Back in November, it seemed like the UFC had a thrilling top-ranked lightweight bout all booked and ready to go. Beneil Dariush had just defeated former KSW champion Mateusz Gamrot at UFC 280 back in October and, following Dustin Poirier’s victory over Michael Chandler at UFC 281 on November 12th, the former interim champion sounded gung ho on the idea of a booking between the two men.
“I think it’s a great matchup,” Poirier said of the fight. I think [Beneil Dariush] deserves a top matchup.”
While there are certainly other fish in the sea, it seems the ‘Diamond’’s change of heart has stuck with the longtime Kings MMA talent. Speaking to Submission Radio, recently, Dariush gave his thoughts on Poirier and the consistent logjam title challengers face in the lightweight division, when searching for a path to UFC gold.
“I wish he’d be a little bit more clear, as to what is it that doesn’t excite him about me?” Dariush admitted. “Are my fights not exciting enough? Or is it a skill issue? Or is it just because I don’t have the name? Because if it’s just because of the name, he should really consider—and I say this as nicely as possible, I’m not trying to be a d-ck—but he should really consider retiring. Because if you’re going to look for the names, if you’re going to look to fight only guys that the name will get you? Bro, there’s dogs coming. There’s dogs, and they’re young and they’re hungry. They’re looking to kill.”
“There’s guys out there already, and there’s not a whole lot of Michael Chandlers left out there in the division. How many more fights like that can you get? You’re going to have to fight one of these dogs. And currently I’m at the forefront of these guys. So either step up or think about doing something else. He seems successful so, if you’re not genuinely—fighting is not a sport you want to be half-hearted about. So if he’s not 100 percent in, he should really reconsider what he’s doing.”
Interestingly, motivation and finding purpose in fighting has been a topic Poirier has seemed to struggle with in recent years. Back in 2021, following his loss to Charles Oliveira, he seemed to question his future as a combat sports athlete.
“I can fight for another belt. I can go on another streak. I can claw and climb and get back to wherever I want to be. It’s just, ‘Do I want to?’” Poirier asked of himself following his third round submission loss at UFC 269. “That’s the question I’ve got to look in the mirror and answer. Do I want to do it again? Do I want to go down that road again? That answer will come in the next couple days or couple weeks.”
Ultimately, Poirier decided not to step away from MMA, revealing that retirement didn’t “feel right” for him at the moment. Skip ahead after his win over Chandler, and what’s Poirier looking for?
“Big fights. Fun fights,” Poirier told Ariel Helwani in the same interview where he brushed off Darisuh. “I don’t know, man. I completed the violence triangle—finished Gaethje, finished Eddie, finished Chandler. There’s a bunch of fights that would be crazy matchups, I just don’t know a name right now.”
About the author: Zane Simon is a senior editor, writer and podcaster for Bloody Elbow. Host of the MMA Vivisection and 6th Round, he has covered MMA and the UFC since 2013.(full bio)
The decision to retire from combat sports is rarely ever an easy one, and it often feels like every fighter reaches that conclusion through their own seperate set of circumstances. For some, injuries are the biggest factor. For others, losses and the realization that they’re no longer going to be afforded opportunities to compete with the best talent in the world. And a few, the call to coaching, or broadcasting, or other business interests can supplant the desire to compete.
In a recent interview with the MMA Hour, longtime Conor McGregor training partner – and former UFC featherweight – Artem Lobov talked about his own path to hanging up the gloves. Unsurprisingly, the Russian-born fighter out of Ireland admitted that the decision wasn’t at all an easy one (transcript via MMA Fighting).
“The thing for me is this was a very big decision for me,” Lobov revealed. “I feel like I’m not going to be one of those guys that comes back in and out of it. It was a decision that I thought about for a long time. It was a difficult decision for me to make. I actually love fighting. I love this sport. I love this life. When I made that decision and it was like f-ck, this is it. It felt like all my dreams had [been] crushed. I know I have a lot of losses, but even when I lost sometimes, I was like this is just a minor setback. This is just a setback. I will get better. I will train harder. I will go again. I will try again, and I will come back and I will achieve the goals that I set out to achieve.
“So now this time when I retired, I had to come to this point where I said to myself, ‘Well, that’s it. You will not achieve those goals. It will not happen for you. You weren’t good enough. You didn’t manage to get where you wanted to get. This is it now for you as a fighter. Time to hang them up, Artem. Bye-bye.’ It was an emotional time for me.”
Lobov went on to explain that the final goal of his career, which had been driving him to keep competing, was the hope of scoring a million dollar payday in the boxing world—off the back of his bare knuckle fighting success. The 35-year-old went 2-1 with BKFC following his exit from the UFC, including a shocking upset win over former WBA welterweight champion Paulie Malignaggi.
The SBG Ireland trained fighter parlayed those fights into a bare knuckle boxing bout against former Olympic silver medalist Denys Berinchyk, back in July of 2021. Lobov lost via TKO after being unable to answer the bell for the start of the 5th round. That coupled with a corner stoppage loss to Jason Knight back in his final BKFC bout in 2019 seems to have finally driven home the idea that juice was no longer worth the squeeze. Especially not when considering the impact that fighting can have on an athlete’s longterm health.
“Another reason was the brain damage,” Lobov admitted. “It’s been in the news the last couple of years. It’s something that I certainly paid attention to a lot, and I realized that I’m going to need my health. I’m probably not going to make enough money fighting to just [last] me a lifetime, so I’m going to have to be doing something else so for that I need a good, working brain.
“On top of that, I have a kid now, who I would like to be a good father to. Be a grandfather to his children one day. So all these things combined, I was just like mate, it’s probably time to get up and go pursue something else while you’re still young and energetic and know what’s what. That’s why I made that decision.”
As for what could possibly get Lobov back in the ring? He may sound fairly set in his decision to retire, but did have two conditions whereby he’d make a return.
The first? That seven-figure payday he was hoping to land. The second? A fight against Khabib Nurmagomedov training partner Zubaira Tukhugov. Tukhugov was part of the infamous post-UFC 229 brawl, where members of the ‘Eagle’’s entourage swarmed the cage and attacked McGregor—following the Irishman’s loss to Nurmagomedov in the main event.
“I don’t care if I’m retired or not. I always want that fight no matter what.”
Thus far in his MMA career, Khabib Nurmagomedov has been a problem without a solution. The Dagestani Sambo champion turned mixed martial artist currently sits at 28-0 heading into his 3rd title defense, this coming October 24th in Abu Dhabi.
The man across the cage from him will be team Elevation’s Justin Gaethje. The former WSOF title holder has had a rougher run of things in the UFC – having dropped back-to-back KO losses to Eddie Alvarez and Dustin Poirier – but has righted the ship since then, to the tune of four straight victories—and an interim lightweight title in the process.
While no man has yet bested the ‘Eagle’ inside the cage, some fans and pundits have theorized that Gaethje’s combination of power strikes to all levels, fearless aggression, and collegiate wrestling background could make him Khabib’s biggest stylistic challenge to date. But, if that school of thought has any purchase in MMA’s collective imagination, at least one former lightweight champion doesn’t appear to be buying it.
Eddie Alvarez was one of the two men to knock out Gaethje during his UFC career, picking up the KO with a perfectly placed knee late in the third round of their UFC 218 battle. And as he recently told MMA Junkie Radio, as far as he can see, the ‘Highlight’ just doesn’t have the style to keep Khabib at bay.
“The style matchup I think—whenever I look at a big fight like that, the first thing I ask myself is kind of where I feel like the fight is going to take place,” Alvarez said of Gaethje’s upcoming bout with Nurmagomedov. “The majority of the fight, where is it going to happen? And I just see Khabib taking him down. We’ve got to assume it’s going to be on the ground. And I just don’t feel like Justin has the experience jiu-jitsu-wise to be able to deal with what Khabib is going to be able to bring on the ground.”
“I think it takes some time, like a lot of strategy, to fight a guy like Khabib. And I think Justin’s style is tailor made for Khabib,” Alvarez added. “Justin is a come-forward fighter, and I think against a guy like Khabib, you need to be really lateral. You need to move a lot so he can’t get square and then get his shots in on you and Justin’s kinda there. He’s right in front of you and even his mind coming into the fight when I hear the media, ‘I’ve just got to create a car accident,’ I don’t know if that’s the right mindset against Khabib.”
That ‘car accident’ quote came back in August from a guest appearance by Gaethje on Michael Bisping’s Believe You Me podcast, where Gaethje told the former middleweight champion that there would be a zone in front of him during the fight, “a zone of death.”
“I know he wants to hurt him, and you want to do that,” Alvarez explained. “But it should be more of a ‘tag, you’re it,’ game against Khabib. And making sure you’re keeping lateral, and then ‘tags, you’re it,’ one-twos down the middle, and then move again. And that’s how I would like the first round or two played against a guy like Khabib, in order to stop that takedown and stop that dominant grappling he has.”
Many fighters have tried to keep from standing in front of Nurmagomedov, only to find themselves getting chased further and further toward the cage, and eventually taken down anyway. Will attempting to stand in and meet the champion in open space work better? Or will Gaethje find himself stuck in a pair of Dagestani handcuffs, just like everyone else before him? We’ll find the answer in just a few weeks, in the main event of UFC 254.
For longtime combat sports fans, Sean Wheelock is a familiar name. The co-author of Is This Legal?: The Inside Story of The First UFC From the Man Who Created It, alongside UFC founder Art Davie, has been a fixture of combat sports commentary teams around the world for much of the past decade. Most notably, Wheelock was the play-by-play man for most of Bellator’s early history, working the booth alongside Jimmy Smith. Before moving to MMA, he cut his teeth calling world cup soccer for FOX and ESPN.
All of which is to say that when word broke of his latest commentary project, people were understandably surprised. Cam-girl & live sex chat website ImLive recently announced, via press release, that they had brought Wheelock on to do running play-by-play of their web shows, targeting blind users looking for descriptive commentary to enhance their sensual experience. This announcement came following news back in April that famed NFL & MLB announcer Joe Buck had turned down a “million dollar” offer from the company.
Wheelock was kind enough to sit down with Bloody Elbow and give some insight as to exactly what his work for the cam-site entails, and how he ended up doing what he was quick to clarify was not a ‘passion project.’
“No, I think I have two passions in life,” Wheelock laughed. “One is my family, and two is fight sports. But I’ll tell you, I was really flattered, maybe this is a flattery project.
“So the backstory on this, I’ll be completely honest, I was totally unaware of ImLive—I had never heard of the website. That might sound disingenuous, but it’s true, I hadn’t. Then I saw all the coverage on the Joe Buck offer, and I thought that was intriguing… And then about a week later, when I see that Joe Buck has passed, I get a message on social media. And it turned out to be the vice president at ImLive… And he said, ‘Oh, I’m a big fight fan, know who you are. Let’s talk.’ So we set up a Zoom call, we started talking and we hit it off and started getting the process going.
“And one thing I said early on, and I mean this in all candor, is I wasn’t going to be disrespectful to women,” Wheelock continued. “I said, ‘I’m not going to use foul language, that’s not my style.’ I said, ‘I’m going to call this completely straightforward. If you’re looking for a guy who’s going to make fun of people, or use profanity’—and again, I know there are people who might think that’s strange. But look, we all have our lines, we all have our limits, and things like that. I’m uncomfortable saying that. What, I’m most uncomfortable with is ever coming across as disrespectful. And I think you know me from fighting, never have I said a negative thing about a fighter. I’ve never judged an appearance or an ability. Because, at the end of the day, everyone is trying to do their best.
“So, they responded to that extremely well—that I’m not going to be disrespectful, I’m not going to try to be funny. And I’m going to say it straight up, I’m going to use anatomically correct terms—I’m not using slang, I’m not using vulgarity. That’s just who I am. If people find it inconsistent, that’s their choice, god bless them.”
And while Wheelock was quick to say that he’s been very happy with and comfortable with the atmosphere of ImLive, a big part of what pushed him to take this gig had to do with timing. What had been a full calendar of events over the summer was suddenly gone amid the COVID-19 pandemic. If it hadn’t been for sports organizations around the world shutting their doors, he may not have even had time to consider a proposal like this one.
“The timing was fantastic on this,” Wheelock admitted. “And I don’t want to say it’s about the money, although they made me a very lucrative offer and that’s great. And for every gig I do, I’m considering money. That’s certainly a factor, it would be disingenuous to say otherwise. But, the timing was great too. Because typically I’m booking about 35-38 fight shows a year. For whatever reason, the planets aligned, and I just had an incredibly stacked run. I just did a show in Dublin, in Ireland. I did a Muay Thai show in Dublin the first week in March. Second week in March we had bare knuckle in Wichita, KS. That show got cancelled, that was the start of COVID—and really everything started to fall. The NBA had cancelled that week, then the NHL, then the NCAA started to fall on that.
“But, I think between the first week in March and the last week in August I had something like one week off. So, I don’t know that I would have had the time for this project. So, the timing worked out beautifully, the fact that they made me a very nice offer, they were very respectful, and they understood what I was and what I wasn’t willing to do. The way that I said I saw this seemed to be what they wanted. And I liked that a lot.”
As to what exactly his commentary gig entails—what kind of shows he’ll be working on, what kind of actors he’ll be performing alongside? The truth sounds as though the scope will be rather limited—considering the breadth of variety in the porno industry. Wheelock made it clear that he’ll be providing what’s essentially play-by-play and description for one-woman cam-shows only.
“It’s funny, I think this is being spun that I’m far cooler than I am in this gig,” Wheelock explained. “Somehow, being an MMA commentator, people have promoted me to black belt or that I’m a professional fighter. None of that’s true. I’m a really mediocre purple belt. Never a professional, or even an ammy fighter. Same thing on this. The reality is that I’m doing on one-woman webcam sessions. These aren’t private chats, these are one-woman webcam sessions. I know a lot of the media coverage has said that I’m doing descriptive commentary on pornographic films—that sounds like an awesome gig, but nobody asked me to do that.
“These are webcam sessions. It’s one woman. They’re about 8-10 minutes long. Again, I’m not narrating or doing guide commentary, or voicing over pornographic films or pornographic videos or anything like that,” he continued. “These are all women who are there of their own volition, they’re over 18, they’re professional sex workers, and that’s what they’re doing. And my gig, as it’s been explained to me and how I’ve seen it, is that I’m giving descriptive commentary. I’m essentially describing—and I’m not just talking about what’s happening with the woman. I’m trying to say what she’s wearing, I’m talking about the setting, the location. It kinda takes me back to when I was a radio commentator doing soccer, before I was a TV commentator. So, I’m being as descriptive as possible in that, while, again, never using profanity, never using vulgarities. I’m not being lewd, I’m not being lascivious, because those are just not lines I was going to cross. I’m really pleased that the ImLive people were, like, ‘Nope, that’s not what we want you to do.’”
Banner ad from ImLive’s ‘imlive4theblind’ web service, featuring Sean Wheelock.
The industry may not be one that Wheelock is passionate about keeping up with or one that bleeds over into any other part of his day-to-day life, however, Wheelock says that it may very well be a long term gig for his future. Especially considering that his wife is fully on board with it.
“Yeah, it’s very interesting, isn’t it? And again, I didn’t go looking for it, it came to me. And I get pitched pretty interesting things—this is one of the more interesting things that I’ve been pitched. But, I’ll tell you, we’ve already started talking about a long term arrangement,” Wheelock said when asked if this was just a short-term thing. “I don’t know that I would do this for other companies, because I think I’ve really found a home with ImLive. They get me and I get what they’re doing, and I’m really comfortable with the material and everything like that. And I think it’s an extremely respectful company, and I like the way that it’s modeled. And again, this is someone who, before the Joe Buck story, had never heard of this company.
“So we’re already talking on a long term deal. They’ve been very very generous on terms and financials and I’d love to keep it going with them. It’s something that I enjoy, it’s a challenge as a broadcaster. My wife, by the way, finds this hysterically funny. She’s from England, she just finds this endlessly funny. That was the one person I consulted with. I said, ‘What do you think, babe?’ She was like, ‘Yeah, why wouldn’t you? What are they paying you again? Yeah, of course. C’mon, what are you gonna do? No one else is gonna pay our mortgage.’”
The big thing for Wheelock is clearly that he wants to keep his work for the company very professional and straightforward. He spoke several times about the potential for a company like ImLive to bring in someone with a history of being more performative, comedic, or shocking in their work. Styles very unlike his own. After doing some test runs, he’s settled into what he hopes will deliver a radio broadcast-like experience.
“I see the humor in it on this,” Wheelock said, “but if people have downloaded—or if actual blind users have to it for what it’s intended for? You can see that I’m not goofing around. And you know me as a fight commentator, and I might say something pretty dry, but I’m not trying to have a laugh a minute. I’m calling what’s going on in a fight. And it’s the same philosophy on that.
“Early on when we were talking, I was talking with the vice president of ImLive – the one who recruited me – and I said, ‘Do you want this more like radio, or television?’ And he said, ‘I’m not sure.’ And I said, ‘Well, let me give you an example. When I was a soccer commentator – I worked for ESPN, I worked for FOX, I did the world cup in 2006, in Germany – I did about 80% television and about 20% radio.
“When I was a television commentator on soccer, I prided myself on saying fewer words than any other commentator in American soccer,” he explained. “When I was doing radio, I prided myself on saying more words than any other commentator in American soccer. So it’s two totally different disciplines. So, we did some demo videos, we did some tests. It took a while for me to figure out exactly where I wanted to be. And we kind of settled on a radio call. Because, again, that’s the target audience; these are sight-impaired people, these are blind people. So they need the description. They need to know the setting, they need to know the paint on the walls. As pedantic as that sounds, that’s the job.”
Eventually, Wheelock feels the important thing about his work with ImLive is his ability to show respect, especially to the performers. Ultimately, he says his clean cut, and reserved public image is likely a large part of what drew the company to him, and what he will continue to bring in his work in the future. Even if that work is a little more taboo than people might have expected.
“There are no bad tweets out there, there’s no incriminating texts, there are no photos,” Wheelock said of his public image. “No one has a story saying ‘Sean did this inappropriately,’ or ‘did this.’ Knock on wood, I’ve never been arrested. And I think maybe, and I’m speculating, maybe that’s some of the appeal to ImLive—is that this does seem like something that I probably wouldn’t do.
“Someone that’s more of a comedian or shock jock or someone with that persona maybe seems like a more obvious choice. But, the fact that you get a guy like me? And people can tell you – on the road – that I show up to the venue, I might have one Jack Daniels afterwards, and it’s usually with the referees, and then I’m going to my room. And then I’m up at 3 AM to take the first flight home to Kansas City. So, I think there’s probably something in that, is that I’m not the obvious choice for this. Just because of my public persona; that people who know me know that I’m a family man. I live a really, really quiet life.
Chael Sonnen has never been a man shy about skirting the rules. So it’s not terribly surprising that, amid the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, he’s been doing whatever he can to keep his Submission Underground competitive grappling events alive. The first card took place back in 2016, with Jake Shields defeating Chris Lytle in the main event. In the years since, his promotion has played host to BJJ notables like Gilbert Burns, Dillon Danis, Vinny Magalhaes, Gordon Ryan, and many others.
In a suddenly sports starved landscape, Sonnen finds himself providing one of the only remaining live competition events—both for fans looking for entertainment, and athletes looking to make a buck. All in the face of a medical crisis that has already resulted in the deaths of more than 35,000 people in the US alone. One that has medical professionals almost unanimously urging social distancing and self-isolation measures to prevent the further spread of the coronavirus.
And while the ‘American Gangster’ is still set on marching ahead, in a recent interview with Bloody Elbow, he acknowledged the dangers in doing so. As well as giving a little more insight into just why he feels it’s important to keep trying to find ways to stay in business. And what it would take to close the doors on his operation, if push came to shove.
“I’ll tell you what, as few as possible,” Sonnen said, when asked about ‘bringing people together’ in the midst of a pandemic. “But, at some point, yes those boys do put their hands on one another. I will share this with you, it was so challenging to try to—you’ve gotta understand, I’m a reactor, the same as you’re a reactor. Somebody else goes and decides, you gotta do what they decide. So, you’re taking all these opinions, but they kept changing.
“The very first thing that we had happen, in our state, was 250 people. That got cut to 100 people. That got cut to 50 people. We went from 50 to 10, and then it goes from 10 to 8. Oh my goodness, this is so hard. This is so challenging to get it all done. But they settled in on 8. I’ll tell you, you’ll think this is interesting: when they went to 8 – they’re gonna change it again – so we went to 4, on our own. We go, ‘Okay, let’s just go to 4.’
“So we literally had a show and there was nobody in the room aside from 4 people,” he continued. “Everybody else had to leave, even the athletes. The athletes, you know, they want to see the main event, they wanna watch Craig Jones. Nope. You have to leave. We literally put it in the contract. You get done with your match, you leave. Go watch it on Fight Pass. And they did it. The guys did it, the guys were cool. But, it was—man, it was hard.”
Over the course of the conversation, the longtime Team Quest athlete did admit, that if the government came knocking and asked him to shut down, he would. “I can talk as tough as I want about it, but if somebody came forward and said, ‘Hey, we don’t want you to do this.’ Okay, we’re not going to. We’re not going to push back.”
However, for the moment, much of what Sonnen has been hearing is praise—both for the product being aired, and for the measures he’s taken. Measures like allowing no more than 4 people in a room, and disinfecting all surfaces between matches. And in that climate, he sounds very headstrong about staying the course.
“Oh, no. No, we’re moving forward,” Sonnen said, firmly. “And it’s not really the way somebody would assume. For example, the chokeholds and the armbars, that’s really not what we’re doing here. What we’re doing here is a psychology. We’re proving a point: we never back down.
“We as a community, we’ve had to deal with discrimination, we’ve had to deal with sexism. I mean, right? Before Ronda Rousey came along, ‘Girls can’t come in this.’ We’ve had to deal with laws; we had to go hide out in places. I’m just saying, if you look at this thing as a whole—one thing is that we do not stop.
“That is one thing about this community, whatever the consequence, by the way. By the way, whatever the consequence—I don’t pretend for you that I know. But we will, on an ideal—it’s not about armlocks, it’s damn sure not about money, it’s not about championships. This is an ideal: we take on whatever challenge there is, and we go forward.”
Of course, within the climate of a pandemic, the potential consequence is that people will fall ill. Perhaps even die. Combat sports are always on the defensive about the potential dangers presented to their competitors, it’s a core part of the landscape. For his part, Sonnen is adamant that they’ve taken every precaution possible to make his events safer. But, he’s not going to avoid the fact that there’s risk involved. And if things really went wrong, well…
“You went a little deep on me there, I didn’t know you were going to ask that question, but that would not be good. Life would not be good for me. I would not be proud of myself. I can tell you that.” Sonnen admitted, when asked about the potential of facing a worst case scenario as a result of one of his events.
“And on all levels, really. Let’s say we get this damn COVID thing—the biggest coward ever, taking on women and children and won’t even show its face. Just a cowardly, cowardly thing. It’s a coward, it attacks you from the back, it’s not fair. But, I will share this with you, let’s take that out of it. When I put on mixed martial arts events, I’m aware that there’s contact. So, I’m aware of this. I’m not a prude about this. I’m also not proud of this. I know what it is. Even aside from the virus we gotta deal with, that’s a very real concern. I would never want to be a part of anything that hurt somebody.”
Unfortunately, realistically, the steps that don’t show any signs of being taken are testing and quarantine. Sonnen said that athletes fly in for his events the day before and leave the day after. Even if they may have been asked (or told) to self-isolate afterward, there’s not much way to make sure they follow through on those guidelines. And getting proper testing, sadly, is an issue all over the country—with supplies still limited, and labs seemingly hampered by the limited volume they can handle. But the problem of testing is one that the ESPN personality doesn’t necessarily see as being of primary importance.
“Now that’s a tough one too. I’ve heard a lot of people say that same thing,” Sonnen responded when asked about the importance of testing in allowing people to exit isolation measures. “I kinda scratch my head about it. Okay, what am I missing here? You want to test somebody for something that you openly admit you don’t have a cure for. What’s the point of the test? And then the test gets funny too, because somebody will go get tested and say, ‘Yeah, I don’t have it. I’m good.’ No, no, excuse me. You didn’t have it three days ago when you submitted the test. What’s that got to do with three seconds ago? Nobody has it until they have it. I’ve even seen politicians do that. ‘No I had a test, it’s all good. I guess I got lucky here.’ What’s that got to do with right now!?”
And while he does agree that it might be necessary to convince people who aren’t taking proper steps that they need to self isolate – and perhaps that he’s being a bit more cavalier than is sensible for those who are immunocompromised or find themselves in an age group especially susceptible to the worst effects of the virus – Sonnen also revealed that he and his family have already gone through their own bout with COVID-19.
“That’s one side of it. I come from a different side, because I had it,” Sonnen revealed. “My whole family had it. So, I come to you from a different side, which is: hey, once you get through those 14 days and you have an immunity for life? I mean, you can run and hide if you want. Or, you can go deal with it and get through those 14 days. You don’t really have a whole lot of other options.”
For the moment, Submission Underground 13 is set for April 26th. The event is set to feature a grappling battle between Craig Jones and Vinny Magalhaes. And unless something changes drastically in the next two weeks, it seems likely the event will go ahead as planned.
Leave it to Chael Sonnen to be one of the few combat sports promoters in the world still moving ahead with event plans in the midst of the current COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic. The former UFC title challenger and current ESPN talking head is also the man in charge of the Submission Underground competitive grappling events, the twelfth of which takes place this Sunday, March 29th in Portland, OR. The event is one of the few physical sporting competitions taking place in the US this week, as restrictions on gatherings and recommendations of social distancing remain in place.
In a recent interview with MMA Fighting, Sonnen spoke about the difficulty of putting on an event under these conditions. And why, despite feeling that fan and media concerns about holding these kinds of competitions right now are valid, he’s still moving ahead with his plans.
“I think it’s very fair,” Sonnen responded when asked about criticisms over holding events that both he and Dana White have received. “I mean, we’ve gone out of our way, we’ve brought in medical personnel, we’ve brought in experts. We will have everybody quarantined, we will follow every single rule that there is, no matter how many times that rule changes between now and then. I think it’s very fair that people are concerned. I think they should respect what’s going on.
“I personally don’t prescribe to ‘everything stops in its tracks,’ and it does appear that those are your only two choices right now, right? You’ve got a green light and you got a red light. Look, there’s ways to do things that are safe. There’s ways to do things where you’re listening to the experts and you’re in full compliance. If you can pull that off and move forward? I mean, people need to make a living. People need to have a job, have something to do, have their goals, and move forward. I’m not going to stop them, but I’m not going to overly look away, man. We’re dealing with something serious.”
When asked more particularly about Dana White’s recent tirades against media who have questioned his plans to hold UFC events in the near future – as well as the UFC’s recent, and ultimately unsuccessful, attempts to prevent any events from being cancelled at all – Sonnen gave a strong defense of the UFC president. Noting that while many people may be publicly lambasting him for his apparent lack of caution, he’s also getting a lot of private support and concern from fighters who depend on fight cards to continue making a living.
“You know, look, I—it seems that Dana can never win,” Sonnen explained. “I mean, nobody ever wants to give him any credit. All he’s trying to do is what he said he will do. He’s got everybody calling him quietly. People come out publicly and they want to challenge him, privately they want to call him and say, ‘Man, do I got a job? Do I have something to do? I’ve got a family, how do I plan my year?’ The only way he knows how to answer that question with a ‘yes’ is by doing business.
“That’s what he is, is a businessman. So he goes out and does what he’s supposed to do, that benefits all sorts of people that count on him—but they all do that private. Then publicly, they want to come out like they’re a bigger expert than he is. Man, nobody’s pretending to be an expert, they’re just pretending that they move life forward! What’s wrong with that message, how can that possibly be a bad message!”
Currently, White is adamant in his plan that UFC 249 will go forward on April 18th, headlined by a lightweight bout between Tony Ferguson and champion Khabib Nurmagomedov. That fight card had been scheduled to take place in Brooklyn, NY. However, state ordered restrictions on sporting events and gatherings have left the promotion scrambling for a new event space. Just where, or even if, the event will land still remains up in the air.
The costs of a combat sports career are continuous, and run on long after an athlete’s time in the sport is finished. The hours spent training, the days and weeks away from family, to say nothing of the pain and injury suffered trading blows both in and out of the cage. The hope, of course, is that by the time it’s all said and done a fighter will have made enough money to make the burdens all worthwhile, especially those that may never go away.
The threat of long-term brain damage has lingered over professional boxers for decades and decades. But, in modern MMA’s short history, the potential for CTE and other neurological conditions are only starting to reveal themselves. Fighters like Gary Goodridge, Ian McCall, and Jordan Parsons – who was diagnosed after his death in 2016 – have all lent credence to the idea that MMA is likely no safer than any other contact sport.
The most recent fighter to speak up about his own struggles with degenerative mental health is former Strikeforce light heavyweight champion and UFC title contender Renato ‘Babalu’ Sobral. Sobral retired from MMA in 2013, with a 37-12 record stretching all the way back to 1997 and the Brazilian Vale Tudo tournament circuit. He competed for Rings, the UFC, Jungle Fight, Affliction, Strikeforce, and One Championship among others—before ending his career with back to back TKO losses in Bellator.
”What happened to me was something that came in homeopathic doses,” Sobral said in an interview with Portal do Vale Tudo (transcript via MMA Fighting). “Today a fighter learns how to fight, he learns how to make money, but he doesn’t learn too much about how to manage his life. I didn’t learn how to manage my life. I made several mistakes about money, about what I could have done with my career. I paid a price for being where I am.
”Today I can’t walk a straight line, I lost sight of my left eye, which is a big price (to pay). I have no balance today, my balance is almost zero. When I’m fighting, when I’m in a jiu-jitsu tournament or in training, it feels that my balance is normal again, but it’s complicated on a daily basis. But the guys that start fighting have to know that the price to pay will come one day. For everyone. People only talk about the good things today, what they have accomplished, what happened, but what about what you’ve lost? What happened to you?”
Sobral admitted that at this point, he wouldn’t want his children to compete in MMA. He also added that – while it’s still only possible to diagnose after a person has passed away – he feels relatively certain that he’s suffering from CTE.
“You start doing things you are not prepared to do, but you have to go,” Sobral said. “You have to fight in pain, fight while injured. You get knocked out in the gym, and you’re still fighting the week after. You have to fight. You can’t say, ‘I won’t fight’. It’s one blow after the other. And I’m [paying the price] now, right? I don’t know if I’ll be able to see my grandkids, enjoy my grandkids in a normal way, because I’m starting to slowly feel the effects.”
“I already have [chronic] traumatic encephalopathy, actually. People barely talk about it,” he continued. “You can do a research, [professional fighters] have peaks of depression, we have seizures, you don’t listen that well. I don’t have speaking issues yet, but I lost the eye sight of my left eye, I have osteoarthritis on my entire body. My knee. I have 13 surgeries through my entire body. So, there’s a price (to pay). It’s not in there for free. I don’t even think it’s about glory, because it’s not for enough time.”
It’s a sobering reality that many athletes who participate not just in combat sports, but in just about every full-contact sport for years on end eventually have to face. That the pursuit of glory may come with higher costs than it ever will rewards.
ONE Championship’s ‘A New Era’ show delivered the goods. A card headlined by a four-piece of title fights was nonetheless most notable for two fighters making their debuts on the undercard — in the quarter-final rounds of the promotion’s lightweight and flyweight tournaments. Former UFC champions Eddie Alvarez and Demetrious Johnson hit the ONE cage for the first time in the Singapore-based promotion’s first ever event in Japan.
Both men were expected to make large impacts at their new home, as elite competitors coming to the UFC in the late-prime of their careers. While both Alvarez and DJ left the Octagon on a loss, in Johnson’s case it was a controversial split decision to current champ Henry Cejudo — cutting off ‘Mighty Mouse’’s record setting streak of title defenses. Alvarez’s recent career had been much more rocky, but it included a remarkable KO over Justin Gaethje and a long-held spot in the UFC’s top 5 at lightweight — as well as being only two-ish years removed from Alvarez’s championship reign.
For his part, DJ lived up to those expectations, finishing Yuya Wakamatsu with a guillotine in the second round of their contest.
“First round was a little rough,” Johnson admitted in a post-fight interview with MMA Fighting, “but we got our wits about us and picked up the pressure. And that was the gameplan; Yuya Wakamatsu, he likes to have his opponents… He likes to be able to sit there and throw the right hand, left hook, left hook, right hand. We knew we had to put the pressure on him. I knew if I did that, I would run into a little bit of trouble. Because I’m engaging, I’m not trying to draw him out. Great first fight. I’m happy that I got the victory. I got the finish, that’s most important — that I’m out there finishing, not going to a decision. And I’m happy and ready for the next round.”
Johnson also described the adjustments he had to make to his game, fighting far from home, and just his second time ever outside North America. Along with the time change, ONE’s grounded knees rule, and taking on an opponent in their own back yard, the former UFC flyweight king put a lot of emphasis on how much bigger the opposition is with ONE’s adjusted weight division system.
“Everything is different,” Johnson explained. “Weight cut is different. Now I’m not fighting guys who are 5’3”/5’4”. I’m fighting guys who are 5’5”/5’7. I’m back to being the smallest guy in the division height-wise, but weight-wise we’re all the same.”
“I can’t make 125 hydrated,” he continued, “and I won’t go through the lifestyle changes to do that. I’m at that point in my career now where I’m focused on: just keep training, get strong. I mean, this morning I woke up weighing 136.4 [lbs]. That’s what I like about the hydrated weight cut, because I weighed in at 135 [lbs] two days in a row. And to turn back around on competition day, your body won’t do very well holding all that weight, because you kept your weight down that long. So, I’m just going to go home, lift weights, put some more muscle on me. But, at the same time, it’s going to have to come back off.”
However, if Johnson’s first bout post-UFC went more-or-less as planned, Eddie Alvarez’s did not. The ‘Underground King’ suffered one of the most lopsided losses of his career. Getting knocked out in the first round – for the first time in 37 fights – by Russian former featherweight Timofey Nastyukhin.
“This is the biggest thing that… it irritates me, a little bit,” Johnson said when asked about Alvarez’s surprising loss. “It doesn’t matter what organization you fight for. The light heavyweight champion, Jon Jones, could come over here and fight Aung La Nsang, and Aung La Nsang would probably give him a run for his money. Or potentially beat him. Who else? What’s another champion? Khabib Nurmagomedov, he might be able to come over here, and he might blow through everybody. But, he might have some tough matches. And the list just goes on and on and on.
“It doesn’t matter if you fight for ONE, UFC, Bellator, DEEP, RIZIN, whatever,” Johnson added. “Every athlete can lose on any given day. And that’s a problem with the causal fans – or even the hardcore fans – they think that just because you fight for the biggest organization in the world means that you’re absolutely the best fighter in the world. That’s a problem of the sport, right? It’s like, if you play for the NFL, you’re better than Arena Football League or Canada Football League. Nah, I’m pretty sure if you play a team, you might get beat that day. Even though you’re better, you might get beat.
“I think that fight between Timofey Nastyukhin and Eddie Alvarez was a great fight. Timofey is very good. That’s the first time I’ve ever seen him fight. Then I saw some of his highlights, and I was like, ‘Oh man! This is gonna be a good fight.’ Because I know Eddie, he likes to stand and bang. And Timofey will do the same thing. And, once again, Eddie’s fighting bigger dudes. Somebody was like, ‘Damn, Timofey is huge!’ Which, I’m sure Eddie is used to fighting guys who were 5’8”/5’9 – I don’t know how big he was – but Eddie will bounce back. He’ll go home, re-figure things out, and see where he goes from there.”
As for Johnson, he teased briefly that he knew when his next fight would happen, but couldn’t yet officially announce it. The AMC Pankration talent should be set to face off against the winner of Tatsumitsu Wada vs. Gustavo Balart, after their quarter-final bout on April 12th at ONE Championship: Roots of Honor in the Philippines. After that fight is in the books, hopefully fans will be able to expect Johnson back in the cage again soon.
When Ryan Bader hit the UFC back in 2008, he was a hot prospect. Fresh off the Ultimate Fighter with a ‘six figure’ contract – back when both of those statuses felt like they really meant something – he rolled out to a 12-0 unbeaten record, with five straight victories to start his run in the Octagon.
Then Bader hit a rough patch. Back-to-back losses to Jon Jones and Tito Ortiz didn’t begin any kind of real slide in the Power MMA fighter’s career — he still won eight of next eleven fights. But, they did seem to put ‘Darth’ on track to be forever a bridesmaid in the UFC’s light heavyweight division.
Fast forward several years and Bader is no longer in the UFC, but instead fighting under the Bellator banner, after completing his Zuffa contract on two KO wins. And unlike his time in the Octagon, his career with the Paramount Network promotion has been an unmitigated success.
On January 26th, in the headliner of Bellator 214, Bader captured the promotion’s grand prix and vacant heavyweight titles with a win over the legendary Fedor Emelianenko — adding to the light heavyweight belt he collected off Phil Davis back in 2017. That makes him a champion three times over under the bright lights of the UFC’s largest rival. As for what’s driven that success, Bader credits a lot of it to finally getting the hang of striking, somewhere around the time of his Rashad Evans fight in 2015 (transcript via MMA Fighting).
“That’s a hard punch right there,” Bader said of the left hook that dropped Fedor for the quick finish. “He went down — and I saw that over and over again already. So, it just kinda played out how we saw it.”
“In my past, I’ve always had the physical abilities,” he added. “They were always there, but sometimes the mental side of it — I was younger coming in as a wrestler, didn’t know what the hell I was doing on my feet. I literally didn’t know what I was doing on my feet until was I fighting Rashad [Evans in 2015], and I got a jab and was like, ‘Oh, it’s so much nicer being able to not freak out.’ So, the people around me, the coaches and people I have around me right now, we’re just in a good groove, we mesh really well, and it’s fun for me.
“I made a promise after my last loss to go out there and have fun, to not worry about the result of everything and hype it up and whatnot, and ever since then it’s been a great run.”
The now ‘champ-champ-champ’ is 7-1 since that win over Evans, with his only loss coming against Anthony ‘Rumble’ Johnson in the fight immediately following. He’s teased the idea of possibly facing Daniel Cormier in a cross-promotional superfight, but that seems like more of a pipe dream than a realistic opportunity.
More likely, Bader could be looking at a bout with former champion Vitaly Minakov, who faces Cheick Kongo at Bellator 216 on February 16th. The bout marks the first time the Russian has fought in North America since leaving Bellator back in 2014 with the title.
Bellator’s Scott Coker made it a point to personally contact California State Athletic Commission executive Andy Foster, following the CSAC’s decision to license Jon Jones for UFC 232. The once-again light heavyweight champion was cleared to compete on just a week’s notice by the commission, after a series of USADA drug tests turned up trace amounts of Turinabol metabolites — which had caused the Nevada Athletic Commission to block his participation in the fight card’s original Las Vegas location.
It’s a decision that’s come under a lot of scrutiny in the time since. Initially, only one of the ‘pulsing’ incidents was reported by the UFC to Foster and the rest of the CSAC. It later turned out that Jones’ samples had been turning up M3 metabolites for months (and apparently continue to do so). Still, Jones went on to face Alexander Gustafsson on December 29th, defeating him via 3rd round TKO. It’s a situation that has Coker disappointed in the sanctioning body — as he revealed in a recent media scrum, ahead of this weekend’s Bellator 214 event in Los Angeles, CA.
“I called Andy Foster, it was a private conversation. I’d like to leave it at that. But, just from a company standpoint I think it’s very disappointing,” Coker said. “You know, you go out there and put your reputation on the line for health and safety and all the weight-cutting the weight cutting things that we have always supported with the commission. And we will continue to support the commission. But listen, if a fighter has PEDs in him, he’s got PEDs in him. That’s how I feel. To be the judge, jury and executioner, now, it’s a little bit challenging for me to accept — but, it is what it is.
“And I always said we’re going to go by commission rules, and we will continue. But, I don’t think that it was the right call. And that was his call to make. And really, in the commission — for 32 years I’ve been with the California State Commission — I think this is one of the few times that I’ve ever said, ‘Hey, this is not right.’ And, you know what? We’ll see what happens with that.”
Following his fighter’s loss to Jones, Gustafsson’s manager – Nima Safapour – released a statement essentially accusing the commission, USADA, and the UFC of granting ‘Bones’ a “use exemption on a strict liability violation,” adding that the “science is not certain on the defense he as taken,” and that Jones is “creating a precedent that will go beyond his personal interests.” One that could see other fighters try to use Jones’ case to clear themselves from punishment for future drug test results.
Coker’s stance is interesting chiefly because Bellator has never pursued any sort of comprehensive out-of-competition drug testing program for any real duration. Fighters like Chael Sonnen and Wanderlei Silva have undergone more testing than state athletic commissions require for bouts in the promotion, but beyond those rare instances, they tend to stick with the fairly minimal pre & post-fight samples taken by the local ACs. It may be worth wondering if, under that lower level of scrutiny, Jones would have been flagged at all.
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