In this week’s Twitter Mailbag, we look at the ripple in the UFC pond caused by Dominick Cruz‘s latest injury setback, as well as the persistent, though maddening, rumors of Brock Lesnar‘s return.
All that, plus some more talk about UFC Fight Pass and the resurrection of the Anderson Silva vs. Georges St-Pierre super-fight chatter.
Got a question of your own? Tweet it to @BenFowlkesMMA. You might get an answer right here, for all to see, so double-check that spelling and whatnot.
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Only thing I can figure is there must be a powerful ancient curse involved. My guess is he went on vacation to a tropical island, decided to explore a spooky cave on a deserted beach, like you do, and ended up unearthing a strange amulet that, unbeknownst to him, was fated to bring its owner nothing but misery and woe. Happens all the time.
Or, if you aren’t buying that explanation, consider the possibility that it may be due to a combination of factors. Cruz hasn’t fought since October of 2011, thanks to his injured (and then re-injured) knee. The UFC gave him a timeframe for when he’d need to return or risk being stripped of the bantamweight title, and he set himself to the task of returning right on schedule.
Did he rush himself back into a full fight camp training regimen before his body was ready for it? Maybe. Then again, maybe he was in fine fettle and got hurt anyway, as can happen at pretty much any time in this sport.
Or, a third option: Maybe the poor guy is just prone to injuries. He’s made a habit of breaking his hands in title fights, then this knee ligament sage, and now the groin. Maybe Cruz is just unlucky that way, which would be a damn shame, especially considering what an uncommon talent he is.
At least now that he’s given up the belt, he’s relieved some of the pressure to hurry back in to the cage. The thing to do now might be to take some time and get all the way healthy, however long that takes. Also might want to take that cursed amulet and sink it to the bottom of the ocean. Just saying.
Deserve’s got nothing to do with it, as anyone who’s seen “Unforgiven” two dozen times will quickly tell you. But I get your point.
Urijah Faberhas been so good for so long, it would feel almost tragic if he ended his career without being able to call himself a UFC champion. It’s also got to feel like, the more chances he gets at it, the more heartbreaking it must be to come up short.
At the same time, when I look at how he matches up against Renan Barao, I’m not sure I can see this fight turning out much differently than the first. Barao is a tough opponent for anyone these days. Maybe the best thing Faber has going for him is his ability to make adjustments once he’s seen what the other guy has. He had five rounds to get acquainted with Barao’s style and strengths. Now we’ll get a chance to see what he learned from it.
Barao was already in training camp for a fight with Cruz. The only thing that changed for him is the opponent, and it’s an opponent he’s studied and fought and beaten once already.
For Faber it’s a little tougher, depending on what he was doing in the days before he got the call to replace Cruz. Fortunately, Faber doesn’t have a reputation for being one of those guys who skips the gym in favor of the bar or the buffet between fights, so chances are he was in decent shape when he heard the news. It just doesn’t leave him a ton of time to figure out how he’s going to make this time different from the last.
I wouldn’t say there’s a ton of anger out there regarding the UFC Fight Pass digital network. I’d say there’s confusion, caused by misrepresentation and a hasty rollout. That, in turn, leads to some disgruntled users, and rightly so.
For example, the streaming service is supposed to be free until March 1, but already we’ve heard reports that some people have been charged for the fights they’ve watched on it. Others say they’ve tried to cancel their subscription (which requires a credit card to sign up for, even during the free trial), only to be given the runaround by the UFC. Then there’s the issue of what was promised versus what is actually there.
When UFC executives announced the details of Fight Pass in Las Vegas this month, UFC President Dana White made it sound like the full Zuffa library would be readily available. “You have access to everything,” he told reporters during a presentation prior to UFC 168. Except that, as anyone who has looked at the website already knows, we don’t. At least not yet. There are a lot of fights that aren’t available on Fight Pass.
The UFC’s answer to these complaints seems to be. “We’ll fix it later.” But when? That’s the part that’s hazy. Meanwhile, come March 1, it’ll cost you 10 bucks a month, even if you have no way of knowing yet exactly what you’ll be getting for your money by then.
To the UFC’s credit, it has a good track record for being responsive to fan concerns, and I have no reason to think Fight Pass will be any different. At the same time, I can’t blame anyone who might be feeling like they gave their credit card info to someone who has no intention of giving it back without a mighty struggle, and who in the meantime isn’t giving them what was promised.
I don’t see it happening, but I’d love it if it did. It’s arguably the only thing either promotion could do right now that would feel truly worthy of our pay-per-view dollars. Maybe I’m just a sucker for the promise of a cross-promotional showdown pitting the best from each roster against one another. I realize it’s a gimmick, but dammit, it works. The only problem is that it doesn’t seem to work so well in real life, which might be why it’s so enticing in theory.
My money’s on Holly Holm to go first, though I think the big money – for the UFC and for Ronda Rousey – lies with an eventual showdown against Cristiane Justino.
Right now Rousey has some contenders lined up. There’s the Olympian vs. Olympian fight with Sara McMann, conveniently timed to go off right around the time when Olympic fever will be winding down in late February. Then there’s Cat Zingano, who actually earned that shot at Rousey’s title before she went down with an injury. Finally there’s Holm, the former boxer turned unbeaten MMA fighter whose eventual jump to the UFC seems like a foregone conclusion.
All those opponents offer something different, but my guess is that as Rousey fends off new challengers (assuming she’s successful in doing so), it will only stoke the fire for a “Cyborg” fight. That could be great news as far as pay-per-view buys and fighter purses are concerned. Or it could end up being one of those much-anticipated super-fights that doesn’t materialize when it should, or maybe even at all.
The more I think about it, the more it seems like this turn of events may well be a blessing in disguise for Cruz. Granted, it’s a really good disguise, which is to say a seemingly really bad turn of events, but consider where this leaves him.
While he remained the UFC bantamweight champ, there was really no way to justify him easing his way back into action with a tuneup fight or two after such a long layoff. He had to come back and defend the belt immediately, which put him in a tough spot considering the very real possibility that he’d be a little rusty, while Barao has recently looked as sharp as ever. Now that pressure is off. The belt is gone. The division can move on. Cruz can take his time, and ideally he won’t rush straight back into a fight against the very best the division has to offer.
I know no fighter in the history of MMA has ever admitted (before the fight, anyway) that they might not be totally on point after a lengthy injury layoff, but here’s a situation where it wouldn’t hurt to let Cruz take it slow. I’m sure it’s small consolation to him now, but in the end it might be the best thing that could have happened to him.
I could live without a Silva return, though I could understand why he might not want to go out like that. And if he does decide to come back and give it another go, seems to me that a fight with St-Pierre might be just about perfect. It would save him the indignity of getting potentially knocked off by some mid-level middleweight in an ill-fated attempt to work his way back to a title shot at 39 or 40 years of age.
It would also be an instant payday for both, yet wouldn’t disrupt either the middleweight or welterweight divisions the way it would have back when they were both champs. If anything, it makes slightly less sense for GSP since he gave up his title rather than losing it. If and when he returns, the reasonable thing to do would be to match him up against the current welterweight champ.
Again, that’s the reasonable thing. The awesome thing would be to match him up against Silva. Then we’ll find out who really back.
For a lot of MMA fans, Lesnar is the awful biological father who rarely shows a genuine interest in them without some ulterior motive behind it, and yet every time they hear that he might be coming by to take them to Six Flags, they can’t help but rush to get ready just so they can spend all weekend waiting in vain at the front door.
Let’s face it, Lesnar is just not that into us. That’s fine with me since I think we already saw the best he had to offer as an MMA fighter. If he wants to spend the rest of his life wrasslin’ on the TV or huntin’ all manner of varmints in the great white north, by all means, have at it, big guy. I guess some fans just miss his… well, I can’t exactly call it charisma, so instead I’ll go with star power. Bless their hearts.
I think Rashad Evans could make a strong case for another crack at the belt with a win over Daniel Cormier alone. That’s an extremely tough fight, and if he wins (especially if he wins impressively), he’ll have really proven something.
Since nothing ever seems to come easy for Evans, I wouldn’t be surprised if the UFC did put one more fight between him and a title shot after that, but that wouldn’t necessarily be so bad. If you can beat Cormier, you can probably beat most people at light heavyweight right now. That’s a pretty big if, though.
Ben Fowlkes is MMAjunkie and USA TODAY’s MMA columnist. Follow him on Twitter at @BenFowlkesMMA. Twitter Mailbag appears every Thursday on MMAjunkie.
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