Tag: UFC 210

Court Proceeds With Felony Case Against UFC Title Contender

Top light heavyweight Volkan Oezdemir may be heading into the biggest bout of his life when he meets current champion Daniel Cormier at January 20’s UFC 220, but he’ll apparently still be dealing with a felony charge when he does. Today, public records acquired via MMA Fighting revealed that the Stae of Florida was moving […]

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Top light heavyweight Volkan Oezdemir may be heading into the biggest bout of his life when he meets current champion Daniel Cormier at January 20’s UFC 220, but he’ll apparently still be dealing with a felony charge when he does.

Today, public records acquired via MMA Fighting revealed that the Stae of Florida was moving ahead with a felony charge against Oezdemir, with a court appearance apparently having been set. Oezdemir’s second-degree felony charge of aggravated battery causing bodily harm or disability has been moved down to third-degree felony battery causing great bodily harm.

The rising light heavyweight was originally charged with battery in November. Records stated that judge Barbara R. Duffy would preside over his arraignment hearing in the Broward County Seventeenth Judicial Circuit Court on January 9, 2018. Records also showed that state attorney Michael J. Satz had filed the new, lowered charge on December 15, and Duffy had issued a no-bond arrest warrant for Oezdemir, which will only come into play if the Swiss knockout slugger fails to appear in court.

Oezdemir’s trouble dates back to an alegged August 12th incident where he supposedly struck and knocked out Florida man Kevin Cohen for 14 minutes. Cohen also told police he was treated for symptoms of concussion and required staples for multiple lacerations. The alleged incident took place at a bar called Capone’s, where Cohen said he walked outside of after hearing his friend had been knocked out. When he asked who did, according to him, Oezdemir then knocked him out.

Although the charge he’s facing carries a maximum sentence of five years in jail, Oezdemir and his attorney Bruce Zimet have insisted he was merely acting in self-defense. Both Zimet and the UFC did not respond to inquiries from MMA Fighting.

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Alexander Gustafsson Won’t Give Up On Rematch With Jon Jones

Former two-time title challenger Alexander Gustafsson may have recently underwent a shoulder surgery, but “The Mauler” is still aiming to face the winner of the 205-pound title bout between Daniel Cormier and Volkan Oezdemir at January’s UFC 220. Yet there’s an opponent he still wants to fight aside from “DC” or “No Time,” and that’s […]

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Former two-time title challenger Alexander Gustafsson may have recently underwent a shoulder surgery, but “The Mauler” is still aiming to face the winner of the 205-pound title bout between Daniel Cormier and Volkan Oezdemir at January’s UFC 220.

Yet there’s an opponent he still wants to fight aside from “DC” or “No Time,” and that’s understandably disgraced former champion Jon “Bones” Jones, who he fought to a close split decision defeat in an all-time classic at 2013’s UFC 165. That won’t be happening anytime soon, unfortunately enough, as Jones is currently awaiting his hearing for a disappointing second USADA test failure prior to his third-round knockout win over Cormier in their rematch at this July’s UFC 214.

It was nothing Gustafsson hadn’t seen before, so when he was asked about the jaw-dropping transgression during an appearance on The MMA Hour, the Swedish star said he wasn’t surprised and actually felt sorry for “Bones” due to the talent he possessed:

“I wasn’t shocked. I wasn’t surprised and I feel sorry for him. What can I say? I just feel sorry for him…that he’s got new things coming up all the time. I’m not surprised at all and I just feel sorry for him. It’s bad for everything. It’s bad for the sport.

“Look what he did to DC – he’s a beast. Nobody has done what he’s done and he’s just getting caught over and over again.”

Questioned why he would feel sorry for a fighter who had the fight game in his hand but let it slip away for all sorts of drugs, “The Mauler” revealed that he thought “Bones” obviously had something wrong with him to risk what he has:

“There must be something wrong with him, right? You know, you just don’t do that. How should I explain it? I just think he’s taking all the wrong decisions all the time and for that I am feeling sorry for him, basically.”

It can’t be denied that Jones has made mixed martial arts look bad in the public eye due to seemingly never-ending fight cancellations and an increasingly tainted legacy due to multiple performance-enhancing and recreational drug failures; however, “The Mauler” wants to face the controversial would-be G.O.A.T. one more time – if he could only show up to the Octagon drug-free:

“I want him back. I want another fight with him. I want to fight him at some point in my future career. I just want to fight him one more time and maybe for that reason I want to see him come back,” he said.

“But, at the same time, he’s been getting caught a lot of times. If he doesn’t come back, he doesn’t come back. I just feel like it’s sad for the sport and for the whole thing.”

Gustafsson then closed by offering a strange stance that Jones somehow still held the belt because of how he dispatched Cormier.

But even though he views “Bones” as the true champion, he wouldn’t let Cormier’s redeeming qualities go unnoticed:

“He has the belt. I want to fight DC for sure. I want that belt, but for me the real champion is Jon Jones of course because he has been destroying everybody in the division. Everything he’s done has not been done before,” stated Gustafsson.

“So, for me, he’s the real champion but I accept DC as a champion too. He’s a good guy and a good fighter and the only person he has lost to is Jon Jones. He’s the real deal and I think he’s champion material.”

The only major part of that logic that isn’t true is the fact that Jones simply is not the champion anymore, as he’s been stripped of the title an alarming amount of times to where it’s almost hard to remember all of the instances.

He certainly would be one of if not the greatest fighters in MMA history if he could only stay clean, yet the fact remains we just don’t know if steroids affected some, many, or all of his UFC fights, and if so, how much.

His head kick knockout of Cormier was a thing of beauty, but would it have happened if he had not been on steroids? “Bones’” team is claiming a tainted supplement once again, and he is facing a potential four-year suspension if handed the maximum penalty.

That might end any chance of Gustafsson getting his rematch – a fight he probably had little shot of actually getting in the first place.

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Daniel Cormier vs. Volkan Oezdemir Confirmed For UFC 220

The Daniel Cormier vs. Volkan Oezdemir light heavyweight title fight will go forward as planned despite ‘No Time’s’ recent felony arrest for battery. News arrived from the UFC tonight that Cormier and Oezdemir will square off at January 20’s UFC 220 pay-per-view (PPV) card from Boston, Massachusetts. The bout had been heavily discussed by Cormier […]

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The Daniel Cormier vs. Volkan Oezdemir light heavyweight title fight will go forward as planned despite ‘No Time’s’ recent felony arrest for battery.

News arrived from the UFC tonight that Cormier and Oezdemir will square off at January 20’s UFC 220 pay-per-view (PPV) card from Boston, Massachusetts.

The bout had been heavily discussed by Cormier after he conducted a recent online poll to decide his next challenger, which Oezdemir won after dispatching his last two opponents Jimi Manuwa and Misha Cirkunov in 70 seconds combined. But an arrest for aggravated battery causing serious bodily injury, a second-degree felony charge, after he allegedly knocked a man unconscious outside a Florida bar in August put the fight in serious jeopardy.

Originally from Switzerland, Oezdmeir has since surrendered his passport to Broward County court, and his lawyer Bruce Zimet maintained that his client was only acting in self-defense during an arraignment hearing two weeks ago.

The arrest adds to an already insane UFC light heavyweight title picture, where Cormier became the official champion for a second time due to decorated former champ and heated rival Jon Jones screwing up after “Bones” tested positive for anabolic steroid Turinabol during an in-competition drug test the day before his third-round knockout of Cormier at July 29’s UFC 214, a victory that was supposed to bring order to the chaotic landscape.

But as has been the case with the ultra-talented but oft-troubled Jones, nothing is certain, and Cormier was rightfully made the champion again even after he lost badly.

His new era begins in Boston on January 20; that is if Oezdemir can make it to the Octagon without incident.

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Jon Jones’ Doping Hearing Delayed Until 2018

The consequences of former UFC champion Jon Jones’ latest USADA drug test failure will not be known until at least next year. After Jones tested positive for banned anabolic steroid Turinabol during his third-round knockout win over archrival Daniel Cormier at July 29’s UFC 214, he was set to have his first hearing in front […]

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The consequences of former UFC champion Jon Jones’ latest USADA drug test failure will not be known until at least next year.

After Jones tested positive for banned anabolic steroid Turinabol during his third-round knockout win over archrival Daniel Cormier at July 29’s UFC 214, he was set to have his first hearing in front of the California State Athletic Commission (CSAC) on December 12, but CSAC executive officer Andy Foster informed MMA Fighting today that Jones was granted a continuance and will have his first hearing in February.

The current failure could see the talented but oft-troubled “Bones” banned for up to four years, which would obviously put his otherwise illustrious mixed martial arts career in jeopardy. Jones will appear before the CSAC, who changed his win over Cormier in Anaheim to a no contest, and he will also have to answer to USADA for a second time.

Cormier, meanwhile, was given the title back.

He was infamously removed from his scheduled main event rematch with Cormier at July 2016’s UFC 200 after testing positive for clomiphene and Letrozol, which he said he unknowingly ingested in sexual performance enhancement pills, which he jokingly came to refer to as “dick pills.” But the scene is no laughing matter for a fighter whose career, which was at one time most certainly headed for the deserving moniker of the greatest of all-time, is quickly devolving into a saddening downward spiral with no end in sight.

While USADA acknowledged that Jones was not necessarily a drug cheat during his first hearing surrounding UFC 200, they also suspended him one year for what they deemed gross neglicence on he and his team’s part.

His team is currently once again claiming Jones did not knowingly take any anabolic steroids before UFC 214, and are having his supplements tested for any evidence of tainting. With Jone seemingly unable to make it to the Octagon without some sort of drug-related controversy, however, that defense will most likely get tougher and tougher to put over on the CSAC and USADA.

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GSP’s Former Training Partner Thinks He May Retire Already

French Canadian mixed martial artists Patrick Cote and Georges St-Pierre have known each other for a long time, having fought in the same regional promotion before both signing with the UFC last decade. So it’s fair to say that Cote knows GSP better than any other fighter on the roster, and Cote believes the former […]

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French Canadian mixed martial artists Patrick Cote and Georges St-Pierre have known each other for a long time, having fought in the same regional promotion before both signing with the UFC last decade.

So it’s fair to say that Cote knows GSP better than any other fighter on the roster, and Cote believes the former welterweight and current middleweight champion won’t be fighting for much longer, even with the strap around his waist.

Cote expressed his doubts during a recent interview on The MMA Hour:

“I have big doubts. I don’t have any inside info and we are not close as we used to be, but what he said about that hard thing to gain weight.”

“I don’t want to take anything away from Bisping, I like this guy, he’s a worker, amazing fighter and he had a great opportunity to be champion, but Georges against Whittaker, big guys like Romero, I don’t know. Georges is super athlete but he doesn’t have anything to prove against those big guys. I don’t think he’ll fight at 185 anymore.”

Saint Pierre had dominated the welterweight division before retiring after UFC 167. He returned four years later to take on middleweight champion Michael Bisping, who he defeated by submission at UFC 217.

Now ruling over the 185-pound division, Cote says GSP has many options outside of fighting. Cote himself retired after a loss to Thiago Alves at UFC 210.

“For sure, I would not be surprised if he said, ‘It’s over, I just wanted to feel that feeling again.’ Why I say that is because is took him so much time to get out of the cage. He stayed in the cage and he was kind of feeling everything he was able to grab about all the emotion.”

“He was in the cage for almost 20 minutes after the fight, He was looking at everything and grabbing all the energy just to say ‘That was that, I did it and I am not going to miss that anymore.’ This is the feeling I had when I was at MSG. But no, I will not be surprised if he is done with fighting.”

Do you think GSP will be fighting for much longer?

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Dana White Continues To Blast ‘Unfixable’ Jon Jones

Disgraced former UFC light heavyweight champion Jon Jones may have recently teased his umpteenth comeback, but UFC President Dana White isn’t having it. White famously said Jones could have a difficult time dealing with all the fame and money he was about to be bombarded by when he became the youngest-ever UFC champion in 2011, and […]

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Disgraced former UFC light heavyweight champion Jon Jones may have recently teased his umpteenth comeback, but UFC President Dana White isn’t having it.

White famously said Jones could have a difficult time dealing with all the fame and money he was about to be bombarded by when he became the youngest-ever UFC champion in 2011, and indeed that’s been the case over a long, disturbing set of incidents that have the MMA great’s future in serious jeopardy.

There’s little point in rehashing all of “Bones’” concerning outside the cage troubles, but he currently is awaiting a potential USADA suspension after testing positive for anabolic steroid Turinabol prior to his UFC 214 knockout win over Daniel Cormier, a bout after which he was widely accepted back with open arms from fans. But he messed up yet again and is now facing a possible four-year ban from the sport.

Due to the long list of transgressions and the hindrance they’ve placed on his career, White recently branded Jones “the biggest waste of talent ever” in the UFC, and he further expanded upon that this week. Speaking to The Jim Rome Show (via MMA Fighting), White described Jones’ baffling tendency to continue screwing up:

“I don’t know. He’s not a ‘just about the money’ type guy. He’s really not that kind of guy. I just think that Jon likes to party and he’s a guy that likes to go out and have fun and do whatever it is that he does, and I think the money and the fame made it a thousand times worse.

“This guy couldn’t control himself and would completely go off the deep end. I’m not sitting here acting like Mr. Holier-than-thou, we’ve all gone and had fun and probably partied a little too much here and there, but he consistently, consistently kept doing it. Even when he would completely f**k up, he would pull himself together and come out and completely f**k up again. Even this last time when he came back, fans forgave and he was the most popular fighter and everybody wanted to see this guy succeed, and he did it again. It’s just unbelievable.”

The PED suspensions are undoubtedly concerning, especially for an athlete whose main goal is to inflict harm on another human being, but White referred to Jones’ disturbing hit-and-run accident in Albuquerque, New Mexico, that left a 25-year-old pregnant woman with a broken arm and Jones with a punishment many felt was not commensurate with his crime.

White admitted that the judge let Jones off easy, and if he couldn’t change his ways while facing jail time, then he was simply ‘unfixable’:

“Even worse than that, this guy was looking at jail time. This judge gave him another shot and this guy was looking at some serious jail time and a lot of bad stuff and that still didn’t wake him up. If that’s not a wake-up call, you’re unfixable.”

At this point, it’s difficult to argue with White on this topic, whether you like him or not. Jones has shown an extreme pattern of concerning troubles that have ruined what would otherwise be the most decorated career in the history of the UFC.

Still, his team is ramping up for yet another defense, and based on what USADA decides, he could bafflingly find himself fighting in the Octagon once again someday.

Should the UFC offer their talented-yet-troubled former champion yet another shot?

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