Issue 071

January 2011

Pat Barry’s Fingers Crippled By ‘Cro Cop’ Fight

Strike-favoring UFC heavyweight Pat Barry has revealed the broken hand he received in his memorable bout with Mirko ‘Cro Cop’ has left some fingers permanently shortened. Although the injury hasn’t hampered Barry’s training, he told mmajunkie.com that the affected fingers are going to lose around half an inch of length. “The second metacarpal – my pointer-finger hand bone – broke all the way across and down into the joint,” said Barry. “It made like a ‘T’ break. It kind of retracted like an antenna almost, straight across and into the joint. They pulled it back, but it’s not as far as it would have gone.”

Jon Jones Has “Bathed” Himself in Anderson Silva

The UFC’s light heavyweight phenom Jon Jones (11-1) says he might be able to beat middleweight champion Anderson Silva because he “understands how he operates”. Jones, who will face Ryan Bader in 2011, said: “I’ve bathed myself in Anderson Silva. I think I’d have an advantage going into a fight with him because I’ve studied him so much. I’ve patterned my career after Anderson.” He adds that though the Brazilian is unpredictable there’s a method to his madness that’s crackable. “You can’t really say you know Anderson Silva, because, like me, he can pull off pretty much anything he wants to pull off – whatever he trained for that specific fight. So, you can’t know Anderson Silva, but you can understand who he is and how he thinks and how he operates.”

Griffin-Franklin Rumored For UFC 126

Fan favourites Forrest Griffin and Rich Franklin are reportedly set to throwdown at UFC 126 in February. It will close a long lay-off for Griffin (17-6) who last mixed it up with Tito Ortiz at UFC 106 in November 2009. The 28-5-1 Franklin will be coming off an impressive June knockout over UFC legend Chuck Liddell.

UFC Merges With WEC

The WEC is combining all assets with the UFC in a monumental move for mixed martial arts. Starting in January the UFC will absorb the WEC’s weight classes and fighters at featherweight (135lb), bantamweight (145lb) and lightweight (155lb). Though both organizations are owned by the same company in Zuffa LLC they have operated separately until now. Dana White, UFC president, said of the announcement: “As the UFC continues to grow globally and we’re doing more and more fights, now it makes sense to bring in those lighter weight classes.”

The final champions in the WEC’s featherweight and bantamweight divisions, which will be completely new additions to the UFC, will automatically become UFC champions of their weight classes. However, the final WEC lightweight champion will get the next shot at the UFC belt in the same class. Current WEC featherweight champion Jose Aldo will make the first defense of his adopted UFC title at UFC 125 on January 1st, 2011, in Las Vegas. Dana White also mentioned that forming a new 125lb flyweight class was “absolutely, positively going to happen.”

All WEC staff, including co-founder WEC general manager Reid Harris, will also transition into roles within the UFC. “When I started the WEC, we thought we’d maybe do one show,” Harris told mmajunkie.com. “To be sitting here today and have something that I was involved in become part of the biggest sports company in the world is very satisfying.”

As a result of the merger, the UFC have adjusted their television deal with Versus increasing the UFC’s events on the channel from two to four, while the WEC’s annual seven-fight contract has been nixed. Speculation that the UFC will opt for an Ultimate Fighter series featuring lighter-weight fighters was unconfirmed at the time of going to press.