Just days after I included BJ Penn in my list of Fighters Who Are (Probably Not) Retired for Spike MMA & Sports, the consensus best Lightweight in UFC history is coming out of retirement in response to a public challenge from Rory Macdonald.

Macdonald claims he wanted the opportunity to fight Penn before he retired…even though Penn actually was already retired, or at least he claimed to be and reiterated it several weeks ago when asked about a potential fight with Josh Koscheck.

The fight will likely go down at Welterweight, which I’m sure will unleash an avalanche of trolls online griping about BJ ducking Koscheck but fighting Macdonald. But you have to remember that Penn’s walking weight when he’s active is actually below 170, and Macdonald is also on the smaller end of the weight class. Koscheck, on the other hand, is a strong wrestler (Penn’s kryptonite at 170) who could conceivably fight at 185.

Is that ducking? No, or at least not when you’ve accomplished as much as BJ Penn has. The guy may not be “retired” anymore, but he is at the twilight of his fighting career and it’s at a higher weight class than his optimal 155.

Just because he’s fighting again doesn’t mean another run at a championship at any weight is a realistic possibility, nor should it be an expectation. There was and is nothing in it for him to fight Josh Koscheck. Macdonald, on the other hand, is a fight he can conceivably win and would be an entertaining bout for fans. Koscheck would be a fight he’d likely lose and, stylistically, would be a bore to watch.

Anyway, welcome back, Baby Jay.

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Semi-related but with less enthusiasm: Fedor is backing off recent hints that he’s retiring. That’s too bad.

Kenny Florian

Florian, as I mention in today’s article for Spike MMA & Sports (coming later today), is one of those fighters who has plenty of reasons not to get punched in the face for a living. He’s a smart guy, a coach, and has found quite a bit of success in the broadcast booth, which is where he’ll likely stay.

A nine year career and being the only fighter to win in four different weight classes in the UFC is nothing to sniff at. In my mind, he’s the best fighter to never win a championship. It’s a dubious distinction that I’m sure people will scoff at, but considering who was in his way (GSP at Welterweight, BJ Penn at Lightweight, Jose Aldo at Featherweight), there’s absolutely no shame in it.

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Also, today is the day Floyd Mayweather starts his 87 day jail sentence for domestic abuse. He’ll likely be out at the end of August, pending good behavior.

Mayweather maintains his innocence, but his personal history doesn’t make anyone doubt the veracity of the charges and he didn’t exactly put up a fight in court.

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And earlier this week, WWE announced that Randy Orton was suspended for sixty days effective immediately due to his second Wellness Policy violation. They specifically cited a drug test failure. The first time it was marijuana metabolites, so speculation is that it’s likely the same this time. It’s unlikely to be steroids, particularly since if anything Orton’s been noticeably smaller the last couple years. Certainly possible, mind you. Just not likely.

Unlike legitimate sports, the WWE performs its own drug testing. While guys have been suspended in the past for weed, I’m skeptical that they automatically suspend a guy every time he pops a positive for it, since it’s really not a problem unless the guy shows up high and in no condition to perform (i.e. Jeff Hardy some time ago at that TNA pay-per-view).

This couldn’t come at a worse time for him. He was on the verge of being given another major push in the company. And just recently, he was replaced by The Miz as the star of the next installment of WWE films’ “The Marine” franchise due to the military’s refusal to cooperate with the project; Orton had been given a bad conduct discharge from the Marine Corps and served thirty-eight days in a military jail for going AWOL.

His troubled past and propensity for self-destruction is a regular obstacle for the WWE to overcome, which is why he’s been pushed near the top but never been given the ball to run with. And he likely never will. Even if he does stay on the straight and narrow the next two to three years, he’ll never be given the level of exposure that John Cena has because of the dirt that would eventually be dug up.

I still hold to that. I don’t think the guy’s phony. But his reaction to his DUI arrest early Sunday morning sure is shitty.

From his Facebook page:

Man I haven’t added anyone new to my Facebook page in like three years and right now I’m so glad that I haven’t. It has literally been sickening to have so many people try to kick me while I’m down. At the same time, I totally understand, I gave them the leeway to. I screwed up, big time. Just needed to say thank you to all you guys for being amazing friends/supporters.

 

Always having to deal with so many critics, haters and fickle mma fans, I almost forgot how strong of a home base I had (607 and people that knew me before I was a champion fighter). Although the hell that will come with this hasn’t even started yet, I want you guys to know how much better you’ve all made me feel, not only about this situation but about life, everything. It’s good to feel that people are there and care. With that being said, I felt I should apologize to you first.

 

I’m truly sorry to those of you that I may have embarrassed in any way, to those of you with kids that I may have let down. I will prove to them as well as to myself, that no matter what is happening in life, we can always work our way back and make things even better than before. Reading you guys uplifting comments was a great reminder for me to not give up on who I am or all the hateful people. I’m not gonna allow this situation to outweigh the positive. I love you guys right back and I promise to make things right.

 

ps sorry about the terrible grammar

Jones isn’t the first athlete to get busted with this and he won’t be the last. Not by a long shot. It’s a problem bigger than him, particularly in the sense that the “personal Hell” he alludes to are the consequences of him being arrested after crashing into a telephone poll and escaping with minor (if that) injuries. That’s a very common reaction to this sort of thing.

Yet it’s nothing compared to the personal Hell of the family of someone that very well could have been on the wrong end of his Mercedes Benz.

And that’s the real problem here. Jones’s entire “apology” here is built on self-pity and self-deprecation. The last line, apologizing for the terrible grammar and stamped with an emoticon, is the penultimate sentiment. Jon Jones is aghast at the nasty reaction anonymous strangers had to his arrest, rather than at the fact that he could have killed somebody.

Like I said, this isn’t the first and won’t be the last time this happens to a professional athlete. But that doesn’t mean he or we should treat it so flippantly. Too many people, some of whom are reading this, have lost people due to the poor decisions and reckless behavior of people like Jones. For him to intimate anything but the deepest regret is irresponsible and reprehensible.

Shame on you, man.

The UFC’s Vice-President of Regulatory Affairs Marc Ratner aired his grievances to the Times Union’s Jimmy Vielkind:

“I’m unhappy,” said Marc Ratner, UFC’s vice president for regulatory and governmental affairs. “I know we have the votes, but to not, in baseball terms, get an at bat is patently unfair and un-American.”

Hyperbole aside, it was quite the farce. Then again, it’s New York State politics, so that’s to be expected.

Silver yesterday decided not to put the legislation on the floor after a closed door meeting with most of 101 members of the Assembly’s Democratic conference. Silver claimed that an informal poll revealed that there wasn’t sufficient support to bring the bill to a vote. However, an anonymous source within the conference later told Ken Lovett of the New York Daily News that by her count it was about sixty to twenty-five in favor of the bill.

Between the growing support among Democrats in the Chamber and Assembly Republicans, those I’ve talked to in the Capitol think the bill easily would have passed this year if it had reached the floor.

Once again there’s been a lot of talk about the Culinary Union blocking the bill, but I’ve been corrected on that by many people in the know. For those who are unaware, the Fertitta brothers own Zuffa, the parent company of the UFC. They also own Station Casinos and operate the only non-union casinos in Las Vegas, making them a prime target for the local Culinary Union (a subsidiary of Unite Here). The Union’s been more than happy to attack Zuffa in New York and take credit for the strength of opposition to MMA, but the truth I’ve learned over the last two years is that it is owed more (sadly) to out and out ignorance and stubbornness of guys like Bob Reilly, Ron Canestrari, and Silver. Trust me when I say I wanted there to be a conspiracy of some sort, because the truth that it’s just people who don’t understand and even worse don’t want to understand is much more discouraging from an intellectual standpoint. But that’s politics for you.

Over at Fight Opinion, Zach Arnold brings up an important point about the latest Siena Poll on MMA and the seeming lack of support from New Yorkers for legalization.

I don’t care who you are, a consistent year-in, year-out 38% approval rate for any piece of legislation spells doom and rightfully so. However, when this inconvenient truth is mentioned to boosters, look out. All of a sudden, the constituents that the backers want to win over so bad suddenly become evil people who are ignorant, stupid, and don’t deserve MMA shows.

 

…

 

This attitude has permeated in the press throughout the yearly attempts of MMA legislation in New York. MMA is a sport I truly love, but I also recognize that it’s not for everyone and you can’t force people to eat the proverbial dog food if they don’t want to eat it. It doesn’t make them bad human beings.

 

He’s right about the poll, but wrong about it being a factor (same with the Unions who outside of Unite Here putting out public digs against Zuffa don’t give a lick about this issue). Polls and numbers are important, but so is context. A 38% approval rating isn’t great, but it also isn’t going to prevent anything from getting passed because MMA is a very, very low level issue for the average New Yorker.

If the bill was to pass the Assembly, there would not be outrage or indignation, nor would there be picketers and protests outside of events at Madison Square Garden. The circus has much more passionate and legitimate opposition and it still comes to town. The 38% number isn’t because people in New York are disgusted by MMA, it’s because they either don’t care and/or they’re swayed by the fact that it can’t get passed, so they assume it must be awful. If it were to pass and you were to conduct the same poll in three years, I guarantee you’d see a number in the high sixties or low seventies. That’s (sadly) how it works for low lying, uncontroversial issues.

Long story short, the only reason MMA didn’t pass because Sheldon Silver and a handful of his friends really, really don’t like it. Some of them are retiring while the rest are starting to ebb to the pressure of opposition and embarrassment of coverage each year. It’ll happen, probably next year. And no culinary union or poll will be able to stop it.

Check out the picture from MMAFighting.com, and pay particular attention to how thrilled Nate Diaz looks:

Don’t be scared of your portfolio, homie.

"Dear Mr. Kizer, Please excuse my son Alistair from having a 14:1 T/E ratio. He came down with an awful case of Limpdicktitis, which screws up his hormones. Signed, Epstein's mother."

I was all set yesterday to post something about how Ring of Honor’s television show was boring as shit, but then I read a partial transcript of yesterday’s Nevada State Athletic Commission hearing. I threw my hands up, said a curse word, walked away with my hands on my hips, stared at the ground, sighed deeply, heard my cat meow, looked over, followed her into the kitchen, fed her, came back, then saw it again and started the process all over again.

Well, except I didn’t feed my cat again.

The long and the short of it is this: Alistair Overeem is a goddamn cheater. We (and by that I mean those of us with half a fucking brain) have known this ever since he showed up for a fight in Pride as a skinny Light Heavyweight then in just two to three years was one of the largest Heavyweights in MMA. Of course he was on steroids. Nobody believed him when he told Ariel Helwani that he had gotten that way eating horsemeat, because why would they?

The counter to this is that “everyone is innocent until proven guilty.” Bullshit. This isn’t a courtroom, it’s an observation based on logic and the undeniable fact that nobody gets that big that quick and sustains it without the aid of PEDs.

Yesterday he was dragged before the commission to answer for a test failure where he registered an incomparable 14:1 T/E ratio. According to Dave Meltzer and Bryan Alvarez over at F4W/Wrestling Observer, Overeem’s people were on their third planned defense. The first they considered was the typical bullshit “Testosterone Replacement Therapy” exemption, but that fell apart when they couldn’t make the timeline work. The second was going to be that Overeem suffered from erectile dysfunction and that the medication he had taken for it registered a false positive. After being assured that this was medically impossible, they settled on the strange excuse that a cortisone shot administered by his doctor was, unknown to him, secretly laced with testosterone.

The Commission was satisfied. They denied him a license, but are allowing him to re-apply in nine months (just in time for the UFC’s New Year’s Eve show). Nine months! For having the testosterone of fourteen men! Based on an excuse they know was made up and is nearly impossible!

The Commissioners were all smiles. They commended his hack doctor, who has been disciplined in the past for illegally selling drugs over the internet, for his “superlative” testimony. They were polite to Overeem and his people to the point of absurdity. They all but said “take a break, go on vacation, relax, and be more careful when you’re cycling steroids, ‘Reem, sweetie.”

The worst part of this is that this wasn’t really a “surprise” test. When Overeem was granted his conditional license to fight Brock Lesnar last December, he was asked to provide a sample and hours later jumped on a plane to the Netherlands claiming that he was called home to care for his ailing mother. People insist she was actually sick, but the timing reeks. Not only that, but once he did provide a sample, he gave the wrong one. The Commission told him at that time they’d allow him to fight, but he had to not only pass a test before the event, but also another one sometime after the event. Not in a year, not in six months, not the night of his next fight, but sometime after. That time came at the press conference for UFC 146. It could not have been that much of a surprise to him when he knew they were going to test him and, in fact, they were required to based on the agreement he made with them.

So to recap: Overeem’s a complete idiot and his people aren’t much better. He’s not even smart enough to cycle out when he knows a drug test is imminent, and can’t even pass one by Nevada’s overly generous 6:1 threshold. Worse, though, is that the Nevada State Athletic Commission knew better and let him walk anyway, just like they did with Chael Sonnen and his ludicrous claim of needing Testosterone Replacement Therapy for medical reasons.

The Commissioners, Keith Kizer included, should be ashamed of themselves. Whether through nefarious duplicity or sheer incompetence, they’ve once again allowed combat sports to look even more corrupt than it is by implying they’re in on the transparent excuses provided by drugged-up cheaters. It’d be tragic were it not infuriating to know that this is coming from a Commission funded by taxpayer dollars that’s supposed to be providing industry oversight.

Just in case you’re not done being angry, here’s some more coverage and appropriate outrage to aid in making your head explode:

• Cage Potato: Alistair Overeem Denied License by Nevada State Athletic Commission, Can Reapply in Nine Months
• Fight Opinion (Zach Arnold): A predictable day for Keith Kizer & the NSAC with Alistair Overeem
• Kevin Iole: Alistair Overeem’s PED punishment reduced by Nevada commission, which didn’t take a stand 
• Ben Fowlkes: Alistair Overeem’s Absurd Defense, and the Desperate Search for a Little Accountability

They're not dead or anything, this is just the image the UFC had for some reason.

Last Saturday’s UFC on Fuel TV card wasn’t seen by many (as of this writing Fuel’s available in about sixty-three households in the whole world), but as I alluded to last Friday, the overlooked card provided plenty of entertainment due to strong matchmaking.

PRELIMINARY CARD (Facebook)

• Jason Young defeated Eric Wisely via unanimous decision (30–28, 29–28, 29–28)
• Simeon Thoresen defeated Besam Yousef via submission (rear-naked choke) at 2:36 of round 2
• Reza Madadi defeated Yoislandy Izquierdo via submission (guillotine choke) at 1:28 of round 2
• Francis Carmont defeated Magnus Cedenblad via submission (rear-naked choke) at 1:42 of round 2
• Cyrille Diabate defeated Tom DeBlass via majority decision (29–28, 29–28, 28–28)
• James Head defeated Papy Abedi via submission (rear-naked choke) at 4:33 of round 1.

Confession: I didn’t see a single one of these. The last fight ended up making the broadcast after the main event, but I’d already left the house.

MAIN CARD

• Brad Pickett defeated Damacio Page via submission (rear-naked choke) at 4:05 of round 2. I missed this one, too, and I’m bummed that I did. Been reading it was a great damn fight. I might have to bit-torrent that shit somehow acquire it through legal means, my friends at the UFC! WINK.
• John Maguire defeated DaMarques Johnson via submission (armbar) at 4:40 of round 2. Poor DaMarques. He went too hard and too aggressive for a submission and got caught himself. I feel for you, bro. That shit’s infuriating.
• Dennis Siver defeated Diego Nunes via unanimous decision (29–28, 29–28, 29–28). I take back what I said. I might be biased because I’ve been a backer since he came in to the UFC, but he looked great here. I think he’ll adjust okay despite his difficulty making weight (it was his first time fighting at 145). The only concern here is addressing the grappling deficiency he’ll run into when he gets to the upper echelon of the division, but I honestly think he’s going to adjust and be a real threat. Keep your eye on this one.
• Siyar Bahadurzada defeated Paulo Thiago via KO (punch) at 0:42 of round 1. God damn, son. Paulo put his head wayyyyy down for an overhand right and got met with the business end of an uppercut from Bahadurzada that almost took his head off. Well played.
• Brian Stann defeated Alessio Sakara via KO (punches) at 2:26 of round 1. I like Stann so I was happy to see him get the win here, but I was bummed to see Sakara go down again. There’s a lot of potential there. C’est la vie.
• Alexander Gustafsson defeated Thiago Silva via unanimous decision (30–27, 30–27, 29–28). Let me get this out of the way first: Gustafsson looked really good here. He battered Silva about the cage and wasn’t intimidated at all by the man who just last year was playing bongos on Brandon Vera’s back shortly after providing a sample to the Nevada State Athletic Commission that, it turns out, was “not human urine” (hence the one year suspension). Still, all this talk of Jon Jones – both the comparisons to and talk of an eventual bout – are wicked premature. Gustafsson looked good enough to easily dispatch a guy who’s just outside the top ten at Light Heavyweight. Does that mean he’s ready for Jones? Not even close. It does show, though, that the guy’s got a lot of upside and is only getting better.

Is it worth going out of your way to see a replay? Eh. Pickett/Page maybe, but I think you’re safe missing everything else.

“When talking to him on the phone, his speech was becoming slurred,” said Mike Mobbs, who’s counted Goodridge as his best friend since the two were nine years old, growing up in Barrie, Ontario together. “It got to the point where, when having phone conversations with him, I found myself constantly saying, ‘What did you say? Pardon?’ That, to me, was the tip-off.”

He’d forget appointments, forget whole conversations. He’d call a friend on the phone, talk to them for a while, then hang up and call them back ten minutes later. ‘How’s it going?’ he’d ask. And what were you supposed to say? That it was going exactly the same as it was ten minutes ago? That his brain was broken, and that there was nothing anybody could do about it?

…

“I had no idea about CTE,” Goodridge said. “I didn’t know anything.”

read more: The Fighter Who Stayed Too Long at MMAFighting.com

The story of Goodridge, as conveyed by Fowlkes, is heartbreaking. Particularly what it’s done to his friends and family.

People will write this off because Goodridge is at the extreme end of the spectrum of fighters who hang on too long. Goodridge is first and foremost associated with MMA, but he’s also fought in boxing, he has an even more extensive kickboxing resume. I worry people will see that and write it off as isolated, but it’s a very real problem in all of sports, not just MMA or boxing or combat sports in general. One need look only to what we’re finding out about former NFL players, in particular that their average life expectancy is hitting the low to mid 50s, mostly due to CTE-induced trauma, depression, etcetera. Sports fans are going to have to start asking themselves and their favorite leagues/promoters some very hard questions sooner rather than later.

================================

And from The Boxing Tribune’s Paul Magno: a much younger fighter at the very top of the game, Manny Pacquaio, is essentially broke due to the (potentially illegal) interference in his finances coming from Top Rank promotions and Bob Arum:

Manny Pacquiao’s grasp and control of an empire that has generated well over half a billion dollars is contained within six cardboard boxes filled to the brim with random receipts and hand written notes. Forbes’ 24th Richest Athlete in the World also has no idea where to find basic documents such as fight contracts, bank statements, endorsement contracts, promoter contracts, property ownership records, etc.

…

According to statements made by VisionQwest CEO, Michael Lodge, Pacquiao’s entire operation was in disarray with Manny’s advisor, Michael Koncz, assuming control of all money dealings in the absence of a full-time accountant or trained financial consultant. Little care was paid to accuracy as numbers, supplied by Koncz, were simply “plugged” into generic taxation forms and sent off to the IRS.

But disorder and sloppy record-keeping would be the least troublesome facts uncovered by VisionQwest.

According to the company, they also found out that Pacquiao’s advisor, Koncz, not only worked for Pacquiao, but was also working for Pacquiao’s promoter, Top Rank.

read more: Where in the World is Manny’s Money? at The Boxing Tribune

What more can I say? Boxing’s always been manipulative and haunted by less than reputable characters that have forever tainted and stained its image and integrity, but Bob Arum and company are among the lowest of the low. It’s nigh impossible to even imagine a guy like Pacquaio, who has generated so much money that most of us can’t even comprehend it, being cash poor. Yet here we are.

As MMAFighting.com notes, Dana and Lorenzo weren’t thrilled with the idea:

“I actually asked Dana and Lorenzo, could I take a fight for the fans at the end of 2012,” Jones said. “I figured beating Henderson and Rashad, there would be a period where we’d figure out who I’m going to fight next, and during that period, at the end of 2012, I asked to fight a heavyweight — a Top 10 heavyweight.”

…
“Dana and Lorenzo didn’t think that was the best for me to do right now,” Jones said. “They wanted me to continue at the light heavyweight division.”

I drew the comparison between Silva and Jones only because thus far in his reign Jones has shown the same level of dominance against the best of his division in the same way Silva has for the past few years.

There are, however, some differences that need to be acknowledged. First, there’s the fact that there’s a big discrepancy between Middleweight and Light Heavyweight in terms of both drawing power and depth of talent. The Middleweight division has improved leaps and bounds from where it was four years ago, but despite having the best pound for pound fighter as its champion (or perhaps in part because of it) is still something of a journeyman’s division. There are a crop of what I would consider “natural” 185 fighters finally breaking through, but for years the division was occupied by guys moving up in weight because they’re too slow for 170 and others who couldn’t cut it at 205. Even today, the #2 and #3 fighters at that weight, Chael Sonnen and Michael Bisping, are examples of the latter.

So while Jon Jones has been dominant, he still has some contenders in a much deeper division. That said, as ridiculous as it may sound, he’s almost there. He’s beaten Bader, Rua, Jackson, and Machida in less than one calendar year. After he gets through Evans and Henderson (which I have a strong suspicion he will given his utter dominance of the other fighters), he’ll have cleaned out the top 10 of the Light Heavyweight division. Who will be left to contend? Phil Davis is a prospect, but showed last Saturday that he’s not quite there yet. The only other fighters who could even be considered top 10 – Thiago Silva and Antonio Rogerio Nogueira – are not likely to get in a position of title contention anytime soon (if ever again), let alone stand a chance against him.

The frequency with which Jon Jones has fought has made him an MVP for the promotion, but the UFC sort of shot themselves in the foot by overbooking him, because he’s run through every potential contender they’ve put in front of him and now they’re in a scenario where he likely won’t have any contenders after the Spring. Dominant champions are good for a spell, but their drawing power is severely diminished once the fans can no longer buy opponents as viable contenders. That’s why Brock Lensar was the UFC’s top draw: it wasn’t just because of his mainstream notoriety from pro wrestling, but also (and more importantly) because he was seen as a beatable monster and every challenge he faced held some degree of intrigue. With Jones, each successive title defense seems more and more like an inevitability, as it has with Anderson Silva and to a lesser extent Georges St-Pierre.

For those same reasons, I understand Dana’s refusal to let Jones fight a top ten heavyweight. That division is a mess as it is and they’ve lost Lesnar to retirement. The influx of Strikeforce Heavyweights is promising but lends to it an air of uncertainty, particularly with fighters like Josh Barnett and Allistair Overeem, both of whom the UFC is going to be booking with baited breath and hoping they don’t piss hot for a Commission drug test. Having a Light Heavyweight, even its champion, move up in weight for one or two fights and potentially sabotage another contender wouldn’t be good business. Anderson Silva fighting James Irvin and Forrest Griffin was one thing, because Irvin was never going to contend and Griffin by that time was all but done as a contender and just around for name value and the occasional superfight (see also: Franklin, Rich). Having Jones do the same would probably draw a good buyrate, but at the risk of bringing depth and legitimacy of an entire division into question.

Still, one has to ask: if/when the time comes where Jon Jones has beaten literally every single potential contender, what the Hell are they going to do with the guy?

In his latest post, Arnold discusses a litany of really shocking and sad topics, including but not limited to Satoshi Ishii receiving a cerebral edema at the hands of Fedor on New Year’s Eve that may have ended his career (if he knows what’s good for him), K-1′s being all but dead, and yet another financial scandal involving professional wrestlers and Yakuza money marks.

It also touches on how all these factors are making the UFC’s foray into the country (PREVIOUSLY: What’s the UFC thinking with its Japanese card?) a risky proposition:

UFC is not going to fill the vacuum that has been left behind by the carcasses of PRIDE & K-1 and that’s a real shame on a lot of levels. While there are plenty of smaller shows (like DEEP coming up at Tokyo Dome City Hall), the large-scale environment for a big Japanese show is toast right now. It’s terrible. The Japanese fight scene has had such a rich history of producing serious, mega-level events and to see what has happened is an utter disappointment. However, it’s been a disappointment that has been man-made by many crooks and egotistical bastards who became too clever for their own good. The major players made their beds and they have to lay in them. They just didn’t know that they were death beds.

Read more (FightOpinion.com)