Strange days...

My life has been, up to this point, comparatively eventful by most people's standards. Still it was something of a surprise when, 5 minutes after arriving home from my training session this morning, I was heading down the street at 100 miles per hour with a dying toddler in my back seat.

Why does this stuff happen to me?

I had LITERALLY just pulled into my parking space. I was going to clean up and then buy my last Christmas gift, then spend the rainy day inside reading. As I got out of my car I saw a guy sprinting down the alley with limp child in his arms. He was talking to her in Spanish and her legs were flopping up and down in time with his feet, there was clearly something seriously wrong.

I yelled after him and asked if he needed help, but he either didn't hear me or didn't understand, he simply kept running full speed down the alley. I looked to my left and there was a lady running down the alley after him. She was a heavy-set Latina and was clearly struggling to keep up. I stopped her and asked what was wrong, she blurted out:

"Baby start shaking, baby high fever, baby dying!!!"

She was panicked and was wildly gesticulating the entire time. Now it was clear to me at this point that English was not this lady's first language, but if 2 out of 3 of the statements she had just made were even REMOTELY accurate this was a serious emergency.

I have a trait I fortunately inherited from my late father: I don't panic easily. It seems like the worse a situation is, the calmer I react to it. This is a useful trait to have if you want to make a living in a combat-related field, but its even more useful in a medical emergency. Given the average response time to a 911 call and the clearly life-threatening nature of the situation, I did some quick math.

"Do you need a car?" I asked

"We no have car." she responded, her hands shaking like butterflies

"I do, get in."

She hopped in the front seat and I took off! I was a valet at a few hotels when I was younger, that experience REALLY comes in handy when you have to pull out of a parking space at full speed. I raced down the alley and followed the path the guy and taken to the left. He had been running to the fire station a block behind my apartment. No one was there and he was standing outside with a "what am I going to do now" look on his face and an unconscious little girl in his arms.

I pulled the car up to the front of the station and told him to get in. A guy in a pickup had parked in front of the station and I stuck my head out the window and asked him where the nearest hospital was (I've only lived there a few months). He told me where it was (only a couple of miles away) and I hit the gas.

Occasions where you aren't concerned about the law or your own person safety are pretty rare, but in my opinion they are to be used to the fullest. So-Cal is in the middle of a Noah's Ark level storm at the moment and it was coming down in buckets this morning and here I was speeding through red lights with my pedal to the FLOOR, horn blaring. I figured if we spun out, at least an ambulance would come either way.

We had to stop at a major intersection and turned around to see how our patient was doing. She was still out and her (I assume) father was holding her on his lap. I put my hand on her back and she was as hot as a furnace. She was breathing, but it was VERY shallow and labored. It sounded like she was breathing through mud. I gave him my sweater and he wrapped it around her. He was constantly talking to her. He didn't speak any English and my Spanish isn't good enough to pick up what he was saying. I can only assume he was saying what any parent would say to their child at that point:

"Just hold on, you are going to be OK. Everything is alright, we are going to take care of you."

I didn't need a translation for that, I just drove, FAST.

We made the hospital in less than 2 minutes. I just left the car running and we bolted into the emergency room. There was one woman in there talking to the receptionist. The (once again I assume) parents were trying to get her attention and she said something along the lines of

"Cant you see there is a lady in front of you?"

Look, I can appreciate the civility behind "first come-first served", but I'm sure an exception could be made FOR A DYING TODDLER!!! Fortunately a nurse came out immediately and I didn't have to put my fist through the receptionist's window. I explained the situation as best I could: 1. unconscious kid 2. high fever 2. possible seizures. They took us back to see a doctor who immediately began inserting an IV into the limp child's arm.

I had done everything I could do, all I was going to do at this point was get in the way. I wished them good luck and took back my sweater. They started crying and thanked me profusely. I told them it was no problem and wished them a merry Christmas. I get the feeling that no matter what happens on Christmas morning, they are going to have a lot to be thankful for.

I still have to buy my sister's Christmas gift, but I'm sure she'll understand if its a few days late...

Burning at both ends

"All of this is academic. You were made as well as we could make you."

"But not to last."

"The light that burns twice as bright burns half as long, and you have burned so very, very brightly Roy..."

-Conversation between replicant Roy Batty and his creator Dr. Eldon Tyrell

Blade Runner

I love Blade Runner. Its an awesome movie with a visual style that was WAY ahead of its time. The basic plot, for those who haven't seen it, is the struggle of a small group of genetically engineered androids (replicants) to find a way to extend their life-spans. They are smarter, faster, and stronger than regular humans, and yet have a pre-set 4 years to live. When the leader, Roy Batty, finally gets to meet his maker, the preceding quote is the response he receives.

I think the conversation reveals a central human truth in many respects. I recently watched a documentary on steroids entitled "Bigger, Faster, Stronger". It was a fairly even-handed look at steroids and, in a wider sense, the culture of athletic achievement in America. One of the claims that keeps popping up in the film is that the effects of steroids are temporary and reversible and that the damage to the health of anabolic steroid users is greatly exaggerated by the media.

The problem with that assertion is that, as the film admits, there simply aren't any studies of the health risks associated with long-term usage of steroids. The sticky ethical problem of having someone juice up for 20 years to find out what happens to their internal organs is understandable.

The simple fact is that MOST drugs, legal and illegal, have temporary and reversible effects. Despite all the Len Bias talk I got when I was a kid, unless you have a coronary condition of some kind, one line of cocaine will not kill you, one hit of acid will not leave you a babbling wreck, and one hit of speed will not turn you into the meth-whore on the billboard. Long term usage is an entirely different story, and once the ball starts rolling, it rolls FAST.

I once heard that the average age that a retired NFL player dies at the age of 53. That sounded incredible to me, so I started paying attention. Every time I heard on the news that an ex-NFL player passed away I would make a mental note of their age. My good friend's uncle played for the Raiders, he died at 51. Defensive legend Reggie White was 43 when he passed. Chris Mims, a friend of my ex and a former defensive end for the Chargers, was 38. I studied statistics, and the previous examples certainly do not constitute an appropriate sample with which to draw a conclusion, but it did raise some questions in my mind.

Im not saying that all of these and other comparatively young NFL players died from steroid use. What I am saying is that the human truth uttered by Dr. Eldon Tyrell is very much alive in professional sports. The candle that burns twice as bright really does burn half as long.

The human body has certain limits. As an athlete you are conditioned to push and/or ignore those limits. What I tell the fighters I train is that the body is essentially lazy. Your body does not want to be a champion, it wants to sit in 98.6 degree water and get tube fed. Its your mind that wants to be a champion. Your mind must push your body and let it know who is in charge in order to overcome your physical limitations. That can work for a certain amount of time if one has the proper mental and physical conditioning, but the body is ultimately in charge. If you watch Sian Welch and Wendy Ingraham literally CRAWL across the finish line at the 1997 Ironman World Championships you will understand what I am saying. Both women were desperate to run, walk, or even stand up, and were mere yards from the goal they had trained so hard for, but they couldn't. Their bodies were spent and they had to crawl on their hands and knees across the finish line.

The steroid issue is, in my mind, basically an extension of that desire to overcome physical limits. Athletes on steroids can train harder, longer, and recover far more quickly than their non-chemically enhanced competitors. What has to be kept in mind is the idea that there is a REASON for your body's limits. Constantly push those limits and there WILL be a price to be paid, ask any number of limping former athletes. Bones, tendon, and muscle only repair so much and for so long, after that they will painfully remind you of your abuses every single day. Steroids can only delay the inevitable.

Steroid use also presents some unique ethical questions as well. The film repeatedly asks the question:

"Is it really cheating if everyone is doing it?"

One of the problems is that we don't know if everyone is doing it. Doping tests are too easy to beat to rule out those that pass them, in fact athletes that later confessed to a career of doping have passed YEARS of regular exams. Also, the fact that athletes that piss hot for steroids often cloud the issue by claiming everything from contaminated supplements to herbal teas, makes determining who is guilty a bit more difficult that it would seem. To hear whistle-blowers like Jose Canseco and Floyd Landis tell it, everyone and their mother is on the stuff and has been for years. Until everyone comes clean the idea of universal guilt is a difficult case to prove.

Steroid users follow a very different path than most illegal drug users. To begin with, they are not taking drugs for recreation, but to achieve a specific result in a particular area. They don't choose drugs due to childhood trauma, genetic pre-disposition, or social acceptance and they haven't learned the behavior from addicted parents. No one gets their start down the path of steroid abuse because they were at a party and someone was passing around a syringe of stanozolol.

Unlike many other illegal drugs, the social costs of steroid use are difficult to quantify. As the film points out, more people go to the emergency room with bad reactions to vitamins than steroids and while we might not like the idea of our kids looking up to doping sports heroes, the simple fact is that Mark McGuire never held up a liquor store to feed his habit. The people who are generally hurt the most by steroid abuse are the users themselves and its hard for the average American to get too worked up over it.

I think its important to keep in mind that the choice to use steroids or any other PED is HEAVILY influenced by a lifetime of training. As I mentioned before, no one grows up using performance enhancers to get through the day. When most athletes first consider doping, usually late high school or at the beginning of their college careers, they have already been training for the majority of their lives. A third-string kicker doesn't worry about shooting up a little extra advantage, if you even consider doping you are usually an elite athlete who believes you have a future in the sport.

Imagine putting 10 years of your life into football, from Pop-Warner to a solid D-1 program, and someone tells you that you need to dope or throw all of that hard work away. It easy to see why so many pick up the needle. Dreams die hard, why let a little ethical dilemma get in the way? Im not condoning PEDs in ANY way, its just easy to understand the thought process from an athlete's perspective.

My own experience with PEDs is comparatively limited because, well, Ive never done them. No, REALLY, I've never done them. Im not bragging or getting on some moral high-horse mind you, I just never needed them to compete at the level I competed on while I was fighting. Against other Gladiator Challenge/King of the Cage level fighters I was technical enough to overcome any physical advantages my opponents had. I was never faced with the choice I mentioned earlier, before I could really move to the next level I got a call from the Discovery Channel and here I am. I've seen members of my former jiu-jitsu school try the stuff. They put on some muscle, got bad skin, and their BJJ still sucked. Im sure i trained with doping fighters, but I never saw them use with my own eyes, and they never encouraged me to get on the stuff. When I was training for fights I would always forget to take my supplements, never mind regular injections.

MMA has had its share of doping controversies. Chael Sonnen, Josh Barnett, and Sean Sherk all tested positive for PEDs and had to pay the financial and professional costs. All of them actually denied taking them, further adding to the muddied waters of actual accountability in professional sports. Did they actually take them? Did they perform better if they did? Do they regret taking them after the test results were made public, or do they just regret not beating the test?

Only the fighters themselves know the answers to these questions but EVERY professional athlete who pushes their body to the limit knows that, steroids or no steroids, the candle is burning and once it's out, its out for good...

More than the sum of its parts

Expectations can be a powerful force in any athletic competition. As I wrote in my blog about Roger Huerta, expectations can put a lot of pressure on a fighter and not meeting those expectations can be personally and professionally devastating. On the other side, a fighter that can come in with hype and rise to the occasion can put their career on the fast track early.

As a commentator I have learned not to put too much stock in someones accomplishments outside of MMA. A lot of fighters come in with tremendous accomplishments in related combat sports like wrestling, BJJ, or muay thai. These accolades are extremely important, not only in marketing a fighter, but in analyzing their potential strategy in the cage. Whats important to remember is that for every athlete who translates their success outside the cage into a successful MMA career (Ben Askren, BJ Penn, Mirko Cro-Cop) there is one who falls flat. Some come in with an avalanche of hype, others seem to crash without ever even appearing on the radar.

We all remember the Penns and Askrens, here are some of the others who fell through the cracks(separated by sport, cause I like to make it easy on you):

Outstanding wrestlers

Cary Kolat:

Kolat was my all-time favorite wrestler to watch. He was an undefeated, 4-time Pennsylvania HS state champion and was named Outstanding Wrestler all 4 years, no one else had ever won it more than once. At Penn State he placed 2nd and 3rd in the NCAA tournament his Freshman and Sophomore years. After transferring to Lock Haven he won 2 national titles, finishing his college career with a 111-7 record. He was an Olympian in 2000 and won 3 world cup gold medals (1998-2000). The guy was an amazing wrestler to watch, he was aggressive, fast, and technical.

His MMA career was extremely short. He had 1 fight in 2005 and was submitted in the 2nd round by Enoch "The Animal" Wilson. As far as wrestling goes its hard to beat Kolat's credentials, but considering the fact that he only had one fight, its likely he decided that he didn't want to make the commitment to MMA that he had made to wrestling.

Royce Alger:

Anyone remember his fight with Enson Inoue? Mark Coleman was so amped during the walk-out that it looked like he was accompanying the Rolling Stones. The fight didn't work out so well for Royce as he tapped to an armbar in less than 2 minutes.

When it came to his wrestling career this guy was the real deal. He wrestled under the legend Dan Gable and was a 2-time national champ for the Hawkeyes. After college he won 2 World Cup gold medals and 2 Pan-Am titles. Royce was known for his ferocity on the mat, he was versatile, aggressive, and executed Gable's "grind your opponent till he gives up" strategy perfectly. Unfortunately the work ethic he put into his wrestling training didn't exactly transfer into his MMA training. His cardio looked TERRIBLE in his KO loss to Eugene Jackson in his 2nd UFC fight and after getting floored in the 2nd round, Alger left the cage for good with a 3-2 record.

Kenny Monday:

As far as I know, and I know wrestling pretty damn well, Monday and Kevin Jackson are the only Olympic wrestling gold medalists to ever compete in MMA. As the only multiple Olympic wrestling medalist to ever enter the cage, Monday has to be considered the most decorated wrestler to ever cross-over.

He was a 4-time Oklahoma state champion and finished his HS career with an incredible 140-0-1 record. At Oklahoma State he was an NCAA Div-1 national champion. After college he was a gold-medalist at the 1988 Olympic games, a world champion in '89, and a silver medalist in Barcelona in '92.

Monday showed some serious potential in his debut against John Lewis in 1997. He displayed tremendous power, great takedowns (of course), and a naturally fierce ground and pound. Despite all of his tools, Monday only fought once. In 1997 it wasnt exactly easy to pay the bills doing MMA. With the hype that Olympian Ben Askren had going into MMA, one can only imagine what would have happened if someone with Monday's skills and credentials would have made his debut today.

Jiu-Jitsu Champions (does anyone else hate the term "Jiu-Jitsu player"?)

Saulo Ribeiro:

Few people have stayed relevant in the sport as long as Saulo Ribeiro. He received his black belt from Royler Gracie at the famous Gracie Humaita academy in 1995 (the same academy I trained in on Fight Quest). After receiving his black belt, Ribeiro went on to become one of the most decorated BJJ fighters of all time, winning 5 world championships (1997-2000, 2002, tied for 3rd all time). Unlike some BJJ standouts, Saulo has an outstanding no-gi game, wining 2 ADCC championships in 2000 and 2003.

While his BJJ career has been marked by its consistency, his MMA career was anything but. He only competed 3 times over the span of 6 years. His most famous fight was a 22 second blowout loss to Yuki Kondo in 2000. After submitting Jason Ireland in 2002, Saulo focused on his BJJ and coaching career with an MMA record of 2-1.

Marcelo Garcia:

Anyone who has seen Marcelo Garcia roll knows he has the best no-gi game of all time. His style is aggressive, fluid, and MAN does he know how to finish. He has won 2 ADCC championships and one 2nd place. On his way to those medals he submitted a stunning 21 out of 28 opponents in both the 76kg and absolute divisions and at the PSL event in LA he submitted Jake Shields (the first time Shields had ever been submitted in a BJJ competition). Its not like his gi-game sucks, he is a 4-time world champion and has been the dominant force in the division since 2003. The guys doesn't just win against the best, he makes it look easy. He demolished outstanding grapplers like "Shaolin" Ribeiro, Kron Gracie,"Xande" Ribeiro, and Shinya Aoki with an unmatched combination of skill and speed.

In his sole MMA fight, Garcia discovered the difficulty of sinking in the near-naked with MMA gloves on. Despite being attached to Dae Won Kim's back for almost the entire first round, Garcia was unable to sink the choke that had doomed so many of his opponents in BJJ. After Kim made it to the 2nd round he managed to expose Garcia's GROSSLY under-developed standup and ended the fight by opening up a nasty cut just 20 seconds into the round.

Fernando "Terere" Augusto:

Might as well follow up Marcello Garcia with the last man to beat him in the BJJ World Championships at his weight class. Terere didn't just beat Garcia in the finals of the Mundials in 2003, he SCHOOLED him. He countered Garcia's vaunted sweeps, passed his guard, and tapped him with a triangle. As far as traditional BJJ goes, Terere is the best I have ever seen with my own eyes. His match with Jacare in the open division at the Pan-Ams in 2004 was awesome, was an honor just to be there.

He earned world championships at every belt level, one a year from 1997 to 2000, defeating BJ Penn in the brown belt semi-finals in 1999. In 2004 actually competed at heavyweight, losing to Fabricio Verdum in the finals ON POINTS. There is simply nothing the guy cant do when it comes to classic BJJ. His style is as creative as it is technical.

What Terere never really displayed was that outstanding no-gi game that is essential to a successful MMA transition. It's not that his game was bad, its that he was FAR more accomplished in BJJ than in submission grappling. His only MMA fight was a split decision loss to Gleison Tibau in 2000. Given his questionable behavior over the past few years, I think we'll be lucky to see him again as a force in BJJ, let alone MMA.

Strikers

Malaipet:

In Thailand, this guy is a household name. He was a Rajadamnern Stadium champion and is legendary for his kicks and clinch game. He started training at age 8 and has an amazing 137-27-5 record in Muay Thai. I had the pleasure of training alongside Malaipet at North Hollywood Muay Thai and believe me when I say that the guy is LEGIT. Pros came in there and he smilingly took them to school. I was ringside when he defeated the Dutch national champion in Almera, Holland. Few people can take or give or take punishment like Malaipet.

His 3-3 MMA record is the result of his questionable cross-training. No one in their right mind would ever trade with Malaipet, but he simply never put the effort into the ground elements of his game. As his former BJJ coach Shawn Williams told me "the guy is lazy". The days when a guy could walk into the cage with one skill and be successful are long gone, a lesson Malaipet has painfully learned.

Mark Hunt:

This is one guy who was certainly on the radar. He was the K-1 World Grand Prix champion in 2001 and compiled a pro record of 43-13-2 He was a standout on the K-1 scene and was known for his stalking, gutsy style and his iron head (the kick Mirko laid on his head in their 2002 fight would have killed a rhino, yet Hunt got up and kept fighting). He had serious KO power and always won the crowd over with his willingness to stand in front of his opponent and trade.

In MMA he started out well, winning 5 of his first 6 fights, including wins over Wanderlei Silva and a PRIME Mirko Cro-Cop. His last 6 fights have been a different story, he has lost all of them, including a brutal 18 second KO at the hands of Melvin Manhoef. The bad combination, in my opinion, was the "Pride Effect" of guys getting thrown into the deep end of the pool in their first fights and Hunts inabililty to keep his ground skills in the same league as his standup skills. Also, his plodding style makes him child's play to take down, and in a division submission specialists like Fedor and Josh Barnett thats a recipe for disaster.

Ramon Dekkers:

Have to include this one. As far as kickboxing legends go, he is one of the best. This guy competed in Muay Thai before it was really an international sport. He played by their rules, in their country and, against all odds, he won. He started training in Muay Thai at 16 in Holland and was a Dutch national champion by 18. He was an 8-time Muay Thai world champion and was the first forigner to be named "Muay Thai Fighter of the Year". This guy was ferocious, technical, and hit like a guy twice his size. Dekkers actually beat Duane Ludwig in a K-1 show with only one arm (he had torn a ligament in his shoulder) and knocked him down in every round. With a record of 186-30-2, Dekkers is considered by many to be the greatest Dutch kickboxer of all time. With company like Rob Kaman, Remy Bonjasky, and Ernesto Hoost, thats an amazing compliment.

Dekkers just made the transition to MMA too late. By the time he faced Genki Sudo in K-1 in 2005 he was already 35 and supposedly retired. Add in the fact that he had no ground training and only had a few days notice, he really didn't have a prayer. A one-dimensional kickboxer taking on an experienced MMA submission specialist only really makes sense in Japan (ok, ok, Toney-Couture aside) and Dekkers was quickly submitted in the 1st round. I guess a guy with 218 Muay Thai fights has earned a quick pay-day fight once his competitive days are over.

I know the examples I have listed are something of a mixed bag and that each fighter had their own reasons for not making a significant impact in MMA. It just helps to keep in mind that not every athlete with a solid background in fighting sports will live up to the hype in the cage. MMA has transitioned from "style-vs-style" to a unique sport of its own, the athletes who recognize that and train accordingly will always have an advantage...

The signs at the end of the road...

Roger Huerta didn't stick around very long after his loss to Eddie Alvarez. As I walked into the cage to interview Eddie, he was already on his way out. He was, understandably, devastated. He had just been dominated for two one-sided rounds and had been stopped for the first time in his career. He was physically beaten up and was distraught as well. He had gambled heavily on this fight and had lost everything. As I passed him at the cage door I saw a look on his face that I recalled seeing once before on a defeated fighter.

I was ringside doing the international feed for the first Affliction fight when Fedor demolished Tim Sylvia in the first round of their highly anticipated heavyweight showdown. The look on the face of Tim Sylvia after that fight was the same one I saw on the face of a defeated Roger Huerta. It wasn't the fact that he was blown out of the water, or that it had been a heavily hyped fight, it was the fact that he discovered where he ranked, how far he could rise in the annals of MMA, and it was not to #1.

While it can be extremely painful in the end, it is the ultimate goal of every fighter to answer 2 questions throughout the course of their career: how far can I go in this sport? and, for the ones who get to the top, how long can I stay there? The reason it's painful is that the vast majority of fighters aspire to be a champion, but only a handful actually will. As a result, there is an inevitable, painful realization for them that they wont ever get to the ultimate goal, and that realization is usually the result of a fairly one-sided beating. At the end of the Affliction fight Tim Sylvia realized that when the book of MMA history is written, he will be remembered as a championship heavyweight who, even at the height of his career, was always 2nd to the legendary Fedor. He understood his final resting place in the MMA hierarchy, and that is never an easy thing to face.

Roger Huerta is an extremely popular and entertaining fighter. He is personable, good-looking, and is one of the most recognizable figures in the sport, but he is not, and will most likely never be, an elite lightweight. He had his chances to be sure, he took on 3 of the best in the division: Kenny Florian, Gray Maynard, and Eddie Alvarez, and each time he fell short. Only the Gray Maynard fight was comparatively close, and the only beating he took was at the hands of Alvarez. He had come close, but elite status eluded him.

The problem is that most fighters can make an entire career out of being pretty good. The UFC is full of middling gatekeepers that will never crack the top-ten, even one who fell to Roger Huerta, Clay Guida, is still drawing a paycheck. Huerta is exciting and marketable, so what's the big deal if he cant beat the best? The promotional difficulty of Roger Huerta is that he received a LOT of hype at the beginning of his career. With hype comes scrutiny, many people who follow the sport knew that he had been fed a diet of GBNDs (game but not dangerous), guys that would bang with Roger and make an entertaining fight, but who didnt have the skill set to kill the golden goose. His potential was something of a negative, he had attracted too much attention to gate-keep (a-la Clay Guida or Kurt Pellegrino) and was in the divisional equivalent of a shark tank. The bubble could only hold for so long. Clay Guida can go on fighting for years without a title shot because no one EXPECTS very much from him, a LOT was expected of Roger Huerta.

Lets face it, the guy was managed REALLY well. The whole game plan was to build him up and keep him away from the upper levels of the sport. A good manager, Monte Cox in this case, knows what kind of fighter he has. Its his job to make sure that he faces the right fighter at the right time. Monte knew that Roger couldnt beat the best, so he kept him away from that level for as long as he could, but Roger wanted Kenny Florian and left Monte to pursue the fight. Five fights and four losses later, Roger finds himself in a tough spot. Due to his popularity he is used to commanding top dollar, so its going to be hard for him to find promoters willing to pay what he is used to getting. Japan is a tough market as well, as his exposure here will be of little value overseas.

After his fight I had one of his fans tweet me and say that he can still turn it around, as he is only 27. The first problem is that a 27 year-old isnt exactly a spring chicken in the fight world. True, you can last a lot longer in MMA than you can in boxing, but more than a few fighters have seen their best days by 25. Also, the psychological effects of this loss may be a bit too much to overcome. That look at the end of the fight said it all to me, Huerta saw the chasm between himself, and the best of in the sport. It will take a serious re-evaluation and re-dedication to change his training around and get over that gap.

I like Roger and as a fan I hope he goes for it...

Sh*t Fighters Say (part 2)

When I wrote the first one in this series I was in kind of a hurry. Sean and I talked and he agrees that I missed a bunch of them...

Sean: What are we going to see from you in this upcoming fight?

Wrestler who had never even come CLOSE to finishing an opponent: Im going to go in there and knock him out/submit him with my new BJJ/boxing skills.

We hear this CONSTANTLY from fighters we have interviewed multiple times. I often wonder who they think they are fooling? This hearkens back a little to my previous blog about boring fighters. There is a certain self-consciousness that comes with being a boring fighter, as a result they are often trying to convince everyone that THIS will be the time they really show that they have picked up the skill set to run through opponents in a dramatic fashion. Nine times out of ten it is total bullshit. After a certain number of fights, it is fairly obvious what kind of fighter someone is. There can be dramatic changes but that fighter has to want to change, and in the case of a successful wrestler they have very little incentive to do so. The Ben Askrens of the world who are totally honest about their game plan during the fight (work the takedown until someone can stop me) are pretty rare. Finishing someone isn't just a matter of having the necessary skills, its about having the proper instincts. Finishers understand the balance of risk versus reward and know when to put it on the line to end a fight. If you haven't displayed those instincts in your previous ten performances, you are unlikely to develop them now. We don't care, from a journalistic perspective, how a fighter performs, just dont piss on us and expect us to think its raining.

Sean: How would you rate your performance in your last fight?

Fighter: I don't like to make excuses...

...and then they make excuses. The only variance in these exchanges is what excuses they make. Fighting is a sport of extreme heights and crushing lows as you are the only person in the cage. Losing the Super Bowl must suck, but at least you can take comfort in the fact that you may not have had anything to do with it. If the QB threw for 300 yards with no picks, he did his part, factors beyond his control cost him the game and thats the way it is. A fighter has no such recourse, and yet they look for one. Ive seen one-sided blowouts that were blamed on minuscule problems. In a close fight, the fact that you didnt have your lucky mouthpiece might have made the difference, in a 15 minute ass-whipping the other guy was probably better than you. An important thing to keep in mind is that we do a pre-fight interview with every fighter before the event. In that interview EVERYTHING is great: the camp was awesome, I'm injury free, I'm in the best shape of my career. In the next interview after a losing effort they were suddenly falling apart. They were injured, they just got out of the ER, their coaching was terrible, and their dog was killed in a freak blender accident the week before. Tito Ortiz wouldn't shut up about how he was the picture of health before the second Griffin fight, as soon as he lost he sounded like he was on death's door in the weeks leading up to the fight. I think it's part of the mental recovery process for a lot of fighters after a loss to find an outside source for their in-ring difficulties, but the ones who acknowledge their own shortcomings are the ones who find the most success in the comeback fight.

Sean: How would you rate your performance in your last fight?

Fighter: I was sick with Ebola, both of my arms were broken, and my coach only speaks Swahili. But I' not taking anything away from my opponent.

I know this one is similar to my last one, but I find this one particularly irritating. They are going out of their way to make it clear that they aren't disrespecting their opponent when that is clearly what they are doing. Any time you attribute your defeat to something other than the skill and talent of your opponent you are BY DEFINITION taking something away from them. Part of this is due to the fact that the people who are doing the interviewing often want the fighter to make excuses. Not only does it make for better sound bites, but it's important for a promotion to give the audience a reason to believe that a fighter coming off of a loss will give a better performance than they did last time, especially in a rematch. If the guy who beat you is just better, then why should anyone pay good money to see it happen again? I prefer it when a fighter admits their shortcomings and instead focuses on how they have eliminated them.

Pre-fight interview: My opponent is a bum who isn't on my level and I'm going to smash him.

Post-fight interview: My opponent is a great fighter, he's awesome, he's the most talented and determined individual on the planet and it was an honor to fight him.

Sure, some of that shift in perspective is due to genuine respect generated by a hard fight between two professionals, and part of it is post-fight endorphins. Another angle people seem to forget is that no one wants credit for beating up a bum. It benefits the victorious fighter to elevate the stature of his opponent ONCE HE HAS BEATEN HIM. If he was the bum you said he was in the beginning, why should anyone care that you ran through him in the first round? Its funny how fighters build the guys they beat into the second coming of Sugar Ray Robinson. What I find really strange in the Tito-Ken effect, where two fighters seem to bury the hatchet after the first fight, only to start the trash talk all over again before the rematch. It seems to me that it is more efficient to build your opponent up beforehand, that way your bases are covered either way. Hard to explain how you lost to a guy that didnt deserve to be in the same cage with you. As Bob Arum famously said after being caught changing his story "Yesterday I was lying, today I'm telling the truth..."

When is a win not a win?

The "Yo Quiero Taco Bell" Chihuahua is a rather famous case in the history of advertising. Anyone who was alive in the mid-nineties remembers that diminutive canine. My sister owned a Chihuahua and had "Yo Quiero Taco Bell" screamed at her by more than one excited toddler. The stupid thing was everywhere: on billboards, on radio, and in every other TV commercial. The recognition percentage among the general populace was in the high 90s. As far as advertising campaigns go, it was an unprecedented success.

But when Taco Bell crunched the actual numbers they made an amazing discovery: the campaign was a total failure. All of the recognition that the advertisers were so proud of didn't help sell a single extra taco. Taco Bell has created a pop phenomenon, but had wasted millions of dollars on an ad campaign that hadn't increased sales. They immediately stopped the campaign and the talking dog went into permanent retirement. The executives at Taco Bell learned a costly lesson: ALWAYS keep your eye on the bottom line. If you are in the taco-selling business your livelihood depends on selling tacos, anything that doesn't help you do that, regardless of how successful it might seem, is a waste of valuable resources.

MMA is, like every other sport, essentially part of the entertainment industry. You can wax philosophical all day about the nobility and beauty of athletic competition, but marathon runners are amazing athletes and no one will spend 60$ on a pay-per-view to watch them. For a promoter the bottom line has two simple parts: does a fighter sell pay-per-views (or increase viewership in the case of a free TV show) or put asses in seats? If a promoter pays a fighter X amount, they need to recoup that X amount in some way based on that fighters performance. If they fail to do so they have lost money and, if that trend continues, they will soon go the way of Affliction Fights, the IFL, and Elite XC.

The mantra of the boring fighter is "A win is a win". Keeping the preceding criteria in mind, it becomes clear that they have little understanding of the statement they are making. While its true that win is considerably better in almost every instance than a loss, the entertainment value of a fighter is really what the promoter is keeping his eye on. A person who values the integrity of MMA as a sport may often find himself at odds with promotional logic when it comes to which fighters are kicked out of an organization (or never get there to begin with) and which ones are given a seemingly endless ride. Phil Baroni lost a staggering 4 fights in a row before being released by the UFC in 2005. Chris Leben has the promotion talking about a title shot for him, despite the fact that the Akiyama win put him just one win over.500 in his last 11 fights. Ken Shamrock is still headlining shows despite an ABYSMAL record over the last ten years. All of these fighters share one thing in common: they are popular fighters who win or lose (in the case of Ken, just lose) in spectacular fashion. People will pay money to watch them, and that is ALL promoters care about. They are entertainers in the entertainment business, pure and simple. Watching Chris Leben fight with his face is an amazing spectacle 9 times out of 10 and will mean pay-per-view dollars every single time. Fans love him, and that means promoters love him.

Antonio McKee fought recently on the MFC card in Alberta, Canada. I read some articles leading up to the fight, including one on Sherdog by Tomas Rios that called McKee's absence from the UFC despite a 7-year win streak "puzzling". Its not puzzling at all, he's boring. From 2001 to 2010 Antonio fought 20 times and finished ONE opponent, and that was due to an injury (Gabe Rivas in the IFL). He has finished his last two opponents in 2010 (increasing his finishes by 40%) so there is a chance he can turn things around, but at 40 yrs old it may be too little too late. He has spent his career compiling a fantastic winning percentage and has never gotten into a major promotion.

And why should he? What motivation could a promotion like the UFC or Strikeforce have to sign him? Don't get me wrong, I think Antonio is a FANTASTIC fighter, but that ability to beat anyone in the world makes him a promotional pariah. He could actually beat most, if not all, of the lightweight fighters in both promotions. The problem is that no one will pay to see it. Once someone like Antonio is in your promotion you have a serious problem. He can climb the ladder to the point that you are virtually forced to give him a title shot, but his style is too methodical to appeal to the fans. NOTHING kills a promotion faster than an unpopular champion. Antonio simply isn't worth the risk. He can beat anyone you put in front of him, but he doesn't sell pay-per-views and he doesn't put asses in seats. "But he can beat anyone!!", his supporters cry, sure he can, but everyone knew the chihuahua too and it didn't sell tacos.

There are some great fighters who are stuck in this holding pattern. John Fitch can beat anyone in the UFC not named St. Pierre and his current streak should have landed him a rematch with the champ a long time ago. Unfortunately he is a methodical fighter who relies on his outstanding wrestling to grind out decisions and doesn't have a ton of charisma. Anderson Silva got a shot at UFC gold after ONE fight, Yushin Okami won 4 fights in a row against solid competition and you could almost hear the sighs of relief from UFC brass when he was beaten by Rich Franklin and Chael Sonnen. Matt Lindland was cut from the UFC in 2005, despite being on a 4 fight win streak (2 in the UFC) and never losing consecutive fights. The question is: do these fighters make an impact on the UFC's bottom line? Does anyone buy a pay-per-view to see another solid, if underwhelming, decision win by John Fitch or Yushin Okami?

Jake Shields was another fighter who seemed doomed to middle-of-the-road status. Contrary to what most people might think, he is a solid finisher (his has stopped just over half of his opponents) and has taken on some big names in his career. His weakness is that he is soft spoken and relies heavily on his grappling, not a great combination for a fan favorite. I was cageside for his win over Jason Miller, and while I thought he taught a grappling CLINIC that night, the fans didn't appreciate it and boos rained down the whole time. The best thing he ever did for his career was put himself in a position to screw Strikeforce, an opportunity Dana White was not about to pass up. Now Dana has to wait and see if he can put on exciting performances in a stacked division, or whether he bought himself another John Fitch.

There is certainly a middle ground between Phil Baroni and Antonio McKee that every successful fighter has to walk. You have to win and be entertaining at the same time. But its important to keep in mind the lesson of the talking dog: a win is almost never just a win...

Joe Warren vs. Joe Soto

At the beginning of the season 2 tournament I said that tournaments favor finishers. The guy who can get through fights without wearing himself down is in a better position to succeed in the next round. BOY was I wrong!!

Joe Warren and Ben Askren both made their championship runs on the strength on their takedown and top control. Warren went 15 minutes in every fight and Askren probably would have done the same if not for an awful stoppage in his first fight. They blew more complete MMA fighters out of the water with their world-class wrestling and now will fight for the championship in their respective divisions.

It's this dominant wrestling that Joe Soto will have to overcome in order to retain his featherweight belt on Sept 2nd. Warren is like a dog with a Frisbee when it comes to his wrestling game in the cage. He goes after it from beginning to end and once he gets it, he never lets it go. He has a seemingly inexhaustible heart, he beat an amazingly talented Patricio Pitbull while sicker than a dog. His submission defense rivals Houdini and he has gas for days. These attributes seem to make up for his lack of offensive weapons, he simply doesn't have the boxing or submission skills to finish an opponent at the level he is competing in.

The X-factor that Warren is going to have to deal with is the fact that his championship run was conspicuously short on top-level wrestlers. As the tournament progressed, he took on more and more well-rounded fighters with dangerous submission games, NONE of those fighters had outstanding wrestling pedigrees. Warren could follow his ground and pound strategy without worrying too much about his takedown getting stuffed.

Joe Soto does have a solid wrestling background. He was a California State Wrestling Champion and wrestled with John "Bones" Jones and Cain Velasquez at Iowa Central Community College. He has used his wrestling with great success both offensively and defensively in his MMA career. Against Wilson Reis, he used his sprawl to keep the fight on the feet, and against Yahir Reyes, he used destructive takedowns and punches to seal a dominant victory.

Now there are many levels of elite wrestling, and Soto's experience doesn't put him on the top level with Joe Warren. Joe Warren was a division 1 all-American at Michigan and a world champ at Greco-Roman. The key to the fight is whether or not Joe Soto can use his wrestling defense to keep the fight standing where he has proven to be technically sound and has KO power.

Time is on Soto's side in this fight for a couple of reasons. First off, Warren has never been in a 5 round fight before. His gas has been terrific thus far, but fatigue may make eat away at the wrestling advantage he possesses in the later rounds. As his takedown slows, Soto might find more and more success in keeping the fight standing, and that's bad news for Warren. Also, long fights favor finishers. Warren needs to get to the final bell in this fight in order to win, while Soto has finished 8 of 9 opponents. He has the fists to put Warren away if Warren's guard drops for a second, a more likely scenario in a five-round affair. Just ask Chael Sonnen how it feels to be a strong wrestler with 4 rounds in the bank and let your guard down against a dangerous fighter.

On the flip side, Joe Warren is the best fighter that Soto has ever faced. He's a fantastic wrestler who knows how to stick to the script. He's also been fighting at a high level for his ENTIRE career and knows how to win big fights. He loves the spotlight and seems to perform at his best when the most is on the line.

It's hard to make a prediction in this fight, but NO ONE who saw his performance against Pitbull can doubt the ability of Joe Warren to pull out a fight. In order to win this fight Joe Soto is going to have to reach just as deep. I think I'll wait till the interviews are done to make my prediction, so stay tuned...

Sh*t Fighters Say

Ive done commentary for something like 500 fights in my career with Bellator, Affliction, Strikeforce, and M1. That means about a thousand fighter interviews in well-over a dozen countries. I thought I'd share some universal responses that Sean and I CONSTANTLY hear to certain question we routinely ask:

Sean: "What separates you from other fighters?"

Fighter: "My heart"

Sean always asks this question and 9 out of 10 times, that is the response he gets. I understand why most people say this, you wouldn't be a fighter in the first place if you didn't have heart. Getting hit in the face for money is not an easy job and most people will do whatever it take to avoid it. Fighters have to have heart to get in there at all. The problem is that he asks what "separates" you from other fighters. While some fighters have had their heart routinely questioned (BJ Penn, Vitor Belfort, Tito Ortiz etc.) none of them would say in an interview that they dont have it. Its something like a sprinter in an interview saying his love of running sets him apart from the other runners.

Sean: "What gives you an advantage over your opponent in this fight?"

Fighter: "I've been training really hard."

This is another standard response and it falls into the same category as the last answer. I was training for a fight once in the striking area of my old gym with my conditioning coach. He was yelling his head off and I was going through plyo drills like a madman. It was 2 weeks out, so I was firing on all cylinders and people were outside the room gawking at me as I worked my butt off. After the session one of my teammates came up to me and commented on how hard I was working, I said "Yeah, good thing my opponent is at home eating Cheetos."The look on his face totally changed as he realized what I was saying. All fighters train hard, sure some (Rich Franklin, Forrest Griffin, Sean Sherk) are known for their insane workouts, but training hard is a pre-requisite for competing and I dont know if very many fighters know how hard of a workout their opponent is doing. Only if you know that, can you truly know if yours "gives you an advantage"

Me: "How long was your camp for this fight?"

Fighter: "I only had a week notice, but it doesn't matter because I'm always training."

This is the stock answer of the "late notice" fighter. A training cycle is roughly 6-8 weeks. Any shorter than that and you're cutting it close, any longer and injuries become an increased factor. Training for a fight is not the same as the training a fighter does on a daily basis, it is more intense and considerably more focused. An athlete simply cant maintain a "fight" training schedule full-time, their body would break down and their career would be severely shortened. All wrestling fans know about the legendary training regimen of Dan Gable, one of the greatest wrestlers in U.S. history. He pushed himself to the limit 7 days a week from high school to the 1972 Olympics, where he didn't concede a single point. What people forget is that Gable had a comparativly short career. He only competed in one Olympic games and has had countless surgeries to repair damage to his back, legs, and hips. The routine he imposed on himself took a horendous toll on his body. Training for a fight is a science unto itself . A fighter can win on short notice, but they are at a serious disadvantage. The understanding of that disadvantage can mean the difference between success and failure. A fighter cannot afford to confuse the daily training they do to maintain their skills with the intense training required for a fight.

Voodoo MMA

There is a good book called "Voodoo Histories: The Role of the Conspiracy Theory in Shaping Modern History" by David Aaronovitch. It basically goes over various conspiracy theories and debunks them. It also goes over the psychology of why it is so appealing to believe in conspiracy theories and why our society generates them so easily.

I think it should be required reading for MMA fans considering the reactions I read after Imada-Curran fight. A lot of people were cursing Bellator and Bjorn Rebney after that fight, accusing the promotion of fixing the fight to allow Pat Curran to get to the finals for a showdown with lightweight champ Eddie Alvarez. That scenario might sound plausible in an Oliver Stone movie but, like most conspiracy theories, it breaks down under scrutiny.

I thought Imada won that fight fairly convincingly and said so on-air. When Bjorn and I went into the cage for the check presentation we congratulated Imada and waited for the inevitable unanimous decision we thought would come after the commercial break. When they said it was a split decision I was shocked, when they announced that Curran was the winner my jaw hit the floor. It led to perhaps the worst interview of my career for a variety of reasons. Foremost among them was the fact that I didnt have any questions in my head for Curran. I dont get the decision any sooner than the audience does and I had assumed that Imada would get the nod and had prepared to talk to him, not Curran. Another reason was the fact that as I was about to ask Curran how it felt to win in front of his hometown crowd, they started booing, which necessitated me switching questions just as the words were coming out. Maybe I'm being hard on myself, but I think I ended up sounding like a total idiot.

So I was surprised, but if there was a conspiracy it certainly didnt have to involve me, but what would it have to entail? The casual fan might not know this, but organizations are not allowed to supply their own judges, they are entirely under the discretion of the state athletic commission (Florida in this case). The judges are not beholden to Bellator in any way, they are paid by the state and trying to influence them in any way means you probably won't be promoting a show for the rest of your natural life.

And why would Bjorn take the risk in the first place? Pat Curran had been the Cinderella story of season 2, but it wasn't as though fans were lighting up the chat rooms in anticipation of a fight between him and Alvarez. Its true that it would have been difficult for Bellator to sell fans on a fight between Imada and Alvarez, a rematch of a fight that wasn't that competitive the first time around, but a match featuring a deserving Imada is a lot more appealing than one featuring a fighter that the fans believed rode in on a bad decision. For Bjorn Rebney and the powers that be at Bellator to risk their livelihoods over putting that match together would have been suicidally stupid.

If Bellator were in the fight-fixing business, Curran would not have even been in the finals at all. Roger Huerta was clearly the favorite at the outset of the lightweight tournament and was the most marketable fighter in Bellator's roster. I thought he won his semi-final match against Curran, it wasn't a robbery by any stretch of the imagination, but I thought Huerta won the last 2 rounds. Bellator clearly didnt have any hand in that decision, so why would they take a bigger risk on a lesser name?

Fans often point to some of the horrendous and corrupt decisions that have plagued boxing over the years and argue that if it could happen there, it can happen in MMA. It may be true that a big organization MIGHT be able to pull some strings and get a fight fixed (my lawyers have advised me to add that I am in NO way accusing the UFC or any other organization of ever fixing a fight to my knowledge;), but MMA works along very different lines than boxing. Boxing relies heavily on the "superfight" between (usually) undefeated stars. A fight like Mayweather-Hatton can generate tens of MILLIONS of dollars for Vegas, bookmakers, promoters, etc. Everyone in the industry is under a lot of pressure to make sure that both of those stars stay unblemished as they head toward their showdown. MMA, as a sport, is much more forgiving. One loss can certainly delay a mega-fight, but an undefeated fighter is virtually unknown in the big promotions and there is almost no matchup that cant be made after a few victories.

Take Rua-Rampage for example. Rashad Evans beat Rampage and earned the right to be the next fighter to take on light-heavyweight champion Mauricio "Shogun" Rua. Lets say it was Dana's fondest desire to see Rampage take on Rua, he could risk the future of his company by using his considerable influence to fix the fight, or he could wait a year, give Rampage a couple of decent fights and have him fight for the title anyway. It isn't rocket science, any of the top 5 guys in a division are only 2 or 3 fights away from a title shot at the most, there's no need to have someone on the grassy knoll to make sure things work out a certain way.

There will always be doubters out there, but they should still read the book, might give them some perspective on things...

The Mythical 10-8 Round

Sherdog hosts an online chat during Bellator shows that I occasionally check out to see how fans felt about the event. The internet is just a bad place to look for opinions about ANYTHING you are personally involved in. My broadcast partner Sean Wheelock was depressed for a week after the Huerta-Curran because he made the mistake of looking at online opinions of his call on that fight. A lot of people thought he made too big of a deal about the upset and had no problem saying so. Still, I'm a fairly resilient dude and so I periodically check out the chat to see what fans have to say.

During the last show I made a call that REALLY seemed to piss a lot of people off for some reason. During the first round of the Pitbull-Warren fight I stated that while it could have been a 10-8 round (Pitbull MASSACRED Warren for the full five minutes and almost finished him at the end of the round), judges rarely give them, so I was calling it 10-9 for Pitbull on my unofficial scorecard. A lot of people in the chat thought I was insane for that.

I sometimes think I should have two unofficial scorecards; one for what I think, and one for what I feel the judges will think. In this particular fight, the two cards would have been very different. I thought that the first round should have gone 10-8 to Pitbull for a complete wipeout. The problem is that judges almost NEVER give 10-8 rounds in MMA. In boxing the rule is pretty clear, if you get knocked down it's a 10-8. In MMA it simply isn't that clear-cut and knockdowns occur quite often for a variety of reasons. I have seen merciless ass-whippings that were scored 10-9. The only 10-8 rounds that I can remember recently were in the Alves-GSP fight and the Quarry-Starnes track-meet.

It turns out I was right, none of the judges gave Pitbull a 10-8 1st round. I also knew they wouldn't give him the 2nd round, although he won it on my scorecard.

There are two factors that consistently influence judges that were present in the Warren-Pitbull fight. The first was the crowd. Warren came out to chants of "U-S-A", while Pitbull got booed, it was pretty obvious from the beginning who the crowd was behind. Every time Warren did anything, the fans went nuts, its hard for the judges not to score for someone who's getting that kind of a reaction.

The 2nd factor is that judges, and fans for that matter, tend to put more emphasis on what happens at the end of a round. Boxers know this well and try to "steal rounds" whenever possible by putting on last-minute flurries in the closing seconds of the round (anyone remember Hagler-Leonard?). The disputed round in the Warren-Pitbull fight was the 2nd round and while I felt Pitbull won most of the round, Warren made his charge at the end and finally got his takedown going.

As soon as the fight ended I knew Warren was the winner. Only one judge scored it the way I did and even that surprised me. I'll see if I can talk the producers into a new system that takes into account the fact that I know judges are going to score the bout differently that I did. They probably wont go for it, but its worth a shot. It would certainly help explain some things to the fans in the chatrooms...

The Personal Side of Picking...

There is a picture of me and Alexander Schlemenko that one of my co-workers and friends, Adam Geller, posted on Facebook. I have my famous "I Must Break You" Ivan Drago tee on and Schlemenko is pointing at it and smiling. It a nice pic I think. As soon as Adam posted it someone posted a comment asking if that was before or after I picked Bryan Baker to beat him in the middleweight final. I guess he thought I had no business smiling next to someone I thought would lose, or that my pick was somehow an underhanded stab in the back and NOT made on national TV.

Its a small example, but it highlights one of the difficulties in being commentator in a sport as intimate and unpredictable as MMA.

I have interviewed about 800 or so fighters in the last 3 years. Most of them are damn nice guys, I can count on 1 hand the number of fighters who rubbed me the wrong way, and even then their hostility was rarely directed at me. Due to the tournament formats of both M-1 and Bellator, I've had the pleasure of getting to know the fighters pretty well as I often see them many times as they advance in the tournament. There are always after-parties etc., and some of the fighters already know me from training in so-cal. As a result, the relationship between the fighters and the production crew can get a little personal.

In the end it doesn't matter, I still have a job to do. The fact that I thought both Jared Hess and Bryan Baker were going to beat Schlemenko doesn't mean I don't like him, I actually think he is a great guy. Of course Hess and Baker are decent guys as well, but I have to forget about those factors when making a prediction about who is going to get their hand raised at the end of the fight.

Unlike a lot of MMA insiders, I generally don't like making picks. With M-1 I almost never did it. With Bellator I do a lot of preview work, talking about upcoming fights etc. In that capacity a big part of my job is talking about who I think will win. I'm not worried about personally offending anyone, Its just that MMA is an EXTREMELY unpredictable sport. There are always favorites, but even the most mismatched fight can go the other was as the result of a single mistake.

I prefer talking about what each fighter needs to do in order to win and what mistakes they need to avoid. Breaking down the ins and outs of the fight is, to me, a lot more fun than simply saying who I think will win. In MMA just about anyone can win a fight, especially at the higher levels where competitive fights are the norm. Describing the pathways to victory, or defeat, and letting the audience perhaps see them unfold is a fun part of the job.

Even when making picks I try to stay away from the kind of phrases that make it sound as though i have some kind of personal crystal ball in front of me. Too often MMA writers make every fight sound like a blowout from the start, maybe because the hyperboles make for such exciting reading, I don't know. I might pick who I think will win, but I certainly never say that the other fighter has no chance.

Some fighters understand the professional distance required in my job, others do not. Joe Warren and I had a great laugh over the fact that I picked Pitbull to beat him. He said he thought I would have been insane to say otherwise, even his wife understood the pick. After his dominant win over Dan Hornbuckle, Ben Askren said he won in spite of a lot of people "not believing in him". I have no idea if that comment was directed at me, as I , along with most people, picked Hornbuckle to win. His comment does point out a certain double-standard among fighters: they thrive on being the underdog, and yet get pissed when no one thinks they will win. They simply can't have it both ways, you cant fly under the radar and feel disrespected when people favor your opponent.

I loved seeing Warren win, any fan of MMA has to love a performance like the one he put on.

Its certainly a common misconception that I would want my picks to work out in order to seem more knowledgeable, that isn't true at all. I can only speak for myself, but I love an upset. If that upset comes at the expense of my perceived MMA intelligence, then so be it.

I see the same fighters over and over again, and have yet to get into a Shields-Shamrock cycle of animosity. I consider that kind of thing to be extremely unprofessional and hope i never have to deal with it. That doesn't mean I'll back off of any of the comments I have made while doing my job, even when I have been wrong I still said what I firmly believed and that's all that can be asked of anyone. As long s the fighters keep doing their jobs, I'll keep doing mine...