The casual observer of the wonderful sport of mixed martial arts might think that only one important event descended upon the world this past weekend. But if one looks a bit deeper, a series of intriguing and important circumstances occurred.
A tough time for the TUF crowd?
I highly doubt that I am in the minority when the thought of Matt Serra (Pictures) locking horns with either Matt Hughes (Pictures) or Georges St. Pierre (Pictures) elicits the reaction “decimation just waiting to happen.” I also feel the same way about Travis Lutter (Pictures) facing off against Anderson Silva (Anderson Silva' class='LinkSilver'>Pictures), though Lutter has a much better chance of snatching a title than does Serra.
Yes, the fights will bring in a ton of viewers because they will take place in February on the UFC Super Bowl Saturday card, but most agree that neither Serra nor Lutter are as deserving of a title shot as a few guys in their respective weight classes.
There really isn’t much to be said about the two TUF 4 champions than hasn’t already been said, other than congrats to you both. There also isn’t much to be said about the TUF 4 finale as well, other than it was a rather ho-hum card.
UFC president Dana White told me after the event that the fight between Pete Sell (Pictures) and Scott Smith (Scott Smith' class='LinkSilver'>Pictures) was, “the best, sickest fight I’ve ever seen.” I asked him if he felt it was better than a few other legendary fights and he said, “… that fight blows everything else away.”
My question to Dana, though, is what did I miss?
Sure the knockout was awesome and wild, but the rest of the fight was just OK. It was a lot like Robbie Lawler (Pictures)-Chris Lytle (Pictures), where it was pretty cool, but nothing close to legendary. That stunning knockout is what makes the fight memorable and that’s it.
Dana, in my opinion, was overcome with glee of course, but after watching the fight about five times, I can safely assess that Smith-Sell ranks somewhere in the top 40 or so of greatest fights ever and that’s being very, very generous. The fight wasn’t that great.
The rest of the card was ordinary and now we can look forward to TUF 5 where it will be only lightweights. I know Jens Pulver (Pictures) and B.J. Penn (Pictures) are supposed to be coaches, but it’s gotten to the point now where I am actually not excited about another season of The Ultimate Fighter.
It’ll be the same house, the same shenanigans, the same mediocre fights, the same rules, the same editing tricks, the same aesthetics, the same attitude, the same everything. Unless mastermind Dana can pump some new blood into his unbelievably popular series, I may be inclined to watch the season some other time and not every Thursday.
Why not take a handful of A and B level fighters, put them all on one massive UFC pay-per-view event, follow them around for six to eight full weeks while they train for a huge fight against someone else on the card, and have the entire season crescendo on PPV?
Make it something like Liddell-Ortiz II. Fill the card from top to bottom with the best of the best under contract to Zuffa and each week focus on two of the guys? Or… something like that. I realize that the Spike TV shows are popular and they are a perfect marketing vehicle for the PPV events, but if we have to watch another predictable TUF season, I’ll puke.
Let’s face it: the vast majority of the fights on Spike TV, including UFC Fight Night and TUF finale cards, or low grade quality. I have also not been excited for a huge PPV UFC event in over a year.
The product is slowly becoming watered down and hopefully Dana and crew can add some life into a saturated commodity before it becomes a bloated carcass. If White can do what he did with TUF, he can do the same to reverse what might wind up being a square mile of quicksand.
A lackluster anticlimax over in Japan
I had to wait a full week to finally watch PRIDE’s latest Bushido card? I had to wait a full week for that? While the card wasn’t exactly the worst MMA card ever arranged, it clearly wasn’t even in the top 100 of all-time great fight cards. The match-ups were solid and there was quite a bit of hype surrounding the event, but at the end of the day, Bushido 13 was sub-par at best.
Not one single bout elicited any sort of excitement from my couch and the way the welterweight tournament unraveled left too much to be desired.
I am all for tournaments, as they are truly the best way to figure out who, exactly, is the best fighter out of a certain weight division (provided, of course, the best fighters are thrown into the mix). The one problem that I have always had with single-day tourneys are the injuries that force victorious fighters off the bill, leaving the promoters no choice but to toss a loser or winner of an alternate match into the fire.
The finals of the Bushido Welterweight Grand Prix should have been Denis Kang (Pictures) against Paulo Filho (Pictures), but because the Brazilian injured his knee in his semifinal match with Kazuo Misaki (Pictures) the entire foundation of the grand prix was leveled.
Filho versus Kang was going to be one hell of a fight, a battle that probably would have saved the Bushido card from totally sucking. But since the injury forced Filho off the card, the end result was a letdown.
It’s disheartening to see Misaki, who was owned by Filho, walk away with the tournament championship when he did virtually nothing except tapout in order to reach the finals.
Granted, that is a fact that the fighters involved all know well in advance, but PRIDE and other organizations that arrange tournament-style events should rethink their system. Never should a losing fighter be crowned the champion that same night because he filled in for an injured competitor.
PRIDE should have taken Kang and Filho and pitted them against one another on New Year’s Eve.
PRIDE also should reevaluate their championship/belt holder system as well. Dan Henderson (Pictures) and Takanori Gomi (Pictures) as well as Fedor Emelianenko (Pictures) and Wanderlei Silva (Pictures) should not participate in Grand Prix tournaments since they already possess titles.
Most thought that Gomi was no longer the champ when Marcus Aurelio (Marcus Aurelio' class='LinkSilver'>Pictures) choked him out, but since it was a non-title fight he kept the belt. Casual observers will always be confused and even some of the more hardcore fans were confounded.
The grand prix events are set up to create a champion and once a champion is crowned, all future tournaments in the weight class should be designed to uncover the champion’s No. 1 contender, not have the champion compete in the tourney again.
But that is just my opinion and just in case PRIDE is reading this, it’s also the opinion of many, many fans and MMA media members.
After watching the event as a whole and thinking about it, Bushido 13 was arguably the worst (or in a friendlier term: least exciting) PRIDE card in history. Not one fight was stellar. Not one fight. Not even the hotly awaited rematch between Gomi and Aurelio was worth writing more than a sentence about.
The finals were a total letdown. Nobuhiro Obiya (Pictures)-Luiz Firmino (Pictures) was a horrendously boring fight. Joe Pearson (Pictures) pulled off a quick guillotine against Yoshida Maeda and that’s it. The fight between David Bielkheden (Pictures) and Mitsuhiro Ishida (Pictures) almost put me to sleep. Shinya Aoki (Pictures) made me laugh with those ridiculous yellow tights, though he had good triangle to submit Clay French (Pictures). Gomi-Aurelio II was a disappointment.
I typically hate wacky entrances that drag on for minutes, but I totally dig Japanese superstar Akihiro Gono (Pictures) and his entrances. Sure it's cheesy and over the top, but isn't that the point? He cracks me up beyond belief and I think the main reason why I enjoy watching his ring entrances is because he's doing it for laughs. Whenever a fighter does not take himself too seriously and has some fun with what he does, it's great.
Guys like Gono, Genki Sudo (Pictures), Carlos Newton (Pictures), etc. all bring a breath of fresh air to the fight game and his ring entrance was the highlight of Bushido 13.
That’s sad when a fighter’s ring entrance, not his fight, is the highlight of an event.
The new vogue thing
Now that Pawel Nastula (Pictures), Vitor Belfort (Pictures) and boxer Orlando Salido have all tested positive for illegal steroids following their most recent fights according to the Nevada State Athletic Commission, it makes me wonder what the hell is going on here. And then Kevin Randleman (Pictures) allegedly supplies a phony urine sample, which makes him just as guilty as the others.
Either these fighters are just plain morons with no sense of dignity or there is something fishy going on with all these “wondrous” supplements available at popular health stores. Aside from Salido, who won a terribly boring decision over Robert Guerrero a week ago, everybody who’s using this stuff lost their fight.
When are fighters going to realize that taking steroids do not equate to victory?
Time and time again a losing fighter tests positive for steroids. Sure there have been an infant’s handful of victorious fighters on the stuff, but the vast majority of those in the line of fire have all been losers.
It’s gotten to the point now that I eagerly wait after each event to see how many guys fail their post-fight urine tests. In fact, it’s become comical and it makes elite fighters like Fedor Emelianenko (Pictures) and Matt Hughes (Pictures) look that much better.
Misc. debris
There was an important member of the Nevada State Athletic Commission I bumped into on Saturday who will go unnamed to protect his innocence. This guy was basically pitching to me the “unbelievable” UFC event on December 30 featuring Ortiz and Liddell. He was so stoked about the tickets that have already been sold and how many PPV buys it should do. The way this man was raving and basically promoting the event was very strange. Maybe I just took him the wrong way, but it sure seemed like he was a member of Zuffa’s PR team. This guy is a member of the commission. Marc Ratner now works for Zuffa. And UFC owner Lorenzo Ferttita used to be on the NSAC. If this makes you scratch your head, you’re not alone. …
Lutter’s armbar of Patrick Cote (Pictures) was the absolute highlight of the weekend and the way he triggered it ranks up there as one of the best subs of the year. …
I did a video interview with Pete Spratt (Pictures) following his win over Jeremy Jackson (Pictures). I kicked off the interview with a sarcastic question because we were joking around before I turned the camera on. So if my intro question makes no sense, you’ll know why. …
I should know the answer to this one seeing whom I work for, but what ever happened to TUF 3 tattooed tough guy Tait Fletcher (Pictures)? …
Does anybody actually track the IFL team standings? Don’t get me wrong: the IFL fights are great. But I am wondering how long it will be before the IFL puts the axe to their quirky team concept altogether.