The Mixed Martial Arts News Round Up
By Scott Heritage
(Managing Editor’s Note: Scott Heritage is our newest Feature Writer here at RSR and will be covering the world of Mixed Martial Arts. I, along with the entire team, welcome him aboard.)
Chuck Liddell has been confirmed as fighting Rich Franklin at UFC 115 instead of Tito Ortiz. Rumors were circulating several weeks ago that the change had been made although at the time all parties from the UFC denied them. More recently they changed their tune, and Tito Ortiz has for now pulled out of the bout.
What the problem was isn’t clear, and neither is the next step for Tito Ortiz. Liddell says the bout will still take place at some point, although this will presumably rest on how he does against Franklin and just what happened to the perpetually injured Tito. Whether Tito finished the full season of The Ultimate Fighter was also speculated upon after he was hospitalized with a staph infection during filming.
Without a victory soon, Ortiz will be staring down the barrel of a recent career which is less than impressive. The last man he finished was Ken Shamrock back in 2006, and before that Elvis Sinosic back in 2001. The days of Ortiz being regarded as a top ten 205lb fighter appear to be permanently over. Tito will always make for a tough fight and remains difficult to finish, but is increasingly looking like a one trick pony with his wrestling and not much else.
The UFC were eager to squash reports of Tito having pulled out of the fight at first, probably because yet another season of The Ultimate Fighter now has no fight between the coaches at the end. Last season the effect wasn’t too devastating to the ratings because Kimbo Slice was on offer. Plus there was a genuinely interesting bout on offer between Rampage and Rashad Evans, which is now happening at UFC 114.
This time around it might be more damaging, with Liddell having beaten Tito twice already. What made this fight interesting was largely the fact that many have called for Liddell’s retirement after his recent losses. Beating Tito again would have proven that he still has what it takes to be competitive. Fighting Franklin instead will prove or disprove this idea, leaving the third bout between Chuck and Tito a rather empty affair.
Despite this though, UFC 115, which takes place in Vancouver, sold out in half an hour. Not too much should be read into that though, whenever the UFC enters a new territory sell outs are common. Whether they can repeat the feat the next time around is a better measure of how well MMA is being received in the area.
The oddity that was the main event at UFC 112 is still being felt as Dana White decides what to do about what is quickly becoming the Anderson Silva problem. In three fights now, Silva has seemed disinterested and unwilling to fight on any terms except his own. He’s still been winning, but that’s about the only positive you could take from his fights against Demian Maia, Thales Leites and Patrick Cote.
Speaking to GracieMag, Maia shed a little light on what was going on in the cage between the pair during the fight:
“I just thought it was disrespectful for him to swear at me during the fight, saying things like, ‘You (explicative) momma’s boy, show me your Jiu-Jitsu.’ That type of stuff. I felt it was disrespectful and unnecessary. Aside from that, it was a normal fight.”
“He begged my forgiveness and I feel everyone makes mistakes, that’s normal. I feel something influenced him afterwards and he came up with that statement about me having disrespected him. I never made any strong statements and, even if I had, it would have been to promote the fight, which is normal. The fight ends and the two fighters embrace.”
I must admit that seemingly like everyone else, I missed any interviews with Maia where he was insulting Silva. Sure Maia came out with the usual kind of thing, but it seemed far from insulting and fairly tame by today’s trash talking standards. If Silva found Maia insulting, then a fight pitting the champ against the hard talking republican Chael Sonnen can’t come soon enough.
Also of note Dana said he would make it up to the fans for the bad main event card of 112, which might mean another free card on the horizon.
On the subject of Silva and Dana, it will be hard for White to keep pushing Anderson as the best pound for pound fighter in the world if he keeps putting on bizarre performances purely because he is bored or doesn’t like his opponent. And while he was dominant against Maia, he failed to finish. Georges St. Pierre is arguably just as dominant and Fedor Emelianenko usually always finished his fights.
StrikeForce Nashville is on paper probably the best card of the year so far, even without the drawing power of either Fedor or Bobby Lashley. While most are predicting a rather one sided middleweight title bout between Dan Henderson and Jake Shields, the rest of the main card remains intriguing.
Incidentally, StrikeForce should really work on some better names for their cards than just the name of the city they are taking place in. The UFC event names aren’t anything to write home about either, but at least they’re also numbered so remembering the events is a lot easier.
Unbeaten King Mo Lawal will sink or swim against the highly rated Gegard Mousasi, while Shinya Aoki will lock horns with Gilbert Melendez. Potentially the winner will become the highest ranked lightweight in the world after B.J Penn was knocked from the top spot by Frankie Edgar. Edgar himself is in with a shout as the best himself, although hasn’t consistently faced the same kind of competition that either Aoki or Melendez have.
King Mo has said in interviews that he thinks Mousasi is “beatable” and I tend to agree with him.
Although Gegard is being hyped as the next great light heavyweight and has a decent record, he hasn’t taken on the level of competition that the likes of Machida, Shogun or Rampage have. He looked good against a fading Babalu, but struggled against a Sokoudjou who had been exposed a long time ago. Will be beat King Mo?
The oddsmakers say yes but I think it will be a toss up. Mousasi has yet to face a wrestler on the same kind of level as Lawal, and similarly most of Lawal’s opponents have had some kind of fatal flaw possibly making him look a lot better than he is at this stage.
April also sees the first WEC pay per view event, which pits former champion and fan favorite Urijah Faber against Brazilian dynamo Jose Aldo. Whether even Faber’s horde of fans is willing to pay for something that used to be free is the biggest question surrounding the event, which might be pivotal to the future of the WEC.