The sport of MMA is growing and with it, the fanbase. These new fans, and some old ones, have opinions about their favorite and least favorite fighters. But they also have opinions about fighter skill levels and training regimens. Hair trigger reactions and opinions about someones inability to make weight, or their use and application of different tools. What do we know? The reason I'm bringing this up is that when I was watching TUF the other day with my friends, the inevitable criticism of cardio came up. Now I'm not defending fighters or athletes who don't train and diet properly or take their sport or opponents seriously. What I am saying is that spectators should take into account, especially on the TUF TV show, the surroundings and environment that these fighters are immersed in. Some should be ready for the big show like "Big Country", and should have no excuses for tiring like McSweeney and Shivers did the other night. However, and this is my opinion, it is still early in the show, these guys were probably demonstrating their skills to their coaches and training hard the day up to their fight, so is it possible they were exhausted because of overtraining? Or the combination of sleeping in a strange bed in a strange house surrounded by strangers? Or the combination of all of the above? James McSeeney and Wes Shivers may not have demonstrated the best skillsets for MMA, but they stepped in the ring. And they weren't exhausted because they had no cardio, they were tired from insufficient sleep, unfamiliar stresses and overtraining. Let's not be so quick to judge.

My initial reaction to Fedor signing with the UFC's main rival was probaly the same as everyone elses. 6 fights at 5 million each, M1 clothes, Sambo on Thursdays WTH? Is this guy crazy? But then I thought about the man outside the ring, he's a bit of a mystery, but there are some very obvious things that no one seems to take into account. First off, the guy travels with a Russian Orthodox priest, full beard, frock and everything. Second, he wears a wood cross. This by itself isn't that big a deal but combined with the priest sitting beside him we can speculate on his piousness. Thirdly, and this is heresay because I don't speak Russian, he doesn't swear or cuss. Enter Dana White, fast, trash talking about EVERY single one of his friends and former opponents, including his own former HW champs. Plus the expletives used to describe Fedor himself . Does principle make you bad at business? I've never liked DW, props to the UFC for it's investment in the sport I'm so passionate about, but will they ever realize that as long as Dana is at the other side of the table during negotiations, Fedor will not show.