“To have a title fight with a record of 2 and 1 just doesn’t do the belt justice…It kind of diminishes the value of the belt a little bit.”

We can argue all day if he should have been given an opportunity to fight for the belt but at the end of the day he beat the champion.  I don’t think it diminishes the belt any.  If Lesnar was too green or inexperienced he would have easily been beat by Couture.  The fact was he won and won unanimously with a TKO in the second round.  That doesn’t diminish the belt at all.

I like Henderson a lot but I think he’s just mad he was given a title shot his first (Rampage Jackson at 205lbs) and second fights (Anderson Silva at 185lbs) for the UFC and lost both.  Should he have been given a title shot for his first bout ever in the UFC and then again for his second after he lost the first?  These were for different weight classes but UFC champs were obviously more dominant than the current Pride champ so why did Henderson not have to work his way up the UFC latter?  Simple: ratings.  Fans wanted to see Pride’s best vs. UFC’s best.  Those same fans, along with the UFC brass, wanted to see Couture take on Lesnar. 

Lesnar was a Division One amateur wrestling champion with a 106-5 record in college.  He isn’t a circus side show turned WWE super star.  This is one of the most athletic big guys in the world.  If anything, the belts value just went up a little bit.   

While the numbers aren’t bad they are a good quarter million shy of Dana White’s alleged mark that he predicted. So we’ll wait to see if a different UFC event can top the mark of 1 million. There are some mega cards coming up in the first quarter of 2009 that definitely have the potential of making that mark.

Here is the Sambo loss:

He was quoted in a story from MMAJunkie stating:

“I wish I could see the fans in America to announce the (Arlovski) fight, but I will not be able to attend the press tour as I did for the Tim Sylvia fight,” Emelianenko stated. “I received an incredibly warm welcome the last time I was in the United States and was looking forward to reuniting with my fans. But I must begin to prepare for Arlovski early and under the stringent training regimen and conditions that I have grown accustom to for all of my most dangerous opponents. There are people in MMA who attempt to paint a different picture of who the top fighters in the world are today and I must be fully prepared and focused to defend the reputation and status of my achievements in the sport.”

Affliction can’t be happy about this at all.  In a time where other organizations, besides for the UFC are trying to stay afloat, their main draw has canceled his PR tour.  Affliction needs him to sell tickets and PPV’s but will have to rely on their other starts such as Arlovski, Josh Barnett, Vitor Belfort and Renato Sobral.  None of which carry the #1 spot in their weight classes as Emelianenko, but will have to get the job done.

This was a smart move on Emelianenko’s part and it seems like it was due to his wake up call loss he received in the Sambo tournament.  He has gotten too comfortable at the top and got a reality check.  This is a good thing for him since he still has two months to fully prepare for Arlovski.  I can’t wait. 

With two spectacular wins that sky-rocketed him into the pound-for-pound stratosphere, WEC bantamweight champion Miguel Angel Torres has been one of 2008’s great success stories. But the only man standing between him and likely recognition as Fighter of the Year is one of his greatest rivals, Manny Tapia, an unbeaten contender who has been waiting six months for his shot at the 135-pound weight class’ greatest prize. The World Extreme Cagefighting organization is pleased to announce that on Wednesday, December 3rd, at the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas, these two warriors will finally meet in an explosive contest guaranteed to produce fireworks.

Other fights on the WEC 37 fight card include: Brian Bowles vs. Will Ribeiro, Wagnney Fabiano vs. Akitoshi Tamura and Joseph Benavidez vs. Danny Martinez.

Jens Pulver’s career is in tango right now as he has lost his last couple fights and is almost in a must win situation. Pulver’s last loss came from Leornard Garcia who is arguable the top contender for the title shot now after demolishing Pulver in the first round.  Pulver is 4 - 6 in his last 10 fights.  However he has lost to big names such as Faber, Garcia, and BJ Penn.

Jose Aldo, even though pulling out of his fight with Faber, is still rumored to make a WEC 38 appearance.  While the fights aren’t finalized, the opponent for Aldo being tossed around right now is Josh Grispi who is 12 - 1 in MMA and 2 - 0 in the WEC.

WEC 38 is set to take place January 25th 2009, the day after Affliction Day of Reckoning.  These fights above will be headlined by Champion Jamie Varner vs Donald Cerrone for the lightweight title.  IT is set to take placce in San DIego, California.

There I said it!  So what, Brock Lesnar beat up an older Randy Couture who hasn’t fought in years.  There was a reason Brock was a favorite with betting odds for this fight. I picked Randy to beat brock because I picked with my heart but my gut told me I was wrong the whole time.  I was not surprised to see Lesnar win but more upset.

Lesnar’s ego is soaring right now as it should be.  He is the UFC Heavyweight Champion for the moment and has beaten Randy Couture for the title.  With an impressive 2 - 1 record in the UFC with wins over Herring and Couture, he is set to face the winner of Mir vs Nogueira for the unifcation of the heavyweight title.

If he wins that fight, I’ll say then that Brock is the #1 Heavyweight…. in the UFC.  Fedor is, and will remain the #1 heavyweight, in the world until beaten.  Fedor and M-1 has called out the UFC and Brock to do a co-promoted fight between the two fighters.  This is likely to happen when hell freezes over.

While Lesnar is much better than Kimbo, he is UFC’s pony boy right.  People are buying events he’s in because he brings the draw.  He is a much better fighter than Kimbo so don’t get me wrong when I say he is UFC’s Kimbo.  The UFC can lean on Brock a lot harder than Kimbo and they have.  They haven’t put him up against weak opponents.  He’s taken on strong opponents and done well.  However, until he can prove that he can handle himself on the ground against a good Jiu Jitsu fighter, he is just a big, oversized, powerful fighter that will manhandle you.

Brock, we would love to sit down and talk with you about our feelings and you can let us know why you think differently.  We’re open to discussion: mat [at] mmachump [dot] com.  Let me know big guy, we’ll set up an interview and have you answer our questions and tell us why we’re dead wrong.

The reason I bring this up is because of the Jon Fitch and American Kickboxing Association team debacle last week with Dana White and the UFC.  Dana White immediately cut one of their top ranked welterweights in Jon FItch and was ready to dump another in Josh Koscheck, among others.  This was because the fighters refused to sign their names over for their lifetime without some stipulations.

Yahoo.com reported on Fitch:

He said he simply didn’t understand the need to sign a lifetime contract, particularly since it would not pay his family in the event of his death.

Yahoo.com later reported that:

Fitch had said the problem was the clause about giving Zuffa lifetime exclusive merchandising rights. UFC already had nonexclusive merchandising rights. He attempted to get the time frame changed from lifetime, to a time period of five to 10 years.

The UFC is still young and there are many things that will change in the coming years but you can’t blame a fighter looking out for their and their families futures.  Why can’t the fighter’s legacy live on if the UFC is still marketing them and making money off them?  The UFC already has non-exclusive rights and now they are asking for more.  Most of the contracts are written so that the UFC can cut a fighter after any loss.  There is no job security or certain salary a fighter can count on. 

White of course was his usual my way or the highway response:

“We’re looking for guys who want to work with us and not against us, and frankly I’m just so [expletive] sick of this [expletive] it’s not even funny,” White said from Honolulu, where he flew Wednesday from Toronto to hold a news conference to announce the B.J. Penn-Georges St. Pierre fight for UFC 94 on Jan. 31 in Las Vegas.

“Affliction is still out there trying to build its company. Let [Fitch] go work with them. Let him see what he thinks of those [expletives]. [Expletive] him. These guys aren’t partners with us. [Expletive] them. All of them, every last [expletive] one of them.”

This shows me White only cares about himself and the UFC and could care less about his fighters.  He has done wonders for MMA and the UFC and put in an unquestionable amount of blood sweat and tears to make it happen.  But so have the fighters.  They have fought and trained for peanuts, worked through injury and put their bodies on the line daily.  And for what, to be treated so unfairly by the President of the company they work for?

I think the fighters need to ban together to show how serious they are at making things right.  The problem is, the biggest names in the sport that would need to be involved are the one’s who make the most money and spiffs from White and would most likely never cross him.  In the meantime;  the other fighters need to have a plan B in case they are injured and cannot return or if they lose and are cut. 

The US Representative for DREAM, Mike Kogan, had this to say:

“They’re not getting stiffed,” Kogan said of Moore and Ambriz. “Let me put it this way: They’ll get their money. There’s been reports in the past that we were a little slow in paying, and to a lot of the American fighters, it might seem a little weird. Because with the commission here against how the promoters pay in the U.S. — right after the event they get their checks — we don’t do that. But that’s disclosed in the contracts.”

“As far as I know the contract stipulates that all fighters will get paid within the month following the month in which they fought,” Kogan said. “So if they fought in September, then they would have been paid in October. If they still haven’t been paid then, there’s probably either some kind of accounting error or backlog or something else unrelated to any kind of a problem — more of an administrative issue.

“I know for a fact that our accounting department issues payments — not just for fighters, but in general — every 15 days. So if they were backlogged in October, they might have put it onto the November roster.”

The list of fighters that have received slow payment from DREAM include but may not be limited to: Nick Diaz, Todd Moore, Jimmy Ambriz and Joseph Benavidez.

Kogan had a relatively humurous statement about Diaz’s payment:

“In Nick Diaz’s case, I don’t know who, but obviously there’s a lot of people that work for FEG in our accounting department,” Kogan said. “And half of them don’t even know what Nick Diaz looks like. They’re just paper-pushers. Well somebody apparently filed his (account) as paid. So as far as our accounting was concerned, he was paid.”

Way to throw those clerical people under the bus and make their jobs look meaningless Kogan.  Fantastic job!

We have the best welterweight in the world against the best lightweight in the world: George St. Pierre vs BJ Penn. I personally am going to pick GSP for this fight because he is incredibly skilled in all forms of MMA but BJ is also an incredible fighter his stand up skills increase after every fight, win or lose and he also has a deadly ground game.

The reason I place these two on such a higher level than Silva’s is because Anderson Silva doesnt know what its like to be on a roll and get completely upset and embarassed and have to go back to basics and rethink his entire game plan and how he fights so he can come back and be better than he was. He hasn’t had to do it and GSP did it against Serra. Penn bounced back off of 2 huge losses to GSP and Matt Hughes and has won his last 3 fights.  I honestly beleive that either one of these guys could fight Anderson Silva and score a decisive win wether it be ko,tko,or submission.

Recently WEC featherweight champion Urijah Faber was defeated by underdog Mike Brown in stunning fashion. However this happened to be Urijah’s 6th title defense. Sounds familiar doesn’t it? Matt Hughes seemed to be unbeatable until his 6th title defense were he was upset by BJ Penn. Same goes for Tito Ortiz who was upset by Randy Couture on his 6th title defense. Is there a curse in the UFC? The same goes for an 8 win streak. It started with Royce Gracie he started off with the first 8 win streak only to be injured prior to his bout with Harold Howard giving him his first loss. Then Jon Fitch was the next to carry the weight of the 8 win streak only to be savagely beaten by GSP. Coincidence? Maybe or maybe not, but now Anderson Silva carries the weight of the 8 win streak, rumor says he’ll face Chuck Liddell at UFC 95. Maybe the Ice Man can make a come back by Knocking Out the 8 win streak champ?

Personally, this isn’t a fight that interests me and I would rather see Chuck Liddell vs Anderson Silva.  I don’t think there is as much interest to see another fight between Couture and Liddell but that is just my personal opinion.

Between 2003 and 2006 the fighters took place in a fight trio where Liddell came out as the victor twice and Couture the victor once.  So what purpose does this 4th fight serve?  Absolutely none.  Liddell could be seen as on his way out of MMA with more losses than wins as of late.  So Couture beating Liddell doesn’t mean anything and won’t serve any purpose.  However, if Liddell does beat Couture, it shows that Couture is done and has no purpose fighting any more.

I’m not sure what the purpose of scheduling this fight does for the UFC.  It still hasn’t been confirmed and we’ll let you know if the fighters accept the fight.  Apparently The Sun spoke with UFC officials but when MMA Junkie attempted to confirm the fight was offered to Liddell but wasn’t able to reach them.  We’ll let you know as soon as anything else comes to the surface on this.

The story of Matt Lindland wasn’t something that came up over night.  The documentary has been in the works for a few years now.  When speaking with David, he wanted to make it clear that the documentary wasn’t a biased opinion only showing one side of the story.

There’s a lot of film makers and documentaries out there that have too much opinion, we wanted this to be an unbiased film showing both sides of the story.

For those of you that watched the films trailer on the website or in our other article, it may have appeared like a one sided story.  The film dives a lot more into Matt Lindland’s life than why he was cut by the UFC.  The film does attempt to answer this question however, Dana White and the UFC were unwilling to do an interview for the film or comment on the situation at all.  Dana and Dave did talk but Dana refused to comment on Lindland’s release.

Due to the lack of communication from the UFC, we unfortunately don’t get any official answers from the UFC but Dave talked with reporters from Sports Illustrated, Yahoo!, etc to get their opinions.  Some stated that what he did was wrong and should be released, others felt differently.  All opinions are in the film.  

Whether you agree with his release from the UFC or not, the film should be watched as it starts when Matt was an infant and shows the trials and tribulations that he had to go through to get to where he is today.  Matt has a fight set for Affliction Day of Reckoning on January 24th and we look forward to seeing him fight again.

We asked Dave to sum up the message of the film in one sentence and he had this to say:

No matter what adversity you’re up against, hard work pays off.

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Part 5

Part 6

Part 7

Part 8

All of that came to a screaching halt when the fighter and the UFC could not come to agreements regarding using his name with lifetime rights on the UFC video game.

MMA Weekly reports:

According to sources close to the situation, Fitch was in negotiations with the UFC about a lifetime contract for likeness rights for their upcoming video game release and future video games. An agreement could not be reached and the Indiana native was subsequently released from his fight contract.

MMA Junkie released an article this morning with quotes from Fitch and Dana White.

“Working for free and selling our rights away for lifetime, that’s a little different,” said Fitch, who said he hasn’t spoken with White but plans to call him. “We tried to negotiate five- or 10-year deals with them, but it wasn’t good enough. It was all or nothing. He wanted our lifetime. He wanted our souls forever.”

Dana White doesn’t want to work with any AKA (American Kickboxing Academy) fighters and it’s rumored that Josh Koscheck could be next in line to be cut and he has an upcoming fight on December 10th.

“We’re looking for guys who want to work with us and not against us, and frankly I’m just so fucking sick of this shit it’s not even funny,” White said from Honolulu, where he flew Wednesday from Toronto to hold a news conference to announce the B.J. Penn-Georges St. Pierre fight for UFC 94 on Jan. 31 in Las Vegas.

“Affliction is still out there trying to build its company. Let [Fitch] go work with them. Let him see what he thinks of those fuckers. Fuck him. These guys aren’t partners with us. Fuck them. All of them, every last fucking one of them.”

“There are a lot of guys who help us and work with us and are great partners with us, and they’re the ones we’re going to remember and take care of,” White said. “Do these guys understand what is going on in this world? I’ll tell you, this economy is fucked up. It’s totally fucked up. It’s bad, real, real bad. The [television] networks are in trouble and don’t have money. The sponsors are in trouble, and they have no money. If they don’t have money, they go out of business.

“It’s a whole other world out there, believe me, and let these guys go out there and see what they find.”

So there’s the tale of the tape on the Fitch issue.  Look for other AKA fighters to be released soon as well.  Mike Swick looks to be safe as he called Dana White. Josh Koscheck is treading thin ice right now.

You can view our profile page on YouCastr and add us as fans to make sure you keep up to date with future broadcasts.

M-1’s Official Statement on Brock Lesnar’s victory

M-1 would like to congratulate Brock Lesnar on his UFC heavyweight title victory as well as acknowledge Randy Couture’s return to active competition after a layoff that lasted over a year.

Couture and WAMMA heavyweight champion Fedor Emelianenko had publicly acknowledged a desire to fight each other multiple times over the course of the past year. While M-1 and Fedor remain interested in a match against Couture, we would also like to publicly state for the record that we would welcome a superfight between Fedor and Lesnar that would be held as a co-promoted event between the UFC, M-1, and Affliction Entertainment.

We’ve invited the media to speak with us today to not only make it clear we would welcome a Fedor vs. Lesnar matchup but to act in a preemptive fashion to address the possibility that UFC officials will try and position Lesnar as the No. 1 heavyweight in the world, much like they have tried to use a marketing ploy to brand Anderson Silfva as the number one pound-for-pound fighter in the world.

In the past, UFC president Dana White and Zuffa, LLC CEO Lorenzo Fertitta have tried to claim that Fedor was “overrated” and that his “record was irrelevant.” They make these claims in spite of the fact that Fedor holds career victories over UFC champions past and present. While we have tremendous respect for the contributions Mr. Fertitta and Dana have made to this sport, we do not believe they are sincere in their statements.

It is the position of M-1 that the UFC has adopted an anti-Fedor policy because multiple attempts to sign him have not been fruitful. For a company that has tried to market itself as the number one promotion in the world, they are unable to accept the fact that the number one fighter in the world does not reside on its roster of contracted fighters.

We believe that the UFC has determined that it’s much more inexpensive for them to use their marketing resources to use smoke and mirrors to brand a fighter as the pound-for-pound best as opposed to actually paying the pound-for-pound best what he is truly worth on the open market.

While Brock Lesnar is an accomplished athlete and a talented fighter, we do not consider him to be the number one heavyweight in the world. Until someone beats him, we strongly believe that Fedor should continue to be recognized as the undisputed heavyweight champion of the world. In a match between Fedor and Lesnar, we do not feel that at this stage Lesnar would be able to make it out of the first round.

For those who feel our statements in regards to Fedor are self-serving, we’d like to refer you to a video interview on the website RawVegas.tv in which at his UFC 91 after-party Couture himself acknowledges that “Fedor would probably tear Brock up at this point.”

Jerry Millen, M-1 Vice President

I don’t see Dana White jumping at the idea of a co-promotion between UFC and Affliction especially after the recent words with Todd Beard (recently resigned from Affliction) and the UFC.  But this would be a killer fight and one that I would much rather watch than Fedor vs Couture at this point.