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MMA Link Club: The ‘everybody grumbles about the future of Strikeforce’ edition

By Zach Arnold | December 19, 2011

Member sites of the MMA Link Club

This week’s MMA Link Club featured stories

Five Ounces of Pain: Strikeforce-Showtime deal was contingent on keeping Gilbert Melendez & Luke Rockhold

If the report is true, why would Showtime think that the Strikeforce belts carry the same kind of weight as being a UFC champion?

MMA Fighting: Zuffa should consider sending BJ Penn to Strikeforce to face Gilbert Melendez

Solution: Bring someone over from the UFC to fight him. It doesn’t have to be the champion. Bring one of the many quality guys over to challenge him. I have just the guy. He’s a big name, he can bring attention to the promotion, and he offers the instant credibility that only a former UFC champion can provide. Bring over BJ Penn to fight Melendez.

As long as UFC is running the amount of PPVs that they are scheduled to produce, BJ Penn will be a PPV headliner and not a headliner for a Showtime deal that is the B-level deal.

With that said, I’d love to see the fight happen… but it’s not going to happen.

Fightline: Cris Cyborg shows no ring rust in blitzing Hiroko Yamanaka in 16 seconds

The question is… who’s left in the field that can compete with Cyborg’s physical size?

Cage Potato: Strikeforce aftermath — the challenge in finding challengers

Strikeforce has thus far found Melendez the best competition available, but there’s no question that he’s outgrown his little pond. Bouts against ranked, or even credible, competition will be few and far between from here on out, which is why it’s all the more important that the champ make a statement with each and every punch. Last night he failed to do that. This is not to take away from Masvidal, as he is dangerous, but most consensus rankings place him somewhere in the mid-to-high 20?s. Melendez put together solid combinations and stayed out of trouble round after round, which was more than enough to convincingly win the fight. But right now he’s stranded out on that island. If he wants to earn the kind of attention and respect that he’s after, he’s going to have to light a massive fire and scream a little louder with his performances.

MMA Mania: Gilbert Melendez thinks the Japanese view him as the #1 Lightweight in MMA

5th Round: UFC 142 Brazil card filling up again after getting ravaged by injuries

Is this going to be a ‘forgotten’ show on the event calendar for fans? The main card definitely feels very light on big star power.

Bleacher Report: Gilbert Melendez could be the one to defeat Frankie Edgar

Would it be a pretty fight to watch, though?

Liver Kick via Middle Easy: Strikeforce is the MMA world’s purgatorio

Last night proved to be the first bigger Strikeforce event since the Showtime deal was re-negotiated, and something about the show did not come off as planned. On paper, the card was exciting and showed a lot of promise, but in execution it was a mess. If a fighter is competing within a promotion that stands on its own, there is something for them to achieve, but when the promotion is a feeder league with parallel divisions, the whole scope of the game changes. Part of what helped with Strikeforce’s charm was the attitude and identity of the promotion. It felt like a spiritual successor to some of the bigger Japanese events, with a focus on entertainment and promoting the fighters, not just the brand.

The accompanying graphic in the article is worth the click alone.

Lowkick: Phil Davis says that Rashad Evans is still the same old fighter

The Fight Nerd: Check out the original call for fighters UFC ad from 1993!

It’s exactly what you would expect it to look like. It looks like it was done in Wordperfect.

MMA Convert: Video — Jens Pulver was knocked out cold over the weekend in Nebraska

MMA Payout: Very nicely detailed update on Zuffa’s lawsuit against New York over the state MMA ban

…Zuffa argues that New York does not have a rational basis for its blanket ban of professional mixed martial arts in the state. It states that New York does not articulate the reasons for the ban. While safety and messages of violence may be interpreted as the reasons for the law, Zuffa contends that these reasons fall flat since other forms of martial arts are legal in New York and studies show that MMA is a safe sport. In addition, Zuffa argues that there is no rational reason that it bans MMA even though there are other violent forms of speech (i.e., video games, violent movies and music lyrics) that are not regulated.

As a bonus, here’s an MMA Metrics report about Pro Elite market research on just who is watching MMA these days.

Topics: Media, MMA, StrikeForce, UFC, Zach Arnold | 18 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |

Little heat in Japan for Fedor/Ishii on Inoki NYE show

By Zach Arnold | December 18, 2011

To make a long story short, whatever heat that has been generated by the upcoming Fedor/Satoshi Ishii fight has been largely due to Fedor. His name still has a lot of romantic value amongst the hardcore Japanese MMA fans. Ishii, on the other hand, may as well be walking into this fight as a ‘foreigner’ in the eyes of many in the country. In many cases, he’s treated more like a foreigner with ‘you suck’ heat as opposed to ‘hey, you’re representing our country’ kind of heat. Ishii does not have a dynamic personality. If anything, I would consider his personality to be stunted, idiotic, and impulsive. What makes his predicament so unusual is that he gives you the bad, ugly, and awful and yet everyone you talk to who has ever trained with the guy says that he’s a total beast in the gym and gives you everything he has. So, how does someone who shows you heart in the gym not give the fans much to care about when it’s go time?

Ishii will be bringing Ed Buckley, Team Quest Muay Thai instructor, with him to Japan as his second. Ishii has been training at both Reign (Mark Munoz’s gym) and Black House in Southern California.

For the casual fan, the Inoki NYE show at Saitama Super Arena is a one match card. The problem for the promoter (DREAM) is that Ishii is an OK TV ratings draw (around 11% peak value) but not a good live house draw at all. Nobody really cares about him passionately nor has he given anyone a reason to care. The problem is that the status of this show airing on Tokyo Broadcasting System is still up in the air. Even if the network decides to take a chance to air the show, it’s not like the network is going to invest much in terms of promotion. If the network was serious about backing this show, they would have made the arrangements a couple of months ago.

Back to Ishii for a minute. The difference between someone like him versus an Antonio Inoki or Hiro Matsuda in terms of career path is that Inoki left Japan to go to Brazil, worked some fights in the States and elsewhere, then came back with New Japan in 1972 to make Japan home base. Matsuda left to go to Brazil and ended up making more of a name for himself at the Grand Olympic Auditorium in Los Angeles and across the States with his programs involving Danny Hodge. Ishii inherits the worst aspects of both men’s careers in that he possesses the athletic ability without the desire to embrace Japan or make it home base and no sort of fiery personality to become an ace. Matsuda was well-respected wherever he went but he was never a huge name in Japan. Sure, he got some air time on TV-Asahi when Asahi would air footage of Inoki, Seiji Sakaguchi, and crew from the Olympic Auditorium shows but Hiro never was fully embraced by Inoki. Of course, the two men grew to despise each other even though there were some elements of a cold peace.

Steve Cofield says this card sucks. Jordan Breen thinks this NYE card is a good step by DREAM in actually advancing the Japanese MMA game into this decade. The problem with DREAM is that they often book the worst aspects of the old world and new world. They try to give you some nostalgia with Fedor but then they give you Ishii. You get a mixed rules fight with Yuichiro Nagashima. You end up with Shinya Aoki vs. Satoru Kitaoka, the kind of fight that may sell 1,000 tickets max. Without real television support, it’s going to be impossible for DREAM to make the new kind of MMA stars to advance the scene into this decade as far as the UFC-level goes.

One of my great hopes about the UFC Japan card was that Zuffa would give enough respect to the Japanese fans to delicately treat the event as a real cornerstone show of transitional & historical importance. You could have put all the major PRIDE gaijin on the show (Shogun, Mirko, Nogueiras) and also put the best UFC names on the card so that, yes, you tip your cap and honor the history but also draw enough eyeballs to show the new school product. Dave Meltzer says that 7,000 tickets have been sold in advance for the UFC Japan show at Saitama Super Arena. Given that I felt the over/under was 10,000 for success or failure, UFC is right on track. Better than Ryogoku but less than Budokan or Yokohama Arena. In other words, no surprises so far.

One reason I was hoping for Zuffa to come through on that front is because I was afraid that we would see guys like Mirko hang around in Japan long after their UFC tenure… and sure enough, there’s a ‘fight offer’ for Mirko to face Jerome Le Banner on the Inoki NYE show. It’s going to be 2012 and this fight is still being considered relevant? This move by Mirko to not get booked on the UFC Japan show and instead end up on the Inoki show just reeks of Ken Imai’s influence. Imai was Kazuyoshi Ishii’s old right-hand man who ended up turning on him and joining Nobuyuki Sakakibar as one of his right-hand men during PRIDE. Imai found a way to skate past the K-1 tax evasion/phony contract scandal and he found a way to skate past the yakuza scandal that imploded PRIDE.

When PRIDE collapsed five years ago, I said that the Japanese scene would go one of two ways. We would see new blood and a new transition period or we would see the same old cast of characters hang around and try to give it a go again because nobody new would want to get involved in putting their cash in a business with the kind of politics & crime that takes place in Japan. Unfortunately for the Japanese fans, they’re continuing to get the worst of all worlds.

On the bright side, at least the Japanese fans didn’t have to endure last night’s Strikeforce card from San Diego. Keep hope alive!

The updated card for the DREAM/Inoki NYE event at Saitama Super Arena:

Topics: DREAM, Japan, M-1, Media, MMA, Zach Arnold | 5 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |

Jordan Breen: People wouldn’t intensely hate Jon Jones if he was white

By Zach Arnold | December 16, 2011

This is not a new charge from the Sherdog personality. However, he certainly stepped up the theory since Jones won big over Lyoto Machida at UFC 140 in Toronto and did the ESPN ‘car wash’ of interviews/TV shows on Tuesday.

Take it away, Jordan:

“The way and the specific dudes that Jones took out in the fashion in which he did it in is ridiculous and I think this is easily the best year we’ve seen in Mixed Martial Arts. It’s not just that he dominated a bunch of guys that are on the list of all-time great Light Heavyweights to begin with, it’s the fact that he beat Shogun so horrifically that if there was a rematch you would have a feeling in your gut that Shogun could die in the cage. He forced Quinton Jackson to raise the white flag in a way that we just really hadn’t seen Quinton Jackson do. Normally, if you’re going to stomp Quinton Jackson you better beat the ever-loving hell out of this guy and leave him laid out bleeding out of his face on the ropes. And then against Lyoto Machida someone who his lone real incident of serious adversity was getting cracked by Shogun, someone who concede has some freaky sort of power, Jones then dropped Lyoto and then dropped him again like a sack of potatoes after choking him unconscious. So, I think it’s probably the most impressive three fight span that I can think of in Mixed Martial Arts to go along with probably the most impressive year… and by probably the most impressive year, I mean quite certainly the most impressively year I’ve ever seen in MMA.

“So, I think if you’re looking for someone to beat Jon Jones, acting like some guy’s going to pull out this great game plan over 25 minutes? I don’t know. I’m more interested in a guy that, even if he might go down in a flaming car wreck of a disaster, might actually have the offensive power to put him away. Dan Henderson can sucker guys into an exchange, he can land really heavy powerful punches, maybe he lands the one big right overhand that does it. I think he’s got a better chance than Rashad Evans who always takes his time, is measured, is a stocky, compact guy. I think Rashad Evans is going to get ripped up against Jon Jones because he’s a slow starter and Jon Jones can just come forward and go-go-go. But Dan Henderson, maybe he can get a right hand in there, maybe he can make that kind of thing work. If he doesn’t, he’s going to be in a world of hurt and I think it’s going to turn into an epic beatdown. But I think that’s the kind of dynamic you look for. I’m still interested in seeing if a guy like King Mo or Phil Davis could put Jon Jones on his back and see what happens from there. But… as far as guys at the top of the division that might actually be challenging soon, Henderson is a guy who piques my interest because even if he has the chance of just getting assaulted in lopsided fashion, I do think he’s the one guy that kind of maybe land that one big kind of haymaker that might put Jon Jones down on queer street and possibly be finished. Because I don’t see another guy that has a great chance of setting it up.”

Dan Henderson is the best remaining opponent for Jon Jones? I guess we shouldn’t care about the Rashad Evans vs. Phil Davis fight then in Chicago?

“I did MMA Nation with Luke Thomas on Sunday night and he said that the two people, that when he posts videos or radio segments about, that there’s the most vitriolic feedback: Amir Khan and Jon Jones. And, oh my God, is it any questions that they’re both part of races that polarize people on different sides of the Atlantic? No way! The thing that I find amusing is… race isn’t everything but it’s not nothing. I find it amazing that I still get e-mails from people and, to be fair, I think if Jon Jones was white I still think he would polarize people but I don’t think so many people would react so intensely as they do and found and rationalize their hate in the way they do if he was white. And the same thing for Amir Khan. If Amir Khan was white… Amir Khan is… he’s even more of an innocuous personality. I mean, he gets a lot of the same sort of criticism for being sort like fake or inauthentic but ultimately… if he was white and not brown, would people feel that way on either side of the Atlantic? I’m not so sure, you know. So, I think there are guys that they wouldn’t be ultimately the most popular dudes in the world if they were white, they would still polarize people, I think, but I don’t think there would be the intensity, the magnitude of the venom that goes with it because some of the e-mails and tweets I get about Jon Jones at this point in time, you’d think this guy was some kind of genocidal dictator not just a fighter in the UFC.

“Seriously, like… why? And this is the thing, I’m not saying, ‘oh, Jon Jones, a great dude’… like I said and I have said for a long time, Jon Jones is, you know, not… he is not every bit the son of the Preacher man he attempts to be. He is, in that way, not a genuine personality and, yet, he’s an incredible, incredible fighter who is not responsible for all of the evils in the world, who did not do a terrible thing by breaking when John McCarthy said break and let Machida fall to the canvas, who is not some kind of demonic entity. It’s totally OK to dislike Jon Jones but… as I said on Twitter, if this guy announces his entire purse was going to go to cancer research, people would ask why he hates AIDS victims. It’s crazy.”

Jordan then had a caller on his show lay out some non-racial reasons as to why MMA fans hate Jon Jones so much:

“Two other reasons besides just race as to why he’s hated, this is me being objective looking at it from both sides. Something I saw posted on a Sherdog forum, he said like Jon is like, we all know you’re cocky, so why don’t you just come out and be the cocky champion and we’ll love you for it. And I kind of understand it, I kind of feel like, yeah, he tries so hard to put this image on and, you know, I really don’t think it’s him. I think the other thing is, the last point why I think so many fans hate him so much, most MMA fans especially internet fans are people who aren’t really into sports too much, right, they’re not into like football or basketball or baseball, you know, MMA was like *their* sport and, to them, it was like something they could see themselves doing and I think with Jon Jones they see an athletic and explosive, there goes that term again, athletic and explosive athlete who probably could have started at receiver in the NFL or played, you know, the 3 spot in the NBA just come in to the UFC and basically just dominate, you know, their sport and I think they almost see it as like the future and they don’t like that and I think that really has to do with like a lot of hate for this guy to come out of nowhere and basically destroy all heir PRIDE heroes and you know how much they love PRIDE and all that and basically makes it to the point now where you don’t even want to see a rematch (because) he’s beating people so bad. I mean, now, I’m hearing stuff like on these boards now they’re saying that he should be a heavyweight? Like, c’mon, he walks around at 220…”

Which lead to this response:

“One of the major charges led against him is this idea that he’s not an authentic personality, that he’s someone that tries to act like this wholesome Christian well-manicured sort of dude and really he’s about as rowdy and bawdy as any 24 year old who might be the baddest dude on the entire planet. That’s absolutely insane. In fact, it’s crazy that Jon Jones just isn’t absolutely wild as a person because if I woke up tomorrow and not only was the UFC Light Heavyweight champion but I realized I had the ability to essentially destroy almost any dude I get my hands on, I might go mental. So, it’s crazy that he’s not even at that point. But secondarily, I think, that’s another point, too, that’s come up. It almost seems like early on people were thrilled at how many exciting things Jon Jones could do but he’s made so many great fighters look ordinary now it almost seems like defeating the purpose of having fights, it almost seems unfair. And I think with this, one of the heard ideas you’ve heard more and more recently, ‘oh, go fight Heavyweights!’ I have a news flash for you, by the way — if you don’t to see Jon Jones do crazy stuff and embarrass guys, you don’t want him to fight at Heavyweight.”

If people hate Jon Jones, they’re certainly willing to pay to watch him if you believe the initial PPV buy rate estimates from Dave Meltzer (in the upper 400,000s, near 500,000). Running out of potential opponents in the future could be a problem, for sure… so I’m guessing a fight against Anderson Silva might be desirable at this point.

Topics: Canada, Media, MMA, UFC, Zach Arnold | 42 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |

Keith Kizer: Urine is ‘obviously’ better than blood for steroid testing

By Zach Arnold | December 14, 2011

Tuesday proved to be quite the day on the radio circuit if you were interested in commentary about the situation between Alistair Overeem and the Nevada State Athletic Commission over drug testing. If you didn’t follow the details of Monday’s NSAC meeting, read the details here.

Keith Kizer appeared on Mauro Ranallo’s show yesterday and stated the following:

“Well, it depends on what you’re testing for. If you’re testing for steroids, then it’s obvious that urine’s the better test. There’s, yeah, no doubt about that, yeah. In fact, those blood tests done by [Overeem’s] doctor wasn’t even for steroids, per se. It was done for testosterone, DHEA, FSH, LH, and I think prolactin as well. And, again, all those came back in normal ranges and that was good to see that, as well. But, a) it wasn’t a steroid test and b) it wasn’t a urine test and even if you tested for steroids in the blood, they usually get out of your system within 6-to-20 hours as opposed to the urine test where it takes quite a while to get out of your system, maybe in some cases months.”

“It’s not like there’s sports not going on in Holland. Of course, they’re big in things like soccer and volleyball and bicycle racing and other things as well where they do [perform] drug testing, so I’m not certain why his doctor ordered that test other than just perhaps it’s something his doctor’s not familiar with or doesn’t get involved with. Maybe he’s a general practitioner, I don’t know the answer. But, nonetheless, it was the wrong test and he needs to jump through these initial hurdles because of that. So, it may be a situation where what I’m going to try to do is develop some sort of written protocol to send to these fighters explaining exactly what the basic steroid panel is. I think most doctors would understand that but if there a couple out there that don’t the fighter can take this written protocol with him or her to the doctor’s office and it and lay out exactly what types of diuretics, what kind of steroids, and what type of masking agencies that are done on the basic steroid panel that Quest does and Labcore does and a lot of other, the UCLA lab, they all kind of follow the same guidelines via WADA. What’s tested in those three categories: steroids, diuretics, and masking agencies and that should be a benefit to everybody to have it written out.”

He would go on to say that Alistair Overeem would give a urine sample at a Quest Diagnostics accredited/affiliated lab in the UK and that the sample would be transferred to Atlanta for examination.

As Dr. David Black, the man who worked with the NFL & WWE in drug testing programs, said on 60 Minutes: testosterone is the base chemical of steroids. Blood testing also is better for HGH detection. It also happens to be an excellent barometer if you measure for hematocrit levels as Victor Conte has suggested. A hematocrit standard by athletic commissions would catch many more cheaters. It’s that simple.

But, no, urine tests are supposedly better at catching steroid users according to Keith Kizer. Loretta Hunt appeared on the radio show after Mr. Kizer’s interview and backed up his claims on the matter. Travis Tygart of USADA, of course, believes that you need both urine & blood testing for effective detection of drug abuse. Yes, urine testing can be useful — to a degree — if you use Carbon Isotope Ratio examination, as Don Catlin has backed. However, do you expect CIR tests to be done on all urine samples by various state athletic commissions? Unfortunately, no.

Regarding the claim about some half-life elements still existing in urine samples months after drug usage, you’re talking about boldenone (equipose). Only the stupidest of steroid users would get caught using it in MMA, given how long the half-life is (up to six months in your system).

Perhaps it would be a good time to remind everyone about the launch of the Voluntary Anti-Doping Agency. They’re on Twitter & Facebook, as well.

There were some other incredible comments made by the Executive Director of the NSAC. He claimed that contacting representatives of fighters as opposed to the fighters themselves for getting the drug test samples is better because it doesn’t give fighters as much suspicion about an upcoming ‘random’ drug test request from the commission. I don’t even know where to begin in response to that line of thinking.

If you want random out-of-competition drug testing, you don’t give fighters or their reps any advance notice. You approach the fighter through the mail (with an immediate time demand) or approach them in person like you would when issuing a subpoena and you tell them where to go get tested immediately. If you can’t live up to that standard for administering such tests, then don’t call your drug testing procedure ‘random’ because it’s not. Again, the issue in the Overeem/NSAC case is that the commission, in my opinion, did not do its job in executing the drug test request or the procurement of the drug testing sample. Read on and you’ll see what I mean.

Keith Harris:

Another reason for immediation resignation (of Keith Kizer) is allowing Brock to take his urine sample three days late, no questions asked!

Wojslaw Rysiewski:

According to (Dave) Meltzer, Lesnar took his ‘random’ test 4 days after the notice from Kizer.

Eddie Goldman presented an evisceration of Keith Kizer’s arguments on his radio show and laid out just why the Nevada State Athletic Commission looked foolish during Monday’s agenda meeting.

Start of commentary

“First of all, they were discussing their so-called ‘random out-of-competition testing program.’ The fact is this program is a joke because they give the athletes notice. It’s not what WADA, the World Anti-Doping Agency, and its affiliates do which is random, unannounced testing. That’s what people like Floyd Mayweather have insisted upon for his fights where they show up, unannounced, and they say you have to take the test right then and there. This is not what (Nevada’s) doing. They contact the representatives and they were bragging how within 24-to-48 hours they get this done. There’s a lot of stuff that goes out of your system within 24 hours, let alone 48 hours but they were bragging about this and it only involved urine testing and not blood testing. Remember the nonsense from Keith Kizer of the Nevada commission that they can get everything they want from urine testing, which of course is not true because there’s all kinds of banned substances that you need blood testing for and, in fact, the Nevada commission does blood testing for things like Hepatitis and HIV and things like that but for drug testing they don’t do it, they still refuse to do it. So, whom are they protecting?

“And, also, the fact that they give notice makes this so-called ‘random testing’ preposterous to even call it that and I e-mailed Victor Conte… and he wrote back:

‘I don’t know how it can be considered random drug testing if the athlete is given prior notice. It doesn’t make sense to me.’

“The commission said that there was not a sense of urgency on the representative of Alistair Overeem but the fact is [the commission] are not set up to deal with these situations internationally while Overeem was on his way to Holland. So, eventually, Overeem does take a test the following week and he said this was on November 23rd and he went to a hospital and it was a blood test, but again the Nevada commission wanted a urine test and they really didn’t give him instructions or a place on how exactly do you do this. This is because the Nevada State Athletic Commission are a bunch of political appointees in the state of Nevada, in the United States. They are trying to regulate an international sport where people like Overeem, who is from Holland… they’re trying to regulate this sport and they are not set up to do it and they end up looking like a bunch of clowns in trying to do it.”

The absurdity of sending Overeem to the UK for collecting a urine sample

“The fact is, there is drug testing in the Netherlands and the Netherlands is a signatory to the various protocols that the World Anti-Doping Agency has. In fact, if this pathetic commission knew how to use the Internet or more importantly cared about this…

“If they worked directly with WADA they would very easily find the WADA affiliate in the Netherlands called Anti-Doping Authority Netherlands (Logo Dopo Autoriteit). … There are all sorts of phone numbers and e-mail addresses on their (web site), so if you’re really working with them, if you’re really serious about this, it’s pretty easy to find who’s doing this in the Netherlands. It’s a very advanced country and they’re part of WADA, so it could be done. But the Nevada commission wants to pretend that they’re going to replicate their own international anti-doping network. It’s absolutely preposterous and absurd and that’s the real issue that they’re not working as part of WADA. They’re avoiding doing it.

“Now, WADA also has what’s called an Athlete Whereabouts program for just these kinds of situations because WADA’s involved with all sort of international federations and international sports and so athletes are traveling and living and training all around the world and you have to be able to get in touch with people and the athlete has to let your local affiliates of WADA know where they’re going to be if they’re not going to be training at home. So, they have this all set up, this has been done already. Instead of this nonsense that ‘well, (we) called his representative and Overeem was flying and the representative didn’t call back until Monday’, then they had to find Overeem in the Netherlands, this that and the other thing… all this stuff is a big excuse. These problems have been solved already, long before 2011. WADA’s Whereabouts program is also easily found on the Internet, the WADA web site wada-ama.org and you just look up their Whereabouts program.

“So, what’s happening here is that Overeem is taking the blame for the failure of the Nevada State Athletic Commission to do all of this kind of testing with WADA and follow their protocols. This is utterly preposterous.

“That’s the reality of having these local political hacks try to regulate international sports. This is bad governance, it’s terrible governance, and it’s something that can easily be done in a country like The United States.

“USA Wrestling, which is the governing body for wrestling in the United States and is part of the US Olympic committee and the International Olympic Committee and FILA, the international wrestling federation, and all of that has better drug testing for their own athletes through the Olympic program and they’re generally not a professional sport (although some of the wrestlers do get some stipends and do win some prize money for winning various tournaments in the Olympics and that sort of thing) but it’s not a professional sport like Mixed Martial Arts and boxing are.

“So, if USA Wrestling can do all of this and I applaud them for that, why can’t these commissions do it as well? There’s a reason. They don’t want to do it! And if you read a lot of the comments of people again in the so-called combat sports media they don’t want them to do it, either, which is why there’s so much confusion being spread on these issues.

“So, [the NSAC members} sound all haughty, if you heard any of that hearing or you read about it, they sound all serious and concerned and they tried to make Overeem apologize and all this kind of stuff. You know what? I don’t blame the athlete on this because he went and he took a blood test! And then they said, ‘oh, it’s the wrong test.’ So, then, he went to his own doctor to take the urine test because he said in Holland you just don’t go to a facility. Well, maybe he didn’t know that, maybe his own personal doctor didn’t know that… But in the Netherlands the WADA affiliate would know that and [the NSAC] did not direct him to that, given the information on that, they did not direct him to the Anti-Doping Authority Netherlands which could have cleared up all this kind of stuff. In fact, they should be working with these various international affiliates of WADA but they’re not. They’re not even working with USADA, the US Anti-Doping Agency in The United States. So, how the hell are these local yokel political hacks from Las Vegas going to work with international affiliates in all these other countries, half of which they probably couldn’t even find on a map?

“It’s really pathetic and I think it speaks about how bad the governance is in the combat sports and Mixed Martial Arts and boxing that we’re still discussing these kinds of issues and, again, the media particularly in the United States is so poorly educated on this or don’t want to be educated on this that you’re not getting very much information on it.”

Topics: Media, MMA, UFC, Zach Arnold | 49 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |

In ridiculous NSAC hearing, Alistair Overeem is granted a conditional license

By Zach Arnold | December 12, 2011

Alistair Overeem participated at today’s NSAC meeting via phone. Keith Kizer stated that out-of-competition drug testing for both Brock Lesnar & Alistair Overeem was established on November 17th. Overeem’s drug test did not occur, as his camp replied back on November 21st (he left for Holland). Brock’s drug test was done at a hospital. Overeem ended up taking a blood test on November 23rd. It was not the test NSAC was looking for but the blood test came back clean. Overeem ended up taking the test the NSAC wanted on December 7th and the results haven’t come back yet. Overeem was quizzed about why he needed to go to Germany for testing instead of doing the testing in Holland. At this point, the commission put Overeem under oath during his testimony.

(Keith Kizer believes urine tests are more accurate than blood tests for doping.)

Mr. Overeem stated that his mother is in poor health and he needed to take care of family affairs. He said that drug testing procedures are different in Holland. He stated that the most recent test was administered by his own personal doctor. The commission then questioned his testing sample based on his personal doctor overseeing the test. As far as the delay in response to the NSAC, he stated that he didn’t get notice of the test when he left the airport to go back home to Holland. Overeem said that his assistant didn’t state what kind of drug testing sample was requewsted of him. He exclaimed that he did not intentionally cause any delays in testing and that he did what was asked of him.

“I did not take any effort to avoid testing. Furthermore, I have done exactly what I’ve been told to do.”

The commission then asked if UFC knew he was going back to Holland. A member of the commission asked Overeem if this was his first fight at Heavyweight. He was questioned about his weight gain from Light Heavyweight to Heavyweight. one of Alistair’s assistants (Collin Lam) then talked to the commission. Jon Luther:

“So, it appears that Overeem’s assistant has never worked with any other athletes, any athletic commissions, and knows zip about drug testing.”

The commission stated that Overeem can get a conditional fighter’s license from the Nevada State Athletic Commission provided that he pays for any additional drug testing. Deliberation took place over a motion for a conditional license pending the 12/7 drug testing sample coming back clean and two additional tests being administered. No one on the commission seconded the motion, so more deliberation took place. Brett Okamoto noted the hold-up in deliberations was based on the fact that the 12/7 urine sample test results have not come back yet. Mike Chiappetta:

“Long story short, they’re talking about giving him another test but trying to figure out where that would be and which ones are qualified.”

As Eddie Goldman stated perfectly… “So deceptive for Nevada commission to say they tested Floyd Mayweather. He had to go to USADA for sort-of Olympic-style drug testing.”

The end result? Nevada wants Overeem to take a new drug test within 72 hours and then be subjected to two random drug tests within the next six months.

Topics: Media, MMA, UFC, Zach Arnold | 37 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |

Why do fans care about doping in low-impact sports but not high-impact ones?

By Zach Arnold | December 12, 2011

So, on Saturday night, Twitter had a meltdown. Ryan Braun reportedly tested positive for synthetic testosterone in his urine sample, or at least the A sample (as opposed to the B sample). Will Carroll at Sports Illustrated breaks down just how hard it is going to be for the Braun camp to attack the positive drug testing result.

The issue of synthetic testosterone in a urine sample is something that Victor Conte recently talked about with Jack Encarnacao of Sherdog when he mentioned that the various state athletic commissions should employ Carbon Isotope Ratio (CIR) tests on urine samples as part of a panel of methods to catch doping in MMA. (His other suggestion is to measure basic hematocrit levels in standard blood samples.) I don’t know if a CIR was used to detect synthetic testosterone in Braun’s case, but it would seem to be likely.

What was so fascinating to see online last Saturday was the reaction to the news. Twitter was in full meltdown mode. Baseball fans went nuts and screamed for Braun’s head. It made me think and wonder the following:

Why is it that sports fans get upset about doping in sports with the least amount of physical contact (soccer, baseball) and don’t care so much about doping in ‘hurt’ sports like hockey, football, boxing, and MMA where having testosterone injections & blood doping treatments can impact just how much more physical trauma you can inflict upon an unsuspecting opponent?

I have, for a long time, stated my case as to why aggressive drug testing for both PEDs and pain killers is needed in the sport. On this subject, I”m not interested in arguing morality. What I”m interested in arguing is protecting guys from themselves when it comes to making horrible decisions (as Dr. Johnny Benjamin recently stated about Chris Leben) that could cause them to drop dead or have their opponents get permanently damaged both physically & emotionally. If you don’t think the issue of pain killer abuse in MMA is serious, think again. The amount of pain killer abuse is high. It’s addictive, hard to break, and can cause severe physical damage.

The counter-argument I hear about aggressively minimizing doping & pain killer abuse in MMA is that if you want to see guys last more than a few years in such a physically demanding sport, then you better accept the doping that comes along with it. Sorry, but that’s just not a compelling argument against a Wild West-style policy of drug testing enforcement. MMA is a hurt game involving athletes with incredible physical tools at their disposal. Having someone locked inside a cage with T/E ratios of 10:1 is flat out insane. We already have examples of deaths & permanent physical damage on display from excessive doping & pain killer usage in other sports, so why invite & encourage it in Mixed Martial Arts?

Which brings us to the rumors floated by Kevin Iole & Josh Gross that Alistair Overeem could be out of his UFC 141 fight on 12/30 in Las Vegas against Brock Lesnar because he didn’t take a pre-licensing drug test in Nevada. Today at 3 PM local time in Las Vegas, there will be a Nevada State Athletic Commission hearing to determine whether or not Overeem will get licensed to fight. My guess is that given how much money is on the line with the UFC show on NYE weekend that the commission will license Overeem… unless the extinuating circumstances are so egregious that they have to make a last-minute decision to not license Overeem to fight in Nevada. If that happens, Frank Mir wants to fight Brock Lesnar for a third time. On a medical & administrative level, that’s an absurd idea to have happen given that Mir got rocked by Nogueira before ripping the guy’s arm off over the weekend in their Toronto fight. The Ontario commission so far has been pretty good when it comes to medical testing of fighters and it would be very hard for me to see Ken Hayashi’s crew give UFC the green light to clear Mir to fight on short notice against Brock.

I just find it fascinating that when it comes to the fight game that guys like Chael Sonnen not only get a pass but are celebrated for openly & unapologetically lying about everything while sports fans in games like baseball are horrified about their superstars getting caught doping. Where are we at right now as far as the level of credibility of the sport of Mixed Martial Arts itself and of the behavior/psychology that MMA fans demonstrate to serious scandals?

All of this is great timing for the launch of the Voluntary Anti-Doping Agency. They’re also now on Twitter and Facebook. Background information on VADA can be read here.

Topics: Media, MMA, UFC, Zach Arnold | 27 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |

MMA Link Club: Don’t have the UFC boss humbled on national TV

By Zach Arnold | December 10, 2011

Member sites of the MMA Link Club

This week’s MMA Link Club featured stories

Five Ounces of Pain: Dana White’s Extreme Confusion

He has mood swings. We all know this. The reason he fired Miguel Torres is simple. a) Torres is not considered by management to be a big drawing card, b) he has a history of saying stupid things on Twitter, and c) Dana White got blindsided by Michael Landsberg (a gem of a guy) on national TV in Canada with the ‘rape’ tweet. Put that together and you end up with the decision that was made.

Does that justify the ridiculous & arbitrary process Zuffa has implemented for certain fighters not getting punished and others getting whacked? No. That’s what happens when you open up Pandora’s box and apply different standards to different people. Dana White may have thought Rashad Evans’ remark about Jerry Sandusky was stupid but he was smiling at the podium during the Evans/Phil Davis trash talk.

MMA Fighting: Miguel Torres apologizes for offensive tweets that cost him his job

A perfunctory note to sound and I’m certain he’ll be back in Zuffa. He’s a prime example of why having so many athletes embrace Twitter & implementing a social networking policy is a stupid idea. This is why the Public Relations profession exists.

That said, I’m thoroughly enjoying the u-turn online this week in which the Danabots have gone from being 100% he-can-do-no-wrong to this-guy-is-a-rotten-bastard-who-has-changed.

Fightline: Dana White says Strikeforce is saying, books Lorenzo Larkin vs. King Mo

So, Strikeforce will essentially be his Zombie promotion to try to compete with Bellator. The difference this time around is that Showtime reportedly is not paying what they were on the original deal and Spike is the money mark for Bellator.

Cage Potato: Digital sensei — Steven Seagal will disclose secrets to victory to Lyoto Machida via Skype

He needs all the help he can get as a 9-to-2 dog to Jon Jones.

MMA Mania: Last-minute crash guide with videos & links to everything you need to know about UFC 140 in Toronto

Don’t forget that the prelims are airing on Ion this time around and that it’s a 2-hour block (7 PM EST/4 PM PST).

5th Round: Pro Elite 1/21 Hawaii event features Kendall Grove vs. Minowaman

I guess it’s an interesting fight?

Bleacher Report: Dana White firing Miguel Torres because of his tweet and why it smacks of hypocrisy

Middle Easy: Cro Cop returns to K-1 in March

A fascinating story on a lot of levels. K-1 running in Europe was the specialty of Ken Imai, Mirko’s Japan agent for many years and former right-hand man of Kazuyoshi Ishii before Imai turned on Ishii and jumped to Sakakibara & PRIDE. Wonder if Mirko is having a reunion with Imai these days?

Lowkick: In UFC Undisputed 3 game simulation, Jon Jones beats Machida 18 out of 25 times

So, in other words, the video game is a tad more generous than the oddsmakers towards Machida.

The Fight Nerd: ‘Joe Palook’ joins with UFC fighter Dan Miller in fight against PKD (polycystic kidney disease)

MMA Convert: Dan Miller gets much-needed financial help from UFC executives for son’s kidney transplant

MMA Payout: Spike TV counters UFC on Fox 2

The Fox card is interesting because UFC is upping the ante by putting a lot of PPV-level guys on TV. Spike TV is going to make sure that 2012 is a year of revenge for eating the Zuffa TV rights to prevent Bellator from airing on the channel until 2013.

Topics: Media, MMA, UFC, Zach Arnold | 7 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |

One FC has new TV deal with Global TV (MNC Group) in Indonesia starting in 2012

By Zach Arnold | December 8, 2011

With the upcoming UFC Japan card in late February, this question that an HDNet viewer submitted to Dan Henderson about the level of MMA competition in Japan during the PRIDE days was bittersweet for me. Right now, things are flat out boring and stagnant in Japan. Sure, the DREAM/Inoki NYE SSA card could prove to be great to watch, but it’s not moving the needle on a worldwide basis.

One of the barometers in the past that I said was needed for Japan to make some sort of recovery and advancement was a transplant of new blood and new ideas. This simply hasn’t happened in Japan. The same old cast of characters is around trying to run events as if everything is going according to plan. This is why, more than anything, One FC is almost viewed as the go-big-or-go-home potential player in Asia in the coming years.

Which is why recent comments One FC boss Victor Cui made to Eddie Goldman kind of piqued my interest. Give me your take on where you see the Asian MMA picture heading in the next five years.

Where One FC is currently positioned in the business landscape

“I see One FC as right now, by any major metric if you look at it, we are the largest organization in Asia. We’ve got the largest number of fighters. We have the largest number of events. We’re right across Asia. We have the largest media reach in terms of our media partners and people that we’re working with and that’s growing continuously. You talk about the network… we are working closely with every major promoter in the region, in each one of those countries that are leaders by their own right in the sport that have made the sport in Asia what it is and we’re working together under the One FC network to give more opportunities for fighters, more opportunities for gyms and for promotions and revenue, cost savings, idea sharing, all these kinds of things together. So, it’s an exciting time in the industry and I’m proud to say that I think One FC is leading the way for a lot of these new initiatives and driving the energy and the new interest in MMA as it’s starting to really rapidly grow in the region.

“When we recently held a One FC network summit and everyone came down here to Asia and we had all these industry leaders together for the first time, it was amazing. We shared ideas and we talked about what plans we had for our champions and for fighters and things, the challenges that we’ve had in each of our countries and how we could work together or have fighters go on each other’s promotions (cards0 and leverage more sponsorship opportunities and television opportunities, all those kinds of things and I really believe that, in Asia, people don’t realize that you’re talking about a population base of 3.9 billion people. The viewership for UFC, their fan base in North America and Brazil and Europe is about maybe around 65 million. And here in Asia you’re looking at 3.9 billion people. Now, of course, the social and economic demographics is a little bit different but the scalability at what we’re looking at and just the uniqueness of this because it’s not a homogenous market. You’re talking about multiple countries, multiple languages, and different things that work in each country. So, to be able to combine all these experiences and come together is a really exciting thing to do and I’ve been lucky enough that I’ve developed strong relationships with many of the gyms that are in the networks, many of the other promoters and fighters that allow me to bring together the community and make things like this happen. Our announcement with DREAM was another huge step. Being able to tap into and work with and have some of the best fighters in the sport and do a fighter exchange and have them on future fight cards of One FC is another very exciting step for us to take.

“My experience, I mean, I’ve been in the media industry and sports my whole life for over 15 years now and I take all of this knowledge and I look at it and I can see that the way to exponentially grow and quickly grow a sport and is cooperatively. You find a way to leverage each other’s learnings and work together, you know, it’s not easy. There’s always challenges and there’s always issues or agendas or egos that you have to juggle but that’s part of the challenge. The goal here is the greater good.”

Why Singapore is the home base as opposed to Tokyo or Hong Kong

“Singapore is one of the most regulated and strictest markets to run an event in and that’s specifically why we launched One FC in Singapore because when you run an event in Singapore that means you have set the bar at the highest and at the highest standards in pretty well all of Asia because they are so strict in their governance of every aspect of the sport, from audience experience to fighters to officials and to television broadcasts and everything. So, to be able to have government support in Singapore and successfully hold the events here and have it broadcast on terrestrial TV here shows that, to the rest of Asia, we have exceeded the highest standards that are already set.”

Why Asia is the best market to position an operation to make a run outside of America

“The difference with MMA in Asia and why this is such a huge opportunity right now for the sport and for One FC is that martial arts has its roots in Asia. When you talk about martial arts, people think Asia. Bruce Lee, Jackie Chan, Jet Li, all those guys are all Asian and every country in this region has very, very, very strong roots in martial arts. Whether it’s tae kwon do in Korea, karate in Japan, Judo, Silat in Indonesia & Malaysia or Sanda in China and everybody, everybody I will say from the common man on the street to the politician already intuitively understands martial arts. Its in our culture, its in our music, its in our soap operas, its in our TV shows, and if you were to walk down the street in Asia and you were to say to somebody, ‘do you know what Muay Thai is?’ and they’ll say, ‘yeah, I know that, that’s the national martial art for Thailand,’ it’s a beautiful sport, I’ve seen it when I was in Thailand and people will know those words, Muay Thai. You go anywhere else outside Asia and you say, ‘do you know Muay Thai?’ and they might look at you like, you know, what are you talking about? I have no idea what you’re saying. And that’s why there’s such a positive reception to One FC in the region, from media partners, from the countries that we are bringing One FC, it’s been nothing but outstanding support because they recognize that this is an exciting thing. They see what’s happening overseas in the US and North America and they look at Mixed Martial Arts as an opportunity to really unify all the different other martial arts. It’s a chance for different organizations to come together, from the tae kwon do guys to Judo to BJJ to Muay Thai and suddenly you’re getting their top fighters or their champions wanting to cross-train and do multiple disciplines and that’s why it is one of the only sports that I can think of that has a natural ability to bring together the entire community of martial arts.”

He stated during the interview that One FC’s goal for a future television deal is to get into 1 billion homes. The cage will be used for all events as opposed to the ring. Co-promotion with DREAM likely starts on March 31st. Tentative schedule: 8 events in 2012, 14 events in 2013, 24 events in 2014.

MMA Planet (Japan) is the source for the item about One FC inking a deal with Global TV. Sherdog has more on Thursday’s presser to promote the organization’s February 11th event in Jakarta.

Topics: DREAM, Media, MMA, Zach Arnold | 32 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |

Jim Rome skewers Rashad Evans for Sandusky quip; Miguel Torres cut from UFC for rape remark

By Zach Arnold | December 8, 2011

When your face is plastered next to Jerry Sandusky on national television, you know it’s not good news for your image. Jim Rome made sure to cement that point home after the comments Rashad Evans made yesterday in Chicago for the Fox presser to hype his fight against Phil Davis.

“You knew the Jerry Sandusky/Penn State scandal was going to get worse before it got any better and… it has. Much worse. With two more victims coming forward and alleging similarly horrific allegations of Sandusky abusing them as well, allegations of a victim being held captive in the basement and Sandusky’s wife ignoring his screams for help while she was upstairs. And besides Sandusky already being pretty much the worst guy ever, his attorney Joe Amendola continues to paint him as the victim.

‘How would you take it if you were facing the kind of charges he’s facing and your life’s work was helping kids? You’d be devastated.’

“Hey, Joe, he didn’t help kids — he ruined their lives. And it’s not a question of if but rather how many… allegedly. And he’s not devastated because his life’s work is being questioned — he’s devastated because he’s finally figured out that he might be the most hated man in America and that he’s going to spend the rest of his life behind bars. That’s why he’s devastated.

“And to you Penn State alums and students that are all worked up saying that my commentary on this story is damaging to your reputation and affecting your chances of getting a good job… let’s just say that Sandusky is not doing you any favors by continuing to rock the Nittany Lions colors every time he gets arrested. Good news is going forward he won’t be donning your blue & white. He’ll be in prison orange.

“I wish I could stand here and say this story couldn’t possibly get any worse but I can’t and unfortunately I know it probably will.

“Maybe it’s Twitter and maybe it’s the 24/7 news cycle but it’s rare in this era that an athlete can say something that actually still shocks me. UFC Light Heavyweight Rashad Evans, though, just did and not in a good way. Yesterday, the very same day that Sandusky was being arrested on additional charges of child molestation, Evans was sitting at a press conference in Chicago spitting Sandusky smack at his upcoming opponent Phil Davis. You see, Davis is a Penn State alum so maybe Suga thought he’d try to hit him where it hurts and put him to sleep with a Sandusky blast… but he should have just pulled that punch.

‘I guarantee you’re going to be the first one to take a shot because I’m going to put those hands on you worse than that dude did them other kids at Penn State.’

“Rashad, you’ve got to be kidding me. What is it, other than totally insensitive and just… dumb? Guys have run regrettable smack before. David Haye saying that his fight with Audley Harrison was going to be ‘as one-sided as gang rape’ immediate comes to mind but you, my man, might be the new standard bearer. Look, I get that these guys are in hype mode and the blood starts to flow at these pressers. I just don’t care. You can’t say you’re going to do to your opponent what Jerry Sandusky allegedly did to these kids. Not that I haven’t done this already 100 times before but memo to all athletes — there’s certain things you cannot ever talk junk about. Ever. Keep all references to 9/11 and Hitler out of your mouths and, I never thought I’d have to say it, but you can officially add Jerry Sandusky to that list as well. Look, I work in smack for a living. I put food on my family’s table with smack. Smack is the family business, so I know smack and that’s some of the worst smack I’ve ever heard.”

That embrace by UFC towards social media at their fighter summit is looking like one hell of a policy right now, isn’t it? Forrest Griffin wasn’t available for comment.

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

Torn ACLs & volatile UFC PPV buyrates

By Zach Arnold | December 8, 2011

Losing your #2 PPV draw in Georges St. Pierre at a time when you’re preparing to run 34 shows in 2012 is a big deal. ACL injuries also take a lot longer to recover from both mentally & physically. Let’s take a look at the comments that GSP’s trainer, Firas Zahabi, made yesterday to Mauro Ranallo:

“It’s going to postpone the big fight but I think in the end Georges will be back to 100%. I think he’s come back from worse and knowing Georges, I know he’s going to follow the doctor’s orders to [the letter] when it comes to rehabilitation and he’s going to overcompensate, I know it, I trust his legs will be stronger than ever, his knee will be stronger than ever when he comes back.

“What’s most surprising is that he was training on it still. He was still training on it and he has a very strong mind, Georges, and he always try to work around discomfort and injury and pain and he was doing things, I think he, now that knowing he has a torn ACL I just think it was too rough, it was too much on the body and I think Georges has to learn to listen to his body more and at the place where he’s at now, you know, every little thing, every little injury he has to have it looked over by a specialist. He just has to be more careful. I know he’s very disappointed but I think he’s going to learn from that lesson and he’s just got to be more careful in the future.

“The training is very hard, it’s very intense and I think the body has limits even though the mind can go farther and push more, I think the body has limits and we’re learning that the hard way and Georges has to ease into training. He had to take a break and once he came off his break, he really went intense a little too fast I think and we got to learn ease back on the throttle at the right time.

“If I take it like Georges did, it would be really bad. I’ve got to be the positive one for him and just remind him that people have come back from worse and people have come back better than ever from injuries like that and I think he can. I think he’s the type of guy who’s really not going to take his rehabilitation lightly and I think he’s going to be more motivated when he comes back. Now he’s not in a good place, that’s for sure, he’s not in a good place mentally but I know Georges and eventually he’ll look at it in a positive light sooner or later.

“When you have a blown ACL, there’s no other avenue but surgery. That’s the only way you can fix it. I told him to start coaching with me, have him coaching, just keep your head in the game and it’ll make the time pass faster than sitting at home doing nothing. Georges is not the type of guy who does nothing. So, he needs a project and I think staying in the gym coaching, working with the guys, even just sitting down and watching practice and giving the guys tips and keeping his head in the game.”

To put into perspective the business climate that UFC is facing in 2012, our friend Front Row Brian notes the following:

Meltzer: As recently as the first six months of 2011, 75% of UFC’s income came from either PPV or live gates. To operate Zuffa, it costs $350,000,000 per year. Fox pays $90,000,000. UFC still a PPV driven company and #’s are declining.

I think UFC becoming a publicly traded company is a possibility. Dana would have to change his act real quick though.

UFC can only provide 1st run programming 1-2x a month. WWE can provide 1st run 8-10x month so they get more international TV rights fees.

If Fox is ponying up $90-100M USD a year, that still leaves UFC very much in need of making a couple hundred million USD on 12-14 PPVs. The more shows you run, the more the buy rates decline and it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy like we are seeing in WWE where it’s dangerously close to sub-100k PPV buy numbers at times domestically in the States (if you believe the data that Dave Meltzer presents).

The company desperately needs warm bodies and guys that are perceived as stars. That’s why there’s so much intrigue about how FX will handle The Ultimate Fighter. We already know they hired Jon Anik (Zuffa did, I suppose) to work on the project. Urijah Faber and Dominick Cruz are the coaches. The big question is whether Urijah will be able to dedicate himself 100% to the show given what’s happening with his sister after that terrible car accident.

Mauro Ranallo points out just how critical the success of the TUF launch on FX with Faber will need to be.

“A lot of people thinking, what’s with this announcement? I don’t know, is that going to be a great season?

“We have to start building up the lighter divisions and these guys, say what you will, Urijah Faber is Mr. Marketability, are you kidding me? Not only is he a talented fighter, not only is he tremendous promo guy, has the looks of mini-me Kerry Von Erich, but a guy who is a very astute businessman and for his brand, are you kidding me? He’s going to embrace this for all its worth and Dominick Cruz, as well. People may not be fans of his elusive defense-first style that has made him the dominant fighter that he is but, again, a very cerebral, very intelligent, well-spoken athlete and I’m very much looking forward to the camps, you know, Alliance in San Diego and, of course, Team Alpha Male the coaching that is going to be presented to the TUF 15 athletes on the reality show beginning in March and, as I’ve said throughout the last few weeks now that the TUF era on Spike TV has ended and we go live on FX beginning in 2012, let’s see more of what it takes to become a Mixed Martial Artist. Let’s see the training, let’s see the weight cutting, let’s see the strength and conditioning, diet and nutrition. And people can say, ‘yeah, but that’s for you hardcore fans…’ no! It’s about educating the masses. You can do it in an entertaining fashion. What, do you want to see a guy drop another upper decker on the reality show host? Do you want to see someone deposit his bodily fluids in someone’s piece of sushi? No fucking thank you! No! I want to see these tremendous athletes, these hungry individuals who are looking to take that all important next step in their career, in front of a nationally-televised audience with champions like Faber and Cruz… you know, I know it’s a reality show but now that the UFC’s in bed with Fox for the next 7 years, we can make it more sports-oriented this show I think and still make it entertaining while introducing people to the nuances of the submission game, of the ground game. So, hopefully one day soon we will silence the boo birds. People can boo, you can boo the guy you love to hate but don’t boo when the guys are on the ground plying their craft in the art of grappling. It’s called MIXED MARTIAL ARTS for a reason, folks.”

Unlike the Toronto show last April at the Sky Dome (Rogers Centre), this weekend’s affair is at Air Canada Centre and this guy is one of the headliners on the card:

Question: “What do you think is your secret to be able to last as long as you’ve had when compared to other older guys who have retired now like Randy (Couture) and Chuck (Liddell), what’s your secret? Why are you still here fighting the top-level guys?”

“I think it comes down to the big man upstairs. God has really blessed me with some great skills and the attitude of myself just believing the things that I needed to do to get me forward. I had back surgery, neck surgery. Athletes don’t compete after having that happen. Liddell and Couture has never had any injuries like that and came back. I don’t think there’s any other athlete, out of all of them, that’s ever competed after having the surgeries that I’ve had done. I think it just comes down to hard work and dedication, determination of believing in myself and believing in what I needed to do to support my family and showing the fans that I’m a true athlete and I’m a real person.

“I think I kind of took a page out of Randy Couture’s book of training a lot more smarter, not really push myself trying to kill myself… I’m so used to doing road work and just killing myself and now I kind of second-guess myself a few times because I’m not doing the stuff I used to do when I was the world champion. Even eating the right things, I mean I eat junk food whenever I want to, small things like that… am I doing the right things? But I’m enjoying life a lot more now, I think. After 15 years of hard work and putting a lot of things together… you got to train the right way, of course, but I think smarter is better than doing more, you know, I think it really comes down to doing the right things to make it happen instead of doing a bunch of things trying to cram it all together into one.”

Thoughts on fighting Little Nogueira after the Phil Davis fight?

“I think Phil Davis showed the recipe to beat Little Nog but that’s very tough, it’s very tough to beat Little Nog. He’s a very tough opponent, being a black belt in BJJ, golden gloves in boxing, takedown defense is really good, too. Him and his brother really dangerous, Black House of course they train with world champions, they train with Anderson Silva, train with Machida, a lot of guys they train with and they’re one of the biggest, best gyms in the world right now. My hands are full and I believe it’s just one of things that I have to go, put my heart and determination and get my hand raised and I know what I need to do, me and Jason we sat down and we kind of fulfilled what we needed to do in training camp and I’m really and excited for this fight to get my hand raised.”

To put things into perspective for this weekend’s main card, Tito Ortiz is a smaller underdog in his fight (against Antonio Rogerio Nogueira) than Big Nogueira is to Frank Mir (5-to-2) and Machida is against Jon Jones (9-to-2).

Topics: Canada, Media, MMA, UFC, Zach Arnold | 7 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |

On second thought: Michael Bisping’s wise u-turn on fighting Anderson Silva

By Zach Arnold | December 4, 2011


Click on my mug to see me brag about how I treated Mayhem Miller ‘like a little boy’ (MMAFighting.com | Ariel Helwani on Twitter | MMA Nation | Bloody Elbow)

ARIEL HELWANI: “Do you think after a dominant performance like this you will start to finally get the respect that you think you deserve?”

MICHAEL BISPING: “I mean, I hope so, I’d like to. Everyone wants respect. Already people are on Twitter saying Jason gassed, etc. I’m sure Jason didn’t gas, I’m sure he was in great shape. But, you know, I hope so, I mean, I go out there. I try my best to entertain, you know, I try my best to put on exciting fights. That’s what I want to do. I cherish my position in the UFC and I feel like the luckiest man in the world doing what I do for a living and, you know, I want to be successful at it and I want people to enjoy what I do. Yeah, I wanted to be appreciated. Hopefully [after] performances like that, people will start to come around.”

ARIEL HELWANI: “What’d you think of the stoppage?”

MICHAEL BISPING: “I thought it was just. Yeah, you know, I mean I was hitting him with a lot of shots. In the third, I was in his guard and I was punching him, you know, hitting him with a lot of shots and Mazzagatti said, you know, you’ve got to fight back, so I fought back. Keep this pace going. My cardio was good but because of the amount of shots I was throwing I was starting to get a little tired but I just kept punching and punching. He kind of squirmed and changed position. In the referee’s mind, I lost that momentum, you know what I mean? Then I managed to pass his guard, get side control, and he turtled up and I just thought, keep this up, keep this up, he’s got to stop it and fortunately he did.”

ARIEL HELWANI: “After some of the antics at the weight-ins [on Friday], flipping off the crowd, telling them to F off, I thought it was clear, at least to me, that Michael Bisping is running with this ‘bad boy’ image, the one that we talked about a couple of days ago, but then with your post-fight interview talking about the working class family, talking about your family, you had the crowd now turning and clapping for you. So, which is it going to be, the good guy or the bad guy?”

MICHAEL BISPING: “Listen, as I said I’m an emotional guy, you know, I mean I try to be a good guy, I want to be a good guy but I have these moments. I mean, I was annoyed at the weigh-in, I was .2 of a pound over, pardon the expression but as my boxing coach says you can fart 0.2 out so I almost there but it’s unprofessional. But, more than anything, I was annoyed at myself and then the crowd was booing. Then Joe Rogan said, c’mon, come and give him some love and I thought, no, I’m not in the mood for that and… you know, I mean, I meant everything that I said at the weigh-in. Thank you guys for coming out and showing energy. I realize there’s got be a good guy and a bad guy and they’re going to cheer for someone. Obviously, I’m not local as we all know, so I have no problem with it. As long as people tune in and enjoy what they see, I’m happy.”

*****

His decision to not face Anderson Silva will prove to be a wise one. As for potential opponents… Chael Sonnen and Mark Munoz are married together in a program for the January 28th Fox show in Chicago. Also on the Chicago show is Rashad Evans vs. Phil Davis. Feels like two fights that could go the distance. Yushin Okami, who has Tim Boetsch in his sights on the UFC Japan card, is on his way to Portland now to train with Sonnen. It doesn’t leave too many options, though apparently Dana White already has someone in mind. Demian Maia? Is he a big enough name for Bisping at this point given that he wants to fight people who will get him closer to a title match?

As for last night’s Ultimate Fighter finale show from The Pearl at the Palms in Las Vegas… that crowd always acts the same no matter what kind of UFC show they get. It was a little bit more boisterous than usual but that’s not really saying a lot. John Dodson, Diego Brandao, and Dennis Bermudez really put on a fun showing last night. Dodson, incredibly, was nearly a 2-to-1 underdog and some people got very fortunate in betting on him. Bermudez was nearly a 3-to-1 dog and damn near pulled off the upset. He paid the price with his arm getting mangled by that beautiful submission from Diego. By far the best pairing of TUF finale fights that we’ve seen on Spike in ages. Of course, I wonder how many people actually saw the show given the limited amount of advertising plus the insane college football schedule in the States (OK/OSU on ABC, Clemson/VA. Tech on ESPN, BYU/Hawaii on ESPN2, Wisconsin/Michigan State on Fox).

As for the performance by Michael Bisping… I wasn’t surprised, although I’m not as gleeful as Dana White was after seeing Mayhem get his ass kicked. Actually, there were a couple of people who were more gleeful than Dana over that fight result — Luca Fury and Mike Fagan, who were practically salivating at the fact that the moneyline on Bisping kept going down to -170. The majority of cash this week went on Mayhem. Quite remarkable, actually, given that he started off as a 2-to-1 underdog.

*****

If you didn’t already see the news, head over to LiverKick.com and read what Dave Walsh has to say about Jerome Le Banner busting up Josh Barnett on Friday at Ryogoku Kokugikan in Tokyo. Bloody. Will Barnett’s fight with Daniel Cormier actually happen?

The updated card for the DREAM/Inoki NYE event at Saitama Super Arena:

The booking of DREAM has always confounded me. A lot appeals to the hardcores, some of it tries to appeal to the masses but ultimately fails… the general consensus, if you talk to someone like Mike Hackler, is that this will be a red hot show. Fedor vs. Satoshi Ishii was the original plan as the main event but Ishii declined the fight. Who knows what the reason is and it’s legitimate or not. Fedor supposedly will fight on the card but the opponent is not yet determined.

Last year’s Dynamite show, which I lambasted as K-1’s public execution (and it proved to be so), drew exactly what you expect for a card with no major television money supporting the event and a lack of ability to attract any kind of serious sponsorship.

If DREAM can pull off 15,000 legitimately paid for this show, I would be impressed. You can never tell how much is paid versus papered these days, but we’ll probably have a good barometer of how things stand the week before the show. My gut feeling is that this card, without a major fight added to it, reeks of 9,000 paid and the rest papered. The UFC Japan card, which I’ve said more than enough about, is better in terms of name value than this DREAM event… and that is saying a lot right now. I still have the over/under on the UFC Japan pegged at 10,000, given that it’s happening so damn early. If the start time was a normal evening start, I would upgrade the over/under to 13,000-16,000 which is Yokohama Arena level.

Speaking of Yokohama Arena, WWE basically ran an identical house show card for two straight nights this week and drew 6,200 and 7,000 paid. Yoshihiro Takayama, Kensuke Sasaki, and a few other Japanese wrestlers were there at the show backstage. Even in the early ’00’s, those attendance figures would be ruthlessly mocked in Japan. Now? It’s almost the norm. A lot of people were aghast at that 6,200 number but, frankly, I thought given the horrible booking and the short amount of time to promote (around three months), it was appallingly OK. But, yeah, drawing 6,200 in a 16,000 seat building is never a great thing. It’s better than, say, 4,800 at Nippon Budokan, but that’s not saying a whole lot.

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

MMA Link Club: Money at sportsbooks heading towards Mayhem

By Zach Arnold | December 2, 2011

This Saturday’s show at 8 PM EST/PST? on Spike TV:

Dark matches

Main card

Originally, Mr. Bisping was a -200 (2 to 1) favorite and that number has climbed down as low as -165 on some ‘books. It’s pretty incredible, actually, given that most likely he will win a decision after five rounds. Remember all the hooting and hollering about five round fights during Shogun/Henderson? I could be wrong (and probably so), but there are some fights where 5 rounds isn’t going to be pretty to watch at the end. Not every fight under five rounds is going to be a world-beater like Michael Chandler/Eddie Alvarez.

Member sites of the MMA Link Club

This week’s MMA Link Club featured stories

Five Ounces of Pain: Michael Bisping says loss to Dan Henderson ws the best thing to ever happen to him

I guess we all need to be remembered for something before we leave this Earth.

MMA Fighting: Despite owning Strikeforce, Dana White hasn’t changed stance on women’s MMA

There’s been a great debate this week, lead by our friend Robert Joyner, on Ronda Rousey’s selfish-promotional behavior and whether or not she should be rewarded for it. Luca Fury is asking why women aren’t merited first for their skill rather than their looks. We all the know. Dana White looks at women’s MMA like Vince McMahon looks at women’s wrestling. Vince McMahon has his reasons for not promoting a Japanese-style women’s wrestling product and instead opts for taking women, pushing them as Barbie dolls, and making them boring in two minute matches where the only concern is just how bad someone is going to blow a spot and hurt themselves or their opponent in a match. Dana White has little to no desire to see women punching each other and he would only push a female fighter if he thought they could make money for him. He doesn’t look at pushing women’s MMA in an altruistic manner.

Plus, last night news broke that Luke Rockhold will now be fighting Keith Jardine instead of Tim Kennedy for the SF Middleweight belt because Tim’s hurt. For one reason or another, people are appalled that Jardine is getting a title shot while Jacare Souza is not. If Zuffa management is half-hearted in caring about Strikeforce, why should you be surprised? Do you think there’s going to be a spontaneous uproar from casual MMA fans across the States ready to picket Zuffa HQ in Las Vegas over this matchmaking?

Fightline: Tito Ortiz wants to be called ‘The People’s Champ’ now

WWE and Rock called. They want you to shut up before they file a lawsuit for gimmick infringement.

Cage Potato: Heavyweight ‘Cop vs. Con’ match-up added to DREAM NYE Saitama Super Arena show between Brett Rogers and Tim Sylvia

Is Real Entertainment trying to get me to beg for Fedor vs. Ishii to happen after all? What a wretched fight to book. Let’s throw in Todd Duffee as special guest enforcer.

Will Brett even be able to train in time to make the booking now that he’s in jail?

MMA Mania: Cotto vs. Margarito 1 fight: controversy mars back-and-forth ‘battle’ for the ages

Brittney Palmer ‘going to art school’ and now officially returning is a ‘controversy.’ Margarito allegedly using a plaster-like substance on hand wraps to fight Cotto and embrace calling himself a ‘criminal’ in the pre-fight press conference? That’s not a controversy, that’s far worse. What a moment for the New York State Athletic Commission to sanction this fght for MSG.

Bonus MMA Mania article: Tony Ferguson dresses and fights to win all the time

ne of the guys I fought before, he messages me and tells me, “Good luck, Tony,” on my Facebook wall. What kind of former opponent does that? The guy that beat you and probably took your chance of going to The Ultimate Fighter? It’s all about sportsmanship and that’s what I’m trying to keep holding on to that torch. When I see Yves Edwards and Aaron Riley, they’re the sport, man. They don’t trash talk and they don’t do anything else. They hold this sport on their shoulders very well and that’s all I hope I can do.

5th Round: 2011 World MMA award winners

I think Eric Del Fierro’s had a pretty awesome year, don’t you?

Bleacher Report: While Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu is a dying art in the sport of MMA

Without diving any deeper into the subject, it would be easy to think that BJJ is losing its utility in the sport. However, doing that wouldn’t be giving a major component of the sport its proper justice. The biggest reason that BJJ is no longer as dominant as it once was is simply that everyone is training it. You’d be hard-pressed to find any fighter that competes in MMA that doesn’t drill the art at least once or twice a week. With this growth, even athletes who don’t consider BJJ their base are learning to defend against the once lethal attacks of the seasoned veterans. Wrestlers are no longer a fish out of water off their backs, and strikers don’t panic when the fight hits the ground.

Middle Easy: Ronda Rousey’s inner fangirl comes out when she meets Chael Sonnen for the first time

Can someone please explain to me the online female MMA fan attraction to Sonnen? There’s no there there, as Gertrude Stein would say. It’s predictable but still ridiculous that an admitted criminal and testosterone user is celebrated,

Lowkick: Jon Jones fearless ahead of Lyoto Machida fight

He’s favored by over 80% to win the fight. The kinds of fight odds on his bouts would make Georges St. Pierre blush now.

The biggest difference was i had to find a lot of southpaws to work with and what I basically did was use the guys that I already had and I had to mimic their styles to the best of my ability. Everything else has been pretty much the same. I’ve learned a lot about myself. I’ve trained better and I eat better and I picked up the knowledge of the Ryan Bader camp, the Shogun camp and the Rampage camp and I’ve picked up so much and everything is in order.

The Fight Nerd: Zach Makovsky talks upcoming fight with Eduardo Dantas & more

That’s going to be a great fight. I thought Zach did well with his guest spot on color commentary last weekend. Dantas beating Alexis Vila got lost in the media fog because of Ballgate with Eric Prindle putting a picture of his swollen testicles on Twitter to prove that he wasn’t lying about the impact of the soccer ball kick to the nuts that Thiago Santos gave him. Chris Nelson of Sherdog said it best — Thiago must have had a flashback to Rio Heroes rules at that moment during the fight.

MMA Convert (Jim Genia): Expect Mayhem to choke out Bisping

If there were lessons about douchey-ness that needed to be learned after his first stint as TUF coach, Bisping absolutely did not heed them. He’s still one of the most unlikeable persons on the planet when the cameras are rolling. Which isn’t such a bad thing in this instance, as the heat between him and opposing coach Miller hovered around nil all season yet people will still tune in to watch the cocky, self-centered Brit get his ass kicked by the goofy, always-smiling guy standing on the other side of the cage. In terms of skills, everyone knows how well-rounded Bisping is when fists and takedowns start flying. Mayhem is well-rounded too, although his jiu-jitsu is top notch – and that, coupled with his aggressive style, gives him the edge over the Brit. This one is ending via rear naked choke, and it sure ain’t gonna be Michael Bisping who’ll be cinching in that choke.

MMA Payout: Survey says UFC has growth potential but some still skeptical

When Zuffa can figure out how to increase the % of revenue from the non-PPV side of things in their business model, the more stable the organization will become and the less volatility there will be.

Topics: Media, MMA, UFC, Zach Arnold | 29 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |

Would a confidential drug testing program help out UFC fighters?

By Zach Arnold | November 30, 2011

As noted by USA Today yesterday, Chris Leben got suspended for a year by the organization after testing positive for painkillers. Not just garden variety painkillers but very strong ones. Trouble has followed him throughout his professional MMA career but the UFC has made no indication of cutting him from their roster.

In the fight game, heavy usage of pain killers, PEDs, sleeping pills, and alcohol (both separate and in concert with each other) is the norm, not the exception. Anyone who is connected to a sport like the NFL or an industry like pro-wrestling can tell you the damage inflicted by heavy usage of painkillers. It’s not just the sports world, either, it’s American society at large. Addiction to prescription drugs is a terrible problem. I have great sympathy for anyone who is suffering from a prescription drug addiction. Of course, I have little to no sympathy for steroid or growth hormone usage.

We’ve seen plenty of wrestlers under the age of 50… hell, under the age of 40, who have dropped dead because of one drug cocktail or another. Don Frye, when he was a guest many years ago on our radio show, openly talked about how much pain guys like him endured in fights. Remember the ankle lock fest with Ken Shamrock in PRIDE? Guys take a beating in the combat sports world and because there are so many shows and such a limited amount of time to make great money, most fighters or wrestlers immediately pop a pill or shoot up with a needle knowing that they only have one chance in their lifetime to make some cash in their chosen profession.

This leads us to an interview that Dr. Johnny Benjamin did with Mauro Ranallo yesterday (audio link here) on the subject of painkiller use & abuse in Mixed Martial Arts, starting with Chris Leben’s situation.

“The common names for those medications (that he got busted for) are Percosets and Dilaudid. These are some of the strongest and most addictive narcotic pain relievers that are on the market. They are derivatives of the Oxycontins and so on and so forth. Here in South Florida where I live, it’s wrecking havoc in this place. The problem is just that — their addictive potential is just off the charts.

“I read all the blog sites and everybody’s all caught up, is it a performance enhancer? It’s a banned substance, it’s not a performance-enhancing substance list, it’s a banned substance list. And this is a place where sports in general and MMA in specific are trying to look out for the well being of the fighters because getting on this type of medication, as anybody will tell you, is very, very, very hard to get off. I don’t call these types of medications, the opiates, the narcotics, the Dilaudids, performance enhancers. I call them performance enablers.”

He’s exactly right. Semi-retired wrestler Lance Storm talks about how dangerous taking painkillers can be because when you are injured and feeling the pain, you’re body is telling you to stop and you’re popping a pill to basically continue on without feeling the natural pain you’re supposed to. The end result is more physical damage to your body, including your organs should you take one too many pills.

Incredibly, just like with Testosterone Replacement Therapy, you can try and get away with a prescription for pain killers with the various state athletic commissions.

“If you report that you’re taking this pain medicine and you have a prescription from a doctor and you can convince the commission and the governing board that this is legitimate use and appropriate use of the medication, you can take some of these medications. Once you get up to the Dilaudid and Oxycontins and so on and so forth, that’s going to be a hard sell. I want to hear your story to make that one sound reasonable. But one thing about that is everybody knows, you ask a fighter, hey are you ready for this fight? How do you feel? ‘Oh, I’m 100%.’ That’s a lie. None of them are 100%. If they’re 100%, they didn’t train for the fight. They’re all nursing injuries — black eyes, this hurt, that hurts, and they go in there and give you the best they have. So, it’s not uncommon for contact athletes and combat athletes to need something to get through the rigors of training. But if you need as something as strong as Dilaudid which we give to terminal cancer patients when you know they’re not going to live and you just want to make them comfortable at all costs, when you’re getting into that sort of thing then everybody needs to step back and say, hey, this is a sport. What we really need to talk about is the quality of your life and what’s going on.”

The danger with so many fighters & wrestlers & football players & hockey players using these kinds of drugs is that when someone drops dead, you start to look at the deaths as merely numbers and your mind plays tricks on you to almost dehumanize what’s really going on. A guy drops dead, that’s tragic. Two or three guys commit suicide due to brain damage, you get worked up for a day or two and then it’s back to the status quo. My great fear is that what we’ve seen in pro-wrestling with the heavy death toll is what we may see down the road with the MMA industry.

“It’s absolutely a tell-tale sign in my estimation for what’s coming. If you look at any other contact or combat sports, especially in the NFL, the NHL, pain tablets, I mean, they have nicknames for [prescription drugs]. It’s not even pain medicine any more. Give me a handful of those and a handful of these. I mean… they have bottles in the training room, hundreds and hundreds of these tablets because they pass them out at half time. So, if you think that MMA is going to have a different course than what we found in the other contact & combat sports…

“The thing I would say to you is it’s endemic in these types of sports and it’s endemic on both sides. The athletes want to participate and to succeed at this type of sport you have to have a certain kind of personality. I’m not saying it’s a personality defect but you have to be a person who’s a thrill seeker to a certain degree and a person who, not saying you’re angry and you have issues, but you have to a certain amount of junkyard dog…”

Mauro also interviewed Marc Ratner yesterday about Mr. Leben’s suspension and, in his own words, he stated that he wants an independent body to do drug testing for UFC events outside the States. His terminology was “a worldwide federation to regulate the sport” so that Zuffa can’t be accused of conflict of interest by doing their own drug testing in foreign countries.

Dr. Benjamin, during his interview with Mauro, made a suggestion as to how UFC could help slow down the abuse rate of painkillers by their fighters.

“There’s a huge opportunity out there to help these guys and it takes more than just a 30 minute talk at a symposium or when they put on the UFC convention, bring in all the fighters in, which costs them a great deal of money over a couple of days and someone goes up there for 45 minutes and says, hey, these things are bad of you. it’s kind of like saying smoking is bad for you and then let’s move onto the next thing. This has to be… people are some point have to recognize, the powers that be, they’re going to have to say that no one wants to deal with this issue because it’s bad press and they think that it’s going to slow down the moneymaking machine that it is. But I say that if you don’t address it, you have bigger problems. So, the thing about it is is that at some point they’re going to have to get a confidential program in effect, it’s going to cost money. I think someone like Dana White’s going to have to step up. He and the UFC, the Fertitta Brothers, they’ve moved this sport to where it is now in large part. They have the greatest resources and they have the greatest desire to see MMA become what we all believe that it can. I believe what they’re going to have to do is set up a real program for their fighters to give them confidentially to where these guys can be monitored, all of them, not just the ones who have shown past problems because a lot of them have problems that you just don’t know about… yet.

“You have to protect athletes from themselves. They’re athletes with families. You have to make sure that these guys are protected from themselves because one thing they recognize is if they don’t compete, they don’t earn (money). See how long you cannot fight and see how long your sponsor is going to stay with you.”

The problem with suggesting UFC running a confidential drug testing program is that I don’t trust them on the issue of drug testing in the first place. Dana White’s rhetoric on Chael Sonnen’s TRT usage should be enough to persuade you that he’s not exactly going to be providing a heavy bite when it comes to cutting fighters who are moneymakers and get caught doping. Dana always says that he wants ‘the government’ to drug test his fighters. Marc Ratner’s statements yesterday match up with Zuffa company policy in that matter, so I find it hard to believe that UFC will be taking any heavy pro-active steps to slow down the usage of pain killers if they aren’t doing aggressive drug testing for PEDs.

With all of that said, Dr. Benjamin is right. If an active fighter with UFC drops dead because of drug abuse, this is going to hurt them in the court of public opinion, with politicians they’ve been trying to curry favor with, and also with potential business partners/sponsors. The problem is that if leagues the NFL, NHL, and WWE can’t figure out how to get a handle on painkiller usage, how can we expect the UFC to do any better?

Topics: Media, MMA, UFC, UK, Zach Arnold | 10 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |

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