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USA Today
5 days ago
- Entertainment
- USA Today
Jon Jones reflects on unrealized 'grit' in first Alexander Gustafsson fight
Jon Jones reflects on unrealized 'grit' in first Alexander Gustafsson fight Current UFC heavyweight champion Jon Jones took many lessons from his first fight against Alexander Gustafsson. Then the light heavyweight champion, Jones entered the fight at UFC 165 with five title defenses under his belt. "Bones" was in his prime, taking out former champions left and right with relative ease. After finishing Chael Sonnen in the first round, he was tasked with taking on Gustafsson, who at the time was a one-loss fighter on a six-fight winning streak. Jones knew there was a lot of noise surrounding Gustafsson's potential, but he admits he didn't take him as seriously as he should have. "I fought against Alexander Gustafsson the first time and, at the time, he was getting so much hype around him," Jones said on a "Deepcut with VicBlends" episode. "I looked at Alexander as being, quite frankly, a white version of me. He was tall, he had a swagger, he had great footwork, he had great boxing. I just felt like he's a lot like me, he has the same reach as me and everyhting, but I was like, 'He's not me.' "That fight, I partied a lot leading into that fight. I studied a lot, I trained a lot, but I had this (feeling of) knowing that I was gonna win, and it was at an all-time high." Not only did the UFC 165 main event win the Fight of the Night award, but it would also be inducted into the UFC Hall of Fame. It was truly one of the best fights in MMA history. Not only for the back-and-forth war that unfolded over 25 minutes, but it was also the first time anyone made Jones look human inside the octagon. Gustafsson lived up to the pre-fight hype as someone who could dethrone Jones, even though he ultimately came up short on the scorecards. "In that fight, things did not go the way I expected," Jones said. "I couldn't stop his jab. I hadn't prepared for a low jab; he was jabbing me to the stomach, and I had never prepared for that. He was a lot more confident than I expected him to be. He was in my face, and he was a person who was expecting to win. I had to pull from something that I didn't realize I had. I had a tenacity, and resilience, and a grit that I didn't realize I had." The battle left Jones in a condition he had never experienced before, and hasn't since. He recalls seeing his mother truly concerned for his health as he struggled to recover from what transpired in the octagon. "It's the first time I'd seen my mother crying over my bed backstage," Jones said. "They put me on morphine, and the morphine was making me shake profusely, and my lips were swollen. I couldn't talk. I couldn't eat. I couldn't use the bathroom on my own. That was one of the fights where I had really realized how seriously I had to take each and every opponent, that I could never get too big for my britches because there's always somebody that's nipping at our toes. That fight taught me a lot about the seriousness of preparation." Since that moment, Jones has won nine more fights – all of them championship fights, either in the light heavyweight or heavyweight division. It's a stretch that includes a rematch against Gustafsson at UFC 232, which was a far less competitive bout as Jones finished the fight by ground and pound in Round 3. Jones currently holds the heavyweight crown and has recorded one title defense. He may be heading toward retirement if he decides to pass on a title unification bout against interim champion Tom Aspinall.
USA Today
6 days ago
- Entertainment
- USA Today
'TUF' producer Craig Piligian reflects on 20 years of UFC reality show – and the moment things changed
'TUF' producer Craig Piligian reflects on 20 years of UFC reality show – and the moment things changed Show Caption Hide Caption Craig Piligian on creating "The Ultimate Fighter" & Saving the UFC Craig Piligian, co-creator of The Ultimate Fighter reflects on the groundbreaking origins of the reality series that helped save the UFC. LAS VEGAS – Not many sports organizations have its permanent existence catalyzed by a reality show. The UFC is different in that regard, however, according to the longtime executive producer of "The Ultimate Fighter." On Tuesday, "TUF 33" launched in the same relative period that the reality show celebrated its 20th anniversary. In correlation with the season premiere, reality series luminaries and alumni gathered at Red Rock Casino Resort and Spa to reminisce and celebrate the show's success. Among them was Craig Piligian, the show's longtime executive producer, who will be inducted into the UFC Hall of Fame in the contributor wing as part of the promotion's 2025 class. "I think the show means a tremendous amount because it helped really a sport that was really misunderstood in the beginning," Piligian told MMA Junkie on Tuesday. "Everybody thought it was a blood sport. No one could watch it. It was banned in every state. I think that the show really dispelled so many rumors. For a sport now that has helped so many people. It has given a lot of fans so much enjoyment. I think the show really added a lot of good will to the sport, the UFC, MMA in general, and all martial arts around the world. I think it was an incredible asset to the UFC. In my world, it's probably at the top. It's so rare that it's never been done, that you do a reality show that helped launch a sport. It didn't happen in football. It hasn't happened in baseball. They didn't do it in basketball. You name the sport, it never really happened. But in this sport, a reality show really launched a tremendously huge global sport." Dana White has long credited the UFC's survival to the reality series, and in particular, the first season's live finale fight between Forrest Griffin and the late Stephan Bonnar in 2005. Piligian, in turn, credits White for the show's success, and in particular, his fiery pump-up speech that is quoted commonly by MMA followers even to this day. "It's wonderful and I actually credit Dana for giving the best reality speech in television history with, 'Do you want to be a f*cking fighter?'" Piligian said. "I truly believe that was the moment that it switched, that the light switched on for the audience, that the light switched on for the fighters in the first season, and that the MMA world saw what it meant to do what these guys were abut to do. I literally create that single speech with a lot of the success of the ultimate fighter and eventually the UFC." "TUF 33," which airs every Tuesday on ESPN2 and ESPN+, features coaches Daniel Cormier and Chael Sonnen, as they work with prospective UFC welterweights and flyweights. While it's unclear what the future holds for "TUF" beyond the current season, Piligian affirmed the recipe still works – and there's no need to get too cute beyond that. "We tried to evolve it a few times," Piligian said. "One season we tried to do 'The Ultimate Fighter: Live." It didn't work out so well. We did team against team and that didn't work out so well. I believe in keeping the format how it is. The one thing that you can't change is the cast. When you cast it correctly and you get the right coaches, the chemistry always works. You have to trust that the format is right, which it is, after 20 years. Now, it's our job to make it interesting, cast it the correct way, get great fights, get great stories, get good coaches, and let it just happen. We don't interfere once it starts. We don't tell them what to say. We don't tell them what to do. We let it happen. That's where that magic stays always and always comes always, season after season."
Yahoo
27-05-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
Vitor Belfort's UFC Hall of Fame entry raises tricky questions — and for Michael Bisping, complicated feelings
Here's my first thought upon hearing that Vitor Belfort would be inducted into the UFC Hall of Fame this summer: Wait, he's not already in the Hall of Fame? Right after that, my second thought was: Wonder what Michael Bisping thinks about this. Advertisement That's not sarcasm, just to be clear. It's an honest admission that, more than anyone else, Bisping has a right to feel some type of way about it. That's because back in 2013, when Belfort and Bisping clashed in the headliner of a UFC Fight Night event in Sao Paulo, Brazil, Belfort landed a knockout kick that eventually cost Bisping his right eye. The kick was clean. Belfort? Not so much. As we suspected at the time, and later had confirmed in the most hilarious way possible, Belfort was juiced up with synthetic testosterone. We didn't necessarily need lab results to tell us this (though we did eventually get them). All we had to do was look at the action figure physique he'd suddenly sprouted in his mid-30s and then apply some basic math. Belfort, who'd already been busted by one drug test nearly a decade earlier, was far from the only one taking advantage of the MMA world's laissez-faire approach to testosterone replacement therapy (TRT) at the time. Chael Sonnen and Dan Henderson had helped stamp 'TRT' into the fight fan vocabulary, claiming they needed the hormonal boost due to their abnormally low testosterone levels. This was absurd, of course, but maybe we were living in an absurd time. Belfort simply took it to the next level by aggressively flunking the eye test while piling up highlight-reel finishes, which played a major role in eventually forcing the state athletic commissions to admit that the whole thing was too ridiculous to continue. Advertisement That's about when TRT was finally effectively ended in MMA, but it was shallow comfort to Bisping. Banning Belfort's supplement of choice didn't restore the vision in his right eye. There was arguably no one more harmed than Bisping by the TRT era in MMA. He fought and lost against at least three known users — Henderson, Sonnen, and Belfort — and suffered devastating knockouts in two of those fights. Since the Belfort loss cost him the most, at least physically, you might think Bisping would have some complicated feelings about enshrining the man in the UFC Hall of Fame. You'd be right about that. But only to a point. 'Was he a massive cheater? Of course,' Bisping told MMA Junkie's Mike Bohn recently. 'Did he take a lot of steroids? Of course. Were there a lot of other people doing that at the same time. Absolutely there was. So I was like, I get it. But then when I thought about it, I lost an eye because of this guy. I'm like, no, he can stick his Hall of Fame up his ass." Bisping then added: "But he does deserve it.' Advertisement This is where it gets tricky, for all the reasons Bisping just outlined. Just going by the official record, you have to admit Belfort had a great career. He burst onto the scene as a teenager in the wild west days of mid-'90s MMA, and was somehow still around — and very much in title contention — by the time the UFC had new ownership and a network television deal in the mid-2010s. Vitor Belfort knocked out Michael Bisping in an infamous 2013 bout in Brazil that ultimately cost Bisping his right eye. (Josh Hedges/Zuffa LLC via Getty Images) (Josh Hedges via Getty Images) That right there is incredible all on its own. His UFC titles at heavyweight and light heavyweight also look good on paper, though they're arguably a lot less impressive under even the lightest scrutiny than the middleweight run that came later. Really, the only possible justification to keep a guy like Belfort out of the UFC Hall of Fame would be the doping stuff. And if you were doping in one or more of MMA's notorious doping eras (see also: the entire history of PRIDE Fighting Championships), how much can we hold it against you just for doing it less discreetly and more successfully than others? Advertisement Belfort lived many different lives across many different eras of this sport. He also inhabited several different bodies while doing it. You couldn't not notice this. He practically forced us to form some kind of opinion on it, one way or another. Usually fight fans get more forgiving of that stuff the further removed we are from it. While it's happening in the moment, sure, it's cheating and that's bad (especially when it's not your favorite fighter doing it). But give us a decade or so and we'll decide it was actually really fun to watch and we miss it. Bisping's missing eye makes that a little tougher to do in the case of Belfort. Professional fighting is the hurt game, as we know. There's not a doctor anywhere in the world who would tell you it's good for your health, and everyone who steps in the cage knows it comes with risks. Bisping could have easily lost that eye against a clean fighter. But he didn't. Should Belfort still get a place in the UFC Hall of Fame despite all that? I think so. But that doesn't mean we can't feel more than one way about it. And if you're Bisping, I don't think anyone would blame you if you skipped the induction ceremony entirely.
Daily Mirror
27-05-2025
- Sport
- Daily Mirror
Michael Bisping reacts as ex-rival who blinded him gets Hall of Fame induction
While the former middleweight champion believes his ex-foe is a 'cheater' - he insists he deserves all the plaudits following his UFC Hall of Fame induction Michael Bisping has stated that his ex-rival, Vitor Belfort, is deserving of his spot in the UFC Hall of Fame. The pair famously fought back in 2013 when the Brazilian fighter blinded Bisping with a head kick that detached his retina. The British fighter underwent surgery and now uses a prosthetic eye. Despite this setback, he went on to have a successful career in the ring, picking up the middleweight title in 2016 after defeating Luke Rockhold. Bisping retired in 2017 following consecutive losses to Georges St-Pierre and Kelvin Gastelum. With a professional record of 30-9, the 'Count' has victories over notable names such as Anderson Silva, Dan Henderson, Matt Hamill, Chris Leben and Dan Miller. Belfort's career was not without controversy, as he legally used testosterone-replacement therapy [TRT] throughout his time in the UFC. The former light-heavyweight champion was recently welcomed into the UFC Hall of Fame in recognition of his impressive achievements in the octagon. Upon hearing the news from UFC boss Dana White earlier this month, the 48-year-old was visibly moved and broke down in tears. Bisping still believes his rival is a 'cheat' when reacting to the reward - despite giving him some praise. 'When we were in Des Moines, Paul Felder had a little piece for the (video) package where we speak about the greatness of the people getting inducted into the Hall of Fame. They said, 'We won't ask you Mike, for obvious reasons.' I said, 'You know what? I don't care. I'll do it,'' he told MMA Junkie. He continued by acknowledging the fighter's achievements despite personal grievances: "When you look at it and remove all the emotions from it, the man was the UFC heavyweight champion of the world at 19. He then became the light heavyweight champion. He almost became the middleweight champion. He's the closest thing we've had to a three-weight champion. He added: "I lost an eye because of this guy. He can stick his Hall of Fame up his a**. But he does deserve it. You can't deny what he did inside the octagon. You just can't deny it. If that's not a Hall of Fame career, I don't know what is. Whether you like it or not, he deserves it.' Belfort, known for winning the light-heavyweight championship against Randy Couture in 2004, faced many big names during his MMA career, including Chuck Liddell, Wanderlei Silva, Tito Ortiz, Alistair Overeem, Dan Henderson, Luke Rockhold, and Jon Jones. With a professional record of 26-14-1, he retired in 2018 following a knockout loss to Lyoto Machida.
USA Today
26-05-2025
- Sport
- USA Today
Michael Bisping has mixed feelings about Vitor Belfort's UFC Hall of Fame induction
Michael Bisping has mixed feelings about Vitor Belfort's UFC Hall of Fame induction Michael Bisping has mixed feelings about Vitor Belfort joining the UFC Hall of Fame. If there's anyone who would have a valid protest to Belfort having his name enshrined in the pioneer wing of the Hall during International Fight Week on June 28, it would be Bisping. The former UFC middleweight champion, who is a member of the Hall himself, received a serious eye injury in his January 2013 loss to Belfort at UFC on FX 7. The repercussions of a kick ultimately led to Bisping completely losing his vision, and now he famously has a prosthetic eye. Injuries are an inherent risk of combat sports, but what makes the situation with Bisping even worse, is that Belfort was competing while being granted a Therapeutic Use Exemption (TUE) for Testosterone Replacement Therapy (TRT), which essentially was a then-legal performance-enhancing drug that was outlawed and banned from the sport in February 2014. Bisping understandably still has issue with Belfort for everything that happened. It makes the legacy of "The Phenom" highly complicated, but if Bisping can remove all emotion, he said Belfort belongs in the UFC Hall of Fame. "When we were in Des Moines, Paul Felder had a little piece for the (video) package where we speak about the greatness of the people getting inducted into the Hall of Fame. They said, 'We won't ask you Mike, for obvious reasons.' I said, 'You know what? I don't care. I'll do it,'" Bisping told MMA Junkie. "When you look at it and remove all the emotions from it, the man was the UFC heavyweight champion of the world at 19. He then became the light heavyweight champion. He almost became the middleweight champion. He's the closest thing we've had to a three-weight champion. "Was he a massive cheater? Of course. Did he take a lot of steroids? Of course. Were there a lot of other people doing that at the same time. Absolutely there was. I get it." During his storied career, Belfort owned UFC gold, won the UFC 12 heavyweight tournament and racked up an all-time UFC record 13 finishes in the first round of his fights. There are other athletes in the UFC Hall of Fame who have accomplished far less than Belfort, and had their own controversies as well. For that reason, Bisping can accept that Belfort, despite his faults, earned his place. "I lost an eye because of this guy," Bisping said. "He can stick his Hall of Fame up his ass. But he does deserve it. You can't deny what he did inside the octagon. You just can't deny it. If that's not a Hall of Fame career, I don't know what is. Whether you like it or not, he deserves it." To hear more from Bisping, check out his complete appearance on "The Bohnfire" podcast with MMA Junkie senior reporter Mike Bohn above.
