Tag: UFC+131

Kenny Florian’s Cut to 145 Pounds a ‘Test of Discipline’

Filed under: UFCVANCOUVER, British Columbia – As the smell of hot dogs cooking on the street above wafted through Robson Square during Thursday afternoon’s press conference, Kenny Florian’s face seemed to betray the slightest quiver of agony.

After wh…

Filed under:

VANCOUVER, British Columbia – As the smell of hot dogs cooking on the street above wafted through Robson Square during Thursday afternoon’s press conference, Kenny Florian‘s face seemed to betray the slightest quiver of agony.

After what he’s been through just to get down to yet another weight class in his UFC career, it had to feel like just one more twist of the knife into his empty stomach.

As he made clear during the media workouts the day before, the cut to 145 pounds for the first time in his career requires no small amount of sacrifice and suffering. Fortunately, he’s maintained a sense of humor in the face of starvation.

“The skinny jeans I was wearing before, now are big on me,” Florian joked on Wednesday. “I’ve got to get a whole new wardrobe.”

After beginning his career as a middleweight, Florian now finds himself just a day away from making his featherweight debut at UFC 131. It will be the fourth weight class he’s fought in while under contract with the UFC, but even for his resilient frame, 145 pounds seems like it might be a bit of a stretch.

This cut has been, as Florian put it, “a test of discipline.” It required him to start early and adhere strictly to a brand new diet – one with lots of chicken breasts, vegetables, and, tragically, absolutely no pizza.

“That’s the thing I miss most,” he said. “I haven’t had bread for a long time.”

Whether all the suffering was worth it, we’ll find out soon enough.

At Thursday’s pre-fight press conference Dana White declined to say whether the winner of Florian’s bout with Diego Nunes will get a title shot – “We’ll see,” the UFC president said, after prodding from a fan – but White did go out of his way to make one thing clear: this is an important fight for both men.

“[Nunes is] a great fighter…16-1. He’s just coming off a win over Mike Brown, so this is a big fight for both guys. Obviously this is Kenny’s first fight at 145. He wants to win this fight and work his way in the division. If [Nunes] can beat Kenny, it’s big.”

And while Florian admitted that making 145 pounds has proven much harder than anything he’s done as a fighter before, he also swears that the strict diet has paid off in other ways.

“This has been the best training camp by far in my life,” he said. “I know that’s kind of the quote to say with every fighter, but it truly has been. And I’ll be a hundred percent honest and say I didn’t expect it to be. I thought I was going to be real low on energy. I thought it was going to be a brutal last month, and the funny thing is I’ve gotten stronger and better, and in my sparring and my strength and conditioning, I’ve been killing it. I’m real happy. There’s no doubt about it, it has to do with the nutrition. I haven’t felt this good preparing for my fights at [1]55, let alone [1]45.”

The real moment of truth will come not just at Friday’s weigh-in – where Florian hinted that he might further enrage the rabid Vancouver crowd by sporting the black and gold of his hometown Boston Bruins – but also on fight night, when he’ll have to prove that he didn’t leave his best stuff on the scale in a desperate attempt to make weight.

He wouldn’t be the first fighter to cut away some of his strength and explosiveness along with the extra pounds. But thanks to his nutritionist, George Lockhart, Florian said he’s on track to make the weight without an excruciating final push.

“The schedule that we’re on, we should probably be cutting less weight than I have for my last four or five fights at 155. That’s the game plan, anyway. We’ll see if we can get there. I’m hoping that we can do it, and I think we can. I think it’s going to be less than what I’ve cut in the past, which is good. At [1]55, you get a little lazy sometimes.”

Against Nunes, Florian faces an opponent who has only lost once in seventeen fights, and that via decision. It’s certainly not an easy introduction into a new weight class, and if Florian isn’t ready, he knows it will be painfully evident.

“I’m expecting a very, very tough fight from Diego Nunes. He’s never not given someone a tough fight. His one loss, I thought he played a poor strategy. He could have won that fight. I could be very well going against an undefeated fighter here. He’s still 16-1, trains out of one of the best camps in the world, trains alongside Jose Aldo. He’s going to be a fast, dangerous striker and a guy who’s hard to put away. He’s never been finished in his career, so I expect him to be there strong for all fifteen minutes.”

As for Florian, his test starts Friday afternoon when he steps on the scales. And Bruins jersey or no, it might not be pretty, he said.

“I don’t think I’m going to look too good there, because I’m pretty thin already. But I’ll look somewhat like Christian Bale in “The Machinist.” There’s no doubt about it. I may be coming for that role.”

 

Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments

UFC 131 Main Event Breakdown: Junior dos Santos vs. Shane Carwin

Filed under: UFCWhen the UFC recently lost Brock Lesnar to another bout of diverticulitis, it changed the complexion of the heavyweight division, as well as the dynamic of UFC 131. The former UFC champ may be the biggest pay-per-view draw in MMA, but h…

Filed under:

When the UFC recently lost Brock Lesnar to another bout of diverticulitis, it changed the complexion of the heavyweight division, as well as the dynamic of UFC 131. The former UFC champ may be the biggest pay-per-view draw in MMA, but he also has stylistic limitations that were likely to make his proposed match with Junior dos Santos into a grinding battle of attrition rather than a fan-friendly series of explosive exchanges that could force an end in a moment’s notice.

While the change from Lesnar to Shane Carwin may impact UFC’s bottom line, it may lead to a better in-ring main event. That’s because Carwin is much more likely to engage dos Santos at his standup specialty, and because both heavyweights boast the thunderous power to finish each other.

In terms of their fighting bases, dos Santos and Carwin — both 12-1 — should not be similar fighters, dos Santos as a jiu-jitsu practitioner and Carwin as a wrestler, but like many heavyweights, both fell in love with the striking game. The heavy fists have resulted in both being regulars in highlight reels. For dos Santos, he has finished eight of his 12 wins by KO or TKO. For Carwin, it’s been seven of his 12 wins, while another opponent submitted due to strikes.

Just how much do these two like to keep it standing? According to Compustrike, in dos Santos’ six UFC fights, he’s tried just two takedowns. In Carwin’s five fights, he’s tried just three.

Because of that, it’s easy to guess that the two will spend the majority of their bout trading strikes. Or is it?

Fighters are tricky creatures. Most are smart enough to do something other than obvious, even it only means adding in some unforeseen wrinkles to cause confusion. Other times, they throw carefully constructed game plans to the wind, content in putting faith in their ability to improvise. At the highest level, though, that type of mentality has usually long since been weeded out, with experience guiding the athlete into the belief that a plan is something to be followed.

Take Carwin, for instance. While many people look at him and just see a ham-fisted monster who looks capable of knocking down a stop sign with a high five, he’s actually one of MMA’s best thinking big men. When he faced Frank Mir in March 2010, he strategized a plan to bullrush Mir into the cage, where he knew he could outmuscle him, land short punches and wear him down. As it was happening, Mir thought Carwin was shooting in for a takedown, and when he found himself with his back to the cage, mistakenly believed he had successfully stuffed Carwin.

In a brief moment of lost concentration, Mir congratulated himself on what he thought he had done. Meanwhile, Carwin was systematically moving on to the next stage of his plan, pummeling Mir in the corner. Unprepared for the wily scheme, Mir was quickly in trouble, and inside of four minutes, the fight was over.

Given dos Santos’ outstanding technical striking as well as excellent hand speed, it would not be surprising to see Carwin try this same type of approach. The best way to frustrate dos Santos would be to take away his time and space, and frustrate his striking.

It won’t be easy to do though. dos Santos has good footwork and he’s quick, so Carwin is going to have to disguise his intent before rushing into the clinch or dos Santos will be able to matador his way free.

If the fight stays standing for extended periods, the conventional wisdom seems to be that dos Santos will have the edge. Interestingly though, stats show that Carwin has out-landed opponents in the standup at a higher rate, 55.2 percent to 48.7 percent. Some of that is due to the brevity of Carwin’s fights. He’s only been out of the first round once, and fighters tend to lose accuracy in the later parts of fights as stamina wanes.

Regardless of the stats, dos Santos is a sharp puncher who finds his target, while Carwin seems to have the power that changes fights in an instant. In this case, the better defensive fighter might be the favorite. In that case, it’s clearly dos Santos, who gets hit by only 38 percent of standing punches, a very low number by any division’s standards.

If the fight goes to the ground, it’s frankly difficult to know what happens. Both men have been submitted once in their respective careers, and have spent most of their ground time on top of their opponent, looking for a TKO finish. dos Santos is a brown belt, while Carwin is a purple. For whatever it’s worth, dos Santos looks like the more fluid athlete of the two.

Much of the fight will depend on Carwin’s plan. Remember, he hasn’t fought in a year and he is at least 20 pounds lighter than he used to be. Even if he tries to grind dos Santos against the fence, he may no longer have the bulk to do it. There are a lot of questions about any fighter coming off such a lengthy layoff, and historically, fighters returning from injury after more than eight months away lose.

dos Santos has few such question marks. Remember, he was already training for Lesnar when his opponent was switched. He had months to prepare for a wrestler, training with UFC studs Mark Munoz and Phil Davis at times, so if Carwin wants to play the wrestling game, he should have a few tricks up his sleeve. But this is still dos Santos’ first time against a top wrestler, so it will be trial by fire.

Make no mistake though, this fight will have bursts of standup action, periods that will ultimately decide the bout. Carwin’s knockout power is unquestionable, but over the course of 15 minutes, it’s hard to think dos Santos’ quickness won’t pay dividends both offensively and defensively. With two big punchers, anything can happen, but I think dos Santos is on a collision course with Cain Velasquez, and he takes it by decision over a game Carwin.

 

Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments

Dana White Discusses How GSP vs. Diaz Was Signed, UFC 131, UK Events

Filed under: , ,

VANCOUVER, British Columbia — MMA Fighting caught up with Dana White following Thursday’s UFC 131 press conference to discuss a whole host of topics: how he signed Nick Diaz vs. Georges St-Pierre, why he decided to make all non-title main events five rounds, Clay Guida’s win against Anthony Pettis, why the UFC isn’t returning to the UK in 2011, slow ticket sales in Vancouver, why Kenny Florian dropped down to featherweight and his acting skills on the new UFC Bud Light commercial.

 

Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments

Filed under: , ,

VANCOUVER, British Columbia — MMA Fighting caught up with Dana White following Thursday’s UFC 131 press conference to discuss a whole host of topics: how he signed Nick Diaz vs. Georges St-Pierre, why he decided to make all non-title main events five rounds, Clay Guida’s win against Anthony Pettis, why the UFC isn’t returning to the UK in 2011, slow ticket sales in Vancouver, why Kenny Florian dropped down to featherweight and his acting skills on the new UFC Bud Light commercial.

 

Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments

Dana White Feels MMA Is Canada’s No. 2 Sport Behind Hockey

Filed under: ,

VANCOUVER, British Columbia — Following the UFC 131 press conference, Dana White talked about having to share the spotlight with the Stanley Cup Finals in Vancouver. Watch below.

 

Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments

Filed under: ,

VANCOUVER, British Columbia — Following the UFC 131 press conference, Dana White talked about having to share the spotlight with the Stanley Cup Finals in Vancouver. Watch below.

 

Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments

The Many Questions of UFC 131

Filed under: UFCEvery mixed martial arts event comes with its own set of storylines, intrigues that make us emotionally invested in what is soon to happen. Some are obvious, others are much more subtle. When a major superstar like Brock Lesnar rebounds…

Filed under:

Diego NunesEvery mixed martial arts event comes with its own set of storylines, intrigues that make us emotionally invested in what is soon to happen. Some are obvious, others are much more subtle. When a major superstar like Brock Lesnar rebounds from a major illness to return to action, we all know it. But every fighter on the card has his own story.

For whatever reason, UFC 131 seems to have quite a collection of head-scratchers. The event is subtitled Dos Santos vs. Carwin, but it could just as easily have been called UFC 131: Question Mark.

Why? Because there is no shortage of things that make you go, Hmmm. From Jon Olav Einemo‘s five-year layoff to Kenny Florian fighting in his fourth division to Shane Carwin‘s weight drop and more, there are plenty of questions to think about.

1. What will Shane Carwin look like after surgery, nearly a year off, and losing over 20 pounds?
Carwin was forced into a long absence due to a procedure that addressed neck, back and nerve problems. Now all healed up and significantly lighter, Carwin may not physically resemble the fighter we got to know over recent years. While it’s true that his improved physical health and less weight may add quickness, we also have to wonder if it will affect his power.

Carwin’s sledgehammer hands have always been his No. 1 weapon, and so we are left to wonder if they will have the same force of power when he faces Junior dos Santos as they’ve had for so long. Even a slight decrease could mean the difference, since we all know that dos Santos likes to fight fire with fire.


2. What do we expect from Jon Olav Einemo?
We know Jon Olav Einemo is a 35-year-old Norwegian with incredible grappling skills, but who is he as a fighter today, after so much time away from the sport? He hasn’t fought an MMA match since Nov. 2006. His UFC 131 opponent Dave Herman started his career the very next month and has fought 22 times since then.

Einemo’s jiu-jitsu is a known quantity, and Herman can’t be surprised with anything he does there, but the rest of it is a wild card. For years now, Einemo has been training with the famed Golden Glory fight team, a camp that is notorious for building strikers. In five years, you can learn a lot about the striking game. In Einemo, we might see the rise of a new, well-rounded force, or we could see a guy dusting off a forgotten career. Anything is possible.

3. Will Kenny Florian be able to make 145 and maintain his explosiveness & stamina?
When Florian steps into the cage on Saturday, he will become the first UFC fighter ever to fight in four different weight classes, starting from middleweight and working off the pounds all the way to featherweight.

At 145, speed is at a premium. Diego Nunes has very fast hands, strong leg kicks, and judging from the beating he took from former champ Mike Brown — fighting him with one eye for two rounds, and winning — a strong heart and gas tank. From his previous runs as a contender at 155, we know that Florian has the skills to overwhelm lesser opponents, but there has to be a concern about what kind of toll dropping another division will have on his conditioning.

Florian is a consummate professional, and he seemed in good spirits at Wednesday’s open workouts, where he said he has about 14 pounds to cut before weigh-ins, but there is a law of diminishing returns with cutting weight, and he’s certainly flirting with it.

4. Is Diego Nunes a legitimate contender?
Talk about an under-the-radar contender. Nunes is hardly known by most fans despite a 16-1 record, including wins over top featherweights like Raphael Assuncao and Mike Brown.

The former WEC champion Brown was a fairly big-name opponent for Nunes, but he pales in name recognition to longtime UFC star Kenny Florian. If Nunes can beat Florian on Saturday, he vaults himself forward in a hurry. Everyone likes new contenders, and Nunes would clearly announce himself as such with a definitive win.

5. Chris Weidman … you again?
Weidman made his UFC debut on short notice against Alessio Sakara in April, and won. Afterward, he said he was going to take some time to let a broken rib heal. Yet now, here he is just three months later, fighting Jesse Bongfeldt. So what gives?

There is something to be said for giving a young fighter time between fights to improve his skills, but in this day and age, when the UFC calls, you have to be ready. Weidman had gone no longer than two weeks of letting his ribs heal when he got the call to replace Bongfeldt’s originally scheduled opponent. This time, at least Weidman had a full, eight-week camp, but you have to wonder if his rib sufficiently healed that quickly.

6. Munoz vs. Maia – Grapplers delight or standup war?
One was an All-American wrestler, the other is a decorated submission fighter who has no qualms with fighting from bottom position, so it would probably be quite fascinating if Mark Munoz and Demian Maia spent the whole 15 minutes of their middleweight bout on the ground.

Is that likely though? Probably not. Munoz has the ability to dictate the fight’s location, and if he doesn’t want to play in Maia’s guard, he may simply elect to engage in a standup fight, where he has far more power. But Maia is so terrifying on the ground that most fighters don’t even want to play the clinch game with him, for fear of him pulling guard. How will either man approach the other? It should be the most tactically interesting battle of the night.

7. Who is Vagner Rocha?
Not literally, of course. We know he’s a 29-year-old jiu-jitsu specialist who has previously fought in Strikeforce and Bellator, but there’s not a whole lot of tape out there on him, so it can’t be too easy for Donald Cerrone to know what to expect.

Rocha is a black belt under the esteemed grappling wizard Pablo Popovitch, and four of his six career wins are by sub, but Cerrone is usually fairly comfortable playing jiu-jitsu. If he takes Rocha lightly on the ground though, he may find he’s a little better than he expected. It’s never fun facing unknown commodities, and here’s why: this is one of those lose-lose scenarios for Cerrone, who is expected to win, and do so impressively. Anything else will seem like a letdown, regardless of how talented Rocha really is.

8. Mike Massenzio, how bad do you want it?
Really bad, is clearly his answer. Massenzio was cut from the UFC last August after two straight losses. He’s fought all of his career as a middleweight, so UFC matchmaker Joe Silva had to be near the end of his little black book when he called Massenzio about not only taking a fight on four days’ notice, but moving up a weight class as well.

Massenzio didn’t blink, accepting the fight with Krzysztof Soszynski. Wise career move? Well, it got him back into the UFC, didn’t it? But we really can’t judge if it was smart until Saturday night.

Like so many other UFC 131 storylines, for now, it’s just another open-ended question.

 

Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments

Mark Munoz Looking to Play ‘Whack-a-Mole’ Against Demian Maia

Filed under: UFCVANCOUVER, British Columbia – For most of Wednesday’s open workout, Mark Munoz did exactly what you’d expect from a NCAA national champion wrestler preparing to face a Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu black belt at UFC 131.

He worked on top control…

Filed under:

VANCOUVER, British Columbia – For most of Wednesday’s open workout, Mark Munoz did exactly what you’d expect from a NCAA national champion wrestler preparing to face a Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu black belt at UFC 131.

He worked on top control, on ground-and-pound, on extricating himself from sticky situations on the mat. Not a bad idea when you’re fighting submissions expert Demian Maia.

But then Munoz apparently decided to mix it up, and suddenly he was throwing his training partner in triangle chokes and armbars, as if he might actually be considering a submission win of his own. Was this some sort of trick?

“You saw that, huh?” an excited Munoz said once his workout concluded. “My jiu-jitsu is good. I’m here to prove a point, too. I have great jiu-jitsu guys in my gym, and they know my game is great. As of late, you guys haven’t seen my jiu-jitsu game. That’s something I do want to prove.”


But seriously. This is Maia we’re talking about there. There may be no better jiu-jitsu specialist anywhere in MMA’s 185-pound division. Munoz can’t seriously think he’s going to lock that guy into a triangle choke, can he? Is he really thinking about trying an armbar if he looks up and finds Maia in his guard?

“Yeah, what if?” Munoz shrugged. “What if can happen.”

One thing Maia probably isn’t worried about is Munoz’s jiu-jitsu game. The man may have been an All-America wrestler at Oklahoma State, but in MMA he only has one submission win to his credit, and it came as a result of punches. It would seem like his heavy hands – both standing and on the ground – are more of a concern. But Maia doesn’t seem terribly worried about being overpowered on Saturday night.

“When I see wrestlers fight, they train a lot of boxing because they don’t want to end up on bottom,” Maia said. “I don’t have this issue. I know he’s very powerful when he’s on top, but I’m okay with that. I don’t think it’s going to be just a stand-up fight.”

Even if it is, however, Maia wouldn’t necessarily run from that. Earlier in his career he rushed to get opponents to the mat because, as Maia put it, he was “really afraid” of standing and trading punches. Now he’s more comfortable on the feet, even if his decision to contest more fights there has led to fewer submission wins lately.

“Now I’m more relaxed, so I think sometimes I don’t put enough on the ground to submit [them]. I think it’s just, I’m changing my style and it will come back,” he said.

Which is not to say he’s in any danger of becoming a knockout artist, however.

“I enjoy [striking], but it’s dangerous,” Maia said. “I enjoy it more in the training than in the fight.”

Munoz, on the other hand, isn’t at all shy about throwing leather. He even prepared with some unconventional training methods, thanks to training partner Mike Guymon, who introduced him to the arcade game Whack-a-Mole.

“You go to Chuck E. Cheese’s and you get these padded paddles, and you see a mole pop up and you whack it,” Munoz said. “…I was like, man, that’s an awesome analogy. I’m going to take that. So I’m playing Whack-a-Mole on Saturday night.”

He may be fighting one of the most skilled jiu-jitsu practitioners in all of MMA, but Munoz doesn’t seem to feel that it will be such a hard adjustment to make after fighting so many fellow collegiate wrestlers in the UFC.

“I’ve been fighting all wrestlers, so this is a big change. I like change. It’s great, because I know what Demian has and I know what I have. You know bombs are going to fly. That’s just me. I’m going to throw bombs and more bombs. Bombs away. That’s what’s going to happen and Demian knows that. No disrespect to him. I have so much respect for him, but this is a business. I’m here to prove a point, and I think he’s afraid of my power.”

At least, Maia’s probably more afraid of Munoz’s power than his triangle choke. But then again, MMA is a sport where the crazy ‘what ifs’ happen from time to time. If Munoz can somehow make Maia tap, he’ll never have to worry about anyone doubting his jiu-jitsu ever again.

%VIRTUAL-Gallery-125886%

 

Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments