I LOVE YOU, HONEY BUNNY
“He is a choker, he choked tonight.” – UFC President Dana White, on Nate Marquardt’s performance against Yushin Okami at UFC 122. (Bloody Elbow)
“I feel like he has very strong standup but I have a lot more tools to use.” – Marquardt, leading up to his fight with Okami. (Bloody Elbow)
“He is also tall and strong but I feel that my advantages are anywhere I want them to be.” – Marquardt, who must have felt he had the advantage with his back against the fence.
“I felt I did enough to win, but I wasn’t a spectator. I was in the fight, so it’s hard for me to say.” – Marquardt, who lost a unanimous decision. Two judges scored the bout 29-28 and one scored it 30-27, all for Okami. (MMA Mania)
“Either way, I’m still one of the best, and I’m going to get back in there and be the champ one day.” – Marquardt. Best read in the voice of a naive and oblivious eight-year-old boy from the 1920s.
“This camp continuously – when these guys fight, their corner is either telling them they’re ahead or they’re winning.” – White, on the cornering of Greg Jackson and Trevor Wittman.
“I mean, Nate Marquardt sat here tonight and said that he thought he won the fight. Where the [expletive] is his corner? You go into the last round and you’re getting outstruck by a wrestler, and you think you won the fight? And this is consistent with the Greg Jackson camp.” – White
“If there is any kind of pressure it’s welcomed because I do well with pressure and see it as motivation.” – Marquardt
YOU WILL LIVE ON THROUGH THE VOICE OF MIKE GOLDBERG
“I’ve been fighting for 25 years. No matter how good you are, how great you are, you are replaceable. And there comes a time when you have to stop.” – Shonie Carter (Low Kick)
“I lost five fights in a row.” – Carter. Tell me if you recognize these names: Nabil Khatib, Dylan Andrews, Rick Hawn, Torrance Taylor, Jeremy Knafo.
“I don’t want to get knocked out 5 or 6 times in a row. I don’t want to cry.” – Carter
“A lot of fighters don’t know when to end their career.” – Carter. See: Liddell, Chuck. Pulver, Jens.
“If someone offers me a superfight, with good money, I might consider doing MMA again.” – Carter. Sigh.
MOBY BROCK
“I think it’s great that Brock wants to fight me. … I don’t care if it is in the UFC or the WWE … let’s just get down to it.” – Roy Nelson. More on that WWE business later. (Bloody Elbow)
“He never asked for Roy Nelson, that’s not true. The last thing I did hear was that he wants to fight Frank Mir again. … We will probably see Lesnar fight Mir next, I think that the rubber match makes sense.” – UFC President Dana White (Fighters Only)
“[A fight against Brock Lesnar] honestly right now, probably no. … Velasquez made [Brock] basically shout ‘Stop. Enough. Enough,’ before he tapped due to strikes and that looked really bad.“ – Frank Mir, no stranger to laying limp on the canvas while receiving punches to the face. (MMA Sucka)
“People have been saying on my Twitter that they’re not happy with that fight. It’s something I need to rethink.” – White. I guess booking fights via fan response on Twitter is still better than the Scott Coker “fun” criteria.
STRIKEFORCE FIGHTER TALKS BAD ABOUT NON-STRIKEFORCE FIGHTERS
“They made it sound so great that a company went under.” – Josh Thomson, on the UFC’s assimilation of the WEC brand. (Las Vegas Sun)
“The simple fact of the matter was that the WEC failed and they put it with the UFC to carry it.” – Thomson
“To compare WEC lightweights to Strikeforce and the UFC is not fair because if they were that good, they would have been fighting for the UFC.” – Thomson, who is saying that if Strikeforce lightweights were good enough, they would be fighting for the UFC?
“I think the world of [Jamie] Varner, but I beat Hermes [Franca] and Hermes beat Varner. Varner was the WEC champ for awhile. So, where does that leave us?” – Thomson. Well, you thinking “the world” of Jamie Varner, for starters.
TOMB OF THE UNKNOWN FIGHTER
“I’ll tell you one thing. I’m a lot better fighter than the one I’ve been reading about on the Internet.” – Scott Carson, who is next in line to fight Herschel “One Meal, Multiple Personalities” Walker in Strikeforce. (Strikeforce.com)
“I am trying to take it all in stride, but I have no idea why some people are talking so negatively without ever having seen me.” – Carson. I think I might have an idea…
“They say I’m old at 40 but I don’t feel 40 and I certainly don’t look 40.” – Carson.
“Let them write something factual after they’ve seen me on December 4.” – Carson, offering himself up to the jackals.
WHITE NOISE
“I usually don’t gauge things by the Internet; the internet is [expletive] stupid. My Twitter I do.” – UFC President Dana White. It’s official: Twitter’s bigger than the Internet. (MMA Junkie)
“On my Twitter, there are 1.2 million people that care about this thing and everything else, and you don’t get the goofy [expletive] that you get on the Internet.” – White
“Eventually we will do 125lbs. I believe we will open it up a lot sooner than people think we will.” – White. Talking about flyweights is a perfect segue for more Roy Nelson discussion. (Fighters Only)
“These guys go out and sign with these rinky-dink little promotion companies and sign these bad contracts, and let’s just say Roy Nelson is involved in a bad contract right now that he had before.” – White. Nelson is tied up in a contract dispute with Roy Jones Jr.’s Square Ring Promotions. Nelson, who the UFC has decided not to promote until he is clear from Square Ring (even though they’ve promoted him in the interim after this information had been reported), has sent out feelers to WWE. (MMA Junkie)
“The contracts that King and those guys were doing back in the 60s, 70s, and 80s where they have options on top of their options – so your contract never ends with these guys.” – White. Sounds a lot like the UFC’s infamous “Champion’s Clause.”
“These are the kinds of contracts that some of these guys are signing in these other organizations out there that some of these MMA websites go, ‘Oh, stick up for these guys, they’re the small guys.’ The small guys are the guys that are really [expletive] the fighters.” – White. It’s not always the case, but Dana’s spot-on here.
PARTING SHOTS
“As long as we have humans subjectively judging there will always be decisions that are found to be controversial. That goes for all sports: gymnastics, diving, and any other sport that has judging.” – UFC Vice President of Regulatory Affairs Marc Ratner, suggesting that commissions invest in technology to develop robot judges. (Fighters Only)
“I don’t see how you can wear your regular fight shorts, compression shorts under that that go to your knee, then wear knee pads on both sides that go halfway down your leg, then ankle supports that go halfway up your leg and down to your toes.” – Joe Lauzon, on George Sotiropoulos’s attempt o recreate Shinya Aoki’s “Magic Pants” under the Unified Rules of MMA. (MMA Fighting)
“He needs to do that to stay a legit fighter and not just a legend selling pay-per-views because he has a name. He has to fight me to stay up there.” – Alan Belcher, calling out Wanderlei Silva. I guess the eye is better. (MMA Fighting)
“I have a dream to end my career in the UFC. I think I am able to make this dream come true, and I’m working towards that, which is to train a lot.” – Pedro Rizzo, responding to Dana White’s denial that the winner between Tim Sylvia and Pedro Rizzo would receive a UFC contract. (Portal do Vale Tudo)
“I’m not going to cry about it. … It’s my own fault. If people are dissatisfied, then I’m going to correct that.” – Jon Fitch, taking responsibility for the UFC passing him up for a welterweight title shot. (LA Times Blog)