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UFC 121 Playbook: Time to find out if Cain Velasquez is a hero or a goat
By Zach Arnold | October 22, 2010
You can see the media flow of articles on UFC 121 pick up, per usual when Brock Lesnar is the headliner. The Arizona Republic and Arizona Daily Star have articles on Cain Velasquez’s wrestling credentials, work ethic, and how good his skill set is. MMA Live had a Sports Science segment yesterday (about four minutes long) that did more to put over Velasquez as a threat than anything UFC has promoted to date. SS had a tackling demonstration where Velasquez’s tackling power was measured on par with the power Indianapolis Colts defensive ace Dwight Freeney generates. Josh Gross talked to Javier Mendez about Cain’s training and what to expect.
However, don’t count Cole Konrad in the camp of those awe-inspired. He told the Minneapolis Star-Tribune that Velasquez is predictable. The Strib also has an article talking about the Brock Lesnar effect on amateur wrestling and how wrestlers can see a path to a professional fighting career.
Right now, the conventional media wisdom is that the baseline for PPV buys for UFC 121 is 800,000. We’re in the heart of college football season, but Brock Lesnar is Brock Lesnar (I’m channeling John Madden here talking about Brett Favre) and I’ll say he draws 900,000 PPV buys. As far as how the show will do for live gate, who knows? The fact that UFC is giving away tickets like they did for the Staples Center show (which also featured Cain Velasquez) isn’t the sign of hotness.
Quietly, Matt Hamill and Tito Ortiz will fight on the UFC 121 main card. Hamill is the favorite in most eyes of the fans and writers. He’s looking for a win in the cage and in a new movie coming up.
Diego Sanchez put on an hour-long training session in front of the media at the UFC-branded gym in Rosemead, CA. to hype up his fight this weekend at UFC 121.
Other news & notes
Boost Mobile is now the ‘official wireless partner’ of the UFC.
UFC Canada boss Tom Wright had a business meeting in Vancouver on Thursday and it seems clear that the promotion is coming back next Summer to the area. MMA Torch notes that Australia & Abu Dhabi are also on the map again.
The London Telegraph gives a thumbs up to the new EA Sports MMA video game.
Sergio Non has a preview of big MMA fights coming up for the rest of 2010.
Brent Brookhouse says it is time to consider Eddie Alvarez as the #1 Lightweight in MMA. For those who follow us on the Tweety Bird site or on the big FB, you know my thoughts already on last night’s Bellator show. Alvarez did make Roger Huerta look bad, but Roger Huerta has a tendency of doing a good job of that by himself when it comes to a lack of strategy and defense. Once Alvarez chopped him down, he was able to tag. Even though Alvarez is one of my favorite fighters to watch, the guy was an ass last night during his fight. Of course, he had the horrible luck of his fight running opposite the Phillies on TV last night in Philadelphia but the crowd was strong and way more vocal than the typical Bellator live event audience. As for where Alvarez ranks, he’s Top 4 but not #1. At this point, there really aren’t many valid excuses left for not booking Alvarez vs. Gilbert Melendez. We need to see that fight and see the outcome of the Frankie Edgar/Gray Maynard fight before there’s a clear semblance of where everyone stands in the Lightweight division.
Topics: Bellator, Media, MMA, UFC, Zach Arnold | 21 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
I wasn’t that impressed with Alvarez’s win last night. He came in really wild constantly, and if you fight like that against someone like BJ Penn, you’re gonna be in real trouble. The other thing guys like Maynard, Melendez, etc bring to the table is wrestling. Huerta got a couple takedowns on Alvarez, including a big slam, making me believe that the same sort of attack on those guys will lead to him being brought down and taking shots. I’m not even sure about being a “top 4” lightweight. After the loss to Aoki he’s beaten no one remotely that good or highly ranked. He’s a top ten lightweight, for sure.
I never get excited about UFC events anymore but I am for UFC 121. Best heavyweight fight that can be made in the division across all of MMA + legend fight + top contender bout + prospect/gatekeeper fight = good card. Then you get a crossroads fight with Sanchez/Thiago and you have a real PPV card. Best card they have on the horizon for awhile too.
I refuse the #1 lightweight in the world would lose to Nick Thompson.
Alvarez looked like the chinny brawler hes always been and its funny that we’re supposed to take him seriously
The New York Yankees game could change the buyrate by a small amount. If the Yanks win tonight, they they play game 7 on Saturday at 8pm Eastern.
Brent Brookhouse can be added to the list of BE trolls along with Snowdumb. Just looking for page views with headlines like that.
How is Alvarez #4 in the world? He isn’t even Top 5. 5 guys without eveing thinking much through are Edgar, Penn, Maynard, Aoki, & Melendez. There are more who should be ranked above him, but that thos guys are pretty easy to put above him without much explanation needed.
People put far too much emphasis on champions instead of quality of opponents and wins. Who has Alvarez really beaten? Sure, he looks great with his wins, but how many guys have we seen in the UFC look great against one level of competition, and as soon as they took that next step, they looked either average or bad.
He’s beaten a level of fighter that should put him in the top ten – Huerta, Riley, Kawajiri, and Hansen is a much more impressive list than a lot of guys outside the UFC that people tout. But no way on earth can he be top 5. He should be ranked perhaps just above Sotiropoulous around #7-8.
IMO and I said it many times before, Huerta provided the perfect litmus test. Huerta went to tooth and nail decisions with Florian and Maynard. No one with a brain would rank Alvarez #1, but if you want to stick your head in the sand and say that last night didn’t show he could have a very good chance to take out anyone in the top five…
Huerta was battle tested against guys in the UFC…the same guys that are in the title picture right now! He lost a split decision 12 months ago to Maynard – a guy that’s fighting for and likely going to win the LW belt. So we just saw a guy who has lost in decisions to two fighters that have very recently fought for the claim of #1 LW (UFC 155 champ) get absolutely demolished by another fighter that you say we aren’t putting any emphasis on quality of opponents and wins? LOL – ok.
If you need a clearer picture drawn for you, so help you.
Gaij I dunno if most of the pbp is wrong, but it doesn’t seem that Alvarez destroyed Huerta reading a lot of it.
It seems he was definately the clear winner, but (if the PBP I read is correct) if a guy gets knocked down, suplexed, and hit a good amount on the feet I don’t think you can call it a destruction.
Also the “finish” was a doctor stoppage from a swollen eye. Im sure Huerta would’ve continued had he got the chance…
Also X2: Kenny didn’t finish him, but that fight was no where near close…
And in all honesty I’m in the middle between Alan and your stance on Eddie. I think he could beat a few guys in the top 5, but I also think most of those guys could easily defeat him too. I also think certain gatekeeper type fighters that the UFC has would be a bad style matchup for him (Guida, Tibau, Sherk).
I can’t believe I just called Sherk a gatekeeper. I feel old.
@ edub.
Maybe I should clarify my thoughts on Alvarez vs. the top 5…I don’t think there’s any certainty that he would beat any or all of them and I certainly don’t think there’s no chance that any of them could also beat him on any given night, but I do think that he showed last night and has shown previously that he’s got the tools and skills to do so. In my mind (and I stated such) how he performed in a fight against Huerta would give me a good indication and I thought it was pretty clear he’s as good as advertised. I’ve said as well that Maynard is probably his kryptonite and obv. a motivated BJ, but no way t-rex arms midget Sherk (at this point in his career) or the Carpenter give someone like Alvarez from last night troubles.
I saw the fight live (as in on TV in real time) and trust me the PBP must not have done it justice. Alvarez mangled his leg with kicks and had him noticeably limping and switching stances – it was Aldo-esque leg kicks. Roger probably landed two or three meaningful punches standing all fight. Eddie was landing a straight right AT WILL (hence the busted up eye) and crackled him with numerous other punches and a knee that would have KO’d most lw’s. He threatened a choke at one point as well. As for the knockdown…it basically saved Huerta from losing the round 10-8…it was total domination from start to finish, save the knockdown. And honestly the knockdown wasn’t even that bad, it looked to me more like he caught him moving backwards and just put him on his butt – don’t get me wrong it was a knockdown, but he was never in trouble…it didn’t stop the onslaught one bit and Alvarez actually poured it on to end the round. The second round was a little closer, but it was still all Alvarez save for a scramble situation that lead to the suplex. As for the doctor’s stop for the eye – it didn’t matter because he f**ked his leg up REALLY badly at the end of the round with another huge kick…he was going to be finished. And a tko FINISH is a tko FINISH, no one else could do it…the doctor had to STOP the fight, I think that says enough.
I honestly don’t remember the Ken-Flo fight well. I certainly didn’t think the decision was controversial, but I recall that he just sat there any outpointed him with better boxing. Eddie may have some bad defense, but his boxing in terms of offense would put Kenny in some tough spots and Eddie has good enough wrestling that I don’t think Kenny’s going to be holding him down all night either.
Ah. Understandable position than. The first couple pbp’s I read made the fight seem a lot closer than the majors (junkie, dog, etc..) had it at. It was probably just writers a little caught up in the excitement I guess.
From the positions he has taken in the media in the past, I don’t think we’ll see Alvarez in the UFC anytime soon. Hopefully SF and Bellator will be able to co-promote so we can see ALvarez in there with Melendez, Thomson, or JZ….
…actually scratch that. Hopefully Bellator folds so Alvarez can just go directly to SF and fight JZ for the right to next shot at the belt.
Alvarez fought a sloppy fight. Huerta looked like he wanted to quit 30 seconds in after a couple leg kicks from Alvarez. Problem is that Alvarez didn’t follow up and go off on him with more low kicks. I don’t know if its because he doesn’t trust his kicks or because he trusts his hands that much more, but he started swinging for the fences immediately. If he took his time and worked the stick and the low kicks, he would have taken Huerta out of the fight mentally halfway through the round and out of the fight physically before the round ended.
Instead, Huerta threw a lot of hooks with no setup and ended up tagged and almost doing the baby giraffe dance. You can’t do that against higher level guys. Penn would drill him down the pike and slash his face open with elbows afterwards.
We prob won’t see Alvarez in the UFC which is disappointing. But I cant hate on a guy for making a living.
Oh well – we’ve got lesnar – cain tmmw…that will be a barn burner.
I think Eddie fought so wide-open for a few reasons.
1. He thought he was a better wrestler than Huerta so he didn’t worry about getting taken down (or staying down if he got taken down).
2. He saw what happened to Huerta when he hit him. E.g. you could see Huerta wilting under the power of his shots. And he didn’t respect Roger’s power, which did end up putting him on his behind, but didn’t seem to phase him.
3. He was fighting in front of the Philly crowd…he probably wanted to put on a show. That’s stupid, and not part of the gameplan, but I think he saw a KO after he messed up his leg and tried to chase it. Fighters do from time to time get caught up in the crowd’s reaction.
Also there’s a good reason why Huerta was winging hooks like that…his leg got mangled and he was getting hurt whenever Alvarez landed flush shots.
I’ve talked to a few people this week who used to get every UFC PPV. They don’t get all of them anymore, but each of them are getting this one. One guy told me that he picks and chooses among the many UFC PPV offerings, and that this one is the first one this calendar year he has decided to get.
“Right now, the conventional media wisdom is that the baseline for PPV buys for UFC 121 is 800,000. We’re in the heart of college football season, but Brock Lesnar is Brock Lesnar (I’m channeling John Madden here talking about Brett Favre) and I’ll say he draws 900,000 PPV buys.”
Only 900k?? C’mon…I gotta think this beats the 1 million mark! It would have to be considered a “disappointment” (though still big success) if this one doesn’t break 1mm…the honeymooon isn’t ending that fast.
This is unscientific research, but a bunch of the casual fans I know have been asking me what I think about the Heavyweight Championship fight this weekend.
All of them say they’re watching. I think this will be big. Brock is bigger than UFC right now. He’s not what Hogan and Tyson were in the 80’s to the whole country but he’s becoming that in the MMA-world.
To the people who say ‘wake me up when there’s a big fight’ the Brock fights are the ones they tune in for.
I’d be shocked at anything less than a million buys. 800k puts this below Rashad vs Jackson, which didn’t have nearly as much buzz. Granted, the buzz is based on anecdotal evidence. Pretty much every website you go to has fans talking about how this is the most excited they’ve been all year for a fight, and everyone they know is getting the PPV, and my personal experience has been no different.
We’re talking about a card with an extremely charismatic HW champ, a UFC Primetime lead-in, and the whole Brocktober advertising push. I’m predicting this is the #2 PPV of all time for the UFC.
Brocktoberfest is a good point. Brock and Brocktoberfest is probably why UFC’s programing on Spike has been doing better than expected this month.
people are also sleeping on the Hispanic audience, who may have never bought a Brock PPV. It’s just like they did for the African American audience who purchased Rashad vs Rampage.
I made that point a couple of posts back. If UFC can tap into the Mexican boxing crowd, that’s a great and loyal audience. 300-400,000 strong.
I didn’t think Cain had a chance at first.
Then everybody said that he would have a gas tank forever and could do what Carwin did without gassing.
I dont recall Cains amazing gas, but you’re talking me into it.
Hard to say though.
Now that everybody is choosing Cain, that could jinx him into losing when he could have won.
I’ll stick with my original pick of the Brock.
He’ll deflect Cains initial blitz via country chin.
And then grind him out for a noodely dec or finish between 4-5.