Issue 056
November 2009
Day-in, day-out, ‘Judo’ Jimmy Wallhead puts his body through the mill with Nathan Leverton, his grappling coach, Owen Comrie, his kick-boxing and Muay Thai instructor, and Ollie Richardson, his conditioning supremo. He spars with professional boxers Esham Pickering and Martin Conception.
But his head hurts. Not his body; his mind aches. Three words haunt him: Ultimate Fighting Championship. He has doubted himself to the core, had sleepless nights when he has awoken at 3am, the still of night, his stomach churning, and has to set out on a calming run in the dark streets.
Wallhead, from the Midlands in the United Kingdom, feels like the forgotten man of MMA. Yet this is a scenario faced by hundreds of fighters around the world, in dozens of countries right now. They are all vying for an opening four-fight contract in the UFC.
In the UFC, the protagonist can at least put it all on the line, test his skills to the full and, with the world’s leading mixed martial arts organization burgeoning across several continents, travel the globe in search of the ultimate test.
However, until the ink and the dotted line are adopted, the press photographs of the UFC mitts on the hands of the neophyte to the Octagon, they are men in limbo, gladiators lost in time. The UFC contract has become the Holy Grail of MMA. And it is affecting fighters all over the world. The best are signed up, the weak are consigned to history. Those who don’t perform are dropped. It is one of the issues with having one, dominant, mixed martial arts organization across the entire globe.
They say the cream will rise to the top, yet, to use a contradictory metaphor, are there also those falling through the net ?
Lesnar is the world’s No.1 heavyweight in my book, until Fedor lands UFC contract…
Regular readers of this column know my take on Fedor Emelianenko. Save your hatemail, but he’s ‘Fakor’ for me, a black hole commercially in televised pay-per-view terms, and hollow are those claims, from the fighter, or his legions of fans, that he is the heavyweight No.1 in mixed martial arts. Poppycock. For me, that title now belongs to Brock Lesnar.
Of course, we saw Antonio Nogueira display a return to form against 46-year-old Randy Couture at UFC 102 in Portland, Oregon. Couture would receive a knighthood in the UK for his sporting gallantry, his admirable longevity.
In the UK, Her Majesty The Queen would pass a sword over his shoulders, bestow epaulets and we’d call him Sir Randy. To his face. He’d sit on government committees and policy groups on sportsmanship, at large polished tables behind heavy oak doors.
Yes, admired, but past it.
Brilliant advert that he is for grandfathers the world over, and pure Knight of MMA that he is, in reality, if we look honestly at ourselves, we all admire Randy Couture but we all know deep inside that he is no longer a heavyweight contender in the UFC.
Yes, his Houdini-like submission escapes against Nogueira will go down in legend. But he merely survived that fight against the big Brazilian. He was never going to win it.
That’s why Couture’s newly-signed 6-fight deal with the UFC will take place rightfully at 205lb, in the light-heavyweight division. Remember his fight with Lesnar? Recall how one-sided it was ?
In Las Vegas on Nov 21, at UFC 106, I expect Brock Lesnar to wipe the floor with Shane Carwin, who is reportedly moving around at 300lb between fights – and before you reach for your poison ink, I know the arguments for Carwin.
That the Colorado fighter will match Lesnar for power, wrestling ability, agility, and could even beat him to the punch with better boxing. Whatever.
Lesnar should beat Carwin, and then, in my crystal ball, he’ll dismantle Nog. In the long term, Lesnar remains king of the MMA heavies.
Ron Waterman, no great shakes as an MMA heavyweight, but a roommate of Brock Lesnar and, intriguingly, also Carwin’s high-school wrestling coach, believes his former charge will have the endurance and cardio to go into the second round with the Minnesotan man-mountain. But beat Lesnar? No. Our Ron thinks not.
Meanwhile, where’s Fedor in all this? Preparing for a November battle with Brett Rogers, who’s 11-0 in what is a fairly non-descript line-‘em-up, knock-‘em-down stretch until he took out Andre Arlowski, with his porcelain chin, or Venetian-glass mandible.
Sure, Rogers is a mini dump-truck of a man at 6’5” and 265lb. He’s extremely heavy-handed, could give Emelianenko an issue or two, but most of the myth has been built around Rogers’ powerful striking and his own assertion in an interview that he was invited to a training camp in Minnesota with Lesnar where he took issue with the home boy roughing up his training partners – waded in, knocked Lesnar out, packed his bags and left. Fine.
But wouldn’t we all rather see Fedor step into the bear pit, and meet all-comers in the UFC? But especially Lesnar. Now there’s a fight of the decade in MMA.
Gareth A Davies is boxing and MMA correspondent for The Daily Telegraph.
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