“I am deeply disappointed to be missing the action at UFC 170, but I am, as always, incredibly grateful for the support of my family, friends, management, the UFC, and most of all my fans during this minor setback,” Evans stated. “Thank you for your continued messages of support. I’ll be back stronger than ever!”
“Minor setback”? Props to Rashad for keeping such a positive attitude, because we’d be punching a hole through every wall in the house if this happened to us. Evans has had a history of poorly-timed injuries, from the previous knee injury that robbed him of a title shot against Mauricio Rua in early 2011, to the thumb injury that postponed his title fight with Jon Jones later that year.
For a 34-year-old athlete with over a decade of professional competition under his belt, a six-month timeout seems like a major setback — especially with Evans on the verge of title contention once again. Damn. Get well soon, dude.
“I am deeply disappointed to be missing the action at UFC 170, but I am, as always, incredibly grateful for the support of my family, friends, management, the UFC, and most of all my fans during this minor setback,” Evans stated. “Thank you for your continued messages of support. I’ll be back stronger than ever!”
“Minor setback”? Props to Rashad for keeping such a positive attitude, because we’d be punching a hole through every wall in the house if this happened to us. Evans has had a history of poorly-timed injuries, from the previous knee injury that robbed him of a title shot against Mauricio Rua in early 2011, to the thumb injury that postponed his title fight with Jon Jones later that year.
For a 34-year-old athlete with over a decade of professional competition under his belt, a six-month timeout seems like a major setback — especially with Evans on the verge of title contention once again. Damn. Get well soon, dude.
Details on Evans’s injury are scarce, although UFC CEO Lorenzo Fertitta told Yahoo!’s Kevin Iole that Evans would need four weeks of rehab. (Iole’s report called it a knee injury, by the way.) Depending on Rashad’s recovery, the UFC may reschedule the Evans/Cormier match to take place at UFC 172: Jones vs. Teixeira (April 26th, Baltimore). We’ll update you if that becomes official.
Details on Evans’s injury are scarce, although UFC CEO Lorenzo Fertitta told Yahoo!’s Kevin Iole that Evans would need four weeks of rehab. (Iole’s report called it a knee injury, by the way.) Depending on Rashad’s recovery, the UFC may reschedule the Evans/Cormier match to take place at UFC 172: Jones vs. Teixeira (April 26th, Baltimore). We’ll update you if that becomes official.
(The knee can be a cruel mistress. One day you’re provocatively bending it against a pole, without a care in the world. And the next day…betrayal. / Photo via Julianna’s Facebook page)
Pena is scheduled to undergo surgery next week, and doctors have already assured her that her knee will return to full strength following surgery and rehab. Not that it’s any consolation to UFC president Dana White, who was pissed last night:
(The knee can be a cruel mistress. One day you’re provocatively bending it against a pole, without a care in the world. And the next day…betrayal. / Photo via Julianna’s Facebook page)
Pena is scheduled to undergo surgery next week, and doctors have already assured her that her knee will return to full strength following surgery and rehab. Not that it’s any consolation to UFC president Dana White, who was pissed last night:
For the record, Pena trains at Sik-Jitsu in Spokane, and her actual recovery timetable is unknown. And unless Pena’s team rented her out as a training partner for Rousimar Palhares, we’ll hold off on burying them for now.
The hard-flung overhand rights that Gabriel Gonzaga launched at Stipe Miocic during Saturday’s UFC on FOX 10 co-main event may have hurt him worse than they hurt his opponent. Gonzaga came out strong in the first round of the heavyweight scrap, only to grow visibly fatigued and inactive as the fight wore on. Ultimately, “Napao” lost a unanimous decision.
Breaking his right hand early in the fight may or may not have had a lot to do with that, but what is for darn sure is that the Brazilian’s paw was straight jacked-up after the bout. MMA House has released a video of a hand they say is Gonzaga’s taken from what appears to be backstage in the United Center or a hospital room Saturday night.
Check it out above. If you’re a hearty soul, go ahead and try it while eating lunch.
The top of “Napao’s” hand is cartoonishly swollen and puffy, kind of like there’s a fat stack of oatmeal cookies underneath his skin. Why did my mind choose that as an analogy? Is it bad that now I want cookies?
Anyway, Gonzaga deserves a cookie after that disgusting injury, especially after losing. Go get yours, ‘Zaga.
The hard-flung overhand rights that Gabriel Gonzaga launched at Stipe Miocic during Saturday’s UFC on FOX 10 co-main event may have hurt him worse than they hurt his opponent. Gonzaga came out strong in the first round of the heavyweight scrap, only to grow visibly fatigued and inactive as the fight wore on. Ultimately, “Napao” lost a unanimous decision.
Breaking his right hand early in the fight may or may not have had a lot to do with that, but what is for darn sure is that the Brazilian’s paw was straight jacked-up after the bout. MMA House has released a video of a hand they say is Gonzaga’s taken from what appears to be backstage in the United Center or a hospital room Saturday night.
Check it out above. If you’re a hearty soul, go ahead and try it while eating lunch.
The top of “Napao’s” hand is cartoonishly swollen and puffy, kind of like there’s a fat stack of oatmeal cookies underneath his skin. Why did my mind choose that as an analogy? Is it bad that now I want cookies?
Anyway, Gonzaga deserves a cookie after that disgusting injury, especially after losing. Go get yours, ‘Zaga.
I know what you’re thinking: Does this mean that Ilir Latifi vs. Cyrille Diabate gets bumped up to the UFC Fight Night 37 co-main event? LOL, of course not. Luckily, the UFC has already found a replacement for Pearson — Michael Johnson, who’s coming off an impressive knockout of Gleison Tibau at UFC 168, and has been calling out Nate Diaz and Khabib Nurmagomedov since then in an attempt to land a big fight. And while those call-outs may have been slightly premature, a decisive win against Guillard could go a long way in making Johnson’s case as a contender worthy of top competition.
Johnson vs. Guillard has a personal hook to it as well. The two hard-hitting 155’ers were Blackzilian training partners for a while, until Guillard left the crew. A few months later, Guillard took some shots at Johnson on Twitter for no apparent reason. Your predictions for this one, please.
I know what you’re thinking: Does this mean that Ilir Latifi vs. Cyrille Diabate gets bumped up to the UFC Fight Night 37 co-main event? LOL, of course not. Luckily, the UFC has already found a replacement for Pearson — Michael Johnson, who’s coming off an impressive knockout of Gleison Tibau at UFC 168, and has been calling out Nate Diaz and Khabib Nurmagomedov since then in an attempt to land a big fight. And while those call-outs may have been slightly premature, a decisive win against Guillard could go a long way in making Johnson’s case as a contender worthy of top competition.
Johnson vs. Guillard has a personal hook to it as well. The two hard-hitting 155′ers were Blackzilian training partners for a while, until Guillard left the crew. A few months later, Guillard took some shots at Johnson on Twitter for no apparent reason. Your predictions for this one, please.
Erasing the bitter memory of his unsuccessful Octagon debut,Luke Rockhold began building his own UFC highlight-reel last night at UFC Fight Night 35 with a first-round body-kick TKO of Costa Philippou. Rockhold picked up a $50,000 Knockout of the Night bonus for the effort. At the post-fight press conference, Rockhold did what every surging middleweight does after a big win — he called out Michael Bisping:
“I’m looking at anyone in the middleweight division to get myself back into (title) position,” Rockhold said. “I already let it be known Bisping’s out there. A lot of people are calling him out, but Bisping went on national TV and told everybody he was the unofficial Strikeforce champion. He calls it a joke and this and that, but I say he’s got bad taste and he needs to pay for it.”
In other bonus news, featherweight Cole Miller won Submission of the Night for his second-round rear-naked choke of Sam Sicilia — which Miller followed up by calling out Donald “Clownboy” Cerrone in the post-fight interview — while middleweights Yoel Romero and Derek Brunson both got $50,000 bumps for FOTN. Highlights from both those matches are embedded at the end of this post.
Erasing the bitter memory of his unsuccessful Octagon debut,Luke Rockhold began building his own UFC highlight-reel last night at UFC Fight Night 35 with a first-round body-kick TKO of Costa Philippou. Rockhold picked up a $50,000 Knockout of the Night bonus for the effort. At the post-fight press conference, Rockhold did what every surging middleweight does after a big win — he called out Michael Bisping:
“I’m looking at anyone in the middleweight division to get myself back into (title) position,” Rockhold said. “I already let it be known Bisping’s out there. A lot of people are calling him out, but Bisping went on national TV and told everybody he was the unofficial Strikeforce champion. He calls it a joke and this and that, but I say he’s got bad taste and he needs to pay for it.”
In other bonus news, featherweight Cole Miller won Submission of the Night for his second-round rear-naked choke of Sam Sicilia — which Miller followed up by calling out Donald “Clownboy” Cerrone in the post-fight interview — while middleweights Yoel Romero and Derek Brunson both got $50,000 bumps for FOTN. Highlights from both those matches are embedded at the end of this post.
In injury news, Derek Brunson was taken to a hospital after the event to reportedly have surgery on a fractured jaw. (I’m surprised he didn’t have a bunch of broken ribs as well, thanks to all those elbows that Romero dropped on him in the finish. By the way, was that a late stoppage or what? Referee Blake Grice should have to chip in for Brunson’s medical bills.) Also, Cole Miller broke his hand and will find out today if he needs surgery.
“First of all, I don’t know if anybody remembers this but Georges St. Pierre is the one who said that he wanted to do the extra drug testing because he wanted to prove that he wasn’t on drugs. It wasn’t that he thought that Johny Hendricks was on steroids or performance enhancing drugs of any kind; he wanted to do this…[Y]ou see it in boxing all the time. One guy comes out and says ‘I want to do extra drug testing because I’m worried about this guy and I want to see what’s going on.’ They never come to an agreement. This guy says ‘I want to use this one’, this guy says ‘I want to use that one’; the Nevada State Athletic Commission is going to test them, okay?
“Now, a lot of things… I’ve talked about the Nevada State Athletic Commission as far as the refs and the judges; they drug test. Not only did they drug test Josh Barnett for his last fight because Josh Barnett has been busted for performance enhancing drugs before, they also made Travis Browne do it at the same time and the UFC paid for that. We paid for that drug testing. Also, for him to say we’re very lenient on drug testing, when we go out of the country and we regulate ourselves we test everybody on the card, not just the main event, not just the co-main event. You want to talk about being lenient? The fight that I was screaming about, yelling about that it was the greatest fight I’ve ever seen, Mark Hunt vs. Bigfoot Silva, we tested the guys for that fight, we caught Bigfoot Silva, and he got destroyed. Literally, got destroyed for going over the limit.
“He didn’t test positive, what he did was: Vitor Belfort, Bigfoot Silva, any of these other guys that are on TRT we test them throughout their whole camp. He did his last test the week of the fight and his numbers were fine. He took a shot after he got tested. So we tested him again after and his levels were through the roof and he got destroyed. Lost the win money that we gave him, lost the bonus money that we gave him, and obviously he’s not getting an extra bonus. The guy got smashed, and he’s suspended for a year. So if that’s lenient on drugs I guess we’re lenient then. I mean, I don’t even know what to say to it…
“What I heard is Georges St. Pierre is upset about some of the things I said at the press conference and he’s upset that I said that he didn’t win the fight, that I thought Johny Hendricks won the fight. But if that’s the case, call me man-to-man. Let’s talk on the phone, let’s sit down face-to-face. I talked to him after the fight face-to-face (and) he didn’t say any of that to me. So the whole thing is a little weird…
“And then as far as the other thing he said that we’re a monopoly? Viacom is our competitor. They have a $40 billion market cap. $40 billion. I’m never going to see $40 billion for as long as I live. Neither will the UFC, so we’re not a monopoly either.
“So, everything Georges St. Pierre says is a little kooky. That’s the other thing too: I’m here, I’ve been in Atlanta, I’ve been on planes, and doing all this stuff. Lorenzo reached out to him and Lorenzo still hasn’t heard from him yet. If Georges St. Pierre wants to talk like a man he can pick up the phone and call us or come see us face-to-face, but everything that he said is ridiculous.”
Full results from UFC Fight Night 35 are below; click the links for video highlights from each fight.
