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« | Home | »

Bas Rutten ranks Alistair Overeem as the #1 Heavyweight in MMA

By Zach Arnold | October 5, 2010

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Article of the day: Tim Rindlisbacher of the Cleveland Clinic in Toronto has a great, thoughtful article in The National Post (Canada) today about TBIs (Traumatic Brain Injuries) in MMA and what the future may hold for the fighters in the sport.

Chael Sonnen has filed an appeal with the California State Athletic Commission and the meeting will happen on December 2nd.

Jon Jones isn’t too thrilled about fighting Ryan Bader and thinks that Bader was ‘exposed’ in his UFC 119 fight. This is one of those fights where UFC will end up cannibalizing one of their young stars, but the truth is that a lot of hardcore fans are wondering if Bader has a high career ceiling or not and this fight certainly will answer those questions.

Scott Coker says that he will have extra security on-hand at HP Pavilion this Saturday because of the past heat between KJ Noons and Nick Diaz. Smart idea. Unfortunately, I’m not sure if the fan intensity in wanting to see this show matches the two fighters. So far, been kind of slow in terms of momentum…

Dan Hardy claims that 5 million people will watch him on Spike TV beat up Carlos Condit at UFC 120 and that he will savagely beat up Condit.

MMA Payout has an article talking about UFC’s current financial situation. If there isn’t a course-correction, then I can definitely see UFC remaining a ‘value play’ more than a growth company down the line. However, there is one thing that you cannot deny — their success, over the last few years, on PPV during a major American recession has been an incredible accomplishment.

Last week on HDNet, Bas Rutten decided to make his own Top 10 Heavyweight rankings for MMA fighters. I would embed the clip here, but the person who put the clip online turned off embedding. So, here’s a transcript of what was said:

“KENNY RICE: Bas Rutten, as he usually does, has taken matters into his own hands because somebody had to with the questionable rankings we’ve had. Bas is doing his own now, so after the Mir fight, where does that put him? Here’s Bas’ look at the Heavyweight Top 10.

1. Alistair Overeem
2. Fedor Emelianenko
3. Brock Lesnar
4. Junior Dos Santos
5. Fabricio Werdum
6. Cain Velasquez
7. Shane Carwin
8. Frank Mir
9. Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira
10. Antonio “Bigfoot” Silva

BAS RUTTEN: This is awesome. Alistair Overeem, number one, yes! Why? Because he’s from Holland, and he’s a great fighter. Nobody wants to fight him! First [he] fights Rogers and then Werdum beats Fedor but then he still doesn’t want to fight. Nobody wants the title apparently. So I figure, you know, this guy right now is so strong. He’s got the gas [tank] to back it up. He’s great on his feet. He’s phenomenal on his feet, he’s the only guy in Mixed Martial Arts who fights in K-1, knocked out Badr Hari, one of the best fighters on the planet, you know. And Fedor, Fedor lost one fight. That’s what I was thinking and everybody bags him now and everybody says, ‘oh, this guy’s not a good fighter.’ He lost one fight. He beat the top guys. He beat Mirko, he beat Nogueira, he beat all the top dogs. I think he still deserves to be [#2].

(snip — Karo Parisyan made a passionate defense of Fedor in which he said Fedor wouldn’t make the same mistake that he did to Werdum the first time and he didn’t like Kenny Rice’s comparison of Fedor to Brett Favre.)

“With Brock, well, I just want to see if punches coming at him not to look away and I want him to be on the ground and if somebody comes, pull guard. Until you have those skills in Mixed Martial Arts, I say well then you’re not a number one for me. Listen, he’s a great athlete, he’s got a full tank of gas which I complain about with other fighters, but he has it, he’s very tough, I give you that, but these are just basic stuff that I want to see.”

I guess Bas isn’t all that into Brocktober on Spike TV.

Topics: Media, MMA, StrikeForce, UFC, Zach Arnold | 45 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |

45 Responses to “Bas Rutten ranks Alistair Overeem as the #1 Heavyweight in MMA”

  1. Fluyid says:

    The UFC is a juggernaut. That’s an interesting MMA Payout article. First time I’ve been back to that site in quite a while, as it used to routinely crash my browser.

    As for MMA injuries, I still think we need a few more years before we get a better idea, though I do sense that it’s going to prove to be safer than football and boxing. Then again, WTF do I know.

    • Mark says:

      Sometimes I get so embarrassed with MMA fans in this debate. They act like “slightly less damaging to the brain that boxing” is equivalent to “as safe as a pillow fight with your little sister.” And then they act like they can debate doctors on this. They went to medical school for years, you’re just some douche who orders pay per views. What is wrong with that picture?

      I know that it’s a habit from the ’95-’05 days where MMA was under siege and everybody questioning MMA’s safety was a blasphemer who should be cast away. But it’s time to move on from that mindset don’t you think? Nobody is going to take MMA away from us, these groups have been after boxing for 60 years and have not succeeded. Let’s see if we can learn something from them from studies instead of shutting them out as evil.

  2. 45 Huddle says:

    1) Bas Rutten is trolling. So is Dan Hardy.

    2) Jones needs to learn how to sell a fight. Or at least not detract people from being interested in his fights. Some of his comments about Bader don’t help himself at all.

    3) I don’t mind seeing Jones/Bader. Unlike Heavyweight (which is thin), having 2 high level prospects fight each other is a great thing. Winner will either be in line for a title shot or 1 fight away. And I’m not buying into the Bader hype. I think with his gas tank and his lack of solid boxing skills, he is going to have some real problems at the top of the division.

    4) The UFC can still grow internationally just by pushing harder in each market. They can only grow in the United States if they get a network deal.

    5) I feel like with the up coming Strikeforce card…. The main event really isn’t a good enough main event. And female fighting is quickly losing its luster and has no impact on hype anymore.

    • The Gaijin says:

      “3) I don’t mind seeing Jones/Bader. Unlike Heavyweight (which is thin), having 2 high level prospects fight each other is a great thing. Winner will either be in line for a title shot or 1 fight away. And I’m not buying into the Bader hype. I think with his gas tank and his lack of solid boxing skills, he is going to have some real problems at the top of the division.”

      Nor do I – these guys have been “groomed” (in a non-derogatory sense) and brung along quite well for their careers. They are now at a point where a win over the other shoots them right into the title picture and a loss isn’t inherently damaging to the other – they just need to get another developmental fight or two and then test the waters again. If they haven’t progressed after that they can go to Strikeforce, Bellator, Shark Fights or MFC.

      “5.)…And female fighting is quickly losing its luster and has no impact on hype anymore.”

      Unless your name is Gina Carano (and to a much lesser extent Cyborg)…there never was any hype.

  3. Jonathan says:

    At the very bottom of Bas Rutten’s list?

    Livers.

  4. klown says:

    Overeem’s best win over a ranked heavyweight? Brett Rogers, whose own best win is over Andrei Arlovski, whose best win is over Tim Sylvia. I don’t rank any of those guys any higher than #9 or #10.

  5. David M says:

    Jon Jones is going to utterly annihilate Bader. I had Bader losing to Nog (as most people I know did), and given how much he struggled to take Nog down, he isn’t going to have a shot at taking Jones down. Bones will take him down and beat him senseless.

    • 45 Huddle says:

      For somebody who complains about scoring a fight, you aren’t very good at it yourself.

      MMA Junkie had it 29-28 for Bader. Sherdog guys had it, 30-27 Bader, 30-28 Bader, and 29-29 DRAW. MMAWeekly had it 30-27 for Bader. Bloody Elbow had it 29-28 for Bader.

      Personally I also had it 29-28 for Bader.

      So Bader won that fight, no matter how much you want to troll the decision, it was a good one.

      Now, Bader is unlikely to beat Jon Jones…. But at least give him credit for what he did accomplish.

      • The Gaijin says:

        For what it’s worth I’ve seen a lot of people giving that fight to Lil Nog as well.

        I personally scored it 29-28 Nog, because I refuse to score 1 takedown as being the decisive factor for the round and I think if judges want to score “points” for takedowns they also need to factor in the number of stuff takedowns and/or takedowns where the fighter gets back up without anything happening. That being said, I knew as soon as the fight ended that Bader would win, but I don’t think anyone is “trolling” by saying they scored the fight for Nog.

        • 45 Huddle says:

          So it’s just a coincidence that the first 4 websites all had it in Bader 5-0-1? And 3 judges all had it for Bader, making that tally up to 8-0-1.

          Yet you know a lot of people who thought Nogueira won? Like I said, trolls….

          Bader won that fight. Sure some rounds were close, but you really have to be a Nogueira fan to think he won that fight.

        • edub says:

          I don’t think you guys are trolling either, but I really dont see how anyone could score that fight for Nog. One takedown doesn’t win a round, but three do. Nog got smashed good in the first so there is no argument there. Rounds two and 3 have an argument, but what did Nog really do? Landed a few shots on the feet, even hurt Bader once, but everytime he got overzealous he was on his back. He defended well on his back, but was never close to a sub. Am I off here?

  6. David M says:

    I favor punches landed over takedowns that do no damage and aren’t followed by any ground and pound of substance.

    Nog stopped like 8 takedown attempts; the idiocy in scoring takedowns but not takedowns stopped is amazing. I am not surprised that you scored that fight for Bader.

    Furthermore, why would I care more about how mma fanboy sites scored the fight than the opinions of people who actually have gone to college? It is funny to hear you referencing the mma media, given how you usually blast them nonstop. Nice hypocrisy.

    • The Gaijin says:

      Not a huge surprise – he just chooses to acknowledge or cite certain resources as credible references whenever they suit him, while dismissing or outright blasting them when they do not.

      • David M says:

        Yep, but I like to think 45 is smarter and more nuanced in his trolling than the average sherdog poster; perhaps I give him too much credit.

      • 45 Huddle says:

        The funny thing is those were the first 4 websites I went to. Hardly using certain websites to my advantage. I was also trying to bring up the Wrestling Observer to see what Meltzer said, but I think it’s been archived already.

        Nice try, but you failed on that one.

        • David M says:

          It doesn’t matter which websites you went to; you uniformly bash the mma media, so it reeks of hypocrisy to base the accuracy of your opinion on websites that you usually say are corrupt. Do you not see that?

          45 do you score takedowns defended? To me, a takedown stuffed should be worth as much as a takedown; both show the ability to decide where the fight takes place. I have seen other people say that they think most mma judges are boxing judges who don’t understand the nuances of the ground game, and just assume that whoever is on top is winning. I think there is definitely some truth to that.

        • 45 Huddle says:

          I pan the media for what they cover. Not there play by play.

          Do you score blocked punches?

          Boxing doesn’t score blocked punches. Wrestling doesn’t score blocked takedowns.

          I don’t see why defense should score points.

          Now, a reversal should be scored as much as a takedown. If you are taken down and escape, it should be worthy about half as much as being taken down. Pretty much how they score it in college wrestling. 2 points for a takedown. 2 points for a reversal. 1 point for an escape. no points for blocking a takedown.

          Pretty simple. People scoring blocked shots are just flat out wrong in their scoring approach.

        • 45 Huddle says:

          To further my point…

          Basketball, Baseball, Soccer, Football, & Tennis. They are all about scoring. Only in Football, where you can get 2 points through your defense sacking the opponent in the endzone (and it’s rare)…. All points are scored through OFFENSE. Defense helps shut down your opponent, but only offense scores points.

          Wrestling is the same way. You can’t gain points based on good defense. Same in boxing. Sure, they can aide you in competition, but they do not score you points.

          Why should MMA be any different? There is absolutely no good reason why a stopped takedown should score you any sort of points. If you can use it to strike your opponent, then that scores points. If you can use it to reverse and take top control, that should score you points. Merely doing something defensive and getting credit for that goes against the nature of sports really….

        • David M says:

          Stuffing a takedown is not just a defensive maneuver; a fighter goes for a takedown because he is getting beaten on the feet and wants to reverse his fortunes. Thus, for a fighter to be able to keep the fight on his feet, he is preserving his advantage. Bader had almost all of his takedowns stuffed; he was desperate to get the fight on the ground because he was getting picked apart on the feet. When he did manage to take Nog down, other than the first round, he wasn’t able to do any damage, nor was he able to keep Nog down. Nog landed many more punches on the feet, chased Bader around the entire fight, and blocked most of Bader’s offense. It is quite irksome that a wrestler can just keep diving for takedowns and getting stuffed, but somehow if he gets a single takedown, that is worth more than many punches landed against him. MMA judges are retards.

          To go to your analogy between mma and other sports, if a basketball player takes 10 shots and makes only 2, he had a terrible game, and it is safe to say his defender dominated him, especially if that defender also lit up the 2-10 player on the other end of the court.

          In our analogy, Bader shot 2-10, and Nog lit his ass up on the other end of the court, yet you think Bader should win because he made two shots.

          Further, takedowns that don’t lead to damage should not be scored at all; Olympic wrestler Ben Askren himself said this. You are scoring this like a college wrestling match, which is just asinine; this is a fight, not a wrestling match, and a fight is decided by who does more damage, not who is able to land a double leg and not land any subsequent blows.

        • 45 Huddle says:

          Stuffing a takedown is purely a defensive move. If it wasn’t, they it would score points in college wrestling.

          And from your basketball example…. Sure, defense stops offense. But the final product… Which is the offense… Is still how the winner is determined. As it is in basically all major sports.

          If Shaq blocks a shot, it stopped his opponent from scoring. But it does not gain his own team points. Which is the same way a stopped takedown should be viewed as. It stop the opponent from scoring, but it doesn’t benefit the guy stopping the takedown.

          A takedown that doesn’t lead to damage should still be scored as a takedown. Because it was an offense move to advance position. To say it doesn’t score would be like saying a near submission doesn’t count because a fighter didn’t tap. Or a strike doesn’t count because it didn’t KO the fighter. Sure, the guy executing the takedown doesn’t get more points for strikes or submission attempts while on the bottom, but the takedown itself is still achieving offense and should count.

        • 45 Huddle says:

          Also, I’m not scoring it like a college wrestling match. I’m scoring it like basically all sports in America are scored. Which is that offense matters, and defense only stops the offense and doesn’t actually add to the score.

          It’s pretty simple logic.

    • David M says:

      If you are scoring offense, then basically you are saying that the guy who does the most damage should win. That guy was Nog; he clearly outlanded Bader in the last two rounds. Go read John McCarthy’s interview on the first page of this site. You have basically fallen into the trap of scoring takedowns that don’t do damage, because you’re simple.

    • The Gaijin says:

      No he just dissects arguments that don’t agree with his by saying they don’t match up to his biases and interpretations and believes this “logic” proves he’s right. It’s quite fascinating.

  7. The Gaijin says:

    Where’s robthom to give me my come-uppance after I told him no one with a brain would think Overeem KO’ing a K-1 prospect shot him up the mma HW rankings and had people braying about his awesome striking?

    *Sheesh* :S

  8. Mark says:

    Bas must be smoking 10 pounds of crack a day if he honestly believes Overeem is #1. I won’t even disagree with people who don’t think he’s a top 10 (I think he is bottom top 10, but not enough to get into an argument about it.) So #1 for having one fight with one ranked opponent? Say what?

    I think he should get “extra credit” points for doing what he has been able to do in K-1, since I don’t think any UFC Heavyweight could compete at the level he is there. But that shouldn’t count in his ranking, it’s just a side point.

    This is one of those fights where UFC will end up cannibalizing one of their young stars, but the truth is that a lot of hardcore fans are wondering if Bader has a high career ceiling or not and this fight certainly will answer those questions.

    So what is the alternative? Protecting them like UFC does to their newer Heavyweights so they can each get a guaranteed title shot? What does beating up on Frank Mir and Roy Nelson (or I guess their LHW equivalents Rampage and Nogueira) prove better instead of proving who is the legit fighter amongst themselves prove? I’d argue that’s tampering with the sport’s purity as much as (if not more than) not bringing in any WW wrestlers for Nick Diaz that people were complaining about last week. It’s a pure business decision.

    • 45 Huddle says:

      Plus, they have Phil Davis coming up as well and he is looking to be another Top 10 level guy.

      The only reason why spacing out fights at Heavyweight made sense is because the division is so weak. The UFC has the next 2 to 3 years of guaranteed quality fights at Light Heavyweight with….

      Rua, Machida, Evans, Rampage, Griffin, Bader, Jones, Nogueira, Davis, Silva, Couture, Franklin, & Ortiz.

      In no way am I saying all of those guys will have a great 2 or 3 years. But they will all make the division interesting for a few years at least. There are so many combinations going forward that having Jones/Bones fight actually strengthens the winner in a strong division…. Unlike having Carwin/Velasquez would have hurt the division…

      • Mark says:

        Of those names: Machida is a contender, Evans is a contender. Rampage’s dedication is questioned, Griffin is only a contender if Shogun is champion, Nogueira is done, Silva was overinflated, and Couture, Franklin, & Ortiz are all novelty fighters.

        At HW, subtracting the n00bs and the champ, they have a division with:

        Mir is on the outskirts, Cro Cop is done, Nelson is a contender, Barry and Struve matched with JDS (who most are picking as the guy to beat Lesnar) could be more interesting than people think, Nogueira is done, Gonzaga is always a question mark. That’s not that much worse than LHW.

    • mr. roadblock says:

      Do you give Herschel Walker “extra credit” for his work in the NFL? No one in the history of MMA, Boxing or Kickboxing could have had his NFL career.

      • The Gaijin says:

        One is a combat sport in which various skills, styles and components are integral to mma, the other is football.

        • Mark says:

          ^Exactly. What a stupid comment.

          And no, just to sort this out:

          I don’t give Marvin Eastman credit for his CFL career
          I don’t give Randy credit for triathlons
          I don’t give Forrest Griffin credit for his police work
          I don’t give Cro Cop credit for his Croatian Senate work
          I don’t give Frank Mir credit for his titty bar bouncer work
          I don’t give War Machine credit for his porno work
          I don’t give Anderson Silva credit for his Michael Jackson tribute routine in PRIDE
          I don’t give Court McGee credit for his James Frey tribute routine on TUF 11
          I don’t give credit to Tito Ortiz for his Oscar nominated performance in The Crow 3.
          I don’t give Rampage credit for his Monster Truck driving
          I don’t give credit to Diego Sanchez completing the Tony Robbins firewalk

          But I do give credit to the fine real estate work of Chael Sonnen. So even if he’s suspended I demand all rankings systems continue to include him because he is single handedly saving the American housing market. And damn it, if he requires steroids to fix the mortgage foreclosure crisis then so be it~!

        • mr. roadblock says:

          Ok. Football requires much more athleticism than MMA. Some much more it isn’t even comparable.

          But, going with your premise, let me ask this:

          If Vladimir or Vitali Klitschko came into MMA and beat Brett Rogers would he be #1 immediately?

          OK, I guess that’s ridiculous.

          But what if he rattled off a streak against Rogers, Kaz Fujita, The Colassus, Tony Silvester, Gary Goodridge and Paul Buentello. I guess that would make him #1 for sure.

      • Mark says:

        If you read my whole post, I said I do not count his K-1 fights into his rankings. I said they would be extra credit as something to add to him in a discussion, such as “Hey, he’s a damn good striker to be able to survive in K-1. I wonder how Dos Santos would do there.” And nothing more. He’s the champion of the biggest non-Zuffa promotion in America, so most rankings systems will always count the champions of the major promotions (UFC, WEC, SF, DREAM) in the top 10. Others include anybody who beat a ranked fighter as getting their spot, so whatever Rogers was goes to Overeem.

        My personal opinion (beyond not giving a crap about internet rankings) is he’s definitely a fighter who could be a real threat if he dedicated more time to MMA. But I’m not going to argue that he isn’t top 10 because he only has had 1 major fight in a year. But then again several fighters have had one fight in a new weight class (Silva, Penn and Couture in new weight classes) and gotten automatic bumps. So it’s not unprecedented and I don’t remember a huge outcry over those.

  9. 45 Huddle says:

    Sean McCorkle goes indepth into many things that happen behind the scenes for his UFC fight. Read past the first entry. He answers questions and even says that fighters on the PPV get more ranging from $1,500 to $100,000.

    http://www.mixedmartialarts.com/mma.cfm?go=forum_framed.posts&forum=1&thread=1710123&page=1&pc=163

  10. Smithers says:

    ‘This is one of those fights where UFC will end up cannibalizing one of their young stars,”

    They’re not cannibalizing anyone. This is precisely the type of fight that keeps casuals watching MMA instead of boxing. If Bader has it, he’ll prove it in the cage against Jones. If he doesn’t, what’s the point in artificially building his record up against inferior opposition, the way they would in boxing?

    One loss isn’t going to kill off either of these guys unless they look so bad that they’re completely exposed. Which is something that would have happened eventually anyway, if that was the case.

    • The Gaijin says:

      This is what is supposed to separate UFC from the Strikeforces. If Bader/Jones lose (or e.g. at HW JDS/Cain) then they aren’t top flight material yet – otherwise it’s just the same as Diaz/Mo/Mousassi or whoever people complain about them protecting for “business purposes”.

      If it’s a sport, they have to fight each other or someone on the same plane or else we’re just rigging the matchmaking process to make the most desirable “contenders” possible.

      • mr. roadblock says:

        Gaijin, I agree with you 110%. Young guys like this need to fight to see who goes to the next level.

        The other cool thing about these fights is that years later sometimes you get the rematch for a title.

        The only thing I’d say against this fight is that I don’t think Bader is a step up for Jones. I’m really anxious to see Jones get in the deep end of the pool. But I figure if he beats Bader that will happen around March or April of 2011.

      • Mark says:

        100% agree. UFC has set it up where everybody will get a title shot in the HW division as much as they’ve complained for a year about Strikeforce doing. Carwin got his, Velasquez is about to get his, then JDS gets his, and maybe they’ll have Struve fight Mir or something to get his after JDS.

        Sorry, but that format is all about business. If this was the pure sport some MMA fans complain about it not being, then they’d have a “play off” informal tournament where you’d have something like Carwin vs. JDS, Velasquez vs. Struve and the the two winners face each other and then the winner gets Lesnar. So now you’ve got some great co-main events that are going to get the fans way more interested than just seeing them take apart a bunch of guys they couldn’t care less about, since most of them never saw Nogueira or Cro Cop in their primes.

        And it’s not like the losers can never get a title shot again, they can still all take turns for the future. But now you have an alpha dog who is seen as a total threat to Lesnar for a huge main event. And you won’t have any embarrassments like building an unproven Carwin up as this one-punch killer….then discover he has no gas tank and you just have to turtle up for 4 minutes to wait him out. You’d have established either Velasquez as a guy who can grapple and strike with the best of them, JDS as the new breed of Brazilian Killer, or Struve as the return of the Dutch kickboxers to the UFC title picture for the first time in years.

        • 45 Huddle says:

          The UFC’s matchmaking at Heavyweight isn’t as much about business as it is about the division being so thin. They had no other choice but to space the challengers out. The fact that we even got a #1 contender fight in JDS/Nelson was a mini-miracle…. Even though it wasn’t like Nelson was going to win that fight.

          As for Strikeforce. I’m not sure why anybody even talks about their Heavyweight division in the same breath as the UFC’s.

          1) There division is basically MMA Heavyweights circa 2005. Look at any other division in 2005 and most of the top guys aren’t on top anymore. The only reason Strikeforce’s guys still get press is because many have avoided tough fights for years or only fought against that same pool of opponents.

          2) Strikeforce’s Heavyweight Division stopped in June 2010. It won’t start up again until at least February 2011. How can you call it a division when Strikeforce isn’t even putting on fights because they have zero control over their athletes?

        • Mark says:

          I just pointed out earlier in this post the HW division isn’t that much worse than the LHW division. You have some older fighters there for the pass the torch moments (Cro Cop, Nogueira in HW, Couture, Ortiz at LHW), you have guys on the outskirts of their divisions who could come back (Mir, Gonzaga at HW, Rampage, Griffin at LHW), you have the young prospects (Jones, Bader, Davis at LHW, JDS, Velasquez, Struve at HW), and you have the established contenders (Machida, Evans at LHW, Nelson at HW) and then you have the over inflated busts (Thiago at LHW, Carwin at HW) So really they are missing just one established contender to make them worse than HW, which they could get by fighting the n00bs. This is not as strong as Welterweight or Lightweight, but it is not significantly weaker than LHW by any means.

          And I was not praising Strikeforce’s HW division. I won’t praise a single thing Strikeforce has done, haven’t for a year. But I pointed out people complained they were selectively booking fights so Fedor, Silva, Werdum, Rogers could call earn title shots instead of matching them up constantly last year. And they’re doing it here. That’s all I was pointing out, I wasn’t decrying or praising either. Just pointing out business is business.

  11. I’m bored as hell of seeing people complain about stupid shit. I don’t care who Bas Rutten ranks where, especially when it happens to be a Dutch kickboxer at the top of his list. Anyone who thinks Jones/Bader is a bad fight is a moron. Anyone who is upset because there is “too much MMA/UFC on” and it somehow affects their ability to enjoy it doesn’t even like MMA to begin with. That is the most pretentious bullshit I’ve ever heard. Randy Couture couldn’t get 2 million people to watch him, so I doubt Dan Hardy will.

    In any case there are fights this weekend and hopefully they don’t suck.

    • Wolverine says:

      yeah Bas ranks his Dutch buddy #1 in the world, what a shocker.

    • Mark says:

      Anyone who is upset because there is “too much MMA/UFC on” and it somehow affects their ability to enjoy it doesn’t even like MMA to begin with.

      You can also be concerned that they’re burning their product out way earlier than they would if they were smart by running two PPVs in a 30 day period. You can also be concerned it is stretching the roster thin by having to do watered down cards to get 4 main/co-main events together in a month. And doing that gets people who want more bang for their buck nostalgic for the times UFC and PRIDE weren’t running every month and could have much more packed events.

      For instance, UFC 121 could have a card of: Lesnar/Velasquez, Mir/Cro Cop, Ortiz/Hamill, Kampmann/Shields, Sanchez/Thiago instead of pretending like anybody wants to see Gonzaga/Schaub on the main card or that Mir/CC was worth $45 as a headliner. That way, if the fight is going to be as embarrassing as it was, you don’t have 300,000 people pissed they just spend 50 bucks and that stallfest was their payoff.

      • The Gaijin says:

        Not that Alan is anywhere near an offending party 99% of the time, but I am so totally sick of the ignorant meme of “Well if you don’t like/agree with [X], well, then, you’re just not a fan of mma anyways!11!!!” *plllbbbbbttt*

        As if that’s some type of trump card that gets someone out of actually having to defend a position. It’s such a B.S. point of argument and it gets used so often these days. I don’t even want to hear an argument of why I should like/agree [x], but at least intelligently defend your position of why it’s positive or why my position is wrong.

        • Its real simple. Do I think the UFC probably runs too many PPVs? Yeah. I think more than 4-5 a year is too many. But you know what? I keep reading that people are smarter than me because they’re willing to pay for 12 PPVs a year filled with fights I don’t give a shit about so long as it meets whatever criteria they have for “good”.

          I’m sick and tired of hearing that the UFC is running too many events and there is too much MMA on TV and its burning out the fanbase. Its fucking ridiculous – we’re gonna sit here and complain that there’s too much of something on TV we claim to be fans of? Its the most ridiculous mentality out there.

      • You can also be concerned that they’re burning their product out way earlier than they would if they were smart by running two PPVs in a 30 day period.

        I don’t give a flying fuck if they burn out their product. I’m sick of hearing people talk about it like they’re smarter than the people who enjoy watching the fights because, OH THE RATINGS BURNOUT. Watch the fucking fights. Its like demanding the NFL go back to a 14 game season and kill the wildcard because attendance was down last year 2.4%.

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