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MMA-GAF |OT5| Father Time Is Undefeated
- Thread starter polyh3dron
- Start date
bloodydrake
Cool Smoke Luke
its funny just how appealing the Strikeforce formula is now that its been gone for a while.
Strikefarce got so much hate back when it was live..but I loved it..I can't wait for Strikeforce 2.0..Its the evolution we deserve.
Strikefarce got so much hate back when it was live..but I loved it..I can't wait for Strikeforce 2.0..Its the evolution we deserve.
dream
Member
ESPN.com reported that Bellator CEO Scott Coker has confirmed that Eddie Alvarez was given an unconditional release on 8/19.
Hours later, UFC announced his debut for UFC 178 on 9/27 in Las Vegas, against Donald Cerrone. It was a fight UFC had hoped to put together for the show, but apparently had given up on since Cerrone vs. Bobby Green had been announced.
Alvarez would be expected to face the Anthony Pettis vs. Gilbert Melendez winner if he scores an impressive win, which is far from guaranteed against Cerrone. Green is being moved to a show in November.
Alvarez, the company's lightweight champion, had one fight left with the promotion. Coker in the story said that after a meeting with Alvarez and Glenn Robinson, that Alvarez made it clear he would be leaving the promotion when his contract expired after his next fight.
Weve granted Eddie his unconditional release, said Coker. Eddie is free to explore the free agent market. We hold no matching rights and we wish him the best in the future. We sat down with Eddie and his team a few times, and it became pretty clear early on that he just wasnt interested in fighting for Bellator in the future. We want guys in this organization who want to be here, and after the history Eddie and the former regime had here at Bellator, we decided to move on. We wish Eddie the absolute best of luck with whatever is next for him. Its a new chapter for everyone involved.
For Bellator, the situation was building a fighter who had made it clear he had no future with the group, and who also, by contract, had to appear on PPV, at a time when Bellator doesnt appear to be wanting to do a second PPV any time soon. Alvarez would have faced either Will Brooks, the interim lightweight champion, or rival Michael Chandler, who he had split two fights with, in his last fight.
Booking the fights were a risk for Bellator. Had Alvarez won, it would either hurt Chandler, generally considered to be the companys best lightweight, or if he beat Brooks, Alvarez would walk into UFC beating the companys two best lightweights, who would then likely have to face each other for a meaningless title.
Chandler would have had a strong shot at beating Alvarez, given that he won the first fight cleanly, and the second fight was close, with most having Chandler winning. But both fights, both match of the year candidates, were the type of fights that either man could have won.
This was a long process, but its a decision that everyone seems happy with, said Alvarez. I think its important to say that I am genuinely thankful for my time at Bellator. I know that sounds a little crazy given everything I went through, but Ive fought there since 2009, and have been involved in some really amazing fights. The staff there always treated me great, and Im going to miss seeing a lot of those familiar faces around for sure. Myself and my team had some really good discussions with Scott, but in my heart I knew I was ready to move on and start the next chapter in my career.
The promotion of 9/27 is going to be interesting. By tradition, UFC will always push the main event and the title match is always the main event unless there are two title matches on the show. However, the Demetrious Johnson vs. Chris Cariaso flyweight title fight has no marquee value at all. Based on marquee value at the top of the show, from Google searches over the past year, Johnson is a five, Cariaso a 0, Alvarez a five, Cerrone an eight, Conor McGregor is a 10, Dustin Poirier is a three, Dominick Cruz, after more than three years out, is still an 8, Takeya Mizugaki is a 0, Tim Kennedy is an 8 and Yoel Romero is a 3.
So title or not, it appears the real main events that should be pushed are McGregor vs. Poirier and Cerrone vs. Alvarez and the title match looks to be at best fourth of the five PPV fights. Also, Cruz vs. Mizugaki, last I heard, was going to not be on PPV and instead headline the FS 1 prelims.
Granted, McGregor vs. Poirier and Cerrone vs. Alvarez promoted as double mains are not going to draw as a PPV main event, even if McGregor will talk the talk, and Poirier has already shown that hell respond to the talk, and Cerrone will talk the talk as well. If Alvarez is coming in with the same contract he was offered in 2012, given this card, he may not get any bonuses because this doesnt guarantee even 200,000 buys, and if they promote the title match at the expense of Cerrone and McGregors fights, itll likely do worse. Well, any fight with Cerrone has a shot at fight of the night, and with Alvarez, it has a real good shot.
Jorge Masvidal vs. James Krause was also added to that card.
After Alvarezs contract had expired with Bellator, he had agreed to a UFC deal in late 2012, which would have put him in a fight with lightweight champion Benson Henderson on the GSP vs. Nick Diaz show on March 16, 2013, in Montreal. With his contracted PPV percentage, Alvarez would have earned $1,630,000 to $1,700,000 for that fight, far above the approximately $100,000 per fight Alvarez had been earning in Bellator.
But Bellator had the right to match the offer, which they did by guaranteeing him a similar percentage provided the Bellator show he was on did 200,000 or more buys, the number his UFC PPV bonus started kicking in at. Of course, Bellator had no shot at doing 200,000 buys on PPV, so at that time the clause was valuless. UFC virtually never fell below that number at the time, and given it was a GSP card, it was pretty well guaranteed to do a minimum 700,000 buys (it ended up doing 950,000). Bellator matching and attempting to get a court hearing kept Alvarez off that show, and he went to court again, this time to get his fight with Henderson on the Jon Jones vs. Chael Sonnen show on April 27, 2013, which ended up doing around 550,000 buys, and Alvarez would have earned in the $655,000 to $725,000 range, depending on if he won or lost that fight, plus had he won, hed have been lightweight champion.
Alvarez tried to argue in court that the Bellator offer, on the point of the value of PPV bonus points, as well as the idea Bellator had that appearing on Spike TV was the contractual equivalent of appearing on NBC, was not a matching offer. A judge didn't rule in his favor for a preliminary ruling before the case was finalized. The judge agreed Alvarezs arguments had merit, particularly Spike vs. NBC, and pretty well didnt seem to understand or give as much merit to the PPV argument, but not enough that he would make a ruling without a trial.
Alvarez was going to keep fighting, which led to him selling one of his places to continue funding his suit, until he and Bellator reached a 40 plus page out of court settlement in August.
As part of the settlement, Alvarez agreed to fight twice in Bellator, the first fight in November and the second in the first half of 2015. He would be an unrestricted free agent after the second fight.
Both fights in the contract were supposed to be on PPV, although the first one wasn't due to it being moved to Spike TV due to an injury to headliner Tito Ortiz.
If Alvarez lost the first fight, he would be a free agent. If he won, the contract stipulated the second fight would be a rematch with Chandler. That fight was set for Bellator's PPV in May, but Alvarez suffered a concussion in training and had to pull out. Alvarez has been fully recovered from the concussion for some time and is training at 100 percent capacity. Brooks then beat Chandler on a controversial decision to become interim lightweight champion. Contractually, Alvarez was still to face Chandler, since that name was stipulated in the contract for both fights, even though Alvarez said he was willing to face Brooks.
Coker, who had attempted to make an offer to keep Alvarez, said after the meeting it was clear Alvarez wasn't interested and let him go.
Alvarez, who has a 25-3 record, and was Bellators signature star from the birth of the promotion in 2009 until the signings of Ortiz and Rampage Jackson, is expected to start out in the mix with the top fighters in the division.
Alvarezs only career losses were to Nick Thompson, fighting out of his weight class, Shinya Aoki in Japan, and to Chandler.
Bellator signed him as their signature star in 2009, offering far more than UFC had offered him at the time, for a nine fight contract. He defeated Toby Imada to win Bellators inaugural tournament to become lightweight champion on June 19, 2009, in Sunrise, FL. He lost the title to Chandler on November 19, 2011, also in Sunrise, FL, in one of the greatest fights in MMA history. His contract expired after an October 12, 2012, fight where he beat Patricky Pitbull Freire. When he returned after his settlement, he won a split decision over Chandler to regain the title on November 2, 2013, in Long Beach, CA.
Coker hinted that a Brooks vs. Chandler title match would likely take place in November for the title Alvarez left behind.
Hours later, UFC announced his debut for UFC 178 on 9/27 in Las Vegas, against Donald Cerrone. It was a fight UFC had hoped to put together for the show, but apparently had given up on since Cerrone vs. Bobby Green had been announced.
Alvarez would be expected to face the Anthony Pettis vs. Gilbert Melendez winner if he scores an impressive win, which is far from guaranteed against Cerrone. Green is being moved to a show in November.
Alvarez, the company's lightweight champion, had one fight left with the promotion. Coker in the story said that after a meeting with Alvarez and Glenn Robinson, that Alvarez made it clear he would be leaving the promotion when his contract expired after his next fight.
Weve granted Eddie his unconditional release, said Coker. Eddie is free to explore the free agent market. We hold no matching rights and we wish him the best in the future. We sat down with Eddie and his team a few times, and it became pretty clear early on that he just wasnt interested in fighting for Bellator in the future. We want guys in this organization who want to be here, and after the history Eddie and the former regime had here at Bellator, we decided to move on. We wish Eddie the absolute best of luck with whatever is next for him. Its a new chapter for everyone involved.
For Bellator, the situation was building a fighter who had made it clear he had no future with the group, and who also, by contract, had to appear on PPV, at a time when Bellator doesnt appear to be wanting to do a second PPV any time soon. Alvarez would have faced either Will Brooks, the interim lightweight champion, or rival Michael Chandler, who he had split two fights with, in his last fight.
Booking the fights were a risk for Bellator. Had Alvarez won, it would either hurt Chandler, generally considered to be the companys best lightweight, or if he beat Brooks, Alvarez would walk into UFC beating the companys two best lightweights, who would then likely have to face each other for a meaningless title.
Chandler would have had a strong shot at beating Alvarez, given that he won the first fight cleanly, and the second fight was close, with most having Chandler winning. But both fights, both match of the year candidates, were the type of fights that either man could have won.
This was a long process, but its a decision that everyone seems happy with, said Alvarez. I think its important to say that I am genuinely thankful for my time at Bellator. I know that sounds a little crazy given everything I went through, but Ive fought there since 2009, and have been involved in some really amazing fights. The staff there always treated me great, and Im going to miss seeing a lot of those familiar faces around for sure. Myself and my team had some really good discussions with Scott, but in my heart I knew I was ready to move on and start the next chapter in my career.
The promotion of 9/27 is going to be interesting. By tradition, UFC will always push the main event and the title match is always the main event unless there are two title matches on the show. However, the Demetrious Johnson vs. Chris Cariaso flyweight title fight has no marquee value at all. Based on marquee value at the top of the show, from Google searches over the past year, Johnson is a five, Cariaso a 0, Alvarez a five, Cerrone an eight, Conor McGregor is a 10, Dustin Poirier is a three, Dominick Cruz, after more than three years out, is still an 8, Takeya Mizugaki is a 0, Tim Kennedy is an 8 and Yoel Romero is a 3.
So title or not, it appears the real main events that should be pushed are McGregor vs. Poirier and Cerrone vs. Alvarez and the title match looks to be at best fourth of the five PPV fights. Also, Cruz vs. Mizugaki, last I heard, was going to not be on PPV and instead headline the FS 1 prelims.
Granted, McGregor vs. Poirier and Cerrone vs. Alvarez promoted as double mains are not going to draw as a PPV main event, even if McGregor will talk the talk, and Poirier has already shown that hell respond to the talk, and Cerrone will talk the talk as well. If Alvarez is coming in with the same contract he was offered in 2012, given this card, he may not get any bonuses because this doesnt guarantee even 200,000 buys, and if they promote the title match at the expense of Cerrone and McGregors fights, itll likely do worse. Well, any fight with Cerrone has a shot at fight of the night, and with Alvarez, it has a real good shot.
Jorge Masvidal vs. James Krause was also added to that card.
After Alvarezs contract had expired with Bellator, he had agreed to a UFC deal in late 2012, which would have put him in a fight with lightweight champion Benson Henderson on the GSP vs. Nick Diaz show on March 16, 2013, in Montreal. With his contracted PPV percentage, Alvarez would have earned $1,630,000 to $1,700,000 for that fight, far above the approximately $100,000 per fight Alvarez had been earning in Bellator.
But Bellator had the right to match the offer, which they did by guaranteeing him a similar percentage provided the Bellator show he was on did 200,000 or more buys, the number his UFC PPV bonus started kicking in at. Of course, Bellator had no shot at doing 200,000 buys on PPV, so at that time the clause was valuless. UFC virtually never fell below that number at the time, and given it was a GSP card, it was pretty well guaranteed to do a minimum 700,000 buys (it ended up doing 950,000). Bellator matching and attempting to get a court hearing kept Alvarez off that show, and he went to court again, this time to get his fight with Henderson on the Jon Jones vs. Chael Sonnen show on April 27, 2013, which ended up doing around 550,000 buys, and Alvarez would have earned in the $655,000 to $725,000 range, depending on if he won or lost that fight, plus had he won, hed have been lightweight champion.
Alvarez tried to argue in court that the Bellator offer, on the point of the value of PPV bonus points, as well as the idea Bellator had that appearing on Spike TV was the contractual equivalent of appearing on NBC, was not a matching offer. A judge didn't rule in his favor for a preliminary ruling before the case was finalized. The judge agreed Alvarezs arguments had merit, particularly Spike vs. NBC, and pretty well didnt seem to understand or give as much merit to the PPV argument, but not enough that he would make a ruling without a trial.
Alvarez was going to keep fighting, which led to him selling one of his places to continue funding his suit, until he and Bellator reached a 40 plus page out of court settlement in August.
As part of the settlement, Alvarez agreed to fight twice in Bellator, the first fight in November and the second in the first half of 2015. He would be an unrestricted free agent after the second fight.
Both fights in the contract were supposed to be on PPV, although the first one wasn't due to it being moved to Spike TV due to an injury to headliner Tito Ortiz.
If Alvarez lost the first fight, he would be a free agent. If he won, the contract stipulated the second fight would be a rematch with Chandler. That fight was set for Bellator's PPV in May, but Alvarez suffered a concussion in training and had to pull out. Alvarez has been fully recovered from the concussion for some time and is training at 100 percent capacity. Brooks then beat Chandler on a controversial decision to become interim lightweight champion. Contractually, Alvarez was still to face Chandler, since that name was stipulated in the contract for both fights, even though Alvarez said he was willing to face Brooks.
Coker, who had attempted to make an offer to keep Alvarez, said after the meeting it was clear Alvarez wasn't interested and let him go.
Alvarez, who has a 25-3 record, and was Bellators signature star from the birth of the promotion in 2009 until the signings of Ortiz and Rampage Jackson, is expected to start out in the mix with the top fighters in the division.
Alvarezs only career losses were to Nick Thompson, fighting out of his weight class, Shinya Aoki in Japan, and to Chandler.
Bellator signed him as their signature star in 2009, offering far more than UFC had offered him at the time, for a nine fight contract. He defeated Toby Imada to win Bellators inaugural tournament to become lightweight champion on June 19, 2009, in Sunrise, FL. He lost the title to Chandler on November 19, 2011, also in Sunrise, FL, in one of the greatest fights in MMA history. His contract expired after an October 12, 2012, fight where he beat Patricky Pitbull Freire. When he returned after his settlement, he won a split decision over Chandler to regain the title on November 2, 2013, in Long Beach, CA.
Coker hinted that a Brooks vs. Chandler title match would likely take place in November for the title Alvarez left behind.
dream
Member
Jon Jones had arthroscopic surgery on his knee on 8/14. The injury took place three days earlier when he was defending a takedown in a training session with Alistair Overeem.
The odd man out, Alexander Gustafsson, is said to be furious about the way things have worked out. Gustafsson would have been ready after knee surgery to face Jones on 1/3. Gustafsson had the original title shot and it was considered a disappointment when he pulled out, given their first match was the greatest light heavyweight title match in history. But while he was out, Cormier vs. Jones became a far bigger fight. He said that he doesnt want to fight, and will wait for the winner. But the earliest that would be would be the late spring or early summer of 2015, and if Cormier wins, hell be waiting quite a bit longer because UFC would almost surely go with a Cormier vs. Jones immediate rematch. Dana White said hed like to see Gustafsson fight, and UFC hinted at Anthony Johnson, who is about the only guy who would make sense for that spot.
Garry Cook, the controversial former CEO on the Manchester City soccer team who was in charge of UFC Operations in Europe, Africa and the Middle East, got a promotion to Chief Global Officer. Essentially hes the man in charge of all international territories. He will be moving from the companys England office to work out of Las Vegas. The major expansion of his duties will be overseeing the Far East territory. Mark Fischer, who headed up the NBAs successful marketing expansion in to China, was future endeavored. Fischer was hired with the idea of popularizing the sport in China and taking advantage of the huge population base for live shows. But UFC had not been able to do anything past casino shows in Macau, and one season of a Chinese version of The Ultimate Fighter on television. Dana White said that they will be hiring someone for Fischers position to run the Far East but Cook will oversee all the international business. Marshall Zelaznik and Lorenzo Fertitta were doing the international business but Zelaznik is now head of Fight Pass.
The Ultimate Fighter final was announced for 12/12 at the Hard Rock in Las Vegas. The show will probably be loaded with womens strawweight fights, including the tournament final and crowning of the first champion. The two semifinals and the final day of taping was 8/14. The season debuts on 9/10 in the 10 p.m. Wednesday night time slot.
There are two shows this weekend. There is an early morning show at 6:30 a.m. Eastern time from Macau, on Fight Pass with Milana Dudieva vs. Elizabeth Phillips, Royston Wee vs. Yao Zhukui, Wang Anying vs. Colby Covington, Roland Delorme vs. Yuta Sasaki, Alberto Mina vs. Sheldon Wescott, Danny Mitchell vs. Wang Sai, Ning Guangyou vs. Jianping Yang in the finals of the TUF China featherweight tournament, Zhang Lipeng vs. Brendan OReily, Dong Hyun Kim vs. Tyron Woodley and Cung Le vs. Michael Bisping. Given how Bisping fought against Tim Kennedy, he badly needs a win here. Le, who is 42, could easily be in the final fight of his career, and its weird that its not in San Jose where he was the local fighting hero dating back to the 90s.
The second show is from Tulsa, with a 7:30 p.m. Fight Pass fight with Chris Heatherly vs. Ben Saunders, FS 2 fights with Matt Hober vs. Aaron Phillips, Beneil Dariush vs. Tony Martin, Wilson Reis vs. Joby Sanchez and Alex Garcia vs. Neil Magny, with the main fights on FS 1 at 10 p.m. with Tom Niinimaki vs. Chas Skelly, Vladimir Lazaro vs. James Vick, Max Holloway vs. Clay Collard (who debuts in place of an injured Mirsad Bektic), Francis Carmont vs. Thales Leites, Jordan Mein vs. Mike Pyle and Benson Henderson vs. Rafael dos Anjos.
Mike King, who lost to Cathal Pendred on the 7/19 show in Dublin in one hell of a fight, tested positive that night for the steroid Nandrolone in a UFC test. Not only did he forfeit his $50,000 best fight bonus, but UFC fired him from the promotion. Nandrolone is the steroid that anyone in a drug tested sport avoids because it can sometimes be detected as long as a year after cessation of use. UFC policy if someone who fails a drug test wins a bonus, that the $50,000 bonus goes to the other fighter, who ends up with $100,000. Pendred, who is early in his UFC career and hardly makes big money, then donated the bonus to the Tempe Street Childrens Hospital.
Chael Sonnen was on Chris Jerichos podcast on 8/13 and his version of the story of his recent talks with WWE was that someone from WWE called him and said theyd have loved to have signed him if he was 24, but at his age, they werent going to offer him anything. But he said they told him that they do expect TNA will make him an offer, and said that if they do, make sure to contact them because they will change their position. He also said that hes looking at training for the 2016 Olympics. He outright said that hes not going to be able to make the team, noting he tried out in 2000 when his wrestling was better than it is now, and couldnt make the team. He said hed consider it a goal to just place around fifth at the tryouts. I dont know what the legalities are, but to me, if someone fails a test for GH and EPO in 2014, Im not sure they should be allowed to compete in an Olympic sport even if the testing wasnt Olympic testing, it was athletic commission testing. It kind of defeats the purpose of a legitimate drug program if failed tests from another sport arent taken into account. Sonnen said more about his drug test failure there than he has so far. He outright said that he tried to game the system, didnt expect to be tested at that time, got caught, and he has to take his punishment. He tried to push that he never used steroids, which technically was true, in the sense that he used PEDs, but in these recent tests never used steroids. He also said everything he used was legal and under a doctors prescription. Legal and legal for competition are too very different things, because GH and EPO are so totally illegal in competition sports that its not funny, but are used a lot because of the difficulty in catching them.
With the Demetrious Johnson vs. Chris Cariaso fight being moved from the 8/30 PPV show in Sacramento to 9/27 in Las Vegas, Tony Ferguson vs. Danny Castillo of Sacramento has been moved to the No. 2 slot under T.J. Dillashaw vs. Renan Barao for the flyweight title. That is one weak marquee PPV show, with the other three fights being Shayna Baszler vs. Bethe Correia, Ruslan Magomedov vs. Richard Odoms and Ramsey Nijem vs. Carlos Diego Ferreira. We could easily get two straight shows at under 150,000 buys coming up.
John McCarthy also does his first UFC show in years in Nevada that night. McCarthy had not gotten licensed in Nevada due to issues with Keith Kizer, with Kizer wanting to keep using local officials. With Kizer gone, McCarthy is back.
Dana White claimed the Gina Carano to Bellator stories were things put out by Bellator to combat negative coverage of War Machine. There were news reports about War Machine being a recently fired Bellator fighter, but just as Kurt Angle is always referred to as a WWE wrestler, and Hulk Hogan was as well for years, most War Machine media references at first were as a former UFC fighter.
The Expendables 3, which Ronda Rousey and Randy Couture are part of, opened at No. 4 this weekend with $15,879,645, which was 43% down from the opening of the second Expendables movie.
Ultimate Fighter Latin America, with Cain Velasquez and Fabricio Werdum as coaches, debuts on Fight Pass on 8/26.
Krzysztof Soszynski, 37, a former pro wrestler on the Canadian indie scene in the 90s, who met Badnews Allen, who taught him the Kimura, and then had an 11-year career in MMA, announced his retirement on Inside MMA on 8/15. Soszynski hadnt fought in nearly three years and was largely assumed to be retired. He said his loss to Igor Pokrajac in his last fight was a life changer. He said he didnt remember anything for a period of time, saying he remembered walking into the Octagon, and the next thing he remembered is he had his clothes on and had a shower and Joe Silva was telling him to get a CT scan in the hospital. He said he took six months off, but started training for another fight, and he got hit by a 155 pounder (Soszynski was probably 240 who cut to 205) and he decided to quit, saying he had memory lapses and at times couldnt count backwards from 20 to 0. He then had difficulty with memory tests. More than two years later he said, Its not getting worse, but its not getting any better. He said that he couldnt even remember things from two days earlier.
T.J. Grant, who had been the top lightweight contender before a concussion in training (from Jiu Jitsu, not a punch) one year ago is still not ready to return. This is the most concerning issue in all contact sports in my mind right now, because the more we learn, the scarier the reality becomes. Hes hopeful he can be back this fall.
Matt Hughes has a television show on The Sportsman Channel called Uncaged with Matt Hughes that airs at 9 a.m. Saturday mornings.
Paige VanZants debut looks like itll have to be pushed back. She said this week that she left Sacramento to return to Reno because she needed intense physical therapy for a spine injury and has no insurance coverage in California. She said shes not cleared to train. It was notable that Urijah Faber, when mentioning in an interview that she had just disappeared and he thought she was in Reno, didnt say anything about her being hurt and seemed to have no knowledge of it. She was scheduled for the 10/4 show in Halifax for her debut.
While not signed, UFC is trying to get Dennis Bermudez vs. Ricardo Lamas for the 11/15 show in Mexico City. Lamas in particular, whose father is from Mexico and helped run a Hispanic television station in Chicago for years, has really pushed wanting to be on that show.
New fights added to the 10/4 show in Halifax include both TUF Nations winners from Canada. Middleweight winner Elias Theodorou (9-0) will face Bruno Santos. Welterweight winner Chad Laprise will face Yosdenis Cedeno. Welterweight runner-up Olivier Aubin-Mercier faces Jake Lindsey. Jason Saggo faces debuting Paul Felder. Debuting Matt Dwyer faces Albert Tumenov, while Canadian regular Mitch Gagnon faces Aljamain Sterling.
Due to an injury to heavyweight Richard Odoms, his fight with Ruslan Magomedov on the 8/30 show in Sacramento has been scrapped. That was scheduled as part of the PPV show itself, even though Odoms had never fought before in UFC and Magomedov has only fought once. Justin Edwards vs. Yancy Medeiros has been moved from the undercard to the PPV show. UFC has signed two new fighters, Cain Carrizosa (6-0) vs. Chris Wade (7-1), for a prelim battle on Fight Pass that will open the show.
Valerie Letourneau was injured in training and is out of her 9/13 fight with Jessica Andrade on 9/13 in Brasilia. Andrade will now face Larissa Moreira Pacheco, a 19-year-old Brazilian who has a 10-0 record, with six wins by submission and four by knockout.
The odd man out, Alexander Gustafsson, is said to be furious about the way things have worked out. Gustafsson would have been ready after knee surgery to face Jones on 1/3. Gustafsson had the original title shot and it was considered a disappointment when he pulled out, given their first match was the greatest light heavyweight title match in history. But while he was out, Cormier vs. Jones became a far bigger fight. He said that he doesnt want to fight, and will wait for the winner. But the earliest that would be would be the late spring or early summer of 2015, and if Cormier wins, hell be waiting quite a bit longer because UFC would almost surely go with a Cormier vs. Jones immediate rematch. Dana White said hed like to see Gustafsson fight, and UFC hinted at Anthony Johnson, who is about the only guy who would make sense for that spot.
Garry Cook, the controversial former CEO on the Manchester City soccer team who was in charge of UFC Operations in Europe, Africa and the Middle East, got a promotion to Chief Global Officer. Essentially hes the man in charge of all international territories. He will be moving from the companys England office to work out of Las Vegas. The major expansion of his duties will be overseeing the Far East territory. Mark Fischer, who headed up the NBAs successful marketing expansion in to China, was future endeavored. Fischer was hired with the idea of popularizing the sport in China and taking advantage of the huge population base for live shows. But UFC had not been able to do anything past casino shows in Macau, and one season of a Chinese version of The Ultimate Fighter on television. Dana White said that they will be hiring someone for Fischers position to run the Far East but Cook will oversee all the international business. Marshall Zelaznik and Lorenzo Fertitta were doing the international business but Zelaznik is now head of Fight Pass.
The Ultimate Fighter final was announced for 12/12 at the Hard Rock in Las Vegas. The show will probably be loaded with womens strawweight fights, including the tournament final and crowning of the first champion. The two semifinals and the final day of taping was 8/14. The season debuts on 9/10 in the 10 p.m. Wednesday night time slot.
There are two shows this weekend. There is an early morning show at 6:30 a.m. Eastern time from Macau, on Fight Pass with Milana Dudieva vs. Elizabeth Phillips, Royston Wee vs. Yao Zhukui, Wang Anying vs. Colby Covington, Roland Delorme vs. Yuta Sasaki, Alberto Mina vs. Sheldon Wescott, Danny Mitchell vs. Wang Sai, Ning Guangyou vs. Jianping Yang in the finals of the TUF China featherweight tournament, Zhang Lipeng vs. Brendan OReily, Dong Hyun Kim vs. Tyron Woodley and Cung Le vs. Michael Bisping. Given how Bisping fought against Tim Kennedy, he badly needs a win here. Le, who is 42, could easily be in the final fight of his career, and its weird that its not in San Jose where he was the local fighting hero dating back to the 90s.
The second show is from Tulsa, with a 7:30 p.m. Fight Pass fight with Chris Heatherly vs. Ben Saunders, FS 2 fights with Matt Hober vs. Aaron Phillips, Beneil Dariush vs. Tony Martin, Wilson Reis vs. Joby Sanchez and Alex Garcia vs. Neil Magny, with the main fights on FS 1 at 10 p.m. with Tom Niinimaki vs. Chas Skelly, Vladimir Lazaro vs. James Vick, Max Holloway vs. Clay Collard (who debuts in place of an injured Mirsad Bektic), Francis Carmont vs. Thales Leites, Jordan Mein vs. Mike Pyle and Benson Henderson vs. Rafael dos Anjos.
Mike King, who lost to Cathal Pendred on the 7/19 show in Dublin in one hell of a fight, tested positive that night for the steroid Nandrolone in a UFC test. Not only did he forfeit his $50,000 best fight bonus, but UFC fired him from the promotion. Nandrolone is the steroid that anyone in a drug tested sport avoids because it can sometimes be detected as long as a year after cessation of use. UFC policy if someone who fails a drug test wins a bonus, that the $50,000 bonus goes to the other fighter, who ends up with $100,000. Pendred, who is early in his UFC career and hardly makes big money, then donated the bonus to the Tempe Street Childrens Hospital.
Chael Sonnen was on Chris Jerichos podcast on 8/13 and his version of the story of his recent talks with WWE was that someone from WWE called him and said theyd have loved to have signed him if he was 24, but at his age, they werent going to offer him anything. But he said they told him that they do expect TNA will make him an offer, and said that if they do, make sure to contact them because they will change their position. He also said that hes looking at training for the 2016 Olympics. He outright said that hes not going to be able to make the team, noting he tried out in 2000 when his wrestling was better than it is now, and couldnt make the team. He said hed consider it a goal to just place around fifth at the tryouts. I dont know what the legalities are, but to me, if someone fails a test for GH and EPO in 2014, Im not sure they should be allowed to compete in an Olympic sport even if the testing wasnt Olympic testing, it was athletic commission testing. It kind of defeats the purpose of a legitimate drug program if failed tests from another sport arent taken into account. Sonnen said more about his drug test failure there than he has so far. He outright said that he tried to game the system, didnt expect to be tested at that time, got caught, and he has to take his punishment. He tried to push that he never used steroids, which technically was true, in the sense that he used PEDs, but in these recent tests never used steroids. He also said everything he used was legal and under a doctors prescription. Legal and legal for competition are too very different things, because GH and EPO are so totally illegal in competition sports that its not funny, but are used a lot because of the difficulty in catching them.
With the Demetrious Johnson vs. Chris Cariaso fight being moved from the 8/30 PPV show in Sacramento to 9/27 in Las Vegas, Tony Ferguson vs. Danny Castillo of Sacramento has been moved to the No. 2 slot under T.J. Dillashaw vs. Renan Barao for the flyweight title. That is one weak marquee PPV show, with the other three fights being Shayna Baszler vs. Bethe Correia, Ruslan Magomedov vs. Richard Odoms and Ramsey Nijem vs. Carlos Diego Ferreira. We could easily get two straight shows at under 150,000 buys coming up.
John McCarthy also does his first UFC show in years in Nevada that night. McCarthy had not gotten licensed in Nevada due to issues with Keith Kizer, with Kizer wanting to keep using local officials. With Kizer gone, McCarthy is back.
Dana White claimed the Gina Carano to Bellator stories were things put out by Bellator to combat negative coverage of War Machine. There were news reports about War Machine being a recently fired Bellator fighter, but just as Kurt Angle is always referred to as a WWE wrestler, and Hulk Hogan was as well for years, most War Machine media references at first were as a former UFC fighter.
The Expendables 3, which Ronda Rousey and Randy Couture are part of, opened at No. 4 this weekend with $15,879,645, which was 43% down from the opening of the second Expendables movie.
Ultimate Fighter Latin America, with Cain Velasquez and Fabricio Werdum as coaches, debuts on Fight Pass on 8/26.
Krzysztof Soszynski, 37, a former pro wrestler on the Canadian indie scene in the 90s, who met Badnews Allen, who taught him the Kimura, and then had an 11-year career in MMA, announced his retirement on Inside MMA on 8/15. Soszynski hadnt fought in nearly three years and was largely assumed to be retired. He said his loss to Igor Pokrajac in his last fight was a life changer. He said he didnt remember anything for a period of time, saying he remembered walking into the Octagon, and the next thing he remembered is he had his clothes on and had a shower and Joe Silva was telling him to get a CT scan in the hospital. He said he took six months off, but started training for another fight, and he got hit by a 155 pounder (Soszynski was probably 240 who cut to 205) and he decided to quit, saying he had memory lapses and at times couldnt count backwards from 20 to 0. He then had difficulty with memory tests. More than two years later he said, Its not getting worse, but its not getting any better. He said that he couldnt even remember things from two days earlier.
T.J. Grant, who had been the top lightweight contender before a concussion in training (from Jiu Jitsu, not a punch) one year ago is still not ready to return. This is the most concerning issue in all contact sports in my mind right now, because the more we learn, the scarier the reality becomes. Hes hopeful he can be back this fall.
Matt Hughes has a television show on The Sportsman Channel called Uncaged with Matt Hughes that airs at 9 a.m. Saturday mornings.
Paige VanZants debut looks like itll have to be pushed back. She said this week that she left Sacramento to return to Reno because she needed intense physical therapy for a spine injury and has no insurance coverage in California. She said shes not cleared to train. It was notable that Urijah Faber, when mentioning in an interview that she had just disappeared and he thought she was in Reno, didnt say anything about her being hurt and seemed to have no knowledge of it. She was scheduled for the 10/4 show in Halifax for her debut.
While not signed, UFC is trying to get Dennis Bermudez vs. Ricardo Lamas for the 11/15 show in Mexico City. Lamas in particular, whose father is from Mexico and helped run a Hispanic television station in Chicago for years, has really pushed wanting to be on that show.
New fights added to the 10/4 show in Halifax include both TUF Nations winners from Canada. Middleweight winner Elias Theodorou (9-0) will face Bruno Santos. Welterweight winner Chad Laprise will face Yosdenis Cedeno. Welterweight runner-up Olivier Aubin-Mercier faces Jake Lindsey. Jason Saggo faces debuting Paul Felder. Debuting Matt Dwyer faces Albert Tumenov, while Canadian regular Mitch Gagnon faces Aljamain Sterling.
Due to an injury to heavyweight Richard Odoms, his fight with Ruslan Magomedov on the 8/30 show in Sacramento has been scrapped. That was scheduled as part of the PPV show itself, even though Odoms had never fought before in UFC and Magomedov has only fought once. Justin Edwards vs. Yancy Medeiros has been moved from the undercard to the PPV show. UFC has signed two new fighters, Cain Carrizosa (6-0) vs. Chris Wade (7-1), for a prelim battle on Fight Pass that will open the show.
Valerie Letourneau was injured in training and is out of her 9/13 fight with Jessica Andrade on 9/13 in Brasilia. Andrade will now face Larissa Moreira Pacheco, a 19-year-old Brazilian who has a 10-0 record, with six wins by submission and four by knockout.
Maklershed
Member
Eddie's UFC trajectory: Lose to Cerrone, get paired up with some Brazilian we barely heard of and win, lose to Rafael Dos Anos, drop to 145 and fight Edgar.
EDIT: Almost every single post on my facebook news feed is ALS challenge related
EDIT: Almost every single post on my facebook news feed is ALS challenge related
juliushandle
Member
Cung Le will undergo advanced drug testing in Macau.
You guys think he'll pass?
You guys think he'll pass?
It's Asia, you just need to know who to bribe.
killamajig
Member
Sato Koiji
Member
C..Cung? What in Lords name happened?
industrian
will gently cradle you as time slowly ticks away.
Rafael dos Anjos: The Brazilian Boetsch.
Is it just me, or is this entire thing the biggest self-congratulatory, borderline-masturbatory "white thing" in last few years of the internet? *shrug*
Host Samurai
Member
I think Bisping is gonna die in there with Cung. Bisping always loses against crafty strikers with KO power.
Frankins last fight needs to be the guy in my avi
Frankins last fight needs to be the guy in my avi
BigJonsson
Member
FrontRowBrian ‏@FrontRowBrian 2h
Hearing @StephanBonnar vs @titoortiz is going to happen in @BellatorMMA ... Dana gave Bonnar his "blessing"
rofl
Hearing @StephanBonnar vs @titoortiz is going to happen in @BellatorMMA ... Dana gave Bonnar his "blessing"
rofl
Host Samurai
Member
Sounds better than 90% of the mains on UFC PPVs
BigJonsson
Member
juliushandle
Member
Bonnar did soften up Anderson Silva for Weidman. If the Bonnar-Silva fight never happened, Silva would have beat Weidman and he'd still be champ.
Interesting theory man but its a no go.
killamajig
Member
Would watch.
only if drunk and bored
Maklershed
Member
Wow! Holy shit. He's been drinking from Sylvester Stallone's canteen. There seems to be two kinds of PED appearances and I'm not sure if it has two do with the actual chemicasl being used or the age of the users:
1. Vascular and covered in tiny dimples and mini wrinkles like Belfort, Cung Le, and Stallone.
2. Puffy and inflated like young Belfort, Overeem, Shamrock
I dont know that its a white thing but you certainly seem to have the first part right.
I can get down with this. At least it wont be a work like when Shlemenko layed down for his buddy/boss to arm triangle him and pretend to not know how to get out of it. Bonnar by anything he wants!
abstract alien
Member
This question is completely serious. From the last time we saw him until now, is it remotely possible for him to look like that without taking a banned substance?
He doesn't look much bigger than he has in the past, just Stallone-skinned. He appears to actually be in shape.
His explanation was:
A
A More Normal Bird
Unconfirmed Member
For dream:
EDIT: Apparently that's not actually Cerrone, but it is close enough to pretend. Maybe the next episode of the reem will bring the goods.
EDIT: Apparently that's not actually Cerrone, but it is close enough to pretend. Maybe the next episode of the reem will bring the goods.
ldcommando
Banned
For dream:
Further proof of Cerrone´s no fucks given policy. While do we have a lhw champion getting injured by reem and a fucking big ass Lhw in Anthony Johnson bitching about it on the media, Cerrone, a fucking LW gets in there, spars with him, gets beat up and defends the man afterwards on twitter:
@Cowboycerrone
Follow
I dont understand why you'll want to talk shit about @Alistairovereem
Dude is a great teammate and friend!
Hes doesn't try and hurt anyone
No fucks given, I tell you.
Edit: Saw your edit. Really? It does look a lot like him.
On first take it kind of looks like Gokhan Saki (they have trained together), but not so sure.
These stacked cards sound good but once injuries kick in I doubt they will be stacked.
It's better than the UFC approach of 45 shitty events every year which then become even more shitty after injuries.
im not saying he just entered his prime, buy i'm saying hes in his prime.
juliushandle
Member
Brian Ortega just got popped for roids. First King Kevin Casey now T-City. Grand Master Helio must be shrimping in his grave.
Ninja Scooter
Member
MMA pushed back because of women's softball. Talk about knowing your place.
Maklershed
Member
Great. Guess I'll be able to clear that one off the dvr pretty fast.
Host Samurai
Member
dem aesthetics. myron
ldcommando
Banned
That spinning elbow isn't going to work every time, Kim.
ldcommando
Banned
He is going to need some eye replacement therapy after that one, that's for sure.