It’s only been a few days since the UFC announced the signing of boxing champion James Toney, and already, the fruits of their labor are paying off. Why? Well, if you don’t follow boxing, you’re about to discover that Mr. Toney has a gift for gab that is on par with MMA smack talk greats like “Rampage” Jackson and Dan Hardy (amongst others). In other words, when Toney talks, people fire up the popcorn and pull up a chair.
The latest, ‘dude check this out’ offerings from Toney, come courtesy an interview he did with the On the Grind Boxing Radio Show (thanks to Fight Hype for the quotes). From commenting on a possible bout with Randy Couture (apparently Randy is in a “lose-lose situation” if it goes down), saying Dana White “put his money where his mouth is” (does that mean it’s a lot of cash?), to saying that boxing promoters got “fat and lazy”, there are a few ‘wow’ statements in the interview.
When asked about his MMA skills, however, this comment from Toney in particular, seemed to jump through our monitors right smack dab into our eyeballs.
“I look at it like this, if a guy get in there and try to take me to the ground, he might see his head go into orbit. The head is going into orbit, for real. These guys in MMA, they good wrestlers and good grapplers and good kickers, like girls, but, you know, when it comes to throwing them blows, they ain’t got a chance in hell.”
Heads into orbit huh? Fighters beware.
Urijah Faber answers a bunch of fans’ question from the UFC 109 Fight Club Q&A. Interestingly, Faber likes Kimbo Slice, but Brock Lesnar…not so much.
Not only is Fedor Emelianenko one of the sport’s best, and thus, entertaining fighters, but the constant drama surrounding the renowned heavyweight as to when, who and if he’s going to fight kind of adds to the intrigue. News about Fedor is kind of like scratching a lottery ticket; every time you do you’re super excited, but often, you end up being damn disappointed. If it’s a winner though…hot damn.
Yesterday we passed along a report from MMA Bay that said sources had informed the outlet that Fedor had injured his hand recently, and as a result, “The Last Emperor’s” expected bout with Fabricio Werdum could be delayed. In a report from Sherdog.com this AM, however, M-1 Global representative Evgeni Kogan has said reports of Fedor being injured are false.
In respect to recent speculation that negotiations between Strikeforce and Fedor’s management (M-1) weren’t going swimmingly, according to the Sherdog report, the two organizations are in the final stages of revising Fedor’s contract. Kogan added that getting the M-1 brand out there more, at their co-promoted events with Strikeforce, was a big part of the negotiations (cue Dana White laughing).
So, yadda, yadda, yadda, when’s Fedor fighting?
“I think June, July is realistic,” said Kogan, “It’s not 100 percent. Don’t take this as a fight announcement, but I think during the summer.”
Nice. Although crossing our fingers until then isn’t going to be easy.
It looks like Strikeforce and M-1 Global are in the process of dotting the i’s and crossing the t’s on their new agreement.
M-1’s Evgeni Kogan confirmed to Sherdog that the two organizations are currently finalizing their revised deal and they expect Fedor Emelianenko to fight Fabricio Werdum sometime this summer, likely in either June or July. Apparently the reasons for renegotiating centered on the co-branding of M-1 Global.
“We were renegotiating. I think we’re pretty much at the end of that road,” said Kogan. “After the CBS show, we thought that the terms needed a little bit tweaking — nothing major, just a little bit of tweaking. So, we had a round of negotiations with Strikeforce. Everything went positively. We’re pretty much at the end.”
“Obviously, we are much more than the management company for Fedor,” said Kogan. “For us, it’s really important that the M-1 Global brand is acknowledged on these co-promotion events. As much as the partners made a lot of effort to acknowledge the co-branding, the media basically picked up on the fact that it was Strikeforce and kind of forgot about everything else, which wasn’t the most ideal for us.”
Kogan also stated M-1 never once communicated with the UFC or anyone else for that matter. To clear up other rumors, Kogan says there’s no “interior struggles” at M-1, they’ve scaled back Jerry Millen’s responsibilities and Fedor’s hand is fine.
With Fedor essentially back, all seems well in Strikeforce again. Scott Coker is happy at least, and wants everyone to know they are in it for the long haul.
“There’s a lot of benchmarks that I can check off and move forward,” Coker said. “But if you were to say a year ago, before that first fight, ‘Scott, you’ll have Fedor, Gina Carano and ‘Cyborg’ Santos will be the highest-rated show in the history of MMA on Showtime – bigger than even ‘Kimbo Slice’ – you’re going to develop new stars like Gegard Mousasi and ‘King Mo,’ DREAM is going to come to fruition, and that relationship is going to go and really work,’ I would have said to probably half of it, ‘No way,’” Coker said. “It’s an exciting time.
“Think about this: Aoki vs. Melendez, how many people could have pulled that off? I feel very fortunate, and it’s going to be an honor to have Aoki to fight Gilbert and to test our guys against their’s and see what happens. That’s what should be happening everywhere.”
“We’re going to be in this for a long time, and a year from now, it’s probably going to be the same thing,” Coker said. ” The difference between our company and the other companies that went out of business before us is that this is our core business. We’ve been doing this for 25 years, and I think we’re very good at it. My partners that are with me now have made us 10-times more efficient, and they’re very good at what they do, and they bring very smart business prowess to Strikeforce. I feel very lucky.
“To Strikeforce’s fans: Thank you for the support. We’re going to do 20 fights in a 12 month period. Continue supporting us; we truly appreciate it.”
Exciting times indeed…
In case you missed it, last night the UFC officially confirmed that Kimbo Slice will throw down with fellow TUF 10 competitor, Matt Mitrione, at the May 8th, UFC 113 card in Montreal (if you haven’t left the internet since last week and thus knew about the fight already, we’ve been there, but trust us, the computer isn’t the only one that ‘understands’ you).
You also might have a heard a collective groan emanating from around the world, due to the fact that this confirmation kyboshes a bout between Slice and newly signed boxing champ, James Toney. The good news is that perhaps this means that Randy Couture is getting his wish and he’ll be the first to introduce Toney to the Octagon floor. (Check out this interview with MMA Fighting where Toney concedes he hasn’t done any full time MMA sparring yet… “it’s all hand to hand combat” after all….)
In addition, you know Mitrione and Slice has the potential for a good brawl. Both guys like to throw hands and both guys can end a fight with one punch. Mitrione is damn tricky on account of his unorthodox style and Slice continues to hone his money making capacity at American Top Team (which is amongst the best at instructing one in the art of inducing unconsciousness)
Plus we’re all looking forward to more raspy and mysterious interviews from Mitrione, as well as comments from Slice, but that’s a given.
WEC 47’s Fight of the Night — Leonard Garcia vs. George Roop — didn’t make the broadcast Saturday night. Lucky for us though, Versus has been kind enough to post it online for all to see. Check it out if you have 20 minutes to spare.
HT: USA Today
Remember when I said all the farewell pieces to Jens Pulver might be a little premature? This is why.
“No, I’m not done,” Pulver said. “I’m disappointed. I just think it’s not fair to do this to all of you, to go out there and just not get the Ws.
“But I guess in the end of it all, that’s not what it’s all about for me,” Pulver continued. “I never did this for money. God knows I didn’t do it for money. I’ve always done it because this is my life and this is my lifestyle, and I’m just on a no-hit streak. I just can’t hit. So we’re going to keep working.”
“I’m not going to say I’m retired, but I want to build Driven, I want to build the gym, I want to keep training,” Pulver said. “I feel very confident in Tony [Fryklund] and the practices that we were having. Three months working out like this and I think the changes were there.”
Not that I don’t agree with all the great things that have been said about Jens Pulver in the last two days or that he doesn’t deserve them when he does retire, but can we give him a moment to breathe and figure out what he wants to do before say goodbye to someone who might not be leaving?
Image via Sherdog
The main event for the not-yet-official-but-totally-happening-to-screw-with-Strikeforce UFC Fight Night 22 card still hasn’t leaked, but all the speculation is still centering around Kimbo Slice. To add more fuel to that fire, Matt Mitrione was set to fight Kimbo Slice on May 8 at UFC 113, but now he’s not sure what the hell is going on.
“I have no clue what’s going on; the last 15 hours have been pretty crazy,” Mitrione said. “To be truly honest, I haven’t heard a thing from the UFC, and it’s frustrating me. It’s my understanding that it took awhile to get his paperwork signed, but I’m sure it’s signed.
“Then again, that doesn’t mean (expletive). When I was in the NFL I signed a contract, they signed a contract, and they can cut you whenever they want. I know that from first-hand experience.”
“I texted Joe Silva (Thursday) night and asked what was happening, if there was any danger of this being cancelled,” Mitrione said. “His response was basically that nothing was official and that I should keep preparing — that I’m still fighting in Montreal.”
If the UFC does put Kimbo Slice at the forefront of this card, the other question will be who is his opponent? Well, it doesn’t sound like it will be Matt Mitrione unless they’re just keeping him in the dark until they get a green light from Kimbo. The big rumor out there is James Toney, but after he was done telling MDS he isn’t worried about takedowns he said he’s positive he’ll fight this summer on a pay-per-view.
So for now it remains a mystery, but with only five or so weeks left to promote the event we should find out soon enough.
Update: Turns out Kimbo Slice won’t be a part of the UFC Fight Night 22 card after all. The UFC has officially announced Kimbo Slice vs. Matt Mitrione for UFC 113. Dave Meltzer says Kimbo was under serious consider for April 17, but apparently the UFC has decided to go in a different direction. What that direction is is anyone’s guess at this point.
Cung Le insinuates he has a fight lined up, but won’t say when or against who, just that we’ll have to wait till the Nashville show for an announcement. He does however say he wants a rematch with Scott Smith ASAP… Did he just give it away?
Since “Rampage” Jackson decided to postpone his December bout with Rashad Evans to take a role in the “The A-Team,” the drama between him and the UFC, has reached near Tito Ortiz like proportions (actually we take that back; until Spike TV films a go nowhere documentary about Dana White training for a bout that won’t happen with Rampage, it’s not even close).
Now, when Rampage announced he was coming back from ‘retirement’ and would take on Rashad Evans in May, (we also wept with joy) relations between the former light-heavyweight champ and White remained less than cordial (unless you consider calling Dana a liar a sign of a healthy relationship). More recently, however, it seems like relations between Rampage and Dana might be slowly getting back to ‘chummy’, as last week Mr. Jackson seemed rather pleased about the new car he was given by the promotion.
Today, Fighters Only Magazine has posted more comments from Jackson, which seems to indicate that the ‘beef’ continues to get ‘squashed.’ Rampage was pretty complimentary towards the UFC , while comparing their medical help to that of Pride’s, stating:
“Yeah, [you would] take yourself to the hospital. I remember my people taking me to the hospital. I think [Pride] used to have a van there sometimes. But in the UFC if you get hurt even in practice for a fight, Dana will say ‘Come on, come to my doctor’ and they will pay for it.”
It’s doubtful Rampage would be tossing that out there if he still wasn’t on good terms with White.
Georges St. Pierre puts his UFC welterweight title on the line against UK striker Dan Hardy on Saturday, March 27, at UFC 111.
The OAC has released the fighter payouts for WEC 47 “Bowles vs. Cruz.” Keep in mind, these figures represent the base contracted pay the fighter receives from the promotion. These figures do not include any additional undisclosed bonuses or sponsorship money, which in many cases exceeds a fighter’s base pay. These numbers also do not account for taxes, insurance, and license fees.
It wasn’t former champions Miguel Torres or Brian Bowles or new bantamweight champion Dominick Cruz, or even lightweight pioneer Jens Pulver who earned the biggest paycheck at WEC 47 last Saturday night. It was Joseph Benavidez who pocketed $39,000 after his win and submission bonuses. Miguel Torres and Leonard Garcia were the only other fighters who managed to break the $20k mark.
Payouts
Courtesy of MMA Junkie:
- Dominick Cruz: $18,000 ($9k + $9k win bonus)
Brian Bowles: $12,000 - Joseph Benavidez: $29,000 ($14.5k + $14.5k)
Miguel Torres: $26,000 - Javier Vazquez: $12,000 ($6k + $6k)
Jens Pulver: $14,000 - L.C. Davis: $18,000 ($9k + $9k)
Deividas Taurosevicius: $9,000 - Bart Palaszewski: $12,000 ($6k + $6k)
Karen Darabedyan: $4000 - Scott Jorgensen : $16,000 ($8k + $8k)
Chad George: $3,000 - Chad Mendes: $8,000 ($4k + $4k)
Erik Koch: $3,000 - Anthony Pettis: $6,000 ($3k + $3k)
Danny Castillo: $9,500 - Leonard Garcia: $14,000*
George Roop: $3,000* - Fredson Paixao: $4,000 ($2k + $2k)
Courtney Buck: $3,000 - Ricardo Lamas: $10,000 ($5k + $5k)
Bendy Casimir: $3,000
Bonuses
$10,000 bonus to each fighter.
- KO of the night – Anthony Pettis
- Submission of the night – Joseph Benavidez
- Fight of the night – Leonard Garcia & George Roop
Total Payout
A disclosed total of $276,500, including all bonuses, was paid out to the fighters.
We’re extremely excited about the upcoming March 21st tilt between Brandon “The Truth” Vera and Jon “Bones” Jones; not only is it a good match-up and on cable TV through Versus (meaning more dough for beer), Jones is so effing exciting to watch, even his hands getting taped is highlight reel material (that takes moves folks).
Now Vera has also put together a couple of memorable stoppages in his UFC tenure, just ask Frank Mir, but he’s also been in some real snoozers, recall (or actually don’t) his fight with Tim Sylvia. All this aside, Vera will likely be the best all rounded fighter Jones has faced to date; “The Truth” can strike, submit and wrestle (as well as be honest at all times).
In a recent interview with MMA Weekly, Vera informed the outlet that he’s been spending extra time working on his jiu-jitsu recently, summing it up confidently by stating that “You take me to the ground this year, you’re going to get submitted.” In addition, the former heavyweight gave this prediction, in regards to his upcoming bout with Jones.
“Jones, he’s got the skills; he’ll stand with me. Somebody’s going to go to sleep.”
Yes, Jones definitely has the skills as well as the longest arms in the UFC (no joke), which has made fighting “Bones” for a lot of guys a less than pleasant experience. The potential for a mind numbing stoppage from either fighter is definitely there.
To bet on the Jones vs. Vera head here.
Last Saturday night we witnessed Dominick Cruz become the new WEC bantamweight champion. What we didn’t see was the personal sacrifices Cruz made to get there.
“I live modestly by choice because the less bills that I have, the less debts that I have is the less I have to work and make money to support those needs. The less things that I have to live with, the more time I can devote to training. I try to devote every waking hour I have into MMA, because my goal is to be world champion and be the best fighter I can be.”
Video via PureFight.org
Last week varying reports bantered around the internet stating that relations between Fedor Emelianenko’s management and Strikeforce weren’t real cozy. As the week concluded, however, Strikeforce CEO Scott Coker stated that things were still cool and that fans would likely see “The Last Emperor” throw down sometime this summer (and based off Fedor’s last two fights, throw down means he takes several punches, looks like he might actually lose and then KO’s his opponent with one thundering right… it’s damn dramatic if nothing else)
Well according to a report from MMA Bay, the outlet is reporting that Fedor has incurred yet another hand injury, which could keep him on the sidelines for several months (seems like it’s not a normal year if Fedor doesn’t hurt his hand at least once…). Apparently MMA Bay learned of the injury from a “source close to the situation” at this past weekend’s Arnold Exhibition in Columbus. In addition, the report goes on to say that two more “reliable sources” have confirmed the injury, which has put an early summer clash between Fedor and Fabricio Werdum in doubt.
So, if accurate, the report raises other questions. If Fedor is indeed out until the end of summer, will Strikeforce still look to match him up against Werdum? Or will they roll with somebody else? The Alistair Overeem and Brett Rogers fight is scheduled for May 15th; so the winner could possibly be ready to face Fedor later this summer, depending on when he’s actually ready to fight of course. Stay tuned for more complications…
If you didn’t catch last night’s WEC then you missed out on some sweet violence; if you don’t even know what the WEC is, well then you have some serious homework to do today ( plus WEC card girl Brittney Palmer is unbelievable…)
Of course a huge story coming out of last night’s show in Columbus was that Dominick Cruz took home the bantamweight championship, as former champ Brian Bowles was unable to continue after the second round, due to an injured hand. Cruz looked awesome in the fight, so he deserves a lot of props, but Joseph Benavidez’s win over former 135lb. champion Miguel Torres is really what resonated on our ‘Now That’s What’s Up’ index.
Torres has long been widely regarded as one of world’s best P-4-P fighters period, but Benavidez hung in there against his much taller opponent, opened up a massive ‘close your eyes hun’ gash on Torres, and submitted the accomplished black belt with a guillotine choke. Yeah, it’s nice to see that he got the ‘Submission of the Night’ and an extra 10 g’s for his efforts.
Now, Benavidez’s only career loss to date was a UD defeat at the hands of the new champ Cruz; so are we talking rematch here? (Thanks to MMA Junkie for the quote)
“I’d love to go in there and avenge my only loss,” said Benavidez. “It was a tough fight with Dominick. I think it is a great fight for the fans. We put on a really good show. We could have both gone two more rounds. It was a three-round fight. I’d love to do that, of course.”
Good stuff.
As the day unfolds, speculation as to what bouts the UFC will actually go with on April 17th, in its efforts to royally eff over Strikeforce’s scheduled event that same day continues. There had been talk that Mike Swick might be stepping up to face Matt Serra, but the welterweight has effectively put to rest that notion, by ‘tweeting’ that his arm is really messed up .
Not fighting Serra guys. Most likely having surgery soon
Dr appt on Mon. to figure out how they are going to fix my arm which is most certainly only w/surgery. MRI results were pretty bad.
Radio host Carmichael Dave posted on the Underground yesterday that a bout between Kimbo Slice and the newly signed James Toney is rumored to be in the works for April 17th, and that Yahoo Sport’s Kevin Iole also told him that he was hearing the same thing (your eyebrows will likely remain raised for several minutes).
Getting Toney in the Octagon that quick, after just signing with the UFC Wednesday, seems a little unlikely. But we’re the same people that were questioning the brain development of folks saying Toney was UFC bound one week ago, so what the hell do we know.
Earlier we touched on the fact that there are reports surfacing that the UFC might counter Strikeforce’s upcoming April 17th event in Nashville, with its own event that same night. The UFC has certainly done the old ‘so you want to play with the big boys?’’ thing before, putting together a Fight Night card featuring Anderson Silva vs. James Irvin in no time flat, to take a stab at Affliction’s first show in July, 2008 (ah, remember those days, when Affliction was a promotion as well as the purveyor of cross and skull ridden t-shirts?).
Well, according to a report from Sherdog.com, the UFC could be taking it up a notch higher, as reportedly the promotion is looking at not only holding an event that same night to diminish television ratings, it might be considering holding an event in Nashville itself. If accurate, that’s not going to be good for Strikeforce ticket sales. The line-up for the Strikeforce card is sick, but, let’s face it, the growing promotion still isn’t exactly the ‘talk of the town’ with mainstream, ‘I only watch a couple of fighters like Chuck Liddell’ fans.
But hold on, the Sherdog report goes on to state that Strikeforce could move the event one week later to April 24th, which would then go head to head with the WEC’s PPV debut (cue dramatic music). Meaning the UFC might have to decide whether or not it wants the $44.95 WEC to compete with the free CBS Strikeforce card. There’s more drama to come no doubt.
Recently Strikeforce announced a reedonkously good line-up for the promotion’s upcoming April 17th show; a card that features three huge title fights in Dan Henderson vs. Jake Shields, Gegard Mousasi vs. “King Mo” Lawal, and Gilbert Melendez vs. Shinya Aoki. Aside from reports this AM that the UFC is looking to ‘restrict viewership’ of that show, by tossing together its own that same night, another problem that the Strikeforce card has been facing is a collective ‘how come that Russian dude aint fighting?’
Now of course we’re referring to Fedor Emelianenko, who demonstrated last November in his ‘booya’ KO of Brett Rogers, that he’s capable of packing the network television house. When Fedor wasn’t announced for the upcoming CBS show, it added more fuel to the rumour fire that relations between Strikeforce and the fighter’s management M-1 Global weren’t good.
In a recent interview with MMA Junkie, however, Strikeforce CEO Scott Coker acknowledged that the two organizations have been negotiating, and that an announcement regarding “The Last Emperor” could be coming shortly.
“I can tell you this: we’ve been having really good dialogue with M-1 Global and (M-1 Global president) Vadim Finkelchtein, and I think we’re in the final stages of buttoning everything up to make that happen again,” Coker said. “I think we’ll have an announcement soon on that, but I feel very confident we’ll be promoting Fedor here in the near future.”
Coker went on to say that Fedor would be fighting in the June/ July time frame. Sounds good to us.