Tag: UFC 146

Rumor: Brock Lesnar Will Return to the UFC by the End of 2012


(Inferior heavyweight contender, or marketing genius?!) 

Perhaps we’re in the minority here, but we’re getting pretty God damn sick of mixed martial artists throwing around the word “retirement” like Kim Kardashian throws around the word “marriage.” Because retirement, like marriage, is a sacred institution, and nowadays it seems as if every other fighter is taking a big, steaming turd on what was once holy ground. In the past year alone, both Jamie Varner and more recently B.J. Penn have retired, only to come out of said retirement before anyone could even assess their retirement in the first place. Though the jury is still out on how long Nick Diaz and Jason Miller will be out of action, it’s looking like you can add none other than former heavyweight champion Brock Lesnar to the former list, as it has been reported by co-Host of Tough Talk on wrestlingobserver.com, Mike Sawyer, that Lesnar will return to the UFC within the year. He broke the news over his Twitter:

Mike Sawyer ?@TOUGHTALKMMA
Had an interesting conversation with someone VERY close to all the Brock Lesnar stuff. He is fighting THIS YEAR in UFC & not Frank Mir…

Mike Sawyer ?@TOUGHTALKMMA
plans change all the time, but the name I was told isn’t Roy.

Brian ?@FrontRowBrian
If it’s not Mir fighting Lesnar in UFC later this year as @TOUGHTALKMMA reports, who is it? @roynelsonmma? @stefanstruve? @ShaneCarwin II?

Mike Sawyer ?@TOUGHTALKMMA
one of the above.

For those of you with the memory capacity of Sammy Jankis, Lesnar announced his retirement from the sport following his first round TKO loss to Alistair Overeem at UFC 141. UFC 141 was a mere six months ago.


(Inferior heavyweight contender, or marketing genius?!) 

Perhaps we’re in the minority here, but we’re getting pretty God damn sick of mixed martial artists throwing around the word “retirement” like Kim Kardashian throws around the word “marriage.” Because retirement, like marriage, is a sacred institution, and nowadays it seems as if every other fighter is taking a big, steaming turd on what was once holy ground. In the past year alone, both Jamie Varner and more recently B.J. Penn have retired, only to come out of said retirement before anyone could even assess their retirement in the first place. Though the jury is still out on how long Nick Diaz and Jason Miller will be out of action, it’s looking like you can add none other than former heavyweight champion Brock Lesnar to the former list, as it has been reported by co-Host of Tough Talk on wrestlingobserver.com, Mike Sawyer, that Lesnar will return to the UFC within the year. He broke the news over his Twitter:

Mike Sawyer ?@TOUGHTALKMMA
Had an interesting conversation with someone VERY close to all the Brock Lesnar stuff. He is fighting THIS YEAR in UFC & not Frank Mir…

Mike Sawyer ?@TOUGHTALKMMA
plans change all the time, but the name I was told isn’t Roy.

Brian ?@FrontRowBrian
If it’s not Mir fighting Lesnar in UFC later this year as @TOUGHTALKMMA reports, who is it? @roynelsonmma? @stefanstruve? @ShaneCarwin II?

Mike Sawyer ?@TOUGHTALKMMA
one of the above.

For those of you with the memory capacity of Sammy Jankis, Lesnar announced his retirement from the sport following his first round TKO loss to Alistair Overeem at UFC 141. UFC 141 was a mere six months ago.

Now, this rumor may not be coming from the most reliable source, but if there is any truth to this, then we gotta ask what the hell DW and company are thinking. Oh wait, they’re thinking that having Lesnar back in the UFC will significantly add to their stacks of cash which already stand higher than Joe Silva on a step ladder.

But Sergio Hernandez of CageSideSeats seems to think that we are all being made fools of, and that the UFC have become nothing than pawns in a possible WWE storyline. He writes:

In his short career, he defeated a Hall of Famer, won the heavyweight championship and became the biggest pay-per-view (PPV) draw in the history of the company.

Four months later, he was back in WWE, F5ing John Cena out of nowhere and kicking off their rivalry which culminated in a terrific match at Extreme Rules.

Following Lesnar’s loss to Cena that night, he attacked WWE COO Triple H. Snapping “The Game’s” arm, he hasn’t been seen since and his old mouthpiece Paul Heyman showed up at one point to announce his client’s resignation and subsequent lawsuit against WWE.

Of course, in the world of professional wrestling, this is all a charade.

So when Lesnar showed up at last night’s UFC 146 event and rumors began swirling the former champion was looking to get his old job back, it get me thinking [sic].

According to Dave Meltzer, Lesnar’s meeting with White did not go well. Perhaps the UFC President felt the biggest star in the sport was genuinely interested in making a comeback only to find out his appearance was all to help legitimize the storyline in which he quit WWE.

Meltzer also mentioned a “game is being played.”

It’s unclear what he means by that. Perhaps the aforementioned theory is true and Lesnar plus Vince McMahon is simply using the UFC.

Or maybe Dana White — who has had meetings with McMahon in the past — is helping an old friend with his new gig?

We gotta say, this theory makes much more sense than the actual possibility of Lesnar returning to the UFC. As Hernandez also mentioned, it’s not like the beatings Lesnar took at the hands of Cain Velasquez and the Ubereem have been long forgotten, so who would honestly expect Lesnar’s return to be anything but a marketing ploy? One thing’s for sure, if he were to return, it surely wouldn’t help add to the legitimacy of a sport that is constantly trying to gain credibility in the mainstream.

But on the outside chance Lesnar actually is returning, Sawyer seems convinced that he will either face Stefan Struve, Roy Nelson, or Shane Carwin. We can go ahead and cross Struve off that list, because he is not nearly well known enough to be facing a guy like Lesnar, even though he has about 5 times the experience. Nelson has been angling for a fight with Lesnar for what seems like an eternity now, even to the point that he would be willing to go to the WWE to “whoop his ass,” so perhaps all of his trash talking could finally pay off. As for Carwin, he and Lesnar already engaged in a classic war at UFC 116, and Carwin finally has a return date tentatively set, so that could make for the most interesting storyline of the three, but what do you think, Potato Nation? Should we even be considering this lunacy as a possibility?

–J. Jones

Frank Mir Received a TUE For UFC 146, And Other Disheartening Facts From The Week in MMA


(So I sez to da brod, “Chael sent me,” and she just hands the needles right ova!!) 

To say that it has been a disturbing week in the world almost does too much justice for the term “disturbing.” It has been an abhorring week. There have been two cases of zombie-like acts of cannibalism reported in the past few days alone. Two. If you can stomach it, see for yourself what the human race is still capable of. Being a bit of a paranoid, Burt Gummer-esque survivalist at heart, upon hearing this news, I immediately took to the stocked gun cabinet that rests in the dining room of my countryside abode, stepped outside, and began target practicing on squirrels, chipmunks, and whatever else happened to cross my path. Because this is how it begins, people. You know, the stuff those guys in face paint and textiles told us would happen so many years ago. And I hate to be a dick, but I warned you fuckers. Many, many times. And you just didn’t want to listen.

Self whoring aside, I’d like to think that when the news in the real world gets me down, I can always turn to the world of MMA/combat sports for a little bit of solace, be it in the form of a fantastic knockout, a discussion with friends, or a news story that makes me smile from ear to ear. So you can imagine my disappointment when I came across yet another story of a mixed martial artist, this time Frank Mir, hopping on the TRT bandwagon.

I’ll admit, I found it a little odd when Frank told Ariel Helwani that he didn’t want to discuss the matter in the interviews leading up to his UFC 146 clash with Junior Dos Santos, because let’s be honest, when is there ever something that Frank Mir doesn’t want to talk about? BloodyElbow’s Brent Brookhouse seems to agree with this sentiment, and Mir’s avoidance of the issue makes so much more sense in retrospect.


(So I sez to da brod, “Chael sent me,” and she just hands the needles right ova!!) 

To say that it has been a disturbing week in the world almost does too much justice for the term “disturbing.” It has been an abhorring week. There have been two cases of zombie-like acts of cannibalism reported in the past few days alone. Two. If you can stomach it, see for yourself what the human race is still capable of. Being a bit of a paranoid, Burt Gummer-esque survivalist at heart, upon hearing this news, I immediately took to the stocked gun cabinet that rests in the dining room of my countryside abode, stepped outside, and began target practicing on squirrels, chipmunks, and whatever else happened to cross my path. Because this is how it begins, people. You know, the stuff those guys in face paint and textiles told us would happen so many years ago. And I hate to be a dick, but I warned you fuckers. Many, many times. And you just didn’t want to listen.

Self whoring aside, I’d like to think that when the news in the real world gets me down, I can always turn to the world of MMA/combat sports for a little bit of solace, be it in the form of a fantastic knockout, a discussion with friends, or a news story that makes me smile from ear to ear. So you can imagine my disappointment when I came across yet another story of a mixed martial artist, this time Frank Mir, hopping on the TRT bandwagon.

I’ll admit, I found it a little odd when Frank told Ariel Helwani that he didn’t want to discuss the matter in the interviews leading up to his UFC 146 clash with Junior Dos Santos, because let’s be honest, when is there ever something that Frank Mir doesn’t want to talk about? BloodyElbow’s Brent Brookhouse seems to agree with this sentiment, and Mir’s avoidance of the issue makes so much more sense in retrospect.

Here’s a video of the interview for those of you too lazy to click a link. The topic in question comes up around the 1:12 mark.

And like Brookehouse also stated, I’m not going to rant about this revelation. I will say, however, that I’m not buying it. I was always weary in regards to which fighters, if any, truly needed testosterone replacement therapy to compete in the first place, and now that these exemptions are seemingly being handed out as easily as medicinal marijuana cards in California, I’m officially calling bullshit. Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for the use/legalization/mass distribution of the sticky-icky, but trying to convince me that professional fighters (especially massive heavyweights like Mir) are somehow lacking testosterone simply ain’t gonna happen. Does that make me a hypocrite? Probably. Ignorant? Sure, but that’s just my view. I’m not saying it’s the correct one, but I am saying that Keith Kizer already predicted that more and more fighters would be applying for these “exemptions” once they became available.

Don’t think I fail to see the irony in following up a statement about how I won’t rant…with a rant.

But as it is, creator and host of Pro MMA Radio, Larry Pepe, was the first to break the news, when he tweeted the following:

NSAC’s Keith Kizer confirmed to me that Frank Mir met all requirements for & received TUE for TRT for UFC 146 fight against JDS.

Again, I’d like to ask what exactly these requirements are, but if it takes half as long to explain as it does to hand out a year suspension for marijuana metabolites, which is a long God damn time, then I’ll pass.

And speaking of our favorite ADHD patient, today’s second sickening revelation comes during the fallout of Nick Diaz’s aforementioned suspension.

Frank Mir Received Testosterone Replacement Therapy for Dos Santos Fight

There was a time when the biggest concern in MMA was that a fighter would test positive for steroids. There’d be shock and a little bit of outrage, but people would move on and accept that it is a part of the sport. Well, those times are well behi…

There was a time when the biggest concern in MMA was that a fighter would test positive for steroids. There’d be shock and a little bit of outrage, but people would move on and accept that it is a part of the sport. 

Well, those times are well behind us.

Because of a loop hole in the ABC’s drug testing guidelines, more and more fighters are using Testosterone Replacement Therapy to counter low testosterone levels. In the past, we’ve heard of Chael Sonnen, Nate Marquardt and Dan Henderson all requiring TRT to raise their low levels of testosterone. 

Well, we can now add Frank Mir to that list. 

This sport is getting more and more ridiculous every day.

The Nevada commission awarded Chael Sonnen a Therapeutic Use Exception for UFC 147 and an advisory role for dealing with TRT. On that same day, Nick Diaz received a very harsh penalty for smoking marijuana before his UFC 143 fight against Carlos Condit. 

If this is the direction that the sport is going, I’ll be honest and say that I really don’t want to be a part of it. If fighters are able to “game” the system by getting an endocrinologist to sign off on them having low T levels, it changes how the sport is perceived. 

The UFC does have a problem with testing; it’s just not the one they think.

Marijuana and steroids are old news. The focus now must be shifted to how many fighters in their employ actually require TRT and how many of them are just using it as an excuse to boost their testosterone prior to fights. 

Read more MMA news on BleacherReport.com

Glover Teixeira Wants to Avoid Fighting Teammate Lyoto Machida

Glover Teixeira’s recent win over Kyle Kingsbury put the rest of the light heavyweight division on notice, and some fans already consider him to be a legitimate contender.The Brazilian, who has spent 10 years in the sport, made his UFC debut this past …

Glover Teixeira’s recent win over Kyle Kingsbury put the rest of the light heavyweight division on notice, and some fans already consider him to be a legitimate contender.

The Brazilian, who has spent 10 years in the sport, made his UFC debut this past weekend at UFC 146.

The win extended his professional record to 18-2, but it was a satisfying victory for the Brazilian, who the company has been trying to pursue for three years. However, visa issues had prevented him from competing.

“Even with it being my first fight in the UFC, I wasn’t nervous at all. I was very calm and relaxed, maybe because of all my fights before,” Teixeira said in an exclusive interview with BloodyElbow.com.

“Things happen for a reason, so I’m happy with the way everything is going. The past is the past, and I can’t go back in time to change anything.”

After building up quite the resume for himself before coming to the UFC, Teixeira is now looking to make a name for himself at 205 pounds. 

In hopes of prolonging his tenure in the light heavyweight division, Teixeira welcomes all challengers and is prepared to fight anyone.

Unless, of course, that one challenger is Lyoto Machida.

“Right now, the one I wouldn’t want to fight is Lyoto Machida,” he said. “I’ve trained with him, I help him out and he’s a great guy. Whatever they tell me to do, I’ll do, but if I could have a say, Lyoto would be the one I wouldn’t want to fight.”

Teixeira’s presence adds more depth to the 205-pound division, and he boasts all the skills to become a title contender at some point, but his refusal to face one of his friends will not go over well with UFC president Dana White.

Machida remains one of the top competitors in the UFC. In order for Teixeira to move ahead in his division, he may have to set his personal feelings aside.

Read more MMA news on BleacherReport.com

Roy Nelson Believes 60-70 Percent of His Opponents Have Used PEDs

If you listened to the crowds wildly cheering UFC heavyweight Roy Nelson following his 51-second knockout over Dave Herman at UFC 146, you would find it easy to believe that the man known as “Big Country” is one of the most popular fighters…

If you listened to the crowds wildly cheering UFC heavyweight Roy Nelson following his 51-second knockout over Dave Herman at UFC 146, you would find it easy to believe that the man known as “Big Country” is one of the most popular fighters in the division.

Unfortunately for Nelson, sometimes it seems that the men who sign the checks, UFC president Dana White and CEO Lorenzo Fertitta, are not the biggest fans of Nelson.

Following Nelson’s win over Herman, the fighter walked to the side of the cage and directed some comments at White and Fertitta who were seated cageside.

White addressed those comments while speaking to MMAWeekly.com, saying, “That was Roy Nelson’s ‘(expletive) you’ to me and Lorenzo. Did you see him come over and yell at us after the fight? It was.”

White has long been critical of Nelson, taking exception to his physique, his fat-man shtick and lately his unruly beard and mullet. The UFC president has expressed his desire to see Nelson take his career seriously, saying that he does think Nelson has untapped talent.

That talent and an iron chin have allowed Nelson to compile a career MMA record of 17-7. Nelson’s first official UFC win came when he knocked out Brendan Schaub in the final bout of the 10th season of The Ultimate Fighter. He followed that victory with a 39-second knockout of Stefan Struve before dropping decisions to Junior dos Santos and Frank Mir.

Since then, Nelson has gone 2-1 including his win over Herman. In all, his UFC record is 4-3. That record may seem average, but Nelson feels that his record is something to be proud of considering the fact that he feels that many of his opponents have been using performance-enhancing drugs, telling Bloody Elbow:

I used to think when I’d fight and beat up people that are doing the stuff that they are not supposed to be doing, I just looked at it as a moral victory for myself. It was like, “Hey, I just beat that guy, even though he was on the stuff” or he might have beaten me because he was on the stuff, but now I realize that he’s actually just taking money from me. I think from now on we should just do random drug tests, because we just did it for this heavyweight card, and it changed the whole landscape of it.

When asked how many fighters he believes he has fought that have been using PEDs, Nelson put the number at 60-70 percent, a number that, if true, indicates a real problem in the MMA world, one that needs to be addressed in some way as soon as possible, something that White has said is in the works.

“We’re going to do our own testing, order these guys into [a lab]; we’re sorting it out now,” White told the L.A. Times. “You have to do this to save the sport. You can’t have these guys fighting on this stuff.”

Hopefully this will be sorted out quickly and fans, the media and the fighters can begin to put this talk of who’s doing what behind them.

No one should be delusional enough to believe a UFC testing program will ferret out all the cheaters, but it’s a start, and one that may make some question if the risk is worth the reward.

Read more MMA news on BleacherReport.com

Brain Injury and the UFC: The Importance of Fight Stoppage

The reason you enjoy the UFC, as a fighter or a fan, is due to the wonderment of the grape jelly-like substance suspended inside your skull, harmoniously floating around, minding its safe business. All is peaceful in this world until a punch to th…

The reason you enjoy the UFC, as a fighter or a fan, is due to the wonderment of the grape jelly-like substance suspended inside your skull, harmoniously floating around, minding its safe business. 

All is peaceful in this world until a punch to the jaw displaces your brain, stretching embedded blood vessels, killing blood supply and resulting in a black out. There you lay, oblivious physically, as your brain acts as the corner man screaming for a referee stoppage.  In the UFC, this request will be not only obliged, but taken very seriously.  

Whenever I watch a UFC bout, I’m verbally analyzing and commentating on the impact to every fighter’s cerebrum. I look at every angle to score cranial impact – magnitude of temple shots, gauging accelerations, number of unanswered assaults, eye movements, and double checking the ref’s glove inspection pre-fight. 

Yes, it sounds morbid, but having spent a fair amount of time in emergency medicine, I can’t help but be obsessed with a human’s number one organ – the brain. Recent studies in sports medicine support my concern, and make a good case for supporting the UFCs stoppage policy. 

Approximately 300,000 sports-related concussions occur annually in the United States, with the likelihood of serious consequences increasing with each subsequent head injury. Players with a history of previous concussions are more likely to have future concussions, and previous concussions may be associated with slower recovery of neurological function.

The high profile suicide death of Junior Seau, and subsequent debate about whether or not he suffered from chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE)  brought on by multiple career concussions, continues to shine a negative light on combat sports. 

Sadly, anomalies happen in MMA too, as this week in South Dakota, an unregulated MMA fight cost one fighter his life. Dustin Jensen had a seizure post fight. Though he was rushed to the hospital immediately, he died there after attempts to relieve pressure on his brain were unsuccessful.

There were no medical personnel on staff at this fight, and it is unknown whether he received the necessary pre-fight clearances or not.

 

 

Its quite easy to hurt your brain in a fight – it can’t block, run or duck. To put this into perspective, let’s look at a common measurement known as peak punch force. Peak punch forces in karate range from 1666 to 6860 N. A force of 3200 N (mid range) is all that is needed to break a brick. Remember the vintage Anderson Silva knock out kick?

 

The UFC has never lost a fighter inside the octagon, and wants to keep it this way.  Fighter safety remains paramount to the UFC, which has taken a leadership position via governance, attention and public humiliation for bad calls.

The UFC errs on the side of caution and frowns heavily on poorly called fights where a fighter’s life is in danger.  And the stats prove it. Just this past weekend, at UFC 146, nine fights out of the 12 were referee stoppage induced.

Furthermore, unlike boxing, where fighters get a count of 10 to recover, UFC matches are ended on a “technical knockout” as soon as a fighter cannot defend himself.

And there is good reason to stop a fight or have a fighter sit it out as numerous studies of professional boxers have shown that repeated brain injury can lead to chronic encephalopathy, or dementia pugilistica. Stoppage can be both art and science, as there is a level of objectivity left to the referee in making the call, but there is plenty of room to move within the UFC guidelines to remain safe. The official stoppage definitions from the UFC  include ref stoppage, medical stoppage by a ring side doctor and corner stoppage  by those on your team who hopefully love your brain as much as you do.

Read more MMA news on BleacherReport.com