Mixed Martial Arts

[StyrbjornSterki]

Another busy MMA news day. Wanderlei "The Axe Murderer" Silva got a do-over on his NSAC hearing for dodging an OOC in 2014 because the original verdict was overturned. They found him guilty again, suspended for three years with credit for "time served" so he is eligible to fight again in May of 2017. The original $70,000 fine was dropped.

Quentin "Rampage" Jackson and Bellator have kissed and made up. Both were accusing the other of breach of contract. Rampage had returned to the UFC while his Bellator contract was still in effect, which was the source of Bellator's original complaint. I guess he's figured out he needs Bellator more than they miss him, so he opted drop litigation and accept a deal to return.

UFC Lightweight Gleison Tibau, the second UFC fighter popped under USADA at the UFC, decided to admit to EPO use rather than appeal. But still claims it was an accident.

And BJ Penn's UFC un-retirement is on the skids after a former writer for bjpenn.com publicly accused Penn of sexually molesting his girlfriend. The UFC says BJ is innocent until proved guilty, but they're suspending him for the timebeing, just so they don't look soft on crime.

 

[StyrbjornSterki]

<<<<< Bellator 149 SPOILER ALERT >>>>>

As if the fights themselves at this past Friday's Bellator 149 weren't bizarre enough, after his comical fight against Kimbo Slice (lost by TKO on account of he was too tired to stand up), Dhafir "Dada 5000" Harris' heart stopped. He reportedly had cut 40 pounds to make 265, and the electrolyte imbalance put him in cardiac arrest. He first was carried to his locker room on stretcher and was put on O2, then put in ambulance and taken to hospital. It was there his heart stopped. His kidneys also had shut down but latest word I can find on the Interwebs, he is said to be recovering.

In a Joe Rogan podcast interview (subject of this thread) with Jeff Novitzky, Novitzky states that a 15% loss of body weight loss to dehydration puts you at grave risk of death. If Dada 5000 cut from 305 to 265, that's 13%. It bears mention that during one episode of the TUF TV show, R3 cut from 153 to 135 (11.7%) in 24 hours, just to prove a point (even stopped in the middle to compete in a wall-climbing competition against Miesha Tate -- which the deydrating R3 won) , but she was a genuinely fit athlete, and wasn't lugging around Dada's 50 kilos of suet.

49-y.o. Royce Gracie scored the first KO of his storied career against 52-y.o. Ken Shamrock. The live camera shot was at the wrong angle but an alternate angle shows that the knee that felled Shamrock was a low blow, low enough it probably caught the upper half of his protective cup. Which dropped Shamrock (in a delayed reaction) and Gracie was pummeling him with hammerfists (at least what passes for hammerfisting from a 49-y.o. non-striker) when the referee stopped the fight. Shamrock cried foul but the ref was out of position so the result stands. Gracie claimed it was a fair blow but in the early (single-digit) UFCs, when they still were legal, and Royce showed no aversion to groin shots.

At least one MMA blogger (at Cage Potato) reckons this is the "brilliant" new pattern for Bellator. They haven't the assets to compete with UFC for talent, so they're staging fights that are entertaining precisely because they're so bad. Other netizens think this was Bellator's death knell, but it was only marginally worse, IMHO, than either Kimbo Slice-Ken Shamrock, or Tito Ortiz-Stephan Bonnar.

 

[jmdirt]

Cowboy vs Cowboy tonight!

EDIT: That was an interesting triangle.

 

[gooner]

Dos Anjos out of the McGregor fight.

 

[jmdirt]

Re:

Dos Anjos out of the McGregor fight.

That sucks! I hope its really a broken foot mot just cold feet. The UFC needs to bring in a good replacement, but it won't be the same with no bet on the line.

 

[gooner]

Re: Re:

Dos Anjos out of the McGregor fight.

That sucks! I hope its really a broken foot mot just cold feet. The UFC needs to bring in a good replacement, but it won't be the same with no bet on the line.

Total downer, man.

Ariel Helwani said Cerrone and Diaz are linked with it.

 

[StyrbjornSterki]

Frankie Edgar had dibbs as the RdA fill-in but begged off with a torn groin. Nate Diaz gets sloppy seconds but opened as a 3-1 underdog (probably because he's the one who'll be fighting while stoned). Apparently Cerrone and Pettis both were further down the list.

Now Frankie is brassed off because Dana's version has him 'refusing' the fight. Says he even sent Dana the MRI results confirming the tear. And here's me thinking Dana is a dream boss.

This will be McGregor's eight fight in the UFC, and the fourth with a late change of opponent. Dunno if that is significant or merely unusual, but this also is the fourth championship fight in the last 18 months involving a Brazilian fighter who pulled out with an injury: Renan Barao, Jose Aldo, Fabricio Werdum, and now dos Anjos. Anybody else sensing a trend? It seems to have been prophetic that Aldo, just folded in from the WEC, withdrew from what would have been his premier at UFC 125, because to date he only has managed seven fights, versus five withdrawals in the same time due to injury.

It's probably no threat to the UFC's narket dominance but every fighter Dana takes the mickey out of probably gets an email the next day offering them a Bellator contract. Benson Henderson said he was inundated with inquiries from UFC fighters when news of his move broke, asking him about his new deal with Bellator, and how they were treating him.

Speaking of which, Bellator 154 (14 May 2016, San Jose, Calif.) will feature the best of Bellator's old guard, King Mo, against the best of the UFC's cast-offs, Phil Davis. If nothing else, it should be more entertaining than last weekend's Kimbo-Dada slow dance.

And speaking of Dada 5000, his family are claiming he lost all but a few of the 40 pounds in the weeks leading up to the fight, didn't sweat it all off in one day. But if true, that begs the question how his electrolytes got so out of whack as to put him in cardiac arrest. A human heart generally doesn't just stop for no reason. If it wasn't extreme dehydration, then maybe it wasn't electrolyte imbalance, either. Maybe his recovery isn't all it seems.

 

[jmdirt]

Re:

Frankie Edgar had dibbs as the RdA fill-in but begged off with a torn groin. Nate Diaz gets sloppy seconds but opened as a 3-1 underdog (probably because he's the one who'll be fighting while stoned). Apparently Cerrone and Pettis both were further down the list.

Now Frankie is brassed off because Dana's version has him 'refusing' the fight. Says he even sent Dana the MRI results confirming the tear. And here's me thinking Dana is a dream boss.

This will be McGregor's eight fight in the UFC, and the fourth with a late change of opponent. Dunno if that is significant or merely unusual, but this also is the fourth championship fight in the last 18 months involving a Brazilian fighter who pulled out with an injury: Renan Barao, Jose Aldo, Fabricio Werdum, and now dos Anjos. Anybody else sensing a trend? It seems to have been prophetic that Aldo, just folded in from the WEC, withdrew from what would have been his premier at UFC 125, because to date he only has managed seven fights, versus five withdrawals in the same time due to injury.

It's probably no threat to the UFC's narket dominance but every fighter Dana takes the mickey out of probably gets an email the next day offering them a Bellator contract. Benson Henderson said he was inundated with inquiries from UFC fighters when news of his move broke, asking him about his new deal with Bellator, and how they were treating him.

Speaking of which, Bellator 154 (14 May 2016, San Jose, Calif.) will feature the best of Bellator's old guard, King Mo, against the best of the UFC's cast-offs, Phil Davis. If nothing else, it should be more entertaining than last weekend's Kimbo-Dada slow dance.

And speaking of Dada 5000, his family are claiming he lost all but a few of the 40 pounds in the weeks leading up to the fight, didn't sweat it all off in one day. But if true, that begs the question how his electrolytes got so out of whack as to put him in cardiac arrest. A human heart generally doesn't just stop for no reason. If it wasn't extreme dehydration, then maybe it wasn't electrolyte imbalance, either. Maybe his recovery isn't all it seems.

CMc champ at 145 to fight at 170! He certainly looks bigger, but not as ripped, I wonder what that will do to his speed/quickness? It could be an entertaining fight...

 

[StyrbjornSterki]

Re: Re:

MMA Payout says the rubbish card at Bellator 149 averaged 2.5 million viewers, peaking at 2.9M during Slice/Dada. UFC's Fight Night 83 main card only drew an average of 983K. Maybe Joe Silva should start booking bum fights. There seems to be better ROI on it.

CMc champ at 145 to fight at 170! He certainly looks bigger, but not as ripped, I wonder what that will do to his speed/quickness? It could be an entertaining fight...

Chuck Mindenhall offeres an excellent assessment of the 'McGregor-nator' at MMA Fighting. Here's an excerpt:

...McGregor never forgets his job is to hurt a man. That’s the basic idea that he operates with as he pulls up residence in their heads. He makes people second-guess their own tendencies, and third-guess their second-guessing, which is as good as seizing the puppet strings before they ever touch gloves....

 

[King Boonen]

MMA as an Olympic sport? How?!

 

[StyrbjornSterki]

Re:

MMA as an Olympic sport? How?!

I hadn't heard that but that would be going back to their roots. In addition to what passed then for 'wrestling,' the ancient Olympics featured an MMA known as "pankration." The only prohibited techniques were biting and eye-gouging. The fight continued until either fighter submitted, or died, or the 'referees' stopped the contest.

 

[King Boonen]

Re: Re:

MMA as an Olympic sport? How?!

I hadn't heard that but that would be going back to their roots. In addition to what passed then for 'wrestling,' the ancient Olympics featured an MMA known as "pankration." The only prohibited techniques were biting and eye-gouging. The fight continued until either fighter submitted, or died, or the 'referees' stopped the contest.

Yes, but how could it work in a modern Olympic setting? One of the reasons sports like rugby union and rugby league will never get added to an Olympic program is because the recovery required between games is much too long to fit into the month or so the games last. MMA would be even worse.

 

[StyrbjornSterki]

Good point. Maybe part Olympic boxing, part Olympic wrestling, both in fight format, equipment and scoring. Score according to the potential to have inflicted damage rather than actually inflicting it.


Actually I lost all interested in the Olympics when the NBA invaded Barcelona. It was more entertaining when the East Europeans held the monopoly on professional athletes.

 

[jmdirt]

Re:

Good point. Maybe part Olympic boxing, part Olympic wrestling, both in fight format, equipment and scoring. Score according to the potential to have inflicted damage rather than actually inflicting it.


Actually I lost all interested in the Olympics when the NBA invaded Barcelona. It was more entertaining when the East Europeans held the monopoly on professional athletes.

The USA was the last nation to put their pros in the Olympics. Remember the Cuban boxer Stevenson? He won about 12 Olympics during his armature career.

 

[StyrbjornSterki]

Wanderlei Silva has signed with Bellator, who apparently do not care about the NSAC suspension. Matt Mitrione is appealing his loss to Travis Browne on grounds of refereeing irregularities. And apparently Ken Shamrock is doing the same in his loss to Royce Gracie, and writes an open letter to Gracie attempting to needle him into still another rematch.

 

[Billie]

 

[jmdirt]

Re:

145 looks different than 168. I'll avoid repeating my call for walking weight...oops.

 

[gooner]

Absolutely delighted.

 

[jmdirt]

Tate is the new CHAMP!

I can not believe that Diaz beat McG! I guess that is just too much of a weight jump.

 

[Jspear]

Two surprise wins IMO.

 

[May0maniac]

Re:

Tate is the new CHAMP!

I can not believe that Diaz beat McG! I guess that is just too much of a weight jump.

Diaz is also a lightweight who was fighting at WW.
The Iriish clown got his ass whooped, what a wonderful day!

 

[jmdirt]

Re: Re:

Tate is the new CHAMP!

I can not believe that Diaz beat McG! I guess that is just too much of a weight jump.

Diaz is also a lightweight who was fighting at WW.
The Iriish clown got his ass whooped, what a wonderful day!

Diaz walks around at 180, McG at 165 (160 on Feb. 1). As he admitted, fighting a bigger man makes a different fight, plus carrying extra pounds made him a different fighter.

I like seeing him lose too because hopefully it will make him hungry again. Love him or hate him, he is an exciting fighter. He didn't get his ass whooped though, he was winning the fight and got caught...one of the many things I like about combat sports.

 

[Alpe d'Huez]

Great win for Tate, who some people wanted to go away.

I'm wondering what the UFC does now regarding the women's bantamweights, and Rousey. If I were the matchmaker I'd start with a Holm-Rousey rematch, with the winner taking on Tate. Since Amanda Nunes just looked exciting to start the card, the UFC could take a chance and giver her a shot at Tate as a "tune up". But that's risky. If she beats Tate, then the whole division is out of whack.

The other option is to toss Nunes to Rousey, as UFC already knows a Tate-Holm rematch would likely be good. If Ronda loses to Nunes, she retires to acting, and Nunes is a legit rising star worthy of a marquee title shot against a Tate-Holm winner. Though I'm sure Cat Zingano would have something to say about that, having beat Nunes, and been the last contender (sans Rousey) to beat Tate in what looked like a war, but Cat is somewhat in the wind. So would Beth Correia, who has been impressive in every fight, except one, a quick loss to Rousey in what was supposed to be a good fight.

 

[gooner]

Re: Re:

Tate is the new CHAMP!

I can not believe that Diaz beat McG! I guess that is just too much of a weight jump.

Diaz is also a lightweight who was fighting at WW.
The Iriish clown got his ass whooped, what a wonderful day!

Diaz walks around at 180, McG at 165 (160 on Feb. 1). As he admitted, fighting a bigger man makes a different fight, plus carrying extra pounds made him a different fighter.

I like seeing him lose too because hopefully it will make him hungry again. Love him or hate him, he is an exciting fighter. He didn't get his ass whooped though, he was winning the fight and got caught...one of the many things I like about combat sports.

I don't think people have issues with his skill set, it's his own persona. He was going too far. Mocking dos Anjos' children and the names they had, death threats, how he was going to send Aldo back to the favela and that three people died making his diamond watch. It's disgraceful talk. That is not sport.

His behaviour has a direct influence on his following. You only have to look at the conduct of some of the fans up in Dublin last year for the press conference promoting the Aldo fight. Many MMA journalists weren't happy with what they saw at the time.

 

[Jspear]

Re: Re:

Tate is the new CHAMP!

I can not believe that Diaz beat McG! I guess that is just too much of a weight jump.

Diaz is also a lightweight who was fighting at WW.
The Iriish clown got his ass whooped, what a wonderful day!

Diaz walks around at 180, McG at 165 (160 on Feb. 1). As he admitted, fighting a bigger man makes a different fight, plus carrying extra pounds made him a different fighter.

I like seeing him lose too because hopefully it will make him hungry again. Love him or hate him, he is an exciting fighter. He didn't get his ass whooped though, he was winning the fight and got caught...one of the many things I like about combat sports.

I don't think people have issues with his skill set, it's his own persona. He was going too far. Mocking dos Anjos' children and the names they had, death threats, how he was going to send Aldo back to the favela and that three people died making his diamond watch. It's disgraceful talk. That is not sport.

His behaviour has a direct influence on his following. You only have to look at the conduct of some of the fans up in Dublin last year for the press conference promoting the Aldo fight. Many MMA journalists weren't happy with what they saw at the time.

This exactly.

I haven't watched the post fight press conference yet. It'll be interesting to see what his demeanor is like.