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Joe Rogan: Cain Velasquez sprained his knee in training & needed cortisone shots
By Zach Arnold | November 13, 2011
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JOE ROGAN: “Well, you could definitely feel the tension. Everybody was worried it wasn’t going to come off well and there was a lot of behind-the-scenes clamoring. There’s a lot of people that were really uptight about it. I think it all came together nicely. It was a great event, you know, the overall fights were great. I thought it would have been nice if they had showed the Henderson/Guida fight as well. That would have been a really good introduction to Mixed Martial Arts to people who hadn’t see nit before. The main event was really a perfect result for Junior dos Santos, exactly what he wanted to do — connect, land, hurt him bad, and finish him off. That’s what his game plan was, that’s what he did. I was surprised that Cain Velasquez didn’t try to either take him down or force him immediately into some sort of a grappling contest, force him to work hard and tire him out but… you know, who knows what the game plan was. There was a lot of rumblings about Cain Velasquez having a knee sprain, that he got shot with cortisone before the fight, so… who knows if that played a part in it, you know?”
- Dana White: You have no right to complain about Henderson/Guida not airing on Fox
- Nate Wilcox (SB Nation): Henderson vs. Guida was everything JDS vs. Velasquez should have been
- Dave Meltzer: UFC’s Fox debut neither home run nor strikeout
ARIEL HELWANI: “Everyone in Cain’s camp was denying that but I’m wondering if you found out any more information, if that was in fact true.”
JOE ROGAN: “Oh, it is true, yeah, it is true. Yeah, I mean, I’m sure they denied it before the fight but I know for a fact it was true.”
- Junior dos Santo admits he suffered knee injury (torn meniscus) during training 11 days ago
- Sergio Non (USA Today): JDS wins buoys UFC in Brazil
ARIEL HELWANI: “So, when you were watching him, did you get the sense that this wasn’t the Cain Velasquez who beat Brock Lesnar 13 months ago?”
JOE ROGAN: “Well, you know, first of all, you know, he’s not fighting Brock Lesnar. Second of fall, he had a shoulder surgery that took him out for over a year, right? So, there’s that. And then on top of that, there was this knee issue and he came in at 249 pounds, which is heavy for him. I believe he’s usually around 240ish, somewhere around that. He looked a little soft. So, it could be that he has had issues training. It could be, you know, shoulder surgeries are very difficult, you know. The joint is an unusual joint. It moves all sorts of different directions and it’s notoriously hard to repair 100%. So, who knows if that was good. I mean, who knows what issues he had and who knows if Junior dos Santos would have done to a perfectly in-shape, perfectly healthy Cain anyway. Junior… if he hits him with that punch any time in Cain’s life, Cain’s going to be in big, big, big, big trouble, you know. It doesn’t matter if he’s in great shape or not, it’s the punch that landed. It’s why the punch landed. Did it land because Cain overestimates his chin? Did it land because Junior’s just that good? Did it land because of ring rust? Did it land because of knee problems or shoulder? Who knows. But for Junior, perfect result.”
ARIEL HELWANI: “What did you think of the stoppage?”
JOE ROGAN: “Perfect stoppage. Yeah, I mean, he was hurt. He was hurt bad. He went face down. When, you know, when he went down with the first punch you could tell his eyes were scrambled and then a couple of punches in, his face was down and perfect stoppage.”
ARIEL HELWANI: “A lot of talk online and in the media that this wasn’t what the UFC wanted. They would have rather it go a little bit longer. Do you share that sentiment or is this part of what makes MMA so great?”
JOE ROGAN: “Well, you know, if you want… every show to be the perfect show, it’s never really going to happen. What Mixed Martial Arts is is unpredictable and this sort of showcased that tonight. It wasn’t the best result in terms of getting the most viewers to watch. You know, if there was some crazy four-round war where eventually one man, you know, overcame the other one and he had to come through adversity to get there, then maybe that would have brought more viewers. But, I think ultimately Mixed Martial Arts is pretty much unstoppable. it’s too exciting, it’s too good, and it doesn’t matter if, you know, 1,000 or 100,000 less people tune into the next one because of tonight. Ultimately, it’s going to be gigantic, it’s going to be much bigger than it is. The fact that it’s now on broadcast television, the fact that it’s now available for free to millions of people that would have never watched it, the door’s open and the floodgates are open and it’s just a matter of time now.”
Heavy MMA: UFC on Fox JDS vs. Velasquez photo gallery
Topics: Media, MMA, UFC, Zach Arnold | 26 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
It’s tacky to talk about injuries after the fight. Just likeit’s tacky to complain about money….
It’s only a big story if both fighters had significant knee injuries and were pressured by promoters or the network to fight on at severe risk. I’m sure we’ll hear what the details are from both camps over the next week.
If either fighter was allowed by the California commission to fight with a torn ACL, that will be a damning indictment of that already beleaguered commission.
I’m 100% in the middle now and I don’t know where to point. I watched the UFC, then listened to Beat Down After The Bell… (It was historic so TJ had to be in it). Then right after that I hit f4wonlin.com with Bryan/Dave, and as always the give me a different slant on it.
Both Bryan/Dave was in the attendance and yet to see it on Fox, but their audio show they did after the fight was fantastic.
Nobody ever loses or wins in the UFC.
Always an out.
Always an excuse.
This
Preliminary numbers are in and the fight did 4.64m fast rating. On one hand, that’s a huge disappointment, but if the actual fight did much higher then it could be considered a success.
It’s a bad idea to have 1 minute of fighting on a one hour show. 🙂
The last 15 minutes probably had no viewers.
I bet the fight itself did around 6 Million.
But either way, these are not good numbers. The UFC popularity is gone. At least the rush they had during those huge years.
It still brings in the young viewers, so the advertisers will love it.
But it’s a niche sport. That’s it. I love it, and it will be on TV like it should be for years. But it’s a niche sport. Boxing is in the same category.
You seem awfully depressed all of a sudden. Last night you were high as a kite and that this was finaly a “real sport”, and today you seem to be lower than low and saying that the sport has lost its’ rush?
What’s up?
Depressed? No.
I love the fact that it’s being treated like a sport. But the numbers show that it’s still and likely will always be a niche. That is no surprise to me. As long as I can watch fighting, I’m happy.
Somebody has claimed they have a UFC source that puts the fight doing 7.2 rating (compared to the 2.4 rating for the whole fight). If that’s true, then the fight itself probably did over 10 mil viewers.
The fight itself did much higher than 4.6 million I bet…it was #1 nationally according to SBJ guy on Twitter going into the walkouts for the fighters.
Yeah, basically FOX shot themselves in the foot by not showing the Henderson fight. When it came on for the UK broadcast, I thought they’d wisely had a change of heart and was pumped that everyone was seeing such an awesome fight.
That’d have been a much better intro to MMA than a quick KO.
1) We need to wait for the true numbers of the overall show.
2) We need to see what the fight did itself.
3) The most important numbers won’t come until 2012. Those are the numbers for the 2nd show. You get to see what effect the first show had.
[…] Helwani after the fight that he had to have his knee shot up with cortisone too. Transcription via Fight Opinion: Joe Rogan: “The main event was really a perfect result for Junior dos Santos, exactly what […]
The real number for the hour is 5.7 million viewers and a 3.1 rating. Beat the Stanford vs Oregon game in the 18-49 demo.
The 18-34 demographic was extremely strong, which is the big selling point for advertisers.
I still think MMA is a niche sport, but these numbers are much better then originally reported.
I really hope they go with Henderson/Edgar next. It will go 5 rounds at least….
Did anyone catch this?
http://sports.yahoo.com/mma/blog/cagewriter/post/UFC-on-Fox-postfight-White-fires-back-at-critic?urn=mma-wp9401
So much for Dana White becoming more “professional” since the UFC is now a major league sport.
I don’t see the head of any other major sports organization doing that. I’m not asking for much…I just wish that he had more class than to tell the fans to “shut up”.
Thoughts?
I was taken aback by his attitude towards that reporter and his comments on Cain. He seemed under pressure and not handling it well.
“For anyone to [expletive] about this fight because they didn’t get to see [this fight or] that fight … shut up! You should’ve bought tickets if you wanted to see all the fights,” White said. “And you don’t like to watch them on Facebook? Seriously, shut up.”
-Dana White
The guy in touch with his fan base.
I’m sorry we want to see a great fight for the #1 contender spot, and shot at Frankie Edgar on TV Dana. You’re right we should know our place (to like anything you give us).
I could tell before the fight started that something was wrong with Cain. When he get introduced he usually does a deep sqwat and jumps back up with his fist pumping. He could barely bend down half way. He look really slow.
The show wasn’t some sort of tragedy. They probably expected more but then again there wasn’t much of a fight to build viewership over. I know a lot of people are arguing that another fight afterwards would have kept it, but most people would have changed the channel after the main event and they would have lost about 20 minutes of time to hype the Dos Santos/Velasquez bout to the fans.
What I think was interesting is very little time was spent introducing the finer parts of the sport to fans. Instead, it was all about introducing the fighters. I don’t think that stuff or the kind of time that will be used for it is going away. I think people hoping that when the proper Fox shows come along they’re gonna fill them with garbage fights are going to be very disappointed.
Reading Brett Okamoto’s column over at ESPN.com apparently Fox Sports bigwig David Hill put the single fight broadcast idea squarely on Dana White,saying that”maybe,tactically,Dana didn’t play it the right way”.
Could this kind of high stakes tactical blunder result in the dimunition of White’s power in the Fox relationship?
It was just kind of surreal how Dana was so nervous on camera and how all of that big talk about “we shopped around for the right deal” as well as earlier talk of “we don’t need network TV” all led to Dana on camera with his hands shaking and talking fast like he wanted it all to just be over with.
You know, the ratings are fine for what it was, but they weren’t exactly high, either. It’s funny how going in everyone talked about the Pacquiao fight being the competition. If you are trying to be a mainstream sport then the other sports on TV are the competition, the other programming on at the time is the competition, not something hours later on PPV.
Everyone is quick to all of a sudden say “MMA is mainstream now, thank god!” These numbers aren’t all that different from Kimbo Slice numbers in the grand scheme of things.
So yeah, niche sport.
Dana re: Cain reminded me of Liddell-Rampage in Pride
[…] it’s been far less reported that Cain Velasquez also fought with a knee injury. UFC commentator Joe Rogan says Velasquez hurt his knee in training and required a cortisone shot […]