Tag: chael sonnen

mma

The Ultimate Fighter 17, episode 1: Sonnen-chanted evening …

Posted on by Beau Dure

Funny: I Googled “sonnen chanted” to see if anyone else had used that, and Google asked me if I meant “sonnen cheated.”

Yes, it’s The Ultimate Fighter‘s 17th season, in which we’ll see if a move to Tuesday nights can re-invigorate the ratings.

First, let’s clear up one misconception: Season 16 was not the worst season of the show. Last season’s fighters were interesting, at least until they got into the cage. Season 13 is still the worst by far — boring fights, boring fighters, boring coaches.

So this season, they’ve re-branded. The intro talks about the tough tournament (Bellator execs surely aren’t amused — they somehow wrangled ad time near the end of this two-hour show and tossed out their “toughest tournament in sports” mantra) and the atmosphere, as if re-introducing the series to viewers. The photography is more cinematic in nature, like a 30-for-30 documentary rather than TUF. The graphics, aside from the TUF logo itself, are redesigned, bold and spare. Dana White looks like he’s speaking into the camera from The Blair Witch Project.

And Chael Sonnen is here, figuring he might at least be able to win a war of words with Jon Jones even if he has no chance in his  undeserved title shot. (I still like the idea of having Sonnen coach against and then fight Forrest Griffin, leaving Jones free to fight an actual light heavyweight contender like Dan Henderson, Alexander Gustafsson or pretty much anyone who has actually won a fight at 205 pounds at a level above Gladiator Challenge.)

One more complaint about this season: The 14-man, single-class tournament with a prelim round and a wild-card bout is the dumbest format this show has ever used. It’s far smarter to use a “wild card” to bring back a talented fighter (maybe Costa Philippou, Che Mills or Ryan Jimmo, to name three fighters the show lost) who loses in the prelims. As it stands now, a fighter can win the prelim, lose in the first round, win the wild-card bout, win the quarterfinal and then step in for his fifth fight in a few weeks. Might as well go back to the UFC 1 format and just have these dudes fight three times in one night.

But I’m writing a book about The Ultimate Fighter, I’m a professional, and I still like this show. Like Saturday Night Live, it’s worth sitting through the low points to see the high points. So off we go (bios at Sherdog and the official TUF site) …

We start at Palace Station casino, as if thumbing our noses at UNITE HERE, the labor group that has taken its dispute with the UFC-owning Fertitta brothers to anti-MMA advocacy. Some lawmakers in New York actually seem to think their objections are related to MMA, making them either gullible or dishonest.

Another change: Family members will be there for the eliminations. Before the show is done, we’ll meet many of them. Some will be in the hotel rooms sharing last-minute bits of inspiration. Some will be cheering for their kids like it’s a Little League game, and the kids won’t get ice cream if they lose. Some will get camera time like A.J. McCarron’s girlfriend.

But we still have our pre-fight coaching awkwardness, with Sonnen and Jones left alone in a room. Except for the camera crew. Sonnen yaps. Jones says little. I think we’ve set a tone.

Fortunately, things get moving in a hurry …

FIGHT 1

Jake Heun (3-2): Lots of friends in his hotel room and the gym. He says on his bio he used to drop Chris Leben in practice.

Adam Cella (4-0): Says he used to be 250 pounds, but then he saw a fight and decided to get in shape. Girlfriend gets screen time.

Heun slips on a kick and looks awkward. He gets Cella down, but Cella grabs the arm and flips to get the armbar. Winner: Adam Cella, armbar, first round

FIGHT 2

Zak Cummings (15-3): Took Ryan Jimmo to five rounds, which isn’t bad.

Nik Fekete (5-1): Michigan State wrestler, like Gray Maynard and Rashad Evans. Camera crew went to his house, another TUF novelty.

Dana’s excited, the coaches are excited, and we … oh, it’s over. Fekete threw a kick and left his hand down, as Sonnen neatly dissects for us afterwards. Cummings lands one punch, and down goes Fekete. It’s stopped quickly, and Fekete is grappling with invisible opponents as he comes to. Didn’t see an exact count, but it’s less than 10 seconds, easily. Winner: Zak Cummings, TKO, first round

FIGHT 3

Eldon Sproat (3-1): He’s from Hawaii and does rodeo. Didn’t mention that on his bio, which will provide 10 seconds of dull reading. He never had a silver platter to eat off of. Maybe that should be the bonus instead of a Harley.

Kevin Casey (5-2): Dude has already fought Matt Lindland? Best friend was Rickson Gracie’s son. Mom is emotional.

Another TUF novelty: After 2-3 seconds, we go to some stylized slo-mo highlights. Casey gets cut over his eye, dripping blood all over, but he’s the far superior grappler. Winner: Kevin Casey, rear naked choke, round unknown

FIGHT 4

Scott Rosa (4-1): Dana’s amused by his prefight show of shadowboxing for every camera on the premises but impressed that he knocked out James Irvin. He also fought Jan. 18, so we’ll guess he doesn’t win here.

Tor Troeng (15-4-1): Swedish academic’s son who looks at MMA as another problem to solve. Fourth fight was a main event against Mamed Khalidov, so some European promoters must think highly of him.

Highlights only — yeah, Troeng solved that problem. Winner: Tor Troeng, rear naked choke, round unknown

FIGHT 5

Clint Hester (7-3): From Georgia!

Fraser Opie (10-5): Sounds like a 70s sitcom character, doesn’t he? Actually from South Africa.

Hester has a boxing background and lands a hard body blow, then wows the coaches with his grappling, including a big slam. Jones likes him a lot and is already coaching him during the fight. Winner: Clint Hester, unanimous decision

Any thoughts about going to the TUF house, Clint? Yeah, he compares it to federal prison, though he points out he’s never been there.

FIGHT 6

Ryan Bigler (9-3): Another fighter to make his way from Guam to TUF. He has a buddy in his hotel room reading an inspirational quote and then mangling the name “Churchill.”

Robert “Bubba” McDaniel (20-6): 26 fights? And he fights for Greg Jackson, where he has often been in camp with one Jon Jones. He weeps after a long hug with his sister.

Bubba’s wrestling and Jones’ coaching carry the day. A man with a huge beard is very happy. No, it’s not Roy Nelson. Winner: Bubba McDaniel, TKO, second round

FIGHT 7

Josh Samman (9-2): Beat Chris Cope. We meet him in his hotel room making out with his girlfriend. Wait, is this Cinemax?

Leo Bercier (7-2-1): Native American, talks about the miserable life on the reservation. Press release says he’s fighting Feb. 15 in Maximum FC, which could bode ill for his chances in the prelims.

Samman takes Bercier down and takes the women’s tennis approach to ground-and-pound, going “Hyuhn!” with every punch. Bercier has no defense whatsoever, and Dana and Jones get a little impatient waiting for Samman to finish it. Winner: Josh Samman, TKO, first round

Sonnen chases after Samman to congratulate him. Jones and Dana smirk, thinking he’s “politicking.” I’m guessing it went like this ..

Hey, great fight. Listen — can you help me with this “pound thing? I have the “ground” part down — I had Anderson Silva on his back for 23 minutes. But then he just submitted me like it was a white-belt grappling contest …

FIGHT 8

Kito Andrews (9-2): Team Alpha Male fighter. We see him with his kids, of whom he just won custody. They cling to him while he tells them to be good kids while he’s gone. He grew up on food stamps, powdered milk and Spam. Even Danny Downes can’t find a way to be snarky about this. We’re going to have to save the snark-offs for Episode 2, when these guys start acting like idiots in the house. (Well, Dana finds a way, saying Andrews must be used to fighting because he’s divorced.)

Kelvin Gastelum (4-0): He’s a bail bondsman and the youngest fighter in TUF history, Dana tells us, at age 21.

Highlights only: Kito’s son gets some interview time, saying Kito has always wanted to be on the show. Kito lands good body shots, but Kelvin does better in Round 2. Sonnen says it was close, but Kelvin wins. We see Kito’s sons react in disappointment. They go over to tell him they’re still proud of him. What a nice family. Seriously. I’m thinking of starting a business so I can hire this guy and coach his kids in soccer. Winner: Kelvin Gastelum, decision

FIGHT 9

Jimmy Quinlan (3-0): Wrestler and jiu-jitsu guy.

Mike Persons (3-0): From Stockton, like the Diazes (not that they’re mentioned), and he works at his friend Steve’s store. Seriously, that’s pretty much all they say about him.

Highlights only: Jimmy is a really good wrestler. So say Jones and Sonnen, and they should know. Like Jones and unlike Sonnen, he also does the “pound” part. This whole bit lasted about as long as an ad. Winner: Jimmy Quinlan, TKO, first round

FIGHT 10

Uriah Hall (7-2): Only losses are to Chris Weidman and Costa Philippou. That’s serious. From Jamaica via Queens, where he was getting teased a lot and went to a counselor who happened to have a martial arts place next door.

Andy Enz (3-0 — the show claims he’s 6-1): Hey, remember the “nap-jitsu” dude who tried to irritate people in the TUF 16 house? No? Well, anyway, Enz beat him.

They devote a bit more buildup to this one, so we get to see Hall’s pecs bounce in slow-motion. I’m not used to the slo-mo, and I’m not used to seeing the dads and granddads yelling at their kids like hockey parents.

As the fight starts, we cut away to Sonnen, who says he just wants fighters with heart and determination, because then we can find a way to get it done. First, apply to the Nevada commission for a therapeutic use exemption …

Hall lands serious strikes, get him down, gets back up, lands more serious strikes, etc. Enz is showing heart and determination, but he’s also getting his butt kicked. (Well, his head and body, to be more precise.) Hall looks like a middleweight Jon Jones — long-limbed and much quicker than his opponent. Enz manages a reverse into Hall’s guard, at least, and he narrowly slips out of a triangle just when it seemed his eyes were in the back of his head. Round 1 ends, and Sonnen stands to yell “Outstanding!” Yeah, it is.

We see more of Enz’s family yelling at him like he’s a soccer player who won’t get orange slices if he loses, and we’re into Round 2. Hall seems surprised Enz is still standing in front of him, and Hall ends up having to pull himself out of a submission or two. Sonnen likes Enz but says he “ran into a hammer known as Uriah Hall.” Winner: Uriah Hall, decision

Hall waits for Enz to finish hugging his family, then sportingly congratulates him.

See, Dana? This is why you do the wild card after the PRELIMS! You could have both these guys in the house!

FIGHT 11

Gilbert Smith (5-1): We start in his hotel room, where he tells his family he has resolved not to be afraid of his dreams.

Eric Wahlin (4-2): Lost his first two, won his next four. He says he doesn’t know how he’s been making his child-support payments, and his house is being taken away from him. Can we take up a collection?

Dana thinks Smith looks like Tyson. No, he looks nothing like Tyson Griffin. Oh, the other one? Yeah, maybe. They’re painting Smith as the overwhelming favorite, which often means we’re going in a different direction.

Not this time. Wahlin shows some submission skills, but Smith turns Wahlin’s head purple with an arm triangle. Dana thinks Wahlin may have been punching rather than tapping, but in Wahlin’s state of consciousness, no one really knows or cares. Winner: Gilbert Smith, arm triangle, first round

FIGHT 12

Nicholas Kohring (3-0): He’s 22. He has braces. He has that Millennial mumble. His fiancee has a Goth vibe. His mom talks a lot.

Luke Barnatt (5-0): Nearly two meters tall. That’s 6-foot-6. Quit a nice job to do MMA and says he’s forgotten what it was like to have money. He’s surprisingly not subtitled even with a thick Andy Ogle-style accent, but the producers must figure that if we can understand Kohring, we’ll understand anyone.

The coaches like Luke’s reach, but Nicholas shows a willingness to get inside and swing. We switch to highlights, and Luke ends the first round flipping Nicholas to the mat. That’s about it — Jones says Luke looks like “top 3.” Nicholas looks like another guy who could’ve deserved another shot. Winner: Luke Barnatt, decision

FIGHT 13

Dylan Andrews (15-4): Beat Shonie Carter in 2010. High school rugby player from New Zealand via Australia. Dana says he grew up in a “marijuana growhouse.” Again, no Diaz reference?

Tim Williams (7-1): “The South Jersey Strangler”? Dana: “He looks like he strangled a few people before he came here.” He has wild scars and close-cropped hair.

Andrews looks terrified of the Strangler, but as Williams charges, Andrew drops him. Strangler fights through it. Dana says if someone needs to be replaced, he may bring back the loser of this fight. Again, Dana … format!

Chael says it was close and could’ve gone to a third round, but … Winner: Dylan Andrews, decision

FIGHT 14

Collin Hart (4-1-1): Californian. Nicknamed “The Dick” to Dana’s amusement. All he does is sleep and train. And work. And go to bars.

Mike Jasper (5-0): Quarterback of a semipro football team, Dana says. Lots of green in his tattoos.

The slo-mo replay starts with a missed kick. Jones says it’s an awesome fight and that Collin’s dirty boxing reminds him of Randy Couture. Before you have time to think this is going to be dull, Hart drags Jasper to the ground and gets the tap. Winner: Collin Hart, rear naked choke, first round

And we’re not done. Coin toss, Sonnen wins, picks first fighter … the bloody Luke Barnatt. Sonnen says he picked him based on conditioning.

Jones answers with Clint Hester.

Sonnen: Uriah Hall (says he likes Jones, but things happen for a reason)
Jones: Josh Samman

Sonnen: Zak Cummings
Jones: Bubba McDaniels

Sonnen: Tor Troeng
Jones: Gilbert Smith (he says he was sending a message “Pick me, pick me,” and Jones must’ve picked it up.)

Sonnen: Jimmy Quinlan
Jones: Collin Hart

Sonnen: Kevin Casey
Jones: Adam Cella

Sonnen: Kelvin Gastelum
Jones: Dylan Andrews, who gets the “last pick” ribbing but says he gets to fly under the radar.

We still have eight minutes left in this episode. Fighters on Team Jones, led by Josh, already have an idea of who they want to fight and in which order.

The fight announcement … after a Bellator ad … is Gilbert vs. Luke. What?

Josh isn’t happy. He says Team Jones can’t sweep the fights if they lose the first one. Check out the big brains on Josh.

But Josh is right. That’s a dumb, dumb strategy. You want to boost morale by taking out the other team’s top pick? OK, but when you lose, you give up control. And the other guy had first pick.

Sonnen rhymes for a bit and makes some speech about fists instead of emotions. But the ace card they’re holding is a big-time knockout, which Dana says is one of the nastiest he has seen in the sport. We see someone loaded into an ambulance.

A seriously injured fighter and Chael Sonnen? Don’t show this to the New York legislature. But the rest of us should be intrigued.

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mma

UFC gives Chael Sonnen a title shot he simply does not deserve

Posted on by Beau Dure

Updated below with more comments …

Boxing and MMA promoters have to walk a fine line between hucksterism and sports. The UFC has long walked it better than most.

Dana White didn’t build up Kimbo Slice as one of the world’s best heavyweights — EliteXC did that. White and company instead gave Kimbo a chance to work his way up through The Ultimate Fighter, taking advantage of his notoriety but not treating him as something he wasn’t.

The UFC might make some matchups just for fun. When boxer James Toney barked his way into a UFC shot, White put him on a main card and fed him to powerful wrestler Randy Couture, who duly took him down and demolished him. Last weekend, needing a main event for one of the many injury-rattled cards this year, White put middleweight champion Anderson Silva in a non-title light heavyweight fight against the durable Stephan Bonnar, a classic case of the unstoppable force against the immovable object. (Unstoppable force 1, immovable object 0.)

But title fights? No. Aside from the title shots granted to the winners of the “Comeback” season on The Ultimate Fighter, title contenders have usually earned their shots. Perhaps Brock Lesnar was fast-tracked in the heavyweight division, but he was essentially part of a four-man tournament to settle a weight class unhinged by Couture’s contract dispute. Vitor Belfort got a surprising shot as a late replacement, but he’s a past champion who still has a lot to offer. The UFC just doesn’t hand out title shots to undeserving fighters.

Until now.

Chael Sonnen has no claim to a title shot at 205 pounds. None.

The case for Sonnen: He gave Anderson Silva fits in two shots at the middleweight title, and he has the wit (and willingness to stretch the truth) to sell a fight.

The counterargument, from MMA Mania’s Brian Hemminger: “Chael Sonnen hasn’t fought at light heavyweight since UFC 55 over seven years ago when he was choked out in the second round by Renato Sobral.”

Other reactions:

And here’s the dean of the MMA press corps, Yahoo’s Kevin Iole: “A guy who did nothing to qualify for a title shot is getting one for no reason other than that he’s quick with a quip. The UFC bills itself ‘as real as it gets,’ but this time, it’s nothing but a fairy tale.”

But wait, there’s more …

– As exciting as Sonnen’s hype might be, he isn’t the most exciting fighter in the cage. Through 14 fights in the UFC and WEC, he has exactly one finish — his October 2011 arm-triangle choke win over Brian Stann. Before that, his last finish in the cage was against Kyacey Uscola in SportFight in 2007.

– In his current UFC stint, he’s 5-3. And I’m not convinced he beat Michael Bisping.

– Sonnen got TWO shots at the middleweight title and lost them both. Now he’s supposed to move up and be a contender without fighting anyone else?

– After his really impressive performance in the first loss to Silva, Sonnen’s postfight drug test showed a 16.9:1 testosterone/epitestosterone ratio. It’s supposed to be 1:1. The World Anti-Doping Agency allows for natural variance up to 4:1. Nevada’s commission allows 6:1, even when Sonnen was approved for therapeutic use of synthetic testosterone.

– Other light heavyweight fighters exist.

Sure, the UFC might want to give The Ultimate Fighter a jolt, given the current ratings. (The current season isn’t bad, but for some reason, people just aren’t tuning in. Don’t tell me Friday nights are a problem, unless you’re telling me MMA fans are high school football fanatics. Or players.)

So if the UFC really wants to have Sonnen on The Ultimate Fighter, here are a couple of suggestions:

1. Have Sonnen and Jones fight a non-title catchweight bout. That way, if Sonnen somehow gets lucky and beats Jones, he’s not the “champion” of a weight class in which he has no other notable wins.

2. That Sonnen vs. Forrest Griffin rematch (Griffin beat him via first-round submission in another promotion in 2003) the UFC was planning? Put Sonnen and Griffin on TUF.

Updates: Fighters are speaking up now:

http://twitter.com/SportsMyriad/status/258562862790873088

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mma

The contrarian take on Silva-Sonnen

Posted on by Beau Dure

A lot is riding on the upcoming UFC pay-per-view with Anderson Silva defending his middleweight title once again against Chael Sonnen, who grounded-and-pounded Silva for four-and-a-half rounds the first time they faced off before Silva pulled off the miracle comeback two years ago.

For the UFC, it’s a chance to continue its comeback from a disappointing string of injury-riddled pay-per-view cards. The last two big ones — Jon Jones-Rashad Evans (UFC 145, April), Junior dos Santos-Frank Mir and other heavyweights (UFC 146, May) — have done well. (We’ll give the UFC a pass on UFC 147 in Brazil, which turned into a finale of The Ultimate Fighter: Brazil with a Rich Franklin-Wanderlei Silva bout on top. That one really wasn’t about the U.S. market. The current wave of UFC growth is overseas, and they know it.)

Silva-Sonnen is the standout fight of the UFC’s overloaded year, in which it’s pumping out fight cards by the dozen for the Fox networks along with its now-standard steady flow of pay-per-view cards. The storylines are obvious. The fighters hate each other. Sonnen won’t stop talking about how he dominated Silva for all but the last few seconds of their last fight. Silva is one of the greatest fighters of all time.

So why am I not interested?

1. The first fight was dull aside from the shock value. Sonnen takedown. Silva stuck on his back. Repeat. The only interesting thing about it was the man on his back was Anderson Silva … the man who had the aura of invincibility.

2. Age. The combined age of the guys in this fight is 72. Experience can be a good thing in this sport — the complexities of martial arts can take years to master — but the 35-year-old Sonnen is still bringing essentially the same wrestling-intensive skillset he’s always had. The 37-year-old Silva might have lost a step despite his wonderful bounce-back from the first Sonnen fight, a highlight-reel KO of dangerous opponent Vitor Belfort.

3. Chael Sonnen, middleweight champion? Sonnen has had a slow climb up the middleweight ladder. He was 1-2 in his first stint in the UFC, departing after his third career loss to the ubiquitous Jeremy Horn. Some solid results in BodogFight brought him into WEC, where he lost a title fight to Paulo Filho. He got a quick rematch and won one of the oddest fights in MMA history — Filho missed weight and acted as if he were hearing voices. He moved into the UFC and immediately lost to Demian Maia.

Sonnen rebounded with a couple of wins and plowed through Nate Marquardt to earn the title shot. He looked far stronger than Marquardt, a prelude to how he would treat Silva.

Then came the scandal. Sonnen’s postfight drug test showed a 16:1 testosterone-epitestosterone ratio. The limit, depending on the overseeing body, is either 4:1 or 6:1.  There’s no need to rehash the whole case, but the end result is this: Sonnen served a suspension  and returned with a strong win over Brian Stann and a less convincing win (I’m not convinced at all, frankly) over Michael Bisping. He’ll fight Silva under a therapeutic use exemption for testosterone use, but he’ll be tested extensively, and his ratio still needs to be under 6:1.

So if Silva is the old Silva, he shouldn’t have any problem with Sonnen. The champion supposedly had a rib injury the first time they fought, and he’ll be better prepared to fend off Sonnen’s takedowns. No one doubts Silva would win if the fight remains standing. And if Sonnen derived any additional strength from testing off the charts in the first fight, he’ll have less of an advantage this time around. It’s possible, maybe even likely, that Silva is about to deliver an epic beatdown that ought to make Sonnen shut up for once.

But what if he doesn’t? What if age has really robbed Silva of his legendary explosiveness? What if the UFC ends up with a middleweight champion with a 28-11-1 record who wouldn’t have gotten this rematch without his big mouth and a massive favor from the judges to beat Michael Bisping? A champion who sneers at any reporter who dares to ask real questions or do any real reporting about his testosterone use?

To me, it looks like pro wrestling. We’re about to see the heel get his come-uppance. Or not. (And a lot of people actually like the heel, who is indeed a witty guy and, oddly enough, a pretty good TV analyst.)

There’s a reason I’ve used first person through all this. I know this is just me. The typical MMA fan is far more interested in the storylines than I am. This card is going to get a ton of media coverage. I’d be stunned if the pay-per-view numbers weren’t the biggest of what’s already a pretty good year.

But the date I’ve circled is Aug. 11. Ben Henderson. Frankie Edgar. Lightweight title rematch. Two great guys. Two great fighters. Bring it.

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mma

MMA, pro wrestling and proper arenas

Posted on by Beau Dure

It started with an innocent joke. With my eyes straining, I misread the name “CM Punk” as “chipmunk.” When my eyes refocused, I realized it was another reference to a pro wrestling champion whose name I just learned because he’ll be accompanying Chael Sonnen to his next fight. I thought it would be amusing to Tweet that Sonnen will be walking to the cage with a chipmunk.

An MMA media colleague who really likes pro wrestling was not amused. And pretty soon, we were down the same road of “pro wrestling vs. MMA” that will one day be settled in a Texas cage match with me and Luke Thomas taking on Sergio Non and Matt Roth.

Luke and I may sometimes come across as rather pious about separating scripted fighting from unscripted. To be fair, pro wrestling has a lot to offer pop culture. Chris Jericho has been on several VH1 I Love the (whatever) shows and is usually wittier than the alleged comedians. The Rock/Dwayne Johnson has been great in recurring appearances on Saturday Night Live. Mick Foley’s thoughtful writing and TV appearances have boosted Tori Amos’ career. So it’s not fair to say pro wrestling should stay in its own arena.

In yesterday’s Twitscrap, I defended myself with the weaker point first, saying I preferred my fictional sports to be about Texas high school football or Carolina League baseball. When pressed, I said the real problem here was the encroachment of pro wrestling into another arena. It’d be idiotic to seek out a Friday Night Lights message board to tell people the show’s lame, but if Tim Riggins (in character) walked with someone to the cage, MMA fans would have every right to say that’s silly.

Yet that exchange still doesn’t get to the heart of the problem. Some wrestling/MMA mingling is harmless — Tom Lawlor’s Hulk Hogan impression sailed over my head but was hardly distracting from the fight that followed.

Japan also mixes pro wrestling and MMA with some fluidity. For the big annual New Year’s Eve fighting show, Dream mixed a tournament of legit bantamweight fighters and a couple of championship bouts with a few exhibitions of MMA fighters in pro wrestling bouts. That mix isn’t for everyone, though I’ll admit I’d rather see Josh Barnett in a pro wrestling bout than Chris Jericho shouting a bunch of obnoxious scripted boasts in a WWE show.

The problem is when the line between fiction and reality blurs. And that leads us back to Sonnen.

Start with trash-talking, most of which is harmless. No one was hurt when Nate Diaz flipped Donald Cerrone’s hat off (flipping off Cerrone during the fight was a little more difficult to defend), and these were just two willing participants trying to get fans (and themselves) ramped up for a fight. For the most part, it’s an act, designed to get fighters excited over the otherwise-abnormal act of punching someone else in the face. The “feud” is over when the fight is over.

Sonnen’s “act” has gone far beyond those bounds. The one-time political candidate is happy to bring politics into the arena. (So is Jacob Volkmann, who managed to get 15 minutes of fame by threatening Barack Obama and then casting himself as a martyr whose chiropractor job is threatened directly by the president, who apparently designed the whole health-care thing not to insure the uninsured by to oppress his business.) He gleefully insults Canada and Brazil. He has denied saying Lance Armstrong gave himself cancer, though he hasn’t exactly convinced the blogosphere of his innocence. He even takes that bluster into a serious career-threatening legal process over his testosterone therapy, blaming the media and saying he was found guilty of taking a “legal substance.”

So now we have a guy who sounds like Ric Flair yelling at Dusty Rhodes (hey, I’m old) when he’s talking about serious stuff. And when he decides to walk to a legitimate fight with a wrestler in his corner, it just seems like it should be the other way around.

Why should we care about this blurred line between wrestling and MMA? First, MMA fans have a right to know that what they’re watching is legit. Drug-testing is part of it.

Second, MMA fans have a right to say, “Look, leave Lance Armstrong and Canada’s government out of it.” Some may disagree, but the fans who prefer to watch fights without all that nonsense shouldn’t be dissuaded from speaking up.

Third, MMA — like all sports — has to watch its image. The challenges in MMA are unique in the sense that we still have grumpy old sports editors and corporate sponsors who don’t want to deal with the sport. But they’re not unique in the sense that any sport can be stereotyped. Browse any sports site and read the comments about people who think the NBA is populated by “thugs.” Look at the damage control baseball has had to do in the wake of its drug scandals and labor strife.

MMA has unique ties to pro wrestling, particularly in Japan but also in the USA with crossovers such as Brock Lesnar and Bobby Lashley. But MMA and wrestling are a volatile mix. Handle with care.

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mma

Chael Sonnen’s “Nobody told me” defense

Posted on by Beau Dure

A bit of context for today’s California hearing in which UFC middleweight contender Chael Sonnen made his case to have his suspension reduced or waived:

1. If this were a USADA (U.S. Anti-Doping Agency) or WADA (World) case, Sonnen would be toast. Ignorance would be no excuse.

2. That said, USADA and WADA have spelled out their rules in painstaking details, and the chain of authority is clear. Sonnen has come up with plausible scenarios to suggest the chain of authority was confused somewhere between Nevada, the UFC, California and some doctors of unknown employ. And you never want to hear a commission member say, “Moving forward, we need to have a rule.”

3. THAT said, Sonnen’s story had a few unfortunate assumptions and admissions on his part. He assumed that California’s system of notification was the same as Nevada’s. And he really doesn’t want to appeal to the legal system with the notion that he didn’t disclose something, even as an incremental step in the whole process, because he was worried that another fighter might peek over his shoulder.

The bottom line here is that Sonnen is asking for leniency on the basis that he was confused. California likely has no precedent that fits this case, and the commissioners will have a lot of discretion to set that precedent.

Given that, Sonnen really needed to come across as sympathetic. He needed to let his lawyer poke holes in California’s processes while he appeared humble and contrite.

Did he do that?

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mma

MMA: Not pro wrestling

Posted on by Beau Dure

Mixed martial arts has a few historical links to professional wrestling. The connection is stronger in Japan than in the USA, but it exists here. They’ve chased some of the same audiences, and a couple of people have existed in both worlds. Ken Shamrock went back and forth between the two. Brock Lesnar left pro wrestling behind to climb quickly to UFC heavyweight champion. We even have an overlap in journalism — Dave Meltzer, who dove aggressively behind the scenes with Wrestling Observer, is a very good MMA writer.

No one would want to drum Lesnar or Meltzer out of the sport, but MMA fans have every right to play up the differences between their sport and the scripted version. Luke Thomas minced few words on Twitter today (not that Twitter gives anyone much leeway to mince words) in talking about it: “I’m going to start swinging a machete if we keep pretending MMA is professional wrestling.”

Thomas, who hosts “MMA Nation” on WJFK and is the editor of great MMA blog Bloody Elbow, expounded in two more Tweets. Combining them: “The other issue that folks need to consider is the longer you pretend there is a cozy relationship btw MMA & pro wrestling, the longer you put off integration into the larger sporting audience. They will not accept it on those terms. And who can blame them?”

Thomas is a passionate defender of MMA as a sport and not just a spectacle, something Bloody Elbow’s critics in the fight world should remember. And he’s right.

In Japan, fans and the media may be more accepting of close links between the “fake” and “real” worlds. In the USA, that’ll go over as well as the “European carry-all” on the great old Seinfeld episode.

All of this is in the wake of UFC 117, which played out like a pro wrestling storyline, vividly spelled out at Watch Kalib Run. Chael Sonnen hyped the fight with ludicrous overstatement, dominated for most of the fight and then lost when Silva pulled a submission win out of nothing. That’s Sonnen playing the heel to Anderson Silva’s babyface.

It’s not a perfect analogy. Sonnen had a lot of fan support against Silva, whose popularity has suffered through some erratic performances.

But the differences between MMA and pro wrestling were more apparent in the rest of the card, which no one would script:

– Jon Fitch took a typically methodical win over Thiago Alves in the type of bout.

– Matt Hughes, a few years past his championship run, beat Ricardo Almeida with an improbable choke. (Maybe you’d script that one.)

– Clay Guida beat Rafael dos Anjos on an injury — a Guida punch injured dos Anjos’ jaw, and dos Anjos tapped out when he was caught in a hold that made the injury worse.

– Junior dos Santos beat up Roy Nelson in a matchup of contrasting builds.

UFC fight build-up is sometimes nasty. Lesnar and Frank Mir had some pointed exchanges, and Lesnar went way over the top in celebrating his win. But it’s generally a different vibe. Even Sonnen and Silva embraced after the fight, with Silva going out of his way to praise a fighter who had spent several months ridiculing him.

As a journalist who has come to love this sport, I’m with Luke. I can deal with pre-fight confidence-building boasts, but not with pro wrestling-style histrionics. I’d bet I’m not the only one.

Update: At Bloody Elbow, Kid Nate sums up one of the problems — the more MMA resembles pro wrestling, the more likely observers may think it’s predetermined.

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