Jon Fitch

Quick Hits: Almeida Injured, Sylvia to Japan for NYE & More

- Ricardo Almeida has pulled out of his November 21 bout with welterweight contender Jon Fitch at UFC 106 in Las Vegas, Nevada. The bout was expected to be Almeida’s first at 170 lbs after a career at middleweight. Fitch told MMA Junkie he’ll now get a “bigger fight instead.” [MMAJunkie.com]

- Former UFC heavyweight champion Tim Sylvia will be appearing on the upcoming K-1 Dynamite! show on New Year’s Eve. Sylvia has been offered bouts with Alistair Overeem and Hong Man Choi and Fighters Only is reporting that Sylvia’s camp is currently favoring a bout with Choi. [Fighters Only Magazine]

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Lesnar Beats Mir: UFC 100 Results

Jon Fitch def. Paulo Thiago - Unanimous Decision
Brock Lesnar def. Frank Mir - KO Round 2 1:48
Georges St. Pierre def. Thiago Alves - Unanimous Decision
Dan Henderson def. Michael Bisping - KO Round 2 3:20
Yoshihiro Akiyama def. Alan Belcher - Split Decision (30-27, 28-29, 29-28)
Mark Coleman def. Stephan Bonnar - Unanimous Decision
Jim Miller def. Mac Danzig - Unanimous Decision
Jon Jones def. Jake O’Brien - Submission (D’Arce Choke) Round 2 2:43
Dong-Hyun Kim def. T.J. Grant - Unanimous Decision
Tom Lawlor def. CB Dollaway - Submission (Guillotine Choke) Round 1 0:55
Matt Grice def. Shannon Gugerty - Submission (Guillotine Choke) Round 1 2:36

All Fighters Make Weight for UFC 100

The official weigh-in results for UFC 100: Making History are in and all of the fighters successfully made weight in preparation for their bouts Saturday night at the Mandalay Bay Events Center in Las Vegas, Nevada.

The card will be headlined by a UFC heavyweight title bout featuring champion Brock Lesnar taking on interim champion Frank Mir. UFC welterweight champion Georges St. Pierre will defend his title against Thaigo Alves as well.

Main Card:

Brock Lesnar (265 lbs) vs. Frank Mir (245 lbs)
Georges St. Pierre (170 lbs) vs. Thiago Alves (170 lbs)
Dan Henderson (185 lbs) vs. Michael Bisping (186 lbs)
Yoshihio Akiyama (185 lbs) vs. Alan Belcher (186 lbs)
Jon Fitch (170 lbs) vs. Paulo Thiago (170 lbs)

Preliminary Bouts:

Mark Coleman (205 lbs) vs. Stephan Bonnar (205 lbs)
Mac Danzig (154 lbs) vs. Jim Miller (155 lbs)
Jon Jones (206 lbs) vs. Jake O’Brien (206 lbs)
Dong Hyun Kim (171 lbs) vs. T.J. Grant (170 lbs)
C.B. Dollaway (186 lbs) vs. Tom Lawlor (184 lbs)
Matt Grice (155 lbs) vs. Shannon Gugerty (156 lbs)

Quick Hits: Fitch-Thiago, Jones-O’Brien Possible for UFC 100

Here are your news and notes for the morning of March 14, 2009.

Former UFC welterweight title challenger Jon Fitch may be continuing his trek back up to the divisional ladder at UFC 100. He is reportedly in talks to face Brazilian upstart Paulo Thiago at the event. Thiago shocked many when he scored a first-round knockout of Josh Koscheck at UFC 95 in February. Fitch rebounded from a failed title shot against Georges St. Pierre to defeat Akihiro Gono at UFC 94. [Tatame.com]

Rising light heavyweight sensation Jon Jones will reportedly take on former UFC heavyweight contender Jake O’Brien at UFC 100 as well. Jones has been impressive in his two UFC bouts thus far, winning unanimous decisions over Andre Gusmao and Stephan Bonnar. O’Brien won a decision over Christian Wellisch in his last fight. [The Garv]

Strikeforce CEO Scott Coker recently revealed a rough outline of the schedule his promotion hopes to maintain in 2009. Sandwiched in between Strikeforce’s already announced April and May events, the organization in conjunction with Showtime will put on its inaugural “First Strike” event, which will be similar to the ShoXC events held over the last couple of years by ProElite. The first of those events would take place on May 8 and then again in June, September, October, and November. Regular Strikeforce cards will also be held in August, October, and December. [MMA Weekly]

A welterweight bout between England native John Hathaway and UFC newcomer Rick Story has reportedly been added to UFC 99, which will take place on June 13 in Cologne, Germany. The fight will likely take place on the event’s non-televised undercard. Both fighters are said to have agreed to the fight and the paperwork that would make it official is expected to be finalized shortly. [Five Ounces of Pain]

Decisions Galore on UFC 94 Undercard

Jon Fitch’s journey back to the top of the UFC’s welterweight division started off with a win on Saturday night as the former collegiate wrestler grinded out a unanimous decision over Japanese pioneer Akihiro Gono in UFC 94’s most high-profile preliminary bout.

After a spectacular and somewhat odd walk to the Octagon by Gono (29-14-7), the PRIDE veteran spent the first few minutes of his bout against Fitch (18-3) defending constant takedown attempts. Fitch, an American Kickboxing Academy product, was eventually able to bring his opponent to the mat, where the majority of the fight took place.

The former UFC welterweight title challenger nearly finished the fight in the second round with an armbar just before time expired, and survived a last-minute comeback effort from Gono on the feet to win a clear-cut decision on the scorecards.

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All Fighters Make Weight for UFC 94

The official weigh-in results for tomorrow night’s UFC 94 event, which takes place at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas, are below. All fighters successfully made weight.

The event is headlined by a highly-anticipated rematch for the UFC welterweight title between reigning champion Georges St. Pierre and UFC lightweight king B.J. Penn. Undefeated light heavyweights Lyoto Machida and Thiago Silva will collide as well.

Main Card:

Georges St. Pierre (170 lbs) vs. B.J. Penn (168 lbs)
Lyoto Machida (206 lbs) vs. Thiago Silva (206 lbs)
Karo Parisyan (170 lbs) vs. Dong-Hyun Kim (171 lbs)
Nate Diaz (156 lbs) vs. Clay Guida (156 lbs)
Stephan Bonnar (206 lbs) vs. Jon Jones (206 lbs)

Preliminary Bouts:

Jon Fitch (171 lbs) vs. Akihiro Gono (171 lbs)
Manny Gamburyan (155 lbs) vs. Thiago Tavares (155 lbs)
Chris Wilson (170 lbs) vs. John Howard (171 lbs)
Jake O’Brien (205 lbs) vs. Christian Wellisch (206 lbs)
Matt Arroyo (171 lbs) vs. Dan Cramer (171 lbs)

Video: Fitch, Gono Talk Welterweight Prelim Bout

In the above video, former UFC welterweight title challenger Jon Fitch discusses his upcoming welterweight bout against Japanese veteran Akihiro Gono, which will take place this Saturday night at UFC 94 in Las Vegas, Nevada.

UFC, Jon Fitch and AKA Come to Terms

Less than 24 hours after Jon Fitch was cut from his UFC contract, it was reported today by his management that they have come to terms.  Thus Jon Fitch’s free agency is over.

“Crazy” Bob Cook of Zinkin Entertainment and the American Kickboxing Academy told Sherdog.com about the process.

“We just spent an hour on the phone with Lorenzo [Fertitta],” said Cook, “and cooler heads have prevailed.”

When asked about the negotiations, Cook stated that Fertitta and UFC President Dana White were “on the same page” when it came to their goals but that their approaches were as different as night and day…

...Cook, who was singled out by White as part of the problem, stated Fertitta assured him the working relationship between their camp and White was salvageable.

As for the fates of welterweight contender Josh Koscheck and heavyweight prospect Cain Velasquez—both of whom were rumored to be next on the chopping block—as well as heavyweight Christian Wellisch, who was cut along with Fitch on Wednesday, Cook stated that all of the fighters have worked out agreements to remain with the UFC.

This is the exact type of scenario why Lorenzo Fertitta has taken on more of a role in the day to day operations of Zuffa, LLC.

This does not excuse Dana White’s actions in this case at all.  But at least in the end, a talent like Jon Fitch remains in the organization that hand down, has the majority of the best welterweights in the world today.

UFC Cuts Jon Fitch Among Others

The UFC yesterday released #3 ranked welterweight contender Jon Fitch for failing to sign a document that gives lifetime rights to his likeness in any future video games.  The story, first broken by MMA Mania, is developing very quickly.  Apparently, Christian Wellisch has also been cut and fellow AKA treammates Josh Koscheck and Cain Velasquez are also on the chopping block following their upcoming fights. 

Fitch, who was defeated in a 5 round war with champion Georges St. Pierre in his last turn in the octagon, was completely taken by surprise by this move.  According to MMAWeekly...

“This is like over the course of two days, three days,” Fitch explained about the release. “It had to do with Dana (White) calling my managers and immediately saying, ‘we need to get him to sign this contract’ and ‘it’s a big favor to me.’ Then we asked him, ‘Why do you need this contract signed?’

“Then we finally asked, after reading through the contract, why can’t we negotiate for different terms? Because it asked me for a lifetime contract for the video games, so they would have exclusive rights to use our likeness for these video games and we couldn’t go and do any other video games ever again in our lifetime.”

Before anything was decided, Fitch says his managers tried to re-negotiate a different deal from the lifetime contract, but an ultimatum was soon made.

“So basically we said we weren’t cool with that deal and why can’t we do it for five or 10 years? Why does it have to be a lifetime deal? Their next response was, ‘either you guys are in or you’re out’ and ‘sign this or you’re going to get dropped from the UFC,’” said Fitch. “So we hear that and we didn’t even think they were serious. Why would you want to release fighters at our level over something like that? Doesn’t make any sense.

“Within two phone calls, it got to ‘sign this or you guys are out.’”

Dana White’s response was pretty typical of him.  On Yahoo Sports.

“We’re looking for guys who want to work with us and not against us, and frankly I’m just so [expletive] sick of this [expletive] it’s not even funny. Affliction is still out there trying to build its company. Let [Fitch] go work with them. Let him see what he thinks of those [expletives]. [Expletive] him. These guys aren’t partners with us. [Expletive] them. All of them, every last [expletive] one of them…. I’m not a douche bag and I do a lot for these guys, a lot more than any of you will ever know. We’re in a horrible time in the economy now, and every guy with two nickels to rub together is making a run at us. We’ve worked too hard, given too much, to let certain guys come in and [expletive] with that.”

White later toned down thhe rhetoric on the “Carmichael Dave” radio show.

“No, no, no. It has nothing to do with an agreement. It doesn’t have to do with Jon Fitch either. I like Jon Fitch. I’ve never had a bad word with Jon Fitch. The problem is with the idiots that run AKA. I won’t use any names; the idiots know who they are.”

I’m sure there will be a lot more to this story in the upcoming days.

Discussing the Aftermath of UFC 87

It’s only been two days since the Ultimate Fighting Championship’s debut show in Minnesota and the after-effects of the event are already being hotly-discussed around the MMA world. While the show may not have delivered in terms of brutal and quick stoppages, each fight that took place was filled with technical exchanges and exciting moments. There wasn’t much more the hardcore fan could ask for.

However the results of the bouts, primarily those that took place on the televised main card, have left questions in terms of the futures of some fighters. Will Georges St. Pierre actually rematch B.J. Penn later this year? What’s next for Brock Lesnar, Kenny Florian, and Roger Huerta? Here’s my thoughts on the answers to those…

Will St. Pierre and Penn fight before the end of the year?

Yes. Without a doubt. It’s a fight that even UFC President Dana White has been going crazy about even before St. Pierre fought and defeated Jon Fitch this past weekend. We all know Penn is stubborn when it comes to his goals and it seems like his dream to become a multi-division champion won’t be leaving him anytime soon. St. Pierre is currently at the top of his game in every aspect, especially mentally, meaning that he won’t be turning down any kind of fight at the moment.

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