UFC 107 has come and gone, finalizing a less than exciting year for the leading mixed martial arts promotion. Racked with injuries, fighter defections, controversial results and upstart promotional competition from Strikeforce and Bellator, the year couldn’t have ended sooner for Zuffa and its President Dana White. UFC enters 2010 in a very weird position and last night’s awful mismatch between BJ Penn and Diego Sanchez personifies the problem.
The UFC, outside of its Light Heavyweight division really doesn’t have one marketable championship fight any time in the near future. Its champions BJ Penn, George St. Pierre, Anderson Silva and Brock Lesnar really don’t have any competitive fights on the horizon. These are the headline fighters of the organization and the UFC basically has nobody of quality for them to fight.
BJ Penn’s destruction of Diego Sanchez last night was the prime example. Dana White gave us the Vince McMahon sale that Diego Sanchez was the unquestioned second best lightweight fighter in the world and that Penn was going to get his first real test. Sanchez told us he was going to storm across the cage, attack Penn like nobody has before and take him down to the mat for a beating.
None of this transpired.
Instead, Penn manhandled Sanchez like a rag doll and displayed just how weak the talent level is in the UFC at lightweight. Sanchez, the former TUF 1 Champion, displayed no real martial arts skills. His fighting approach that got his the championhsip fight invite was to bullrush, takedown and pound. Last night, the talented Penn nullified these basic skills, fended off every weak takedown attempt and handed out one of the most brutal beatings ever seen in the cage. So if Sanchez really was #2 as Dana White told us, Penn is out of competitors to fight under the UFC banner.
This leads us to the problem with the UFC…its refusal to cross promote. What killed boxing were promoters that overprotected their fighters, controlled the matchups and didn’t deliver the fights people demanded to see. Multiple title holders from different organizations that were not making the fights to protect and hold their crowns. Dana White is displaying his Napoleanistic complex and is dooming the sport in front of our eyes.
Fans are calling for the UFC to sign new top lightweight fighters. The bloom is off the rose. The fans will only drink so much kool-aid. People have figured out that they are not being served shinola now.
Every forum board last night online had discussion threads discussing what fight matchups would look like for Penn with all the great lightweights that are not fighting at UFC. Even commentator Joe Rogan called for it during the broadcast, something I am sure he will get admonished for by Zuffa. The UFC can make these matchups and they don’t have to sign anybody.
Penn is in the driver seat now to help take MMA mainstream. He can push UFC to start cross-promoting to make the biggest fights for him or threaten to bolt to another promotion that will do so. He has reached the point in his career where he controls his destiny, not the UFC.
The fights that matter for Penn which hold the greatest monetary take for him reside with fighters in other organizations. The fans don’t want to see him maul another second-rate UFC fighter. They want to see him fight Dream’s Shinya Aoki, Tatsuya Kawajiri or Joachim Hansen. They want to see him square off against Bellator’s Eddie Alvarez or Jorge Masvidal. Or perhaps throw him in the cage with Sengoku’s Mizuto Hirota. These are the fights that fans want to see, not matchups against an overrated 10 loss fighter like Joe Stevenson or a wrestler with no martial arts skills like Gray Maynard.
As this year comes to end, UFC needs to make some big decisions on how it runs its business and its impact on the sport as a whole. The WWE coattails that have been ridden thus far need to be cut and the UFC needs to recognize it is a promotion, not a league or “sports entertainment”. The sooner this happens the better.
Strikeforce announced today they have signed the immensely popular former WWE superstar Bobby Lashley (4-0) to a multiple fight contract. Lashley will compete in the heavyweight division at Strikeforce, adding to a division group that includes Fedor Emelianenko, Alistair Overeem, Brett Rogers, Fabricio Werdum and former Olympian Daniel Cormier. Lashley is expected to debut on Strikeforce January 30, 2010 card.
The major signing comes on the heels of Strikeforce’s reported signing earlier this week of former UFC star Dan Henderson who will likely compete in the middleweight and light heavyweight divisions. Lashley bolsters the heavyweight division given his name recognition and solid start to his MMA career. Choosing to go with Strikeforce has the industry abuzz Strikeforce now has more talent depth than the UFC, a huge chink in the armor for the leading promotion.
Leading up to the Strikeforce signing, Lashley’s career has been more carnival than sport. In his bout under Maximum Fighting Championships, his opponent Mike Cook (7-5) donned a mask during his cage entry to mock Lashley’s former professional wrestling gig. Lashley went on to dispatch Cook in 24 seconds.
Lashley’s handlers made matters worse with his next MMA fight, pitting him against Bob Sapp under the Fight Force International promotion. Sapp is a Japanese fighting treasure due to unusually large size, but brings forward limited fighting skills. Lashley won the circus-natured fight by submission through punches at 3:17 of the first round.
Regardless of where Lashley has come from, he is a true athlete with real fighting skills. To date, he has just taken bad advisement from his management team and focused on quick money by utilizing his name recognition. In signing with Strikeforce, it shows Lashley is committed to the sport. It will be interesting to see how he fares against increasing competition and whether he can make a similar transition such as Brock Lesnar.
It has been a whirlwind week in the sport of MMA with a rash of signings of top talent. Strikeforce’s announcements of Lashley and Henderson coupled with Bellator’s announcements of former Olympian Ben Askren and Jacob McClintock have highlighted a big week of news. Interestingly, the UFC has been dropping fighters while losing out on major signings. A new day appears to be dawning and UFC’s grip on the MMA appears to be loosening.
The Bellator Fighting Championship today announced the signing of former Olympian and 2-time NCAA Champion Ben Askren to compete in its upcoming 2nd season. Askren, sporting a 3-0 MMA record, is a 2008 Olympian and 2-time winner of the Dan Hodge Trophy, NCAA wrestling’’s version of the Heisman Trophy. He comes to Bellator as the most decorated United States wrestler ever to enter the MMA cage.
Considered to be the top MMA prospect not aligned with a major MMA promotion, the signing of Askren is a major coup for the upstart Bellator on the heels of its announcement of a national broadcast deal just a few weeks ago. Speculation on what major MMA promotion would sign Askren had been in the air for weeks. MMAJunkie.com incorrectly reported an imminent contractual signing in October with Strikeforce.
With respect to Askren’s decision to sign with Bellator, it signals a wake-up call to organizations such as Strikeforce and UFC to develop the next wave of fighters. Given just 3 professional fights, Bellator’s tournament approach provides a platform for the budding MMA superstar to hone his skills and grow as a fighter as he moves through the tournament.
In contrast, organizations such as Strikeforce and UFC would have rushed Askren to the cage and paired him with its top talent immediately to monetize the marketing value of his name. Recently, UFC cut 3-time NCAA champ Jake Rosholt after losing his second fight despite many observers believing that Rosholt is on track for future stardom.
“I am very happy to welcome Ben to Bellator,” said Bjorn Rebney, founder and CEO of Bellator Fighting Championships. “Ben’s an exciting fighter with unlimited potential and an unparalleled list of Olympic and collegiate accomplishments. We believe he can become a true force in this sport. As an MMA fan, I can’t wait for Ben’s first fight in our tournament on FOX Sports Net, NBC and Telemundo this April.”
Bellator, which sports a tournament style approach, pits 8 mixed martial arts fighters in a standard tourney bracket in a winner-takes-all approach. Unlike other promotions, Bellator does not create handpicked matchups for its fighters competing for the championship belt. In the upcoming season 2, the winner of the tournament receives an automatic shot at the current titleholder in the weight class.
Askren, on his decision to sign with Bellator shared, “I like that my fights are going to broadcast nationally, I like the tournament-style format and I love the opportunity to be a part of something exciting and new. I plan on winning Bellator. My goal, as it always has been, is to be the best in the world.”
With his signing, Askren will enter the welterweight (170 lbs.) tournament division. If he is able to pull of three victories, he will earn the right to fight current Bellator champion, undefeated Lyman Good (10-0).
Bellator’s will be featured live in primetime on Thursday nights on FOX Sports Net and its regional sports network affiliates beginning April 8, 2010. A weekly 30-minute highlights show of each week’s events will be aired every late nights on Saturdays on NBC. Telemundo will carry a taped-delay Spanish-translated replay every Saturday night at midnight.
Many questions were in the air in Las Vegas on Saturday, as Kimbo Slice took to the octagon for his first official UFC fight. While much of the focus was on Slice, the spotlight should have been placed on Dana White.
Once upon a time, Dana White told MMA fans that Kimbo Slice was a joke to the sport and would never see the inside of the octagon unless he won The Ultimate Fighter. Well, Kimbo didn’t win TUF and was invited into the octagon anyways. So what’s the deal?
The deal is that the UFC is more about sports entertainment than it is about sport these days. Built on the foundation of following WWE shows on Spike, UFC sold itself out long ago by appealing to folks that think Vince McMahon’s product is actually real. The recipe: build story lines, deliver the drama and then send some sensational athletes out there to display their acrobatic skill.
During the TUF 10 Finale last night, UFC came closer to becoming sports entertainment than any time in its history. Kimbo Slice was matched up with an undersized light heavyweight named Houston Alexander, a huge flop in the UFC that got brought back for a staged feeding. The story line we were sold was that Alexander was a skilled fighter that was desperately trying to get back into the UFC and that Slice was his way back in.
In my years of watching MMA, this fight now rates #1 on the worst fights I’ve ever seen. It made me come away with a feeling like it was staged. This is not just because of the EliteXC debacle with Slice, its what was displayed in the cage. Alexander refused to initiate action, circling and running throughout. He never attempted an aggressive move for 15 minutes. This was not a guy desperate for his path back in.
Here is my analysis of what went down:
First, Alexander was taken down into a ground-and-pound position with Slice in side control. As most wrestlers know, you never lay on your hips on the side without your leg hooks in, otherwise the other guy will step over or roll you. But here was Slice, lying on the side of his hip with Alexander making no attempt to breakout despite his center of gravity being higher. Needless to say, a bantamweight could have turned the tide on Slice given his awful positioning. These are basic you learn during pee wee wrestling.
Second, Alexander was continually attacking with lower leg kicks. Part of the “story” was that Slice was experiencing serious arthritis in the knee. At one point in the fight, Slice was chopped down to the mat by a leg kick from Alexander. Rather than pouncing on the fallen opponent, Alexander hesitated, backed off and then made a half attempt to make it look like he thought about attacking. It was pathetic.
Finally, in the closing seconds, Alexander clearly rocked Slice with a shot to the head as the fighters brawled. Slice went stumbling backwards, clearly affected by the shot with less than 10 seconds left. Given the closeness of the fight, Alexander needed the round to win. Again, instead of pouncing like a fighter “desperate” for a victory, Alexander hesitated and never tried to go for the kill.
Needless to say, this was one of the most despicable displays of fighting I’ve witnessed in the cage. More shocking is the commentary on MMA blogs and forums off people discussing the fight that have limited to no knowledge on fighting skills.
The final word. Kimbo Slice’s skills have not improved at all. Houston Alexander never attempted to fight him and we’ll all be left puzzled to the answers behind his decision not to aggressively attack.
The UFC will likely continue to promote this carnival sideshow that is Kimbo Slice. Basically, Kimbo equals dollar signs. While he seems to be a nice guy, he’s just not a skilled fighter and he hurts the credibility of the sport. He’s become the Mike Tyson sideshow of MMA.
The UFC went back on its word that Slice would never enter the ring and not one media outlet and saying boo. Where was the media hammering Dana White for not keeping his word? Why was he not taken to task as a sellout?
Congratulations Dana White, the crown has been passed from Vince McMahon as the greatest promoter of sports entertainment.
Thankfully for sports purists, Strikeforce is making in roads in great strides and Bellator will be back in April with live weekly telecasts.
A mystique hovers over this man, simply known as Fedor by mixed martial arts fans. Having fought almost exclusively in Japan, Fedor was an unknown entity to most MMA fans here in the USA, leaving them blood thirsty for a chance to learn more about him. Last night, the Russian phenom was given his grand stage, a national primetime broadcast audience on CBS, and he didn’t leave the fans disappointed as he pushed his record to 31-1 with a TKO victory over previously unbeaten Brett Rogers (10-1) at the Strikeforce / M-1 Global event.
A matchup between a standup brawler in Rogers and the sambo expert Emelianenko was sure to be electric with action and it started right at the bell. Rogers was the first to draw blood, literally, with a snapping jab that broke Emelianenko’s nose just seconds into the fight, sending a flow of blood streaming onto the fighters’ bodies and the mat.
Rogers was able dictate the pace early in the first round and place Emelianenko on the defensive. Rogers even impressed on the ground, Emelianenko’s domain, fending off a quick submission attempt with relative ease. The nine-year veteran Emelianenko maintained his calm demeanor in the cage and waited for his opening as Rogers continued his aggressive approach. As the first round wore on, Emelianenko shifted the momentum of the fight, scoring both on his feet and on the ground as the round came to a close.
As the second round began, Emelianenko had the air of confidence as he came to center while Rogers appeared somewhat winded. Rogers showed hesitancy to keep the fight in a boxing / striking mode given the shots delivered by Emelianenko and changed his strategy to clinchig along the cage wall. After some inaction, referee “Big” John McCarthy moved the fight back to center and that is where it ended. With a cat-like pouncing attack, Emelianenko landed a right hook that crumpled Rogers to the canvas and brought the TKO stoppage at 1:48 of the second round.
The six-plus minutes that Emelianenko waged in the cage displayed to Americans that the title of best pound-for-pound MMA fighters is certainly deserved. Emelianenko brings forward a combination of power, agility, precision, determination and technique that is not present in other fighters within the sport. He displayed capabilities that showed exactly how far behind his opponents are in the heavyweight division. It is a rarity to see a man of this size put on an exhibition of skills normally seen in fighters half his size.
So what does Emelianenko’s victory and Strikeforce’s CBS event mean to the sport of MMA? First, it displayed that the UFC has not cornered the market on talent. Placing the current UFC champ Brock Lesnar into the cage with Emelianenko would be criminal given Lesnar’s complete lack of martial arts experience. Strikeforce, along with other burgeoning MMA promotions like DREAM and Bellator, are showing MMA fans that they can look beyond the recent slate of disappointing UFC events.
Second, it has brought a spotlight to the mainstream sports viewing audience that MMA is more sport than carnival atmosphere that has been radiating from UFC’s entanglement with Spike’s pro wrestling audience and the TUF reality show which is more like the TV show Big Brother than a training ground to find the next contender.
For Emelianenko and Strikeforce, the question is what’s next? With reports circulating at Sherdog that Emelianenko broke his nose and injured his hand, there may be a delay until the next fight as he recuperates from the injury. Rumors are swirling that his next fight under the Strikeforce banner will come against Fabricio Werdum, a unanimous decision winner on last night’s undercard. After that, it appears a matchup against Alistair Overeem should he re-dedicate himself to MMA rather than dallying in kickboxing. But are these the fights we want to see?
Inevitably it comes down to Emelianenko finding a way to come to terms with Dana White and the UFC to end the debate, as it will not cease until Emelianenko figuratively puts a sock in White’s mouth once and for all and dismantles his overhyped champion Brock Lesnar. Here’s hoping that White will see the light and realize the sport of MMA needs fights across promotions for its long-term success and that Emelianenko can take MMA to the next level of respectability in sports fan eyes.
