Khabib Nurmagomedov had to pull out of his upcoming fight with Tony Ferguson last week after injuring himself again in training. Here’s a guy with tremendous talent (whether he’s interesting to watch is another matter) but he can’t seem to stay healthy. His last fight was in April 2014, a win over now-champion Rafael dos Anjos. Since then, Nurmagomedov has had to pull out of three fights with injuries. I don’t know his training methods, but something is up. Plenty of fighters are able to fight, and fight relatively often, but Nurmagomedov continues to come up injured. He’s in the category with some of these other guys who seem to be hurt more often than they fight. I don’t know the answer, as injuries and accidents happen, but Nurmagomedov has to find a way to stay healthy. If he doesn’t, he’s going to be somebody we look back at and wonder why he was never able to realize his potential.
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It looks as though the Nevada Athletic Commission is going to come to some kind of agreement with Nick Diaz to reduce the ridiculous five year suspension that he was given for his positive marijuana test. This is a no-brainer, as that suspension was just absurd. There’s a long list of reasons as to why the suspension was awful, but it begins with the fact that you’re suspending a guy for five years for a marijuana test. That just sounds wrong.
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Rousimar Palhares has been suspended for two years by the Nevada Athletic Commission for holding his submission over Jake Shields. Honestly, it should be longer. He’s a repeat offender and has shown no remorse. I know that describes Nick Diaz as well, but this is different as it has to do with purposefully trying to injure people. Palhares has injured guys, and he does it on purpose. For what he did to Shields, Palhares is lucky he only got a two year suspension. And for some reason the NAC didn’t even take into consideration the repeated eyepokes that Palhares inflicted on Shields. Anyway, I don’t know what Palhares does next. Not only did he get this suspension, he also got stripped of his Welterweight Title by WSOF and will likely be fired by them as well. I don’t know what he does next, but hopefully it has something to do with dealing with whatever mental issues he’s got. Something happens in his head that makes him hold these submissions too long. It’s cost him before, and it’s still costing him now. It might have cost him his career. To be honest, I think that’s a good thing. There’s no room in sports for a guy like him.
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UFC Light Heavyweight Champion Daniel Cormier and Jon Jones engaged in a Twitter war this past week, and it was about what you expected. Jones questioned Cormier and said he was just holding his belt for him. Cormier fired back with some….well, not much of anything, to be honest. That was all fine because you expect such things to happen, but what happened next crossed the line into just being corny. Jones and Cormier said they were going to have a confrontation at Jones’ gym in Albuquerque. Of course we all knew that was never going to happen, but they continued the charade in a schoolyard fashion. Cormier even Photoshopped a picture up of him outside the gym and claimed that they wouldn’t let him in. If he had included a tongue sticking out emote that might have been funny. As it was, it was just kind of meh. What can you say, though, it’s been a slow news week.
Comments and suggestions can be emailed to me at hydenfrank@gmail.com and you can follow me on Twitter at @hydenfrank
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