On tonight’s edition of the “some nights it happens, some nights it doesn’t” Evening Combat Sports News, we get things started with something that is hardly news at all.
Brian Green, of almost beating Kimbo in a boxing match on short notice before being KO’ed with three seconds left fame, recently posted a video of that boxing match on YouTube to prove that he didn’t “take a dive” as many thought. The video does accomplish his goal as he’s clearly hit with three punches before going down, but he’s taken the opportunity to step back into the limelight, talking about the fight on forums such as The Underground.
Someone informed me earlier today that he began to bring up a post I wrote back in April where Green admitted to me that he wore twenty pound ankle weights at the weigh-in so that the athletic commission would approve the fight and seems to be blaming me for reporting on it:
Someone sent me a message on facebook, and said I saw you are listed at 180lbs online, and I saw you weighed in at 223lbs for your fight with Kimbo. Did you really gain that much weight?
I simply responded to that man “No, i put ankle weights on to make sure the athletic commission would approve the fight because I really wanted it!”
Little did I know that was a writer for Bloodyelbow.com and he went and made a freaking article out of me just honestly responding to his question.
LITTLE DID HE KNOW?!
Here is the actual exchange as a screenshot from Facebook:
I never said it was off the record, I said in the first sentence that I write for not one, but two different websites and I asked for the scoop. Yes, I said I wasn’t on a crusade to stop the fight, and I wasn’t, I wanted honest info on the fight. If someone says that they’re a member of the media and asks you a question without ever giving the slightest indication that he is asking off the record, you can probably assume that they’re looking for info for a story.
Predictably there was a bunch of “that guy is horrible for posting a private message in an article” nonsense from people who want fighters to think they’re cool. But he doesn’t have a website, doesn’t have an e-mail address listed anywhere, I don’t have his phone number, I reached out to him via a message on Facebook, asking a question as a reporter the same as happens every day in every sport via e-mail.
I guess my real point tonight is that lying in the process of trying to prove your integrity is a pretty weak look, Brian. You’re the one that used ankle weights to lie to the athletic commission and now you’re the one lying about the story behind how the information was shared with me. That says a lot more about your character than it does mine.
Anyway, today’s news after the jump.
The day at Bloody Elbow kicked off with a twitter beef from last night between Cesar Gracie and Greg Jackson when Gracie pointed out that “Cali” sent Jackson fighter’s home 0-3 at Saturday night’s Strikeforce event. Jackson’s big fancy comeback was that Adlan Amagov won on the prelims so they were actually 1-3. Because .250 is a somewhat acceptable number if you’re batting eighth in the National League.
But seriously, that’s some weird talk by Cesar. Rousey was favored by more than -650 on most sites, Tate was favored by around -500 and Souza was over -450 at most sites. So is the real point that in California, most of the time really heavy favorites get the win?
The war of words/negotiations between Ronda Rousey and her team and Cris Cyborg continued today with Rousey’s manager laying out some conditions to make the fight ever happen. Their basis for not wanting to go up to 145 seems to be that they don’t believe that the time she was caught cheating was the first time she was actually cheating.
They’re holding firm to the fight only happening at 135 pounds and Cyborg must agree to random testing from the date the fight is signed until the day before the fight actually happens.
Speaking of Rousey, Ben Thapa broke down the technique used by Ronda to land the fight ending armbar on Sarah Kaufman this past weekend.
Jon Jones says that he’d like to go up to heavyweight in the next “two or three years” and then said “2013 or 2014 would be cool.” Dismissing that that is actually the next one to two years, I think many fans are excited to see how Jones would do at heavyweight. He’s clearly still growing physically but is a big, big 205 pounds. Assuming he doesn’t get his weight up too high, he should be plenty capable of carrying his athleticism up to heavyweight.
Ian McCall’s lawyer gave some details on the UFC flyweight’s recent arrest. It’s looking like there were two outstanding warrants that landed him in jail. One was for a driving violation and the other was for non-completed community service from a 2008 drug arrest.
Quick rundown of other stories from the day:
- A few fight announcements were made today with Vladimir Matyushenko against Matt Hamill at UFC 152, Rafael dos Anjos vs. Mark Bocek in Montreal, Josh Thomson vs. Caros Fodor at Strikeforce: Melendez vs. Healy and Joe Lauzon against Gray Maynard at UFC 155.
- Jon Fitch talked to Steph Daniels and said that he wants to be cheered like Rocky. Rocky’s thing was that he was always an action fighter who was cheered because he was a huge underdog against the world champ but gave it all he had. Jon Fitch is…Jon Fitch.
- Dana White talked about some of the problems the UFC is having with the Fox format.
- Hyun Gyu Lim signed with the UFC. Hyun is the fighter who was mentioned by The Korean Zombie as the top Korean fighter to look out for in the future.