Fans of Canadian UFC welterweight champion Georges St-Pierre will have to wait another year before they get to see their favourite fighter defend his title. News broke today that the St-Pierre blew out his ACL (anterior cruciate ligament) and will be unable not defend his title against Nick Diaz February 4th in Las Vegas. This is the second time in a row St-Pierre will have pulled out of a title defense because of his injured knee, the champ also withdrew from his UFC 137 bout against Carlos Condit with the hopes that the time off would rehabilitate the injury.
Carlos Condit will now step in to face Nick Diaz at UFC 143 on February 4th for the interim UFC welterweight title. Fight fans should be happy with this switch as it may produce a more explosive result than the originally planned main event. Diaz and Condit are both known for finishing their opponents so it will be interesting to see who will leave the octagon with their hand raised.
At 30 years old, and 24 fights into his professional fighting career St-Pierre is smart to get his knee problems fixed now. He will be able to bounce back much quicker from any surgery and ligament reconstruction because of his current conditioning. St-Pierre is a fighter known for his speed, athleticism and agility the only question is how will this surgery impact his future abilities in the cage.
Former UFC light heavyweight champ, Ultimate Fighter season one winner and author, Forrest Griffin made the news yesterday by taking to twitter and subjecting his followers to a tasteless joke about rape.
“Rape is the new missionary” – Forrest Griffin
Let that one marinate for a second.
Just because it’s your job to get punched in the head for a living doesn’t give you a pass to make ridiculously offensive comments whenever you feel like it.
Like it or not, young kids idolize these fighters as modern day gladiators, and now that you can follow someone’s every bowel movement through sites like Twitter and Facebook, these young fans are getting exposed to comments like this. That at an impressionable age can be very dangerous.
To understand why we are even talking about Forrest Griffin, we need to look at where he came from. A former patrol officer for the Georgia police, Forrest was catapulted to fame in 2005 after his epic fight against Stephan Bonnar during the finale of the UFC’s first ever season of the Ultimate Fighter. Griffin rode his wave of fame and authored two books that were punctuated with his irreverence, dry wit and unique outlook on the world. More recently Griffin’s star has faded after a series of lackluster performances inside the octagon, which might be at the root of his “lashing out” over twitter.
The timing of this inappropriate e-outburst couldn’t be worse for Forrest’s bosses or the UFC. Griffin just received an award from his employers for being one of the “Most Creative” tweeters in the organization as the UFC held it’s first ever Twitter incentive program this fall.
The UFC’s president Dana White has always taken a hands off approach when it comes to it’s stable of fighters and their interactions with the media, “Everybody makes mistakes and everybody does things that are wrong sometimes. ... We do the best we can do. How do you really think that we could possibly police 375 fighters and try to control everything they say?”
Everybody does indeed make mistakes, but when you are financially incentivizing your employees to interact directly with media and fans over social media, you need to make sure you have some control over what they are saying. At the end of the day, when these situations crop up, invariably it always blows back onto the UFC.
The tweet in question was posted on November 8th and has since been deleted by Griffin, but as the fighter tweeted just two days before this incident,
“I love twitter cus by the time you want to take "it" back "it's" out there forever kinda like nude pics”
This isn’t the first time Griffin has been in hot water because of his “sense of humour” let’s just hope in the future, especially after the birth of his daughter, he learns to keep his inappropriate ramblings to himself. Also, the UFC needs to start muzzling some of its more outspoken fighters. Even though they promote their fights based on fighter’s personalities, if they ever hope to one day be ‘mainstream’ they need to start keeping a tighter lid on things.
Will the UFC benefit from some legitimate competition?
Today, media giant Viacom announced their purchase of a majority stake in Bellator Fighting Championships, the second largest mixed martial arts promotion in the world. Viacom will begin airing live fights on Spike TV starting in 2013, once their current obligations to Zuffa and the Ultimate Fighting Championship end. This deal signals big things for Bellator as the UFC’s corporate wheeling and dealing in 2011 widened the competitive gap between the two top promotions considerably. Hopefully this infusion of cash will allow Bellator to tighten it’s game and debut on Spike with a quality polished product comparable to that of the UFC.
This isn’t Viacom’s first dance, they have been airing The Ultimate Fighter reality show as well as occasional live UFC Fight Night events on Spike since 2005 and have seen great traction with MMA amongst their target demo. Their dealings with the UFC over the last six years have allowed the network to test the waters with the sport and perfect the formula that will allow them to hit the ground running in 2013.
This deal effectively secures Bellator’s future as a player in the MMA landscape. Bjorn Rebney, CEO of Bellator who will keep his job and help see the organization through this it’s next phase said, “It's a very, very good day for mixed martial arts as a whole, Because now you have two groups in the space that have a very substantial presence that obviously isn't going to go anywhere for a very, very long time.” This purchase comes on the heels of the UFC’s landmark deal with FOX Sports earlier this fall, which will see multiple events beamed into millions of homes worldwide a few times a year, for free.
Many people believe that this increase in competition will force the UFC to continue to up it’s game, but I can’t help asking the question, does the UFC really need competition to continue to strive for greatness? Will the idea of Bellator nipping at it’s heels for years to come really force White and the Fertittas to strive for bigger things, or will it be business as usual for the martial arts juggernaut?
One of the biggest down-sides with being the obvious 2nd string promotion, regardless of financial backing, is your fighters will always hold the UFC in higher regard. Viacom’s association with Bellator could just provide a larger stage that aspiring fighters can use as a jumping off point to reach the pinnacle of the sport. Hopefully this new partnership can make it worthwhile to stay with the company long-term, because regardless of how much security your organization has, if you don’t have the talent, you don’t have anything.
Remember that sinking feeling you got the first time CBC’s Hockey Night in Canada commenced without that familiar pump-you-up opening orchestra theme? Well, last night’s Monday Night Football kicked off minus Hank Williams Jr.’s “Are You Ready for Some Football?”—a song that has been tied to the telecast since 1991. And not hearing the country singer’s trademark anthem was music to the ears.
After Williams went on Fox & Friends, a Fox News program, and compared President Barack Obama to Adolf Hitler, ESPN released a statement explaining how “disappointed” the network was with the singer’s comments, so much so that his tune was pulled from last night’s opener.
On his Fox appearance, Williams brought up Obama’s golf game with Speaker of the House John Boehner during this summer’s debt ceiling talks; he deemed it “one of the biggest political mistakes ever.” And then the bomb: “That would be like Hitler playing golf with [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu.”
I checked an ESPN poll of the situation during halftime of last night’s Bucs-Colts game. Thirty per cent of pollsters believe that Williams’ comments are over the line and that Monday Night Football was right to drop his tune; 42%, of the 30,000-plus responders, however, believed that ESPN had no right to yank Williams’ opening theme, citing free speech.
Yes, free speech is a wonderful thing, and Williams has a right to say whatever he chooses. Just as ESPN has the freedom to disassociate itself from people who say ignorant things. Although it’s unknown whether the network is, er, ready to axe Williams’ tune altogether or if this was a one-time wrist-slap, perhaps it’s time that MNF get a new opening theme. We still watch Hockey Night in Canada, don’t we?
You can watch Hank Jr.’s controversial interview below and judge for yourself. Personally, I find it interesting that immediately following the Hitler-Obama comparison, the country singer says, “In the country this shape is in…” and refers to Obama and Biden as the “Three Stooges.” Brilliant.
Somewhere Jeff Foxworthy is writing another “you might be a redneck if…” joke.
In a story that is no doubt going to slow the foreword progression of the sport, some U.K. children have been engaging in exhibition MMA bouts at small London area MMA shows.
The video below shows two young boys, both under the age of ten, taking part in a grappling match, inside a cage, in front of a crowd of severely inebriated adults.
Yes you read that right.
Because this event happened at an extremely small show, and it’s one of the first of this kind brought to the public’s attention, you can’t help but wonder how many other similar events are taking place around the world. Are these promoters effectively damaging the sport they are trying to make money off of by building these kids up as stars and promoting them as a sideshow of sorts?
Now, I feel the need to state for the record that I am very much against the exploitation of any children, and I definitely think that in this case, the event’s promoters were using the young participants and their eagerness to compete for financial gain. At first I wondered, doesn’t this break any laws pertaining to the safety, abuse or exploitation of minors? – Shockingly, the answer is no. The police launched an investigation into the situation and determined that no charges would be laid against anyone involved.
So it’s not against the law, but you are still outraged aren’t you? What can we do about this?
Good question, try this. Take away the cage, swap the pints for juice boxes, and put this same competition in the confines of a well-lit high-school gymnasium. Would you be more comfortable watching it then? Would it be more socially acceptable to cheer the kids onto victory? Or would you still be annoyed that some sports involve people fighting in safe, supervised situations?
As a life-long martial artist myself, and someone who use to compete as a child, I feel that I have to stand up for the sport I love. Martial arts taught me patience, confidence and the importance of having respect for your fellow man. More so, competing against others at a young age taught me that in life, sometimes you win, and sometimes you lose, it’s how you conduct yourself through either of those outcomes that defines who you are as a person. That being said, I am sure if my parents knew when they signed me up for karate that I was going to be fighting in the back of a dingy bar inside a makeshift cage, they would have probably suggested I take up hockey instead.
Every contact sport has its detractors, and some people will never look at mixed martial arts as a source of entertainment let alone a legitimate sport to enroll their children in. With the Ultimate Fighting Championship’s recent landmark deal with FOX Sports, mixed martial arts events will soon be beamed straight into your home as part of your basic cable package. So love it or hate it, with the sport’s popularity growing exponentially each year, people are going to need to get use to seeing this sort of thing more often, we can only hope it takes place in a more socially acceptable setting.
Even with my love for the sport, and my vested interest in fostering its growth to for future generations, I cannot in any way defend or support the actions of these British promoters. This sort of spectacle shines an unwanted light on the sport and does more damage than good for those young kids looking to get involved with it. Instead of just getting angry with the promoters, the kid’s parents or the sport of MMA as a whole, lets work to give children a safer, more appropriate place to compete and improve their skills. Try to look past all the bad decisions made by the greedy adults surrounding this event, and try to see the two kids who were just in that cage to compete and win.
What do you think? Should children be allowed to participate in public mixed martial arts competitions, or have promoters gone too far?
This past weekend Floyd Mayweather moved his unblemished professional boxing record to 42 – 0 with a late fourth round knockout of Victor Ortiz. At least, that’s how Mayweather would like the night’s events sold to the media and boxing fans around the world.
The reality of the situation is that Floyd went ‘all street’ on Victor Ortiz, after being hit by a very obvious intentional head-butt near the end of the final round, referee Joe Cortez stopped the action to deduct a point from Ortiz. Things started to go sideways as the fighters momentarily re-met in the centre of the ring to touch gloves.
Ortiz half-hugged Mayweather, an empty gesture given the tasteless fault that preceded it, but Floyd wasn’t having any of it. Mayweather threw a snap hook followed immediately by a rocket of a straight right that caught a stunned Ortiz with his hands down, knocking him out and ending the fight. Clean or not all boxers should know, when you are inside the ring, and you aren’t wearing a bow-tie, you need to keep your hands up at all times or you might end up fast asleep.
Now, in my opinion the biggest story to come out of last Saturday night wasn’t the Mayweather/Ortiz fight itself, but the confrontation that transpired between Floyd Mayweather and ringside announcer Larry Merchant after the bell. (Video Below)
You’ve gotta hand it to Merchant, he stood his ground against the champ as the heat got turned up inside the ring. Mayweather called for HBO to fire the seasoned broadcaster on the grounds that “[Merchant] don’t know S*** about boxing”. At 80 years old, Merchant fired back, as most of our crazy old grandpa’s would. He got nose-to-nose with Floyd and growled the most memorable quote of the night, “I wish I was 50 years younger and I’d kick your ass”.
All this post-fight drama is entertaining, especially after a bout marred by controversy, but picking fights with senior citizens isn’t what Mayweather needs to cement legacy in the sport. The 34 year-old phenom needs to put up or shut up and step in the ring against Manny Pacquiao once and for all, a man who is nearly 50 years younger than Merchant, and will kick his ass.
In a shocking turn of events at the UFC 137 press conference today, UFC president Dana White announced that Nick Diaz has seemingly gone M.I.A. and is scratched from his October 29th title fight against champion Georges St-Pierre.
According to White, Diaz missed 3 flights in the last 24 hours to fulfill PR obligations for the upcoming bout; this set the UFC back around $15,000. It seems like the prospect of those tasty first-class snacks, and his one and only shot at the UFC welterweight championship wasn’t enough to get Diaz off his butt and to the airport.
Things seemed to get stranger as the presser rolled on, at one point Dana White fielded a call from Cesar Gracie, Nick Diaz’s manager, who apologized to White and the media for his client’s flakey behavior.
Stepping in for Diaz is another man who was expected to fight at UFC 137, Carlos ‘The Natural Born Killer’ Condit. In my opinion, this matchup is actually more dangerous for the Canadian champ. Condit is on a tear right now, and is known for finishing his opponents in incredibly vicious bursts of violence.
The details surrounding Diaz’s absence are still largely unknown but stay tuned, as we will keep updating this post when new info is released.
"Sorry I didn't make it to the beauty pageant." Nick Diaz releases YouTube video responding to the situation, breaks multiple traffic laws in the process.
Update #2 - Sept 8
Nick Diaz has been given a rare second chance by Dana White and the UFC and will now face BJ Penn at UFC 137. Penn was left without an opponent when Carlos Condit was chosen to replace Diaz in the main event against GSP. Still no word on what exactly happened with Nick Diaz to prevent him from fulfilling his contractual duties with the organization leading up to his title shot.
The UFC is going to need to reinforce the octagon.
Brock Lesnar and Alistair Overeem, two of the biggest, strongest, heavyweight MMA fighters are going to meet inside the cage December 30th at UFC 141 in Las Vegas, Nevada.
No, you aren’t dreaming. The heavyweight super fight was announced yesterday as former Strikeforce heavyweight champ Alistair Overeem signed a deal that will see him fight exclusively for the ultimate fighting championship. This has been a long, strange summer for the Dutch born ‘Demolition Man’. Since being cut from Strikeforce’s roster in mid July due to rumored injuries and management disputes, Overeem has been campaigning for a deal with the UFC. With this new contract Alistair will not be able to defend his recent K1 championship next year. Instead he focuses on fighting MMA and more importantly, becoming the next UFC heavyweight champion.
On the other side of this nearly 600-pound coin, come December, Brock Lesnar will be coming off his second battle with diverticulitis, and over a year of cage-rust. Now, just because the giant who use to rule atop the heavyweight division looks superhuman, doesn’t mean he doesn’t have the odds stacked against him, his health being the least of his worries. Brock will be fighting a man who is not only bigger and more experienced than he is, but also technically superior in nearly every aspect of mixed martial arts. Lesnar will have to rely heavily on his wrestling and ground and pound to take Overeem out of his comfort zone for long enough to do any damage.
This fight is a MMA fan’s dream come true, but the one thing that sticks out in my mind is the UFC’s timing. It was just last week that the Dana White spilled the beans on the main event for the first show on Fox, which sees Cain Velasquez defend his UFC heavyweight strap against Junior Dos Santos. In my opinion, the Lesnar, Overeem fight is a much bigger draw, and will probably deliver a much more explosive finale.
Personal opinions and strategic timing aside, October, November and December are jam packed with the top names in mixed martial arts, and some of the best fights in the history of the sport. I hope you don’t have many Saturday evening plans over the next few months; the UFC is working hard to fill your social calendar and give the fans a season they will never forget.
Shawn Tompkins, one of the best-known coaches in mixed martial arts died Sunday morning at the age of 37.
Tompkins was known in the industry as a star builder, working with top level Canadian talent such as Sam Stout, Mark Hominick and Chris Horodecki when he began out of Southwestern Ontario.
Specific details surrounding Shawn's passing have yet to be released but the news was confirmed by his wife Emilie when she released the following statement Sunday night:
"Team Tompkins thanks everyone for all of the condolences that have come in since the tragic news of 'The Coach's' death. Shawn would be touched beyond words by the outpouring of love from the MMA community. Sam Stout, Chris Horodecki, Mark Hominick, Kekoa Quipolta, Mr. and Mrs. Tompkins and I thank you for the respect you have shown us during this trying time. Shawn loved MMA and he considered all of you family. We will miss our Coach very much."
In 2001, after his career as a professional MMA fighter didn’t pan out, Shawn found his calling as a trainer and began shaping some of the top fighters in the sport into what they are today. Tompkins most notably coached at Randy Couture’s gym in Las Vegas until late 2009 when he resigned to accept a position at the Tapout Training Center. With Tapout he got to work with even more A-level talent such as Vitor Belfort and Wanderlei Silva.
Our thoughts and well wishes go out to the Tompkins family in this difficult time, and we will report more on this situation as details emerge.
UPDATE: 08/16/11
The London Free Press reported today that Tompkins' brother-in-law, UFC fighter Sam Stout revealed that Tompkins died of a heart attack. Stout released the results of the autopsy to the Southern Ontario based paper this morning, "I don't know what to say," said the fighter. "It's not supposed to be happen to a healthy 37-year-old person. Who would think he had to get checked out for that?"
Funeral arrangements for Tompkins will be finalized today, there is a memorial fund reportedly being set up in Shawn's name. More details to come.
Alex Rodriguez is currently in some hot water with the MLB commissioner’s office. It seems Bud Selig doesn't like his superstars appearing in headlines next to words like "cocaine" and "illegal poker". The trade-deadline is over, instead of potential trades and wheelings-and-dealings this week we get rumours of movie stars, drugged up party guests, and Alex Rodriguez being caught somewhere in the middle.
Before we jump into the meat and potatoes, I need to make a point: This isn't Pete Rose we're talking about, Alex wasn't betting on sports. He played poker with his buddies like millions of North Americans do every week. I understand the league needs to make an example out of A-Rod otherwise they're setting a precedent in the opposite direction, but gambling alone seems like a weak excuse to suspend a man from his profession. Gambling between teammates is incredibly common; for instance, Lebron James had a casino built into his own home and nobody batted an eyelash.
I remember an athlete telling me stories of a former all-star he'd been teammates with. The guy was caught cheating during a high-stakes, informal poker game among the gambling set on his team. Their reaction? Nobody flipped over any tables or drew six-shooters, instead they went to team management and had the player traded out of town. Poker games can build bonds between buddies, but if you mess around they can also strip the trust you've worked years to develop. It's an important social tool among players, playing cards in a pressured environment gives them a better idea of whom they're teaming with. Besides, most poker games are just a fun and potentially profitable way to kill downtime. But every indulgence has it's threshold.
This brings us to A-Rod and the allegations currently against him, and the point where things get a little different, and a little out of the ordinary -- at least for a poker game being run by a professional athlete.
The drug allegations themselves aren't shocking. Alex hangs out in celebrity circles, and finding cocaine in Hollywood is as easy as asking a doorman. No one's accusing Alex of snorting lines himself -- that would likely come up during league-mandated testing -- but would he allow people to let loose and enjoy themselves at his party? I believe he would. According to Joe Torre's tell-all book, Alex is a man constantly in search of acceptance, I'd be shocked to see him run around telling A-list acquaintances how to behave. That doesn't make it right, or necessarily wrong, nor does it make it fact. Really, it's just a few small pieces of the puzzle finally coming together.
However, the rumours that have been corroborated by at least one witness are as follows:
--The alleged guestlist (which is staggering) includes rumours of Leonardo Di Caprio, Ben Affleck, Matt Damon, and Tobey Maguire. Multiple poker pros, Hollywood directors, record label executives. And those are just the names that have leaked.
--The game was organized through Hollywood promoter Molly Bloom and held at the $16.5M mansion of Cody Liebel. Liebel, the owner of C-Note Records and son of Canadian developer Lorne Leibel, allegedly lost a half-million dollars, which is where the trouble began.
--In a game involving 2008 World Series of Poker winner Kenny Tran, Leibel allegedly ran up his debts and refused to pay. This caused heated exchanges between players, and according to Poker Pro Dan Bilzerian "Everyone had to chase Cody down for the money, and he later paid me a sum and gave me a watch but stiffed me for $100,000.”
--Bloom, who was on the hook for paying any remaining sum, was unable to cover Leibel's losses and left Los Angeles to try and re-coup her career in New York.
--This was not A-Rod's only encounter with Bloom, she allegedly helped him setup a game in Miami during November of 2009. It's rumoured that game also ended in controversy, as one card shark lost thousands of dollars and called in a group of thugs to intimidate his debtors.
If not for these story leaking to Star Magazine, and eventually Radaronline.com, the fiasco probably would have slipped by without incident to Major League Baseball. Rumours of elite Hollywood poker clubs have circled for years and the existence of such clubs have even been proved through multiple court cases. But never before has the sanctity of a league been drawn in with them.
The fact is A-Rod put the reputation of the league at risk, and so, if deemed guilty, he will face the consequences and a likely suspension. But don't see this scandal as the commissioner’s office ridding the league of underground poker matches, those games will exist as long as there are cards to play with. Anytime a professional sport, especially baseball, gets caught up in gambling allegations the league must protect itself from perceived threats that come in tow; the perceived loss of credibility, etc. But if and when Alex Rodriguez gets suspended over a star-studded game of Texas Hold 'Em with his Hollywood buddies, it will be a simple case of the commissioner's office saving face in the public eye, and nothing more than a league slapping the wrist of a player whom put them at risk.
