Tapping Out With TBerg 09.04.09: Episode XLVI: September To Remember

Posted by Todd Bergman on 09.04.2009

411’s Todd Bergman breaks down the UFC’s schedule for September and lets you know why this month is so important to the future of the UFC in this edition of Tapping out with TBerg.


August was most certainly one of the greatest months in MMA history. Now, as we turn the calendar page to September, it quickly becomes one of the most important months in UFC history as well. September is important because there are three major events happening for the Zuffa promotion, and all of them could lead to the next big wave of superstars. I'm sure that many of you think that any potential card could produce the next big star, but no other month has so much at stake like September does. The UFC has gone out of its way to try to promote newer stars, and I'm a huge believer in this as many of you are as well. The critical month begins on September 16h when the UFC invades new territory in Oklahoma City for their Ultimate Fight Night Live. The show's main event is Nate Diaz vs. Melvin Guillard; however, I think that the true Main Event is Gray Maynard vs. Roger Huerta. This show will be the lead-in for the next season of The Ultimate Fighter which tackles the Heavyweight division for the first time since Season 2 of the show. The fighting month ends on that same week, Saturday 19th, as the UFC invades Texas for the second time with UFC 103. Let's have a look at what makes these shows so important to the future of the UFC.



When the UFC rolls into Oklahoma City on the 16th of September, a lot of eyes will be watching this show as it is the lead-in for The Ultimate Fighter Season 10, which should be renamed The Kimbo Slice Hour. Whether any of us like it or not, more people will be watching this season of The Ultimate Fighter because of Kimbo Slice than any other previous season. That media buzz factor will first focus its eyes on the UFN 19 card. As I stated previously, I don't think that the match up of Nate vs. Melvin is a great one as it's more of a squash match-up for Nate than anything. That's not to take away from the Gray Maynard vs. Roger Huerta fight that will be taking place a few minutes before Nate starts flexing his non-existent muscles during his intro from Bruce Buffer. The UFC has given Gray Maynard this fight mainly to lay claim to the number one contender status and secondly to give Huerta a beating on his way out of the company. I, unlike quite a few other people, don't see a problem with a guy trying to better himself, and that is exactly what Huerta is doing by trying to make it in Hollywood. The problem that I have with the decision is that the UFC basically gift wrapped numerous victories for Huerta in hopes that he would be the leading force in the Mexican demographic. Plans quickly changed for the UFC when Huerta let them know that he planned on trying his luck in Hollywood just weeks leading up to his UFC 87 showdown with Kenny Florian. Looking at the odds at the moment, Maynard is a small favorite, but you know that the UFC is hoping that he destroys Huerta so that Roger doesn't kill the next challenger to the Lightweight throne that will soon be occupied by Diego Sanchez. I would think that both the Huerta and Sanchez fights would be winnable for Gray. He first must get past Huerta, who has a tremendous heart and an unbreakable will. The card also features a terrific showdown between Nate Quarry and Tim Credeur. Both are former The Ultimate Fighter cast members and very likeable fighters to say the least. The match up should tell us where the contenders line should be inside the Middleweight division. A win here for Credeur means a step up in competition and a shot in the future at number-one-contender status. Nate Quarry, on the other hand, has been to the promise land of title shots. It was a short ride as he was brutally KO'ed by Rich Franklin. From there Quarry decided to have back surgery and fell from the graces of Team Quest in the process. Quarry needs a win here to stay with the company as the UFC has become the Ultimate "Win-or-Go Home" Championship for those fighters on the very steep slope of being UFC-worthy. Fighters like Brock Larson, Dan Miller, Jeremy Stephens, and Steve Cantwell are all fighting on the undercard as well. Therefore, there's a good possibility, with only four fights scheduled for the televised card, that one or two of those undercard fights could find their way onto the Spike TV broadcast. It's a tremendous chance for all of the fighters to gain more over-ness with the general public, who might just be tuning in to see Kimbo Slice. I've also come to the understanding that the undercard for UFN 19 is the best ever. However, I'm going to leave it up for your consideration below.



How could you not be extremely pumped for this upcoming season when you watch the trailer posted above. I could not care less about Kimbo Slice being on the show considering how excited I am to see the Rampage and Rashad rivalry and some of the other Heavies tangle with each other. The UFC has always been critized about its Heavyweight division, so this season Dana and Spike stacked the deck with a lot of great talent. Don't get me wrong, I think that addition of Kimbo is smart from a ratings perspective but I don't think that he will win the show. You can rest assured that Kimbo will have a televised fight on the December 5th Finale because, again, Kimbo is a ratings monster. Much like the UFN 19 fighters, these guys on The Ultimate Fighter have a huge avenue in front of them because of Slice when it comes to ratings. Great fighters like Roy Nelson, Marcus Jones and Indiana's own Matt Mitrione are among others that will benefit from the Slice-effect. If Kimbo does lose then it will be interesting to see what happens with the ratings, but I think that it's safe to assume that Kimbo won't fight until the last fight of the 1st round because it's a smart strategy if you are trying to lure in viewers. I've written previous articles that suggested ways for the UFC to revive its stale reality show format, and after last season's dull and boring nature, I think that they might hit a homerun and actually get fans excited about the show once again. While the coaches' rivalry is important, it's also important to have a solid cast, and this years' should have something for everyone. I can tell you that I know a great deal about this season, but I won't be posting it here, especially after the Slice story that I told that nearly blew up the 411 server. If you don't remember, it involved Wes Sims and a message board: enough said from me. I will say that I don't know the winner of the season and I don't want to know, because then why would I watch the show. I will say that if I had to pick a winner it would be Roy Nelson because of his background of excellence in the IFL. My dark-horse winner would either be Matt from Indy or James McSweeney, who is a tremendous kick-boxer that trains with Greg Jackson in New Mexico. I'm possibly overlooking a few people, but it should be a great season that will introduce many new fans to the great sport of MMA.



UFC 103, at first, seemed like a thrown-together card that was to rival the Floyd Mayweather fight that same night. Starting off, this card wasn't much at all, as the original Main Event was to be Henderson vs. Franklin II, but, with one dirty Josh Barnett drug test later, the face of this card was updated. My opinion is very different when it comes to this card now. I'm not going to say that I like the catch weight idea for the Vitor vs. Franklin fight, but I think that the fight is going to be excellent. It will be interesting to see if Vitor can stop Rich's takedown attempts and equally entertaining to see what Rich will do if he gets caught in another Muay Thai clinch. Like I stated above, there is much more to this card than just the Main Event. I'm particularly looking forward to the dos Santos vs. Cro Cop showdown. I've made it public knowledge that this fight will be another showcase of dos Santos' abilities and just another reason to believe in the rumors of Cro Cop's declining abilities. I originally wanted to say something about the PRIDE curse, but it's been awhile since PRIDE was bought out and most of those guys have adjusted to the Octagon, so I'm not going to touch that. The Welterweight title picture will get a little clearer as either Mike Swick or Martin Kampmann will become the next guy to challenge GSP. For the record, I think that it's tremendous that the UFC would give a fresh face like Kampmann or Swick a title shot, but I don't expect to see either dethrone GSP. Most will see the Hermes Franca vs. Tyson Griffin fight as pretty one-sided in the favor of Griffin. However, I don't see this fight as one-sided. I think that Franca and Griffin will more than likely steal the show and win the FOTN bonus; and if it weren't for dos Santos, Hermes could steal the KO of the night bonus as well. Griffin has always been a main fixture within the UFC's Lightweight division but he always seems to hit a little road block on his way to a title shot. Even if Tyson wins here, I think that there are too many other fights for him to have before challenging the winner of the Sanchez or Penn vs. Maynard fight. There's also the Nick Diaz fight, which Diaz has begged for since he entered the UFC. There's some seriously bad blood and the hype could go a long way in promoting a UFN or a lead-off bout to a less than stellar UFC Pay-Per view card in the future. Back to the overall card, and I know that Franklin and Belfort aren't huge names in MMA, but the UFC has done a tremendous job of stacking the main card and the undercard for the most part. It was also nice to see the UFC pick up a good majority of the Affliction guys so they can fight and feed their families or themselves. My only complaint, other than the catch weight showdown, is that the fight between Cole Miller and Efrain Escudero isn't on the main, televised portion of UFC 103. This should be a great fight between two up-and-comers that could do some damage within the Lightweight ranks in the future.



It was another strong week for comments. Last week, I did a small breakdown of the future challengers to Brock Lesnar. I was completely blown away by Big Nog's performance at UFC 102; therefore, I apologize to Nog for doubting his abilities.

Shooter said mate: Nice article mate...So you think rothwell is a superiour wrestler to Cain ?? I dont see how you are making that claim to be honest

Cain is a tremendous wrestler and there's no doubting that. However, I think that Rothwell's wrestling is better for MMA and therefore better than Cain's. I haven't seen Rothwell dominated when it comes to being taken down at will or anything like that when he has fought better fighters. Cain's only chance is to wrestler Ben down and hold him there, much like Cain did against Kongo. I should've made my claim a little bit more clear, but that's why I have this section.

Guest 7842 thinks: next hw champ will be frank mir. next time he will shut his mouth and do the job. i not accepting nog was injured,mir looked great on his feet. next time will be mir's day against lesnar

You never know, you could be correct. But Mir is causing quite the shit storm as of late. Frank has been bashing Rogan's commentary in which Rogan stated that Big Nog was injured coming into the fight with Mir and that's why Nog performed so poorly. It's also funny that Mir is upset by this because Frank made every excuse in the book when it came to losses to Cruz and Vera, but he's upset about Joe Rogan's comments? Frank makes every excuse in the book for his performances, and I believe this is why the phrase was coined, "that's the pot calling the kettle black." There's no way Frank Mir beats a well-trained Brock Lesnar. Mir's BJJ isn't aggressive enough and his striking isn't powerful enough to stop Lesnar. Maybe Frank can stop a Couture, but definitely not a Lesnar.

bob lobs: i do and dont really agree with your list of pretenders and contenders. It seems as though everyone forget that brock lesnar only has 5 fights total, ya he dominated herring and mir the 2nd time around but i think he was losing to randy up until he finished him. Im taking Shane Carwin to beat him, he has the size, power, wrestling skill, and stays fairly calm during his fights. Gonzaga and Kongo are among the upper more experienced in the division, obviously Kongo needs to improve his wrestling and takedown defence. Gonzaga needs to become a little more consistent aswell i agree, but on any given night those guys finish fights over most of the heavyweight division. i just think that brock, althought extremely athletic and tough has been given this status as unbeatable. randy had him hurt a couple times and so did Mir with a knee in the 2nd round of their 2nd fight, and for that reason aswell as inexperience to most of the other contenders and pretenders, i think he loses his title, and feels the sting of a few other losses. In the Heavys most everyone has a punchers chance to win every night out.

You did a good job of defending your point of view, and I respect what you said. However, I think that Gonzaga has proven that he chokes on the big fight and that Carwin is still insanely green when it comes to fighting. However, Carwin does throw big bombs and does have a chance to finish Lesnar. That will be very hard when Carwin is on his back; moreover, it's pretty common knowledge that Shane has little ground skills. Also, not everyone has a puncher's chance. Justin McCully isn't going to knock anyone out, and, in fact, he has never knocked anyone out. I'm nitpicking, but everything is more enjoyable when it comes to involving "The Insane One."

The Real Todd Bergman states: You son of a bitch impersonator.

I didn't realize that my article had become a less crappy version of Lost. Apparently that was the future-me telling the present-me to not allow Juliet to set the bomb off. Oh crap, we are going to be stuck talking about things in the second episode and no one will know what is going on until I have to make an even worse movie for all cult followers out there.

Fear_Inc. scares me: I saw Todd Todd Duffee, in a local MMA show, for the ANFC in the Dominican Republic, one year ago... let me tell you, the guy is a fucking brutal striking beast, he took on some guy who's name I can't recall, who was a like 6'8, 279 pound, freestyle expert & striker... they went for a stand up type match, and this guy make short work of him, with a massive First round KO (ala' Serra vs. GSP 1) in less than 2 minutes... the whole Colliseum, went fucking NUTS!, went they saw this!, this performance made me an instant "Todd Duffee" Mark... All I said at the time was "this guy's day is coming"... I for one, hope he get's his shot…

I love how many people are climbing on the Todd Duffee huffy. Hell yeah, trademark that please! Anyway, I'm glad that he has another fan in you. I also find the irony of the words: mark and coliseum in the same paragraph. I'm hoping that you are a huge wrestling fan as well, because if you aren't then you should be. Anyway, I hope that Duffee gets his shot as well because he could be a lot to handle for anyone in the Heavyweight division. Any chance that you can send some of those talented 15 year baseball prospect from the Dominican Republic to my beloved Cincinnati Reds?

AdamS is cooler than Ryan Seacrest: I think Frank Mir has more to offer than anyone gives him credit for. That can only be borne out over fights, though. What I will say is that I think Mir is 3 wins from another title shot, abnd if he does get that far, it should be interesting.

I think that it's a fair statement to say that Mir is three fights away. I assume that he will get Kongo in December, Gonzaga in April and then Big Nog next December.

Morcellator is confused: To say that if Carwin beats Brock he would be "a modern day Buster Douglas" is ridiculous.. A) Brock is a monster, but not the caliber Mike Tyson was in his sport at that time, and B)Carwin is a legit threat to Lesnar, and is seen as such by the public; he's only a 2:1 underog in this fight. For God's sakes, he has won every one of his fights (other than his first-which he still won) by (T)KO in less than 2 minutes! He has dynamite in his fists, has a solid wrestling base, and is one of the few guys who may have the power to counter Lesnars. He IS THE #1 CONTENDER RIGHT NOW...if not, who the hell is? No one! And you can't just build one up...there are no cans in the UFC; EVERYONE at this level is skilled and wins don't come easy. You try to build someone up there is a good chance they get caught by someone. History has shown us this time and time again. If you can make a fight, you make the damn fight!
And as you alluded to, but seemed to ignore in your article: waiting for anyone would by a retarded business decision. You can't have Brock sitting around waiting, while you try to build up someone so they seem like a better contender. They don't need to, Brock vs a ham sandwich would do a million buys! And frankly...champions should defend their belt, regularly, and against the best guy that can be put in front of them. Right now, that is Shane Carwin.

Let me clear up the confusion here. When I was talking about Carwin being "Buster Douglas" it was meant more along the lines of the general media portraying that. However, I think that there would be a huge amount of people that wouldn't see it coming. I also told you not to use the "if he's not, then who is" excuse, but you did that anyway. Why would Lesnar waiting be a stupid business move? If you rush Lesnar into the octagon every four months, you become like the WEC where there are only three big names. You have to build people up to a certain extent. My thought for not putting Carwin in there so soon is that if he loses, it's going to be hard for him to get back to that level. Rich Franklin hasn't been the same since Anderson Silva destroyed him, yet the UFC put Rich in there again and he got his ass kicked worse than ever before. The same could be said about Tito Ortiz vs. Chuck Liddell (Guest#6539 should read this as well). I'm hoping that Shane develops some sort of BJJ powers because he's getting dumped and humped by Lesnar. Also, you want the best guys to fight for the titles, but you also want the companies to make smart business decisions. Well, the two don't always go together and that's why I don't think that many people are going to buy Carwin as a legitimate contender.

Thanks for checking out this week's article. Make sure to let me know what fights you are looking forward to this month and who you think will win them. Also, who is your favorite to win this season of The Ultimate Fighter? If you like what you are seeing here on 411mania.com make sure to add this wonderful site to your bookmarks for easier internet accessibility. Remember to support your local MMA and keep your tapping hand strong.