Couture destroys Toney -- and doesn't prove a thing

So Randy Couture steamrolled James "Lights Out" Toney at UFC 118 Saturday night, proving once and for all that an aging but proficient mixed martial artist is better at mixed martial arts than a boxer who is 18 years and 77 pounds past his prime.

And that's about all Couture's highly anticipated but hardly unexpected win proves.

Actually no.

It also proves that Toney, who hounded Dana White for the final three months of 2009 before finally receiving his shot in the UFC, probably should have started out in Strikeforce because they probably would have let him debut against a creampuff more suited to his (non-existent) MMA skills. I mean, Herschel Walker is 1-0 as an MMA fighter thanks to Strikeforce and Greg Nagy.

Either way, I'm hardly the only guy who figured Couture would take down and overwhelm the 42-year-old Toney without much time or effort. It doesn't take a visionary to foresee a wrestling expert and MMA veteran choking out a guy who has never grappled before.

The result was about as predictable as a showdown between Toney's willpower and the buffet table.

And it was about as significant as it was competitive.

Yes, Saturday night marked the first time we saw a big-name boxer take on a top-flight mixed martial artist in a near no-holds-barred fight, but the bout was far from a final referendum on which group of athletes is superior.

I doubt such a thing exists.

As I told friends on Twitter Saturday night, Toney facing Couture in the octagon is like the Pittsburgh Pirates meeting teem Pakistan on the cricket pitch.

Like Toney the Pirates have a glorious and well-documented past. Thirty-one years ago the Pirates claimed a World Series, giving the city of Pittsburgh six major pro titles (two World Series and four Super Bowls) in the decade of the seventies.

But like Toney they watch that glory fade a little every day, and while they still remain in the major leagues their performance, payroll and paid attendance slide steadily toward minor league levels.

Couture, meanwhile is like Pakistani cricket: not the same force as in the glory days (there's no replacing Inzimam Ul Haq), but they're still a world power, and way too strong for any minnow to challenge.

So expecting Toney to put in nine months of MMA training and give Couture anything resembling a tough fight is like asking Andrew McCutchen and crew to fly to Islamabad and go wicket-for-wicket with team Pakistan.

Wouldn't happen, and we know it because we realize that for all the similarities between baseball and cricket there's still a vast difference between the two.

Somehow we forget that when trying to compare boxing and MMA but as Couture demolished Toney Saturday night we all received an emphatic reminder.

If we really wanted to prove MMA fighters were superior to boxers in all aspects we'd have to arrange a rematch between Toney and Couture under the Queensberry Rules.

Of course, it's been discussed and of course, Couture is vowing never to enter a boxing ring with Toney.

After Saturday's fight he told reporters that if the two men ever boxed “James would probably knock me out in the first round.”

I don't know.

First round knockouts were never Toney's style (and yes, I feel comfortable discussing Toney's boxing career in the past tense). More likely he would pick Couture apart early and beat him down in the middle rounds. Either way, if Toney and Couture had met in a ring Saturday night Couture might still be on his back with the referee counting over him.

But they met in an octagon, which proves that Couture has learned a hard lesson about the fight game that still eludes Toney:

Never take a fight unless you know you can win it.

 

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Local pro Lowther looks to shine under Friday night lights

Rising lightweight prospect Omri Lowther is a huge fan of ESPN's "Friday Night Fights," and week after week he'd come home after a week of training turn on the TV and dream.

Month after month he'd watch other up-and-comers compete on the show and measure himself against them.

And year after year he would swear to himself that he wouldn't let one more season of FNF pass without finding his own place on the show.

For the first four years of his pro career he toiled in tiny venues, mostly across the southeast U.S., building a 14-1 record. He had build in impressive set of skills -- witness his 2007 demolition of the outclassed Omar Ballard -- but aside from a Shobox fight taken on two days notice he still couldn't find the spotlight.

 

 

But Saturday night the spotlight will find the Mississauga resident.

In Montreal.

Not only will he make his ESPN debut but Lowther headline the show's season finale, taking on fast-handed Philadelphia lightweight Hank Lundy in the main event. Whether Lowther, a transplanted Atlanta native who now lives and trains in Mississauga, can withstand the glare of ESPN's Friday night lights hasn't been proven.

But it's not like Lowther has a choice.

At 26 he's still a little young for a crossroads bout, but old enough to realize Saturday's bout can either set him up for stardom or set him back indefinitely.

"I'm pretty hot on the market but one loss can change all of that," he says."People are wondering, 'how good is this kid?' so I'm right on the threshold of great things happening. It's not a crossroads fight, it's a crossover fight."

The path to Saturday's main even was hectic but surprisingly short.

When ESPN decided to hold its FNF season finale on a Saturday in boxing-mad Montreal, the network also booked undefeated middleweight phenom David Lemieux for the main event. But when an injury sidelined Lemieux ESPN reached out to Lowther, whom they had been watching develop, and matched him with Edner Cherry, a rugged veteran who reliably brings action fights to FNF.

But Tuesday night Cherry's management informed ESPN that the fighter couldn't leave the U.S. because his green card had lapsed.

Big problem.

The last minute collapse of the main event for the season finale of your flagship boxing show is bad enough, but the timing of Cherry's withdrawal made things even worse because Saturday will be one of the busiest fight nights on the boxing calendar.

In Puerto Rico WBA/WBO light-flyweight champ and master technician Ivan Calderon defends his belt against Mexico's Giovanni Segura.

That same night in Argentina, junior welterweight buzzsaw Marcos Maidana takes on resilient journeyman DeMarcus (Chop Chop) Corley -- who Floyd "Money" Mayweather claims is the hardest hitter he ever faced.

And in the broader fight world, former three-division world champ and Hall of Fame trash-talker James (Lights Out) Toney makes his mixed martial arts debut, facing Randy Couture at UFC 118 in Boston.

This glut of alternatives would have made the ESPN show easy for fight fans to forget if the network couldn't come up with a competitive main event.

Enter Lundy, a southpaw from Philly who nearly derailed the highly-rated John Molina before folding in the 11th round of their ESPN-televised bout in July.

A slick boxer with some pop (10 KO in 18 wins) Lundy is the stylistic antithesis of Cherry, a straight-ahead plugger.

Yet Lowther says that with the help of trainer Chris Johnson he'll have a game plan tailor-made to handle Lundy.

"They're two totally different fighters but I have a lot of experience and Chris is an awesome trainer so the adjustment was really simple," he says.

Truth is, Lowther is accustomed to abrupt changes in direction.

Three months ago he was in Atlanta watching his career stagnate, struggling to work training sessions around his full time job as a warehouse supervisor but not getting any fights.

A decade earlier Lowther and Johnson had trained in the same Atlanta gym, Lowther as a teenage amateur and Johnson as a fringe contender seeking one last big fight.

When a subdural hematoma forced Johnson to retire from fighting he turned to training, and guided Lowther two a pair of wins during their brief time together.

"He had to work my corner for a couple of fights, and for a couple of fights it was Magic," Lowther says.

When Johnson returned to Canada he kept in touch with Lowther, and when he grew sick of watching the fighter spin his wheels in Atlanta he invited Lowther to move to Canada and train at his Mississauga gym.

Lowther made the move in June and by July he had already collected his first pro win with Johnson, a 5th-round stoppage of Isaac Bejarano in Cancun, Mexico.

His second assignment figures to be much tougher.

Lundy is hungry for redemption after fumbling away a potentially huge win on network TV last month, but the stakes are just as high for Lowther.

Adam Harris, head of Hennessy Sports Canada, the company that promotes Lowther, says a win here could make him a factor in a 135-pound division that, with the return of former champ Juan Manuel Marquez, is suddenly one of the hottest in boxing.

"This fight is pivotal for him," Harris says. "If he comes through this in style the doors will open wide for him."

 

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Relax: MMA is legal but democracy still rules

Wednesday afternoon I received a call at the office from a man with a wicked South African accent, asking if I could provide a contact number for "Mixed Martial Arts."

Knowing what he wanted but taking his question at face value, I told him that I could also furnish him with phone numbers for "Hockey" and "Auto Racing." I had to stop myself from laughing but our friend wasn't amused and wouldn't hang up without some type of contact info, so I reluctantly provided the email address of the person I figured he was seeking.

Just another day in my life ever since the provincial government announced last Saturday that it would move to legalize professional mixed martial arts in Ontario. 
Just to clarify it for anyone still fuzzy on the issue, I don't work for the Ultimate Fighting Championship, the Athletic Commission or anyone else in the world of professional MMA. But like everyone else even remotely connected with the sport I've received several calls from people who had scarcely heard of the sport before last week, but whose interest was aroused by last Saturday's announcement.

Some of them have been opportunists, folks looking for a way to do business with a cash cow like the UFC.

But most are simple citizens, enraged that the government would sanction such a brutal bloodsport and looking for a place to vent their disgust.

A few lucky folks already had a platform to express their displeasure with the Liberal government's decision. 

Wednesday my Star colleague Heather Mallick made plain her opinion that the prospect of making money for the government doesn't justify legalizing such a dangerous sport. And in NOW Magazine, Susan G. Cole makes an impassioned argument that MMA events are better left underground, and that government regulation of nearly-no-holds-barred fighting is a sign of the depravity into which we're all sinking.

Points taken, but this after-the-fact arguing over the pending legalization of MMA reminds me of the debate over gay marriage.

In both cases we see people well outside the scope of the legislation question railing against it simply because the rule change doesn't square with their values.

But at least gay marriage opponents fought against any official change in the definition of marriage from the beginning, opposing same-sex marriage legislation wherever it was proposed well before any laws were actually changed.

In contrast, MMA's adversaries in Toronto barely know what they're arguing against, and didn't decide they hated the sport until they realized it was legal. Otherwise they would have started speaking out against this move last week, last month or last year.

Or they would have at least spent some time reading up before speaking out. If you think the sport is called "THE mixed martial arts," or believe that MMA and UFC are synonyms, you need to do a little more research simply to qualify yourself to speak out against either one.

And if you're making a safety-based argument about why MMA is more dangerous than other combat/contact/collision sports, you should read up on the link between pro football and brain trauma. The info isn't hard to find, and no sense in avoiding it simply because it undermines your point. The truth is that football helmets make the sport more dangerous because they function not just as protective gear but as weapons. 

And the bigger truth is that boxing, hockey, football and MMA can all, over time, traumatize your brain. To single out MMA as the most dangerous sport among them is beyond arbitrary. It's like selling vodka but banning tequila.

But the point here isn't to provide a tutorial on the relative danger of the various bloodsports we support.

It's to lend direction to a debate that has strayed far from what's important.

And what's important is how the pending changes to Ontario's Athletics Control Act will affect our lives.

Reality check.

It won't. Unless you're one of the handful of people who a) works for the Athletic Commission, b) hopes to promote a show or c) is brave (or crazy) enough to throw punches for money, your life will not change.

Seems to me this whole debate has some people's brains so rattled that they no longer recognize the difference between the "legal" and "mandatory."

Let me clear it up.

While sending your kids to school is required, promoting or attending an MMA show in Toronto is merely permitted. 

Get it?

I'll put it another way.

If you believe same sex marriages are immoral and unnatural, don't engage in one. 

And if you hate the idea of legal mixed martial arts in Ontario, don't go to the show. It really is your choice. 

Last night I arrived in Boston, where MMA was legalized last year and where the UFC will debut on Aug 28, and half expected to see octagons erected in public parks, people grappling in the street, and Dana White and Deval Patrick standing side by side, strong-arming Bostonians into buying tickets for UFC 118.

 But none of that happened. Somehow, despite the legalization of MMA last December, Boston is pretty much the same place I visited last September. People here still say "wikkid" when they mean "very," "jimmies" when they mean "sprinkles," and "Linder" when they mean "Linda."

And like people in Ontario, Bostonians will attend the UFC's first event here because they want to, and anyone who isn't interested is free to ignore it.

Because Massachusetts, like Ontario, is a democracy and nothing can change that.

Not even the legalization of MMA.

So relax.

Anderson Silva's Cocoon of Horror

Props to you if you saw this coming, because I sure didn't.

Yes, I understand that UFC middleweight contender Chael Sonnen was sent into the ring with champion Anderson Silva precisely because he was a different type of challenger, one who wouldn't indulge Silva's cheap imitation of Satchel Paige's showmanship, and one who -- unlike everybody since Forrest Griffin -- would actually force Silva to fight.

UFC president Dana White promised as much in the wake the five-round cure for insomnia that passed for Silva's April title defence against fellow Brazilian Demian Maia in April, and the prospect of an opponent who would force Silva to put his marvelous array of skills on full display sounded tantalyzing.

Problem was, we had heard it all before.

Travis Lutter and Dan Henderson were each supposed to provide that type of challenge, and each of them tapped out.

Griffin, a fearless brawler, was supposed to test Silva's chin and survival skills at 205 pounds, but the Spider splattered him in less than a round, flattening him for good with a perfectly placed left jab to the jaw.

So I don't know about you guys, but Sonnen didn't seem any different to me.

Sure, he manhandled past Silva victim Nate Marquardt over three rounds in February, but that result alone didn't put him in Silva's class. And the 10 losses be brought into Saturday's bout suggested there was more than one way to beat him.

As the bout approached and Sonnen's trash talk intensified he reminded me more and more of Peter McNeeley.

Remember him?

He's the guy Don King unearthed to serve as Mike Tyson's first post-incarceration opponent in August 1995, a world-class jaw jacker who promised to envelop the former heavyweight champ in "a cocoon of horror."

We all know how that turned out.

I knew Sonnen brought a lot more to the table than McNeeley did, but I didn't foresee a much different result. As I told folks on Twitter as the fighters walked to the ring, Sonnen seemed a lot like Griffin -- a fighter just brave enough to get hurt...badly.

Shows you what I know.

The day after Tyson Gay stunned the World's Fastest Man in Stockholm, Sonnen nearly did the same to the Usain Bolt of MMA. And even though he managed not to win the fight, in manhandling Silva for four and a half rounds he proved that the most dominant fighter of the past half decade is indeed human.

Who knew?

Sonnen did, apparently, and Saturday night he put Silva in more jeopardy than we had seen him endure in his first 11UFC bouts combined. He fought with a visceral anger rarely seen outside Tea Party rallies, repeatedly dumping the middleweight champ on his back, and winning round after round with his suffocating ground and pound.

Silva, we all know by now, survived and triumphed because true champions find ways to win even when losing looks like the only option.

Of course, when a megastar like Silva struggles, questions arise. When Bolt lost to Gay track insiders and casual fans alike posited that he dropped the race intentionally, hoping to stoke interest among a sports public bored by his dominance.

Silva's near-loss prompted similar speculation.

Did he give away the early rounds on purpose?

I've heard that theory and the rationale behind it -- that he was doing fans a favour, building drama by letting an overmatched opponent whale away on him knowing he could end the fight whenever he felt like it.

Not sure I buy it, though. This is a bloodsport, where a simple miscalculation -- say walking into a punch you don't see -- could cost you a title, and a grave mistake could put you on a stretcher.

Other folks think SIlva simply didn't prepare for this bout properly, and that he underestimated Sonnen the same way many fans and *ahem* experts did.

Perhaps, but I don't know if a fighter who so enjoys outclassing opponents would take an opponent as intense as Sonnen so lightly.

From my seat at Hooters it simply appeared as though Silva simply met a well trained, highly motivated opponent whose mauling, brawling style gave him problems.

Did complacency play a role?

It's very possible.

For four rounds Silva looked like a man fighting to defend a  title while Sonnen looked like a man fighting for his life.

Big difference.

We also can't forget that Silva's 35 years old. He's not ancient but certainly not in any athletes prime years, either. Since arriving in the UFC in 2006 no opponent could even make him sweat, but aside from steroid fueled baseball players who delayed the aging process indefinitely no athlete, no matter how gifted and skilled, spends more than three years at the absolute top of his game. They might still dominate but they still slide downhill after they peak.

So it's possible that after three untouchable years Silva has slowed down a bit.

But in the end  it didn't matter on Saturday night. Skill and savvy conquered raw aggression. Silva couldn't figure out how to stay off his back, so devised a way to win from there, splitting Sonnen's brow with elbow strikes and locking in an inescapable triangle choke when a tiring Sonnen left himself open to it.

The result was a last-minute submission win and the most dramatic win of Silva's UFC career.

Whether it was the most impressive depends on who you ask.

A lot of observers label Saturday night's win Silva's best because he proved, at last, that he could endure adversity and win emphatically.

Personally, I like to see how well an athlete performs when he's at his best, regardless of the margin of victory. I never downgraded Roy Jones Jr. for never having overcome adversity because the talent gap between him and his opponents wasn't his fault.

On the track I'd rather see Bolt run 9.58 and win by two metres than watch him gut out a 10-flat photo finish. Again, if the second-fastest man on the planet is (on most days) a full stride slower, that's not Bolt's problem.

So while Saturday night's win was the most riveting of Silva's career, give me his one-punch destruction of renowned tough guy Forrest Griffin as the strongest evidence of his greatness. 

I don't mean to detract from the drama of Saturday's win -- it stands alone as a signature victory for Silva and the sport, and is to mixed martial arts what Joe Louis' Hail Mary 13th round knockout over Billy Conn was to boxing.

But while a big win despite adversity certainly signals that a virtuoso like Silva also has a legend's heart, it also might signify that the rest of the world is closing the gap.

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