The UFC injury plague continued yesterday, forcing both Jose Aldo (pictured) and Rampage Jackson to withdraw from their respective UFC 153 bouts

By Joshua Molina

Injuries continue to rock the UFC.

Jose Aldo and Quentin “Rampage” Jackson are out of UFC 153 in Rio de Janeiro, the latest card to get wrecked by fighter injuries.

Injuries happen in every sport, but the bottom line is this: The UFC has too many pay per view cards, and not enough fighters to sustain the company’s rapid pace of shows. There isn’t enough depth on the roster to book cards with more than just one or two marquee matches.

As was the case with Dan Henderson and UFC 151, when a top fighter gets injured, the whole show crumbles.

The UFC also lives in a fantasy world in that it acts as though the best fighters in the world only work in the UFC. Considering that the UFC owns Strikeforce, it’s too bad that contracts prevent fighters from switching brands to fight one another.
Dana White mission to preserve the exclusivity of the UFC brand has hurt the sport overall.

By the way, White needs to stop acting like a teenage boy (dropping those tight T-shirts wouldn’t hurt either). His tweet after he heard that Rampage Jackson was injured and unable to fight was absurd. White tweeted, “Rampage is hurt and out of UFC 153 RIO. SUCKS!!!!!!”

Social media is great and all, but White needs show better and more poised leadership during times of crisis. If he expects Jon Jones or any of the fighters on his roster to act more professionally he needs to lead by example. White’s legacy will be measured by how he handles the UFC over the next 12 months, not how he managed the company when the product was super hot and fans would pay to see any two men step in the cage.

The MMA audience is getting smarter to how the management side of the UFC works, and the mainstream audience is dropping off.

. . . Speaking of social media, Big Dave Bautista is acting like he’s super-hyped for his MMA debut on Oct. 6. He tweeted “Can’t (expletive) wait for my #MMA debut.”

Bautista will face Rashid Evans on a Classic Entertainment and Sports Promotions Network show. Bautista, at 43 years old, will make his debut against Rashid Evans, who at 33 years old appears to also be making his MMA debut, although he’s had four amateur fights. Evans’ amateur record is either 1-2 and or 3-1, depending on where you look.
He can be seen here in a youtube clip knocking out his opponent in 10 seconds.

Here’s the truth about Bautista. He has a million-dollar body, but looks don’t tell the whole story. In pro wrestling he was slow, largely immobile and injury prone. He’s torn his tricep muscles at least four times, one of which happened after a fall while jogging.

Who knows what will happen when the 43-year-old Bautista makes an MMA debut. If he gets hit on the chin, he will probably get knocked out.

Rashid has gone three rounds in amateur fights at least two times, so we know he is in cage shape to go the distance. Bautista isn’t the best that pro wrestling has to offer in MMA, but at least he has the guts to try the sport, even at his advanced age.

Bautista’s former pro wrestling peer Jerry “The King” Lawler made national headlines on Monday after he passed out from a heart attack on a live edition of Monday Night Raw, which recently broadcast its 1,000 consecutive weekly episode.

Although pro wrestling is scripted, Lawler is known in wrestling circles as a legitimate tough guy. He must be, at 62, he wrestled Monday night prior to passing out. Lawler is most famous for slapping Andy Kaufman on the old David Letterman show in the 1980s.

Lawler has been the voice of the WWE for so long that he has called just about every Ken Shamrock and Dan Severn match, when the two both turned to professionally wrestling in the 1990s. Lawler’s condition is unclear, but he remains in a Canadian hospital and after he was revived by medical personnel.

Here’s Lawler calling a worked match between Ken Shamrock and The Rock and Lawler calling a triple threat match between Dan Severn, Ken Shamrock and Owen Hart.