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By Anthony De Franco  September 4, 2009, at 11:41 am  Wonderful! Let’s bring back my least favorite fighter in the entire world for more of his bible-toting, crazy farm boy act! Ugh, I was hoping we were done with Hughes, but I knew that if Dana didn’t snap him up, Strikeforce would have come lurking and capitalized on all the attention he had gotten as the UFC welterweight champ for all of those years. Here’s the story from MMA Weekly:
First it was Randy Couture, now it’s Matt Hughes. The UFC seems to be locking down former champions left and right.
Hughes, a former UFC welterweight champion, on Thursday affirmed his desire to remain active, stating that he has signed a new multi-fight contract with the Ultimate Fighting Championship.
“Last week I went out to Vegas and I signed a multi-fight deal with the UFC, which is much like my last contract,” said Hughes via a post on his official website.
Who he will fight next is not yet clear, although his most recent opponent, Matt Serra, whom he defeated by unanimous decision at UFC 98 in May, would like another shot at him.
As much as I would love to see Matt Serra smash Hughes, it probably won’t happen. Although there is an argument to made that you could scored that fight a draw, even our Long Island-based crowd that was watching UFC 98 had Hughes winning the fight. Serra’s best bet continues to be at 155.
To make the re-signing of Hughes even worse, look at this:
In an interesting aside, Hughes also mentioned that he’d like to branch out into Ted Nugent territory, which seemed to have the UFC brass’ approval.
“I also brought up the fact that I wanted to do a hunting show,” he said on his website, “and they thought that would be a good thing.”
Oh, Jesus.
By Anthony De Franco August 11, 2009, at 9:21 pm Most of the time that athletes fail drug tests, there is no saying sorry. They try, they fail around in the wind for a while, and they end up insulting our intelligences with claims of stupidity and naivety. However, for the first time in recent memory, we may have a case where a failed drug test may have a decent reason behind it.
Nick Diaz recently failed to show up for his drug test for his August 15th title fight against Jay Hieron. As a result, he has been pulled from the fight and replaced with Jesse Taylor, who is best known for flipping out after qualifying for the final of season seven of The Ultimate Fighter.
The reason that Diaz didn’t show is that he was sure that he would test positive for marijuana. However, it’s just not that simple, as MMA Weekly can tell you:
On Monday, Diaz’s manager, Cesar Gracie, said his fighter had an informal agreement with former CSAC executive officer Armando Garcia that precluded random drug testing. Diaz, a resident of Stockton, Calif., currently holds a medical marijuana license under the state’s Compassionate Use Act of 1996 and Medical Marijuana Program Act. Garcia departed the agency last November.
“They changed it without any notification,” said Gracie. “No one had any time. The old guys were doing things based off of California law, and I knew California law didn’t change. He’s licensed… it’s legal. They’re own legal team came out with a ruling that said (compassionate use was allowed). Then all of a sudden they’re saying we’re doing drug tests, and cannabis is included, it’s not just performance enhancers. To flush it out of his system, it takes 10 days, and we don’t have that.”
It’s not the first time Diaz has come under fire for his marijuana use. In April 2007, the Nevada State Athletic Commission stripped him of a victory over Takanori Gomi at Pride 33 due to high levels of the drug in his system. Last March, he was stricken from a Strikeforce co-promotion with Elite XC when he reported his use of the drug on a pre-fight medical questionnaire.
Hmmm…This is interesting. Diaz has the right to use marijuana medically. How you deny the right of someone to take their medicine? Someone I was talking to about this compared this to not allowing someone to use their inhaler because technically, it’s a steroid.
More importantly, it’s not like he would have tested positive on fight day. He was in the process of flushing it from his system, and since the fight is still a few days away, he would have passed his test. Diaz chose not to take the test so he wouldn’t be suspended one year for a positive test. Instead, he will just miss this fight.
Despite the fact that I don’t personally partake, I’ve said plenty of times before that I think that pot should be legal. Moreover, Nick Diaz should be tested on the 15th, and if he passes, he should be allowed to fight.
By Anthony De Franco July 12, 2009, at 11:00 am If you watched UFC 100, you likely saw Brock Lesnar absolutely lose his mind at the end of his fight. He went up to a barely conscious Frank Mir to talk more trash after winning the fight, he gave the entire Vegas and Pay Per View audiences the one finger salute, and he verbally berated the UFC’s biggest sponsor of the night, Bud Light, because they wouldn’t pay him. SI.com transcribed the whole thing to make my life a little bit easier.
“I’m going to go home tonight and drink a Coors Light because Bud Light won’t pay me,” said Lesnar, pointing at the logo of the presenting sponsor of the event. “I’m going to sit down with my friends and family and hell, I might even get on top of my wife tonight.”
While Lesnar may have looked like an uncontrollable loose cannon after the fight, he was a changed man when he walked into the press room soon after. Wearing a wide smile and holding a Bud Light, he took a big swig as he looked at White and said, “I love Bud Light! I must have caught a hard knee to the head.”
Sure, the apology is nice, but I just ain’t gonna buy it. Lesnar’s act after the fight hasn’t been the only thing about him that has bothered the hell of me this week. I hated the scene of him flipping out during the video of him losing to Mir to first time around. I hated seeing Dana White have to tell Lesnar to stay put a couple of different times during the pre-fight press conferences. I hate the fact that the face of the heavyweight division is a guy that Cagewriter’s Maggie Hendricks said has been “grumpy” since his amateur wrestling days.
You see, Brock hasn’t been around all that long. He doesn’t understand the fight that we’ve all gone through for the last few years. We, as MMA fans, fight for legitimacy every day. If you read us here, you’ve seen the struggle for a long time. However, when the main event star of the UFC and reigning king of the heavyweight division is cursing out sponsors and talking about screwing his 42 year old wife, MMA looks more and more like the WWE. That’s not good.
There’s something else that Brock doesn’t likely know about. The rage of the man that signs his checks. You see, Dana White is not a patient guy. He’s dealt with quite a few men in day that he deemed “un-controllable.” There was this guy named Tito Ortiz. He was a huge star. He made the UFC tons of money, then he made some decisions that Dana didn’t like. Soon, he found himself losing quite a few fights. He found himself booked in fights that were designed to put over his opponents. He fought up and coming stars like Rashad Evans and Lyoto Machida. After his contract was up, he was told to go elsewhere. Most recently, he was completed banned from the UFC 100 Fan Expo.
Brock, don’t end up like Tito. Don’t wind up in the nether regions of the MMA world because you wouldn’t fall in line. Instead of giving the hardcore fans that hate you the finger, just ignore us. After all, if you keep winning, we’ll all have to deal with you being around. If you don’t, Dana White and his band of merry men will find ways to destroy you.
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