily, it would be almost natural to get complacent and over-confident and let hubris get the better of you. There are a thousand different ways for that to happen to a wealthy young pro fighter who seems to be headed for super-stardom, and so few ways for him to avoid it. Will Jones prove to be the exception rather than the rule? Maybe. If there’s one thing we know about the guy at this point, it’s that he’s exceptional.
Biggest Loser: Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira
Nothing about Big Nog suggests that he’s the type to tap to a kimura even when he realizes that you’ve got it locked up. We all probably suspected as much before this fight. Now we know it. We also know that he’s willing to pay the price for his own stubbornness, and he did. Considering all the surgeries and lingering injuries he’s dealt with in the past few years, he seems like the last person who needs a broken arm right now. But really, maybe this is a good thing for him. Maybe it will sideline him long enough to make him think about why he’s still doing this when it’s clearly taking a terrible toll on his body. After having surgery on both hips, Nogueira told us before the fight, he went two months where he couldn’t put his foot on the floor without searing pain. That’s two months per hip, and since he had the surgeries a couple months apart, it means he spent nearly half a year off his feet, then came back as soon as possible to fight professionally again because…well, that part’s still unclear. He’s a legend of the sport, and as he showed in those early moments against Mir, dude can still scrap. But how much trauma can you put your skeleton through before it’s just not worth it anymore? I don’t know, but I fear Nogueira might be determined to find out.
Too Reasonable For His Own Good: Chan Sung Jung
Not only did he apologize to the Canadian crowd for knocking out one of their own in seven seconds, he later attributed his own victory to more good luck than skill. That’s true in the sense that it was lucky for him to have faced an overly reckless version of the usually patient Hominick, but give yourself some credit. You don’t hear Duane Ludwig or Todd Duffee saying they were lucky to score their blitzkrieg knockouts, though sure, there had to be a little luck involved. You almost get the sense that even Jung didn’t expect himself to win that fight — certainly not that quickly, anyway. A win’s a win, even if it’s a result of your opponent screwing up. Take ’em however you can get em, Zombie.
Most Charmingly Delusional: Frank Mir He wasn’t dazed. No way. And Nogueira wasn’t close to stopping him. It was just a matter of time until he locked up the kimura and snapped his arm like a stale breadstick. If you believe all that, then you might also believe that it would be a good idea for Mir to fight Brock Lesnar in three weeks. Clearly, Mir is living in his own little world these days, but he is riding a three-fight win streak in that world, so maybe there’s something to it. Maybe success depends on making the most of your own illusions. It probably doesn’t hurt to be a 260-pound submissions expert, either.
Blackest Pot to Accuse Kettle of Same: Nik Lentz
According to the quotes sent out by the UFC, “The Carny” has suddenly come to the conclusion that holding an opponent down without doing any damage to him is a pretty cheap way to win. That he came to that conclusion right after Mark Bocek Lentz’d him, and not after he did more or less the same thing to Andre Winner, well, that’s probably no accident. “He did zero damage. That’s what fights are based on and he didn’t hurt me,” Lentz told the UFC, citing the Nick Diaz version of MMA scoring. “He did absolutely nothing to me except hold me down. That’s not what a fight is supposed to be. So what if he was on top, he did nothing.” Somewhere in England, Winner is sipping a cup of Earl Grey and having himself a good laugh.
Best Career-Saving Victory: Antonio Rogerio Nogueira
This is the problem with fighting a guy like Tito Ortiz. If you lose, it’s disastrous — especially if you’re already riding a two-fight losing streak, like Little Nog was. If you win, as he did, then people shrug and say, so what? All you did was beat Tito, and everybody’s done that lately. At least Nogueira did it in brutal fashion, and in a hurry. In the process he showed that he can still hurt people when he manages to stay upright. If he improves his wrestling enough to stay there against some of the better takedown artists in the division, he might string together a few wins that fans have no choice but to be impressed by.
Most Knockouts Per Round: Constantinos Philippou
He only fought the brilliantly-mustachioed Jared Hamman for about three minutes, but Philippou must have knocked him out at least three times in that span. Hamman showed incredible toughness and resiliency by continuing to rise and rise again, but Philippou had no trouble locating Hamman’s skull with his fist each time. Philippou is a frightening enough striker when your legs are firmly underneath you and your guard is up. The last place you want to be is wobbling around like a newborn fawn in front of a slugger like that.
Least Impressive in Victory: Brian Ebersole
He played it safe and did enough to win, but just barely. It was his least entertaining performance in the UFC so far, and one of the few fights to draw the ire of the uncommonly patient Toronto crowd. These people seemed to actually find some enjoyment in the Bocek-Lentz fight, but Ebersole and Claude Patrick pushed them just a little too far. As long as Ebersole doesn’t make a habit of it, we’ll let this one slide.
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Most Impressive in Defeat: Walel Watson
He dropped a split decision to Yves Jabouin on the prelims, but it could have easily gone the other way. Watson’s height and reach could prove to be serious weapons if he learns how to maximize their effectiveness. He’s not quite there yet, but he made some strides in the right direction against Jabouin, even if the judges didn’t see it his way. While it’s a bummer to go home with an L on your record, he shouldn’t get too down over this one. He’ll be back soon, and I’ll be eager to see it.
Least Convincing New Nickname: Tito Ortiz
He’s now calling himself “The People’s Champ,” supposedly because he’s tired of associating himself with the negativity represented by “The Huntington Beach Bad Boy.” That’s fine, but in order to be anybody’s champ you still have to win some fights. Ortiz has won just one of his last eight, and he wants to be the people’s champ? I guess, but only in the same way that the public pool is always a little sadder than the private pool at the health club. He still remains a popular, or at least well-known figure, and he deserves a place in the UFC’s insular little Hall of Fame for all he did to help build the sport and the brand. But if Dana White does decide to grant his wish and let him have one last fight in May just so he can call himself a 15-year veteran, it will be more an act of generous pity than anything else. No other fighter gets to lose this much and still stick around. But then, no other fighter is Tito Ortiz. For the sake of White’s sanity, that’s probably a good thing.
After what many called the event of the year, UFC 140 featured some of the best fighters in the sport today, including UFC light heavyweight champion Jon Jones, former heavyweight champions Frank Mir and Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira, as well as former cham…
After what many called the event of the year, UFC 140 featured some of the best fighters in the sport today, including UFC light heavyweight champion Jon Jones, former heavyweight champions Frank Mir and Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira, as well as former champion Tito Ortiz.
Not all emerged victorious, but the ones that did came through and got impressive stoppages over their opponents.
As the winners move on and forward in the division and up the pound-for-pound rankings, the losers will have to work their way back up the ladder, and for some, retire.
Last night UFC Light-Heavyweight Champion Jon Jones made history in defeating Lyoto Machida, joining the ranks of Rampage Jackson and Shogun Rua as one of the few Dragon Slayers.With the way “The Dragon” controlled the fight in the first round, Machida…
Last night UFC Light-Heavyweight Champion Jon Jones made history in defeating Lyoto Machida, joining the ranks of Rampage Jackson and Shogun Rua as one of the few Dragon Slayers.
With the way “The Dragon” controlled the fight in the first round, Machida showed that he does have what it takes to dethrone the champ. Unfortunately, he wasn’t able to keep it up and, for the first time in his career, lost via submission.
At 33 years old, Machida’s career is far from over as he still has enough time and steam to make another run at the title. The road back to redemption will be long and difficult, but everyone loves a comeback.
So, here are the top five fights Machida can take, and if he wins enough of them to earn another title shot we may stop calling him “The Karate Kid” and instead refer to him as “The Comeback Kid”.
Medical suspensions have been released for UFC 140, including those given to main card fighters Lyoto Machida, Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira, Mark Hominick and Tito Ortiz.
The UFC’s streak of stellar fight cards continued in Toronto on Saturday night, and the Canadian fans showed all the intelligent appreciation we’ve come to expect of our