Cardio Freak MMA News Report 5.01.08: Dominating With The Belt

Posted by Jeremy Lambert on 05.01.2008

Cardio Freak is back with a look at why Georges St. Pierre vs. Anderson Silva is a bad idea and why it benefits the divisions and business if they stay champions for a long time. Plus all the news on UFC 85: BEDLAM~! and the war of words between Kimbo Slice and Chuck Liddell. It's safer than Travis Lutter's career, it's Cardio Freak on 411Mania.



Welcome back to Cardio Freak folks. I am your host Jeremy ‘2 To Go' Lambert.

I am finally done with college classes but still have some exams in my future. At this time next week, I'll be done with everything and I'll go from assing this column to half-assing it. YEAH~! This week was supposed to be the brand new start but GTA4 came out and that pretty much explains itself.

Top Story of The Week

Dominant Champions

With Georges St. Pierre regaining the Welterweight title and doing so in his 3rd straight dominant victory, a lot of talk has been about GSP moving up to 185 to fight Anderson Silva in a bout that would determine the P4P best fighter in the UFC. I don't like this move for a number of reasons.

First off, Georges St. Pierre needs to defend his title. There's no question that when he's on his game, he's the best Welterweight in the world and looks unbeatable. People were saying that after he defeated Matt Hughes the first time and look what happened in his first title defense. It's a cliché but it's true, "It hard to win the belt, it's harder to keep it." Before St. Pierre moves up to fight the champion of another weight class, I want to see him put in a nice run as the champion.

Second, I don't think the fight will be the huge draw that so many people want it to be. Is it a hardcore fans dream fight but like it or not, Anderson Silva isn't this huge draw. Georges St. Pierre has reached the 2nd level of draws where no matter who he is fighting he's good for about 500,000 buys and if he's fighting someone and there's a history there or a really good build, it'll do around 700,000. What really hurts Silva is that even though he's an exciting fighter and he always finishes fights, he doesn't speak English so it's tough to make any type of connection with him. The fight will do a good buyrate because it's really tough for UFC to do a horrible number in their current state but it's not going to break 1 million like some people believe.

Finally, someone has to lose. I know someone has to lose in every fight but when you lose within your division, you fight someone else in your division and build yourself back up. No matter who loses this fight, they're still going to be the champion of the division. If Anderson Silva loses to GSP, he would have lost to a smaller man when he's defeated men bigger than him. It makes GSP look really good (until he goes back down to Welterweight and loses) but it makes your Middleweight champion, who will still have the belt, look weak. If GSP loses to Silva, GSP loses to a guy bigger than him when he went up to fight him. It does nothing for Silva because he beat a guy out of his division and it gives GSP a loss that isn't really necessary.

This fight may happen in a year or two and I won't complain if it does but there's no need to throw it together right away and based on their comments, Dana White and GSP know that.

Anyway, the main point of this article is about dominant champions. Your champions can't be dominant when you're having them fight each other with no benefit. With his current run, it's going to be HUGE when someone knocks off Anderson Silva. People though Dan Henderson was going to defeat him but they would still pick Silva just because, "to be the man, you gotta beat the man." Anderson Silva is a sexy pick against anyone because he's run through everyone he's faced. Even if the match up is bad for Silva, he's still going to be favored and if he loses, it's still going to be a big deal.

When Chuck Liddell was running through guys between Quinton Jackson fights, he was the sexy pick and when he finally lost to Quinton Jackson, it was a big deal. You hear it all the time whenever Jackson is on TV, "he was the first guy to knock out Chuck Liddell", "He beat Chuck Liddell when Chuck Liddell was on fire", "He made Chuck Liddell look human" and so on. When someone defeats Anderson Silva, you're going to hear the same things.

Georges St. Pierre and BJ Penn have a chance to become those dominant champions. The consensus is that when GSP is mentally focused, he's the best Welterweight in the world and when BJ Penn is properly trained, he's the best Lightweight in the world. If they string together 4 or 5 straight victories, it's going to be a HUGE deal when someone defeats them. Quinton Jackson and Antonio Nogueira have that chance as well but I worry about Jackson because there's so much talent at Light Heavyweight and I worry about Nog because he takes a beating in every single fight and I don't know much longer he can keep it up while continuing the superman comeback.

Everyone loved the Fedor and Wanderlei Silva stories in PRIDE because they were dominant champions who ran through their opponents and they looked unbeatable. I thought it was a huge mistake for Silva to fight Cro Cop in the GP because if he lost (and he did in brutal fashion) it would make him look human. I believe that if Silva didn't fight Cro Cop and lose, when Henderson beat him it would have been a much bigger deal than it was. When someone defeats Fedor, it's going to be a big deal.

Simply put, dominant champions are good for business. Upsets are great to watch but hinder business many times. When a champion goes on a long run, people are going to love him or hate him. If they love him, they're going to pay to see him dominate another opponent. If they hate him, they're going to pay to see him finally lose. It also makes the guy who defeats him look that much stronger and the guys who were defeated continue to look strong because it's not like he defeated just them.

UFC Event News & Notes

UFC.com reported that Matt Hughes will take on Thiago Alves at UFC 85. This fight will now headline the card due to Chuck Liddell pulling out

How appropriate is it that Matt Hughes attempts to save this card? No, I don't think it's an attempt from Hughes to gain some fans or whatever since he became the biggest heel ever after TUF6. I think it's appropriate because Matt Hughes and Chuck Liddell are really good friends (talk about polar opposites) so Hughes stepping in for Liddell seems fit.

I really like this fight as a replacement for Liddell vs. Evans. Matt Hughes is almost the forgotten Welterweight after being dominated by GSP twice but lets not forget that Hughes was the dominant Welterweight before GSP took that crown. Thiago Alves was rumored to have a title shot after Jon Fitch but a win over Hughes would really solidify that claim.

In light of the Liddell injury, UFC really scrambled to put on a good card and I think they succeeded. Matt Hughes is one of those 2nd level draws so there's your star power, Leben vs. Bisping should be an explosive fight with some TUF name value and Bisping in England, and Evans is still on the card. Kudos to Dana White and Joe Silva for salvaging what looked to be a dead card.

After the Chuck Liddell injury, UFC wanted to put together a Rich Franklin vs. Dan Henderson to be slotted as the UFC 85 main event. This according to MMAMania

Wow. I think this would be a better main event than Hughes vs. Alves but imagine if they could have put both fights on the card. Reports indicate that this indeed will be the next fight for both men, which is good news.

It's also said that Franklin turned down this fight because he didn't feel that his body could peak again by June 7th. I'm sure this lead to people saying that Franklin was scared of Henderson or whatever but if you don't think you're going to be ready to fight a guy the caliber of Dan Henderson, you shouldn't take the fight. I don't want to see a 80% Rich Franklin fighting a 100% Dan Henderson. I want them both at 100% and at their very best.

If and when this fight does take place, I would like to think that the winner would face Anderson Silva but I just don't know. Maybe the winner will instead take on Yushin Okami and the winner of that would fight Silva but that would be a pretty long layoff for the Middleweight champion.

UFC 85 is now named UFC 85: Bedlam. The show is now back on PPV

According to my sources, Bedlam is an insane asylum in London. I guess that's where Dana White went for a couple of hours when he found out Chuck pulled from the event.

Sucks that the show is no longer free on SpikeTV but it turned out to be a really strong card so it should still do pretty well on PPV. In fact, I've heard a lot of people say that the card is now better with Chuck off the card as opposed to Chuck Liddell vs. Rashad Evans being the main event.

UFC Fighter News & Notes

UFC has released Travis Lutter and Joe Doerksen. Reports indicate that many more releases are on the horizon

I called for Lutter's release last week so I'm very excited about that news. Doerksen only came in for the company to fight Ed Herman as a replacement and then proceeded to lose to Herman and Jason MacDonald. Both guys will go back to doing the smaller shows and I could see Doerksen returning as he actually looked good in his two losses while Lutter looked good but was unprofessional in his losses.

According to the F4W Newsletter, Anderson Silva is down with an "undisclosed injury"

Well maybe UFC can do the winner of Henderson vs. Franklin against Okami depending on the length of this injury. This is a very strange injury and comes at a weird time for Silva and the UFC. Dana White has already shot down the Roy Jones vs. Anderson Silva boxing fight numerous times but Silva keeps talking about it, which has to frustrate Dana. Best wishes to Silva and his recovery and hopefully we'll see him in the corner of Lyoto Machida at UFC 84.

Quick tangent: My suite-mate came to me the other day and asked, "Jeremy, what do you know about some guy named Anderson Silva?" and I gave him a quick rundown that sums up with, "he's the fucking man." My suite-mate isn't a UFC fan or anything but he heard that Roy Jones Jr. wanted to fight some guy named Anderson Silva and he was interested in watching it. After I told him a bit about Silva, he became even more interested. Point being, it's a bad move by UFC to let Silva fight Jones Jr. because Silva is likely going to lose but there's little question that the fight would draw huge interest and if Silva were to win, it would be a huge event.

BJ Penn was the first known fighter to pass a completely random drug test from the NASC. He was tested for performance enhancers and recreational drugs

Now test Sean Sherk. Glad to see BJ Penn isn't smoking before this fight as he's been known to do. This was a good idea when the NASC decided to do it but it's taken too long for them to act on it. It's also nice to see them testing guys before title fights but they should be testing just about everyone completely at random.

Now test Sean Sherk.

A war of words has occurred between Chuck Liddell and Kimbo Slice. Chuck doesn't like how Kimbo has made it big in the sport of MMA and Kimbo is willing to fight anyone at anytime

Big fan of both men but Kimbo is way out of his league here. While Kimbo did get big in MMA because of his street fights, you have to respect that he's now training with Bas Rutten and he's taking this thing serious. Still, Kimbo hasn't defeated anyone worth mention in his two professional fights while Chuck Liddell has knocked out the best of the best. I don't even think this would be the stand up war that everyone would come to expect because Chuck is a good wrestler so I think he would actually take Kimbo down a few times.

It's not like this fight is going to happen though. Lets just say UFC does sign Kimbo tomorrow. Chuck would need to change weight classes, something he said he wouldn't do until he got the Light Heavyweight title back and Kimbo would need at least two wins before Dana White is going to let him fight Chuck Liddell.

Other MMA News & Notes

DREAM 2 Results from the 411Mania main page:


-Shinya Aoki over Gesias Calvancante via unanimous decision

-Taiei Kin over Ikuhisa Minowa via unanimous decision

-Dong Sik Yoon over Shungo Oyama via unanimous decision

-Zelg Galesic over Magomed Sultanakhmedov via armbar submission

-Ronaldo Souza over Ian Murphy via rear naked choke submission

-Kiyoshi Tamura over Masakatsu Funaki via TKO

-Gegard Mousasi over Denis Kang via triangle choke submission

-Kazushi Sakuraba over Andrews Nakahara via neck crank submission

I have not seen this event yet and while it is on the internet for viewing, I have decided to hold off so I can watch the show on HDNet this Saturday. Sue me. I'm sure Aoki vs. JZ was a very good fight and now with Aoki winning he could very well be the top Lightweight in the world. DREAM got the match up they wanted with Tamura vs. Sakaraba in the 2nd round. Kang losing again really hurts his stock in the Middleweight division as he was thought to be a top 7 Middleweight for some time.

I'll give a full report next week after I enjoy the event in HD.

According to Sherdog, Shinya Aoki suffered an injury in his fight against Calvancante and cannot continue in the Lightweight GP. Calvancante was asked to replace Aoki but he turned down the offer

Well, sucks for DREAM. Aoki was obviously going to be the favorite to win the whole thing after defeating JZ but now he's out. I would think JZ would be the favorite had he continued but he doesn't want back in. Hopefully they figure this shit out because this Lightweight GP isn't looking so hot right now with two of the big contenders now out.

ProElite signed a DVD distribution deal with Image Entertainment

Good job by ProElite and just in time to put out EliteXC DVDs before the big CBS debut. Hopefully they don't take a year to get out their DVDs like UFC. Seriously, how can a company so big take so long to put out their DVDs? UFC 80 from January just came out this past week.

Anyway, I'll be picking up some EliteXC DVDs when they are released and hopefully it's not just the fight card and they have some cool extras.

AND IT'S ALL OVER~!

That does it for me this week folks. I'll be back next week with some HUGE CHANGES~! Maybe. Take care everyone.