MMA-URLS

STOCKHOLM -- How do you get to the Ericsson Globe Arena? It’s simple, at least when you’re headed there for pre-fight UFC weigh-ins. All you have to do is get on the subway, look for the guy with the cauliflower ear, and get off where he gets off. In the meantime, take note of the clean, efficient public transportation system. Take note of how the greatest congestion seems to be caused by people getting up to offer their seats to old women. Take note of how the train environment is apparently so safe that one mother doesn’t even freak out when her young daughter wanders a few feet away and begins literally talking to strangers during the ride. But don’t get so distracted that you forget about Mr. Puffy Ear. This is his stop, which means it’s yours, too.Friday afternoon draws a lively weigh-in crowd to the Globe, which looms on the city horizon like a giant golf ball gone astray from some intergalactic course. Inside, the seats slope up the sides and then seem to go straight up toward the cavernous roof. Today these seats are filled with fight fans so eager to see their heroes that they can’t help but cheer every time they see Alexander Gustafsson’s face on the same looping video packages. The foreign fighters are in for it at this event, I say to myself. Once again, I prove to have no idea what I’m talking about. I first notice that something’s off after about the third or fourth pair of fighters has stepped on and off the stage. It’s a little like hearing a familiar song with the guitar solo removed. Something’s missing, but it takes me a moment to realize what it is: no boos. Not when Sweden’s Reza Madadi has an intense staredown with Cuban fighter Yoislandy Izquierdo. Not even when local favorite Papy Abedi -- who comes out in a newsboy cap with a cigar hanging from his mouth -- squares off against American James Head.If they won’t boo an American who’s taking on one of their own, who will they boo? How are their fighters supposed to get the hometown advantage that the Brazilians enjoyed in Rio without a little vitriol on their part? What’s wrong with these people?"We don’t really like to do things like that," explains one helpful Swede sitting next to me at the weigh-in. "We’re very polite."And it’s true, they are. Guys like Madadi -- an Iranian-born immigrant to Sweden whose colorful personality makes him a fan favorite -- get a raucous welcome, but his opponent still gets polite applause rather than a hostile greeting. The same is true for German Dennis Siver and Brazilian Paulo Thiago. Even American Brian Stann, whose decorated military career seems to rub some people the wrong way, walks out to a respectable amount of cheers. Even the fighters who are clearly less popular or totally unknown here still get treated like children who have tried very hard at a school play. It’s no standing ovation, but the applause respectfully recognizes their presence. It makes me wonder: is booing just not done here at all?"No, we will boo sometimes," says my seatmate. "Like at a hockey game or a soccer game, if there’s a dirty play. If someone is trying to cheat."But if someone is simply the opposition? He is still a sportsman. There’s no reason to boo the man. As one Swedish fighter and local commission member who prefers not to be named will explain to me after the weigh-ins, this is due to the very Swedish desire to avoid daling stamning. Loosely translated, it means ‘bad vibes,’ a negative atmosphere."Nobody wants this," he explains. "We try to be nice, make everyone feel welcome. No dalig stamning."It’s a phenomenon I’ve witnessed several times already during my brief stay in Stockholm, even if I didn’t know the terminology. A woman at a bar orders a drink and the bartender screws it up, giving her something completely different from what she asked for? That’s okay, she’ll drink it anyway. She doesn’t want to create dalig stamning. The principal clearly extends to MMA, even if the Swedes are not always as kind as they appear from the outside, according to my fighter friend.For instance, take their feelings about their neighbors. Particularly in the martial arts community here, the nearby Finns are seen as humorless, occasionally arrogant hard-asses. They’ve been at the MMA game longer than the Swedes have, and like to think of themselves as a little tougher."You don’t hug another man in Finland," the fighter jokes. "They think we’re soft."And Norway? Norway has even more laws and restrictions than Sweden. MMA will never be sanctioned there, the Swedes fear. Don’t even get them started on Denmark, where they actually dare to have MMA without a national federation. Crazy Danes. They’ll smoke a cigarette in an elevator. Drink on their lunch breaks. The Swedes just shake their heads at them.But when it comes to what the Swedes expect of each other, there isn’t always just one set of rules. As I keep hearing over and over again here in Stockholm, Swedes don’t like to stand out. They don’t like to draw attention to themselves, or to appear as though they are trying to be better than anyone else. It’s why, people tell me, it’s relatively difficult for a Swede to become famous in Sweden. A guy like "Mad Dog" Madadi -- a lightweight fighter with a heavyweight personality -- is an exception, but then, he’s also a foreigner. He’s allowed to be loud, to whip the crowd into a frenzy when he steps on the stage for the weigh-ins. They have different expectations for a Swedish-born fighter like Gustafsson, who has so far managed his bit of fame perfectly, by Swedish standards.With this bit of information, Gustafsson starts to make a little more sense, I must admit. Hearing his answers at Thursday’s press conference and catching snippets of other interviews he’s done here at home this week, I admit I found him a little bit boring. When other people talk about him as an exciting young light heavyweight contender it’s as if he can’t shoot it down fast enough. He says little more than he has to, will never answer with five words when four would do. He seems uncomfortable with being looked at so much.This, or so I’m told, is the Swedish way. You’re expected to downplay your own uniqueness rather than call attention to it. If you’re talented, you need not make a big deal out of it. If you’re rich, you don’t flaunt your money around. You don’t want to make others feel bad, do you? That might create dalig stamning.It makes what happens at the culmination of Friday’s weigh-ins all the more interesting. When Thiago Silva is introduced, he’s the only fighter to get a smattering of boos. Even then it’s short-lived, and gives way to more polite applause, as if the crowd is a little bit embarrassed about its own outburst.Gustafsson, as expected, gets a hero’s welcome. Just walking out on the stage and making weight earns him a standing ovation. In his interview he calls it the biggest fight of his life, but avoids making any outsized promises or statements about the outcome before switching from English (which almost every Swede seems to speak perfectly) to Swedish to ask his countrymen if they’re ready for Saturday’s fight. They are, they let him know. It’s a deft little way of making this about the community rather than the individual. Gustafsson seems to be telling them, ‘This fight is about us, not just me.’ The Swedes eat it up.As for Silva, his boos were brief, and probably less than he was expecting."But you know why, right?" one Swede tells me when I ask about it later. And yes, I suppose I do. It seems the people who only boo when someone is trying to cheat have not forgotten Silva’s recent past. Their feelings about it are strong enough to, however briefly, outweigh their desire to avoid bad vibes. That ought to say something, whether Silva realizes the reasons behind the boos or not. Simply being a foreigner is no crime here. Not even if you stand in opposition to the local boy. It’s integrity they’re concerned with. You can’t have much of a community without a sense of fairness, and there’s nothing fair about injections and fake urine. In time, maybe it will be forgotten. Not just yet, however. Not this easily. Redemption might be possible, but it isn’t free.

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It’s Friday afternoon, which means it’s time again for the Twitter Mailbag. This time around, the TMB talks Bellator, TRT, heavyweights, and Chael Sonnen’s chances of making it out of Brazil alive. Plus some other stuff.Got a question of your own? Come find me on Twitter @BenFowlkesMMA. I’ll even pretend to be interested in what you have to say at first. On to the questions.@AdriantheWizard which Bellator champ has the toughest test in defending his strap after the tournaments are done? That would be lightweight champ Michael Chandler. It’s not because he isn’t a capable fighter -- as the bout with Eddie Alvarez showed, dude can scrap a little bit -- but there are still some quality lightweights hanging around in Bellator. Chandler had a close fight with Missoula, Montana’s own Lloyd Woodard (406, what?!) on his way to the belt last year, and I’d say the winner of Friday night’s Woodard-Patricky Freire fight probably deserves to be the tournament favorite. In general, I think there’s probably more talent in MMA at the 155-pound division than anywhere else. The UFC doesn’t have the roster space for all of them, which is good news for Bellator, but will likely mean a stiff challenge for Chandler.@TheHarrison101 Two weeks in, Bellator/TUF 15, which are you watching live, what are you DVR'ing?I feel like a jerk for admitting this, but even with its new live format I still end up DVR’ing The Ultimate Fighter. Maybe it’s just habit. Maybe it still feels too much like TV. I don’t know. I do know that, after living with DVR for the past few years, I have completely lost my patience for commercials. I’ve gotten spoiled that way, and I admit it. I’ll sit through commercials when I have to -- which is to say, during live sporting events and at basically no other time -- but a TV show? Even a TV show I really like? Forget it. I’ll just set the DVR and check it out once I have the luxury of flipping through the same four video game ads. And yes, I realize this makes less sense now that the weekly TUF fight is live, but cut me some slack. How much TV can MMA fans really be expected to watch on a Friday night?@JDRCheckit #mailbag how does the all HW card do? Do we see the big KO's or knock down gas out brawls. Or something like Rothwell-HuntMy buddy Chad Dundas over at ESPN explored this very question in a column recently, and he rightly pointed out that it’s often a feast-or-famine type deal when the big boys get in the cage. Sometimes they knock each other out in a hurry, and sometimes they wheeze on one another until the referee finally makes them stop. When heavyweight fights are good, they’re great, and usually pretty quick. When they’re bad, they’re an assault on the senses.The good news for UFC 146 is that the main card match-ups seem almost designed to make sure that there’s at least one man in every fight willing to push the pace. Guys like Alistair Overeem, Frank Mir, and Antonio Silva have the ability to become slow, ponderous performers at times, but fighters like Junior dos Santos, Cain Velasquez -- hell, even Roy Nelson, at least lately -- are known for keeping the action going. I think we’ll get more feast than famine on this one. Or maybe I’m just hoping.@NoOrdinaryChris do you foresee women's MMA actually coming to the UFC in the next year or two? Interested in your take.As long as there is a Strikeforce, I think that’s where women’s MMA will stay. I think it will only improve now that Zuffa matchmakers Joe Silva and Sean Shelby get to tinker with it, but I don’t think anyone at the UFC feels like they absolutely have to get these women into the Octagon right away. If they’re content to leave Gilbert Melendez in Strikeforce, Ronda Rousey will have to stay too.For me, the bigger question is what will happen if (okay, let’s be real, when) Strikeforce eventually disappears. I don’t see Zuffa still running these two competing promotions five or ten years from now, so what happens then? I think a lot depends on how the women’s division performs between now and then, and what kind of roster it has at the time of the eventual Strikeforce dismantling. If Rousey follows Gina Carano to Hollywood, and if the division can’t add fresh faces quicker than it loses them, I could easily see Zuffa declaring women’s MMA a failed experiment. But if the Rousey revolution is the beginning rather than the peak, maybe female fighters have a future in the UFC. Just don’t expect it to happen overnight.@nogstai Chael Sonnen is an interesting character, but he's a nice guy in real life. Does sending him to 80k brazilians, a good idea?I can’t tell if you’re joking or not, but either way I think you’ve hit upon a legitimate question. Sonnen -- love him or hate him -- is a fascinating person and a good draw for the UFC. But after going to Rio de Janeiro for UFC 134 last summer and witnessing the overwhelming vitriol the locals had for even a video image of the man, I have to wonder whether the nation of Brazil appreciates his brand of humor the same way we do. Maybe he’s done too good a job selling them on the whole pro wrestling persona, or maybe they just don’t get the joke. Either way, I don’t think Sonnen is going to be buying a vacation home in Ipanema any time soon. It seems like it’s going to be difficult enough for him to show up and fight there, but can you imagine if he actually beat Anderson Silva in a packed Brazilian soccer stadium? What if he won a close decision? Or benefitted from a questionable stoppage? They might have to airlift him out of the Octagon just to get him home in one piece. @Odin_MMA Fedor. 205. UFC. Your move Fowlkes... Do you think Fedor would be reinvigorated?Not really. Fedor can go down in weight if he wants, but he can’t go back in time. His fight with Dan Henderson in Strikeforce showed that. If anything, he might be better off at heavyweight, where he still has some hope of being the quicker man. The fighters at light heavyweight these days are too athletic and too well-rounded. But hey, if Fedor wanted to try it and his management team wanted to get reasonable about their contract demands, I’d watch it. I just wouldn’t get my hopes up for a Fedor revival if I were you. @EricArsenal I like the 8 week UFC PPV gap being filled by TUF. Gives the fighters their own spotlight. What are your thoughts?Their own spotlight? Maybe. If you completely forget about the existence of Bellator, which also goes down every Friday night during this UFC pay-per-view hiatus. While TUF allows viewers to follow the slow reveal of a reality show tournament a week at a time, Bellator essentially offers the same experience, only with more tournaments and far more fights. As long as viewers are willing to trade talk for action (and who isn’t?) and the UFC brand for the Bellator one, it sure seems like Bellator offers the better deal right now.@DeadpandaCP Condit, MacDonald, Ellenberger. Is this a newbreed of fighters or are they contenders because GSP is out with his knee?I don’t know if I’d call them a new breed, but they’re all athletic, capable fighters without any glaring holes to exploit. Then again, so is Georges St-Pierre. All three of the guys you mentioned probably have a better chance of waiting GSP’s career out than of beating him in the cage.@MMAOUTSIDER should the UFC push Edgar so hard to drop weight? yes he's small, but I think his record and performance deserve more respect.I understand the push, what with the general lack of major contenders for Jose Aldo’s belt. But I agree that Edgar has done enough at lightweight to get to make his own decisions. Apparently the UFC thinks so too. He is getting the rematch he asked for, after all.@shawn_w_smith Some NCAA wrestlers are considered naturals for MMA while others aren't. What are we looking for to determine MMA prospects?An ability to deal with getting punched in the face, for one. A desire to stick with this long enough to actually get good at it, for another. The latter might be tougher to find than the former. You take guys who have spent so many years honing one specific skill set to such a fine point, they often don’t want to start all over as a rookie in something else. It’s rough on their egos, and the money is too distant a dream at first to pull them through all on its own. In short, what we’re looking for is someone humble enough to learn new skills, and stubborn enough to keep showing up to the gym even when it seems like a bad idea.@bradsucks will the UFC's handling of TRT blow up in their faces or should they keep looking the other way?At this point I think it’s clear that the controversy over testosterone-replacement therapy isn’t going to go away on its own, nor should it. This is a complicated issue that needs to be explored and examined more, not ignored. When confronted with "Rampage" Jackson’s admitted use of it, Dana White’s response was to basically throw up his hands and claim there was nothing the UFC could have done about it, since some athletic commissions allow it for some fighters. That’s an absurd response, especially since it came after an event in Tokyo where the UFC acted as its own commission, which it seems increasingly incapable of doing in an open and transparent manner.Let’s be clear what we’re talking about here: professional fighters are being given permission to inject themselves with a powerful hormone -- one that increases strength and endurance -- before they attempt to hurt another human being for money. That’s a situation full of dangerous possibilities. It also might not be entirely fair, depending on what they have to do in order to get that permission.Some fighters claim that they need it. They say their testosterone levels really are well below normal, and it’s a condition that they deserve to be able to treat. But even that defense raises all new questions. My colleague Mike Chiappetta has an excellent look at the link between head trauma and low testosterone, and I suppose it shouldn’t be hard to believe that getting hit in the head for a living might not be great for your natural hormone levels. Then again, if you’ve already suffered that sort of head trauma, why should we pump you full of testosterone just so you can continue suffering more of it? We wouldn’t medically clear a fighter with other signs of brain trauma, would we? And how can we be sure that a person’s low testosterone levels are due to head trauma and not past steroid abuse?Testosterone is a performance-enhancing substance. If it wasn’t, these guys wouldn’t care so much about being able to get their hands on it. The UFC has no problem butting heads with "the government" when it comes to things like getting MMA sanctioned in New York, so it’s disingenuous to claim that it’s powerless to buck the athletic commissions (which have varying standards for therapeutic-use exemptions to begin with) on this issue. We can disagree on what ought to be done about TRT in MMA and why, but I don’t think you can make much of an argument that the right thing to do here is nothing at all.

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Mirko "Cro Cop" Filipovic is undoubtedly a combat sports legend, and is in the process of winding down his career in MMA and kickboxing. His recent kickboxing bout against Ray Sefo was dubbed as his "Final Fight", but that probably isn't the case. Either way, Mirko did an excellent interview with Fighters Only where he discusses his injury issues in the UFC, a possible deal with K-1 to continue his kickboxing career, and good times with his buddy Pat Barry amongst other things. First, did you know what Mirko entered his UFC 137 bout with Roy Nelson nursing a torn bicep? And that he had surgery right afterwards? I didn't: I feel good, I feel good. It was a serious injury you know, it was a hard operation. It took four hours of reconstruction and according to the doctors I should still be in the rehabilitation program but instead I already had a fight. But I was very disciplined before and after the fight and I had physiotherapy twice a day, did a lot of exercise twice a day to return my muscle to the arm, make the ligament stronger. I was careful, patient, very dedicated to recover as soon as possible. I managed; rehabilitation varies from person to person. The age, the health, the structure of the body, so many things. I definitely returned very fast, recovered faster than doctors expected. But I have to say now, the doctors were first class. They did a masterpiece surgery. They were very careful and I am very happy. He also suffered a pretty bad eyepoke in his last training session before his UFC 119 bout with Frank Mir, and had a herniated disc in his back going into the bout. He talks a bit about his bad luck, and makes it clear he's not trying to make excuses, then moves on to talk about what's next for him: Well I’m talking about K-1... I don’t want to say too much but I am interested. Most important thing is health and I feel perfect now, I feel perfect and I needed this fight [with Sefo] to swim out of the bad mood, of the jinx, to swim out of everything. ...As I told many times, but people got it wrong - each fight could be the last one for me. Injuries are serious in my sport. To tell you the truth, injuries are more of a threat in training and in some wild sparring than in the fight itself. We have crazy trainings and crazy sparring, so many things could happen. ...And one more thing - I am sick and tired of explaining to reporters - not you, not you! - but people who are calling me, journalists who I respect, and I am glad they are taking interest in me. But I don’t want to say I will fight ten more fights or one more fight. Maybe I will do fifteen more fights or I will do none… You will be informed about everything. Right now I have some offers and I am thinking carefully about what to do. Right now I am still on vacation and I am back in training on Monday. So lets wait and see; I don’t want to keep discussing speculation on the next fight, the future. You know what I mean John - lets just wait and see what the future will bring. Right now I am ready and I have an offer for May, July and September. We will see which offer I take and which offers I will not take. He also mentions that the door isn't closed to MMA at this point: Yes K-1... but I have some MMA offers as well. We will see. I don’t want to say too much! All I can see is I will see; I don’t want to talk too much. You really should check out the whole interview, as it covers a lot of areas. Some of the best stuff is about his "friend" Pat Barry and their recent grappling battles. He even discusses the video of him and Barry singing in the car: Ha! Pat ‘Bigmouth’ Barry put it on YouTube on I have to kick his ass because of that. Actually I submitted him for it, that’s why I made him tap in front of the camera, ha!

Posted in: fight, injury, barry, i donrsquot, donrsquot

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Hard-hitting Welterweight contender Jake Ellenberger has one loss since transitioning to the big leagues of the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC). A close split decision to Carlos Condit. Since that disappointing night back in 2009, which served as his Octagon debut, "The Juggernaut" has won six straight contests with four violent finishes. He recently planished Diego Sanchez in the main event of UFC on Fuel TV earlier this month to put himself "in the mix." Like Ellenberger, Condit has been flawless since they first met in Oklahoma City, recording four straight wins with three (T)KO victories. His unanimous decision victory over Nick Diaz at UFC 143 was good enough to earn him the division's Interim Championship. With Georges St. Pierre rehabbing a surgically repaired knee, it could be several months before "The Natural Born Killer" has the opportunity to unify the 170-pound titles. That leaves him a pretty sizable window to settle some unfinished business with Ellenberger, who tells Sherdog's Beatdown Radio it's a fight Condit doesn't want, and for good reason. Check it out, after the jump. "I think the fans do want it, but at the same time, I don’t know if that’s what the UFC wants or not. I really don’t. If it was up to me, then yeah, we’d probably be fighting in May or June, but I don’t know if that’s what the UFC wants. I think they kind of still put it in Condit’s hands, but I know Carlos. I know his manager, and I know they don’t want that fight. But again, if I put myself in their shoes, I don’t blame them. It’s not even necessarily a personal thing. Carlos right now has the belt, and that’s where I want to be. He’s a fantastic fighter and he’s in the position he’s in for a reason. I was hoping I could get another rematch with Condit, but whether he fights again is going to be up to him. … I wouldn’t blame him if he wants to wait. That’s just the reality of it, but in my opinion, I sure hope I get that fight." Condit is not opposed to fighting prior to St. Pierre's return, but it all depends on how quickly the Canadian can "Rush" back into action. A November or December timetable will likely give Ellenberger the opportunity he's looking for; however, anything sooner than that and Condit will opt to wait. And protect his Interim title in the process. Even if he goes on to defeat St. Pierre, he'll likely cross paths with Ellenberger again anyway. It's (perhaps) just a question of when, not if. Unless some fantasy matchmakers out there in MMA land have a different perspective? Anyone?

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Like a lot of would-be UFC fighters, Justin Salas had started to wonder if the call would ever come. The lightweight had had nibbles from the big show, vague assurances that ultimately went nowhere. After he beat former Ultimate Fighter contestant Rob Emerson on a mat so heated by arena lights that it tore a chunk of skin off the bottom of his foot, his coaches at Denver’s Grudge Training Center felt sure that he’d get his shot. When he beat Joe Ellenberger -- the undefeated brother of UFC welterweight Jake Ellenberger -- ten months later, it seemed all but certain. For the first time, conversations with the UFC brass had begun to take the form of when rather than if."Then they called us back and said, ‘Have him take another fight. We don’t know if we’ll be able to take him right now,’" Salas said. "I just thought, well, guess I’ll have to find another guy like Joe Ellenberger. ...I don’t expect anyone to hand me anything. They don’t think I’m ready? Then I guess I better keep proving it." Salas had accepted another fight in another small organization and had begun training for it when the call came. February 15, they told him. The UFC on Fuel event in Omaha. That’s when he’d get his shot. Just like that, Salas was a UFC fighter.It’s difficult for some people to understand exactly what that moment means for a young fighter. They look at a guy like Salas, who’s making his debut against fellow UFC newcomer Anton Kuivanen on the prelim portion of a mid-week fight card that’s airing on a cable channel that many fight fans don’t even get, and they don’t see what the big deal is. It’s not like he’s headlining a pay-per-view. The UFC doesn’t even have a photo of him on its website yet, so what’s he so excited about?But then, the people who think that have never been in Salas’ shoes. They’ve never had to try to explain to a stranger that, yes, they are a professional fighter, even if they’re not yet in the UFC."You tell them that, and you can see it," Salas said. "They just think of you like they’re buddy that they met at the bar who fought in some small show that they went to once. Maybe he’s not at your level, but you’re right there in the same category as him in their eyes, no matter how good you are or who you train with. I’ve been pursuing this as my job, as a professional, for a while now. But until you’re in the UFC, people don’t really picture you that way."That’s particularly true back in Salas’ hometown of Green River, Wyo. There, it’s pretty much a given that you’ll grow up to work in the region’s famous trona mines, spending your life underground in the 2,000 miles of tunnels that employ just about every man of working age in the region. Salas was headed that way himself after leaving the University of Wyoming without a degree once his wrestling career there was finished.Then one day a friend of his asked if he’d be willing to do him a small favor. Nothing major. It just involved him driving to North Platte, Neb. to do a cage fight against some guy. His friend had committed to doing it himself, but his wife was due to give birth any day, and missing an event like that just so he could fight in some small show in a small town was the kind of thing he might wind up hearing about for the next decade or two.Salas didn’t have much going on, and he missed the competition of his wrestling days, so he took it. He drove to Nebraska with no real preparation or training and got ambarred by a guy who clearly knew at least a little something about jiu-jitsu. Then he got a return bout with the same guy later that year, and this time Salas knocked him out. By then he was hooked. Salas eventually found a home in Denver at the Grudge gym, where coaches like Trevor Wittman and Leister Bowling transformed him from a haymaker-throwing wrestler to an actual mixed martial artist. And now, after nearly six years in the sport, he’s finally getting his chance to test himself on the sport’s biggest stage. That opportunity alone makes the struggle seem worth it, said Salas."In Wyoming, we don’t have any professional sports teams. Me making it to the UFC, it makes the people back in my hometown look at it and say, ‘Wow, you’re actually doing this.’ Because I could have stayed in the mines and it’s not a bad life. You can live a very comfortable life, living close to your family and making a hundred grand a year, living in a new house. But I chose to come out here and scrape by for years. It makes people look at you and wonder, how long are you going to hold out on this? How long can you keep at this?" The answer, it seems, is long enough to at least get his shot. Salas has dealt with his share of disappointment and frustration just to get the opportunity to fight in the Octagon. Now all that’s left is for him to make the most of it in Omaha next Wednesday night. And that, as many UFC rookies have discovered, is often the hardest part.

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After losing to Alistair Overeem, and officially announcing his retirement, Brock Lesnar was no where to be seen on the post-fight press conference. Dana White said the former heavyweight champion was still being attended to by the medical staff, but the UFC President did tell reporters about his brief conversation with Lesnar. (Transcribed by MMA Weekly): "A lot of people don’t realize what that feels like, he said ‘I think my rib’s broken, I don’t know what a broken rib feels like, but if it hurts worse than this I don’t want to feel it," White revealed from his conversation with Lesnar. Brock Lesnar took multiple knee strikes before, Overeem eventually landed that heavy body kick that put him down for good. The Nevada State Athletic Commission will be releasing the medical suspensions in the coming days, so we will know more about the status of his injury by then. As always, stay tuned to BloodyElbow.com as we keep you updated on the situation.

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