On Saturday night, middleweights Tim Boetsch and Costa Philippou will do battle in a clash between fighters who are each pulling a freight train worth of momentum behind them. When competing at 185 pounds, the two have a combined record of 8-0 inside t…
On Saturday night, middleweights Tim Boetsch and Costa Philippou will do battle in a clash between fighters who are each pulling a freight train worth of momentum behind them. When competing at 185 pounds, the two have a combined record of 8-0 inside the Octagon.
But Boetsch hasn’t always been a middleweight. In fact, he fought six times in the UFC before making the much-needed move.
With a UFC record of 3-3, “The Barbarian” had suffered losses to Matt Hamill, Phil Davis and Jason Brilz. In each shortcoming, he lost to a larger man with a considerable wrestling background. So what chance would he have against the elite light heavyweights like Rashad Evans, Dan Henderson and Jon Jones who could each wrestle an elephant in their sleep?
Despite the need to lose 20 pounds, the muscled Boetsch did his homework and realized that a drop to middleweight was possible. It proved to be the best thing that ever happened to him, as he is ranked in the division’s top five and has wins over YushinOkami and Hector Lombard.
Boetsch isn’t the only UFC star who has saved himself by cutting down to a smaller division. Here is a look at nine UFC fighters who saved their careers by dropping weight.
UFC 155 was supposed to feature Tim Boetsch against Chris Weidman in a key middleweight bout. Weidman, though, ended up suffering an injury in training last month and had to bow out of the fight. The UFC didn’t have to look to far in a replac…
UFC 155 was supposed to feature Tim Boetsch against Chris Weidman in a key middleweight bout. Weidman, though, ended up suffering an injury in training last month and had to bow out of the fight.
The UFC didn’t have to look to far in a replacement, as Weidman‘s, training partner, Costa Philippou stepped up to face Boetsch this coming Saturday.
Both guys are on four-fight winning streaks, but Boetsch is closer to a title shot considering the opponents he has faced during that time.
Let’s break down the fight and see who has the advantages and who will win.
24/7 or a UFC Prime Time it ain’t, but Fox has put together some decent Countdown documentary/promo shows together. The newest one, looking towards this weekend’s UFC 155, features a look at the careers and camps of former heavyweight champ Cain Velasquez and current title holder Junior Dos Santos.
In the video, Cain talks about the lessons he learned as a college athlete that he feels will help him avenge his loss to Dos Santos. Dos Santos discusses the challenge of keeping Cain off of him and preventing him from using his All-American wrestling skills to stymie the Brazilian’s dangerous punches.
Also on the Countdown to UFC 155, Joe Lauzon and Jim Miller exchange smack talk and promises as they discuss their lightweight contender fight. If you’re lucky enough to still be sitting on your ass, stuffed with food sit back and enjoy watching pro athletes train harder in a single day of training than you ever have.
24/7 or a UFC Prime Time it ain’t, but Fox has put together some decent Countdown documentary/promo shows together. The newest one, looking towards this weekend’s UFC 155, features a look at the careers and camps of former heavyweight champ Cain Velasquez and current title holder Junior Dos Santos.
In the video, Cain talks about the lessons he learned as a college athlete that he feels will help him avenge his loss to Dos Santos. Dos Santos discusses the challenge of keeping Cain off of him and preventing him from using his All-American wrestling skills to stymie the Brazilian’s dangerous punches.
Also on the Countdown to UFC 155, Joe Lauzon and Jim Miller exchange smack talk and promises as they discuss their lightweight contender fight. If you’re lucky enough to still be sitting on your ass, stuffed with food sit back and enjoy watching pro athletes train harder in a single day of training than you ever have.
The UFC’s annual year-end pay-per-view extravaganza is set for Saturday, December 29.This time around, the event will feature a heavyweight title fight between champion Junior Dos Santos and challenger Cain Velasquez. Also featured are middleweigh…
The UFC’s annual year-end pay-per-view extravaganza is set for Saturday, December 29.
This time around, the event will feature a heavyweight title fight between champion Junior Dos Santos and challenger Cain Velasquez. Also featured are middleweight bouts between Alan Belcher and YushinOkami and Tim Boetsch and Constantinos Philippou, as well as an exciting lightweight scrap between Jim Miller and Joe Lauzon.
Collectively, these four matchups form the subject of Zuffa’s latest UFC 155 promotional video, which checks up on each combatant in training and previews the show’s upcoming action.
Dos Santos vs. Velasquez is a rematch of last November’s title fight, in which Dos Santos shocked the world by blasting his foe in 1:04.
Both fighters have gone 1-0 since then and have looked equally impressive, setting up a showdown few will want to miss.
Okami vs. Belcher features a pair of highly regarded 185-pounders seeking to push ahead of the middleweight pack. A win for either man would put them right in the thick of the title picture, while a loss moves them farther back in an already lengthy line.
Similar stakes are in play for Boetsch vs. Philippou. Although, Philippou is looking to use Boetsch to leapfrog the fray, while Boetsch wants to legitimize his position as a top divisional contender.
Meanwhile, Miller vs. Lauzon pits two of the lightweight division’s most exciting fighters against one another in a bout that may very well pull in Fight of the Night honors. It will also vault the winner ever closer to Ben Henderson and his 155-pound title.
There is plenty of action to look forward to, but until Saturday night, you’ll have to whet your appetite with the attached UFC 155 countdown video.
At UFC 155, the world’s top MMA organization will close out 2012 with a bang in the form of a heavyweight title fight between champion Junior dos Santos and his predecessor, Cain Velasquez.In November 2011, Dos Santos dethroned Velasquez with a first-r…
At UFC 155, the world’s top MMA organization will close out 2012 with a bang in the form of a heavyweight title fight between champion Junior dos Santos and his predecessor, Cain Velasquez.
In November 2011, Dos Santos dethroned Velasquez with a first-round knockout. However, both fighters were injured heading into that bout, so fans have been awaiting an inevitable rematch between the two elite heavyweights.
Saturday’s event will also feature a number of other important bouts in other divisions. So, let’s take a look at which fighters should walk away from the UFC’s final event of the year with a victory.
Thousands lined the streets of Mexico City one cold February morning in 1984 to pay tribute, one final time, to their hero. Rodolfo Guzmán Huerta had passed away at the age of 66, but I don’t think it’s an insult to say that Rodolfo was not the …
Thousands lined the streets of Mexico City one cold February morning in 1984 to pay tribute, one final time, to their hero. Rodolfo Guzmán Huerta had passed away at the age of 66, but I don’t think it’s an insult to say that Rodolfo was not the man being mourned. The people had come to see El Santo, the silver masked hero of more than 50 movies and countless matches in the ring.
Among the throng, a crowd so deep it took hours to make it to the church, was the Blue Demon, his greatest rival in the ring and his partner on film, where together they fought monsters and aliens alike in some of the most glorious B-Movies ever made.
Even for this solemn occasion, as he broke down in tears, the Demon wore his famous blue mask. Huerta was similarly adorned. He went to his grave wearing his iconic mask, a symbolic decision that crystallized for many the importance of the mask in Mexican combat culture.
More than a homage to their Aztec ancestors or the peasant’s traditional fiesta dance, the mask was a declaration of exactly who a man was in the ring, a chance to express outwardly and emphatically what you intended to represent and what kind of man you intended to be.
To rising UFC star Erik Perez, it’s a tradition that matters. One that carries weight in his Mexican homeland, a culture that has made luchalibre wrestling, at one point, the second-most popular spectator sport behind only soccer and has embraced boxing stars like Julio Caesar Chavez, Canelo Alvarez and Juan Manuel Marquez as national heroes.
It’s also a culture the UFC is cultivating, one that promoter Dana White would dearly like to capture. Which is part of the reason Perez, after reportedly being denied the chance to import this small piece of Mexican popular culture into his ring introduction at his UFC debut June in Las Vegas, will be in full lucha regalia when he hits the cage this weekend at the MGM Grand.
“When I was a child, the masked warriors were people who never gave up, never stopped fighting no matter the odds, and fought with pride and warrior spirit,” Perez told Yahoo’s Kevin Iole. “I think all Latinos are luchadors, maybe not in the Octagon, but in life, and by putting on the mask, I become each and every one of them and they become me.”
With his masked walk to the cage, Perez will do more than carry the legacies of childhood favorites like luchalibre star Octagon, a dazzling performer who mixed traditional martial arts moves with his high-flying escapades in the early 1990’s. He will also build another bridge connecting professional wrestling and mixed martial arts, a tradition that started in Brazil at the very foundation of Brazilian jiu jitsu and lives to this day in the verbal hijinks of ChaelSonnen and the annual mega shows in Japan.
For Perez, that’s just the backdrop. With his mask on, designed with the help of the UFC’s PR team and brought to life with the help of master craftsman Victor Martinez, the 23-year-old Jackson’s MMA fighter will be focused on the task at hand—opponent Byron Bloodworth.
I’ve got the blood of an Aztec warrior, of a Mexican warrior. When it’s time to fight, I’m going to fight … I want to fight to show that there are good things that come out of Mexico, not just bad things. That all things are possible with hard work and determination. I fight to show that.
Thousands lined the streets of Mexico City one cold February morning in 1984 to pay tribute, one final time, to their hero. Rodolfo Guzmán Huerta had passed away at the age of 66, but I don’t think it’s an insult to say that Rodolfo was not the man being mourned.