BUDDY, FOR YOUR OWN GOOD, YOU GOTTA LET THIS GO
“Someone’s going to get backed into a corner.” – Gilbert Melendez, on a co-promoted Strikeforce/Bellator fight between himself and Eddie Alvarez. (Sherdog)
“Bjorn’s saying he’s texting me 11, 12 times an hour. I’m not sure if he’s trying to be a level-five clinger or anything like that, but I haven’t received one text from the guy.” – Strikeforce CEO Scott Coker, denying Bellator CEO Bjorn Rebney has been in contact with him. (Sherdog)
“Scott: if you’ll get back to me on Eddie v. Gilbert I will fly out to San Jose and pick up dinner anywhere in N Cal.” – Rebney, in a text sent to Coker. Rebney released images of four texts he sent out to Coker over the last two weeks. Coker should really take advantage of this level-five clinger and get him to do all sorts of outrageous tasks before putting on any sort of co-promotion.
“Gilbert’s fought everybody. He beat the guy that Eddie lost to. For them to say, ‘Oh, Gilbert’s ducking him’ — come on, let’s be real.” – Coker
“If I beat Josh Thomson again, if I beat Shinya again, it’s not really going to do nothing for my status or to make my spot go up.” – Melendez, who understands his role as king of a very small mound which rests next to the UFC’s mountain.
“If he wants to do business, call me or fly out here, come sit down with me.” – Coker, inviting Rebney to start physically stalking him.
THE BUSINESS MERGER UFC FANS HAVE WAITED YEARS FOR
“We were so successful that the UFC had no other option than to bring these guys in and put them in their show.” – WEC President Reed Harris, whose success won’t be measured by TV ratings or financial revenue. Zuffa announced the UFC would finally assimilate the WEC talent. (MMA Weekly)
“The thing that I’m most proud of is that no one has argued with me that these guys aren’t ready to go to that next level.” – Harris. I think the talent level in the WEC has been the biggest “pro” argument for the Zuffa merger.
“We’ve sort of been viewed as second-tier fighters, and now we’ve got the opportunity to show the world that we belong in the UFC.” – Miguel Torres (Sherdog)
“Not having to explain the difference, or lack of a difference, to the fans is going to be nice. I’m looking forward to the satisfaction of there finally being no difference between the UFC and the WEC.” – Urijah Faber
“My fight with Ben was big enough, and now I’m two fights away from being the UFC champion. It’s two championships in two fights.” – Anthony Pettis, who, along with Ben Henderson, was promised a title shot if he wins at WEC 53. The logic being that the UFC champion smashing a WEC contender somehow adds legitimacy to the talent of the incoming WEC fighters. (Cagewriter)
THE TALE OF TWO RELEASES
“Dana never actually talked to me. The only time he talked to me was after my first fight, and he publicly went out and said that I had a good attitude.” – Todd Duffee, who Dana White released after citing a bad attitude about fighting in the UFC. (Sherdog)
“Joe Silva was just like, ‘We’re releasing you,’ and at first I was like, ‘Whoa.’ I didn’t know what to say, I was speechless.” – Efrain Escudero, doing his best Theodore Logan. (MMA Weekly)
“My dad was dying, and I spent my dad’s last five months preparing for a fight. I didn’t go visit my dad once.” – Duffee
“It was kind of hard to swallow when I heard that someone could have that kind of misconception about me, especially someone who has that much control over what I’m trying to do with my life. With a snap of someone’s fingers, everything you’ve worked so hard for goes down the [expletive].” – Duffee, who may want to ask himself if he wants to be a f’ing fighter.
“They know what they’re doing and for me it was weird because I don’t have consecutive losses.” – Escudero
“Yes, I lost to Dunham, but Dunham’s one of the top guys right now, and I also lost to Oliveira, which are the only two losses in my whole career.” – Escudero. Meanwhile, Mac Danzig has a UFC fight scheduled with Joe Stevenson despite going 2-4 since winning TUF 6.
“I never personally agreed to [fight Madsen]; my manager did. They all really wanted that fight for me because it was on the Brock card. I was just asking for a couple of weeks to see if I could get healthy to take that fight” – Duffee
“Still to this day, it doesn’t make sense.” – Escudero
THE KEY TO PERSONAL GROWTH IS SERIOUS INTROSPECTION
“I think the UFC has me at a 70 [inch reach], and I think they do that because they feel bad for me. My reach is 69 [inches]. That’s got to be the worst reach at 170.” – Marcus Davis, who plans on moving down to lightweight. (MMA Junkie)
“If I make 155, and I win two fights, and I feel like the new Marcus Davis, then we sit down and sign a new contract. But I will say this: I will not be 40 years old and fighting. I just can’t.” – Davis
“I’m not going to blow smoke up anybody’s ass and say I’m going to be this phenomenal 155-pound fighter and I’m going to be a champion.” – Davis
“I know that I’m a 37-year-old guy who’s basically got the body of a 55-year-old guy, and I’ve got a face that likes to open when you look at it wrong.” – Davis, who gets a gold star sticker from me for the brutally honest self-assessment.
ALLEGED STEROID PURCHASER PULLS OUT OF UFC 125, FAT MAN UPSET
“If the doctors do not have to perform surgery then I will be out 8-12 weeks. If they do have to perform surgery I do not know how long I will be out of action.” – Shane Carwin, pulling out of his UFC 125 fight with Roy Nelson. (Shane-Carwin.com)
“My manager said, ‘You can’t fight the best fighters in the world with just heart, it is time to stop limping to the top of the mountain and get healthy so you can climb it on your terms.'” – Carwin, insert obvious “with what cardio are you climbing this mountain” joke here.
“My doctors said I shouldn’t fight again until February or March, but I stepped up because the UFC wanted me to.” – Nelson, who’s upset that he was pulled from the card in lieu of finding a replacement for Carwin. (Sherdog)
“Cro Cop is a legend in this sport, and I would’ve loved to have fought him. I’d like to fight Nogueira for the same reason. I’d love to fight Overeem, Brock Lesnar or The Undertaker.” – Nelson. ‘Taker would have had to dust off the ol’ Yokozuna casket for that one.
JUST DO THE THIRD FIGHT WITH LIDDELL AND GET IT OVER WITH
“The decision lies in Dana’s hands, but I’ve gone through some surgeries that people don’t come back [from]. I feel great.” – Tito Ortiz, who has to worry about being cut after dropping a decision to Matt Hamill at UFC 121. (Las Vegas Sun)
“I don’t know what it is, I think it’s four in a row, and we know what happens when you lose four in a row in the UFC. This is the big leagues.” – UFC President Dana White. Unless you’re Mark Hunt. Then you get brought into the UFC. (MMA Mania)
“[B]ut I would even go out on a limb and say that’s the last time we see Tito in the UFC.” – Matt Hughes (Matt-Hughes.com)
WHITE NOISE
“So we are working on a couple moves now and should be in a billion homes around the world in the next couple months.” – UFC President Dana White in volume thirty-nine of his “hinting at network TV deals” series. (Broadcasting Cable)
“Sports Business Journal just came out with a survey asking big names in the industry which sport could start its own network and 4 out of 5 said us. They are right. I agree.” – White. A UFC network would squeeze out fourteen hours of fight programming during the day and ten hours of Randy Couture infomercials at night.
“[I]f you come out and say you’re going to compete with us, then we’re going to [expletive] compete until somebody wins and somebody loses.” – White, on the notion that he attacks his competitors. (Dub Mag)
“Well, we had a slot and said, ‘Alright, you want to move up to 155 pounds and fight Kenny Florian?’ and he said, ‘Uh, never mind.'” – White, contradicting Jose Aldo’s management that the UFC never offered the Nova Uniao wunderkind a fight at 155 pounds. (Tatame)
PARTING SHOTS
“Dana’s recent comments on AOL are ridiculous and insulting and I am sad to see them associated with our sport.” – Frank Shamrock. Dana White told AOL he would let Shamrock back into the UFC only after he “stopped looking like Jaws from those [expletive] Bond movies.” (MMA Fighting)
“We can’t understand, Paulo is doing great on the trainings and can’t give it all during the fight.” – Paulo Thiago coach Ataide Jr. Despite the less-than-stellar praise from his camp, the UFC awarded Thiago with a new four-fight contract. (Tatame)
“I can tell you thankfully there will be a season four, five, six and beyond.” – Bellator CEO Bjorn Rebney, who claims that FSN will stop pre-empting Bellator shows with local high school girls water polo matches. (Sherdog)
“My last few fights in honesty were more novelty fights.” – Randy Couture. Somewhere, Brandon Vera’s career is weeping. (MMA Live)