« Smoogy After Dark: Fixing the UFC Machine | Home | Strikeforce 11/3 Oklahoma City show canceled; next show January? »
Reality vs. fiction: Rob Schneider & Stephan Bonnar edition
By Zach Arnold | October 11, 2012
It was announced today that Roy Nelson has agreed to Voluntary Anti-Doping Agency drug testing for their upcoming December fight. Update: Shane Carwin’s camp is denying any reports linking him to VADA testing. In fact, they are strongly vehement about any association with VADA.
MMA Junkie reported that UFC gave one fighter at the UFC 152 Toronto card a hall pass for testosterone usage. However, the name of the fighter has not been revealed.
Interview with FightHubTV.com:
INTERVIEWER: “Marijuana has become a big topic in the fight game because there have been a lot of fighters who have tested positive for it.”
ROB SCHNEIDER: “Unfortunately, it’s a really, really good drug for pain. And it really is. It’s also got no side effects. If you take like, um, you know… those pain relievers that have like, whether it’s extra strength Tylenol or even if it’s all those things, ibuprofen, ibuprofen’s got a real toxic load for your liver. Marijuana doesn’t, so I would say that, you know, boxing’s got to come into the 21st Century and say… you have can medical marijuana if you sign up for it and you can take the pills, you don’t have to smoke it because that’s a bad influence for kids. But marijuana is a decent reliever and so I mean I think if you have a chance to do something that’s bad for your liver or do something that’s a pain reliever, it’s just you know ever since that stupid move in the 1930s… you know, um…. Reefer Madness, they’ve ruined marijuana. It used to be the biggest export out of Alabama was hemp. George Washington grew hemp. We have to get over that. I do think that the guy who are using and getting caught for marijuana, they’re not abusing it. They’re using it as a pain reliever. So, I would say… in boxing that’s a huge thing, you got to get over this pain. When you see the bruises outside, they also have bruises inside. So, it’s a pain reliever that has the least side effects. Unfortunately, it does fatten you up.”
Interview with MMAFighting.com:
ARIEL HELWANI: “Had you not received this opportunity, were you content never fighting again?”
STEPHAN BONNAR: “I mean, never is a strong word but I was just coming to grips with, like, you know, not… not fighting, you know, like, yeah, moving on with my life.”
ARIEL HELWANI: “So, mentally, how do go from that to fighting the best fighter in the world? How do you turn that switch on?”
STEPHAN BONNAR: “Well, because you get an opportunity of a lifetime and you think to yourself, in less than one month’s time I’m going to locked in the cage with Anderson Silva… I got to get in some shape and work my ass off, so that’s what I did.”
Josh Gross: Anderson Silva-Stephan Bonnar a promoter’s worst nightmare
ARIEL HELWANI: “What kind of shape are you in?”
STEPHAN BONNAR: “Pretty damn good shape. I can’t lie and say I’m in the 100% best shape I’ve ever been in because the training camp is 3 weeks and 2 days, I usually do 3 months… but like considering this is the shortest training camp I’ve ever had, pretty damn good shape.”
ARIEL HELWANI: “Who did you bring in, anyone in particular, to help you train for Anderson?”
STEPHAN BONNAR: “I didn’t bring anyone in but I got (Anthony) Njokuani in Vegas and he may look like Chris Rock but he moves like Anderson Silva. He’s long and fast and slick… and black.”
ARIEL HELWANI: “I saw that promo with you and Forrest, one of the best the UFC has ever done. But it was comedy. The UFC doesn’t usually do that to sell a fight. What do you say to people…”
STEPHAN BONNAR: “You put me and Forrest at the coffee table shooting the shit, it’s going to be funny.”
ARIEL HELWANI: “What do you say to the people who say Stephan’s just coming for the moment but he may not coming to shock the world, like this is all part of…”
STEPHAN BONNAR: “I would say watch any other of my UFC fights, like 14 of them and when I have not got in there and fought my absolute ass off? Never.”
ARIEL HELWANI: “How do you beat this guy, though? He’s unbeatable in the UFC. Have you pinpointed something that you need to do on Saturday to beat him?”
STEPHAN BONNAR: “Yeah, just need to take it to him. I need to… yeah, I need to take it to him, to get in there and fight my kind of fight and be willing to eat punches and give them right back. I can’t lay down, curl up and go fetal. I got to keep going, you know, and I’m going to be going through hell and he’s coming with me.”
Topics: Boxing, Media, MMA, UFC, Zach Arnold | 18 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
This fight seems like a lose/lose for Silva.
Agreed, anything other than a Forrest Griffin-esque knockout will be considered a disappointment.
Why the hell was THE HOT CHICK interviewed on the merits of medical marijuana for fighters? Or on fighting in general? He shouldn’t be interviewed on comedy or movies, let alone the fight game. And, SURPRISE SURPRISE, he sounded like a total dumbass on the subject. No side effect? What about respiratory problems with smoking? Okay, Rob did say it’s not a good idea to SMOKE marijuana, but still. There’s also a correlation (not causation) of pot usage with psychosis and schizophrenia. And there is recent studies of higher risk of testicular cancer and mary jane usage. So…..there. I guess.
Bonnar looking a little too tan. Seems to be the popular thing to look like Snooki. The number of tan guys at the Emmy’s was strange.
The UFC is certainly making room for the better Strikeforce fighters. A lot of fighters being cut the last week or so. I assume there will be more after the next few shows.
There is a lot of fat to be trimmed off their entire roster. I don’t mind seeing a lot of newer fighters, but these guys with 8 to 10+ Zuffa fights and basically hovering around .500 need to go. You trim some of those fighters and then don’t give as many chances to the TUF rejects, and the roster will look much better.
They need to consolidate with Strikeforce now (another show cancelled!). Honestly, I think they’re keeping the big roster more to prevent guys from going to Bellator/One FC, etc. more than anything else. Let some of the deadweight, .500 fighters go and fight on the regional scene – they’re absense will not hurt you and is certainly not going to make Bellator or anyone else into a major player.
Speaking of reality and fiction, how about the reality of UFC pulling Bleacher Report’s credentials and Snowden having to delete his hit job on Bonnar and writing a forced apology in public to get his site re-credentialed? Ironic, from someone who made his name off of trolling others and calling them Zuffa shills.
Looks like the blatant trolling/hit pieces finally caught up to him.
That’s hilarious. That guy’s writing is such obvious troll work, he literally drives me away from any site that will have him as a writer. I had no idea he was word vomiting over at BleacherReport, I thought he just went inactive. Wishful thinking on my part, I suppose.
Good to see him actually face some consequences for it.
lololololol I love the responses from people, particularly the one guy upset that Jon called MMA fans “doe eyed pussies”.
Lol, I don’t usually read mma journalism, but when I do, I prefer the ‘high spirited’ stylings of Jonathan Snowden. I somehow stumbled upon the hit piece on Bonnar and it was damned hilarious. The apology doesn’t work though, it just isn’t Snowden. He should retract it and live without credentials.
Come on Jonny, say it ain’t so!
That’s completely fictional. Anyone who has known me for 15 minutes knows I would have never written an apology that someone tried to force on me.
I wrote something I wasn’t proud of. I apologized for it. Period. No one asked me to. There were no threats of any sort.
Complete bull. Why did you go on a spree to delete a bunch of your tweets relating to the article then?
You obviously got your pee-pee swatted and to say otherwise is complete crap. You’ve written worse and never apologized, so any reasonable person looks at the situation and knows exactly what happened.
You live in a strange alternate reality that only you populate, Mr. Snowden.
Nah, plenty of other people populate it. It’s kind of like the Fox News of MMA.
If you are referring to tweets that either you or some other really devoted follower posted in the comments section of the B/R article, those tweets were either about my Dave Batista article from the previous weekend or were from weeks or months earlier. I actually rarely tweet from that account at all, and if I do tweet about MMA from there it is generally a mistake where I’ve forgotten to switch accounts back.
I’m not sure there’s really a productive conversation to be had here. I would never make a forced apology for any reason. I do this as a hobby and the normal ways to “punish” someone (money, credentials, etc) aren’t powerful motivators for me, at least not enough to make me do anything I don’t want to do.
I suppose if my future content looks like stuff from the typical “MMA machine” web sites you can assume you are right. If it is challenging material, combined with historical pieces and some business pieces that may not all be sunshine and puppy dogs, you can draw your own conclusions.
Sorry Snowden, you’ve hit the “Boy Who Cried Wolf” phase of your “career.” No one believes you any more.
By the way, want to answer the question posed by reader Brian in the comment section here? You conveniently disappeared after he asked it the first time:
http://www.fightopinion.com/2012/05/08/cold-truth-ny-mma/comment-page-1/#comment-105518
Conveniently disappeared? Like I am supposed to feverishly refresh the occasional story that isn’t about liquor licenses and insider baseball stuff from people suing the CSAC?
I don’t have any interest in that discussion. If I was going to do a gimmick account, which I would screw up immediately by posting from the wrong one, I certainly wouldn’t use the same name we used for anonymous posters at a site I used to edit.
I don’t know, having Bonnar lying on his back or stomach for five rounds, desperately trying to cover himself up, knowing that we will never see his pretty boy looks again strikes me as a win-win scenario for Silva and the fans. Knockouts are nice, but not necessary.
“MMA Junkie reported that UFC gave one fighter at the UFC 152 Toronto card a hall pass for testosterone usage. However, the name of the fighter has not been revealed.”
My bet is Vitor Belfort.