At least Daniel Cormier seems to have rebounded from his title loss to UFC light heavyweight champion Jon Jones in good spirits.
A former heavyweight and always unabashed foodie, Cormier appeared shirtless to croon over his love for cake and Popeyes Chicken in video skit for the 2015 World MMA Awards, parodying Meghan Trainor’s popular song, ‘All About That Bass.’ Catch the amusing video below.
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Quinton Jackson is no longer under contract with Bellator MMA — at least as far as “Rampage” is concerned.
Jackson said Saturday night on FOX Sports Live that Bellator did not honor his deal and, after 45 days of his manager trying and failing to fix things, he terminated the pact. The UFC announced Saturday night during the UFC Fight Night: Machida vs. Dollaway broadcast that “Rampage” had re-signed with the organization.
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LAS VEGAS — TUF 19 victor Corey Anderson discusses his triumph over Justin Jones at UFC 181, this being his ‘last battle in the loft’, coaching with Frankie Edgar and Ricardo Almeida, his 18-week camp of groundwork, describes his ‘Beastin’ 25/8′ nickname and much more.
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it is worth valuing in annually of possibly inadvisable growth and crushing harm, not every occasion is influenced negatively. Some manage to be engineered well and have all of the necessary fortune to keep the correct quantity of quality. When card integrity is held in place, there is little to complain about. Tonight’s occasion is really amazing, at least as far as the paying part of the occasion can be involved. There are many positions, recognizable names, killer rematches, grudge spells and much more. Maybe very best of all, this night could function as the forerunner for what should be a really unbelievable January.
None of the means we’ll get the kind of promised action fight enthusiasts cannot get enough of, however you can find enough elements in position to give us assurance to happily observe heading to the evening.
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After seeing every Bellator occasion in the eleventh season – in some ways both the least significant and most – it is time to take a look back at what worked, what did not, what is next and what is missing now that Scott Coker is in charge and Bjorn Rebney (and his tournaments) are gone.
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Jon Jones expects the damning accusations against renowned comic Bill Cosby aren’t accurate — and he does not consider they’re. Cosby has been accused of sexual assault by at least 15 distinct girls. TMZ cameras caught Jones outside LAX and asked him what he thought of the allegations.”I do not believe Bill Cosby would do that,” the UFC light heavyweight champ said. “I have never met him, but from what I have seen he appears to be a class act. I kind of grew up respecting him as a black performer and that i actually expect that is not accurate.”Jones, not taking the dialogue quite seriously, additionally did an imitation of Cosby from his Jello advertisements and insinuated the “Cosby Show” star did not want to assault girls, because he was loaded.”he is Bill Cosby — he should not have to take it,” a laughing Jones said, making a giving-away-cash gesture with his hands. Netflix, TV Land and NBC have all cut ties with Cosby, foregoing prospective future jobs. The 77-year old has never been convicted nor even tried for any alleged offenses.
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Metamoris’ existence is predicated on a number of things, not least of which is that submission-only competition can offer a truer (or at least alternative) glimpse into the talents of practitioners, something the points system obscures. That’s not necessarily true in all cases for all competitors, but it’s true enough that having a superfight series in a submission-only format fills the gap left by the points-based tournaments.
Whether true or not, that argument has little bearing on how Tom DeBlass black belt Garry Tonon competes. In a sport allegedly filled with those who embrace risk aversion as a means to winning, Tonon has patented a style that eschews that approach completely. As a result, he’s developed a fan following, too.
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While much has changed in MMA over the past few years, at least we can take comfort in knowing that fewer things still liven up a Nick Diaz interview faster than the mention of Georges St-Pierre’s name.
In classic Diaz fashion, Stockton’s favorite son meandered through a myriad of topics during Monday’s appearance The MMA Hour, from his near two-year layoff to his upcoming return fight against Anderson Silva at UFC 183. But without a doubt, the subject that fired Diaz up the most was his old welterweight rival, St-Pierre, and the former champ’s comments that Diaz “made a mistake” by accepting the fight against Silva at 185 pounds rather than a catchweight.
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It’s Brazil vs. the world in Las Vegas.
The UFC announced on Thursday that Rafael Natal and Tom Watson are set to collide at the UFC 183 pay-per-view card in Las Vegas on Jan. 31. So far, seven of the eight bouts officially announced for the fight card features at least one Brazilian.
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Halloween nighttime means celebrations or trick or treating for most 28-year old couples with three children. For former UFC fighter Matt Riddle, and his wife Lisa, they have been less than two weeks into a fresh path in life – striving to become pro wrestlers. Riddle fought 12 fights in UFC between 2008 and 2013, after coming in through the Ultimate Fighter reality show with zero fighting encounter. He was a New York high school state champ at Saratoga Springs High School in 2004, then wrestled for a couple of years at East Stroudsburg University, before employed as a roofer. He’d no fights nor proper training when he tried out for The Ultimate Fighter.In those days, contestants in the show were decided both from the UFC and Spike. The UFC was deciding based on people that could go on to be combatants in the business. Spike would pick people according to character, or appearances. Among the reasons they began doing the fights to enter the house was to weed out the men who might have now been television characters, but were not actual combatants. Riddle had a great look, as well as a huge grin and appeared to constantly be joyful, however he never fought, even though he’d a strong real wrestling history. He walked to the cage for the very first time and quickly scored such an horrific knockout, breaking the jaw of Dan Simmler in two positions, that he was the next man decided by trainer Rampage Jackson for the seventh season of the show. He lost to Dan Cramer in his next fight, a loss he avenged another year. Those at the UFC understood he’d possible. The truth is, he was a name brought up especially in those days when the thought of a UFC developmental system was talked about, getting men who’d possible and athletic skill, but from an experience point of view, were not prepared for UFC. But no such thing existed. He was in the UFC from day one, and, equipped along with his wrestling, won his first three fights. Subsequently, by his own admission, he showed up out of form to get a fight with Nick Osipczak in Manchester, England, and learned a lesson, being ended late in the 3rd round.”That was a terrible night,” he remembered. He never reached the top in the UFC. However he could have won his last four fights, except two of his triumphs were overturned for testing positive for cannabis. The second one led to his being let go from the corporation after having a run of going 7-3, using the two no contests. Bellator needed him, but he and CEO Bjorn Rebney had a public falling out after he blasted the organization, said he was retiring, afterward came from retirement, subsequently pulled from a fight, and was let go. His only fight since being released by the UFC in early 2013, was on Feb. 28 for Titan Fighting Championships, which he won via guillotine in the second round. Fighting in the UFC was more something he fell into. As a child, he along with his wrestling dummy would spend all day long in the trampoline with him practicing professional wrestling moves and he had do backyard matches.So now he is looking to return to his youth. Three times weekly, every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, he is said he along with his wife will travel 90 minutes in every single direction to head to The Monster Factory in Paulsboro, N.J. It is among the earliest professional wrestling schools in the nation, opening up in the early 80s by Larry Sharpe plus among the renowned names in professional wrestling history, the late “Nature Boy” Buddy Rogers. One of the stars that have trained there contain the wrestler who set the health club in the map, the late Bam Bam Bigelow, as well as King Kong Bundy and present WWE stars The Big Show and Sheamus.”We get here early,” said Riddle. “At 7:20 p.m., we begin practicing what we understand. Afterward we go over new stuff. I train Tuesday and Thursdays in MMA. I lift daily. That is the next section of my entire life. This is exactly what I am committed to. Tuesday and Thursday I am doing MMA to pay the invoices, also it covers the grocery stores for now. I make an adequate cent doing privates (MMA lessons) and items.”He and his wife on their off days from training in the institution, train at home going over the things they can. “It is his third day, he is every dynamic, and respectful, and that I do not have to get in his ear about things like being rigorous and getting right down to business,” said Danny Cage, a former pro wrestler who now runs the school. “Lots of new pupils may have wandering eyes, and begin daydreaming. He along with his wife come in and get right down to company.”Cage did say during real training he needed to split the two since they were speaking too much to every other during course.”It Is clear, they’ve been wed.”Cage said Riddle is way ahead of the game due to the tools he brings to the table, most notably he does not need to be instructed to get into shape and he is far ahead of most athletically. He is way ahead in cardio training. Plus, Cage considers it is an important advantage to get powerful amateur wrestling encounter, even though there certainly are numerous customs recreational wrestlers have that are not easy to break, including matters nobody would see. In amateur wrestling, you lock up together with your right hand. In American-style professional wrestling, everything is completed in the left side. But lots of the basic moves and reversals come from amateur wrestling.”Some folks prefer to crap on an expert sportsman going into professional wrestling,” said Cage. “As someone who trains these men, if I could take their fire in a single sport into this one, it is an edge. They have a reputation for training difficult. He wished to be a pro wrestler first, but the UFC presented itself. He came in. Every once in a while he really wants to do hardcore wrestling, like anyone who comes in, but I told him, ‘Let Us get a foundation and we’ll take it one step at a time.’ He will be patient.”Right now, they may be still concentrating on simply tying up, headlocks and getting the wrist for the initial fourteen days. They’ll begin in the ring, learning to safely take the lumps off moves like arm drags and hip throws.”We can not speed it up only because he is a great sportsman,” said Cage. “Itis a formula we’ve and we have done it this way for the past 30 years.”,Cage said he could phone the WWE tomorrow and Riddle, together with his appearance and history, could get a tryout, however he believes it is best for him to go there first with training. He does not need him going there as a professional athlete with no principles and no comprehension of the backstage games and accidentally rub somebody the wrong manner. In the WWE developmental, there are men who were strong sportsmen, as well as star athletes like school football players, professional soccer players and top level school as well as ex-Olympic wrestlers. And in another corner, there are men who spent years doing small time professional wrestling shows. There are still those who’ve practiced the trade in areas like Mexico, Japan and Europe and in the ring are truly a lot better in relation to the largest stars on national television. The former group are generally larger, more powerful and much more fit, but the latter group, using their ring encounter, could blow them away in regards to wrestling. It is frequently frustrating for the men who were star athletes in valid sports, that have worked hard to get to be the greatest at the things they do and with all the assurance of star athlete, to be so far behind men that aren’t anywhere close to the same amount of sportsman and sometimes don’t have any sports history at all. Even at The Monster Factory, Cage sees the problems involving both groups, but he views non-sportsmen with no world-wide expertise resenting sportsmen striving professional wrestling.”Someone having any sort of a professional fit history, I Will take that any day,” said Cage. “There is a whole lot of people that are interested in being a pro wrestler. They come in at 24, and they’re out of shape, however they believe since they see WWE on a regular basis, it makes them much more enthusiastic about pro wrestling than someone who played professional sports. However there is a difference between a fanatic and somebody doing professional sport. Itis another creature.””If everything goes as intended, I am expecting he will be gone (signing with a leading firm) in six to eight months, but that is not my call. I can not tell folks to sign him. He is 215 legit, 6-foot-2, shredded, his build reminds me of Steve Cutler (a wrestler Cage coached who’s now in WWE’s developmental system).””I saw ECW, WCW, WWF, I saw it all,” Riddle recalled fondly about the so called Outlook age, the period from 1997 to early 2001, when professional wrestling peaked in U.S. popularity. “My parents hated me. All I did was see professional wrestling and that I wrestled using a hefty bag around the trampoline. That was my youth.” His wife, who isn’t a wrestling fan, but was an All American gymnast at Louisiana State University, and then an exercise competition after school, comes with him.”We met in Vegas, I had been training for a fight and she was running sprints. She enjoyed the way I looked. I enjoyed the way she looked, and today we have three children.””Fitness competition is lots of hard work and there is no pay check in that,” he noted.”She Is doing fantastic,” said Cage. “She is rough. She was a gymnast and has terrific instincts in there. She does not whine. She does not back down. She does everything the men do.”The two went to your seminar two weeks ago put on by Ring of Honor, the nation’s third-biggest professional wrestling promotion, which occurred to create one of Riddle’s favourite wrestlers, Colby Lopez, who’s WWE’s present star villain, Seth Rollins.”My wife does not watch wrestling, but she sees the (Whole) Divas on E!,” he said. “I told her how interested I was and she is quite a physical man, so she was curious. She saw a few of the Divas doing it and she is fairly certain. She is put together quite nicely and she is able to go. I told her, ‘I am planning to check it out, why do not you attempt it?’ She is discovered and she is doing excellent.”Riddle gets the correct look, naturally broad shoulders, a tiny waistline and eight pack abs. He explained his greatest aim isn’t to win tournaments, but to do insane things in the ring that leave people by making use of their jaws hanging open, like places he recalls to this day from his own youth. He said he can already do crazy acrobatics and was a natural at running the ropes, however he is got no foundation.”When I see wrestling now, it is not the mat technicians, but the men who will draw you in with ‘Oh My God’ seconds, ‘Sacred s*** minutes, those will be the minutes I would like to make,” he said. “Even when I fought in the UFC, I needed to get fight of the night time. You get right into a fight and get the fans roaring, I enjoy men like Seth Rollins, for the reason that they are ready to push the pace more difficult than others. If a person does something enormous before in the night time, he is planning to head out as well as take it that much further. I do not understand if it is everyone’s aim in wrestling, but I need folks to get excited.”The one thing that is square one, is becoming in the ring trusting individuals,” said Riddle. “Running off the ropes, bound, that came natural to me. It is the basics I should understand. I have to understand how to not get hurt, and how to not damage others. I am quite certain I already have x, y and z, but I want a, b and c. That is the reason why I came to The Monster Factory. I used to be told that is where you should be to pick up the basics.”I do not need to come off poor, but I ‘ve lots of possible at this,” he said. “I am a world class sportsman and what I desired to do was be a pro wrestler. It was always my love. I am not in the UFC anymore so I am not getting paid decent money to fight, therefore I desired to do something I adore. I had rather wrestle professionally and have pleasure than fight for no reason at all.”It was the professional wrestling that accidentally got him into a twisting road that caused the UFC.”I began wrestling in seventh grade,” he said. “I ‘d about 200 backyard matches under my belt by then. I saw every wrestler, or at least every wrestler who had been great, had an amateur history. I went to school wrestling, subsequently began doing Jiu Jitsu, afterward I was in the UFC for six years.””I did it for a while. It was not something I needed to do, it was something I was great at. They needed me to fight at 170 or 185 pounds. Once I get below 190, my kidneys hurt, my lower back hurts, it is not safe for my body. I do not get enjoyment out of suffering, particularly if I do not get paid. I am no longer 22, I do not care about tough guy competitions. It’s been my aim my whole life. I looked in the mirror four months past. I had been tired of cutting weight, becoming ill, I got the (WWE) network for $9.99 and began reliving the Outlook Age and got that spark that I Have been missing since I was 20. I understood I could generate income doing that. I saw the men I grew up observing, I am observing the newest men and these guys are not larger than me, I am a little more ripped than they’re, I am a cage fighter so I ‘ve abilities, so perhaps this is my chance to make it. If worst comes to worst, they say ‘No.’ Iwill keep striving. I have shown people wrong before.”
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By definition, at least according to the commission, Matt Betzold exists as a downed opponent. That means no knees to the head or high kicks from whatever enemy stands across from him. Years back, the Arizona Boxing Commission attempted to pass that idle detail off as evidence to refuse Betzold his permit to fight professionally, since if you did not understand, having one leg can seemingly be a fairly huge edge in a cage fight.
The whole thing ended up being naturally and comically criminal.
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With 80-percent of the UFC’s light heavyweight top-five either reeling from knee injuries or suspended forever, there’s been lots of time recently to throw around conjecture about where the section can go from here.
Jon Jones and Daniel Cormier already have their date set for New Year’s weekend, that at least is a sure thing. Anthony Johnson is a fresh man in town, however he is more of an idea than a reality at present due to his on-going domestic abuse case.
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It’s been 14 months since Martin Kampmann succumbed to a volley of fourth-round strikes in his rematch against Carlos Condit. And while the perennial welterweight contender admits that, at least in the immediate future, he has no plans to return to action, Kampmann also isn’t ready to make his exit from professional competition officially known, at least not yet.
“I’m still signed with the UFC, but I’m on an indefinite hiatus. I’m semi-retired, you might say,” Kampmann explained on Tuesday’s episode of The MMA Hour.
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It was not the most exciting main event, but perhaps for Iowa it was at least recognizable.
Paul Bradley used his wrestling to choose Josh Neer down in the very first round at Bellator 129 in Council Bluffs, and it did not feel like he let him up for the next 15 minutes. Bradley cruised to a unanimous decision victory in Friday night’s main event. The judge’s scored the fight 30-27, 30-27, 30-27.
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At least one person at Team Alpha Male was upset when Dominick Cruz took to the mic at UFC 178 and referred to Urijah Faber’s Sacramento gym as “Alpha Fails.”
“We’ve got a third-grader who trains with us, and he came up to me one day and he was like ‘did you hear what Dominick Cruz said?"” Faber told MMAFighting.com. “I told him we were going to put Cruz in timeout for hurting his feelings. My third-grader was upset over it.”
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When the Tulsa-based Battleground group decided to try pay-per-view based on the concept of going back in time with an eight-man one-night tournament, it was an interesting concept, but former UFC owner Bob Meyrowitz had done the same thing years ago with the one-and-done YAMMA promotion, using fighters with more name value.
So the hook for selling the show, for the first time in the history of MMA, was the announcers. It was the meeting of the minds between Jim Ross, the voice of the heyday of pro wrestling for World Wrestling Entertainment, and Chael Sonnen, in his first televised appearance since drug test failures led to FOX releasing him from his contract.
The broadcast was a different approach. Whether it was correct is hard to ascertain because nobody knows who or what type of audience was watching on pay-per-view. The broadcast team was aimed more at a general audience with beginning knowledge of MMA. Sonnen did a lot of basic breakdown of moves at a level you wouldn’t see on a UFC broadcast, even though there is far more of a chance that a casual audience would watch a televised UFC event, or attend a gathering to watch a major pay-per-view.
This likely stems from Ross’ own experience watching major UFC shows in the past with his buddies who are part of the local college football community, sports fans who are older, liked MMA but didn’t really understand it or its strategies.
Ross seemed a little unsteady at first, but fell into his groove as the show went on. He was different than other MMA announcers, and completely different from his pro wrestling persona. For people who wanted to here Ross yell his various wrestling catch phrases on an MMA show, or for those watching who feared the same thing, they got something they didn’t expect.
Ross talked about non-fighting backgrounds of the participants extensively. It was a way to give a personality to the unknown fighters. We learned, for example, that Trey Houston works a regular job as a geophysicist for an oil company, and has to train before and after work. We also learned that former UFC featherweight Cody McKenzie, fighting two weight classes up in the welterweight tournament, and even then, missing weight on his first try, had actually drawn blood to get under 171 pounds, as crazy as that sounded.
McKenzie had been working the last two-and-a-half months on a salmon fishing boat in Alaska. He hadn’t trained, and, well, looked the part. And fought the part as well, being eliminated in his first match with Brock Larson.
The similarity of Larson’s name to that of Brock Lesnar, not to mention he came from Minnesota, was brought up several times. Ross nearly called Larson “Lesnar” at one point. At another time, Ross even tried once to mimic the slow, unique and almost guttural enunciation of Lesnar that pro wrestling manager Paul Heyman does on wrestling broadcasts.
Ross emphasized the storyline that these were fighters looking for a break, battling for $50,000. He even plugged the UFC December pay-per-view a couple of times when mentioning that Johny Hendricks was in the audience, although Hendricks wasn’t shown.
Sonnen was a natural, but that’s hardly a surprise because talking has always been his thing.
He was filled with one-liners, including what came across as a self-deprecating reference to his own troubles. When Ross brought up the heavily tattooed Luigi Fiorvanti, and noted Sonnen has no tattoos himself, Sonnen responded, “I was always afraid of needles, at least those with ink in them.”
At another point, when referencing fighter Niko Koliastasis, who was connected to Missouri Valley College, the small NAIA school that Bobby Lashley was a national champion for in the 90s, Ross mentioned Lashley’s name.
Sonnen responded, “Bobby Lashley, the cure for insomnia. I’m not sure we should thank him for that or hold that against him.”
At another time, before the Houston vs. Roan Carneiro semifinal, when an innocuous, “Let’s look at the tale of the tape,” line before the fight resulted in no tale of the tape being shown, Sonnen joked about how it’s dangerous to call one’s own shots.
Sonnen also had a reference for judges (“Poindexters at ringside with a clipboard”), one of the ring card girls (“It’s an easy job if you’re a centerfold or a supermodel. It takes a little more confidence when you’re a six”) and even former boxing champion Leon Spinks (“The Cadillac, Leon Spinks referred to it as the Mercedes of automobiles.”)
He broke things down to a far more basic level than one would get watching a UFC, Bellator or AXS Fight broadcast.
For all the good and the bad that can be said about Sonnen, it’s a role he should be doing regularly. He clearly had done his homework on the fighters and knows the sport, even if at times he was in the middle of talking on a different subject as fighters were locking on fight ending submissions. On the flip side, when Roan Carneiro’s continuing in the tournament after winning his first fight was in question because of dehydration, Sonnen immediately speculated it could be a ruse to throw Houston, his next opponent, off.
Ross was more into the personalities than the technical aspects of the fight. He didn’t use any of his trademark pro wrestling phrases, although there were plenty of wrestling references sprinkled in. When talking about how Houston went to Bixby High School, not far from Tulsa, he noted it was the same school as Cowboy Bill Watts, the area’s pro wrestling hero of the 60s and 70s who was Ross’ mentor when he started in the business. Joe Ray being from Sarasota, Fla., brought references to pro wrestling personalities Randy Savage and “Mean” Gene Okerlund.
Once, when talking about the fighters backstage, said, “Fighters use a locker room, entertainers use a dressing room,” in reference to his wrestling past.
Perhaps the funniest moment to those who follow wrestling closely came when the championship belt that was being presented to the tournament winner was shown. Ross, in describing it, had a slight hesitation before calling it a belt. It may have been an instinctive reaction because in his old job, the world “belt” to describe a title belt was banned by WWE owner Vince McMahon. McMahon produces the wrestling announcers and is legendary for yelling and screaming at them when they say something not to his liking. It was almost as if instinct took over for a split second, before reality struck in that he wasn’t getting yelled at.
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With Dominick Cruz’s explosive return after three years out of competition, current UFC bantamweight champion T.J. Dillashaw at least knows who his next title defense will come against.
It’ll be against none other than “The Dominator,” Dominick Cruz, who was stripped of the belt after injuries prolonged his return. And just a few days removed from Cruz’s annihilation of No. 5-ranked Takeya Mizugaki at UFC 178 — in which Cruz referred to Dillashaw’s Team Alpha Male team as “Alpha Fails” after the fight — the feud between Cruz and Dillashaw is already getting heated. Cruz has had a long rival with Team Alpha Male owner, Urijah Faber — the last man to defeated Cruz back in 2007.
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Stefan Struve would’ve fought anybody by the time he got his recent phone call from UFC matchmaker Joe Silva. Following annually and change spent to the sidelines because of the discovery of an enlarged heart and leaking aortic valve, the lanky seven-footer likely would’ve challenged his own family if it meant one more chance in the omnipresent Octagon.
So it was not as if Struve was sad when he heard Alistair Overeem’s name on the other end of that phone call. Obviously, he just thrilled either, though as Struve joked on Monday’s edition of The MMA Hour, there is just two Dutch colossi in the UFC, so at least the great news is the fact that someone from Holland is bound to come away using a win from December 13th’s UFC on FOX offering.
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LAS VEGAS — If there is any lingering uncertainty, the drip of bodies slowly leaving MGM Grand’s Premier Ballroom on a crazy Friday day killed it where it stood. These were the crazies institutionalized enough to spend their Vegas day watching grown men (and several girls) strip down to their skivvies, and though here they were, departing in delirium while the most skilled of all card’s guys, UFC flyweight champ Demetrious Johnson, still sported his trousers.
The show was already finished — or at least put on hold until Saturday 7:45 p.m. pacific — even if it was not actually.
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Rich Franklin is loving his life as a sports executive. As the Vice President of ONE FC, the Asian MMA organization located in Singapore, he is busy helping his organization with public relations work, some broadcast medium during live events, working jobs as well as social media help.
But as happy as things are – and Franklin is determined he is content – he only can not quite stop professional fighting. At least not yet. Or, at least, he believes not yet.
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