Benavidez and Mighty Mouse almost main-evented a pay per view. 125lbers sidelined by ufc's cancellation of a prior event.
Should Hendo be ashamed of himself for making the selfish, unilateral executive decision not to inform his employer, who had invested millions of the fertitas' and White's unrealized dollars, that there was a decent chance that they would have to find another opponent for their undisputed lhw champion?
For almost 2 weeks Dan sat on the information (except of course someone in his training camp who based on available circumstantial evidence likely planted a seed in Sonnen's ear which I believe Dan to this day knows nothing about, but in the same wisdom which led him to the decision not disclose his injury to begin with goes on mma talk shows and states with confidence that Sonnen knew nothing of his injury). Being a self proclaimed "Company Man", he surely would have said something to White earlier if he believed that this info would be beneficial to the Company. Clearly Hendo is too much of a stand up guy and future hall of famer to selfishly withhold the information so as not to risk the ufc deciding to replace him before his hope of full recovery could be realized. In my opinion, this can lead to 1 conclusion- he did not realize that 3 weeks vs 9 or 10 days to replace him or otherwise salvage the event would have been to the Ufc's benefit. Stated another way- it is possible that Hendo's repeated head trauma suffered as the actual and proximate result of taking part in his chosen profession for many years, well into his 40's, has rendered him incapable of making such mental connections as would be required to effectively assess the situation. Therefore we cannot blame Hendo for his inaction, and must place faulty where it clearly belongs.
Do we blame the Ufc for diluting this card to such an extent that they felt they had no choice but to cancel the event? How can we? You heard Dana- shut up and put faith in the ufc brass who know what they are doing. We as fans have to be mindful of and sympathetic to the fact that the ufc overextended itself in commitments that it made to fox. And they would be alright it everything went according to plan and injuries and suspensions would not plague their fighters as they had in the foreseeable past. ( footnote- ufc continues to refuse to institute a random testing program for their fighters so as to virtually eradicate perfomance enhancing drugs from their organization and thereby greatly reduce suspensions). After all, Dana and the gang knew that they could always rely on their marquis fighters to step up and accept last minute replacements of opponents for whom they had not trained, or fight on limited notice without a full training camp. Their Company Men surely would save the day, even if to put on lackluster performances. There was no need for a contingency plan or plan B for Ufc 151. It was handled.
Hence we are left to point the finger in one and only direction- that of the champ. For he is the one who could have saved the event. Stepped up and ignored the (according to Zuffa) clearly unsound advise and counsel of his training staff- advise which had led him to this point in his mma career. He could have undertaken the task of preparing for a new opponent on a few days notice, without the benefit of his training staff and while cutting weight. He would have most likely beaten the allegedly unprepared Oregonian Mouthpiece. Most likely. That should have been good enough for Jones. The selfish Jones decided he would not fight without adequately preparing for a new opponent (something Machida and Shogun were also unwilling to do, even with almost a month's notice). Shocking, unprecedented and indeed unfathomable. All blame must rest squarely on Jbj's shoulders. Benavidez and Mighty Mouse have only Bones to blame for playing second fiddle at ufc 152. Right......
FRAT, die KKM, yada yada yada, welcome to the UG.
The blame belongs to the UFC brass. They are the ones that chose to cancel this event. Jon Jones should be given hard time though, forducking a fight. A champion in fight shape and training should never turn away an opponent. No matter how short of notice. As champion you fight who they put in front of you. That is why I wish there was a way to just let the fighters find out who they are fighting the day of weigh-ins. I know it cant happenanymore with AC but would be interesting.