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MMA: Mixed Martial Arts

Joe Pyfer just wants credit where credit is due.

According to Pyfer, he set the record for the most powerful punch at the UFC Performance Institute, a claim that he has made in several interviews including on The Joe Rogan Experience where he provided video evidence for host Joe Rogan.

However, Pyfer apparently is yet to be granted the official status of world’s hardest puncher and that existing doubt has him salty ahead of his main event fight with Jack Hermansson this Saturday at UFC Vegas 86.

“This s*** pisses me off,” Pyfer said at media day on Wednesday. “I hit the f****** machine, the same machine, and I hit it with a 16-ounce glove. For all these nerds out there that don’t understand science, I hit it with a 16-ounce glove. That means I didn’t even get to hit it as hard as I could because I had a big pad. So I broke the record with a big glove, I broke it four or five times, I broke it in front of the operations guys.

“There was a heavyweight from Brazil that was hitting it, couldn’t even come close to it. His coach hit it, couldn’t come close to it. Brendan Allen’s coach, ‘Tuco,’ hit it, didn’t come close to it, and they didn’t want to give it to me officially. I don’t know why.”

While it’s unclear why the UFC PI’s record is in dispute, the punching machine has been the subject of headlines in the past, particularly when former UFC heavyweight star Francis Ngannou was previously credited with setting the record.

Pyfer doesn’t hold any animosity towards his power punch rival, but wants the record to be set straight at some point.

“And then everybody makes this narrative about talking about f****** oiling up Dana’s ass and s*** and that—what the f*** did he say—that it’s like Dana White trying to take out Ngannou,” Pyfer continued. “Bro, I got nothing but respect for anybody that’s ever stepped in this cage, that has ever done anything to change their life. He comes from the slums. You hear these stories all the time, you’ve got people like Charles Oliveira, Francis Ngannou, for f***’s sake, even my teammate Andre who’s had his own, we’ve all come from struggles to be something. Then I get discredited because I hit harder.

“S*** pisses me off. F*** those nerds, whoever told me that I didn’t get that f****** score. I’ll do it again and, just to say this, I had a torn rotator cuff when I hit it and then I had to stop because I hurt myself. F*** those nerds.”

There has been no questioning Pyfer’s effectiveness inside the cage as eight of his 12 career wins have come by way of knockout. That includes the Contender Series win over Osman Diaz that earned him his UFC contract, and two first-round knockouts of octagon opponents Gerald Meerschaert and Alen Amedovski.

He doesn’t expect his fight with Hermansson to go any differently.

“I think I knock Jack out,” Pyfer said. “He’s got a 29 percent takedown accuracy, I’ve watched all of his videos extensively. He’s very desperate with a lot of his takedowns and I think they’re very slow. I think what you guys are going to realize is there’s a big speed differential between me and Jack. There’s a big boxing differential between me and Jack.

“We can have all these plans all we want but when you get in there and you feel somebody’s presence and you feel their intention and you can see that look in their face that they’re trying to hurt you, I think sometimes it can either make or break somebody that you’re fighting. So I want to hurt him and I’m ready to bang for 25 minutes, so let’s go, brother, let’s rumble.”

Watch Pyfer’s full scrum below, courtesy of MMA Mania.

MMA Fighting – All Posts

UFC

Who could it be? I'm hoping PFL sign Phil De Vries to get a payday for his long winning run. submitted by /u/detectivebabylegz [link] [comments]

MMA: Mixed Martial Arts

Teofimo Lopez promises there’s a method to his madness.

As he prepares for a Thursday night bout against Jamaine Ortiz in Las Vegas, the now 26-year-old boxer addressed his brief retirement and concerns over his mental health following some disturbing comments made in the weeks leading up to his last win over Josh Taylor.

In various interviews, Lopez accused his promoters at Top Rank of favoring “black fighters” over him and took shots at the ESPN boxing commentary team calling his fights. He was also caught on camera talking to his team about whether he still had it or not, and then later stating that what he loved most about boxing was he “could kill a guy and get away with it.”

Now eight months removed from his last fight, Lopez fired back at calls for him to drop out against Taylor and explained that everything he said was done with a purpose in mind.

“None of that is valid,” Lopez said on The MMA Hour about concerns over his mental health. “They don’t really know me. The boxing world could be boxing, but you can’t have boxing without the best fighter that knows and respects the sport. See, a lot of these fighters, and a lot of these fighters and analysts and all that, don’t know s*** about boxing. They really don’t. I only wanted to come back here to educate the next generation and how it works.

“When you think about it, these people don’t know me. I’ve mastered one thing. I should get an Oscar after all this because if they want to call me crazy, then I’ll definitely act crazy. They want to call me insane, I’ll definitely act insane. Does it mean that I am? Absolutely not. No. But you’ve got to know how to work the media. How do you do that? Just always let them keep talking about you in different ways. There’s no such thing as bad publicity. It’s only bad when you get caught up with DWI or a DUI or anything like that. That’s bad publicity. However, when you’re doing stuff that people are just talking about, it doesn’t matter. They all talk. I think it’s just because people are scared to see my greatness.”

Lopez said he was ultimately putting on a show and had everybody in the world watching.

“You never know what I’m going to give these people,” Lopez said. “I might just moon everybody come [the next] press conference. You just never know what I’m going to give you. That’s the beauty of it, is it not?

“If anyone is watching this, any combat champion, any athlete, do what you want to do. You’ve got them in your hand. They don’t got you by the hand. You’ve got them. How you play them? They play themselves so you’ve got to play them. I love stuff like that.”

As far as announcing his retirement after his win over Taylor this past June, Lopez says that wasn’t a publicity stunt or an emotional decision made in the moment.

Instead, Lopez said he was serious about calling it a career in that moment, especially as he sought more time with his family versus the months he spent away during a training camp.

“I had every intention to f****** pull out of this s***,” Lopez said. “I had every intention. Because it’s just like the NFL, s*** is getting scripted.

“I could go into a political state, however that’s not going to do me anything. I’ll probably just say it in a more personal state. That’s just being with my son. I fought three times in the 10 months prior to that so I didn’t get to really see my son. I missed his first steps. I missed his first crawls. Me, as his father that the Lord blessed me with, I want to embrace that and enjoy that. Fatherhood, I believe, is the best hood in the world. That’s really why.”

Now that he’s officially back, Lopez promises he’s excited to get back to work, and that starts with the fight against Ortiz, which takes place just days away from a Super Bowl that’s also happening in Las Vegas.

Lopez feels like he’s earned the right to compete on “the biggest stage,” even if he wasn’t as excited about the choice of opponents.

Ideally, Lopez says he would like to face stiffer competition moving forward, including a potential showdown with a champion from a bigger division.

“There’s only one guy on my list — and that’s my hit list — and that’s Terence ‘Bud’ Crawford,” Lopez said. “We’re only one weight class apart. He’s the kingpin of the 147 division, I am the kingpin of the 140 division. So why not? Shouldn’t the best fight the best? However, I’m going to say here, Terence ‘Bud’ Crawford likes to go after guys that are not the same or they’re injured.

“I’ll say right here, a lot of the fights he has had, he’s faced injured fighters. Now he wants to face someone — what are the chances of Saul ‘Canelo’ Alvarez? Saul ‘Canelo’ Alvarez is on the decline. Saul, if he likes it or not, it is the truth. He’s had his ride, now he’s starting to depreciate. We can see it. He’s getting heavier. He’s getting hefty. Real flat-footed. He’s not as light as before. So who’s going to want to jump on that? Terence ‘Bud’ Crawford. Because it looks good, he beats the face of boxing — however, you fought a guy that’s on the decline.”

Lopez believes Crawford has avoided the more dangerous fights available to him and instead looked for opponents dealing with injuries and other physical ailments. Still, he hopes Crawford hears his callout and accepts the challenge.

“Why can’t you fight me?” Lopez said. “I’m new and I’m fresh and I’m clean. Why can’t we fight? Why can’t you shut up the young buck?”

MMA Fighting – All Posts

Gone Soft?
| BJPenn.com

UFC

Former UFC welterweight Sage Northcutt was booked to make his return to ONE Championship last month in Tokyo. That’s where the 27 year-old karate wunderkind was expected to battle former PRIDE FC titleholder Shinya Aoki — but the fight fell apart at the last minute over cornermen visa issues.

So what the heck happened?

“I got a call from Sage during the ‘prelim’ fights and we went back and forth,” ONE Championship CEO, Chatri Sityodtong, said at the ONE 165 post-fight press conference. “His cornermen were actually on a plane. One of them already had a visa ready, he could have if he wanted to, but the other one couldn’t. And so Sage decided to withdraw because he couldn’t have his cornermen.”

Aoki remained on the card and submitted late replacement John Lineker.

That explanation didn’t sit well with Northcutt, who later revealed the visa issues were kept quiet until the very last minute. The “Super” Texan also suggested there was more to the story and threatened to blow the whistle on a variety of shady policies.

“One Championship is implying that I pulled out of the Shinya fight for unforeseen circumstances. That is completely inaccurate,” Northcutt wrote on social media. “I sent One Championship the necessary paperwork they required to get my coaches visas 48 days ahead of the event. I was told by them over the phone and by text my main jujitsu coach Fabio Prado did not need a visa since I paid for his airfare flights and trip so he was not classified as a working employee that needed a visa and that my other coach could get in as a tourist so he didn’t need one either. My coaches were there for almost a week, and I was not informed that two of them could not coach until hours before my match.”

“I received a text from an unknown number that texted me for the first time that day that was a ticket salesman asking me about getting my two coaches complimentary tickets to watch my fight in the audience,” Northcutt continued. “I personally believe that One Championship was not going to inform me that my coaches were not allowed to corner me until I arrived at the arena to fight if I did not hear from a ticket salesman hours earlier. We were also told hours before my match that if my coaches violated the visa requirements and were caught on camera, they could be arrested and there was a 99.8 percent conviction rate on all arrests.”

“I made it clear to One Championship that I was not flying from America to Japan if I didn’t have my three coaches,” Northcutt said. “I was told before I left to Japan by an executive that I would not have to fight without my coaches. They knew before I left that I would not be able to have two of my coaches. They never told me my coaches could be thrown in prison for any visa violation. There has been a lot of stuff going on behind the scenes with One Championship with what caused me to withdraw from my last fight as well as other things that I will talk about at a later time on Facebook, Instagram, and with media outlets: drug testing, weight cutting, policies, active athletes, roster, One’s stability… etc.”

ONE Championship has yet to respond to Northcutt’s allegations.

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MMA: Mixed Martial Arts