Fighters Only

Issue 062

May 2010

Days between March 21 and April 29. Fans were treated to a hearty helping of MMA during the stretch as the UFC held four events, Strikeforce held two, the WEC held one, and Bellator FC kicked off its second season with two events for a total of nine shows from the bigger North American promotions.

4.33

All those events in such a short time average out to a fight card every 4.33 days, and none of them were on the same day.

3.5m

More than 3.5 million units of UFC Undisputed 2009 were sold last year. The game also won Best Individual Sports Game at Spike TV’s 2009 Video Game Awards, beating off Tiger Woods PGA Tour 10, Fight Night Round 4 and Wii Sports Resort.

Dominick Cruz spent about eight weeks in a cast after his huge victory over Brian Bowles at WEC 47 on March 6 for the bantamweight belt. Cruz tore ligaments and tendons and suffered a hairline fracture. He had the cast changed about eight times during the stretch as he talked the doc into changing it once a week so he could continue to train. No time to rest when you’re the champ.

DirecTV has about 18 million subscribers – a hefty number of them were quite happy on March 15 when it was announced that Versus and DirecTV had reached a deal that would bring Versus back. Thanks to a contract dispute it had been unavailable to subscribers since September 1, 2009.

During Versus’ absence on DirecTV, subscribers missed five WEC events...

And during those events, four WEC belts were won. Sorry to rub it in DirecTV subscribers, but... Benson Henderson decisioned Donald Cerrone for the interim lightweight belt at WEC 43, Jose Aldo TKO’d Mike Thomas Brown at WEC 44 for the featherweight strap, interim champ Henderson subbed champ Jamie Varner to unify the lightweight belt at WEC 46, and Dominick Cruz TKO’d Brian Bowles to claim the bantamweight title at WEC 47.

The elevation in feet of Rich Clementi’s hometown of Slidell, Louisiana...

6,600

Approximate elevation in feet of Mescalero, New Mexico, which hosted King of the Cage on February 12th. One of the fights featured the aforementioned former UFC fighter Rich Clementi against relative unknown Quinn Mulhern. Quinn TKO’d Rich in the second round. and afterward Rich explained what happened via the underground forum: “I have never been so crippled in a fight in my life! I could not even move in the second round. My chest felt like it was going to explode. I came home Sunday and saw my physician today and he said I had altitude sickness.” Guess 6597 feet can do that to a guy.

The Highs and Lows of Jens Pulver

Former UFC lightweight champion Jens Pulver was one of the early pioneers of MMA, a boxer-wrestler who fought across the world and showed smaller men could fight just as well as the big guys. As his career comes to a close, we look at Pulver’s ten-year run in the sport.

1999

At 25 years old, high school wrestling coach Pulver makes his MMA debut. Goes 3-1-1.

2000

Fights six times, three of which were in the UFC. Pulver debuted way back on UFC 24.

2001

Becomes first-ever UFC 155lb champion by beating Caol Uno.

2002

Beats BJ Penn in an epic five-round title fight.

2003

Leaves UFC, suffers two stoppage losses.

2004

Goes to fight in Japan and Hawaii at 145lb, scores two big KO wins. Later has awesome fight with Takanori Gomi, though loses.