Thursday, September 3 3:41 pm PT: Syracuse, N.Y.’s Post-Standard recently spoke with Christy Martin, one of female boxing’s biggest stars -- okay, only star -- in the 1990s. Martin, now 41, contested her 57th career bout at the New York State Fairgrounds Wednesday. In the biggest non-news item you will read today, she is here to tell you there is virtually no chance in hell she would ever climb into a cage.
“Maybe back in the day someone could've talked to me and put a lot of zeroes on the paycheck,” she said. “Now, I don't have any interest in it. I don't watch it as a fan. I don't know much about it. Once they get on the ground, I don't know what they're doing.” To be fair to Christy, most of us didn’t know what Gina Carano and Cristiane Santos were doing there, either.
Martin, boxing’s closest equivalent to Carano, never fought Lucia Rijker in her heyday, a fairly lethal “Cyborg” approximation. That Carano and Santos fought in their respective primes without an excess of contractual melodrama is a big reason why MMA continues to resonate. And why women’s boxing now finds Martin fighting in a venue that will shortly host a Tractor Pulling Championship.
Thursday, September 3 12:56 pm PT: Following a submission defeat to unheralded Allan Weickert June 3 in Ohio, Sean Salmon wrote an essay for MMAJunkie.com that contained language most fans considered profane: namely, that he allowed Weickert to win.
“In the second round, I took him down again,” described Salmon. “He went for an armbar, I defended it (only to prove to myself that he couldn't get it), and then I put my arm back in to give him the win so that I could return to England, healthy.”
“What’s on the schedule, I don’t know, but I’m especially leaning towards dropping down,” he told Hunt. “I’m pushing in weight. It would be easy for me to make 205 and there’s more interesting fights there right now.”
Does Couture equate interesting with painful? At 46, his reflexes appeared to be sagging a bit in the Antonio Nogueira bout. Athletes at 205 don’t have to wear tailored suits, but they’re typically a good deal sharper and faster on the feet. Why does everyone assume that a lighter man makes for an easier fight?
Thursday, September 3 11:18 am PT: Sean Salmon’s self-imposed troubles continue: after the fighter admitted in an MMAJunkie.com essay that he purposely fell into an armbar submission during a June 3 bout against Allan Weickert, Ohio State Athletic Commission Executive Director Bernie Profato told Sherdog.com/ESPN.com Thursday that Salmon was putting himself in danger of exile.
“I’m going to confront him with it,” said Profato. “I’m not going to stand for this kind of sh-t. If he doesn’t print a retraction, then he’s out. I’m not going to compromise the integrity of the sport and have someone throw a fight. ... If I had proof, he’d banned for life in Ohio.”
According to Salmon, he and Profato had a heated discussion Thursday, with Profato ordering Salmon to appear at an October 14 hearing to explain the circumstances surrounding the Weickert bout. Salmon’s scheduled October 17th fight in the state has already been canceled.
Thursday, September 3 9:17 am PT: Former UFC freelancer Sean Salmon, best known for his startling resemblance to John McCarthy and a KO loss to Rashad Evans that will play in clip reels indefinitely, authored a column for MMAJunkie this week destined to stir trouble: fighting Allan Weickert this past June, Salmon wrote that he purposely “put an arm back in” a submission trap so he could get the fight over with and return to England healthy. (Naturally, everyone wants to return to England healthy: maintaining it where butter and gravy are the two main food groups is another story.)
Salmon said that he was warned by Wolfslair, his training camp, not to return if he got damaged in the fight. To Salmon, that was somehow code for “throw your combat morality out the window.” The whole thing makes roughly as much sense as Ashton Kutcher’s career, but there it is.
Thursday, September 3 9:15 am PT: Stirring up interest more than six weeks out from their bout, light heavyweights Mauricio "Shogun" Rua and Lyoto “Ralph Macchio” Machida landed in Los Angeles this week to square off for press. For men this polite, that meant exchanging indifferent expressions and respectful notices.
“This is my first title defense and I hope I will win,” Machida said. “[Rua] is a tough opponent. He is a great person.”
“To tell you the truth,” Rua said, “Lyoto is a nice guy and we have been kind of friends for a while.” The press then watched as Rua and Machida sipped wine coolers and sobbed during “The Notebook.”
But really: civility and sportsmanship in a sport as frenzied and guttural as this one goes a long way. It’s nice to have two main event athletes who don’t consider shoving matches part of the hard sell.
Thursday, September 3 12:29 am PT: If you thought Nate Marquardt put himself in a perfect position Saturday to meet Dan Henderson for the right to face Anderson Silva in 2010, you are going to be one sad little kid come Christmas morning.
Henderson, it seems, has zero interest in anyone but Silva, telling SportsIllustrated.com’s Josh Gross that he would turn down a fight with Marquardt and that he’d sooner move back to 205 lbs. than take a consolation fight.
A summary of the spilled garbage can that is the middleweight division:
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