Tag: UFC on Fox 7

UFC on Fox 7: Did Team Cesar Gracie Plant a Judge to Fix Melendez vs. Henderson?

Despite a tough stylistic challenge and stanch home-court advantage for his opponent, Benson Henderson once against defended his UFC title by a razor-thin margin.But was the champion fighting more than just Gilbert Melendez?According to Julius Henderso…

Despite a tough stylistic challenge and stanch home-court advantage for his opponent, Benson Henderson once against defended his UFC title by a razor-thin margin.

But was the champion fighting more than just Gilbert Melendez?

According to Julius Henderson, Benson’s brother, there was a potentially corrupt judge in San Jose scoring the main event at UFC on Fox 7—Wade Vierra.

As Julius noted (via Twitter) in the aftermath of Bendo’s title defense, Vierra is “an affiliate student” connected with GracieFighter, the very same team run by Cesar Gracie—head coach to Nick Diaz and Nate Diaz.

 

Upon further research, Vierra’s link to Melendez is more evident due to his LinkedIn profile.

In addition to 30 years of experience as a “Master Instructor” for MMA GracieFighter, Vierra also lists his most recent job (since June 2012) as an MMA judge for the California State Athletic Commission (CSAC).

Currently, Vierra lists himself as an active employee for both positions.

Vierra has also been advertised for classes by at least two (now-defunct) Twitter accounts formerly associated with GracieFighter:

 

Although Melendez often fights out of his own self-built camp at the El Nino Training Center in San Francisco, the former Strikeforce lightweight champion is also a noted student of Gracie, and hence, a team associate of Vierra’s.

Moreover, “El Nino” has also represented GracieFighter as part of the “Scrap Pack” gang, comprised of himself, the Diaz brothers and fellow Strikeforce veteran Jake Shields.

It’s unknown whether Vierra and Melendez actively train or work together now, but the conflict of interest for Vierra seems blatant.

Even if Melendez and Cesar Gracie were unaware of the connection, the CSAC either didn’t look too deeply in Vierra’s background, or determined that there were enough degrees of separation from himself and Melendez that it was fair to have him judge the bout.

But regardless of Vierra’s 48-47 card for Melendez (via MMA Decisions), both of the two other CSAC judges—Michael Bell and Derek Cleary—scored the bout for Henderson.

Despite the controversy in the aftermath, UFC on Fox 7 marks Melendez’s first defeat since 2008 and Henderson’s third consecutive defense of the UFC Lightweight Championship—a record that he now shares with Frankie Edgar and retired two-division title holder B.J. Penn.

 

McKinley Noble is an MMA conspiracy theorist. His work has appeared in NVision, PC World, Macworld, GamePro, 1UP, MMA Mania and the L.A. Times.

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UFC on Fox 7 Full Fight Video Highlights: Matt Brown vs. Jordan Mein

 When watching a UFC fight card, we often get caught up in the moment and it’s easy to sometimes make grand proclamations that do not stand the test of time. With that being said, you’d be hard-pressed to find many that would disagree …

 

When watching a UFC fight card, we often get caught up in the moment and it’s easy to sometimes make grand proclamations that do not stand the test of time. With that being said, you’d be hard-pressed to find many that would disagree if you said that UFC on Fox 7 was the best fight card of 2013.  

Earning “Fight of the Night” honors on a card as remarkable as Saturday’s takes a special kind of performance. That’s exactly what Matt Brown and Jordan Mein delivered. Oh yeah, and they did it in just six minutes.

Brown entered the fight on a four-fight winning streak, with his last fight being a second-round knockout of Mike Swick at UFC on Fox 5. Mein came in on a three-fight winning streak, with his last fight being a first-round TKO over Dan Miller, a fighter that had never faced an early stoppage before facing Mein.

Mein opened up by throwing a standing elbow and Brown answered with a left hook that had Mein backing up. From there things got ugly, or beautiful depending on how you like your violence.

Brown stalked Mein down, but when Mein saw an opening, he went to the body and dropped Brown, who recovered and transitioned to a triangle attempt. Mein worked through that and stood, only to be rocked again by the strikes of Brown as the round came to an end.

When the second round began, Brown attacked and positively assaulted Mein, bloodying him up with punches and knees. When Mein dropped to all fours, Brown delivered some nasty elbows to the body before the referee waved the fight off.

Did the short fight deserve “Fight of the Night”? You bet it did.

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UFC on Fox 7 Results: Matches to Make for the Entire Fight Card

Benson Henderson took another step toward greatness at UFC on Fox 7 while once again flirting with disaster.The UFC lightweight champion fought to a narrow decision against Gilbert Melendez in Saturday’s main event, defending his belt with a split deci…

Benson Henderson took another step toward greatness at UFC on Fox 7 while once again flirting with disaster.

The UFC lightweight champion fought to a narrow decision against Gilbert Melendez in Saturday’s main event, defending his belt with a split decision win for the second time in three fights. The final Strikeforce lightweight titleholder, Melendez’s long run of success was brought to a halt by the judges’ controversial call.

Anytime there is a debatable decision in a championship match, the calls for a rematch are bound to follow.

Let’s see if that’s what could be next for Henderson and Melendez as we run through the next potential opponents for all the UFC on Fox 7 competitors. 

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UFC on Fox 7 Video Highlights: Daniel Cormier vs. Frank Mir

Daniel Cormier got into this whole MMA thing a little late in life, making his professional debut at the pretty advanced age, at least for a professional fighter, of 30. That debut took place in 2009 in the Strikeforce Challengers series. After 11 stra…

Daniel Cormier got into this whole MMA thing a little late in life, making his professional debut at the pretty advanced age, at least for a professional fighter, of 30. That debut took place in 2009 in the Strikeforce Challengers series. After 11 straight victories and earning the title of Strikeforce World Heavyweight Grand Prix champion, Cormier made his UFC debut on Saturday night at UFC on Fox 7.

The talk has been that Cormier, the team captain of the 2008 US Olympic wrestling squad, is a champion in the making, at whatever weight division he wants to fight in. The UFC, perhaps looking to test the mettle of Cormier, gave him the same opponent they gave Brock Lesnar when he made his UFC debut—former UFC heavyweight champion Frank Mir.

When the Octagon door locked behind the two fighters in San Jose, Cormier showed that he was more than capable of handling himself against the former champion, using his strength and clinch work to get the best of the submission artist.

Cormier held Mir against the fence at will and landed heavy body shots to score points en route to a unanimous decision victory. It may not have been the prettiest win, and it may have caused some grumbling considering eight of the fights before it ended in knockouts, but it was a win against a former champ, which should count for something, no?

Now that Cormier has gotten his first test in the UFC out of the way it will be interesting to see what his next step will be, as he has options at either heavyweight or light heavyweight.

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UFC on Fox 7 Full Fight Video Highlights: Benson Henderson vs. Gilbert Melendez

One of the hottest topics in the world of mixed martial arts over the past year or so has been the idea of superfights, where two standing champions square off to decide exactly who is the king of the mountain. It was kind of strange to see that sc…

One of the hottest topics in the world of mixed martial arts over the past year or so has been the idea of superfights, where two standing champions square off to decide exactly who is the king of the mountain. It was kind of strange to see that scenario play out on the UFC on Fox 7 card and not have it billed as such, especially when the term had been used in the past for fights that were far less “super.”

But hey, whatever, I’m still going to refer to Saturday night’s main event as a superfight even if the UFC will not.

In one corner, we had UFC lightweight champion Benson Henderson, winner of six straight bouts in the UFC. In the other corner stood Gilbert Melendez, Strikeforce lightweight champion and a fighter who had long been looked at as the best lightweight fighting outside the UFC. Melendez carried a seven-fight winning streak into the matchup.

The two, no strangers to going the distance in title fights, did just that in San Jose, going the full 25 minutes before a winner was declared. It was a very evenly matched bout that could have gone either way, but in the end, the split decision went the way of the UFC champion, who earned a 48-47 score from two of the judges. The third judge gave the same score, but in favor of Melendez.

Judging from the reaction of the fans in attendance, the wrong fighter earned the victory, but that may have had something to do with the fact that Melendez is a local fighter, based out of San Francisco.

As the crowd rained down its disapproval of the decision, Henderson got down on one knee and proposed to his girlfriend, who accepted. Not a bad night for Mr. Henderson.

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UFC on FOX 7: What’s Next for Benson Henderson?

 If there is a controversial decision in a title fight in the UFC, you can be sure Benson Henderson will have participated in it.  Henderson narrowly bested Gilbert Melendez by split decision in the main event of the UFC on FOX 7 card, leadi…

 

If there is a controversial decision in a title fight in the UFC, you can be sure Benson Henderson will have participated in it. 

Henderson narrowly bested Gilbert Melendez by split decision in the main event of the UFC on FOX 7 card, leading to various outcry and complaints on the Internet and social media.

The fighter they call “Smooth” proposed to his girlfriend immediately after Bruce Buffer announced the decision.  The proposal was anything but, as it was practically drowned out by a cascade of boos from the Melendez-friendly San Jose hometown crowd. 

This is Henderson’s second split-decision win in his last three title defenses.

“I knew it was going to be close,” Henderson said at the UFC on FOX 7 post-fight presser.  “I didn’t know it would be a split but it is what it is.”

UFC President Dana White nipped any further discussion in the bud and prevented any rumors of a potential rematch at the conclusion of the post-fight press conference saying:

“Gray Maynard is ranked No. 3, TJ Grant is ranked No. 7.  Those guys are going to fight at UFC 160 on May 25.  The winner of that fight will fight Ben Henderson next.  There you go, you got one.”

Maynard, at first glance, appears to be the tougher test out of the two for Henderson.  He was in two of the all-time classic title fights versus former lightweight champion Frankie Edgar, has only lost once in his career and has the experience of going five rounds in a title fight.

Grant is the fresher of the two opponents, having fought at the end of January, compared to Maynard fighting last June before being out due to a knee injury.  Since his move down from welterweight, Grant is on a roll and has won all four of his fights at 155.

Henderson may now be competing with Georges St-Pierre in regards to finish-hungry fans, having failed to finish in all seven of his fights in the UFC.  He continues to win, though, no matter who he faces, and the tough opponents will continue to come.

“There’s a lot of guys at 155 who are pretty tough, pretty good who all want to beat me up,” Henderson said.

We will find out at UFC 160 on May 25, who the next contender will be.

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