The Nevada State Athletic Commission has confirmed that someone tested positive for a banned substance in drug testing at UFC 143. What has not yet been confirmed is who that someone was, or what that substance was.
In an e-mail to the media sent on Thursday, Nevada State Athletic Commission Executive Director Keith Kizer acknowledged that there has been great sustained interest in knowing what the results of drug tests were at UFC 143, and he confirmed that someone tested positive. But he declined to elaborate further than that.
"Thank you for the many email and phone calls. I am still waiting for all the steroid and drug test results to come back. We did have at least one positive test. I will send out an email later today on that matter," Kizer said in his e-mail, in which the word "many" was bolded.
What is still unknown is what the test result was, what the consequences will be for the fighter who tested positive, and whether any appeals are forthcoming.
The Twitter Mailbag is back and ready to answer all your questions, even if most of you only want to talk about Carlos Condit and Nick Diaz. Never fear, we also find time for a few other topics in this edition of the TMB. If you’ve got a question of your own, you can find me on Twitter here. Or keep pretending that you’re too cool for Twitter. How’d that work out with other technological developments, by the way?
Enough preamble. Who wants to get us started?
@tommyahlering does nick diaz deserve a rematch at this point?
‘Deserve’ is an interesting word here. Really, who deserves an immediate rematch? Who’s undeniably entitled to one? I’d argue that it’s really only essential in the cases of a draw, a no contest, or some type of bizarre/unfair ending, such as in the case of the first Mac Danzig/Matt Wiman fight, where the referee mistakenly stopped it thinking that Danzig had been choked unconscious. Those are instances where the fight ends with such a lack of closure that an immediate rematch is justified, maybe even necessary.
But a close fight that ends in a debatable decision? I’ll file that under: rematch possible, but not essential. Diaz wasn’t robbed by the judges in this fight. Not like "Shogun" Rua was robbed in his first fight with Lyoto Machida, anyway. Diaz lost a close decision, just like Michael Bisping did against Chael Sonnen and also like Rua did against Dan Henderson. The big difference is, Bisping and Rua didn’t complain quite so loudly or threaten to retire over it.
I can see why some people want a rematch here. With Georges St-Pierre injured, the welterweight division is in a holding pattern anyway, so why not? At the same time, it sets an annoying precedent. It tells fighters that if they don’t like the outcome of a close fight, all they have to do is whine about it until they get another chance. What would happen if Diaz won a narrow decision in the rematch, and it was Condit who threw the post-fight tantrum? Would they do it a third time to settle things once and for all? Would the entire 170-pound division have to sit around and wait for someone to either win decisively or take a loss with dignity?
It’s not that you couldn’t make the case for an immediate rematch here, given the circumstances. But does Diaz deserve one? Brother, to quote Clint Eastwood, deserve’s got nothing to do with it.
@AdriantheWizard If the Condit/Diaz rematch doesn't unfold & Condit refuses to wait for GSP, who's the next contender for the interim belt?
That’s the problem, isn’t it? If the UFC doesn’t hold Condit out of action until GSP is healthy enough to fight, then who is there for him to fight? On the flipside, if it does bench him until GSP is ready, what’s the point of having an interim title? It’s a tough one, no doubt about it.
What makes it more difficult to figure is the fact that GSP has already cleaned out the division pretty well. If you put Condit up against someone like Josh Koscheck, you run the risk of being forced into a third GSP-Koscheck bout, which a lot of fight fans wouldn’t cross the street to watch. That leaves contenders that GSP hasn’t yet faced, guys like Johny Hendricks (who’s coming off that 12-second KO of Jon Fitch) or the winner of the Diego Sanchez-Jake Ellenberger fight. Realistically, none of those fights generates a lot of heat right now, so the UFC would have a tough time selling it. Let’s just face it: as long as the true champ is hurt, there’s no clear way to go that doesn’t feel like a consolation prize.
@SeaninDC my theory is most people upset at CC/Diaz not b/c of running, but b/c they feel CC won on a technicality ie evade not fight...its like winning a game by the letter of the law instead of the spirit of the game
I’m familiar with this argument. I make it every time my wife beats me at Scrabble using words like ‘za’ and ‘jo.’ The fact is, even when I make this argument I know that it’s just sour grapes. Winning is winning. Just because people wanted Condit to march right into Diaz’s punch combinations, that doesn’t mean he has to. He did the smart thing. When he felt his back touch that fence, he got out of there before Diaz could do the same thing to him that he did to B.J. Penn. He brought the fight back to the open space and started over. He also landed a lot of punches, kicks, and spinning elbows for a guy who was supposedly fleeing in terror for 25 minutes.
I understand that some fans were expecting another Diaz-Daley, but a) that didn’t work out so well for Daley, and b) if Diaz wanted Condit to stand in one place and box him, it was his responsibility -- not Condit’s -- to make it happen. You can pick your strategy, but you don’t get to pick your opponent’s.
@ctlacosta what's a fan to do during ufc's long march break?
I don't know. Read a book or something. I recommend Jim Shepard’s Like You’d Understand, Anyway. Anybody who can switch between stories about Texas high school football players and Roman legionaries stationed at Hadrian’s Wall can keep you entertained until the UFC returns to the airwaves.
@blackzag05 what beer embodies Nick Diaz's spirit? #mailbag
Steel Reserve. I think technically it’s malt liquor rather than beer, but it’s the Nick Diaz of alcoholic beverages because a) it’s powerful, b) the people who like it seem to really like it, often while crouched beneath bridges, and c) one way or another, it tends to provoke a strong reaction right away.
@heizerbjj here's my Twitter mailbag question. How many Twitter mailbag questions were regarding Diaz/Condit? Also, do you think the Sonnen/Bisping decision was worse than the "robbery" of Diaz/Condit?
The answer to the first question is: more than I care to count. The answer to the second is: neither was an especially bad decision, which is true of most close fights. I happened to score those fights for Sonnen and Condit respectively, but if they had both gone the other way I wouldn’t have been shocked. That’s how it goes with decisions. If you let the fight stay that close, you’re rolling the dice. Fighters know this. Fans know it too, or at least they should. It’s just that, when you’re rooting for one fighter over another, it tends to color your judgment. You talk yourself into believing that a close fight was a clear win for your guy, which is when the robbery talk starts up. Neither of those fights was a robbery. Sorry, Diaz and Bisping fans, but that’s the truth.
@jmhawkins I'm lucky enough to be going to UFC 144 in Japan. How different do you think this card will be to a usual UFC event?
First of all, you are lucky. That should be a memorable experience, and I’m a little jealous that I won’t be there as well. I was fortunate enough to cover one of the Dynamite!! New Year’s Eve events in Tokyo for Fight Magazine a couple years ago, and it’s something I’ll never forget.
But you raise an interesting question that I’m not sure anyone can answer with any certainty just yet. The UFC is generally pretty good at exporting its product in its purest form. The staging, the music, the lights, the pre-fight activities -- all that runs like a Swiss watch at this point. What the UFC can’t always account for are the cultural differences. For instance, who knew that the crowd in Rio would start throwing beer until it happened? Not the UFC staff, many of whom looked as if they didn’t even know such a thing was possible as soon as the suds started raining down on them.
Japan, needless to say, is probably going to be a different environment. In a city the size of Tokyo, it’s surprisingly easy to get 50,000 or so fans into the Saitama Super Arena, which is a cavernous airplane hangar of a venue that you have to see to believe. But the Japanese fight fans may not react the same way as a Vegas crowd to all those pump-up highlight reels and techno "Hotel California" remixes. In fact, they may not react much at all, which is both good and bad. Good, because it means we’ll all be spared the booing that sometimes starts up if a fight slows down for even a few seconds. Bad, because the TV audience might not know what to make of a pay-per-view broadcast that’s so quiet you can hear the fighters breathing.
@generalwebb anderson silva reminds me of fedor. He beats average guys and duck his best challenger. Is the spider overated?
By ‘best challenger’ I assume you mean Chael Sonnen, and by ‘duck’ I assume you mean ‘already beat once.’ So no, I’m afraid I can’t agree that Silva is overrated. He’s beaten everybody there is to beat in the middleweight division, and he’s slated to take on Sonnen again this summer. How can you possibly complain about that?
When you lump them all together like that, it seems like there’s only one clear option: convince them to form a Guns N’ Roses tribute band and tour the country in a used RV. Obviously 'Rampage' is the only one with the charisma to be Axl Rose, and Josh Koscheck is just a few months and a ban on peroxide away from having Slash hair. Maynard, Belfort, and "Big Country" can fight over who gets to be Duff McKagan. You can’t tell me you wouldn’t watch a reality show about this brilliant little endeavor. It’s called ‘Becoming GN’R,’ and it will be the most successful show on FUEL by the end of this sentence.
@JasonRule Beltran is going down to lhw. To late to save his job. Do see Big Country doing the same?
I hope not. I’m ordinarily suspicious of fighters who think they’ll change everything with a move up or down in weight, but it’s almost never a good idea for heavyweights who move down to light heavyweight, where the competition tends to be faster and more athletic. At around six feet tall, Nelson would still be short for the division at 205 lbs. He’d be slow and hungry too, and that’s no way to live.
@VineStreetLife TMB:any ideas on how to objectify the scoring in an MMA contest? Is such a thing even possible? This is the root of the issue.
I think judges could stand to be better educated, and to be held accountable for the decisions they render. But in a fight as close as Condit-Diaz, some controversy is inevitable. You’re asking people to watch a five-minute round, during which each guy might throw 20 or 30 strikes, attempt a couple takedowns, and employ all manner of defensive tactics. Then, when it’s over, we turn to the judge and say, ‘So, what’d you think?’
That’s fine when one guy is clearly winning, but in a back-and-forth round it gets arbitrary in a hurry. MMA is such a diverse sport that it’s not just about who threw and landed more strikes. For instance, how do you score a takedown that didn’t result in a submission attempt or even any significant action on the ground? How do you score a failed takedown attempt? How do you score a blocked head kick that breaks the blocker’s arm, even if no one knows about it until after the fight? A certain amount of guesswork and human error will always be involved. The best we can hope for is that we have judges who know what they’re looking at and looking for, and that we root out the ones that are habitually rendering bad decisions. We all know who they are.
@BroccoliMonster #TMB How do you think the Rousey/Tate fight will go?
For starters, let me say that it’s a fight I’m really looking forward to, and in a just world it would get a lot more hype than it has so far. As for a prediction, I think Tate will frustrate Rousey on the feet early on, win some rounds with takedowns and a very conservative ground game, and take a decision that Rousey spends the next six months complaining about. And yes, then Tate will have no choice but to face Sarah Kaufman again, which is when the real fun starts.
@JefftheJeff Mailbag: the Diaz Bros. vs The Hart Foundation: who ya got?!
As long as the Diaz boys don’t make the mistake of taking their eyes off Hitman and Anvil during the singing of the national anthem, I think the 209 cruises to victory thanks to vastly superior cardio. Those tanning beds really take it out of you.
@JoakimKalantari why do you hate Nick Diaz?
Against my better judgment, I’m going to address this one only so that I can never address it again. I don’t hate Nick Diaz. I love watching Nick Diaz fight. My colleague John Morgan over at MMA Junkie once told me that he thinks the highest praise a media member can bestow upon a fighter is to say, ‘I’d pay to see this guy fight,’ and I think he’s right. We attend these events and watch these pay-per-views for a living, but even if I had to dig into my own pocket to see Diaz fight, I would. I have.
At the same time, my job is not to be a fan, to pick sides and stick with them no matter what. My job is to call it like I see it, and with Diaz there’s simply no way to do that without being critical from time to time. He’s a great fighter, but outside of the cage he’s a bit of a mess. He insists on playing by his own rules, and he’s never encountered a problem that he couldn’t blame on someone else, even if he alone caused it. He has a passionate, loyal fan base, and from a purely sporting perspective that makes sense. He’s great at what he does. At the same time, few MMA fighters have sabotaged their own careers to the extent that Diaz has. We all make mistakes, but he adamantly refuses to take responsibility for his.
He is a man with the virtues of his faults, which makes him fascinating. It does not, however, make him faultless. It doesn’t make him beyond criticism. His fans can think that any criticism of him amounts to unforgivable blasphemy, and that’s fine. That’s the prerogative of fans. The job of writers is to tell it like it is, which is what I try to do, even while knowing without a doubt that it will always upset somebody somewhere.
@TheHarrison101 What did you think of the UFC's new intro?
It’s awesome. I was suspicious after hearing Dana White tout its price tag -- as a rule, when someone starts telling you how expensive something is, they’re trying to convince themselves that the cost was justified -- but when I saw it I felt damn near inspired. It’s visually fun, and it’s an homage to this sport’s growth and development. Plus, I was so sick of that freaking gladiator.
@Vilainsoleil What's your take on the Strikeforce HW's? They are 3-0 and yet Carwin/Big Nog are above Cormier/Barnett...
It’s a regrettable situation, but one that will be remedied in time. The average fan may not appreciate how good Josh Barnett and Daniel Cormier are, or even what a great fight that should be, but at least there’s an end in sight. The Strikeforce heavies are doing pretty well in the UFC, and the two guys left in that heavyweight Grand Prix should only continue the trend. That is, if they can make the move while they’re still young.
When Georges St. Pierre last fought, at UFC 129 in April, he defeated Jake Shields in a performance that had people saying he had cleaned out the UFC's welterweight division. But St. Pierre's long layoff with a knee injury has done something that none of his opponents in the last four years could do: It has made the welterweight division look like it has some real obstacles for the best welterweight on the planet.
St. Pierre says he'll be ready to return to the Octagon in November, and it's still unclear whether Condit will wait for him, or if Condit will take another fight before then. But what is absolutely clear is that when GSP returns, the welterweight division will have fresh challenges that he's never faced before.
Condit is first in line for now, Diaz may get back into contention, and I would absolutely not count out Hendricks, who has an outstanding wrestling background and a powerful punch, as a future threat to St. Pierre. Hendricks has only been fighting in the big leagues for three years and has room to improve as an all-around fighter, and he's already plenty good.
And it goes deeper than that: Next week's UFC on Fuel main event features a couple of welterweights in the main event -- Diego Sanchez vs. Jake Ellenberger -- who have never had a shot at St. Pierre. The winner of that one will be closing in on title contention. Next month we have another welterweight main event, with Thiago Alves taking on Martin Kampmann at UFC on FX 2. Alves has already been dominated by GSP and probably wouldn't get another shot any time soon, but Kampmann could absolutely make a case for himself as a title contender with an impressive win.
The future is also very bright for less experienced welterweights like Rory MacDonald and Mike Pierce, and it's important to note how many of these new challengers are younger than St. Pierre. Condit, Diaz, Hendricks, Sanchez, Ellenberger, Kampmann, MacDonald are all younger than the champion, who turns 31 in May. It's been well established in many sports that athletes on the wrong side of 30 often struggle to get back to form after serious knee injuries. It's going to be a new challenge for GSP to keep up with the new crop of welterweights.
Whether he's up to that challenge remains to be seen, but there's no doubt that the welterweight division got a lot more interesting while GSP was away. The last time GSP fought, the rest of the UFC welterweight division looked like a bunch of also-rans, Diaz was still in Strikeforce and no one had Condit in the Top 5. Now there are new, credible challengers to the champion. By the time GSP returns, he'll be returning to a very different welterweight division than the one he left.
Ed Soares' more than two-year business relationship with UFC featherweight champion Jose Aldo came to an abrupt end last week.
According to Soares, he was sent an e-mail from Aldo's trainer Andre Pederneiras of Nova Uniao informing him of the decision to severe ties with Soares and his business partner Jorge Guimarães.
"It wasn't really much of anything," Soares told MMAFighting.com, "other than his coach, who used to be his manager, felt like he didn't need our services. It pretty much was one of those things."News of Aldo's decision was first reported by Tatame.com.
Aldo hired Soares/Guimarães to manage his career in November 2009, around the time he defeated Mike Brown to win the WEC featherweight title.
"It was really strange the way it all went down. His coach sent us an e-mail and that was it."
Cesar Gracie is either a marketing genius or Nick Diaz is serious about this whole retirement thing. Either way, no one really appears to know what's going on. So while the UFC treads water in welterweight limbo, catch up on everything else MMA has to offer with the Morning Report.
5 MUST-READ STORIES TO START YOUR DAY
Cesar Gracie says Diaz vs. Condit rematch not happening. "There will be no rematch," Gracie revealed. "I can't do anything. Quote that if you want to."
Dustin Poirier and Korean Zombie spar on Twitter. Two of the UFC's fastest rising featherweights appear to be on a collision course after exchanging jabs online.
Top-10 welterweights: Carlos Condit creeps up on GSP. In light of the ongoing Condit-Diaz drama, Michel David Smith runs down the top-10 for MMA's 170-pound division.
Alistair Overeem is good at many things, but using those monstrous Dutch hands to unsnap bra straps is apparently not among them. Fairly SFW, but use your best judgement. (HT: Reddit)
Our own Luke Thomas examines whether Nick Diaz was robbed at UFC 143.
A blow that lands with trembling shock is a blow that moves the target: stops them in their tracks, snaps their head back, knocks the wind out of them, etc. As someone who has scored competitions, I was looking for blows that would damage an unprotected opponent (or even better, those that actually managed to damage a protected opponent).
...
What I saw in that fight was Nick Diaz -- especially in the first two rounds, and even, to some extent in the third -- repeatedly landing "trembling shock" blows (both to the body and head) and Condit landing very, very few comparable shots (he started to pop a few off in the third and especially the fourth).
Found something entertaining, brutal, or just plain bizarre for the Morning Report? Send it to @shaunalshatti and we'll include it in tomorrow's post.
MMA community for Fighters and fans. All fighting styles, all events and all fighters under one roof with their fans. Cage-Fights.com ...where fighters and fans meet! [Read more]
War On The Mainland
Former UFC and Strikeforce heavyweight title challenger Paul “The Headhunter” Buentello believes his August 14 showdown against 2-time UFC
heavyweight champion Tim “Maine-iac” Sylvia, headlining “War on the Mainland,” is
the type of match-up MMA fans have been clamoring for when the power striking pair
battle for the vacant Powerhouse World Promotions (PWP), LLC Heavyweight
Championship, live on Pay-Per-View from Bren Events Center in Irvine, California.
AFO Redemption
Over 1000 fans were in attendance for the first show of 2010 and the AFO did not disapoint. visit www.afomma.com for photos and videos from the event.
MMA Workout With WEC Vet Jeremy Lang
Riley Kerestes of www.MMAStation.com got a chance to watch WEC veteran Jeremy “The Landlord” Lang during his intense workout only 13 days before his upcoming Feb 13th fight. If you’re going to get through this grueling workout you better come prepared to sweat.
