Melvin Guillard and the Wasted Potential Fallacy

Last night in the main event of UFC on FX: Miller vs. Guillard, Jim Miller and Melvin Guillard had a fight where both showed everything they were known for. Jim Miller showed there is no shot hard enough to stop him from searching for a submission, while Guillard showed dynamite in his hands and looked helpless on the ground against a superior grappler. No sooner had Miller taken Guillard’s back and locked-up the fight-ending rear naked choke than fans on the web the world over began tweeting and commenting with one main theme — “Why won’t Melvin just work on his jiu jitsu, already? He’s got so much wasted potential.”

Well, that’s a load of BS.

Allow me to present a quick case study of two fighters.

Fighter A is a hard-nosed fighter. After every fight he diligently breaks down his performance to find holes in his game, win or lose, and spends his time working his ass off to fill those holes. This hard-working style works well and he grinds his way into the top half of the division in the UFC. Fighter A finds himself fighting for the title more than once, but ultimately he just does not have the physical tools to get over the hump and be the best, no matter how hard he works.

Fighter B is a physically gifted fighter. While his work ethic in regards to assessing his problems, learning from them, then drilling until they are no longer so glaring is often criticized, nobody can deny the natural gifts that Fighter B possesses. He fights with a speed and strength unmatched by anyone in the division, but ultimately fails to ever put together a long run at the top of the division as he finds his weakness exploited by top fighters every time he starts to sniff a title shot.

By the masses, Fighter A is considered somebody who maximized his potential, and just never was somebody destined to be physically capable of winning a title. Fighter B is bemoaned as a waste of talent, somebody good enough to win the title if he could just get his mind straight for a couple years in a row. For some bizarre reason, a fighter with a physical deficiency who achieves more is considered less viable as a true potential-champion than a fighter whose flaws are mental but has never reached the heights of his counterpart. Why is this?

Guillard-Miller Closer to Title Shot than it Seems at First Blush

When Melvin Guillard gave an interview in which he stated his fight with Jim Miller was a #1 Contender match, everyone had themselves a good laugh. Rightfully so. Two fighters coming off of losses simply can not be paired for a shot at the title in today’s UFC.

With that said, when you get past the absurdity of the claim and really look at the division, it becomes apparent that he’s about as minimally incorrect as you can ever be when making such a claim about two fighters on 0-fight winning streaks.

Luke Nelson of Head Kick Legend had an excellent piece in which he looked at every fighter in the UFC’s lightweight division and broke down where they stood in terms of consecutive wins and losses. For a division that saw multiple fighters climb to five-plus consecutive wins last year, you may be surprised with what you find. Only four fighters have a winning streak more than two fights long outside of current title challenger Ben Henderson.

Jacob Volkmann has won five straight bouts, but nobody is of the misunderstanding he is anywhere near title contention. That Volkmann has yet to feature in any UFC broadcast as a lightweight, and was the second fight of the night in his last outing tells you all there is to know about where the UFC places Volkmann in the division.

Edson Barboza’s four straight wins has him second, and riding high on a thrilling wheel kick KO of Terry Etim seems destined for a big name in his next fight, but as yet has not faced an opponent with even a single top-25 vote on any ballot, and took narrow and contentious decisions against lower-half level competition in his prior two outings. Barboza is still a couple fights from being offered a shot at the belt.

Gleison Tibau and Tony Ferguson have each won three straight. Tibau has stumbled every time he’s faced top competition, including losing handily to Miller and a disputed decision to Guillard. Ferguson is a TUF winner being given the standard slow build. Neither is ranked higher than either of Friday’s main event fighters, and neither is likely to be closer to the title, either.

So, where are all the names of the division? Well, we got to see what happens to a division when the belt is put on hold (when Henderson enters the cage in February, he will be the first man other than Frankie Edgar, Gray Maynard and BJ Penn to battle for the belt in over 26 months.) A group of top fighters separate themselves from the herd, but with no end game available, they ultimately beat each other up and before you know it, nobody near the top of the division is on a great run. Here is where the lightweights currently ranked in the consensus Top-25 sit, via Nelson’s article:

Two wins: Nate Diaz, Joe Lauzon
One win: Frankie Edgar, Anthony Pettis, Sean Sherk, Evan Dunham, Matt Wiman

One loss: Gray Maynard, Clay Guida, Jim Miller, Donald Cerrone, Melvin Guillard

Two losses: George Sotiropoulos

Half of the twelve ranked fighters outside of Edgar and Henderson have lost their last fight. One has lost two straight. The four highest ranked fighters outside of the current title fight are all coming off losses. Cerrone will be dropping come the next edition, surely, but it remains that in that event the top three fighters outside the title fight will be coming off losses, all to the two men set to fight for the belt.

A long win streak always continues to carry some merit even after a loss, and in a division where nobody at the top is on a long winning streak, it will hold extra bearing. The front-runners of the title chase now appear to be Diaz and the winner of the Pettis-Lauzon fight. The winner of a proposed Guida-Maynard pairing, similar to the Miller-Guillard winner, will instantly be back “in the mix” on past equity and a win over a highly ranked opponent. Either Miller, having won eight of nine with the loss to the current title contender, or Guillard, winner of six of seven and fresh off a win over the #7 lightweight in the world, would not be out of place among any of those fighters. Barboza could be thrown into the mix, but will more likely be just below the lead pack and paired off with a fringe top-20 opponent before getting a jump right to a title contender.

Coming out of the title fight, barring an injury or the need for yet another rematch for Edgar, there are two main scenarios which can ensue. The champ will either want a quick turnaround in June/July, or a longer wait until the fall.

Champion fights in early summer

In this scenario, the next shot will almost certainly go to Diaz, despite a relatively weak title resume, or the winner of the Pettis-Lauzon fight. For the man left over and not getting his shot, the obvious pairing becomes a match-up with the winner of Friday night’s fight, barring a set of events where Guillard and Lauzon both win while Diaz is given the title shot. With the state of the division, that fight could well prove to be a #1 contenders bout, or at worst, will place the winner of the bout in a fight for a shot. At most, Friday’s winner should find himself needing just a three fight winning streak to get a chance at the title.

Champion fights in the fall

If the champion decides he needs some time off to recover, this is more bad news for the men mentioned as front-runners than it is for Friday night’s combatants. If nobody is getting a title shot until later in the year, the men at the top of the division will be left to throw down among themselves to find out who is worthy of the chance at the title. It’s difficult in a scenario with this many variables to predict the exact series of bookings which will ensue, however it again becomes difficult to see how it takes more than Friday, a pairing with another front-pack opponent in the spring and then a #1 contender bout with whoever else has emerged from the 2012 dust cloud unscathed to finally earn what escaped in late 2011.

Anthony Johnson has Learned Nothing

“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”

Everybody has heard some variation of those famous words from philosopher George Santayana, often in the slight paraphrasing “those who can not learn from history are doomed to repeat it.” At this point it’s safe to say that UFC “middle”weight Anthony Johnson has not spent much time reflecting on Santayana’s sentiment.

At yesterday’s weigh-ins for UFC 142 it was announced before the event began that Johnson would not be making weight for his middleweight debut against Vitor Belfort, and that he wasn’t going to be close. A fighter struggling to make weight at a new weight class is nothing new in fight sports. While still unprofessional, there’s at least a logical path to follow in a fighter overestimating his ability to weigh in 15-pounds lighter than ever before. In the case of Johnson, the move to middleweight saw him granted 15 more pounds without violating his contract, and yet for the third time in his career, Johnson failed to complete his professional responsibilities by a sizable margin.

Immediately following weigh-ins, the spin out of Johnson’s camp began.

[Manager Glenn] Robinson says that Johnson started feeling sick and unstable, and so a local doctor came in to check him out to see what exactly was going on.

The doctor gave Johnson fluids to see if it would improve his condition, and within a couple of hours, the Blackzilian fighter started to come back to life. Unfortunately, at this point it was too late to cut the weight back down to 186lbs.

“It was medical reasons, it wasn’t for lack of effort,” Robinson said. “The UFC was extremely supportive and said health comes first.”

With excuse making like that coming from a man Johnson is trusting to act in his best interest, it’s little wonder that he hasn’t learned anything from his two prior failures to act like a responsible professional. Sure enough, not long after Johnson took to facebook to make it clear he did all he could and it wasn’t his fault that he couldn’t do what he signed a contract swearing to do. As Bloody Elbow posted:

I’m already laughing at what ppl are saying. Yeah it was for medical reason and I did what the UFC Dr Told me to do. Believe it or don’t I give a f**k cuz the ppl close to me were freaking out but I’m still alive and something like this has never happen before. Say what you want I’m still gonna do my thang. You try not having feeling in your legs and can’t move then and see how you look at life after that

That’s right, don’t blame him for missing weight, blame the UFC doctor who made him take fluids just because he had already dehydrated himself dangerously to the point of losing feeling in extremities. He laughs at all you idiots who think this is on him. Well, sorry Johnson-defenders, but his behavior isn’t a laughing matter anymore, at least it shouldn’t be for him. Saying that a doctor prohibited him from cutting any more weight before he reached his target doesn’t let him off the hook because, and this may surprise Johnson to hear, he had several months knowing he was going to fight during which he could have lowered his weight to a level where he could have made 186-pounds without his body shutting down. He didn’t, and that’s nobody’s fault but his and the people around him looking to make excuses.

Fortunately, Dana White isn’t one to buy into that line of buck passing. Don’t believe it? Just ask Jason Guida about his long run on The Ultimate Fighter. As MMA Junkie first reported, White has already gone on the record saying Johnson may want to hold off on getting those Anthony Johnson, UFC Fighter business cards.

“His job is on the line,” White said. “His job is absolutely on the line, win or lose.”

…

“Complete and absolute unprofessionalism – that’s what happened,” White said. “There’s no other way it can be explained.”

Good for White. He is often fairly criticized for making rash decisions while still high on emotion, but that doesn’t mean those decisions are always the wrong ones. Quite bluntly, Johnson should already be unemployed, but it’s clear Belfort is excited to fight in Brazil and denying him that opportunity would be unfair to him. So, let Johnson fight, and when he gets back to the locker room, whether he lost or won by a double flying knee in a minute, have a pink slip waiting for him. Fighting is one part of being a professional mixed martial artist, and the UFC has made it clear that repeated failures in that area is a path out of the majors. It’s time to show that repeated failures in another part of the job holds the same consequences.

Maybe then Johnson will finally learn something.

The Deplorable, Rape-Trivializing Mindset Must be Wiped out of MMA Community

Rape is a subject often poorly handled when given wide-spread attention. Whether it’s rioting in support of a football coach fired for failing to report a serial child-rapist to police, or talk show hosts attacking the character and making sexual jokes about the last name of an alleged sexual assault victim, there is a common theme that arises in high profile sex crime cases — “innocent until proven guilty” is far too often perverted into “opportunistic liar until proven victim.” The tendency to vilify the alleged victims in an attack works in conjunction with a second element which contributes to rape culture, the cavalier attitude with which rape is used as a joke or an insult. The former came to prominance in the MMA community when former UFC Light Heavyweight Champion Forrest Griffin tweeted “Rape is the new missionary,” just days following a reward from the UFC for being one of the organization’s “most creative” tweeters.

Brent Brookhouse picked up the quote and noted both its inappropriate nature and the poor timing, just days before the UFC’s network television debut on Fox this Saturday, at a time when several top news stories revolve around sexual abuse. Several sites followed with reporting on the tweet, including Yahoo! Sports’ Maggie Hendricks. In responding to the articles, the MMA community happily provided ample examples of the “rape as an insult” side of the cavalier attitude.

In addition to hate mail received over the article, the comments section below quickly filled with over 1,000 comments. Many of them rational, many of them highlighting everything that is wrong with the mindset maintained by many MMA fans. After the jump are some quotes which exemplify the gross attitudes some fans hold which have to change, as well as a look at the even more vile response to Maggie Hendricks’ story.

Coming Out in the Red Corner: Will We Soon See an Openly Gay UFC Fighter?

As you may have heard, mixed martial arts is still not sanctioned in the state of New York, which apparently has a pretty big city in it just ripe for the UFC to hold events. For this reason, Culinary Workers Union Local 226, a union at odds with UFC co-owners Lorenzo and Frank Fertita’s Station Casinoes, has launched an anti-UFC web site and petition with a large component of the anti-UFC argument being the homophobia displayed by the UFC, of which there is sadly no shortage of examples to pull. Whether it’s Dana white calling a source on a story a faggot, or Mike Bisping calling anyone and everyone he feels the need to insult gay, the UFC has a history of chewing on its own feet. Is the UFC any more filled with homophobes than any other sport, or even any sampling of individuals which covers a broad spectrum of ages, races and nationalities? Probably not. But it is plainly apparent that the UFC has not had the proactive approach to dealing with homophobic language that other major corporations have, even willingly publishing many of the incidents cited by CWUL 226. Recently, the effort put in has changed, with attempts to turn the public image of the UFC’s stance on homosexuals, including in an interview yesterday with USA Today’s Sergio Non:

“I’ll tell you right now, if there was a gay fighter in UFC, I wish he would come out,” UFC President Dana White said Thursday. “I could care less if there’s a gay fighter in the UFC. There probably is and there’s probably more than one.”

…

But you’re going to have guys like Nogueira who come from Brazil, who’s got that macho, Latino — doesn’t want to roll with a gay guy. People are going to say stuff like this. … That’s the best answer I can give you is, give me a (freaking) break and be honest. Come on. We’re all human beings. We all make mistakes sometimes. It doesn’t mean that the UFC is bad and we’re unfit for children and all this other stuff.

Tell you what: Out of the 375 guys, we’ve got a few lunatics; some guys that are nutty; and then we’ve got 300 and something that are incredible, awesome human beings who are inspirational to kids and adults and whoever else is a human being.

Dana’s right, of course. Not only is a gay fighter currently being employed by the UFC a likely scenario, it’s all but a mathematical certainty. Likewise, any organization of the UFC’s size will have homophobes as well, and finding homophobic quotes from a few fighters doesn’t mean the UFC on the whole is gay-intolerant. So, does that mean that we could possibly see a fighter come out publicly and make the UFC the first major sports organization to employ an active participant who is openly gay? After all, we are at a time where homophobia is on the decline in America, with support for gay marriage passing opposition for the first time in the past year. It seems unlikely, as laid out after the jump.

Shocking Development — Do Bronx to Move to 145 Pounds

In a move surprising to absolutely nobody that has been watching him fight, Charles “Do Bronx” Oliveira’s manager has announced the young Brazilian’s next bout will be in the featherweight division. A quick summary of Oliveira’s career in the UFC so far:

• Do Bronx blows through two fighters in the depths of the UFC’s lightweight division — Darren Elkins, who at the time had one fight in the UFC which he won by freak ankle break on a takedown, and Efrain Escudero, a TUF champion released after the fight. People infer from this that Charles will blow through established veteran Jim Miller, who at the time had only ever lost to the #1 and #2 ranked lightweights in the world.
• Oliveira is mauled on the mat by the bigger, stronger Miller, who shrugs off some hail Mary subs then yanks on Do Bronx’s knee until the Brazilian is submitted. After the fight Miller notes Charles felt like the weakest opponent he’d ever faced.
• Do Bronx puts on an exciting performance against Nik Lentz which ends in an illegal knee being missed, leading to a No-Contest.
• Do Bronx returns against Donald Cerrone and is summarily smashed again, this time on the feet, by a larger opponent.

I was willing to give Charles the benefit of the doubt on his first loss. He fought an experienced fighter that was outright better at him from a technical stand point, and would likely have tapped him in only a slightly longer time had Charles carried another 10 pounds into the cage. With two fights e wasn’t ready for a top-ten opponent. With his mid-twenties approaching he’d fill out into a lightweight, so might as well put in your work in your final destination division.

Anybody that was on-board that train of logic with me departed after the Cerrone bout. Cerrone is a popular fighter, but has still yet to face a top level fighter. His only experience with anyone presently at the top of the division came in a pair of losses to Ben Henderson when Bendo was still but a prospect. When Cerrone faced off with Do Bronx, for the second time Charles was put into the cage with somebody bigger than him he couldn’t totally outclass, and for the second straight time, in the second different phase of the fight game, Do Bronx was put through the ringer. With two decisive losses around a No-Contest, everybody and their mother knew he was leaving, to the extent I’m actually a little surprised to see it as a headline months later since I guess I was so sure it would happen I was convinced it had already been announced. Should be fun to see how Do Bronx does with somebody his own size.

Anderson May Not be Ducking Chael, but it Sure Sounds Like He Is

Chael Sonnen popping off about how Anderson Silva is ducking him isn’t anything new, really. Sonnen made it perfectly clear he felt Silva was ducking him before their first fight, and ducking Okami before Silva wrecked the Japanese challenger, and others have expressed doubts Silva really was overly interested in testing himself against the best, regardless of how many times he said it in interviews immediately before finding a reason why the unanimous #1 contender wasn’t worthy of his time. Silva always had something going in his defense in those instances, however, namely that it was really hard to believe Silva was too concerned about anyone since everyone seemed to agree that whoever he faced he would run through them. Enter Silva-Sonnen I and the 23-minute domination of the champ that preceded Silva’s come-from-behind submission.

For sure, Silva did what a true champion did and persevered when all hope seemed lost, but it’s no stretch to say that the odds for Silva-Sonnen II will give Sonnen a far better chance of winning than the first bout’s +Snowball’s-chance-in-Hell betting line. As he is wont to do, Sonnen has said anything and everything he can think of to irritate the champion enough to get him to outright say “bring it on,” to the fight everyone and their mother is waiting for, but the champ isn’t biting. Instead Silva’s manager Ed Soares has once again taken the opportunity to remind everyone that Silva has only a few fights left in his career, something he’s already said more than a few fights ago, while belittling Sonnen’s claim to a rematch in a SporTV interview:

Let’s see what the big boss is going to do. My opinion is that he had his chance and tapped, he should go back to the end of the line.

(translation via BloodyElbow.com)

So, if not Sonnen, then who should Silva be facing according to Soares? Answer after the jump.

Akiria Corassani Debates Self on Controversial TUF Tap

So, on last night’s episode of The Ultimate Fighter, we finally got to see the culmination of one of the worst runs of in-house trash talking in the series history, care of Akira Corassani and Dustin Neace. The two finally threw down after a bunch of TUF-style shenanigans, and finally everyone would be able to move past their intense trash talking sessions in which each repeated the same thing over and over and over while some editor checked out of the cutting room a bit too early. Not so fast, hopeful viewers, controversy has assured there’s more of this “goodness” ahead. Midway through the the first round Neace caught Corassani in a heel hook and torqued, forcing the Bisping fighter to tap and drop his team to 0-5. The only problem is Herb Dean didn’t see it.

The reaction to the tap and subsequent decision to keep fighting left many people less-than-pleased with Corassani, so he used his weekly TUF blog to address the controversial tap by saying he didn’t tap, admitting he tapped, noting how tight it was and pointing out that the submission was never there.

Wait, what?

Ride the Akiracoaster of logic as it swoops, spins then loops around on itself after the jump.

UFC on Versus 5 (Drunk) Predictions

Chris Lytle vs. Dan Hardy – The Main Event (in Title)

I’m unsure what to make of this fight. My original thought was that the line was criminally even for a fight in which neither guy was likely to have their lights shut off (Lytle has never been finished in 90+ rounds, and despite all claims to the contrary, Hardy hasn’t shown much power against top opponents that aren’t totally overwhelmed) and where Lytle had such a clear edge on the ground. Now with the announcement that Lytle is retiring, who knows? On the one hand, Lytle will surely not want to go out with a “boring” fight after a career of Fight of the Night bonuses, and for some reason he seems married to the idea that his slick grappling just doesn’t do it for us. On the other hand, will he really want to go out on the back of losses to a debuting journeyman and a guy on a three fight skid? In the end I will stick to my early gut and predict Chris Lytle by Submission, Round 2.

Jim Miller vs. Ben Henderson – The Main Event (in Merit)

Ben Henderson is a good fighter, with a very well rounded skill set. The problem I see him running into in this fight is that everywhere that he is good, Miller is gooder. On the feet Bendo is susceptible to getting hit, and Miller’s striking looks leaps and bounds better every fight. On the ground, if Miller is on top of Ben he is in big trouble. If he puts Miller on his back, he finds himself inside a guard that has befuddled every opponent Miller has faced, from BJJ black belts to top control savant Grey Maynard. You see a lot of talk about Henderson’s excellent sub defense which is patently untrue. He has phenomenal sub escapes, but his defense leaves much to be desired, as evidence by our knowing he has good escapes. Against Miller, that is Bad News Bears. As always, my pick is Jim Miller by Submission, Round 1.

Charles Oliveira vs. Donald Cerrone

I’m running out of time to get these posted before the event starts, so I will switch to quick picks before the undercard. I think that both fighters are still a bit overrated. Oliveira is fun to watch, but a technically superior fighter will take his lunch every time until he learns to control it. Fortunately I don’t think Cerrone is technical enough. Do Bronx by Submission, Round 2.

Amir Sadollah vs. Duane Ludwig

If Amir takes Ludwig down he should probably be able to work to a decision or even a submission. On the other hand, he is in love with his muay thai, and I think that is a recipe for disaster against Bang. Ludwig by TKO, Round 1.

UFC Pick Record: 148-86 (63.2 percent)

Facebook fight quick picks after the jump. 

Michael David Smith is Not Impressed with Your Fight Pit: Genesis Performance

Michael David Smith, Midsy to his friends and peers, two groups to which I do not belong making this an awkward opening to an article, is the lead blogger for MMAFighting.com, a part of the NBC Sports network of sports writing. MDS has written for a who’s who of top sports sites, and was the 2007 Mainstream Media Sports Blogger of the Year according to Wikipedia, which is a pretty solid source. As a general rule, MDS’ work for MMA Fighting is exactly what you would expect of a writer with that kind of body of work — factual, to the point and far from shocking. I don’t know if MDS was having a bad day or if he was actually made to spend time in New Mexico to cover the event, something that would irritate anyone, or if he just had it up to here with all these former big show fighters, but he had his sassy pants on when covering the event last night, and it ended up incredibly entertaining.

First up, a report on everyone’s least favorite glass-throwing inebriate Junie Browning, who lost his fourth consecutive fight to fall to 4-5 in his career.

The former Ultimate Fighter bad boy Junie Browning isn’t a bad boy anymore — he’s just a bad fighter.

Oh, snap. Lede graf burn.

It was the kind of loss that calls into question whether Browning really wants to be a fighter at all.

…

Browning weighed in at 162.25 pounds — a whopping 7.25 over the lightweight limit — and was noticeably chubbier than he had been on The Ultimate Fighter. He doesn’t appear to be committed to MMA.

The victory was a solid one for Clark, who improves his record to 9-3. But the real story is that Browning, who was once the focal point of the UFC‘s reality show, now looks like he has no business in the cage

Damn, MDS is not playing. But hey, it’s just Junie Browning, you might think. That guy is a dickhead anyways, and as Midsy pointed out he did show up as quite the fatty, so he’s worthy of more scorn than he normally receives, if anything. Surely once MMA legend Jens Pulver steps into the ring things will perk up. After all, even during his five fight losing streak any media coverage of Pulver carried all of the unbiased tone of a love letter.

Jens Pulver, the former UFC lightweight champion who has spent the last few years looking like a washed-up fighter who’s hanging on too long, finally earned a victory over a legitimate opponent on Saturday night.

Um. Nevermind.