UFC welterweight contender, Dan Hardy speaks about how he plans on getting his octagon career back on track following a trio of tough defeats over the past year, explaining he wants to go one-on-one with American veteran, Chris Lytle when the promotion stops off in England.
Saturday 30 April 2011
Dana White earmarks Toronto and Dallas as the two stand-outs to host Anderson Silva vs. Georges St. Pierre
Speaking at a Q&A session on Friday, Dana said:
“If that fight happens, there’s only a couple places we can do it. Maybe three. We could do it in Las Vegas, which would be, Vegas is the fight capitol of the world, but there’s no arenas big enough to accommodate a fight that big.
“Dallas Texas Stadium could be a place we could do that fight, and obviously Toronto would be a no-brainer homerun.”
Both men have opponents in front of the before the promotion can consider pitting them against each other. St. Pierre will take on Jake Shields later this month at UFC 129 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada while Silva will attempt to get a measure of revenge against Yushin Okami when the promotion visits Rio de Janeiro, Brazil for UFC 134.
Jon Jones promises the wait will be worth it, massively interested in a future fight with Fedor Emelianenko
Speaking during the Q&A session in Toronto yesterday, Jones said:
“I’m just thinking about the future, because I am very young and I have many years left. I do want to apologize to you guys for the delay in the fight. Trust me, I’ll make it worth your guys’ while, the wait. I promise.”
“I think this whole Rashad Evans fight is really weird. The night before my (Ryan) Bader fight, he came to my dinner and told me that I was getting the fight against Shogun. He gave me his blessing; he said how happy he was for me. Now suddenly I’m the guy who betrayed him and all that stuff. I really don’t know how that happened.”
Jones also commented on the possibility of facing off with a number of the top names from the Strikeforce ranks with a certain Russian legend topping his wish list if it was possible.“Oooh, Fedor– that would be the fight that interests me the most. I admire Fedor a lot, and that would be a great gauge to see where I’m at in my career. As far as fighting Dan Henderson, I would love that fight, as well. I’m not trying to call them out but I would be honored to fight either one of them.”
Jones is currently healing up after suffering a torn ligament in his hand a number of months back and has recently had surgery to correct it. He could make the first defence of his title around the turn of the year as the injury shouldn’t hamper his training too much.
Ultimate Submissions: An in-depth look into highs and lows of Georges St. Pierre's grappling
In tonight’s main event at UFC 129, George St. Pierre will defend his title in a much anticipated match up with top ranked contender Jake Shields. This fight is on paper the stiffest test St. Pierre has faced since he throttled the second best welterweight in the world, Jon Fitch.
In months of speculation and anticipation of this fight, the MMA world has debated this topic with keen eyes and heavy interest. The talks of the improvement in St. Pierre’s stand up skills have pushed him upon a pedestal levels higher then he already stood above his challengers.
But against a jiu-jitsu wizard like Jake Shields, we should start to take notice of St. Pierre’s grappling skills. Not just his smothering top game, but his ability to transition from the bottom and to defend takedowns. Also, his skills in defending and performing submissions.
For another chapter in the Ultimate Submissions series, follow me after the jump and we will put a scope on the grappling abilities of the champion.
Georges St. Pierre started his career in January of 2002. He found himself on the winning end of a technical knockout stoppage late in the first round of that fight. It wouldn’t take him but about nine minutes before he captured his first title, winning his second fight by arm bar for the UCC promotion.
With very minimal wrestling and grappling experience to his name, St. Pierre did not enter the sport with the vast background most prospects tend to have. His combat experienced was limited.
From Wikipedia:
He started learning Kyokushin karate at age seven from his father and later from a Kyokushin Karate Master to defend himself against a school bully. He took up wrestling and Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu after his karate teacher died and also trained in boxing. Before turning pro as a mixed-martial artist, St-Pierre worked as a bouncer at a Montreal night club in the South Shore called Fuzzy Brossard and as a garbageman for six months to pay for his school fees.
St. Pierre continued his success in the smaller promotion before being called up by the UFC in his sixth fight. The UFC would offer him no tune up fight, pairing him with 10-2 and highly acclaimed Karo Pariysan. Parisyan, an accomplished Judo player, was a favorite based on experience alone.
St. Pierre overwhelmed Parisyan, landing six out of eight takedowns in the fight and severely out struck his opponent. This was a bit of a surprise to most being that St. Pierre was relatively unknown and it was his debut fight for the promotion.
The surprises would not end there.
The UFC would call on Jay Hieron to face St. Pierre next. Hieron was undefeated as well and had a legitimate wrestling background to his credit. It wouldn’t matter in this fight, however, as St. Pierre shrugged off three takedowns in the early going and would use that sprawl to batter and stop Hieron in less than two minutes. The win would propel St. Pierre up the ladder in what would be his first title opportunity.
This is where we begin with the low points of the grappling career of Georges St. Pierre.
A star-struck challenger, Georges St. Pierre would enter into a title fight with welterweight kingpin Matt Hughes in just his second year competing in mixed martial arts. Hughes, already a veteran in the sport with a record of 36-4, was the heavy favorite over the young St. Pierre.
The fight would see all but a second of the first round.
Hughes earned two takedowns in the round and none more important then the final one. He would pass to dominant position on St. Pierre and would secure a submission via arm bar at 4:59 of the very first round.
You see in the clip that while Matt Hughes is passing through to side mount of St. Pierre, St. Pierre begins to scramble. During the scramble St. Pierre has already began to attack the arm of Hughes, Hughes uses this to his advantage when he is able to isolate the attacking arm and swing over to execute an arm bar.
St. Pierre does not hold on the extra second and he taps out. The referee calls the fight as the round ends and St. Pierre suffers his first career defeat.
"Rush" would go back to the drawing board, at still a young age and experienced in the sport he would refine his technique and would rattle off seven straight wins before his next loss, a monumental upset at the hands of Matt Serra.
But that fight was not lost in any way based on grappling. His next grappling low would come against his rival, long time nemesis Josh Koscheck.
Josh Koscheck was 9-1 heading into the St. Pierre fight. Koscheck had one of the most impressive wrestling backgrounds in the sport and was quickly becoming a handful for all of his UFC opponents. In the early goings it looked to be as if he would also provide some trouble to St. Pierre.
Koscheck shows in this clip why he was so acclaimed as a powerhouse wrestler in the sport. He had snatched on a single leg and explodes impressively into a double leg takedown, resulting in a body lock and dominant position. Koscheck remains to be since that fight the only person to win a round on the current welterweight champion St. Pierre.
Koscheck would continue with his moderate success in out grappling St. Pierre in his efforts to gain takedowns.
This will show how little St. Pierre has suffered in terms of poor grappling. St. Pierre has progressed drastically since the submission loss to Hughes. Even in the clip of this second Koscheck fight, St. Pierre makes it extremely difficult to gain a takedown and forces Koscheck to lose plenty of energy. He did not allow Koscheck to do any considerable damage on the ground as he was able to still win the round as well as the remaining rounds in his thorough beating of Koscheck over five rounds.
The most recent low point of St. Pierre in grappling terms was the fight with Dan Hardy. In that fight St. Pierre was a perfect eleven for eleven in takedowns and passed the guard a whopping 26 times.Impressive, right?
St. Pierre attempted six submissions, but did not complete any. It wasn’t that they weren’t close to being finished, St. Pierre -- even while being a perfectionist -- failed to succeed while appearing to be primed and ready to finish the fight. While studying under many acclaimed teachers, including Renzo Gracie and John Danaher, his jiu-jitsu had been improving drastically, which made this next and final low even the more surprising.
Dan Hardy was outmatched to begin with. His jiu-jitsu skills while existent were not in the same league as St. Pierre’s.
St. Pierre makes a few mistakes in this clip. He has his legs very loose, he crosses his feet in his efforts to secure the body. He also allows Hardy to push his right foot away from his body, enabling him to twist and escape. St. Pierre could have rolled with him to further torque on the arm.
Coming from a black belt in jiu-jitsu, we all expected him to finish any submission that close against a severely outmatched Hardy.
However, just like his counterpart this weekend Jake Shields, George St. Pierre has plenty high points in the grappling department. Maybe not as noticeable since he hasn’t finished many fights by submission, but it’s the minor details that have won him over by many grapplers.
St. Pierre has dominated plenty grapplers, from the early fights of Sean Sherk and Mayhem Miller to B.J Penn and Matt Serra. Georges has made it known that his wrestling and positional grappling is hard to stop and seemingly impossible to match.
He has also made it a point to avenge his losses and low points with emphasis and viciousness.
In both clips above you see the grappling and wrestling prowess that St. Pierre has developed. From the guy who was out grappled early in his career by Hughes and the guy who was finding himself beneath Koscheck in their first fight he answered back with dominant performances in the rematches.
He was able to take down both fighters, but not just take them down … St. Pierre was able to hold them down and implore effective ground and pound attacks.
After the failed submissions on Dan Hardy many questioned St. Pierre’s finishing abilities. The thought that St. Pierre doesn’t have the ability to finish a fight via submission should be put to rest by simply looking back to his victory over an accomplished grappler in Matt Hughes.
In the clip St. Pierre is going for North South position, he seems to be attacking with a kimura. With Hughes on his side, St. Pierre has the position for the kimura, with his base out wide and arms away from his body. As Hughes straightens his arm to fight the kimura, St. Pierre is able to transition to an armbar. As Hughes rolls out of the armbar, GSP slides his leg in front of Hughes' face to isolate the arm. From there it forces the tap out.
But St. Pierre’s grappling isnt limited to submission attempts.
In the clips above St. Pierre is beating and battering his opponents. But those aren’t two ordinary opponents -- B.J. Penn and Matt Serra are two world class jiu-jitsu practitioners. St. Pierre is able to keep them from being mobile and avoid any sort of defense/offense from either guy in the area they are well respected in jiu-jitsu.
St. Pierre uses his strength and awesome use of leverage to neutralize the grappling abilities of his opponents in a way that is smothering and overwhelming, which leads to frustration and breaking down of the wills of his opponents.
For anyone who believes (As I do) that Jake Shields will get St. Pierre to the ground, let us not forget that Georges is a black belt and does know how to defend from his back.
As we see in the clip above Jon Fitch has top control over St. Pierre, you can see Fitch beginning to pass the guard by sliding his knee over St. Pierre's leg. As soon as he does, St. Pierre starts to transition to a deep half guard, by grabbing the leg and pulling Fitch off balance, forcing him to plant out both hands on the mat. St. Pierre is then able escape his head right out from behind Fitch and then threatens taking the back. And as Fitch turns back into GSP, he turns the half-guard into a single leg for the sweep.
Beautiful jiu-jitsu displayed by St. Pierre from underneath one of the best positional grapplers in the division if not the sport. St. Pierre has the knowledge and abilities to perform high level moves especially with the recent addition in his training camp adding Roger Gracie and Braulio Estima to his long list of training partners.
Only time well tell if Georges St. Pierre will be able to match the grappling skills of the challenger tonight.
Lucky for us, the wait is almost over.
Road to Toronto: Georges St. Pierre dominates the UFC welterweight division
A man who had never been defeated in the UFC, Jon Fitch, was brutalized for 25 minutes.
A man who had given Georges St. Pierre fits three years prior, B.J. Penn, quit on his stool.
It seems like UFC 69: "Shootout," when a Matt Serra haymaker found its mark, was the last time we saw GSP The Mortal Man. Now we were watching GSP The Indestructible Machine.
Road to Toronto is a special series leading up to UFC 129: "St. Pierre vs. Shields."
We'll take a look at some of the most important moments in the careers of the champion (Georges St. Pierre) and his challenger (Jake Shields), including the ups and the downs and the highs and the lows. We'll examine the instances in time that have helped shape the men that headline this Saturday's (April 30, 2011) card, the biggest in UFC history.
Today is the big day!
Before we order the pizzas and crack open the beers, let's take a look at the sheer domination "Rush" has held over the welterweight division for the past several years:
With the company's milestone 100th event (by number, at least) coming up, the UFC would have been insane not to put its two biggest draws, Brock Lesnar and Georges St. Pierre, on the card.
It did just that.
The welterweight champion's opponent that night was Brazilian Muay Thai wrecking machine Thiago Alves. He was on a seven-fight win streak, ending five of those by (technical) knockout. One such finish was a beauty of a flying knee that almost made Matt Hughes forget the numbers 12 through 17.Nonetheless, at UFC 100, "Rush" completely dominated his opponent. When everyone said he had to take the fight to the ground to avoid getting knocked out by the danger striker, St. Pierre chose to stand at times, confident in his own stand up skills.
In fact, by the second round, Alves' face was covered in blood, a testament to the power GSP had in his hands. The champion was also able to drop the Brazilian in the third round, all the while absorbing very little damage himself.
The only round that Alves made semi-competitive was the fourth. He had the champion on his back, but again, "Rush" escaped without taking too many blows.
Oh, and he had torn a muscle in his groin that round, too.
Despite the injury, the champion went on to win a one-sided unanimous decision against the challenger. But his professional demeanor, coupled with his dominant performances, brought up the concern that perhaps fans would tire of St. Pierre.
To help alleviate this, the French Canadian's next opponent was the brash and cocky Dan Hardy, a British striker who had no qualms about speaking his mind.
He, like Fitch, was undefeated in the UFC. But unlike Fitch, he had twice as few fights in the Octagon and against lesser competition. The fight was looked at as a bit of a farce since Hardy really only had the proverbial "puncher's chance."
The fight went exactly as everyone thought it would.
Hardy never even got the chance to throw that one big punch. He was on his back almost the entire time. And despite solid armbar and kimura attempts from the champ, he couldn't finish the Briton off.
GSP had failed to keep fights from going to the judges several times before, but this time was different. Hardy was hot shotted into the title picture and wasn't in the same league as the welterweight kingpin. If you didn't think so before they locked horns, the fight proved that beyond a shadow of a doubt.
The same criticisms that Jake Shields received prior to his Strikeforce run -- that he was too careful and unable to finish fights -- were now being lobbed at "Rush."
By the time he signed on to fight Josh Koscheck, he was recycling opponents he had already beaten. Koscheck proved no match for St. Pierre in 2007. And while the former The Ultimate Fighter (TUF) contestant had improved since that time, so had St. Pierre.
He had improved so much, in fact, that instead of trying to outwrestle the wrestle as he did before, he put on a boxing display. He jabbed Koscheck's face into oblivion, shattering his orbital bone in the process.
From Koscheck's official Twitter account comes this grotesque image. The frizzy-haired trash talker still won't be able to fight for at least a couple of months.
But again, GSP was criticized for his performance.
Why didn't he put Koscheck away when he was obviously in such bad shape? How did one of the most exciting fighters go from decisions being the exception to the norm?
Finishes are important in the sport. They're important to the fans. They help prove a fighter has that killer instinct, that extra something that only comes out when the cage door is locked.
Georges St. Pierre can put on another dominating peformance tonight (April 30), but without a finish, I fear his star may begin to lose some luster.
At the weigh-ins yesterday, he told the audience not to blink. Perhaps he has heard some of the criticisms himself and decided to do something about it.
And with a superfight with Anderson Silva possibly on the horizon and millions of dollars to be made, GSP can't afford to be viewed as a "lay and pray" wrestler.
Because to be quite honest, he's not that at all.
Dana White not interested in another war with Tito Ortiz but makes it clear more focus is needed
UFC President, Dana White has been speaking about the war of words that escalated on Twitter this past week between himself and former light heavyweight champion, Tito Ortiz, explaining he’s not interested in another public spat with the fighter but did warn the man from Huntington Beach that he needs to focus on his fighting career. Speaking at yesterday’s Q&A session, Dana said:
“Here’s the thing about that, what’s ridiculous, it wasn’t meant to disrespect. The video itself it plays up the rivalry between Chuck and Tito, and Chuck makes fun of himself getting knocked out. It’s a fun video that wasn’t meant to hurt anybody. I’m sure many of you know what happened after that. He gets on and starts tweeting, and then Jenna (Jameson) jumps in, it’s crazy. I don’t want to start a fight with Tito again, but this is how petty and ridiculous it gets sometimes.”
“The last thing I want to do is get into a beef with Tito. I’m cool with Tito; I don’t hate Tito. But Tito talks too much. What Tito needs to do… Tito just pulled out of a fight because of stitches. I’ve got guys on ‘The Ultimate Fighter’ who fight with stitches. I’m being serious.
“Tito you need to focus on your fight. You’re fighting for your career right now. The last thing you need to be doing is sitting and signing autographs. You need to be home training and getting ready for your next fight. And stay off Twitter, Tito.”
Ortiz is set to step back into the octagon at UFC 132 on July 2nd in what has turned into a do-or-die fight for “The Huntington Beach Bad Boy”. He’ll take on “Ultimate Fighter” season eight winner, Ryan Bader who is looking to get back to winning ways after losing the first fight of his professional career in February.
Ryan Bader takes in the sights and sounds of UFC 129 (video)
“Ultimate Fighter” season eight winner, Ryan Bader takes in the sights and sounds of Toronto, Ontario, Canada ahead of this weekends UFC 129 event. Check out what the man dubbed “Darth” gets up to and the kind of food he consumes during his time off.
Nate Diaz EXCLUSIVE: "It's Us Against Them" At UFC 129
UFC welterweight fighter and fan favorite, Nate Diaz, tells BJPENN.COM that he and his team are ready to take it to the Canadian fighters at tomorrow night’s UFC 129 event. While Nate is not only a man of few words, he is also not fond of interviews, however with a long history of working with Team Penn, he was gracious enough to grant us a few moments of his time to talk about the fight between him and Rory as well as Jake Shields vs. GSP.
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UFC 129 – Georges St. Pierre warns: “I have to keep in mind that I can lose everything in the blink of an eye”
UFC welterweight champion, Georges St. Pierre is airing on the side of caution ahead of his UFC 129 clash with Jake Shields this weekend in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, explaining he has to keep in mind that everything he’s built to this point could be lost in the blink of an eye. Speaking via UFC.com, St. Pierre said:
“Nobody is perfect. It’s gonna be a tough fight (against Shields). I have a big, big challenge on my shoulders April 30th. I used to not enjoy it (the fight game) as much. But as the fights have gone by, I made a lot of changes to my entourage and in my training, and now my smile is back on my face and I’m very excited for this fight.”
“I have to keep in mind that I can lose everything in the blink of an eye. I can’t be on cruise control, I have to keep working hard.”
We don’t have long to wait to see how St. Pierre fares in his latest title defence as ‘UFC 129: St. Pierre vs. Shields’ goes down this Saturday, April 30th at the Rogers Centre in Toronto, Ontario. Stay tuned to MMABay for more on the fight card as it approaches.
Vitor Belfort reveals his case of Hepatitis A has already cleared up
Former UFC light heavyweight champion, Vitor Belfort has today revealed that his case of Hepatitis A has miraculously cleared up over night, just days after he first showed signed of the virus, meaning his upcoming fight will go ahead as planned. Belfort revealed he had contracted the painful virus early last week and had been reduced to healing up in bed until it passed. Later in the week he added he might attempt to do some sort of training at some point next week but today he revealed it had completely cleared up.
Belfort has a fight set for UFC 133 on August 6th in Philadelphia against Japanese superstar, Yoshihiro Akiyama. With today’s news the fight should go ahead without a hitch, giving “The Phenom” a chance to put himself back in title contention.
UFC taps Oct. 8 for major event in Houston, UFC Fan Expo to coincide
TORONTO – The UFC makes it return to Houston on Oct. 8 for a major event, sources close to the organization today told MMAjunkie.com (www.mmajunkie.com).The event likely will take place at the 18,000-seat Toyota Center, which also hosted UFC 69 in 2007.
Although he didn't announce the event, UFC president Dana White did confirm during a Q&A session today that Houston also will host a UFC Fan Expo on Oct. 7 and 8.
Sources gave few details about the planned event, though it's expected to air on pay-per-view.
White made Houston's UFC Fan Expo announcement, fittingly, during today's Q&A session at the UFC Fan Expo in Toronto. Houston becomes the fifth city to host the popular two-day fan festivals following expos in Las Vegas (twice), Boston, London and Toronto. The expo is expected to take place at Houston's George R. Brown Convention Center.
The UFC made its Texas debut with UFC 69. The event featured Matt Serra's stunning upset of then-welterweight champ Georges St-Pierre, as well as Josh Koscheck's victory over a seriously ill Diego Sanchez (staph infection) in the co-headliner.
The event drew 15,269 fans for a $2.8 million gate.
UFC boss dishes on Diaz's boxing career, Bellator, "TUF" changes, Pettis' title shot
TORONTO – UFC president Dana White on Friday hosted a fan-driven Q&A session at the UFC Fan Expo Toronto 2011, which takes place this weekend at Toronto's Direct Energy Centre.As usual, the outspoken boss didn't shy away from any hard questions, and he covered a wide variety of interesting topics including how close Junior Dos Santos vs. Brock Lesnar was to being the UFC's first five-round non-title title fight, the possibility of Nick Diaz entering a boxing ring and why all future editions of "The Ultimate Fighter" will feature elimination fights to get into the house.
MMAjunkie.com (www.mmajunkie.com) shares White's thought on those topics and more in this Dana White Q&A Notebook.
Junior Dos Santos vs. Brock Lesnar was nearly a five-round non-title fight
A rash of recent draws and controversial decisions have led many fans to call for five-round contests in all main-event bouts, whether a title is on the line or not. White said not only is he in favor of the idea, but the upcoming UFC 131 fight "The Ultimate Fighter 13" coaches Brock Lesnar and Junior Dos Santos was nearly tagged as a 25-minute affair.
"I'm in to that," White said. "I like it. I think there's some fights that aren't title fights that are main events, and it ends up being three (rounds), and it should have been five. I'm a big fan of it, and we're working on that right now.
"We were actually going to start it with Brock Lesnar and Junior Dos Santos, but we had already made the fight, so it's kind of hard to go back to those guys after you've already made the fight and say, 'You know what? This is going to be five (rounds) instead of three.' So we're very close to doing it."
As for the draws, some fans have suggested a "sudden victory" overtime around could prove valuable. Similar to the way ties are broken on "The Ultimate Fighter" with a third round if the first two prove even, supporters of the overtime idea would like to see the potential for a fourth round in a three-round bout and sixth round in five-round affair.
White was less supportive of that idea. While he admitted his disdain for draws, he said changed in round structures would need to be made by athletic commissions.
"That's a commission thing," White said. "It has nothing to do with me. I hate [draws].
"Listen, when guys train for a fight all that time and prepare, we put on this big event, everybody shows up – that's my big beef with soccer. We go sit there and watch this game for hours, and nobody wins? I don't get it. That's something I hate about fights, too. Draws suck, and I don't know. It is what it is."
Boxing may be in Nick Diaz's future, but Georges St-Pierre could lie there, as well
Current Strikeforce welterweight champion Diaz has made quite a stir in recent weeks by suggesting he hopes to box in the very near future. Earlier this week, White admitted he might not be able to stop Diaz from pursuing his dreams, but today, the UFC boss said he's certainly going to try.
"I'm going to talk to Nick Diaz," White said. "Literally, when this fight is done I'm flying up to Stockton to go talk to him."
Diaz fought 10 times under the UFC banner between 2003 and 2006, but White said he hasn't had a meaningful business conversation since. Now that Strikeforce is the newest sister-promotion of the UFC, White said he hopes to talk Diaz out of his desire to box. However, if he's unsuccessful, White said he won't stand in Diaz's way.
"He has a deal with Strikeforce," Diaz said. "They have a verbal deal that he can go out and box. We honor deals. If you have a deal, you have a deal. But I don't think it's in Nick's best interest to box. The funny thing is that all boxers wish they could come over here and do this, but they don't have the skillset to do it.
"I just have to sit down and talk to Nick. It's been a long time since Nick and I have sat down and really talked since when he was in the UFC. I just want to have the opportunity to talk to him. If I leave there and he says, 'I'm doing this. I want to do this,' then we'll honor the deal."
While it remains "business as usual" for Strikeforce, at least for the time being, White did mention Diaz's name as a possible future opponent for Georges St-Pierre should "Rush" elect not to make the leap to 185 pounds
"If Georges St-Pierre decides to stay at 170 (pounds), and the Anderson Silva fight doesn't happen, there's always going to be new guys coming up out there," White said. "There's Nick Diaz, and there's a lot of other guys.
"Georges St-Pierre is one of these guys that's such a great champion, and he's so good at what he does, but listen, he's a human being. Anybody can be beat on any given day. Georges wants to keep testing himself and keep fighting the best. Who knows what decisions he'll make after he beats so many guys and how he'll want to challenge himself next, but we'll see. It's kind of the fun of being in the fight game."
White admits mistake with "TUF, " says elimination fights back next season
While there has been some debate as to why the 13th season of "The Ultimate Fighter" has struggled a bit in the ratings department, White admitted some contractual obligations were at least partly to blame.
Some MMA observers have suggested the lack of elimination fights to earn entrance into the "TUF" house has left viewers without an attachment to the competitors – not to mention participants that might not necessarily be the best available.
White hesitated briefly before explaining why the elimination fights were eliminated and promising they'll be back next season.
"We had a lot of obstacles this season," White said. "I don't even know if I should talk about this, but I will because that's me. In our deal with Spike TV this season, we don't have as many episodes as we've had in the past. We figured that we would be killing some of the reality. We wouldn't have enough time to tell stories. But we really, really made a big mistake not having these guys fight to get in the house. I guarantee you that will never happen again."
On the bright side for "The Ultimate Fighter," this past week's episode No. 5 matched the season's highest viewership with 1.5 million viewers. White said viewers still tuning in to Spike TV each week will be rewarded as the season continues to play out.
"Trust me when I tell you … you are not going to be disappointed with the way this season ends and the fights that happen at the end," White said. "It turns around."
"We're coming everywhere"
Most Q&A sessions with White consist of at least a dozen questions asking him when the UFC is visiting a particular market, and Friday was no exception. The UFC head said expansion in both the domestic and global markets are still a priority and said for most major cities, it's simply a matter of time.
"Anywhere that we can take this thing that we think is going to be a good market, we're going to," White said. "It's a matter of, as we lay out these fights, having enough fights. As the sport continues to grow, there's more athletes to compete, and that's [the reason for] the Strikeforce acquisition and other acquisitions where people think, 'Oh, we don't like competition.' That's not the case at all. The issue is we need more fights.
"As we continue to grow globally, and we want to go to all these places, we need more and more and more fights."
In the U.S., the Washington D.C. area was one of the few areas White said was on the UFC's radar.
"We actually were very close, I think last year, to doing a fight down there," White said. "We almost did, and then we pulled out last-minute, but it's definitely on our radar. We almost did it last year, and I'm sure we'll be there soon. It's on our radar."
Internationally, White said the company continues to make great strides around the world, and the company is working on signing massive deals in China and India that will eventually lead to live events in those markets.
"Right now we're in 175 different countries," White said. "We're in 22 languages in a half-billion home worldwide.
"We're working hard right now on China and India. If we get these two deals done, in the next couple of months, we'll be in a billion homes worldwide on television. China is one we're working on very hard, and another one that we're real close to doing a fight and possibly 'The Ultimate Fighter' is the Philippines."
Another Q&A tradition involves at least one Irish MMA fan asking when the promotion will return to the European country. White has often praised the raucous crowd of 9,300 that packed the O2 Dublin for UFC 93 in January 2009, and he said the company intends to return to Ireland soon. However, the high demand for events around the globe makes it difficult to pin down an exact date.
"We're trying, man," White said. "There's so much demand to bring the fights to all the different places. Believe me, we're trying."
White said Canada will certainly see more shows in the near future. The country that White has repeatedly referred to as a "Mecca" of mixed martial arts continues to prove a massive profit center for the UFC, and the enthusiastic exec said the country will unquestionably see more fights in the very near future.
"This has become our second-biggest market in the world," White said. "I really do love it up here. I love everything about here. You guys have very cool cities. Every place is clean. There's great restaurants, great hotels. The shopping is incredible. There's nothing that sucks about Canada except for the weather.
"I would come here and do a fight every weekend if we could. Now it's just a matter of figuring this thing out, moving it around, but we want to bring Ultimate Fight Nights up here. We want to bring The Ultimate Fighter Finales up here. Believe me, we're going to start doing a lot more fights up here."
Where exactly those fights will take place remains to be seen, but White said the company is looking at destinations outside of the three cities (Montreal, Toronto, Vancouver) the company has already visited.
"We want to get over and do Edmonton," White said. "We've obviously hit the big three, and now there's other places throughout the country that we believe would be good markets for us that we're going to do. And it doesn't have to be a huge St-Pierre fight or something else. Fight Nights and The Ultimate Fighter Finales are fun, too.
"Showtime" still in line
In his shortest address of the day, White cleared up any potential confusion in the UFC's current lightweight title picture.
With Jim Miller and Dennis Siver making strides in the 155-pound division, some MMA pundits wondered if former WEC champ Anthony Pettis might be forced to wait for his shot at the UFC crown even if he proves victorious in a June matchup with Clay Guida.
White quickly shot down any potential theories regarding the future of the division.
"No," White said. "It's Pettis."
"I've never seen Bellator"
With Strikeforce no longer a competing organization with the UFC, where exactly does Bellator Fighting Championships rank in the world of MMA? As far as White is concerned, it hardly matters.
"I've never seen Bellator," White admitted.
White quickly insisted he didn't mean to disrespect the tournament-based promotion with his admission.
"I know they're out there," White said. "I know they're putting on shows, but there are tons of shows out there. There's tons of shows out there that I don't know about."
White scoffed at the notion that Bellator was any type of "real" competition, but he said the fact that he's never witnessed the promotion wasn't related to his thoughts on the organization's market share. Instead, he said he relies on his business partners to fill him in on the happenings of competing MMA promotions.
"I'm not anti-competition," White said. "You can ask anybody that knows me. Ask Lorenzo (Fertitta). Lorenzo watches it. I never do.
"The only thing that I focus on, and the only thing that I worry about is what we're doing and what we have coming up."
UFC Fan Expo: Toronto
What's up Maniacs, Harris Masood reporting live from the UFC Fan Expo here on day one in Toronto (April 29, 2011) and if there's one thing I learned on my first day, it's that Canadian fans are serious about mixed martial arts (MMA).
Very serious.
I arrived early to the Expo, before the VIP and the general admission audience. There were eager fans standing right outside the entrance to the center, staring at me with envious eyes as I was allowed past security while many of the Expo booth employees and promotional models were putting the finishing touches on their respective showcase areas.
When 9:00 a.m. hit, throngs of VIP fans came tumbling in and headed straight for the Round 5 booth to buy limited edition Georges St. Pierre figures that are an exclusive for the 2011 Toronto Expo. I saw fans buying up to six at a time, with some fans re-entering the long, winding line to hopefully purchase more figures of Canada's favorite MMA star.
Once it was 10 a.m., a stampede of fans ran towards the Round 5 booth even larger than before, adding to the already massive line that sprawled through the center. Round 5 also had a team of 3D graphics engineers with a face scanner system that they used to computer generate a virtual likeness of the fans' faces.
Round 5 emailed the scans of the rendered faces to the fans, and lucky winners who found a golden ticket on the back of their GSP figures were promised Round 5 figures of themselves.
The booths themselves were a motley bunch of both the familiar and completely new. The Tapout, Silverstar, UFC clothing, RVCA, Jaco, Badboy, Affliction, Xtreme Couture, Ecko, Headrush fan expo staples were present, some doing better jobs of standing out from others. Ecko had a giant wheel where fans would spin it to win prizes. Jaco and Bad Boy had dual level booths with DJ's blasting music.
The UFC store looked like it was ripped right out of a clothing retailer from a mall with some pretty classy glossy wood panels, and it was packed to the brim for the entire day. Supplement companies such as Muscle Pharm, Xyience, and BSN were also at the expo, selling recovery drinks and having their models pass out fliers and luring customers to buy a t-shirt or a protein bar.
THQ was demoing its UFC training game for the Wii and Xbox systems and it actually looked...pretty cool. That didn't stop me from feeling stupid while I tried it out though.
What was interesting to note, however, were how many other types of booths there were. Canadian internet and television service provider Rogers was advertising at the event. Bell was offering cell phone and internet plans at the arena as well. Dodge and Toyo tires had cars at the show, and the Hangover Part 2 had its own booth at the center.
It made me think about marketing companies seeing the MMA demographic as a significant niche where they can draw business from, and this reminded me of how much the sport is growing everyday.
I should mention that the energy level was insanely high throughout the entire day. I've been to other fan expos in the past. The Boston Expo for Edgar vs. Penn 2, for example, paled in comparison to the rarefied energy that permeated throughout the center.
Almost every booth had fighters on rotations for signings, but here in Canada, nearly every booth was packed. Six Flags great adventure on the most beautiful day of the summer packed. New Twilight movie midnight screening packed. Win a date with Arianny packed...well maybe I'm getting ahead of myself, but you get the idea.
Ms. Celeste was at the Hayabusa booth taking autographs and pictures with fans. Shandella Powell and Britney Palmer were at their respective booths as well, and, interestingly enough, Palmer's line was much longer than the other girls' of the Octagon. Maybe Canadian fans gravitate more towards Palmer than Arianny? Or is this indicative of a new trend in hotness? I didn't really care, I got to see the both of them in person.
As for the booth girls, the promotional models in Canada were, for the most part, insanely hotter than ones I've seen at other expos. That's not to say there weren't a couple of sloppy ones walking around, but for the most part, the women were drop dead gorgeous. Which got me to thinking: should I do a contest of who the hottest promotional model of the Toronto Fan Expo is? I've got a couple of photos I want to share, so look out for them! (the bodybuilding.com girls were all gorgeous).
Question and answer sessions held on the weigh-in stage were started off by Bruce Buffer, and other sessions by Mike Goldberg and Joe Rogan, and finally, Dana White, occurred every two hours throughout the expo. Buffer excitedly discussed how he pumped himself up for his announcements with fans while Mike and Joe dealt mainly with fight analysis questions. Nearly every question posed to the two announcers had a Jake Shields insult thrown in, which always received a response from the fans.
Dana white received just one question multiple times: "can I get backstage to hang-out with the fighters and/or can you give me tickets?" White also called out Tito's proclivity for pulling out of fights due to seemingly innocuous injuries, saying that Ortiz pulled out of his fight because he had stitches.
After mentioning this, White was quick to say there were fighters on the Ultimate Fighter (TUF) show who fight with stitches. White also made a comment regarding his latest twitter back and-forth regarding Tito, which received a loud response from fans. Cain Velasquez, Jon Jones, Anderson Silva, Georges St. Pierre, Frankie Edgar, Jose Aldo, and Dominick Cruz all were brought up on stage dressed to the nines while holding their championship belts. Fans were able to ask the UFC champs questions for a short period before the weigh ins began.
When it was time for the weigh-ins, the support for each Canadian fighter that took to the stage was deafening, as were the boos for Shields. All fighters made weight without a problem, with the exception of Ben Henderson, who need to cut an additional .5lbs to make the 156-pound limit for his lightweight bout.
As always at the expo, fighters were present and signing autographs. Many of them were booked at different booths and different times of the day, Rashad Evans, for example was at the Muscle Pharm and Popeye's supplements (a Canadian company) booth. Clay Guida was signing at the Dethrone Royalty booth along with Melvin Guillard (who was cracking jokes throughout his signing).
Krystof Soszynski, Miguel Torres, Mark Coleman, Joe Lauzon, Anthony Pettis, Ben Rothwell, Cung Le, and Duane Ludwig were all conversing with fans and signing autographs with the same aforementioned high energy that defined the expo. Pat Barry wasn't even at a booth and was held up in the hallway being mobbed by fans for close to three hours. He kept smiling and just couldn't say no, and kept going.
The Expo itself did die down by 6 p.m. (closing time) but not by much. It was certainly one of the best I've been to and I'm looking forward to tomorrow!
Very serious.
I arrived early to the Expo, before the VIP and the general admission audience. There were eager fans standing right outside the entrance to the center, staring at me with envious eyes as I was allowed past security while many of the Expo booth employees and promotional models were putting the finishing touches on their respective showcase areas.
When 9:00 a.m. hit, throngs of VIP fans came tumbling in and headed straight for the Round 5 booth to buy limited edition Georges St. Pierre figures that are an exclusive for the 2011 Toronto Expo. I saw fans buying up to six at a time, with some fans re-entering the long, winding line to hopefully purchase more figures of Canada's favorite MMA star.
Once it was 10 a.m., a stampede of fans ran towards the Round 5 booth even larger than before, adding to the already massive line that sprawled through the center. Round 5 also had a team of 3D graphics engineers with a face scanner system that they used to computer generate a virtual likeness of the fans' faces.
Round 5 emailed the scans of the rendered faces to the fans, and lucky winners who found a golden ticket on the back of their GSP figures were promised Round 5 figures of themselves.
The booths themselves were a motley bunch of both the familiar and completely new. The Tapout, Silverstar, UFC clothing, RVCA, Jaco, Badboy, Affliction, Xtreme Couture, Ecko, Headrush fan expo staples were present, some doing better jobs of standing out from others. Ecko had a giant wheel where fans would spin it to win prizes. Jaco and Bad Boy had dual level booths with DJ's blasting music.
The UFC store looked like it was ripped right out of a clothing retailer from a mall with some pretty classy glossy wood panels, and it was packed to the brim for the entire day. Supplement companies such as Muscle Pharm, Xyience, and BSN were also at the expo, selling recovery drinks and having their models pass out fliers and luring customers to buy a t-shirt or a protein bar.
THQ was demoing its UFC training game for the Wii and Xbox systems and it actually looked...pretty cool. That didn't stop me from feeling stupid while I tried it out though.
What was interesting to note, however, were how many other types of booths there were. Canadian internet and television service provider Rogers was advertising at the event. Bell was offering cell phone and internet plans at the arena as well. Dodge and Toyo tires had cars at the show, and the Hangover Part 2 had its own booth at the center.
It made me think about marketing companies seeing the MMA demographic as a significant niche where they can draw business from, and this reminded me of how much the sport is growing everyday.
I should mention that the energy level was insanely high throughout the entire day. I've been to other fan expos in the past. The Boston Expo for Edgar vs. Penn 2, for example, paled in comparison to the rarefied energy that permeated throughout the center.
Almost every booth had fighters on rotations for signings, but here in Canada, nearly every booth was packed. Six Flags great adventure on the most beautiful day of the summer packed. New Twilight movie midnight screening packed. Win a date with Arianny packed...well maybe I'm getting ahead of myself, but you get the idea.
Ms. Celeste was at the Hayabusa booth taking autographs and pictures with fans. Shandella Powell and Britney Palmer were at their respective booths as well, and, interestingly enough, Palmer's line was much longer than the other girls' of the Octagon. Maybe Canadian fans gravitate more towards Palmer than Arianny? Or is this indicative of a new trend in hotness? I didn't really care, I got to see the both of them in person.
As for the booth girls, the promotional models in Canada were, for the most part, insanely hotter than ones I've seen at other expos. That's not to say there weren't a couple of sloppy ones walking around, but for the most part, the women were drop dead gorgeous. Which got me to thinking: should I do a contest of who the hottest promotional model of the Toronto Fan Expo is? I've got a couple of photos I want to share, so look out for them! (the bodybuilding.com girls were all gorgeous).
Question and answer sessions held on the weigh-in stage were started off by Bruce Buffer, and other sessions by Mike Goldberg and Joe Rogan, and finally, Dana White, occurred every two hours throughout the expo. Buffer excitedly discussed how he pumped himself up for his announcements with fans while Mike and Joe dealt mainly with fight analysis questions. Nearly every question posed to the two announcers had a Jake Shields insult thrown in, which always received a response from the fans.
Dana white received just one question multiple times: "can I get backstage to hang-out with the fighters and/or can you give me tickets?" White also called out Tito's proclivity for pulling out of fights due to seemingly innocuous injuries, saying that Ortiz pulled out of his fight because he had stitches.
After mentioning this, White was quick to say there were fighters on the Ultimate Fighter (TUF) show who fight with stitches. White also made a comment regarding his latest twitter back and-forth regarding Tito, which received a loud response from fans. Cain Velasquez, Jon Jones, Anderson Silva, Georges St. Pierre, Frankie Edgar, Jose Aldo, and Dominick Cruz all were brought up on stage dressed to the nines while holding their championship belts. Fans were able to ask the UFC champs questions for a short period before the weigh ins began.
When it was time for the weigh-ins, the support for each Canadian fighter that took to the stage was deafening, as were the boos for Shields. All fighters made weight without a problem, with the exception of Ben Henderson, who need to cut an additional .5lbs to make the 156-pound limit for his lightweight bout.
As always at the expo, fighters were present and signing autographs. Many of them were booked at different booths and different times of the day, Rashad Evans, for example was at the Muscle Pharm and Popeye's supplements (a Canadian company) booth. Clay Guida was signing at the Dethrone Royalty booth along with Melvin Guillard (who was cracking jokes throughout his signing).
Krystof Soszynski, Miguel Torres, Mark Coleman, Joe Lauzon, Anthony Pettis, Ben Rothwell, Cung Le, and Duane Ludwig were all conversing with fans and signing autographs with the same aforementioned high energy that defined the expo. Pat Barry wasn't even at a booth and was held up in the hallway being mobbed by fans for close to three hours. He kept smiling and just couldn't say no, and kept going.
The Expo itself did die down by 6 p.m. (closing time) but not by much. It was certainly one of the best I've been to and I'm looking forward to tomorrow!
Matt Hughes vs. Diego Sanchez may only be words!!!
Matt Hughes vs. Diego Sanchez, which was recently announced for sometime in the fall, will apparently go down on Sept. 24, 2011 in Denver, Colorado.
That's the word from Hughes himself but UFC Vice President of Regulatory Affairs Marc Ratner could not verify that. He did, however, tell MMAFighting.com that there "is certainly talk" of the promotion holding an event in "The Mile High City" and that if it is to happen, the show would take place at the Pepsi Center.
That's the word from Hughes himself but UFC Vice President of Regulatory Affairs Marc Ratner could not verify that. He did, however, tell MMAFighting.com that there "is certainly talk" of the promotion holding an event in "The Mile High City" and that if it is to happen, the show would take place at the Pepsi Center.
UFC presents the 'Super 7' (Pic)
Okay, there's only five here, but that's because welterweight champion Georges St. Pierre and featherweight champion Jose Aldo had to beat feet in order to get ready for the UFC 129 weigh ins.
You can see a photo of all seven UFC champions after the jump. To see the entire gallery, courtesy of UFC.com, click here.
You can see a photo of all seven UFC champions after the jump. To see the entire gallery, courtesy of UFC.com, click here.
Evan Tanner 'Once I was a Champion' video reviews for late fighter's documentary
"I plan on going so deep into the desert, that any failure of my equipment, could cost me my life."
Former UFC middleweight champion Evan Tanner predicted his own death over two years ago, when his body was discovered by the Imperial County Sheriff's Department in the mountain area of Palo Verde, California.
Tanner, 37, was a pioneer of the sport who had his own unique approach to fighting and to life. He was an adventure seeker, documenting his travels in great detail on his personal blog after overcoming a dark period in his life and a battle with alcohol.
His life was an open book, which either turned fans in his favor or against him. Tanner didn't really care one way or the other how people felt -- he did things his way.
Not surprisingly, his life became the subject of a recent documentary titled "Evan Tanner: Once I was a Champion" which debuted last night (Thursday, April 28, 2011) and Middle Easy was there to capture the reviews and fan reactions to the story behind the champion:
Tanner returned to the Octagon in March of 2008 to recapture some of the glory from earlier in his fighting career; however, he lost his first two comeback bouts.
He decided to take some time off and address some injuries that had been hampering him for several years. In the meantime, he continued his nomadic ways. While terribly tragic and entirely premature, it's perhaps a poetic end for one of the most eccentric fighters the sport has ever known.
To get a closer look at the Evan Tanner "Once I was a Champion" documentary click here. For more on Tanner's life and death click here.
Former UFC middleweight champion Evan Tanner predicted his own death over two years ago, when his body was discovered by the Imperial County Sheriff's Department in the mountain area of Palo Verde, California.
Tanner, 37, was a pioneer of the sport who had his own unique approach to fighting and to life. He was an adventure seeker, documenting his travels in great detail on his personal blog after overcoming a dark period in his life and a battle with alcohol.
His life was an open book, which either turned fans in his favor or against him. Tanner didn't really care one way or the other how people felt -- he did things his way.
Not surprisingly, his life became the subject of a recent documentary titled "Evan Tanner: Once I was a Champion" which debuted last night (Thursday, April 28, 2011) and Middle Easy was there to capture the reviews and fan reactions to the story behind the champion:
Tanner returned to the Octagon in March of 2008 to recapture some of the glory from earlier in his fighting career; however, he lost his first two comeback bouts.
He decided to take some time off and address some injuries that had been hampering him for several years. In the meantime, he continued his nomadic ways. While terribly tragic and entirely premature, it's perhaps a poetic end for one of the most eccentric fighters the sport has ever known.
To get a closer look at the Evan Tanner "Once I was a Champion" documentary click here. For more on Tanner's life and death click here.
Steven Seagal rubs shoulders with UFC light heavyweight champion Jon Jones
Steven Seagal rubs shoulders with UFC light heavyweight champion Jon Jones backstage at the UFC 129 weigh in event on April 29 in Toronto.
The B-movie action star was in attendance in support of Lyoto "The Dragon" Machida. Should we expect another secret kick to be unveiled on fight night?
The B-movie action star was in attendance in support of Lyoto "The Dragon" Machida. Should we expect another secret kick to be unveiled on fight night?
UFC 129 weigh in results from Toronto for 'St. Pierre vs Shields'
The official weigh-in event for UFC 129: "St. Pierre vs. Shields" went down earlier today (April 29, 2011) from the Ricoh Coliseum in Toronto, Canada.
With the exception of Ben Henderson, all fighters scheduled to compete on tomorrow night's blockbuster fight card hit their respective marks without incident.
It was anything but a "Smooth" experience for Bendo, who weighed in at 156.5 lbs. and was already breaking out the beach towel on his first attempt.
He tried to squeeze in under the 156-pound limit and even got the commissioner to lower the music, but was unable to rid himself of the extra weight.
Henderson returned within the two hour extension to make weight and avoid a deduction from his fight purse.
How did everyone else do?
Complete UFC 129 weigh in results
With the exception of Ben Henderson, all fighters scheduled to compete on tomorrow night's blockbuster fight card hit their respective marks without incident.
It was anything but a "Smooth" experience for Bendo, who weighed in at 156.5 lbs. and was already breaking out the beach towel on his first attempt.
He tried to squeeze in under the 156-pound limit and even got the commissioner to lower the music, but was unable to rid himself of the extra weight.
Henderson returned within the two hour extension to make weight and avoid a deduction from his fight purse.
How did everyone else do?
Complete UFC 129 weigh in results
Main card (pay-per-view):
170 lbs.: Georges St. Pierre (169.5) vs. Jake Shields (169)
145 lbs.: Jose Aldo (145) vs. Mark Hominick (145.25)
205 lbs.: Randy Couture (203.5) vs. Lyoto Machida (204.5)
205 lbs.: Vladimir Matyushenko (205.5) vs. Jason Brilz (204.5)
155 lbs.: Mark Bocek (155) vs. Ben Henderson (156)
Spike TV "Prelims:"
170 lbs.: Nate Diaz (171) vs. Rory MacDonald (170.5)
170 lbs.: Jake Ellenberger (170) vs. Sean Pierson (170)
Facebook "Prelims:"
185 lbs.: Jason MacDonald (185) vs. Ryan Jensen (185)
135 lbs.: Ivan Menjivar (136) vs. Charlie Valencia (135.5)
155 lbs.: John Makdessi (155.5) vs. Kyle Watson (155)
170 lbs.: Claude Patrick (169.5) vs. Daniel Roberts (170.5)
145 lbs.: Pablo Garza (145) vs. Yves Jabouin (146)
Friday 29 April 2011
UFC Hopes for October Return for Heavyweight Champ Cain Velasquez
UFC heavyweight champion Cain Velasquez is recovering well from shoulder surgery that delayed his first title defense and is on track to return to the Octagon in October, UFC President Dana White said after Wednesday’s UFC 129 press conference.“Cain’s good,” White said, according to MMAFighting. “He’s coming along great. Actually he’s going to be here for this fight.”
Velasquez (9-0) claimed the title with a first-round knockout of champion Brock Lesnar in October, improving to 9-0 and 7-0 in the UFC following wins over Cheick Kongo, Ben Rothwell, and Antonio Rogerio Nogueira.
Road to Toronto: Georges St. Pierre dominates BJ Penn at UFC 94 -- but not without controversy
The last time Georges St. Pierre tangled in the Octagon with B.J. Penn, he came out victorious ... but the win cost him a beating.
While the French-Canadian was on a rollercoaster ride in the welterweight division since their fight, Penn dropped back down to 155-pounds and convincingly beat every opponent the UFC put in front of him.
Seemingly without a challenge in the lightweight division, fans began to clamor for the two champions to clash once again.
Road to Toronto is a special series leading up to UFC 129: "St. Pierre vs. Shields."
We'll take a look at some of the most important moments in the careers of the champion (Georges St. Pierre) and his challenger (Jake Shields), including the ups and the downs and the highs and the lows. We'll examine the instances in time that have helped shape the men that headline this Saturday's (April 30, 2011) card, the biggest in UFC history.Just one more day until the big event, folks. Today's piece will cover GSP's rematch with Penn, a fight whose controversy made the judging debate from their first bout look like a playground argument.
Having exorcised all demons from his loss to Matt Serra, St. Pierre was ready to put the past where it belonged. Up first on "Rush's" plate was grinder Jon Fitch, a man with an 8-0 UFC record who hadn't tasted defeat in over five years.
Over the course of 25 minutes, GSP made the Purdue University wrestler look like he had been hit by a truck. The beating was so severe that to this day, the idea of a rematch between the two seems like a superfluous exercise in obligated title shots.
Since UFC 58: "USA vs. Canada," Penn was keeping busy in the division that made him famous. He coached The Ultimate Fighter (TUF) 5 opposite Jens Pulver, beating his former rival at The Finale. After Sean Sherk was stripped of the title following a positive drug test, the Hawaiin faced off against Joe Stevenson for the now-vacant strap.
It was almost the 155-pound equivalent of St. Pierre's beatdown of Fitch. "The Prodigy" left Stevenson an absolute bloody mess who appeared to have walked out of a horror movie, not a title fight. Sherk was the next to topple as Penn easily beat the former champion in three rounds.
Then the rumors began to swirl.
A champion versus champion super-fight at 170-pounds between two top five pound-for-pound fighters. That sentence should really be a fantasy but we actually got to see it.
At UFC 94: "St. Pierre vs. Penn 2," GSP, Penn, and millions of MMA fans around the world got their wish for a rematch of a razor-thin fight almost three years prior.
Let's dive in.
The two almost immediately clinch and exchange knees before GSP overpowers Penn, shoving him against the cage. "The Prodigy" avoids a single-leg takedown before getting pressed up against the Octagon again. Again, the Hawaiian hops around on one leg to defend against the takedown, all the while throwing punches that smack against his opponent's head.
Penn is able to separate but once again finds himself against the cage, defending the takedown. A minute and a half remaining and the two once again separate. In the exchanges, "Rush" lands an overhand right and follows with a jab that lights up the crowd.
The second open opens up and Penn lunges forward and tags his opponent with a hook. St. Pierre once again forces "The Prodigy" against the cage and grabs a leg.
Unlike his attempts in the first round, however, "Rush" is able to follow through and dumps Penn onto the mat.
From there, GSP drops fists, forearms, and elbows while passing the grappling expert's guard almost effortlessly. A huge elbow is buried into Penn's jaw and the crowd cheers. The Hawaiian forces the French-Canadian back into full guard and the crowd cheers.
The rest of the round is spent with St. Pierre continuing his unmerciful ground and pound assault. The first round was relatively even but the second belonged to the welterweight champion, without question.
GSP begins the third stanza by working his jab and busting out a Superman punch and forces blood from Penn's nose. A takedown follows soon after and the visibly tired Hawaiian is once again forced to deal with St. Pierre's ground and pound attack.
Two minutes left in the round and the lightweight champ is able to get back to his feet and grinds towards a takedown of his own. "Rush" is pressed against the cage in a reversal of fortune from the first round but quickly turns his opponent around and dumps him on his back.
Two rounds have now ended with St. Pierre on top of Penn, battering him continuously on the mat.
Penn looks like a defeated man to start off what would end up being the final round. His punches are sluggish and have lost all snap. He doesn't look like the crisp boxer that pounded out Stevenson and Sherk. "Rush" is able to duck under one such lazy strike and takes his opponent down again.
Landing in half-guard and almost immediately transition to side mount, St. Pierre begins to slam elbows down onto "The Prodigy's" head. GSP traps his opponent's left arm and begins to grind his forearm against the lightweight champion's face before raining down punches.
For a moment, "Rush" attains a crucifix and furiously begins to drop down strikes until Penn is able to free his arms. St. Pierre spends most of the round in side mount, delivering unanswered blow after unanswered blow. With 30 seconds remaining, he really begins to pour it on and the crowd cheers enthusiastically until the horn sounds.
The welterweight champion stands up and punches the cage; he is pumped. Penn stands up and drapes his hands over the top of the Octagon and slumps over; he is exhausted. His corner man asks him, "Do you want this?"
No response.
He repeats the question. "Do you want this?"
Again, Penn doesn't respond.
His corner, with Penn unwilling to commit to a fifth round, have no choice but to put an end to the fight. They inform the referee of the decision and he, in turn, informs St. Pierre and the audience with a wave of his arms.
What followed the fight were accusations, finger-pointing, investigations, and the repeated analysis of certain animated .gifs on MMA websites ad nauseum.
After the first round, Phil Nurse, a corner man of GSP's, was applying Vaseline to the champion's face, a common practice. What he did next was the matter of controversy. He then began to rub the fighter's chest and shoulder, an action that Penn felt caused "Rush" to become slippery, thus negating any grappling advantage the Brazilian jiu-jitsu (BJJ) black belt might have had.
An investigation by the Nevada State Athletic Commission gave Penn -- and his mother -- the opportunity to stamp their feet and shake their fists but it did nothing to change the result.
Penn went back down to 155-pounds and St Pierre looked ahead towards the challengers that began to emerge.
Tomorrow: Dominance, thy name is Georges St. Pierre.
UFC 129 – Greg Jackson predicts Jake Shields’ sole aim will be to drag the fight to the ground against St. Pierre
Speaking via Tatame Magazine, Jackson said:
“Jake Shields is very, very tough and he know much Jiu-Jitsu, so I’m expecting him to come in and try to take Georges down and submit him, or try to get a guillotine, so we trained very hard to make sure that Georges’ Jiu-Jitsu is doing very good. He trained at Renzo Gracie’s Academy, do a lot of Jiu-Jitsu there and hopefully it’ll be able to keep them off those things.”
“I think Roger Gracie has the best Jiu-Jitsu in the world and I think that if he can get used to Roger being on top you, working you, crushing you and you still live, anybody else below that will not be as tough as him. So I really think that’s gonna help us a lot, because Roger is so amazing.”
“I think Jake is going 100% for the takedown and try to finish Georges on the ground. I don’t think he think he can knock Georges out. I think he’s going to put everything he’s got into takedown and maybe jumping into a leg-lock, pulling guard and try to go for the leg-lock.”
The two men will square off in the main event of the evening and will be one of two title fights featured on the night. Current featherweight champion, Jose Aldo will take on Canadian number one contender, Mark Hominick, as well as the final bout inside the octagon for the legendary Randy Couture who takes on former 205 pound champion, Lyoto Machida.
Jason MacDonald: Magnitude of UFC 129 doesn't compare to career implications
TORONTO – Like every fighter on UFC 129's card, Jason MacDonald has been asked a million times how he feels about competing at event watched live by 55,000 people. He has no problem saying that's the least of his concerns.
"I'm fighting for my job," he said Thurday following an open workout in support of the event, which takes place Saturday as UFC 129.
If MacDonald sounds like a man with the weight of the world on his shoulders, he just might be. Things have not gone so well for him inside the octagon as of late. Once a red-hot contender in the UFC middleweight division, he traded wins over solid competition with losses against some of the strongest competitors in the weight class – former champ Rich Franklin, contender Demian Maia, and current contender Yushin Okami among them.
After being released from the promotion on a two-fight skid two years ago, he worked his way back with three victories on the regional circuit.
Then things again went really bad. In a fight with John Salter at UFC 113, he threw a high kick in the first round and suffered a badly broken leg when he was taken down. He spent most of the year rehabilitating the injury, unable to do much of anything with his legs. He tried to return nine months later at UFC 124 but sustained another injury in training and was forced to withdraw.
It's now been 13 months since MacDonald stepped inside the octagon. So forget the spectacle of UFC 129 – he needs a win, and he needs it badly.
"Everyone talks about the magnitude of the event," he said. "But for me, the real magnitude of it is coming back from a huge opportunity, and having an opportunity to do it all over again."
MacDonald (24-14 MMA, 5-6 UFC) meets Ryan Jensen (15-7 MMA, 2-5 UFC), who's hopscotched between wins and losses in his five UFC fights and also could be on the chopping block.
Among all those questions about the significance of UFC 129 are questions about whether MacDonald is fully healed and ready to come back. After all, he suffered a grisly injury – a broken tibia, fibula and a dislocated ankle all at the same time – and those are the kinds of injuries from which athletes never return.
But MacDonald said he wouldn't have signed up for Saturday's fight if he wasn't ready to go. He's put the injury behind him and is now focused on what he needs to do to win. Two steel plates and 12 screws say that his ankle will hold.
"It's not a bad ankle," he said. "If anything, it's the good ankle."
Still, "The Athlete" admits a loss could be disastrous in the short-term, if not his entire pursuit of a career in MMA. At 35, he doesn't have a lot of comebacks left in him.
"I'm realistic about where I'm at in my career," MacDonald said. "I'm taking things one fight at a time right now, and Saturday night, I'm fighting for my job. This fight means everything to me."
So you'll forgive him if he's not soaking in the view at Rogers Centre. There are more important things on his mind.
Strikeforce champ Gilbert Melendez in UFC? Count UFC prez among proponents
It might be a while before we see Strikeforce champions in the octagon.But there's one whom UFC president Dana White can't wait to give a shot.
That champ, lightweight Gilbert Melendez, is working behind the scenes this week as his longtime friend Jake Shields prepares to meet Georges St-Pierre in the main event of UFC 129, and teammates Nate Diaz and Daniel Roberts go to work on the pay-per-view event's prelminary card.
White, however, can sense that Melendez is chomping at the bit to fight in the UFC, and he looks forward to the day where he can put the fighter front and center.
"Gilbert's one of the top guys in the world, no doubt about it," White said on Wednesday following a pre-fight press conference in support of UFC 129, which takes place Saturday at Rogers Centre in Toronto. "I love that kid."
Melendez, who recently defended his belt a second time with a vicious TKO of Tatsuya Kawajiri earlier this month at "Strikeforce: Diaz vs. Daley," was an early advocate of the purchase of Strikeforce by UFC parent company Zuffa LLC. He said it opened doors to cross-promotional superfights, namely in a lightweight division in which he holds the crown. It put behind him the full weight of the world's biggest fight promotion, which could bring a new level of name recognition after several years competing on the fringe of the mainstream.
White, however, pumped the brakes on seeing Strikeforce vs. UFC fights following the buyout, and he stated that Strikeforce fighters will fulfill their current contracts before any of them are considered fair game by his promotion. Strikeforce CEO Scott Coker echoed that sentiment and said Melendez's next opponent will come from within his ranks – not the UFC.
But the UFC president also can see how much Melendez wants the opportunity to fight those considered to be the world's best lightweights, and how that's not an entirely reachable goal until he fights in the UFC.
With the Strikeforce lightweight champion walking around on the edges of this weekend's historic event, it's clear to White that there's perhaps no one waiting as anxiously as Melendez for the day he can fulfill his wish.
"It's always (that) when we get these kids that come out of some other organization, they're just so fired up and ready," White said. "They see this stuff and what's going on here, and obviously (he's a) longtime Jake Shields friend and training partner and sees what Jake's going through right now.
"This is what guys dream about. If you're a fighter, this right here – what's happening today is what you dream about. He's sitting back there happy for Jake and pumped for him but going, 'Goddamn. When am I going to get my turn? I want something like this.'
"I see that in that kid every time I talk to him."
While White may not be able to make Melendez vs. Frankie Edgar or Gray Maynard happen now, it appears all but certain that fans will see it someday.
"He's a great guy and a talented fighter, and I'm excited for the day when we can make these fights happen," White said
UFC Quick Quote: Randy Couture doesn't want to end up like Chuck Liddell
When you're winning fights and the fans love you, it's only "Natural" to want to keep riding the wave. But even Randy Couture (via MMA Fighting) knows that wave will eventually break and leave you washed ashore. So will his light heavyweight fight against Lyoto Machida at UFC 129 be his last inside the Octagon? Probably, which is why you can expect a standing ovation for his farewell bout tomorrow night (April 30). If he wins, you might want to turn down the volume on your television, it'll be that loud. Are you ready to say goodbye? Or not until he starts getting laid out like his former rival Chuck Liddell?
"To see a guy (like Chuck Liddell) who was the champ for as long as he was ... to be in that situation, I thought as an athlete it kind of sucked. And I didn't want to be in that spot. This is what I love to do. But I don't want to stick around too long and have everybody talking behind my back like that and forcing me to make a decision that I really don't want to make. I want to go out on my terms. I've got a lot of things going on in my life, and this is the right time for me."
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