UFC 137: 'Penn vs Diaz' Thread

[David]

And no one is saying that Dana didn't fuck this up, or that it couldn't be handled in a better way, but your earlier posts seem to have some problem with Diaz getting the shot (questionable win streak and your comments on Fitch etc)

 

I don't really see what your getting at.

No, I see the sense in a champion vs champion fight, it's the way to go definately. I was questioning his streak in Strikeforce simply because I don't view it as all that impressive. I don't think he beats any of the top 5 UFC welterweights to be honest, but the fight makes sense.

 

What I'm starting to think, and I'll throw this out there for others to give their opinions on, is that with the UFC now looking to make the move into the very top level of sports in the US, maybe it's time they thought about bringing in a new public face of the company.

 

Dana White is a fucking bombscare every time he has a camera pointed at him. Watching the UFC President drop f-bombs was funny 4 or 5 years ago, not now. It's cringeworthy.

[Bus Surfer]

I was waiting for you to say that . There was an article out last week that asked the same thing and I believe the response was 50/50.

 

I don't know where I stand with it to be honest, Dana has alot of faults and is like a bull in a china shop, but he seems to get things done and has steered them in the right direction so far. You'd probably have to kill him to get him out of there too.

[David]

I was waiting for you to say that . There was an article out last week that asked the same thing and I believe the response was 50/50.

 

I don't know where I stand with it to be honest, Dana has alot of faults and is like a bull in a china shop, but he seems to get things done and has steered them in the right direction so far. You'd probably have to kill him to get him out of there too.

Oh, I wouldn't want to see him removed. I just think that drafting someone else in to work with him, simply as the public face of the company would work wonders.

 

I'd even suggest someone like Randy Couture for the job. He's well spoken, respected and knows his stuff.

[Egg Shen]

Diaz/GSP has to happen now, ive mentioned before how the UFC always seems to end up with a best case scenario, they got road blocks thrown at them all the time but they always seem to come out the other end in a better position than when they started, this situation is another perfect example...now Diaz has basically retired a legend he finds himself in a title position against GSP which is bigger than it was originally.

 

...and David, i commented on this in another MMA thread but everyone keeps bumping on about it being wrong that MMA entertainment over sport, but it's true. MMA is a sport, but combat sports are different to any other sport, it's a money driven sport, there's no official rankings, and there's no set way of doing things...there's basically a group of fighters with which the fight promoter can do with what they want. Promoters are always going to make the fights which make the most money and draws the most eyes. It's one of the best things about the UFC, we get to see the fights we want because the fans demand them and the UFC delivers them to us.

[Egg Shen]

I was waiting for you to say that . There was an article out last week that asked the same thing and I believe the response was 50/50.

 

I don't know where I stand with it to be honest, Dana has alot of faults and is like a bull in a china shop, but he seems to get things done and has steered them in the right direction so far. You'd probably have to kill him to get him out of there too.

Oh, I wouldn't want to see him removed. I just think that drafting someone else in to work with him, simply as the public face of the company would work wonders.

 

I'd even suggest someone like Randy Couture for the job. He's well spoken, respected and knows his stuff.

 

this is a hard thing to talk about. Dana goes against pretty much everything you think a company front man should be, but you can't deny that he gets shit done. The UFC has got to where it is by going against the grain (which is the appeal in the first place to a lot of people), so i don't think we can really complain. Be interesting to see if he changes his tune a bit now they are dealing with Fox though.

[Hitman 25:17]

I don't believe that Dana would ever step aside to let someone else be the public face of the company. He's far too big a mark for himself. I think he enjoys his celebrity status

a little more than the president of a company should. That's why you get him making snap decisions like pulling Diaz from the GSP fight, almost like he's proving that he won't

be disrespected by anyone. But it should be about the fighters and the sport, not Dana White.

 

As David said, the UFC is going on Fox now, joining the established American sports. Having a Vince McMahon type character swearing in press conferences saying stuff like "what if Dana hadn't f*cked you up the ass?" to Diaz is embarrassing and not at all how a top sport should be represented. I believe Frank Shamrock said something along the lines of Dana being one of the reasons MMA hasn't been sanctioned in New York. I think he makes a fair point.

 

As far as GSP/Diaz goes. One thing that amazed me in GSP's fight with Shields was that for all of Shields robotic striking he was actually getting the better of the stand up in the later rounds. I know St-Pierre couldn't see very well out of one eye but still. I think a mixed attack this time from GSP, with his speed on the feet, moving in and out of range being too much for Diaz leading him to numerous takedowns and another unanimous five round decision.

[Egg Shen]

i think GSP wins the fight, it kind of amazes me that all of Diaz's recent opponents have decided to stand and trade with him, I know he's fought primarily strikers but it seems that standing in front of Diaz is a recipe for disaster, the guy's punch accuracy and pressure just destroys people, the fact that Diaz doesn't have any significant KO power means that the beatings are just long and brutal, the second round of the Penn fight was just harsh to watch, Diaz basically beat the fight out of Penn in that round.

 

GSP is a master gameplanner though, he's not stupid enough to stand and trade with Diaz at great length and i feel as soon as Diaz starts to get any success GSP will dump him on his arse. Diaz is super dangerous off his back but at this point in the game i just don't see GSP getting caught.

[bobbins]

ill post some thoughts tomorrow, but id like to get this in now...

 

did anyone find the Vegas crowd very flat last night? i know there were a couple of poor fights but during the main event which was everything 99% of the fans crave i thought the reaction was a little muted, maybe it just come across on the TV? but i thought the live crowd should have been losing their minds during that main event.

Yeah I felt this too, a muted crowd and some incredibly lacklustre commentary totally failed to do justice to such an epic glorious fight.

[David]

The fight will end in a fairly comfortable unanimous decision for St-Pierre, and will result in Diaz and his boys complaining that St-Pierre doesn't come to fight, is a pussy, is afraid and so forth.

 

That old guy in the hat will no doubt be in the cage using the kind of language that a man of his age should know better than to use.

[David]

More on Condit supposedly being happy to step aside;

 

Malki Kawa had a bad feeling when he heard his phone ring and looked at the caller ID. It was then that he realized UFC president Dana White was on the other line. UFC 137 had just ended 30 minutes earlier, and it was already after midnight on the east coast. It was not a time for mindless chit-chat. It was a time for serious business.

 

As is his style, White cut to the chase. Georges St-Pierre no longer wanted to fight Kawa's client Carlos Condit next. Instead, the UFC welterweight champ wanted to fight Nick Diaz, the winner of UFC 137's main event. We all now know the outcome. St-Pierre got the fight he wanted, and he'll be fighting Diaz in early February. Condit? He wasn't too happy, and he didn't exactly "step aside" as White told the media at the post-fight press conference.

 

"I could understand them coming to us like that," Kawa said on Monday's edition of The MMA Hour. "The issue with the whole 'he decided to step aside,' obviously, that wasn't the case. There was no just stepping aside. There was a little bit more than that. It's going to take more than that. I think we're way more upset with Georges and the way Georges handled it than we are with the way Dana presented it or anything like that."

 

Everything changed in the moments after UFC 137. Diaz got the ball rolling by saying St-Pierre was scared and by questioning his injury just after his main event win. According to White, St-Pierre then "flipped out" and demanded that he bypass Condit and face Diaz next.

 

But as Kawa pointed out, Diaz had previously called out St-Pierre after he was originally replaced with Condit, and St-Pierre never responded. In addition to that, St-Pierre had gone on record saying that believed Condit presented the tougher challenge.

 

"I don't know if the emotions of the moment got to him, and he just decided to do that," Kawa said. "It's kind of un-Georges-like."

 

Kawa said that he and Condit didn't step aside as graciously as it sounded, describing the ordeal as "gut-wrenching."

 

"[Carlos'] words were, 'My heart hurts,'" he said.

 

But ultimately, Kawa said that they are "company men" who made the move that the promotion wanted. He also suggested that there was some financial reward for bowing out.

 

"Dana always does the right thing and in this case, he'll do the right thing again," he said.

 

Kawa said he tried to keep things in perspective by noting that he originally got Condit moved into the title slot with some hustle of his own, and that sometimes, that sort of thing works against you. He even candidly admitted that if he was Diaz's manager, he would have lobbied for the fight, too.

 

"Are we pissed off about it? Absolutely," he said. "But it's not like I've never been on other end of stick where I put one of my fighters ahead of someone else and another guy got shafted or screwed over. It's just business, it's not personal. It's nothing personal with Georges. Are we upset with him? Absolutely."

 

Meanwhile, Condit has every intention of fighting again instead of waiting to take on the St-Pierre vs. Diaz winner. Kawa said the UFC has thrown out some possibilities, but that nothing has been decided upon. The biggest factor is that it has to be someone that Condit can gain something from in fighting, mentioning Josh Koscheck and Jake Ellenberger as possibilities.

 

"It's more about whoever brings the most to the table," he said. "We want to make it a big-money fight. Whoever that is. Make it a big-money fight. A No. 1 contender, possibly make it a five-rounder if we could. And somebody who win, lose, or draw, we can take something from it."

[METAL ON METAL]

Anything that pisses off Malki Kawa is fine by me, the guy is a cancer to MMA.

 

Obviously it sucks for Condit but Dana is giving the fans what they want with Diaz vs. GSP.

[Dead Mike]

Some interesting points about Dana/UFC Matchmaking especially with their Fox debut looming. IF they are going to re-brand for Fox & present a more sports orientated product, in studio pre & post fight analysis etc. I'd really like to see the introduction of a published rankings system. It'd lead to a more open & 'sportslike' product & give the new UFC audience a sense of perspective when they're watching the fights. If you can see that the guys fighting are 6th & 8th respectively in the rankings it means a lot more than just 'Fighter A' vs 'Fighter B', especially if you've little knowledge of who the competitors are prior to the show.

[METAL ON METAL]

Some interesting points about Dana/UFC Matchmaking especially with their Fox debut looming. IF they are going to re-brand for Fox & present a more sports orientated product, in studio pre & post fight analysis etc. I'd really like to see the introduction of a published rankings system. It'd lead to a more open & 'sportslike' product & give the new UFC audience a sense of perspective when they're watching the fights. If you can see that the guys fighting are 6th & 8th respectively in the rankings it means a lot more than just 'Fighter A' vs 'Fighter B', especially if you've little knowledge of who the competitors are prior to the show.

 

The whole 'official' ranking system is complete crap, it doesn't work well in boxing and it wouldn't work well in UFC/MMA. All you'd see more of is people fighting very conservatively to get themselves to the top of the rankings and less entertaining fights.

 

You see how different every journalists rankings are from one another, they are the supposed experts and even they can't agree with each other.

 

The UFC & Joe Silva have done an awesome job with match-ups anyway so far with very little done wrong, so why screw up a good thing?

[Dead Mike]

It all depends if you're content with the 'pro-wrestling booking' style they often adopt? Condit getting moved aside when he was originally in line, Fitch still being denied a title shot, Lesnar getting a title shot whilst being 1-1 etc. Fine if 'sports-entertainment' not so much if you're presenting your product as 100% sporting organisation, to compete with the NFL, NBA, NHL which is surely the ultimate goal?

[David]

The whole 'official' ranking system is complete crap, it doesn't work well in boxing and it wouldn't work well in UFC/MMA.

It doesn't work in boxing because each of the alphabet organisations have different people placed in different positions in their rankings. It would work fine within the UFC.

 

All you'd see more of is people fighting very conservatively to get themselves to the top of the rankings and less entertaining fights.

Bollocks. Fighters know that if they're entertaining they'll get paid more and will draw more attention from fans (meaning more sponsorship and merchandise deals). The system at present is actually a handicap on fighters who's strong suits aren't knocking people out.

 

I'd go as far as saying that the pioneers of this sport, the Gracie's, would more than likely get booed out of the building these days because they aren't willing to stand and get punched in the fucking head in order to entertain the fans.

 

The UFC & Joe Silva have done an awesome job with match-ups anyway so far with very little done wrong, so why screw up a good thing?

They have done well up to this point, but the fact is that they're no longer going to be appearing on a television channel that's geared towards the average "just bleed!!" fight fan. They're moving to FOX Sports. The home of real fucking sports.

 

Over the next few years the UFC will need to really up it's game if it wants to be considered alongside the likes of the NFL, NBA & MLB (which is what Dana has been saying for years).

 

If the UFC were happy enough being the cool guys pro wrestling they wouldn't have been looking for recognition as a real sport being broadcast on a real sports network.

 

They've made the first move by hiring Jon Anik to announce their FOX shows, and I've heard they'll be dropping the ridiculous nu-metal theme music and stupid gladiator intro from their FOX shows as well, so they obviously know that shit has to change.

 

Sooner or later they'll have to work to find that balance between entertaining fights and actually ensuring that their title fights are being contested by those who have earned their way to that spot.

 

If they don't, and we continue seeing Dana White acting like a tit on television whilst Joe Silva picks titlefights depending on who's more exciting we will eventually see the UFC being relegated to the same depths of the sporting world as the WWE and Vince McMahon.