(The Daily Haymaker is a daily series that takes a look back and covers the news, fights being made, and all the other insanity revolving around combat sports. The Haymaker’s purpose is to keep you up to date with the ever changing combat sports world and also provide thought-provoking [hopefully] analysis from yours truly.)
The News
1. Remember how yesterday I mentioned the report about Anthony Pettis suffering a knee injury? And remember how I mentioned that he still planned on fighting Josh Thomson at UFC on FOX 9? Yeah, the plan is off. It was announced today that because of that injury, Pettis was forced to withdraw from the fight, so the flyweight championship bout between Demetrious Johnson and Joseph Benavidez that was scheduled to main event the next TUF Finale will headline UFC on FOX 9. The Nate Diaz/Gray Maynard rematch will be the new main event of the TUF Finale show. News has not surfaced on how long Pettis will be on the shelf, but from the earlier reports, I get a feeling that he won’t be gone long. This a significant issue to monitor because of all the lightweight contenders in line for a shot at Pettis.
2. The second day of the World Jiu-Jitsu Expo took place on Sunday. The three Super Fight submission only contests saw Jake Shields grapple to a time limit draw against Leandro Lo, Jon Fitch draw in his match with Paulo Miyao, and Dean Lister tap out Tarsis Humphrey with a leg lock at 10:20 in the scrap. The other Super Fight was played out under IBJFF rules as Bruno Malfacine beat Jeff Glover 5-2. In the black belt grand prix [there were two brown belts in the tournament because two black belts couldn’t make it to the event], Ricardo Rezende submitted James Puopolo in the finals with a toehold. (Thanks to MMAFighting.com and Graciemag.com for reporting the results).
3. MMAFighting reported that Omari Akhmedov plans to move down to the welterweight division in his next fight. At Ultimate Fight Night 32, Akhmedov knocked out Thiago Perpetuo in a one round contest that ended up being named Fight of the Night. Akhmedov talked about how his natural, walking around weight is actually 185 pounds which was the weight class he competed at on Saturday night.
4. Four underdogs on the Ultimate Fight Night 32 card were victorious (Jeremy Stephens, Adriano Martins, Sam Sicilia, and Dustin Ortiz). None of the victors were heavy underdogs.
Must Reads
1. Ben Fowlkes of MMAJunkie discussed the perception issues the Vitor Belfort and fighters like him that use TRT will have to battle here: http://bit.ly/1ddwuME
2. Chuck Mindenhall takes a look at the year 2000 in the UFC here: http://bit.ly/16TgzC8
3. Matt Saccaro questions whether or not a card like UFN 32 is the reason why the UFC has struggled from a popularity standpoint here: http://bit.ly/18iTyFU
That’ll do it for today’s Haymaker. Thanks for reading, and I’ll leave you with a quote from Mark Twain.
“Get your facts first, then you can distort them as you please.”
-Dan can be reached at [email protected] or @danielgal.
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