Michael Bisping is hot favourite to be named as one of the coaches on the new series of The Ultimate Fighter…
The UFC have not yet offered Bisping the coach’s role on TUF 9 because he is scheduled to fight Chris Leben at UFC 89 at the Birmingham National Indoor Arena on October 18.
But SunSport understands Dana White will immediately hand the British star a contract to appear on the show if he overcomes Leben next month.
It is believed Dan Henderson will coach the US team, with the TUF 9 finale featuring him in a clash for the #1 middleweight contender’s spot against Bisping, which could take place in December next year.
As the UFC’s only British star, it makes sense that the TUF 3 winner would be chosen as a coach for the “U.S. vs. U.K.” season of The Ultimate Fighter. But it also makes you wonder who will be picked to lead the British team if Bisping loses to Leben. We’re assuming it would still be Bisping — but then would a fight between him and Hendo really be a #1 contender match? When contacted by MMA Weekly, The Count confirmed that he hadn’t been made an offer yet, but he’d certainly be open to one:
“I saw it all over the internet the other night, U.K. vs. the U.S., I think it’s an amazing idea,” commented Bisping. “I think it might inject a little bit of life into the “Ultimate Fighter”. The “Ultimate Fighter” is a great show, but obviously you know it’s season after season, maybe this can mix it up a little bit. I think it will make some funny goings on in the house as well you know. All to do with the language barrier and the cultural differences and things like that. I think it’s a great idea and I look forward to seeing it.”
If this rumor turns out to be true, the best part about a Bisping vs. Hendo season of TUF is that it doesn’t tie up a championship belt like past seasons of the show have. Anderson Silva would still be free to defend his middleweight title and book light-heavyweight superfights as he pleases. Bisping is already popular enough to challenge for the title, and a win over Dan Henderson would cement his credibility. Unfortunately, there’s the even more likely scenario that Henderson would beat Bisping — and few fans are demanding a Silva/Henderson rematch at this point. Would you rather see Hendo get destroyed again, or Bisping get destroyed for the first time?
(This picture is just another part of TapouT’s attempt to make you constantly feel like you are on mushrooms. That, and the paint and wigs and stuff.)
As much as we like to give the guys from TapouT a hard time about their TV show and their plans to make children’s furniture, we have to admit that they know what they’re doing with their off-the-wall personas and recognizable brand. And in an interview with USA Today’s MMA blogger, Sergio Non, they open up about their business (they expect to do “upwards of $100 million this year”), their history, and most interestingly, their role in Diego Sanchez’s victory on the first season of “The Ultimate Fighter”:
There could be a fighter, like in (TUF season-one winner) Diego Sanchez’s case — he was already primed and ready, but there was just that nobody that knew about him. Whereas we knew about him because we’re scouring all those up-and-coming, lower shows.
So when Dana White came to me and was like, “Hey, this is who we’ve got going on there, is there anybody we missed…” I was like, “There’s this kid, Diego Sanchez out of New Mexico, he’s crazy and he’s insane.” And actually, this story is a true story, he ended up bumping one guy off The Ultimate Fighter that was slated to go on there, plugged Diego Sanchez in, Diego ends up winning it at the 185-pound mark, further cementing us as talent scouts.
Wow. I guess that guy who was bumped knows who to be pissed off at now. Also in this interview we learn (two of) their real names — Charles Lewis Jr. (Mask) and Dan Caldwell (Punkass), while Skyskrape is apparently a mystery man who hails from parts unknown, much like The Ultimate Warrior — and they also comment on the nature of their relationship with the UFC.
There are people who allege that Zuffa or UFC owns a piece of your company. What’s your relationship with Zuffa at this point? Do they have an equity stake in your company?
Lewis: As of right now, we have — Punkass puts that into better words than me, he has those business words a little better off his tongue with me — but we’ve had talks about a bunch of different companies that want to invest or buy a part. As of right now, we have, how you say it, one…?
Caldwell: We have one equity partner right now and they’re a minority shareholder.
Lewis: The real story about (our relationship) with Dana White — we do work with (Zuffa). They really have a lot of respect for our ability to find up and coming fighters. We signed on through 2012 to be exclusive clothing sponsor of The Ultimate Fighter. … and we have a 2-year contract to be the exclusive clothing sponsor of the WEC, so in that respect we work (together). We have a lot of financial…
Caldwell: We have the same producer.
Lewis: Yeah and the same producer that produces The Ultimate Fighter for the UFC is the same producer — Pilgrim Films’ Craig Piligian — that produces our show for our channel, Versus. So there’s some ties in there and that’s where a lot of times where people are getting confused and thinking that they own Tapout or something.
So there you have it. The UFC doesn’t own TapouT. They are just very closely affiliated on a couple different levels. Glad that’s cleared up.
When Dana White kicked Jesse Taylor off “The Ultimate Fighter” Finale for being a drunken knucklehead, he also told Taylor to call him when he matured and got his act together. Apparently that only takes a few months, because Fight Hype is reporting that Taylor will be added to the July 19 event on Spike TV, and guess who he may be up against:
Despite being kicked out of The Ultimate Fighter Finale, it appears that Jesse Taylor is set to make his return to the UFC. Sources close to the situation have informed us that, less than one month after he was supposed to face Amir Sadollah in the finale, Taylor will be entering the Octagon on the July 19th card headlined by Anderson Silva vs. James Irvin. Although an opponent has yet to be named, it’s rumored that CB Dolloway, who replaced Taylor in the finale and ultimately lost a second time to Sadollah via first round submission, could be the frontrunner to land the fight.
Well isn’t this a twisted little scenario. At least we know Dollaway is relatively unscathed after his fight with Sadollah, and probably also pretty eager to get back in the Octagon to erase the painful memory of his one-tap defeat. It just goes to show that opportunity knocks more often for everyone when the UFC has a competitor they need to crush.
Now maybe if the AFL would hurry up and get huge Kalib Starnes might even find his way back into the Octagon. Probably not, though.
Dana White spoke with Si.com recently. As usual, the phrase “[deleted expletive]” appeared throughout the interview. He also found time to say this:
“When we came in, we shook up the entire industry. We rebuilt this industry, we rebuilt the fight business. And we think we have the right plan and the right strategy over the next five years, and I think mixed martial arts and the UFC is going to be the biggest sport in the world. Bigger than soccer, bigger than football, bigger than anything.
[…]
The announcement I [made June 18] is so [deleted expletive] huge in terms of what it means to the business side of this thing, what it means to the fighters and where we’re going to take this thing in five years. Everyone’s looking at “right now.” I’m working on things that are going to happen two, three, five years down the road. We’re in this thing for the long haul. Remember that I told you this: in the next five to eight years, this thing’s going to be the biggest sport in the world — bigger than the [freakin’] NFL, bigger than Major League Soccer, bigger than World Cup soccer or whatever the hell they call it. Bigger than anything. So remember I told you that.”
Bigger than anything? Wow, okay. In a few years, when the UFC is so big it has planets and stuff orbiting around it, I will at first be very surprised but then I will remember that Dana White made this vow, and I’ll be like, ‘Huh, guess he was right. And here I dismissed his claim the moment he said “World Cup soccer or whatever the hell they call it.”‘
Sarcasm aside, I admire White’s optimism and ambition. No doubt that’s a big part of how the UFC got here. But I also do not believe that we will reach a day when a UFC fight — any UFC fight — is more popular than the World Cup.
Due to the nature of combat sports, there are some people who will never embrace it. Yes, those people are missing out and they are most likely pussies and posers, but that’s the way it is. Not only does soccer have a broader appeal, it also has a tremendous head start. I like that Dana is shooting for the stars here, but I also hope he doesn’t really believe his own hype.
(Ah, crap: Spike.com embed is currently down…click the image to see the video.)
For all the debate we’ve had on the Jesse Taylor situation, it might be good to hear Mongo tell his side of the story. In this three-part interview from Spike.com, Jesse doesn’t shed any light on Dana White’s accusation that he terrorized the female guests of Palace Station, but he does admit hitting a slot machine. (Wait a minute, was Mongo so drunk that he mistook a woman for a slot machine? Uh-oh.) Later, he reveals that he’s entered AA, he’s been trying (and failing) to contact Dana White, and he thinks CB is going to take Amir in the finale re-match.
Pretty much everyone had CB Dollaway as a lock to get into the Ultimate Fighter 7 finale, and the former All-American wrestler from Arizona State seemed to have it clinched on last night’s episode, kicking Amir Sadollah’s ass all over the Octagon. And then it happened — an armbar in the third round put a shocking end to the fight, and seemed to derail Dollaway’s dreams of making it into the UFC. Good thing Jesse Taylor can’t handle his liquor, because now the Team Rampage standout has a chance to battle Amir again, this time for all the marbles. Talk about drama. In this exclusive Q+A, Dollaway chats with CagePotato about his rematch with Sadollah, the drawbacks of having Rampage as a coach, Jesse Taylor, and the bullshit one has to endure when living in the TUF house.
***
CAGEPOTATO.COM: What do you think went wrong at the end of your semi-final match with Amir?
CB DOLLAWAY: I think conditioning came into play. We’d been fighting two-round fights previously, and it kind of slipped my mind that it was gonna be a three-round fight. Towards the end of the third round I was just exhausted, and I got sloppy. I wasn’t doing things right, and he was. He kept his composure and caught me in that armbar. I definitely think I was controlling the whole fight, and I believe I was ahead on the scorecards, but you have that mental lapse for a minute and the other guy capitalizes on it.
How confident are you that you’ll have him figured out when you fight him again?
Pretty confident. I believe I took care of the mistakes I made in the first match. I think it should be a similar fight, but with me winning at the end. He’s a hard competitor to finish — I already know that from fighting him once — so I’ve taken measures to make sure I’ll be in great condition.
What did you miss the most while you were trapped in the Ultimate Fighter house?
The freedom, I guess. We were told what to do and when to do it, and we didn’t have access to anything. You can’t call anyone, you can’t get on the Internet and browse around, you can’t go to the mall — you’re just there. In a sense, it’s like being in jail.
We’ve heard a lot about how some of the castmembers were made to look a certain way on the show through editing. Jeremy May says he wasn’t really that much of an asshole. Amir told us the “confessional†scenes involved very leading questions. How accurately do you think you were portrayed on the show?
It seemed like they portrayed me to be a cocky asshole, and I’m not really like that. I just want to be confident and I don’t want to put negative thoughts in my head before I fight. They basically edit out everything you say except for the parts where you’re being confident…
Or when you’re referring to yourself in third-person.
Yeah, I did that twice the whole time I was there, probably, and they put ‘em back to back. And they kind of set you up for that too, they’re like “What does CB Dollaway want right now?†They lead you into things, and you don’t really notice it at the time. They’ll ask you the same question ten different ways to get ten different responses.
Is Jeremy May a monumental asshole in real life?
Yeah. I was one of the guys who kind of held out on thinking he was a prick — he was still on my team so I thought I’d give the guy a chance. But some of things he said and did would blow your mind, and there’s certain things he did that they didn’t even show. One time, he told Dante he was tooling me in sparring — the only time we ever sparred, I kicked him in the leg a few times and he never practiced again, the whole show. So he tells Dante that, and then they asked me about it in the confessional, and I went off. He gets called in there, and then he comes up and he’s like “Did I get drunk and say I was kicking your ass in sparring? Because that never happened.†And I was like “Yeah, I fuckin’ know.â€
How would you rate Rampage as a coach?
I think he’s still got a lot of learning to do as a coach. I don’t know if he was taking it as seriously as Forrest was. Forrest had been there before. His experience on The Ultimate Fighter helped out a lot, and he brought in a much larger coaching staff, which helped give guys more individual time with coaches. We just had Rampage, Juanito [Ibarra] and Zach [Light], and Forrest had like six coaches on his team. Rampage is definitely a successful fighter, but it’s just something that was new to him.
Do you still hang out with anybody from the show?
Yeah, Matt Riddle moved to Arizona, so I see him on a daily basis. Gerald Harris is moving down there, and he’ll be training out of our gym too. And I also keep in touch with Pat Schultz. He’s a cool guy, and I get along with him good.
If you beat Amir, who would you like your next UFC fight to be against?
I’d actually like to fight Jesse Taylor. No matter if I win or if Amir wins, there’s gonna be a lot of people saying neither one of us should have won and Jesse should have. So I think whoever wins needs to take that fight, if Dana wants to make it happen.
Since it’s still so early in your career, have you had to work another job on the side to make ends meet?
I haven’t had to work even before I went on the show, because I’m on the MTX Audio MMA Fight Team. They sponsor us on a monthly basis, and they pay me enough so that I don’t have to work. They’re looking to make fighters better, and they know you have to train twice a day to get to the elite level; they’re providing me with all the tools I need. I can’t do it for this fight, but for every other fight I strictly have MTX on my banner and all my trainers and cornermen will have MTX stuff on. They’re a great company for mixed martial arts.
What do you do for a good time when you’re not training?
I like to go out to Lake Pleasant and Lake Havasu for holidays and stuff. I just picked up a new Honda Waverunner, though I haven’t been able to use it as much as I’d like — I don’t want to risk getting hurt on it right before the fight.
(’Oh bicep, you’re the only one I can truly depend on.’)
Watching Dana White drop the hammer on Jesse Taylor during last night’s super-shocking episode of “The Ultimate Fighter”, I have to say I was filled with mixed emotions.
On one hand, everything White said to him seemed justified. He can’t have someone representing the UFC who is incapable of controlling himself after downing a few drinks. Not only does it create a bad image, but as White pointed out, this is what Jesse is like after merely fighting his way into the finals. If he’s out of control without really even winning anything yet, what’s he going to be like in six months?
Aside from Dana’s assertion that Las Vegas is “his town”, his admonition of Jesse and the punishment he handed down seemed completely appropriate.
But then I had a flashback to earlier episodes. I recalled images of Jesse drinking and breaking things, peeing his pants, and generally acting up. That’s when I had to wonder, what’s the fundamental difference between destroying a house that doesn’t belong to you and kicking out a limousine window? Hadn’t they been content to show Jesse’s antics — which you could also argue reflect poorly on the UFC and its fighters — for weeks?
This is what’s difficult for me to grasp. What, exactly, is so unforgivable about Jesse’s Las Vegas rampage that differentiates it from what he did in the house? Is it because he did it in public? Was it the fact that he “terrorized the female guests”? My point is there seems to be a very hazy line being drawn here. No one knows exactly where it is until they cross it.
I’m not saying that Jesse should be given a free pass just because the UFC allowed him to do plenty of other dumb things before this. But this is a good opportunity for the UFC to reflect on what they expect out of their fighters all the time.
There’s something hypocritical about encouraging this type of behavior when you think it makes for good TV, and then suddenly taking the high ground when it happens after the show. After we all watched Jesse Taylor piss his pants for the second time, how surprised can we be that he went crazy out on the town in Las Vegas? Where I come from, urinating on yourself is a pretty clear warning sign that maybe you have trouble controlling yourself when you drink. After that, property damage and the terrorization of female guests is right around the corner.
I understand why they want the guys to drink and get crazy in the house. It alleviates some of the monotony of the show, and it’s entertaining in a cathartic/idiotic way. I also understand why they don’t want their fighters acting like that once they’re off the show. But those are two incongruent goals, and the UFC knows it. Sooner or later, they’re going to have choose between them.
FIGHTERS INCLUDE BJ PENN, MICHAEL BISPING, URIJAH FABER, CARLOS CONDIT
Las Vegas, NV – In late June, the Ultimate Fighting Championship® (UFC®) organization and World Extreme Cagefighting® (WEC™) will send UFC and WEC superstars BJ Penn, Michael Bisping, Urijah Faber, and Carlos Condit across the globe to meet and greet the troops of the United States [...]
Clad in a gay-friendly rainbow t-shirt, Dana White pumps up the 90-minute final episode of The Ultimate Fighter: “In seven seasons of doing this show, there has never been a bigger twist.” Bold words considering that the TUF series has had a history of monumental twists, like when Anthony Torres turned out to be a woman who was only posing as a man to compete on the show, and the crazy TUF 5 finale, where it was revealed that the entire season was just a dream Jens Pulver had while he was in a coma.
Personally, I hope the twist is that Jesse Taylor gets kicked off the show for breaking a limo window and killing Jeremy May, and the semi-final match between Amir and CB is so exciting and close that Dana White decides to have them fight again on the finale for the contract. That’s kind of an “everybody wins” type of scenario. Between the pissing, the puking, and the laying-and-praying, I think I’ve had my fill of Mongo…
After seeing the previews for next weeks episode of The Ultimate Fighter 7, there has been much speculation about what happens and who gets kicked off the show and no longer allowed to be a part of the UFC. I have no idea who it is, but I think it is going to be more [...]
