Tuesday, July 20 4:10 pm PT: Bruce Buffer returned to The Sherdog Radio Network for another edition of 'IT'S TIME!!!" Joining him was one of the WSOP's "November Nine" Michael "The Grinder" Mizrachi.
Buffer also talks about his adventure in "The Main Event." As well as recaps UFC 116 and other current events.
Years and years ago, when someone engaged UFC President Dana White on a discussion of boxers who might consider making the jump to mixed martial arts, it was decided that most lacked the ambition.
When the subject of James Toney came up, it was decided that well, fine, all right -- Toney might be crazy enough to do it.
I don’t know about any psychological issues, but Toney is indeed doing it. He fights Randy Couture Aug. 28 at UFC 118 "Edgar vs. Penn 2," and if there’s any trace at all of fear in a non-grappler getting into a cage with a mauling wrestler, Toney isn’t tipping it.
“I punch and I knock people out,” he told the LA Times’ Lance Pugmire. “I'm going in there knowing what everyone in boxing knows: that everybody has a plan until they get hit. I'm a fan of MMA. But these guys hold, kick, scratch when they're in trouble…They can't mess with boxing."
“No one has ever stepped into the Octagon with this type of striking prowess,” says coach Trevor Sherman. And this is the crux of Toney’s marketability in MMA: he’s got the best hands in the sport. Presumably. Maybe. Actually, probably not.
A boxer in an MMA fight in a boxing stance is begging to be kicked or scooped up. If Toney changes his game -- and he’d better -- he’s not going to be as comfortable as he has been in a boxing ring. And no matter how good those hands are, they’re only two weapons. There are kickboxers in MMA who, by virtue of the sheer volume of threats, are probably more formidable standing than Toney. Boxing only works if the other guy wants to box. Couture doesn’t.
What would fry Toney’s synapses is if Couture were able to KO him standing: unlikely, but not impossible considering the nature of the fighting gear. Toney is used to blocking with pillows: a five-ounce glove has a tendency to find its mark a little easier. Couture could also make Toney’s ambulatory status a thing of the past with enough leg kicks. It’s a fight that could be won standing, if Couture were inclined.
That would grate promoter Bob Arum, who reared his raisin head long enough to declare MMA “cockamamie martial arts, guys rolling around on the floor. It’s not even a sport”; Pugmire himself begins the piece by implying the UFC is only ten years old. If Toney is as clueless as we all imagine him to be, he’s not in very exclusive company.
Really? Months of noise about Shields and he’s booked in a fight that promises to be stilted and workmanlike? Kampmann is a medium-heat fighter who probably can’t do much about Shields getting ground control and working him over. It’s going to be a slow burn.
This is process-of-elimination matchmaking, a condition of necessity over what might make for a better match. Jon Fitch and Thiago Alves are tied up with one another; Georges St. Pierre is committed to “The Ultimate Fighter,” as is Josh Koscheck. That leaves Kampmann as the most credentialed welterweight available. And considering the volume of noise surrounding Shields’ career decision, anything less than a dominant performance is going to be a disappointment.
A surprisingly balanced examination of violent entertainment appeared on CNN.com Monday. Inevitably, mixed martial arts was the center of discussion.
"Everyone loves a fight," Dana White was quoted as saying. "It's in our DNA. The example I like to use is that if you're in an intersection and there's a basketball game on one corner, a soccer game on another…” Ugh. Nobody has gotten more mileage out of that sermon than White. (It’s also more than a little silly: if there were an alien attack on another corner, people would watch that. Pointing out that we enjoy gross spectacle is not exactly helping the cause.)
The conclusion of the quoted poindexters is that audiences enjoy “taboo” entertainment, something unseen in ordinary life and expressed as an extreme form of activity. But violence is really just the base level of drama and conflict, which virtually everyone finds amusing on some level: soap operas, movies, sports. No big mystery.
What stands out is White’s assertion that the UFC is pristine from a medical standpoint: “We take pride in the fact that there has never been a death or serious injury, outside of a broken arm or leg, in the history of the UFC,” he says. Cal Worsham’s collapsed lung at UFC 9 would disagree. There’s also the matter of the long-term traumatic brain injury that we’re only now beginning to see glimpses of. Is the sport safe enough for public consumption? Certainly. Safer than boxing? Probably. Safe?
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