LOS ANGELES -- Fabrico Werdum, Daniel Cormier, Robbie Lawler, Ronda Rousey. All Strikeforce alumni. All wearing UFC gold.
As if that isn't an impressive enough UFC resume for a promotion that was sometimes dismissed as second-rate, Luke Rockhold will have his opportunity to make it five when he meets Chris Weidman for the UFC middleweight title at UFC 194.
And the former Strikeforce middleweight champ isn't afraid to admit that, yes, the notion top Strikeforce fighters had about being perceived as a cut below the elite really was a thing, and not just a figment of the media's or fans' imaginations.
Rockhold believes that's especially true in the middleweight division, which is considered one of the sport's most loaded weight classes. Beneath champion Weidman are a pack of contenders who sharpened iron in Strikeforce.
"Tim Kennedy never got the respect he deserved," Rockhold recently told MMAFighting.com.
"Look at us now. Myself, Yoel Romero, Tim Kennedy and Jacare [Souza]. There's Weidman, and the rest of us are all from Strikeforce."
Rockhold uses the 2011 bout in which he decisioned Souza to take the belt as his evidence for an anti-Strikeforce bias.
"I fought Jacare, Jacare was ranked No. 5 in the world, maybe even higher at the point I fought him," Rockhold said. "And instead of giving me the credit, because I was the kid from Strikeforce Challengers who people didn't believe in, this happened a lot, they took credit away from Jacare for who he was and what he's capable of, and bumped me to like No. 10 and put him outside to like No. 15. How does that levy out?"
Rockhold credits the UFC hype machine for its ability to mold perceptions. At the end of the day, he's just happy he's finally getting credit for his work.
"People are closed-minded," Rockhold said. "They believe in the hype train of the UFC. You've got to give the UFC credit for making people believe it is the best talent. I'm just glad to be here and finally get the credit I deserve."
Why Dillashaw-Cruz on FS1?
@SacTownie: TJ-Cruz on FS1, not PPV or FOX: Building exposure for the division, hedging on Cruz injury, or something else?
A little bit of all of the above. You're right, at this stage of the game, the UFC has to be a little bit gun shy on promoting Dominick Cruz in a pay-per-view headline spot, given how the past few years of his career have gone down. So that's part of it, for sure.
Now, add in the fact that the hype during the NFL's conference championship games for last year's Conor McGregor-Dennis Siver fight in Boston helped drive a record rating on FS1, and you seem to have a surefire winner of a time slot. It's true that neither Dillashaw nor Cruz have McGregor's personality, but I don't think they need to match the rating for the card to be a success. With the right amount of rub from football's big day, and with America already in front of their TV sets on a Sunday night and not likely to be doing much else in the dead of winter, there's no reason Dillashaw-Cruz shouldn't be a ratings winner.
Frank Mir's legacy
@Patkawesome Where does Mir rank amongst all time HW? Lots of records and wins but a lot of loses via stoppage?
Interesting question. Former UFC heavyweight champion Frank Mir's career has been so full of ups and downs that it's hard to get a real read on where he stands among the all-time great heavyweights.
He's had so many highlights, but he's had one too many nights where he's looked terrible. And the latter is likely the reason he doesn't get name-checked among the division's A-list greats.
The fact he's a polarizing figure, could be abrasive, and often rubbed people the wrong way, didn't help his case, either.
But Mir likely deserves to be better appreciated than he seems to be. He's been a part of several memorable, enduring MMA moments. Snapping Tim Sylvia's arm. Both fights with Brock Lesnar. Snapping Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira's arm. The quick and vicious finish of Cheick Kongo. This year's first-round KOs after he had lost four straight fights and everyone told him to retire. He's never backed down from a fight, he's stepped up when the UFC has needed him (which in this case, backfired and led to a putrid fight against Andrei Arlosvki), he's had an open mind on changing his approach on more than one occasion, which shows the passion for what he does is still there.
You might not like Frank Mir, but you have to respect his longevity, and have to admit the guy's an original.
Schedule cutback
@philmcmasters: Trimming of schedule, 192-194 stacked cards & cruz v dillashaw on FS1. What does this mean as a whole for UFC?
First off, cutting four shows from the schedule just isn't that big a deal. It sucks for anyone who might get cut, sure. But if you spread the 40-50 fights that are being trimmed from those four shows across the course of the year's schedule (assuming they don't simply up the numbers of fights on the remaining cards to balance things out), then the effect is to simply eliminate the one bout on nearly every card which inevitably ends with a barrage of snarky "THIS is UFC caliber fighting???" tweets. That's not a bad thing.
If the UFC slices its schedule in half, sure, that's cause for alarm. Dropping a smattering of shows just strikes me as trimming some of the excesses.
As for UFC 192-194, first off, I think we also have to include the January cards in the mix. UFC 195 features Lawler vs. Carlos Condit, which automatically makes it a must-see. The Boston Fight Night includes Dillashaw-Cruz and Anthony Pettis vs. Eddie Alvarez. While we have to keep our fingers crossed on the latter, given Cruz and Pettis' injury histories, I think we have to expand our view of this awesome stretch of events in November and December to also include January's cards.
What does it all mean? It means, to me, that the UFC has finally gotten over the hump and moved forward with a new generation of fighters. I never bought into the whole sky-is-falling mentality after Georges St-Pierre and Anderson Silva were both lost. All it would take is for another couple drawing cards to emerge, and that's been the case with Ronda Rousey and Conor McGregor, just like GSP and Silva replaced Randy Couture and Chuck Liddell before then. And, true, if Conor or Ronda step away, they're back to square one, but you know what? Brock Lesnar's time at the top wasn't as long as we seem to remember it, either, and Liddell's biggest-drawing period came when he was past his prime. Barring another epidemic of injuries, which is always a real possibility, or the effects of the full USADA testing being far worse than we could imagine, there's no reason not to believe these periods of absolutely stacked events won't become seasonal norms, not at a time when nearly every weight class has a few guys or gals credibly capable of headlining or co-headlining a pay-per-view.
Where will Fedor land?
@MacPherson9999: The Fedor stuff, is he coming back or what? It's been months now. If so, what's a reasonable expectation of him?
I think we in North America tend to narrow the Fedor Emelianenko free-agent race down to UFC vs. Bellator. But Fedor's got other options. He can make big money and stay home in Russia, fighting as Vladimir Putin's personal show pony. There's also the big one-night score to be made as a New Year's Eve nostalgia act in Japan. I don't have inside sources on this, but given the way Fedor and his management have generally handled things over the years, it's reasonable to assume he'll smartly take the big payday at home or in Japan, then turns his sights back on North America when the well starts to run dry.
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