« DREAM 4/29 Saitama card update (3/27) | Home | Cung Le beats Frank Shamrock in San Jose »
Leonard Garcia is in hot water with authorities
By Zach Arnold | March 28, 2008
The big story of the day is that WEC fighter Leonard Garcia has been arrested by police in a major cocaine trafficking ring that allegedly extended from Lubbock to El Paso, Texas.
- The Fight Network: Tim Sylvia may be set to announce he’s leaving UFC
- Sherdog: Nick Diaz speaks on CSAC
- The Long Beach Press-Telegram: Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira making a heavyweight impact
- The San Jose Mercury News: San Jose’s Cung Le developing into Strikeforce star
- The Canadian Press: Gary Shaw expects 15,000-17,000 paid for StrikeForce event
- The Record Online (NY): Chet Hardaway takes ultimate shot
- Reuters: NBC orders MMA series
- Reuters: Tito Ortiz enters ring for “Beatdown”
- The Sioux City Journal (Iowa): State House moves to tighten MMA regulations
- Bloody Elbow: Rampage Jackson beats up a blogger
- Steve Cofield: Kevin Iole talks boxing and MMA
- Fightlinker: Elite XC are scumbags
- Nightmare of Battle: More Lightweights added to Sengoku
- Adam Swift: Randy Couture litigation grows more complex
- The San Diego Union-Tribune: Cage-fight craze finds young fans nationwide
Topics: Japan, Media, MMA, StrikeForce, UFC, WEC, Zach Arnold | 23 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
So,
We know that Zuffa includes automated contract extensions and/or extended negotiating periods when a fighter is a title holder.
Is there the possibility that Tim Sylvia threw the fight with Nogueira to ensure that he could leave the organization?
Jeremy (not that Jeremy): that’s ridiculous. Crackpot conspiracy theories about Tim Sylvia “throwing” a fight (especially considering how hard and how often he was hitting Nogueira) are pretty pointless.
It’s not a conspiracy if it’s only one man.
Apparently, Cung Le is going to be appearing in a movie based on the Tekken fighting game franchise.
http://www.joystiq.com/2008/03/28/rumor-more-tekken-casting-details-emerge/
Oh, so you suppose Tim Sylvia hatched this plan all by himself? Did you see those messages he posted on his forum a month or so ago? The guy can’t even complete a thought.
So,
You admit that there is a conspiracy 😀
Is Monty his agent?
hahah
the trouble is, you’d know it was tim even in a trenchcoat with his hat pulled down low. he’d make a crap conspirator
I thought Tim Sylvia threw the fight too … didn’t make sense why Sylvia went down with Nog when he was winning on the feet. Then I saw a video showing in slow motion how Nog pulled Sylvia down. So now I’m willing to admit that Sylvia just got outclassed.
First, the phrases that I’m forced to type in to comment here are…not good. Mizark? Ugh.
Second, that any of you could watch that fight and assume that Sylvia purposely threw it is really embarrassing. Fightlinker, your post was a bit better since you implied that he might have displayed more reckless abandon than usual, which I’d say is true. But, with that being said, I honestly do not understand how anybody who watched that fight could assume he lost it on purpose.
And it was plain to see that Nogueira pulled guard. Slow-mo not needed.
You guys want to see a fighter throwing a fight? Watch Mark Coleman vs. Nobuhiko Takada at Pride 5 (Coleman “lost”). Now THAT was a proverbial “job”. Coleman literally let Takada grab his leg to give him a leg lock of sorts.
Ah Pride, we hardly knew ye…
Fightlinker thanks for the link to the Minotauro slow mo finish of Sylvia, that was amazing
the noguiera twins were a year away from getting a law degree?? maybe you guys should have him on the show and you can discuss legal issues
Tim Sylvia officially an idiot. He needed the UFC far more than it needed him, but I guess kudos to him if he was able to make more money to put away for himself later on in life.
You’d think he’d be pretty wary of signing with someone who hasn’t been able to produce 1 freakin’ event after promise upon promise that vanished into thin air. Even if he’s making more per fight, he needs to fight to collect.
M-1 now has 2 Heavyweights, Sylvia & Rothwell who can’t fight each other.
And so much for Monte Cox not using his signed fighters in crooked ways.
Cox looks liek scum when that was announced.
It’s Adrenaline MMA now. Not M-1.
Who wants to see Fedor vs. Sylvia now? The partisan UFC crowd on here was saying that Sylvia would beat Fedor in a fight. Now is our chance to finally see this fight. If Fedor signs with DREAM or Affliction, they wouldn’t have a problem with co-promoting one match with Adrenaline MMA to have Fedor vs Sylvia. Whats the prediction on this fight? I predict a Fedor submission third round.
Heavyweights have historically been the weakest division in all of MMA. I question Cox’s reason for building his new promotion off the backs of heavyweights. At least get Arlovski rather than Sylvia. Bad move.
Nobody wants to see Sylvia VS Fedor. Sylvia is a 1-dimensional fighter with no ground game (and no kicking game either). It would just be an extended version of Fedor VS a Giant. I’m sure Fedor and his cronies would love this fight as well.
Quality heavyweights have always been more scarce than 155-205. That’s true. The heavyweight division still has a great batch of fighters though. Fedor, Nogueira, Couture, Sylvia, Arlovski, Werdum, Barnett, Cro Cop, Aleks. How can you argue with names like that? The UFC heavyweight division is weak but you have a lot of great heavyweights out there still.
Nogueira was good so why wouldn’t Sylvia vs Fedor be? Sylvia isn’t boring when he fights someone that ends up beating him (ie. Nogueira). And Fedor will sub him in impressive fashion just like Nogueira did.
I mean Nogueira vs Sylvia was good
I would argue that Sylvia’s fight with Nogueira was boring. I mean, what is Syvlia’s game plan for every single fight now? Jab, jab, jab. He uses his size advantage to jab his opponents to death. If they can take him off his game plan (which, I admit is quite difficult), he’s history.
His size will cause great difficulties for anyone, but once he’s on the ground, he’s the same as HMC. Fedor would take the fight easily once they’re on the ground. However, it would be interesting to see how Fedor attempts to take Tim to the ground since Tim has a far better sprawl. Will Fedor even take such a fight? I doubt it, judging from his history.
Another thing with these new promotions is that they aren’t really full-fledged promotions like the UFC. These promotions are more like contract-holding companies where they cross-promote by lending their fighters to other promotions. I am not questioning the merit of it, but I think this will hurt the “story lines” and “rivalries” which the UFC have done so well with.
I still think Fedor/Sylvia would be a good fight, but after watching Nogueira submit him, I question Sylvia’s chances. I thought his ground game had improved more then it had.
If you look at the UFC in the last 2 years, they really only have a hard time holding onto the Heavyweights. With the exception of Tito Ortiz, who has the head the size of a Light Heavyweight, they have a good history of signing back their top talent.
For some reason, Heavyweights just think they are worth more then they are. The sad thing is that a lot of these companies who are really just signing a few top guys, will mostly faulter in the long run. Heavyweights are too boring, and they don’t have enough good talent to smooth out the undercards that MMA fans are use to seeing.
Fedor has fought some of the best heavyweights in the world and has the best all-time record at heavyweight bar none. He beat Nogueira, the current UFC champ, twice. Why would he not take a fight with Sylvia?
And the reason why heavyweights are expensive is because historically, quality heavyweights are more rare than in the other four weight classes. But how can you not like watching the great heavyweights of MMA? (except for Sylvia since he is boring) Fedor, Nogueira, Couture, Sylvia, Arlovski, Werdum, Barnett, Cro Cop, Aleks. That’s not a weak list. Is anyone going to argue that this isn’t quality? Then you have prospects like Big Foot, Rothwell. Just because the UFC doesn’t have a monopoly on the world’s greatest heavyweights anymore (which no doubt pisses off those with a partisan UFC slant) doesn’t mean that the division is dead.
There’s a lot of quality to be had at heavyweight but cross-promotion is needed to pull this thing off. Even the UFC has to cave in. Nogueira doesn’t have many options right now. The UFC better butter up to Arlovski because they’re left with Werdum, Herring and Mir. Not exactly a star-studded roster.
DREAM has an opportunity to profit off the UFC’s misfortunes at Heavyweight.
– They already have Cro Cop
– Sign Fedor
– Sign Aleks
– Do a co-promotion with HDNet Fights for Couture when he’s free from Zuffa. Zach Arnold has already said that marketing a fight between a “UFC Champion” and a “PRIDE Champion” would be a draw in Japan.
– Sign Barnett if he’s not exclusive with WVR. If not, do a co-promotion with them.
– Do a co-promotion with AdrenalineMMA to bring in Tim Sylvia.
– Sign Arlovski. You can’t go wrong with a metrosexual werewolf gaijin.
They could also enter all these guys into a HW GP in 2009 along with the Japanese heavyweights. Ask EliteXC if they want to lend Antonio Silva and Kimbo Slice (lol) for good measure! This would be awesome.
I just don’t understand where you are coming from. There is nothing about the Heavyweights that I can’t find in another division of MMA.
In Heavyweight Boxing, as much as the division stinks, there is always the chance for the BIG KO. That is what attracts the fans to Peters & the Klitschkos & others.
That element just isn’t there in Heavyweight MMA. There aren’t a lot of big KO’s. The action on Television appears to be exactly like the Light Heavyweights, only that it is slower and more one dimensional.
And if you breakdown the Top 20 Heavyweights in MMA, it is the worst list compared to any division in the sport. No division is as weak.
At the end of the day, these big guys might be the “best in the world”, but they are extremely boring and have never been able to sell tickets for the UFC like the LHW and WW’s have. So their demands for big paychecks are just BS.
The heavyweights aren’t that bad. Just look at the list of guys I put out. How can you not want to see some of those guys fight? In PRIDE, the most popular weight classes were heavyweight and middleweight (205). And yet the heavyweight division sucks? Welterweight (183) and lightweight (161) didn’t really catch on too much with Japanese fans unless KID was fighting. They had Sakuraba fight bigger dudes than him so often for a reason.