UFC NEWS

BJPENN.COM News - October 22, 2012

“The public perception of TRT is that it’s cheating. The moment I said I was actually thinking about it, I started getting quite a bit of backlash.” …

BJPENN.COM News - October 22, 2012

“If I win this fight, I am the No. 1 contender No doubt. Nobody’s got the same resume I do in the UFC in the welterweight division. I’ve beaten the best guys. There’s no other welterweight that’s coming on the same streak that I have. There’s other guys coming up with a bunch of hype behind them, but really who have they fought? They haven’t fought anybody tough. They haven’t fought anybody good, but they’re getting the hype train behind them. Look at the guys I’ve fought and compare that to anybody in the welterweight division. I’ve fought some of the best guys in the division.” On Hendricks:

BJPENN.COM News - October 22, 2012

On Saturday, Dec. 29 at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas, the Ultimate Fighting Championship closes 2012 with a bang, as UFC heavyweight champion Junior dos Santos meets former champion Cain Velasquez in a long-awaited rematch between two of the sport’s hardest-hitting competitors. Dos Santos (15-1, fighting out of Salvador, Bahia, Brazil) ended Velasquez’s reign as heavyweight champion last November, knocking out the two-time Division I All-American wrestler in the first round. Now, the 30-year-old Velasquez (9-1, fighting out of San Jose, Calif.) seeks revenge in arguably the biggest rematch in UFC history.

BJPENN.COM News - October 22, 2012

We recently learned that multiple time middleweight title challenger, Chael Sonnen, has been given a slot opposite UFC light-heavyweight champion Jon Jones and the two will coach the Ultimate Fighter Season 17 as well as fight next April. But does Sonnen really deserve the booking or should the shot have gone to a Dan Henderson or Lyoto Machida?

BJPENN.COM News - October 22, 2012

UFC middleweight, Tom Lawlor, recently put out a blog on The Underground forum giving his take on Performance Enhancing Drugs and why he has made the decision to not take them. Check it out:

BJPENN.COM News - October 22, 2012

“Once again, it goes to show you what a joke the California State Athletic Commission is,” said Soares. “It’s just a bunch of idiots out there, man. I just can’t believe that they’d sit there and admit they were wrong the way that they did. ‘Oh yeah, we did this wrong, we did that. There was a line of custody, a chain of custody that was wrong. But, we’ll fix it next time.’ For now he still has a full-year suspension. It’s completely ridiculous. I don’t even know what else to say.” “In any court of law (this wouldn’t stand). They basically had the wrong date on the paperwork, they had the urine sample taken from the wrong location. Che Guevara said that he threw away the urine sample on the 18th, which he didn’t. It was another guy. The guy lied under oath. Where does it begin? If we were in a court of law, that case would’ve been thrown out. In the chain of custody, how could you have the wrong date, the wrong place where you took the sample, and still consider it fine? That’s ridiculous.”

BJPENN.COM News - October 22, 2012

UFC welterweight Matt Riddle recently received a suspension from Calgary Athletic Commission following his UFC 149 victory over Chris Clements. The TUF alum tested positive for marijuana and as a result got his victory overturned and will serve a 90-day suspension.

BJPENN.COM News - October 22, 2012

“I’m still kind of pissed off at the fact that I lost (to Demetrious Johnson), obviously, but I think I’m only two or three wins away from getting a title shot. “Speed is a big thing. With me, the second time I came in too heavy, I mean I cut 18.8 pounds in the last like 20 hours. We weighed in at three or four o’clock and by 10:00 I was 150.5. So it was my own fault, I didn’t diet right. I think I just didn’t take it seriously enough, which for some reason I don’t know why, I finally get to the UFC and I don’t take it serious, I don’t know. I would just go back to like I fought him the first time and not… I was thinking too much and I don’t know, I didn’t fight like I should have.

BJPENN.COM News - October 20, 2012

“The Ultimate Fighter” coaches have taped their season and put their focus in the training room as they prepare for their upcoming heavyweight clash. Roy Nelson, has enlisted in the VADA testing program and, it appears up until this point, has been lobbying for his opponent to do the same.

BJPENN.COM News - October 20, 2012

Former UFC light-heavyweight champion, Rashad Evans, had hoped to get in one more fight before the year’s end. However, coming off a UFC 145 loss to Jon Jones and with the rest of his division tied up with other bouts, there is no one for the former champ to fight inside the top 10 of the weight class.

BJPENN.COM News - October 20, 2012

“The Natural Born Killer” Carlos Condit currently holds UFC gold as the UFC interim welterweight champion of the world. In order to drop the “interim” and become the true king of the UFC’s welterweight division he must get past Georges St-Pierre at UFC 154. GSP will have home court advantage but according to this video interview with UFC.com Condit isn’t concerned with fighting in front of the Montreal crowd.

BJPENN.COM News - October 20, 2012

The first-ever active duty member of the United States Armed Forces claimed his first preliminary round win of the competition, as Staff Sgt. Colton Smith won a majority decision over Eddy Ellis on The Ultimate Fighter® Fridays episode six – “One Mission” – that aired on FX on Friday evening. The victory gets Team Nelson, coached by UFC® heavyweight Roy Nelson, back in the game, as they cut the gap down to one. Team Carwin, led by former UFC interim heavyweight champion Shane Carwin, continues to lead with a 3-2 advantage after five preliminary bouts.

BJPENN.COM News - October 19, 2012

“It doesn’t bug me, if anything it motivates me. The fact that I’m being looked past; it puts a fire under my ass. I love being the spoiler. I spoiled Nick Diaz vs. George St. Pierre and now I get to play that role again. The hype for a superfight between Georges and Anderson has been going on for a long time. The fight between me and Georges, there is not as much hype on it, but, I think we’re going to have a hell of a fight. People are going to be wondering why they weren’t excited about it after the fight.” “People thinking he isn’t going to be the best Georges we’ve seen is a mistake. If I think I am going to have an easy time with him because he is coming off injury is a mistake. That will be really detrimental to me. I’m preparing for Georges St. Pierre, the man, the myth, the legend and nothing less.”

BJPENN.COM News - October 19, 2012

“He’s bigger than Kobe Bryant and LeBron James here. He’s bigger than that there. It’s crazy. Every time I go there, I don’t think it can get any bigger, but he seems to get even bigger. He went from a guy who was a top fighter in the world, a top pound-for-pound fighter to just about everywhere he goes, everybody’s like, ‘Hey, champ, you’re the greatest. You’re the best. Can I get you this? Can I get you that?’ It’ll get anybody a little bit tripped out. I think he’s kind of filling into the shoes that he’s become. I think he’s doing a great job with it. He’s really kind of come full circle. I think he’s handling it very well. He’s kind of back to his roots. It’s very nice to see because there were some times when it started getting a little crazy.” Team Blackhouse manager and founder, Ed Soares, went on record over at MMAFighting.com recently and discussed his star athlete Anderson Silva.

BJPENN.COM News - October 19, 2012

“The show is coming up, it’s on FX and it’s coming to a living room near you. I would also like to mention to the media, and I really hope they report this, this show is the single biggest and toughest tournament that we have in this sport. This isn’t a four-man tournament that gets spread over the course of a year. This is a 32-man tournament that will take place over five and a half weeks and to be aired over 10 of the most successful ratings FX has ever seen. This is a tournament that is tougher than the Olympic games, it’s tougher than the NFL playoffs, it’s tougher than any tournament in sports and that storyline constantly gets missed. This is no more reality TV than the NFL playoffs or the Olympics were. It’s real and it’s on TV. The bottom line is, this is a tournament. This is a tournament so tough that great fighters like Josh Koscheck, Gray Maynard, Stephan Bonnar and Chris Leben couldn’t even win it. It’s so tough, that world champions Forrest Griffin and Rashad Evans came through it. I happen to know the talent that has been selected for this show, this will put all of those seasons to shame and there is a world champion, if not more than one, that’s in these young men. Write this down, the toughest tournament in mixed martial arts is coming to FX.” During Wednesday’s UFC tele-conference to promote season 17 of “The Ultimate Fighter” the Chael Sonnen hype machine turned it’s attention to the UFC’s reality series by proclaiming it the toughest tournament/athletic competition in the world.

BJPENN.COM News - October 19, 2012

“Every time a fighter does what they’re supposed to do, and improves and gets better every fight, I wouldn’t say the blueprint goes out the window, but it can be harder to execute the blueprint,” Henderson steadily explains. “Guys leave holes open in their game. Those holes get smaller if you do what you’re supposed to do and get better from fight to fight. Nate Diaz has shown a big improvement from his early years in the UFC and he’s made those holes a lot smaller, but I think the blueprint is definitely still out there on how to beat Nate. It’s not just, ‘Oh, we think you’ve got to do this. We think you’ve got to do this.’ No, if you want to beat him, you’ve got to do A, B, C, and D. And then you beat him. Period. You’re done… “[Their in the cage “attitude”] works well for them. I’m definitely preparing myself mentally to face that, and when I do face that, act accordingly. I don’t intend on it affecting me. I don’t intend on going out there and being all mad, all of a sudden getting emotional.” So how do you beat Nate Diaz, what is this blueprint the champ speaks of?

BJPENN.COM News - October 19, 2012

When Chael Sonnen got the call to host “The Ultimate Fighter” season 17 opposite Jon Jones he was forced to bow out of his scheduled UFC 155 bout with former UFC light-heavyweight champion Forrest Griffin. The UFC has scrambled and now just announced that Phil “Mr. Wonderful” Davis has agreed to step in as his replacement on the UFC 155 main PPV card.

BJPENN.COM News - October 19, 2012

The Nevada State Athletic Commission has requested out-of-competition drug screenings from “The Ultimate Fighter” season 16 coaches, Shane Carwin and Roy Nelson. The last occurrence of such testing was when Alistair Overeem was scheduled to fight Junior dos Santos on an all heavyweight UFC pay-per-view. In the aftermath it was found that the UFC’s number one heavyweight contender had banned substances in his system and was forced out of the main event.