UFC President Dana White cancelled UFC 151 earlier today after Dan Henderson suffered an injury and light heavyweight champion Jon Jones turned down a fight against Chael Sonnen. 
In a special edition of “The MMA Report Podcast,” Adam Martin of TheScore.com and Pete DiLorenzo of MMAVictor.com join the show to give their thoughts on today’s news.
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As long time UFC fan (pre-TUF but not UFC 1) there is one championship fight I remember being saved last minute by an undeserving fighter. Back in UFC 15, Dan Severn was injured for his championship fight against Maurice Smith so they got…
Tank Abbott! Who had lost his previous two fights. To be fair, the first of those two fights was in the finals of the Ultimate Ultimate 96 (one day) tournament but the second he was absolutely destroyed by Vitor Belfort in under a minute. I don’t remember how much time there was between switching fighters but I do remember Abbott saying something like he went from bar stool to championship fight, indicating that he had pretty much had virtually no training for the fight and knew he had nothing to lose by taking it.
And Maurice Smith took it. Abbott was a large, semi one-dimentional fighter (a power puncher who did have some underutilized wrestling skills) with no cardio. He wasn’t a cakewalk fighter, certainly dangerous, but by beating him it did legitimize Maurice’s standing as champion after he upset Mark Coleman when he came in with a 4-7 record, in what was expected to be a cakewalk for Coleman and ended up being an excellent fight that went in Smith’s favor.
But we’re talking about 1997 when your top heavyweights were Mark Coleman, Maurice Smith and Dan Severn. Randy Couture was still new (he faced Belfort on this card and upset him), Don Frye had left for Japan, Shamrock for the WWF, and the heavyweight championship itself was new. Maurice Smith was only its second champion (after Coleman beat Serven for the Superfight Championship and they retitled it Heavyweight). UFC was a mere four years old at the time and still figuring things out. The UFC simply didn’t have much talent in the heavyweight division.
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This situation is completely different and I put the full brunt of the blame on the UFC. People are talking about these fighters as if they’re not to have any rights and it’s shameful. That they should fight whomever they put in front of them irregardless of the circumstances. I don’t like Jon Jones very much, I find him to be an insincere man-child but I am completely on his side about this.
These cards have been so thin recently that its brought the point of boredom.
White always said that he would never have a one fight card ‘ala boxing but that’s just what he’s been doing and now its caught up to him. When the co-main event is Ellenberger vs Hieron, a fight that wouldn’t of headlined a Fuel TV card, you know something is wrong.
It still no sense for the UFC to expect–no RELY on–Jon Jones to do something outside of the terms of his contract simply to bail them out of a situation he had absolutely no role in creating. It was bad business on the part of the UFC. I don’t mind Chael Sonnen fighting for the belt only if he’s the only guy around ready and willing to fight, but I take issue with giving Jones only eight days prep time. Saving UFC 151 doesn’t come close to the significance of setting a precedence for accepting a totally illegitimate, inexplicable and whimsical title shot. Wonder what other contenders patiently waiting in line have to say about this I-talk-loud-enough-to deserve-a-title-shot crap?
How does one defend a card that must be scraped after losing one fight? This isn’t the first championship bout to be lost due to injury and it wont be the last.
White is acting like a kid who just had his toy car taken away from him because he was playing with it at the dinner table. He ran to the media for cover and unfortunately they (and you) have provided it for him. It’s sad to see so many fans side with him and their uninformed rational to defend him like a bunch of cultists.
If this were small time fighting, maybe I’d have a slightly different opinion, but I don’t mind fighters turning down short notice fights. I do mind White putting all of the blame on the fighters and coaches and taking none of the responsibility himself. Greg Jackson gave Jon Jones some good advice and to his credit, Jones listened to him. I hope he loses against Belfort, but I don’t hold any grudge against him for turning Chael down on eight days.
As a final point, Jones did not choose to cancel the event. Dana White and company did. Jones is not responsible or owe anything to those other fighters on the card. The UFC is.
How quickly people forget this.
I’m glad this was the first podcast I listened to from you guys because now I know now to waste my time listening to a second.