Jens Pulver’s final fights are a precautionary tale for all fight fans

It came as little surprise on Saturday night to watch Javier Vazquez dispose of Jens Pulver in the WEC cage. The finish was a gruesome arm-bar that popped Pulver’s elbow out due to how straightened the arm was. Pulver grimaced on the mat after the finish and it looked really scary on television. After yet another loss, Pulver told the fans that he didn’t want to put them through any more emotional torment. The fighters love him and the fans respect him for what he has gone through.

The truth is that Jens Pulver likely shouldn’t have been sanctioned to fight by the Ohio Athletic Commission.

The commission has taken some heat recently for not sanctioning a fight between Wes Sims and Tim Sylvia due to what they perceived as a competitive imbalance and I think it was the right call. Commissions have a tough job to do in terms of approving who can fight and who can’t fight. There are always situations where licensing certain fighters can be a gray area. Pulver was one of those fighters. Unfortunately, he has been dismantled repeatedly over his last few fights. It was sad that his quick submission of Cub Swanson wasn’t the final swan song. It seems like eons ago when that fight took place.

Pulver, like most fighters, don’t know when to quit. They have many reasons to keep fighting, with money being a primary factor. Pulver mentioned that factor during Saturday’s post-fight interview. Fighters are born to fight and want to fight until the day they die. It’s what they live for. Which is why it’s up to the promoters and the athletic commissions to step in when a fighter is shot and tell the fighter, “No more.”

For UFC, this has become an interesting political issue. The promotion has booked many fighters who are older or whose best days are behind them. Tito Ortiz comes to mind. Coming off of major reconstructive back surgery, Ortiz looked slow and sluggish against Forrest Griffin. Last month, UFC had a PPV main event featuring Randy Couture vs. Mark Coleman. Within days of that fight, Coleman was cut from UFC due to fears of safety concerns that Coleman could get damaged severely in the cage. For Zuffa management, their #1 goal is about making money.

Which apparently is also the goal of athletic commissioners these days.

In my opinion, Keith Kizer is the perfect symbol of what has gone wrong with sanctioning. I have long been a proponent of regulation of Mixed Martial Arts. For many years, I’ve watched an unregulated scene in Japan go to hell with phony drug testing policies, different rules for different promotions, and an overall Wild West chaotic scene amongst rival promoters. I thought that with regulation we would avoid seeing physically damaged fighters get licensed or complete mismatches get sanctioned.

I was wrong.

When I alluded to promoters having a lot of power in booking fights that normally shouldn’t be booked, Tito Ortiz vs. Forrest Griffin was the perfect example. Ortiz facing a Top 5 Light Heavyweight in his return match? Nevada has become the rubber stamp athletic commission for promoters under Kizer’s tenure. The fight between Ortiz and Griffin wasn’t a blow out because we found out later that Griffin was fighting with a broken foot. If athletic commissions are supposedly about the safety of the fighters, then why are guys like Griffin able to make it into the cage with broken bones? It’s inexcusable. If Mark Coleman gets cut by UFC a few days after his fight due to concern that he might die in the cage, why did Nevada allow him to get licensed in the first place? Inexcusable.

Sure, commissions like the NSAC are great when promoters need a “bad cop” to play off in the media, like UFC management does when referees stink at doing their job. “They appoint the refs!” is the first words out of you-know-who’s mouth.

Jens Pulver isn’t the first and certainly won’t be the last fighter to test the licensing process in terms of whether or not he is still qualified to be a fighter. Pulver is one of many fighters that we’ve seen recently come and go before commission sanctioning and get approved without any real rigorous skepticism. It’s not just Mixed Martial Arts that we’re seeing this happen with, either. Evander “Evan Fields” Holyfield was granted a one-fight license in Nevada to fight on April 17th against Frans Botha in Las Vegas. Holyfield, who can’t get sanctioned by the New York State Athletic Commission, magically passed the rigors of Nevada sanctioning despite the fact that he has vision problems and slurred speech. Plus he’s in his late 40s. “Evan Fields” wouldn’t like you to mention the HGH scandal, either. It’s one thing to be sympathetic to Holyfield’s financial plight, given his failed marriages and housing problems and all the children he’s had with different women. However, athletic commissions aren’t paid by states to be charitable — they’re paid, at least on paper, to do their job and protect the health and well-being of fighters. There’s a reason Evander Holyfield was fighting outside of America. Hint: It’s the same reason Ray Mercer was fighting outside of America for many years.

Then came the news that Mike Tyson — yes, that Mike Tyson — at age 43 would come back to boxing to fight, tah dah, Evander Holyfield. With… Don King as the promoter. Wonder where that fight will take place?

There are plenty of fighters over the age of 35 who look to be in great shape — like Randy Couture — who want to continue fighting and making money before the well dries up on them. I can understand that mindset. Fighters should try to make the most money they possibly can. I also, to a degree, understand that promoters want to make money at whatever cost they can as long as their reputations aren’t permanently damaged. In a capitalistic world, that’s reasonable. However, the athletic commissions in America are supposed to be the final guard, the boundary between promoters and fighters to ensure that something catastrophic doesn’t happen (like, say, a death in the ring). The commissions are supposed to be a part of the checks and balances of power in regulation.

Unfortunately, most athletic commissions these days seem to be giving big-time promoters blank checks to cash in regards to booking any fighters they want to book, safety be damned.

A possible motive for why UFC signed James Toney

As pundits, fans, and MMA insiders debate why UFC decided to sign James Toney to a five-fight contract on Wednesday, Yahoo Sports writer Dave Meltzer speculated on the reasoning behind on move last night on his radio show:

“Strikeforce was negotiating or at least Dana (White) was under the impression that Strikeforce was negotiating a Herschel Walker/James Toney fight for CBS most likely, perhaps for PPV. And so he decided that I will outbid them and ruin that fight. So I think that’s what that’s all about because the key to me is that they’re letting [Toney] box. I mean, like if [UFC] had any you know thoughts that this guy was really valuable to them, they weren’t going to sign him to a non-exclusive contract. They’ve never signed anyone to a non-exclusive contract and they signed him to a non-exclusive contract. I mean, to me, that tells me it’s not really something that you know that they’re dying to have him as much as you know they don’t want the opposition to have something that you know may click, you know, there may be… it’s possible that you know you put that fight on CBS, maybe there will be curiosity and maybe it will do a rating and maybe CBS would go, “You know what? There’s something to this MMA and we’re going to run four shows a year and we’re going to get in this game big.” And you know CBS is a big enough company to where if they really want to get in, it can cause headaches for Dana White so I think that their idea is… I think that everything they’re doing right now is to try and make sure that you know even if it costs them short-term money that they widdle down the CBS rating or keep the CBS ratings low enough to where CBS is not gung-ho on this and not thinking that this is you know that this anything big to them and doesn’t fully get behind them and just kind of goes like “Well, maybe we’ll do a special” and then you know they get one or two with bad ratings and they just go, “Well, it didn’t work,” because the ratings aren’t through the roof by any means, you know no matter what anyone tries to spin.

“In fact, they’re bad ratings, although they do decently well in you know males 18-34, they do decently well in that but it isn’t that great, you know, I mean it’s not like a normal hot television show won’t beat it. You know, it’ll beat those shows that they have because they’re not aimed at that demo, but you know I mean it’s still you know some of the lowest-rated programming that they have on, first-run programming, so I think that this is all part of that and yeah, Dana White is looking to do a live show on April 17th. I don’t that they’re going to do it. He said today that it was “maybe” they would do it. You know and there’s a lot of talk of you know Wanderlei Silva and Yoshihiro Akiyama as the main event on that show and the thing there is like, OK, they go head-to-head, they will lose to the CBS show and they know that they will lose and some people will go, “Well, God, look at that! UFC lost!” and I think that their mentality is like, well if we lose but the CBS show does like a 2.1 rating, CBS is still going to be squeamish about “Do we really want to do this show again with a 2.1 rating?” So if they widdle down the rating a little bit, then it’s a win even though they will lose on the night and they will lose.

“And then in retaliation you know, Strikeforce is now looking at maybe moving. If they run the 17th, then Strikeforce may move to the 24th and that means that they’ve got a free special with three championship matches going against a PPV from WEC that’s unproven on PPV and they can hurt WEC if they make that move so it’s an interesting chess game going on right now and that’s really what this is all about.”

The chess match happening between UFC and Strikeforce is one that may consist of a lot of pyrrhic victories. HBO has two big boxing fights on the 17th (Edison Miranda vs. Lucian Bute (in Montreal) and Kelly Pavlik vs. Sergio Martinez (in Atlantic City). The next weekend on the 24th, Showtime will have two major boxing fights of their own as part of the Super Six tournament (Carl Froch vs. Mikkel Kessler (in Denmark) and Allan Green vs. Andre Ward (in Oakland). It’s unlikely that Showtime would be pleased with a fight show airing on CBS on the same weekend as the Showtime boxing matches.

Regarding the concept of Strikeforce running on the 24th to cause damage to the WEC debut PPV… that would be a waste of time. The WEC PPV will struggle to draw a big buy rate, even with Urijah Faber vs. Jose Aldo on top of the card as the main event. Plus, getting into a war with WEC is exactly what UFC would like to see happen. It would, image-wise, make Strikeforce look like a minor-league promotion going against Zuffa’s second-tier Trojan horse promotion. In other words, UFC would welcome a fight where hardcore fight fans would have to pick between Urijah Faber on PPV versus Jake Shields on free television. Faber is a star in Mixed Martial Arts. We don’t know how many people will actually pay to watch him, but the fans that want to see him will pay to do so and they won’t care that a Strikeforce show is on CBS.

Marks of Desperation: The marriage between UFC and James Toney

Last week, James Toney was bitching in an interview with F i g h t h y p e . c o m that he couldn’t get any boxing dates booked by his promoter, Dan Goossen. Toney also bitched about Dana White’s contractual offer to him of a five-fight deal that would limit Toney to MMA-only competition.

A week later, Toney signed with UFC and the non-boxing clause has allegedly been waived.

Welcome to the land of impulsive business decisions.

For UFC President Dana White and Lorenzo Fertitta, the signing of James Toney is a luxury. If he flames out, then everyone predicted it would happen. If Toney succeeds, White and Fertitta will make a lot of money. When Toney spent months stalking Dana White at various UFC events to get a fight contract, White was nervous and respectful around Toney. After all, Toney is a legitimately crazy man who has made his bones unleashing violence on other human beings. After White and Toney sat down and talked at a January UFC PPV event in Las Vegas, both parties came away saying that they were unlikely to work with each other.

So what changed?

White was quoted by Yahoo Sports writer Kevin Iole as saying that he had been told that Strikeforce was negotiating with Toney for a fight against Herschel Walker. No matter how many times White buries Showtime and Strikeforce as minor-league MMA promoters, the natural reflexive motion for UFC is to try to stop whatever Strikeforce is attempting to do. Call it the Vince McMahon business principle of paranoia.

If Toney was indeed negotiating with Strikeforce, suddenly he found leverage to get UFC to allow him to box while booking him in MMA fights. The alleged contract between the two parties is a five-fight deal. Most people understand that if Toney does not succeed in MMA that he will get cut by Zuffa after a couple of fights. However, if Toney somehow manages to not look bad in the cage, then Zuffa will be able to book him relatively cheaply.

So why would Toney take a deal with UFC? Because his boxing options are limited. He wants to fight one of the Klitschko brothers and will unlikely be able to do so. The prospects of fight on ESPN’s Friday Fight Nights frankly is something that he feels is beneath him, especially if the opponent is someone that few fight fans know. Toney has been down this road before of fighting on free television and not getting much of a business bounce (see: fight against Rydell Booker several years ago on Best Damn Fight Show Period on Fox Sports Net). With Toney running out of options in boxing, the UFC contract was realistically his only major business option to take. Plus, if Toney doesn’t look washed up in the cage, it will give him some notoriety and spotlight to try to get a bigger booking done for a boxing match. That’s ultimately what Toney’s end-game is here.

There are fans who are defending the James Toney signing who also ridiculed Strikeforce for signing Herschel Walker to fight. By signing Toney to a contract, UFC has made Strikeforce’s signing of Herschel Walker look great in comparison. Walker is an athlete with legitimate credentials in multiple sports. He’s never failed a drug test. Like Randy Couture, Walker is a guy who inspires a lot of couch potatoes in America. When they see the shape Herschel is in at age 47, men look at that and are in absolute awe of the guy. When Walker fought jaybrone Greg Nagy in January, it was the talk of Twitter. Walker appeals to casual sports fans across the spectrum, especially fans who remember his days as a football player in Georgia or with the Cowboys & Vikings in the NFL. Walker has struggled with mental issues and yet his managed to stay in incredible shape at his age. In many respects, Herschel Walker is a very inspiring type of man who people naturally want to root for and see succeed. Win or lose, Walker will always have the respect of the American sports fan.

The same cannot be said for James Toney. What man in America is sitting there wishing that they could end up just like James Toney? Toney is a man who has failed two steroid tests. Toney is a man who pulled his pants down in a parking lot after winning a fight. He’s legitimately crazy. Toney’s appeal in the fight community is that he’s a “colorful” character. That’s a nice way of saying that James Toney says a lot of stupid shit and does a lot of dumb things. Compared to Herschel Walker, no one would physically want to look as bloated as James Toney has these days. Toney’s appeal to fight fans, should he face a Chuck Liddell or Kimbo Slice, is that he’s a gimmick. He’s a boxer who talks a lot of smack, just with maybe a tenth of the crossover appeal that Walker has. Unlike Walker who seriously trains every single day of his life, Toney’s reputation as far as conditoning goes is laughable. When the news broke that Juanito Ibarra, Quinton Jackson’s former business manager, would be training Toney for MMA, I laughed out loud. The only reason fans would be interested in Toney is not because of his past accomplishments or his credentials, but because hate him and want to see him get his ass kicked. That will work for a time or two, but that’s about it. That gimmick only works ultimately if you can back it up long-term with actual MMA-related talent.

If we are to believe that James Toney is a good business investment for UFC, then let’s quickly look at some of the match-ups that he can booked for. A fight against Randy Couture would all but seal Toney’s fate for being one-and-done. A fight against Chuck Liddell would be fascinating but for all the wrong reasons, given that both men have slowed down in terms of hand speed and Liddell would have to take Toney down to win. Would he want to? You never know. Liddell vs. Toney would draw some PPV buys, but enough to surpass what UFC draws right now with top stars like Brock Lesnar, BJ Penn, and Georges St. Pierre? Highly unlikely. A fight between Rampage Jackson and Toney would be explosive and be the perfect fight to book… if Rampage and UFC didn’t have so many disputes already. Politically speaking, Rampage would be a hard pill to swallow for Dana White. Plus, Jackson is already married to Rashad Evans in a program.

Which leads us to Kimbo Slice.

Few people really are that interested in seeing Kimbo Slice vs. Matt Mitrione. Plus, Mitrione has a real shot of winning that fight. The fight is scheduled for Montreal on May 8th. With James Toney signed, sealed, and delivered, how will UFC manage Kimbo Slice now? Will the fight get canceled or will Toney take the booking on May 8th to replace Mitrione? James Toney and Kimbo Slice are on a collision course and it’s an explosive fight on paper. Toney could very easily knock out Kimbo and finish Kimbo’s career for good. At the same time, Kimbo needs one takedown and Toney would struggle mightily on the canvas as if he was a fish out of water. Kimbo vs. Toney is the biggest money match-up at this point and it would present a scenario where a Toney loss would not be as damaging as say losing to Couture.

For years, Dana White has prided himself on not booking freak-show match-ups. A lot of UFC fans truly believed him. Then came Kimbo Slice and somehow UFC was magically able to convince people that Kimbo would no longer be the street fighting porn star bodyguard gimmick and would instead become a humble, gracious MMA newbie. However, Dana White can’t control the marketing for James Toney. Toney is a loose cannon. No one is going to tell James Toney what to do and a lot of the sports media will rightly look at UFC like a circus if the promotion books a fight between Kimbo and Toney.

Toney is and always will be a short-term play for UFC, but UFC doesn’t need to pop short-term business right now. They have legitimate drawing cards with Frank Mir, BJ Penn, Georges St. Pierre, and Brock Lesnar. Plus, there’s a new class of fighters coming up with Frankie Edgar and Cain Velasquez. There’s no need to panic right now in the land of UFC. I think a lot of people will mistakenly look at UFC signing James Toney and equate it to panicking about the company’s future. That’s the wrong read to make here. The signing of James Toney was purely an impulsive move by UFC management. You should believe Dana White when he truly says that the company has not formulated a booking plan yet for Toney. As other promoters have found out when working with James Toney, you must always expect the unexpected.

Prepare for the worst and hope for the best.

UFC’s Marcus Davis adds fuel to the fire about certain MMA taboos

The political landscape for fighters and commentary from said fighters in Mixed Martial Arts right now is volatile. Saying something stupid can gain you attention from promoters. It can also cost you your job if you happen to be one of the lucky few who has a solid gig in UFC.

It’s been a nasty couple of weeks public relations-wise for UFC and none of it is their fault. Technically, fighters in UFC are independent contractors. Realistically, any negative comment one of those independent contractors makes in public can cause problems for the company they are working with (UFC). Frank Mir, one of UFC’s biggest PPV attractions, found out the hard way last week when he was forced to say he was sorry for making comments (that we detailed here on MMA Memories) on Mark Madden’s Pittsburgh radio show. Mir said that he wanted to kill Brock Lesnar in the Octagon and be the first man to kill an opponent in the cage “due to Octagon-related injuries.”

Dana White, UFC President, was rightly and justifiably pissed off about what Mir said. White was busy in Australia for UFC 110 in Sydney at Acer Arena. The Australian MMA event was wildly successful and proved to be a huge success in nearby Melbourne, an area that has outlawed MMA. It’s an area that UFC would like to see legislate Mixed Martial Arts, as the potential for doing business there would be enormous. There are other markets where UFC has paid to hire lobbyists to help legislate the sport on their behalf, including New York state and Ontario province in Canada. These are major markets we are talking about here. UFC has spent time, money, and other resources to make this work.

Which is why what Frank Mir said was so stupid. A master of self-promoting and promoting fights, Mir should have known better than to make the comments that he did. It’s the kind of comment that will played back for years by MMA critics. It’s in audio format. It’s in words via transcription. And it’s all indefensible. Just like John McCain’s “human cockfighting” quote from the 1990s is still pushed in various newspaper articles about MMA in 2010, Mir’s statement to hype up a fight against Brock Lesnar is now ammunition in the hands of critics who want to prevent MMA legislation from happening in several key worldwide markets. It’s as if New York state assemblyman Bob Reilly was given the, pardon the pun, ultimate gift.

Yes, Mixed Martial Arts is a sport. It’s also a sport with ungodly amounts of testosterone levels that blow away any T/E ratio you’ve ever seen in your life. If the average human has a T/E ratio of 1:1, then that level is blown off its hinges in Mixed Martial Arts. In the most macho of all macho sports, testosterone is the fuel that breeds world champions and also breeds unbelievable stupidity. In a business that has macho heels like Phil Baroni and behemoths like Bob Sapp, it’s impossible to avoid some of the taboos that come with a sport so fueled by testosterone.

One of those taboos is homophobia.

There’s an element of truth to the claims that Mixed Martial Arts is a sport that a gay audience might like. Search Google for MMA and gay and you’ll see what kind of results you turn up with. It’s an uncomfortable truth for many in the MMA industry because for a lot of the fighters involved, homosexuality and the appeal of some fans for watching fighters because of that reason is an inconvenient truth that they want no part of. Some fighters of a particular religious faith want no part of discussing the gay taboo, but for a lot of the fighters the issue is one of macho-ness and questioning how tough a fighter is. It’s no different than say the NFL or other male-dominated pro-sports where you rarely see any mega-athletes come out of the closet for fear of how their peers might react.

For UFC mid-card fighter Marcus Davis, the issue of being portrayed in a negative light as gay proved to be too much.

Last year, there was a lot of online pre-fight hype for a fight between Marcus Davis and Dan Hardy. Hardy, ever the showman, encouraged his fans to tweak Davis. The end result was a fan creating a photoshop of Davis on a fictitious “Gay Times” magazine cover featuring the tagline “Warning! Red hot man on man action. GayTimes gets pounded by the Irish hand-grenade!” After Hardy’s online fans tweaked Davis, Davis and Hardy got into a war of words over the American’s street credibility in Ireland. Hardy called him a poseur and a phony. When the two fought, Hardy won the bout and it was a singling loss for Davis.

Which, unfortunately, has created a lingering bitterness about Hardy by Davis. Unfortunately, last week’s rebuke of Mir’s conduct by UFC President Dana White didn’t register with Davis.

When a fan on Twitter wrote Davis, Davis replied back regarding Dan Hardy, “I hope Hardy dies of aids.”

Screen captures of Davis’s tweet were immediately picked up on MMA message boards and web sites. Davis ended up deleting the tweet, but the damage had been done. You can delete a tweet, but you can’t delete screen captures of it all over the Internet. The AIDS comment was now immortalized forever in online history.

Sensing major blowback, Davis tried to do damage control. He failed miserably at it.

“Dark&Bad taste-thought it was fitting aftr he did the gay photos towards me which is worse IMO this was words those pics are up for life.

“Would it have been better if I said hit by a car?”

No, it wouldn’t have been better.

The stupidity of Davis’s remarks is that he just saw first-hand evidence of what could happen to you if you say something extremely careless or crude like Frank Mir did about Brock Lesnar. Frank Mir is a PPV box office draw that Marcus Davis would die to reach the status of. That’s why what Davis said was so stupid — it not only gives MMA critics and politicians more ammunition to paint MMA fighters with the stereotype of being Neanderthal meatheads, but it also undermines Davis’s job security in MMA. He’s a mid-carder who can get cut at any time. He’s expendable. He’s not Frank Mir, one of the top fighters in the world in his weight class.

Listen, nobody likes to be portrayed online negatively. Was the photoshop of Davis stupid and juvenile? Yes. Did it reveal a tinge of homophobia amongst online MMA fans? Yes. However, it was not something that should have mentally destroyed a guy like Marcus Davis to the point that he would say that he wished Dan Hardy would die from AIDS. That’s just a terribly unjustifiable statement to make.

Everyone is entitled to make mistakes in life. We are human. However, some mistakes are bigger than other ones and Marcus Davis is finding that out the hard way right now. Since making his AIDS remark, Davis hasn’t written anything on his Twitter account. The cruel irony of Davis’s remark about Hardy is that the AIDS comment will be seen by more people than the gay photoshop picture will ever be seen online. Davis said that the gay photoshop pictures will be online “for life.” Unfortunately, someone forgot to tell Marcus that his words about Hardy will stay on search engines for life. Whenever someone searches for Marcus Davis on Google or Bing or Yahoo, the words “Dan Hardy” and “AIDS” will also show up for the rest of his human life.

That’s not a mistake that the Irish Hand Grenade will be able to ever blow up in the virtual world.

Frank Mir explains why he wants to kill Brock Lesnar in the Octagon

In the fight game, you can say a lot of things during interviews and get away with it. One line, however, that you don’t cross is saying that you want to kill your opponent and do so in the ring. That just doesn’t go over.

Which is why I am very surprised UFC management has allowed the audio from a recent interview last Friday between Frank Mir and former WCW announcer Mark Madden to remain online for listening.

Madden interviewed Mir for about 13 minutes and it was a wide-ranging interview. Mark Madden may have been too hot for ESPN management to handle, but he is a terrific interviewer at asking the right questions and manages to balance interest between hardcore sports fans and the casual sports fan that may be stopping by to listen for a few minutes. Combine that with someone as vociferous and opinioned as Frank Mir and you had an interview that was bound to be informative and entertaining. Unfortunately, you also had two combustible mouths that could say something wrong at any time as well.

Madden started off the interview by saying that the three top heavyweights in MMA are Frank Mir, Brock Lesnar, and Fedor. He asked for Mir to respond.

“I believe so. I mean, but, you know, I don’t know. Right now it’s one thing great about being in the heavyweight division that we didn’t have you know a couple of years ago is that there’s several names on that list, you know, … There’s a lot of guys out there right now. I mean, we have a lot of up-and-comers, I mean, that kid Stefan Struve is 7 foot tall running around there, you know, fighting his way up. Todd Duffee, you know, I train with him, his debut in the UFC, knocks a guy out in 3 seconds. So, right now, you know, there’s a lot of interesting match-ups and stuff. So it’s definitely a more competitive weight class, so if you can say you’re one of the best now, it’s something to be proud of.”

Madden, like many fans, wonders why Fedor never signed with the UFC. He asked Mir if he was disappointed about Fedor being in Strikeforce and why he thought the Russian didn’t sign with UFC.

“Yeah, I’m disappointed but I realize too, I think Fedor doesn’t give a… doesn’t care about the business aspect of our sport. I think he pretty much fights wherever his management puts him and I think that maybe financially for whatever reason they felt it was best to avoid the UFC. I got to think though Fedor’s a pretty competitive guy, I mean he does Sambo competitions to this day… still and on his own, you know, so you know he wants to compete and you know fighting in Strikeforce, I mean, who’s he going to fight over there? I mean, you know, I don’t know, I think if he wants some tough competition, the UFC’s where you go in any weight class and especially in the heavyweight class. He’s the only heavyweight I can think of that’s in the Top 10 that’s outside of the UFC.”

Mir is coming off of a rebound win against Cheick Kongo last December in Memphis. He lost his fight to Brock Lesnar at UFC 100 last July, the most-watched PPV in the history of UFC by far. Madden asked for Mir to elaborate on what changes he has made in training since losing to Lesnar.

“Well, you know, that’s something that I’ve been working on with Mark Philippi, he’s a strength coach here in Vegas. You know some people might recognize the name, he did some Strongman competitions, The’ World’s Strongest Man and he’s a football strength coach at UNLV for 16 years. So after that fight, you know it’s something you have to do. When you see a loss, one thing is acknowledging that I loss and you can’t make excuses. I had to sit there and go wow, you know, 40 pounds amongst skill athletes MATTERS, you know because I’m so used to big guys in the gym and I just trashed them but you know a big guy whose skilled as Lesnar is especially with the wrestling, it’s a whole different scenario. So, I’ve basically been working on strength training. Putting on size myself, you know, maybe you know I don’t know if I’ll ever be stronger than Brock Lesnar. He seems to have pretty good genetics in that category. I just have to close the gap so it’s not so overwhelming.

“First of all when I first walked in the gym I was concerned about the scale or if I put on size what it would mean. Not so much now because I realize it’s more less about you know if I’m moving weights at a fast speed and I’m lifting heavyweights and moving them around, that’s what I’m more concerned with and the weights kind of become my personal weight gain becomes an afterthought. So the one thing I’ve really noticed is just the ability to be anaerobically in shape. I think a lot of martial artists are in good aerobic shape you know sit there and hit pads or spar at a nice pace all day long, but the minute we go to do something extremely heavy or explosive they can be fatigued and that’s one thing with the training that I do at Philippi’s, a lot of it you know he has the Atlas Stones and we’re picking up stones and running around with them. It’s conditioned my body now that I can sit there and I’m not as fearful of using my explosiveness now in the Octagon because I’m like, oh, I can do it several times during a match. I don’t have to worry about holding back and conserving myself because I know if I explode I’m going to get tired.”

The obvious dynamic that made the Mir/Lesnar feud so hot in 2009 is that both men truly hate each other. Mir accurately summed up why the heat between the two men is so much more real than anything WWE is producing right now.

“I don’t think Lesnar made it in pro-wrestling because of his acting abilities. *laugh* I know from his point of view, he doesn’t like me and I can guarantee you talk to anybody in my family, it’s a legitimate hate. It’s been very motivated on my part where just you know it just his very being bugs me just because I see that a lot of children out there that you know they look to athletes and martial artists as role models and it just makes me cringe I sit there and go man I lost to this guy the second time around and now people are out there going, “Well, you know, that’s the way to be, be big, obnoxious, and angry,” you know, I’m like, no man, that’s not the way, that’s not right. So, it’s almost kind of like you know just a viewpoint you know, anger we have against each other, where everything I stand for he despises and dislikes and I can tell you that I truly do not like him as a person whatsoever.”

Those words would soon come to haunt Mir later on the interview.

Mir hyped up his upcoming fight in New Jersey against Shane Carwin on March 27th. It’s going to draw a lot of eyeballs on PPV.

“I’m hoping that you know if all goes well I mean, I got Shane Carwin March 27th and that’s a tough guy so if I get past him, then I’m looking to hopefully fight [Lesnar] sometime this Summer.”

Mir was asked to explain why he said that he felt Shane Carwin posed more of a threat to him than Brock Lesnar.

“Yeah, you know because [Carwin] poses a lot of threats, you know a lot of people think I’m downplaying Lesnar by saying Carwin’s a better version, but it’s easy. I explain it like this: Lesnar hasn’t knocked out anybody out in the Octagon. No one’s really worried about his stand-up, I mean, in our fight the last fight at UFC 100 I was more than happy to stand up with him. He kept me taking me down. So, you know, his strength and his ground and pound is obviously world-class, it’s what enabled him to be the champ. Carwin is you know he walks around 280 pounds, he’s a Division II champion in wrestling, so equally you know he’s still a better wrestler than I am and so he poses the same threats that Brock does as far as his wrestling ability but Carwin’s knocked out several people now, you know, no one’s made it past the first round with his guy. So that’s what I see as a better version because it’s like well I got to worry about his wrestling, but if I just sit there and concentrate on not getting taken down and ground and pound and I fall asleep on his right hand, it could put me to sleep. You know, he’s a very heavy hitter. In the fight with Gonzaga he knocked him out with a one shot, caught him on the chin and Gonzaga was asleep in the cage.”

Madden then asked an old-school question to Mir, asking the ex-UFC heavyweight champion which specific discipline that he trains in to be the most valuable tool in his arsenal.

“I think they all have their different points that make it better. You know I think that you know a lot of my stance and a lot of my striking is more boxing-oriented on my feet, but Muay Thai adds in the elbows and knees and shins and trying to use different weapons where boxing is limited there, you know, you only use your hands. In jiu-jitsu is obviously one of my greatest strengths just because once you hit the ground and you know a guy can have a good chin but no one has a good elbow. You don’t say, “that guy can’t be arm barred!” Not if you get caught in a armbar, your arm’s going to brake, if I catch you in a choke then you’re going to go to sleep. And then the karate, I still use it a lot too just because it’s very much more open-minded. I think sometimes people sit there and go,”Oh, wait a minute you can’t switch stances, you can’t do this, it’s fundamentally wrong,” well I’m like, no, there are certain principles you got to follow but after that just achieve the adjective. Karate has more of an approaching-the-problem kind of aspect to it, it’s more of a lifestyle martial art than just a sport for say just being in combat, so I mean I don’t think I’d be who I was with anything taken away.”

Madden busted out another question, asking Mir why he was hesitant to learn Brazilian Jiu-JItsu when he watched Royce Gracie use it in the pioneer days of UFC.

“Well, I think that it’s just a lot of times I fell into the same trap that a lot of other people fell into, it’s just like you know even though you’ve seen it it’s kind of a denial especially since I’ve been training martial arts stand up version since I was a little kid. My Dad owned a karate school. So I think that you know sometime acknowledging things that you realize that the way you’ve dedicated your life for the last couple of years is incomplete and most people don’t want to do that. It’s like people are so jealously defending their religion, their upbringing, “I have it the right way!” because no one wants to admit that they’ve dedicated their life to something that may not be the most optimal journey and so you know when I frist went into the gym I was 19 or 20 I started jiu-jitsu and there was a guy weighing 145 pounds who was a blue jelt in jiu-jitsu and you know at the time I was still 230, I’m thinking, no way. I got choked out from every way you can imagine. The guy could have been talking to me and telling what he wanted to do and I couldn’t stop him. And that’s when it finally sunk in, you know.”

Before Mir 2.0 surfaced and became the mega-star that he is today, he was splitting time between training for UFC fights and working security at the infamous Spearmint Rhino in Las Vegas. Madden asked Mir to put into perspective the troublemakers that cruised through the Rhino versus the athletes that he fights in the cage.

“The guys that go into there, that’s one thing people tell me, “Ah man, I’ve had like 50 bar fights, I’m undefeated!” I’m like, really? My wife could be undefeated in 50 bars fights, typically most guys here aren’t in shape and can’t fight for more than 15 seconds and I’ve seen men who think they know how to fight you know the first they do is grab t-shirts, they lower their head and it looks like a hockey fight. Give me a break, man! I think people you know get a couple of drinks in them and the other thing is too you have that where they couldn’t fight to begin with and now they’re drunk, so yeah fighting in a Octagon against a guy who’s a trained athlete who is dangerous and prepared to do battle, a little bit more intimidating than a guy who’s just you know got spurned by some dancer and he’s angry and he’s been drinking a bunch of drinks and you know couldn’t jog a mile let alone fight for more than 5 seconds you know he gets gassed by just getting mad.”

Despite the fame and the fortune Mir has accrued in a short amount of time, he told Madden that there is simply nothing like the rush of fighting in the cage.

“Yeah, there’s no sensation like it. I mean, obviously I mean we watch movies like Gladiator and Troy and they sit there and you see a guy going into battle and they pan out to the screen and I think people can get a feeling for what it’s like and just imagine that, it’s only a small percentage of the sensation that’s going through a fighter because we are actually living that, it’s actually like a movie come to life, I’m walking out to battle against a tough, tough warrior with thousands of fans sitting there watching you in the middle of an Octagon, it’s very yeah it’s a rush, you know, it’s hard to describe it in any other aspect of my life. I’ve been into motorcycles and you know I like to go shooting and you know there are different sports that I’m into that are a little more extreme and none of them match up to what it’s like to walk out to the Octagon.”

At this point of the interview, it was winding down and Madden had done a great job of getting Mir to answer some very open-ended questions. Unfortunately, the closing to the interview took a turn for the worse. Madden asked Mir to explain his popularity amongst Mixed Martial Arts fans and why he’s more popular than other fighters. It seemed to be a safe enough question, but the answer went incredibly overboard.

“I like to think that just for the reason that I’m pretty candid when I speak about things. A lot of individuals are so worried about being politically correct and you know a lot of fighters you know we’re all together I hear them, “Oh, don’t say that because you know the fans won’t like you!” I’m like you know what dude, I’ve realized a long time ago you’re going to have fans who love you and fans that hate you and I’d rather go ahead and say what’s on my mind than to sit there and come up with some PC you know “Oh you know the guy’s a great fighter and I have a lot of respect of him!” And if I don’t mean it, then why is it even coming out of my mouth because whose interested in hearing that? You see the same cookie cutter responses. “Oh, who do you want to fight next? Well, whoever the UFC deems me, I just want to fight anybody!” I’m like man, I’ve heard that a thousand times! I want to fight Lesnar. I hate who he is as a person, I want to break his neck in the ring, I want him to be the first person that dies due to Octagon-related injuries. That’s what’s going through my mind.”

Which prompted Madden to close out the segment by saying, “Don’t forget, Octagon-related injuries… LOVE THAT!”

Except for the parents whose children Frank Mir said earlier in the interview that Brock Lesnar shouldn’t be a role model to.

Sonnen not fighting Silva at UFC 112

Ultimate Fighting Championship officials continue to scramble to find a replacement to challenge middleweight champion Anderson Silva in the main event of UFC 112 in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, on April 10, but newly minted No. 1 contender Chael Sonnen won't be the man.

Vitor Belfort pulled out of the bout on Thursday after having undergone surgery on his left shoulder. Sonnen had defeated Nate Marquardt on Saturday in the co-main event of UFC 109 in Las Vegas to win the right to challenge the Silva-Belfort winner. But Sonnen suffered a severe gash on his forehead, as well as on the bridge of his nose, during the fight and is under a medical suspension imposed by the Nevada Athletic Commission that prevents him from fighting until March 24 and, more importantly, from sparring until March 9.

Sonnen said Friday he had a discussion with UFC matchmaker Joe Silva and will not be offered the fight. UFC president Dana White said Friday that Silva will remain on the card, but said he still does not have an opponent. There aren't a lot of viable options, particularly if Silva defends his middleweight title rather than taking a non-title bout as a light heavyweight.

The UFC could choose to wait until after UFC 110 on Feb. 20 in Sydney, Australia (Feb. 21 in Australia) and select the winner of the middleweight fight between Michael Bisping and Wanderlei Silva. That would be a risky strategy, though, given that it would delay naming an opponent for another week and would create an issue if either or both were injured. Other potential middleweight opponents who could be available are Alan Belcher, who defeated Wilson Gouveia at UFC 107; Yoshihiro Akiyama and Yushin Okami. Okami is the last man to have defeated Silva, when he won by disqualification at Rumble on the Rock 8 on Jan. 20, 2006. That would create a storyline, but Okami is coming off a decisive loss to Sonnen.

The co-main event of UFC 112 is a lightweight championship bout between B.J. Penn and No. 1 contender Frankie Edgar. A welterweight fight between ex-champion Matt Hughes and Renzo Gracie is also on the card. The show will be the UFC's first in the Middle East. Abu Dhabi-based Flash Entertainment bought a 10 percent stake in the UFC last month and is constructing an outdoor stadium that will seat around 10,000 on Yas Island near the new Ferrari World to host the show.

The ghosts of PRIDE’s past makes UFC 110 a fun card to watch

When Mark Coleman was cut from UFC on Wednesday, a few days after headlining a UFC PPV fight against Randy Coleman, you could immediately hear the loud chatter online about whether or not the move was fair. After all, Coleman did get licensed by Keith Kizer and the Nevada State Athletic Commission. Plus, Dana White was in a defensive mode leading up to the PPV event, telling everyone that it would be a competitive fight and that the show would be great. So, naturally, the boo-birds are out given that UFC is now worried about Coleman’s safety in the cage against elite competition.

Despite the ugly ending for Mark Coleman in UFC, it has been a very interesting time for former PRIDE fighters in UFC. Only in the last year have we really seen the full marketing and integration of PRIDE fighters as, well, PRIDE guys in UFC. And isn’t it ironic that some of UFC’s most interesting bouts on paper have focused not only on the ex-PRIDE guys but the fact that UFC suddenly is willing to push the legacy of PRIDE as an equal? After all these years where UFC dumped on PRIDE and Joe Silva reportedly handing a note to UFC commentators to say “This ain’t Japan” during a fight involving Sokoudjou, it is hilarious to watch UFC resurrect the ghost of PRIDE past — and do so when they could very well be heading to court this Summer against Nobuyuki Sakakibara.

UFC 110 in Sydney, Australia on February 20th is a perfect example of PRIDE’s ghost hovering over UFC matchmaking. UFC has recently been airing “Best of PRIDE” specials featuring UFC guys going over or ex-PRIDE guys who signed with UFC going over. The top two matches for the UFC 110 event feature Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira vs. Cain Velasquez in essentially a #2 contender’s bout for the Heavyweight division, along with Wanderlei Silva vs. Michael Bisping at Middleweight. The event is already sold out and it will be interesting to see how the fans react to the two Brazilians who became icons during their days in PRIDE.

For Cain Velaquez, facing a worn-down but crafty veteran like Nogueira is a challenge that he is not only looking forward to but is also very confident in succeeding at as far as winning is concerned.

“It’s definitely the toughest task that I’ve had to face,” stated Velaquez in an official UFC media interview. “I watched a lot of his tapes and his films, a lot with his fights. I know that he has a lot of experience and he’s always dangerous when he fights but I know it’s my time now. He’s just another guy up in the line to fight to get to where I want to be and that’s you know to be the UFC Heavyweight champion.

“I knew this time would come when I got here, every fight’s going to get tougher and tougher. I’m going to have to fight tougher guys and I might be fighting guys that I watched you know ever since you know this sport was young.

“I think for Nogueira I got to be twice as sharp on the ground… I mean he’s awesome on the ground. He doesn’t give up, I don’t give up either. When the cage door closes, I expect a war.”

For Nogueira’s part, he knows that he is still recovering image-wise from the loss to Frank Mir. Part one of that recovery was beating Randy Couture in a very entertaining fight last August in Portland. Part two is trying to beat the young upstart in Australia.

“I’m still in the game,” Nogueira said confidently in a UFC interview released last week. “I got to train more than ever. I’ve been fighting for 11 years. I have a lot of passion for what I do. I’ve been improving a lot. I feel very motivated. I got a very good conditioning coach. I improve about everything.”

He expects a violent ground-and-pound style and a smothering in an attempt to wear him down and not be able to pull out a submission attempt.

“Top wrestling. He got a good single legs, double legs, good transitions. He moves a lot. He got a good shape. Think he’s using MMA same style he uses in wrestling, just go and go and go and go. Not many fighters can follow him in the Heavyweight (division). He’s moving like a Light Heavyweight for the Heavyweight division. He’s not a good submission fighter, but he positions himself in a way he can punch (where) he can control his opponent. That’s what makes him good. I got a lot more experience than him. For sure I’m going to use that in the cage. He’s hungry, I’m experienced and hungry, too. So I’m going to use that you know. I got more experience in jiu-jitsu and my boxing is very good too. I think that’s a good match up for me.”

Nogueira and Velasquez are about dead even as far as the oddsmakers at the sportsbooks are concerned.

Nogueira’s Brazilian counterpart from PRIDE, Wanderlei Silva, is not an underdog going into his fight against Michael Bisping. Silva is a slight favorite (anywhere in the -150 to -170 range) over Bisping. Despite Bisping beating Denis Kang in England, the image of him getting knocked out silly by Dan Henderson last July is on the mind of everyone in the MMA community. Silva, who made his bones in PRIDE as the ultimate knockout artist, is definitely living off of his past reputation. Can he knock out Bisping? If Bisping goes back to his old striking habits of circling around the cage in a certain direction, he could very well leave himself wide open — just like he did for Dan Henderson at UFC 100.

Bisping, going into the fight, has toned down his trash-talking ways but is still as confident as he ever is going into a fight.

“I’m very excited. Number one, I’m fighting a legend like Wanderlei Silva,” exclaimed the UFC British ace in a media interview last week. “I want to fight the best Wanderlei Silva there is and I think based on the losses that he’s had recently, I think it’s going to make him more dangerous than what he normally is. I think he has to win this fight to revive his career. I got nothing but respect for Wanderlei. I think he’s a tremendous fighter, I think he’s done a lot for the sport, for Mixed Martial Arts, with his exciting style and it brings a lot of fans to the sport. But that respect’s going to go out the window, I’m going to fight this guy. Every time I walk in the gym, I leave that respect at the gym door. On the 20th of February, we’re going to fight and I’m looking to knock him out. We’re both going to try to impose our will, I know Wanderlei’s going to come in aggressive, I’m going to come in aggressive, it’s going to be a test of wills. I think it’s going to be fantastic fight to watch. As I said, it’s definitely got potential for Fight of the Night. Obviously I see myself winning, that’s what I’m training for, that’s what I’m dedicating my entire life to right now and I’m going to win this fight. It’s going to be a great fight, it’s going to be a hard fight. As I said, Wanderlei Silva is no pushover. I got absolute respect for the guy, but I want to win this fight.”

UFC 109: Saving Grace

It was a pitiful main event, a train-wreck of a match-up that saw two Hall of Famers clash in what would’ve been blasted as laughable had it occurred in another promotion, but because it was in the Octagon it was hailed as legitimate. UFC 109 saw Randy Couture, still moderately competitive at 46-years old, trounce 45-year-old UFC 10 tournament winner Mark Coleman in a predictably one-sided and ugly affair. If not for Chael Sonnen’s spirited three round war with Nate Marquardt – a virtuoso performance that cemented the former NCAA All-American wrestler’s status as top middleweight contender – the night’s marquee bout would’ve left fans with a bad taste in their mouths. Sonnen was UFC 109’s saving grace.

Who is this version of Sonnen and where did he come from? When he first ventured into the Octagon at UFC 55, he was just a wrestler who couldn’t stop himself from getting caught in submissions, and when he was cut from the organization he wandered, competing in BodogFight, Northwest regional promotion Sportfight, and then losing to Paulo Filho in the WEC. But somewhere between tapping out to Demian Maia at UFC 95 and now, Sonnen sewed up that hole in his game, polished his boxing, and turned into a righteous dispenser of beatings. Post-transformation, Sonnen dominated Dan Miller and top-ranked Yushin Okami, the latter earning him a duel with Marquardt for the right to face whomever holds the belt after the future Anderson Silva/Vitor Belfort dustup. Such was the stage when UFC 109’s co-main event kicked off.

For three rounds Sonnen put the former King of Pancrase on his back, dodging a couple dangerously close guillotine attempts and peppering the Greg Jackson-trained fighter with fists from above. No slouch himself, Marquardt fired back from the bottom, opening up a nasty gash on Sonnen’s forehead that painted the violence crimson and made both men slick with blood. But that – and a reversal and brief stint on top in the final seconds of the bout – was all Marquardt had, and when the ultimate tally was read, the scorecards accurately reflected reality: the dominant Sonnen had won.

Next for Sonnen is a crack at the belt. Miraculously, this Sonnen may even have a chance.

Unlike the young wrestler, the aging Coleman did not stand a chance. But what did everyone expect? After a meager performance against an under-prepared Mauricio “Shogun” Rua and a narrow decision against Stephan Bonnar, it was clear the best days of the once-feared “Godfather of Ground and Pound” were behind him. Conversely, though on the far side of his 40s, Couture has remained in the mix with the upper echelons of the light-heavyweight and heavyweight divisions, and if Coleman pioneered the art of getting on top and raining down strikes, “The Natural” has refined the method into a science. So it was that the two met in UFC 109’s main event (instead of UFC 17, when they were originally scheduled to meet), and so it was that Couture bullied Coleman against the cage, dirty boxed him for the first round, and tossed him the canvas and went to work in the second. The end came when Coleman rolled to his stomach and Couture mercifully sank the choke – a sad finish to a sad and unnecessary bit of matchmaking.

Matt Serra proved he’s still got those heavy hands, which he used to send Frank Trigg into dreamland half way into Round 1 in their bout. Neither the jiu-jitsu master nor the ex-wrestler bothered with grappling, choosing instead to duke it out, and after a few select punches to the body Serra fired off a stunning overhand right. The trio of follow-up blows on the ground was just the icing on the cake, as Trigg was out. Also out was Mike Swick, who engaged in a stand-up battle with the big punching Paulo Thiago and paid for his folly with a right hook to the chops, a punch that sent him confused to the canvas. The Brazilian wasted no time applying a D’Arce choke, and Swick was asleep just shy of the two-minute mark of the second round. Coming off a crushing loss to Marquardt at UFC 102, Maia turned in a tame performance against fellow jiu-jitsu black belt Dan Miller, edging ahead with slightly more effective striking and a few takedowns to snag the decision.

In undercard action, both Mac Danzig and Melvin Guillard squeaked by Justin Buchholz and Ronnys Torres, with the TUF refugees’ victories more a matter of securing a dominant position here or landing one or two more strikes there than anything else. UFC rookie Phil Davis, however, left no doubt who was the better fighter in his bout with former WEC champ Brian Stann, with the highly-decorated wrestler getting the Marine Corps officer down repeatedly and beating on him for the decision. And if Rolles Gracie had wanted to make an impression in his first UFC outing, he certainly did – although probably not how he’d hoped. Controlling late-replacement Joey Beltran early with his groundfighting, Gracie seemed to live up to the hype his last name carries. That is, until he gassed. A minute and a half into Round 2 and he was done, exhausted and turtled as Beltran pounded out the TKO win.

To Be or Not To Be: The Phillipe Nover Question

To be or not to be? That is the question that looms above Phillipe Nover and his UFC career, a question that will likely be answered when he enters the cage at UFC 109 to face Rob Emerson. Heralded by Dana White as the next Georges St. Pierre and Anderson Silva for his dominant performances in the Octagon during the TUF 8 season, the Brooklyn-born registered nurse of Filipino decent seemed to have his future in a tight rear naked choke. In fact, he was the favorite going into the live finale. But fellow TUF finalist Efrain Escudero had an answer for Nover’s heavy hands and solid jiu-jitsu – his wrestling – and when the third and final round of their scrap ended, Escudero was the recipient of both a unanimous decision and the moniker “The Ultimate Fighter”. Nover, who’d quit his job at Coney Island Hospital to train full time, was sent back to the drawing board. For one reason or another, he hasn’t won a fight since.

The Ultimate Fighter reality show wasn’t even a raw concept yet when Nover popped his MMA competition cherry. The year was 2003, the promotion was Kipp Kollar’s Reality Fighting, and the venue was the gymnasium of Marist High School in Bayonne, New Jersey. Back then, the Filipino was more of a Jeet Kune Do stylist, an intense rookie employing a mishmash of striking skills to go with his newly-acquired Rodrigo Gracie-taught submissions. But he hit hard, and wasted no time doing it, cracking opponent Ron Stallings in the chops before finishing the stunned fighter with a guillotine.

After that, Nover returned to action only once a year, scoring a knockout here and sinking a choke there, all the while juggling his nursing pursuits with his training. Yet with each subsequent win, Nover’s reputation as a top competitor simmered on the stovetop of Northeast MMA, until Ring of Combat’s Tournament of Champions came along and brought his it all to a violent and steaming boil. It was there where he took out a fighter from Spain and kimura’d a dangerous wrestler from the Jersey Shore, and though Nover was forced to miss the final round of the eight-man tournament due to a shoulder injury sustained in training, he’d more than made his mark. His next bout would be aired on SpikeTV.

Losing to Escudero forced Nover to return to nursing, but he was game and eager when he stepped into the Octagon to take on Kyle Bradley at UFC 98 six months later. Unfortunately, a premature and controversial stoppage marred that outing, the result of him getting dropped with punches and referee Yves Lavigne erroneously thinking he was done. Then came UFC Fight Night 19, where just hours before his match with Sam Stout, Nover fainted in the locker room – a turn of events that prompted the athletic commission to call the bout off.

Now, medically cleared to compete, Nover gets to face Emerson on Saturday night. To say he’s in desperate need of a win is putting it mildly. Nover’s got his back to the figurative wall. To be or not be? For Nover, and the fans he made rising up through the Northeast ranks as well as from kicking ass on TUF, that is the Shakespearian question.

Old and Irrelevant, But Obviously Important

As with most – if not all – intense athletic endeavors, the competitive lifespan of a fighter’s career tapers off with time, each white hair and arthritic flair up akin to grains of sand in an hourglass, the accumulation of which is the definitive signal that it’s time to hang up the gloves. Yes, mixed martial arts is a younger man’s sport. So much so, in fact, that when a competitor enters the cage on the far side of 30, he’s considered ancient; at 40, an anomaly. Beyond that, he’s a circus act. And yet here we are, a few days after 47-year-old ex-football great Herschel Walker’s first MMA bout, which translated into a ratings bonanza for Strikeforce and Showtime, and a few days before UFC 109, which will be headlined by Mark Coleman and Randy Couture, a pair of veterans so grizzled their Octagon debuts were at UFCs 10 and 13. No one in their right mind harbors the belief that anything these men do in the cage matters to the rest of their division. And why should they? The chances of Walker, Coleman or Couture rising to the top are slim to none, rendering whatever they do in terms of winning or losing meaningless. But ratings, and the fact that two of the sport’s pioneers can still command top billing, don’t lie. They may be old and irrelevant, but to the fans who tune in to watch in great numbers, they’re obviously still important.

About 517,000 viewers tuned in to watch Heisman Trophy winner Walker take the pugilistic plunge against a tomato can, making Strikeforce: “Miami” the second most-watched Showtime MMA event ever (“Carano vs. Cyborg” ranks number one). How much of that is attributable to football fans curious to see one of their athletes compete in a wholly new realm? How much of that is from the “freak show” factor? Honestly, it doesn’t matter. Like the 35-year old Kimbo Slice – a man who entered MMA too late in his life to turn himself into a contender, yet because of his mass appeal as a former backyard brawler is the most popular fighter of all time – Walker’s an eyeball magnet if ever there was one. Of course, being perilously close to 50 means his time in the cage will be short, and if he faces anyone with even a modicum of ability he’s a dead man, but that’s beside the point. This old man’s got fans. Consequently, as long as he willing, he will always have fights.

Some may argue that Coleman and Couture’s UFC 109 headlining status is a sign of Zuffa’s shortage of “big names”, and to a degree that may be true. But Coleman was a UFC superstar long before Zuffa entered the picture, and back when Dana White and company were contemplating making Bob Meyrowitz, the promotion’s original owner, an offer, “The Hammer” was winning Pride’s prestigious Grand Prix tournament. He may have looked horrific against Mauricio “Shogun” Rua at UFC 93 and just barely squeaked by Stephan Bonnar at UFC 100, but he was the man back in the day.

Fellow UFC Hall of Famer Couture’s story is similar, although his run as a title threat ended much more recently (at UFC 91, when Brock Lesnar TKO’d him for the belt). Couture’s popularity has proved enduring, and the stuff of solid pay-per-view buyrate legend. It’s a given that as long as he’s willing to compete, the powers that be will let him. And whether the Coleman the ex-wrestler win or Couture the ex-wrestler wins at UFC 109, it ultimately means nothing for the rankings. Two old men with strong fan bases are mixing it up, and Zuffa is going to let them. That’s purely a bone tossed to the fans keen on shelling out the dough to watch.

The sport is too new and too young for much of a mapped-out retirement plan, and really, do great fighters ever truly retire when they’re supposed to? However, if you’re an aging competitor with a ton of people willing to watch you throw down, retirement can remain a dirty word. Lots of fans means you will always remain important.

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