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Pro MMA Radio can be heard live every Monday evening at 9PM ET/6PM PT. Replays and podcasts of every show are available 24/7 by going to the “Replay Corner” section of ProMMARadio.com, our own Pro MMA Radio page or by clicking the banner below.

On this week’s edition of Pro MMA Radio, NJACB’s Nick Lembo joined Larry Pepe to discuss the controversial Nate Marquardt situation. Lembo shed some light on one of the biggest unanswered questions: Why was Marquardt allowed to fight at UFC 128 in New Jersey before his therapeutic use exemption was approved/denied? Transcription via MMA Mania:

The first issue is that we decided at that point in time, it was February and we can’t grant the TUE because we need more documentation. Nate could have pulled out of the fight or he could have agreed to testing from that point and testing after the fight and monitoring, which ceased on June 23rd from this commission, which was a four and a half month process. Nate agreed to this testing and requirements and he was pretty compliant up until the end and basically our first concern was, people asked, “Why would you let him fight Dan Miller if you weren’t sure you were going to grant him a TUE?” Again, he’s getting documents from a licensed medical physician and he’s a good amount of medical documentation at the time and you can monitor this because one of the things he agreed to was to be subject to random blood testing twice at times and dates of our choice. Twice before the fight, on the night of the fight and twice immediately thereafter. We decided it was something we could tell if his levels were improper or performance enhancing or outside normal limits and he agreed to that testing and did undergo that testing and was okay with that testing. He was allowed to fight Dan Miller and his fight night and post-fight testing came back as acceptable levels and that’s why his decision wasn’t named to a no contest. Then we began the next step, which was getting him off and complying with the rest of the requirements.

Lembo went on to detail the rest of the timeline between UFC 128 and UFC on Versus 4 that yielded one failed test and resulted  in their decision to not grant Marquardt a TUE. If there was one critical mistake Marquardt made in all of this, it was choosing to go leave the endocrinologist and return to his personal physician for the TRT in the weeks leading up to UFC on Versus 4. As Lembo essentially confirmed, that raised a red flag and contributed to their decision to issue the random blood test that Marquardt ended up failing in addition to putting his testosterone levels too high to fight at UFC on Versus 4.

You can listen to a replay of this week’s edition of Pro MMA Radio by clicking the banner below. A radio player with links to the show’s archives will open in a pop-up window, so please make sure your browser is set to allow pop-ups for this site.

Maurcio “Shogun” Rua may have gotten the living crap beat out of him in his first UFC title defense against rising star Jon Jones, but that didn’t stop him from running a seminar three days later at the GMA Vitor Shaolin academy in New York, black eyes and all.

GracieMag was there to take a couple pics and talk to Shogun about the fight. Not surprisingly, he didn’t have much to say about it other than the fight was pretty much over when Jones hit him with a flying knee in the opening minute of the fight.

“I’m just bummed out. He hits hard, I took a knee shot early on and was out of it the whole fight.”

It’s still unclear when Shogun will return or who he might fight when he does, but the fact that he honored his obligations and didn’t immediately fly back to Brazil to wallow in self-pity is probably a good sign that he’s keeping things in perspective. It was a tough loss, but Shogun is still young enough to regroup and make another run at a title.

On a semi-related note, UFC 128 was a highly anticipated event for hardcore MMA fans, but it doesn’t look like Shogun or Jon Jones is much of a box-office draw yet. According to early estimates (which are highly subject to change), the show only pulled in 415,000 to 470,000 pay-per-view buys. Not terrible numbers if they stick, but nowhere close to the kind of numbers the UFC’s top stars pull in.

Still, Jon Jones has superstar written all over him and UFC 128 was more or less his coming out party. His appearance on “The Tonight Show with Jay Leno” should give him a little notoriety in the mainstream and his feud with Rashad Evans will keep him in the headlines. It will be interesting to see what kind of numbers that fight pulls in as it will give us an idea of how much Jones’ stardom has grown since his highly publicized championship win and crime-fighting story.

Check out more pics from Shogun’s seminar at GracieMag.com

There’s one fight left on my UFC contract. I will have this fight, regardless of what the reporters think. However, there’s a possibility that the UFC will insist on not allowing me to fight. I will accept their decision. It’s time to retire, despite the fact that I want to continue. Next year, it will be 20 years since my first fight… I had a great career, and I don’t regret anything. But I don’t want to finish it defeated… There’s no other options. UFC is a monopoly. Soon, they’ll swallow Strikeforce, so I have basically nowhere to go. The Japanese market is dead, DREAM is dead, and the tragedy in Japan annihilated all the other Japanese MMA promotions.

—Mirko Cro Cop talking to the Croation media (translated via ValeTudo.ru & LowKick) about his future after losing to Brendan Schaub

Dana White told reporters immediately after UFC 128 that Cro Cop had fought his last fight in the UFC and clearly Mirko realizes he has nowhere else to go. Unless Dana has a change of heart, it looks like this is the end of the road for Mirko Cro Cop. It’s too bad he couldn’t have gone out on one last left high kick.

Image via Dave Mandel for Sherdog

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On this week’s edition of ESPN MMA Live, Jon Anik and crew recap UFC 128 and preview UFC Fight Night 24. Eddie Alvarez also stops by to talk about his status in the lightweight division.

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If you have trouble playing the video, you can also watch it on ESPN.com..

It’s a behind the scenes look at UFC 128 and the TUF 14 tryouts in this first installment of Dana White’s UFC Fight Night 24 video blog.

It couldn’t have been a joyous atmosphere in Shogun Rua’s locker room following his loss to Jon Jones last Saturday night at UFC 128. The proud Brazilian was essentially beat down for three straight rounds until his body could take no more.

It was the kind of defeat that’s hard to come back from, and certainly not one to celebrate, but his team seems to be taking the loss in stride and vows to return stronger than ever. Here’s Eduardo Alonso on PVT (translated via MMA Mania):

“There are no excuses! Now what remains is to work hard and begin our way back to the top. For those who find means to criticize the posture of our team for statements made to the press, Jon Jones looked for me on Sunday night in the hotel hall to apologize for his behavior in the press, that it was part of the pre-fight plan and he emphasized his admiration for Shogun. Let’s get back to work. Shogun made it before and will do it again.”

Shogun echoed those sentiments on Twitter after the fight:

Hi guys thank you all for your support, I will devote more and come back better.

Shogun’s brother Ninja Rua congratulated Jones and pointed out that performed so poorly because Jones hurt him early and he never fully recovered. From Tatame (translated via BE):

“Yes, I was very surprised with (Jones’) game, Shogun trained a lot, Jones was able to neutralize my brother’s game, I think he studied Shogun’s game a lot, so congrats to him. Shogun now needs to go back to Brazil and analyze the fight, see what went wrong in the fight and go from there, ball forward.”

“I think (Jones) has a brilliant future ahead of him, he’s a very young athlete, but in this weight class I think it’s very hard… people don’t seem to be able to keep the title for more than one fight. Everyone wins and then loses the belt so it’s a very tough weight class and there are a lot of great fighters, so we’ll see, he’s a young guy and will stay strong going forward, but Shogun will be able to make a strong come back, for sure.”

“I think (what went wrong during the fight) was that the very first strikes Jones landed on Shogun, that knee and the head kick, may have taken his gas away.”

Shogun took a beating, there’s no doubt about that, but if nothing else, he proved that he’s a warrior with the heart of a champion. I don’t know how many other fighters could have taken that licking for as long he did and continued to press on. I assume all those hardcore sparring sessions at Chute Boxe are at least partially responsible for his extraordinary toughness.

The question to ask now is where Shogun goes from here? Some have suggested a move down to the middleweight division, but I think it’s too soon for that. Sure, he’s essentially locked out of the title picture as long as Jones holds the belt, but no one knows for certain that Jones is going to rule the light heavyweight division for years to come like Anderson Silva and Georges St. Pierre have ruled theirs. Maybe it’s better to see if the belt has found a steady home or if it’s going to move around the division like a foster child like it’s done ever since Rampage Jackson knocked out Chuck Liddell back in ’07 before making any dramatic moves like dropping a weight class. There’s still plenty of fights for Shogun at light heavyweight in the meantime. A rematch with Forrest Griffin, anyone?

Check out James Law’s UFC 128 photo gallery at Heavy.com

Update: Eduardo Alonso had made a more official statement regarding the loss on the UG:

My friends,

Everything is still too recent, I was taking my time until I would make a statement, as we are still close to UFC 128. I started to read some of the hundreds of messages on forums, twitter and other media sources, and after addressing the Brazilian public first, I decided to also make a simple statement in the two major MMA forums, Sherdog, which I respect a lot for having an enormous number of fans that support the sport, and the UG, which also has a number of fans and was where I started my life in MMA many years ago.

My goal is simple and clear. I want to thank the support from so many fans to Shogun and our team, before, during and after the fight at UFC 128. I want ALSO to thank a lot to all the critics, being them constructive or not, directed to the fighter and all of us. After UFC 93, I went on the Brazilian forum of Portaldovt and made a simmilar statement, even bigger, and what we saw after that was an ever improving Shogun from fight to fight, in a route that led him to the belt of what is probably the toughest weight class and more challenging one in the promotion. So obvioulsy, critics are welcome, as well as all the support.

With all that said, excuses won’t fit here, not ifs, not maybe’s or nothing like that. Work was done in the better way it was decided to be done, and in a team everybody signs the results, both when winning or losing. Always, anything in life can be better, and certainly some things can be improven. Analysis regarding that will stay as an internal issue, and this happens both in winning and losing, but it’s due to every professional to use defeate as a learning tool to learn valuable lessons and keep evolving. It won’t be any different with Shogun, with team UDL, and of course, with myself.

Even thought he lost the fight and his belt, Shogun Rua showed courage, heart and tried his best in the octagon. He has all our respect for that, and will always have, making us proud for all that he already did in the past, keep doing and will certainly do in the future. I’m absolutely certain he will make a comeback to the top, cause he has more than enough talent, inteligence and youth to do it. Hard work and dedication on his part, and on all of us, won’t be lacking at all.

All the credit in the world and all merits goes to Jon Jones and his team. If before the fight he was a prospect, now he is more than a reality, he is the champion. He was better that night, performed leaving no doubts and deserved the win. There are no excuses! Now what’s left is to work hard and start again the way towards the top. To those who found ways to criticize some statements from our team to the press, Jon Jones himself spoke to me in the hotel on the night after the fight, and expresses his admiration for Shogun and appologized for any hype created before the fight that could have offended us, as it was simply part of his thing pre-fight.
Once again, hats off to his team, they worked very hard and conquered their result deservingly so.

Let’s go to work, Shogun has done it before, he can and will do it again.

All the best, and thanks to all,

Eduardo Alonso

Eduardo Alonso: Class act.

We have partnered with Pro MMA Radio to bring you weekly replays of PMR as the official radio show of MMAConvert.com.

Pro MMA Radio can be heard live every Monday evening at 9PM ET/6PM PT. Replays and podcasts of every show are available 24/7 by going to the “Replay Corner” section of ProMMARadio.com, our own Pro MMA Radio page or by clicking the banner below.

On this week’s edition of Pro MMA Radio, giant welterweight Anthony Johnson joined Larry Pepe to talk about his fight against Dan Hardy this weekend at UFC Fight Night 24. ESPN’s Jon Anik also joined to show to help Larry recap UFC 128 and preview UFC Fight Night 24.

You can listen to a replay of this week’s edition of Pro MMA Radio by clicking the banner below. A radio player with links to the show’s archives will open in a pop-up window, so please make sure your browser is set to allow pop-ups for this site.

After 17 years of UFC offerings in the United States, we may finally have our Muhammad Ali. At least, that’s the recurring theme whenever Jon Jones’ dominant performance over Mauricio “Shogun” Rua at UFC 128 is discussed. And perhaps those sentiments are based more in fact than fantasy. Consider this: in his short time in the sport Jones has rocketed up the food chain, racking up six wins in three months of minor league toil to earn his berth in the Octagon. Once in the UFC, he put in such masterful – and thrilling – performances that before he even hit the three-year mark of MMA competition, he was fighting light-heavyweight champ Shogun for the title. The most telling component of his tale, however, is that Jones makes it look so easy. No one ever tossed Stephan Bonnar and Matt Hamill around with such authority, no one ever manhandled Vladimir Matyushenko and Ryan Bader with such ease, and no one ever came close to destroying Pride FC champ Rua on the feet the way Jones did. There’s talent, and there’s talent mixed with panache and flair. The UFC’s new 205-pound champ has the latter, and if he keeps on wrecking opponents, the 23-year old may soon have to change his nickname to “the Greatest”.

Urijah Faber’s armor of invincibility has chinks in it, even at his new weight of 135 pounds, but he managed to get the job done against Eddie Wineland, securing himself a title shot in a division new to the average UFC pay-per-view consumer. Heavyweight up-and-comer Brendan Schaub got the job done as well, putting away the aged warrior Mirko “Cro Cop” Filipovic for good after taking a few lumps, and Nate Marquardt dodged Dan Miller’s best to grind out a win via decision. But aside from the superstar performance of Jones, if anyone on UFC 128’s main card deserved accolades, it was lightweight contender Jim Miller.

Vaunted for both his power and his durability, Kamal Shalorus was by no means a contender, but he was one tough customer nonetheless. Yet Miller was never in trouble in their match-up, and after ruling over the Iranian on the ground like an angry despot, the New Jersey native found Shalorus’ heretofore unseen “button” and dispatched him on the feet. There’s a line of championship contenders stretching around the block (actually, it’s just Gray Maynard and Anthony Pettis right now, with maybe Clay Guida in the mix). Where does Miller fit in? Presently, his job may be to knock unworthy lightweights off the promotions swollen roster.

And as a fan of slick submissions and cringe-worthy knockouts, that’s just fine by me.

Image via Esther Lin for MMA Fighting

Rundown of post-fight news and notes coming out of UFC 128…

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