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By Jason Comack  February 19, 2010, at 5:00 pm  Thanks to Twitter MMA coverage has been taken to a new level. We actually have, for lack of a better term, MMA beat reporters just like the NFL, MLB and NBA have. And now when rumors start to spread you can ask one of many excellent journalists what exactly is fact and what exactly is fiction.
Two false reports came out today both of which have been debunked.
First Bleacherreport.com (Bloody Elbow’s favorite site!) reported that Mirko suffered a bad cut during training that needed stitches.
Talk about bad luck! Just a day after the UFC announced that Ben Rothwell was forced out of his bout with Mirko “Cro-Cop” Filipovic due to an undisclosed illness, Cro-Cop himself received a nasty cut over his eye that required stitches.
Here’s what Kevin Iole of Yahoo! Sports said via Twitter:
“I dont think he’s cut. I saw him yesterday and he wasn’t cut and he said he was done working out.”
“He was told by UFC official workout room had moved and he said, No problem, I’m finished. And he DEFINITELY wasn’t cut then”
“Just talked to Marshall Zelaznik of UFC International Cro Cop is fighting and nothing happened to him as far as Zelaznik knows.”
“I dont know. I saw the guy yesterday a.m. and he was fine. I just talked to head of UFC Intl and he didn’t know anything.”
Now logic would also back this report by Iole up. If he saw Cro-Cop yesterday and he was fine there is absolutely no way he’s sparring a day before the fight. That’s just insanity and MMA fighters stop sparring as long as a week before the fight. It’d have to be a freak accident to cut him that badly.
Second rumor comes from that same article. It cites a report from Fightersonly.com that the UFC offered the Cro-Cop fight to both Rampage and Randy Couture.
The UFC allegedly asked Randy Couture and Quinton ‘Ramapge’ Jackson if they would take the fight with Filipovic at short notice but both turned it down flat. Perosh – who has an 0-2 record in the UFC from 2006 – took it on two days notice on the understanding he would get a four-fight contract out of it.
Again, nothing about that paragraph makes any sense. ‘Page is fighting Rashad Evans and Randy just fought. Furthermore why would ‘Page all of a sudden fight at heavyweight? Just makes no sense. I asked Mike Chiappetta who writes for AOL Fanhouse if there was any truth to the report.
“None whatsoever. Not on 1 day’s notice and no chance to market it.”
And there you go. It seems one of the side affect of MMA’s growing popularity is websites trying to make a name for themselves by coming up with fake rumors. Thankfully we have still have credible reporters like Kevin Iole and Mike Chiappetta.
You can follow Kevin at @KevinI and Mike at @MikeChiappetta
By Jason Comack January 21, 2010, at 3:55 pm When the UFC signs an international star I get giddy.
Whenever the UFC signs an international star my friends that are casual MMA fans ask “who is this guy and why should I care?” Usually if you give me 15 minutes acces to Daily Motion and Youtube I can make a pretty convincing case for just about anyone.
Ramapage Jackson? Show the Arona slam. The dominant performance over Liddell (in Pride.) And just about any interview he’s ever done. Like the one where he talks about what he’s going to do when he wins the Pride belt. “When I shit I’m gonna shit with the Pride belt.” Or what about when he said to El Guapo that his strategy was to “whoop that ass.”.
Vitor Belfort? The Phenom. The 8 second KO over Wanderlei. The unfortunate kidnapping of his sister. The highlight reel of KO’s. Easy. Anderson Silva? The entrance to the ring as Michael Jackson. Any of his highlight reel KO’s.
Gomi? Thinking…still thinking. I can’t think of one single achievement in Gomis career that really stands out. He had an epic winning streak but fought his fare share of cans along the way. Does he really have any singular stand out moments?
This was made obvious when they showed Gomi at UFC 108 and the crowd reacted with indifference. Who’s this guy? Oh he’s an old pride lightweight champ. Is he any good? Yea, but he might be past his prime, he’s lost 2 of his last 4 fights. Does he have a shot of beating Penn? No, actually they already fought once and Penn beat him convincingly.
To me this is why the Gomi signing makes no sense. Because the above conversation is the way any MMA fan would describe Gomi to someone who didn’t know who he was.
Why Gomi, why now? Did Dana White get his Japanese lightweights confused? Did he mean to sign Shinya Aoki?
The loigcal answer is simply Gomi is the one that got away. When the UFC and Pride merged Fedor and Gomi were the two fighters that Dana White coveted that he couldn’t get. Now he has a chance to get Gomi and he got him.
The more abstract answer is that the UFC is planning on holding a card in Japan soon. I’m not claiming I have any inside info, I’m just connecting the dots.
Between the Pride stars of old, Machida, Gomi and Sexy-ama the UFC has more then enough talent to appease the Japanese crowd.
Think the Japanese crowd wouldn’t eat up Lesnar vs. ‘Nog? What about Akiyama vs. Anderson or Wanderlei Silva? Machida vs. Jackson? Gomi vs. anyone really? Hell, you can even dig up Mirko Cro-Cops corpse and hope he head kicks someone.
The UFC is dead set on perusing the international market. That much is obvious. First Abu-Dhabi then the world. It only seems logical the UFC would put a card in Japan.
By Anthony De Franco December 11, 2009, at 5:02 pm Wow. On a list of places you didn’t think that you would see a UFC anytime soon, Abu Dhabi is probably pretty high up there. From Hughes’ Blog:
“I didn’t know if I could say anything about my next fight, but I see that Dana has let the cat out of the bag. So I can tell you what I know, on April 10th I will be fighting Renzo Gracie in Abu Dhabi. I haven’t signed any paperwork and I don’t think Renzo has either; but I think this fight is going to happen. That’s all I know, serious training will start for me at the new year.”
We’ve been on record as saying that this fight doesn’t make a whole lot of sense from the UFC’s prespective. They will play up the Gracie family tradition and how Hughes beat Royce back at UFC 60. However, if Hughes was serious about making another run, he would be fighting one of the 450 guys who have called him out over the last six months.
Instead, we are going to get a fight that is designed for Matt Hughes to win. The idea for putting this fight in a new market is probably to put a card based on the history of the sport in the middle east for the first time. When you talk about the early days of the UFC, you have to talk about the Gracie’s and when you talk about the next generation of stars after Royce and Shamrock, you talk about Matt Hughes.
By Anthony De Franco October 12, 2009, at 4:36 pm Once is a gift, or a chance to counterpromote the biggest boxing card of the year. Twice, on the other hand, is a pattern and something that UFC fans should thank the MMA gods for. UFC 104’s very potent undercard will be televised for free on SPIKE TV on October 24th. Here’s the news from MMA Weekly:
Spike TV on Monday announced that it will telecast live undercard bouts from UFC 104 on Oct. 24 at 9:00pm ET/PT from the Staples Center in Los Angeles, Calif. The fights on Spike TV will include “The Ultimate Fighter 8” winner Ryan Bader, a rising star in the light heavyweight division, taking on Eric “Red” Schafer. The one-hour telecast will run commercial-free. The UFC 104 main card will run on pay-per-view at 10:00pm ET.
Spike TV telecast the prelims for UFC 103 on Sept. 19 drawing a robust 1.4 million viewers and placed No. 2 on cable with Men 18-34 in the timeslot.
A two-time NCAA Division I All-American wrestler at Arizona State University, Ryan Bader, fighting out of Tempe, Ariz., is 2-0 in the UFC and a perfect 10-0 in his mixed martial arts career. The 26-year-old light heavyweight, winner of the eighth season of “The Ultimate Fighter,” earned a unanimous decision win against veteran Carmelo Marrero in April. He now faces another experienced grappler in Eric “Red” Schafer. Fighting out of Milwaukee, Wis., Schafer is a Brazilian jiu-jitsu black belt and on a four-fight win streak, with two of his three UFC wins coming via submission. His most recent victory came via TKO against Antonio Mendes at UFC 93.
Last month, we saw the lightweight winner from The Ultimate Fighter 8 Efrain Escudero. This month, we get to see the light heavyweight winner, Ryan Bader. Bader reminds me so much of Josh Koscheck that it’s scary. He’s an all-american wrestler that understands how to use his skills in the octagon. However, he needs to develop a striking game to complement the ground game that he has spent his entire life honing. Much like Koscheck, who trains at The American Kickboxing Academy in San Diego, Bader has a damn good camp in Arizona Combat Sports. ACS is home to such high level fighter as WEC lightweight champ Jamie Varner, and UFC fighters C.B. Dollaway and Aaron Simpson.
As for the free fights, it’s an interesting new way to market the TUF winners. We’ve done a lot of talking on this site about what exactly it means to win the reality show at this point. No longer do these winners get to “warm up” to the Octagon by taking fights they can win. Instead, they get fights against other up and coming stars and we find out how far they are going to go very quickly. With these new fights that million of people are watching, Dana White and Joe Silva have a way to build names while testing the winners with strong opponents. After all, how many people knew Escudero’s name before 103?
UFC 104 is headline by Lyoto Machida defending the light heavyweight champion against former PRIDE GP winner Mauricio “Shogun” Rua.
By Jason Comack August 3, 2009, at 6:51 pm I’ve written several times on this site that I feel that MLB teams have begun to value their prospects too much. The MLB is a copycat league, just like every other sport, and when the A’s, Rays, Marlins and Twins started having consistent success by building from within everyone followed suit. Now that’s not to say the big market teams don’t spend, because they do, but it means there much more likely to spend in free agency then in a trade. However, it’s important to remember what the word prospect means and Edinson Volquez should serve as a cautionary tale.
Volquez was traded for Josh Hamilton. At the time it looked like a win-win for both teams. Hamilton went on to become an All-Star and became the face of the Texas Rangers. Volquez was Cy-Young worthy last year and seemed to be headed for a great career. That was of course until injury struck.
According to Mark Sheldon of MLB.com, the ulnar collateral ligament in Edinson Volquez’s right elbow was almost completely torn. Volquez underwent Tommy John surgery on Monday morning. There is a chance that he could return late in 2010, but fantasy owners shouldn’t expect him to return to form until 2011 at the earliest.
A pitching prospect is like a lotto ticket. Sometimes you can cash it in for Tim Lincecum and sometimes it becomes Todd Van Poppel. The point is when your trading for an 18 year old star in the making might seem like a good idea at the time there is a ton of projection involved no matter how dominant the kid has been. Unlike a positional player a pitcher is just one major injury away from his career being over potentially. Not everyone bounces back from Tommy John surgery, cough Liriano cough, although the surgery has a high success rate.
I think all GM’s need to wake up. Prospects are very very important but when you have the chance to get Cliff Lee for 75 cents on the dollar you have to.
By Anthony De Franco July 2, 2009, at 1:52 pm Hey, look the Broncos said something publicly and then did something completely different in private. This is just shocking news! The Broncos never do things like this!
Can you tell that I’m being sarcastic? Anyway, here is the report from Rotoworld:
NFL insider Adam Schefter writes on his Twitter page that the Broncos are willing to listen to offers for Brandon Marshall.
The Broncos “won’t make them, but will take them,” Schefter says, adding that he believes the club would part with its top receiver for a first-round pick. Denver already traded its 2010 top pick to move up in the second round of this year’s draft for CB Alphonso Smith. Marshall is a holdout risk as he recovers from hip surgery, wants a new contract, and has demanded a trade.
This is a really interesting situation that is developing because there are still teams that would part with mid-round picks for the big playmaking wide receiver. Off the top of my head, I can think that the Jets are a team that really need the type of target that Marshall is. They went back and forth internally about signing Plaxico Burress and still might be interested in him. Now, there is a younger, faster maybe better receiver on the market that might be available for a 2nd and a 4th. Other teams that could be interested include the Bucs, and maybe on a real outside chance the Giants.
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