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MMA-GAF |OT4| BangBros

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B

bone_and_sinew

breaking down barriers in gratuitous nudity
The other night one of the Djs put FSN Bad MMA. I'll ask him to put this ridiculously Bad card on and catch the replay.
 
H

Host Samurai

Member
Vio-Lence said:
he's only been stopped 3 times in 40 career fights, once by Silver, twice by Nog.

why are we adding qualifiers to a crazy durable fighter?
Click to expand...

Shit, I've never even realized that. That's incredible considering that he's fought almost every killer in MMA history besides Chuck and Crocop
 
I

industrian

will gently cradle you as time slowly ticks away.
Looking at some gifs from the Bellator event, the two words that spring to mind are "Renato Soblol"
 
I

ItAintEasyBeinCheesy

it's 4th of July in my asshole
So has everyone watched the greatest music video ever? NSFW

http://vimeo.com/64378881

1367575512449xpu05.gif


Songs really good as well.

Bonus Arianny Twerk

hanktwerk5iqe2.gif
 
I

industrian

will gently cradle you as time slowly ticks away.
Summer weather in Taipei is really starting to lean into my training. Air conditioned gym or not, after a couple of rounds I'm like Butterbean vs. Roy Nelson in Denver.
 
dream

dream

Member
The UFC’s PPV schedule for the rest of the year is pretty well locked in right now after information given by Dana White this past week while in Winnipeg for UFC 161.

White announced three PPV main events, which were expected, although the dates and places they would take place wasn’t clear.

UFC 165 will be 9/21 at the Air Canada Center in Toronto, headlined by Jon Jones defending the light heavyweight title against Alexander Gustafsson. Jones, who is tied with Tito Ortiz for the most title defenses in that weight class with five, will attempt to set a record that he’s talked about. It also marks the third straight show in Toronto that Jones will headline. Jones headlined UFC 140 on December 10, 2011, finishing Lyoto Machida in the second round. He also defeated Vitor Belfort in the fourth round on 9/22, at UFC 152.

UFC 166, scheduled for October, possibly in Houston, will have the Cain Velasquez vs. Junior Dos Santos III heavyweight title bout.

UFC 167, scheduled for 11/16 in Las Vegas, will have Georges St-Pierre defending the welterweight title against Johny Hendricks.

UFC 168, scheduled tentatively for 12/28, also in Las Vegas, is headlined by Ronda Rousey vs. Miesha Tate for the women’s bantamweight title.

Of course a lot can, and will change, between injuries and other issues. But these will be very interesting fights from a business perspective.

What should be noted about the 11/16 show is that Dana White had talked about doing a UFC 100 caliber show as the 20th anniversary card (the first UFC show was November 12, 1993, in Denver), which was originally scheduled for Madison Square Garden. However, with MMA not getting legalized in New York this year, that became out of the question.

It should also be noted that based on scheduling, the middleweight championship could be ready for either UFC 167 or UFC 168, which would greatly enhance either of those shows, particularly since the logical fight is Vitor Belfort against either Anderson Silva or Chris Weidman. Putting that in November with GSP may not do UFC 100 numbers, but would make it the show of the year. If Anderson Silva wins, putting Silva vs. Belfort with Rousey vs. Tate would also be a huge show, with the ability to do the “best male and female fighter in the world” defending on the same show promotion. However, if it is Silva vs. Belfort, the smartest move may be to put it at a soccer stadium in Brazil, because such a match would put the country’s two most famous fighters against each other.

It’s unclear where Dominick Cruz fits in, but Renan Barao as interim bantamweight champion should also be ready for a show in a few months. The Jose Aldo Jr. vs. Chan Sung Jung winner could be ready to defend the featherweight title on one of the last two shows of the year. Benson Henderson should also be ready by December. It also should be noted that there is a December FOX card as well as probably a late January FOX card so the main events do have to be spread out.

UFC figured to have a slow spring and summer season after the Jones vs. Chael Sonnen fight on 4/27.

The Velasquez vs. Antonio Silva fight featured two fighters who weren’t going to say anything bad about each other, and was a rematch of a fight that Velasquez won via first round slasher film TKO. Even with Silva’s brutal knockout of Alistair Overeem, people didn’t seem to take him seriously as a contender and it more served to show the difference in the Overeem that showed up that night and the Overeem of previous years. Overeem had won the first two rounds, then tired, got an accidental head-butt, and was there for the taking at that point. Nobody expected UFC 161 to do any kind of numbers even before the injuries, even though Dan Henderson and Rashad Evens were both name fighters. Anderson Silva vs. Chris Weidman should do the best numbers of the summer. But Weidman is still unknown and without the name recognition usually needed as a draw. Silva’s fights vary greatly in results depending on the opponent. Even though a lot of fighters and insiders are talking like Weidman could win, and he does have a stylistic way of doing so, he’s not a name the public knows. Weidman has been out of action nearly a year after shoulder surgery. His big impressive win, and it was very impressive, was completely dominating an injured Mark Munoz on a Fuel show that very few people saw. For the fight to do business will require a sell job where they can convince the public to care about Weidman, and believe that if they don’t buy the show, they may miss history, the end of Silva’s 16-0 UFC streak, the longest in company history.

From there, the 8/3 show in Rio de Janeiro is headlined by Jose Aldo Jr. vs. Chan Sung Jung, the Korean Zombie, for the featherweight title. Jung replaces Anthony Pettis, who suffered a torn meniscus in training and pulled out of the fight. The injury doesn’t require surgery. His doctor told him he’d be out of action for six weeks. A second therapist told him three weeks, which would mean he could start fight training on 7/6 and he felt he could have fought if they moved the fight to 8/31, but that’s not happening. Dana White said they were going to fly Pettis to Las Vegas and have the UFC doctors look at him later this week. Pettis will be given a shot at either the lightweight or featherweight title when whichever champion he faces is ready after their respective August fights.

Pettis is pushing to replace T.J. Grant on the 8/31 show in Milwaukee against Benson Henderson. While it would require pulling a contender from a fight already advertised, there are logical business reasons that could be considered if the UFC doctors say Pettis will be able to start training with enough lead time to be ready for Henderson. For one, the first Henderson vs. Pettis fight was an all-time classic, with one of the great match finishes in history, Pettis’ kick where he climbed up the cage, pushed off and kicked Henderson in the side of the head to knock him down in the waning seconds of a very close five round fight. The kick guaranteed Pettis the fifth round and gave him the decision, and the WEC lightweight title. Pettis was promised a UFC title shot with the win, but a draw in the Frankie Edgar vs. Gray Maynard fight pushed his shot back. He decided against waiting for his shot, and then lost a decision to Clay Guida, taking away his shot. After a series of wins, most notably over Donald Cerrone, he was scheduled to face Henderson, but instead opted to face Aldo, saying he wanted to win both the 145 and 155 titles, and that Aldo would be the more difficult of the two. But the injury keeps him from facing Aldo unless he is willing to wait for the Aldo vs. Jung winner.

From a business and popularity standpoint, Henderson vs. Pettis is stronger than Henderson vs. Grant, although I don’t think either is a big fight and there would be a great deal of difference. From a local standpoint, Pettis is from Milwaukee, and with the show in Milwaukee, that’s a very big factor in making it a huge local event. Milwaukee is also the home of one of UFC’s leading sponsors, Harley Davidson, which is a big reason the show is in the city. Making the show in the sponsor’s home town come across as big as possible is important as well.

Jung was scheduled to face Ricardo Lamas on the 7/6 show which was to be a No. 1 contenders fight. Lamas had beaten Erik Koch (who had been scheduled for a title fight but lost it due to injury) with a strong second round stoppage on the 1/26 FOX show in Chicago.

Of the two, Lamas is 13-2 with four straight wins over Koch, Cub Swanson, Hatsu Hioki and Leonard Gracie. Jung is 13-3, with straight wins over Leonard Garcia, Mark Hominick (in seven seconds) and Dustin Poirier (in the fight of the year). In theory, Lamas earned the shot beating Koch based on that fight being for a shot, but Pettis got it ahead of him because Pettis agreed to move down from lightweight, where he was the top contender. Pettis claimed he wanted to became a dual lightweight and featherweight champion (nobody has ever won two UFC belts at the same time), and said Aldo would be a tougher win than Benson Henderson, so wanted him first. Since Pettis would have drawn more (not tons more, but definitely more) than Lamas, and more people would have been interested, he got the shot. In Lamas vs. Jung, you had Lamas as the “rightful” guy based on his last win, the guy who would have gotten the shot if Pettis didn’t get moved down, and being ranked No. 2 contender (Chad Mendes is the No. 1 contender but they’ve been reluctant to put Aldo vs. Mendes after Aldo won their first fight conclusively) and Jung is No. 4. Plus, Jung has been out almost a year, since his win over Poirier.

White said he told Lamas that if they can’t get him an opponent for 7/6 on such short notice (which at press time has been confirmed that they couldn’t get him a new opponent), he’d pay him his appearance guarantee for the fight, and he’d be in line for a title shot. But if Pettis can’t get Henderson, and ends up with Aldo, that would take priority over Lamas, meaning Lamas would probably have to do another fight or two before he’d be getting the shot.

However, when it comes to which fight would get more interest, it’s not even close. Even though Lamas scored an impressive win on FOX, the Korean Zombie is more famous, largely due to his nickname and charisma. This decision didn’t get as much complaining (in fact I saw none) as most like this. Once you accept or understand what UFC is, how much business varies in main events between doing the match fans want vs. the match purists want, you understand most of the choices, including this one.

I guess the lack of complaints here is because Zombie didn’t lose his last fight, nor come from another weight class. But he still got the title shot based on being the more popular and well known of the two fighters (Korean Zombie has three times the interest and name recognition as Lamas, Chan Sung Jung has 50% more). A lot of that is the nickname. But there’s also something else to it that is kind of notable. Zombie is best known for the Poirier fight, which aired on Fuel to a small audience, but he got over more in winning that one than Lamas did with a more dominant win on FOX, but in a less memorable and exciting fight.

An interesting note about this is Jung actually said he believed Lamas deserves the title fight ahead of him, but he’s not turning down the opportunity.

Still, neither is anywhere close to a PPV draw and business would have been pretty close no matter who was put in the spot. To me, this show, given it’s in Brazil, which means less U.S. last week media publicity, will be lucky to do 200,000 buys. I like the fight, but it’s strictly a hardcore fight and those aren’t going to do big numbers.

The 8/31 show from Milwaukee, with Benson Henderson vs. T.J. Grant for the lightweight title and Frank Mir vs. Josh Barnett, will be a big test to see if scoring big wins on FOX turns a guy into a draw. Henderson’s last fight on PPV, against Frankie Edgar, was estimated at 190,000 buys. While Edgar has never been a draw, he’s still far better known than Grant. Anything over 225,000 to me says that FOX has made Henderson into a bigger star.

Gustafsson, even with a six-fight winning streak and a FOX win over Shogun Rua, is not a draw either. Anything over 400,000 buys for that show would to me indicate strength in Jones, who hovered between 415,000 and 450,000 for Vitor Belfort and Lyoto Machida, who were both bigger names. Late hype trumps everything in UFC, particularly a grudge match component. If they can get that in, they can raise the number. Or if they can convince the public Gustafsson could win based on his size, or if Jones’ bad number with Belfort was based on his name value weakened over the pullout that killed UFC 151.

Velasquez vs. Dos Santos is an interesting one because I’ve heard people within the company have opinions that vary greatly, from 400,000 to 800,000. Usually UFC numbers fall in at about the level most expect the week of the fight. Some shows, like Ronda Rousey vs. Liz Carmouche, were complete shots in the dark because people knew the buzz was very high, but didn’t know the very real aspect of people who wouldn’t buy a PPV fight with two women. GSP vs. Nick Diaz beat all projections based on Diaz’s antics at the end, but those were completely unpredictable and without them, the number almost surely would have fit into the usual level. To get to the high end of that range, it’s going to require the ability to hook fans on the trilogy aspect, because neither guy is going to trash talk the other, nor promote it as a grudge match. The issue with Velasquez is that he does do well regionally, but not nationally. Dos Santos is big in Brazil, but they don’t have PPV there. Dos Santos never caught on in the U.S. as a draw, even with his likeable personality and knockout power. He scored a knockout in the first round of the most watched MMA fight ever in North America, but it didn’t make him a top tier star.

GSP vs. Hendricks is likely the 700,000 buys that GSP did with Carlos Condit, even without adding another title fight to the show. It’s not even worth speculating if they do a blow-out 20th because until the Silva vs. Weidman fight is over, there’s no way of knowing who will be the champion or estimating if the champion could be ready on this date. And if it is Anderson Silva, does UFC, with so many PPV dates, put on a show that costly, or instead try and get two big shows out of two big draws.

GSP has never failed to draw, and once again, with all the talk of him having boring fights and never finishing, that has yet to play a noticeable factor in his numbers. His last fight, with Diaz, was the biggest of his career as far as interest went. Hendricks probably means as much as Condit, and if he talks a lot, plus being a KO guy, he could mean slightly more. It should be noted that Condit got a lot of coverage with all the hype for the Diaz fight with the well rated Prime Time shows on FX. An overlooked thing when it comes to PPV numbers going forward is how quickly Fox Sports 1 gets off the ground and the kind of ratings UFC is doing on it by later this year. Also, will UFC do a three-week Prime Time series and be able to get it on FS 1? Also, will the station be strong enough so early to where it gets enough viewers for such shows to make a difference? UFC hasn’t done a Prime Time since Rousey vs. Carmouche on Fuel. It’s expensive, and when it’s on Fuel, the value of it is far more limited than when it was on FX, let alone on Spike in years past.

Diaz made the difference between probably the 750,000 that UFC predicted for GSP vs. Diaz going in, and the 950,000 that it wound up doing.

Rousey vs. Tate is a complete unknown. The Rousey critics, some of who are still bitter that she didn’t flop in February, have taken the view the success of her first show was a one-time thing having to do with it being a novelty. And it’s possible they are right. This fight has a few things going for it. First, the Ultimate Fighter build, although how valuable that is in large part depends on how quickly FS 1 gets off the ground as a viable station. The second is there may be heat coming off the show, and they may duplicate the grudge match component of the first fight, that few knew about, but this could go national. But there is still the dynamic that there are people who won’t buy a woman’s fight on PPV simply because they are women. Whether the good side of this brings more to the table to override that, will be very interesting to see.

****************************************************************
UFC’s debut in Winnipeg on 6/15, a city that has been a strong PPV market for years, sold out immediately based on the brand, given that the announced main event when tickets were put on sale was Renan Barao vs. Eddie Wineland for the interim bantamweight title.

The show was compared going in, as well as coming out, to UFC’s Calgary debut last year. Both had so-so at best original lineups. Both sold out immediately due to pent up demand to see the product live. Both were plagued by injuries, although the Calgary show was snake bit like maybe two shows in company history.

But the reaction was very different. Before the Calgary show, there were constant complaints, from the media, and at least vocal fans, upset about refunds not being offered and the quality of the show. For UFC 161 In Winnipeg, there was none of that, even though of the three top matches advertised at first, four of the six fighters did not even appear. Injuries to Barao and Antonio Rogerio Nogueira canceled fights with Wineland and Mauricio Shogun Rua. The company pulled Wineland and Rua from the show, as they couldn’t find a suitable replacement for Wineland. Chael Sonnen was willing to face Rua, but neither Sonnen nor Rua were thrilled about the fight at the last minute, and UFC also needed a main event for 8/17 in Boston, so Rua was out.

Still, even though the show was average at best, the Winnipeg audience just seemed happy to see UFC. A sellout crowd of 14,754 fans paid $3.15 million, breaking the all-time city indoor gate record of $1.8 million set for a Rolling Stones and an Elton John concert by a wide margin. Of those fans, more than 11,000 were there when the show started with the Dustin Pague vs. Yves Jabouin fight, and they were Brazil-like in their reactions. There were no complaints when it was over, and as far as the local media went, more questions regarding how quickly they would return.

Rashad Evans beat Dan Henderson via decision in a competitive main event, winning a split decision. I had Evans winning rounds two and three, which was the consensus. Our poll had 60% saying Evans won, 28% had Henderson and 12% had it a draw. Evans looked physically in the best shape of his career, coming off decision losses to Jon Jones and Antonio Rogerio Nogueira, the latter in probably the most disappointing performance of his career. The match was pushed in the sense that the loser would be likely out of the title picture completely.

For Henderson, at 42, he’s coming off straight split decision losses to Evans and Lyoto Machida. He wants to continue fighting. He didn’t take any kind of a serious beating. But he has slowed down as far as movement goes. He was strong enough to keep Evans from taking him down, even though that was Evans’ game plan and he kept trying. He hit Evans a few times with his big shots. He never landed clean enough to end the fight, although Evans was in trouble in the first round. But Evans landed more, and clearly won the third round as Henderson got tired.

For Henderson, he’s in a weird situation. He’s out of title contention. He’s one of the higher paid fighters in the company based on signing a sweet deal in 2010 with Strikeforce. He’s universally respected, because he’s quiet, likeable, and epitomizes what people want out of a fighter, tough and fearlessness. He’s still, at his age, got a near granite chin and has home run power. He’s so well liked that even with it being well known he’s on TRT, he doesn’t take much criticism for it, partially because he’s open and up front about it. Still, he’s knocked out more and better people on TRT after the age of 36 against almost exclusively younger and bigger top fighters, than he did in what should have been his prime, when he faced a significantly lower caliber of opposition in a smaller weight class. Henderson is very much like a Rich Franklin, a name fighter who can headline, and who is popular, but he’s not a major draw. And with his contract, if he’s not headlining or being second from the top on PPV, his deal doesn’t make a lot of economic sense. But he is a legend and hasn’t taken the beatings, nor not been competitive in any fight, where one would want him to retire for his own good.

I thought the show built around Barao vs. Wineland and Evans vs. Henderson with a split build would have done poorly on PPV. In this case, the injury eliminating the title match in my mind helped the show, probably a lot, because all the focus was on two fighters that all the fans knew, as opposed to a main event with two guys that nobody knew. Still, it almost surely was, and probably by a significant margin, the lowest PPV number of the year.

The ratings for the prelims were the third lowest for prelims on FX since the deal went into effect, with a 0.69 rating and 968,000 viewers. It’s also lower than any prelims that were on Spike. It didn’t do well in the demos either, with numbers that resemble TNA more than UFC, a 0.63 in Males 18-34, almost shockingly low for UFC on FX in that demo, and 1.10 in Males 35-49. The younger and more fad oriented fan base skipped this show. The Stanley Cup playoffs on NBC Sports beat them by more than four times with viewers and more than five times with ratings, and they didn’t even beat the College Baseball World Series on ESPN.

The other major story on the show was Roy Nelson. Nelson, who turns 37 this week, was coming off three straight first round knockouts. When he came out in Winnipeg, for the first time in his career, he really was almost the Dusty Rhodes like fat guy that the public empathized with. He got an absolute superstar reaction. But then, underdog Stipe Miocic outboxed him for three rounds, and Nelson blew up fast trying to keep up. His attempts at offense was mostly missing big shots by a wide margin as Miocic was easily able to evade him.

In hindsight, Nelson taking a fight six weeks after his 4/27 knockout win over Cheick Kongo was a mistake. After peaking your body for a date, it’s very difficult to come back and do it a second time. He’d had so much success that he figured he could score another first round knockout, but wasn’t in shape if it went into round two.

Worse, it was the last fight of his contract. He had turned down a significantly better money deal sometime back, saying he was insulted by the offer. He was offered an extension before this fight, and turned it down. With four straight wins and a fan base that seemed to expand in the past year more than the waistband of his pants, he looked to go in with some leverage. The story of him as an unlikely title contender would be a good one. But the loss, not just losing but the way he lost, derailed things. UFC will offer him a deal. He’s still worth something but his value was hurt. The positive he has is that he’s the kind of a guy that Spike and Bellator should want, so in that sense he still has leverage to where one would think he can get himself a solid deal. He’s got a name, genuine popularity, and if he’s in shape, should beat most of Bellator’s heavyweights. But Nelson is very much unpredictable when it comes to his decisions.

The show was almost the opposite of the previous week’s show in Fortaleza, Brazil. That show had ten finishes in 12 fights, tying the record for most submissions. This show had ten decisions in 12 fights, tying the record for most decisions. The bonuses were true no-brainers, in the sense there was only one submission (James Krause) and one knockout (Shawn Jordan). Krause vs. Sam Stout got the best fight bonus, There was no blow away obvious best fight, but there were a number of good ones, Pague vs. Jabouin, Edwin Figueroa vs Roland Delorme, Stout vs. Krause, Alexis Davis vs. Rosi Sexton, and even the two top fights, Miocic vs. Nelson and Henderson vs. Evans, that could have gotten best fight. All bonuses were $50,000.
 
dream

dream

Member
The only shows where tickets have been on sale in North America are 7/6 in Las Vegas and the 7/27 FOX show in Seattle. Las Vegas has a $2.5 million advance when it comes to tickets purchased by the public. That doesn’t include casino buys. Don’t know how many tickets that entails, but the idea of doing Sonnen-Anderson Silva numbers, and the original pricing was similar, doesn’t look like it’s happening. Seattle is currently at 6,000 tickets sold for $650,000.



The situation with TRT in California was really kind of blown out of proportion and reported inaccurately. California is not banning TRT. They are putting a moratorium on allowing it until a new addition to its bylaws, already written, officially goes into effect. That could take anywhere from two months to one year. Until the new standards go in, there will be no athletes allowed to use TRT except for those who have already been approved for it (I believe only three fighters have been approved for it in California, and tons have been turned down). There has been a huge increase in people asking for exemptions. People are talking about how Dan Henderson and Vitor Belfort won’t be able to fight on TRT in California. Henderson is likely one of the ones already approved so it won’t effect him. And the reality is, the new standards may be approved by the time UFC runs in California again, given that they’ve got no shows announced for the state in the next several months. Bellator has two announced California dates, in September and November.



The latest person to cause a controversy over gay rights was Josh Thomson. Thomson wrote about gay marriage, and he didn’t knock it, or say he was against it, but asked where we will draw the line, if it’ll be okay for men to marry multiple women, women to marry multiple men, or adults to marry children. It blew up, based on him writing this: “My next question is, should siblings be allowed to marry siblings? My point is, where do you draw the line? I personally don’t care who you marry, but I also am smart enough to know that it opens a gateway to men/women trying to marry young kids, siblings marrying each other, and people having multiple husbands and wives. You have to think all of these things are okay, otherwise you’re stopping them from being happy as well, which is hypocrisy. Equality doesn’t stop with gay marriage, it just starts with it.” Thomson’s people the next day noted they just wanted the thing to go away because of how big it got, and he released a statement publicly, that said, “I am not against gay rights or gay marriage in any way. My comments were completely taken out of context by some members of the media and I have since removed them out of respect for anyone who may have been offended. It was not my intention to offend or hurt anyone.” Thomson did not hear from UFC, nor did UFC suspend or fine him, because, among other things, he used no slurs in his comments. Dana White heard about it, basically said that Thomson should stick to fighting because he came off stupid, but that he’s allowed to have an opinion. It’s only when you talk in hateful terms that you’re going to get in trouble.


Dan Henderson said he had a little problem with Chael Sonnen claiming he worked with Sonnen to set up Jon Jones last year. He said he usually doesn’t mind when Sonnen doesn’t tell the truth, but when it was about him he had a little problem. The two have been friends for years. Pretty much everyone involved who would know has said Sonnen was full of it, but it does allow Greg Jackson some public vindication since he theorized it from the start.



Sonnen was on Jim Rome and called LeBron James a dork, which ended up with Jimmy Kimmel doing a monologue joke about it where he totally botched the pronunciation of Sonnen’s name. Sonnen was asked by Jeremy Botter of Bleacher Report why he said that about Jones. He said, “His name being brought up prompted it. He makes Urkel look cool. I would have liked to call him a twat, but they changed subjects. Let me tell you a story about LeBron. He asked the UFC for tickets for my fight against Anderson Silva. We sit the guy in the front row, and all through the night he snubs our fans. He’s a guest in our house and he refuses to sign any autographs or take any pictures unless your cup size was later in the alphabet than he was able to learn. And from what I understand, he thinks the letter purple comes after C. This guy walked up to my fiancee backstage and asks her if there’s a Tic Tac in her blouse or his she was just happy to see him. I had a UFC employee tell me he saw a mother wheel her handicapped child up to him to get a picture. LeBron was walking towards them. When he reached the kid, the mother stopped the wheelchair. LeBron took the wheelchair, wheeled it out of the way and kept walking. I’d like to slap the divots right off his face.” Sonnen said, “The next time I see him he will shake that little boy’s hand, even if I have to break his arm off and take it to the boy."



For what it’s worth, Jon Jones said he believes Henderson and Dana White’s story and not the Sonnen version, but said he’s completely over it. He said it all worked out for him, in the sense he got to coach TUF and got his fight with Sonnen as well. Jones said he wanted to fight in October rather than September, but took the 9/21 date “for the team.” He said it was Dana White’s call for him to face Alexander Gustafsson and not Lyoto Machida, but admitted he did say he’d already beaten Machida and the PPV numbers were terrible (his words). Not sure the numbers for Gustafsson will be any better, but I can see White’s call in the sense Machida’s fights are usually not very entertaining and nobody is going to believe Machida will beat Jones. Not that anyone will believe Gustafsson can, but with Machida you had a second round submission win in a fight that wasn’t memorable at all past the finish.



White noted that the Cowboys Stadium thing is not happening this year. From the way we heard it, the interest was stronger on the Jerry Jones side, who really wanted a show in October. UFC has been leery of doing stadium shows, as noted since they’ve only done one in their history, and unless they had the mega fight that they knew would draw, I don’t see it happening.

White also compared the current season of Ultimate Fighter to that of the Tito Ortiz/Ken Shamrock season three, noting that not only are Ronda Rousey and Miesha Tate not getting along, but the camps aren’t getting along. He said there have been daily headaches, but when asked if that would make for good TV, he wasn’t as glowing about it saying he didn’t know if a lot of it would even make TV. “It’s pure fucking mayhem every day."



Gilbert Melendez was pulled from the 8/31 show in Milwaukee and will instead fight later in the year against Diego Sanchez.


Stefan Struve issued a challenge to Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira. With Nogueira just having had elbow surgery, the earliest the fight could take place would be the end of the year, but Nogueira has said he’s up for it when he recovers.



Ariel Helwani reported on UFC Tonight that Hector Lombard did a test cut to 170, said he felt great and will be moving to welterweight. He’s looking for his first fight in the fall and threw out the name Nate Marquardt as the person he’d like to debut against. Lombard has gone from walking around between 210 and 220, and fighting at 185, to slimming down to a 190 walk around weight.



The Las Vegas Review-Journal ran a story on UFC’s “Wack-a-Mole” fight with on-line pirates every PPV night. Both WWE and UFC have people monitoring sites illegally streaming their PPV shows and getting them taken down. They noted that the lawsuit against JustinTV they filed in 2011 was settled. JustinTV now monitors and takes down UFC stuff itself when it finds it to where there are very few, and they are taken down immediately. At the time of the suit, UFC officials found 200 UFC streams live during the UFC 121 PPV. They also noted after legal letters to Ustream, as well as UFC negotiating a deal with Ustream, that they went from more than 100 streams per event to less than ten, almost all taken down before UFC even found them and sent Ustream the info.



The UFC sent a memo to all fighters about the Benson Henderson rule, which is a dress code for talent when they are doing promotional work. “Per Jackie, effective immediately, fighters and talent traveling on press tours and PR/marketing-related appearances are no longer permitted to wear shorts or flip flops. Jeans are acceptable and shoes are a must.” Henderson is known for wearing cargo shorts and flip flops. Henderson reacted on Facebook by saying, “Guess UFC decided to make it official. I’m a start calling them the NBA. Guess it’s one thing to be encouraged to do or dress one way and entirely another thing to be told to do or dress one way. Don’t get me wrong. I’m gonna dress how my employers want, but doesn’t mean I gotta be happy about it. Don’t let the man hold you down. Fight the power. You can take my life but you can never take my freedom.” UFC a few months back also sent notice of a dress code for the press at their live events as well.



In one of the year’s biggest upsets, Josh Burkman beat Jon Fitch in just :41 in the main event of the third World Series of Fighting show on 6/14 in Las Vegas at the Hard Rock. Burkman (26-9), was on season two of TUF in 2005, and then was cut after three straight losses in 2008. He’s gone on a tear since that point, going 8-1, but he destroyed ex-UFC stars Aaron Simpson and Fitch in the first round. Burkman is a great athlete, who when growing up, took second in the state in wrestling and was a star in both baseball and football. He was good enough to rush for 1,400 yards as a running back and be a JC All-American and got a Division I scholarship to Utah, but left to try MMA. He knocked Fitch down with a left and right, and then grabbed a guillotine and choked him totally unconscious. Even more than beating Fitch, beating him via choke was the real stunner because Fitch has the rep of being impossible to choke. He, in practice, will let the best black belts have his back and they can’t choke him out. Demian Maia threw him around for three rounds and never came close. Fitch has also only lost once via submission in his entire career, and it was in his first pro fight, back in 2002. Given that the Fitch cut was the most controversial in UFC history, since he had a 14-3-1 record and was still in the company’s own top ten, this surprise came across as a public vindication of the move, whether it should have been or not. Dana White cited his age, at 35, and his recent record (1-2-1 after being 13-1 in UFC up to that point) as a sign he had declined as a fighter. But the other half of the equation is Burkman really should be someone in the big leagues because if he had beaten Simpson and Fitch in UFC competition the way he did, people would be talking about him in the title mix. There was a lot of controversy over the finish and ref Steve Mazzagatti, because Burkman put Fitch completely out. Fitch didn’t tap, Burkman put him down and got up and Fitch was laid out. The feeling is Mazzagatti should have stopped it when Fitch went out, as opposed to Burkman being a good sport and letting go. This was a split-second call and not a several seconds late stoppage where a guy takes too many hard punches. Anyone who has seen Burkman’s last two fights would love to see him in UFC, but he’s got three fights left on his WSOF contract. The problem is, there is nobody the caliber of Fitch left for him to face. Burkman got $32,000 for the win and Fitch got $30,000 for the loss, less than half of the $66,000 announced (and likely another $5,000 bonus) for his last UFC loss in February.



The show did 201,000 viewers on NBC Sports (previous two did 198,000 and 210,000), which I’d consider good for a show that aired on Friday night at 11 p.m. NBC Sports and MTV 2 are both in roughly the same amount of homes and are at the same level as stations, so a comparison with Bellator’s numbers is fair, and this aired at 11 p.m. and beat the average that Bellator pulled during prime time when it was on Fridays.



The company’s big lightweight prospect, Justin Gaethje, remained unbeaten at 9-0, but had to overcome adversity against Brian Cobb. Cobb had him in trouble in the first round, with his back and pounding on him. But Gaethje came back to win the second round and finish when Cobb quit after repeated low kicks and being barely able to stand up, in round three. They announced for the next show on 8/10 in Ontario, CA, that Ray Sefo will face Dave Huckaba in a heavyweight fight and Nick Newell will debut. Sefo is the company president, and I did see articles comparing his fighting on a show to Mr. McMahon. He’s 42, has only fought three times in MMA (2-1 record) but has 93 total fights between MMA, boxing and kickboxing and said he wants to get to 100 before retiring. Newell was born with a left arm that barely went past his elbow, but has been undefeated on smaller circuits and became one of the best known small show fighters for overcoming that handicap.
 
A

alr1ght

bish gets all the credit :)
Sonnen was on Jim Rome and called LeBron James a dork, which ended up with Jimmy Kimmel doing a monologue joke about it where he totally botched the pronunciation of Sonnen’s name. Sonnen was asked by Jeremy Botter of Bleacher Report why he said that about Jones. He said, “His name being brought up prompted it. He makes Urkel look cool. I would have liked to call him a twat, but they changed subjects. Let me tell you a story about LeBron. He asked the UFC for tickets for my fight against Anderson Silva. We sit the guy in the front row, and all through the night he snubs our fans. He’s a guest in our house and he refuses to sign any autographs or take any pictures unless your cup size was later in the alphabet than he was able to learn. And from what I understand, he thinks the letter purple comes after C. This guy walked up to my fiancee backstage and asks her if there’s a Tic Tac in her blouse or his she was just happy to see him. I had a UFC employee tell me he saw a mother wheel her handicapped child up to him to get a picture. LeBron was walking towards them. When he reached the kid, the mother stopped the wheelchair. LeBron took the wheelchair, wheeled it out of the way and kept walking. I’d like to slap the divots right off his face.” Sonnen said, “The next time I see him he will shake that little boy’s hand, even if I have to break his arm off and take it to the boy."
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I'm starting to like Shael all of a sudden.
 
dream

dream

Member
I'm sad that I'm the only person to find it absolutely hilarious (and telling) that the Ultimate has to mandate a dress code for the press.
 
C

Can Crusher

Banned
I think it's so common sense based I find it hard to find it funny other than that it's funny that we as a society care so much about such little shit, due to the way we communicate.
 
H

Heel

Member
Bleacher Report: You versus LeBron James at UFC 200. Who wins the fight, and how?

Chael Sonnen: He’d run away faster than his hairline. His hair went North, his talents went South, and his mother went West.


jbavjSl55BQuKb.png
 
C

Chamber

love on your sleeve
Heel said:
Bleacher Report: You versus LeBron James at UFC 200. Who wins the fight, and how?

Chael Sonnen: He’d run away faster than his hairline. His hair went North, his talents went South, and his mother went West.


http://i.minus.com/jbavjSl55BQuKb.png[/ig][/QUOTE]

Blatant cisco.
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