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Fox Sports: "Zach Arnold's Fight Opinion site is one of the best spots on the Web for thought-provoking MMA pieces."

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

By Zach Arnold | October 5, 2010

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 |

Punching playbook: Nick Diaz says that KJ Noons beat him because of some ‘lucky shots’

By Zach Arnold | October 4, 2010

This is an interview by Strikeforce with Nick Diaz. It’s only five minutes long, but you must watch this (if you haven’t already). Entertaining. He just buries KJ Noons and Mayhem Miller here. You can tell he is really pissed about what Miller is doing in Japan.

“I’m just happy to get this show on the road, you know, and this guy’s finally ready to fight me so… I just want a chance to actually get a fair chance, you know, to fight. Like before, you know I’m landing more punches. This guy… he lands some lucky shots and opened up some cuts and they stopped the fight, but I was far from done fighting so… you know, I’m just happy to be able to, win or lose, I just want to fight for real. If I’m going to lose, I’m going to lose for real and I’m ready for my ass-whupping if I’m going to take an ass-whupping, you know, I’m ready but let me take my ass-whupping if that’s how it’s going to be, you know, because I’m ready for it. I was born for it, so I’m ready for that. I get paid for that and there’s plenty of people out there who want to see me take an ass-whupping, so…

“That’s the thing for me, even though we fought the first time, you know, I wasn’t excited about that fight. That’s why I was running in on him like that and I took those punches because I was angry and I was careless and I was rushing in because, you know, I’m used to fighting all really good opponents, you know, I had no idea who this guy was and he wasn’t important and it’s really embarrassing to me because they put a title up and they say, here, fight this guy, and then he gets excited and starts hitting me, running around in circles and it makes me angry so I started running and chasing him around and like, you know, he just had no business being in the main event of a show anyways, who was he? Nobody knew who KJ Noons was. You know, he got knocked out one time by one important guy that’s not important, you know, got knocked out by Krazy Horse and I beat guys that beat him so… that’s the thing, you know, I’m not excited about fighting people who aren’t good. That’s the thing about fighting (Mayhem) Miller, you know… I have no problem taking a fight with Miller, you know, the thing is just why does he get to fight me? Everybody thinks that, you know, I don’t understand that because he just keeps losing, you know, and then he gets to fight me because I’m not important, right? So… you know… and like he goes to Japan, he takes fights like with guys like just ridiculous opponents, you know, and then makes a joke out of ’em, he goes in there and punches and hitting them, you know, for what? This guy’s just trying to, you know, he’s got that warrior spirit inside of him, he’s come out trying to do his best and you know you can finish this guy, but you’re just going to hit him and make a joke out of that whole thing, you know. I think that’s [expletive], man, you know, like I’ve never took a fight like that in my life. I’d never do that, it’d be embarrassing for me, you know, and if something like that were to take place, I would finish the fight, you know, and in a respectful manner and just get the job done. He’s sitting in there wearing zebra pants punching on the guy, acting like a fool, you know…”

As for the Strikeforce show this weekend in San Jose, there’s little to no buzz for the event. They couldn’t have picked a worse time to run the show given the fact that the whole Bay Area is in mania mode right for the SF Giants. All the oxygen belongs to the Giants. (Just ask the Raiders, who drew 30,000 in Oakland on Sunday.) Wednesday and Thursday are playoff games for SF at home, then they play Saturday in Atlanta. Strikeforce has tried their best PR-wise on Comcast Sportsnet with multiple Josh Thomson interviews and PR tie-ins (along with Showtime ad buys), but this is a losing effort right now for getting the attention of sports fans in the market.

Other headlines

Leland Roling: Has the disparity between UFC 119 and WEC 51 created a new voice for merger?

The funny thing about this story is that Dana White is now promising OMG, WOWZ!, AMAZING news on the WEC front, the “it’ll blow your mind” hyperbole.

Dan Severn hits the speaking circuit

Dan Hardy says he would like a fight with Chris Lytle.

Gareth Davies has a fun talk with Aaron Wilkinson from TUF 12 about meeting Mike Tyson. Take note of Aaron’s belief that MMA fighters could end (in the future) up getting paid on the same scale as boxers.

I wrote about this story last week (but it was behind a firewall for NY Newsday), but Zuffa has been making political contributions to Andrew Cuomo’s campaign in the New York Governor’s race.

Topics: Media, MMA, StrikeForce, UFC, Zach Arnold | 15 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |

K-1 2010 World GP Best 8 tournament matches set

By Zach Arnold | October 4, 2010

12/11 Tokyo, Ariake Colosseum

K-1 World MAX 2010 70kg World Championship Tournament final (11/8 Tokyo, Ryogoku Kokugikan)

Topics: K-1, Media, Zach Arnold | 3 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |

K-1 2010 World GP Final 16 in Seoul

By Zach Arnold | October 2, 2010

K-1 ran the first part of their “Double Impact” two-day event series in Seoul, South Korea at the Olympic Gym. A very interesting show on several fronts. First, the TV networks broadcasted the event in 3D mode. Second, Jerome Le Banner walked out after three rounds of his fight with Keijiro Maeda (Kyotaro) and, from the sounds of it, won’t get penalized. It appears he will get a chance for a ‘reserve fight’ in the GP Tournament when K-1 runs the Best 8 event at Ariake Colosseum. Third, Sadaharu Tanigawa noted that it isn’t a reality to run a DREAM event in South Korea because they don’t have the sponsorship money to make it a financial reality. It’s truly amazing to hear a promoter actually speak the truth (partially?).

Topics: K-1, Media, South Korea, Zach Arnold | 25 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |

Bad judging continues to plague MMA, causing severe paranoia for everyone

By Zach Arnold | October 1, 2010

K-1’s two shows this weekend in Seoul, South Korea are being taped in 3D. Dan Herbertson has the details on the two shows coming up here.

I got a chance to watch both the WEC and Bellator events last night. We saw real superstar aces in action (Jose Aldo, Megumi Fujii) and a few intense brawls (Aguilar/Frausto, Cerrone/Varner), but unfortunately once again the main storyline coming out of the events was breathtakingly bad MMA judging. Mark Hominick was the far superior striker in his fight against Leonard Garcia, yet everyone was breathing a huge sigh of relief when Hominick won a split decision. Yes, on one judge’s score card, he lost the fight. However, the worst scoring by far last night was in the Jessica Aguilar/Zoila Frausto fight. Frausto barely made 116 pounds the day before and ended up in a stand-up war where Aguilar simply took it to her. It was a 29-28 fight for either woman. So, naturally we got one judge giving Aguilar a 30-27 score and two judges giving Frausto a 30-27 score. Poor Jessica’s reaction after the announcement of the decision was exactly my reaction and the fans were pissed at the event. It’s a horrible outcome because Frausto ended up getting hated by the fans (ala Sean Sherk at UFC 119) and the deserving person ends up on the losing end of the stick. Megumi Fujii, on the other hand, had no doubts raised in her victory over Lisa Ward. Precise, efficient, brutal, and powerful in technique in about a minute. Frausto’s a better striker and has size, but the odds are definitely against her in the 115 pound women’s tournament finals in Bellator.

I was reading some press clippings in the Denver media about Jose Aldo’s win over Manny Gamburyan and even the non-believers or newbies figured out that they were seeing one of the best pound-for-pound fighters in the world in Jose Aldo. Josh Gross has Aldo #2 on his P4P list behind Anderson Silva. Aldo is going to run out of opponents here pretty quickly if he can beat Josh Grispi. The only one left would be his training mate, Marlon Sandro, and unfortunately we won’t see that fight.

Melvin Guillard admitted in a newspaper article that the fight he delivered at UFC 119 was not what Dana White was expecting but that it was exactly the methodical game plan that Greg Jackson wanted to see.

UFC UK boss Marshall Zelaznik is reiterating claims that UFC will run several UK-based Fight Night shows in 2011.

Dan Hardy says that training for his upcoming Carlos Condit fight has been easy.

CB Dollaway, Ryan Bader, and Aaron Simpson are ready to open a brand new 25,000 square foot MMA gym that is being financed by Miami Heat sharp-shooter Mike Miller.

Oscar De La Hoya is drawing heat in the boxing business for indicating that a UFC-type model might be needed to help build up the sport.

Just a thought…

Amidst the discussion about Chael Sonnen’s failed drug test in California, the angle that drew the most heat is when Josh Gross suggested that UFC cut fighters who fail tests as the least painful way to send a message. A lot of readers thought that was too extreme of a measure, especially since fighters lose the ability to make sponsorship money if they aren’t fighting. Well, what about this idea — if a fighter fails a drug test, they are suspended for however long it may be and they are also banned for one year from getting a title shot. Would that be a fair or unfair punishment?

Unintelligent defense, a new hybrid MMA/culture blog.

Topics: Bellator, K-1, Media, MMA, South Korea, UFC, UK, WEC, Zach Arnold | 23 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |

Jose Aldo continues domination of WEC Featherweight division

By Zach Arnold | September 30, 2010

WEC 9/30 Broomfield, Colorado card line-up

Thoughts coming out of the show

Urijah Faber remains, above and beyond, the biggest star. It’s almost like he is floating above everyone else in terms of star quality.

And then, of course, we saw a real star of WEC in Jose Aldo make his fight against Manny Gamburyan look so easy. Nobody can match his head movement and instincts right now. I demand to see him against the winner of Frankie Edgar/Gray Maynard next year. Make it happen!

Bet Urijah’s happy that he’s at Bantamweight now and gets to deal with Dominick Cruz instead.

Every time I listen to Donald Cerrone talk, I feel like I need to grab the Purell and clean up from all the sleaze oozing so freely. And yet, he dominated Jamie Varner in a fight that I have no clue why Varner accepted after what happened against Kamal Shalorus in Edmonton. This eliminated Varner’s title hopes in the WEC.

Miguel Torres officially has the most awkward telephone-pole stance for stand-up in MMA. I liked what I saw from him tonight.

Message to Leonard Garcia — don’t fight a stand-up war with someone who’s far technically superior to you. Memo to Mark Hominick — you could have won that fight faster by taking your opponent down and choking him out. Try that next time. Nevertheless, a fun fight to watch but it says a whole lot about the state of MMA judging that most people watching that fight were legitimately scared that the judges would give it to Garcia. The one judge that did score the fight in favor of Garcia was named… Joe Garcia.

Topics: Media, MMA, WEC, Zach Arnold | 40 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |

Can WEC 51 get more than 500,000 viewers tonight on Versus?

By Zach Arnold | September 30, 2010

Tonight is the fight that Manny Gamburyan has been asking for since beating Mike Brown and that’s a shot against Jose Aldo. Aldo’s been training with fellow world-beater Marlon Sandro. The odds are stacked against Manny, but I expect a explosive main event tonight. The question is whether many fans will be watching the event on TV (or not).

The WEC 51 card in Broomfield, on paper, looks fantastic. 9 PM EST start time on Versus. One fight that I’m not looking forward to is Jamie Varner vs. Donald Cerrone. Cerrone, who’s foul-mouthed sleazy rant on Tapout radio caused a stir, thinks that he can beat Varner. I’m with Jamie — every time Cerrone opens his mouth, it’s like being in a time machine in the sport. WEC/Zuffa got lucky that GLAAD or other gay political groups didn’t pick up on Cerrone’s comments.

Greg Beacham of The Associated Press ran a profile article on the news wire yesterday about Zhang Tiequan, who will be fighting on the WEC under card tonight against Pablo Garza (who lost an eliminator fight on The Ultimate Fighter this season).

The Big Lead previews tonight’s show.

Other news & notes

Frankie Edgar vs. Gray Maynard will be part of the Anderson Silva/Vitor Belfort UFC card on New Year’s Day. If they get slotted in the semi-main event slot, I would say that the promotion would be making the right call.

After Nik Lentz killed the Boston crowd with his cage smothering of Andre Winner, Winner has been awarded a main card fight for UFC’s November show in Germany. Dave Meltzer reports that a little under 4,000 tickets have been sold for the event so far (headlined by Nate Marquardt vs. Yushin Okami).

Cole Miller wants a fight with Takanori Gomi next.

Strikeforce gives Paul Daley a good opening fight for the promotion this December against Scott Smith. Of course, Daley is a Welterweight and Smith has been fighting at 185. It’s Strikeforce, after all.

Regarding the Strikeforce show on October 9th at San Jose Arena (HP Pavilion), I would say the heat going in is tepid. Noons and Diaz have gotten the spotlight, but nothing about their past in Elite XC has really been mentioned in the press. Sarah Kaufman is getting semi-main event billing. Josh Thomson a couple of months ago said on CSN Bay Area that his fight was going to be in the semi-main event slot, but since his opponent was announced as JZ Calvan the talk of it being semi-main has died down.

Mike Tyson comments on James Toney’s MMA debut. I thought it was funny to see Tyson on The Ultimate Fighter yesterday. BTW, last night’s episode was not a very entertaining show. Michael Johnson’s fight was… well… the less said, the better.

Tonight for Bellator features the semi-finals of their women’s 115-pound tournament. Megumi Fujii vs. Lisa Ward and Jessica Aguilar vs. Zoila Frausto. Zoila struggled to make weight, so it will be interesting to see if she will come into the cage dehydrated or tired.

New York Newsday has an article hidden behind a firewall this morning, but the essence of the piece is that Zuffa is supporting Andrew Cuomo in the New York Governor’s race over Carl Paladino. Justin Klein has more on the politics of MMA in the NY Governor’s race.

Andrei Arlovski is off the K-1 10/2 Seoul event, which is happening this weekend. Talk about an event going under the radar.

Roy Jones Jr.’s next fight (scheduled for next week) has been canceled. He was doing another of his mixed boxing/MMA cards in Pensacola.

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

Can Vitor Belfort make Middleweight in 2011? Does he deserve a UFC title shot?

By Zach Arnold | September 29, 2010

A Cagewriter.com conversation on the topic

STEVE COFIELD: “Big news last week, no doubt about it, with Chael Sonnen and the positive test and the UFC’s made their decision. They’re putting Vitor Belfort in a fight, you know, some time in 2011 against Anderson Silva. Great fight, I’m excited.”

KEVIN IOLE: “Ha ha. I’m gald you are, Steve. Um, heh. I don’t… if it was a non-title fight, I have no problem with it. I think it would be an exciting fight. My problem is, how has Vitor Belfort earned a shot at the Middleweight championship? When he has he fought Middleweight in the UFC? Tell me the last fight he’s had in the UFC at Middleweight. I’ll tell you the answer to that — he hasn’t. I think his last win at Middleweight was over Matt Lindland. … Terry Martin and Matt Lindland, if I’m not mistaken. To my way of thinking, you have to win fights in the organization you’re in and against rated contenders in order to get a shot at the championship and I know the Sonnen thing, you know, caused a lot of problems for them but I think, you know, the answer to this situation is (to) have Vitor Belfort go ahead and fight Yushin Okami and then have that winner fight Anderson Silva and re-arrange your schedule a little bit. It’s not ultimately what they wanted to do and I think that they wanted to get Anderson on one of the big shows, either at the end of the year or Super Bowl weekend but I just don’t like Vitor, I don’t think he’s earned the championship shot in this particular division.”

STEVE COFIELD: “So, for you, it’s more about fighting at the weight rather than the promotion because I’ll draw a comparison but obviously the guy’s very accomplished at the weight, but if Fedor had come in to UFC without wins in UFC he would have gotten Brock Lesnar, immediately.”

KEVIN IOLE: “Yeah, and I mean you can’t argue that one because number one that would have been the biggest fight in history in terms of had it come before the Werdum loss, had he signed with the UFC in ’09 in the Summer of ’09 when there was talk about that. That would have been the biggest fight in the history so from everybody’s standpoint people would have wanted to see it, there was clamor around the world to see that fight. I think Brock would have wanted it, certainly Fedor would have wanted that fight and I don’t think anybody can say, hey, Fedor needs to start at the bottom and fight Joey Beltran. I mean everybody would have agreed that Fedor deserves to get right in the mix but in Vitor’s case, you know, Vitor’s kind of been a mixed bag in his career and he hasn’t proven it. He has NOT MADE 185, so you know he fought that fight with Rich Franklin at 195. I mean, what do we do if he comes in and, you know, it’s been over two years since he last made that weight, by the time will come it’s been over two years since he made that 185 but if he comes up and all of a sudden finds out that hey, I can’t make it, you know, not good. I don’t think it’s right that, you know, you put a guy in a title shot. I think you have to see that he can make the weight first and beat somebody in the division, you know maybe he can make and he could be totally depleted, we don’t know what kind of Vitor we’re going to get because we’ve never seen him at this weight, especially at this age.”

STEVE COFIELD: “So, do you feel like Nate Marquardt got screwed here?”

KEVIN IOLE: “You know, I don’t want to say that he got screwed, you know, because if we say we don’t take the Vitor fight, now you say you know you’re Dana White or you’re Joe Silva talking to me, OK, smart guy, who do I put him in with, right? And then it’s not so easy because, you know, well Nate Marquardt not only lost to Anderson Silva but he lost to Chael Sonnen, you know do you put Yushin Okami back in there? He just got beat by Chael Sonnen, so there’s no, you know, obvious logical guy to go in. That’s why I say, hey, you know what? Just push Anderson’s title defense back a little bit and then we go and we create a contender by having a fight. That’s how I would do it, you know, I think that would be the more favorable thing to do. I understand that, you know, maybe from a business standpoint it’s not the greatest thing to do but from a competitor’s standpoint, the UFC’s done such a great job of keeping the value of their titles high by not giving unfair title shots and I think this is one in the way that you could say is an unfair title shot.”

STEVE COFIELD: “What are the odds of the fight actually happens? Because Belfort had to bail out of a lot of fights and already we heard from the Silva camp, you know, the elbow, you know, might not be ready for January 1st so, I mean is there a possibility that we could have a little drama before this fight any way and maybe Marquardt with a win gets pushed forward?”

KEVIN IOLE: “Yeah, I mean, I expect the fight to go forward to be honest with you, but I think, you know, Ed and Anderson will take the fight. I think (if) they’re healthy and there is no issue, they will take the fight. Now, can Vitor make it to the post? You know, I mean, you certainly bring up a good point. He’s had a history of falling out of fights and, you know, so until you see Vitor walking down the aisle and climbing up the steps, you know, you never know if the fight’s going to go off. I think it will happen, you know… my question is, is it going to be a title fight when it happens because, you know, I just have this really nagging feeling that when Vitor goes and tries to cut those final 10 pounds to get from 195 to 185, it’s going to be a lot different.”

The idea behind Silva/Belfort, on paper, makes sense. Belfort vs. Okami, on paper, was in general a bad match-up for Vitor. If you don’t want Okami to get a title shot, then they had to move Belfort into the title match to ensure that Vitor gets a crack at the belt.

Meanwhile, Marquardt can continue his climb back up by beating Okami. If Okami beats Marquardt, then he’s primed to face the winner of Silva/Belfort (unless another Middleweight comes into the picture) and UFC will have to give in on booking such a fight. The only detour for Okami is if Sonnen can somehow get his suspension reduced in California, then you would see Okami/Sonnen paired up again. Otherwise, not happening.

I think Anderson/Belfort is going to be a real fun fight to watch. They both have a common opponent in the UFC that they’ve beaten (Rich Franklin) and we’ll see whether or not Anderson can handle Belfort’s striking. I’m not sure if it’s a fight that will appeal to the masses, but I largely don’t have any problem with the fight itself being booked.

Topics: Media, MMA, UFC, Zach Arnold | 25 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |

Chael Sonnen’s training partner Neil Melanson: It always seems that positive test results happen mainly in California

By Zach Arnold | September 28, 2010

Watch Neil Melanson Comments on Chael Sonnen’s Use of Performance Enhancing Drugs on RawVegas.tv

A very fascinating interview. Don’t just read the transcript — watch the interview to catch some of the nuance. I’ll leave a comment to this post to give you my response to what he said.

INTERVIEWER: “You trained Chael Sonnen before his Anderson Silva fight. Were you surprised when you found out that he popped positive for performance-enhancing drugs?”

NEIL MELANSON: “I was really surprised but um… you know, it seems like everybody that gets caught with something gets caught in California and even Sean Sherk got busted in California and he took a lie detector test to try to clear his name and he passed a lie detector test and, you know, so now he’s under, you know, what, did he really do it? Did he beat the lie detector test? I think Chael’s kind of in that spot where, you know, I just texted Chael quick just to say, hey man, whatever happens, you know, you still have friends out there and he said that this was basically B.S. and now he’s got to spend his time, you know, clearing his name instead of fighting but he doesn’t strike me as the type but you don’t know but he’s… he’s a real hard-working guy. I don’t know what he need, I mean unless he… I know he did have a broken foot during that camp, so he trained that whole camp with a broken foot but the guy’s an animal, he’s not a crybaby. So unless he took something or he thought he got something cleared maybe and it wasn’t cleared, I don’t… they haven’t really come out with what it is was as far as I know, if it was a steroid….”

INTERVIEWER: “High levels of testosterone they said.”

NEIL MELANSON: “Oh really? Well, I guess depending on the levels if it was pretty high than maybe he did take something and…”

INTERVIEWER: “Chael Sonnen is a very hard-working fighter. We saw that performance, he never stopped working in that fight. He also didn’t stop working when he was smack talking the entire time, hyping up the event. Do you think that maybe when you’re hyping up a fight that much you put too much pressure on yourself and that could be a reason why he popped positive?”

NEIL MELANSON: “I don’t know if he felt a lot of pressure. I know that he wanted to win and maybe he, I thought he was trying to get in Anderson’s head and make Anderson emotional by trying to make it sound like it was personal and going after him and trying to break him a little bit. So… I thought it was just a tactic but I guess he’s been kind of doing it on everybody so it’s kind of become more a spectacle and a comedy show but, you know, I don’t really… when people talk like that, you can’t really read into it because they’re just having fun, I don’t think they’re really trying to make a statement or anything, he’s just trying to entertain.”

INTERVIEWER: “When I found out about the positive test, it worried me because people already ask me how legitimate this sport is. Do you think that something like this can damage the reputation?”

NEIL MELANSON: “I don’t think this is as damaging as others think. I think, you know, all athletes, you know, in all sports, there’s always some athletes get caught with some type of drug so I mean performance-enhancing, it’s a very physically demanding sport. I think the thing that can hurt the sport is that the fact that anybody can do it, so there’s times where people are fighting that… they don’t mean to try to hurt the sport but it’s like… I never played football in my life but if I just started to train football one day you think I’d be able to get in the NFL? Not in a million years, but some of these guys that play football all of a sudden they just want to fight and they train for a year and next thing you know they’re in the cage or even less and it kind of makes it look like anybody can do it and because anybody can walk in there. I think is that that’s bad for the sport because people see ‘oh this guy is a big athlete or he’s a stud and he’s out there’ and the fight is ugly and they think, wow, this is what MMA is and then you end up watching really good fighters and you see, wow, this is a lot different and unfortunately sometimes the technical, the good fighters… they get a lot of attention, which is a good thing, but these other guys that have no ability but they have the name or whatever, they get a lot of attention.”

INTERVIEWER: “I understand that, but Chael Sonnen is a very high-profile fighter and so when he pops positive, does that damage the reputation of MMA?”

NEIL MELANSON: “I don’t think it does. I really don’t.”

INTERVIEWER: “A lot of MMA media figures, including Josh Gross, have been saying that there should be zero tolerance from fight promoters, that once a fighter pops positive, cut him. But Dana White himself disagrees and says that the year-suspension and a year of not being able to earn an income and just the personal damage it does to their own reputation is punishment enough. How do you feel?”

NEIL MELANSON: “I agree with Dana White, you know, it’s… You know… If you want to know how to run a successful promotion or a successful business, ask people that run successful promotions and businesses. Dana White is successful at what he does. I think when he forces an opinion about something, especially like that, then you should take that into consideration because he’s obviously making a ton of money and he’s basically… the Godfather to the sport at this point and, uh, you know, a lot of these columnists and I’m not disrespecting, you know, Josh Gross, if that’s his name because it’s good to have other opinions and other thoughts, but I think it’s good to have that devil advocate and that media that kind of brings up that other side but the reality is, you know, talking about people… that’s like saying you hate fat people because you’re skinny you’re whole life and then, you know, you don’t realize what it’s like to be hard to be fat and it’s not easy to lose weight. You’re judging something that you have no experience or really no knowledge. These guys that get popped for steroids maybe once in their career, maybe it was the one time they screwed up and they deserve a second chance because maybe they did it because they’re injured or whatever it was and they shouldn’t be demonized for the rest of their life and be forced to give it up. To me, that’s very unfair. I mean… it’s ridiculous, I mean… Nick Diaz got busted for being high on marijuana, should he be completely demonized as a fighter when he’s putting on great performances? He’s one of my favorite fighters to watch, you know, to me it’s like if he wants to do something, who’s he hurting? It’s like, yeah he should be clean the day of the fight, OK, fine, suspend him but don’t tell me he’s got to go find another job, you know, a whole another career. I think that’s ridiculous.”

Topics: Media, MMA, UFC, Zach Arnold | 14 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |

A bunch of MMA randomness from this past weekend

By Zach Arnold | September 27, 2010

Dana White has a saying that he likes to tout after every UFC show and that saying can be paraphrased in this manner: Whenever we put on a show, we make a good first impression in that town and ‘the MMA bug’ spreads like a virus. Somehow, I’m not sure that’s totally the case with last Saturday’s Indianapolis show. The Indianapolis Star has two headlines of note: Rousing UFC event fizzled at the finish at fieldhouse and UFC card is a huge hit with Hoosiers. I love this Indy Channel report claiming millions of people watched UFC 119 on PPV.

After Melvin Guillard’s fight performance against Jeremy Stephens, Rich Hansen at MMA Torch had less than kind things to say about Greg Jackson. As Jonathan Snowden puts it, Winning Above All: The Greg Jackson Formula.

Michael Bisping penned a piece for Sky Sports (or someone did it for him) where he’s frustrated by the fact that Yoshihiro Akiyama isn’t talking trash about him. He wants to fight an opponent who talks trash so that he can be more motivated.

Can someone please explain to me why the Alex Reid fight was such a big deal over the weekend in the UK? There’s a million tabloid headlines over there like:

A must-see: A report w/ photos of Georges St. Pierre drawing huge crowds in the Philippines.

Notes on DREAM 16 TV ratings. Take note that the show drew a 11.9% rating overall, with the Satoshi Ishii vs. Minowaman fight drawing a peak rating of 18.1%. Speaking of Ishii, there’s been discussion of him wrestling Naoya Ogawa on the IGF 12/3 Ryogoku Kokugikan show in Tokyo.

Topics: Media, MMA, UFC, UK, Zach Arnold | 38 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |

Matt Mitrione fires his agent Malki Kawa at UFC 119 in Indianapolis

By Zach Arnold | September 25, 2010

“Meathead” Matt Mitrione fired his agent Malki Kawa live on camera at UFC 119 in Indianapolis, Indiana. He said this on the microphone during a post-fight interview with Joe Rogan.

During this interview with Ariel Helwani, Mr. Mitrione says that the reason he fired Mr. Kawa is because he made $5,000USD in sponsorships for his ‘national TV’ fight against Joey Beltran on Spike TV for the preliminary bouts. Matt claims that when he asked Mr. Kawa about sponsors and getting preparations ready for his shorts (to place the ads on), he claims that Malki told him to keep his (Mitrione’s) wife out of his business affairs. Mitrione was unhappy and felt that he should have been making more in sponsorship money.

Here is Malki Kawa’s response:

Guys, I’m not going to comment until I speak to him. I’ve called into him and I’m waiting for him to respond. Once I understand the problem, I’ll talk about it.

Topics: Media, MMA, UFC, Zach Arnold | 20 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |

UFC 119 aftermath (9/25 Conseco Fieldhouse)

By Zach Arnold | September 25, 2010

Dark matches

Main card

Low key card produces … exactly the results you would expect

A much-maligned card going in produced the results you thought it would. Matt Serra fought a stand-up war, lost, and then admitted that he didn’t fight his normal game plan afterwards. Evan Dunham suffered his first loss to Sean Sherk via controversial judges’ decision. Frank Mir won a hideously boring fight against Mirko Cro Cop and I’m not sure if the win does a thing at all for Mir.

Spike TV aired four fights on their prelims telecast, which might in fact be a record. The fans in Indianapolis deserved a better show. Wonder what Dana White will do to “make it up to the fans.” Try nothing.

Topics: Media, MMA, UFC, Zach Arnold | 65 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |

DREAM 16 in Nagoya – Ishii’s win, Sakuraba’s submission loss

By Zach Arnold | September 25, 2010

They claimed an attendance figure of 9,300. When Satoshi Ishii came out to the ring, he came out to Antonio Inoki’s ring entrance song. (Yes, he is aligned with management that is close to Inoki.) The impression was very clear after the fight that Ishii will be in DREAM for the foreseeable future and that his next fight will be on New Year’s Eve for the promotion. Virtually all of the Japanese media focus was on this after the fight.

As for Sakuraba losing by submission in two minutes to Mayhem Miller, completely predictable and horribly sad at the same time. Picture of the finish here and a picture of a disappointed Sakuraba.

Tim Sylvia loses in his pro-wrestling debut

While the DREAM 16 show was going on in Nagoya, there was an Inoki Genome Federation show in Tokyo at JCB Hall with a lot of big names. Claimed attendance was 2,958. The promotion announced that their next show would be on 12/3 in Tokyo at Ryogoku Kokugikan with an “Inoki Matsuri (festival)” theme for the promotion’s 7th year anniversary.

Topics: DREAM, Japan, Media, MMA, Pro-Wrestling, Zach Arnold | 7 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |

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