Tag: UFC 169

Fighting JDS Not the Right Move for Alistair Overeem

Alistair Overeem saved his job by defeating Frank Mir at UFC 169.
Overeem looked the best he has in years. He seemed lighter, more active on his feet and had more cardio. All positive signs for the heavyweight as he tries to move back into title conten…

Alistair Overeem saved his job by defeating Frank Mir at UFC 169.

Overeem looked the best he has in years. He seemed lighter, more active on his feet and had more cardio. All positive signs for the heavyweight as he tries to move back into title contention.

Following the fight, Twitter seemed to favor a fight between Overeem and former UFC Heavyweight Champion Junior dos Santos.

That potential fight once had a lot of fanfare surrounding it. The two were scheduled to meet in a title fight at UFC 146, but a failed pre-fight drug test saw him take a year’s long suspension. He was not able to challenge for the title.

When Overeem returned, the division had changed. Cain Velasquez reclaimed the UFC Heavyweight Championship, and he was set to take on Antonio “Bigfoot” Silva for the chance to challenge for the gold.

After dominating the fight for two rounds, Overeem tired. Meanwhile Silva came on strong and then finished Overeem in the third. Overeem then returned six months later against Travis Browne. Once again, Overeem was winning early but faded. Browne got the KO, and Overeem was on the brink of losing his job.

Dos Santos is in no position to challenge for the belt anytime soon, but he is also the No. 1-ranked fighter in the division behind the champion. A fight with Overeem right now serves neither man, nor the UFC, any benefit.

It does not have the luster it had in 2012, the winner is not a title contender and it is a hard fight to shove both men into at this juncture.

For Dos Santos, he is coming off a massive beating at the hands of Velasquez. Does the UFC want to put him in the cage with Overeem right away? It makes little sense. Dos Santos should work his way back up slowly.

Meanwhile, Overeem just picked up his first win since 2011. Should he be thrust into a fight against the No. 1-ranked fighter in the division with no title shot imminent on the other side?

The fight simply does not make sense right now. There are plenty of fans that would like to see it, and it has the ingredients to be incredibly fun, but it is not the right time to make the fight.

This is a tricky time for the UFC, but it is also a time they can pick and chose opponents for these two popular fighters. Velasquez is out with an injury, and the next title challengers—Travis Browne and Fabricio Werdum—are locked into a title eliminator soon. There is no rush to make the next contender after them.

The UFC needs to foster both Dos Santos and Overeem.

There is no rush to make this fight happen. It is not the right time for this potential top-10 bout, and both fighters need to take their time in building up to another run at the title.

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UFC 169 Results: Updating the Bantamweight Rankings

UFC 169 featured a main event between the UFC Bantamweight Champion Renan Barao and Urijah Faber. It was a rematch from their UFC 149 fight in which Barao was the winner.
The result was the same in that Barao won, but this time he finished Faber in the…

UFC 169 featured a main event between the UFC Bantamweight Champion Renan Barao and Urijah Faber. It was a rematch from their UFC 149 fight in which Barao was the winner.

The result was the same in that Barao won, but this time he finished Faber in the first round with strikes. Early stoppage or not, it was a title defense that Barao can check off the list and a name he can add to his legacy.

In the aftermath of UFC 169, here are the bantamweight rankings.

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UFC 169: Jose Aldo Shifting Focus to Superfight with Anthony Pettis

Fresh off of his win over Ricardo Lamas at UFC 169, Jose Aldo is finally gearing up for a superfight with lightweight champ Anthony Pettis.
It was another masterful blend of striking and grappling put on display by Aldo Saturday night, as he extended h…

Fresh off of his win over Ricardo Lamas at UFC 169, Jose Aldo is finally gearing up for a superfight with lightweight champ Anthony Pettis.

It was another masterful blend of striking and grappling put on display by Aldo Saturday night, as he extended his win streak to 17 and defended the UFC featherweight title for a sixth consecutive time. Lamas fought valiantly and proved himself as a deserving contender, but Aldo continued to operate on a whole other level while forcing the rest of the featherweight division to play catchup.

As with every other great champion, MMA fans are now calling for Aldo to abandon his throne and move up in weight to seek the ultimate prize. The Brazilian has hinted at the idea several times in the past, but after the win over Lamas, all signs appear to be pointing toward a move to lightweight and a highly anticipated superfight with Pettis.

“It’s not only about me. I want the fight, the fans want the fight, so why not? We’re ready to fight, so let’s get this fight,” Aldo said at the UFC 169 post-fight press conference.

UFC president Dana White wasted no time in jumping on the opportunity to verbally seal the deal on what could be the biggest fight of the year.

“Sounds like we got a fight. There you go,” he responded at the post-fight presser. “That was easy. Got that deal done. One more thing I don’t have to do on Monday.”

Pettis has been eyeing a bout with Aldo for over a year now.

The two were slated to fight at 145 pounds for the featherweight title back in August 2013, but Pettis pulled out of the bout after suffering a knee injury. Instead, Aldo ended up defending the title against “The Korean Zombie” Chan Sung Jung, and Pettis went on to defeat Benson Henderson for the lightweight title.

After UFC 169, MMA journalist Ariel Helwani reported on Twitter that Pettis called White on the phone after the event and asked for a fight with Aldo:

In a strange twist of fate, this was the same way Pettis got the ball moving on this potential superfight last year. He called White on the phone and challenged Aldo after the UFC’s 2013 Super Bowl card.

Will the second time be the charm?

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UFC 169: The UFC Is Failing at Constructing Undercards

UFC 169 broke the UFC record for most decisions for a single event with 10.
Seven of those decisions came on the undercard. The first seven bouts of the night all went to the scorecards, and save for Al Iaquinta vs. Kevin Lee, they were not even compel…

UFC 169 broke the UFC record for most decisions for a single event with 10.

Seven of those decisions came on the undercard. The first seven bouts of the night all went to the scorecards, and save for Al Iaquinta vs. Kevin Lee, they were not even compelling fights that went the distance.

There are some out there who will point to this being due to the work Joe Silva and Sean Shelby, UFC matchmakers, do. They are the best in the business, but they are failing at putting together undercards for UFC bouts.

The notion that undercard fights should be evenly matched is false. The undercard portion of a card is to foster prospects and build future stars. The current UFC preliminary card landscape is failing at every turn.

From time to time, we are getting fun fights. We don’t have to look too far to see that. However, those fights, more or less, are not creating new stars. Nor are they developing fighters. It seems odd to say, but the undercards to UFC events need more mismatches.

If the UFC has a prospect they see a future in, then they must foster his talent with favorable matchups. There may be individual stylistic challenges, but overall they should be placed in bouts where their victory is a forgone conclusion.

That is not happening often enough right now.

At UFC 169, was there any fight where a prospect stood out? No.

Evenly contested bouts are for main cards. It is to help determine who the best of the best are. That isn’t happening on the majority of undercards. We get mid-tier fighters, at best, fighting other mid-tier fighters with the hopes we will get a brawl or back-and-forth brawl.

That is helping no one. And it shows.

The UFC is having a hard time developing new stars. Brock Lesnar has been back in the WWE for a long while, Georges St-Pierre is on hiatus for the foreseeable future and Anderson Silva just suffered a second consecutive loss. Who are the new stars, and where are they being developed?

The UFC is not developing fighters the same way it was just a few years ago. Johny Hendricks is a fantastic example.

Hendricks slowly worked his way up against fighters he held considerable advantages over as he developed his all-around skills. Eventually, the UFC tested him against fighters just outside of the top 10. When Hendricks won those, he got to the top 10 of the division and put together his run toward the title.

Hendricks spent nearly three years facing fighters outside the top 10. In those seven bouts, five were on the preliminary card. He was only on the main card in his UFC debut because Amir Sadollah was coming off winning The Ultimate Fighter.

In spite of the quick KO, the UFC relegated him to the undercard and slowly developed his talents. That is paying off.

Now, if a fighter has a big win over a semi-popular fighter, you can see him on the main card of a variety of shows, if not co-main-eventing a small fight card in another country. It is asinine. The UFC has gotten away from developing talent on the undercards, and it is hurting their business.

This used to be an area in which the UFC excelled, but now for one reason or another the matchmakers are failing. They are just hoping someone emerges from the pack instead of identifying talent and fostering their growth.

The UFC should reevaluate how it constructs the preliminary cards for their events if it hopes to bring up more stars that will lead the business in the years to come.

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UFC 169: John Lineker Should Be Handed His Pink Slip

John Lineker has been a curious case in the UFC.
He entered the UFC with a lot of hype surrounding him. He was a hard-throwing flyweight that could do a lot of damage in the division. In his UFC debut, Lineker missed weight and lost against Louis Gaudi…

John Lineker has been a curious case in the UFC.

He entered the UFC with a lot of hype surrounding him. He was a hard-throwing flyweight that could do a lot of damage in the division. In his UFC debut, Lineker missed weight and lost against Louis Gaudinot.

The red flags should have been up right away.

Since that time, he has gone 4-1 in the Octagon, but missed weight an additional two times. At UFC 169, he stepped on the scale heavy once again, but was able to come back an hour later to reach the flyweight limit of 126 pounds.

Entering UFC 169, Lineker was still talked about as a potential title contender. He could have challenged champion Demetrious Johnson after his TKO victory over Phil Harris, but by missing weight, the UFC could not take the risk. It needed to see him make weight.

After eventually making weight, he took on Ali Bagautinov. The Russian was able to take a unanimous decision against Lineker. The UFC should take this time to hand Lineker his pink slip and send him packing.

That may sound harsh, but the UFC needs to send a message. He has come in overweight for half of his bouts. That is unprofessional and would not be tolerated from a fighter who does not excite the crowd with fight-altering power.

It sends a message that if you continually come in heavy, then the leash is very short. It also sends a message to Lineker to get his act together. It will either force him to alter how he cuts weight or move up to 135 pounds.

Either way, Lineker can go to the regional circuit to fix his issues. The UFC can always bring him back to the fold after a couple of fights if he proves he can make weight consistently or grab a couple of wins at 135 pounds.

Lineker‘s current UFC run has been a complete failure—even with the wins. Half of his wins have come when he was overweight and he has two key losses in a division where he was trying to be billed as a contender. Unacceptable.

Lineker is a very exciting fighter that people love to watch. I love to watch him in the cage as well. However, the weigh-ins and loss to Bagautinov are the straws that broke the camel’s back.

Releasing Lineker cuts through the hullabaloo. It is not as if the UFC has never released contenders before—and for less than what Lineker has gone through. It just makes sense for the UFC to stop giving him chance after chance and show that no one is untouchable simply because of their rank and fighting style.

If the UFC wants to be taken seriously, then it needs to take this seriously. What Lineker has done to date has been unprofessional and the promotion needs to take a stand.

Send Lineker back to the regional circuit to fix his issues and make him prove he is worthy of a UFC contract.

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UFC 169: Dana White Calls Event ’10-Decision, Record-Breaking Catastrophe’

UFC 169 had more decisions than President Barack Obama, and Dana White isn’t happy.
The “Super Saturday” fight card this year featured two championship bouts, including the bantamweight title rematch between Renan Barao and Urijah Fab…

UFC 169 had more decisions than President Barack Obama, and Dana White isn’t happy.

The “Super Saturday” fight card this year featured two championship bouts, including the bantamweight title rematch between Renan Barao and Urijah Faber and the featherweight title bout between Jose Aldo and Ricardo Lamas.

Fighters didn’t seem overly eager to take home an extra $50,000 in bonus money, as the fight card only had two finishes. The UFC is all about breaking records, but not the kind of records that fans saw fall on Saturday night at the Prudential Center in Newark, New Jersey.

With 10 bouts going the distance, it was announced that UFC 169 broke the record for most decisions ever on a UFC fight card. The event breaks the previous record of nine, which was held by UFC 161.

To top it all off, the main event bout between Barao and Faber ended in controversy after a premature stoppage was turned in by referee Herb Dean. UFC president Dana White looked like a confused man who was trying to make sense of it all at the post-fight press conference:

I think [Dean] is the best referee in the business. He rarely ever makes mistakes, but he made a mistake tonight. Barao gets screwed and Faber gets screwed. It’s the cherry on the 10-decision, record-breaking catastrophe this evening.

After dropping Faber with a massive overhand right, Barao swarmed the Team Alpha Male member with multiple unanswered ground strikes. Despite being stuck in belly-down side control, Faber did a tremendous job of using his only free hand to block Barao’s punches. He even threw Dean a thumbs-up sign on the other hand to let the ref know he was still coherent.

Unfortunately for Faber, Dean was standing on the opposite side of the action, where he was unable to see the thumb being held up. With Faber trapped and turtling up for survival, Dean made the unpopular decision to step in and stop the fight at 3:42 of the first round. It was an unfortunate ending to a relatively uneventful night.

If Justin Bieber was still seeking free UFC pay-per-view, perhaps even White would have given him a pass on this card.

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