10. Jon Fitch
Points: 23
Affiliation: UFC
Weight class:Welterweight
Hometown: San Jose, Calif.
Record: 23-3, 1 no-contest (won past five)
Last month’s ranking: unranked
Most recent result: Def. Thiago Alves, unanimous decision, Aug. 7
Analysis:Would a finish here and there instead of one decision win after another help perception of Fitch? Sure. But there’s no denying his results.
Shields
9. Jake Shields
Points: 35
Affiliation: UFC
Weight class: Welterweight (never lost Strikeforce middleweight title)
Hometown: San Francisco
Record: 26-4-1 (has won past 15)
Last month’s ranking: 9
Most recent result: Def. Martin Kampmann, split decision, Oct. 23
Analysis: Didn’t help himself with a listless performance in his UFC debut.
Emelianenko
8. Fedor Emelianenko
Points: 51
Affiliation: Strikeforce/M-1
Weight class: Heavyweight
Hometown: Stary Oskol, Russia
Record: 31-2, one no-contest (lost last one)
Last month’s ranking: T-6
Most recent result: Lost to Fabricio Werdum, R1 submission, June 26
Analysis: Emelianenko is a year removed from his most recent victory and has no next fight in sight.
Velasquez
7. Cain Velasquez
Points: 64
Affiliation: UFC
Weight class: Heavyweight (UFC heavyweight champion)
Hometown: Salinas, Calif.
Record: 9-0 (won past nine)
Last month’s ranking: unranked
Most recent result: def. Brock Lesnar, R1 TKO, Oct. 23
Analysis: Has passed every test with flying colors. Next up: Junior dos Santos and his nasty striking.
Cruz
6. Dominick Cruz
Points: 73
Affiliation: WEC
Weight class: Bantamweight (WEC bantamweight champion)
Hometown: San Diego
Record: 16-1 (has won past seven)
Last month’s ranking: T-6
Most recent result: Def. Joseph Benavidez, split decision, Aug. 18
Analysis:Has to get past the underrated Scott Jorgensen on Dec. 16 before he can officially become the first UFC 135-pound champ.
Edgar
5. Frank Edgar
Points: 111
Affiliation: UFC
Weight class: Lightweight (UFC lightweight champion)
Hometown: Toms River, N.J.
Record: 13-1 (has won past five)
Last month’s ranking: 5
Most recent result: Def. B.J. Penn, unanimous decision, Aug. 28
Analysis: Has the chance to avenge the only blemish on his record when he meets Gray Maynard on New Year’s evening.
Rua
4. Mauricio Rua
Points: 118
Affiliation: UFC
Weight class: Light heavyweight (UFC light heavyweight champion)
Hometown: Curitiba, Brazil
Record: 19-4 (won previous fight)
Last month’s ranking: 4
Most recent result: Def. Lyoto Machida, R1 TKO, May 8
Analysis: Most recent rumors have his return from knee surgery pegged for a Match Abu Dhabi date with Rashad Evans.
Aldo
3. Jose Aldo
Points: 156
Affiliation: WEC
Weight class: Featherweight (WEC featherweight champion)
Hometown: Rio de Janeiro
Record: 17-1 (has won past 10)
Last month’s ranking: 3
Most recent result: Def. Manny Gamburyan, R2 TKO, Sept. 20
Analysis:Had to pull out of Jan. 1 fight with Josh Grispi due to a compressed vertebrae.
Silva
2. Anderson Silva
Points: 186 (9 first-place votes)
Affiliation: UFC
Weight class: Middleweight (UFC middleweight champion)
Hometown: Curitiba, Brazil
Record: 27-4 (has won past 12)
Last month’s ranking: 2
Most recent result: Def. Chael Sonnen, R5 submission, Aug. 7
Analysis:Super Bowl weekend showdown with Vitor Belfort looms.
St. Pierre
1. Georges St. Pierre
Points: 191 (11 first-place votes)
Affiliation: UFC
Weight class: Welterweight (UFC welterweight champion)
Hometown: Saint-Isidore, Quebec
Record: 20-2 (has won past seven)
Last month’s ranking: 1
Most recent result: Def. Dan Hardy, unanimous decision, March 27
Analysis: Some fighters look to avenge losses. St. Pierre’s bar is set so high, he’ll be looking to avenge the guy who last won a round against him three years ago in Josh Koscheck.
Thoughts ???
Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu BJJ Internet Radio
Thursday, November 25, 2010
Wednesday, November 24, 2010
Brock Lesnar vs Frank Mir Rubber match 3 ?
has been about a month since Brock Lesnar went from being the most physically prominent force in UFC history to an all-but-invisible fighter.
One would expect by now, with so many pay-per-view main events to fill and barely enough headliners to fill them, the company would have a good idea of when their biggest drawing card will fight next.
But according to UFC president Dana White, right now there are no answers as to whom Lesnar, who lost the UFC heavyweight title to Cain Velasquez on Oct. 23, will meet.
More From Dave MeltzerTriumphant Penn eyes next career chapter Nov 21, 2010 Penn's legacy could hinge on Hughes trilogy Nov 18, 2010 ADVERTISEMENT
Brock Lesnar and Frank Mir have split their first two fights. They might not get a chance to determine an ultimate victor.
UFC 100 Frank Mir Limited Edition Collectible Coin
“I haven’t talked with him since the fight,” said White.
While in Germany promoting UFC 122 a couple weeks ago, White said what was expected by most: The fight that makes the most sense for Lesnar is a third meeting with archrival Frank Mir.
Almost as soon as that statement made its way to cyberspace, several MMA message boards suggested people flood White’s Twitter account with messages saying they didn’t want to see that trilogy play out.
“I’ve never gotten such a negative response to any fight,” said White of the immediate Twitter messages.
So, White changed his mind on the fight.
In talking about the change, White said he did not listen to the Internet but rather to his followers on Twitter, although it’s hard to really separate the two.
“I usually don’t gauge things by the Internet,” said White. “The Internet is [expletive] stupid. My Twitter, I do. On my Twitter, there are 1.2 million people that care about this thing and everything else, and you don’t get the goofy [expletive] that you get on the Internet.”
White unabashedly will tell anyone who will listen that UFC’s goal is to make fights that people want to see the most. It’s the reason that Josh Koscheck, who has done an incredible role as antagonist to Georges St. Pierre on the current season of “The Ultimate Fighter,” is getting a welterweight title shot on Dec. 11.
Koscheck’s campmate, Jon Fitch, is on a five-fight win streak that includes beating Thiago Alves and Paulo Thiago, both of whom beat Koscheck, and is generally regarded as St. Pierre’s top contender. He’s got no title shot in sight, but there is public interest in Koscheck challenging.
The idea of making the most marketable matches led UFC to set a company pay-per-view record in 2009 with close to eight million buys, a record that will be broken again this year, as the UFC should finish in the nine million total buys range after the St. Pierre vs. Koscheck fight. Much of that success comes from listening to the audience and having a feel for the matches people want to see most.
But MMA also has a vocal hardcore minority that doesn’t always agree with the bigger audience. In the case of Lesnar-Mir III, even if the hardcores do speak for the average fan, they’re not looking at the long-term picture that the promoters must consider.
Currently, there is no viable, big-money alternative to Lesnar-Mir III. That’s why White pulling back on a fight that likely would do more business than any other on the books so far for 2011 is so perplexing.
If Twitter was prominent in 2006, White would have been flooded with negative remarks about Tito Ortiz vs. Ken Shamrock, as insiders knew Shamrock was past his prime. The UFC took a beating on blogs and message boards for making the match. But reality was it set a new business record and to this day, their final meeting – the single most heavily criticized UFC match in history – is still the second-most-watched MMA fight on cable TV.
That third fight, in Oct. 2006, beat several games of that year’s World Series in the coveted 18-34 male demographic, a statistic that led to a breakthrough in mainstream sports media coverage because the numbers were so impressive that many felt the sport could no longer be ignored.
Quite frankly, if White had listened to the hardcore fans in 2008, he likely never would have signed Lesnar to a contract to begin with because of the issues they had about Lesnar’s pro-wrestling past.
Yet as difficult as he can be to work with, Lesnar has been a key element in the growth of the sport over the past three years. The second Lesnar-Mir fight, which did have the advantage of being the main event of UFC 100 and promoted as a special event, did more than 1.6 million buys on pay-per-view, a number far beyond anything any sport but boxing has ever done. Only three boxing events – Floyd Mayweather Jr.-Oscar De La Hoya and Mike Tyson fights with Evander Holyfield and Lennox Lewis – have topped it.
Lesnar and Mir are even in their series with a win each. A third meeting, without the title at stake, unlikely would come close to the numbers their second fight pulled, but probably would do more than any other heavyweight fight currently available to the UFC, more than anything other than a blockbuster along the lines of a St. Pierre-Anderson Silva fight.
There is an argument that if the UFC was to proceed with Lesnar-Mir III, Lesnar would only have seven fights in the organization, with three against the same person. But the alternatives are not only worse from a single-event box office standpoint, but also for building the heavyweight division for the future.
Roy Nelson, who White conceded would have been the next choice to face Lesnar, is in the middle of a legal situation regarding a contract he signed in 2009 with the Roy Jones Jr.’s Square Ring promotion. Jones’ promotion filed a lawsuit against Zuffa and Nelson, and Zuffa responded to the claim by stating that when Nelson signed his first contract with UFC on June 27, 2009, to participate in “The Ultimate Fighter” reality show, Nelson stated he was not under contract to any other organization. Until the legal proceedings are over, UFC will not be using Nelson.
Another potential opponent, Shane Carwin, recently underwent major back surgery and is out of the picture.
There are loads of questions regarding Lesnar and how he’ll respond to the loss. He’s disappeared from public view. His friends say he’s spent the past few weeks hunting and spending time with his family. He’s 33 years old, and has made a fortune in his recent fights.
Will he be like the 22-year-old Brock Lesnar, with barely a dime to his name, who came back from finishing a close second in the NCAA tournament as a junior and won it as a senior? Or even the 30-year-old Lesnar, who lost in 90 seconds to Mir in his debut, but came back to beat Randy Couture and win the heavyweight title? Lesnar has stated that he’s a prize fighter, emphasizing the word “prize,” and notes money is a major part of it.
With his financial success, is Lesnar ready to commit to reinventing himself and, in particular, shore up his weakness when it comes to his reactions to getting hit? Will he be able to outwork a machine like Velasquez? The lack of a next fight is a two-way street, and there’s no indication he’s been burning up the phone lines calling the UFC to ask to get back into the cage as soon as possible.
It’s an open secret that if Lesnar had his way, he’d headline WrestleMania in April, after being pitched a Floyd Mayweather Jr.-type World Wrestling Entertainment offer. White, who has Lesnar under exclusive contract, has publicly stated he would not allow him to do pro wrestling, which is likely to lead to underlying tension.
Lesnar has made millions in his UFC fights based on getting a cut of pay-per-view revenue, and it simply would not be cost effective to be in a match for the company to have Lesnar in against anyone but a top star. This eliminates the next level of fighters like Cheick Kongo, Ben Rothwell and Brendan Schaub from being considered. Mirko “Cro Cop” Filipovic, who was knocked out by Mir and hasn’t looked impressive in years, is at best a last-ditch desperation name.
This leaves only Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira. But Nogueira has two strikes against him: First, he is nowhere near the draw Mir would be. But second, throwing short-term money gains aside, Nogueira makes even less sense long-term.
UFC has to create a top contender for the winner of the upcoming Velasquez-Junior Dos Santos title fight. Lesnar would be the biggest drawing challenger for either, but he’s going to need one if not two wins to earn that shot. If he lost to Nogueira, he’s out of the running. However, if Nogueira wins, Velasquez beat Nogueira easily on Feb. 21 in Sydney, Australia, and a rematch would be a tough sell. Worse, if Dos Santos wins, a Nogueira-Dos Santos title match would be almost impossible to make, given that Dos Santos is a personal protégé of Nogueira.
If Mir beat Lesnar, matches against Velasquez and Dos Santos are not only fresh matches, but also Mir’s ability to sell a fight would make them bigger than any other potential heavyweight matchups on the roster except one with Lesnar.
Which brings us back where we started: Regardless of what angry Twitter fans might say, Lesnar-Mir is the most logical match to make.
yahoo/ufc.com
Thoughts ?
One would expect by now, with so many pay-per-view main events to fill and barely enough headliners to fill them, the company would have a good idea of when their biggest drawing card will fight next.
But according to UFC president Dana White, right now there are no answers as to whom Lesnar, who lost the UFC heavyweight title to Cain Velasquez on Oct. 23, will meet.
More From Dave MeltzerTriumphant Penn eyes next career chapter Nov 21, 2010 Penn's legacy could hinge on Hughes trilogy Nov 18, 2010 ADVERTISEMENT
Brock Lesnar and Frank Mir have split their first two fights. They might not get a chance to determine an ultimate victor.
UFC 100 Frank Mir Limited Edition Collectible Coin
“I haven’t talked with him since the fight,” said White.
While in Germany promoting UFC 122 a couple weeks ago, White said what was expected by most: The fight that makes the most sense for Lesnar is a third meeting with archrival Frank Mir.
Almost as soon as that statement made its way to cyberspace, several MMA message boards suggested people flood White’s Twitter account with messages saying they didn’t want to see that trilogy play out.
“I’ve never gotten such a negative response to any fight,” said White of the immediate Twitter messages.
So, White changed his mind on the fight.
In talking about the change, White said he did not listen to the Internet but rather to his followers on Twitter, although it’s hard to really separate the two.
“I usually don’t gauge things by the Internet,” said White. “The Internet is [expletive] stupid. My Twitter, I do. On my Twitter, there are 1.2 million people that care about this thing and everything else, and you don’t get the goofy [expletive] that you get on the Internet.”
White unabashedly will tell anyone who will listen that UFC’s goal is to make fights that people want to see the most. It’s the reason that Josh Koscheck, who has done an incredible role as antagonist to Georges St. Pierre on the current season of “The Ultimate Fighter,” is getting a welterweight title shot on Dec. 11.
Koscheck’s campmate, Jon Fitch, is on a five-fight win streak that includes beating Thiago Alves and Paulo Thiago, both of whom beat Koscheck, and is generally regarded as St. Pierre’s top contender. He’s got no title shot in sight, but there is public interest in Koscheck challenging.
The idea of making the most marketable matches led UFC to set a company pay-per-view record in 2009 with close to eight million buys, a record that will be broken again this year, as the UFC should finish in the nine million total buys range after the St. Pierre vs. Koscheck fight. Much of that success comes from listening to the audience and having a feel for the matches people want to see most.
But MMA also has a vocal hardcore minority that doesn’t always agree with the bigger audience. In the case of Lesnar-Mir III, even if the hardcores do speak for the average fan, they’re not looking at the long-term picture that the promoters must consider.
Currently, there is no viable, big-money alternative to Lesnar-Mir III. That’s why White pulling back on a fight that likely would do more business than any other on the books so far for 2011 is so perplexing.
If Twitter was prominent in 2006, White would have been flooded with negative remarks about Tito Ortiz vs. Ken Shamrock, as insiders knew Shamrock was past his prime. The UFC took a beating on blogs and message boards for making the match. But reality was it set a new business record and to this day, their final meeting – the single most heavily criticized UFC match in history – is still the second-most-watched MMA fight on cable TV.
That third fight, in Oct. 2006, beat several games of that year’s World Series in the coveted 18-34 male demographic, a statistic that led to a breakthrough in mainstream sports media coverage because the numbers were so impressive that many felt the sport could no longer be ignored.
Quite frankly, if White had listened to the hardcore fans in 2008, he likely never would have signed Lesnar to a contract to begin with because of the issues they had about Lesnar’s pro-wrestling past.
Yet as difficult as he can be to work with, Lesnar has been a key element in the growth of the sport over the past three years. The second Lesnar-Mir fight, which did have the advantage of being the main event of UFC 100 and promoted as a special event, did more than 1.6 million buys on pay-per-view, a number far beyond anything any sport but boxing has ever done. Only three boxing events – Floyd Mayweather Jr.-Oscar De La Hoya and Mike Tyson fights with Evander Holyfield and Lennox Lewis – have topped it.
Lesnar and Mir are even in their series with a win each. A third meeting, without the title at stake, unlikely would come close to the numbers their second fight pulled, but probably would do more than any other heavyweight fight currently available to the UFC, more than anything other than a blockbuster along the lines of a St. Pierre-Anderson Silva fight.
There is an argument that if the UFC was to proceed with Lesnar-Mir III, Lesnar would only have seven fights in the organization, with three against the same person. But the alternatives are not only worse from a single-event box office standpoint, but also for building the heavyweight division for the future.
Roy Nelson, who White conceded would have been the next choice to face Lesnar, is in the middle of a legal situation regarding a contract he signed in 2009 with the Roy Jones Jr.’s Square Ring promotion. Jones’ promotion filed a lawsuit against Zuffa and Nelson, and Zuffa responded to the claim by stating that when Nelson signed his first contract with UFC on June 27, 2009, to participate in “The Ultimate Fighter” reality show, Nelson stated he was not under contract to any other organization. Until the legal proceedings are over, UFC will not be using Nelson.
Another potential opponent, Shane Carwin, recently underwent major back surgery and is out of the picture.
There are loads of questions regarding Lesnar and how he’ll respond to the loss. He’s disappeared from public view. His friends say he’s spent the past few weeks hunting and spending time with his family. He’s 33 years old, and has made a fortune in his recent fights.
Will he be like the 22-year-old Brock Lesnar, with barely a dime to his name, who came back from finishing a close second in the NCAA tournament as a junior and won it as a senior? Or even the 30-year-old Lesnar, who lost in 90 seconds to Mir in his debut, but came back to beat Randy Couture and win the heavyweight title? Lesnar has stated that he’s a prize fighter, emphasizing the word “prize,” and notes money is a major part of it.
With his financial success, is Lesnar ready to commit to reinventing himself and, in particular, shore up his weakness when it comes to his reactions to getting hit? Will he be able to outwork a machine like Velasquez? The lack of a next fight is a two-way street, and there’s no indication he’s been burning up the phone lines calling the UFC to ask to get back into the cage as soon as possible.
It’s an open secret that if Lesnar had his way, he’d headline WrestleMania in April, after being pitched a Floyd Mayweather Jr.-type World Wrestling Entertainment offer. White, who has Lesnar under exclusive contract, has publicly stated he would not allow him to do pro wrestling, which is likely to lead to underlying tension.
Lesnar has made millions in his UFC fights based on getting a cut of pay-per-view revenue, and it simply would not be cost effective to be in a match for the company to have Lesnar in against anyone but a top star. This eliminates the next level of fighters like Cheick Kongo, Ben Rothwell and Brendan Schaub from being considered. Mirko “Cro Cop” Filipovic, who was knocked out by Mir and hasn’t looked impressive in years, is at best a last-ditch desperation name.
This leaves only Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira. But Nogueira has two strikes against him: First, he is nowhere near the draw Mir would be. But second, throwing short-term money gains aside, Nogueira makes even less sense long-term.
UFC has to create a top contender for the winner of the upcoming Velasquez-Junior Dos Santos title fight. Lesnar would be the biggest drawing challenger for either, but he’s going to need one if not two wins to earn that shot. If he lost to Nogueira, he’s out of the running. However, if Nogueira wins, Velasquez beat Nogueira easily on Feb. 21 in Sydney, Australia, and a rematch would be a tough sell. Worse, if Dos Santos wins, a Nogueira-Dos Santos title match would be almost impossible to make, given that Dos Santos is a personal protégé of Nogueira.
If Mir beat Lesnar, matches against Velasquez and Dos Santos are not only fresh matches, but also Mir’s ability to sell a fight would make them bigger than any other potential heavyweight matchups on the roster except one with Lesnar.
Which brings us back where we started: Regardless of what angry Twitter fans might say, Lesnar-Mir is the most logical match to make.
yahoo/ufc.com
Thoughts ?
Saturday, November 20, 2010
Sunday, November 14, 2010
Pacquiao beats Margarito for eighth title video
Manny Pacquiao was once again masterful, beating Antonio Margarito so frightfully that Margarito’s face looked as it had been pounded repeatedly by a club.
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Manny Pacquiao is all smiles after his scintillating performance against Antonio Margarito on Saturday.
Pacquiao won a unanimous one-sided decision in a blowout from the opening seconds of the fight to capture the World Boxing Council super welterweight title before 41,734 in-awe fans at Cowboys Stadium.
[Photos: See Pacquiao take down Margarito]Manny Pacquiao autographed Everlast boxing glove
Pacquiao’s title belt, coming against an opponent who had a 17-pound weight advantage when the bell rang, 165-148, was the eighth in his illustrious career. Pacquiao has won world titles at 112, 122, 126, 130, 135, 140, 147 and now 154 pounds.
Judges Jurgen Langos had it 120-109, Glen Crocker had it 118-110 and Oren Schellenberger had it 119-109 for Pacquiao. Yahoo! Sports scored it 120-107 for Pacquiao, giving Pacquiao a 10-8 edge in the 10th round when he dominated tremendously.
Margarito, fighting for the first time in the U.S. since Jan. 24, 2009, when he was caught with an illegal knuckle pad in his gloves before a loss to Shane Mosley, was never in the fight. Pacquiao’s speed was blinding and was the difference in the fight.
[Is Manny Pacquiao this generation’s Muhammad Ali?]
Pacquiao was hurt when Margarito landed a combination to the ribs, but he spun off the ropes and landed a three-punch combination to the head. Margarito’s right eye was swollen grotesquely, beginning in the fourth. By the 10th round, the left eye was a slit, too.
Pacquiao was looking at referee Laurence Cole late in the fight, asking him to stop it. Pacquiao said he eased off in the 12th round. “I did my best,” Pacquiao said. “He’s strong. He’s a very tough fighter. I can’t believe [he took those punches].”
Pacquiao’s trainer, Freddie Roach, added, “We didn’t lose a round. I wish they had stopped the fight. They probably ruined his career by not stopping the fight.”
Monday, November 8, 2010
Bellator Fighting Champ Ben Askren
Throughout its history, mixed martial arts’ welterweight division largely has been controlled at the top by fighters whose prime goal was to get their opponents on their back and damage them from there.
Matt Hughes used his powerhouse style of wrestling to become the division’s star from 2001 though 2006. His heir apparent, Georges St. Pierre, has used a takedown and ground-and-pound style while dominating the past four years. Jon Fitch has used a grinding-out, wrestling-based style to compile the second-best win-loss record in the UFC’s history. Josh Koscheck, St. Pierre’s next opponent, was a former NCAA wrestling champion. And the next championship contender, Jake Shields, has won 15 fights in a row along with championships in two organizations through a style based on takedowns, control on the ground and submissions.
That’s what makes the introduction of newly crowned Bellator welterweight champion Ben Askren to MMA so intriguing.
With the exception of Cael Sanderson, Askren was arguably the best college wrestler of any weight class in the United States over the past decade. And in less than two years in MMA, he become a welterweight champ.
“It was OK,” said Askren (7-0) about his Oct. 21 title win over Lyman Good (10-1) in Philadelphia. “I’ve got a lot of room for improvement. He was pretty tough. He didn’t quit.”
Unlike the aforementioned fighters who mix in a stand-up game to set up their takedowns, Askren spent five rounds playing a game where he would move in, take punches if he had to, lock up his opponent, then take Good down. What made it so impressive is that Good, who came into the fight unbeaten, is a physical specimen known for having freaky strength. Good also got in some perfectly timed sprawls, particularly late in the fight, that at first seemed to thwart the takedown. But Askren would keep driving and moving, and even with his opponent showing strong takedown defense, Good eventually ended up on his back for most of every round.
“He’s maybe the most confident fighter I’ve ever encountered in the past 20 years,” said Bellator CEO Bjorn Rebney of Askren. “This is a guy who had never thrown a punch in his life 18 months ago. When his stand-up gets to 30-40 percent of his ground game, he’ll be unstoppable.”
“What makes St. Pierre’s wrestling work is that people have to fear his stand-up,” Askren noted. “Right now, nobody fears my stand-up.”
And while Askren didn’t finish Good, his game is not the oft-criticized wrestlers “lay-n-pray” game. Like in his heyday as one of college wrestling’s biggest stars, Askren’s constant movement, his completely unorthodox “funk” style of wrestling – based on creating and coming out on top in scrambles – resulted in constantly getting the dominant position. And his top-control game had him mounting Good for long periods of time. Despite fighting at a fast pace for 25 minutes, he did not tire. Not that the fight wasn’t without rough moments: Askren took a lot of shots that left his face lumped up, but he still won an obvious decision.
Askren’s wrestling style, which goes against the fundamentals of what would be taught in that sport, was more beneficial than a standard wrestling style in his transition to Jiu Jitsu and the ground aspect of MMA.
UFC: Ultimate Fighting Championship Tapout 2
Noting that he immediately fell in love with Jiu Jitsu after college, his moves on the ground are more like those of a grappler than folkstyle wrestler, which was his background. And these new grappling skills are enhancing in his strengths as a takedown machine.
Askren earned his title shot during Bellator’s second season when he won an eight-man tournament where opponents, including the far more experienced and favored Dan Hornbuckle, also could not stop what everyone knew was coming.
“Hornbuckle was a world-class fighter, and he never had more than 10 seconds of advantage time the entire fight,” Rebney said.UFC MMA
Coming into the sport, Askren’s mentality was similar to Brock Lesnar’s, probably because they came from a similar level of college wrestling success. Askren went 153-8 between 2004 and 2007 at the University of Missouri, notching 91 pins – the third-highest total in the history of Div. I wrestling. He was second in the nation as a freshman and a sophomore at 174 pounds. As a junior and a senior, he went 87-0, winning two national titles. He was the 12th wrestler in history to reach the NCAA finals all four years.
He also won the Hodge Trophy as both a junior and a senior, meaning he was not only the best wrestler in his weight division, but also was considered the best wrestler in any weight division. He and Sanderson remain the only wrestlers in history to have won the trophy more than once.
“That was always my goal at the beginning of the season – to be the best wrestler in the country and win the Hodge Trophy. More than winning the national title,” Askren said. “Because you couldn’t win the Hodge Trophy unless you won the national title.”
While still involved in wrestling as an assistant coach at Arizona State, MMA is now his primary sport, and he’s not considering going for the 2012 Olympics. Askren had a disappointing 2008 Games. He dropped to 163 pounds and earned a spot on the U.S. team, but lost in the second round and placed seventh overall. He did attempt a comeback after starting in MMA, but decided that competing in two completely different sports at the same time wasn’t going to work.
“Maybe if you’re 213 pounds or a heavyweight, where it’s not as technical, you can do both,” he said. “I don’t want to say it’s impossible, but it’s very difficult.”
He joined Bellator in April, having only three fights under his belt and all on smaller shows. Rebney noted he proposed a schedule to Askren that would get him several fights against opponents of his same experience level, giving him time to learn the sport before putting him in a tournament.
“The 170-pound tournament was stacked for us,” said Rebney, who indicated Askren will likely have a non-title superfight in the spring, then defend his championship later in the year against the winner of an eight-man tournament. “We wanted to build him up, but he wanted to fight the best guys right away. He said he thought he could beat anyone.”
Matt Hughes used his powerhouse style of wrestling to become the division’s star from 2001 though 2006. His heir apparent, Georges St. Pierre, has used a takedown and ground-and-pound style while dominating the past four years. Jon Fitch has used a grinding-out, wrestling-based style to compile the second-best win-loss record in the UFC’s history. Josh Koscheck, St. Pierre’s next opponent, was a former NCAA wrestling champion. And the next championship contender, Jake Shields, has won 15 fights in a row along with championships in two organizations through a style based on takedowns, control on the ground and submissions.
That’s what makes the introduction of newly crowned Bellator welterweight champion Ben Askren to MMA so intriguing.
With the exception of Cael Sanderson, Askren was arguably the best college wrestler of any weight class in the United States over the past decade. And in less than two years in MMA, he become a welterweight champ.
“It was OK,” said Askren (7-0) about his Oct. 21 title win over Lyman Good (10-1) in Philadelphia. “I’ve got a lot of room for improvement. He was pretty tough. He didn’t quit.”
Unlike the aforementioned fighters who mix in a stand-up game to set up their takedowns, Askren spent five rounds playing a game where he would move in, take punches if he had to, lock up his opponent, then take Good down. What made it so impressive is that Good, who came into the fight unbeaten, is a physical specimen known for having freaky strength. Good also got in some perfectly timed sprawls, particularly late in the fight, that at first seemed to thwart the takedown. But Askren would keep driving and moving, and even with his opponent showing strong takedown defense, Good eventually ended up on his back for most of every round.
“He’s maybe the most confident fighter I’ve ever encountered in the past 20 years,” said Bellator CEO Bjorn Rebney of Askren. “This is a guy who had never thrown a punch in his life 18 months ago. When his stand-up gets to 30-40 percent of his ground game, he’ll be unstoppable.”
“What makes St. Pierre’s wrestling work is that people have to fear his stand-up,” Askren noted. “Right now, nobody fears my stand-up.”
And while Askren didn’t finish Good, his game is not the oft-criticized wrestlers “lay-n-pray” game. Like in his heyday as one of college wrestling’s biggest stars, Askren’s constant movement, his completely unorthodox “funk” style of wrestling – based on creating and coming out on top in scrambles – resulted in constantly getting the dominant position. And his top-control game had him mounting Good for long periods of time. Despite fighting at a fast pace for 25 minutes, he did not tire. Not that the fight wasn’t without rough moments: Askren took a lot of shots that left his face lumped up, but he still won an obvious decision.
Askren’s wrestling style, which goes against the fundamentals of what would be taught in that sport, was more beneficial than a standard wrestling style in his transition to Jiu Jitsu and the ground aspect of MMA.
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Noting that he immediately fell in love with Jiu Jitsu after college, his moves on the ground are more like those of a grappler than folkstyle wrestler, which was his background. And these new grappling skills are enhancing in his strengths as a takedown machine.
Askren earned his title shot during Bellator’s second season when he won an eight-man tournament where opponents, including the far more experienced and favored Dan Hornbuckle, also could not stop what everyone knew was coming.
“Hornbuckle was a world-class fighter, and he never had more than 10 seconds of advantage time the entire fight,” Rebney said.UFC MMA
Coming into the sport, Askren’s mentality was similar to Brock Lesnar’s, probably because they came from a similar level of college wrestling success. Askren went 153-8 between 2004 and 2007 at the University of Missouri, notching 91 pins – the third-highest total in the history of Div. I wrestling. He was second in the nation as a freshman and a sophomore at 174 pounds. As a junior and a senior, he went 87-0, winning two national titles. He was the 12th wrestler in history to reach the NCAA finals all four years.
He also won the Hodge Trophy as both a junior and a senior, meaning he was not only the best wrestler in his weight division, but also was considered the best wrestler in any weight division. He and Sanderson remain the only wrestlers in history to have won the trophy more than once.
“That was always my goal at the beginning of the season – to be the best wrestler in the country and win the Hodge Trophy. More than winning the national title,” Askren said. “Because you couldn’t win the Hodge Trophy unless you won the national title.”
While still involved in wrestling as an assistant coach at Arizona State, MMA is now his primary sport, and he’s not considering going for the 2012 Olympics. Askren had a disappointing 2008 Games. He dropped to 163 pounds and earned a spot on the U.S. team, but lost in the second round and placed seventh overall. He did attempt a comeback after starting in MMA, but decided that competing in two completely different sports at the same time wasn’t going to work.
“Maybe if you’re 213 pounds or a heavyweight, where it’s not as technical, you can do both,” he said. “I don’t want to say it’s impossible, but it’s very difficult.”
He joined Bellator in April, having only three fights under his belt and all on smaller shows. Rebney noted he proposed a schedule to Askren that would get him several fights against opponents of his same experience level, giving him time to learn the sport before putting him in a tournament.
“The 170-pound tournament was stacked for us,” said Rebney, who indicated Askren will likely have a non-title superfight in the spring, then defend his championship later in the year against the winner of an eight-man tournament. “We wanted to build him up, but he wanted to fight the best guys right away. He said he thought he could beat anyone.”
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