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UFC 112 reflections – quotes and links
By Zach Arnold | April 11, 2010
Dana White’s message to the media:
Just saw some of the media talking about things I say on twitter, lol! If you media pussies don’t like it then STAY OFF MY TWITTER!!!
My quotes and links notebook
- Frankie Edgar’s win over BJ Penn has everyone stunned (plus Dana talks to Fedor)
- The end of the line for both Matt Hughes & Renzo Gracie
- Anderson Silva sees nothing wrong with his fight performance
The notebook articles contains quotes and comments from all the fighters (except for Penn).
Event results:
- Jon Madsen defeated Mostapha Al-Turk after 3R by JD.
- Paul Kelly defeated Matt Veach in R2 in 3’42 with a guillotine choke.
- DaMarques Johnson defeated Brad Blackburn in R3 in 2’08 by TKO.
- Rick Story defeated Nick Osipczak after 3R by JD.
- Phil “Mr. Wonderful” Davis defeated Alexander Gustafsson in R1 in 4’55 with an Anaconda Choke.
- Mark Munoz defeated Kendall Grove in R2 in 2’50 by TKO.
- Rafael Dos Anjos defeated Terry Etim in R2 in 4’30 with an armbar.
Matt Hughes defeated Renzo Gracie in R3 in 4’40 by TKO.
- The National: Hughes plays waiting game in triumph
UFC Lightweight Title match: Frankie Edgar defeated BJ Penn after 5R by JD to win the belt. (50-45, 48-47, 49-46 scores.)
- The Honolulu Advertiser: BJ Penn has no answer for Frankie Edgar
- USA Today: Stats point to Penn edging out Edgar at UFC 112
- The National: Edgar provides the answer to take belt from BJ Penn
UFC Middleweight Title match: Anderson Silva defeated Demian Maia after 5R by JD. (50-45 twice, 49-46.)
- Michael David Smith: Anderson Silva should move to heavyweight
- Simon Head (The Mirror): Silva’s antics take the shine off of UFC 112
- Gareth Davies: Is Anderson Silva being moved and stripped of his title?
- Mike Fagan: Where are the pitchforks for Dana White’s booking?
- Gregg Doyel (CBS Sports): I want a refund and I want Anderson Silva to write me the check
- The National: Anderson wins but fans unimpressed with Silva patter
The National ran with the UFC event as the major headline and story for their Sunday newspaper.
Topics: Media, MMA, UFC, Zach Arnold | 13 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
Two UFC events in a row where the champion (and top 3 P4P fighter) was booed by the crowd in the 5th round.
MMA is becoming/has become boxing in the 1990s.
The champions fight super conservative, when they actually fight, and you have decisions left and right. The fights everyone wants to see don’t happen. Often the best action is the promoters/managers fighting in the press and in courts. Guys retire and do other things as leverage in contract negotiations or to avoid each other. Promoters run watered down events too often. Most of the time it’s the champ vs some hyped up bum. The articles in the press start being more about who is suing who and what would it take for some fight to happen that everyone wants to see (Lewis/Bowe, Fedor/various UFC guys) and less about actual upcoming fights. All the while outside the Belmont rarer and rarer big fights TV, PPV and live gate audiences gradually get smaller and smaller.
The sad thing is boxing had a glorious 80 year run as one of the premiere sporting events before the 1990s. MMA has done good business in the US for just shy of five years.
1. “The fights everyone wants to see don’t happen.” – This is false. The UFC holds about 85% of the top talent. The problem is that no matter who is fighting in Strikeforce, people over-hype them because they are a champion with a win streak and then say they want to see that person fight the UFC Champion. When in true rankings reality, it’s not even a fight that should be made. Just hardcore fans wanting to complain about something they know isn’t going to happen.
2. The Fedor Drama is because of Fedor’s camp. Nothing more, nothing less. Blame the MMA Media for hanging on his every word while he helps hurt multiple companies with his horrible demands. The most boxing element about MMA today is M-1. And the UFC has refused to deal with it in that nature. So I think that is a positive sign. In any other sport, the media would have bashed Fedor, removed him from the rankings, and laughed off his demands. So blame the fan base and media, not the guys running the sport like White and Fertitta.
3. “The champions fight super conservative.” Don’t confuse Anderson Silva acting like a child with a few boring title fights. People see Machida/Rua, and then forget the last LHW Title fight before that was Machida/Evans, which was a barnburner. Cycles have always happened in MMA. We have a bunch of champions coming off huge layoffs, which is without question a partial reason for these more conservative performances. But to claim it is like boxing bow after such a short time period of it is comical.
4. The UFC is running too many events. Too many PPV’s. They have let international expansion get in the way of their good cards. They really need to put the Feather & Bantam weight classes in the UFC before they put on more cards. You can’t expect people to buy Couture/Coleman and then be happy afterwards. Same with putting on so many pay cards in a 6 month span.
1. It’s not just interpromotional fights, though of course everyone would like to see Mousasi and Fedor against the UFC’s top guys in their divisions. There’s also this business about guys not wanting to fight people in their own camps that robs of a lot of good fights. And everyone would like to see GSP/Anderson, but that’s not happening either. Generally, it seems to me that it’s even harder to get big fights in MMA than it is in boxing because of all these dumb little rules.
2. Complete bull, of course. You have two parties trying to negotiate the best deal for themselves, which has led them into conflict. There’s no way in hell that the press would take the promoter’s side there. How often does the press take the promoter’s side over the fighter’s in boxing?
3. Eh. Seems to me like there has been a lot more conservative fighting by the top guys, but I don’t know if it’s really true or not.
4. Agreed.
1. Mousasi knows exactly how to get into the UFC. Ask Jake Shields. He is finishing up his contract to make it a reality. So simple.
2. Fedor and his management had problems with Pride. Are suing Affliction. Have problems with Strikeforce. Can’t come to terms with the UFC. They are the common entity in all of this stuff.
3. A short term change does not equal a trend….
The BJ/Edgar fight pretty much stunk too that isn’t talked about because of the silva fight. GSP hasn’t had an interesting fight since he got the bel back and BJs fights have been so so.
This is exactly what happened to boxing. These title fights get hyped up and then the champ doesn’t want to fight and the audience gets burned.
UFC hasn’t had a really good main event in months.
MMA and boxing have nothing and will continue to have nothing in common as long as the UFC is on top. Trying to lump in GSP and Anderson Silva is even more wrong, GSP is a true champion and sportman that dominates his division and doesn’t let his ego get in the way. While the other guy wants to be a big time draw but basically has let his ego ruin him and his prospects as a draw. Also the idea that boxing had 80 glorious years is delusional, boxing since the beginning has had more dark clouds surrounding it than mma has had since it was created.
Bad things happen in boxing for sure. But the sport was on top for 80 years. Big gates, big press coverage, highlights on movie reels major authors writting about the stars, etc.
Point is MMA hasn’t even sniffed the success of boxing and the snakes are already tearing it down like boxing current version.
It was and is inevitable. It will likely not get better before it gets much worse either. At this point, any loss of fans will be blamed on the “sport” and the UFC will likely only retract further into the “entertainment”, with all the negatives that come with for doing so in their business (contract disputes, promotional conflicts, bad fights, etc etc etc). Mix in lots of scrubby promoters, and what do you have?
I am trying not to say anything anymore because I’m not sure I have anything good to say. Its not all bad, but its not at all interesting to me anymore. I’d rather post about how Berto looked fighting Saturday night. At least then we’re talking about the fights.
He looked great, but do you think Quintana is actually still a quality opponent. I was hoping to see Berto in an actual test like he had against Collazo( which i still think he lost ). Maybe Quintana is really being hurt by the weight cut, but he definately didnt look good.
And I do think Matt Hughes and Renzo Gracie are added to the list of fighters that should be retired. Senior MMA division is a bad idea.
Felt like I was back in the 90s. How does Matt Hughes outstrike/knock out anyone much less systematically destroy them on the feet? Very weak opponent is how.
Renzo was catching him early. Then… leg kicks.