Randy Brown believes he showed Mickey Gall that there are levels to mixed martial arts (MMA). At UFC 217, Brown took on Gall inside Madison Square Garden in New York City. Brown was able to earn a unanimous decision win on the opening bout of the FOX S…
Randy Brown believes he showed Mickey Gall that there are levels to mixed martial arts (MMA). At UFC 217, Brown took on Gall inside Madison Square Garden in New York City. Brown was able to earn a unanimous decision win on the opening bout of the FOX Sports 1 preliminaries. During a recent appearance on […]
After four long years away from the sport of mixed martial arts (MMA), Georges St-Pierre is now back in the fold and reigning as the new champion at 185 pounds. St-Pierre made his highly-anticipated return to the Octagon last week in the main event of UFC 217 on pay-per-view (PPV), in which he challenged then-middleweight […]
After four long years away from the sport of mixed martial arts (MMA), Georges St-Pierre is now back in the fold and reigning as the new champion at 185 pounds.
St-Pierre made his highly-anticipated return to the Octagon last week in the main event of UFC 217 on pay-per-view (PPV), in which he challenged then-middleweight champion Michael Bisping’s throne in his 185-pound debut. After a tremendous back-and-forth contest, the Canadian was able to down Bisping with a hellacious shot before locking in a rear-naked choke that would sleep the brash British competitor.
While St-Pierre finds himself at the top of a division once again, that doesn’t make him the biggest star in the sport as he used to be when he ran rampant through the UFC’s 170-pound weight class. In the heyday of “Rush,” MMA was built on pure skill and respect, with stars such as Anderson Silva and St-Pierre himself reigning supreme.
Photo by Noah K. Murray for USA TODAY Sports
Nowadays the sport is dominated by brash trash-talkers such as Conor McGregor, and fighters only seem interested in “Money Fights” rather than championships. Recently speaking during an appearance at the New York Stock Exchange, St-Pierre compared the evolution of MMA into what it is today to that of the professional wrestling world; most notably the WWE (via Bloody Elbow):
“The sport has changed. Now it’s more WWF,” GSP said. “It’s crazy. It wasn’t like that when I left off four years ago. Now it’s crazy — also, I was fighting a guy who likes to trash talk, which is different. It was just a different environment.
“The fans are crazy. Everybody is more into it. It was fun though, I was enjoying the process.”
The bad blood between two-time UFC bantamweight champion T.J. Dillashaw and Team Alpha Male continues. Dillashaw knocked out his former training partner Cody Garbrandt to win the UFC bantamweight title at the UFC 217 PPV (pay-per-view) event in New York at Madison Square Garden. They have been feuding as part of a long-standing beef between […]
The bad blood between two-time UFC bantamweight champion T.J. Dillashaw and Team Alpha Male continues.
Dillashaw knocked out his former training partner Cody Garbrandt to win the UFC bantamweight title at the UFC 217 PPV (pay-per-view) event in New York at Madison Square Garden.
They have been feuding as part of a long-standing beef between Dillashaw and Team Alpha Male, which is where he used to train at. It all started when Dillashaw decided to leave the gym years earlier.
Although Dillashaw’s victory closed that particular chapter in the rivalry, the bad blood might not be over just yet.
During a recent Q&A session with fans at the MetroPCS UFC 217 Live event, Team Alpha Male’s founder and UFC Hall of Famer Urijah Faber stated in a response to a fight fan that a fight against Dillashaw could get him interested in a comeback.
Despite the fact that Faber is one of the best bantamweight fighters to ever compete under the UFC banner, Dillashaw isn’t worried about fighting his old coach.
“That’s hilarious man,” Dillashaw said during a recent episode of BJ Penn Radio. “It sounds like the easiest payday ever. I mean it’s just comical. I mean come out of retirement, get a title shot off of what, losing to Jimmy Rivera and looking like crap in his fights? I mean it’s hilarious.
But like I said, it’d be an easy payday, so I guess I shouldn’t be laughing at it. I should be pumping him up.”
Faber decided to hang up his gloves last December in his hometown of Sacramento. As for the reasons for his retirement, it was due to a waning passion for the actual fights as well as still having his health.
Since then, he has stayed busy by doing commentary work on the Dana White’s Tuesday Night Contender Series Snoopcast and remaining an integral part of Team Alpha Male as both coach and training partner.
Not only is Georges St-Pierre a UFC champion once again, but he has once again made his way back to the promotion’s pound-for-pound rankings. “GSP” made his highly-anticipated return to mixed martial arts (MMA) competition this past weekend in the main event of UFC 217 on pay-per-view (PPV) from the Madison Square Garden arena in […]
Not only is Georges St-Pierre a UFC champion once again, but he has once again made his way back to the promotion’s pound-for-pound rankings.
“GSP” made his highly-anticipated return to mixed martial arts (MMA) competition this past weekend in the main event of UFC 217 on pay-per-view (PPV) from the Madison Square Garden arena in New York City. Rather than return to his former championship weight class of 170 pounds, the Canadian decided to try his hand at challenging middleweight title-holder Michael Bisping. After a fairly back-and-forth affair; St-Pierre connected with a hellacious shot on “The Count” that dropped him, allowing “Rush” to lock in a rear-naked choke that would put Bisping to sleep.
Now St-Pierre rules as the new champion at 185 pounds, with interim champ Robert Whittaker looming in the shadows waiting to see if he’ll get a crack at the future UFC Hall Of Famer. The card also saw two other titles changed hands as TJ Dillashaw downed ex-Team Alpha Male teammate Cody Garbrandt to reclaim the 135-pound throne, and Rose Namajunas pulled off an Upset Of The Year candidate by knocking out former strawweight queen Joanna Jedrzejczyk.
Noah K. Murray for USA TODAY Sports
The official UFC rankings have been updated after the groundbreaking MMA event, and you can check them out here below:
POUND-FOR-POUND 1 Demetrious Johnson 2 Conor McGregor 3 Georges St-Pierre *NR 4 Max Holloway -1 5 Daniel Cormier 6 Stipe Miocic -2 7 TJ Dillashaw *NR 8 Tyron Woodley 9 Tony Ferguson +3 10 Cody Garbrandt -4 11 Cris Cyborg 12 Amanda Nunes +2 13 Jose Aldo -3 14 Robert Whittaker +1 15 Joanna Jedrzejczyk -8
FLYWEIGHT Champion: Demetrious Johnson 1 Joseph Benavidez 2 Henry Cejudo 3 Ray Borg 4 Sergio Pettis 5 Jussier Formiga 6 Wilson Reis 7 Brandon Moreno 8 Ben Nguyen 9 Dustin Ortiz 9 John Moraga 11 Tim Elliott 12 Alexandre Pantoja 13 Louis Smolka 14 Magomed Bibulatov 14 Deiveson Figueiredo +1
BANTAMWEIGHT Champion: TJ Dillashaw 1 Cody Garbrandt -1 2 Dominick Cruz -1 3 Jimmie Rivera 4 Raphael Assuncao 5 John Lineker 6 Bryan Caraway 7 Aljamain Sterling 8 John Dodson 9 Marlon Moraes 10 Thomas Almeida 11 Pedro Munhoz 12 Eddie Wineland 13 Matthew Lopez 14 Rob Font 15 Johnny Eduardo
FEATHERWEIGHT Champion: Max Holloway 1 Jose Aldo 2 Frankie Edgar 3 Ricardo Lamas 4 Cub Swanson 5 Chan Sung Jung 6 Brian Ortega 7 Yair Rodriguez 8 Jeremy Stephens 9 Darren Elkins 10 Renato Moicano 11 Dennis Bermudez 12 Dooho Choi 13 Mirsad Bektic 14 Myles Jury 15 Jason Knight
LIGHTWEIGHT Champion: Conor McGregor 1 Tony Ferguson (Interim Champion) 2 Khabib Nurmagomedov 3 Edson Barboza 4 Eddie Alvarez 5 Justin Gaethje 6 Nate Diaz 7 Kevin Lee 8 Dustin Poirier 9 Michael Johnson 10 Michael Chiesa 11 Al Iaquinta 12 Beneil Dariush 13 Anthony Pettis 14 Evan Dunham 15 Francisco Trinaldo
WELTERWEIGHT Champion: Tyron Woodley 1 Stephen Thompson +1 2 Robbie Lawler -1 3 Colby Covington 4 Demian Maia +1 5 Rafael Dos Anjos +1 6 Jorge Masvidal -2 7 Carlos Condit 8 Darren Till 9 Donald Cerrone 10 Santiago Ponzinibbio 11 Neil Magny 12 Kamaru Usman 13 Gunnar Nelson 14 Dong Hyun Kim 15 Alex Oliveira
MIDDLEWEIGHT Champion: Georges St-Pierre 1 Robert Whittaker (Interim Champion) 2 Michael Bisping -2 3 Yoel Romero 4 Luke Rockhold -2 5 Jacare Souza -1 6 Chris Weidman -1 7 Derek Brunson -1 8 Anderson Silva -1 9 Kelvin Gastelum -1 10 David Branch -1 11 Vitor Belfort 12 Uriah Hall -2 13 Krzysztof Jotko -1 14 Lyoto Machida -1 15 Paulo Costa *NR
LIGHT HEAVYWEIGHT Champion: Daniel Cormier 1 Alexander Gustafsson 2 Volkan Oezdemir 3 Glover Teixeira 4 Jimi Manuwa 5 Ovince Saint Preux +1 6 Mauricio Rua -1 7 Misha Cirkunov +1 8 Corey Anderson -1 9 Ilir Latifi 10 Patrick Cummins 11 Rogerio Nogueira 12 Gadzhimurad Antigulov 13 Tyson Pedro 14 Jan Blachowicz 15 Gian Villante
HEAVYWEIGHT Champion: Stipe Miocic 1 Alistair Overeem 2 Fabricio Werdum 3 Cain Velasquez 4 Francis Ngannou 5 Mark Hunt 6 Derrick Lewis 7 Alexander Volkov 8 Marcin Tybura 9 Curtis Blaydes +3 10 Stefan Struve 11 Aleksei Oleinik -2 12 Junior Albini -1 13 Andrei Arlovski -1 14 Travis Browne 15 Tim Johnson
Newly-crowned UFC middleweight champion Georges St-Pierre insists he doesn’t want to “freeze” the 185-pound division after submitting Michael Bisping at UFC 217, yet he still won’t fully commit to a unification bout with interim champion Robert Whittaker for his next fight. Like his comeback almost four years in the making was before, St-Pierre’s fighting future is uncertain, […]
Newly-crowned UFC middleweight champion Georges St-Pierre insists he doesn’t want to “freeze” the 185-pound division after submitting Michael Bisping at UFC 217, yet he still won’t fully commit to a unification bout with interim champion Robert Whittaker for his next fight.
Like his comeback almost four years in the making was before, St-Pierre’s fighting future is uncertain, partly because of a UFC 217 injury he revealed to reporters on a media conference call in New York yesterday.
The UFC legend elaborated on the ailment in a special episode of The MMA Hour(quotes via MMA Mania) after the media call, describing the nature of the injury and how painful it was, noting he could hardly posture up to throw ground strikes at times:
“It’s why after the fight I couldn’t even tie up my shoes. My neck couldn’t even move, I had an incredible swelling in one of the muscles on the back of the neck, and during the fight when I was on the ground it was very hard for me to posture up to strike. Even know you look at me, my head goes good this way, but this way I’m restricted a little. It’s a lot better than it was, but it was very painful.”
St-Pierre believes it could be a concussion, definitely a serious matter in an age when fighter safety is coming to the forefront of concerns about the sport:
“When he hit me I saw blurry for a bit. I don’t know if I had a concussion or something. It may have been a concussion. I keep fighting because when it happens, obviously survival instincts kick in. But when you watch the fight, that particular thing, it looked pretty insignificant. But it wasn’t insignificant when I received the shot. It hurt me really bad.
“It’s not the force of the blow, it’s the precision of it. It’s not Michael’s fault, you’re in the heat of the moment, you fight, I probably would have done the same thing, nothing wrong with that.”
Harrowing words from the longtime former welterweight ruler, who previously said he had lost periods of time during his highly controversial split decision win over Johny Hendricks in November 2013, a fight after which St-Pierre vacated his long-held belt and went into semi-retirement until now.
He said he’s going to take a vacation to clear his mind before deciding on his next fight, yet even though he’s the middleweight champion, a new head injury, especially at his age, may not be the best start to the final leg of his all-time great career.
There he was—a former champion looking to be in the best physical shape he’d seen for quite some time.
Bizarre weigh-in day antics notwithstanding, he was more taut and fit and had a training camp behind him with a new team of coaches—some …
There he was—a former champion looking to be in the best physical shape he’d seen for quite some time.
Bizarre weigh-in day antics notwithstanding, he was more taut and fit and had a training camp behind him with a new team of coaches—some of the best in the world. Give him a year at Jackson WinkMMA Academy and no one would beat him, he said.
Someone did, though. Fast. It took a little over six minutes.
That former champion was Johny Hendricks, and on the enormous stage of UFC 217 in New York City, the man to beat him was Paulo Costa, Brazil’s next big thing.
Perhaps Brazil’s next UFC legend.
Paulo Costa, otherwise known as Paulo Borrachinha until a sudden rebranding struck his fancy under the lights of Manhattan, is It with a capital “I.” He’s the man Brazilian fans have been waiting for, the fighter to take the mantle of his country’s great fighting hope from names like Jose Aldo and Anderson Silva and Vitor Belfort and Royce Gracie before him.
Chiseled from granite and with the looks of a model, Costa is 11-0 with 11 stoppages in his MMA career. Only two men have gotten out of the first round with him, and only one wasn’t knocked out for daring to tackle “The Eraser.”
His athleticism is impressive and, while he was a bulldozer in his earlier days, he showed against Hendricks that he understands the value of a measured approach to the game. For a competitor of such musculature, he did not burn himself out, waiting to finish the fight at the right time after breaking up explosive attacks with more deliberate stretches of offense.
It was the type of thing that athletes with 40 fights sometimes struggle with, that great champions have had to overcome or adjust to. To see a relatively green fighter understand his body so well, in such an environment and against such an opponent, was highly promising.
After his win, he got on the mic with Joe Rogan and, as is always well-received by the North American audience, attempted to communicate his jubilation.
The fans responded, just as they did when Anderson Silva, Lyoto Machida, Junior dos Santos and a host of other Brazilian stars have attempted to speak in their second language. And suddenly Costa had officially taken over the world’s most famous city.
The performance was the type to get him attention beyond the fanbase as well.
It scored him an exclusive in-studio interview with Ariel Helwani on a special edition of The MMA Hour, one of the sport’s foremost interview shows. The only other man to appear on that episode? New middleweight champion and living legend Georges St-Pierre.
Pretty good company to keep.
After Costa’s 217 bout, top-ranked middleweight Derek Brunson—fresh off blowing Machida away on a card in Brazil a couple of weeks ago—took to Twitter to sass Costa. Emoji steroid accusations and proclamations of easy money buoyed that sass, along with a picture of Costa sporting a questionable choice of hairstyle.
Costa fired back, saying he’d make Brunson famous in his “score of knockouts.”
But whether it’s Brunson or another middleweight contender, Costa has arrived. He’s undeniably a work in progress at 26 years old, but he’s one of the most promising projects Brazil has had on its hands in years.
Unlike the faux prospects that came before him, filling out The Ultimate Fighter: Brazil and riding the UFC hype machine for as long as they were trying to expand their South American footprint, Costa did it the right way.
He appeared on the show, lost and then took five more regional fights to round himself out before getting another crack at the big show. This is not a creation of the UFC, a man they decided to push in the name of selling shows to Globo TV—this is a legitimate talent who built himself the way the greats that came before him did.
He showed it Saturday, when the results spoke for themselves. Continue on that path, and he may very well see his name up there next to those greats before long.
There he was—a former champion looking to be in the best physical shape he’d seen for quite some time.