Tuesday, February 16 3:15 pm PT: As a state that once hosted congenital amputee Kyle Maynard, Alabama has remained one of the surviving Wild West occupations of amateur mixed martial arts in the country. Legality is tenuous, but if you have a “sanctioning body” that approves your event, you can get away with some alarming concepts.
That’s about to change: according to Vice Chair of the Athletic Commission Casey Sears, Alabama will put to vote in the House this week Bill HB457, which would give the newly-created boxing board authority over professional mixed-fight competition. If it passes, it will go to the State Senate for approval. According to Sears, few obstacles are expected: the language has the support of the UFC, which has hired a lobbyist in the state to escort it through.
The lone concern, he says, is the current sniping over whether the state should allow gambling. “It has really log-jammed everything. The reality may be that if they take so much time hammering that out and then get to necessary budget items, all secondary stuff seemingly less important overall may get pushed back. It wouldn’t be specific to MMA. It might be tons of bills. But if it’s just up or down vote, it should be easy to maneuver it through because it has so much support.”
The bill would give Sears and the board a greater degree of control over amateur events: any sanctioning bodies will have to be approved by Alabama before they can regulate any bouts. It would also leave only New York, West Virginia, and Connecticut as the lone holdouts. There was once a time when the sport would have been fortunate to have three states sanctioning it -- or at least not running it out of town. This is a satisfying contrast.
Tuesday, February 16 2:00 pm PT: By the standards of Spike television and Las Vegas gates, Renzo Gracie’s career has been shaded by a degree of obscurity. His first major appearance in the States was 1995’s ill-fated World Combat Championship pay-per-view, an unfortunate me-too attempt to capitalize on the UFC’s popularity. After another DOA promotion -- MARS -- Renzo wisely exiled himself to Japan, land of bigger paydays and due respect.
Because of this trajectory, it’s possible a lot of fans are unable to recognize Renzo for what he was: far and away the most impressive Gracie to ever compete in fighting. At an uncut 185 pounds, Renzo finished off two former UFC heavyweight champions in Mo Smith and Oleg Taktarov; at 38, he went the distance with B.J. Penn; a 2006-07 run netted three victories over three former UFC champions in the welterweight and middleweight divisions.
Credit for those victories goes to durability largely absent from the careers of Royce and Royler. Like Rickson, he had the physicality to play games other than the guard.
Whether those skills should be considered in the past or present tense is a question for April 12: Gracie, who has been making the media rounds for his fight with Matt Hughes in Abu Dhabi, told MMAJunkie.com he wants to “surprise” audiences with a strong performance at the age of 43. Even considering his recent slide, though, Hughes may not be the best opponent for a middle-aged jiu-jitsu technician. He is an effective tormenter from the top, and his wrestling can decide where he wants the fight to take place.
Win or lose, Renzo’s career has always deserved a place of prominence in the U.S. He’s finally getting it.
Tuesday, February 16 12:17 pm PT: The UFC announced Tuesday that standout striker Paul Daley will meet Josh Koscheck in a welterweight eliminator at UFC 113 on May 8; the fight follows a Jon Fitch/Thiago Alves rematch scheduled for March 27. It’s likely that a winner emerging from either fight could face Georges St. Pierre after he defends against Dan Hardy on the same night. (I’ve come to accept that as a statement of fact. Apologies to Hardy fans.)
Yet St. Pierre has already defeated Fitch, Alves, and Koscheck, all in somewhat one-sided decision festivals. Daley’s striking could certainly present problems, but there may not be much to stop St. Pierre from grinding out an NCAA-style win that’s quickly becoming his trademark.
So why are we even looking at such a mundane 2010 for the champion? St. Pierre has put on 10 pounds of mass since altering his diet and his trainers indicate he can only be pushed in training when paired against larger men like Rashad Evans. Providing he beats Hardy, the interest in seeing any of those three possible rematches pales in comparison to a bout with Anderson Silva or another quality middleweight.
On Saturday, Wanderlei Silva's options number two: he can go a semi-respectable 2-3 in his latest UFC run, or he can call into question the viability of employing a veteran fighter who could be 1-4. (1-6 if you count his two deconstructions during the last days of Pride.)
These are alarming numbers. In three of those losses, Silva was knocked unconscious. Not dazed, but flatlined. In the other two, he sustained a decent amount of punishment. If you accumulate the amount of cranial blows suffered by Silva in recent years, it's likely to far outnumber the strikes absorbed by fighters who have been cut for reasons relating to ring age.
Chuck Liddell's career was suspended because he was unable to execute his game. Liddell had also suffered three concussive KOs. He’s been gone; Silva remains. What’s the difference?
Fighters are constantly claiming reinvention: a new training camp, new attitude, new strategies, new weight class. Silva is likely going to get some mileage out of his debut at 185 pounds. But dropping weight is no cure for a chin that's taken unusual abuse in recent years. If Silva loses to Michael Bisping in Australia, he may be without a new change of clothes. And if it winds up being his fourth knockout loss in recent memory, his fans should be happy it stops here.
Mired in the black hole that was MMA in the 1990s, there were several doubts -- some from people with serious financial interests in the sport -- whether grappling would ever be tolerated on a grand scale. Punching with tiny gloves is easily understood and respected; wrapping your legs around a man’s torso can meet with some resistance, for reasons relating to both homophobia and absolute boredom. Once fighters learned to avoid the traps of the closed guard, it turned into a stalemate.
After a stinker UFC 33 event in 2001, the Unified Rules were quickly altered to give referees the power to stand up athletes who were in a static position on the ground. That, more than anything, probably saved the UFC’s ass on a commercial level. Now, according to athletes like Jon Fitch and Shinya Aoki, the closed guard may be a thing of the past.
“The closed guard is dead,” Fitch told Fox Fight Game.”Strong wrestlers…will just pound you out all day long.”
But just as Fitch’s comments are grappler-dependent -- he says Aoki and Demian Maia are within their rights to work it effectively -- his argument for wrestlers is also reflective of which one he’s talking about. Matt Hughes is the last guy you’d want to be on the bottom of, since he can create enough space to deliver punishment and has the knowledge to stay out of problems; fresher, greener guys are more susceptible to attacks from the bottom.
Certain traits die off for a bit, only to come back stronger: MMA is a cyclical activity. If the guard is indeed dead, it’s only until someone figures out how to reanimate it.
Tuesday, February 16 1:45 am PT: Renzo Gracie is preparing to take on Matt Hughes at UFC 112 on April 10 in Abu Dhabi. The jiu-jitsu legend will be returning to the arena for the first time in over two years and he will do so against a tough opponent in the former welterweight champion.
Gracie, however, will have the advantage of fighting in his “second home.” He has traveled regularly to the city since he began instructing Sheik Tahnoon -- the man primarily responsible bringing the UFC to the Middle East. A member of the Abu Dhabi royal family, Tahnoon, a Renzo black belt, was instrumental in brokering the deal between Flash Entertainment -- a subsidiary of the Abu Dhabi government -- and the UFC that netted the Emirate a 10-percent stake in the world’s top MMA promotion.
In this video, Gracie discusses his personal relationship with the Sheik and the UFC 112 host city. Check it out, only at Sherdog.com.
