Rory MacDonald has gone to Bellator.
Tom Wright got axed.
Georges St-Pierre might never have an organized fight outside of a courtroom again.
Canadian fans are outright boycotting an event in the nation’s biggest city.
It is a dark time for the U…
Canadian fans are outright boycotting an event in the nation’s biggest city.
It is a dark time for the UFC in Canada, and it’s been a long time coming. There have been times over the course of the past few years when things have gotten rocky or when big promises have been broken, but it finally seems to have gone past the point of no return.
This week will go down as one of the bleakest in the history of the promotion’s efforts north of border, as new owner WME-IMG trimmed the UFC’s Canadian office while simultaneously waging contractual war with the biggest MMA star the country has ever produced. Perhaps inconveniently, tickets for UFC 206, which is the first major event in Canada since 2014, went on sale around the same time.
The results were predictably mixed.
The path the UFC has taken in Canada is a cautionary tale for any business that fancies global domination. While the promotion has also canned executives and closed offices in other major hubs, not that long ago, it was Canada that was set to carry the UFC into its next golden age.
The biggest crowd in the history of the sport filled Rogers Centre in 2011, a record that stood until last year.
Tickets went as fast to see non-regional stars such as Chuck Liddell and Shogun Rua as they did to see St-Pierre or MacDonald.
And now it’s all gone.
As the UFC aggressively watered down its product in 2012, Canada was arguably hit the hardest. UFC 149, held in Calgary, is legendary for its paltriness. UFC 152 in Toronto was only good because of Jon Jones’ unwillingness to bow to his corporate masters.
UFC 154 and 158 were honest attempts to do right by Canadian fans, buoyed by a St-Pierre return versus Carlos Condit and then a title defense against his greatest foil, Nick Diaz. But after that, things went off the rails.
Meaningless events such as Dan Henderson fighting Rashad Evans, Jon Jones defending against Alex Gustafsson (which was irrelevant right up until Gustafsson fought the fight of his life) and Demetrious Johnson defending his title became the norm for pay-per-views on Canadian soil.
The UFC then further strategized its Canadian market expansion by hitting regions of the country with smaller shows in smaller places, mostly with uninspired results and response. Places such as Halifax, Quebec City and Saskatoon began to book events, with the biggest name to ever appear on one surely being middleweight champion Michael Bisping.
It was a gamble, one that centered on the longstanding notion that fans were loyal to the brand and not to its stars or, increasingly, the quality of a card.
It didn’t pay off.
The Canadian market responded by making the UFC an afterthought, much like the way the promotion had treated Canada as it attempted to expand into other areas of the globe. The result is what came to a head this week, with whatever breath left in the proverbial lungs of this dying market colored with passionate negativity.
It’s tough to say exactly how to weigh the confluence of events that has largely killed the UFC in Canada. Carelessness from the promotion obviously deserves attention, but a bad, confusing television deal in the country, the insistence on pushing regional fighters instead of objectively good ones and the general malaise when it comes to constructing big events to occur on Canadian soil are all factors.
The promotion had a great opportunity to cultivate Canada and maintain its upward trajectory given how much the country enjoys contact sports and how much it embraced MMA in the mid-2000s, when such a welcome was hard to find in most places.
Yet here we are, with a world title fight booked for Toronto and Canadians actively undermining it because of the way the UFC has treated them and also their greatest MMA hero.
Nobody would have seen that coming a few years ago, but it’s not hard to see how we got here.
In a year that has seen nine pay-per-view headliners slip through the UFC’s fingers, Cain Velasquez’s injury and subsequent removal from UFC 180 might the biggest blow of them all (I hear a nasty tumble down a flight of stairs is to blame for all this). The TUF curse has now gone international, folks, and while I’m not prepared to start nailing the UFC’s coffin shut, I will say that the champ’s most recent injury has cast an ominous shadow over the UFC’s first trip to Mexico.
Then again, the UFC was able to book a hell of a replacement opponent for Fabricio Werdum in Mark Hunt, and an interim title fight between the two is probably the best thing us fans could ask for, all things considered. Late replacement main events are always a mixed bag, but before we start rioting, let’s all take a deep breath and try to remember a few last-minute headliners that actually worked out…
The Good
UFC 128: Shogun vs. Jones
(This and all photos hereafter via Getty.)
That’s right, the event that marked the beginning of the end for light heavyweights with title aspirations was never meant to happen.
Having just ended the Machida Era™ at UFC 113 in stunning fashion, Mauricio Rua was actually scheduled to face Rashad Evans at UFC 128 until a knee injury forced the latter out of the contest. Rua, who had just had his own knee repaired following the Machida fight, was then matched up against a resurgent and likeable at the time contender named Jon Jones, who had unleashed an And-1 mixtape of asskicking on Ryan Bader just two events prior.
Although it was Rua who held the tremendous experience edge, it was Jones who would dominate the fight from start to finish. Flying knees, oblique kicks, and likely an eye poke or five from the challenger had Rua in defense mode until a particularly vicious knee put him away in the third round. Despite being called up to the biggest fight of his life on a month’s notice, Jones emerged a champion and sent a chilling message to the rest of the light heavyweight division.
That message: “Hey pussy, are you still there? None of you will ever defeat me.”
In a year that has seen nine pay-per-view headliners slip through the UFC’s fingers, Cain Velasquez’s injury and subsequent removal from UFC 180 might the biggest blow of them all (I hear a nasty tumble down a flight of stairs is to blame for all this). The TUF curse has now gone international, folks, and while I’m not prepared to start nailing the UFC’s coffin shut, I will say that the champ’s most recent injury has cast an ominous shadow over the UFC’s first trip to Mexico.
Then again, the UFC was able to book a hell of a replacement opponent for Fabricio Werdum in Mark Hunt, and an interim title fight between the two is probably the best thing us fans could ask for, all things considered. Late replacement main events are always a mixed bag, but before we start rioting, let’s all take a deep breath and try to remember a few last-minute headliners that actually worked out…
The Good
UFC 128: Shogun vs. Jones
(This and all photos hereafter via Getty.)
That’s right, the event that marked the beginning of the end for light heavyweights with title aspirations was never meant to happen.
Having just ended the Machida Era™ at UFC 113 in stunning fashion, Mauricio Rua was actually scheduled to face Rashad Evans at UFC 128 until a knee injury forced the latter out of the contest. Rua, who had just had his own knee repaired following the Machida fight, was then matched up against a resurgent and likeable at the time contender named Jon Jones, who had unleashed an And-1 mixtape of asskicking on Ryan Bader just two events prior.
Although it was Rua who held the tremendous experience edge, it was Jones who would dominate the fight from start to finish. Flying knees, oblique kicks, and likely an eye poke or five from the challenger had Rua in defense mode until a particularly vicious knee put him away in the third round. Despite being called up to the biggest fight of his life on a month’s notice, Jones emerged a champion and sent a chilling message to the rest of the light heavyweight division.
That message: “Hey pussy, are you still there? None of you will ever defeat me.”
UFC 152: Jones vs. Belfort
Every fan remembers where they were the day Greg Jackson killed MMA. Me, I was out on my lanai, sipping on a mango mojito and discussing the DOW with a few fellow aristocrats, when suddenly, my phone was aburst with talks from the Twittersphere of Dan Henderson tearing his ACL.
“This…cannot be,” I said under my breath (as not to alert my esteemed colleagues of my MMA fandom and risk losing their respect forevermore).
But alas, it had been, and Henderson’s injury was only the beginning. Shortly after the news of Henderson’s injury broke, the stateside hoodlum Chael Phinneus Sonnen stepped up and offered to fight Jones on 24 hours notice in his infinite bravery. After a quick consultation with master Jackson, Jones declined the fight, leading to the cancellation of the event and a firm tongue-lashing from his employer.
But still, the UFC was in spin mode. They needed their light heavyweight title fight to come to fruition and they needed it forthwith. They offered short-notice rematch opportunities to Mauricio Rua and Lyoto Machida, but were somehow denied on both occasions. That left only one brave soldier for the job: Vitor Belfort (pronounced like Stephen Colbert).
And indeed, Belfort put on a hell of a show at UFC 152, pardon my French — nearly securing an armbar victory early in the first round. But because Jon Jones is truly more machine than man, he overcame the early storm and submitted his foe with an Americana in the fourth.
From tragedy, the UFC was able to generate a small victory, 450,000 pay-per-view-buys, and $1.9 million dollars in live gate cash. It doesn’t get much more triumphant than that.
UFC 173: Barao vs. Dillashaw
UFC 173 was originally meant to house a middleweight title fight between Chris Weidman and Vitor Belfort, until that damned TRT ban forced “The Phenom” to take a temporary leave from MMA. Weidman was then matched up against Lyoto Machida, and for a brief second there, UFC 177 ticketholders were able to breath a sigh of relief, the fools.
But then, as champions of the modern era so often do, Weidman went down with an injury (likely while rescuing a blind man from a fire), pushing his fight against Machida back to UFC 175 in July. Once again without a true main event, the UFC sought to pair bantamweight champion/PPV juggernaut (lol!) Renan Barao against top contender Raphael Assuncao. But theennnnn, it was revealed that Assuncao was still nursing a rib injury and would be unable to fight.
So what do you do in this situation? You throw TJ Dillashaw – who was scheduled to fight Takeya Mizugaki that night anyway – against Barao, have Goldie and Rogan yell about what a beast this fresh-faced Aryan youth actually is, and yadda yadda chalk this thing up as a loss. Just like that, you’ve got yourself UFC 177: F*ck It.
Barao came in as a ridiculous 10-1 favorite over Dillashaw, and most of us expected the fight to be over within a round, for Urijah Faber was the king of the Alpha Males and even he was smoked by Barao in their previous encounter. But oh, how we were wrong.
For five straight rounds, Dillashaw absolutely tooled Barao, utilizing a Cruz-esque offensive attack to keep a literal step ahead of the champ before finishing him with a head kick in the fifth. Just like that, the Barao Era™ had ended. While UFC 173 may not have been a financial success, its main event was one of the most thrilling in recent memory, and a reminder of just how great and unexpected our oft troubling sport can be.
Of course, more often than not, late replacement main events fall into two other categories, “Bad” and “Ugly”, so let’s gather our pitchforks and torches and look at a few prime examples…
As MMA gamely stumbles into 2013, we’ve once again decided to bestow meaningless awards to the fighters and moments that caught our attention this year. CagePotato’s crack team of writers spent all month nominating winners in 27 different categories, which we’ve loosely arranged in chronological order. Use the “next page” links to scroll through this monster, or click on the following page links at your leisure. And as always, thanks for putting up with us for another year. Here’s to bigger and better things in 2013, which shouldn’t be a tough goal to hit, considering.
As MMA gamely stumbles into 2013, we’ve once again decided to bestow meaningless awards to the fighters and moments that caught our attention this year. CagePotato’s crack team of writers spent all month nominating winners in 27 different categories, which we’ve loosely arranged in chronological order. Use the “next page” links to scroll through this monster, or click on the following page links at your leisure. And as always, thanks for putting up with us for another year. Here’s to bigger and better things in 2013, which shouldn’t be a tough goal to hit, considering.
Knockout of the Year: Edson Barboza vs. Terry Etim @ UFC 142 (1/14/12)
(Photo courtesy of Getty Images)
Was there ever any question as to who would take this category? Edson Barboza’s spinning wheel kick knockout of Terry Etim at UFC 142 not only stands alone as the greatest knockout of 2012, but as one of the greatest knockouts in the promotion’s history. Sure, the stakes weren’t as high as some of the other knockouts you are surely reflecting upon as you read this, but from a technical standpoint, the way Barboza was able to send a legit lightweight in Etim — who had never been knocked out, BTW — crashing to the canvas like a narcoleptic goat was simply astounding.
On a scale of pure devastation, this one takes the blood-filled cake. For starters, it inspired the phrase “Falling Tree Knockout”, the single greatest way of describing a KO ever committed to the Internet. Secondly, it happened in January (and was actually the first UFC event of the year) and Etim has yet to step back in the octagon. You can blame it on injuries all you want, but I personally believe that Etim has spent the past year loitering London’s cobblestone streets, draped in a tattered shawl and silently muttering to himself that “Ne’eragin willis ‘appen, u domb cunt. Ne’er agin will some mud-slingin’ wanker bamboozle me in fronna me mates.” – Jared Jones
Comeback Fight of the Year: Tim Boetsch vs. Yushin Okami @ UFC 144 (2/26/12)
(Photo via Tracy Lee, Yahoo! Sports)
When we are talking about a fighter who was getting dominated for the entire fight before pulling a “W” out of thin air, the winner is Tim Boetsch when he faced Yushin Okami (Thank You!) back at UFC 144. The Barbarian was getting outclassed in epic fashion by a great jab and he was almost finished by Thunder with some savage ground and pound. Boetsch knew that he was way behind on the scorecards, and that nothing short of finishing his opponent would save him from leaving the Octagon with a loss. So early into the third round, Boetsch repeatedly landed brutal uppercuts and finished Okami via TKO. Then Joe Rogan jizzed in his pants and screamed like he just found a Wonka golden ticket when he said it “might be one of the greatest comebacks in the history of the UFC.” Well, it was the greatest come from behind victory in the history of 2012, at least.
Honorable Mention:Mike Swick had a “Comeback Fight of the Year” on two different levels. For starters, he returned to the UFC after two and a half years — yes, 30 months, almost to the day — because he was misdiagnosed with a stomach disorder, followed by a knee injury in August 2011. Swick made his return against DaMarques Johnson as the opening bout for the UFC on FOX 4 broadcast, and after Johnson had Swick mounted and seriously hurt during the first round, Quick caught a kick and landed a savage punch that put Darkness on the unemployment line. Swick earned “Knockout Of the Night” honors and gave a passionate post-fight interview to the millions watching. Not only did he come from behind during the fight, Swick came back from a long layoff only to win in spectacular fashion in front of a national television audience. Double comeback! Unfortunately, that same national television audience saw Swick’s inspiring comeback come to a brutal end at the very next UFC on FOX show. – Nathan Smith
Worst Performance in a Drug Test: Alistair Overeem Sets a New Land-Speed Record for Testosterone (4/4/12)
(I’m number 1! / Photo via Mark J. Rebilas, US Presswire)
Another year, and another opportunity to take shots at The Reem. I could make a bunch of horse meat jokes, or get up on a soap box about how we need to see him fight for the title, or even go the way of claiming that Overeem’s obviously cheating ass doesn’t deserve to fight at the highest level of the sport. But I’ve already done thattwice, and I’ve never been one to beat a dead, half eaten horse. (Ok, so maybe just one horse meat joke.) Instead, let’s talk about everyone’s favorite pastime — drugs.
With the rapid increase in TUEs given out and the apparent influx of pot heads — “legal”or not — in the UFC over the last year, it seems this category could easily be taken by any fighter who failed to file the proper paperwork. I could sit here and condemn those busted for smoking the sticky-icky, but that would be like Miguel Torrespleading with people to be more politically correct, and apparently my hypocrisy only goes so far. But what about all the testosterone exemptions that are being given out all willy-nilly? It seems to me that it’s only a matter of time before 90% of fighters are legally elevating their testosterone levels, if only to even out the playing field, which seems to negate the entire idea of fair competition in mixed martial arts.
But I digress. The fact is that Overeem is one of the top heavyweight fighters in the world, and fun to watch. His yearlong suspension is up, so he did the time for his crime, and with a win over Antonio Silva he’ll most likely become the number one contender for the ever-cursed heavyweight strap. So join us as we all collectively cross our fingers in hopes that the Dutchman can find some clean piss (I hear Sanchez is on the straight and narrow these days), and not fuck up yet another opportunity to challenge for the title. At the very least, let’s just hope he doesn’t end up in this same Potato Awards category next year. – Josh Hutchinson
Maybe we both have the same sense of humor, and are most easily entertained by insanity. Not so much Hangover-esque ridiculousness (although that movie rocks), but rather something more dry and subtle, like the humor found in episodes of Flight of the Conchords or Trailer Park Boys, or the Hanson brothers from Slap Shot. Actual jokes in those examples are few and far between, yet they’re funny simply because the situations presented are so absurd and so pathetic, yet treated with the utmost sincerity. There’s no winking at the cameras — everything is really happening, and the characters involved are reacting as if there’s nothing strange about any of it. There’s no need for jokes, the entire premise is the punchline.
Which I guess is why I laughed at this clip the first time I saw it. This whole incident feels like a scene from a mockumentary about a small-time MMA promotion from the early 2000s. From the unnecessarily dramatic Tale of the Tape, to the Not-Quite-Buffer handling ring announcing duties, who awkwardly reads everything off of his notes, to the disturbingly incompetent referee, to the doctor who probably realizes that there’s nothing safe about having a seizure, but assumes that it’s all part of the sport and lets the Tapout-clad bros override his judgment, to the guy who was just seizing on the ground winning the fight by knockout minutes later, to the crowd who cheers everything that happens as if it’s just another run-of-the-mill fight, this situation just seems too insane to be treated as an actual event.
Then it hit me that this fighteventual no-contest was a real thing that happened in 2012. Ever since that revelation, the only thought I have about this clip has been what the actual fuck.
According to news broken by mmajunkie.com, two drug tests from UFC 149 in Calgary came back positive from the samples taken.The two fighters who tested positive for banned substances were bantamweight striker Francisco Rivera and welterweight grinder M…
According to news broken by mmajunkie.com, two drug tests from UFC 149 in Calgary came back positive from the samples taken.
The two fighters who tested positive for banned substances were bantamweight striker Francisco Rivera and welterweight grinder Matt Riddle.
It is reported that Riddle, who fought on short notice for SiyarBahadurzada, failed his drug test due to marijuana in his system. At the event, he defeated Chris Clements in a Submission of the Night performance that saw him call out Dan Hardy after the event.
As for Rivera, he reportedly failed his drug test for an “undisclosed, over-the-counter stimulant.” His win at UFC 149 saw him brutally knock out Roland Delorme in an early contender for Knockout of the Night.
The punishments were reported as followed.
Both fighters were suspended for 90 days retroactive to the July 21 event, which makes them eligible to fight on Friday. The results of their respective bouts were not changed.
So, despite receiving respective suspensions for their mistakes, their wins were not erased like Jake Shields’ win over Ed Herman at UFC 150 was recently.
These recent drug test failures cement the logic behind constant drug testing in MMA. Although Riddle and Rivera were not caught with performance enhancers or steroids, they still did wrong and broke the rules.
Both men were apologetic and will not appeal their suspensions.
Following his submission-of-the-night victory over Chris Clements at UFC 149, Matt Riddle tested positive for marijuana, according to a new report from MMAJunkie. The Calgary Combative Sports Commission suspended Riddle for 90 days retroactive to the July 21 event, which means the TUF 7 vet will be out of action until…well, today. Crisis averted.
For UFC fighters — most of whom don’t compete more than once every three months anyway — the 90-day suspension is more of a “hey bro, not cool” kind of gesture, rather than something that’s actually punitive; all it really prevented Riddle from doing was taking an ill-advised short-notice fight directly after his last appearance. Then again, the UFC still hasn’t scheduled his next fight, so maybe they’re going to make him stew for a bit. Riddle’s just lucky this happened in Canada rather than Nevada, or he could have been out of action for an entire year.
Following his submission-of-the-night victory over Chris Clements at UFC 149, Matt Riddle tested positive for marijuana, according to a new report from MMAJunkie. The Calgary Combative Sports Commission suspended Riddle for 90 days retroactive to the July 21 event, which means the TUF 7 vet will be out of action until…well, today. Crisis averted.
For UFC fighters — most of whom don’t compete more than once every three months anyway — the 90-day suspension is more of a “hey bro, not cool” kind of gesture, rather than something that’s actually punitive; all it really prevented Riddle from doing was taking an ill-advised short-notice fight directly after his last appearance. Then again, the UFC still hasn’t scheduled his next fight, so maybe they’re going to make him stew for a bit. Riddle’s just lucky this happened in Canada rather than Nevada, or he could have been out of action for an entire year.
Bantamweight Francisco Rivera also caught a 90-day suspension at UFC 149, after testing positive for an undisclosed over-the-counter stimulant following his knockout win over Roland Delorme.
“What’s that screeching noise? Sounds like a train coming to a sudden halt…”
Remember when we all thought that Hector Lombard was the X factor of the UFC middleweight division? And we pegged the middleweight who hadn’t lost a fight since 2006 a 4-1 favorite to wallop Tim Boetsch at UFC 149? And we thought he would go on to give Anderson Silva his toughest test to date? Oh man, those were some good times, right?
As far as Hector Lombard is concerned, not so fast. Three weeks after his dreadful performance at UFC 149, the Cuban middleweight has released a statement on his Facebook page. Presumably after meeting with his social media consultant, Tito Ortiz, Lombard claims that he was just too damn injured to have been fighting, bro. I know, put on your shocked faces.
“What’s that screeching noise? Sounds like a train coming to a sudden halt…”
Remember when we all thought that Hector Lombard was the X factor of the UFC middleweight division? And we pegged the middleweight who hadn’t lost a fight since 2006 a 4-1 favorite to wallop Tim Boetsch at UFC 149? And we thought he would go on to give Anderson Silva his toughest test to date? Oh man, those were some good times, right?
As far as Hector Lombard is concerned, not so fast. Three weeks after his dreadful performance at UFC 149, the Cuban middleweight has released a statement on his Facebook page. Presumably after meeting with his social media consultant, Tito Ortiz, Lombard claims that he was just too damn injured to have been fighting, bro. I know, put on your shocked faces.
I want to let all my fans know. I fought mu last fight injured. i wasnt 100% sure but i when to the doctors… I have a fracture sternum with a torn cartilage, i got this injure in training for my fight with Tim Boetsch. I have to be out of training for 6weeks i should never have fought like that, but i didnt want to let my fans and the UFC down, love you all.
So let me get this straight: You may have had this nasty injury coming into your fight at UFC 149 that restricted your movement to the point where you basically stood straight up and held your head perfectly still throughout the fight, but you somehow weren’t sure. And yet you waited until three weeks after the fight to go to the doctor to find out what, if anything, was wrong with you?
Given how appalling his performance was, do you buy his explanation, or is this another example of a fighter making an excuse for a loss after the fact?
Rory MacDonald has gone to Bellator.
