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Final heat-up for tonight’s Ultimate Fight Night event in Nashville
By Zach Arnold | March 31, 2009
Michael David Smith has a tale-of-the-tape on tonight’s UFC fight between Carlos Condit and Martin Kampmann. Josh Stein has a full show preview here. Here is the card line-up. There will be plenty of attention on the fact that Carlos Condit now trains in Arizona instead of New Mexico:
“I really had to take a step back and look where I wanted to go and what I wanted to do with my career,” Condit said. “I felt like I wasn’t improving anymore training there, and I really needed guys who were on my level to train with. So that was the bottom line for me.”
Vaughn sees it differently. “Do I think Carlos went out there and got into a better program at Arizona Combat Sports? Absolutely not. Does he have better training partners? Yeah, probably. But he had some good ones here too.”
While Vaughn can’t help but feel as if Condit’s new crew will reap the fruits of his efforts, he said the way in which Condit ended the relationship by e-mail instead of in person sent him into a “bit of a tailspin.”
The Arizona Republic has an article talking about the Arizona MMA contigent fighting on tonight’s Spike TV event. Ryan Bader, like Carlos Condit, says he is happy to be fighting from the bottom of the UFC ranks in hopes of climbing to the mountain top.
Tonight’s Nashville event is a lead-in to the new season of The Ultimate Fighter, with the USA vs. UK theme. However, don’t expect much heat between the two coaches (Michael Bisping & Dan Henderson):
As for the relationship between the two coaches, Bisping said he tried having a go at the laid-back Henderson but without too much success. Bisping, 30, and Henderson, 38, are slated to fight at UFC 100 this summer.
“I’ve got to fight the guy in July so a little bit of bad blood along the way doesn’t do any damage for me, when I’m training to fight somebody,” said Bisping. “But as I said, Dan’s a gentleman. I tried to push his buttons a few times. Maybe I’m the younger and slightly less mature out of the two. As I said, I tried but he didn’t really bite too much.”
Here is a profile article on one of the fighters on this season’s show, DaMarques Johnson from Utah.
Kelvin Hunt tries to look at the big picture in regards to The Ultimate Fighter. Dave Meltzer has a new article talking about the Junie Browning conundrum and how the expectations for TUF differs between Spike TV (more Junie Brownings & Monster Lobsters) and UFC (Forrest Griffin & Rashad Evans).
Topics: Media, MMA, UFC, Zach Arnold | 3 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
Wow, this is a bush league move even by “you’re either our ‘partners’ or our enemies” standards:
The UFC is blocking some fighter managers from even having backstage access to sit with their fighters before and after their fights: http://www.sherdog.com/news/articles/some-managers-agents-lose-backstage-pass-16813
The overcrowding point is a red herring argument that only serves to draw attention away from the fact that this move is just another in a long line of moves designed to separate fighters further and further from their managers.
Excerpt: “In addition to unreported locker room bonuses, fighter reps have told Sherdog.com that verbal contract extensions have taken place. One rep said his fighter was even presented with a written contract to sign without counsel advice before he could continue on with his duties that evening… Almost all the reps that Sherdog.com spoke to said they’d be comfortable with three licensed cornermen and one managerial figure allowed backstage, which is the setup the UFC and WEC approved until recently.”
Geez, UFC running a third tier event in Nashville against a World Cup qualifier (in Nashville). I’ll be watching the soccer (unless the game is stopped because of torrential downpours).
“Geez, UFC running a third tier event in Nashville against a World Cup qualifier (in Nashville).”
Seeing how soccer is bigger than the NFL in this country and that UFC cards have no talent worth watching, you are right. It is a terrible move by the UFC. All eyes will be on the kickball game tonight.