Though he broke a two-fight losing streak with a submission win over Marcus LeVesseur in his last fight, Cody McKenzie is dropping to 145 pounds for a bout with highly-ranked featherweight Chad Mendes. Coming off of a loss to UFC champion Jose Aldo, Me…
Though he broke a two-fight losing streak with a submission win over Marcus LeVesseur in his last fight, Cody McKenzie is dropping to 145 pounds for a bout with highly-ranked featherweight Chad Mendes. Coming off of a loss to UFC champion Jose Aldo, Mendes will be looking to turn things around with a win over McKenzie in early July.
While Mendes should be a heavy favorite heading into this fight, the pressure will be on his shoulders to avoid a second straight loss. Meanwhile, a bout with a former top contender like Mendes will give McKenzie an excellent opportunity to turn heads and make a big statement with a major upset.
Following the announcement of this bout, which will take place at UFC 148 in Las Vegas, let’s take a look at how Mendes and McKenzie match up against one another.
When a chapter closes in a person’s life, they often become reflective, looking back and taking stock on that certain period of time. Former UFC champion Tito Ortiz has become one of those people as his long and storied mixed martial arts career …
When a chapter closes in a person’s life, they often become reflective, looking back and taking stock on that certain period of time. Former UFC champion Tito Ortiz has become one of those people as his long and storied mixed martial arts career nears its end.
The 37-year-old Ortiz will step into the Octagon for the final time on July 7, when he faces Forrest Griffin at UFC 148. The 16-10-1 Ortiz made his professional MMA debut on May 30 at UFC 13, debuting on the same card as Randy Couture.
Ortiz was one of the first fighters to really embrace MMA as both show and sport, creating the “Huntington Beach Bad Boy” image and riding it for all it was worth. Back then, Ortiz could have been described as brash, cocky or confident if one was inclined to be kind to the fighter. For those who were less enamored with Ortiz, he would have been described in far more colorful language in regard to his personality.
Whichever side of the Ortiz equation you fell on, there was no denying that he put asses in the seats and he backed his talk up inside the cage, winning the UFC light heavyweight title and defending it five consecutive times, a record for the weight division.
Throughout anyone’s life or career, they tend to have some regrets, and an older and wiser Ortiz is no exception. Now as his career comes to a close and he has put the “Huntington Beach Bad Boy” behind him to become “The People’s Champion,” he is unafraid to own up to those regrets, telling FIGHT! Magazine:
Some decisions where probably against Dana, I probably shouldn’t have said some of the things I said. Some of the things I should have did, I should have carried myself a little different. I’m a very emotional guy. I wear my heart on my sleeve, a little too much I think. It gets me in trouble a lot. But I know I have integrity and I believe in the things I do. I look at my career and I think that’s probably the only thing, the stuff I said against Dana I probably shouldn’t have said. I know he’ll never forgive me. And it is what it is. But I’m just learning. I’m human.
Tito Ortiz will carry his iconic Mexican-American flag towards the Octagon for the final time on July 7 as part of the UFC 148 fight card.Since his UFC debut 15 years ago, Ortiz has had one of the most (if not the most) tumultuous careers of any UFC fi…
Tito Ortiz will carry his iconic Mexican-American flag towards the Octagon for the final time on July 7 as part of the UFC 148 fight card.
Since his UFC debut 15 years ago, Ortiz has had one of the most (if not the most) tumultuous careers of any UFC fighter. He has been a part of feuds, contract disputes and still has one of the most loyal fanbases in the sport.
The problem is, the buzz surrounding his last fight appears to be non-existent.
Ortiz’s fight with Forrest Griffin is one of those fights that a fan will say, “Oh yeah, that’s right, I forgot he was fighting on the card.” The UFC has done very little by way of promoting UFC 148 as the final chapter in the trilogy between Ortiz and Griffin.
To be fair, any fight on the undercard of Anderson Silva and Chael Sonnen is going to be a second or third thought for that night. That’s quite a statement considering how stacked the UFC 148 card is (on paper at least).
In addition to being on the undercard of a heavily anticipated main event, the lore of Ortiz as a dominant fighter has faded quite a bit. Aside from his win over Ryan Bader, in what many considered a fluke, Ortiz has not been victorious since 2006.
Over those six years, “The People’s Champ” is 1-6-1. Most other UFC fighters would have been cut from the promotion after a run like that.
Personally, I’ve long been a fan of Ortiz. Here’s hoping to him changing his name back to “The Huntington Beach Bad Boy” and bringing an edge into the Octagon for one final show.
Who am I kidding? Chances are he will collapse due to a body shot, lose the fight and then tell Joe Rogan that he tore his ACL in training camp but had to go on and fight for his fans.
Thanks for the memories, Tito.
Joe Chacon is a Featured Columnist for Bleacher Report and a Staff Writer for Operation Sports.
Let’s be real here: California is the state that nobody wants to deal with. The state athletic commission there is, as we say in Canada, a gong show.Botched weigh-ins, convoluted supplement rules, suspensions that don’t seem to take precede…
Let’s be real here: California is the state that nobody wants to deal with. The state athletic commission there is, as we say in Canada, a gong show.
Botched weigh-ins, convoluted supplement rules, suspensions that don’t seem to take precedent into account in any discernible way. They’re generally just the worst.
But you know what? If their neighbour in Nevada is the gold standard for commissions, you might as well pack up and go home now.
Combat sports as we know them are in the hands of one of the most hapless political organizations in the modern world, and everyone else is apparently following their lead.
Not. Good. News.
It’s easy to pick on athletic commissions. Part of that is because they do a tough job and have to make a lot of hard decisions. Then again, part of it is because they just make it so easy to pick on them.
For whatever good they do (which, as Dana Whitecorrectly states, is almost exclusively centered around fighter health and safety), they undo it twice as fast every time something controversial comes across their desks.
It’s almost like they’re trying to routinely strike out. A pro ball player with contact numbers like NSAC would never move past A-ball.
Take, for example, the May 21 hearing they held. On the same docket they managed to make two mistakes, for two different reasons, with two outcomes that made no concrete sense to anyone with the ability to think critically.
Up first, Chael Sonnen. Hero to some, heel to others, he’s as controversial as any man in the sport. He’s quick with a (obviously rehearsed) line, but he backs it up. He also got busted for high testosterone and a real estate scam in Oregon not that long ago.
In the midst of his legal troubles and issues with a potential performance enhancers, he basically proclaimed that the only mistake he made was not telling the commission he was using extra testosterone. That commission (surprise, it was California!) decided to suspend him, but they didn’t really know how long they wanted him to sit out.
He plead that he told NSAC director Keith Kizer all about his testosterone use, which was later refuted. That, in any sense, makes him a liar. He also sort of dragged the NSAC into his CSAC hearing for no particular reason.
Six months was decided upon as a fair number.
Now the No. 1 contender for Anderson Silva’s middleweight title and ready to compete in the biggest rematch in the history of the UFC, he requested a therapeutic use exemption for testosterone at UFC 148.
He was engaging and charming as he sat before Kizer and his cohorts, who only a year ago were abhorred by his blatant flouting of bureaucratic conventions.
Without any considerable sweating, they granted him his exemption and wished him the best in his pursuit of gold. Not that he didn’t deserve it, for every man deserves a chance to right past wrongs, but when the true kangaroo court got rolling soon after, it was where perspective ruled the day.
Moments later, notorious pothead and general source of unintentional comedy Nick Diaz entered the room to plead his case for high marijuana metabolite levels.
Follies aside, Diaz is among the most entertaining fighters in MMA, among the most honest athletes out there (perhaps to a fault), and a man who shares Sonnen’s ability to polarize fans.
As soon as he sat down, though, the witch hunt was on.
Pot is bad. You say you smoke pot. You can’t smoke pot. We’re taking a bunch of your money.
Granted it took about four hours to get that, complete with some legendary Diazisms along the way, but that’s what his hearing was.
Lacking the charm of Sonnen, and the inability to offer up creative misdirections and comedic one-liners, Diaz was left to speak truth and live with the consequences.
NSAC suspended him for a year and took 30 percent of his considerable UFC 143 purse, the purse from the event which triggered his positive test.
They cited marijuana as a performance enhancer, and also that Diaz was a repeat offender who openly admitted when probed that he didn’t learn his lesson the first time.
And the sport was saved from another cheating crook. Pats on the back all around. Great day’s work, gang.
Sonnen gets an exemption for something directly proven to enhance performance, Diaz gets a year and loses a veritable windfall of the other green stuff for being honest and willingly taking his lumps.
The reality in all this is that NSAC showed itself for what it is: an antiquated political body that’s more concerned with how much smoke a man can blow into their behinds than how much he held in his lungs a week before a fight.
Then again, isn’t that what politics is all about? Point proven.
(Cote has never been the same since the night he had a run-in with Rousimar Palhares’ doppelganger.)
When all is said and done for the human race, there will be three rivalries that stand above them all in the footnotes of history: America vs. The Brits, Germany vs. Everybody, and now, Canada vs. Vietnam. Though there hasn’t been a feud between the two on the level of the Hatfields and McCoys yet, things are about to change. Why, you ask? Well, it has just been announced that Canada’s own Patrick Cote will be returning to the octagon to face Vietnamese-born San Shou expert Cung Le at UFC 148. The war that will inevitably result from this pairing will easily go down as the most significant clash Canada has gotten into since the Hans Island dispute with Denmark in the early 80’s.
Since exiting the promotion, Cote has strung together four straight wins, including a most recent first round knockout of Shooto/IFL vet Gustavo Machado, a win that we speculated could earn him a trip back to the UFC. And damn it, it feels good to be right for once.
Check out a video of Cote’s most recent performance after the jump.
(Cote has never been the same since the night he had a run-in with Rousimar Palhares’ doppelganger.)
When all is said and done for the human race, there will be three rivalries that stand above them all in the footnotes of history: America vs. The Brits, Germany vs. Everybody, and now, Canada vs. Vietnam. Though there hasn’t been a feud between the two on the level of the Hatfields and McCoys yet, things are about to change. Why, you ask? Well, it has just been announced that Canada’s own Patrick Cote will be returning to the octagon to face Vietnamese-born San Shou expert Cung Le at UFC 148. The war that will inevitably result from this pairing will easily go down as the most significant clash Canada has gotten into since the Hans Island dispute with Denmark in the early 80′s.
Since exiting the promotion, Cote has strung together four straight wins, including a most recent first round knockout of Shooto/IFL vet Gustavo Machado, a win that we speculated could earn him a trip back to the UFC. And damn it, it feels good to be right for once.
Check out a video of Cote’s most recent performance below.
Cung Le has not fought since coming up short against Wanderlei Silva at UFC 139, in a fight that saw him dominate the first round with his patented kicks, only to end up on the wrong end of a controversial TKO stoppage in the second.
This is definitely an intriguing fight for both players involved. On one hand, Cote presents a lot of the same problems for Le that Scott Smith did, being a hard-hitting, yet slightly one-dimensional striker who will more than likely keep things standing. Unlike Smith, however, Cote’s chin is made of titanium, and he sure as hell won’t be attacking Le with the kind reckless abandon/stupidity that Smith did in the pair’s second encounter. Cote also has much better footwork, and will hopefully be able to avoid the spinning attacks of Le, which are responsible for more cases of sudden onset diarrhea than Lay’s WOW Chips. Given Le’s susceptibility to the KO (both his 2 losses have come that way), this could make for an incredibly entertaining, back and forth brawl that ends in devastating fashion.
UFC 148 goes down on July 7th, 2012 from the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas.
The game of MMA musical chairs continues.Earlier on Wednesday, it was announced that Rich Franklin would be stepping up to replace Vitor Belfort in the main event of UFC 147 against Wanderlei Silva. This announcement came at a bit of a shock as Rich Fr…
Earlier on Wednesday, it was announced that Rich Franklin would be stepping up to replace Vitor Belfort in the main event of UFC 147 against Wanderlei Silva. This announcement came at a bit of a shock as Rich Franklin was already scheduled to face Cung Le at UFC 148.
Le hinted earlier on Twitter that word of his new opponent would be released Wednesday night. It has been announced by MMAJunkie that Le’s new opponent is one-time UFC middleweight title challenger Patrick Côté, though nothing has been officially signed.
Côté is currently riding a four-fight winning streak since his departure and is an 11-fight veteran in the UFC. He holds notable wins over Ricardo Almeida and Scott Smith. He was also unsuccessful in two title fights while in the promotion.
Cung Le is a former Strikeforce middleweight champion and a Sanshou standout. He made his UFC debut at UFC 139 against Wanderlei Silva. He suffered a TKO loss when Silva was able to batter his face and body with knees and punches. He also posted a gruesome photo on Twitter afterwards of his broken nose. Cung Le hopes to pick up his first UFC victory in his fight against Côté.
UFC 148 takes place in Las Vegas on July 7 at the MGM Grand Garden Arena.
