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Video interview: Antonio Rogerio Nogueira
By Zach Arnold | May 8, 2009
Topics: Brazil, Media, MMA, Zach Arnold | 14 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
I wonder why his brother is in the UFC but this Nogueira isn’t?
He hasn’t had a chance to recover from his rank-hurting loss to Sokoudjou and won’t be until he faces some Top 20 competition at 205. Unfortunately for him, all those guys are in the UFC.
I’d love to see Nogueira vs Griffin, Rampage, Jardine or even Liddell.
Vladdy was a great win, especially finishing him in the fashion that he did.
I’d love to see Lil Nog in the UFC too, since Affliction cards are so few and far between. I think him vs Tito would be excellent but it would never happen because I don’t think Tito would view him as a big enough marquee name.
Vlady wasn’t a great win, he’s been absolutely awful for awhile now (see Schonauer fight for reference)
I have no idea why they would be interviewing Rossen on MMA Live, he’s by far the worst writer sherdog has, and seeing as they have Loretta Hunt that’s ridiculous.
Woops, thought all that with MMA Live was one big post.
Whether you think he has looked good in recent years or not doesn’t take away from the fact that he’s a solid competitor who has only been stopped once (by Arlovski like 6 or so years ago.) This was only the 2nd time he’d ever been stopped.
I also thought it was impressive cuz while Big Nog has been a finisher, Lil Nog wasn’t ever much of a finisher, so to take out such a durable guy like Vladdy…yea it was a huge win.
I enjoy Rossens writing.
I dont understand why people have latched onto a dogging on him trend recently.
Probably because he’s a horrible writer who desperately tries to be as “edgey” as he can be, but does it about shit he doesn’t know anything about.
Case in point his latest story about Roy Jones Jr and Anderson Silva, he says Nick Diaz “was bounced out of the UFC for failing to deliver”, which is laughably wrong. Diaz was actually on a two fight win streak, both very good fights, and chose to leave the UFC on his own (with them wanting him to stay and offering contract extension) to join the Gracie fight league out of respect for Cesar. The Gracie league didn’t materialize and Cesar got him his fight with Gomi instead, and the rest is history.
Thats cool, to each their own.
Personally I find his more lyrical style an entertaining alternative to mechanically re-reciting the same few scraps of info everyday that every 2 bit MMA website will be dryly re-re-reciting as soon as it appears on one of them.
As far as that Diaz statement. I dont really find that to be entirely untrue, I’d call it exaggerated.
I was under the impression that Diaz left on good terms because although he’s an entertaining and talented fighter, he had pretty much stalled out in his weight class after a bunch of entertaining but losing efforts against contenders.
Josh Neer and Tibaux were enough to get him out there just to watch him fight and win. But they were not gonna make up for dropping to sherk, riggs, sanchez and parysian or to get him back in line for the belt within a year.
I dont really recall the gracie fight league, but if that was gonna happen I would think that it would have been local and small time for at least a year or two like strikeforce was. I dont see why that should have forced Diaz out of his UFC contract all by itself since apparently he fought on a ICFO show in between dropping to sherk and the neer/tibaux fights.
But I dont remember the details. In fact I dont remember very many details being available at the time. Although I suppose I might have been doing something else and missed them.
Rossen can be crass, even juvenile. And he’s not above exaggerating for effect. But I enjoy his identifiable and more personal writing voice.
Diaz had a offer from the The World Fighter that was supposedly around high 6 figures when he left the UFC. The promotion fell apart before doing anything but the contract he signed was (supposedly) bought out by EXC, who then constructed a lightweight division that they intending Diaz to control. Its a bit like the “Arlovski was a UFC washout” meme that people repeat. Arlovski won two fights and was the top contender, but everyone knew he was leaving for Affliction and much bigger money. The UFC gave him a fight with O’Brien (which he won) to see if they could stall his progress a little and he took O’Brien out inside the distance. Both guys left the UFC for the same reasons Bustamante, Penn, and Pulver all did.
Robthorn, I appreciate the civility, but what you say is wrong. Alan is also wrong with names, but still remembers the gist.
http://www.mmaontap.com/mma/entry/nick-diaz-signs-with-the-gracie-fighting-championships/
Diaz signed with Gracie Fighting Championships and turned down the UFC’s contract out of respect for Cesar. GFC failed to materialize its first show, so Cesar let him fight Gomi, then Pride folded and Cesar let Nick out of his contract to sign a non-exclusive EXC contract (who were offering more money)
So saying he “was bounced out for failing to deliver” is not ‘exagerrated’, it’s flat out WRONG.
If Rossen wants to do his little kid act of trying to be super edgey, he should at least do it with shit he knows what he’s talking about.
Its tough to find much about the World Fighter deal and Cesar Gracie but they’re basically the same thing. Here’s some copypasta from one of the pressers about what happened there:
http://cfzforums.com/topic/201963/1/
Alan, World Fighter and Gracie Fighting championships were/are not the same thing. World Fighter *was* a sham.
Gracie FC did materialize eventually, and they had their first show in mid 2007.
The easier way to remember this is that the first GFC event that was cancelled was when Diaz was first supposed to fight Thomas Denny, which he eventually did in EliteXC. It’s also the source of the extremely hilarious nickdiazshadowboxing.gif
I’m not arguing that it wasn’t a sham but the contract that ended up falling through ended up being enough for Nick Diaz to not sign an extension with the UFC. In the end he got a open contract with EXC that allowed him to fight over in Japan (though they later attempted to stop him from fighting in DREAM only to come up empty handed).
The base point we agree on: Nick Diaz wasn’t “cut” because he lost a lot, he left for more money somewhere else. People just say that because they’re lazy, and its sad that we have “journalists” doing it.
http://www.mmaontap.com/mma/entry/nick-diaz-signs-with-the-gracie-fighting-championships/
Thanks for the link.
Yeah I agree with both of you that saying he was “bounced out by the UFC” isn’t a fact based statement.
It always seemed apparent that he had left by his own accord considering that he was still popular and coming off back to back wins as you pointed out.
Whether or not his decision was made easier by him realizing that there was no upside for his career to continue with the UFC as a gatekeeper at that point, in addition to the alternative offers and his respect for ceaser only Diaz could say for sure.
But thats been my loose fan made theory.