No, the above image is not something that was drawn up by a 7 year-old Japanese schoolboy in between classes, nor is it Dr. Scholl’s experiment gone awry involving a rubber factory and an army of millipedes. The utterly ridiculous mishmash of trampoline springs and synthetic leather pictured above is actually the Rampage Jackson-endorsed Reebok shoe responsible for Page’s latest tantrum aimed at the UFC. I cannot emphasize enough that I am not joking here. On a Rampage-Jackson-alternative-business-venture scale of “Rampage Punch” to “Now shake it, *you* shake it, I wanna see that ass butt-naked,” I give it a solid “Transsexual rape video.” No, I will not go into further detail.
Set to hit the shelves on February 1st, the only thing more outlandish than the look of this thing is the 140 dollars it will cost you to pick up a pair. For one third of that price, I will gladly push you down a flight of stairs, trip you in a crowd, or use whatever method you prefer to achieve the sprained ankle you will inevitably suffer while wearing these moon shoes. Jackson says that the design was inspired by all terrain vehicles, but could someone please explain to me what sport or everyday activity these things could possibly be useful for? Or what group of people Reebok is trying to promote with these? Unless competitive hopscotching troglodytes are a huge undiscovered market that has just been waiting to be tapped into, I expect that these things will be filling the bargain bins at Reebok stores nationwide by Christmas. Anyone disagree?
No, the above image is not something that was drawn up by a 7 year-old Japanese schoolboy in between classes, nor is it Dr. Scholl’s experiment gone awry involving a rubber factory and an army of millipedes. The utterly ridiculous mishmash of trampoline springs and synthetic leather pictured above is actually the Rampage Jackson-endorsed Reebok shoe responsible for Page’s latest tantrum aimed at the UFC. I cannot emphasize enough that I am not joking here. On a Rampage-Jackson-alternative-business-venture scale of “Rampage Punch” to “Now shake it, *you* shake it, I wanna see that ass butt-naked,“ I give it a solid “Transsexual rape video.” No, I will not go into further detail.
Set to hit the shelves on February 1st, the only thing more outlandish than the look of this thing is the 140 dollars it will cost you to pick up a pair. For one third of that price, I will gladly push you down a flight of stairs, trip you in a crowd, or use whatever method you prefer to achieve the sprained ankle you will inevitably suffer while wearing these moon shoes. Jackson says that the design was inspired by all terrain vehicles, but could someone please explain to me what sport or everyday activity these things could possibly be useful for? Or what group of people Reebok is trying to promote with these? Unless competitive hopscotching troglodytes are a huge undiscovered market that has just been waiting to be tapped into, I expect that these things will be filling the bargain bins at Reebok stores nationwide by Christmas. Anyone disagree?
Then again, the existence of Movie 43 (and the millions of dollars it will likely make this weekend. Just watch.) proves that we as a society are still not capable of distinguishing good products from terrible ones, so I guess we should just start preparing ourselves for the herds of wobbly-legged wankers who will be stumbling onto subways across the country donning these beauties.
So how many of you Taters will be camping out in line for a chance to own a pair of Page’s signature kicks? Get it? Kicks?! Because he never throws any?
Headlined by a championship bout between flyweights Demetrious Johnson and John Dodson, UFC on Fox 6 features several fights with title implications.In the lightweight division, former WEC stars Anthony Pettis and Donald Cerrone will face off in a matc…
Headlined by a championship bout between flyweights Demetrious Johnson and John Dodson, UFC on Fox 6 features several fights with title implications.
In the lightweight division, former WEC stars Anthony Pettis and Donald Cerrone will face off in a matchup that could determine the next title challenger in the 155-pound division. Additionally, Erik Koch and Ricardo Lamas will meet at featherweight with a title shot potentially on the line.
While all six of the aforementioned fighters are competing in fights of extreme importance, they have an average age of 27 years, with none of them being more than 30 years old.
The losers of those three fights will take a step back, but they are all young enough to come back and contend again.
Instead, the fighter with the most to lose at UFC on Fox 6 is the fighter on the main card who probably has the smallest possibility of competing for a UFC championship in his following appearance.
Quinton Jackson has said his fight with Glover Teixeira on Saturday will be his last inside the Octagon (via UFC.com), but that doesn’t mean he has nothing to lose here. In fact, it means quite the opposite.
If “Rampage” does intend to continue fighting, there is a lot of money on the line in his fight with Teixeira, as organizations will lose a lot of interest in the former UFC champion should he lose for a third consecutive time.
Once he’s a free agent, Jackson might also realize the grass isn’t greener on the other side. And when he potentially does, “Rampage” won’t want the bridge back to the UFC to be completely burned.
With his recent openness about leaving the UFC, Jackson has lit that bridge on fire, but a win over Teixeira would give him a chance to put out the flames should he need to do so. If Jackson loses to Teixeira, the UFC would likely have little interest in welcoming him back to the Octagon.
Essentially, Jackson will be fighting for his relevancy on Saturday. Win, and “Rampage” could re-ignite fan interest, whether it be with the UFC or not. Lose, and there’s a good chance Jackson will fade away much like FedorEmelianenko unfortunately did in his final fights.
Have you ever heard of the Culinary Union? It has nothing to do with the Culinary Academy, a place for cooking that Jared Allen likes to joke about when introducing himself on Sunday Night Football.The Culinary Union I am talking about is an adversary …
Have you ever heard of the Culinary Union? It has nothing to do with the Culinary Academy, a place for cooking that Jared Allen likes to joke about when introducing himself on Sunday Night Football.
The Culinary Union I am talking about is an adversary the UFC has gone up with many times before. It is the group that is currently ensuring that the UFC stays out of New York.
However, this time around, they are leading the charge with other women’s groups to try and get Quinton Jackson taken off of the UFC on Fox 6 card in Chicago.
This may not come as a shock, as Jackson is quite controversial. However, you may be thinking, “What did Jackson do this time?”
No, he didn’t hump any more female reporters. And no, he didn’t motorboat Karen Bryant and tell her that “Jamaican me horny,” again.
Don’t worry, “Rampage” simply made a video about how to rape a woman in a parking garage last year, no big deal.
Sarcasm aside, this video has drawn the ire of women’s groups that are being assisted by the Culinary Union. They have demanded via letter and protest that Jackson be pulled from competition this weekend, a demand that will not be met.
I understand, the video Jackson made was completely inappropriate and insensitive. In fact, Jackson explained he made the video with the goal of getting kicked out of the UFC.
However, Jackson should not be pulled for this video. It was an incredibly dumb thing, but they should not succumb to the Culinary Union’s demands.
In fact, this is not the first time the Culinary Union demanded the UFC pull a fighter from a card.
The Union blasted the UFC last month for letting Jeremy Stephens and Abel Trujillo, both with past legal issues on their hands, compete on the UFC on Fox 5 card.
Dana White and the UFC will not pull Jackson from the card and even called the Culinary Union “gangsters” who have been doing “dirty stuff” for a while.
When you’re 42 years old and in the fight business, you usually are at the point of where you’re retired and either training fighters or out of the sport. Exceptions are out there like Randy Couture, Dan Henderson and Dan Severn. They are few and far b…
When you’re 42 years old and in the fight business, you usually are at the point of where you’re retired and either training fighters or out of the sport. Exceptions are out there like Randy Couture, Dan Henderson and Dan Severn. They are few and far between. It is like that because of the nature of the sport and the punishment that the fighters receive.
We can add another name to this list of fighters still continuing their careers. Vladimir Matyushenko, the former IFL light heavyweight champion, started fighting in 1997 and will continue his journey as he faces Ryan Bader at UFC on Fox 6.
As you get older, times change in the sport. The way you diet and cut weight is a big factor, as it is harder to lose weight when you get older. For Matyushenko, it is all about balance.
“I try to balance eating right and training hard,” Matyushenko told Bleacher Report. “I used to train two or three times a day. Sometimes you just don’t have the energy, so your forced to eat small portions of food.”
You hear stories from fighters who say they train up to four times a day. As you get older, though, that slows down due to the natural wear and tear of fighting. The native of Belarus feels when you are starting in the sport, you have to train more, but when you keep advancing in your career it does change.
“You have to train not necessarily harder, but smarter,” Matyushenko stated. “For up and comers, you have to train a lot. You have to spar a lot just to find your style and find who you are. With my age, I can just improve the style I have and sharpen them up. When I have to train as hard, you still have to be in shape. Recovery time is important. You have to train smarter, not harder.”
After being in the sport for 15 years, you would think there is nothing else to learn. For “The Janitor,” you have to keep learning to keep up with the new age of fighters.
“You have too (keep learning),” Matyushenko stated. “If you don’t then you are pretty much done. A few years ago, I didn’t have that material to work from. Now there’s so much material to learn from because there’s so many good fighters.”
At the age of 42, being an active fighter isn’t likely for a lot of fighters. For Matyushenko, retirement was supposed to happen a long time ago, but he feels MMA is cool and better now than it was 15 years ago.
“I thought about retirement ten years ago (laughing),” Matyushenko stated. “With the circumstances today, MMA is cool to do, especially where the UFC is right now. You don’t have to worry now about fighting for a paycheck and making sure the check doesn’t bounce from the bank. Now we have health insurance and stuff like that. I think all these things extend our life spans of being a fighter.”
His opponent, Ryan Bader, lost his last fight to Lyoto Machida by knockout at UFC on Fox 4 in August. Matyushenko feels they are similar fighters, but feels Bader is now in the prospect category due to losing big fights against Jon Jones and Machida.
“It depends on what he (Bader) thinks of himself,” Matyushenko stated. “He’s a prospect. He’s done being a contender. He had some good matches and in those matches, he lost. He did good in the beginning (of his career). I think a lack of experience, not just his overall, but his experience with Jon Jones and Lyoto Machida. Those are top guys.
“We are pretty similar fighters. I’m a wrestler, he’s a wrestler. He’s been working on his striking and has gotten a few knockouts in his career and so have I. It is a good matchup.”
Dana White has said in the past that if you get by Matyushenko, you are a serious contender in the light heavyweight division.
Jon Jones beat Matyushenko in August 2010, and Jones is currently the UFC light heavyweight champion. Alexander Gustafsson beat Matyushenko at UFC 141 in December 2011, and Gustafsson has main-evented a card, with a co-main event slot at UFC on Fox 5. That defines what a gatekeeper is in MMA. Matyushenko is looking to shed that title and make a run at the belt.
“What you want and what you got are two different things (laughing),” Matyushenko stated. “I want to be the champion. Some people think I’m god, but some people call me a gatekeeper and some call me the janitor. The only way I can change that is to improve my performance and become a champion. If I would have beaten Jon Jones, maybe I would be viewed differently.
“I have to shape myself up and show what I got. It is tougher to fight there (205 pound division) especially right now. A few guys from Strikeforce are coming over like (Gegard) Mousasi. It is going to to be interesting.”
Unless otherwise stated, all quotes were obtained firsthand.
Before Clay Guida was a UFC star, appearing on television screens all across the world, he fought constantly in the U.S. Midwestern regional circuit. Often, he fought multiple times per month. He was a lightweight and the UFC didn’t even have a lightweight division at the time, to say nothing of the three divisions below it that they have since added. Clay fought in halls, bars — anywhere there was a tough guy and a crowd, really. His locker rooms were sometimes bathrooms and closets.
It was small-time, but the energy in those halls and bars would spike when Guida came out to fight. He was a spastic ball of energy from his walk to the cage and on through the fights themselves, and Clay built a fan-base in the area that raucously cheered for him and rabidly followed him.
On local MMA shows, fighters get paid very little, if anything, to fight. Promoters use the fighters to sell tickets, however, and then give a small percentage of the sales back to the fighters. Matchmaking at this level often takes who can sell tickets into heavy consideration. Clay sold a lot of tickets. And he didn’t exactly have a personal assistant or PR team to help him handle the transactions. Back in the day, Clay would hock tickets while training for fights, weigh in, show up on fight night, and then combine warming up with getting tickets to those of his friends and family that needed them.
Since joining the UFC in 2006, Clay has moved beyond fighting in smoky suburban Chicago rooms, but his fans often follow him around the country and world for his fights. If it wasn’t for the amount of work he puts in at the gym that reveals how serious he takes his job, you’d think life is just one big party for Guida. He enjoys having loved ones around him, and the more people that come out to support him, the better, because it makes the celebration afterwards that much more fun.
That said, all the attention and work that goes along with taking care of friends and fans can take a toll on a fighter and affect their energy and focus. There’s always another request for the fighter to fulfill as he prepares for battle, always another favor for him to do. As best as can be observed, Guida does all that he can with a smile on his face. He knew, however, that if he held his training camp back home because he was scheduled to fight in Chicago this Saturday at UFC on Fox 6, it would be a mess. Instead, Guida chose to stay in New Mexico and keep his camp there at Greg Jackson and Mike Winkeljohn’s gym as he has the past few years.
“That’s why we’re out here in New Mexico,” Guida told CagePotato last week. “We’ve really got to focus. I love everyone back home and we’re going to have a great time there during the fight, but training camp needs to be just about preparing.”
Before Clay Guida was a UFC star, appearing on television screens all across the world, he fought constantly in the U.S. Midwestern regional circuit. Often, he fought multiple times per month. He was a lightweight and the UFC didn’t even have a lightweight division at the time, to say nothing of the three divisions below it that they have since added. Clay fought in halls, bars — anywhere there was a tough guy and a crowd, really. His locker rooms were sometimes bathrooms and closets.
It was small-time, but the energy in those halls and bars would spike when Guida came out to fight. He was a spastic ball of energy from his walk to the cage and on through the fights themselves, and Clay built a fan-base in the area that raucously cheered for him and rabidly followed him.
On local MMA shows, fighters get paid very little, if anything, to fight. Promoters use the fighters to sell tickets, however, and then give a small percentage of the sales back to the fighters. Matchmaking at this level often takes who can sell tickets into heavy consideration. Clay sold a lot of tickets. And he didn’t exactly have a personal assistant or PR team to help him handle the transactions. Back in the day, Clay would hock tickets while training for fights, weigh in, show up on fight night, and then combine warming up with getting tickets to those of his friends and family that needed them.
Since joining the UFC in 2006, Clay has moved beyond fighting in smoky suburban Chicago rooms, but his fans often follow him around the country and world for his fights. If it wasn’t for the amount of work he puts in at the gym that reveals how serious he takes his job, you’d think life is just one big party for Guida. He enjoys having loved ones around him, and the more people that come out to support him, the better, because it makes the celebration afterwards that much more fun.
That said, all the attention and work that goes along with taking care of friends and fans can take a toll on a fighter and affect their energy and focus. There’s always another request for the fighter to fulfill as he prepares for battle, always another favor for him to do. As best as can be observed, Guida does all that he can with a smile on his face. He knew, however, that if he held his training camp back home because he was scheduled to fight in Chicago this Saturday at UFC on Fox 6, it would be a mess. Instead, Guida chose to stay in New Mexico and keep his camp there at Greg Jackson and Mike Winkeljohn’s gym as he has the past few years.
“That’s why we’re out here in New Mexico,” Guida told CagePotato last week. “We’ve really got to focus. I love everyone back home and we’re going to have a great time there during the fight, but training camp needs to be just about preparing.”
That Guida told us this while sitting in a desert, adds credibility to the idea that he’s committed to doing whatever it takes to become a champion. So is the drop in weight that he’s attempting for his fight against Hatsu Hioki on Saturday.
Guida has campaigned at 155 pounds for his entire career, despite being one of the smallest in the division. Coming off of two close decision losses to Gray Maynard and Benson Henderson — as good as it gets in the world at lightweight — Guida decided to lose ten pounds and try featherweight on for size.
“We want to see how it goes at 145,” Guida said.
The fighter seems to have a similar attitude as that of former lightweight champ Frankie Edgar when it comes to dropping down to featherweight. Edgar and Guida both walked around just a few pounds over the lightweight limit, while fighters like Maynard and Henderson reportedly push 190 pounds in between fights.
For years, everyone in the world but Edgar thought he should at least move down to featherweight, to get the chance to compete against men more his own size. “The Answer” didn’t like the idea, considering featherweight a demotion of sorts, before ultimately accepting a title fight against 145 pound champ Jose Aldo.
“I definitely see where Frankie was coming from” Guida sympathized. “He is one of the very best in the world at lightweight. People told him to drop down because he was small but why should he, if he’s doing so well at 155?”
Guida had to be convinced, and perhaps still needs to be, that featherweight was a better weight for him. His loss to Henderson was close, and the split-decision loss to Maynard was even narrower, so no one can blame “The Carpenter” for thinking he can still do good work at 155 pounds. Nevertheless, Guida is on a two-fight losing streak and might have a long time to go before getting rematches with the likes of Bendo and Maynard. So, he chose to diet and test the featherweight waters.
As a lightweight Guida didn’t care too much about how he ate because he burned up all the fat training like a maniac. “I would go get tacos and sushi after practice and then do it all again at night,” Guida remembered. “I ate whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted.”
To prepare for featherweight and Hioki, Guida has hired a nutrition coach and has only eaten with a purpose. For the past months, Clay has only put in good things and kept out anything unnecessary.
The result, he says, is pounds dropped without sacrificing strength and energy. “I didn’t want to drop to featherweight just by cutting water weight the day before the fight. We’ve been getting down in weight through diet. And I think I’m still as strong as I was before,” he said. “At least that’s what my training partners are telling me.”
Guida says that even though he’s stayed away from Chicago to prep for this fight, he’s eager to get out on the same floor that his beloved Bulls and Hawks play on at The United Center and party with his Second City family. Fans that have grown accustomed to Guida bouncing, screaming, and singing his way to the UFC Octagon before fights can expect the hometown hero to be extra hyped Saturday night.
“If they thought I was excited during my past walk-ins, wait until Saturday in Chicago,” Clay promised.
When you’re 42 years old and in the fight business, you usually are at the point of where you’re retired and either training fighters or out of the sport. Exceptions are out there like Randy Couture, Dan Henderson and Dan Severn. They are few and far between. It is like that because of the nature of the sport and the punishment that the fighters receive.