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Kevin Iole floats media trial balloon on Matt Lindland

By Zach Arnold | December 18, 2007

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On November 27th:

I don’t think the chances are good of Lindland returning to the UFC. Lindland’s not what I call an exciting fighter. I guess that’s what you happens when you’re stuck watching that pitiful Ravens offense for so long, you begin to think Lindland is exciting. And to say that Lindland would wipe the floor with Anderson Silva is like saying Kyle Boller is a better quarterback than Tom Brady. Lindland is one of the world’s elite middleweights and is one of the few 185-pounders who would have a shot to defeat Silva. It would be a highly competitive bout and neither guy would wipe the floor with the other.

On December 18th:

Lindland is one of the world’s five best middleweights, along with UFC champion Anderson Silva, Filho, Pride ex-champion Dan Henderson and UFC ex-champ Rich Franklin.

The middleweight division is clearly the UFC’s weakest and could use a quality challenger like Lindland.

Whatever his grievances are with Lindland, White owes it to the UFC’s fans to settle the dispute and bring “The Law” back to the UFC to fortify a lackluster division.

He used to be the master of the lay and pray. No longer. As for quality wins, how about two over Phil Baroni and victories over Pat Miletich, Travis Lutter, Jeremy Horn and Carlos Newton? That’s pretty impressive to me.

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

9 Responses to “Kevin Iole floats media trial balloon on Matt Lindland”

  1. El Samurai says:

    He calls Lindland one of the world’s elite middleweights in the first one and one of the top five middleweights in the world in the second. Wow, huge scandal there.

  2. dice says:

    “Lindland’s not what I call an exciting fighter.”

    “He used to be the master of the lay and pray. No longer.”

    uh, el samurai I don’t think thats what he is talking about. How you can read that and miss the entire point of this post is beyond me. It has nothing to do with Iole’s ranking of lindland in the division.(scandal? Not sure what you are talking about)

    Its seems like the first comment is trying to justify why the UFC isn’t/shouldn’t be pursuing lindland. Iole even goes as far to make an analogy (a terrible one) comparing lindland to the ravens offense (in terms of how un exciting they each are).

    The second seems like he is pushing for the UFC to sign Lindland to the weak middleweight division. It then goes on to state how lindland is no longer the “lay n pray” fighter he once was.

    Obviously the question is what has Lindland done different between the 2 contradicting comments? And the answer is NOTHING.

    I wonder if this has anything to do with the recent report that Dana met with Lindland…… no, I am sure there is no correlation.

  3. Well, Lindland certainly didn’t fight in that time period. He’s hot on Fedor’s trail for the title of longest run in the rankings without fighting at this point.

    I think you’re giving Iole way too much credit as an evil mastermind propagandist though.

  4. El Samurai says:

    This whole post justifies Denny Burkholder’s rant. The hardcores are always looking for some reason to create controversy or convolute some reason to get offended, no matter how flimsy the evidence.

    But to answer dice, compare Lindland’s matches in the UFC to his slugfests with Rampage and Jeremy Horn after he left, or the way he took it to Fedor before Fedor grabbed the ropes, and “He used to be the master of the lay and pray. No longer” doesn’t seem far-fetched at all.

  5. Ivan Trembow says:

    Is Lindland supposed to feel honored that Zuffa will talk to him? Or is Zuffa still not interested in him because, talent be damned, he’s too boring in their eyes? (which has not been true for a long time and shouldn’t be a company’s #1 deciding factor even if it were true)

    Zuffa is likely going to try to use the “sign with us or you’ll be irrelevant” approach that they have used on Fedor, Arlovski, and many others, with mixed results.

  6. Paul Horton says:

    Agreed Ivan. Lindland needs to sign with M-1 and start FIGHTING AGAIN. There are a good deal of quality 185lbs. fighters out there that he can have significant fights with and then M-1 could claim the #1 fighter at MW & HW (and potentially LW should the Yarennoka relationship continue).

  7. Zach Arnold says:

    This whole post justifies Denny Burkholder’s rant. The hardcores are always looking for some reason to create controversy or convolute some reason to get offended, no matter how flimsy the evidence.

    Iole is railing on Lindland as a boring fighter on 11/27:

    Lindland’s not what I call an exciting fighter.

    Less than a month later (12/18), he’s saying:

    He used to be the master of the lay and pray. No longer.

    The only variable that has changed within the last month for Matt Lindland is that he reportedly talked to Dana White at the WEC event (a story Iole is pushing now).

    You can’t expect readers not to notice these kinds of trends and/or contradictions.

  8. Ivan Trembow says:

    Can you imagine hearing, “The San Antonio Spurs have been removed from the NBA Playoffs because they are not exciting enough. Please pack up your bags and go back to San Antonio”? Of course not. But that exact kind of mentality is accepted in MMA all too often.

    (PS, regarding the spam-passing-word, you’ve got me on that one, I have no idea what mizark means, unless it’s some kind of variation on mark)

  9. klown says:

    Ivan, it’s a Snoop Doggization of mark.

  10. Chuck says:

    Yes Ivan, mizark is a variation of the term mark. It goes back to the carny days.

    Is Mr. Iole getting payed by Zuffa sports? Because if he isn’t, he has GOT to be the biggest “mizark” (you guys should have seen it coming) for UFC and Dana White ever. He’s even worse than Bob Ryder nutriding on TNA wrestling (Ryder is a TNA employee).

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