Ivan's Blog

2009-06-19T00:16:00.001-04:00

June 19, 2009: We are proud to announce the launch of the Independent World MMA Rankings. Some of the best and most knowledgeable MMA writers from across the MMA media landscape have come together to form one independent voting panel.

These voting panel members are, in alphabetical order: Zach Arnold (FightOpinion); Nicholas Bailey (MMA Ratings); Jared Barnes (Houston Chronicle); Jordan Breen (Sherdog); Jim Genia (Full Contact Fighter, MMA Memories, and MMA Journalist Blog); Jesse Holland (MMA Mania); Robert Joyner (MMA Payout); Todd Martin (CBS Sportsline); Zac Robinson (Sports by the Numbers MMA; Michael David Smith (AOL Fanhouse); Jonathan Snowden (Author of "Total MMA: Inside Ultimate Fighting"); Joshua Stein (MMA Opinion), Ivan Trembow (Freelance); and Dave Walsh (Total MMA).

These rankings are independent of any single MMA media outlet or sanctioning body, and are published on multiple web sites.

The rankings are tabulated on a monthly basis in each of the top seven weight classes of MMA, from heavyweight to bantamweight, with fighters receiving ten points for a first-place vote, nine points for a second-place vote, and so on.

The rankings are based purely on the votes of the members of the voting panel, with nobody's vote counting more than anybody else's vote, and no computerized voting.

The voters are instructed to vote primarily based on fighters' actual accomplishments in the cage/ring (the quality of opposition that they've actually beaten), not based on a broad, subjective perception of which fighters would theoretically win fantasy match-ups.

Special thanks to Eric Kamander, Zach Arnold, and Joshua Stein for their invaluable help with this project, and special thanks to Garrett Bailey for designing our logo.

Inactivity: Fighters who have not fought in the past 12 months are not eligible to be ranked, and will regain their eligibility the next time they fight.

Disciplinary Suspensions: Fighters who are currently serving disciplinary suspensions are not eligible to be ranked.

Changing Weight Classes: When a fighter announces that he is leaving one weight class in order to fight in another weight class, the fighter is not eligible to be ranked in the new weight class until he has his first fight in the new weight class.

Catch Weight Fights: When fights are contested at weights that are in between the limits of the various weight classes, they are considered to be in the higher weight class. The weight limits for each weight class are listed at the top of the rankings for each weight class.

June 2009 Independent World MMA Rankings

Heavyweight Rankings (206 to 265 lbs.)
1. Fedor Emelianenko (30-1, 1 No Contest)
2. Frank Mir (12-3)
3. Josh Barnett (24-5)
4. Brock Lesnar (3-1)
5. Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira (31-5-1, 1 No Contest)
6. Randy Couture (16-9)
7. Alistair Overeem (29-11, 1 No Contest)
8. Shane Carwin (11-0)
9. Brett Rogers (10-0)
10. Andrei Arlovski (15-7)

Light Heavyweight Rankings (186 to 205 lbs.)
1. Lyoto Machida (15-0)
2. Rashad Evans (13-1-1)
3. Quinton Jackson (30-7)
4. Forrest Griffin (16-5)
5. Mauricio "Shogun" Rua (18-3)
6. Rich Franklin (25-4, 1 No Contest)
7. Keith Jardine (14-5-1)
8. Dan Henderson (24-7)
9. Renato "Babalu" Sobral (32-8)
10. Antonio Rogerio Nogueira (17-3)

Middleweight Rankings (171 to 185 lbs.)
1. Anderson Silva (24-4)
2. Yushin Okami 23-4)
3. Nathan Marquardt (28-8-2)
4. Demian Maia (10-0)
5. Dan Henderson (24-7)
6. Jorge Santiago (21-7)
7. Gegard Mousasi (25-2-1)
8. Robbie Lawler (16-5, 1 No Contest)
9. Vitor Belfort (18-8)
10. Thales Leites (14-2)

Welterweight Rankings (156 to 170 lbs.)
1. Georges St. Pierre (18-2)
2. Thiago Alves (16-3)
3. Jon Fitch (18-3, 1 No Contest)
4. Jake Shields (23-4-1)
5. Matt Hughes (43-7)
6. Josh Koscheck (12-4)
7. Martin Kampmann (15-2)
8. Mike Swick (14-2)
9. Carlos Condit (22-5)
10. Paulo Thiago (11-0)

Lightweight Rankings (146 to 155 lbs.)
1. B.J. Penn (13-5-1)
2. Kenny Florian (11-3)
3. Shinya Aoki (20-4, 1 No Contest)
4. Eddie Alvarez (17-2)
5. Joachim Hansen (19-7-1)
6. Tatsuya Kawajiri (24-5-2)
7. Frankie Edgar (10-1)
8. Josh Thomson (16-2)
9. Satoru Kitaoka (25-8-9)
10. Gray Maynard (7-0, 1 No Contest)

Featherweight Rankings (136 to 145 lbs.)
1. Mike Brown (22-4)
2. Urijah Faber (22-3)
3. Wagnney Fabiano (12-1)
4. Jose Aldo (15-1)
5. Hatsu Hioki (19-3-2)
6. Leonard Garcia (12-4)
7. "Lion" Takeshi Inoue (16-3)
8. Norifumi "Kid" Yamamoto (17-2)
9. Dokonjonosuke Mishima (19-6-2)
10. Raphael Assuncao (13-1)

Bantamweight Rankings (126 to 135 lbs.)
1. Miguel Torres (37-1)
2. Brian Bowles (7-0)
3. Takeya Mizugaki (11-3-2)
4. Masakatsu Ueda (9-0-2)
5. Joseph Benavidez (10-0)
6. Akitoshi Tamura (14-7-2)
7. Will Ribeiro (10-2)
8. Rani Yahya (14-4)
9. Damacio Page (11-4)
10. Manny Tapia (10-2-1)

2009-05-26T02:52:00.002-04:00

Mixed Martial Arts--- As the MMA world reflects on Lyoto Machida's dominant KO win over the previously undefeated Rashad Evans, the fact that Machida didn't get a title shot sooner has been made all the more amazing by his performance against Evans.

Earlier this year, with a UFC record of 6-0 and an MMA record of 14-0, Machida was still passed over for a title shot in favor of Quinton Jackson (even with Jackson�s legal issues), who had won an incredible two fights in a row.

Even when Jackson�s injuries made it clear that he couldn�t fight on the May 23rd card, Machida still wasn�t going to get the next title shot.

It was only because both Jackson and Frank Mir were injured (thus preventing the UFC from delaying Evans� first title defense until July) that Machida got a title shot before Jackson.

Even then, published reports at the time said that it still would not have happened if Zuffa had been able to convince Georges St. Pierre to move up his title defense against Thiago Alves to May 23.

The only reason they finally gave Machida the title shot when they did, rather than having him fight yet again before getting a title shot and likely against another tough opponent like Thiago Silva, was because all three of these things happened:

1. Quinton Jackson was hurt and couldn't fight on May 23

2. Frank Mir was hurt and couldn't fight on May 23

3. GSP was not willing to move his fight up to May 23

If any two of those things had happened, we�d be looking forward to Evans vs. Jackson in July, and Machida would have yet another tough fight before getting a title shot.

It�s only because all three of those things happened that Evans vs. Machida happened on May 23.

It�s kind of crazy to think that such an historic night would not have even happened if not for all of those things happening at the same time.

Other MMA Thoughts: I�m not surprised by Mirko Cro Cop�s return to the UFC, but I am surprised that he�s fighting in June. Cro Cop is fighting just five months after reconstructive knee surgery? And he�s having a training camp three to four months after reconstructive knee surgery? That doesn't sound like a great idea.

Andrei Arlovski vs. Brett Rogers being added to the June 6th Strikeforce event is fantastic news. Having said that, the idea that Phil Baroni vs. Joe Riggs is going to be a main card bout, while Rafael Feijao vs. Jared Hamman is going to be an untelevised prelim bout, is beyond pathetic.

Recent Boxing Events: Jermain Taylor vs. Carl Froch was a very good fight with an incredible 12th round. I had Froch down by a large margin going into the 12th round, as did two of the judges. The one judge who had it 8 rounds to 3 in favor of Froch going into the 12th round is right up there with the two judges who had Michael Bisping beating Matt Hamill in the �incompetent at best� category.

Play-by-play announcer Gus Johnson added so much to the incredible 12th round of Froch vs. Taylor. I was initially against it when Showtime replaced Steve Albert with Gus Johnson, but after that 12th round, I�m not so sure anymore. Albert is more of a traditional boxing play-by-play man, whereas Johnson is more of a �telling the story of any given fight� announcer, much like Jim Lampley, only not constantly missing it when big punches land or saying that something landed when it didn�t like Lampley does. Johnson can add a lot of drama and excitement to a big fight finish, as play-by-play announcers are supposed to do, without saying the same thing every time like Mike Goldberg does (�and it is all over!�).

Andre Ward's recent win over Edison Miranda was a star-making performance for Ward. Miranda is a legit top-level fighter, and dominating him like that is a big accomplishment.

Play-by-play announcer Nick Charles may have been too hard on Miranda during the fight, but I usually enjoy the commentary of Nick Charles and Steve Farhood just about as much as I enjoy any announcing team in boxing or MMA. They tend to be very straightforward and honest with their assessments of up-and-coming fighters, and that�s a particularly big deal on a show like �ShoBox� with all of the up-and-coming prospects that appear on it.

2009-05-13T00:06:00.003-04:00

ESPN Segment on Dana White Prompts Questions about Long-Term Growth Potential of UFC
Editorial by Ivan Trembow

One could get a sense of how much homework the producers of the ESPN show "E:60" had actually done fairly early in the segment about UFC president Dana White when correspondent Tom Farrey said that "the MMA" has exploded in popularity (as opposed to, "MMA has exploded in popularity").

The show's credibility didn't improve very much from there, as there was no questioning of White's claim, "I built this business without help from anybody."

Additionally, the segment did not even mention the Dana White/AKA debacle of late 2008, where it was not a journalist, but multiple UFC fighters who were on the receiving end of a bullying tirade that would have gotten the public face of any legitimately mainstream sport fired in under a day. White made those statements about Jon Fitch and other AKA fighters in an impromptu interview with Yahoo Sports' Kevin Iole.

The segment also failed to mention an important point that is closely related to the AKA explosion, which is the fact that the managers of UFC fighters, and even some of the fighters themselves, are actually terrified of White because of the publicly demonstrated consequences for any manager or fighter who criticizes White in public or doesn't sign something (ie, anything) that he wants them to sign. (Part 1 of my coverage of the AKA mess; Part 2 of my coverage of the AKA mess).

During the E:60 segment, Farrey also reacted with a shocked facial expression to White's oft-repeated claim that the UFC will be the biggest sport in the world ten years from now. If Farrey had done more research, he wouldn't have been so shocked to hear that from White because he would have known that White has been saying that on a regular basis since 2007.

There was also the fact that The Zuffa Myth about Dana White changing the sport's rules was repeated and not refuted. Farrey also repeated The Zuffa Myth once again during an interview with the Orlando Sentinel.

Even more than The Zuffa Myth, this segment (and the promotion of it) put forward what one might call, "The Dana White Myth." The commercials on ESPN that hyped this particular episode of E:60 said, "Meet the brain behind the fastest-growing sport in the world!"

If The Zuffa Myth is that Zuffa created the rules of MMA, then The Dana White Myth is that White is some kind of super-genius and that nobody else could run the UFC without him, ignoring the fact that Lorenzo Fertitta already makes most of the big business decisions, and ignoring the fact that Joe Silva already does the matchmaking.

Not surprisingly, White remained completely unremorseful for his tirade against Loretta Hunt during the E:60 segment. I say "not surprisingly" because I don't know how that could be surprising to anyone at this point. Pressure from an organization with as much influence as GLAAD meant that White essentially had no choice but to apologize for his use of an anti-gay slur, regardless of whether or not he would have otherwise done so.

White was not forced to apologize for anything else that he said, and he's never going to do so. From White's perspective, why should he? If nothing else, White's tirade against Hunt (and the lack of consequences for that tirade other than those that were self-imposed) clearly served to demonstrate that White can say literally anything he wants, because Fertitta is never going to assert any consequences for White's behavior.

After all, as Iole said in an interview shortly after publishing White's tirade against AKA, it was Lorenzo Fertitta who could be heard in the background during that tirade, acting "just as impassioned" as White and strongly backing what White was saying.

Near the end of the E:60 segment, Farrey asked the only question of the segment that could be classified as anything even close to a "tough question," as he essentially asked White if the UFC could ever be truly mainstream with someone like White as its president. White's response was, "Maybe not." Somehow, there was no follow-up question along the lines of, "Wait a minute... but you said earlier that the UFC is going to be the biggest sport in the world in ten years."

It continues to amaze me that media outlets like E:60 continue to fail to pick up on the obvious contradictions of Dana White and the long-term growth potential of the UFC.

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out the fact that "This is going to be the biggest sport in the world in ten years" is a statement that is incongruous with the obscene tirade that White publicly directed towards Loretta Hunt.

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that "This is going to be the biggest sport in the world in ten years" is a statement that is incongruous with the obscene tirade that White publicly directed towards AKA's fighters.

The fact of the matter is that the UFC is never going to be "the biggest sport in the world" or even a truly "mainstream" entity as long as it has a president that behaves like a vulgar, dogmatic bully.

Maybe it will take two more obscene public tirades for more people to come to that realization, maybe it will take four more obscene public tirades, or maybe some people will never come to that realization, particularly if they remain ignorant of just how much of a role Lorenzo Fertitta and Joe Silva already have in running the UFC.

2009-05-06T16:06:00.000-04:00

I am no longer associated with MMAWeekly after quitting earlier today. I will always have fond memories of most of my six years at MMAWeekly, and I will always be grateful to the late Ryan Bennett, who gave me a chance and became my friend and mentor.

2009-05-03T16:42:00.002-04:00

Boxing--- Manny Pacquiao is truly a once-in-a-generation talent. Last night, the world witnessed another amazing performance from a fighter who has been putting on amazing performances for years now.

However, when it comes to the PPV buyrate of last night's show, I don't think it's going to be as high as some of boxing's other huge fights, at least not when it comes to North American PPV buys. Ricky Hatton's fights always perform amazingly well on PPV in the United Kingdom, but I'm just talking about and referring to North American PPV buys in this post.

Consider that when Floyd Mayweather, Jr. fought and beat Oscar de la Hoya, that PPV shattered all of the records in the PPV industry with 2.4 million buys. But when Mayweather, coming off of that win over De la Hoya, fought Hatton, it "only" drew 850,000 PPV buys. That is still a gigantic PPV buyrate no matter how you look at it, but it was barely one-third of the record-setting Mayweather vs. De la Hoya PPV buyrate.

Now Pacquiao is in a similar situation, having fought and beaten De la Hoya and then fighting Hatton in his next fight after that. Unlike Mayweather vs. De la Hoya, Pacquiao vs. De la Hoya didn't shatter all of the records in the history of the PPV industry. It drew around 1.2 million buys, which is incredible, but not Mayweather vs. De la Hoya numbers.

So, let's say Pacquiao's fight against Hatton draws roughly one-third of the North American buys that Pacquiao's fight against De la Hoya drew. That would be 400,000 buys. I do think it's going to do better than that, but probably not by too much, even though HBO's four-part "Pacquiao/Hatton 24/7" series was absolutely brilliant television and probably the best "24/7" series since the original "De la Hoya/Mayweather 24/7."

If I had to guess, I'd say that the final number will be more than 500,000 and less than 600,000,

Remember, the initial estimates that are released by HBO are generally at least 10% smaller than the final number, so if they announce an initial estimate of 500,000, that means the final number would likely be a little more than 550,000.

That is the neighborhood in which I think the Pacquiao vs. Hatton PPV buyrate is going to end up in terms of North American buys and not counting the huge U.K. PPV sales.

Now, as for the potential fight between Pacquiao and Mayweather, I think that would draw more buys than Pacquiao vs. Hatton in North America, but first Mayweather has to get past Juan Manuel Marquez, and that is a major task.

Mayweather picked a hell of a fight for his comeback match, facing one of the top boxers on the planet after not having fought in a year-and-a-half.

If Marquez does beat Mayweather, then Pacquiao vs. Marquez III would do pretty well in its own right (after all, Pacquiao vs. Marquez II already drew a solid 450,000 or so buys in early 2008), but Pacquiao vs. Mayweather would draw a lot more buys.

2009-04-19T17:33:00.003-04:00

Mixed Martial Arts--- UFC 97 Thoughts
by Ivan Trembow

-The people who are criticizing Anderson Silva by saying things like "he doesn't care" or "he's not interested in fighting" are way off-base. Silva is a counter-striker. Some counter-strikers are better than others at adjusting their style and their gameplan when their opponent calls their proverbial bluff and forces them to be the one to come forward and be the aggressor. Thales Leites� gameplan against Silva wasn�t all that different from Patrick Cote�s gameplan against Silva, or from Rashad Evans� gameplan against Chuck Liddell.

-As Sports Illustrated wrote last night, "The champion [Anderson Silva] enters the cage after a coat of Vaseline is slathered on his face. I�m sorry to say this, but it was pretty obvious that Silva took his hands, wiped down his face and rubbed his chest and arms."

The accuracy of the previous sentence is made clear as day by this video: http://mmafrenzy.com/files/2009/04/anderson-silva-ufc-97-greasing.gif

The video starts just after Silva enters the Octagon with Vaseline on his face, just prior to the beginning of his fight. I have no way of knowing whether it was intentional, but whether or not it happened is not something that's up for debate.

-If that was indeed Chuck Liddell�s last MMA fight, he had an incredible career and provided MMA fans with a lot of great memories. The UFC is doing the right thing by pressuring Liddell to retire before he suffers permanent injury.

-On a related note, It�s amazing to me that there hasn�t been more talk of Wanderlei Silva retiring, just as there has (rightfully) been for Liddell.

While Liddell has been TKO�ed three times in recent years, only one of those was a knocked-out-cold KO. Wanderlei Silva has, in his last five fights, gotten brutally knocked out cold by Mirko Cro Cop, gotten brutally knocked out cold by Dan Henderson, taken a horrible beating in a unanimous decision loss to Chuck Liddell, beaten Keith Jardine, and gotten brutally knocked out cold by Quinton "Delirium Absolves me of Any Responsibility" Jackson.

If there was a list of fighters who should retire (for their own sake) as a result of taking too much punishment over the years and suffering too many bad knockouts, Wanderlei Silva would be far higher on that list than Chuck Liddell.

-More of UFC president Dana White�s credibility went flying out of his mouth and into the night at the UFC 97 post-fight press conference.

White said, "Fedor [Emelianenko] is not the pound-for-pound best fighter in the world. These guys [referring to Anderson Silva] continue to fight the best. Fedor is at a buffet somewhere in Russia."

Let me get this straight. Fedor�s last two fights were stoppage wins over the #4-ranked heavyweight in the world and the #3-ranked heavyweight in the world.

Anderson Silva�s last three fights were against nowhere-near-ranked James Irvin, nowhere-near-ranked Patrick Cote, and not-quite-top-ten-ranked Thales Leites... and yet it�s Fedor who is not fighting the best in the world?

That's not even the most credibility-shattering quote. Dana White also said this: �So until this guy [Fedor] decides to get in shape, take it serious, and consistently fight the best in the world, for you guys to even think about calling him the best pound-for-pound fighter in the world is insane.�

Someone break out the clown make-up and honking red nose.

-The Montreal commission wouldn�t comment in the months leading up to this event, but we got our answer in the main event about whether the UFC agreed to use something other than the Unified Rules of MMA for this event. Silva did a foot-stomp, and the referee clearly said, �No foot stomps, no foot stomps.� Other MMA promotions do this with elbow strikes, but this is the first time I can recall the Zuffa-era UFC using anything other than the Unified Rules of MMA.

-Cheick Kongo may not be too far away from a UFC Heavyweight Title match, but I believe that is going to be a squash match for anyone with good takedowns. I�m sure Kongo is better now than he was when Carmelo Marrero dominated him with takedowns, but I don�t think he�s so much better that he wouldn�t be taken down and pounded and/or submitted by any number of heavyweights in the UFC. The UFC is not stupid. They know this, and that�s why Kongo�s last three fights (after the loss to Heath Herring) have come against Dan Evensen, Mustapha al Turk, and Antoni Hardonk, three fighters who were overmatched against Kongo and also had limited ground games.

2009-02-03T04:34:00.005-05:00

Mixed Martial Arts--- Detailed Summary of St. Pierre vs. Penn Vaseline Incidents, Including Possible Influence on Round 2
by Ivan Trembow

Much more information has come out in the past couple of days about the incidents in which vaseline was allegedly rubbed on Georges St. Pierre's back by one of his cornermen in between the rounds of his fight against BJ Penn at UFC 94 on Saturday night. Rubbing vaseline anywhere other than on a fighter's face would be illegal.

There has been a lot of noise on all sides of this issue, including from many fans (and even a few journalists) who are taking the �bury your head in the sand� mentality of just wanting this story to go away, regardless of whether or not any wrongdoing was committed.

The statements from Penn's side about what happened are naturally going to be slanted in one direction, and the statements from St. Pierre's side about what happened are naturally going to be slanted in the other direction.

This makes the quotes from Keith Kizer, the Executive Director of the Nevada State Athletic Commission, especially relevant because he's not on the Penn side or the St. Pierre side.

So, based on video evidence and numerous statements made by Kizer, here are the actual facts as we know them.

First of all, the video of the cornerman, Phil Nurse, rubbing St. Pierre's face with vaseline and then immediately thereafter rubbing St. Pierre's back is now on YouTube at this URL: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vKuJSQJOiwM. This occurred between Rounds 1 and 2.

There is also confirmation in numerous interviews with Kizer that this was not the only time during the fight that vaseline appeared to be have been rubbed on St. Pierre's back by his cornerman. Kizer has said in multiple interviews that he saw it happen with his own eyes between Rounds 2 and 3, at which point he entered the cage and started yelling at St. Pierre's cornermen.

Here are quotes from MMAWeekly and Sherdog articles about the two separate vaseline incidents.

From MMAWeekly:

"After round two, I watched him like a hawk," said Kizer. "I've only entered the ring maybe three or four times (in my career) during a fight, but I did this time.

Watching the pay-per-view, Nurse is clearly seen on camera applying Vaseline to the face of St. Pierre following round one. It is difficult to tell the amount of residual Vaseline on his hands, but he does clearly rub St. Pierre's shoulders and then reach around to touch his upper back. The extent to which such actions affected the actual in-ring action are unclear, but what is clear is that such action was a violation Nevada's regulations.

"They didn't take a big glob and throw it on his back. After putting Vaseline on (St. Pierre's) face, he put his hands on his body. I don't know if it was intentional or not, but it was improper," Kizer continued, who confirmed that an inspector did use a towel to wipe St. Pierre's back between rounds two and three, and three and four."

From Sherdog:

[Kizer said] �After the second round, we observed Mr. Jackson putting Vaseline on Mr. St. Pierre�s face and then putting his hand on his back.�

...

�I told them I was disappointed and that they may have tainted Mr. St. Pierre�s victory�Whether it was intentional or not, I don�t know. It was improper.�

An important detail that has come out in multiple interviews with Kizer is that while the first application of vaseline to St. Pierre's back appeared to happen between Rounds 1 and 2, it wasn't until after the second round that the NSAC intervened.

This would mean that if vaseline was applied to St. Pierre's back after Round 1, it would have still been on his back throughout Round 2.

There is confirmation of this important detail from Kizer in various interviews, but perhaps most clearly in this one from MMA Junkie in terms of the timeline of events:

[Kizer said] "The first round, one of the inspectors that was on the outside of the cage came over to me and said it looked to him that when the cornerman, who I think in that case was Phil Nurse, put the Vaseline on Georges� face then rubbed his shoulders � which you see the guys rubbing the other guy�s shoulders to help him out � he didn�t wipe off his hands between doing that. I said, �Well, I�m going to watch very closely after this round.��

Kizer watched intently to see if the questionable actions would be repeated as the second round came to a close.

�At the end of the second round I watched, and then another cornerman who I believe was Greg Jackson, he put the Vaseline on Georges� face, and then he put his hand on his back to do the breathing thing they always do,� Kizer said. �As soon as I saw that, it looked like there was still some Vaseline on his hand. Not a lot, but still some.

�Tony Liano and I immediately yelled at him, and I don�t think he heard us because of the noise. So I actually went into the octagon, and I said, �Take your hand off of his back. What are you doing?� We wiped it down. We made sure it was wiped down after the third round as well. This was after the second when I was in there. I was very upset. I don�t know if they were doing it intentionally or not. Either way, they shouldn�t have done it.

...

[Kizer said] "His cornerman should have been more careful if it was an accident. If it was intentional, that's even worse. Just very, very disturbing."

Now, with all of these facts and statements in mind, look at these five animated GIFs from the Underground Forum of five different times in Round 2 that Penn's legs slipped on St. Pierre's back while Penn was trying to utilize his rubber guard techniques from the bottom:

http://free-zg.t-com.hr/bhz/mma/penn_vs_gsp/slip1.gif
http://free-zg.t-com.hr/bhz/mma/penn_vs_gsp/slip2.gif
http://free-zg.t-com.hr/bhz/mma/penn_vs_gsp/slip3.gif
http://free-zg.t-com.hr/bhz/mma/penn_vs_gsp/slip4.gif
http://free-zg.t-com.hr/bhz/mma/penn_vs_gsp/slip5.gif

Again, Round 2 was after St. Pierre's cornerman rubbed his back immediately after applying vaseline to his face; and Round 2 was also before the athletic commission intervened to towel off St. Pierre's back, which did not happen until after Round 2.

Based on all the facts, quotes, and video evidence, it does look like it COULD have aided St. Pierre in Round 2. I don't think the outcome of the fight would have been any different, but as for whether it COULD have aided St. Pierre in Round 2, the video evidence is pretty overwhelming that it could have.

Although the outcome of the fight would have likely been the same even if St. Pierre did have an advantage in Round 2, that does not make this a non-story. It has been amazing to see some people saying, "It didn't affect the outcome of the fight, so it's a non-issue that we should all stop talking about!" That is such backwards logic.

They are two different situations, but the stand-up agreement in the fight between Seth Petruzelli and Kimbo Slice didn't affect the outcome of that fight because Petruzelli won by knockout anyway in 14 seconds. Were people saying after that fight, "It didn't affect the outcome of the fight, so it's a non-issue that we should all stop talking about"? Of course not, and if they were, that would have been an equally ridiculous argument.

As for where this goes from here, there is a possibility of fines and/or suspensions for any of St. Pierre's cornermen that the athletic commission deems to have broken the rules.

Perhaps just as significantly, St. Pierre's brilliant performance in the fight may be tainted in some fans' eyes. As Kizer said in his interview with MMA Junkie, "This may have tainted [St. Pierre's] victory in the eyes of many fans, and it's his cornerman's fault for that. It doesn't take away his victory, but it does take away from his victory in the eyes of many fans, I believe."

2009-02-01T04:09:00.010-05:00

Mixed Martial Arts--- UFC 94 Thoughts
by Ivan Trembow

As usual, Georges St. Pierre and Lyoto Machida looked like machines, in this case by dominating B.J. Penn and Thiago Silva, respectively. The best sporting event of the weekend was on Saturday, not on Super Bowl Sunday.

Machida Deserves Title Shot in Next Fight: Machida is long overdue for a title shot and he absolutely deserves to get the next shot at Rashad Evans' belt, not the winner of the upcoming fight between Quinton Jackson and Keith Jardine.

Update: Dana White said at the post-fight press conference that it will be Jackson who will be getting the next title shot, not Machida, provided that Jackson beats Jardine. He said that Machida will �probably� get a title shot by the end of 2009. At this point, the continual snubbing of Machida is just pathetic.

St. Pierre vs. Penn: In the GSP-Penn fight, Penn showed up to fight and looked to be in good shape, but GSP was simply too good.

For all the hype that went into this fight as two all-time greats with both of them at their absolute peak, Penn�s peak in terms of accomplishments was not beating Jens Pulver, Joe Stevenson, and Sean Sherk in the three-fight winning streak that he had going into this fight. Realistically, Penn's peak in terms of accomplishments was beating the #1 lightweight in the world and then beating the #1 welterweight in the world, and that was in late 2003 and early 2004, not in 2008 and 2009.

St. Pierre has Thiago Alves next on his plate, although if Jon Fitch could take down Alves at will like he did, then I�m guessing St. Pierre will also be able to take Alves down at will.

Vaseline Controversy in St. Pierre's Corner: According to this report on Cage Potato: "B.J. Penn's camp has filed a formal complaint with the Nevada State Athletic Commission over Vaseline that was allegedly rubbed on Georges St. Pierre's back between rounds one and two. UFC president Dana White said at the post-fight press conference that he was aware of the complaint, and said he personally witnessed members of the commission take the Vaseline away from GSP's camp and rebuke them in the Octagon between rounds."

White was also quoted as saying that the Nevada State Athletic Commission was "flipping out" about it and was "screaming" at St. Pierre's cornermen about it.

I am in shock about this. I would imagine that if this had been anything other than a huge fight, the fighter who got vaseline put on his back would have been disqualified on the spot, although I don't know that for sure.

I wish we could have seen what actually happened... how much vaseline was applied, who applied it, what the commission did, etc. The UFC has cameras in both corners in between every round, and it sounds like it would have been a big commotion, but the UFC apparently decided not to show the incident during the fight or after the fight, unless they did and I missed it.

Update: From looking at the tape, it was hard to see too much because the director kept cutting away every time vaseline would be on-screen or a towel would be on-screen. However, you can clearly see that one of GSP's trainers rubs his back between Rounds 1 and 2. You can't see in the shot whether the trainer has anything on this hands, but you can see that he is using the same hand that was just applying vaseline to GSP's face seconds earlier, and that is on the tape clear as day.

The athletic commission "flipping out" can be seen on the tape between Rounds 2 and 3. You can see as the round was about to start that one of the NSAC inspectors was thrown a towel and gave St. Pierre's back a very brief rub-down in the seconds right before Round 3 started. Then, between Rounds 3 and 4, it looks like St. Pierre's back got a much more thorough rub-down with towels. Again, it's hard to determine more from this because the director kept cutting away from it.

Zach Arnold also wrote about this on Fight Opinion: "If the NSAC agrees that indeed rules were violated, it will immediately taint St. Pierre�s dominant win over Penn. I realize and you realize that St. Pierre put on a dominant performance, but Penn�s camp has a perfectly legitimate gripe here if the accusations of vaseline usage (in this manner) are true. While Dana White tried to soften the blow of the allegations about possible illegal vaseline usage on St. Pierre, the fact that White is trying to deflect all the heat for the incident on a cornerman and not on St. Pierre is unacceptable."

Fights Going the Distance is Not Necessarily Bad: A lot of people online are complaining about UFC 94 because of the high number of fights that went the distance of three rounds. I don�t think that most fights going to a decision automatically makes an event worse than if most fights end quickly. Even with the one-sided main event, I thought this event was better than the recent UFC event with a bunch of quick finishes that most people said was a great event because of all the quick finishes (UFC 91).

Another Curious Decision for Fight of the Night: Seriously, Clay Guida vs. Nate Diaz gets a Fight of the Night award? And last month, Mauricio "Shogun" Rua vs. Mark Coleman did? And the month before that, Junie Browning vs. David Kaplan did? There were more deserving fights on all three of those events.

2009-01-31T00:41:00.000-05:00

Mixed Martial Arts--- No Out-of-Competition Drug Testing for UFC 94 Fighters
by Ivan Trembow
Originally Published on MMAWeekly

The Nevada State Athletic Commission did not test any fighters on the UFC 94 card as part of its out-of-competition drug testing program.

In addition, there were no fighters subjected to the out-of-competition drug testing program who competed on the WEC event on December 3; or on the UFC events on December 13 or December 27. All four events took place in Nevada and fall under the NSAC's jurisdiction.

When asked on January 15 if any fighters on the January 31 card had been tested as part of the NSAC's out-of-competition drug testing program, NSAC Executive Director Keith Kizer replied, "Not yet."

When asked earlier this week, on January 28, if any fighters on the January 31 card had been tested as part of the NSAC's out-of-competition drug testing program, Kizer replied, "No."

The out-of-competition drug testing program allows the NSAC to order random drug tests at any time on any fighter that the NSAC licenses as a mixed martial artist, boxer, or kickboxer.

Like many other major sports, this out-of-competition drug testing is in addition to day-of-competition drug testing. The day-of-competition drug testing was still conducted at all of the aforementioned events and will be conducted at UFC 94 as well.

However, when athletes know the exact date of an upcoming drug test ahead of time, the testing is not going to catch very many users. There are numerous ways to mask banned substances if you have days, weeks, or in this case months of notice before a drug test.

Therefore, the out-of-competition drug testing program is a vital step towards detecting the use of banned substances during training camps.

A total of fourteen fighters (some boxers, some mixed martial artists) whose fights were scheduled between February 1, 2008 and October 31, 2008 were tested as part of the out-of-competition drug testing program, which was announced in January 2008.

In the weeks prior to UFC 91 in November, ten fighters were tested as part of the program, and all of them passed their tests.

Between November 15 and the end of January, there were four major MMA events scheduled in the state of Nevada: a WEC event on December 3, a UFC event on December 13, another UFC event on December 27, and another UFC event that will take place on January 31.

None of the fighters on these shows were tested as part of the out-of-competition drug testing program.

In other news related to the NSAC's out-of-competition drug testing program, The Ring Magazine Online recently reported that instead of having several hours to submit to a drug test from the time that they are notified that they need to take a drug test, fighters actually have two days to take an NSAC-ordered drug test.

The Ring's Mark Zeigler wrote, "Here's how it works: The commission contacts a licensed fighter, notifies him he has been selected for an out-of-competition test and provides instructions about locating the nearest accredited laboratory. The lab is also contacted, and the fighter has two days to show up, present photo identification and submit a urine test. Here's the problem: Two days is ample time for someone to flush their system of many banned substances."

The NSAC's Keith Kizer confirmed that fighters do have two days to take an out-of-competition drug test from the time that they are notified, but added that this is subject to change.

2009-01-30T02:09:00.006-05:00

Mixed Martial Arts--- Zuffa Breaks News of Affliction MMA's Impending Demise Using Psuedonym
by Ivan Trembow

It appears as though Zuffa/UFC took it upon themselves to break the news of the impending demise of Affliction's MMA promotion, while hiding behind a psuedonym on Bloody Elbow.

Anyone who has read Bloody Elbow�s comments section long enough knows that the poster called �mmalogic� works for Zuffa and is not even particularly good at hiding it.

One example: In the comments section of a post from a few months back, �mmalogic� wrote this: �Zuffa adjusted their sponsorship model from creating OUR own sponsors� (capitalization added by me).

When another user pointed out what �mmalogic� just said and asked if he�s Joe Silva or someone else like that, �mmalogic� responded with this non-denial and followed it with flattery towards his accuser: �I won�t say who I am but I will say who you are judging by your past comments and analysis � You either own your own business, have owned your own business or very high up in a business either in Marketing or Sales� Did I call it?�

When the original accuser responded by saying that he just graduated with a degree in marketing and finance, �mmalogic� responded with more flattery: �You got the head for it� try to hook up with a good consulting firm � you will do well.�

In this case, it�s easy to see how high-level executives at Zuffa would know so much about Affliction MMA�s pending demise, particularly if Affliction has contacted Zuffa to work out a peace deal.

So, what do they do? They make a post about it under their �mmalogic� psuedonym to give themselves more leverage in the negotiations for the aforementioned peace deal (Affliction has even less leverage in negotiations if everyone is already reading about how little leverage they have and how their MMA branch is about to go out of business anyway).

A lot of people think that the UFC doesn�t care about blogs, but they must realize what kind of influence a very popular blog like Bloody Elbow has, based on the fact that they (Zuffa) are willing to take the time and effort to try to spread information and influence opinions by making posts under psuedonyms like �mmalogic.�

-More on "mmalogic": Even putting aside how blatant it is in his comments, look at the previous FanPost blog entries by �mmalogic�:

Shinya Aoki is not a top five fighter (in January 2009); EliteXC ratings are below CBS� expectations and now ProElite people are looking for work; HBO is unhappy with the Affliction/Golden Boy partnership; Randy Couture to Headline UFC 91 (before it was widely reported); and a post about why Zuffa has no reason to co-promote with anyone.

Like I said, not very subtle. I�m guessing Zuffa will try to be more subtle when posting under psuedonyms in the future.

-FightOpinion and Bloody Elbow Posts About This: Zach Arnold wrote about this on FightOpinion.com

"What makes this interesting is that by leaking claims that Affliction wants to wave the white flag in terms of no longer competing with Zuffa that it all but eliminates any sort of leverage Atencio might or might not have if he is in fact doing this.

It�s no secret that Zuffa employees read message boards, blogs, etc. What is interesting is whether or not more and more UFC employees will start using blogs to manipulate the message they want the public to hear. The organization already has friendly broadsheet media outlets that aren�t willing to push back against them, and then you add on the generally UFC-safe Yahoo Sports coverage team, and what you end up with is a pretty sophisticated strategy to influence both hardcore and casual MMA fans."

In response, Bloody Elbow editor Luke Thomas wrote an angry response on BloodyElbow.com.

Personally, I think Luke is misinterpreting the point of Zach�s post. I don�t think that Zach or anyone else (including me) is saying that Bloody Elbow�s �coverage is nothing more than a mouthpiece or distribution channel for Zuffa.� It�s not that Bloody Elbow is guilty of anything, it�s that this one specific poster �mmalogic� certainly appears to be a Zuffa employee from looking at the evidence.

As for Bloody Elbow not having any dialogue with the UFC, this is informal communication, but literally one post down from Luke�s, Michael Rome wrote this as an update to the original post by Zuffa employee mmalogic: �I have been digging at this story for the last 3 or 4 hours since I first heard it. I believe it to be true. A source at UFC informed that Lorenzo Fertitta was contacted today by Affliction looking for a �beneficial� way out.� There�s nothing wrong with having communications with the UFC.

Also, it doesn�t take �some grand Zuffa scheme� for this to happen. �Astroturfing� is something that corporations have been caught doing in the past, it�s probably not that hard for them to do it, and I wouldn�t be surprised if Zuffa had other screen names on other sites doing the same thing.

-Affliction Head Denies his MMA Promotion's Demise: Affliction head Tom Atencio has already denied that his MMA promotion is on the verge of going out of business, but of course he�s going to say that.

Realistically, even before any of this came out today, I think the vast majority of hardcore MMA fans have thought for weeks that Affliction�s MMA division would be kaput shortly after their second show (if not before their second show).

It�s likely that it�s over except for the negotiations of how, and under what financial terms, Affliction will stop promoting MMA shows and will re-enter the fray as one of the biggest sponsors of UFC fighters. Zuffa has a lot more leverage than Affliction already, and they attempted to tip the scales of leverage in their direction even further with that post made under one of their psuedonyms � �mmalogic� (and I only use the plural form �psuedonyms� because it would be naive to think that if they�re using one psuedonym that it�s the only one that they have on any web site).

Now, Atencio is trying to tip the scales of leverage back in his direction by denying that they�re getting out of the MMA promotion business.

In that respect, it�s no different than what Zuffa is doing. What is a big difference is the fact that Atencio is using his real name in those interviews, while Zuffa made their post under a psuedonym.

-What's Wrong with the UFC Leaking Information Under Psuedonyms: To anyone who may take the position that a person still has a right to post even if they�re a UFC employee, it�s not being a UFC employee that is objectionable; it�s the lack of disclosure. It�s the fact that there is information coming from the UFC, information whose release benefits the UFC, but without the public knowing that it came from the UFC and being able to judge its veracity (or the motives for its release) in that context. That is what is objectionable about "mmalogic." Now that "mmalogic" has been exposed, Zuffa will likely use other screen names instead (ones that haven�t been exposed).

2009-01-29T14:37:00.006-05:00

Mixed Martial Arts--- Affliction & WEC Thoughts
by Ivan Trembow

-Affliction Thoughts: Fedor Emelianenko brutally defeated a top-five-ranked heavyweight for the second time in seven months, further establishing himself as the greatest of all time. And yet I�m sure that in just a few months, the Kevin Ioles of the world will still be questioning who Fedor has ever fought...

Who were those announcers? Those guys were actually pretty good. (I mean Sean Wheelock and Jimmy Smith, not Tito Ortiz.) They made a couple of ridiculous statements (�Renato Sobral is one of the top light heavyweights in the world now!�), but for the most part they were surprisingly good.

I don�t understand why Affliction didn�t show the Jay Hieron vs. Jason High fight. They had plenty of PPV satellite time left. For the fights that happened earlier in the night on HDNet, it's possible that HDNet had the exclusive rights to those fights, but Hieron vs. High had not actually happened at that time. It happened after Fedor vs. Arlovski (ie, after the PPV went off the air) because of time constraints. Why couldn�t they have shown that fight?

-WEC Thoughts: As usual for a WEC event, the show itself was very good. I hope that the WEC keeps Jens Pulver. Yes, he has lost three fights in a row, but those three fights were against Urijah Faber, Leonard Garcia, and Urijah Faber again. There's no shame in that. And what was he doing having a major fight just one month after one of his long-time best friends (Justin Eilers) was murdered?

Craig Hummer�s question, �Are you still relevant?� was not a good question for a post-fight interview immediately after a fight. Pulver has been beaten twice in quick fashion by two world-class fighters (Leonard Garcia and Urijah Faber). Did Joe Rogan ask Chuck Liddell if he was still relevant after his third loss in four fights? Did Joe Rogan ask Wanderlei Silva if he was still relevant after his fourth loss in five fights? No. There�s no shame in losing to world-class opposition, and it doesn�t make one irrelevant.

I'm sure that I'm not the only one who was thinking this, but what in the hell was wrong with the crowd in San Diego? That has to have been one of the most ignorant MMA crowds in recent memory.

The crowd was booing for no reason throughout the night, even though they were seeing a pretty damn good MMA show.

A good example: Danillo Villefort. What were they thinking? "Boo! You just won a fight decisively and impressively by TKO! Boo!" Villefort got booed out of the building as if his opponent was a hometown guy, but he wasn't (Villefort's opponent was from Massachusetts).

Then, in Varner-Cerrone fight, one fighter (Cerrone) threw an illegal knee to the head of his grounded opponent, and the other fighter (Varner) was unable to continue as a result of that illegal knee. So, the crowd strongly boos Varner and strongly cheers Cerrone. The ignorance was astounding.

The ignorance of many MMA judges also continues to be astounding. Alejandro Rochin was the judge who inexplicably had the Varner-Cerrone fight scored 3 rounds to 2 in favor of Cerrone.

On a semi-related note since it delayed the start of the WEC broadcast by eleven minutes, The Sports Soup is a horrible show, even though its sister show (The Soup) is a great show. Someone needs to tell the people at The Sports Soup that just airing clips of people in various sports getting seriously injured and then laughing at those people for getting seriously injured is not the least bit funny.

2009-01-22T00:08:00.001-05:00

Mixed Martial Arts--- Random Thoughts on a Variety of Topics
by Ivan Trembow

-UFC Primetime Eschews Artificial Controversy and Focuses on the Fighters: Kudos to the UFC for not making Episode 2 of UFC Primetime about artificially created storylines. The ignorance of the argument put forth by many that you need artificial controversy to sell a big fight is exposed by the extremely high quality of all but five minutes of the first two episodes of Primetime (I�m referring to the artificial controversey in the last five minutes of Episode 1).

The preview special before the first Urijah Faber vs. Jens Pulver fight last year is another great example. This is exactly what a �building up a big fight� preview show should be.

-Huerta Taking Time Away from Fighting: Lightweight fighter Roger Huerta recently announced that he will be taking time away from MMA to focus on his acting career, and predictably he has been getting ripped to shreds for it on MMA message boards.

As you may recall, Huerta had the nerve to question the UFC's pay scale in an interview with Fight Magazine last year, and in doing so, he apparently committed the worst sin of all. Fighters have been arrested for all kinds of things, and they�ve tested positive for steroids and just about every other banned substance known to man. But I don�t think any one of those incidents has generated as much universal scorn as Huerta did for the unforgivable sin of questioning the UFC�s pay scale.

After that interview was printed, and after the retaliatory leak came out from Zuffa claiming that Huerta supposedly wanted low six figures and a PPV bonus and that even BJ Penn doesn�t get that, the response from much of the online MMA community was the anticipated response of, �OMG, Huerta is so greedy!� I didn�t see anyone respond with, �Wait a minute... BJ Penn doesn�t make low six figures with a PPV bonus?"

-Health of Gary Goodridge and Other MMA Fighters: Before the California State Athletic Commission shamefully decided to clear Gilbert Yvel to fight in California, there were rumors swirling that Affliction was going to sign Gary Goodridge to be Yvel's replacement and fight Barnett. Goodridge has been fighting in professional MMA since 1996, he is 42 years old, he has lost his four most recent MMA fights, and he has an even longer losing streak in professional kickboxing bouts.

If the rumors are true that Affliction was going to book Barnett vs. Goodridge if Yvel wasn't cleared, then Affliction should be ashamed of themselves. That fight would have been a brutal, one-sided beating.

Even if he's not fighting against Josh Barnett, Goodridge has enough knockout losses between MMA and kickboxing that an athletic commission might need to step in and save him from himself at some point.

The same is true for Kazushi Sakuraba, Hidehiko Yoshida, Ken Shamrock, Don Frye, Wanderlei Silva (getting brutally knocked out cold on three separate occasions is no joke), Murilo "Ninja" Rua (getting brutally knocked out cold on four separate occasions is no joke), and numerous other MMA fighters. Unfortunately, the Japan-based fighters have no athletic commission to look out for their safety above all else, and we�ve yet to see if any U.S. athletic commissions are willing to take an unpopular stand when it finally becomes time for someone to take that stand.

Even if an athletic commission does take a stand like New York did with Evander Holyfield several years ago, the fighters are still likely to try to continue fighting elsewhere, but at least it limits their options and makes it less of an attractive option for those fighters to continue suffering more and more brain damage as the years go on.

2009-01-21T17:21:00.001-05:00

Mixed Martial Arts--- Random Thoughts on a Variety of Topics
by Ivan Trembow

-More Manufactured Storylines on UFC Primetime: Well, I guess we�ve got an answer to the question of whether the UFC feels that the UFC Primetime series can sell itself based on the personalities of BJ Penn and Georges St. Pierre, or whether UFC Primetime needs to have fake, manufactured storylines involving BJ Penn and Dana White in order to garner interest.

What an incredible coincidence that just today, on the day of Episode 2's premiere, word leaked out about Penn temporarily kicking out the cameras several days ago and having a feud with UFC president Dana White.

The UFC appears less interested in building up the St. Pierre vs. Penn fight based on the real-life drama of St. Pierre vs. Penn, and more interested in building up the St. Pierre vs. Penn fight based on a manufactured storyline involving Penn and White.

As noted by Nick Thomas of Bloody Elbow, Penn�s banishment of the cameras (for the cameras, ironically) was only temporary and was noted by Penn in an interview on Tapout Radio two days ago. It just magically leaked out today as being a major issue.

As Adam Swift wrote on MMA Payout, �Color me suspicious. Penn and Dana White are both crafty promoters and it�s definitely not out of the realm of possibility for the two to conspire to stir up some controversy to sell next weekend�s fight. Penn spent the weeks before his last fight with Sean Sherk talking up his genuine dislike for him and sold the fight as a true grudge match. Immediately following the fight Penn apologized and said that it was all pretend to hype the fight. White hasn�t been shy about interjecting himself into the company�s �storylines� (see Tito Ortiz) and has been known to borrow a page or two from the WWE promotional play book.�

-Josh Barnett Inserts Foot in Mouth: Josh Barnett continues to talk about his 2002 victory over Randy Couture as if it was a legitimate accomplishment. Barnett has plenty of other big wins, but he beat Couture in a fight in which he (Barnett) tested positive for steroids and Couture tested negative, so Barnett really ought to stop mentioning that win as an accomplishment. Every time he mentions that fight, all he�s doing is reminding people of his positive test result from 2002.

-Doping Attorney Still Incompetent: Doping attorney Howard Jacobs appears to be as incompetent as ever. In an interview with MMAWeekly regarding Antonio Silva's steroids case involving the California State Athletic Commission (CSAC), Jacobs said this: �[The CSAC] basically said, �Well, you can�t prove that it actually came from the legal supplement, as opposed to from the banned substance, so you lose because you didn�t prove it to us. We say we didn�t have to prove it. You had to prove it the other way around.�

In addition to the fact that you can�t just declare which party has to prove which facts and have that be the case just because you say so, there�s also the inconvenient little fact that even if they were to prove that it was 100% the fault of the supplement, the fighter is still responsible for what he puts in his body.

Jacobs has had the same B.S. argument every time a fighter has hired him in Nevada or California, and he almost always loses, and he�s always told by the commission that a fighter is responsible if banned substances are in his body whether they got there knowingly or unknowingly, and yet he comes back with the same argument the next time and loses again.

Keith Kizer of the NSAC did an interview with MMAWeekly in 2007 where he talked about a lot of the drug testing myths that fighters often try to exploit to make it seem that they�re not responsible for what they put into their system. Click here to read it.

-Quinton Jackson Gets a Slap on the Wrist for Endangering Numerous People's Lives: You gotta love our criminal justice system in America. Getting zero jail time for what Quinton Jackson did, especially as someone who is not a first-time offender, is just ridiculous, but that's what will end up happening unless he breaks the law again in the next 12 months.

Sadly, this is just one of many ridiculous things that happen every day in the court system. Murder, rape, and robbery get plea-bargained down every single day somewhere in this country. I guess endangering numerous people�s lives in a high-speed police chase while on at least his second religion-fueled hunger strike must be viewed as "nothing in comparison."

Before I get any e-mails about "the new, responsible, and more mature Quinton Jackson," I don�t think it reflects well on him to have punched a clearly unconscious fighter in the head three times, including two times after the referee was already pulling him off and trying to crook his arm to prevent him from throwing more punches (which is what Jackson did after he knocked out Wanderlei Silva in his first fight after the police chase). It�s kind of like talking about "the new, responsible, and more mature Chris Leben" after his positive steroids test.

Based on reading this quote from UFC president Dana White on the Carmichael Dave radio show (as first quoted on Five Ounces of Pain), you would think that Quinton Jackson's crime was that he came down with the flu and then cut in line at the supermarket:

�No, I don�t think there should be any problems with Rampage legally. Obviously he�s got to go to court because that thing happened. But he had delirium. He had something wrong with him. It wasn�t like he was on drugs or drinking alcohol or doing any of that stuff. He was doing the right thing and he got sick and like anyone who got sick and goes to court, I don�t think he�s going to have any issues.�

2009-01-19T00:12:00.005-05:00

Mixed Martial Arts--- UFC 93 Thoughts
by Ivan Trembow

-Marcus Davis vs. Chris Lytle (Kickboxing Match): The B-level-kickboxing-ization of MMA continues, as we had a fighter apologizing after a very impressive submission victory (Alan Belcher), and we once again had a B-level kickboxing match being glorified as an epic fight (Marcus Davis vs. Chris Lytle).

In the Davis-Lytle fight, Lytle could have absolutely benefited from taking the fight to the ground, given that he has better ground skills than Lytle and given that he was losing in the stand-up, but of course he didn�t attempt to do so because that would have made him �a pu--y," to use Lytle's sentiments and Davis' words from before the fight. There were also a couple of times that Davis had Lytle hurt and could have potentially pounced on him and finished him on the ground, but he didn't.

There are clearly fighters who fight for the Fight of the Night bonus as their primary objective and winning the fight as their secondary objective (there are even fighters who have said that), and yet the majority of fans will say with a straight face and will really believe that the UFC doesn�t encourage one kind of fighting over another.

It�s not just that the UFC rewards people for getting into stand-up-only kickboxing matches, it�s also that they punish fighters who they feel are in boring fights. Yushin Okami had a 6-1 UFC record and was put in an untelevised prelim fight at UFC 92, while C.B. Dollaway (who lost in the semi-finals and finals of TUF 7) got a main card slot instead.

Furthermore, the fact that Okami ended up having a boring fight against Dean Lister is used as justification for this treatment by people like Dave Meltzer. It would be the equivalent of arguing that the San Antonio Spurs don't deserve to be in the NBA Playoffs because they play a slower-paced style of basketball. It's a ridiculous argument that nobody would make for a sport that they didn't think of as "quasi pro wrestling."

To be clear, I�m not saying that ALL of the kickboxing in MMA is B-level kickboxing. But I am saying that Davis vs. Lytle in particular is B-level kickboxing, as are most fights involving Davis and Lytle.

I am also saying that if fighters like Davis or Lytle want to compete in a sport with no takedowns, they might want to take up professional kickboxing and leave MMA behind for all of those "pu----s" who tend to do things like, you know, actually go for takedowns when it would clearly be beneficial to their chances of winning the fight.

On a related note, what was Mike Goldberg thinking when he said that Chris Lytle is �one of the top fighters in the UFC�? Lytle went into the fight with a 5-7 UFC record.

-Snowden's Excellent Article on Davis-Lytle and Other Fights Like It: There is a very good article by �Total MMA� book author Jonathan Snowden on Five Ounces of Pain about the Davis-Lytle fight.

Key excerpts:

�There�s also something dangerous about the mentality Zuffa has inspired in many of its fighters by offering bonuses that often exceed the fighter�s regular purses. It has created an atmosphere where winning isn�t a fighter�s main goal� Winning �Fight of the Night� � that was his main goal. Not winning fights, just fight of the night honors. After all, he could make more money losing the kind of fight he knows Zuffa loves than he ever could with a Yushin Okami style winning streak. Caring more about entertaining than winning is the beginning of the end of integrity, the first step down a slippery slope from sport to spectacle� Whether or not there was an agreement set in stone, it was obvious neither man was going to the ground. Even when it became evident that Lytle was losing the standing exchanges and didn�t have the quickness to keep up with the elusive Davis, he never once thought about taking the boxer down. He wasn�t driven by a will to win. He was driven by his pocketbook. And the distinction between pro wrestling and MMA just got a little bit blurrier.�

The full article is highly recommended and it�s available here. I have also heard nothing but strong praise for Snowden's book, although I haven't had a chance to read through it yet myself.

-Shogun Beats Mark Coleman in Unimpressive Fashion: Mauricio "Shogun" Rua did not look impressive and clearly has a very long way to go with his cardio game after tearing his ACL prior to the Forrest Griffin fight, and then having two reconstructive knee surgeries and zero fights in the past 16 months. He should have been able to knock out Coleman sooner than he did. The stoppage was legit, however, and it could have even been stopped shortly before Coleman was knocked down, because he was taking brutal shots to the head and was no longer defending himself at all. That is pretty much the definition of when a referee is supposed to stop a fight.

One of the headlines on the front page of Yahoo.com on Saturday was �Fighter a fraud," and if you clicked the link it took you to Steve Cofield�s predictable piece about how much Shogun sucks. How did it go from �fighter has very disappointing performance� to �fighter a fraud�? Is every fighter who has a very disappointing performance "a fraud," or just some of them?

I was also very surprised to see that the UFC gave a �Co-Fight of the Night� award to Shogun vs. Coleman (along with Davis vs. Lytle), even while privately telling their surrogates that they thought Shogun vs. Coleman was a horrible fight. First Junie Browning vs. Dave Kaplan got a baffling "Fight of the Night" award in December, and now Shogun vs. Coleman gets one in January. I realize that the UFC probably felt that Davis and Lytle �had� to be rewarded for their �takedowns are for pu----s� mentality, but Shogun vs. Coleman winning Co-Fight of the Night? That makes no sense at all.

-Another Side Effect of Booking 12 PPV Events Per Year: The UFC ended up feeling the need to sacrifice the planned light heavyweight title fight between Rashad Evans and Quinton Jackson (for which Evans may have been ready in April or May, but not March) and instead book Jackson vs. Keith Jardine for the March PPV event, due to the fact that they had no other main event that they could book for the March PPV.

-Curious Judging: There were no robberies like Matt Hamill�s domination of Michael Bisping being called a split decision win for Bisping, but there are still some very curious judges� decisions when the UFC runs these unsanctioned shows in the United Kingdom.

In particular, the judge who scored Henderson vs. Franklin as being 30-27 in favor of Franklin (Chris Watts) should not be allowed to judge on any UFC shows in the future. That was just ridiculous, and even Franklin thought so. Henderson dominated the first two rounds, and Franklin dominated the third round. How that ended up being 3 rounds to 0 in favor of Franklin on that judges� scorecard is just mind-boggling. (Fortunately, the other two judges had it scored 29-28 in favor of Henderson, which seemed like the obvious score.)

Next Middleweight Title Shot Going to "Not Yushin Okami": We've known that Thales Leites is getting the next shot at Anderson Silva's UFC Middleweight Title instead of Yushin Okami (who has a 7-1 UFC record), and it's not particularly surprising, given the UFC's oft-demonstrated disdain for Okami. But surely Okami would get the next shot at the Middleweight Title after that, right? Perhaps not.

If Silva beats Leites, then Silva is likely to fight in the light heavyweight division in his subsequent fight, and the next Middleweight Title shot could very well go to the winner of the June fight between TUF 9 coaches Dan Henderson and Michael Bisping, who is apparently getting a title shot. Keep waiting, Okami.

2009-01-17T00:06:00.001-05:00

Mixed Martial Arts: Nevada Commission Meets with UFC about Controversial Behavior on The Ultimate Fighter
by Ivan Trembow
Originally Published on MMAWeekly

At a meeting in December for which an official summary was released yesterday, Nevada State Athletic Commission officials expressed concerns to UFC officials about some of the behavior that was exhibited during the controversial eighth season of The Ultimate Fighter.

For each season of The Ultimate Fighter, dating back to the first season's filming in late 2004, Zuffa has requested and been granted a waiver of the NSAC's regulations relating to the results of NSAC-sanctioned fights being posted publicly. This allows the results of the fights on The Ultimate Fighter to remain secret until the fights air on Spike TV months later. These waivers must be requested and granted for each individual season of TUF.

Prior to granting the usual waivers to Zuffa for the upcoming ninth season of TUF, which recently started filming and is tentatively scheduled to begin airing on April 1, the NSAC wanted to talk to Zuffa about some of the behavior in the eighth season of TUF.

Present at the meeting were Lorenzo Fertitta, Frank Fertitta, Dana White, Marc Ratner, Kirk Hendrick, Michael Mersch, Lawrence Epstein, Andrea Richter, and Craig Piligian, at least four of whom were previously part of the NSAC in some capacity (Lorenzo Fertitta, Ratner, Hendrick, and Mersch).

Also present at the meeting were NSAC Commissioners Bill Brady, Skip Avansino, John Bailey, T.J. Day, and Pat Lundvall, as well as Executive Director Keith Kizer, Recording Secretary Sandy Johnson, and David Newton, who was attending on behalf of the Attorney General's Office.

After Lorenzo Fertitta's Power Point presentation on the history of the company, NSAC Executive Director Keith Kizer said that there was "some concern about behavior displayed by some of the contestants" during The Ultimate Fighter 8. The NSAC's official summary of the meeting goes on to say, "Lorenzo Fertitta stated that the UFC does not condone the behavior of those contestants and wants the State and the sport to be reflected in a good light. Lorenzo Fertitta stated that in the future there will be a closer look at any behavior that might be offensive prior to broadcast, and that Zuffa does not encourage such behavior and had no prior knowledge of it occurring."

After Commissioner Skip Avansino thanked all of the parties involved for attending the meeting, "Commissioner Avansino stated he did talk with Mr. Fertitta on the phone and he is confident that Zuffa will endeavor to monitor the show so such behavior will not occur again, and there will be no further incidents."

According to the official summary, "Lorenzo Fertitta then explained a UFC event had been held the week prior in Fort Bragg, NC, benefiting the Fallen Heroes Fund and that the contestants visited the soldiers in the hospitals, all of the admission was free, and they raised $4,000,000 for the fund."

At that point, Commissioner Avansino made a motion to approve Zuffa's petition for the usual waivers for the ninth season of The Ultimate Fighter. The motion was seconded by Commissioner Brady and approved by all of the commissioners.

The specific behavior in question was not detailed during the meeting, but among the incidents that occurred during TUF 8 were several involving Junie Browning. Throughout the course of the season, Browning threw a glass at Kyle Kingsbury; got into a poolside scuffle with Ryan Bader; jumped over the Octagon fence and went after Efrain Escudero in an aggressive manner immediately after Escudero defeated Shane Nelson in an NSAC-sanctioned fight; threw a glass at Shane Primm's head; and threw two punches at Primm. Browning was not kicked off of the show for any of these incidents, and was later featured in a fight on the televised main card of TUF 8's live season finale on Spike TV.

Also during the eighth season of TUF, several members of Team Mir urinated in a platter of fruit salad that was later eaten by several members of Team Nogueira; Kyle Kingsbury mixed his semen into a sushi platter that Dave Kaplan may or may not have later eaten; Tom Lawlor knocked Kaplan unconscious with a punch to the face after an intoxicated Kaplan begged him to do so; and Lawlor and Kaplan voluntarily drank shots of each other's urine while they were both intoxicated (although the voluntary urine-drinking was edited out of the show at the last minute in what was referred to as "a last-minute editorial decision" by Spike TV).

According to an article by Yahoo Sports' Kevin Iole that was published on January 13 (several weeks after this meeting took place in December between Zuffa and the Nevada State Athletic Commission), "UFC president Dana White said he�s not going to require the fighters to change anything about the way they behave. That means alcohol stays in the house and the fighters are free to do what they please when they please."

White was quoted in the article as saying, "If you take any young guys, from a frat house, and put them alone and together you�re going to get that kind of stuff. Welcome to dealing with young guys. I�ve talked to the pro skaters and snowboarders and they helicopter guys up to a house and sometimes they get snowed in. They told me that some of the [expletive] that happens with those guys makes what happened on The Ultimate Fighter look like a joke.�

2009-01-16T00:22:00.003-05:00

Mixed Martial Arts--- Random Thoughts on a Variety of Topics
by Ivan Trembow

-One Blemish on an Otherwise Excellent Show: The only part of UFC Primetime's first episode that wasn't excellent was the whole angle of, �BJ Penn is taking a vacation and Dana White is angry about it!� If that came across on TV as a fake, manufactured storyline, that's because it was a fake, manufactured storyline.

The fake, manufactured storyline is not that BJ Penn took a few days off, because he did take a few days off.

The fake, manufactured storyline is that this is anything out of the ordinary for top-level MMA fighters a couple of weeks before a big fight.

This kind of thing happens all the time in an effort to ensure that the fighters "peak" at fight time instead of a couple of weeks before fight time, and the UFC knows this very well.

But it was portrayed on the show like this: "Oh my god, BJ Penn just stopped training! He's just not taking his training seriously!" And then in Episodes 2 and 3 when they show footage of Penn training hard, it's going to be portrayed like this: "Wow, BJ Penn is once again serious about training... he slipped up a couple of weeks before the fight, but now he's serious again, just in time for the big fight!"

It's not that Penn taking a few days off is manufactured. It's the acting for the cameras like it's a big deal, or alarming, or even unusual that is manufactured.

I agree with Bloody Elbow's Luke Thomas, who wrote, "I'd like to see deeper looks into the fighters themselves, their rivalry, their similarities, their differences and their first fight than any manufactured storyline."

-California Commission Clears Gilbert Yvel: Sickeningly enough, the California State Athletic Commission has cleared Gilbert Yvel to fight on the Affliction show, as long as he passes the standard medical tests. I was very surprised and disappointed to hear that California granted Yvel the license that Nevada's commission would not.

No matter what Yvel told the CSAC about how well he's going to behave, and even if he does behave as a responsible martial artist in his fight against Josh Barnett, doesn't brutally attacking a referee the way that he did in 2004 --- under any circumstances --- warrant a lifetime ban from any state with an athletic commission? If it's not an official lifetime ban, then how about a de-facto lifetime ban of "we're never going to license you," which is pretty much what Yvel has in Nevada?

I know that Yvel has a million reasons for why the referee angered him, and he told many of them to the Nevada commission, but I tend to think that a fighter should never attack a referee no matter what the reasons. In a similar situation recently with a crooked, biased referee officiating his fight, Gary Goodridge simply walked out on the fight, losing by forfeit. Nobody made Yvel attack that referee, no matter what his reasons are. Factor in all of Yvel's other disqualification losses, and the decision to license him becomes all the more ridiculous.

Fights in January that I Am Eagerly Anticipating:

-Georges St. Pierre vs. BJ Penn at UFC 94

-Fedor Emelianenko vs. Andrei Arlovski at Affliction: Day of Reckoning

-Lyoto Machida vs. Thiago Silva at UFC 94

Fights in January that I Can't Believe Are on the Main Cards of Major Shows:

-Stephan Bonnar vs. Jon Jones at UFC 94 (seriously, this fight gets on the main card while the #2-ranked welterweight in the world, Jon Fitch, gets a prelim fight?)

-Josh Barnett vs. Gilbert Yvel at Affliction: Day of Reckoning (it's a disgrace for Yvel to be cleared by an athletic commission to fight anyone)

-Rousimar Palhares vs. Jeremy Horn at UFC 93 (Horn has lost four of his last six fights and has looked very uninspired in all four of those losses)

2009-01-14T23:31:00.003-05:00

Mixed Martial Arts--- Random Thoughts on a Variety of Topics
by Ivan Trembow

-UFC Primetime Debuts: After watching the first episode of UFC Primetime, I think it�s a very well produced show that is also a lot like HBO�s 24/7 series. It�s amazing to me (although no longer particularly surprising) to see how much the MMA media has been fawning all over the Primetime.

For a company that bashes every aspect of boxing as consistently as the UFC does, they sure don�t have a problem with emulating boxing-style promotion of a big fight. Wow, you mean that stuff filmed this week will be on the show just a day or two later? Oh my god, what a unique idea. It�s amazing to see how many web sites have described Primetime in that way (as if it�s a revolutionary concept), without also using the words �just like 24/7.�

There�s nothing inherently wrong with copying 24/7; it�s just hypocritical for the UFC to bash boxing all the time and then to duplicate 24/7 so blatantly. The style in which the music played over the training footage, the close-up camera angles on the fighters� faces as they�re being interviewed, the footage of their home lives� it was all very well done, and it was all very much like 24/7... and again, there�s nothing inherently wrong with that. Hopefully, there will be more of this kind of show in the future. In contrast to the Trash TV of The Ultimate Fighter, Primetime treats the sport with the dignity that it deserves.

-K-1 Dynamite a Mixed Bag: Shinya Aoki vs. Eddie Alvarez and Daisuke Nakamura vs. Hideo Tokoro were very good fights. The various freak show match-ups were not.

-UFC's Awards for Best Fights of 2008: It�s April Fool�s Day three months early with what must be a tongue-in-cheek article on the UFC�s web site about the best fights of 2008. When they had an article in early 2008 about the best fights of 2007, I laighed when they had Griffin-Bonnar II in their honorable mentions for Fight of the Year, but they�ve really out-done themselves this time! Sean Sherk vs. Tyson Griffin? Paul Kelly vs. Paul Taylor? Antoni Hardonk vs. Eddie Sanchez? Chris Lytle vs. Paul Taylor? Aaron Riley vs. Jorge Gurgel? The Onion has nothing on them when it comes to satire, apparently.

-Affliction's Second MMA Event Coming Up: Affliction's first MMA event did better business than I thought it would from a PPV standpoint, but it will be hard for the second show to come anywhere close to that. It was funny to hear how delusional Trump lawyer Michael Cohen was during the recent press conference for Affliction's event. Affliction�s Tom Antencio said something like, �We know we�re not the UFC. The UFC is like the Q-Tip of MMA. We�re just trying to put on great shows.� Then minutes later, Cohen must have been confused because he said, �Just like Tom said, we are going to be the Q-Tip of MMA!�

Cohen also hilariously said, �Many members of the media have said that this is the MMA card of the century!� It�s a good card, sure, but I don�t recall even one member of the media (much less �many�) who has called it the event �of the century.�

Like some of his fellow MMA promoters, Atencio has also made a habit out of blatantly lying about business figures. Atencio's blatant lies will make it very hard to feel sorry for him when his MMA promotion goes out of business, which is what's going to happen if his second show loses as much money as his first.

-UFC's Lack of Competition Nothing to Celebrate: With that said (regarding Affliction potentially going out of business), the lack of legit competition to the UFC is nothing to celebrate. Rich Franklin vs. Dan Henderson is a good match-up, but not as the main event of a PPV event, especially when PPVs cost $45. The same was true of Matt Hughes vs. Thiago Alves last year. If the UFC had more legitimate competition, they would have much less of an ability to get away with sometimes offering sub-standard product at full price.

If the only defense to the sub-standard PPV main events is that they're inevitable when the UFC runs so many PPV events, then it�s a cop-out because nobody is forcing them to run 12 or 13 PPV events per year. So far, it has generally only been a few times per year that they have PPV main events that aren�t worthy of being PPV main events, so I�d much rather have 10 PPV events per year and have all of them be worthy of being $45 PPVs than have 12 per year and have a few of those with sub-standard main events.

If, theoretically, the UFC decided to cut two PPV events per year from their schedule, they could still have the same number of total main card slots in which to showcase fighters if they were to also add two free TV events per year to their schedule (or, for that matter, they could add more than that). They run into these problems where they are scrambling to fill all of the PPV main event slots with great fights, but that would happen less often if they didn�t have quite as many PPV main events that they had to book in the first place.

2008-12-23T17:35:00.005-05:00

Mixed Martial Arts--- Zuffa Makes #2-Ranked Jon Fitch a Prelim Fighter Again
by Ivan Trembow

In his first fight after his excellent title match against Georges St. Pierre and his first fight since the UFC/AKA contract dispute, Jon Fitch has been relegated to being a preliminary fighter on the UFC's January 31st event, according to the UFC�s own web site.

This comes on the heels of Yushin Okami's fight on this Saturday's show being relegated to prelim status in favor of both Cheick Kongo versus a fighter making his UFC debut; and C.B. Dollaway versus a fighter making his UFC debut.

Not only is the Fitch fight being slotted below the Karo Parisyan main card bout (in Parisyan�s first fight since he pulled out of a fight at the last minute); not only is the Fitch fight being slotted below the Nathan Diaz-Clay Guida main card bout; but freaking Stephan Bonnar vs. Jon Jones is a main card fight while the #2-ranked welterweight in the world is in the prelims. Unbelievable.

I guess the UFC felt that they needed to send even more of a message to Fitch and his management than they already did. After all, when fear, intimidation, and making examples out of people is how you run your business, you have to follow through with severe consequences when someone doesn't immediately sign something that you ordered them to sign, right?

Being unfairly relegated to the prelims is something that Fitch has faced before... his first 5 UFC fights were all wins over Brock Larson, Josh Burkman, Thiago Alves, Kuniyoshi Hironaka, and Luigi Fioravanti, and all of them except the Hironaka fight were non-televised prelims.

Now, after three more UFC wins (for a total of eight), and one loss to St. Pierre (for a total of one UFC loss), Fitch is in the prelims again.

There is no justification for this. It is not justifiable for a fighter to match the UFC�s all-time consecutive wins record by beating eight strong opponents in a row, then lose to the #1 fighter in his weight class in a UFC Match of the Year candidate, and then be in the prelims in his next fight.

2008-12-17T16:56:00.002-05:00

Mixed Martial Arts Flashback--- Gilbert Yvel's Request for a Fighter's License Gets Rejected by Nevada Commissioners
by Ivan Trembow

Longtime fans of MMA were surprised and appalled when Affliction recently announced that Josh Barnett's opponent on their January 24th event would be Gilbert Yvel.

Besides the fact that it's a mismatch for Barnett, who is the #3-ranked heavyweight in the world based on MMAWeekly's World MMA Rankings, there's also the fact that Yvel is universally regarded as the dirtiest fighter in the sport.

Yvel has been disqualified numerous times, and also attacked a referee in 2004. Affliction is apparently feeling more desperate than tasteful, because attempting to book Yvel to fight on your show is a tasteless move.

Of course, Yvel can't fight in California unless he is granted a fighter's license by the California State Athletic Commission. No self-respecting athletic commission would grant Yvel a fighter's license after everything that he has done, but then again, no self-respecting MMA promotion would attempt to book Yvel on their show, and yet here we are.

Here's what happened in early 2007 when Yvel requested a fighter's license from the Nevada State Athletic Commission, as I wrote in an article on MMAWeekly.

Pride Fighting Championships previously submitted the match-up of Sergei Kharitonov vs. Gilbert Yvel to the Nevada State Athletic Commission for approval as part of the February 24th line-up, but the NSAC would not approve the fight without a special hearing due to the fact that Yvel has been disqualified on three separate occasions in his MMA career, most recently when he brutally attacked the referee during a 2004 fight in Europe.

Yvel was asked to explain his actions in each of his three disqualifications. Yvel remained calm and polite throughout the hearing, but he also seemed to be oblivious to the fact that the NSAC did not understand his justifications for his actions.

In regards to his first DQ loss, which took place in 1998 when Yvel bit his opponent, Yvel said that he was "really young and had a really bad temper" at that time. Yvel said, "My opponent, he gave me a headbutt, and I told the referee, but the referee was like, 'Nothing is happening.' And then he did it again with the headbutt, and that was what caused my reaction, to bite him."

Yvel's second disqualification loss was in a 2001 fight against Don Frye, during which Yvel repeatedly eye-gouged Frye. Regarding this incident, Yvel explained, "Don Frye is a very, very strong man, and he was pushing all his body strength against me. I just put my fingers against his nose to push him away from me, and I wasn't really paying attention to what place my fingers were, and my finger slipped on to his eye. It was in the heat of the moment and I can tell you it was not my intention to put my finger in his eye."

The most infamous incident was in 2004 when Yvel got into an argument with the referee during a fight in Europe and proceeded to punch the referee in the face and then kick him.

The commissioners were familiar with the incident and seemed disgusted by it: "This commission has all seen the video of the punching and kicking of the referee... I've never in my life seen somebody do what you did. What was going through your mind?"

Yvel gave a very long response, which was interrupted several times as the commissioners tried to get him to talk about the pivotal moment where he decided to attack the referee.

The following are excerpts from the full response: "In that fight, I fought almost for free... the referee was the trainer of my opponent, the promoter of the event, and he kept us waiting for four hours to pick us up at the airport [before the event], and then at the gym he kept us waiting for three more hours. We were just waiting and waiting..."

This was one of the several occasions when the commissioners seemed to be very frustrated, as they interrupted Yvel and said, "I want you to tell me what went through your mind when the referee broke up the fighters and you felt the need to hit the referee in the face and then return back and kick him. What were you thinking?"

Yvel said "sorry" and was polite at all times during the hearing, but he seemed to be oblivious to the commissioners' frustration. Yvel continued, "In the bout, I punched my opponent really hard and he didn't want to fight anymore. He didn't want to fight anymore and we almost fell out of the ring! He was ready to walk away from the fight, he wanted out of the fight, but the referee was trying to pull him back into the fight, and he said, 'Stop, don't move.' And when the referee says, 'Stop, don't move,' then you're supposed to go to the center of the ring in the same position. But he didn't do that, he put us in the center of the ring standing up. He put us standing up instead of on the ground, and that's not right. The referee put me in a bad position and my opponent in a good position by doing that, and the referee was screaming at me, and he was pulling at me. He was screaming and pulling, screaming and pulling, and at that moment, I am there to fight..."

At this point, the commissioners interrupted again, sounding fed up and saying, "Mr. Yvel, Mr. Yvel, you've got 30 seconds. The floor is yours for 30 more seconds."

At that point, Yvel finished up by saying, "And at that moment, I got mad and I hit the referee and I kicked him. Yeah."

With Yvel having explained all of his problems with the referee, the commissioners unanimously agreed to deny his application for a fighters' license. This is not like a suspension where the fighter can't fight anywhere in the world for a certain period of time; Yvel simply can't fight in Nevada because he is not being given a license to fight in Nevada.

2008-12-13T16:45:00.007-05:00

Mixed Martial Arts--- Browning & Kaplan Each Planned TUF Antics Ahead of Time; Kaplan Wants Fight of the Night Bonus Just as Much as a Win
by Ivan Trembow

According to three different Ultimate Fighter 8 contestants quoted by the Canadian Press' Neil Davidson, Junie Browning admitted to those contestants at various times that he planned his antics on TUF 8 ahead of time in order to make a big name for himself.

Among the quotes are this one from light heavyweight contestant Krzysztof Soszynski:

"To be honest with you, he did everything for show. It was a whole joke to him. Basically he told me the very first day we met - and before our fights to get into the house - he basically said 'If I get into this house, I'm going to be the crazy guy. I'm going to get out of hand, I'm going to get out of control, I'm going to pull whatever I can just to get ratings, to become the character that I want to become.' He said he was going to become the worst Chris Leben ever."

And this one from light heavyweight contestant Ryan Bader:

"I saw him a couple of weeks ago at UFC 91. He told me 'Bader, that's not really me,' this and that, but he still has that in him obviously for him to do that kind of stuff. He has some problems as far as that. But I think a couple of things he was hamming it up for the cameras, knowing he was going into that bad guy mold already, that he might as well go full steam ahead and definitely be talked about."

And this one from lightweight contestant Efrain Escudero:

"Escudero said Browning confessed one on one: "'I'm sorry guys, I don't usually do this but I just want to be on TV.'"

So, Browning did all of that to make a name for himself, and guess what? It worked. The UFC rewarded him for his behavior.

Instead of nipping Browning�s behavior in the bud by kicking him off the show the first time he did something that warranted being kicked off (or the second time), they built the whole season around him, they didn�t kick him off the show (and thus out of the UFC) even after five separate offenses that individually warranted being kicked off, and they gave him the one and only main card fight on the live finale that involves TUF 8 contestants who were not tournament finalists.

Can you imagine what the behavior of the contestants will be on future TUF seasons now that they have seen someone do five different things that warrant being kicked off the show and still not be kicked off?

Actually, I�m sure that the UFC, Spike TV, and the show�s producers can imagine what kind of behavior that message is going to further encourage, and they probably view that as a good thing: Even more hijinks to come on future seasons!

Dave Kaplan is another fighter who "made a name for himself" with his drunken antics, and of all the lightweight fighters from the show who did not make the tournament finals, he just happened to be the one that the UFC chose to fight Browning in the only main card fight that does not involve tournament finalists.

Based on this interview on USA Today�s web site, it looks like Kaplan planned the same kind of thing as Browning, and he was rewarded for it just like Browning. Kaplan said:

�I think I did a good job. There was definitely some things that I may have changed and there�s something that I might wish I might�ve done a little bit more of. But as far as, with letting Tom punch me in the face, that went 100% the way that we wanted to. � It�s one of the main events of the show, if they do a top 25 best moments of all the shows, that one gets part of it, so I�m happy with that. I feel like I was definitely one of the memorable people. Junie obviously, was one, if not the most memorable. But other than him, I mean, I get recognized everywhere I go. there�s a lot of guys, guys fighting in the finals now that didn�t make that much of an impression, as far as in the house and stuff like that. I felt like I did exactly what I wanted to do. I�m fighting on TV on Saturday just like they are, so obviously I did.�

In the same interview, Kaplan displays a Marcus Davis/Chris Lytle kind of attitude that the most important thing is not to do your best and win quickly and decisively if possible, but to go out there and have an epic back-and-forth fight so that you can get the UFC's Fight of the Night bonus:

�I don�t care about the winning or losing as far as, that�s not my main goal. I want this fight to be talked about more than the finals are talked about and I think that it has the possibility because of both of our styles of being that kind of battle� there�s a part of me that wants it to go 15 minutes. Because I want that Fight of the Night, and I want that battle, and the back-and-forth, both of us putting it on the line and punching. If I bleed that�d be awesome; if he bleeds, that�d be awesome. That�s what I want. I want the Fight of the Night; I want that extra 30, 40 grand that you get for that, and if you beat somebody quick, you�re not going to necessarily get that.�

Additionally, Browning's coach on The Ultimate Fighter, former UFC Heavyweight Champion Frank Mir, has come out strongly against the UFC's decision to reward Browning with a main card fight on the live finale:

"Putting him on the main card, it does reward his behavior. It shows people that if you act like a moron or idiot, you'll get face time. That equals money, so it's creating a shortcut, and they don't have to invest as much time into fighting... I realize that Spike has to sell TV time, and I understand that's part of the whole game, but as far as me as a martial artist I find it an insult."

Of course, it doesn't have to be that way. It's not a black-and-white choice between Trash TV and no show at all. Luke Thomas of BloodyElbow.com put it very well when he wrote:

"I disagree with Mir that there is an inevitability to it all. There is an enormous universe of interesting content between watching fighters train and watching them ingest one another's bodily fluids. It's nothing more than a poverty of imagination and reliance on the lowest common denominator that prevents Spike's producers from delivering that sort of content. Hopefully some of the pushback from this season will scale back the boorish nonsense we were subjected to this time around."

2008-12-07T17:14:00.004-05:00

Boxing--- Wow, what a performance by Manny Pacquiao in his fight against Oscar de la Hoya on Saturday night. Most of the discussion going into the fight was about De la Hoya's size advantage, but it ended up being Pacquiao's speed advantage that made the difference.

Pacquiao's strategy was very similar to his strategy in the fight earlier this year against lightweight title-holder David Diaz, and that was an equally one-sided beating.

Pacquiao�s performance was one of the most masterful performances I have seen in combat sports in many years, especially given that just last year De la Hoya had a very competitive fight with Floyd Mayweather.

Going into the fight, I wasn't sure who was going to win, but it was clear that Pacquiao had all the tools to beat De la Hoya and at least had a chance of winning. It�s unbelievable how many people in the sports media were saying, �De la Hoya will automatically win because he�s bigger.� Yes, that gave him an advantage, but no, that did not automatically mean that he was going to win.

Mixed Martial Arts--- Most pro wrestlers are afraid to do anything that might displease Vince McMahon, even if they have just been released from WWE, and it appears that some MMA fighters are afraid to do anything that might displease Dana White, even if they have just been released from the UFC.

Just as some pro wrestlers avoid signing with TNA Wrestling to avoid upsetting McMahon, recently released UFC fighter Jorge Gurgel said in an interview with CBS Sportsline that he didn't want to sign with Affliction's MMA promotion in part because he didn't want to get "black-listed."

Gurgel said: "Apparently, Dana [White] and the UFC do not like Affliction. I do not want to go to a place that the UFC does not like and have the possibility of getting black-listed."

Kickboxing--- Why on earth did HDNet hire Kevin "Kimbo Slice" Ferguson to do color commentary for the U.S. broadcast of the K-1 World Grand Prix Finals? It would be bad enough to hire Ferguson to do commentary for an MMA event, but this was a kickboxing event. It's as if HDNet was so excited to get an interview with Ferguson that they thought, �To heck with booking him in a long interview segment on Inside MMA; let's put him on commentary for the biggest event of the year in a sport in which he has never competed"!

Mixed Martial Arts--- Here's a quote from UFC welterweight Marcus Davis about his upcoming fight against Chris Lytle:

"We�ve both been like, �I respect you, respect what you do, but a fight between each other is money in the bank.' I basically said, �Yeah, let�s do it and the first guy to take the other guy down is a p--sy.'"

These kinds of statements are disgraceful and are yet another example of the glorification of C-level kickboxing within MMA.

2008-12-04T01:20:00.006-05:00

Sleazeball Promoters and Trash TV: What The Ultimate Fighter Has Become
by Ivan Trembow

After two weeks of commercials on Spike TV that prominently advertised Junie Browning's fourth meltdown on this season of The Ultimate Fighter, I wrote the following late Tuesday night about what I expected to happen on Wednesday night's show:

"I think it's likely that after Browning's fourth major incident, viewers are going to be subjected to a sanctimonious speech from Dana White about how the UFC won't stand for that kind of behavior, and then he'll finally kick Browning off the show, oblivious or apathetic to the fact that keeping Browning on the show after the previous three incidents has already made a mockery of the show's credibility."

Clearly, the mistake that I made was overestimating UFC president Dana White's professional integrity.

The three previous incidents that each could have and should have resulted in Browning being kicked off the show were throwing a glass at Kyle Kingsbury, getting into a poolside scuffle with Ryan Bader, and jumping over the Octagon fence in an aggressive, looking-for-a-fight manner after another contestant's official MMA match had just ended.

In the 12th and final pre-taped episode of the season, Browning threw a glass at fellow contestant Shane Primm's head and proceeded to throw two punches at Primm. Either of those actions would have warranted kicking Browning off the show, so at this point there were five different actions that should have resulted in Browning being kicked off the show.

Due to the previous three incidents, the hit to the show's credibility and to UFC president Dana White's own credibility would have been bad enough if he had come into the house at that point and given the usual sanctimonious speech about how they don't tolerate that kind of behavior.

Instead, based on his subsequent words and actions, White came into the house appearing to already have the storyline worked out in his mind to justify the unjustifiable and keep Browning on the show (and in the UFC).

White framed the issue as if the only way for "justice to be served" (as he put it) was for Browning to stay on the show so that he could fight in the semi-finals and possibly lose in the semi-finals to Efrain Escudero, as opposed to being kicked off the show without losing a fight during the process.

White set up the false premise that the other fighters in the house would be the one to determine Browning's fate, then quickly negated any chance of the fighters saying that Browning should be kicked off the show by essentially making it a question of the fighters' manhood.

While talking about whether he should kick Browning off the show or not, White asked Browning's scheduled opponent, Escudero, "You wanna f--king beat his ass, right?"

Well, when the issue is framed in that context, what do you think Escudero is going to say? "No, I don't want to beat his ass"? Of course not. Instead, the answer was exactly what White counted on it to be: "Yes, I do."

At no point during this process did White mention on the show that the decision on whether to kick Browning off the show or not is also the difference between Browning being released from the UFC like many other TUF contestants before him, or Browning continuing to be in the UFC whether he wins in the semi-finals or loses in the semi-finals.

Despite the tagline of, "8 Fighters, 1 Contract" or "16 Fighters, 1 Contract," the opposite has always been the case with TUF. All of the fighters are already under long-term UFC contracts unless the UFC releases them. If you can just make it through the show without getting kicked off of it for behavioral reasons, you are almost guaranteed a fight on the live season finale line-up, even though it won't be in the tournament finals.

Heck, the fighter who gets tapped out in the semi-finals of TUF (like C.B. Dollaway) could very well be the same fighter who is on the main card of a major PPV event later that same year, while the #5-ranked middleweight in the world (Yushin Okami) languishes on the untelevised preliminary card.

Ultimate Fighter contestants who don't actually win the TUF tournaments are afforded far more of those kinds of opportunities in the UFC than non-TUF-contestants; the Dollaway-Okami debacle is merely the latest and most sickening example.

Of course, the issue wasn't framed on the show in the context of Browning being kicked out of the UFC or Browning not being kicked out of the UFC and actually continuing to fight in the UFC whether he wins or loses in the semi-finals. No, it was presented to the other fighters as, "You wanna f--king beat his ass, right?" and it was presented to viewers at home as, "You wanna f--king see him get his ass beat, right?"

White also presented the ridiculous argument on the show that Browning would have been able to tell people in his hometown that he was kicked off of TUF for being so much of a bad-ass, as if that factor is equal in its importance to the show's remaining credibility being destroyed.

Keeping Junie Browning in the UFC after five separate actions that would have individually warranted kicking him off the show and out of the UFC is not "justice being served," as White said. It's White acting like a sleazeball promoter. That's what it is.

One must also keep in mind the message that this sends to future TUF contestants. When the UFC actually does want to send a message about something to other fighters, they do that by making examples out of people. (Ask Jon Fitch about that for verification.)

In Browning's case, instead of sending a message of that kind of behavior not being tolerated, the exact opposite message has been sent.

"Act like an idiot, do things that could and should get you kicked off the show, and we'll build an entire season around you and keep you in the UFC instead of kicking you out of TUF and outside of the UFC."

That's the message that has been sent to the contestants on the next four seasons of TUF. After letting Browning get away with five different actions that should have gotten him kicked off the show, one can only imagine what the contestants are going to do on future seasons of TUF, and perhaps that was the point of the UFC making the decisions that they made. In fact, it would be naive to think that such a message being sent so blatantly was completely unintentional ("You're actually a great reality TV star," White told Browning).

Just this week, UFC co-owner Lorenzo Fertitta was quoted in The Atlantic as saying that The Ultimate Fighter was meant to "let people see kind of how these guys are, that they�re not thugs."

Really? Because I'm pretty sure that this season of the show would have accomplished the opposite to new and old fans alike.

A new viewer of mixed martial arts would have watched this season of TUF and would have been disgusted to see that mentally unstable drunkards are seemingly among the top up-and-coming fighters in the sport, that their behavior is tolerated and even rewarded with endless amounts of camera time, and that the show that is supposedly the breeding ground for the next big stars in the sport of MMA is actually just another Trash TV reality series.

A long-time viewer with a greater understanding of what they're watching would share the same thoughts and would also be disgusted to see just how much Dana White is willing to prostitute the show and the sport for an extra 0.3 of a ratings point.

Update: Wow, this takes shameless to a new level. Not only is Junie Browning still in the UFC and still fighting on the season finale card as I speculated earlier, but according to the UFC's web site, he's actually on the main card that will be airing on Spike TV.

Browning's opponent in that main card bout is none other than the second-biggest drunkard of the season, Dave Kaplan, who taught us all that concussions are to be treated as a funny thing when he got filthy-drunk and begged light heavyweight Tom Lawlor to knock him unconscious (which he did).

Meanwhile, fighters who did not frequently get piss-drink and make fools of themselves (such as Krzysztof Soszynski, Eliot Marshall, John Polakowski, George Roop, Shane Primm, Jules Bruchez, and Roli Delgado) have been relegated to the untelevised prelims on the same night.

Now, when the UFC says that they don't "encourage" drunken idiocy on TUF, they won't be "kind of lying," they'll be flat-out lying.

If it wasn't already made crystal-clear by Dana White's decision to not kick Browning off the show, despite five separate actions that warranted being kicked off the show, the message has been made all the more clear to future TUF contestants on how they should behave if they want to get a prominent push from the UFC.

2008-12-03T03:52:00.002-05:00

Surprise, Surprise! Another Incident Involving Junie Browning on Tonight's TUF
by Ivan Trembow

I am looking forward to tonight's loaded WEC show, headlined by Miguel Torres vs. Manny Tapia, but I am not looking forward to tonight's installments of The Ultimate Drunkard (also known as The Ultimate Fighter).

When the decision was made earlier in the season to not kick Junie Browning off the show even though he did multiple things that would have individually warranted being kicked off the show, any remaining doubt was removed about whether the powers-that-be have any faith left in the concept of "a bunch of young fighters struggle to earn their way into the TUF finals" (as opposed to the "get a bunch of Type-A personalities wasted and film the ensuing chaos" concept).

Zuffa president Dana White has said in recent interviews that the final decision was his alone to make, and that everyone else involved in the production of the show was shocked that Browning was not kicked off.

Later in the season, the show devolved further into the realm of Trash TV and actually sunk lower than Trash TV ever has, as several members of Team Nogueira ate a platter of fruit salad without knowing that several members of Team Mir had urinated in it; and Dave Kaplan ate some sushi without knowing that Kyle Kingsbury had mixed his semen into it (I can't believe I just wrote that sentence).

And now that the season is coming to an end, what better time to dip back to the depths of Trash TV? As the commercials on Spike TV have been prominently advertising for the past two weeks, Junie Browning goes nuts again and is shown in the commercial swinging at another contestant, which would be the fourth thing that Browning has done that would normally warrant kicking a contest off of the show (the first three were throwing a glass at Kyle Kingsbury, getting into a poolside altercation with Ryan Bader, and jumping over the Octagon fence in an aggressive, looking-for-a-fight manner after another contestant's official MMA fight had just ended).

As I wrote earlier in the season when the UFC made the decision not to kick Browning off the show, "You think there's going to be another incident of some kind involving Junie Browning before the season wraps? Of course there is, and that's the point." By not kicking Browning off the show, another volatile situation or near-fight in the house was almost guaranteed to break out at some point.

I think it's likely that after Browning's fourth major incident, viewers are going to be subjected to a sanctimonious speech from Dana White about how the UFC won't stand for that kind of behavior, and then he'll finally kick Browning off the show, oblivious or apathetic to the fact that keeping Browning on the show after the previous three incidents has already made a mockery of the show's credibility.

To a degree, it has always been like this on TUF, but this time around, viewers have been practically beaten over the head with it.

At this point, it takes a special kind of "naive" to think that Browning's behavior is not what the UFC wants from at least one contestant on each season.

2008-11-25T16:44:00.004-05:00

"Champions' Clauses" and Potty-Mouthed Executives
by Ivan Trembow

Unless Georges St. Pierre has signed a new contract in the past few months, his fight against B.J. Penn on January 31 is the final fight on his UFC contract.

However, due to the "champions' clause" in UFC contracts, St. Pierre is considered to be under UFC contract at the same pay rate for as long as he holds the UFC Welterweight Title. This clause allows the UFC to extend a fighter's contract for one year or three fights at the same pay rate when he successfully defends a title.

If he holds the title for the rest of his career and retires, then he would be under UFC contract for the rest of his life.

What's not entirely clear is what happens if he loses the title to Penn on January 31. Would he become a free agent? Or would he still be locked into the same pay rate until one year/three fights from his last successful title defense, which was a decision win over Jon Fitch in August 2008?

Either way, St. Pierre is likely to stay with the UFC (based on the fact that he has publicly said so); it's just a matter of whether he is locked into the same pay rate by the "champions' clause."

Update: Michael Rome of BloodyElbow.com reports that St. Pierre has signed a new contract with the UFC.

Potty-Mouthed Executives
There was a mini-scandal in the NFL last week when the General Manager of the Cleveland Browns used one profanity in an e-mail to a fan.

Also last week, Dana White posted the following message about MMA Mania on the Underground Forum through his surrogates: ""Suck my [expletive]! The day a [expletive] website knows more about UFC business deals I have made than I do will... just [expletive] these [expletive]. If they're headlining their [expletive] in a way that even comes close to claiming I [expletive] said "[expletive] Fitch for not signing a video game agreement" then they're [expletive] scumbag [expletive]!""

Apparently, we have lower standards for MMA executives.

2008-11-22T17:08:00.003-05:00

The Effect of Super-Heavyweights on MMA; More on UFC/AKA Debacle
by Ivan Trembow

Zach Arnold of FightOpinion.com asked an interesting question following Brock Lesnar's win over Randy Couture. Lesnar weighs in at the heavyweight limit of 265 pounds and then walks into the Octagon the next day at 275 to 280 pounds, which prompted this question:

�So, how much of an issue will weight be, given the result of this fight? If Lesnar is a natural super-heavyweight..."

The first thing this will mean is that anyone who is 230 pounds or lower will be cutting weight shortly before their fights to make the light heavyweight of 205 pounds. Actually, that is what already happens in the majority of cases anyway.

On a wider level, if natural super-heavyweights fighting at heavyweight becomes the norm (ie, fighters stepping into the cage at 275+ pounds) the fighters that it�s really going to negatively affect are the fighters whose natural weight is in the 230 to 249 pound range.

Those fighters are the ones who would really be in a tough situation. If they try to cut to light heavyweight, it will be very difficult for them to lose enough weight to make 205 pounds, even by MMA's extreme weight-cutting standards.

If they choose to stay in the heavyweight division, it will also be very difficult for them to fight against fighters who outweigh them by huge amounts of weight. It may be a disadvantageous situation either way for fighters in the 230 to 249 pound range, and that's a lot of fighters.

More on UFC/AKA Debacle
According to what Jon Fitch said in a video interview with MMA Rated, what happened during the Lorenzo Fertitta coversation was that Fertitta "give his word" that the merchandising contract was not a permanent thing and that if he "ever wanted to leave," there's a possibility that he could get out of it. Of course, the actual contract says that it's both lifetime and exclusive, as Dana White acknowledged in the USA Today interview.

It's also interesting to note how the UFC is preying on fighters' lack of knowledge about other potential video game deals. We've seen multiple fighters, including Fitch, say something to the effect of, "Come on, who else is going to be want to put ME in a video game?" This demonstrates that they are completely unaware of the fact that the biggest video game publisher in the world, Electronic Arts, also has a mixed martial arts game in the pipeline, and unlike Zuffa/THQ, they are willing to pay fighters to be a part of it. It's not like it would be a huge amount of money, but it shows the fighters not being aware of what they're signing away.

On a related note, it is amusing, but not really surprising, to see that the UFC was crying "poor economy, poor economy" throughout the whole UFC/AKA mess (as well as during seemingly every UFC press conference and interview these days), given that the UFC has publicly mocked boxing promoter Bob Arum for mentioning the poor economy.

Robert Joyner of MMAPayout.com wrote a good editorial about the UFC/AKA situation (available here); as did Sam Caplan of FiveOuncesofPain.com (available here).