Ultimate Fighting Championship

As UFC rises, is boxing down for the count? BY JOE FERNANDEZ [email protected] the ascent of mixed martial arts into the mainstream sports world, came the inevitable friction with boxing. Even though both sides will throw the occasional verbal jab at the other, renowned boxing promoter Lou DiBella told Newsday he feels boxing has to fight its own battles."I haven't been happy with boxing in years and anyone who's happy is a moron," he said. "But that doesn't mean that we're done. That doesn't mean that we can't come back. And I don't believe that UFC has anything to do with whether we come back or not."Even though the 2.15 million pay-per-view buys for the Oscar De La Hoya vs. Floyd Mayweather Jr. fight set a new PPV record for a boxing match, UFC president Dana White, who once managed boxers, still thinks that the future of boxing is in peril."Boxing is in trouble for one reason and one reason only - greed," White said in a conference call. "Everybody in it is greedy. Bob Arum and Don King have absolutely destroyed that sport. Stuck their hand in, ripped the life out of it and shoved it in their pocket. That's the reason boxing is in trouble."Even the fighters are now getting into it. With Mayweather bashing MMA fighters, then later rescinding his comments, they have countered."I had a chance to fight James Waring," said MMA fighter and Brazilian jiu-jitsu black belt Renzo Gracie. "Back then, he was like 230 pounds and I was like 168. And I choked him [out] in 50 seconds. If you just compare arts, I think MMA is much more complete."When asked in a conference call before his title match against Quinton "Rampage" Jackson at UFC 71 in Las Vegas last night if he'd be excited to fight a boxer, UFC light heavyweight champ Chuck Liddell said: "Not really. Beating up a guy that can't stop a takedown, that has no ground and can't stop a takedown, it doesn't really excite me too much. It's not much of a fight."Surveying the Lay of the 205-lb Land By Michael DiSanto What a difference a year makes. In October 2006, then-UFC champion Chuck Liddell reigned as the most dominant light heavyweight on the planet, while an unranked Quinton “Rampage” Jackson languished in limbo without a fight deal with a major promotion. Over in Japan, Wanderlei Silva ruled PRIDE’s 205-lb division, with a red-hot Mauricio “Shogun” Rua standing at his side as the clear heir apparent.Today, Rampage holds the UFC Light Heavyweight Championship. Fans wonder how much gas is left in Liddell’s 38-year-old (in two months) tank after losing back-to-back fights for the first time in his career. Silva will finally make his UFC debut, though like Liddell, he is coming off consecutive losses for the first time in his storied career. And Shogun is left wondering what happened at UFC 76.With the 205-lb world turned upside down over the past year, it’s time to take a survey of the UFC light heavyweight landscape.DIVISION KINGPINQuinton 'Rampage' Jackson (28-6): Lots of fighters win championships. Great fighters defend them. Rampage’s stunning first-round knockout win over Liddell at UFC 71 earned him the championship he long coveted. But it was his five-round war with Dan Henderson at UFC 75 that legitimized the affable Rampage as a truly great fighter. The sport’s first undisputed champion is a highly skilled boxer with jaw-dropping physical strength and vastly underrated wrestling and ground skills. Questions still exist about his ability to defend knee strikes though, as he suffered two knockout losses to Wanderlei Silva and a technical knockout loss to Shogun from knees. But those losses occurred more than two years ago. Rampage is 16-3 since 2002, including his current six-fight winning streak. If he has rectified that perceived hole in his game, there is no telling how long the 29-year-old champion will reign supreme.A MAN NAMED FORRESTForrest Griffin (15-4): Griffin embodies everything that makes MMA the greatest sport in the world. He fights for the love of competition, not just for the ever-increasing purses. He ducks absolutely nobody, constantly asking to fight the very best in the world. He is a humble, at times vulnerable, superstar with a constant smile and a steady flow of self-deprecating quips. And, most importantly, he leaves a piece of his soul in the Octagon each and every time that he fights. Griffin is the UFC’s version of Arturo Gatti – a throwback fighter with a massive heart and a penchant for engaging in thrilling slugfests. Yet, he is quickly proving that unlike Gatti, he is not an A-list gatekeeper but a true elite fighter in his own right. Griffin’s big upset win over Shogun at UFC 76 should be enough to justify a title shot in his next fight. Nobody can make a more persuasive argument as the number one contender in my opinion.ELITE OR EXPOSED?Shogun Rua (16-3): Talk about stumbles. Virtually everyone labeled Chute Boxe’s young superstar the next in line to hold UFC gold. While that may still hold true, he ran into a freight train named Forrest in his UFC debut. The absence of Shogun’s jumping, spinning and explosive strikes, as well as his soft physique and sluggish demeanor, will leave fight cognoscenti questioning whether he took Forrest lightly. Or was this just another vivid example of the fact that the UFC remains (and always has been) the Mecca of MMA? Regardless, one loss does not diminish any fighter, particularly one who has all the tools to be an ultra dominant champion. Expect the 25-year-old Brazilian to return in his next outing with his trademark explosive, unorthodox style and firmly reestablish himself among the UFC elite. Griffin and Keith Jardine did just that at UFC 76.Wanderlei Silva (31-7-1): There was a time, not so long ago, that Wanderlei Silva was the most feared man in the sport ad across all divisions. The “Axe Murderer” ruled PRIDE’s 205-lb division for five full years and 21 fights with but a controversial single loss to a guy who outweighed him by more than 50 lbs (Mark Hunt). His reign included wins over all-time great Kazushi Sakuraba (three times, to be precise) and two knockout wins over Rampage Jackson. Silva is the epitome of an all-action Muay Thai fighter with bone shattering power in his fists and knees who only knows how to fight one way – coming forward with reckless abandon and the throttle wide open. Did I mention that he also holds a black belt in jiu-jitsu? Silva returns to the Octagon after a nearly eight-year absence on the heels of back-to-back knockout losses to Cro Cop and Henderson. Has he been in one too many wars, or at 31 is he still in the prime of his amazing career? The division’s elite surely hope it is the former, because if it is the latter, then there very well could be a new sheriff in town.Chuck Liddell (20-5): Over the past 40 months, Liddell has been the Mike Tyson of MMA. Not the unpredictable menace that folks watched with car-accident curiosity. Rather, he was the guy we called “Kid Dynamite” who tore through heavyweight boxers behind two-fisted knockout power like nobody before or since. Liddell has the perfect blend of lights-out power in both hands and the best takedown/scrambling ability in the game. Those skills led him to UFC gold, mainstream superstardom and multimillions in the bank. Liddell seemed unbeatable as early as a year ago, but no fighter beats Father Time. Two months shy of his 38th birthday, Liddell and his longtime trainer and friend, John Hackleman, need to ask themselves whether his two recent losses are just part of the sport or if the Iceman is on the downside of a brilliant career. The loss to Rampage can certainly be chalked up to the former. But he didn’t look like the Iceman of old against Jardine, who had more success against Liddell than he did against Stephan Bonnar and Rashad Evans. Liddell is in the midst of his first two-fight losing streak. Nevertheless, he suffered two technical knockout losses in a three-fight span back in 2003. He rebounded with seven straight knockout wins to become the face of the sport.Tito Ortiz (16-5-1): Once the poster boy of MMA, Ortiz is desperate for a dominant win over a credible opponent. The affable, entertaining former champion is a box office hit, but that won’t continue if he keeps stringing up less than stellar performances. Think otherwise? Aside from a washed up Ken Shamrock, the “Huntington Beach Bad Boy” hasn’t stopped an opponent since 2001. Again, Shamrock aside, he hasn’t scored a decisive win since he defeated current middleweight combatant Patrick Cote back in 2004. Many believe that he lost his 2006 bout with Forrest Griffin. And some, including this writer, believe that he was absolutely robbed of victory against Rashad Evans in his last bout after referee “Big” John McCarthy took a point away from him for holding onto the fence, despite the fact that Evans finished the takedown. Those might be harsh criticisms of Ortiz, but even he would agree that he is in need of a dominant win. Ortiz will someday go down as one of the greatest light heavyweight champions in history, as he still holds the record for consecutive 205-lb title defenses. Expect a more aggressive Ortiz to show up in his next bout, particularly if he is staring across the Octagon at Evans, as he is in search of a statement win that will propel him to yet another title opportunity in 2008.Bashing the UFC for no good reason...For a meager $54.95, one can bear witness to boxing’s resurrection when “The Golden Boy” Oscar De La Hoya faces off with “Pretty Boy” Floyd Mayweather, Jr. on Saturday.Or at least that’s what some are saying, one in particular being CBS Sportsline’s Mike Freeman. But rather than focus on how great this bout, these fighters and the “sweet science” are and can be, he decides to inform readers of how boxing - despite its pitfalls - will always be far better than, “the worst league ever invented, the UFC.”What transpires is a piece eloquently titled “De La Hoya-Mayweather will separate boxing from thuggish UFC.”This coming as he boasts of a fight built up - marvelously I’ll admit - by HBO’s “24/7? series in which Floyd Mayweather, Jr. tossed out as many F-bombs as jabs with his young son right next to him and his uncle Roger Mayweather proudly compared his courtroom triumph to OJ Simpson’s.While just about every paragraph in the piece is infuriating to mixed-martial arts fans and common-sense supporters alike, it is one in particular that is simply disgraceful.“Mixed-martial arts will never be as good as boxing on its worst day. Many of the ultimates are nothing but thugs and ruffians. All that league has done is take a few former nightclub bouncers, knuckle crackers and parolees, put on some fancy TV graphics and told them, ‘Kick the other guy in the nuts,’” he writes.The old high-school jock in me wants to retort by saying someone should kick Freeman in the nuts - and then raising my hand. But the journalist in me is simply embarrassed by the fact that I share the same job title as this guy. I’m really nothing special, I scrape by as a sports editor for a small paper and have been privileged enough to write for Hall of Fame along side journalists whose resumes I couldn’t duplicate in my wildest dreams. Nonetheless, I take pride in writing, in particular, writing about sports.People, sports fans, they’ve a long history in tossing out unfounded insults that couldn’t be further from the truth. Writers on the other hand have an obligation to at least attempt to be responsible in what they print - even if it is an opinion piece.And in the aforementioned paragraph, that most certainly is not the case.For starters, boxing on its worst day has seen death, rape charges atop never-ending lists of criminal charges, fighters who can’t speak coherently and riots - one that I can remember being caused when one fighter kept punching, “the other guy in the nuts.” Hence, casting “many” of the combatants in mixed-martial arts as “thugs and ruffians” and “former nightclub bouncers, knuckle crackers and parolees” is ludicrous enough, but when comparing them to boxers, it’s just plain stupid.Chuck Liddell has an accounting degree. Tito Ortiz is a savvy businessman. Randy Couture is a former Olympic alternate.Growing up watching boxing matches on HBO and wherever else you could find them, 90% of the fighter profiles seemed to be about guys who would’ve been in jail or dead if they weren’t getting swindled for millions by Don King as pro fighters.Of course they’re not all like that. De La Hoya is pure class. I’ve talked with his trainer for the fight, Freddie Roach, and he’s about as nice a guy as you’ll find.Not everyone associated with boxing is a criminal, but if you’re going to compare MMA and boxing, boxing’s clearly winning the orange jumpsuit battle. And Freeman, who at one point refers to himself as being part of the mainstream media, clearly is comparing the sports.Of the impending bout-to-save-boxing, he bellows: “It is good vs. evil, Halle Berry vs. Courtney Love, true sport against the mosh pit of sweat and bloodied skull fractures known as ultimate fighting.”Nope, it’s just De La Hoya vs. Mayweather. One is elegance, the exception to the rule in boxing, and the other is Mayweather, the best in the ring and the worst display of respect out of it. It’s going to make a whole heckuva lot of money, people will have boxing on the brain for a while and then it’ll fizzle out again. The UFC won’t though. It’s here to stay, just like those who call it barbaric and will never understand its appeal.Freeman uses gross and unfounded stereotypes rooted in ignorance and false assumption. Not all boxers are crooks and not all mixed-martial artists (none that I’ve come across as a matter of fact) are anything like he colors them.Not all sports writers, or members of the mainstream media, are out of touch when it comes to the athletic world they cover, either. But every so often an irresponsible article like this comes around to make the general public think the contrary.Whether people want it to or not, Saturday’s fight probably won’t save anything, but any fight fan - boxing, MMA, you name it - should be looking forward to it. I’m excited to see it. I’m just not going to shell out the $55 bucks to see one fight and an unheard-about undercard. I’ll just wait three weeks, pay $15 less and watch Liddell and Quinton Jackson duke it out, right along with a bunch of other “thugs” and "parolees."PRIDE Worldwide Press Announcement Lorenzo J. Fertittaand Frank J. Fertitta, III announced today that a newly formed company, Pride FC Worldwide Holdings, LLC is purchasing the Pride® brand name and related assets from Dream Stage Entertainment, Inc., a Japanese joint stock corporation.The parties have signed a definitive asset purchase agreement for the new company to acquire the extensive Pride® fighting library, Pride® trademarks, copyrights, fighter contracts and other specified assets.Mr. Lorenzo Fertitta stated, “I have always been a fan of Pride fighting. I am very excited that this acquisition will allow us to ad bring MMA fans the best fights in the world, and I look forward to global expansion of the Pride® brand.”Mr. Nobuyuki Sakakibara, CEO of Dream Stage Entertainment, stated, “I am pleased from the bottom of my heart that the ideal environment is set for PRIDE to continue to be on a more global basis. I believe that the dreams of MMA fans around the world will come true. I am looking forward to the day when the MMA version of the Super Bowl between the two major MMA brands, PRIDE and UFC will be held.”The new company will continue to promote Pride® events in Japan, the United States and other countries throughout the world.