MMASucka

Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira's arm x-ray after Frank Mir's Kimura

If you ask anyone at MMASucka.com, I make some of the worst fight picks.  We even have the numbers to back this up.  I can admit that I choose my picks very emotionally, especially when it comes to fighters whom I have been cheering for for years. Guys that I have invested money into purchasing their swag, and time in waiting in line ups for autographs.  No matter how lop sided a match will be out of their favor, I am still hoping that they will come out on the positive side of “anything can happen”.  For UFC 140, I went an awesome 1-4 on the main card with the help of some great performances by Chan Sung Jung, Brian Ebersole, Little Nog and Frank Mir.  Jon Jones was my only saving grace, but even he gave me a first round heart attack.  Although I didn’t do so well, I do see the silver lining.  Through these wins, there are some very interesting match ups that now make sense for the UFC to put together.

Jon Jones

Jon Jones had successfully solved the Lyoto Machida puzzle.  As a reward, he gets to take a well deserved vacation.  Dana agrees with giving him a 4-5 month lay off especially after fighting 4 times in 2012, 3 times for a belt, and 2 times defending it.  Once he gets back, two fights make sense.  First, and most anticipated, would be the grudge match with Rashad Evans.  To make this happen, Evans will need to defeat Phil Davis, unscathed.  Coming out healthy will be the biggest concern as both Evans and Jones had to postpone this fight because of injury.

Second, if the first fight doesn’t happen, Strikeforce champion Dan Henderson is deserving of a shot at Jones.  Henderson presents a unique challenge as he contains Olympic caliber wrestling, the “H-Bomb” over hand right and a granite chin.  Most importantly, Henderson has no fear to come forward and bull through a few shots taken to get on the inside to connect his with his power or for a take down. 

Against both Henderson and Evans, Jones still possesses a large reach advantage which has kept him from rarely being hit, but will it be enough to keep him from getting taken down as both holds the pedigree to accomplish just that.  I guess we will need to wait another 5 months to find out.

Frank Mir

Frank Mir showed resilience in coming back from a hard punch to the chin from Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira.  He also showed that his BJJ is no joke when he reversed Big Nog’s famous sit out escape into a vicious kimura win, which broke Nogueira’s arm (see x-ray above). Now on a 3 fight win streak, Mir has solidified his spot for another title shot. The only issue is that the next title shot is thought to be promised to the winner of Brock Lesnar vs Alistair Overeem. So long as this fight happens (rumors of an Overeem injury had been brought up during the post fight press conference) and if the winner comes out uninjured to fight Junior Dos Santos, Mir will be left to fight the last of the top 5 heavyweights.

Former title holder Cain Velasquez makes the most sense for a title eliminator.  Most can expect Cain will be motivated and focused after coming off his first career loss, and a fight against a veteran like Mir will bring out his best.  Mir will be coming in with the air of confidence of being the only person to submit and KO Nogueira.  At first glance, it may look like heavyweight grappling match as both Mir and Velasquez are strong ground specialist, but each have develop exceptional kickboxing skills in the last few years.   I don’t see Mir wanting to be stuck underneath a strong wrestler like Cain, or Cain is willing to play within one of Mir’s strengths in his guard, so the fight may end up as a stand up war. 

Antonio Rogério Nogueira

Antonio Rogério Nogueira had the opportunity to play the role of spoiler for the newly minted “People’s Champ” Tito Ortiz.  Nogueira was able to weather Ortiz’s initial storm and kept his composure, then landed a knee that crumpled Ortiz to an eventual technical knockout.

Nogueira has had some mixed success in the UFC succumbing to 2 losses and a close decision wins to strong wrestlers.  Now that he is back on his winning ways, he will probably take his position back as the gate keeper to the light heavyweight top 10 as he has done so for Ryan Bader and Phil Davis.  On the upswing right now would be Stephan Bonnar who is coming off a win against Kyle Kingsbury.  Stylistically this would be crowd pleasing match up as both Nogueira and Bonnar would be willing to exchange blows. 

Quick Hits

-Brian Ebersole’s split decision win against Claude Patrick could have gone either way.  Ebersole had the more dominant positions, but Patrick had the more effective attacks.  My wish for Ebersole would be a fight against DaMarques Johnson. Johnson is currently not booked for another fight, and is coming of a great KO win over Clay Harvison. Stylistically, it is the most likely matchup to see Ebersole to attempt his patented cartwheel kick.

-Chan Sung Jung tied the official fasted KO in UFC history with a 7 second KO over former featherweight championship contender Mark Hominick.  That’s 2 big wins in a row over tough opposition for the Korean Zombie.  In a wide open division like the featherweight division, it could mean that he would be next in line for title contention against the winner of Jose Aldo vs. Chad Mendez.

-Tito Ortiz may have lost his bout against Nogueira, but he hopes to fight one last time.  He has stated publicly that his next fight may be his last in aiming for a May 30th retirement date, exactly 15 years from his first UFC fight.  During the post fight press conference Dana White was uncommitted to giving Ortiz the last fight, but in my opinion, Ortiz deserves the last fight for what he has done for the sport of MMA.  The fight he has asked for is the rubber match against Forrest Griffin.  Hopefully his wish is granted and Ortiz stops competing on his own terms.

Dana White was his usual brash, unfiltered self last night and after the press conference ended, he stuck around to chat with members of the media, including MMASucka.com. Here are some highlights:

Dana was uncommitted on whether or not Miguel Torres would ever fight in the UFC again after the Twitter scandal, saying only “We’ll see”. He did appreciate Torres’ statement after the fact, but left no confusion on how he feels about his decision:

“Nobody has any business making jokes about rape….It was from a TV show? Who gives a shit? This is not a TV show.”

When asked about consistency, given the similar circumstances of Forrest Griffin and Rashad Evans, White was defiant:

“You want to see consistency? Let’s see if anybody does that again. I double dare you. I double dare you to tweet something like that again. It’s unfortunate, [Torres] is a good guy. It made no sense, it came out of left field. Sending things like that out there on twitter, It’s not like you have some forum to explain yourself and discuss what you meant. It’s a hundred and something characters. It’s bad news. People can agree with me or disagree, I don’t care…it won’t happen again.”

Dana went on to discuss the place of Tito Ortiz in the company’s history and their tumultuous relationship.:

“Tito has a significant place in the history of this sport. When you really think about it, the battle between Tito and I and Chuck really did build this thing in the beginning. It was a big story. You had people who loved Tito and hated me. People who were on my side and didn’t like Tito.”

“There were times when me and Tito were at our absolute worst; when things were just nasty as nasty could be behind the scenes was when he fought Lyoto Machida. That was probably one of the craziest time in my entire career. Someday you guys will see it because most of it’s on video and most of it…are video blogs that never went out.”

“To explain to you guys how angry that guy used to make me, it was crazy. It was literally crazy.”

He also credited Joe Rogan for being there since the beginning, noting that Joe didn’t even get paid for his initial appearances:

“When I [first] called Joe Rogan and said ‘I think you would be great at commentary in the UFC’, he was on the highest rated show on network television at the time – Fear Factor. He did the first 15 UFC’s for free. We didn’t pay Joe Rogan a dime for the past 15 UFC’s.”

“That will be 15 years. 15 years has always been my goal. I have one fight beyond this on my contract, then maybe it’s time to hang up the gloves. Walk away while I’m still healthy. I have three boys, I have a family to take care of. I’ve made enough money to take care of my family now. What else do I have to prove? I don’t have to prove anything else in the MMA world. People like to see me fight, they can still go to youtube or ufc.com and watch the old fights.”

“It’s not easy to walk away because I love the sport, I love competing so much. But I don’t want to disrespect the sport. I’m not going to overstay my welcome.”

“It’s right next to my house. I teach classes Tuesdays and Thursdays, kids and adult classes. I’m giving back to the community and that’s what it means to me.”

‘The matches he lost, he lost because of takedowns, that’s my strength. He kicks at me, I’m going to take him down. He throws punches and comes at me, I’m going to take him down. I’m going to put the pressure on him. It’s going to be an exciting fight. I’m going to expose him and put the heat on him. [Against Bader] I got a Submission of the Night Bonus, after that I got the Fight of the Night bonus, I’m going to get KO of the Night bonus on Saturday.”

“We are going with the most prestigious championship in all of sports, the heavyweight title. So on November 12 at the Anaheim Honda Center, the UFC Heavyweight Champion Cain Velasquez will take on the No. 1 contender Junior Dos Santos on the number one network in America, Fox.”

Those were the words by UFC President Dana White during today’s conference call in announcing the main event for the first UFC on Fox show as UFC Heavyweight Chaampion will defend against Junior Dos Santos.

There were rumors flying all over the place as to what the main event was going to be. Rumors were circulating that UFC Middleweight Champion Anderson Silva would face Strikeforce Light Heavyweight Champion Dan Henderson, Brock Lesnar-Frank Mir III, Tito Ortiz-Rich Franklin and even Ortiz-Chuck Liddell III.

As like in the sport of boxing, the fans want to the heavyweights as they are biggest and the best men in all of the weight divisions. It isn’t any different with Velasquez and Dos Santos.

Velasquez (9-0 MMA, 7-0 UFC) last fought last October at UFC 121 where he defeated Brock Lesnar to capture the title. Velasquez has only had one fight go to a decision and that was in a very exciting fight against Cheick Kongo at UFC 99.

Dos Santos (13-1 MMA, 7-0 UFC) last fought in June at UFC 131 in defeating Shane Carwin by decision in a highly entertaining fight. He has only had two fights go to a decision and those were his last two with first one being a victory over Roy Nelson at UFC 117 last August. The question a lot of people are wondering is: Why these two guys?

You have a guy in Velasquez who is not only the UFC Heavyweight Champion, but has the best cardio in the division, great standup wth heavy hands and a former NCAA All-American Wrestler. In Dos Santos, you have a fighter who is regarded as the best striker in the heavyweight division, good Brazilian Ji-Jitsu that really hasn’t had to be used yet.

More importantly, you have two young hungry lions that a lot of pundits view as the two best heavyweights in the world today. They both put on great and exciting fights and who doesn’t like seeing the heavyweights battle it out for the biggest prize in the sport?

Can it live up to Ali-Foreman? We will find out November 12th.