If you missed Wednesday’s Fightful podcast with Sean Ross Sapp and yours truly, there were some juicy nuggets from spicy topics thrown out into the MMA universe. A few of them had me thinking and analyzing this MMA game a little further.
Fightful Matchmaking
What are the odds of us actually seeing a Conor McGregor vs. Floyd Mayweather prizefight? Would it be a boxing bout? An MMA bout? Or would you settle for the crazy (yet awesome) idea of putting these two in the squared circle, someway, somehow, at Wrestlemania? I think Sapp is onto something here.
What do we do with Jacare Souza? He won’t be fighting Luke Rockhold anytime soon, won’t get that rematch with Yoel Romero, so how about the recently victorious Gegard Mousasi? Of course, there’s also the winner of this weekend’s Robert Whittaker and Derek Brunson bout, but man, this middleweight division is getting quite interesting.
Slapping any of these four together on the same card as a Michael Bisping vs. Yoel Romero main event would be awesome. Mind you, I suggest no one forget about Georges St-Pierre. He really wants that bout with Bisping, and if he can work things out with the UFC, he will trump any of the aforementioned parties.
There’s also the dilemma that is Conor McGregor’s hiatus until the summer of 2017. In doing so, he will not defend either of his two titles for a long time, with one of them (potentially) for a very long time. I get a sour feeling he will not only be asked to give one up (I doubt he will) but a storm will be brewing soon. I’ve said it before, but I don’t see this relationship with McGregor and the UFC ending very well.
Seeing as “The Notorious” will be ensuring his girlfriend’s pregnancy is one with as little stress as possible, leave it up to Khabib Nurmagomedov to find us a solution.
The lightweight Dagestani monster figures the UFC should put forth an interim title bout between he, and the other number one guy at 155 lbs: Tony Ferguson. Is there any way we can pre-order a pay per view without even knowing when it will take place? Cause I’ll fork over my money right now to see these two guys tangle in the octagon.
MMA Awkwardness
So Sapp heard that Ronda Rousey needed to be consoled backstage after she stormed off stage after her staredown with current champion Amanda Nunes.
I stated that it didn’t even budge my needle of care, but I’m hoping my comments were not considered insensitive towards Ronda. That was not my intention.
In my experience with her, one day she is a gem but the next one, she is one question away from driving her fist through my face. I realized that she isn’t the only one that goes through an emotional roller coaster in MMA.
GSP, Matt Hughes, Brock Lesnar, Chuck Liddell and so many others were the same way. When I spoke to them outside of fight week, they were far more jovial than during the days before a bout. And that’s completely understandable. Most were cutting weight, while all were going from civil human to killer warrior mode.
But with Ronda, she is nowhere near her fight, so what caused this alleged emotional rollercoaster. Normally, she’s cool, calm, collected and flat out gangster when she gets in front of an opponent. But something set her off. And if it was true, that she had to be consoled backstage, I wonder what she will be like leading up to fight week.
I wish the best for her but am sincerely intrigued as to what is going on with the former champ.
In closing, this whole situation regarding USADA’s 18-month suspension of Lyoto Machida, after “The Dragon” admitted to taking a supplement that contained DHEA.
Machida is ticked off at USADA, stating they never educated him on what is and isn’t banned. That’s an eye roller to me, as to my understanding, all of the athletes are told where to search for this type of info. Since day one, they are told to visit GlobalDRO.com and to research and ask questions before buy anything over the counter and ingesting it.
Lyoto admitted he took it … I guess you can say good on him for being honest. He was subsequently suspended for two years, eventually reduced to 18 months. That’s a fairly harsh suspension to most eyes, especially for a guy being honest. And considering some people say DHEA isn’t exactly performance enhancing, we have ourselves a quandary.
Seeing as we haven’t seen him compete since June of 2015, we will now not see him fight until July 2018. That puts the Brazilian at age 40. Is it safe to say we’ve seen the last of him? The former champ ending his career losing three of his last four fights?
It’s unfortunate, but as we’ve all heard before, this USADA thing will make things worse, before it gets better.
