J-Mac on MMA: The Athlete’s submissions
Posted January 6, 2012 4:41 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
So the UFC called me this week and asked if I was interested in fighting on Feb. 15. Unfortunately I had to decline for a couple of reasons.
First of all, I haven’t really been training and wouldn’t be comfortable taking a fight on five weeks notice. To be honest, I haven’t been training at all since my Alan Belcher fight in September. I’ve had a bit of a bum shoulder, and I was just trying to step away from the fight game for a bit to recharge.
Plus I’m going on a family vacation to Mexico just prior to the fight. Five weeks is short notice enough, but with two weeks of it on vacation, it just wouldn’t have worked.
But then I noticed there will be a card in Sweden, and I haven’t been there and thought that would be an interesting trip. So I told my manager I’d be open to a fight six-eight weeks after the middle of February and would be really interested in going to Sweden.
So he said he’d inquire, but he got right back to me and his response was that the card was already full. I was surprised to hear they’re already booking into April. The event in Sweden was just announced on Wednesday and on Thursday it was already full?
So if anybody out there is wondering when I’ll be fighting, the answer is I have no idea. Looks like not before April.
UFC 141 recap
At last weekend’s UFC 141, the main event was no surprise to me: I called an Alistair Overeem TKO over Brock Lesnar in the first round and I was not surprised to see him retire afterward, I kind of saw that coming. It was just what we said, Lesnar doesn’t like to get hit, and when Overeem hit him with a couple knees, he wasn’t liking it, and I knew it was going to be short fight from there. Overeem smelled blood and took care of business.
Meanwhile, I predicted Donald Cerrone to run through Nate Diaz and it was the exact opposite. Short of the leg trips, I don’t know if Cerrone had any real offence at all. That’s not the same Cerrone I’ve seen in the past couple fights. Not the cocky fighter looking crisp and sharp. It looked like he had an off-night in every sense.
Greg Jackson was calling for Cerrone to take Diaz down, he wasn’t attempting a takedown. He was losing the fight badly standing and when he tripped him he let him stand right back up and continue punching. It was a strange fight.
I think a lot of times, you just lack the confidence to do what your coach is telling you. Maybe you hear your coach and believe him but in your head you lack the confidence to do it. Times when it’s happened to me and you’re in a real dogfight, you revert back to the things you’re most comfortable doing.
For example in my fight against Demian Maia, my comfort zone is grappling, and Josh Russell is telling me to keep the fight standing, but you revert back to what you’re comfortable with. Cerrone is a comfortable kickboxer and he lacked the confidence to take the fight down because Diaz is an accomplished jiu-jitsu guy. Even though he was losing in the standup, that was still his comfort zone.
A real tell that he was having an off-night was that he wasn’t even circling the right way. When fighting a left-hander, you’re supposed to circle to the left to stay away from your opponent’s power hand, which is the complete opposite of fighting a right-hander. The majority of Cerrone’s training partners are probably right-handed, so you get used to circling to the right and staying away from their power hand.
But Cerrone was circling the wrong way against Diaz. He is a good standup fighter, so I’m not criticizing him, it just goes to show that he was having a bad night, because he was even doing the simple things badly, and I’m 100 per cent confident he knows better than that.
That being said, I don’t want to take anything away from Diaz; he looked awesome. He could have thrown anything and it would have hit Diaz in the head. It’s certainly a disappointing night for Cerrone. That puts him back a couple steps and makes his journey as a contender a little longer.
I’m interested to see what it does for Diaz. He lost a fight recently, so where does that win put him in the big picture.
As for our buddy Sean Pierson, it looks like Dong Hyun Kim was able to outsize and slow down the fight and win a decision.
And what can you say about Jon Fitch-Johny Hendricks. You can’t really judge Fitch’s performance much. He got one-punched; he never got into the fight. Sometimes it happens. Ask Mark Hominick.
It happens to every fighter I’m sure at one point in their career. Unfortunately for Fitch it cost him the No. 1 contender shot. I’m not sure it propels Hendricks up that much; I think the consequences are worse for Fitch than they are good for Hendricks.
Finally, I’ll eat my words about Jimy Hettes when I wrote “Nam Phan against who?” That kid was extremely impressive. I was sitting down in my basement with a few of my friends watching the fights and we were like, “Wow, who is this kid?” He has a bright future, so I take that back.
Strikeforce preview
Canadian Jordan Mein is fighting Tyrone Woodley. I’m a big Jordan Mein fan, but we’ve seen in the past against Jason High he has a tough time against high-level wrestlers, and Woodley is a high-level wrestler. Hopefully Jordan can keep his feet moving and keep the fight standing and not get taken down and held down for three rounds and lose a decision. I’m hoping and picking him to TKO Woodley standing.
Main event: Middleweight champion Luke Rockhold vs. Keith Jardine
This fight doesn’t really make sense to me (why is Jardine getting a title shot?) but I always think Jardine is a tough fight for anyone. Jardine said he’ll make it an ugly, messy fight for Rockhold, who normally fights a nice, clean fight. It could go either way. It wouldn’t surprise me in the least if Keith wins. He just went the distance with Gegard Mousasi. How can you count him out?
