This must happen: Matt Mitrione and Urijah Faber want to race

This must happen: Matt Mitrione and Urijah Faber want to race

Matt Mitrione is an insanely talented athlete. He played in the NFL, and then made a seamless transition into MMA. Going into his bout this weekend with Cheick Kongo, he is undefeated, and every one of his bouts have been in the UFC. But is he athletic enough to beat a bantamweight in a foot race?

When trying to figure out what position in sports is the most athletic, Mitrione tweeted that he would challenge every UFC belt holder to a forty-yard dash, with nothing but pride on the line. Urijah Faber, the one-time UFC featherweight champ, jumped in and challenged every UFC heavyweight to a timed mile. Mitrione said he would take the challenge.

This must happen: Matt Mitrione and Urijah Faber want to race

Oh, please can this happen? Between the trash talk and the idea of Mitrione and Faber competing in anything, this is about as fun as it gets. Is there anyone who wouldn't want to see a heavyweight and a bantamweight in a foot race? If you raised your hand, you clearly don't like fun.

Source: http://sports.yahoo.com/mma/blog/cagewriter/post/This-must-happen-Matt-Mitrione-and-Urijah-Faber?urn=mma-wp8598

Dean Amasinger  Jimmy Ambriz Matt Andersen  Alex Andrade  Jermaine Andrè 

Nick is angry video I: Diaz complains of not having the money for a good training camp

An hour removed from the biggest win of his career over B.J. Penn, Nick Diaz should've been jubilant, but he's not wired that way. Diaz entered the UFC 137 postfight press conference looking annoyed and got more agitated.

Over the next 35 minutes, he complained about anything and everything. First and foremost was the money he's making. Watch Diaz make the claim here that he doesn't get paid enough to take care of his training partners (2:12 mark). Diaz brought up boxing's pay scale several times.

Eventually, Dana White couldn't take anymore and snapped back. That's when Diaz's manager Cesar Gracie hopped in (8:28 mark).

Diaz reportedly made $200,000 to show last night and earned another $75,000 for Fight of the Night. He made $175,000 for his win over Paul Daley in April. For his victory over Evangelista Santos, Diaz was paid $150,000. He got $50,000 for that fight before that against KJ Noons.

Where has all this money gone? Or do you agree with Diaz that he's getting screwed?

Source: http://sports.yahoo.com/mma/blog/cagewriter/post/Nick-is-angry-video-I-Diaz-complains-of-not-hav?urn=mma-wp8804

Matt Andersen  Alex Andrade  Jermaine Andrè  Yoji Anjo  Tank Abbott

Smashing pumpkins: Show us your MMA carved pumpkins

Artist Ray Villafane created a pumpkin that reminds me of MMA's best punch-faces.

Smashing pumpkins: Show us your MMA carved pumpkins

That is an impressive work of art, particularly the flying pumpkin teeth. Could you do any better?

Here's the challenge. Create an MMA-inspired pumpkin and post it on the Cagewriter Facebook page. It can be a fighter, a fight, a logo, whatever. It just needs to be obviously related to mixed martial arts and made from a pumpkin, and not obscene, vulgar or otherwise inappropriate. We will award the best ones DVDs, fight programs and whatever else we can pull from the Cagewriter prize closet.

Read on to see some inspiration from recent fights via photographer Tracy Lee, or look through a collection of Cagewriter's exclusive pictures.

Smashing pumpkins: Show us your MMA carved pumpkins

Nam Phan and Leonard Garcia at UFC 136

Smashing pumpkins: Show us your MMA carved pumpkins

Gray Maynard and Frankie Edgar at UFC 136

Smashing pumpkins: Show us your MMA carved pumpkins

Chris Lytle and Dan Hardy at UFC on Versus 5.

Source: http://sports.yahoo.com/mma/blog/cagewriter/post/Smashing-pumpkins-Show-us-your-MMA-carved-pumpk?urn=mma-wp8429

Jimmy Ambriz Matt Andersen  Alex Andrade  Jermaine Andrè  Yoji Anjo 

Back for More: Donald Cerrone-Nate Diaz Planned for UFC 141

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LAS VEGAS - Someone must have told Donald Cerrone when Chris Lytle retired, the UFC had a job opening for its Bonus King position.

The "Cowboy" will go after his fourth bonus of 2011 and will tie the UFC's record for most fights in one calendar year when he meets Nate Diaz at UFC 141. The UFC on Monday afternoon confirmed the lightweight scrap will serve as the co-main event.

UFC 141 will take place at the MGM Grand Garden Arena on Dec. 30, a rare Friday pay-per-view for the UFC to avoid going head-to-head with the New Year's Eve holiday the following day. Scheduled to headline the card is a heavyweight contenders fight between former UFC champ Brock Lesnar and recent signee Alistair Overeem, the former Strikeforce heavyweight champion who was released from that promotion earlier this year only to sign with the UFC.

Cerrone on Saturday won his sixth straight fight and fourth in the UFC since merging over from the WEC when he submitted Dennis Siver in the first round at UFC 137. Of his four UFC fights so far in 2011, Cerrone has three post-fight bonus awards - one each for Fight of the Night, Knockout of the Night and Submission of the Night, which came against Siver.

Diaz snapped a two-fight losing skid last month when he submitted Takanori Gomi in the first round at UFC 135, winning Submission of the Night. That came after back-to-back decision losses to Dong Hyun Kim at UFC 125 and Rory MacDonald at UFC 129. Diaz has been nearly as active as Cerrone - he will fight for the fourth time this year.

Cerrone's bonus money in 2011 totals $215,000. His show and win purse totals out to $174,000 this year. A win and another bonus against Diaz would put him over the half-million mark for the year - not bad for a fighter who last year at this time was winning $10,000 bonuses in the WEC. Diaz has won seven bonuses in his last 11 fights.

The UFC record for non-tournament fights in one calendar is five, currently shared by Roger Huerta in 2007, plus Chris Leben and Nate Diaz's brother Nick, both in 2006. Assuming no delays in Cerrone's fight with Nate Diaz in December, he'll join that small group.

After UFC 137 on Saturday, Cerrone said he wanted to get back in the cage as soon as possible, and even mentioned he'd love to be on the UFC's December card.

"I want to keep fighting," Cerrone said at the post-fight press conference. "I don't want to sit and wait.

Cerrone even mentioned earlier in Fight Week that he was considering a move down to featherweight to fight Nam Phan, whom he believes disrespected his friend and teammate Leonard Garcia following his rematch win over him earlier this month. But that will get put on hold to stay at lightweight to fight Diaz.

 

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Source: http://mmafighting.com/2011/10/31/back-for-more-donald-cerrone-nate-diaz-targeted-for-ufc-141/

Yoji Anjo  Tank Abbott Hiroyuki Abe Cyril Abidi  Daniel Acacio

UFC Twitter Bonus Winners Announced; Brazilians Dominate

The UFC has released its Twitter bonus winners for the quarter ending on Sept. 1.

If you recall, the organization announced in May that, starting June 1, UFC and Strikeforce fighters were divided into four categories, based on how many Twitter followers they currently had. At the end the quarter, three fighters from each category were awarded a $5,000 bonus. The winners were be based on who had gained the most followers since the start of the quarter, who gained the highest percentage of new followers and who wrote the most creative tweets.

Below are the winners for the first quarter. If you needed another indication of the rapid growth of the UFC in Brazil, here's one more:

Most followers:
Anderson Silva
Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira
Demian Maia
Cristiane "Cyborg" Santos

Highest percentage of growth in followers:
Anderson Silva
Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira
Demian Maia
Paulo Thiago

Most creative:
Forrest Griffin
Joe Lauzon
Ben Henderson
Joseph Benavidez

 

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Source: http://mmafighting.com/2011/11/01/ufc-twitter-bonus-winners-announced/

Tank Abbott Hiroyuki Abe Cyril Abidi  Daniel Acacio Bernard Ackah 

Hioki less than stellar in UFC debut win over Roop, Jorgensen gets by Curran too at UFC 137

Hioki less than stellar in UFC debut win over Roop, Jorgensen gets by Curran too at UFC 137

LAS VEGAS - Hatsu Hioki was fighting for more than just himself tonight at UFC 137. He was dealing with the pressure of having Japanese MMA's reputation to protect. It wasn't a great performance, but Hioki did enough to take a split decision win, 29-28, 28-29 and 29-28, over UFC veteran George Roop.

Hioki, ranked by some as high as No. 2 in the world at 145 pounds, was trying to snap a real dry spell from the top fighters from Japan, who have struggled in the U.S. recently.

Following the narrow victory, Hioki told UFC analyst Joe Rogan and the crowd, "Japanese MMA is not dead. It's time to change things."

[Related: UFC 137: Penn, 'Cro Cop' set to retire after losses]

The 28-year-old entered this one as a minus-450 favorite. He looked composed, but not explosive. His best round was the second when he scored a takedown with 3:27 left.

Hioki less than stellar in UFC debut win over Roop, Jorgensen gets by Curran too at UFC 137

Hioki quickly converted it to the mount. But once in the mount, he looked like he had trouble picking an attack. That, and Roop did a nice job of staying active from the bottom.

"I wasn't surprised that he took me down, but I was surprised by how long he was able to keep me down. I spent so much time trying to not get caught in his submissions, that I couldn't focus on the escapes," Roop said. "I'll have to go back and check the tapes to see if I agree with the scores or not, but I know the entire fight was extremely close."

Roop (12-8-1, 2-3 UFC) clearly took the third round. He was the fresher fighter and scored a late takedown.

For now, Hioki's victory halts that terrible trend from the elite Japanese fighters in the UFC.

Earlier this week, Yahoo! Sports' lead MMA writer Kevin Iole pointed out that the best of the best (Yoshihiro Akiyama, Michihiro Omigawa, Kid Yamamoto, Takeyu Mizugaki and Takanori Gomi) from Japan had posted a win percentage around 85 percent outside the UFC only to see it drop to 35.8 percent in the promotion.

It's only one fight, and often times fighters deal with UFC jitters in their first trip to the Octagon. Hioki (25-4) should be a factor in the promotion's featherweight division.

Hioki less than stellar in UFC debut win over Roop, Jorgensen gets by Curran too at UFC 137

Jorgenson's takedowns the difference in close fight against Curran

Jeff Curran is one the old dogs of mixed martial arts and showed tonight he can still be a factor at the highest levels. He gave Scott Jorgenson, a top seven fighter at bantamweight in the UFC, a run for his money but lost via unanimous decision, 30-27, 29-28 and 29-28.

Curran (33-14, 0-2 UFC) last fought in the UFC way back in 2004 and that was at 155 pounds against Matt Serra.

"I felt very comfortable in guard throughout the whole fight, but I just ran out of time to implement my game plan," Curran said. "I really felt like he was just trying to survive and just hanging on to me. I tried a few takedowns to score some points late in the fight, but it just didn't happen that way."

Jorgenson (13-4, 2-0 UFC) was simply the better wrestler tonight. The former Boise State wrestler scored six takedowns in all. He didn't do much damage from the top, but controlled the fight enough to win over the judges.

"I'm happy to be back on a winning streak. I wasn't as explosive or exciting as usual but I fought the fight I wanted to. I trained hard and got better," Jorgenson said. "This is the first time I had a Jiu-Jitsu coach. I worked on technique and it showed out there."

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Source: http://sports.yahoo.com/mma/blog/cagewriter/post/Hioki-less-than-stellar-in-UFC-debut-win-over-Ro?urn=mma-wp8727

Matt Andersen  Alex Andrade  Jermaine Andrè  Yoji Anjo  Tank Abbott