Tag: UFC 148

Finally, A Rational Explanation for Why Chad Mendes vs. Cody McKenzie Was Booked at UFC 148


(“Based on the odor, I would say this man’s been dead for three days.” / Photo via MMAFighting)

Our old bro Ben Fowlkes has written an in-depth double-interview feature-thingy on the UFC’s dynamic matchmaking duo of Joe Silva and Sean Shelby. If you want to learn more about how these guys operate, where they came from, and what they consider to be worst part of their job, give it a read. Personally, our favorite part is this bit in which Sean Shelby reveals the truth behind a baffling UFC mystery — how the hell was the epic UFC 148 squash-match between Chad Mendes vs. Cody McKenzie booked in the first place? Dig it:

[W]hen McKenzie wanted to come down [to featherweight], initially Shelby wasn’t sure he could use him. Then Bart Palaszewski pulled out of a fight with Mendes, and suddenly the situation changed.

“What people don’t understand is, it’s not like I could just remove Chad from the card and say, ‘Sorry, I can get you a fight four months from now,'” Shelby said. “We understand. You spent money on a camp. You’ve got bills to pay. We will do our best to find you a fight. I bend over backward to keep guys in fights, to keep the machine moving. You have to.”

That’s another part of the process that outsiders don’t always get, Silva and Shelby said. Fighters are promised a certain number of fights within a certain number of months. Keep them on the sidelines too long, and the UFC could be in breach of contract. Beyond that, they’d also risk turning the UFC into the kind of promotion they hate.


(“Based on the odor, I would say this man’s been dead for three days.” / Photo via MMAFighting)

Our old bro Ben Fowlkes has written an in-depth double-interview feature-thingy on the UFC’s dynamic matchmaking duo of Joe Silva and Sean Shelby. If you want to learn more about how these guys operate, where they came from, and what they consider to be worst part of their job, give it a read. Personally, our favorite part is this bit in which Sean Shelby reveals the truth behind a baffling UFC mystery — how the hell was the epic UFC 148 squash-match between Chad Mendes vs. Cody McKenzie booked in the first place? Dig it:

[W]hen McKenzie wanted to come down [to featherweight], initially Shelby wasn’t sure he could use him. Then Bart Palaszewski pulled out of a fight with Mendes, and suddenly the situation changed.

“What people don’t understand is, it’s not like I could just remove Chad from the card and say, ‘Sorry, I can get you a fight four months from now,’” Shelby said. “We understand. You spent money on a camp. You’ve got bills to pay. We will do our best to find you a fight. I bend over backward to keep guys in fights, to keep the machine moving. You have to.”

That’s another part of the process that outsiders don’t always get, Silva and Shelby said. Fighters are promised a certain number of fights within a certain number of months. Keep them on the sidelines too long, and the UFC could be in breach of contract. Beyond that, they’d also risk turning the UFC into the kind of promotion they hate.

“You hear fighters [in other organizations] complain, ‘I haven’t fought in eight months, and they won’t return my calls,’” Silva said. “We don’t want to be like that, but to do that we have to keep a tight rein on how many people you have under contract.”

Ideally, the UFC would like to have most fighters stepping in the cage once every four months or so, for an average of three fights a year. Injuries only complicate the picture, especially when you’re trying to find a replacement to face one of the division’s top fighters, which was exactly the situation Shelby faced with Mendes.

“I can’t pull people out of other matches to fix this one,” Shelby said. “Then you’re just kicking the can down the road. But imagine trying to get someone to fight Chad Mendes on two weeks’ or even a month’s notice.”

Then Shelby’s phone rang. It was McKenzie.

“He called me, and I remember this very well, and he said, ‘I want to commit to 145 (pounds),’” Shelby recalled. “I told him I didn’t have any room, but I do have this one opening. I told him, ‘I don’t think you should take this fight, but…’”

You can imagine where it went from there. McKenzie’s a fighter, after all. He jumped on the opening, all but pleading with Shelby to give him the fight. Shelby was reluctant at first, he said, but, “I had nobody.”

“I mean, nobody,” he said. “It’s not like I can sign some random guy. I’ve already got all the top 10 in the world [at 145 pounds]. I had no other choices.”

And so the fight got made, McKenzie got dropped with a body shot, and Shelby got the blame. That’s how it goes when you’re a matchmaker. With the benefit of hindsight, everyone’s an expert. They’ll all say they knew exactly how it was going to go down and you’d have to be an idiot to make that fight in the first place.

We’d imagine that Mendes’s follow-up booking against Yaotzin Meza must have resulted from a similarly desperate situation, but that, friends, is a story for another day.

Oh Great, Now Tito Ortiz Thinks the UFC Rigged His Retirement Fight at UFC 148


(*sniffle*…and then…and then the bad man told me that i would never amount to anything, and that I had a big, stupid face…*begins bawling hysterically*) 

Tito Ortiz is to conspiracy theories what Wilmer Valderrama is to “Yo Momma” jokes. A fun fact: After slipping on a patch of ice in his driveway and bruising his tailbone as a child, Tito Ortiz convinced himself that the residual water was left behind by an opposing wrestling team in an effort to take him out of the competition. Twenty-some odd years later…crab people. The HAARP Machine? Started by Ortiz to explain his loss to Frank Shamrock at UFC 22. Zeitgeist? A Tito Ortiz production attempting to write off his performance at UFC 44. And don’t even get Tito started on that completely flawed Magic Loogie theory.

Anyways, we haven’t heard much from Tito since he dropped a close decision to longtime rival Forrest Griffin in his retirement fight at UFC 148. Unfortunately, Ortiz recently emerged from hiding to take one final dump on the promotion that made him the man he is today (and a boatload of cash to boot), throwing everyone from Joe Rogan to Dana White under the bus along the way.

Video after the jump. 


(*sniffle*…and then…and then the bad man told me that i would never amount to anything, and that I had a big, stupid face…*begins bawling hysterically*) 

Tito Ortiz is to conspiracy theories what Wilmer Valderrama is to “Yo Momma” jokes. A fun fact: After slipping on a patch of ice in his driveway and bruising his tailbone as a child, Tito Ortiz convinced himself that the residual water was left behind by an opposing wrestling team in an effort to take him out of the competition. Twenty-some odd years later…crab people. The HAARP Machine? Started by Ortiz to explain his loss to Frank Shamrock at UFC 22. Zeitgeist? A Tito Ortiz production attempting to write off his performance at UFC 44. And don’t even get Tito started on that completely flawed Magic Loogie theory.

Anyways, we haven’t heard much from Tito since he dropped a close decision to longtime rival Forrest Griffin in his retirement fight at UFC 148. Unfortunately, Ortiz recently emerged from hiding to take one final dump on the promotion that made him the man he is today (and a boatload of cash to boot), throwing everyone from Joe Rogan to Dana White under the bus along the way.

Video after the jump. 

For your entertainment/convenience, we’ve provided a transcript of Ortiz’s latest conspiracy below (starts around the 4:40 mark, via GroundandPoundTV) along with our running commentary:

I thought I won the fight. When you drop a guy twice, when you take a guy down four times and you dominate by doing it…he never took me down, he never hurt me. 

Fair enough; you think you won the fight, and you cited a few examples to make your case. So far, so good, although the “he never hurt me” mantra is about as used up as, well…

Go back and watch the fight. For the first time ever in UFC history, they showed strikes attempted. Not strikes landed, strikes attempted. When do you ever show someone with strikes attempted?

My guess would be when you land roughly half as many strikes of your opponent and are so gassed by the end of the third round that you are using your face to block said opponent’s punches.

He never hit me, I blocked all of them. I checked all of his kicks. 

Well that, that is just an outright lie. For proof of this, follow either of the links in the previous paragraph.

And I listen to Joe Rogan and it was like a one-sided fight that he was watching. I gave him shit on the phone one time because of it and when we did the podcast he kind of side-winded around it and never got to those questions. But he said, “Look at the leg kicks that Forrest is hitting him with.” I checked all of them. My shin, I had a chipped bone on the tip of it because I checked all of his kicks.  

True, Joe Rogan has come under fire for his “biased” commentary on several occasions, but it should be known that what Tito Ortiz considers a chipped bone is what the rest of us consider a “boo-boo.”

…and after [Forrest ran] out of the fight, that shows that he lost. 

*checking unified rules of mixed martial arts* Nope, it doesn’t. It’s kind of like how the judges don’t pick a winner based on who raises their hands first after a fight either.

…and for Dana to go back and run and get him and to come back, there’s something fishy going on here. How does Dana know how the match is gonna turn out? I thought something was fishy about that. Was it premeditated? Was it pre………….planned out, what the answer was gonna be? If I didn’t knock him out or submit him, they knew who was gonna win. And it’s too bad for my fans. 

You know, all Tito needs are a few more public speaking classes and a sweet rattail and we’ve got ourselves a future TruTV host. And you have to love how he tacks on the “for my fans” spiel at the end to ensure that no one forgets that awesome new nickname of his.

 It bothered me really bad, but I went out the way I wanted to. I went out swinging, I went out on my shield and I held my shield up like no other. 

This just in: Tito Ortiz to host a seminar this summer. The topic: Using repetitive metaphors and confusing non-sequiturs to make your point.

Ortiz goes on to make his usual list of post-fight excuses: bum knee, ruptured disks, new injuries that prevented him from training, etc. before stating that “he doesn’t look for excuses.” They sure seem to find him, though.

Excuses: They’re great, as long as you don’t think about them.

–J. Jones

Anderson Silva vs. Chael Sonnen and the Sweetest Revenge Moments in UFC History

Revenge is a dish best served cold.When it’s served in the UFC, I recommend cold, with a side of face punching.Since the very first show in 1993, revenge has consistently been one of the UFC’s top storylines. But Ken Shamrock’s pursuit of vengeance aga…

Revenge is a dish best served cold.

When it’s served in the UFC, I recommend cold, with a side of face punching.

Since the very first show in 1993, revenge has consistently been one of the UFC’s top storylines. But Ken Shamrock’s pursuit of vengeance against Royce Gracie was just the first of many revenge subplots to come.

This year has been a revenge lover’s dream—and considering The Count of Monte Cristo is my favorite book of all time, I feel qualified to say it doesn’t get much sweeter than Anderson Silva silencing Chael Sonnen and Jon Jones vanquishing his mentor Rashad Evans.

Sonnen, as you may recall, absolutely savaged Silva in the press for two years. He talked about his country, his manhood, his friends and even his wife. It was brutal. Silva, of course, had the last word, not only finishing Chael in the cage, but clowning him afterwards, even inviting him to a barbecue. It was the definition of “owned.”

Amazingly, things were even more personal between Evans and Jones. The two had been training partners at Greg Jackson’s gym in New Mexico, where Evans had taken Jones under his wing.

Things escalated quickly, however, when Jones suggested in the press that he’d be willing to fight Evans, breaking gym protocol and the friendship. When the two met at UFC 145, it was not just for the belt. It was to settle a legitimate score.

Have a sweet revenge moment you prefer? A story of your own? Let us hear it in the comments.

Read more MMA news on BleacherReport.com

UFC on Fox 4 Interview: Dana White Would Like Forrest Griffin to Retire

Following his performance at UFC 148 against Tito Ortiz, Dana White was extremely critical of former light heavyweight champion Forrest Griffin. He thought that Griffin looked old, which in fight talk is usually when someone is on their last legs.&nbsp…

Following his performance at UFC 148 against Tito Ortiz, Dana White was extremely critical of former light heavyweight champion Forrest Griffin. He thought that Griffin looked old, which in fight talk is usually when someone is on their last legs. 

White wasn’t wrong either. Griffin looked tired entering the third round and won a close decision over Ortiz in the Huntington Beach Bad Boy’s retirement fight. It probably didn’t help matters that Griffin stole the spotlight and caused controversy when he stormed out of cage only to return and interview Ortiz in his send off. 

Following the UFC on Fox 4 pre-fight press conference, White spoke with Bleacher Report and attending MMA media. The subject of retirements came up and Griffin is one fighter in particular that the White believes should hang it up. 

“I would like Forrest to retire. There’s nothing left for Forrest to prove either. He won the Ultimate Fighter, he’s had an amazing career, won the title when people thought he couldn’t,” White told Bleacher Report. “He became a huge star and made sh*t loads of money, he’s got a beautiful wife and a baby.”

“If you don’t want to be a world champion and you’re still not ‘in the mix’ like I call it, why? What’s the point? I get it. It get it,” White added. “It’s hard to walk away from walking into an arena with the big crowds and all the sh*t, but there’s a point in time when I’m just like ‘you’ve done your thing man. You’ve had an amazing career, you’ve done great things.’

“There’s nothing left to prove.”

It’s up to Griffin if he wants to keep fighting, but the president is right. He has nothing left to prove. Unless he wants to make a final and real last run at the top, it may be a good idea to go out on a win. 

Read more MMA news on BleacherReport.com

Gross Video of the Day: Cung Le’s Foot Makes His Nose Look Normal


(Little did Stitch know that the worst was yet to come…)

When I was growing up, I was one fearless son of a bitch. This ignorance of one’s mortality that is present in most adolescent boys, combined with a rubbery yet somehow fragile bone structure, led to horrifying injury after horrifying injury. When I was ten, my older brother shattered my collarbone reenacting The People’s Elbow that he had just seen on TV, an injury that has limited my ability to enjoy any Dwayne Johnson vehicle to this day. Two years before that, while reenacting the ending of King Kong vs. Godzilla, my skull was split open by a rock that my younger brother threw just a little too low. Add in more than a half dozen soccer-related broken toes, a dislocated knee and shoulder, and torn hamstring/broken ankle combination that made me yelp like a little bitch with every single step I took in the weeks afterward, and you have a shortened but accurate profile of the kind of damage my body has been through in the short 23 years I have been on this earth.

I’ve seen some injuries is what I’m saying.

But clearly, the various afflictions I have suffered pale in comparison to the twenty or so fighters who were scheduled to compete this summer, only to be struck down by an injury curse the likes of which this sport has yet to see. One of the men who actually managed to compete this summer was former Strikeforce middleweight champion Cung Le, whose nose alone has seen rougher times than most multiple war veterans. After picking up his first UFC win over Patrick Cote at UFC 148, Le apparently injured his foot during some training-related exercise, and decided to videotape himself undergoing an ancient Chinese process (no, not Calgon) in order to help mend his wounded foot.

Video after the jump. For real this time. 


(Little did Stitch know that the worst was yet to come…)

When I was growing up, I was one fearless son of a bitch. This ignorance of one’s mortality that is present in most adolescent boys, combined with a rubbery yet somehow fragile bone structure, led to horrifying injury after horrifying injury. When I was ten, my older brother shattered my collarbone reenacting The People’s Elbow that he had just seen on TV, an injury that has limited my ability to enjoy any Dwayne Johnson vehicle to this day. Two years before that, while reenacting the ending of King Kong vs. Godzilla, my skull was split open by a rock that my younger brother threw just a little too low. Add in more than a half dozen soccer-related broken toes, a dislocated knee and shoulder, and torn hamstring/broken ankle combination that made me yelp like a little bitch with every single step I took in the weeks afterward, and you have a shortened but accurate profile of the kind of damage my body has been through in the short 23 years I have been on this earth.

I’ve seen some injuries is what I’m saying.

But clearly, the various afflictions I have suffered pale in comparison to the twenty or so fighters who were scheduled to compete this summer, only to be struck down by an injury curse the likes of which this sport has yet to see. One of the men who actually managed to compete this summer was former Strikeforce middleweight champion Cung Le, whose nose alone has seen rougher times than most multiple war veterans. After picking up his first UFC win over Patrick Cote at UFC 148, Le apparently injured his foot during some training-related exercise, and decided to videotape himself undergoing an ancient Chinese process (no, not Calgon) in order to help mend his wounded foot.

Video after the jump. For real this time. 


(Props to Zeus at MiddleEasy for the find.) 

You saw that correctly, apparently bloodletting is still a solid go-to treatment in countries no longer affected by The Plague. I mean, The Plague! Please!

But good Lord, look at that fuckin’ toe. It’s not even the injured part of his foot, yet it looks like Le roundhouse kicked a G-Force Machine. It looks like his foot is trying to impersonate Buddy Christ. It looks like Le lost the original toe, then had a Somalian child soldier who had just been hit with a flash bang sew Fat Bastard’s thumb onto the stump with a shoelace thereafter. Get well soon, buddy.

–J. Jones

Why Sonnen vs. Silva III is Possible If Sonnen Starts Mouthing Off Again

Anderson Silva’s couch is going to be working overtime for the immediate future, and that is a bad thing for the UFC. Bantamweight champion Dominick Cruz is out of commission for perhaps a full year. Welterweight champ Georges St-Pierre is going to fig…

Anderson Silva‘s couch is going to be working overtime for the immediate future, and that is a bad thing for the UFC.

Bantamweight champion Dominick Cruz is out of commission for perhaps a full year. Welterweight champ Georges St-Pierre is going to fight in November (maybe,) but historically tends to have long layovers between fights. Light heavyweight king Jon Jones has literally beaten every realistic competitor, making any future fights for him questionable from a sales perspective.

Other buy-grabbing fighters not wearing belts are also shelved. Alistair Overeem is in the middle of his suspension for his wacky T/E ratio. Nick Diaz is in the same boat for his wacky tobacky. Matt Hughes may or may not be retired. Frank Mir‘s next fight will be in Strikeforce, where he will face Daniel Cormier (another fighter the UFC wish they had at their disposal.) Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira’s arm is still on the mend. The same goes for Mark Hunt’s knee.

That is a big headache for UFC matchmaker Joe Silva. While the UFC is through the worst of it, they still need cards that can draw 500,000 buys in a really bad way.

UFC 148 drew over one million buys. Though Silva won in convincing fashion, there was more than a little controversy involved. It started even before the fight, with Silva wiping grease from his face onto his chest. It moved on into the second round with Silva grabbing Sonnen’s shorts to help in his defending of the American Gangster’s takedowns. Finally, the volley of strikes that ended the fight started off with a knee to Sonnen’s chest that simultaneously hit him in the face.

This is not to say that Silva did not earn his win. He was still widely favored and likely would have won the fight without, as it is called in football, “gamesmanship.” Still, if roles were reversed, few would deny that an immediate rematch would already be scheduled.

Anderson Silva’s management team knows there is no real legitimate opponent for him in the middleweight division right now. Though many are excited about 9-0 phenom Chris Weidman, his most-watched fight remains his wheeze-fest against Demian Maia at UFC on Fox 2. His eerily dominating performance against Mark Munoz at UFC on Fuel TV 4 averaged only 211,000 viewers, leaving his drawing power a serious question mark.

The rest of the middleweight top-10 has a similar lack of established success. Alan Belcher and Tim Boetsch are yet to make a serious splash with fans, in spite of solid winning streaks. Everyone else (being Michael Bisping, Brian Stann, Yushin Okami and Vitor Belfort) have all lost to either Sonnen or Silva in the last eighteen months.

Anderson Silva’s management team recently made a push for a fight against Georges St-Pierre. However, the scheduling and welterweight title picture make this unrealistic.

St-Pierre is scheduled to face Carlos Condit at UFC 154 to unify the welterweight belt. Martin Kampmann and Johny Hendricks are slated for a top contender’s match that same night. Both offer a true test for St-Pierre, but even if GSP loses, he has a blockbuster opponent waiting for him in Nick Diaz, who he could fight in Spring 2013.

Making things even worse for Anderson is that the always-discussed move to light heavyweight is no longer a viable option for him. While fights like Silva vs. Rashad Evans or Silva vs. Mauricio “Shogun” Rua would be excellent draws, champion Jon Jones would be a heavy favorite if the two met, given his serious size, reach and wrestling advantage. The UFC, Silva, and Silva’s management team all know this.

That leaves Chael Sonnen.

While Chael Sonnen became a household name in large part because of his mouth, he has been nothing but a good sport since losing to Silva at UFC 148. At the post-event media conference, Sonnen downplayed the preliminary talk about Silva’s questionable tactics. Since, he has remained quiet on the fight, but acknowledged his reluctance to watch a video of the bout.

While sore losers are not traditionally well-met by sports fans, Sonnen’s popularity grew because of his inability to stomach his first loss to Silva. While Dana White dismissed questions about the legitimacy of Silva’s win, he must also recognize the matchmaking predicament facing one of his few remaining draws. The UFC’s marketing department can easily run promos of Joe Rogan and Mike Goldberg questioning if that knee went to the face, or pointing out Silva grabbing Sonnen’s shorts.

This remains a tough fight for Silva. While Sonnen was knocked out at UFC 148, he is still the most likely candidate to beat Silva. The entire first round had Silva on his back, and there is no question as to whether Sonnen still has the slippery takedowns and sheer quickness and keep “the Spider” off his game.

An immediate rematch is out of the question. However, a fight against Weidman would be a viable headline for a UFC on Fox card and, regardless of the outcome, makes for a strong top contender bout that will either set up for Silva vs. Sonnen III, or make Weidman a household name.

That situation is a win-win for the UFC. While neither a Silva vs. Sonnen III, nor a Silva vs. Weidman headline would draw seven-figure buys, having Sonnen and Weidman face off in a top contender fight is by far the best thing the UFC can do to shake out the top of the middleweight division.

It is a very realistic option that should be available to Sonnen. All he needs to do is start running his mouth.

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