Dana White does the right thing in admitting that UFC 149 was a massive disappointment

by Kevin Iole

The UFC’s success in the last 11 years has been based upon deep cards filled with evenly matched fights in which the athletes took risks in a desire to put on a show.
None of that occurred on Saturday at UFC 149 in a very lackluster main card at the Scotiabank Saddledome, in which Renan Barão claimed an easy unanimous decision over Urijah Faber to claim the interim bantamweight belt.

Hector Lombard’s debut vs. Tim Boetsch was one of many sub-par UFC 149 fights. (US Presswire)
Fans in Calgary and in social media sites blasted Dana White before the fight for what they perceived as a poor card. A slew of injuries to high-profile fighters decimated the fight card, but White spent the week before the show angrily defending his men.
He said to anybody who would listen that “our guys always deliver.”
On Saturday, though, they did not and White wasn’t shy about sharing his displeasure. After Barão’s unanimous decision was announced, the crowd stuck around and booed loudly to let White know what it thought of the company’s first trip to Calgary.
Appearing on the post-fight show on Fuel TV, White said he was “not too excited about” how the card turned out, though he wasn’t nearly as upset with either Barão or Faber. The rest of the fighters on the main card, though, felt White’s wrath.
Heavily hyped middleweight Hector Lombard fell flat on his face, doing next to nothing in a split decision loss to Tim Boetsch. Cheick Kongo won a unanimous decision over Shawn Jordan only because he was slightly less horrid than Jordan. And James Head defeated Brian Ebersole by another split decision in a fight whose highlight was Ebersole giving a thumbs up while Head was trying to choke him.
Only Matthew Riddle, who defeated Chris Clements with a third-round arm triangle choke, put on the kind of effort in the main card that makes White smile.
“If the undercard didn’t suck so bad, they wouldn’t have been so [angry at] the main event,” White said.
Fights, no matter how good they look on paper going in, can turn out far differently than most expect. And, as White said, the UFC does routinely put on far more good fights than bad.
It was good, though, that White showed his anger on Saturday. One of the reasons that the fights are so routinely good, in addition to the outstanding matchmaking of Joe Silva and Sean Shelby, is White’s personality.
He won’t accept cards like Saturday’s very well and lets the fighters know it in no uncertain terms. It creates a culture in which the fighters compete with a sense of urgency.
The late boxing trainer, Georgie Benton, used to tell his fighters, “Win this one; look good in the next one.” And fighters, who know how much it means to win in the UFC, can slip into that mode if someone isn’t around to remind them that’s not acceptable.
Barão certainly wasn’t scintillating in his win over Faber, but he did everything right. He kept Faber on the outside with his kicks and fired punches and knees the few times the ex-World Extreme Cagefighting featherweight champion managed to close the distance between them.
They fought a tactical fight and Faber wasn’t able to find a way to get near to create the scrambles he’s so good in. As a result, Barão won by scores of 49-46, 50-45 and 49-46.
“I knew he was trying to keep me at a distance,” Faber said. “Those kicks were coming from pretty far out and it was difficult to get in for takedowns.”
But there was no excuse for the lack of action in the Boetsch-Lombard, Kongo-Jordan and Head-Ebersole fights. They were awful and weren’t nearly up to the UFC standards.
“I was excited about this card,” White said on Fuel’s post-fight show. “I didn’t just come down here and say a bunch of things I didn’t think were going to be true. I never expected Hector Lombard would look like that [against] Boetsch. I thought those two would go right after each other. Cheick Kongo and Jordan, that was disgusting.”
The card was awful but those things happen in sports. Not every fight can be Hagler-Hearns. Still, if you want to blame someone, blame White, since he’s the man at the top and he puts the shows together.
Give him credit, though, for not sitting back and looking past what was a poor show for the people who paid their $55. He made his feelings known, loudly, publicly and unequivocally.
White getting angry and blasting the show isn’t going to guarantee that every card will be hellacious in the future. It does, however, set a tone and reminds the fighters that there is a standard that has been set and expected to be followed in a UFC fight.
That was not the case on Saturday by any stretch of the imagination.
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Urijah Faber's positivity can't hurt in UFC 149 bantamweight title bout against Renan Barão

by Kevin Iole

Urijah Faber is the Norman Vincent Peale of mixed martial arts. Nobody puts the power of positive thinking to better, or more frequent, use than the UFC's bantamweight star.
Talk to Faber for any length of time and you'll hear the same phrases repeated incessantly: "I believe," "I can," "I will," and "I'm not worried."
Urijah Faber's positive attitude has a lot to do with his run of success. (Getty Images)Peale once wrote, "People become really quite remarkable when they start thinking that they can do things. When they believe in themselves they have the first secret of success."
It's a phrase that Faber, a former World Extreme Cagefighting featherweight champion, lives by.
He'll fight highly regarded Renan Barão for the interim bantamweight title Saturday in the main event of UFC 149 at the Scotiabank Saddledome and, typically, he expressed little concern about either the possibility of losing or the pressure to perform.
Barão is on an 18-fight winning streak, a 31-fight unbeaten streak and is regarded as one of the best finishers in the sport. Faber, though, has a ready answer when confronted with the problems Barão presents.
"He hasn't faced me yet," Faber says, chuckling. "He's done all these things to other guys, but he hasn't fought me. He's human like anyone else."
The walls in Faber's bedroom in his Sacramento, Calif., home are dotted with goals and motivational quotes. His primary goal now is, once again, to have a championship belt strapped around his waist.
It's been 3½ years since Faber held a world title, yet he's remained at the top of his class in terms of opportunity and performance.
He was set to meet arch rival Dominick Cruz for the bantamweight title at UFC 148 on July 7 in Las Vegas after coaching opposite Cruz on "The Ultimate Fighter Live." But Cruz tore up his knee and could be out for more than a year.
As a result, Faber was pitted against Barão for the interim belt. Though many believe an interim belt is meaningless, Faber is not among that group.
As he would say, when he wins Saturday he won't feel like a phony champion. He lost an excruciatingly close decision to Cruz for the belt at UFC 132 a year ago that evened the series between them at a win apiece. Faber submitted Cruz in 2007.
"I basically go out there and I think that when I beat Renan Barão, I'll be the best fighter in the world," Faber said. "I feel Dominick and I had a super close fight last time. He got the nod from the judges, but I don't feel like he beat me up. I feel I definitely did some damage to him.
"It was a close fight, but I felt walking away, as a man, I handled business. I'll feel like the champion, for sure, but I definitely want the opportunity to make sure that's the case."
Faber has always sought the best opposition he can face, which has earned him the everlasting respect of UFC president Dana White.
When White was going through the process of choosing a replacement opponent for Cruz, there was no doubt where Faber stood.
Barão was the guy with the record and the reputation. And while several other names were bandied about, Faber was hopeful White would choose Barão.
"The guy is 30-1, [and] he's a tough guy; he's a very, very tough fighter," White said of Barão. "And Urijah Faber who went through that whole season of The Ultimate Fighter to fight Cruz, you know absolutely, 100 percent, [he] not only accepted the fight with Renan Barão, but before it was even announced said, 'I hope it's Renan Barão.' "
Faber's belief in his ability is so absolute that he won't accept less than the best opposition. Eight of his last 10 opponents were either WEC or UFC world champions.
It can be a daunting task, getting no break from the stream of top contenders, but it's why Faber is far and away the biggest star among the lighter weight fighters in the sport.
He's been beaten by Cruz, the bantamweight champion, and Jose Aldo, the featherweight champion, but his star shines much brighter than either of theirs.
"My goal is to be successful as a fighter, as a businessman and as a person, and I work on that all the time," he said. "There's no reason to worry when you know you've done everything you need to do to reach a goal. I'm confident, I believe in myself, because I know I have prepared and done what I need to do to reach my goals."
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