Misc. - Page 3

(“With all respect dued, Dana, *this* is our counter offer. Also, what does counter offer mean?”) 

Although both parties have since moved onto bigger, better things (if you happen to consider crushing cans for Invicta FC ”bigger” or “better”), MMA fans cannot seem to get over the botched negotiations between Cris Cyborg and Ronda Rousey that eventually led to the cancellation of what would have been the biggest fight in WMMA history at UFC 157. You know the story: Rousey was unwilling to even consider holding the fight at a catchweight, and it was physically impossible for Cyborg to make 135 pounds (or so we were told). Both fighters were left spinning their tires in the mud, that is, until Tito Ortiz showed up and everything really went to hell.

Cyborg was eventually released from her UFC contract, and Rousey went on to become the UFC’s first women’s champ, an influential and inspirational figure in female sports, and a universal sex symbol. So clearly, Tito Ortiz: Manager crushed another one out of the park. But if you were one of those fans who blamed Ortiz (and/or the rest of Cyborg’s Primetime 360 management team) for screwing things up in the first place, you should first turn your crosshairs on the people they were negotiating with. Because according to Ortiz’s Primetime 360 team partner, George Prajin, weight wasn’t even the issue, it was those damn Zuffa tightwads! MMAFighting’s Mike Chiappetta reports:

While (match weight) was at the center of most conversations in the media regarding the inability to make the Cyborg-Rousey fight, it was not the deal-breaker it’s been reported to be.

During the ongoing negotiations, which lingered for about two months, the promotion agreed to pay for the services of a dieting and nutrition consultant like Dolce. But there were other points that the two sides could not agree on.

The biggest issue, according to Cyborg’s management firm Primetime 360, was Zuffa treating Cyborg as a bit player rather than an event co-star.

Insane Chimp Fight – Watch More Funny Videos
(Well, that escalated quickly. Watch out for the appearance of the stick-sword at 1:02. Props: Break.com)

Roy Nelson: “It Only Takes One Shot to Become a Champion” (BleacherReport)

One Year After Much-Heralded Deal, King Mo Lawal Quietly Has First U.S. Pro Wrestling Match (MMAFighting)

Mark Munoz’s Low Point, And The Battles Fight Fans Rarely See (MMAJunkie)

“Metamoris 2: Gracie vs. Aoki” Video Trailer (YouTube.com/Metamoris)

Shannon Ihrke, Invicta FC Ring Girl: Top 10 Sexiest Photos (FightDay)

Cheick Kongo Turned Down Four Fight Contract Before UFC 159 (BloodyElbow)

Diego Sanchez Isn’t Impressed With Ben Henderson, Sees a Lot of Holes in His Game (MiddleEasy)

8 Creepy Dating Apps You Shouldn’t Download (MensFitness)

The 100 Worst Yearbook Photos Ever (WorldwideInterweb)

Reese Witherspoon’s Dash Cam Arrest Video Is Her Best Performance Yet (FilmDrunk)

The Most Surprising Clutch NBA Playoff Performances of All Time (Complex)

Brittney Griner Signs With A Chinese Team Because It Pays A Lot More (Deadspin)

The Funniest Counterfeits Ever Photographed (DoubleViking)

Avoiding the Dreaded ‘Friend Zone’, Part 1 (EgoTV)

(Y’know, drinking a gallon of buttermilk every morning doesn’t make much sense either, but that never stopped him from doing it. / Photo via Joshua Wood @ MMAValor)

Roy Nelson‘s knockout of Cheick Kongo last weekend marked his third first-round KO victory in a row, and earned Big Country the first three-fight win streak of his UFC career — which means that the UFC has to start treating him like a legitimate heavyweight contender again, rather than a gray-bearded novelty act. So who’s next on Big Country’s menu? Following UFC 159, Dana White suggested that either Mark Hunt or Daniel Cormier could be the next opponent for Nelson, which makes perfect sense if we’re putting together matchups solely based on body type.

Nelson’s camp, however, doesn’t agree with one of those names. According to a report from Ariel Helwani earlier this week, Nelson’s manager Mike Kogan said he’s not interested in a fight against Cormier. “He doesn’t think it makes any sense for Nelson,” Helwani explained on UFC Tonight. Instead, Kogan would prefer Nelson to fight Hunt, Antonio Silva (if he loses to Cain Velasquez at UFC 160), or Junior dos Santos…despite the fact that Dos Santos already slaughtered Nelson back in 2010.

It’s obvious why the Nelson camp would want to avoid a guy like Cormier — he’s incredibly dangerous, but he still doesn’t carry the same name value as the other UFC vets that Kogan mentioned. And let’s face it, Nelson’s odds of beating Hunt or Bigfoot are a lot better than his odds of beating DC. (Let’s just forget Kogan said anything about Dos Santos. That’s a damn suicide mission, and we all know it.) From a managerial perspective, it’s solid advice. Devil’s advocate, though: Cormier is rightly ranked as the #2 contender according to the UFC’s official rankings, and beating him would place Nelson closer to a heavyweight title shot than a win over Hunt or Antonio Silva would.

Personally I think Nelson vs. Cormier makes dollars and sense. See what I did there? DID YOU SEE WHAT I DID THERE, YOU SON-OF-A-BITCH??? Anyway, let us know how you see it in the comments section.

(Props: YouTube.com/TarecSaffiedine via TheUG)

Ladies and gentlemen, meet the future of the sport.

This little tyke is Tarec Saffiedine‘s two-year-old son, shown here during a recent sofa-training session. From his vicious leg kicks (look familiar?) to his jackhammer-esque ground-and-pound, Sponge Jr. already possesses the kind of skills that would make the Ruffo Brothers and Pretty Boy Bam Bam piss themselves. And he’s still so young in the sport. Can you imagine how nasty this kid will be when he’s five?

As for his daddy Tarec, the former Strikeforce welterweight champ is slated to make his UFC debut against Robbie Lawler at UFC on FOX 8 on July 27th. And if Saffiedine has to pull out of that fight last minute due to a gnarly cut and a shattered knee suffered in training, well, you’ll all know who to blame.

(If the UFC really wanted to save TUF: Brazil, perhaps they could start by firing the 8 year-old responsible for photoshopping their promo posters.) 

Although the seventeenth season of the original The Ultimate Fighter marked a much-needed improvement in the reality show over that of previous seasons (and saw a substantial climb in ratings as a result), apparently the same cannot be said about its international counterpart, TUF: Brazil. Apparently.

Yes, despite pulling in nearly 8 million viewers during its first season, TUF: Brazil 2 — which features Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira and Fabricio Werdum as opposing coaches – is crashing and burning. According to a report by Brazilian outlet Ataque Total, the reality show has not been renewed for a third season as a result of continually waning fan interest:

With near 1-million viewers per episode, the season two of TUF Brazil don’t had the success of the first and is airing on 23h50 of Sundays. The second season has 16 welterweights in only one weight class and Minotauro Nogueira divides the coaching with Fabricio Werdum.

A huge team rivalry, lots of injuries and some boring fights is almost a trademark in the season. It’s a huge news for the brazilian MMA, with the sport losing its only weekly program in the biggest TV channels of Brazil. Alongside TUF Brazil, Rede Globo also shows 3 UFCs per year (usually Anderson Silva and Jose Aldo ones) and other channels like Bandeirantes, Record and RedeTV aren’t into the MMA world yet. 

As one would expect, the UFC has already taken to the interwebs to dispute these reports…

(Photo via @alanbelcherufc)

As we mentioned yesterday, Alan Belcher is currently recovering from the nasty eye-poke he received from Michael Bisping at UFC 159, and had to receive eight stitches in his right eyelid — which sounds like he got off easy when you consider how absolutely awful that thing looked on Saturday. (I was bracing myself for a gruesome spray of half-and-half.) No word yet on a timetable for Belcher’s return to competition; let’s just hope this isn’t a career-ender.

Previously: MMA Photo Tribute: 16 Seriously Messed-Up Eyes

(A dead-eyed lunatic who will not stop until she has destroyed her own kin? Where have we seen this sort of thing before?) 

Aren’t the elderly adorable, you guys? With their slow driving and their old-timey racism and their inability to adjust to current technological changes, they are all but walking punchlines just waiting to be set up! Take June White, for instance, who you might remember as the vitriolic, money-grubbing mother of UFC President Dana White. You see, old June wrote a tell-all book about her son a while back in which she claimed he was a soulless devil reincarnate, and has rightfully been raked over the coals for being the deplorable, transparent piece of garbage that she truly is in the time since. Typically, these attacks could be found in the form of comments like the one I just made on her Twitter account or her book’s Amazon page.

While most of us — like our buddies at Fightlinker, for instance — would write off the public’s harsh yet appropriate treatment of June as simple poetic justice, June herself has apparently viewed the backlash as an opportunity to self-implode with irony. Believe it or not, The Baldmother is now attempting to sue anonymous internet commenters with names like Bootyduty3 (If only I was joking) for “defamation, libel and civil conspiracy.” Sea Coast Online has the scoop:

June White, a Hampton resident and the mother of Ultimate Fighting Championship President Dana White, has filed a lawsuit to find out who has been smearing her name on the Internet ever since the release of a highly critical unauthorized biography she wrote about her son.

White claims a troop of cyberbullies — with aliases such as Bootyduty3, Joe Stranger and The Real June White — have been posting “horrific” comments about her and her family for more than a year. She said she fears her son’s company is behind the attacks. “I hate to say it but it could be (UFC that’s organizing the bad-mouthing), and that’s one of the reasons I really want to find out,” White said Wednesday. “If it is, that’s pretty sad.”

That’s Pretty Sad…June, I think someone just came up with the title of their soon-to-be-released autobiography!

More from this story, along with our running commentary, is after the jump.

(“OMG THOSE SHOES ARE FAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAABULOUS!!!!” / Photo via Sherdog)

If you thought Nate Diaz was going to accept his UFC on FOX 7 loss to Josh Thomson gracefully, then brother, you just don’t know what it means to be a Diaz. Nate was a guest on BJPenn.com Radio yesterday, where he squeezed enough sour grapes to make a fine red whine. (I’m not even going to ask if you saw what I did there. I know damn well that you saw it.) Here are some of the highlights, as transcribed by MMAMania and MMAFighting:

“[Thomson] didn’t come in there and put no ass whopping on me. You know what I’m saying? He didn’t come in there and make anything happen. I have never fought somebody before who had ever wanted out of a fight so bad. I expected a fight. I expected him to grab me and try to hold on to me or throw some kicks and move and throw some punches and move but that motherfucker was straight running and I had to chase him down. I was chasing him the whole fight. I was the aggressor. I was restless, you know? How can you not be when a guy is running scared shitless for his life? I’m over aggressive trying to get a hold of him and that’s why I got hit, because I’m over aggressive. I’m trying to meet the criteria to win these rounds…

“[He] was scared shitless when I was fighting him. It’s unbelievable how scared he was in there. He was running for his life…He was making bitch ass lady sounds and that’s not bullshit. I’m not here talking shit on him, this is reality. He was making woman sounds. He was running out of the clinch. I hit him in the face and he was going ‘Oh, oh, ehh’ making woman sounds I’ve never even heard out of a man before during a fight. I’m hearing his corner telling him to smile and I’m like, ‘Yeah, smile mother fucker’ and not a single smile came out of his mouth. He had a look of panic the whole fight. You have to be in there to fight these guys to know that. This is how it went. I’ve seen him in other fights, he was smiling at the other guy, bouncing around. He didn’t have no time for that against me. He was frantic and trying not to get his ass whooped…

(Props: mmadigest)

Proving that you don’t need dramatic music or clever editing to make a killer highlight reel, here’s a must-see compilation of Ronda Rousey judo-tossing the bejeezus out of Miesha Tate, Nick Diaz, Uriah Hall, Aaron Tru, Bas Rutten and a laundry list of opponents and training partners. And now that you’ve seen that, follow us downward for three more of the day’s best sort-of-MMA-related videos…

(Props: AXE)

Chael Sonnen‘s girlfriend is very attractive. Here’s how he landed her, with some sage advice at the end for all you young single fellas out there.

(And just like that, the inspiration for Mean Street Hair Care & Boutique was born.) 

For a dead man walking, Chael Sonnen sure seems to be enjoying the hell out of his final days on death row. The UFC’s favorite hypeman appeared on ESPN’s flagship program, Sportscenter, just hours ago to plug his upcoming public execution at UFC 159 and appeared to be channeling the great Bobby Knight during his brief interview, leaving Sportscenter anchor (and all around fox) Sage Steele grasping at straws in attempt to steer things in any other direction but that of a complete farce. She tried, dammit.

The segment began in typical Sonnen-fashion – interrupting/patronizing the interviewer, throwing a couple WWE-esque threats at Jones, arms, charms, rinse, repeat — but quickly took a turn for what people in the television industry refer to as “What-the-fucks-ville” after Sonnen promised to put Bones “on his ass” on live television. Sure, it was a pretty mild offense given the current spectrum of television, but the remark incurred the subtle wrath of Steele nonetheless. But if there’s one thing Chael P. Sonnen doesn’t understand, it’s subtlety. And being that Chael is mere days away from being beaten into a coma at best, he figured he might as well check off one last item from his bucket list: feeling an African American woman’s hair. It was a weird moment for everyone involved.

Video after the jump.