MMA News 5/4: Georges St-Pierre, Anderson Silva, UFC 130, Rashad Evans and More
By on May 5, 2011
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Bleacher Report's MMA News Recap for Wednesday, May 4.
UFC 132: Evan Dunham Out George Sotiropoulos To Face Rafael Dos Anjos
Cung Le will not fight in 2011.
UFC 129 Video Highlights: Georges St-Pierre vs Jake Shields.
UFC 130: Extended Video Trailer for Edgar vs. Maynard III.
Georges St-Pierre vs Anderson Silva: How GSP would make the weight jump.
Rashad Evans talks Twitter feud with Jon Jones and upcoming fight with Phil Davis.
Anderson Silva's customized Camaro SS.
UFC 129: Jose Aldo Needed Antibiotics, Says Head Trainer.
Bleacher Report's Jason Schielke:
"It's good to be king"—Tom Petty
When you're sporting a new sled like UFC middleweight champ Anderson Silva is, it sure is good to be the king.
Silva has joined UFC hall of fame member Randy Couture by purchasing a new Camaro SS. But this isn't just any normal Camaro—this baby is tricked out like none other.
All the customizations done to this car are far too many to list. Thankfully, someone from the Camaro5.com forums took the time to break down everything West Coast Customs did to make the Camaro a one-of-a-kind for the "Spider."
"The customization of Silva’s Camaro is extensive and to our eyes includes: custom paint, black stripes running from hood to tail, widened rear quarter fenders/shoulders with functional open rear quarter fender openings, Silva Bee grill emblem, Silva Bee embroidered headrest, back seats, trunk lid liner, and floormats, custom black spoke / yellow lip wheels, custom functional Transformers 2 style bumper air inlets, custom cowl ram air hood, custom, custom rear diffuser with exhaust outlet, black painted rear light bezel, SILVA door sills, alcantara headliner and door paneling, custom dashboard including driver facing gauges, dual colored seats, steering wheel, shift knob, contrasting stitching, in-dash screen, custom trunk subwoofer system and pop-up screens on rear quarter shoulders."
Click here to read the entire article.
Bleacher Report's Mike Hodges:
During his featherweight title defense at UFC 129, Jose Aldo did not appear to be himself against his opponent, Mark Hominick. While he did successfully defend his title, there was something slightly off about the champion on this night, as he looked relatively fatigued during the final round of the bout.
His head trainer at Nova Uniao, Andre Pederneiras, told Sherdog.com that the Brazilian was on antibiotics for an infection he received just days prior to the event.
"He suffered a cut on his toe [on April 23] and it got infected with bacteria,” Pederneiras said.
"He went through heavy medical treatment with antibiotics and anti-inflammatory pills from Sunday to Tuesday. He took the heavy dosage so that he wouldn’t have to take more drugs closer to the fight.”
Click here to read the entire article.
Bleacher Report's Dwight Wakabayashi:
"Suga" Rashad Evans spoke to MMADigest about a variety of subjects leading up to his fight vs. Phil Davis in August at UFC 133. The fight has recently been scheduled to replace his title fight against the now-injured champ Jon Jones.
On similarities between champ Jones and replacement opponent Davis
"They are both athletic, pretty good wrestlers and both have a ranginess to them. That's probably where it ends right there."
On the twitter war with Jones and how it started
"Just speaking the truth man, just speaking the truth. He had made a comment about beating me in practice and I was like, if you beat me in practice it was DESIGNED for you to beat me in practice because I was trying to help you get ready for Bryan Bader so." he told MMA Digest.
No doubt he meant Ryan Bader, or was he taking a shot at Bader?
Click here to read the entire article.
The big question that has been circulating through the MMA world as of late is this: will there ever be a "superfight" between UFC welterweight champion Georges St-Pierre and UFC middleweight champion Anderson Silva?
St-Pierre has often deflected the question by stating the leap from the 170-pound division to the 185-pound division would require a complete reorientation of his career.
Following his win over Jake Shields at UFC 129, St-Pierre was once again asked if the fight with Silva was going to happen, “We'll see,” he told UFC commentator Joe Rogan. “I just finished my fight. I haven't considered that yet. Going up in weight class is a lot to consider. Maybe there are other ways. We'll talk.”
While St-Pierre's responses have seemed a bit evasive, his camp has pondered how they would prepare their fighter to make the jump to the middleweight division.
Firas Zahabi, St-Pierre's trainer, recently spoke to ESPN regarding how the camp would accomplish the move. Surprisingly, Zahabi would not recommend adding size to St-Pierre's frame, "If he goes up, I would recommend he stay the same size," said Zahabi. "You don’t want Georges to go in there bulked up and unable to perform in the mechanical way that he does.”
“He’ll be very small for a middleweight,” Zahabi continued. “If I balloon him up to over 200 pounds, it won’t do any good. There’s a point where you can have too much muscle, and it’s not a good thing. I think he’s got the maximum amount you can put on his body without it starting to be detrimental."
“I’d probably push him up to 200 pounds for that fight,” Zahabi said. “He still wouldn’t be as big as Anderson and it wouldn’t be natural, but it would be better. If you do get on Anderson Silva, having an extra pounds on you is good."
Zahabi revealed that the target weight for a re-hydrated St-Pierre in his bout with Shields was between 192 and 193 pounds.
The fight between St-Pierre and Silva remains a "fantasy fight," according to UFC president Dana White. Silva's next opponent will be Yushin Okami at UFC 134 in Rio on August 27. If Silva gets past Okami and St-Pierre's scheduled remains open, the "superfight" talk will most likely reach a fever pitch.
UFC 130 will take place on May 28 at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada.
The fight card will be headlined by a UFC lightweight title fight between the champion Frankie Edgar and challenger Gray Maynard. The two met in a championship bout on January 1 of this year that ended with Edgar retaining his title due to the fight being scored as a majority draw.
Edgar and Maynard had met earlier in their careers as well, fighting on a UFC card in 2008, with Maynard taking a unanimous decision victory.
Also appearing on the card will be a light heavyweight battle between Quinton "Rampage" Jackson and Matt Hamill. This fight could develop into somewhat of a grudge match as the fighters and their camps have been exchanging barbs since Hamill was moved into replace Thiago Silva after questions arose regarding Silva's UFC 125 urine test.
The main card, which will be broadcast on pay-per-view will be rounded out with the following fights:
Frank Mir vs Roy Nelson
Stefan Struve vs Travis Brown
Brian Stann vs Jorge Santiago
Two preliminary card fights will be broadcast on Spike TV:
Thiago Alves vs Rick Story
Miguel Torres vs Demetrious Johnson
Three other preliminary card fights are currently not scheduled to be broadcast:
Kendall Grove vs. Tim Boetsch
Cody McKenzie vs. Bart Palaszewski
Renan Barão vs. Cole Escovedo
Georges St-Pierre met Jake Shields on Saturday, April 30 at UFC 129 and has been the case in many of his title defenses as of late, the UFC welterweight champion exploited the weakness in his opponent's game to retain his UFC title.
Going into the fight, the knock on Shields had been his weak striking game, which St-Pierre used to his advantage, keeping the fight standing for the full five rounds.
The champion was able to take advantage of that weakness, but he did not walk away without sustaining some damage.
According to the CompuStrike stats, Shields landed 63 of 318 arm strikes he threw, leaving the champion with a bloodied face as well as a damaged left eye. The injury to the eye, which appeared to come from an eye poke from Shields, left St-Pierre unable to see from that eye for much of the fourth and fifth rounds.
In addition to bloodying the champion, Shields was able to accomplish something that no one else had done for 30 straight rounds, and that was take a round from the champion. The scorecards gave the unanimous decision victory to St-Pierre 50-45, 48-47, 48-47.
Following the fight, St-Pierre, speaking with UFC commentator Joe Rogan, apologized for his performance: "I can't see with my left eye right now. I just see a blur. I'm sorry to the fans. I wanted to make it a knockout or submission."
The fight marked the sixth title defense for St-Pierre.
video highlights courtesy ESPN
Bleacher Report's Tony Preston:
Cung Le, a Sanshou kickboxer and mixed marital artist, recently told ESPN that he will not be fighting in 2011.
Instead, Le is going to be in five motion pictures this year. Due to his filming schedule, he says that a fight this year is "impossible."
Le last fought in June 2010, in a fight against Scott Smith.
That bout saw Le claim victory over Smith by way of a second-round knockout. The fight was a rematch of their clash in December 2009, in which Smith pulled off a stunning third-round knockout over Le, despite Le having dominated. Le's career record is 7-1, every fight ending by knockout.
Before his two fights with Smith, Le fought his biggest name opponent to date in Frank Shamrock for the Strikeforce middleweight title.
Click here to read the entire article.
Bleacher Report's Tony Preston:
UFC lightweight Evan Dunham has suffered an undisclosed injury and withdrawn from his fight with George Sotiropoulos, according to a report from MMAJunkie.com.
Sotiropoulos is now slated to fight Rafael Dos Anjos at the July 2nd event in Las Vegas.
Dunham has lost in his past two Octagon appearances.
After a close split-decision loss to Sean Sherk, Dunham was stopped in the first round by Melvin Guillard's knees. Those two losses were the first of Dunham's career, which saw him get off to an 11-0 start.
Sotiropoulos is looking to rebound from a loss to Dennis Siver, in a bout that saw Siver utilize superior striking to outpoint Sotiropoulos and claim the decision victory.
The loss was Sotiropoulos' first in the UFC and first since 2006.
The UFC is reporting that Rafael Dos Anjos has verbally agreed to replace Dunham on the fight card and square off against Sotiropoulos.
Click here to read the entire article.
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