Kevin Wilson Posted July 17, 2015 Share Posted July 17, 2015 I think what he means is that if Aldo pulls out again at the last minute with in injury (especially if it is a serious one that will keep him out a year), Dana isn't going to keep his hottest current male commodity (and arguably one of his only ones) on the shelf indefinitely waiting. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Elsalvajeloco Posted July 17, 2015 Author Share Posted July 17, 2015 I think what he means is that if Aldo pulls out again at the last minute with in injury (especially if it is a serious one that will keep him out a year), Dana isn't going to keep his hottest current male commodity (and arguably one of his only ones) on the shelf indefinitely waiting. Yes, he will if it means keeping the hottest fight they have going. They're not doing TUF with McGregor out of the kindness of their heart. If they can't fight 12/5, they will fight 1/2 in Vegas. If they can't do 1/2, they will fight SuperBowl weekend. You get the point. The Mendes fight was enough of a gamble. They will wait it out. Now, Frankie Edgar? He might be pissed...but he'll get over it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheVileOne Posted July 17, 2015 Share Posted July 17, 2015 If Edgar is pissed, he should be pissed at himself for being such a low drawing main eventer. He never should have won that first fight with BJ Penn. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Elsalvajeloco Posted July 18, 2015 Author Share Posted July 18, 2015 MMAjunkie @MMAjunkie 21m Augusto Montano fails UFC 188 drug test after loss to Pendred, suspended one year http://dlvr.it/BYfG6Q via @MMAjunkie Good to see people chose to get their cheating out of the way on the June PPV card. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Elsalvajeloco Posted July 18, 2015 Author Share Posted July 18, 2015 Cormier vs. Gustafsson is now official for UFC 192 in Houston. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheVileOne Posted July 19, 2015 Share Posted July 19, 2015 Cormier vs. Gustafsson is now official for UFC 192 in Houston. I really hope to get to see this card since its in my hometown. Hope no one gets injured. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Elsalvajeloco Posted July 21, 2015 Author Share Posted July 21, 2015 Just in case anybody is interested, the Christy Mack-War Machine saga will be the subject of the next episode of HBO Real Sports tomorrow night. I assure you the trailer is quite NSFW if you don't believe the title: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
smitlick Posted July 21, 2015 Share Posted July 21, 2015 Only Christy Mack videos I've seen are NSFW so not surprised. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Natural Posted July 21, 2015 Share Posted July 21, 2015 If Edgar is pissed, he should be pissed at himself for being such a low drawing main eventer. He never should have won that first fight with BJ Penn. On the what if theme, Frankle Edgar should have won the rematch with Benson Henderson and regained the UFC Lightweight Championship. Bad decision. We possibly still have Frankie Edgar in the Lightweight division if it went his way. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheVileOne Posted July 22, 2015 Share Posted July 22, 2015 Probably should go here, but cut guy Stitch Duran claimed UFC fired him for speaking out against the Reebok deal. Honestly, I think he went overboard when he said the Reebok deal might chase cut men to boxing. If he was just saying, Reebok should've asked for fighter input or advice on designs of uniforms, I think that was enough. His earlier complaints were valid. But not sure how he expected to continue speaking out after that without consequences. Well now, he can focus on boxing, Bellator or whatever and not have to worry about not getting his stupid sponsors on his vest, which I am not sure why he's entitled to that anyway. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jiji Posted July 22, 2015 Share Posted July 22, 2015 Why are you taking such a hostile stance against an employee speaking out against losing sponsorship money? Cutmen and women got shafted by that deal and he voiced his concerns. Based on how poorly paid the actual fighters are in MMA, I can't imagine what corner people take home for their services being all that great. What little additional money he and others like him could make I'm sure helped pay bills. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Elsalvajeloco Posted July 22, 2015 Author Share Posted July 22, 2015 Prior to the Reebok deal, the level of involvement in this type of scenario was about the same as cornermen. If you remember, Firas Zahabi at some point never wore the sponsor gear of his fighters in favor of wearing Hayabusa IIRC. I think the same thing applied to "Bang" Ludwig. It looks weird much like Joe Goossen cornering someone in boxing nowadays, but the UFC didn't really care. Now, the cornermen have no choice but to wear the same thing. So if the UFC doesn't care about the trainers' side hustle, then the cutmen have less of an argument. The trainers at least have the argument that these sponsors help keep their gyms open, which is definitely valid because MMA gyms are money pits to begin with. However, I don't even think that is far up the UFC's priority list in terms of concerns. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheVileOne Posted July 22, 2015 Share Posted July 22, 2015 Why are you taking such a hostile stance against an employee speaking out against losing sponsorship money? Cutmen and women got shafted by that deal and he voiced his concerns. Based on how poorly paid the actual fighters are in MMA, I can't imagine what corner people take home for their services being all that great. What little additional money he and others like him could make I'm sure helped pay bills. Not sure how they got shafted and why they are entitled to that money in the first place. Also the dude gets paid to work on movies. He got a book published. I am not worried about Stitch Duran paying his bills. I think it was valid for him to say Reebok didn't ask for fighter input and that was a mistake. But to say that losing his sponsor money is going to push him to boxing...IMHO that's unprofessional. I have worked as an independent contractor at plenty of jobs, and there is a dress code. If I were to speak out against that online, and someone found out, I doubt I would keep my job the next day. It's like people are oblivious to how things work in the real world. If I were to get fired for that, the ACLU isn't coming to defense for my freedom of speech rights getting violated either. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Craig H Posted July 22, 2015 Share Posted July 22, 2015 You are the shilliest motherfucker for UFC, I swear. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Elsalvajeloco Posted July 22, 2015 Author Share Posted July 22, 2015 I don't think unprofessional comes to mind because unprofessional covers a ton of a ground depending the parties involved. I think the problem partly revolves around the fact cutmen occupy such a weird space in MMA. If it's not something like David Heath bringing his sister's BFF or whoever that lady was as his personal cutman against Babalu at UFC 74, then people really don't give a shit. However, they are really important in the scheme of things. Jim Lampley and other boxing commentators helped make cutmen an important narrative for fights along with all the other roleplayers like judges and refs. Now, HBO and Showtime don't even have the graphic that show who the cutmen (or 2nd assists FWIW) are. If it ain't Stitch, Don House, Danny Milano, Rafael Garcia, Miguel Diaz, or somebody like that, I have no clue who these people are. As for the pushing him to boxing comment goes, he was already involved in boxing. He is Andre Ward's personal cutman as well as Josh Barnett's cutman in MMA. The problem is Ward AND Barnett took two long hiatuses at the same time. That probably fucked up his money something fierce. Now with both of them back in active competition, the Reebok deal comes along. So you would think he would take the chance to do more personal cutman gigs because it's not like there are bunch of people that are as good as him. There are cut stoppages I see almost every week in boxing (and MMA) that could have been avoided had someone half decent been in their corner. I know I've heard him say stuff in the past years ago (IIRC about the cutmen being flown out to shows or per diem being cut down), but it didn't seem like he was the most loyal person under UFC employ. I would think even he was that loyal, he would still tell the UFC, "This is a nice gig and all but I can make the same money plus sponsorship dollars to corner some European fringe contender on a Sauerland card in Hamburg, Germany. I'm out this bitch." I just don't know how firmly entrenched cutmen should be in the business side. It makes more sense in MMA for it to be like referees or judges where the commission assigns them because that 3rd cornerman spot usually goes to another coach.and not a cutman. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hammerva Posted July 22, 2015 Share Posted July 22, 2015 Yeah this was a brutal piece on Real Sports on MMA but nothing really surprising. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Elsalvajeloco Posted July 22, 2015 Author Share Posted July 22, 2015 Tried to delete VileOne's double post and ended up deleting both. So yeah, let's avoid those because this option ain't exactly working out I've discovered. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
username Posted July 22, 2015 Share Posted July 22, 2015 I took "Stitch"'s comments as basically saying "take care of it or I'm quitting/getting fired" so totally not surprised to see this. You can like working someplace or for someone but if they force you to take a notable price cut and you have other options out there... this is basically what happens. You can say that he could have/should have just quit but it appears that he tried to get things taken care of in private and nothing came of it so no real harm in seeing if the public route goes any worse, he had a foot out the door anyways. Also I'm pretty sure UFC really wanted to fire someone over criticizing the Reebok deal but doing it to a fighter would have been a bad look, so if he wasn't really considering leaving then his timing was about as bad as it could be. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Elsalvajeloco Posted July 22, 2015 Author Share Posted July 22, 2015 I took "Stitch"'s comments as basically saying "take care of it or I'm quitting/getting fired" so totally not surprised to see this. You can like working someplace or for someone but if they force you to take a notable price cut and you have other options out there... this is basically what happens. You can say that he could have/should have just quit but it appears that he tried to get things taken care of in private and nothing came of it so no real harm in seeing if the public route goes any worse, he had a foot out the door anyways. Also I'm pretty sure UFC really wanted to fire someone over criticizing the Reebok deal but doing it to a fighter would have been a bad look, so if he wasn't really considering leaving then his timing was about as bad as it could be. Doing it to the wrong type of fighter is a bad look. Doing it to an unknown or someone who is already kind of a pariah is not exactly the worst move. Doing this to an Angela Magana is not exactly going to be the death knell in the Reebok deal. I think they were very carefully initally when Mitrione and a few others spoke out, but some of that got worked out behind closed doors while others stayed unhappy. Now a couple months from now or a few months from the launch date? Yeah, there are going to be quite a few more expendable people. If you're feeling froggy and fight in the bout right after the curtain jerker, you better watch out. That's why I feel like someone like Tom Lawlor better be careful (if that's the right way to phrase it). He has a forum to speak out in doing the F4W shows. It's nice that he understands he is a mid level fighter and that's his ceiling, but I think that he may be too accessible to the idea that might be the right place to vent his frustrations. Once that stuff goes online for people to hear, you cannot unring that bell. He could go from having a fight on Fox to being just a guy having trouble getting indy dates. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jiji Posted July 22, 2015 Share Posted July 22, 2015 Don't worry, he can main event the next Titan FC show! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WholeFnMachine Posted July 22, 2015 Share Posted July 22, 2015 Women's MMA posted this article yesterday on how the Blackzillian's is your MMA one-stop shop for domestic violence perpetrators. The site has also been quick to call out the UFC on their BS regarding having a zero tolerance for DV & yet keeping Trujillo & Rumble on the payroll. http://womensmma.com/ufc/the-blackzilian-way-how-to-abuse-women-and-not-alienate-people-38194/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Elsalvajeloco Posted July 23, 2015 Author Share Posted July 23, 2015 As far as I can see it's a rumor but there is talk of Lawler vs. Condit being the main event for UFC 194 w/ Hendricks vs. Woodley underneath. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
twiztor Posted July 23, 2015 Share Posted July 23, 2015 sounds good to me! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Craig H Posted July 23, 2015 Share Posted July 23, 2015 I wonder why they're gun shy on re-matching Hendricks and Lawler. Many people had Johny winning that first fight and it was a good, competitive fight. Not only that, but Condit lost to Woodley due to an injury. It just makes so much more sense to me to do the Hendricks and Lawler rubbermatch, while having Condit and Woodley determine the next challenger. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Elsalvajeloco Posted July 23, 2015 Author Share Posted July 23, 2015 Woodley was beating Condit and he threw a kick that injured Condit. Like I said before, Condit's handlers should avoid going through Woodley again. If trying to wait until Woodley slows down didn't work the first time, I wouldn't force the issue to have a second go round. With that said, Condit is coming off a HL reel win while Hendricks is coming off a kinda pedestrian, safe win against Matt Brown. Even though personally I didn't dislike the Hendricks-Brown fight since I knew that was the most likely outcome, I can see why the promotion would go that route. I don't see it as all that bad because the timeline would matchup for the Hendricks-Woodley winner to get their shot soonafter. I think the problem with trying to navigate through earlier this year is that Hendricks-Woodley could have happened in the interim at the same time as Lawler-MacDonald II. We went through the whole "Woodley is scared to fight Lombard" before Lombard tested positive and then Hendricks deciding to play the waiting game instead of fighting Woodley who wanted to fight him. That slowed things down. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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