Wednesday, June 3 6:29 pm PT: It’s turning into a busy week for lawyers and fax machines: Despite an ineffective performance against Anderson Silva at UFC 90 last October, Patrick Cote has signed a four-fight contract extension with the UFC and expects to return to the ring in August or September.
Meanwhile: Jorge Santiago, who went 1-2 in the UFC in 2006 but has been on a nine-fight win streak since, is now scheduled to face Vitor Belfort at Affliction III on Aug. 1. Santiago’s relentlessness should be a good test for Belfort’s endurance at 185 pounds.
Poor Foupa-Pokam: He was eaten alive by Denis Kang, then short-noticed a fight just a few weeks later against Drew McFedries. Guy couldn’t catch one last break on a UFC Fight Night card as some kind of reward for being a gamer? And if not, will the UFC now find themselves getting more rejections when they make a late call for a replacement?
Wednesday, June 3 1:21 pm PT: Affliction M-1 Global “Trilogy” is scheduled for Aug. 1 in Anaheim, Calif. Fedor Emelianenko headlines against Josh Barnett, and Gegard Mousasi meets Renato “Babalu” Sobral in what Affliction described Wednesday as the co-main event. It’s a solid card. Notes from the news conference in New York:
• The conference was delayed briefly because Babalu was in the bathroom.
Wednesday, June 3 12:08 pm PT: Expressing little remorse over orchestrating one of MMA’s oilier promotions -- the deceased and unmissed EliteXC -- Gary Shaw told Fanhouse this week that he doesn’t feel “The Ultimate Fighter” is a “big enough platform” for Kimbo Slice.
“I think it’s a step back,” Shaw told Michael David Smith. “I think he’s bigger than that.”
Shaw may not recall that Slice used to fight in a boatyard for an audience comprised mainly of stray dogs. Or that getting decimated in seconds against light heavyweight UFC castaway Seth Petruzelli on network television may have limited his career opportunities to some degree.
Shaw can spin like a top, but the fact remains that the majority of money and fame to be had in MMA is in the UFC. If producers milk Slice -- figuratively, of course -- for the remainder of his drawing power, they could easily get a half season’s worth of material before he inevitably gets sacked by a crew of equally athletic and hungry cast members.
And if Slice drops out with an injury or otherwise escapes the “TUF” institution with his mystique still semi-intact? Think about the business a fight with Chuck Liddell would bring. Kimbo’s gonna be just fine, Gary. Promise.
Wednesday, June 3 7:10 am PT: Out of sight, out of mind -- unless your name is Cung Le.
Strikeforce’s middleweight champion has been MIA since his dramatic three-rounder against Frank Shamrock 14 months ago.
Remember the one where the windmill-kicking underdog used the former UFC champion’s arm for batting practice? Even the notoriously inoperative Shamrock mended his ways and managed to climb back into the cage before Le.
The mob has begun to sharpen its pitchforks.
Le (6-0) isn’t stalling though; he’s just busy. The 37-year-old Vietnamese fighter has completed no less than four films expected in theatres this year and is attached to three more after that.
Wednesday, June 3 6:30 am PT: On the eve of a crucial vote that would bring MMA one step closer to finding a home in New York, State Assemblyman and noted crankypants Bob Reilly has made the 11th hour media rounds in an attempt to stir support for his cause.
“…the purpose of sports is not to inflict injury,” Reilly railed to Fanhouse. “We can't ever forget that or what do we become? We become barbaric." MMA, he added, is a sport “…where damaging your opponent is one of the main goals." Wouldn’t that describe the NFL, the NHL, boxing, and politics? Or are quarterbacks now tickled into turning over the ball?
A bill to move forward with sanctioning MMA in the state goes to vote Wednesday.
Wednesday, June 3 2:20 am PT: Athletes squeezing every ounce of water from their body to make weight are a combat sport staple, and a superficially insane practice. Taking on challenges a division or two up is counter-intuitive and perhaps crazier. Some do it anyway.
Two more fighters who went out of their way to make a dangerous sport even more dangerous:
Henderson has competed so many times outside of his natural 185-pound frame that you could have anyone half-believing the phrase “brass balls” was coined in his honor. What makes his rematch with Nogueira so significant is that he took the bout on a couple weeks’ notice -- and that in the pre-Fedor Emelianenko era, Nogueira was far and away the best heavyweight on the planet.
Within a minute, Henderson was on top of Nogueira and punching his face into even worse shape. He would lose the fight in the third by submission, exhausted at having to push and pull Nogueira’s weight with no solid base of training supporting him. The result is almost irrelevant: Henderson is not the best fighter on the planet, but he is almost certainly the toughest. And there is a difference.
Years prior to his meeting with the 205-pound Jackson, middleweight Lindland was on the other end of the class-action spectrum, sending a 170-pound Pat Miletich into near-retirement. Like training partner Dan Henderson, Lindland doesn’t seem to be particularly concerned with what the scale says. He dropped a close decision to Jackson, losing the second without controversy but splitting opinion on his performance in the first and third.
Ignoring the impressionable amount of blood staining his face in the closing 30 seconds, it’s probably a fight he should have won.
