I’m nearing the end of what has been a very busy schedule so far in July. I was in Toronto teaching a CrossFit seminar the first weekend — didn’t even see the Anderson Silva-Chael Sonnen fight — and then went right from Toronto to Las Vegas for the UFC Fighter Summit.
The Fighter Summit was great, it’s always fun to get together with other guys in the UFC. It was a bit more streamlined than previous years, with fighters sitting in sessions all in one day instead of multiple.
Because of all the talk of Testosterone Replacement Therapy, there was a session based on TRT. They talked about how you have to have your testosterone level within certain limits, and it’s your responsibility. There was no hard line drawn regarding the debate whether fighters should be allowed to take TRT. The fact is you are.
I’m of the personal belief if you’re below normal testosterone levels for whatever reason, then I don’t think it’s cheating to take it, as long as you stay within normal limits. If the average person is at certain level naturally, and if because of some genetic reason you’re well below that, then I have no problem with you taking TRT to get it to get to normal level, just not anything more.
There was also talk about the UFC’s drug policy, but they never really said what the policy was. They just talked about how they were doing their best to enforce the policy and do drug testing within the commission’s guidelines.
In my opinion, the policy should be simple. If you test positive for steroids or banned substances, you should be cut from your contract. Not, you get suspended for the length that the commission imposes and then when it’s over, you get a main event fight. That is not an effective policy.
If you test positive for a banned substance, you’re guilty and your contract should be terminated. You think if you drew a hard line in the sand like that, people would take the chance? Right now, fighters think the worst that will happen if they get caught taking drugs is they’ll be suspended for a year, but then they’ll get a fight after that, so what’s the big deal?
Many fighters sit eight months between fights anyway, so it’s not a big punishment having to sit for a year. But if you knew your contract would be terminated, you wouldn’t see people dicking around with drugs.
Look at the Olympics, when you test positive for doping, you’re suspended for life. That’s a reasonable consequence and if you want to clean the sport up, that would do it.
They also brought in Michael Irvin as a special guest at the Summit. He talked about when you’re a pro athlete you’re in the spotlight, but not everyone’s perfect, people make mistakes, and you have to bounce back from those and make good decisions as you move through your career. He’s a guy who has had some ups and downs in his life and problems with substance abuse, and he had a good message.
They also brought in people from social media, who gave some stats about Twitter and thoughts about how to tweet stuff and put up Facebook messages in the most effective way to build your brand. For example, a race car driver who took a picture of the track from inside his car during the Daytona 500 when there was a caution flag and he tweeted it and his followers increased by a couple hundred thousand.
I’m still kind of tossed up about the whole social media thing. Whatever you do to build your brand, while you’re involved in your sport it will help you, but as soon as you choose to leave the sport, you’re going to be forgotten. They talk about building for the future and later in life, but in very few cases after leaving their sport have athletes stayed really relevant.
It wasn’t a super long day, and as usual the Canadians stick together. I hung out with T.J. Grant, Sean Pierson, I saw Roland Delorme and Ryan Jimmo. It’s a great opportunity to get together with people I’ve not seen a while. There’s lots of fighters in the UFC, but unless you fight on a card with them there’s a good chance you don’t ever meet them or see them.
It was neat to see Strikeforce guys too. I was sitting right across the hall from Gegard Mousasi. These are people I don’t get to see normally obviously.
After the Summit, I went to L.A. to be a judge for this year’s CrossFit Games. It was interesting to see how the sport is exploding. I’ve been to the Games in California the past two years. This year it has exploded in size and magnitude. The first year there were a couple thousand fans in the stands at the Home Depot Center, last year it was almost full in the stands, and this year, they had to add extra seats of bleachers, and they were packed. The event was also live on ESPN.
It was funny, UFC matchmaker Joe Silva’s wife is a big crossfitter, and she came and introduced herself to me at the games. She told me, “I’ve got to start following you and what you do.” Because I was involved with MMA as it exploded, now I’m involved in CrossFit as it’s exploding. So she was like, “I’ve got to keep an eye on the things you do and what you’re following.”
I ended up missing the Calgary Stampede, and I’m not too upset about it. I don’t feel like I missed anything. I had a much more enjoyable time at the CrossFit games.
I haven’t even been to Calgary lately but the UFC did give me some tickets for the weekend show so I’ll be going down Saturday morning. I’ve done some interviews from home in Red Deer. One was for the Calgary Sun, and I talked about how I was disappointed they were unable to put me on the Calgary card for a retirement fight. I was healthy and I would have liked to retire at home. I realize I was coming off a loss, but I think I could have helped the card, as I have a large fan base in Alberta. The UFC hasn’t asked me to do anything since that article came out though, so maybe they weren’t happy about it.
Anyway, onto my UFC 149 picks:
Urijah Faber vs. Renan Barao
I haven’t been extremely impressed with Faber since he moved over to the UFC. Urijah’s a great fighter, but I’m not sure that he’s the best in that division. Obviously he isn’t because Dominick Cruz is the champion, but there are lots of great fighters in that division. I think Barao will give him a run for his money. I’m taking the wildcard and going with Barao.
Hector Lombard vs. Tim Boetsch
I had the opportunity to see Lombard in person for the first time recently and man he’s a small guy. At five-foot-eight that’s really short. I know he’s extremely stocky and powerful but Boetsch is a pretty big guy. I was extremely impressed with Boetsch in his huge upset of Yushin Okami, who is a huge guy, and left-handed as well. Lombard is much smaller. I know Lombard has been destroying guys, but he hasn’t been facing the calibre of guys in the UFC. I’m taking the upset here and going with Boetsch, which will put a damper on Lombard’s plans after he’s been calling everybody out in the UFC.
Cheick Kongo vs. Shawn Jordan
I just think Kongo’s striking is at a much different level and the strength of guys he’s faced is much more than Jordan’s. I’m picking Kongo. I always enjoy watching him fight.
Brian Ebersole vs. James Head
I’m taking Ebersole for sure. I wasn’t impressed with Head at all at 185 pounds after watching him fight Nick Ring. I don’t think the drop down to 170 pounds will help at all. I think Ebersole is one of the top guys in the welterweight division right now.
Chris Clements vs. Matt Riddle
I don’t know about this fight. I just remember Clements not looking great when he lost to John Alessio at a W-1 card in Montreal in 2010. Riddle always puts on a good show and performs. I’m going with Riddle in this one.
Nick Ring vs. Court McGee
This is the most appealing fight for me on the card. They had their fight on The Ultimate Fighter, Nick won a close controversial majority decision, but Court came back to win the whole show. That’s a cool story. And knowing Nick on personal level, it’s even more interesting for me. Court has been doing well, Ring has had his ups and downs, so now we should be able to see if Court has been getting handpicked fights, or has he legitimately been getting solid wins if he comes out on top of Nick. I’m going to go with McGee.
Roland Delorme vs. Francisco Rivera
I’m going to go on a bit of a tangent here, if I may. The thing I like about Delorme is this kid has had some absolute wars against top guys before joining the UFC. It drives me bonkers when I see young fighters, and I won’t name names, want to get to UFC desperately, but don’t want tough fights. Instead they take easy fights to build up their record, they get to the UFC where they’re facing the best, and they get their ass kicked because they’ve never faced that calibre of opponent.
I know when I put the fights together for the PFC, I hear that a lot. A guy says no to a fight because “it’s too tough a fight” or he thinks he’s just couple wins away from UFC, so he wants a couple easy wins. You’re talking about almost being in the UFC and you’re asking for an easy fight!? You should ask for the toughest fight you can get to best prepare you for when you do get there!
I lose total respect for people when they say that. I look at a guy like Jordan Mein, who has fought the best of the best and will take any fight out there. I think Delorme is one of those guys and he has a win in the UFC for a reason, because he was prepared for it. I’m going with him.
Ryan Jimmo vs. Anthony Perosh
I think Jimmo is training with a great group of guys with the Blackzilians, which will help him. However, if he goes out there and fights like he has in his past five fights, win or lose, I doubt they’ll have him back. He needs a good performance, not one where he’s running away and sticking and moving and doing just enough to get a win. That won’t get him far in the UFC. I think Perosh will take it by submission, he’s a badass on the ground.
Mitch Gagnon vs. Bryan Caraway
I don’t much about Gagnon but I’ll go with him. When in doubt, go with the Canadian!
Antonio Carvalho vs. Daniel Pineda
I’ll go with Tony for sure. He’s been a friend of me for a long time. He’s a solid, solid, talented fighter, had a ton of tough fights in Japan. He’s finally getting the recognition in North America over here in the UFC.
Mitch Clarke vs. Anton Kuivanen
I don’t know much about Kuivanen, but Mitch is a classic example of a guy with a great record coming into the UFC, but his biggest win was over Josh Machan, so he just wasn’t prepared for the level of competition in the UFC and he got choked out early in his debut. I like him I just think he needed some real wars against tough competition before and just don’t feel like he’s had those. I’m going with Kuivanen.