The Official MMA Thread

[Stickman]

**After wrapping up the final fight of his contract with Bellator, undefeated Welterweight Champion Ben Askren now has his sights set on UFC Welterweight Champion Georges St. Pierre. Bellator CEO Bjorn Rebney has stated that he also wants to see that fight happen and would even grant Askren his release from the promotion, if the UFC would give Askren an immediate title shot.

**After proving his dominance for many years at 155, Shinya Aoki is set to make his Featherweight debut at the One FC show on October 18.

**Here are the main card results from Bellator 103 held on Friday night in Mulvane, Kansas:
*Mikhail Zayats over Aaron Rosa by kimura at 0:47 of Round 1
*David Rickels over J.J. Ambrose by TKO at 2:37 of Round 3
*Justin Wilcox over Joe Taimanglo by unanimous decision (30-27, 30-27, 29-28) in the featherweight semi-finals
*Patricio “Pitbull” Freire over Fabricio Guerreiro by unanimous decision (30-27 all) in the featherweight semi-finals

**The UFC released a statement this morning confirming that welterweight Rousimar Palhares has been released by the company for “unsportsmanlike conduct” when he would not relinquish his heel hook on Mike Pierce at Fight Night 29 this past Wednesday night. The statement also noted his 2010 suspension for the same infraction when he submitted Tomasz Drwal at UFC 111 as well as testing positive for elevated levels of testosterone last December when he lost to Hector Lombard.

**The Brazilian Athletic Commission has also levied out a suspension of 120-days to Palhares in the wake of the incident.

**Bellator C.E.O. Bjorn Rebney tells TMZ that the promotion doesn’t have any interest in Rousimar Palhares at http://www.tmz.com/2013/10/12/fired-ufc ... -bellator/.

**UFC welterweight Yan Cabral was robbed on Friday while in Brazil at gunpoint. Cabral was in action on Wednesday where he looked tremendous out grappling David Mitchell for three-rounds and was nearby his gym of Nova Uniao on Friday when someone on a motorcycle robbed him at gunpoint.

**If you missed the Frank Shamrock “Bound by Blood” special from Thursday night on Spike TV it is well worth going out of your way to see. The story of Shamrock was outlined heavily in his book “Uncaged” last year but there is a lot touched upon in this one-hour special. The back bone of the piece is a sit down meeting between Frank and estranged foster brother Ken Shamrock where the elder Ken holds a great deal of resentment towards Frank for not seeing their father, Bob Shamrock before he died in 2009. When you watch this you certainly get the idea that Spike wants to promote a fight between the two brothers (which was very close to happening back in 2008). The full episode is up at http://www.spike.com/episodes/lv4m2j/sp ... n-1-ep-001.

**If you haven’t heard yet the Raquel Pennington vs. Jessamyn Duke fight is well worth watching; from last week’s edition of TUF

[Stickman]

Gilbert Melendez vs Diego Sanchez....
A FUCKIN WAR!

[Soma.]

How kind of you to elaborate. Sanchez is a dork but he's got a shitload of heart. How'd it go down?

[warehouse]

typical sanchez fight. he ate more shots by 3/1, but kept coming forward. he even knocked melendez down at one point.

[Soma.]

Winner?

[warehouse]

Winner?

gil won the first two clearly, maybe even the 3rd

[Stickman]

How kind of you to elaborate. Sanchez is a dork but he's got a shitload of heart. How'd it go down?

See for yoself

[Stickman]

**Bellator has scheduled its Season 9 featherweight tournament finals between Patricio Freire and Justin Wilcox at Bellator 107 on November 15.

**Robert Whiteford will step in to replace the injured Mike Wilkinson against Jim Hettes at UFC Fight Night 30.

**The following bonuses were handed out after Saturday night’s UFC 166 pay per view:

• Fight of the Night – Diego Sanchez versus Gilbert Melendez
• Knockout of the Night – John Dodson
• Submission of the Night – Tony Ferguson

Each fighter collected an extra $60,000

**Ronda Rousey has just confirmed that she will indeed be starring in Fast 7 next year.

[Stickman]

**The UFC has released light heavyweight talent Joey Beltran.


**Following the UFC 166 show last Saturday, the company has suspended Junior Dos Santos, Tim Boetsch and Shawn Jordan indefinitely, until they are medically cleared to return.

**Following the Heavyweight Title fight last Saturday, Junior Dos Santos may have ended up in worse condition than expected, as he may have suffered short-term memory loss. Dos Santos says that he thought the fight ended in the second round, and that he could not recall the last three rounds. Ariel Helwani later revealed that Dos Santos has not suffered any major damage, and that the memory loss was expected after a fight like that. He added that Dos Santos’ memory should return shortly.

**One Fighting Championship is promoting a Featherweight Title rematch between Koji Oishi and Honorio Banario, which will headline the promtion’s One FC 13 event in the Philippines on December 6

**The UFC has teamed up with the Gay and Lesbian Community Center of Southern Nevada, and has announced a new campaign to raise awareness of HIV. Thus far, the UFC is represented in this campaign by former Light Heavyweight Champion Forrest Griffin and women’s bantamweight contender Liz Carmouche.

**Bellator has just signed Brazilian fighters Julio Cesar Neves Jr., Cleiton Duarte and Diego Marlon.

[Soma.]

I just caught the Dos Santos vs. Velasquez gifs. This sport is fucking crazy sometimes.

[Stickman]

**UFC fighter Gunnar Nelson was involved in a car crash in Iceland this past weekend. He is not expected to miss any time, as the injuries were very minor, and he should return to training shortly.

**It’s been made official that Alexander Gustafsson’s next fight will be against Antonio Rogerio Nogueira in London, England on March 8 of next year.

**The March 8 UFC event will also feature a rematch between Melvin Guillard and Ross Pearson, after the very controversial finish in their fight last Saturday.

**Karo Parisyan has pulled out of his fight with Cristiano Souza at Bellator 106, due to injury. Souza will now fight Alejandro Garcia.

[Stickman]

**Tonight is the big Bellator 106 card from Long Beach, California that was originally set for pay-per-view and moved to Spike TV after Tito Ortiz suffered a fractured neck and was removed from his main event bout with Quinton Jackson. The company has gone from a questionable decision to run a pay-per-view that didn’t feel like a show with a ton of momentum to do any significant business in that medium over to a free television product that should attract a very healthy audience on Spike TV tonight. On paper it’s a loaded show with the most anticipated rematch in the history of the promotion on top with Michael Chandler vs. Eddie Alvarez in the main event for the lightweight title. Their first fight in November 2011 is the best fight in company history and while great fights don’t typically translate into big business on pay-per-view there is a higher ceiling for free television and that first fight was on MTV2 (the same night as UFC 139) so the amount of eyeballs on tonight’s fight will be exponentially larger than the first fight.

**The UFC has announced a middleweight bout between Lyoto Machida and Gegard Mousasi for February 8th on FS 2 for a Fight Night card in Brazil. Machida made his middleweight debut last weekend with a head kick KO victory over Mark Munoz. Mousasi has been competing at light heavyweight for the past four-years and made his UFC debut with a win over late replacement Ilir Latifi this past April and then required knee surgery after the fight and has been out of action since then.

**UFC heavyweight Josh Barnett appeared in front of the Nevada State Athletic Commission in order to be licensed to fight in Nevada at UFC 168 in December against Travis Browne. Barnett and the UFC have agreed he will take part in random drug testing leading up to the fight, which will be covered by the UFC.

**Below is Episode 1 of the latest UFC Prime Time series, which debuted last night promoting the UFC 167 main event between Georges St-Pierre and Johny Hendricks:

[Stickman]

**Saturday night’s Bellator 106 card averaged 1,100,000 viewers on Spike TV and peaked for the main event between Michael Chandler and Eddie Alvarez with 1.4 million viewers. It is the largest audience Bellator has ever drawn but really shines a light on how small an audience there is for the #2 promotion with their biggest card to date when they are doing a record number that TNA pulls in almost weekly. The number would have been larger if you had Tito Ortiz and Quinton Jackson but having those two fight on free television makes little sense when you take into account what they are being paid and even had they pay-per-view gone through I think they would have been killed on that medium.

**After the numbers came out Bellator C.E.O. Bjorn Rebney sent the following tweet to Dana White:

@danawhite If Fight of the Year & 10 times better ratings than you did on your last televised show is Karma, bring me another plate.

Rebney failed to place an asterisk next to the ratings comparison when you look at the fact Spike is in 98-million homes and compare it to the last Fight Night 30 card on FS 2 that is in roughly 40-million. Right now FS 1 is in about 90-million homes and a loaded UFC show on August 17th for their debut averaged 1,780,000 viewers, which would be more of an apples to apples comparison with a loaded Bellator card on Spike.

**During a conference call today UFC president Dana White reiterated that he believes UFC 168 in December will do their biggest number on pay-per-view ever and thus would eclipse the UFC 100 number of 1.6 million buys set in July 2009. The December 28th card is headlined by a rematch for the middleweight title with Chris Weidman defending against Anderson Silva and Ronda Rousey defending the bantamweight title against Miesha Tate in a rematch from March 2012 coming off the current season of TUF.

**The UFC has announced that Jimi Manuwa will take the spot of the injured Antonio Rogerio Nogueira on the March 8th Fight Night card in Manchester, England against Alexander Gustafsson. The card will also feature a rematch between Ross Pearson and Melvin Guillard.

**UFC bantamweight Vaughan Lee has suffered an injury and he is off of the UFC 167 card set for November 16th where he was to fight Sergio Pettis (younger brother of lightweight champion Anthony Pettis). The company is seeking out a replacement but no one has been named as of yet.

**World Series of Fighting has announced they will crown their first featherweight champion on December 7th at their card in Vancouver, British Columbia when Rick Glenn meets Georgi Karakhanyan.

**The UFC and EA Sports announced today that UFC light heavyweight champion Jon Jones will be on the cover of the upcoming “EA Sports UFC” video game with a second cover to be released with the winner of an online voting tournament getting the cover spot. The online tournament to determine who will be on the second cover has already begun at http://www.ufc.com/covervote.

**Lyoto Machida has signed a new contract with the UFC after his deal reportedly ended following his most recent fight against Mark Munoz at Fight Night 30. Machida’s manager Ed Soares posted a photo of Machida signing the contract next to Lorenzo Fertitta.

**The UFC has officially announced the following three fights for their debut show in Singapore on January 4th:
*Tarec Saffiedine vs. Jake Ellenberger
*Tatsuya Kawajiri vs. Hacran Dias
*Quinn Mulhern vs. Katsunori Kikuno

**Both Diamond Dallas Page and Rob Van Dam attended the Bellator 106 card on Saturday night in Long Beach, California.

[Stickman]

**There is a rare interview with Mirko Cro Cop posted below just hours before his submission loss to Alexey Oleinik in Russia at the Legends 2 event. UFC fighters Jon Jones, Fabricio Werdum, Alistair Overeem and Frank Mir were all in attendance for the show and at the press conference and this didn’t sit well with Cro Cop:


**Tim Kennedy and Michael Bisping are going back and forth on Twitter with Bisping telling Kennedy to put his money where his mouth is and tell the UFC he wants to fight him. Bisping said he would be ready to fight by April of next year as he is recovering from a detached retina, which pulled him out of his fight with Mark Munoz last month.

**Will Campuzano has stepped in to replace Vaughan Lee next weekend at UFC 167 to take on the debuting Sergio Pettis in a bantamweight bout.

[Stickman]

**Yesterday was the official anniversary of the first UFC event from Denver, Colorado and airing on pay-per-view (without any television at the time and was a big success garnering 80,000 buys of essentially people curious as to what it was they would be seeing). There are tons of historical pieces out this month covering the history of the company and it really is an incredible story when you look at what it was and what it would evolve into. There was a great point in the “Fighting for a Generation” documentary where so many have been critical of the original incarnation of the UFC but it was that aspect they pushed that made them a success on pay-per-view and had it not had that rough edge to it there is a good chance it never gets off the ground and has that initial success on pay-per-view for their first few years. The flip side being that the negative controversy also got them removed from various cable outlets including pay-per-view in Canada, which was a killer to their business at that time as Canada was responsible for 20-25% of their buys at the time.

**For something very cool – check out Black Belt Magazine’s review of the first UFC event by reporter Don Beu.

**Below is Episode 3 of UFC Prime Time building up the Georges St-Pierre vs. Johny Hendricks fight on Saturday.Hendricks has displayed the same level of confidence Chris Weidman had going into the Anderson Silva fight and is a legitimate challenger to the title that presents issues for St-Pierre. St-Pierre truly is one of the best fighters ever when it comes to building a fight, selling his opponent as the most dangerous threat he has ever had and making each of his fights so important.


**The Newark Star Ledger has a phenomenal series of pieces this week on various aspects of MMA that are being more closely examined with the first piece dealing with the extreme measures attached to weight cutting. The investigative stories were done by Matthew Stanmyre and Andrew Mills.

**Anthony Pettis has been forced to withdraw from his lightweight title defense on December 14th at the UFC on FOX 9 card in Sacramento, California due to a knee injury. Pettis was scheduled to defend against Josh Thomson on the card but the show will now be headlined by Demetrious Johnson vs. Joseph Benavidez for the flyweight title (which has been moved from the original date of November 30th at the TUF 18 Finale show). Benavidez joins Team Alpha Male teammates Urijah Faber, Chad Mendes and Danny Castillo on the card in their hometown of Sacramento.

**More injuries have hit the December 14th UFC on FOX 9 card with Jamie Varner pulling out of his fight with Pat Healy due to a torn rotator cuff and will be replaced by Bobby Green, who just fought last week at the Fight for the Troops 3 card. Green defeated James Krause by TKO after a suspected third low blow to Krause was deemed a legal blow by referee Big John McCarthy.

**TUF 17 winner Kelvin Gastelum has also pulled out of the December 14th card due to a torn PCL and the UFC is seeking a replacement for Court McGee.

**The UFC will be presenting a Q&A this Friday at 2pm EST with Royce Gracie, Mark Coleman, Dan Severn and Art Jimmerson prior to the weigh-ins and streaming it online.

**World Series of Fighting will be adding female fights to future cards and have signed 115-pound fighter Jessica Aguilar as their first female fighter.

[Stickman]

**It was announced on Wednesday’s UFC Tonight that Jon Jones would be defending the light heavyweight title against Glover Teixeira on February 22nd at UFC 170 but today UFC president Dana White stated it would not be taking place on that date and doesn’t have a date for the fight.

**Bellator announced yesterday they are releasing their welterweight champion Ben Askren without any restrictions and waiving their ability to match any outside offers. Askren leaves the company undefeated, having won their welterweight title back in October of 2010 from Lyman Good. The title will be decided next season when Douglas Lima meets the winner of this season’s tournament final between Ron Keslar and Rick Hawn, who are fighting on November 22nd.

**The prognosis on UFC lightweight Anthony Pettis doesn’t look great as UFC president Dana White is stating that he expects Pettis to knee surgery on his PCL and could be out for eight-months. Ariel Helwani spoke to Pettis and reports he is seeking out a second opinion next week on the severity of the injury, which pulled him out of his December 14th fight with Josh Thomson.

**Julianna Pena defeated Sarah Moras on TUF to earn the first finalist spot for the females on the TUF Finale. Next week’s fight will feature David Grant vs. Anthony Gutierrez with the winner fighting Chris Holdsworth in the finale on November 30th.

**Here is a look at the main card for Friday’s Bellator 108 event from Ovation Hall in Atlantic City, New Jersey and airing at 9pm EST on Spike TV:
*Quinton Jackson vs. Joey Beltran
*Alexander Volkov vs. Vitaly Minakov for the heavyweight title
*Patricio “Pitbull” Freire vs. Justin Wilcox in the featherweight tournament final
*Marcos Galvao vs. Tom McKenna
*Nah-Shon Burrell vs. Dante Rivera

[Stickman]

Spoiler: show

[Stickman]

welp, I did not expect that outcome.

An irate UFC president Dana White reacted to the decision for in disbelief, even calling for the Nevada governor to launch an investigation into the Nevada State Athletic Commission. He wondered out loud how anyone could score the fight for the winner.

[Stickman]

UFC champ Georges St-Pierre on planned hiatus: ‘I’m going crazy’

By Steven Marrocco and John Morgan November 17, 2013 3:45 am

LAS VEGAS – Whatever is going on with UFC welterweight champion Georges St-Pierre, it’s apparently causing him major distress.

“I can’t sleep at night, man,” he told MMAjunkie following Saturday’s UFC 167. “I’m going crazy. I have issues and I need to get out for a while. I don’t know what I’m going to do.

“I feel like I’m leaving everything out now, but I need to leave part of my life personal. I need to get out for a little bit, and that’s it.”

Following a controversial split-call win over Johny Hendricks (15-2 MMA, 10-2 UFC) in the headliner of UFC 167 at MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas, St-Pierre (25-2 MMA, 19-2 UFC) said he needed to walk away from MMA, but wouldn’t say whether he is retiring.

The statement both confused and aggravated UFC President Dana White, who said the champ owes it to the promotion and Hendricks to do an immediate rematch.

At the event’s post-event press conference, St-Pierre, who was cut under both eyes from the five-round fight, repeatedly declined to speak about the issues that were bothering him.

“Not right now,” he said. “I can’t tell you. I just got hit; I just came out of a frickin’ war with a guy that hit like a truck. My brain got bashed left and right inside my skull, so I need to think and see what’s going to happen.

“I got very emotional, and I’m going to have a talk with the guys and see what’s going to happen. I want to say thank you to everyone for their support. The UFC has always been with me, and always supported me. They’re the ones who made my lifestyle with my family, so I want to say thank you from the bottom of my heart to them. I would never turn my back to the UFC, ever, ever.”

And yet, St-Pierre said he “needed to make a point” when he decided to take a hiatus.

“Like I said, I need to think,” he said. “There’s stuff going on in my life, and I need to make a point in my life again, and it’s my personal life. I can’t speak to you about this. I know you’re a reporter and I know your job is to find out, but I have a personal life, and I keep personal some of my stuff.

“The only thing I can say about this fight is I gave my best. Like it or hate it, I gave everything I have, and I want to say thanks to Johny for the fight, and thank you to the fans. I hope they appreciate the show, and I left everything in there.”

Asked whether White’s criticism was valid, St-Pierre acknowledged that his decision put the UFC in a difficult position. But he seemed unwilling to budge.

“I understand from their point of view,” he said. “It’s bad for them if I leave like this. Like I said, I need to make a point.”

Further questions posed to the champ were shut down by a tense White, who said the two would meet after the press conference to discuss the issue and, presumably, come to some sort of agreement.

But for now, fans can only guess what the champ’s problem is.

“We’ll talk,” White said. “I’m going to talk to the guy. He doesn’t want to talk about it, he said it 10 times. I’ll talk to him. He and I will leave here, and we will go talk.”

[Stickman]

**Here are the results from UFC 167 last night in Las Vegas, Nevada at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in front of 14,856 and a huge gate of $5.7 million (this is the 2nd largest MMA gate in the history of Nevada only behind the Anderson Silva vs. Chael Sonnen rematch from UFC 148 in July 2012):
*Gian Villante over Cody Donovan by TKO at 1:22 of Round 2
*Sergio Pettis over Will Campuzano by unanimous decision (30-27, 30-27, 29-28)
*Jason High over Anthony Lapsley by unanimous decision (29-28 all)
*Erik Perez over Edwin Figueora by unanimous decision (30-27 all)
*Rick Story over Brian Ebersole by unanimous decision (30-27 all)
*Thales Leites over Ed Herman by unanimous decision (30-27 all)
*Donald Cerrone over Evan Dunham by triangle choke at 3:49 of Round 2
*Ali Bagautinov over Tim Elliott by unanimous decision (29-28, 28-29, 29-28)
*Tyron Woodley over Josh Koscheck by KO at 4:38 of Round 1
*Robbie Lawler over Rory MacDonald by split decision (29-28, 28-29, 29-28)
*Rashad Evans over Chael Sonnen by TKO at 4:05 of Round 1
*Georges St-Pierre over Johny Hendricks by split decision (48-47, 47-48, 48-47) to retain the welterweight title

**Below are the recipients of the $50,000 bonuses handed out after the show:
*Fight of the Night – Georges St. Pierre vs. Johny Hendricks
*Knockout of the Night – Tyron Woodley
*Submission of the Night – Donald Cerrone

**The main event is the source of tons of debate today among people feeling it was a clear cut win for Johny Hendricks to those that saw the first round as ultra close and is the round people are split on. The statistics for Round 1 tell the story of how close it really was with St-Pierre landing 19 significant strikes to 18 from Hendricks, Hendricks with a 27-26 edge in total strikes and 9-6 edge in head shots while St-Pierre outpaced Hendricks 16-4 in shots to the body and Hendricks with 14 strikes to the legs while St-Pierre landed 4. It cannot be called a “robbery” because it did come down to who you scored one round for with the majority agreeing on Rounds 2-5.

**UFC president Dana White spoke to the media after the press conference and said that the problems with Georges St-Pierre are not as big a deal as St-Pierre feels they are and is confident he will not be going away for an extended period of time but will not delve into the specifics.

**The UFC announced last night that Costa Philippou vs. Luke Rockhold will headline a Fight Night card on January 15th 2014 and Benson Henderson vs. Josh Thomson will headline the January 25th UFC on FOX 10 event in Chicago.

**The company has also announced that UFC 172 will take place Saturday March 15th in Dallas, Texas at the American Airlines Arena. There is no word on whether this is going to impact their yearly show in Montreal during the month of March.

**The story on Jon Jones being unable to fight on February 22nd at UFC 171 is because he was not ready to fight that soon coming off his five-round bout with Alexander Gustafsson. The fight was announced this past Wednesday for that date and Dana White announced the following day it wasn’t happening at that event. The February 22nd card is still happening at the Mandalay Bay Events Center but needs a main event.