Despite falling short in his pursuit of becoming a dual UFC champion, [autotag]Israel Adesanya[/autotag] insists the possibility of a future fight with [autotag]Jon Jones[/autotag] isn’t dead.
What Adesanya doesn’t agree with, however, is the general notion that a potential superfight with Jones (26-1 MMA, 20-1 UFC) is dead just because of his lone setback.
“Hell no,” Adesanya told ESPN. “This is just a valley in my story. In any movie, in any anime series, you always have the valleys and you rise up from that. This is just mine and it’s like, all right, cool, bet. I’m taking this very well, and I know exactly what I have to do to get back to my true self, so yeah, I’m doing just that. But nah, that fight’s not dead. I’m coming for that ass.”
He continued, “This is deeper than fighting now. He knows, we know, we all know what he’s like. We all know how fake he is. It’s not even gonna take long before he f***s his life up again if he hasn’t already and kept it low key and swept it under the rug. You had quarantine Izzy last time going at him and just giving facts, straight facts, so I’m just taking my time right now, doing my own thing, focusing on myself. But, he should do the same because his life could be in shambles.”
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Jones, the former UFC light heavyweight champ, was tweeting throughout the UFC 259 main event, took shots at Adesanya after he was handed his first loss and deemed him not worth his time. The two have been trading barbs for over a year now, and Adesanya isn’t too surprised to see Jones revel in his defeat.
“That shows his character,” Adesanya said. “Find a tweet of me tweeting after he wins even against Dominick Reyes. Find a tweet of me kicking him when everyone is sh*tting on him. He barely beat Thiago Santos; Dominick Reyes arguably kicked his ass. Find the tweet of me going at him and taking a victory lap. This shows the character of who he we are. It shows the character of what kind of people we are … it just shows the character. I mean, time will tell. This just shows me his true character, so I bet this is how you want him to play it, cool. Wait until he loses – just time will tell. That’s all I’ll say.”
A win could have put Adesanya on a guaranteed collision course with Jones, but “The Last Stylebender” still thinks a fight between them is inevitable. For now, though, Jones is eyeing a heavyweight title shot against the Stipe Miocic-Francis Ngannou winner at UFC 260, while Adesanya is waiting for the next middleweight contender to emerge.
UFC Hall of Famer [autotag]Matt Serra[/autotag] won’t be leaving [autotag]Aljamain Sterling[/autotag]’s side.
Serra, Sterling’s longtime coach, last week opened up about his disappointment in Sterling’s decision to not include him in his corner for his UFC 259 title fight against Petr Yan. Serra was replaced by Xtreme Couture coach Eric Nicksick, who worked with Sterling in Las Vegas ahead of the fight.
The decision prompted Serra to step away from cornering fighters, which drew speculation on a potential rift between him and Sterling, who claimed the UFC bantamweight title after Yan was disqualified for an illegal knee. But Serra took to Instagram to clarify that he and Sterling will continue working together as they always have.
“People have been giving Aljamain Sterling a lot of hate, one because of the knee and two because they think me and him have some beef or something like that,” Sterling said in a video before Sterling appears with him. “It’s true, I’m stepping away from cornering, for now … but myself and the ‘Funkmaster’ are always gonna be cool. You know we love each other. I’m gonna help him defend this belt.”
In this together no matter what!
•
#Jedis #Family #UFCChamps
Sterling became the first fighter in UFC history to win a title by disqualification, which led to an uproar of negative feedback from fans. Yan (15-2 MMA, 7-1 UFC) was disqualified after he hit Sterling with an illegal knee while he was downed in the fourth round.
All parties, including the UFC, have expressed interest in a rematch as Sterling gears up for his first title defense. Perhaps Serra won’t be physically in Sterling’s corner, but he vows to be a part of his preparation as he always has.
There’s always room for improvement, but UFC vice president of regulatory affairs Marc Ratner largely thinks the three UFC fight-ending fouls over the past two weeks were handled well by officials overseeing those bouts.
The parade of recent fouls between UFC 259 and UFC Fight Night 187 has placed MMA officiating and rules pertaining to fouls under the microscope, with fighters, fans, officials, coaches and media all varying in opinions. For Ratner, however, the final rulings on all three recent incidents were the correct calls.
So why did the two illegal knees end with different outcomes? At UFC 259, [autotag]Petr Yan[/autotag] was disqualified for illegally kneeing [autotag]Aljamain Sterling[/autotag]. One week later at UFC Fight Night 187, [autotag]Eryk Anders[/autotag] hit [autotag]Darren Stewart[/autotag] with an illegal knee that resulted in a no contest.
Ratner explained the major difference was the referee interpretation of intent: Was the knee accidental or not?
“What we start with is the referee’s judgment,” Ratner told MMA Junkie Radio on Monday. “That’s the most important thing. He’s going to determine, in his mind, whether it was intentional or accidental. It certainly changes the way the fight is scored or the outcome. In the Yan fight, Mark Smith was the referee, and he felt that the knee was intentional. And therefore, because Sterling couldn’t go forward, that became a disqualification.
“The difference from last Saturday’s fight was Herb Dean felt that maybe (Anders), who landed the knee, (and Stewart), who was putting his hand up and down, kind of baited him into that knee. He felt it was an accident. Therefore it became a no contest or a ‘no decision.’ If it would’ve (gone) two rounds full, we would’ve gone to the scorecards.”
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Every referee is going to have an opinion, but that doesn’t mean an off-the-board mistake can’t be made. However, the interpretation of Smith, who officiated his first title fight in Sterling vs. Yan, aligned with Ratner’s assessment of what transpired.
“I would say that Aljamain’s knee was down for, I don’t know, four or five seconds,” Ratner said. “There was no question it wasn’t coming up. He hit him in the head. He kneed him in the head. Right from the beginning, I knew it was going to be a DQ. I was thinking that way. That was the correct decision.”
With all that said, the question whether the rules can be improved or made clearer still looms. Without having the rule in front of him to break down word-for-word, Ratner explained why leaving room for interpretation is important.
“I think you have a gray area there,” Ratner said. “You’re always going to have a judgment call in any sport. To put it in black and white, to say, ‘This is going to be accidental … this is going to be intentional,’ can you read intent? That’s really the question. … I don’t think it’ll ever be clear. I don’t know how you can make it in writing that you wouldn’t be able to use judgment. That would be, I don’t know – I read those rules and there is some gray area there. I think it would be hard to say that you can definitively say that black and white, ‘This was intentional … this was accidental.”
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With fighters who are illegally kneed, Ratner would like to see more decisiveness from the safety net that’s in place to protect them. Doctors shouldn’t leave the decision up to the injured fighter. Instead, they should swiftly nix the possibility of a bout continuing if the athlete is potentially concussed.
“My belief is if a fighter is compromised with what I would call a ‘closed-head injury,’ possibly a concussion, that you cannot let the fighter go forward,” Ratner said. “I would like the doctor to make a really quick decision. Don’t ask the fighter if it can go on. A lot of fighters would say yes because they don’t want to go out that way. It doesn’t matter what the fighter says. I want the doctors to be more definitive. I’m certainly not an educated doctor, but when I see a person compromised, I just assume you stop the fight right away. Don’t vacillate and have him make a decision. ‘Can you walk? Can you fight?’ I think that’s wrong.”
As for the eye pokes, like the one that ended the UFC Fight Night 187 main event between Leon Edwards and Belal Muhammad, Ratner and the UFC is always looking for solutions to improve. With different glove models proving difficult to grapple with, Ratner thinks locker room rules meetings between teams and officials are vital and should be taken seriously by everyone involved.
“I do believe hard warnings should be given in the dressing room, saying, ‘I’m not going to warn you during the fight. I’m telling you right now. Don’t grab the fence. If you’re leading with your fingers out there, I can take a point. I want you to know that. This is a hard warning, so think about this stuff very clearly,'” Ratner said. “Sometimes you’ve got language barriers, hoping the Portuguese, that their interpreters tell them these things. Sometimes you don’t know. We have a lot of international fighters now, but there’s no excuse for breaking the rules. They all know the rules. You just have to enforce them. Not every referee is going to enforce them the same way.”
[autotag]Aljamain Sterling[/autotag] appears ready to steer into the skid a little more than a week removed from his controversial UFC title win.
Sterling (20-3 MMA, 12-3 UFC) has received a severe amount of negative feedback from a portion of fans in the aftermath of becoming the first fighter in UFC history to win a title by disqualification. The bantamweight belt changed hands at UFC 259 after Petr Yan (15-2 MMA, 7-1 UFC) hit Sterling with an illegal knee while he was downed, and the fight could not continue.
Despite the fact Yan was at fault for breaking the rules, Sterling has been the one getting attacked, with claims he embellished the severity of Yan’s knee and is therefore not a legitimate champion. He’s publicly stated he does not feel like a “true” champion, but it seems now his demeanor could be taking a turn.
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Sterling shared an image of himself holding the UFC belt on his own social media for the first time since the fight on Monday, along with a meme holding an Oscar trophy. Moreover, his caption antagonized those calling him an “actor” (via Instagram):
https://www.instagram.com/p/CMcjWwTD3iT
Some say he’s an actor. Some say he’s the champ! Run it back!
The final portion of Sterling’s caption is the most newsworthy part of his post. He’s said multiple times that an immediate rematch with Yan is the most logical next move given what happened at UFC 259, and he doesn’t appear to be straying away from that as time goes on.
Anthony Smith is not pleased with the way the referee handled Aljamain Sterling’s disqualification win at UFC 259.
[autotag]Anthony Smith[/autotag] is not pleased with the way referee Mark Smith handled [autotag]Aljamain Sterling[/autotag]’s disqualification win at UFC 259.
Sterling became the first fighter in UFC history to win a title by disqualification when he was struck with an illegal knee by [autotag]Petr Yan[/autotag] in their bantamweight title fight this past Saturday. Sterling was eventually deemed unable to continue, and as a result, Yan was disqualified.
Smith was in a similar situation when he was on the receiving end of an illegal knee in his title fight against then-light heavyweight champion Jon Jones at UFC 235, but decided to continue fighting. He lost the bout by unanimous decision.
Many lauded Smith for continuing in his fight against Jones. On the flip side, many accused Sterling of taking the easy way out. But Smith said Sterling should have never been put in the predicament in the first place.
“My problem is that ‘Aljo’ should have never had to make that decision,” Smith said in an interview with Fanatics View. “What I don’t understand is why is the legality of the knee the issue in why he won’t make the decision because had ‘Aljo’s’ knee been up but he was in the same position, he would have stopped that fight immediately just basically off the reaction that ‘Aljo’ had once he took it.
“Why does the legality of that knee change that? Because if you would have stopped it before because it was an illegal knee because he was too injured to continue, why wouldn’t you do it right away because it was illegal? I know why. It’s because the refs don’t want to take fights into their own hands because they are afraid of people being mean to them on the Internet.”
Smith said referees should be held more accountable for their actions and take initiative on the spot. He ripped Smith for turning for help when he thinks he should have stopped the fight the moment he saw Sterling visibly hurt.
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“I’m so sick of referees punting off the issues to the cageside doctors,” Smith said. “If we’re going to pretend you’re so experienced and so knowledgeable in this sport that we’re going to task you with stopping fights when people can’t continue, but then all of a sudden there’s a foul and you start looking around – you’re lost and you’re looking at the table and you’re looking at the commission and you’re trying to find a doctor.
“You should know what the fighter looks like when they’re injured. You should know when it changes. You should know the look in their eyes. You should know their mannerisms. I know that ‘Aljo’ was hurt when he first took the knee and I never reffed one of his fights. So if I know that, then Mark Smith should know that.”
Check out these super slow motion UFC 259 highlights, including clips of Jan Blachowicz’s win over Israel Adesanya.
[autotag]Jan Blachowicz[/autotag] continues to come up big as un underdog.
UFC light heavyweight champion Blachowicz (28-8 MMA, 11-5 UFC) bounced middleweight champ [autotag]Israel Adesanya[/autotag] (20-1 MMA, 9-1 UFC) from the ranks of the unbeaten in the UFC 259 main event, stopping “The Last Stylebender’s” pursuit of becoming a dual-champ.
Both men had good exchanges on the feet in the first few rounds, but it was Blachowicz’s wrestling that made the biggest difference. Although all three judges scored the fight 4-1 in favor of Blachowicz, it was the latter rounds in which Blachowicz was able to use his grappling to control Adesanya. Two judges gave him a 10-8 score in Round 5.
You can watch it all unfold in super slow-motion in the UFC 259 “Fight Motion” video highlights above.
Also featured are highlights from dual-champ [autotag]Amanda Nunes[/autotag]’ quick submission of Megan Anderson, newly crowned bantamweight champ [autotag]Aljamain Sterling[/autotag]’s controversial disqualification win over [autotag]Petr Yan[/autotag], [autotag]Islam Makachev[/autotag]’s dominant submission over Drew Dober, and a hoard of finishes from the prelims courtesy of the likes of [autotag]Sean Brady[/autotag], [autotag]Kennedy Nzechukwu[/autotag] and [autotag]Kai Kara-France[/autotag].
At this stage of his career, Joseph Benavidez is facing a hard realization after his third straight loss.
[autotag]Joseph Benavidez[/autotag] has endured some tough battles both physically and mentally.
The multiple-time UFC title challenger has been questioning his standing in MMA after a string of defeats that have plagued the last year of his career. Benavidez (28-7 MMA, 15-5 UFC) most recently came up short in a unanimous decision against top flyweight contender Askar Askarov this past Saturday at UFC 259. It was his third consecutive defeat, as he had lost twice to current 125-pound champion Deiveson Figueiredo in attempts to capture UFC gold.
At 36 and having competed in MMA since 2006, it seems doubt about his ability to compete among the best has started creeping into his mind. In a candid conversation with wife Megan Olivi on their “At Home with Benalivi” podcast, Benavidez opened up about his feelings toward the current state of his career.
“If talking about everything, I just couldn’t find the adrenaline, the excitement and explosiveness,” Benavidez said. “It’s a tough realization because I feel like why couldn’t I find that? You come to this point I think in every sport that you just feel like you’re not the same person in there anymore. I’m not who maybe I used to be in there and I’ve had those thoughts a long time, you know, fighting for 15 years.
“I’ve even had it in practice leading up to this sometimes, but practice is practice. Day in and day out, sometimes you have a good day, sometimes you have a bad day. But yeah, in the fight that’s how I felt. Some of the things that came so naturally to me like the scramble, like I’m mister scramble. And I see in the second round I got held down, and that was never a worry for me because taking me down is like taking yourself down – it’s pretty hard to hold me down. It wasn’t a thing (I worried about).”
Prior to the string of defeats, Benavidez was 9-1 with his lone defeat a split decision to Sergio Pettis.
Benavidez is a pioneer of the UFC flyweight division. He’s the first fighter to pick up a win in the weight class and the only fighter from the original four that lunched the weight class who’s still in the organization.
Benavidez is unsure of what will come next, as he remains hesitant to make any calls on his future in MMA.
“I thought I could get out of that disappointment (from the losses to Figueiredo), win, knock this guy off, and show I can compete at the top and have that rare opportunity to walk away on top, or at least still competing with the best, which I have always done in my career,” Benavidez said.
“I thought I could avoid that inevitable disappointment and just somehow get it. It’s just hard. Not that if I would’ve won or lost had anything decided as far as my future goes. You win and you still feel good. I never had a plan in mind. I wanted this year to have a fight or two, and we’ll see how it goes. It was just about having fun.”
Monday’s edition of MMA Junkie Radio with hosts “Gorgeous” George and “Goze” is here and will be live on SportsCastr at noon ET.
Monday’s edition of MMA Junkie Radio with hosts “Gorgeous” George and “Goze” is here and will be live on SportsCastr at noon ET.
On episode 3,139, the guys will talk to guests Kyler Phillips and Scott Kent, as well as break down the latest MMA nnews.
Stream or download this and all episodes of MMA Junkie Radio over at OmnyStudio. You can also catch it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, and more. A new episode of the podcast is released every Monday and Thursday.
According to Marcos DaMatta, nobody specifically yelled for Petr Yan to knee Aljamain Sterling while he was grounded.
[autotag]Petr Yan[/autotag]’s American Top Team coach, Marcos DaMatta, recalls the corner advice that was given to the Russian moments before he lost his bantamweight championship.
Yan (15-2 MMA, 7-1 UFC) was disqualified after striking Aljamain Sterling with an illegal knee at UFC 259. Sterling was rendered unable to continue and, as a result, crowned the new champion.
Questions were raised at Yan’s decision to throw the knee when Sterling was a downed opponent. UFC lightweight champion Khabib Nurmagomedov, who was seated near the octagon during the fight, told commentator on duty Daniel Cormier that he heard one of Yan’s cornermen say “knee him” in Russian, which prompted Yan to throw the illegal strike.
But “Parrumpa,” who was in Yan’s corner, told MMA Junkie that’s not exactly how things unfolded. DaMatta was clearly heard yelling “just punch” three times in English, but another voice in Russian followed giving a different instruction, which Nurmagomedov translated as “knee him.”
Though Yan said in his post-fight interview that he couldn’t hear any of this cornermen, DaMatta says Yan’s coach told him they did not tell for Yan to knee Sterling (20-3 MMA, 12-3 UFC). They just said to hit him.
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“The fourth round was going exactly what we expected,” DaMatta told MMA Junkie. “Aljo was fading, shooting from far, and we ended up in that situation which was kind of like the front head lock and we were extensively working on that. My two cents on that situation is that I was telling him keep pushing the head down and just punch, punch, punch, because he would have done the same thing he did to Jose Aldo, which was spinning to the back and working his ground-and-pound from there, or just release and stand back up to try and knock him out. When Petr got in that situation, I was actually pretty happy that happened because that was a sign that Aljo was completely helpless.
“And I was pretty vocal saying ‘just punch, just punch, just punch.’ I don’t know if the two cornermen behind me said to kick or to knee. I don’t believe so. We spoke about that after the fight, and they both said that they said ‘hit him’ in Russian. I don’t know who said they advised him to kick or to knee. I believe it was Khabib telling DC, but again, Khabib wasn’t in the commentating booth. He was just around. I don’t know if he might have gotten confused. I don’t know what happened. I don’t understand Russian very well. … I have no idea what they were saying. I know what I was saying. I know what I wanted him to do, which was pretty much push the head down and just punch. Maybe a TKO would have happened then.”
Sterling has been showered with criticism after he was seen on his teammates’ social media posing with the belt on his shoulder, which sparked a back-and-forth between him and Yan. “Parrumpa” is hoping that the rematch gets booked as soon as May, and UFC president Dana White appears to be on the same page in wanting to get the fight rebooked as soon as possible.
It shouldn’t have taken referee Mark Smith as long as it did to call the fight after Petr Yan’s obvious and intentional illegal knee.
“Why wasn’t the fight immediately called after the intentional foul?”
“How come that wasn’t an automatic disqualification?”
Two people, neither of whom could be considered hardcore MMA fans, asked me those questions separately this past weekend after they watched [autotag]Petr Yan[/autotag]’s egregious illegal knee against [autotag]Aljamain Sterling[/autotag] at UFC 259.
Since the moment Yan’s knee connected Saturday night, the prevailing notion on social media has been that Sterling “deserves an Oscar,” and that he milked it and ultimately quit. The fight ending in a disqualification and Sterling as the new champion? To MMA Twitter, that was his decision – which isn’t technically true, but the optics of how the situation unfolded made it seem that way.
The hate being hurled at Sterling – the victim of an intentional and vicious illegal knee to the face, mind you – is completely irrational and unjustified.
Which leads me back to those two questions and specifically how they were phrased: Why wasn’t the fight immediately called? Why wasn’t the DQ automatic?
The answer lies in the language of the Association of Boxing Commissions and Combative Sports unified rules of mixed martial arts, which were in effect at UFC 259. They state the following:
“If the fighter is fouled by blow that the referee deems illegal, the referee should stop the action and call for time. The referee may take the injured fighter to the ringside doctor and have the ringside doctor examine the fighter as to their ability to continue on in the contest. The ringside doctor has up to 5 minutes to make their determination. If the ringside doctor determines that the fighter can continue in the contest, the referee shall as soon as practical restart the fight. However, unlike the low blow foul rule, the fighter does not have up to 5 minutes of time to use at their discretion.”
In Sterling’s case, from the moment referee Mark Smith called time to the moment he called off the fight, roughly 3 minutes elapsed. We saw Sterling wide eyed and dazed, unable to stand and barely able to sit up, prompting the cageside doctor to be called in. At one point, either Smith or the doctor asked Sterling, “Are you done?,” a question that only reinforces the false notion that continuing is up to him. It took another minute and one more question from the doctor before Smith finally waved off the fight.
(ESPN+ screenshot)
Even though nowhere in the rule book does it state that the decision to continue falls on the fighter, make no mistake: Fan perception is that it does, and that feeling only grows with each passing second. For Sterling, it didn’t help that Daniel Cormier right away reminded viewers that UFC light heavyweight Anthony Smith “took the high road” when Jon Jones illegally knee’d him in their March 2019 title fight, or that DC later said Sterling would not deserve heat “if he decides that this fight is over.”
To be clear: The referee handled the situation by the book. But if ever there was an instance to make a quick decision to stop a fight because of an illegal blow, this was it.
Don’t just take it from me, though. Take it from Anthony Smith, who speaks from experience.
“What I don’t understand is why the legality of the knee is the issue in why (the referee) won’t make the decision,” Smith said in an interview with Fanatics View. “Because had Aljo’s knee been up but he was in the same position, (the ref would) have stopped that fight immediately just basically off the reaction that Aljo had once he took it. Why does the legality of that knee change that? Because if you would’ve stopped it before – if it was a legal knee – because he was too injured to continue, why wouldn’t you do it right away because it was illegal? …
“We’re gonna pretend that you’re so experienced and so knowledgeable in this sport, that we’re gonna task you with stopping fights when people can’t continue. Right? But then all of a sudden there’s a foul and you start looking around, you’re lost, and you’re looking at the table, looking at the commission, and you’re trying to find the doctor. What you should be doing is you should know what the fighter looks like when they’re injured. You should know when it changes. You should know the look in their eyes. You should know their mannerisms. I (knew) that Aljo was hurt when he first took that knee, and I’ve never ref’d one of his fights. And if I know that, then Mark Smith should know that.”
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Maybe Mark Smith did know that, but this isn’t about him so much as it’s about the rules in place, which encourage referees to be patient when dealing with illegal strikes.
“I don’t wanna crap all over Mark Smith because I think, given the rules and the way things are done right now, I don’t think he did an awful job,” Anthony Smith said. “I think he took too long to make the right decision, and I think aesthetically it made Aljo look awful.”
Bingo.
It’s important to remember that not all illegal strikes are created equal. The allotted 5 minutes fighters get to recover from eye pokes and low blows, for example, that makes sense. In that time, vision can return, pain from a groin kick can go away.
Head trauma is entirely different. A fighter who just had his bell rung by an obvious and – in Sterling’s case – intentional illegal knee should not be given time to recover. The fighter can’t be relied upon to intelligently convey his ability to continue, nor should he be part of that decision-making process.
“I think referees need to have more responsibility, and they need to be willing to take more responsibility,” Anthony Smith said. “You’ve never seen Tom Brady get sacked and end up with a roughing-the-passer (call) and then the referee talk to Tom so they can figure out what they’re gonna do. You make the call. That’s your job.”
Imagine if that’s what had happened with Sterling. Imagine the referee waving off the fight within seconds and never relying on the doctor in the first place because Yan’s illegal knee was clearly that bad.
The conversation almost certainly would be different. Maybe Sterling wouldn’t be receiving the brunt of the blame for the unfortunate result. Maybe the focus would be on Yan’s action instead of Sterling’s reaction. That’s how it should be. That’s how it can be.
A tweak to the unified rules could go a long way toward changing this moving forward.
