Posts from — August 2010

MMA Junkie is reporting that none of the fighters at Saturday’s Strikeforce: Houston event were drug tested. The Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation overseeing the event doesn’t require testing and only conducts testing at the specific request of the promotion, such as when UFC 103 came to town. And Strikeforce CEO Scott Coker didn’t think it mattered enough to make such a request or to implement his own testing.

This is baffling. Why wouldn’t Coker want the fighters tested? Was it the expense? Was it just a case of “the TDLR doesn’t care so why should we?” The decision makes the promotion look shifty, unprofessional or both. Now, I’m not one of these “steroids are evil” pulpit pounders. I couldn’t care less that Shane Carwin has been connected to a steroid scandal. I think a lot of fighters take advantage of whatever they have available to them, considering the punishment their bodies take not just in the fights but during training. It’s as much about being able to heal muscles and recover quickly and keep training as much as it is building muscles and getting stronger.

That said, if you’re caught breaking the rules you need to pay the price. But the lack of drug testing by Strikeforce sends a message that they don’t care about holding fighters accountable to the rules. And that looks bad.

Here’s Georges St. Pierre wearing perhaps the least offensive Affliction shirt in the history of the brand, with douche bag magician Criss Angel, who I admit does some pretty freaky tricks, like that time he levitated over a parking lot.

Shane Carwin might have used steroids. So says court documents filed in Alabama. So what? If true, he’s hardly alone in the sport of mixed martial arts (hello Josh Barnett). He wouldn’t even the only UFC fighter to enhance his performance with a syringe (hello Sean Sherk, Stephan Bonnar, Chris Leben). And questions continue to swirl around Georges St. Pierre and Brock Lesnar and just about any other fighter with a physique like a Greek statue. I just don’t care. I accept that some fighters use performance-enhancing drugs, just as athletes in baseball and football and the Olympics and probably golf and tennis do. There are plenty of ways to artificially enhance an athlete’s performance, why do we draw the line at steroids but not things like laser eye surgery?

Fighting Words isn’t exactly the most original name for a blog about fighting. Well, actually it is. At least, this was the only blog called Fighting Words when I started it more than a year ago. A fight blog over at the Toronto Star newspaper has since taken up the title, as well. And now there’s Mike Straka’s little video show.

All of which strikes me as a little strange. It’s not as though the Star blog wasn’t aware of my blog – they’ve even quoted things I’ve written and linked to this site. As for Straka, I’d like to think he just obliviously picked the name, that he didn’t do a Google search to see if the name was in use and didn’t see my blog and didn’t think, “Who the fuck’s going to care if I use the same name as some tiny MMA blog in Canada?”

Well, fuck you, Mike Straka. How you like them fighting words?

Houston, we have a problem. Strikeforce hits town tonight and well, my excitement level is humming near a 4-4.5 on a 10-point scale. Sure, there’s “King Mo” Lawal defending his 205-pound title against Rafael “Feijao” Cavalcante in the main event, while GI Joe Tim Kennedy and Ronaldo “Jacare” Souza face off in a 185-pound scrap. Both bouts offer the potential for some sick jiu-jitsu (courtesy of Feijao and Jacare), as does Andre Galvao vs. Jorge Patino, although none of them have a “can’t miss” sense about them. Likewise, KJ Noons vs. Jorge Gurgel or former pro wrestling behemoth Bobby Lashley vs. Chad Griggs. Then again, maybe this will be a case of underwhelming expectations leading to a highly entertaining card. My point is that Strikeforce has to do something more than it already is in order to build anticipation for events that don’t feature Fedor Emelianenko or Alistair Overeem.

Having been on vacation for the past week a few things slipped by me in the world of MMA. No, not Chael Sonnen’s remarkable near-miracle against UFC middleweight champ Anderson Silva, an upset I would’ve enjoyed in the moment even if the thought of Sonnen wearing the belt makes me a little queasy. I’m talking about the BC Medical Association’s intention to lobby the federal government of Canada to ban MMA from coast to coast.

It’s laughable beyond words, but after today’s already great news, I thought I’d toss this out there for a chuckle. The idea that MMA is more dangerous than other sports, that there are more injuries and a higher potential for death, is ludicrous and anybody with half a brain and a few facts already knows this. MMA is no longer stuck in the Stone Age in terms of how it protects its fighters. Boxing is more dangerous, so is Nascar racing, hockey and football. Hell, how many marathon runners collapse and die before they reach the finish line each year? Stories like this don’t make me angry the way they used to. It just makes me angry when the story is being generated by supposed experts – in this case, doctors – who should possess the knowledge and understanding and the facts to back up their claims. “Showdown” Joe Ferraro is far more incensed by the matter and he does a pretty decent job of poking holes in the doctors’ case.

Yes, MMA is being sanctioned in Ontario. That’s a done deal. Just don’t expect to see any fights held in the province until 2011. That’s according to an official statement on the province’s Ministry of Consumer Services website. It takes time to cross all the T’s and dot all the I’s to make an outlaw sport legal. It won’t happen overnight. Then again, a New Year’s UFC card at Rogers Centre could be doable (although rumour has it they’ve already booked the Rogers Centre for March).

Obviously, though, this story is still developing and lots of questions remain to be answered. For example, what changes will be made to the Ontario Athletics Control Act, which governs combat sports in Ontario? Where will the Unified Rules of Mixed Martial Arts fit in? Without them, what’s the point? And where does the Ontario Athletic Commission, and specifically its Darth Vader of a boss, Ken Hayashi, fit into all of this? Hayashi has sworn up an down that he will never allow MMA in the province because it violates Section 83 of the Criminal Code and is therefore illegal. Ontario’s decision to allow MMA has nothing to do with the Criminal Code, which must be amended at the federal level. Has Hayashi been told to shut up and get out of the way of progress?

And how will the sanctioning affect grassroots promotions who will want to start putting on fight cards every weekend of the year? What about the officiating, always a bone of contention in MMA? Is the province equipped to handle the influx of MMA events from an officiating perspective or are we going to be stuck with Cecil Peoples-types with karate or boxing experience but no understanding of the subtleties and intricacies of mixed martial arts?

There’s still a lot of work to be done before we see an MMA event in Ontario. Questions, questions, questions. Stay tuned for the answers.

It’s been a few days since I’ve posted anything but I can’t think of a better reason to get back in the saddle than this latest bit of Saturday morning news: Premier Dalton McGuinty has given his okey dokey to the sanctioning of mixed martial arts in the province of Ontario. It’s not official, but consider it unofficially official, according to a report in today’s Toronto Sun and several sources close to the issue who I’ve spoken with.

McGuinty has long made himself persona non grata in the MMA community for his stubbornness on the matter. His position that the sport wasn’t a priority for his government stuck in the craw of many a fight fan who took it to mean he just didn’t care at all. That’s not the case and never was. McGuinty just didn’t have it high on is list of things to do, what with running the biggest province in the country. Of course, the UFC’s decision to open a local office in Toronto certainly helped the promotion to better make the case for the sport and move things along.

Now it’s only a matter of what event will happen in Toronto first. The obvious choice is card headlined by welterweight champ Georges St. Pierre and Josh Koscheck following their tenure as opposing coaches on The Ultimate Fighter. That would be enough of a draw to fill up Rogers Centre in about seven seconds. But depending on when the sanctioning becomes official – and what sort of regulatory restrictions McGuinty imposes – the first sanctioned MMA event (as opposed to the unsanctioned fights that take place on Indian Reserves) will likely be a local promotion such as W-1. Now, I’ve not yet spoken to W-1 boss Jack Bateman, but he’s been running Montreal events from his Toronto headquarters for a couple of years in anticipation of this very thing, and there are a couple of other promoters circling as well.

Stay tuned. the world of MMA just got a whole lot bigger.

I’m heading back east for a few days for a family wedding/reunion. It’ll probably resemble something like this: