UFC on Versus 6: Dominick Cruz vs. Demetrious Johnson weigh-in results: here. CagePotato pyschoanalyzes you based on your least favorite fighter: here. Chris Hominick talks about his upcoming bout with Chan Sung Jung and the.
UFC on Versus 6>: Dominick Cruz vs. Demetrious Johnson weigh-in results: here.
CagePotato pyschoanalyzes you based on your least favorite fighter: here.
Chris Hominick talks about his upcoming bout with Chan Sung Jung and the loss of his mentor and coach, Shawn Tompkins: here.
Watch Jose Aldo cut weight in a bathtub for UFC 136: here.
Filed under: UFC, NewsMuch has changed in the MMA world since the last time Keith Wisniewski stepped into the UFC Octagon. But as far as he’s concerned, his UFC return is just another fight.
Wisniewski last fought in the UFC in November 2005, a decis…
Much has changed in the MMA world since the last time Keith Wisniewski stepped into the UFC Octagon. But as far as he’s concerned, his UFC return is just another fight.
Wisniewski last fought in the UFC in November 2005, a decision loss to Nick Thompson at UFC 56. Nearly six years later, he is back in the promotion with a fight Saturday against fellow returnee Josh Neer at UFC on Versus 6 in Washington, D.C.
But Wisniewski, who lives and trains in Northwest Indiana and runs the Duneland Vale Tudo gym with his brother Keith – a gym that has helped produce UFC fighters Eddie Wineland and Darren Elkins – is taking his long-awaited return in stride.
“It’s definitely been a goal of mine,” Wisniewski told MMA Fighting on Friday after making weight for his welterweight bout. “I don’t want to exaggerate – it’s still just another fight. I know a lot of guys make a big deal about one fight versus the next. But it’s not a huge difference from fighting Chris Wilson or fighting Josh Neer, or fighting Derrick Noble or fighting Josh Neer. It’s just different venues. I’m very excited to be in this venue, but it’s the same type of fight – you’ve got to get ready and execute.”
In April, Wisniewski (28-12-1, 0-1 UFC) fought Wilson in a Hoosier Fight Club show essentially in his backyard. Wilson, a four-time UFC vet, had been living in Brazil training with the Nogueira brothers. Wisniewski dispatched Wilson with relative ease, sweeping a unanimous decision, including a 30-26 score.
And it was the strength of that victory that got him the welcome-back call from the UFC he had been hoping for when he took the fight. The win put the cap on six straight victories for Wisniewski, five of them stoppages, that came in the wake of a five-fight skid that started with his loss to Thopmson at UFC 56.
Wisniewski, who has seen many of the changes in the UFC since his first go-round thanks to cornering stints with Wineland and Elkins, said a win over Neer (31-10-1, 4-6 UFC) is the kind that could start to make some big changes for him. When he’s not running training camps at Duneland Vale Tudo, he’s a union iron worker.
“I’d like to be able to make a living as a fighter,” Wisniewski said. “I’m proud of being an iron worker, and I really enjoy being part of Local 395. But it’s been a goal of mine for some time to actually make a career as a fighter. And this is the type of fight that ultimately puts me in the position to be my main source of income.”
Wisniewski believes he has the edge against Neer standing up, as well as in the wrestling game, and has gameplanned around that.
“I’m hoping to get the better of the standup,” Wisniewski said. “Ideally, I’d like to get takedowns – probably in each round. Obviously if I can put him away with a strike, or put him away with a submission or TKO, I’m going to take that. But the game plan is to get the better of the striking exchanges, maybe spend a few minutes doing that each round, and as the round wears on, I’ll put him on his back and wear him out a little bit there.”
That plan sounds like a carbon copy of how he beat Wilson in April. With a win over Neer, Wisniewski might just be ready to stick around for the long haul this time.
Wisniewski and Neer fight on the preliminary card of UFC on Versus 6 from the Verizon Center in Washington, D.C. The preliminary card fights will stream live on the UFC’s Facebook page starting at 6:40 p.m. Eastern on Saturday. The main card follows on the Versus cable channel at 9 p.m., featuring a main event bantamweight title fight between Dominick Cruz and Demetrious Johnson.
Filed under: UFCUFC on Versus 6 goes down in Washington D.C. on Saturday night, and while the people there may not look too kindly on you betting on presidential races (don’t look now, but Ron Paul’s going off at +4500), you can still scour this fight …
UFC on Versus 6 goes down in Washington D.C. on Saturday night, and while the people there may not look too kindly on you betting on presidential races (don’t look now, but Ron Paul’s going off at +4500), you can still scour this fight card in search of a good deal.
So who do oddsmakers like on Saturday night, and who might they be overvaluing? I’m so glad you asked…
If there’s anybody in the 135-pound division who can out-quick Cruz, it just might be Johnson. Then again, that’s still a big if. Johnson’s problem is that his quickness is mostly limited to the takedown department. Granted, he can shoot in for a double-leg and have your back on the mat before you can say ‘sprawl,’ much less do it, but it’s fairly predictable. Cruz, on the other hand, is anything but. With the way he dips his head and lets his feet drift perilously close together in that peculiar little striking cha-cha of his, he’d be relatively easy to drop if only you had any way of knowing when he was going to do what. From the looks of it, he barely knows. Cruz dominates not simply because he’s fast, but because he disguises his attacks so well. Is he throwing the lead right or is he just distracting you with it en route to the takedown? You never know until it’s too late. My pick: Cruz. Compared to him, Johnson is a one-trick pony. If that trick were knockout power or even slick submissions, it might be worth the risk. But no way he holds the champ down for five rounds.
As much as I love Barry and hope he sticks around for a long time to entertain us in and out of the cage, I’m surprised to see him favored in this fight. Barry’s a great kickboxer, but he’s giving up so much size and reach to the 6’11” Struve. The smart play would be for Barry to attack his legs, if only because he can’t reach the Dutchman’s head without a trampoline. If Struve does even a mediocre job of using his length, he should be able to give Barry problems. If the fight moves in close, Struve could take it to the mat, where he has the better submissions game. The only thing he can’t do is spend a lot of time in the clinch or miss with big shots that let Barry get in and counter. And okay, he also probably shouldn’t let Barry do to his legs what he did to poor, poor Dan Evensen’s, but that goes without saying, right? My pick: Struve. In a stand-up comedy or personality contest, Barry wins easily. But here, with the underdog line plus all the checkmarks in Struve’s favor, he’s the smarter pick.
Remember when Brenneman was, according to the Pennsylvania Athletic Commission’s Greg Sirb, a real-life “Rocky story” for stepping up in Nate Marquardt’s place and beating Rick Story? Well, a) someone should remind Sirb that it’s his job to regulate fights, not sell them like he’s Don freaking King, and b) as a thank you from the UFC, now Brenneman gets has to fight Johnson, which just reminds us all what a tough way to make a living this sport can be. Johnson has proved himself to be a pretty solid wrestler when he needs to be, but here he’ll likely use that to keep the fight standing and exploit Brenneman’s inexperience in the striking game. And that can be done, let’s not forget. Johny Hendricks had him on ice skates after landing a few good shots, and he’s nowhere near the striker Johnson is. As long as “Rumble” can make weight without killing himself, he has the tools to keep this fight where he wants it and take advantage of some holes in Brenneman’s game. But then, that scale has proved to be a nemesis in the past… My pick: Johnson. He’s faced tougher competition in his UFC run than Brenneman, and a diverse set of skills has helped him tremendously. Brenneman does one thing very well, but that will only get you so far. Mac Danzig (+165) vs. Matt Wiman (-205)
Ah, yes. The fight that ended early, then was supposed to happen again, then got put off by injuries and other match-ups until we all forgot what was weird about the first meeting. Quick version: Wiman had Danzig in a not-quite-tight-enough guillotine choke, but the ref freaked out and stopped it anyway, thinking Danzig was in trouble. Now they meet again to settle that old score, only this time it’s Wiman who’s more recently feeling the sting of injustice, having just lost a close decision to Dennis Siver in July. The first meeting between these two was so brief, it was tough to tell who had the edge. But that Siver fight gave Wiman a chance to really show what he could do, and he was impressive in it. The fight was still a close one and could have gone either way, but Wiman showed how far he’s come in recent years by hanging with someone of Siver’s caliber and nearly putting him away. Danzig? He knocked out Joe Stevenson last December, but that doesn’t exactly mean what it used to. My pick: Wiman. He’s come a long way in the last couple years. Danzig is still mostly the same guy who won TUF.
Quick Picks:
– Yves Edwards (-165) over Rafaello Oliveira (+135). Oliveira isn’t fighting guys like “Wigman Big Big” anymore, and he’s lost to nearly every name fighter he’s faced.
– Paul Sass (+150) over Michael Johnson (-180). With the exception of his decision loss to Jonathan Brookins in the TUF finale, all of Johnson’s other losses have come via submission. And I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but Sass has some nasty ones.
The ‘For Entertainment Purposes Only’ Parlay: Cruz + A. Johnson + Wiman + Edwards.
(From today’s press conference. Above: Dominick Cruz vs. Demetrious Johnson. Below: Pat Barry vs. Stefan Struve. Props to MMAMania)
Demetrious “Mighty Mouse” Johnson and Pat Barry will spend all fight looking up nostrils when they take on tall-for-his-weight-class Dominick Cruz and tall-for-humanity Stefan Struve (respectively) this Saturday. Don’t forget to come back to CagePotato.com for round-by-round results from the Versus main card broadcast of UFC Live: Cruz vs. Johnson, starting at 9 p.m. ET. In case you’re curious, there’s a photo of Stefan Struve and Demetrious Johnson standing next to each other after the jump. Not for the faint of heart.
(From today’s press conference. Above: Dominick Cruz vs. Demetrious Johnson. Below: Pat Barry vs. Stefan Struve. Props to MMAMania)
Demetrious “Mighty Mouse” Johnson and Pat Barry will spend all fight looking up nostrils when they take on tall-for-his-weight-class Dominick Cruz and tall-for-humanity Stefan Struve (respectively) this Saturday. Don’t forget to come back to CagePotato.com for round-by-round results from the Versus main card broadcast of UFC Live: Cruz vs. Johnson, starting at 9 p.m. ET. In case you’re curious, there’s a photo of Stefan Struve and Demetrious Johnson standing next to each other after the jump. Not for the faint of heart.
Filed under: UFCThe week of a fight, the last place UFC lightweight Yves Edwards wants to be is in his own head. It’s a scary place sometimes, and also a tough place to escape from.
“I obsess over the stupidest things you can imagine,” Edwards said. “…
The week of a fight, the last place UFC lightweight Yves Edwards wants to be is in his own head. It’s a scary place sometimes, and also a tough place to escape from.
“I obsess over the stupidest things you can imagine,” Edwards said. “I will obsess over the color of towels in my bathroom, or what kind of soap they have [in the hotel]. I had this one soap this one time and that wasn’t a great performance, so I can’t use this soap again. It’s stupid, and it’s just a distraction.”
With nearly 60 pro fights in a career that’s spanned almost 14 years, at least Edwards has had plenty of practice in dealing with his own fight week neurosis. Now he knows how to manage it. For starters, he can bring his own soap. He can also rely on his friends, like Strikeforce welterweight Tyron Woodley, to keep him mentally occupied.
Otherwise, Edwards said, it can get out of hand in a hurry. For instance, say a certain friend is coming to see the fight. Then Edwards starts to think about how he’s never won a fight with that guy in the audience. Maybe he’s bad luck. Maybe he’s cursed.
“But then, I don’t want to tell my friends not to come see my fights, so I have to stay away from that stuff,” said Edwards, who faces Rafaello Oliveira at UFC on Versus 6 this Saturday night.
“I can catch myself doing it a lot. Stopping it is the hard part. Common sense and rationalization — I’m a pretty rational person when I’m not in this mode — that kicks in a little bit and I realize that the color of my underwear has nothing to do with how hard I’ve prepared for this fight or how focused I am. But it’s just the irrational part of my brain, that part kicks in first. I have to talk myself down from it sometimes.”
At least Edwards has experience in his favor. Wednesday marks the ten-year anniversary of his UFC debut — a losing effort against Matt Serra at UFC 33 — and Saturday’s fight comes just one day after his 35th birthday. To Edwards, doing the math on his career numbers and realizing just how long he’s been at it comes as “kind of a surprise,” he said.
“I still feel like I’m 26. …The guy that was making his debut in the UFC, he didn’t know half the things I know now.”
But as Edwards prepares to take on Oliveira — a Brazilian fighter who he actually trained alongside of and “traded a few secrets” with in the past — he does so coming off a knockout loss to Sam Stout that UFC president Dana White called “one of the nastiest I’ve ever seen.”
It might not be a must-win fight for Edwards, but 35-year-old fighters can’t afford to take too many steps backwards, and he knows it.
“The thing is, nobody gets cut off a win,” Edwards said. “Not unless you’ve done something and screwed up. That’s my only concern, is going out there and winning, keeping my job, and keep moving up the ladder.”
The fact that he went from a pay-per-view card at UFC 131 to the prelim portion of a UFC on Versus card doesn’t worry him, he insisted, just like it doesn’t matter that he knows Oliveira to be “a pretty nice guy.”
“When it comes to the fight game that means absolutely nothing to me,” he said. “… This fight could be behind a Wal-Mart. All I have to worry about is, that’s the guy I’m fighting. That’s all that matters.”
That, and that he remembers not to obsess about the brand of soap in his hotel. After a week of battling himself, the fight should be a relief.
Filed under: UFC, NewsAs a fairly unexposed commodity, Dominick Cruz isn’t bothered by the fact that his bantamweight title fight this Saturday will be on Versus rather than pay-per-view.
The UFC has in only one other instance premiered a championship…
As a fairly unexposed commodity, Dominick Cruz isn’t bothered by the fact that his bantamweight title fight this Saturday will be on Versus rather than pay-per-view.
The UFC has in only one other instance premiered a championship on free TV, but that particular UFC 75 card in England aired on tape-delay. Cruz’s fight at UFC on Versus 6 will be live.
Some might consider the idea of a champion fighting on cable TV discouraging. Not Cruz.
“What the UFC is doing is they’re putting me on free TV,” Cruz said Monday on The MMA Hour. “I can [make it] known to the casual fan the champion that I am, go out there and have an outstanding performance on TV and really I get myself out there and represent the 135-pound division to a wider audience for free.”
And Cruz (18-1)’s title defense is in the midst of three straight weeks of UFC title fights, not an ideal position to command attention, especially by a fledgling division. But the champ understands why the UFC’s marketing efforts have been primarily directed towards last Saturday’s UFC 135 with Jon Jones vs. Quinton “Rampage” Jackson and UFC 136 with Frankie Edgar vs. Gray Maynard in two weeks.
“While those fights get more marketing muscle you got to think of how many times I’ve fought in the UFC and how many of the casual fans know who I am and have seen me,” the 26-year-old Cruz admits. “The people who sell the most pay-per-views are the people in the UFC that are known by the casual fans.”
Cruz has only made one UFC appearance, successfully defending his belt against Urijah Faber at UFC 132 in July. After the Faber win, the UFC offered Demetrious Johnson to Cruz instead of another worthy challenger in Brian Bowles. Cruz figures the UFC picked Johnson since Cruz already holds a win over Bowles and the promotion tends “want to wait on rematches.”
Johnson brings to the fight a 10-1 record and coming off a big win, though a bit controversial, over former WEC champ Miguel Torres. In the fight, Johnson was able to score takedowns, but Torres was the one threatening to the end the fight with submissions. With the unanimous nod in favor of Johnson, the judges clearly valued Johnson and his top position. Cruz agrees.
“Miguel Torres didn’t want to be on his back,” Cruz said. “Whether he was going for submissions or not. It doesn’t mean anything. A submission doesn’t count unless you finish it.”
Cruz is five inches taller and holds a two-inch reach advantage against the five-foot-three Johnson. Size and style-wise, Johnson is comparable to Cruz’s WEC 53 challenger Joseph Benavidez.
“I think Benavidez might be even a little more powerful than Demetrious and Demetrious might have the edge on the takedown and timing. So there’s little adjustments I have to make, but for the most part I see it very similar to the Benavidez fight and that’s how I see it playing out,” Cruz said.
Despite not having the notoriety of the other UFC champions, Cruz out of Alliance MMA and Team Lloyd Irvin has come a long way from his days fighting in the WEC. A lot of progress has already been made in his UFC debut when he headlined the card over future Hall of Famers in Tito Ortiz and Wanderlei Silva.
“It gives the casual fans a reason to respect when you put on a show like me and Faber did and take on the main event role and headling the card. It’s a different level of respect and at the same time I’ve been recognized a lot more. It’s been a great ride, it’s been a lot of fun and I’m just riding it until the wheels fall off.”
Much has changed in the 
The week of a fight, the last place 
As a fairly unexposed commodity,