MMA Roundup- UFC 110 Injuries, Nogueira, Arona

The last thing that the UFC wants is a repeat of the injury-fest that was the end of 2009, but we’re off to a bit off of a rough start with a rash of late UFC 110 injuries, two of which have changed the card and one of which will not. Meanwhile, the number of fighters who won’t face one another is growing in the UFC, and Ricardo Arona says we may be seeing him soon. Here’s this week’s MMA Roundup.

One Fight Cancelled, Another Changed for UFC 110

While having fighters get injured and pulled out of fights is not uncommon in a sport that requires such grueling and dangerous training regimens, it is uncommon to get fighters pulling out on the weekend of the fight. After all, fighters quit the hard sparring and are mostly in cruise control (or too busy cutting weight to be risking injury by grappling or working stand-up) once weigh-in times near.

However, while this UFC hasn’t had the big names that many of last year’s events had pull out, Ben Rothwell and Elvis Sinosic were forced to pull out at the last minute, and Mirko “Cro Cop” has sustained a cut that apparently required stitches, but will not keep him from fighting.

Rothwell cited an illness as his reason for not being able to face Cro Cop, who sustained his cut in an ill-advised sparring session. Meanwhile, Sinosic has sustained a shoulder injury, and his fight with fellow Australian veteran fighter Chris Haseman has been cancelled altogether.

The Cro Cop switch is a bummer, as Cro Cop goes from facing a willing striker who has a sizable weight advantage to an even smaller heavyweight than himself, which I will go into more in my main card preview tomorrow. Suffice to say that we will not get as good of an idea about whether Cro Cop is truly “back” as we would have if he had fought Rothwell…though a loss to late replacement Anthony Perosh would probably mean we’ve seen the end of Cro Cop…at least in any meaningful capacity.

Meanwhile, you have to feel bad for Sinosic and Haseman, who were getting ready to perform for their countrymen after spending much of the last decade or so building the sport on the grassroots level in Australia. It was a great move by the UFC to put these two on the undercard and give them (and hardcore Australian MMA fans) a pat on the back for what they’ve done to support the sport down under, and it would have been a fun fight.

Shocker!  Nogueira Won’t Fight dos Santos

In a growing list of various combinations of MMA fighters who won’t face one another, you can add heavyweights Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira and Junior dos Santos.  In the same interview with Yahoo!, Nogueira also mentioned that his brother would not face Anderson Silva if given the chance, too.  One has to wonder whether he would face reigning light heavyweight champion Lyoto Machida, but it doesn’t seem likely, either.

At this point, you need a chart to keep up with all of the friendships and alliances that make many matchups supposedly impossible.  Between the trio of American Kickboxing Academy welterweights and the Brazilian bunch of the Nogueira brothers, Silva, Machida and dos Santos, to Jackson’s MMA teammates Keith Jardine and Rashad Evans, there are a lot of pretty good matchups that will never see the light of day, if these guys are all as opposed to fighting one another as they say they are.

I can see both sides, here.  I wouldn’t expect a fighter to want to face someone who they are good friends with, invite over for dinner or have known for years, but at the same time, the fan in me just wants to see the best matchups possible.  Also, from the UFC’s point of view, matchmaking is hard enough without having top fighters who are worried about hurting each other’s feelings.

Matt Lindland once scoffed at the idea of not fighting teammates and rationalized the whole thing, pointing out that they already beat each other up in practice, so why not get paid for it?  Still, many fighters who had a similar philosophy have found that there are many pitfalls in such a situation, such as who leaves the camp and who stays, who corners which fighter, and so on.  With “super-camps” like AKA, Jackson’s and more following the tradition set by Team Miletich, Chute Boxe and Brazilian Top Team years ago, this is not an issue that will go away anytime soon.

Will Arona Be Lay-and-Praying His Way to the UFC Soon?

I kid, I kid!  Well…mostly.  I was never a huge fan of Arona’s…er, methodical style, but you can’t really argue with his results.  Arona recently told Tatame that there is “a connection” between himself and the UFC, though he would not give details.  Of course, this naturally leads to speculation that Arona may finally be returning to the big stage by joining the world’s biggest MMA promotion.

I’m not sure that I can buy into this until it is made official, though.  The UFC hasn’t shown interest in Arona previously, and in the past they have made it all too clear that they are willing to bypass talented fighters who don’t have a fan-friendly fighting style (Lindland, anyone?).  However, Arona is much better than his final days in Pride would suggest, and he would definitely add to an already-stacked light heavyweight division.

In Other News, Water is Wet

Finally, Fedor was quite active in the media recently, not only once again reaffirming his willingness to fight UFC Heavyweight Champion Brock Lesnar (although he needed to be reminded of Lesnar’s name, which is amusing), but also saying pretty much the same thing we’ve all been saying about one-time opponent Mirko “Cro Cop” Filipovic.

Fedor pointed out that Cro Cop “is not the same fighter” and that something appeared to have “broken in him”.  He went on to elaborate by saying that he can tell when a fighter is not determined to win, or doesn’t even want to be in the cage (or ring).

While this may seem like a case for Captain Obvious, it is good to have a high-level fighter like Fedor remind us regular-old fans that we’re not crazy.  The world’s top heavyweight saw the same thing that the rest of us saw in Cro Cop’s loss to dos Santos.  As for Fedor’s willingness to fight Lesnar, it’s hard for those of us who once drooled over the prospect of Wanderlei Silva versus Chuck Liddell (or Randy Couture, for that matter) in their respective primes or any other of many cross-promotional dream matchups that never happened- or happened too late- to get very excited.

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Tags: Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira, Antonio Rogerio Nogueira, Ben Rothwell, Brock Lesnar, Fedor Emelianenko, Mirko Cro Cop Filipovic, Ricardo Arona, UFC 110