“He hasn’t gotten hurt; he hasn’t hardly gotten touched. The only thing that got hurt was him punching Anthony Perosh and breaking his hand. In five fights, he hasn’t gotten touched, and if you can’t find that to be impressive as a real fan, I don’t know. That’s like a team going un-scored on… I don’t know why we’re talking about Anthony Johnson. Anthony’s a great fighter. He’s got one win so far. He’s on a one-fight win streak. Bader’s on a five-fight win streak. Anthony’s a great fighter; he’s a pretty good dude. I know he’s had some issues in the past with his life, but he’s out calling Bader out, and the UFC’s even wanting Bader to fight him. But we were told – Bader talked to Dana White, and Dana said, ‘If you beat Rashad Evans, nobody can deny you the next title shot.’ Well, why are we talking about Anthony Johnson?
Right now, it should be Cormier and Bader, and until we know anything about Jones – and that’s a whole other issue of a guy that you want to try to promote that’s got his own issues to deal with – I mean, why are we talking about anything other than Bader vs. Cormier? It just kind of blows my mind. But it’s their business. It’s what they want to do… I feel like with today’s youth, to have good role models and people that are humble, it’s an opportunity to promote someone like Ryan Bader, who does great things and who is a good man and a good husband [and] supports our military like crazy – given over $80,000 of his own purse to vets. I don’t understand how you can’t promote something like that. How you can say, that’s special, we’re going to promote this guy, we want this guy as our face – we don’t want somebody who’s going out and pulling the crap they’re pulling behind the scenes; an [engaged] man with kids getting in trouble. But once again, it’s not my business. It’s very successful, and that’s the way they want to run it.”
-Ryan Bader’s coach Aaron Simpson talks to MMAJunkie.com about Bader’s spot in the light heavyweight division and why Bader should be the one fighting for the UFC Light Heavyweight Title.
Penick’s Analysis: Their frustrations are absolutely understandable, but with Jon Jones expected back for the next fight with Cormier, their choices are real limited. They can take a fight with someone like Anthony Johnson, or sit on the sidelines and hope the UFC gives him a shot at the Jones-Cormier winner. That’s about the extent of the options in front of them, as unfortunate as that may be. It’s not a fair situation, and Gustafsson getting the last shot off his loss to Johnson wasn’t at all right from a competitive standpoint. Still, Bader is where he is, and he’s just not in a spot to do anything else about it.
Sometimes subjectivity > objectivity. All you need to do is watch 5 minutes of any Gus fight and it’s obvious to the naked eye that he’s vastly superior to the guy who is hanging his hat on a win streak that consists of Hippo, Fatjao, OSP, that guy from Bellator, and the indecisive has-been fighter formerly known as Stanky Lag. The best thing that will ever happen to Bader is to not to be put in the cage with Rumble (or Gus, or DC, or Jones again).