The Official MMA Thread

[Stickman]

CM Punk now in UFC


It was announced during the UFC 181 pay-per-view that former WWE performer CM Punk (Phil Brooks) has signed a multi-fight contract with the UFC and will debut for the promotion in 2015.

Brooks commented on the signing and stated:

“My professional wrestling days are over, it’s awesome to be here. This is something I’ve wanted to do for a long time.”

“I have a background in kempo and I’ve been doing Brazilian jiu-jitsu for a long time. This is my new career, 100-percent. I'm going to go full steam ahead, all systems go after today, and it's going to be fun. I have nothing but respect for everybody here at the UFC, everybody who steps in the Octagon to fight. And when it's all said and done, when I'm finished, everybody's going to have to respect me because I have come here to fight."

“I felt like it was now or never. I have a limited window most fighters don't have. I'm either here to win or get my ass kicked."

Here are the bullet points covered from the interview with Joe Rogan, a lengthier interview with Ariel Helwani last night as well as a post fight media scrum at the Mandalay Bay Events Center:
*Brooks will train for the next six-months and is eyeing that time frame to have his first fight
*It is a multi-fight deal and has all of the intentions to fight multiple times and perhaps for years
*He has not chosen a camp but has many relationships with various gyms and has received offers from AKA and has also cited Roufusport as a possibility because Milwaukee is only 90-minutes from Chicago, but is also open to renting a place elsewhere in the country if he needs to
*He is targeting middleweight as his weight class and will go through a test cut and is not ruling out welterweight as a possibility
*Talks between the UFC and Punk first started this past February at UFC 171 when Lorenzo Fertitta joked to Punk if he ever wanted to do this and Punk responded that he would
*All indications are that Punk’s signing was going to be announced at the “Time is Now” press conference back on November 17th (Front Row Brian on Twitter was the first to report this and reported it that week so word was out)
*Punk noted to Helwani that his lawyer was overly protective during the negotiations based on the contract he just got out of with WWE and held things up a bit but stated the negotiations were “stress free” and both sides worked around different issues to make the deal work
*His settlement with the WWE was made official on October 26th and it wasn’t until then that he could finalize the deal with his non-compete clause thrown out
*He will fight on pay-per-view in his first fight and hinted it being in Chicago (there are pay-per-view dates on June 13th, July 11th and August 1st but the July 11th card will be the big show in Las Vegas)
*He stated he was going to fight regardless of whether the UFC signed him and first thought of doing this three-years ago but opted to stay with the WWE when his deal expired in July 2011 and he caught fire after the Las Vegas promo and Money in the Bank show that year
*He noted that his wife (AJ Lee) was concerned but supportive of his decision and she was with him all night cage side watching the fights

[Stickman]

**Here are the results from the UFC 181 card last night in front of 9,617 and a gate of $2,488,000 at the Mandalay Bay Events Center in Las Vegas:
*Clay Collard over Alex White by unanimous decision (29-28 all)
*Sergio Pettis over Matt Hobar by unanimous decision (30-27, 29-28, 29-28)
*Raquel Pennington over Ashlee Evans-Smith by choke at 4:59 of Round 1
*Corey Anderson over Justin Jones by unanimous decision (30-27, 30-27, 30-26)
*Josh Samman over Eddie Gordon by KO at 3:08 of Round 2
*Urijah Faber over Francisco Rivera by choke at 1:08 of Round 2
*Tony Ferguson over Abel Trujillo by rear-naked choke at 4:19 of Round 2
*Todd Duffee over Anthony Hamilton by KO at 0:33 of Round 1
*Travis Browne over Brendan Schaub by TKO at 4:50 of Round 1
*Anthony Pettis over Gilbert Melendez by guillotine at 1:53 of Round 2 to retain the lightweight title
*Robbie Lawler over Johny Hendricks by split decision (49-46, 47-48, 48-47) to win the welterweight title

**Sergio Pettis and Matt Hobar earned the fight of the night bonus and Anthony Pettis and Josh Samman took the two performances bonuses for $50,000 apiece.

**Francisco Rivera will be challenging the finish from last night’s stoppage with Urijah Faber. The replay showed it was a bad eye poke that ended up stunning Rivera and led to the choke by Faber.

**Today’s story of Twitter stupidity belongs to Stephan Bonnar. He went on Twitter and told a long story about being sober for months “until tonight” and then stated he was pulled over by an officer at night and informed him he had “a few beers this morning” and thought he was going get a DUI charge but the officer let him off. Bonnar later wrote “April Fools”, called everyone “gullible” and it was a story that happened back in college and he thought it would be funny.

[LoathedVermin72]

This thread fascinates me

[Stickman]

**Below is CM Punk’s appearance on Fox Sports Live from last night with Jay Onrait:


**Punk spoke to Rolling Stone Magazine earlier this week regarding the news of his signing and also the reaction from his wife, AJ Lee, when he informed her that he was going to seriously pursue this. It is also notable in the interview that he states his desire of headlining WrestleMania is gone and believes that if Ben Askren is upset over the signing of Punk, that Askren should be upset at Dana White and not Punk for taking this opportunity.

**Carla Esparza defeated Jessica Penne by unanimous decision and Rose Namajunas submitted Randa Markos in the first round to advance to the finals tomorrow night to crown the first UFC strawweight champion. Penne and Markos will also be fighting on the card tomorrow night.

**A welterweight bout between Neil Magny and Kiichi Kunimoto has been added to the UFC Fight Night card on February 14th in Broomfield, Colorado. Magny went 5-0 during 2014.

**Francisco Rivera noted to Sherdog that he is going to require an operation on his injured eye from the eye poke he sustained during the bout with Urijah Faber this past weekend. Rivera has a cracked retina and a bruise on the eye. Rivera is also planning to appeal the decision, where he was stunned by the poke and it led to Faber submitting Rivera with a bulldog choke.

**There has been a lot of discussion coming out of this past week’s “Fighter and the Kid” podcast with hosts Bryan Callen and Brendan Schaub having Joe Rogan on their show. Rogan was invited onto to the show to discuss Schaub’s loss to Travis Browne this past Saturday at UFC 181, where Schaub was stopped in the opening round from strikes after he was mounted by Browne. Rogan was heavily critical of Schaub’s skill set and not seeing Schaub as an elite fighter and having concerns about brain damage he is going to suffer if he continues fighting. Schaub was visibly distraught from the brutal honesty that Rogan was providing with Rogan emphasizing how difficult it was to say this but that Schaub is a close friend and needs to share his thoughts. Rogan has clearly been conflicted by the increasing amount of data and research regarding brain trauma and even going so far as to say he’s not sure how much longer he will be continuing to call fights. The full interview is below:


**Schaub and Callen also have a new episode of their show up today with Schaub reacting to the Rogan show and making it clear he will continue to fight and appreciates the honesty from Rogan but disagrees with some of his points.

[Iprefertheiroldstuff]

This thread fascinates me

Don't be a passive-aggressive pussy, LV.

[Stickman]

**Brent Brookhouse and John S. Nash at Bloody Elbow are reporting what could be the biggest story of next year and one of the biggest stories in mixed martial arts history. The two have done lots of work regarding a potential class action lawsuit to be filed against the UFC. The plaintiffs in the suit are not public as of yet but the grounds range from lower fight purses, video game rights fees and other sources of income they are being deprived of. This is definitely a story to monitor and could be a huge one in 2015.

**Here are the results from the UFC on FOX 13 card from last night in Phoenix, Arizona in front of 15,300 and a gate of $1,500,000:
*Ian Entwistle over Anthony Birchak by heel hook at 1:04 of Round 1
*Henry Cejudo over Dustin Kimura by unanimous decision (30-27 all)
*David Michaud over Garett Whiteley by unanimous decision (30-27, 29-28, 29-28)
*Bryan Barberena over Joe Ellenberger by TKO at 3:24 of Round 3
*Drew Dober over Jamie Varner by rear-naked choke at 1:52 of Round 1
*Ben Saunders over Joe Riggs by submission due to a neck injury at 0:57 of Round 1
*John Moraga over Willie Gates by rear-naked choke at 4:06 of Round 3
*Joanna Jedrzejczyk over Claudia Gadelha by split decision (29-28, 28-29, 29-28)
*Matt Mitrione over Gabriel Gonzaga by TKO at 1:59 of Round 1
*Alistair Overeem over Stefan Struve by KO at 4:13 of Round 1
*Rafael dos Anjos over Nate Diaz by unanimous decision (30-27, 30-26, 30-26)
*Junior dos Santos over Stipe Miocic by unanimous decision (49-46, 49-46, 48-47)

**The fight of the night went to Junior dos Santos and Stipe Miocic and the performance bonuses to Ian Entwistle and Matt Mitrione.

**Jamie Varner announced his retirement immediately after the fight with Drew Dober. He stated that win or lose, he was going to retire after last night’s fight. That was his fourth loss in a row and retires with a record of 21-11-1 and 2 no contests. Varner won the WEC lightweight title in February of 2008 and would hold it until January of 2010. When the WEC shut down and the fighters were moved over to the UFC, Varner was not one of the fighters brought in but would eventually come in as a replacement to fight Edson Barboza in May of 2012 and stopped Barboza in a major upset. Since the Barboza fight, Varner had gone 1-5 including an insane performance this past May, where he broke his ankle against James Krause and kept fighting on for the entire round before the bout was stopped.

**Here are the main card results from the WSOF 16 card from Sacramento last night (and did air live on TSN2 in Canada as well):
*Josh Berkovic over Brenson Hansen by unanimous decision (29-28 all)
*Sheymon Moraes over Gabriel Solorio by split decision (30-27, 28-29, 29-28)
*Lance Palmer over Rick Glenn by rear-naked choke at 3:09 of Round 3 to win the featherweight title
*Rousimar Palhares over Jon Fitch by knee bar at 1:30 of Round 1 to retain the welterweight title – some are debating if the knee bar was held too long and I watched and re-watched a number of times. It was about a second longer than I would have liked but to be fair, if it wasn’t Palhares in question I don’t think this would be a discussion point. That said, it’s a nasty submission and a second too long can be the difference between a knee you can walk on and a knee with a torn ACL.

[LoathedVermin72]

This thread fascinates me

Don't be a passive-aggressive pussy, LV.

I legitimately have no idea what you mean by this.

[Iprefertheiroldstuff]

Don't let it happen again.

[Stickman]

**A class action lawsuit was filed yesterday in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California in San Jose against Zuffa LLC. A conference call was held today at the Hyatt in San Jose with members of the media to take questions regarding the suit. Those represented included Joseph Saveri (an antitrust attorney), Benjamin Brown (the plaintiffs’ co-counsel), Michael Dell Angelo (co-council), Rob Maysey (a sports law attorney, who has been working on this for a long time) as well as plaintiffs Cung Le and Nate Quarry in attendance with Carlos Newton also in attendance and was noted as a key person in getting this going. They also noted Jon Fitch was a part of the suit but unable to attend due to injury from the Rousimar Palhares fight this past Saturday in Sacramento.

The suit is accusing Zuffa of illegally maintaining monopoly and monoposony power by systematically eliminating competition from rival promoters, artificially suppressing fighters’ earnings from bouts and merchandising and marketing activities through restrictive contracting and other exclusionary practices” and is seeking treble damages and injunctive relief under the Sherman Antitrust Act.

A heavy emphasis was placed on the fighters signing away their likeness in perpetuity to Zuffa when they sign a deal and harms their marketability outside of the organization. There was a 2010 quote from Dana White brought up where he stated that there was no competition and that they are the NFL.

There were questions specifically asked about Bellator (Viacom) and they didn’t give a direct answer regarding Bellator as competition but that it is outlined in the suit. They did cite Strikeforce as being competition at one time before being purchased by Zuffa in March of 2011 (which was a case of Silicon Valley Sports and Entertainment no longer wanting to be in the MMA business and face mounting losses and wanted to sell and led to the deal being worked out with Zuffa). The argument can certainly be made that in 2015 the UFC will have their most legitimate competition in years with Viacom all in with Bellator and I would be stunned if there isn’t an aggressive push by Bellator to go after UFC fighters when their fighters come due.

One issue brought up on the call was that of Gilbert Melendez, who unquestionably was a beneficiary of the free agent market. His deal with the UFC came due and he shopped himself to Bellator, received a very competitive offer and the UFC wanted Melendez and the result was a larger money offer, a title shot and coaching position on TUF (which Bellator was offering if he signed with the promotion for a title fight and Fight Master role) and Melendez re-signed with the UFC.

There are absolutely issues when it comes to the fighters and whether it is fair to classify them as independent contractors and has likely only been intensified by the recent Reebok deal.

They stated on the call that this isn’t a case about unionization and kept it vague in regards to potential outcome and what it is they are looking for.

The full case be read at http://www.cohenmilstein.com/media/pnc/5/media.1675.pdf.

**Reebok announced partnership deals with Jon Jones and Ronda Rousey today and will be the two key fighters attached with Reebok as the UFC and Reebok enter their relationship together in 2015. The new uniforms will take effect in July of next year with all fighters given fight week apparel and their own fighters kits, which fighters will earn a percentage off of sales from. They will also be paid based on their spot in the rankings on weigh-in day the week of their fight.

**CM Punk is doing tons of media today including ESPN and tomorrow will be on the Opie Radio show, the Tiki Barber radio show, WFAN with Boomer Esiason & Craig Carton on WFAN as well as SI Now and Huffington Post Live tomorrow. Punk will also be appearing on TSN’s Off the Record with Michael Landsberg on Thursday at 5pm ET on TSN 4/5.

Hilarious intro on ESPN of all placed noting that CM Punk “wrestled Chris Hero for over 90 minutes” and one would assume the first IWA Mid South reference in ESPN history:

[Stickman]

**Below is a clip of CM Punk appearing on Off the Record with Michael Landsberg and not enjoying the demeanor of Landsberg mid-way through the chat:


**UFC president Dana White on the CM Punk signing in speaking with UFC.com:

The feedback has been both – it’s mixed. Some people love it, some people hate it,” White said. “The people who are opposed to it and bitching about it, I get it. Every fight that we do isn’t going to be everybody’s thing, but there will be people who want to watch him and those that don’t.

**Ariel Helwani reported on UFC Tonight that the UFC has notified Rory MacDonald that he won’t be fighting for the welterweight title in his next fight. It wasn’t directly said that they will be doing a third fight between Robbie Lawler and Johny Hendricks but that seems the only logical fight if MacDonald isn’t fighting Lawler. This could lead to MacDonald taking another fight in the mean time. Originally UFC president Dana White had told the Canadian Press that MacDonald would get the next title fight after his October win over Tarec Saffiedine and it was rumored for a card next March in Montreal.

**Daniel Cormier says he will send the career of Jon Jones into a tailspin and change him forever in their fight on January 3rd for the light heavyweight title:

[Stickman]

**The total number of anti-trust lawsuits filed against the UFC is up to three at this point. The initial suit, which received the most coverage, was filed by Jon Fitch, Cung Le and Nate Quarry with a second suit coming from Dennis Hallman and Javier Vasquez and a third suit has also been filed by Brandon Vera and Pablo Garza.


**During an interview with Sherdog, Bellator president Scott Coker stated he was planning to attend Antonio Inoki’s New Year’s Eve show in Japan next week and plans to sit down and speak with Fedor Emelianenko. Coker noted that the last time he spoke with Fedor’s people, it was very clear he was retired but wants to see if there is any interest left for him to fight. It was back in 2012 that the UFC had serious discussions with both Emelianenko and Brock Lesnar (who was with the WWE by that point) to do a fight at Cowboys Stadium in Dallas. The fight was nixed after Fedor’s father passed away and Fedor stated he was officially done and had no desire to fight any longer. Coker also spoke to Marc Raimondi of MMA Fighting and confirmed that the promotion has reached out to Brock Lesnar to initiate dialogue with Lesnar about a possible return to mixed martial arts when his deal with the WWE expires.

**The UFC’s Bad Blood special, previewing the Jon Jones vs. Daniel Cormier light heavyweight title fight debuts on Sunday on FS 1.


**Front Row Brian is reporting that CM Punk will begin training at Roufusport in Milwaukee, Wisconsin beginning January 5th under Duke Roufus. The camp is home to UFC lightweight champion Anthony Pettis as well as wrestling standout and One FC welterweight champion Ben Askren. One of the positives is that training at Roufusport is only a 90-minute drive from Chicago and wouldn’t force Punk to have to uproot himself to go travel far away at a camp, which is what he would need if he chose ATT or AKA (which were two of the camps opening the door for Punk to train at).

[Stickman]

**In a story that is very newsworthy and probably won’t get a ton of attention this week because of the card on Saturday, UFC president Dana White has stated that the promotion’s huge plans for drug testing and hiring a third party to increase testing has been shelved. White was critical of the way the Cung Le HGH test was handled, admitted that they screwed up and would likely screw up again and they should not be the ones doing the regulating. It can be argued that it’s a conflict for the UFC to increase testing, which has the potential to wreak havoc on their fight cards, but they are the one promotion with the financial muscle to pull something like that off. There have been many ideas thrown around including the idea of state commission’s allocating 1% of the gate receipts for a major MMA event towards drug testing and covering the huge costs attached and extending their testing to out of competition and doing both blood and urine testing. It will always be a cat and mouse game where the cheaters are a step ahead of the testers but I firmly believe that the practice of pre and post fight urine tests, where fighters know the test date and excluding blood is a dated practice if you’re serious about curbing drug use in the sport.

**Below are Episodes 1 through 4 of UFC Embedded including a confrontation between Jones and Cormier after the media day stare downs on Ep. 4 (which was shot by Tyson Griffin):





**Dana White is publicly predicting 750,000 buys for Saturday night’s card, which would be their highest number since UFC 168 one-year ago. This show definitely doesn’t have the support that UFC 168 had with the two big fights with Weidman vs. Silva and Rousey vs. Tate but this singular fight is bigger than either of those two and the grudge and promos leading up to this one are well ahead of Rousey and Tate. If this fight had taken place back in September when it was originally scheduled it probably would have done a bigger number that what tomorrow will do. With UFC 178, you didn’t have the NFL playoffs as competition and you also had a lot more support with Conor McGregor vs. Dustin Poirier (which really picked up in the final days before the show) and Donald Cerrone vs. Eddie Alvarez. Tomorrow’s show is going to do a big number and will show us what the ceiling is for a UFC pay-per-view in this climate.

**MMA Junkie is reporting that the UFC’s return to Montreal is likely to be delayed by a month after it was rumored that the city would host a March 2015 pay-per-view. The website is reporting that UFC 185 is scheduled for March 14th in Dallas, Texas at the American Airlines Center with April 25th the targeted date for UFC 186 at the Bell Centre in Montreal.

**Tarec Saffiedine, who has been snake bitten since his Strikeforce welterweight title win in January of 2013, has suffered yet another injury and is off the February 14th UFC Fight Night card with a groin injury. Saffiedine was scheduled to headline the card against Matt Brown and is the latest fight he has been forced to withdraw from due to injury. Saffiedine has only fought twice since coming over from Strikeforce two-years ago with fights against Hyun-Gyu Lim and Rory MacDonald in 2014.

**Extended interviews with both Jon Jones and Daniel Cormier, conducted by Ariel Helwani:




**MMA Junkie was the first to report that Holly Holm’s UFC debut will happen on February 28th at UFC 184 against Raquel Pennington (who she was initially scheduled to fight at UFC 181 until an injury forced Holm to withdraw). This is very smart putting Holm on the same card as Ronda Rousey vs. Cat Zingano.

[BigRedLedbetter]

Not much of an MMA/UFC fan but I love CM Punk (I prefer my violence scripted ) so I will definitely keep tabs on him. As I did Brock when he did it. Rumors are Brock is going to try and do MMA/UFC again in 2015. His health is much better than it was three years ago.

[Stickman]

Not much of an MMA/UFC fan but I love CM Punk (I prefer my violence scripted ) so I will definitely keep tabs on him. As I did Brock when he did it. Rumors are Brock is going to try and do MMA/UFC again in 2015. His health is much better than it was three years ago.

It's gonna be interesting to see how CM copes in a real fight, though a UFC schedule is much healthier for him than a WWE one.

I don't know if Brock has the drive needed to get back into fighting. He tried it, got to the top and then left. I don't see the motivation.

[Stickman]

well that wasn't the brawl I'd hoped it would be.

[LoathedVermin72]

Yeah I must say the Jones/Cormier fight was a bit of a letdown. Don't get me wrong; it was solid. I just thought it would be more exciting based on all the hype and trash-talking. I really wanted a big finish. Jones's "gesture" at the end was the best part.

[Alex]

LV, do you own any tapout gear?

[LoathedVermin72]

LV, do you own any tapout gear?

Ha, my wife makes that joke all the time. Creepy.

[Alex]

LV, do you own any tapout gear?

Ha, my wife makes that joke all the time. Creepy.

she doesn't know what clothes you own? that's weird.

[LoathedVermin72]

LV, do you own any tapout gear?

Ha, my wife makes that joke all the time. Creepy.

she doesn't know what clothes you own? that's weird.

Well, her jokes usually revolve around her buying me Tapout clothes.