Weekly MMA News Report- 5/9/09
Weekly MMA News Review- 5/9/09
This week brought more cuts from the UFC’s roster, a submission from a week ago that you have to see to believe, and a war of words involving UFC prez Dana White (I know, hard to believe!). Here are those news bits and some other things that you may have missed from the last seven days, as well as my take on them.
–The most bizarre retirement (or is it, yet?) in recent sports history continues, as Dana White and John Hackleman, Chuck Liddell’s long-time friend and trainer, are now trading barbs in the media. Hackleman had disagreed with White’s repeated assessments that Liddell is done fighting, and even called White’s handling of the situation “selfish” and “rude”. White, of course, took the opportunity to take things to the next level, questioning Hackleman’s integrity by insinuating that the trainer wants Liddell to fight regardless of his health so that he can make money off him. White also insulted Hackleman’s credentials as a trainer, citing that Hackleman hasn’t trained any top fighters but Liddell. Hackleman than retorted, wondering aloud whether White should be on medication for his frequent temper flare-ups in the public eye. Liddell still hasn’t said anything publicly on the matter whatsoever.
My Take: This got ugly quickly, as confrontations with Dana White seem to. It’s hard to fault Hackleman for his comments, which seemed to indicate that he’s not saying Liddell shouldn’t retire, just that he doesn’t necessarily need to yet. Hackleman says he just wants Liddell to make his own decision, and feels that White is being “controlling”. When you take away the right of a fighter to announce his own retirement to the world himself, how else can you describe the situation? White, of course, took his normal course of action and went on an f-bomb and personal attack-filled tirade, which makes it hard to disagree with Hackleman’s further statements about White’s lack of professionalism and tendency towards messy public feuds. I still think Chuck Liddell and only Chuck Liddell should be the person discussing whether he’s retiring or not. Everyone else needs to stay out of it, especially White.
–On the bright side of the fight game, one of the best (if not the best) submissions of the year took place about a week ago at Bellator Fighting Championships V. I don’t want to spoil it, and it’s hard enough to really describe, so let’s just say that Toby Imada renders Jorge Masvidal with a submission that you may never see again, at least not in the way that Imada pulled it off.
My Take: Oh, just watch it.
–Will Quinton “Rampage” Jackson be coaching The Ultimate Fighter again? That’s the word this week, as he is apparently under consideration to coach the next season of TUF, which will start in June. Of course, it won’t air until fall, which would mean a long hold-up in the light heavyweight division, in the meantime. It would seem obvious that if he did coach again, his opponent would be the winner of Lyoto Machida and Rashad Evans.
My Take: Say it ain’t so, Zuffa! Let’s not hold up the division for six months for yet another season of The Ultimate Fighter, please. It’s bad enough that whoever coaches on the show doesn’t fight for half a year, but when it’s a title fight, things are even worse. How many times has a fight between two coaches even made a fight more interesting or anticipated? A couple of times, maybe? It’s not as if you’ll see any bad blood between say, Rampage and Lyoto Machida (if he wins the belt), and Rampage and Rashad Evans already have things off to a good start. No amount of manufactured tension from the show is going to make that fight more interesting. How about we see Rampage fight the champion before there’s snow on the ground, instead?
–The UFC roster keeps getting smaller and smaller. This might as well be a weekly feature here at Fightmania.com: “Who’s Axed This Week?” This week’s UFC cuts were Jason McDonald, David “The Crow” Loiseau, David Bielkheden, and Ryo Chonan.
My Take: As with the other cuts, this crop includes some good talent. McDonald was always a good fighter who just couldn’t sustain a win streak in the UFC. Loiseau is an interesting choice, as he just was brought back for a fight with Ed Herman, and he’s already gone. I can’t say too much as I haven’t seen the fight yet (it was on the prelims), but apparently Dana White thought Loiseau looked “old”. I thought even before the fight that the matchup against a strong wrestler was a bad one for Loiseau. Chonan is known mostly for being the fighter who submitted Anderson Silva with a flying heel hook, which is about as rare a submission as the one that Toby Imada pulled off last weekend. Unfortunately, he was never able to win a few fights in the UFC and get a shot at being pulverized by Anderson Silva beating Silva again.
–In what could also be another weekly feature, here are the fighters who have dropped out of upcoming high-profile fights in the last week, along with their replacements (if known). Houston Alexander is out of UFC 98 with a hand injury, and Krzystof Soszynski will be replacing him against Andre Gusmao. Eric Schafer is out of his fight with Tomasz Drwal at the TUF Season 9 Finale, and Mike Ciesnolevicz will take his place. Meanwhile, Sarah Kaufman will take Kim Couture’s place against Miesha Tate in Strikeforce, and James Irvin will fight at UFC 102 against Wilson Gouveia after dropping out of his UFC 98 bout with Drew McFedries.
My Take: It’s good to see Soszynski back in action so quickly, as he looked great in his last fight. Meanwhile, Ciesnolevicz is a promising fighter and it appears that James Irvin has stepped into an even harder bout after having to drop out of the McFedries fight. I have no idea how good Sarah Kaufman is, sorry.
by Jon Hartley for Fightmania.com
Tags: Anderson Silva, Chuck Liddell, Dana White, Houston Alexander, Lyoto Machida, Rashad Evans, Strikeforce, UFC
