Tag: Luke Rockhold

Luke Rockhold cut early in Polaris 12 headliner, loses decision to Nick Rodriguez

With his UFC career on hiatus, Luke Rockhold turned his attention to the grappling world, though he came up short against a young phenom.

With his UFC career on a brief hiatus, [autotag]Luke Rockhold[/autotag] turned his attention to the grappling world, though he came up short against young phenom [autotag]Nick Rodriguez[/autotag].

The 104.3-kilogram (230-pound) no-gi catchweight contest served as the 15-minute featured bout of Saturday’s Polaris 12 event, which streamed live on UFC Fight Pass from International Convention Centre Wales in Newport, Wales.

The physical power of both men was on display early, with collar ties and snapdown attempts dominating the opening sequences, but several restarts were needed as they stepped out of the competition area. The cost of the clinches was apparent early, with Rockhold suffering a cut over his right eye after a clash of heads.

With cuts not exactly a common occurrence in grappling competitions, it took a moment before Polaris officials were available to address the wound, but Rockhold made it clear he didn’t want the bout stopped.

“Somebody bring me some (expletive) Vaseline!” Rockhold yelled.

On the restart, Rockhold clearly offered up his leg, trying to bait Rodriguez into a shooting forward on a takedown, but his opponent declined to oblige. As the match wore on, Rockhold began to drop his hands and actually lift his leg in the air, begging Rodriguez to take it.

With a little less than 10 minutes remaining, the bout was stopped for a second time to address Rockhold’s cut, but the action continued. On the restart, Rodriguez changed his strategy, opening from a low level and finally shooting forward, earning a takedown and slipping to the back. Rockhold was able to get his back to the floor, but that allowed Rodriguez to set up in mount, where he briefly looked for an Ezekiel choke before looking for other options.

Rockhold eventually was able to frame and bridge, throwing Rodriguez off and creating space to return to the feet. As they restarted, Rockhold’s frustration was evident as he leered intensely at his opponent.

Rockhold continued to look to press in from collar ties as the minutes wound off the clock, but Rodriguez’s power made that impossible. Rockhold tried to shoot inside late in the contest, but those weren’t there either. The final minute was a wild scene, with Rockhold nearly thrown into a commentary table, but he could never quite get any offense going, and the 23-year-old Rodriguez, a Renzo Gracie purple belt who recently won a silver medal at the 2019 Abu Dhabi Combat Club Submission Wrestling World Championship, was awarded a unanimous decision.

Afterward, former UFC and Strikeforce middleweight champ Rockhold praised Rodriguez for doing his homework and sticking to a disciplined gameplan before saying he enjoyed the experience.

“Honestly, it’s just fun for me,” Rockhold said. “Obviously, competition is a part of my life, and this kind of lightens it up, takes me away from all the political (expletive) that you deal with in the UFC. There’s a lot ,ore to it. This is just fun, and it keeps that goal-orientated mindset.”

Rockhold also said he’d be open to a return to the Polaris mat but wouldn’t commit to it right away.

“We’ll go back, assess, and see what I want to do,” Rockhold said. “But (first) a little time off.”

Fight footage courtesy of UFC Fight Pass, the UFC’s official digital subscription service, which is currently offering a seven-day free trial. UFC Fight Pass gives fans access to exclusive live UFC events and fights, exclusive live MMA and combat sports events from around the world, exclusive original and behind the scenes content and unprecedented 24-7 access to the world’s biggest fight library.

Luke Rockhold believes he can physically match Nick Rodriguez at Polaris 12

Luke Rockhold talks his grappling match against Nick Rodriguez at Polaris 12 and his thoughts on the jiu-jitsu world today.

[autotag]Luke Rockhold[/autotag] will look to take his strong grappling skills to the jiu-jitsu world.

Rockhold faces ADCC silver medalist Nick Rodriguez in the main event of Polaris 12 on Saturday and thinks that physically, he’ll be able to match Rodriguez in the grappling department.

“He seems to bully guys around with his wrestling and his decent high-school wrestling, which doesn’t mean too much when it comes down to when you wrestle with the big boys,” Rockhold said in a recent interview with Submission Radio. “I mean, he’s a good wrestler for jiu-jitsu. I think he’ll find that I’ll be able to push him there. I’ll be able to get takedowns if I need them. And then when it comes to the grappling, you know, I’m a physical guy, and a lot of these jiu-jitsu guys aren’t physical. And I can match them in so many ways there. So I’m gonna match him.”

Rockhold also expressed his frustration toward the sport of jiu-jitsu, and the single-minded approach that most practitioners have in giving up advantageous positions to go for a single attack.

But he thinks his Rodriguez will actually go head to head with him.

“He’s not one of those stupid leg lock guys that just kind of pull guard and butt scoot,” Rockhold said. “This whole modern-day jiu-jitsu thing kind of pisses me off. It’s pretty stupid in the sport of jiu-jitsu, where the guys are all leg lock based and they just compromise themselves trying to get these foot locks. So, it’s nice to have a guy that’s gonna go toe to toe at least.”

“Jiu-jitsu, it’s a weird thing these days. I don’t know. (There’s) not a lot of rules. All these guys, these foot lock … I don’t know. I can fare well. If I dedicate myself and really do this thing like I really want to, Nick Rodriguez shouldn’t be a problem, and neither should a lot of these guys.”

Rockhold, who’s often used his grappling in MMA to win fights, is confident that he has the base and preparation to do well in the grappling world. After all, he did win the UFC middleweight title by showcasing his grappling when he rained down punches on Chris Weidman in full mount to get a TKO win.

And he’s been rolling with some of the best guys in the world on the mat in preparation for Saturday, when a win over such a credentialed grappler and jiu-jitsu practitioner in Rodriguez would certainly be a feather in his cap.

“I’ve rolled with Craig (Jones), I’ve rolled with Gordon (Ryan), I go with Marcus Buchecha all the time,” Rockhold said. “I’m very capable of doing what I need to do. But I’m just gonna have fun. I’m gonna take it one at a time. I’m gonna go out there and try to put this dude away, put him to sleep. And then, I think beating a guy that took second at Abu Dhabi at heavyweight, I think it should say something. So yeah, I’m OK.”

Luke Rockhold opens up on MMA future: ‘I don’t have the passion I once had’

“Anything can happen,” but there’s a good chance we’ve seen the last of Luke Rockhold inside the cage.

Last month, [autotag]Luke Rockhold[/autotag] stated that he has no interest in fighting, and he apparently still feels the same way.

Rockhold’s statement was brief, but now the former UFC middleweight champion has opened up about his most recent knockout loss to Jan Blachowicz at UFC 239 and his fighting future.

“You know, it was just – it’s not exactly what it used to be for me,” Rockhold said in an interview with Submission Radio. “I feel like I rushed. I rushed things, I wasn’t as relaxed. I tried to force an issue, an easier way out of the fight, which I thought would be a lot easier, then I got caught up in that style, and I paid for it. So, I believe, obviously if I fought a different fight, it might be a different story.

“I just – I don’t have the passion I once had. There’s a lot of other things that go into fighting, politically and everything else that goes behind it. So, I don’t know. It’s not the same as it used to be. I don’t have the hunger and the passion that I used to have for fighting at this time, so I’m gonna take a break. Take a long break.”

Rockhold (16-5 MMA, 6-4 UFC) will make a return to combat sports later this month, but it’s not fighting. He is expected to take part in a grappling match vs. Nick Rodriguez at Polaris 12 on Nov. 30, but insists it’s not a step towards returning to the octagon.

“I mean, this is just kind of fun for me. This little Polaris thing just happened to pop up, they kept asking about it, and it’s fun,” Rockhold said. “It’s an opportunity to go out and kind of keep myself goal-oriented. I’m gonna go train, but not take it crazy seriously. It’s jiu-jitsu. So, it’s not a fight. It’s not a fight. This is not like my comeback. This is jiu-jitsu. And everyone wants to call jiu-jitsu fighting, but it’s not fighting. It’s definitely not fighting.”

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If this is it for Rockhold, who was able to capture both the Strikeforce and UFC middleweight titles, he is happy with what he has achieved in MMA. He admits it’s been hard to reignite that fire, considering that he’s reached the pinnacle in both organizations.

“It’s been going on for a while, I’d say,” Rockhold said on losing his passion for fighting. “But I think once you reach the top, once you reach your goal, and that’s in fighting especially, it’s like there’s a sense of relief. And coming down off that and trying to find the hunger and the passion to keep pursuing this lifestyle, which is fighting, it’s tough.

“I don’t know. I’ve been fighting for a long time. I was at the top of the chain with Strikeforce, but there was still that itch, the what if, all the questions that everyone had. So, to go out there and prove myself in the UFC, to obviously take a hard loss from Vitor (Belfort) and climb back up and take it, it’s a different mindset preceding and following that, and I don’t know. I just – I’d say after that, at that point it was a little different, everything was a little different.”

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Rockhold, 35, did try to regain that motivation by moving up to 205 pounds, but was quickly shut down by Blachowicz. It was his third stoppage loss in four fights. The move up to light heavyweight was to prevent the depletion of his body, making that cut down to middleweight. But Rockhold admits that the gap between weight classes is a little too large.

And while he’s not completely ruling out a return to fighting, it’s all about finding the right motivation.

“Anything could happen,” Rockhold said. “It’s like, you can’t fight for the rest of your life. If things change in my mind, and I feel like I wanna pursue, if my body can take – there’s a weight problem with both weight classes being caught in between weight classes and where you wanna go, where you feel the best. So, I’m not gonna do it just to go do it. It’s, if I felt good enough to go and compete with the best guy in either respective weight class, that would happen. But otherwise, right now I’m enjoying kind of pursing other things in life. There’s a lot left for me to do. I can do a lot of things in life. And unlike the rest of these guys, who are pretty stuck in their world, I’m not trying to beat it into the ground, I don’t need to or have to.”

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What could’ve been: 10 of the best booked UFC fights that never happened

Conor McGregor vs. Rafael dos Anjos, Nate Diaz vs. Dustin Poirer, Khabib Nurmagomedov vs. Tony Ferguson, and more make the list.

There have been numerous highly anticipated UFC matchups that have fallen through over the years because of unfortunate circumstances, and they easily could’ve produced fireworks.

From championship fights, to rivalries, to intriguing stylistic pairings, here are 10 of the best scheduled matchups that never ended up happening.

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Khabib Nurmagomedov vs. Tony Ferguson

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While it appears that another [autotag]Khabib Nurmagomedov[/autotag] vs. [autotag]Tony Ferguson[/autotag] fight booking is imminent at the time of this writing, let’s just hope the fifth time is the charm.

These two were scheduled to fight on four other occasions, but a series of unfortunate circumstances and injuries has resulted in it never happening. The first booking was during The Ultimate Fighter Finale card on Dec. 11, 2015, when Nurmagomedov was forced out due to injury and replaced by Edson Barboza. Ferguson submitted Barboza in the second round via D’Arce choke, earning both “Performance” and “Fight of the Night” bonuses.

They were then scheduled to fight at UFC on FOX 19 on April 16, 2016, but this time it was Ferguson who pulled out. Ferguson was replaced by newcomer Darrell Horcher, whom Nurmagomedov battered before earning a second-round TKO win.

Then, an interim lightweight championship fight was scheduled to take place at UFC 209 on March 4, 2017, but the fight was canceled due to Nurmagomedov falling ill from a bad weight cut.

Finally, the two were set to meet a fourth time. At UFC 223 in April 2018, Nurmagomedov and then-interim champ Ferguson were going to fight for the undisputed lightweight title. But in a freak accident, Ferguson tripped over a wire and blew out his knee. Max Holloway stepped in briefly, but the New York State Athletic Commission deemed Holloway unfit to compete due to a severe weight cut. Al Iaquinta, who was scheduled to face Paul Felder on the same night, stepped in for the massive opportunity but was dominated by Nurmagomedov in a five-round battle.

Nurmagomedov finally realized his dream of becoming the UFC lightweight champ, and here’s hoping the fight with Ferguson will finally come to fruition in early 2020 as expected.

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