MMA Discussion Thread Part XV

Boris360

I agree on all that. I'm disappointed with bones too but I'm disgusted with Dana.
Hendo is not blameless here either. He was injured 3 weeks ago. If he'd have come clean earlier, the event might've been salvaged.

MonkeyPrince

I didn't know about the timescale.

Dana knew it was a VERY weak card hanging off of an exciting headline  event.  Without the main event it was more like a 'fight for the troops' card

Although that doesn't mean poor fights, it does mean poor PPV's

I think he threw his toys out of the pram when JBJ declined the Sonnen fight and chose to try to leave the stink on JBJ (and make a statement) rather than have the stink on him and the UFC for putting on (another) weak event.

Edit: interesting

http://mmamania.com/2012/8/26/3269725/bones-coach-jon-jones-will-fight-chael-sonnen-with-no-surprise

BigStu1972

Bonjour from the sunny south of France.
I don't blame MAchida for turning down Jones on 3 weeks notice but I do think Jones could have beaten Sonnen on 8 days notice. Maybe Dana didn't present the fight to Jones in the right way and Jones basically said "up yours Dana". Anyway i'm off to bed as I have to be up early tomorrow for a trip in to Lyon.
Aurevoir

repoman

GSP cleared to fight Condit at UFC 154.  

Wondering how that one will go... I guess they'll both have some ring rust.

DrPhil

Forgot to say, Dan Henderson has confirmed that he picked up the injury 3 weeks back but didn't inform the UFC as he thought he could fight through it.

Not only does that add blame to Hendo, it also gives more fuel to the rumour that Sonnen only started his Twitter war with Jones because he knew the slot may well come up at short notice.

Sonnen trains with Henderson and some even think that Henderson covered the injury until the last minute in an elaborate scheme to get Sonnen the shot!

djcla

Been thinking on how the ufc could improve and my idea would be to strip guys with titles if they get injured and cant make an event, then someone else steps in and its for the title.  If in the scenareo there is not enough time to get another opponent and the injury is not going to keep them out long then i guess title does not need to be stripped.  This imo would stop all the waiting to fight the champ business and stalling the division.

Boris360

They do something similar already with interim titles. Condit is the interim champ but the problem is, he's been waiting for GSP to recover which sort of defeats the object of having an interim belt. He should've fought at least once as the interim champ IMO.

DrPhil

Precisely.

Interim belts are designed to prevent holdups in defences.

repoman

I wrote an article and sent it to MMA Fighting but clearly they don't respond to unsolicited arguments because they clearly hate talent or something.  Anyway the gist of it was mandatory two defences per year.  Failure to comply = belt stripped.   Get injured = belt stripped but with first option against the new champ when ready.  Also, a more transparent and cohesive ranking system with less emphasis put on smack talk and more put on fight records.

djcla

Smack talk sells fights though so i domt mind that so much, but i do believe stripping champs of the belt is the way forward none of this interim rubbish.