There is a serious issue going on with the UFC as of late – injuries.
This past week, the scheduled super-fight between Jose Aldo and Anthony Pettis for later this summer was scrapped when it was discovered that Pettis injured his knee.
I can’t tell you how disappointing it was to hear this news. I was looking forward to this fight as much as I have any other fight, ever.
The styles of both men would have made for a tremendous chess match and exciting battle.
But, alas, it is not to be.
I can’t say that I didn’t see it coming. There has been a rash of injuries that have cancelled fights in recent years for the UFC.
Even yesterday’s UFC had to go with a replacement main event when interim bantamweight champion Renan Barao had to back out of his title fight with Eddie Wineland due to an injury.
Prior to that, UFC 160 had its co-main event change to Junior dos Santos vs. Mark Hunter after Alistair Overeem was injured.
It seems like every announced PPV card ultimately gets changed due to injuries.
The UFC implemented an insurance plan for its fighters that cover training injuries a few years back. The plan is a great idea and something the organization needed to do. But, since that plan came into place, more injuries seem to be taking place in training.
I am guessing the amount of injuries isn’t increasing in training, simply the fighters are more willing to pull out of a fight because their medical care will be covered. Prior to that, a fighter needed to compete in order to receive that medical coverage. So, if a fighter was hurt in training, he needed to grit it out and fight in order to get his injury repaired after his bout.
The coverage plan can’t change, but the intensity of training can. Fighters need to be smarter in how they prepare. Their grappling and wrestling practices are causing too many injuries. Fighters need to do what they can to be ready for a fight, but they can’t do it at a risk of injuring themselves and having a fight be cancelled.
There are plenty of exciting fights that could take place in the UFC, including a super-fight like Anderson Silva vs. Jon Jones. But, what are the odds we will ever see it take place where both men will stay injury free in order to fight?
It has been a while since a pound-for-pound rankings has been done on this site, but there is no time like the present. Here we go:
1. Anderson Silva (33-4) – Silva is still the pound-for-pound king due to his dominance in the middleweight division and his ability to finish his opponents.
2.Jon Jones (18-1) – I put Jones ahead of GSP because Jones really hasn’t lost yet. His one loss was a DQ where he essentially finished his opponent. Jones has shown well-rounded skills, winning with strikers, submissions and wrestling. He has truly dominated a division that was stacked a few years ago, the 205-pound division.
3. Georges St. Pierre (24-2) – St. Pierre has been on top of the 170-pound division for five years now, but his inability to finish opponents has gotten tiresome. St. Pierre has great wrestling and striking, but he doesn’t have the finishing ability of the top two on this list.
4. Jose Aldo (22-1) – Aldo can start making an argument to move up this list if he beats Anthony Pettis later this year. A win there may earn him a lightweight title fight. Aldo has tremendous striking, but he has shown the ability to fatigue over 25 minutes. That could be a problem as he starts fighting elite-level fighters.
5. Cain Velasquez (11-1) – The heavyweight champion is very light on his feet and he pushes a pace that can’t be matched in the division. He may not be the top striker, but that didn’t matter against Junior Dos Santos, as he constantly forced JDS to use energy. Velasquez never tired, but JDS did quickly.
6. Benson Henderson (19-2) – Henderson has some great skills, but he also isn’t overwhelmingly winning his recent fights. He isn’t losing them either, but his razor-thin decisions hurt his ranking on this list.
7. Renan Barao (30-1) – Barao doesn’t get a lot of credit for being as impressive as he has been. He is arguably the bantamweight champion, since Dominick Cruz has been out for so long. Sure the 135-pound division isn’t filled with a lot of big-name talent, but Barao has dominated all of the would-be contenders, including Urijah Faber. Barao hasn’t lost since 2005 and has 20 finishes since that time.
8. Demetrious Johnson (17-2-1) – Johnson is the fastest fighter in the UFC and he has great wrestling and conditioning. The 125-pound division doesn’t have a lot of superstars yet, but Johnson is the king of that hill and has looked impressive on top.
9. Gilbert Melendez (21-3) – Melendez gave a good accounting for himself in his UFC debut, nearly beating Henderson for the lightweight title. After a lengthy run as champion in Strikeforce’s lightweight division, Melendez looks to be a real force in the UFC’s 155-pound division.
10. Johny Hendricks (15-1) – Hendricks doesn’t have the look of a dominant MMA star, but he keeps beating the big names that get thrown before him. A great wrestler already, Hendricks has developed the most powerful hands in the welterweight division and he has now cleared out the division, leaving himself and St. Pierre on top. The two will meet later this year and that should be an epic fight.
Just a matter of a week ago, it seemed as if there were no real threats to UFC Featherweight Champion, Jose Aldo.
Aldo has seemingly cleaned out the division and is now preparing to face Erik Koch at UFC 149 later this year.
But, on Tuesday, some light may have been shed on the featherweight tunnel.
Chan Sung Jung put on the best performance of his career in a fourth-round submission win over Dustin Poirier.
Long thought of as just a bit of a novelty act, Jung had made a name for himself for being able to take a beating and keep coming forward, hence the name “The Korean Zombie”. Nobody really thought of him as a legit title contender.
But, on Tuesday night in the main event of UFC on Fuel TV 3, Jung showed great all-around skills and some of the slickest jiu-jitsu I have seen in a fight in quite sometime.
Jung had tremendous transitions, great execution, and he also mixed up his striking to include leg kicks and knees. It was clear that Jung has improved a great deal since joining the UFC, where he is now 3-0.
While he still needs to keep improving to beat the likes of Aldo, he does present one thing that Aldo’s opponents haven’t seemed to possess, and that is the ability to press the action.
Most of Aldo’s opponents have been very tentative against the champion and have tried to react to what Aldo does as opposed to making him react to what they do.
That won’t be an issue with Jung. He is going to fall on his sword and go with his style, win or lose. I think he could possess a real threat to Aldo because he will be able to eat some punches and kicks and keep coming forward. If the fight goes to the ground, it is hard to see anyone really out-working Jung.
Kenny Florian may have put it best on the broadcast when he said Jung “is always throwing finishing moves at you.” All of his strikes have the intent to end the fight and on the ground, he is always pursuing a submission. He doesn’t give his opponents a chance to relax.
The one area Jung may need to improve is his conditioning, but he will have a while to do that before facing Aldo. I think fans would get behind an Aldo vs. Jung bout as well, at least a lot more than Aldo vs. Koch.
It has been two months since my last pound-for-pound rankings list, and only one fighter on the list has competed in that time.
Bantamweight Champion, Dominick Cruz made his UFC debut, and successfully beat Urijah Faber, but his win wasn’t strong enough to move him ahead of Frankie Edgar. So, my top 10 is the same, but there could be some serious shakeups in the next few months with the UFC putting together a number of big fights in the fall and early winter.
1. Anderson Silva (28-4): Silva is still the most feared opponent of anyone in MMA due to his devastating and unique striking ability. Chael Sonnen is the only man to make him look beatable, but Silva still found a way to beat him by submission despite a serious rib injury. Yushin Okami is next up for “The Spider” at UFC 134, which will be a good test for Silva, who has an obvious weakness in wrestling.
2. Georges St. Pierre (22-2): GSP will return to action in October to take on Nick Diaz. The welterweight kingpin hasn’t been challenged much in his recent fights, but he also hasn’t been that impressive either. St. Pierre is in need of a dominant win with a finish to really be considered for the top spot.
3. Jose Aldo (19-1): Aldo is set to face off with Kenny Florian in early October, defending his featherweight title for the second time in the UFC. Aldo is similar to Silva in the fact that his striking is so strong that many opponents have a hard time coming up with a game plan that they can stick to when they face off with him. Florian will provide a good test for Aldo, but it may not be enough to beat “Junior.”
Chael Sonnen is free to fight, and it looks like he wants to fight everyone, especially anyone from Brazil.
Sonnen sat down with MMAFighting.com’s Ariel Helwani prior to UFC 132 and he was in classic form. The full 19-minute interview is below.
Sonnen throws bombs at nearly everyone from Brazil, especially Anderson Silva and Wanderlei Silva. Despite his attacks toward Team Blackhouse, it appears that Sonnen will make his return to the UFC against rising middleweight, Brian Stann.
I don’t know that Sonnen will be able to insult an American hero and make people laugh, but we will have to wait and see.
We just can’t have nice things.
It has been a while since a pound-for-pound rankings has been done on this site, but there is no time like the present. Here we go:
