Commentary - Page 9

(Severn and Shamrock: They were like the Michael Jackson and Prince of big, white grapplers who competed in early ’90s no-holds-barred matches.)

Happy Movember, everybody! In honor of the hairiest month of the year, we convinced UFC Hall of Famer Dan Severn to write a weekly column for CagePotato.com. For the first installment, he plucked some topics from our Facebook page, but he’s up for answering anything about his life, career, and moustache, so drop your own suggestions in the comments section. Visit DanSevern.com and Dan’s Facebook page for more Beast-related updates, and join the CagePotato Movember team if you want to help support a good cause!

Matthew Poulin asks: How many fights do you still want?

Dan Severn: It’s not so much how many fights I want to have. I want specific fights right now. I’ve had some verbal offers but haven’t had the opportunity to bring some of these matches to life. Two particular matches I’m still interested are ones with Mark Coleman and Ken Shamrock. Realistically, I think that 2012 will be my final year as an MMA competitor. So whatever gets done gets done; whatever doesn’t, I’ll have to learn to live with I guess.

(Allow us to introduce you to Nelson Roy III, the brilliant hedge fund manager who has absolutely no relation to that fighting hillbilly you saw on Saturday. / Photo via MMAJunkie.)

By Jason Moles

If you decided to play the new CagePotato drinking game this weekend, you’re probably way too hung over to think about your financial future right now. But now that the dust has settled from UFC 137, you owe it to yourself to study our insightful and highly opinionated rundown of where to direct your hypothetical MMA investments. It’s “Buy, Sell, Hold” time once again, Potato Nation…

“The Prodigy” BJ Penn – Sell

Even if Baby Jay is pulling a Jamie Varner (man I hope that’s not a euphemism) as Mr. Falvo so eloquently put it, the writing on the wall has been there for a while now even if the majority of fans didn’t bother to read it. BJ announcing his retirement Saturday night may have been a moment of weakness when his emotions got the best of him which led to a rash decision, but let me remind you (just like every other single story you read today about “The Prodigy”) that Penn has went 1-3-1 in his last five fights. The Hawaiian may fight again to collect another paycheck but there is no more money to be made as a shareholder.

(“…and one more for that dude who plays Spock.” Photo via Zimbio)

During yesterday’s UFC 137 press conference, UFC president Dana White made his stance known on a controversial subject in pro sports (via MMA Mania):

“I’ll tell you right now, if there was a gay fighter in UFC, I wish he would come out. I could care less if there’s a gay fighter in the UFC. There probably is and there’s probably more than one. I mean, it’s 2012. Give me a break. But you’re going to have guys like Nogueira who come from Brazil, who’s got that macho, Latino — doesn’t want to roll with a gay guy. People are going to say stuff like this. But that’s the best answer I can give you is, give me a (freaking) break and be honest. Come on. We’re all human beings. We all make mistakes sometimes. It doesn’t mean that the UFC is bad and we’re unfit for children and all this other stuff. Tell you what: Out of the 375 guys, we’ve got a few lunatics, some guys that are nutty, and then we’ve got 300 and something that are incredible, awesome human beings who are inspirational to kids and adults and whoever else is a human being.”

(Hey, it’s that thing from my nightmares! So weird seeing you during the daytime! / Photo via @bjpenndotcom)

It’s been a while since we’ve tried to convince you fine people of something totally ridiculous. But looking through Saturday’s UFC 137: Penn vs. Diaz card, I feel like playing devil’s advocate on a few things. So keep an open mind, and read on…

Donald Cerrone Should Drop to Featherweight

Donald Cerrone has recently claimed that he’d like to face Nam Phan in his next fight, because Phan beat up his best friend Leonard Garcia earlier this month then allegedly said that if Garcia’s coaches were any good they would have taught him how to throw straight punches. Now, the average observer might say, “Look Donald, you’re on a five-fight win streak — shouldn’t you be more concerned about challenging for the belt at lightweight than chasing personal rivalries with unranked dudes at 145?”

But I say screw it, Cowboy, you do you. Not for the revenge aspect, which is completely silly. But because the lightweight division has too many contenders to the throne, and the featherweight division doesn’t have enough.

(Well, at least *some* of the inevitable changes will be good.)

When it was announced today that media giant Viacom had purchased Bellator Fighting Championships, most of us probably overlooked the bigger picture of what the deal means to the landscape of MMA. At a glance, better financial backing and being on a more popular channel like Spike means better fights and bigger paychecks for fighters, but behind the scenes the scope of the deal is likely much bigger than we know and the aftershocks will be felt for some time.

Check out four of the biggest likelihoods that will come out of the purchase after the jump.

(Ah, 2007. A very fine year for gogoplatas. / Photo via Sherdog)

By Ben Goldstein

Over the last two decades, MMA has evolved so consistently that fighters are still finding new and unexpected ways to destroy their opponents — while causing fans to spit their beers in shock. We decided to take a lil’ spin through MMA history and identify the single most awe-inspiring technique from each year since the sport’s modern inception. We expect you to disagree with us; there’s a comments section just for that purpose. And away we go…

1993: Royce Gracie’s Rear-Naked Choke
vs. Ken Shamrock @ UFC 1, 11/12/93

(Fight starts at the 3:54 mark)

You have to remember that in the early ’90s, a well-placed roundhouse kick to the head was considered the pinnacle of martial arts. What Royce Gracie introduced to fight fans in his early UFC run was something much more practical, less flashy, and a little bit scary. Gracie’s submission of Ken Shamrock — and the similar hold he used to stop Gerard Gordeau in the finals — proved that skill beat size, and pajamas beat man-panties.

1994: Dan Severn’s Suplexes
vs. Anthony Macias @ UFC 4, 12/16/94

(Well sure, compared to Guy On The Right, *everybody* looks like a lightweight.)

by Sal DeRose

With the news that Georges St-Pierre could (and is better suited to) drop to 155 pounds and further make the UFC’s lightweight division even more stacked, it gave fans more doubt that a mega fight with Anderson Silva will ever come to fruition.

So if GSP were to drop to lightweight, here are five fights for him to take to get him adjusted to the lightweight waters…

Visit BleacherReport.com to check out GSP’s potential lightweight hit-list.

Remember: The real champion is the guy on the right. Seriously. Both images via Sherdog.

For those of you who haven’t noticed, Bellator’s Light-heavyweight champion Christian M’Pumbu lost his non-title super fight against journeyman Travis Wiuff on Saturday night. Yes, a champion actually lost one of those super fights that are supposed to show the general public how badass he is. Now that we’ve had an additional twenty four hours to digest the incident since we first reported it yesterday, let’s put the fight into perspective: Wiuff decisively beat Bellator’s light-heavyweight champion, Christian M’Pumbu, in a light-heavyweight fight under the Bellator banner on Saturday night. For his efforts, he has more than likely earned a slot in next season’s light-heavyweight tournament. If he wins said tournament, his reward will be a title shot against the best light-heavyweight in Bellator, Christian M’Pumbu. You know, the guy he just defeated Saturday night.

Wait, what the fucking what?

Having your champion fight in non-title super fights is a dubious idea in the first place. We’ve seen other organizations employ it before with less than spectacular results. Now that the worst case scenario played out at Bellator 55, it’s officially time to give this idea the ban that it deserves.

There are three main reasons why:

 
(Not yet………………………………..getting warmer…….)

UFC 137 is just around the bend, and since the lineup has made more changes than a MTV awards show host, we figured we’d lay out the current odds before something else horrible happens. So, courtesy of BestFightOdds.com, check out the sweetest lines available, along with our time tested advice below.

PPV Main Card
B.J. Penn (-115) vs. Nick Diaz (-105)
Matt Mitrione (-135) vs. Cheick Kongo (+115)
Roy Nelson (-290) vs. Mirko Filipovic (+245)
Hatsu Hioki (-330) vs. George Roop (+270)
There is no line yet available for the recently bumped up Tavares/Jacoby fight.

Spike TV Prelims
Donald Cerrone (-225) vs. Dennis Siver (+185)
Tyson Griffin (-290) vs. Bart Palaszewski (+245)

The undercard odds have yet to be released as well, but we only bet big here, so forgeddaboutit!

The Main Event:

(Davis during a much easier weight cut. Photo courtesy of MMAJunkie)

As a member of a group that has done some consulting for the Ontario Athletic Commission in terms of MMA fighter safety and regulation, I’ve been a longtime opposer of the practice of weight cutting. It’s just a matter of time before a fighter dies from the practice.

Not only is the process a dangerous one that has led to the death of several high school and college wrestlers, its side effects are non-reversible and can cause major health problems for fighters later in life. It’s no coincidence that many of the sport’s participants who used to wrestle and cut weight in their youth are now on hormone replacement therapy. Starvation and extreme dehydration — two of the facets of the weight cutting procedure — put stress on the body’s endocrine system and inhibit the production of key chemicals such as testosterone, adrenaline and insulin.

Former UFC welterweight-turned-lightweight Marcus Davis shared a scary weight cutting story with MMA Weekly recently that should be a must read for athletic commissions who allow such a dangerous practice as dropping between 10 and 40 lbs the week of a fight to take place.

Davis, a former pro boxer who had been cutting weight since he was a teenager explained that his first post-UFC bout weight cut for his MFC 29 bout with Curtis Demarce in April was a nightmare that very well could have had fatal consequences.

“It’s kind of scary to say this but that fight almost killed me, making that weight. I had a really, really, really bad time and I still made the weight, but I’ll never ever be able to do that again,” Davis explained, revealing that the dehydration left him without his voice at weigh-ins and unable to urinate or have a bowel movement for the better part of a week. “After that, I think I was all the way down to 154 (pounds) when I ended up weighing in and that fight was on a Friday. That Monday I was 207, so it had nothing to do with my overeating. It had to do with my body freaked out and thought that I might torture it again like that so it just held onto everything.”