Before being crowned Miss USA Sunday night, Nevada's Nia Sanchez was asked how universities could work to improve the safety of female students on campus and prevent sexual assault. A fourth-degree black belt in Tae Kwon Do, Sanchez cited her martial arts training and encouraged other women to take up some sort of self-defense.
"I think more awareness is very important so women can learn how to protect themselves," said Sanchez. "Myself, as a fourth degree black belt I learned from a young age you need to be confident in being able to defend yourself and I think that's something that we should start to really implement for a lot of women."
Sanchez was immediately bombarded with tweets expressing their disapproval over her stance, but UFC women's bantamweight Shayna Baszler was quick to back the pageant winner.
While the #YesAllWomen people are busy crying about "victimization", I was at the gym honing my whoop-ass skillz. #HighFive @KimberlyRoot
— Shayna Baszler (@QoSBaszler) June 9, 2014
Things heated up Monday when Dr. Ann Maria DeMars, world Judo champion and mother of women's bantamweight champion Ronda Rousey, didn't exactly embrace Baszler's viewpoint.
. @QoSBaszler @KimberlyRoot That's fine because you WANT to but you shouldn't HAVE TO http://t.co/pAfTmta9Wt
— DrAnnMaria (@DrAnnMaria) June 9, 2014
@QoSBaszler @KimberlyRoot No, you should not. Which is why we arrest people who commit fraud & not say you had it coming
— DrAnnMaria (@DrAnnMaria) June 10, 2014
@DrAnnMaria i agree w/that. Just not all the hate @MissUSA is getting
— Shayna Baszler (@QoSBaszler) June 10, 2014
Baszler faces Bethe Correia at UFC 176 on Aug. 2 in Los Angeles, Calif.
5 MUST-READ STORIES
Robbed. Looking to sign a new contract with UFC, Ross Pearson says his controversial loss to Diego Sanchez puts him in a precarious situation in negotiations. 'This is a fight game, the UFC can't sell ‘Ross Pearson narrowly lost a judges' decision to Diego Sanchez' in his next fight, you know what I mean? I can't go main event in a card now.'
Phone tag. Jon Jones' manager Malki Kawa blames the confusion surrounding the Alexander Gustafsson bout on being out of the country. 'When we sat down with them we realized that the biggest problem that we have on both sides was the communications.'
Aldo-Mendes. Jose Aldo discusses his upcoming rematch with Chad Mendes at UFC 176, what has changed since his first-round knockout over the Alpha Male fighter in Rio de Janeiro, the controversial fence-grabbing at UFC 142 and more.
Open doors. Invicta FC president Shannan Knapp explains how Cris Cyborg could be the big winner in the promotion's new agreement with the UFC. 'We'll see what she wants to do first but I'm all about getting her on this platform and dropping down (to bantamweight) and documenting that.'
Unranked. Finished with his current contract, Mark Munoz has been dropped from the UFC's middleweight rankings.
Make sure to check out The MMA Hour featuring Benson Henderson, Ross Pearson, Ken Shamrock, Diego Brandao, Malki Kawa, Shannon Knapp, Niklas Backstrom and Paul Lazenby.
MEDIA STEW
UFC 174 Embedded episode 1.
STATIC: Jason Miller vs. Nick Diaz.
Highlights from Bellator 121.
Wanderlei Silva training with Olympic gold medalist Cael Sanderson.
EA Sports UFC gameplay of Bruce Lee vs. BJ Penn from yesterday at E3.
Fighters talk World Cup predictions, T.I. vs. Mayweather and more.
Long watches.
UFC 174 Free Fight: Ali Bagautinov vs. Marcos Vinicius
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Sherdog Radio Network "Rewind" with Mac Danzig and Jack Encarnacao.
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Knuckle Up #414: The Jon Jones Juke-a-Rama, Fight Night Fury of the Also-Rans
TWEETS
Make it stop.
' @RonyJasonMMA @PatricioPitbull I'm going to try and figure this out lol I don't want to mess w/ his hands and u could beat me with just 1
— Pat Curran (@PatCurranMMA) June 10, 2014
Looks like this image had the truth all along. @PatCurranMMA @BellatorMMA pic.twitter.com/M3CzXUVVJ1
— Patricio Freire (@PatricioPitbull) June 10, 2014
@PatricioPitbull @PatCurranMMA @BellatorMMA Your attacking his depression now?? Seriously who's your PR guy cuz he's awesome lol #foolish
— Brian Butler-Au (@BrianButler_Au) June 10, 2014
@PatCurranMMA is the thing: commit to the fucking fight. July 25. Don't be a pussy, or give up the belt. Cowards can't be champions.
— Patricio Freire (@PatricioPitbull) June 10, 2014
Going hard on the video tweets.
Hanging with Wee Man at the XGames. http://t.co/xxgGk7DKT4
— Quinton Jackson (@Rampage4real) June 9, 2014
This is my version of a decent weekend. http://t.co/CFDt8ye92D #Guns #BBQ #helicopter #friends thanks @Onnit for playing.
— Tim Kennedy (@TimKennedyMMA) June 9, 2014
Inside my training camp 4th video blog is up!! #WSOF10 #ATT #1 #ProAthlete #TommieCopper #SmileandBelieve #Grateful http://t.co/N3pDAAADMJ
— Jessica Aguilar (@jagatt) June 9, 2014
See if you can spot me in the new @Xyience Commercial #Filthy - Victory: http://t.co/jWTJIWptf1
— Dan Hardy (@danhardymma) June 9, 2014
Congrats.
Had a great meeting today with the boss man @BjornRebney at the @BellatorMMA office. I'm very excited for the future pic.twitter.com/tCYTzH15q2
— Will Brooks (@illwillbrooks86) June 9, 2014
Back on solid foods again so...straight to @olivegarden YES!!!! #alfredo #chicken #delicious pic.twitter.com/v8HOlL9c38
— Eddie Wineland (@EddieWineland) June 10, 2014
Smart move.
#vancouver the Woodley Family is ready for your great City! @ufc #ufc174 #VanCity @UFC_CA pic.twitter.com/Yqga5Zlo3Z
— Tyron T-Wood Woodley (@TWooodley) June 9, 2014
A few DC Q&A.
"@JiujitsuNerd8: @dc_mma @m_sxlly Will you take Jon jones down more then 3 times?" Every round so at least 5 times
— Daniel Cormier (@dc_mma) June 10, 2014
"@WhoSama94: @dc_mma do you think you could make 185???" No chance
— Daniel Cormier (@dc_mma) June 10, 2014
Could be interesting.
All I have to do to make 135 is walk around 160. And I will do it... September sounds good. @ufc lets do it
— Manny Gamburyan (@MannyGamburyan) June 10, 2014
More pad work.
Road to #ufc175 - video courtesy our guest @jemyma_b :) http://t.co/6oEAqkTbeq
— Ronda Rousey (@RondaRousey) June 9, 2014
In case you're interested. NSFW, I guess.
Behind The Scenes With UFC Octagon Girl Brittney Palmer's 2015 Calendar Shoot http://t.co/Wv4a8fr9ws via @youtube
— Brittney Palmer (@BrittneyPalmer) June 9, 2014
and in other news.
Octagon Girl Brittney Palmer -- I Fractured My Beautiful Wrist ... But Won't Miss UFC 174 http://t.co/2ud2MA50gz
— TMZ Sports (@TMZ_Sports) June 10, 2014
FIGHT ANNOUNCEMENTS
Announced yesterday (June 9 2014)
Bobby Green vs. Abel Trujillo at UFC 176
Ildemar Alcantara vs. Kenny Robertson at UFC 175
FANPOST OF THE DAY
Today's Fanpost of the Day comes via 15Minutes2ADream
15 Minutes, 15 Favorite Fighters.
I want to preface this article with a statement from myself, ahem. "There's no way in hell I can get everyone on here!", said as I changed yet another placement on this list. Every fan has a favorite fighter, or at least ones they like watching. I'm not exactly a lifelong fan of MMA, if anything I'm a relative newcomer. But I'm a student of history, and in my short time I've learned a lot. I put off another article because this idea so firmly planted in my mind, I wanna make a list of my favorite fighters. After hours of debating with myself, I've done just that. So I wanted to put it out there on my favorite source for MMA, and get a good conversation with everyone here about the topic. Consider this a "getting to know you" exercise, as I love the conversations with all of you great MMA fans I've had so far. As a fair warning, I couldn't include a lot of favorites, even if I did a top 50 (though if this sparks some good interest I might do a top 25), so some of my top fighters like GSP, Dan Henderson, Rich Franklin, and even Fedor didn't quite make the cut. But I know quite a few will be met with like mindedness and maybe even surprise.
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Check out the rest of the post here.
Found something you'd like to see in the Morning Report? Just hit me up on Twitter @SaintMMA and we'll include it in tomorrow's column.