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UFC 199: Lifetime media bans, Brock’s back, Stockton Street Fight II, champion Michael Bisping

By Zach Arnold | June 5, 2016

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What was supposed to be a tepid Southern California UFC event turned out to make major news – for all the right and wrong reasons.

UFC & WWE announced that Brock Lesnar will fight at the UFC 200 event next month. It’s a one-off fight that benefits all the parties involved. Brock makes money, which keeps him happy. UFC gets a marketing bang for their UFC 200 event which needed some buzz from a UFC 100 legend. WWE gets to stay in the mainstream sports headlines and holds onto Lesnar loosely but doesn’t let go.

This news, along with news of a contract being signed to promote the Conor McGregor/Nate Diaz rematch, was broke by Ariel Helwani. Helwani, along with members of his MMA Fighting team for SBN, were credentialed for the UFC 199 event. They supposedly got the heave-ho before the main event and Helwani reportedly has been “banned for life” by UFC. This got Mr. Helwani trending on Twitter. Front Row Brian then publicly claimed that Helwani had been allegedly choked out by a UFC body guard at a prior event for asking certain questions. That’s a serious accusation to make.

All of this was the back-drop for a rather eventful UFC 199 fight card where large underdog Michael Bisping defeated Luke Rockhold by KO in 216 seconds to win the UFC Middleweight title. This now sets up a fight between Bisping and Jacare Souza. Bisping has reached the top of the mountain in the most circuitous way possible. Think about how far he has rebounded after that infamously brutal knockout by Dan Henderson at UFC 100. Henderson fought on Saturday’s night undercard and KO’d Hector Lombard.

Bisping and Rockhold had a wild public relations week heading into the fight and an unfortunate spat after the fight with some crude and course remarks. The Englishman had quite the interview on Fox Sports 1 this past Thursday where he joked that one of his kids may end up in a ditch. Rockhold nearly got his title fight canceled after claiming he had an MCL tear.

Dominick Cruz took care of business with an easy, unanimous decision win over Urijah Faber.

Cole Miller, who was supposed to face BJ Penn (before his USADA suspension due to IV usage), lost by unanimous decision to Bruce Leeroy. A rough business.

Topics: Media, MMA, UFC, WWE, Zach Arnold | 9 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |

9 Responses to “UFC 199: Lifetime media bans, Brock’s back, Stockton Street Fight II, champion Michael Bisping”

  1. 45 Huddle says:

    UFC 200 is going to be great. My favorite female fighter (Tate) and one of my top 3 male fighters (Lesnar) fighting on the same card. Should be great.

    Lesnar fighting at UFC 200 is a win for everybody involved. I kind of hope he doesn’t fight somebody too great and he just gets a fun win. It’s not like he is going to make a title run again….

    It is really nice to see Michael Bisping win the belt. First, he was probably the most screwed fighter in the history of MMA due to all of the drug use. If they tested 5 years ago like they do now, he would have probably been champion.

    Helwani getting escorted out of the building like that is BS. If the MMA Media had any sort of backbone, they would support one of their own. But you don’t see an article on MMA Junkie, MMA Fighting, or Sherdog about the incident. Not a shock. For such a tough guy sport, most of the people involved just roll over for Zuffa.

  2. Tradition Rules says:

    I really enjoyed UFC 199.

    Starting with the main event, the Bisping story was a feel good story. I was initially pulling for Rockhold, just because I really like the guy and think he is one of the most well-round,…and athletic,..guys on the UFC roster. But early in the first (and ONLY) round, he seemed to be mailing it in and totally disinterested in his fight with Bisping. I told this guys at the local sports bar I was at, “Rockhold is gonna get KO’d” and he looked at me like I was crazy, and he asked “Why would you ever think that?!” I said because he is pulling an Anderson Silva (not taking his opponent seriously) in this fight. Rockhold’s post fight interview in the cage seemed to confirm that.

    In the co-main event, Cruz knocked Faber down twice (but he DID eat a nice up kick in the chops after the first one), showed he has developed SOME added poer in his fists and HE was the aggressor, stalking Faber for most of the fight and had him backing up for most of it as well. Faber seemed lost and all of Cruz’ comment about Faber not leaning anything new seemed dead on.

    Most people can’t stand Cruz and his style, but I personally love watching him fight. Of course, I love watching Machida fihgt, so what do I know. ;0

    Dan Henderson, at 45 yeas of age, (less that a year younger then myself) continues to suprise from time to time,….GREATLY. But now would be a great time to REALLY consider calling it quits. With this win and the fashion in how the fight went and how he won,the ONLY way he could finish on a higher note would be if he won a title and retired as champ. REALLY.

    (I’d love to see him challenge Bisping for the Middleweight title, and win,…but I really don’t think that is going to happen. 🙂 )

  3. Chris says:

    How dare Ariel report the news. Well hopefully he’s learned his lesson…

  4. Kushi Purac says:

    People have such short memories its chilling which is why our politicians can lie at will.

    The Ariel thing is not a surprise.
    They did it with Josh Gross, J. Snowden, Sherwood and Loretta Hunt.
    Btw, what real sports organization could call a female reporter a dumb fucking bitch, using homophobic slurs and insults? None. Thats because as much as they claim to be a real league, UFC is closer to the private entertainment business that is WWE and the seedy boxing world.

    Ariel is great but MMA Fighting is small fries.
    The ones above worked for CNN, SI, LA Times, ESPN and nothing was done about it. Why would you expect the mainstream press to do/say anything about some site they probably never heard about?

    About 2 months ago, some british press send a reporter to
    the west coast to interview Rhonda for some video game launch and when he got there was told that if there was any questions on fighting the interview would be stopped. The reporter said “its like interviewing basketball star (i forget who he said, it might be Jordan) and being told no basketball questions. thats what you do, thats why you are famous.”

    The UFC are led by people who believe that when you can bully people like fighters why should you do it to the media? Thats how it works in the mob.

    Wow, so its going to be Brock vs CM Punk then?
    i dont care for either sideshow freaks so how about just doing both at same time.
    I dont see him fighting anyone who can actually throw a punch since we know Brock doesnt deal with getting punched in the face. Imagine for a second, him vs Mark Hunt 😉
    Fighting a guy who looks like he’s in chemio sounds like a safe bet for Brock.

    btw, dont you have to be tested by USADA 4 months before a fight?

  5. DIAZ'S PACKED BOWL says:

    The year is 20Bisping16! The Count is responsible for two of the three best moments of the year, so far…
    Bisping should fight Jacare asap. Good winnable fight for Bisping, then fight whiney wideman. I see post surgery wideman being rusty and stiff and getting tooled up by Bisping.
    No rematch with rockold, or waiting for wideman, Bisping has been fighting for 10 years in the ufc you can’t put him on the shelf at this late date.

    Perfect fight to retire on for Dan.

    Didnt Ariel get banned before?

    I can watch Nate slapping more $$$ out of Dana for days.

    Finally, Penn was not missed at all. His replacement put on a great Ali inspired show.

  6. rst says:

    Helwani seems entertaining enough, I like him.
    But he’s not without his detractors.
    Remember when Nate Diaz called him an instigator and vaguely suggested that he wouldn’t mind beating him up.

  7. 45 Huddle says:

    Michael Bisping says it best starting slightly after the 3 minute mark….

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qy_ghzqOM9w

    The best line is:

    “I finally get my chance on a level playing field with no steroids involved and look at this (shows belt).”

    Based on what we have seen since the UFC has been truly drug tested, can we really call any of the past fighters the best ever? We now know that a lot of the best success stories were steroid enhanced.

    • rst says:

      Thats an interesting argument.
      I’ve seen some people mention that he’s been on the wrong side of more then a few cheaters.

  8. Tradition Rules says:

    So Lesnar is facing Mark Hunt on his return.

    it’s funny, I told a friend of mine that Meant is coming back for one appearances at UFC 200 and we were discussing who we thought he should/would fight. I told my friend, “I’d love to see him fight Mark Hunt (so he’d get his block knocked off), but be will probably right someone like Shane Carson, who has been off for some time as well, but heard he is looking to make a return for the right opponent”….so I’m kind of giddy to hear that this will be his opponent.

    I’ve never wanted to see Mark Hunt get a KO victory so bad! 🙂

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