The last 45 days have been odd to say the least for the UFC and Strikeforce. The two ZUFFA owned promotions have continued to be hit with injuries, each have had to cancel an event and the UFC has witnessed fighters actually turning down fights. The latter of which started this bizarre world the UFC has been living in for the past month and a half and other fighters appear to be following suit.
Now that the LONG awaited UFC 152 is over, some may be wondering where do some of the winners go now. Overall UFC 152 was very good, from the beginning preliminaries through most of the Pay Per View main card, we had several good finishes and one near HUGE upset.
Within minutes of UFC President Dana White announcing that Jon Jones had turned down a fight with Chael Sonnen and that UFC 151 was cancelled, fighters from the card began complaining. One of the more outspoken of those was welterweight fighter Charlie Brenneman who took to twitter to express his frustration.
This upcoming holiday weekend MMA fans were supposed to be watching the UFC light heavyweight champion Jon Jones take on the ageless wonder Dan Henderson in the UFC 151 main event. Instead MMA fans witnessed the shocking cancellation of the event after Dan Henderson became injured and Jon Jones declined a fight.
In all the mayhem of UFC 151 being canceled, and fighter after fighter saying they would have stepped up, you may have missed Alan Belcher tweeting that he was ok with Vitor Belfort taking the Jon Jones fight. Belcher revealed he has a spinal fracture and he was unfortunately going to have to pull out of their UFC 153 fight anyway. Alan said the timetable for his return will be in November, and that he wants a top 5 guy. Belcher is on a four fight win streak with impressive wins over Jason MacDonald and Rousimar Palhares.
If the last 36 hours has your head spinning faster than a Jon Jones elbow, rest assured that you’re not the only one. What could easily sit atop the mountain of the most bizarre, the UFC has cancelled an event, had a champion turn down a fight, a challenger turn down a title fight and settled on a current middleweight fighter to face Jon Jones.
Those of you that weren’t up late enough last night to witness the beginning of the UFC 151 rumor mill fire storm woke up today wondering what the hell the MMA community was all a buzz about. Was Dan Henderson hurt and out of his light heavyweight title fight with Jon Jones or was social media creating something that just wasn’t there.
I am sure you have heard the old saying, three strikes and you are out. Well in ten days Grandfather time, a.k.a. Dan Henderson will be on his possible last strike when it comes to his chance at UFC gold.
