Official UFC Thread - Part 4

[DoomsdayApex]

The UFC Middleweight and Light Heavyweight divisions have been weak for some time now. The competition for Silva and Jones pales in comparison to what GSP, Dos Santos and [now] Henderson have to face. It's at the point now where Dana is pushing for a Silva-GSP or Silva-Jones superfight. Other than Teixiera and Gustafsson, Machida and Rua are the only viable match ups left for Jones, and Silva only has a challenge from a suspended fighter in Diaz.

Think about it, Sonnen and Belfort were the best The UFC could do on short notice. Machida and Rua likely have one more push for the title, so I don't blame them for declining. When I think about it now, it was a smart decision on their behalfs. However, Jones was given a gift with Sonnen (a one-trick pony) and he astonishingly declined. So instead of accepting the fight with Chael, he accepts a fight with a middleweight who's a former shell of himself.

I don't know how Jones can publicly recover from this.

 

[TheVileOne]

Probably because the UFC wants to make it up to the fans who didn't get to see a light heavyweight title fight and give them a bigger card with another title fight stacked on it.

 

[I'm Venom]

No surprise at all, Machida just fought less than a month ago and went through a camp before that. Belfort, on the other hand, hasn't fought since January and is well rested after healing his broken hand a couple months back. Sonnen didn't deserve the fight and would've gotten walked through by Jones. I wouldn't at all be surprised if Belfort knocks Jones out.

 

[CrypticOne]

Yeah, I don't blame Machida or Rua for not taking the fight. They only fought Jones last year. And I agree, Sonnen or Belfort don't deserve the title shot, but like Snoop says, "Deserve got nothin' to do with it." If I was the UFC I would've got Jones a heavyweight fight. Jones himself wants a heavyweight fight. And it doesn't need to be anyone big. I'm over it now though. We all know Jones will beat Belfort. I hope within the next two years, Jones moves up to HW. No one in the current LHW division will be able to beat Jones. And we are already in the process of him getting rematches.

 

[TheVileOne]

Meh, I doubt Jones would be ready to fight at heavyweight in three weeks and I doubt his puppet master Jackson would let him do it.

 

[Texas Zombie]

It takes months to put on pounds of useable muscle, it takes days to cut weight.

 

[Colossal Spoons]

Just read an article on Yahoo about Jones being the most hated man in UFC. It mentioned repeatedly that Jones cost the other 16 fighters a lot of money and that their kids won't be able to go back to school, etc. Seems kind of dumb of the organization to put that kind of power(and pressure) on the 2 dudes in the main event, no?

 

[Darthphere]

Just read an article on Yahoo about Jones being the most hated man in UFC. It mentioned repeatedly that Jones cost the other 16 fighters a lot of money and that their kids won't be able to go back to school, etc. Seems kind of dumb of the organization to put that kind of power(and pressure) on the 2 dudes in the main event, no?

Well Jones didn't cancel the whole PPV, Dana White did. So you can call him chicken **** and everything else you want but Dana was the one who threw a hissy fit and took his ball home instead of just going through with the PPV with an overwhelmingly weak under card.

 

[Colossal Spoons]

Yeah, I'm not grabbing my pitchfork over this. Jones is still my dude.

 

[DoomsdayApex]

Yeah, I'm not grabbing my pitchfork over this. Jones is still my dude.

Jones still refused a fight [as a champion] which lead to his employer canceling the event. So, I place the blame on both Dana White and Jon Jones. Bones didn't singlehandedly kill UFC 151 but he certainly had a hand in this debacle. There's really no excuse for him to decline the Sonnen fight only to accept another fight against Belfort of all people. It just looks extraordinary bad, and his image took another massive hit because of it.

 

[VictorCreed]

Guys, Shogun is still medically suspended, and still will be until right after UFC 152 September 22. He couldn't take this fight if he wanted to. Machida was not. He could have taken it.

http://www.sherdog.com/news/news/UF...n-Rua-Brandon-Vera-Out-at-Least-45-Days-44773

 

[Texas Zombie]

Guys, Shogun is still medically suspended, and still will be until right after UFC 152 September 22. He couldn't take this fight if he wanted to. Machida was not. He could have taken it.

http://www.sherdog.com/news/news/UF...n-Rua-Brandon-Vera-Out-at-Least-45-Days-44773

Here's what should happen now.
Machida vs Rua 3.
The winner gets the next shot if Dan Henderson cannot compete.

 

[Mace Bloodstone]

Jones still refused a fight [as a champion] which lead to his employer canceling the event. So, I place the blame on both Dana White and Jon Jones. Bones didn't singlehandedly kill UFC 151 but he certainly had a hand in this debacle. There's really no excuse for him to decline the Sonnen fight only to accept another fight against Belfort of all people. It just looks extraordinary bad, and his image took another massive hit because of it.

His image only took another hit in the minds of those who already hate him. Haters are always the most vocal, constantly feeding off each other.

"Jon Jones got absolutely destroyed on Twitter yesterday, his image has been destroyed completely. Any hopes he had of becoming a popular fighter are gone."

"i lost respect for jones...hes not a fighting champion"

"Not only did Jon damage his reputation further but he cost his employer an event by refusing to fight."

"I've always hated Jones, and now this just builds that hate even more. I don't like him."

Fights get changed, postponed all the time what the eff is the big deal.

 

[B]

Here's what should happen now.
Machida vs Rua 3.
The winner gets the next shot if Dan Henderson cannot compete.

Shogun is fighting Gustafsson at UFC on Fox 5 in December, I'd personally say the winner of that should fight winner of Jones/Belfort.

I think Lyoto should fight the winner of Rampage/Teixeira, hopefully, assuming he wins, Rampage has cooled down enough to have reconsidered leaving the UFC after his next fight as I'd love to see rematches between him & Shogun, Henderson & Evans. Wouldn't mind seeing him fight Thiago Silva as well. Would take a big TKO/KO victory for Rampage though to give him some power over the UFC the way Henderson had after he KO'd Bisping & Glover Teixeira looks like he is no joke.

 

[B]

His image only took another hit in the minds of those who already hate him. Haters are always the most vocal, constantly feeding off each other.

"Jon Jones got absolutely destroyed on Twitter yesterday, his image has been destroyed completely. Any hopes he had of becoming a popular fighter are gone."

"i lost respect for jones...hes not a fighting champion"

"Not only did Jon damage his reputation further but he cost his employer an event by refusing to fight."

"I've always hated Jones, and now this just builds that hate even more. I don't like him."

Fights get changed, postponed all the time what the eff is the big deal.

I don't hate Jones. I admit I didn't like how cocky he appeared to be, however his performances against Shogun, Rampage, Lyoto & Evans won me over that he can back up being a little cocky..

However that being said I've kinda lost some respect for him, while he might be a superb fighter & future great, you can't be a champion & refuse to take a fight.. especially when it costs about 20 other fighters money they probably don't have because the majority of the PPV being a success was resting on him fighting. Some may say it was a weak'ish card & that's true, however the only way to get people exposed is to put them on cards with the most popular PPV drawing fighters.

Not to mention the guy that offered to fight him is by all accounts still a 185lb fighter, essentially has 0 time to do any sort of specialized training for the fight given that he probably would have spent most of the week promoting the fight.

+ There was the 12,000 fans that bought tickets including the ones that probably spent thousands of dollars getting transport to the event. Michael Bisping posted a picture on Twitter of about 7 fans that had flown from Egypt to Las Vegas for the event that he met, I'm sure those were only 7 of 1000's.

 

[E-Man]

People won't care if Jones goes on to destroy Machida again and eventually fights and takes out Hendo. The best way to make people forget is to beat the hell out of someone in impressive fashion. The problem is that some people have wanted to ignore how incredible Jones has looked because he doesn't act a certain way. Those fans would have been pissed if it was Jones hurt, but many of the casuals upset that the card got canceled will forgive pretty easy once Bones goes to work and tears someone up big time.

Then again the Machida finish shows how much Jones bothers people. This guy owned Machida in the second and put him to sleep beautifully, but too many people wanted to complain how he didn't gently lay Machida down instead of dropping him. Instead of cheering how he overcame a small dilemma in the first round and coming on strong and finishing in the second these *****es wanted to cry about how elbows shouldn't be legal. All some people wanted to talk about was Jon Jones' personality instead of actually talking about how he may be the greatest talent to ever walk through MMA. Now these same people want to talk about him not fighting and disrespecting the sport.

I understand being upset at the guy, but hot damn this is hilarious. He deserves some blame, but people are acting as if him and Greg Jackson are Ra's Al Ghul and Bane. Someone needs to photoshop that ****. Where is Kane?!

 

[DoomsdayApex]

Hey, I'm not placing the entire blame on Jones here. I've said that numerous times already. Half the blame belongs to Dana White and management for the less-than-stellar fight cards. It doesn't help the situation further that The UFC has an overstuffed schedule, and added more weight divisions. However, there's no bulls**ting around the fact that Jones declined a fight with Sonnen only to pick up a fight with Belfort. There's no excuse for it. The UFC provided a ready opponent for Jon but he refused it.

Make whatever excuse you want, but the fact is he opted out of a 'fit' fight [as a champion and pound-for-pound candidate].

 

[Project862006]

this is how i see it ufc made him a star gave him a title shot when his best win was ryan bader helped him with his dui case

the least he could of done is help his promoter out when they needed it but he did'nt

anyways from chael's facebook page LOL

 

[El Bastardo]

There was no reason to take the fight against Chael. It's a stupid fight. No, the fight against Belfort doesn't make much sense either, but after the giant ****storm, I expect Jones to have been in a place, publically and/or privately, where he had to take whatever was offered next.

I love Jones. I've never gotten the hate. Oh well.

 

[DoomsdayApex]

There's no reason to take the fight?

He's the UFC LHW Champion and he belongs to the UFC. So if The UFC tells him to fight Sonnen, then he better fight Sonnen. It doesn't matter if the match-up is 'stupid', he's still obligated as an employee to fight whoever the boss wants him to fight.

Did Shogun b***h about fighting Jones last minute? No. Did Silva refuse to fight Maia or Leites? No.

 

[B]

There was no reason to take the fight against Chael. It's a stupid fight. No, the fight against Belfort doesn't make much sense either, but after the giant ****storm, I expect Jones to have been in a place, publically and/or privately, where he had to take whatever was offered next.

I love Jones. I've never gotten the hate. Oh well.

Last minute replacement fights usually are somewhat stupid/rarely make as much sense as the original intended fight. Fighting Chael makes more sense than Belfort given that Belfort had absolutely no plans to move to LHW whereas Chael at least does.

After Jones's decision cost them an event they should have put him on the shelf until they could make arrangements for him to fight Lyoto even though he deserves a title shot about as much as Sonnen or Belfort do, he was announced as the next challenger after Henderson, no point in having title eliminator fights if they're just gonna ignore them.

As opposed to seemingly get in some sort of panic to get a Jon Jones fight out & dump him onto the next card against a guy, while always dangerous to any fighter, has been irrelevant in the LHW division since about 2004/2005 at best.

 

[E-Man]

Hey, I'm not placing the entire blame on Jones here. I've said that numerous times already. Half the blame belongs to Dana White and management for the less-than-stellar fight cards. It doesn't help the situation further that The UFC has an overstuffed schedule, and added more weight divisions. However, there's no bulls**ting around the fact that Jones declined a fight with Sonnen only to pick up a fight with Belfort. There's no excuse for it. The UFC provided a ready opponent for Jon but he refused it.

Make whatever excuse you want, but the fact is he opted out of a 'fit' fight [as a champion and pound-for-pound candidate].

Didn't he say that he'd fight Chael, but on the 22nd instead of the 1st? I don't think it's a matter of ducking Chael and not wanting to fight him as it's Jones wanting more time to fight a new opponent. What's funny is that every time a fighter's opponent gets hurt people say that they would understand if they decided not to fight a new opponent on short notice. Jones does this and is still going to fight on short notice, but he's getting a ton of heat for it.

 

[Project862006]

^like chael turning down bisping on a weeks notice? oh wait...

sorry it just shows jon's lack of character he could of been a company man and helped the ufc when they were already taking a hit for ufc 151 with hendo injured but he said NO

Jonesreminds me of a guy who fights for a paycheck and not for competition or fight because he loves to fight like chael and even anderson slva who called dana and said he would fight at 151 to help the ufc

 

[DoomsdayApex]

Didn't he say that he'd fight Chael, but on the 22nd instead of the 1st? I don't think it's a matter of ducking Chael and not wanting to fight him as it's Jones wanting more time to fight a new opponent. What's funny is that every time a fighter's opponent gets hurt people say that they would understand if they decided not to fight a new opponent on short notice. Jones does this and is still going to fight on short notice, but he's getting a ton of heat for it.

What is there to prepare for? Jones was training for a high-caliber wrestling based opponent anyways (with weak stand up and submission defense). By all accounts, on paper, Jones would have beaten the **** out of Chael, but declining the fight only made Jon appear insecure and spoiled. Then, instead of fighting Sonnen, he signs on to fight a decaying middleweight who has virtually no takedown defense.

How exactly do you want the MMA community to back off of Jones after pulling a stunt like this?

Like I said, there's no excuse for it.

 

[Project862006]

it was an easier fight than a belfort,hendo,machida aswell atleast those guys have the power to ko jones

chael needs a 25 minute no mistake performance to beat jon