It’s a story we’ve come to know very well: pro athlete tests positive for steroids, fans respond with tired disappointment. Pro athlete professes innocence, fans grow even more tired. Pro athlete slinks back into the fold, fans forgive, but never quite forget.

It gets a little more depressing every time we see it played out, but only because it’s so predictable. We used to use terms like “disgraced” to refer to these fallen heroes. Now, that rhetoric seems too dramatic for something so increasingly common. We just say “tarnished.” Or “caught.” We don’t know who will be next, but we know the surely will be a next.

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From this week’s Crave Online column:

It’s a tough time to be Kalib Starnes.  After a poor performance against Nate Quarry at UFC 83, Starnes has become persona non grata in the MMA world.  His crime?  When it came time to fight, he didn’t.  He committed the unforgivable sin for a fighter.  He ran.

Starnes spent all three rounds of his fight with Quarry circling the edge of the cage, doing everything he could to avoid engaging. When Quarry mocked him by high-stepping and flailing his arms near the end of the final round, the most offense Starnes could muster was an obscene gesture. Unfortunately for him, flipping the bird has never won a fight.

UFC president Dana White made no attempt to hide his displeasure with Starnes, telling reporters that Starnes would wake up the morning and “wish he’d fought a different fight.”

Starnes countered, saying, “Dana White wouldn’t cross the street for $10,000,” referring to the amount of his purse for the fight.

“For him to come out and make a statement like that as though I should be willing to suffer a brain injury while being paid less than $10,000 is beyond comment. How much is a brain injury worth anyway?” Starnes said in a statement sent to MMA Weekly.

The hell of it is, that’s a very rational way for Starnes to look at it. He felt he was injured and couldn’t win, so why should he get himself hurt if there’s not going to be any more money in it for him? As a line of reasoning, that makes sense. The only problem is, he’s in the fight business. Rational thought like that has no place here.

Read the full article 

Today I posted an interview with Ultimate Fighter winner Mac Danzig over at Cage Potato.  We discussed his victory at UFC 83, the stigma of being a ‘reality show fighter’ and where his career may be headed in the UFC’s lightweight class.

I’ve said it before, but it bears repeating: Mac Danzig is a smart, humble, hard-working guy.  Plenty of fighters manage one of those things, but rarely all three.  With his skills and his work ethic, you have to think he’ll be around for a while.

Read the full interview 

My new post over at Cage Potato is an open letter to the guy all of us have sat next to when attending live MMA shows, or even just when watching the UFC in bars.

You know the guy I’m talking about.  He’s the one who suggests that the fighters kick each other in the balls.  He’s the one who shouts “stand  ‘em up!” as soon as the fight hits the mat.

I have a few things I’d like to say to this guy, and you can find them here.

In other news, Matt Hughes strongly suggests that you wear a mouthpiece.

If you’re an MMA fan, chances are you’ve already read plenty of picks and previews of this weekend’s bouts.  If you’re not an MMA fan and you are still reading this blog, you are my parents.

Either way, I implore you to check out my latest Cage Potato article, which features not only predictions for who will win on Saturday night, but also some incredibly specific predictions and things to watch for.  I think you’ll find it entertaining.

Also, you’ll notice the reference to the UFC drinking game I’ve been honing over the last few years.  It will have to change this time around, due to the absence of Joe Rogan on commentary duties, but you can still have a good time drinking every time Mike Goldberg pours on the hyperbole or when a fighter’s post-fight interview turns into an incoherent Oscar-style acceptance speech.  I warn you, this game can get out of hand pretty fast.

Read UFC 83: Picks, Predictions and More 

In a new post over at Cage Potato, I take a look at Fightmetric, a system for analyzing and comparing the effectiveness of MMA fighters.  Results are…inconclusive.

That’s not true.  I think Fightmetric is kind of stupid, but in the way where I still have to give them credit for trying something new.  Like those Bob Dylan albums when he was a born-again Christian.  Those were terrible, but if he hadn’t tried it we’d never know just how much we didn’t need them.

Unfortunately for Fightmetric, they don’t have Dylan’s street cred, so they take a little more of a hit in this article.

All the same, if you’re wondering how the math works out in this Saturday’s GSP vs. Serra title fight, the nerds at Fightmetric have crunched the numbers and figured out, well, nothing really.  That’s why we have the fights.

Read the full article here. 

The traditional CBS Sportsline Head-to-Head picks for UFC 83 are now available, and look who’s still barely clinging to first place.

I wasn’t sure I’d be able to hold that spot after my terrible showing on the last UFC Fight Night, but apparently my peers were also caught off-guard by a few of those fights.

This time around our picks are all pretty similar to one another, which is in line with the betting odds for this event.  It’s a strong card from top to bottom, but more than a few of these guys seem to have been thrown on there for local appeal (read: Canadians).

Regardless, look forward to exciting night of fights on Saturday.

Read UFC 83 Head-to-Head 

My latest post at Cage Potato looks at why Charles McCarthy can’t stand arrogance, unless it’s his own.  From his comments about his upcoming opponent, Michael Bisping:

“He’s a decent kickboxer. (He’s) real arrogant, and, you know — not much else, really. He’s gonna get choked out April 19.”

“I have very little regard for that guy. I can’t wait to go in there and get my arm around his neck. It’s going to be a cool experience. I hope to put him to sleep before he decides to tap.”

You know what doesn’t really work?  Talking about how arrogant someone is, and then mentioning how they totally shouldn’t be that arrogant because you’re totally better than they are.

Read the full article here

The few of you out there who are regular readers of this blog have probably noticed that I haven’t posted with the same regularity lately.  What’s up with this guy? you may be wondering.  Has his drinking problem finally gone from ‘worrisome’ to ‘debilitating’, or is he just indefinably lazy?

The truth is, neither.  Kind of.  I’ve accepted a couple of new jobs, and thus my attention has been elsewhere.  Starting today, I’m working regularly for Cage Potato, a site I’ve admired for some time.  I’ll be posting there twice a day (you can read my first post, a betting odds analysis for UFC 83 here) until May 1st, when I leave my post as IFL editor to work for them full-time.

But wait, there’s more!  I’m also going to start freelancing for Sports Illustrated in May, just as soon as they get their new MMA section up and running on their website.  Fortunately, the powers that be over there have recognized the need to cover the sport, and they’ve reached out to a few MMA writers to help them out.  I’m honored to be one of them.

I’m pretty excited about all this because it gives me a chance to branch out in my coverage and two pretty great platforms on which to do it.  Of course, it means that there won’t be a whole lot of posting here, so I recommend you go ahead and bookmark Cage Potato in order to get your MMA fix.  I want to thank all of you who have been loyal readers of this blog.  I’ve appreciated your support and enjoyed our debates.  Hopefully, we can keep it up over at Cage Potato.

Huzzah!

When Randy Couture resigned as UFC heavyweight champion, a split formed among MMA fans.  There were those who sided with Couture, supporting his decision to leave the organization in search of bigger money and bigger fights elsewhere, and there were those who sided with the UFC, urging Couture to “honor his contract”.  That’s what a man should do, many of you said in your comments and emails.  That’s the right thing.

And yet, MMA Junkie reported recently that the UFC has dropped heavyweight Jake O’Brien from the organization, still with two fights left on his current contract.  So far, I’ve heard nary a complaint.  Few have urged the UFC to honor their contract with O’Brien, whose release comes after losing his first fight ever as a professional, and to Andrei Arlovski.

Where’s the indignation for O’Brien, who, according to agent Ken Pavia, was essentially cut out of nowhere?  Where are the calls for Dana White to “be a man” and honor his commitment to O’Brien?

The answer, apparently, is that honoring contracts is for fighters, not organizations.  For some reason, it’s not a two-way street.

Terminating contracts at any time and for any reason is the UFC’s prerogative.  They’ve structured the contracts that way, for exactly this reason.  They want to be able to cut a guy like O’Brien — who has won in a fashion they found unsatisfying — as soon as he drops the first fight of his career.  But just because you get someone to agree to sign an unfair contract like that, it doesn’t make it morally justified.

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