The Good, The Bad & the Ugly: UFC on FOX 11 Edition

Im gradually coming to realise that I might be too old to reliably sit up and watch the fights. I only managed until Thiago Alves’ fight before passing out. Thanks be for sites like -redacted- which allow me to catch up in the morning…

The Good:

First of all, it was awesome to see one of our favourite fighters, Thiago Alves return to the cage after more than two years. Even better, he put in a good performance like he’d never been away and we hope for more ‘Pitbull’ based goodness in the near future.

The card provided consistently good action despite a few less compelling fights, with particular mention going to the awesome flyweight scrap between Dustin Ortiz and Ray Borg, Mirsad Bektic vs. Chas Skelly, Alves vs. Baczynski, the gunfight between Donald Cerrone and Edson Barboza and Fabricio Werdum‘s fine performance in the main event to win a title shot.

The Bad:

Aside from some screwy judging – one split decision that shouldn’t have been and one that went the wrong way IMHO – the worst thing was Chas Skelly’s illegal knees to Mirsad Bektic.

Interesting to see the referee give Bektic time, as if it had been a groin shot and take a point before allowing the match to continue. Bektic also deserves warrior points for continuing and giving as good as he got in the remainder of the fight to take the majority decision.

It produced a compelling fight and a new fighter for me to be a big fan of, but was it the right call with fighter safety and the letter of the law in mind?

The Ugly:

For a night that saw it’s fair share of blood, there was nothing especially gory or egregiously uncool from a fighting or officiating point of view. Good work folks.

If We Had The Chequebook…

Fight of the Night:

Easily Dustin Ortiz vs. Ray Borg for a back and forth bout which saw some high impact strikes and some awesome grappling exchanges. For me, this was an advert for all that is good in MMA and it’s lack of acknowledgement in the UFC’s post fight dissection is a travesty.

Performance of the Night:

Mirsad Bektic for being aggressive and entertaining before the illegal knees and having the sheer stones to see the fight out afterwards. Such performances are what makes you a fan favourite.

Finish of the Night:

Donald Cerrone for his quick reactions in hopping onto Edson Barboza’s back and slapping on a tight rear naked choke after rocking him with a nice jab. Even more impressive considering that Barboza had the best of the early exchanges.

Full Results:

MAIN CARD
Fabricio Werdum def. Travis Browne via unanimous decision (49-46, 50-45, 50-45) – Round 5, 25:00
Miesha Tate def. Liz Carmouche via unanimous decision (29-28, 29-28, 29-28) – Round 3
Donald Cerrone def. Edson Barboza via submission (rear-naked choke) – Round 1, 3:15
Yoel Romero def. Brad Tavares via unanimous decision (30-27, 30-27, 30-27) – Round 3

PRELIMINARY CARD
Khabib Nurmagomedov def. Rafael dos Anjos via unanimous decision (30-27, 30-27, 30-27) – Round 3
Thiago Alves def. Seth Baczynski via unanimous decision (30-27, 30-27, 30-27) – Round 3
Jorge Masvidal def. Pat Healy via unanimous decision (30-27, 30-27, 29-28) – Round 3
Alex White def. Estevan Payan via TKO (punches) – Round 1, 1:28
Caio Magalhaes def. Luke Zachrich via TKO (strikes) – Round 1, 0:44
Jordan Mein def. Hernani Perpetuo via split decision (29-28, 28-29, 29-28) – Round 3

FIGHT PASS PRELIMINARY CARD
Dustin Ortiz def. Ray Borg via split decision (29-28, 28-29, 29-28) – Round 3
Mirsad Bektic def. Chas Skelly via majority decision (29-27, 29-27, 28-28) – Round 3, 5:00
Derrick Lewis def. Jack May via TKO (punches) – Round 1, 4:23

 

 

Ultimate Fighting Championship: The Metallica of MMA

Today the UFC was in New York City holding a press conference which was designed to show the economic impact that they could have on the city if MMA was legalised there. However this has been overshadowed by the fact that Lorenzo Fertitta took the opportunity to reveal that the promotion planned to put on 54 events in 2014, which in turn has brought about somewhat of a fan backlash with the usual complaints of there being too many events, watered down shows, over saturation, etc. You only need to visit any MMA forum or Facebook page right now to see the varied levels of outrage being levied in their general direction.

From a personal point of view I think this is great news. A weekend just isn’t the same for me without the UFC or some form of MMA, the more fights the better I say. The UFC already has a roster which is too large for the previous amount of shows ,so when you add the fact that they will be adding at least 1 more division next year into the mix then producing more shows seems the logical step. It will mean they no longer need to worry about chopping the roster drastically and will give some breathing room to get each fighter their contractually obliged 3 fights per year.

It will also give the promotion greater scope for expanding into new and currently developing markets. New York might not currently be interested in putting on MMA, but there are literally hundreds of cities around the world which are practically begging to be a stop on the international tour. It is basic business that if there is a demand for your product then you want to do your best to provide the corresponding supply. .

Now this is where the title of the article will begin to become more clear. It dawned on me that the majority of people who have a problem with the increase in events and expansion are older fans. I don’t mean old as in being relative to age but as in fans who caught the MMA bug back in the days of PRIDE or the early UFC events. The people that were used to watching the pioneers of the sport, who are all but gone now, or if not gone certainly edging closer to retirement. The fans who started watching back when it was truly a niche sport, new, unique and different. Now that those days are past and they see MMA evolving into a more mainstream spectacle which is pretty much unrecognisable from it’s early days they pine with nostalgia for what once was and pick fault with every new development and attempt at progression.

Observing this fact drew me to the Metallica comparison. When they started out in the 1980’s they brought a fresh, vibrant, energetic and controversial sound to the speakers of young people around the world and became one of the forefathers of Thrash Metal, a genre still going strong today. People looking for something a bit more risky and extreme latched on to them immediately and loved every second of it. Everywhere the band toured they picked up new fans and slowly but surely began to start playing bigger gigs in more mainstream venues. After they had a few albums under their belt however they decided to keep progressing and try something a little bit different.

After the release of ‘Metallica’, their self tilted record also known as The Black Album, large sections of their loyal fan base turned on them instantly. Claims that the band had sold out abounded, old school followers ripped the new material to shreds feeling it was too mainstream sounding, a lot of fans actually destroyed their old albums in protest, some even burned them in the street. Yet despite all this The Black Album went on to be the bands biggest selling album and truly broke them into the worldwide market. To this day they are selling out arena’s worldwide and regularly appear on lists of the top 10 touring acts on the planet.

I find the UFC at a similar stage of their life as Metallica were when they released The Black Album, in some way’s the current ‘Fox Era’ of the UFC could draw direct comparisons. Over the past couple of years the UFC have slowly transformed their product, upped their production value on everything from events to TUF and generally made themselves a much more palatable product for the average viewer sitting at home. This was always going to put some noses out of joint and I have no doubt they were prepared for that, it is a necessary evil of moving out of your comfort zone and daring to try and better yourself.

There are a group of people that simply prefer to be associated with more niche subjects, to unpopular or risque brands, to portray themselves as alternative or slightly left of the norm and if you move out of that arena then those people absolutely will not follow you.Their image is simply more important to them than their loyalty to you or love of your product. It is not like this is a unique situation, in fact I have personally seen it happen even in just my short life so far to hundreds of bands, TV shows, popular personalities, clothing brands, etc.

As the UFC moves forward some, maybe even a lot, of current fans will choose to stay behind or move on to the next big thing, just like Metallica’s fans did all those years ago. I have no doubt though that the UFC will continue to grow it’s success worldwide, pick up many new fans along the way and achieve more and more as times goes on.

Will they become the biggest sport in the world? Maybe not. Will they still be selling out arena’s and be putting on great fights in 20 years time? Most probably. Will there still be people at that point who claim it was much better back in the day and was just never the same after they sold out? You had better believe it.

I will certainly be sticking around to see how it develops. Here is to a great 2014.

Ross Stevenson

Dana White UFC on FX 8 Vlog Day 1

Dana’s ever popular video blogs have been few and far between of late, however one has just been released before tomorrow nights UFC on FX 8 and includes some behind the scenes material from the recent UFC on FOX.

To save you going searching for it we have embedded it below. Enjoy.

MMA Monday – 26th November 2012

Give thanks!  Due to the American festival of Turkey and Gridiron there wasn’t a whole lot of western MMA this past weekend as even Bellator had a mid-season off week.  So, I’m gonna use this MMA Monday to flag up some of the tantalising stuff we’ve got coming up in the next few weeks as well as giving a little spotlight to the action that did happen from the Super Fight League and Score Fighting Series’ Friday Night Fights.

Incoming

Theres a ridiculously exciting bundle of cards coming up over the next few weeks, with BAMMA 11 next Saturday, December 1st featuring Jack Marshman vs. Xavier Foupa-Pokam in the main event with a supporting cast including two Lonsdale British title fights, Scottish standouts James Doolan and Steven Ray alongside a featured appearance by (apparently) Britain’s most known mixed martial artist, Alex Reid.  A full preview will be coming later in the week.

The weekend after, we have Cage Warriors 50, which is probably the biggest MMA card in Scottish history featuring the likes of Robert Whiteford, Paul McVeigh and Wilson Reis.  We’ve got a full programme of build up to that card, partially to make up for the fact we won’t be able to live tweet as we’ll be in attendance and the reception in the Kelvin Hall is atrocious.  When we get home that night, we’ve got one of the more exciting UFC cards in recent memory to watch as Benson Henderson defends his Lightweight title against Nate Diaz and we get Rory MacDonald vs. BJ Penn, Shogun Rua vs. Alexander Gustafsson and Jim Miller vs. Joe Lauzon as h’ors d’oeuvre.  Full previews of both cards with be forthcoming.

The rest of December has Vision FC 5 from Stockholm, two UFC Ultimate Fighter Finales, UFC 155, Cage Warriors 51 and a resumption of Bellator’s usual service but we’ll deal with all that in due time.

Talking Points

Sakaragate

There has been a lot of huffing and puffing about the Quebec Athletic Commission’s decision to uphold the decision to award Patrick Cote a disqualification win over Alessio Sakara rather than a No Contest following the fight ending due to illegal shots to the back of the head.  From where I’m sitting, this decision is based entirely on whether the referee thought the blows were intentionally to the back of the head.

Given that Sakara landed a good nine or so shots in the flurry that put Cote down (not all of them to the back of the head as defined by the rules) and Cote didn’t suddenly turn, instead moving in a pretty much straight line it’s hard to argue that Sakara didn’t mean to punch him where he did and complaints about not hearing a verbal warning are moot given that every fighter knows (or should know) that you’re not supposed to hammer-fist people in the back of the head.

Of course you can make a case for the referee being a little slow to react to the illegal shots, but on repeated views, most of the first few are technically legal as they struck Cote on the ear and it’s the last two or three that actually knocked him out that were definitively illegal and intentional.

In any case, it’s a little hard on Sakara as he was clearly winning the fight and could have had a perfectly good TKO finish if he’d picked his shots a little better.  Given Dana White’s assessment of the situation I think we’ll have a rematch soon enough anyways.

The Snowman

It may have slid under the radar of many MMA fans that veteran heavyweight Jeff “the Snowman” Monson picked up a win this past weekend at ROAD FC 10 in Korea.  Despite being 41 years old, Monson is now undefeated in his six bouts in 2012, certainly putting in the air miles competing under the banner of M-1, 100% Fight, CFC and ROAD FC in Russia, France, Australia and Korea.  Since dropping back to back fights in 2010, Monson has amassed an impressive recent record of 14-2-1 with his only defeats coming by decision to Fedor Emelianenko and Daniel Cormier.  That’s not exactly bad form…

Sure, he’s 41 and not exactly a prospect, but given his continued good form, I’d love to see the master of the North-South choke get a bow in the UFC (where he last competed in 2006, losing a World title match to then-champ, Tim Sylvia) before he calls it a day.

Invicta 4

Continuing the steady stream of positive news for WMMA, the Invicta 4 card, due to take place on January 4th is taking shape, headed up by a bout to determine the promotion’s first Straw-weight (115lbs) champion between Claudia Gadelha (9-0) and Carla Esparza (8-2).  The undercard features a battle of two of WMMA’s mainstays as Alexis Davis faces Shayna Baszler  as well as an intriguing fight between Scot’s kick boxer Joanne Calderwood and promotional newcomer Bec Hyatt.  The prelims have Invicta debuts for exciting talents Stephanie Frausto, Rose Namajunas and Paige Van Zandt alongside promotional favourite Tecia Torres.

The UFC may have added a Bantamweight division, but Invicta is still the place for your WMMA fix, and long may it continue.

Results

Score Fighting Series 7 

Canada’s Score Fighting Series most recent event saw big wins for up & comers Jordan Mein and Jesse Ronson against big league veterans Forrest Petz and Ryan Healy
Main Card (AXS TV)

Jordan Mein def. Forrest Petz via TKO (strikes) – Round 1, 1:29
Jesse Ronson def. Ryan Healy via unanimous decision (30-26, 30-25, 30-27)
Tristan Johnson def. Will Romero via split decision (30-27, 30-27, 28-29)
Alex Ricci def. Kevin Morin by unanimous decision (29-28, 29-28, 29-28)
Jason Saggo def. Iraj Hadin via submission (rear-naked choke) – Round 2, 3:41
Ryan Dickson def. Brandt Dewsbery via submission (rear-naked choke) – Round 2, 4:39

Preliminary Card

Elias Theodorou def. Ali Mokdad via unanimous decision (30-27, 30-27, 30-27)
Adam Assenza def. Tommy Cote via unanimous decision (30-27, 30-27, 29-28)
Rory McDonell def. Desmond Green via submission (gotoplata/armbar) – Round 1, 4:41
Paul Jalbert def. Oliver Vadnais via unanimous decision (30-27, 29-28, 29-28)

Super Fight League 10

The development of Indian MMA continues with one of the most action packed and brief cards yet, with the seven fights totalling less than 25 minutes of in cage time and every fight producing a finish (although two were by retirement and one by doctor stoppage, but let’s not quibble.)  The main event saw the well travelled American heavyweight Jimmy Ambriz score a first round submission win, but given that Ambriz has gone to a decision twice in a 36 fight career, a finish was always on the cards…

Jimmy Ambriz def. Mohammed Abdel Karim via submission (arm triangle choke) – Round 1, 2:38
Charmaine Tweet def. Puja Kadian via submission (guillotine choke) Round 1, 0:45
Abhijeet Petkar def. Sanjay Jah via TKO (retirement) Round 1, 5:00
Jason Solomon def. Suresh Rajput via KO (knee) Round 1, 1:21
Nikola Janjic def. Vikas SinghRuhil via submission (rear naked choke) Round 1, 2:09
Javed Ali Khan def. Srikant Sekhar via TKO (Doctor Stoppage) Round 2, 5:00
Jagdish Kumar def. Shaikh Mohammed Farhan via TKO (retirement) Round 1, 2:38