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Joe Rogan’s thoughts on UFC’s schedule in May; fight between Forrest Griffin-Antonio Rogerio Nogueira called off
By Zach Arnold | May 3, 2010
(Update 5/4): TMZ often irritates me to visit, but they sure seem plugged into the UFC world for news. They broke the news that Forrest Griffin is off the 5/29 Las Vegas show due to a shoulder injury. Wait until TMZ Sports comes out later this year…
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April 30th, 2010: As I writing up this third and final article on the interview that Joe Rogan did with Josh Gross, I turned on the television and there I saw the start of the Countdown to UFC 113 special on Spike TV. I thought to myself, what the heck? Then I realized, May 9th is around the corner and UFC has a big show in Montreal.
Here is how UFC laid out the advertising for their upcoming May events:
- 5/8 in Montreal: Kimbo, Josh Koscheck vs. Paul Daley got top billing on the Countdown show, Shogun vs. Machida was second billing.
- 5/29 in Las Vegas: Rampage vs. Evans gets majority of publicity, semi-main event being pushed is Forrest Griffin vs. Antonio Rogerio Nogueira
In watching the Countdown show, I thought the build-up for Shogun vs. Machida II was interesting. Zuffa had each camp come into a studio and they watched the Los Angeles fight on tape and commented on it. Machida’s camp, including his brother and his father, were in uniforms. Shogun’s camp, including his trainer, were in fight shorts. The dichotomy between the two camps was very clear. Shogun’s camp was relaxed, loose, but aggressive and emotional and ready to get to work. Machida’s camp looked very reserved, disciplined, and angry about being second-guessed in regards to the judges’ decision that allowed Machida to keep the belt.
I’m not sure what my initial read is on the re-match as far as a) who will win and b) if there will be strong fan interest in Montreal. Without St. Pierre or Chuck Liddell on the Montreal card, I wonder if the show will remain a sell-out by fight time or if scalpers will be looking to unload tickets. As a fight fan and as a writer, I’m very much looking forward to this re-match. But I’m also not a casual fan, so I’m not sure how strong the demand will be for this fight.
For Shogun, the big question going into this fight is whether or not he should employ the same strategy as he did in the first fight. For Machida, will be there any second guessing? Rogan gave his take on both of those questions in his interview with Josh Gross of Sports Illustrated.
“It all depends on what sort of approach Lyoto takes. I think Shogun’s approach is going to be the same because I think it was very effective, you know, I think kick the legs. I personally believe one of the things about Lyoto is that people have a hard time dealing with his style, it’s a very unusual style. The timing is different, the distance is different, but I don’t think it’s the most effective style. I think stylistically I think as far as effective and striking, I think Muay Thai is a more effective style and I think Lyoto really hadn’t faced a guy who is as proficient in Muay Thai as he is in karate until he fought Shogun and Shogun is just as efficient in Muay Thai, if not better, and I think it’s a better style. I think the way he fights, you know the high guard, kept Lyoto from launching those fencing-like punches that he likes to do, he likes to you know run in and blast with punches and with the way Shogun was holding his hands he kept a lot of those from landing and I think Shogun just constantly attacking the legs you know took away a lot of his base, took away a lot of his ability to move. I think when they had exchanges Shogun landed the cleaner punches, you know I think that’s, you know that’s what he wants to do in the second fight. What is, you know, Lyoto going to do different? That’s going to be what’s going to be interesting about it. He might try to take him down. He might try to switch things up, I mean, I don’t know. I’m really curious as to what Lyoto does to deal with the style of Shogun, but if I was in Shogun’s corner I would say just treat this like it’s, you know, round six and just go at him exactly the same way.”
I mentioned earlier in this article that the fight that got top billing on the Countdown show was Josh Koscheck vs. Paul Daley. The promoters all but said that this was a #1 contender’s bout and that the winner would get Georges St. Pierre. The hype show put over Koscheck as some what of a UFC super star in the same leagues as Chuck Liddell, Randy Couture, and Tito Ortiz in terms of the amount of wins that he has gotten while fighting under the UFC promotional banner. Meanwhile, a lot of promo time was given to Paul Daley. Daley was constantly swearing left and right and getting bleeped out. Crass, but I’m sure he did his job in giving his fight against Koscheck the added juice to make casual fans want to see the fight. One thing that should be noted is that after all the trouble Frank Mir got in for telling Mark Madden that he wanted Brock Lesnar to be the first fighter in UFC to die due to “Octagon related injuries” that Daley said right on camera that he wanted to “kill this mother******” and was quoting from the Mike Tyson documentary movie. So Mir ends up losing his WEC gig and getting told to shut up for what he said but Daley said what he said on the TV special and Zuffa didn‘t apparently have any problems with it.
Koscheck, for the most part, was true to himself on the hype show and said that if Daley hated him, then he hated Daley as well. We all know what the story going into this fight is — if Koscheck takes Daley down, he will finish him. If Daley keeps it standing, he will spectacularly knock out Koscheck and make a big name for himself in UFC.
Joe Rogan thinks that all the talk about Koscheck wanting to have a stand-up with Paul Daley is crazy.
“Koscheck is saying he’s going to stand with him. I mean, he did stand with Anthony Johnson but you know Paul Daley is a different guy, you know he’s very good standing up. And one of the things though about Koscheck though being such a great wrestler is I don’t think we’re going to see as many kicks from Daley so if they trade punch-for-punch you know I think you know Koscheck is a very fast guy, he’s very athletic, and just threat of his takedowns might allow him to be able to get off some shots while Daley’s head is in it to throw. You know, but ultimately it’s probably not the best strategy for him to stand in front of him. If Josh Koscheck wants to take Paul Daley to the ground, you know that’s definitely his best option and it’s a very intriguing match-up, you know. I mean, Koscheck’s been stopped before, he’s been nailed before, you know, Drew Fickett got him, of course Paulo Thiago got him, you know he’s been clipped. He got dropped by Thiago Silva and Paul Daley is probably the biggest, most powerful striker that he’s ever faced, you know whether or not Paul Daley can stuff the takedown I think that’s the big question. If Koscheck takes him to the ground, Daley’s going to be in big trouble you know as we saw in the fight when he fought Jake Shields you know he can definitely be submitted. He fights it off well and he’s been working very hard on his submission defense but at the end of the day you know that’s simply not his forte. He likes to stand and bang.”
Coming up on the May 29th card in Las Vegas is the long-awaited fight between Rampage Jackson and Rashad Evans, a fight that was supposed to happen last December at the FedEx Forum in Memphis — Rampage’s old stomping grounds. Instead, Rampage went off to go film the A-Team movie and was reportedly disgruntled about money issues between him and UFC management. Rampage bailing on the FedEx Forum show drew a lot of heat because his fight versus Rashad would have drawn big business there. It forced UFC to put BJ Penn vs. Diego Sanchez there and luckily for UFC, BJ Penn drew big all the way around and saved the show from being a financial disaster. The Rampage/Evans fight should do fine business-wise in Las Vegas, but both men have a lot of issues going into this fight. For Rampage, it’s ring rust and weight. For Rashad, it’s shaking off the loss to Machida and forgetting about the last round of his fight against Thiago Silva last January. Rogan says this fight will be easy for fans to warm up after the delayed scheduling.
“I’m interested. First of all I love a good feud, you know, and these guys, this is definitely a grudge match. Both of these guys do not like each other. The amount of trash talk those guys engaged in when they were coaching was just legendary, it was epic. I don’t think we’ve ever seen it taken to that level before where they got in each other’s face and literally went forehead-to-forehead you know, ‘Treat me like a bitch! Treat me like a bitch!’ You know all that craziness where it looked like any moment in time it could break out into a fight. One of the issues is Rampage was really big when I saw him when we were in Australia, he was around like 250 pounds so he has a lot of weight to lose so I think a big amount of his camp is going to be focused on dropping that weight. Of course, you know, he also spent a lot of time not training because he was doing the A-Team movie. So, you know, it’ll be interesting to see how that effects him. Rashad had that victory over Thiago Silva, looked pretty good in that fight until he got clipped in the last round and you know Rampage has been saying that he doesn’t think Rashad can take a punch and you know the problem with that is that Rampage punches really, really hard, so I think the big question will be can Rampage avoid being taken down by Rashad, you know, is Rashad going to employ the same type of strategy that he used in the Thiago Silva, sort of the GSP strategy, you know mixing up the strikes with the takedowns more. I think after the Chuck Liddell fight I think Rashad was being a little bit too predictable, he was trying to stand with guys a little bit too much. I think he just got a little bit too happy with his power and his stand-up after knocking out Chuck and you know it certainly cost him in the Machida fight. I think I was really curious to see how the Rashad Evans-Machida fight would go because I thought it would be one of the first times that we would see Machida on his back. I thought Rashad was going to certainly take him down or at least attempt to take him down and when Rashad stood in front of him, you know it proved to be disastrous. I think Rampage is a really, big powerful 205 and I think Rashad if he wanted to could fight at 85. There’s no way Rampage can make 85. I think Rashad could make it. I think it’s a tricky fight. I think for Rashad, the most important thing is try to get Rampage to the ground, try to control him there, work some ground-and-pound, try to be really unpredictable. And for Rampage, just get in front of Rashad and blast him. I think that’s the key to him in this fight. I don’t think we’re going to see Rampage shooting for any takedowns or trying to clinch. I think he’s just going to try to blast him. I think he’s just going to try to you know get him, lure him into exchanges and try to KO him.”
The fight marketed in the semi-main slot of the card is Forrest Griffin vs. Antonio Rogerio Nogueira. The elephant in the room that some want to ignore is the future of Griffin’s career should be lose to Little Nogueira. It was painful to watch all the footage of Anderson Silva destroying Forrest Griffin during the non-stop hype specials that Comcast aired repeatedly to hype up the UFC 112 Abu Dhabi event.
Rogan says that win or lose, Griffin’s job security is fine but that he needs to win to get back into the title mix at Light Heavyweight.
“I think he’s one of those guys like Stephan Bonnar that will never be kicked out of the UFC as long as he wants to compete I think Dana will find fights for him. I think [Dana] feels a tremendous debt of gratitude to those guys or owes them because of their initial fight on The Ultimate Fighter in the finals was just one of the most important fights in Mixed Martial Arts history and the other thing is that Forrest has always been willing to fight anybody at any time and Dana loves that, he likes him as a person and you know Dana you know if he likes you he takes care of you. I don’t think as far as his career goes, it’s the end of him in the UFC. If he loses this fight, I think he’ll still be OK. But it’s a big fight for him as far as his career goes as far as his hopes at title contention, his hopes at staying in the mix, and a very dangerous fight. The interesting thing about this fight is that he himself has said that this is a terrible fight for him. He himself has said that he you know seen Rogerio’s style, he’s spent some time you know watching it. I believe he’s trained with Minotauro but I don’t know if he’s trained with Little Nog but you know Nogueira has big power in his left hand, he’s got a real unorthodox southpaw style, Brazilian jiu-jitsu black belt, tough-as-nails, you know and we saw in the fight with Luiz Cane I mean, who expected that? Luiz Cane, a lot of people thought of him as a dark horse in contention for the 205 pound title, that you know he was going to one of the guys to look out for and man, Rogerio just ran him over, I mean really surprised by that. So, I think it’s a dangerous, dangerous fight for Forrest. Rogerio has the power, he’s got much more power than Forrest, you know Forrest has never been the guy known to knock guys out with one shot, Rogerio’s capable of doing that. Rogerio’s stand-up is a little bit better than Forrest’s. You know Rogerio, especially you know you see in the fight with Shogun, he dropped Shogun in PRIDE. His stand-up is wicked. The Luiz Cane fight just showed that even more and his Brazilian jiu-jitsu ground game, it’s outstanding. He’s a high-level black belt so it’s a real dangerous fight for Forrest. Forrest is as tough as nail and he always come to fight and if he’s got an opening he’s going to take it, it’s just in what area does he excel over Rogerio? Not really on the ground and not really in the stand-up.”
May will prove to be as busy, if not busier than April for MMA activity. UFC has two big shows (5/8 Montreal and 5/29 Las Vegas). Strikeforce has a semi-major show in St. Louis on 5/15. DREAM has a do-for-die event on 5/29 at Saitama Super Arena that could determine the future of the promotion. There are also other independent MMA shows including a fight between former Strongman Mariusz Pudzianowski and Tim Sylvia in Worcester, Massachusetts in mid-May along with the Shine Fights promotion having Din Thomas vs. Ricardo Mayorga on 5/15 in a “MMA vs. Boxer” themed contest.
Topics: Media, MMA, UFC, Zach Arnold | 26 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
The big take away from the countdown show was how much they hyped up Koscheck. Personally, I would love to see a rematch between him and GSP. The first fight was very close.
You forgot about Kimbo. He is the man to bring in the casual fans. The event will do very well. I think 500,000 buys.
GSP vs. Kos was close???
Round one was pretty even, with neither fighter doing any damage. Rounds 2 and 3 were not remotely close. They were “standard” GSP domination.
I would be happy to see a rematch, enough time has gone by to make the masses believe that Kos has a chance in the rematch. You could even go along with the “Kos is the last person to take a round from GSP” even though it’s not true. Not that GSP did anything in round 1 to warrant winning the round, neither did Kos. In fact GSP was in top position for probably double the time that Kos was…. again with little to zero damage done.
Koscheck was one tackdown away from winning that fight.
Care to explain your logic?
GSP totally dominated rounds 2 and 3, both on the feet and on the ground.
How could you possibly say the fight was close or that 1 Koscheck take down would have changed the result???
On previous Countdown shows the main event was shown first, for this one it was Kimbo – Koschek – Machida:Rua
“Top billing” was Kimbo-Mitrione.
Good writeup. I can’t watch those countdown shows anymore cuz it gets so tiring having Rogan & Dana tell me how every fight is amazing and everyone is world class/devastating. Take those guys out of the mix and I’ll watch again.
Fabulous @ only letting porn dudes comment on the porn article?!
Forrest getting injured is the best thing that ever happened to him, because lil Nog would have embarrassed him, and probably would have ended his run as a main-eventer or co-main eventer.
Kos v GSP was competitive, but I wouldn’t call it very close.
I’d prefer to see Kos rather than just about anybody else – his striking is vastly improved and he is also improved as an all-around fighter.
Granted GSP has obviously been improving just the same, if not more, in terms of developing and perfecting his fighting style – but at least Kos’ wrestling ability will keep GSP honest and maybe make him show some of his striking abilities again…plus he might be the type of opponent that GSP wants to finish because he’s a dangerous guy to allow to play things a little safer and allow to stay in the fight for 5 rounds.
Shields and Anderson Silva are the best potential welterweight opponents by some distance. GSP has already taken down Koscheck at will before, and will probably do so again.
Oh sure, those two guys are probably “better”, but what are the chances we’ll actually see those fights happen? I guess Shields actually isn’t that big of a pipe dream given the current situation…but I really don’t think Shields is any great deal better than Kos and his striking/striking defence is pitiful.
Didn’t take him down at will at all. In fact he got slammed on his head in the first round. Koscheck is probably the best opponent for him at WW. Just because Shields took down Hendo at will does not mean he would be close with GSP. I think Anderson would be sucked too dry at WW to compete with GSP.
If Koscheck finished the Double leg in the third round of their first fight it would have been very close on the score cards.
GSP is tied to TUF, which is why Shields won’t happen even though he’d obviously sign if that fight was booked for October. Anderson won’t happen because of internal politics. Apparently having the best fighters under one roof doesn’t guarantee the best fights. SHOCKAH.
While I think Lil Nog would probably tool on Forrest, I have to give Forrest some credit – injured/new rules&cage/whatever – he took out Shogun and he’s taken down Rampage…so I won’t act like it’s a cake walk for Minotoro here by any means.
Forrest is still one of the biggest 205’ers and as evidenced against Shogun, wrestling is probably one of the biggest holes in Lil Nog’s game. That’s basically what ended up winning that epic fight for Rua.
Forrest beat Shogun in name only. The guy who Forrest fought was not the Shogun who ran roughshod in Pride and then looked healthy and fantastic in his fights with Liddell and Machida. Forrest beat Shogun in the same way that Trevor Berbick beat a 40 year old Ali–in both cases, shells of themselves. The difference is that Shogun’s decline was because of injury (and we can clearly judge how he looks when healthy) while Ali’s decline was because of age, and there is no recovery from that.
Rampage came into his fight against Forrest fat and out of shape and looked like he hadn’t trained at all. He still won the fight in the eyes of many.
I’m not bringing this up because I don’t like Forrest or disagree with your point, I just think Forrest’s 2 best wins came when his opponents were nowhere near 100%. Is that Forrest’s fault? No. He won fair and square, but I don’t think those fights are good measuring sticks for where he is as a fighter in terms of his likelihood of success.
I agree lil Nog’s wrestling is his weak spot, but I think Shogun has better takedowns than most people give him credit for, and probably a lot better than Forrest’s. Forrest is just severely lacking in speed. It is hard to make up for that, especially against a guy like lil Nog who is a slick boxer and a southpaw (if I recall correctly).
Forrest beat the real Shogun. The same Shogun who was gassed against Little Nogueira less then 5 minutes into their fight. The guy has never shown a great gas tank. Fighting a guy who was so much bigger then him naturally and could take his punch just made it more obvious.
Griffin had one bad fight against Silva. And people are writting him off because of it….
That’s pretty trite…Shogun lasted a full 25 minutes when he trashed Machida, so I don’t think the Shogun that fought Machida is the same guy that fought Griffin (for various reasons), but I digress.
My main point was Griffin DID beat these guys and he does have a lot of size, pretty good wrestling and is durable. I still think Lil Nog has improved a lot and has really tightened up his striking…everyone was creaming over Banha and his “awesome striking” and he f#ckin’ lit him up like a Christmas tree. And he seemed to be able to handle a wrestler like the Janitor pretty well too.
It would have been interesting, but I guess we’ll have to wait on it.
LOL at Shogun against Lil Nog being the same one against Forrest. What a joke. Forrest can’t take a punch, btw. Perhaps you didn’t see Jardine KO him, or Rampage drop him, or Rashad KO him, or Anderson KO him. Chins fade the more punishment we take, and Forrest’s fighting style doesn’t lend itself to longevity.
Those 25 minutes against Machida were extremely slow paced.
Shogun has never been a cardio machine.
Funny how quick people are to make excuses whenever a former Pride guy losses, what is it about fighting in Japan that makes people want to defend these guys with every excuse in the book?.
The facts are Forrest fought and dominated both Shogun and Rampage who were both huge favorites over him. I had him beating Lil’ Nog who has become vastly overated as most guys who used to fight in Pride have when they came to the UFC and got exposed. Hopefully this fight will happen down the line, but anybody counting out Forrest with his track record and resume is foolish.
Yes – saying that someone who had multiple ACL injuries and surgeries was not at his 100% former fighting level/abilities…a fighter that we’ve actually seen fighting at that previous level/ability again (against the unbeatable champion no less) is just apologists making excuses.
Back under the bridge bro.
I really wish they would have had “Bones” Jones step up and take this fight rather than Jason Brilz.
In fact I don’t think a fight between Lil Nog and Jones would even be close…
As a huge Josh Koscheck fan, I am very happy he is now getting a honest, legit, no foolin’, we swear this time chance at a title shot for once. He won’t beat GSP obviously, but it’s about time they stopped Indian giving him title shots.
This will be a test of Kimbo’s drawing power. I’ve said before I believe most of his fans are very young so while they make for great television ratings, will their mommies and daddies let the buy a pay per view? We’ll see. But certainly his quality of opponent is never going to matter, because people want to see Kimbo fights for Kimbo.
They did as about as good of a selljob on Machida-Shogun II as you can. The first fight was awful, the lure of the rematch is more “will the judges be better” than “what can they do differently” since it’s clear they won’t do anything differently.
Really? I missed what line apparently. Was it the one about winning a title while suffering from gonorrhea? Well, the strain is stronger in Europe after all……Or so I’m told. *AHEM*.
They did’nt really have a choice, they were not going to bring in one of their top up and comers like Bader or Jones and have them possibly lose because they only had 25 days notice.
I just do not feel that is enough time to peak for what would be the biggest fight of your career. You know how fickle MMA fans are, a loss would see them being exposed or whatever and it would take them a good while to shake that off.
from maxboxing.com
Don King Productions has become aware that an entity known as Shine Fight Promotions recently announced their intention to present a match showcasing former three-time world champion Ricardo “El Matador” Mayorga.
Don King Productions has a valid promotional contract granting the right of exclusive representation of Ricardo Mayorga and has advised Shine Fight Promotions accordingly.
Shine Fight Promotions’ conduct constitutes tortious interference with Don King Productions’ agreement with Ricardo Mayorga, and Don King Productions has requested they immediately cease and desist promoting Ricardo Mayorga at one of their events to avoid the need for legal action in this matter .