Jamie Varner’s Hand Still Broken, Interim WEC Lightweight Title Possible
WEC lightweight champion Jamie Varner today announced on Twitter that a broken hand suffered in his January win over Donald Cerrone remains broken, further postponing a rematch between the pair.
“I just got out of the Docs and hand is still factured,” wrote Varner. “Im really upset I thought I was ready my hand doesnt even hurt but the doc pulled the rug out from my feet.”
The first meeting between Varner and Cerrone, which took place on January 25 at WEC 38, ended in controversey when Varner was unable to continue following an illegal knee and was declared the winner based on the judge’s scorecards.
After recovering for nearly six months, Varner agreed to fight Cerrone in the fall following Cerrone’s win over JamesKrause earlier this month at WEC 41. However, the lingering injury has pushed the bout back at least several more months, with December likely being the earliest Varner could return to the cage.
“We’re still waiting on the medical reports, but it looks like Varner won’t be fighting in the foreseeable future,” Dave Sholler, a WEC representative, today told Cagewriter. “We’re moving forward with the lightweight division, and we haven’t ruled out an interim belt.”
Stay tuned to MMAFrenzy.com for the latest WEC news and WEC rumors\.
[Pictured: Jamie Varner]
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Cerrone vs. Razor Rob for interim lightweight title
he better hope his hand stays broken and he never has to actually defend that title against Cerrone again. he totally wussed out of the first fight.
I agree. It looked like the knee never touched him. He just wanted out of that cage.
The knee never touched him… that’s why he got checked for a detached retina…got it.
I’m just going to say it… I don’t like Varner as a champ I think that his “timeout” call during his fight against Rob was a shhitty thing to do, he was rocked and well called timeout for his mouth piece and the ref allowed it
In the fight against Cerrone well the “illegal knee” was some bull imo and well someone just needs to drop him on his asss and take his damnn belt..
Rob v Cerrone not a bad idea and should happen and then a rematch either way would happen I’m good with that
Where is Cung Le? He hasn’t defended his belt in over a year and i haven’t heard a rumor about who he is going 2 fight…IMO Cung Le is good but overrated for the fact his ground game is suspect and as of right now he is ducking fighters. Sorry to bring Cung Le up but for some reason he remindes me of Jamie Varner.
Cung lee has been filming Tekken with Roger Huerta thats why neither of them have fought. Plus the dudes like 37 and siezed the opportunity to be in what might be a big movie(i doubt it). also hes going to be in that new movie Pandorum(with dennis quaid where there in space)
I don’t really like Varner, but i also don’t like Razor or Cerrone, whoever fights whoever,it doesn’t matter cuz they all suck baalls :D
I’m not a real big fan of “interim championshsips”. They seem to cause more problems then they solve in the long run, although they can on occasion set up interesting match-ups down the road, and add a lot of fuel to the Internet fan fires.
There also doesn’t seem to be any sort of universal industry guideline regarding injured champions, or if and when a promotion should set aside that champion and crown an interim title holder.
Maybe the reason that Bimbo Slice equates Cung Le with Jamie “Timeout” Varner is that both men, while unquestionably talented and successful, seem to sort of pick and choose opponents as they please and take fights when the mood strikes them, which is their choice, I suppose, but not one thats particularly endearing to the fans, or ultimately, their employers.
It’s also pretty hard to avoid being labeled “dodger” by observers when you’re facing film directors instead of division contenders.
Not to contradict Bimbo Slice, but I would relate Cung Le more to Roger Huerta than Jamie Varner. Both Le and Huerta have for all intents and purposes back-burner’ed MMA for imagined Hollywood success. While I wish them both well in whatever endeavor they decide to pursue, and can respect their exploring other means of making a living, at least Huerta didn’t leave his last job with an important piece of “office equipment”, namely, a championship belt. Cung Le after picking up his shiny strap decided he wanted to be some sort of Jackie Chan wannabe instead of a professional MMA fighter, which is his right. What’s not right is that he didn’t relinquish said championship before taking his leave. Now the promotion and its fans are sort of stuck in limbo while Le checks out his new hobby.
IMO that’s not a great way to do business, nor is it doing justice to the sport and its enthusiasts…
I dont like the way Jammie acts, and talks but I give him a load of credit for the way he fights. Fight wise he is an awesome fighter IMO and with his Wrestle’n and Very Good Boxing stand up he is gonna be hard to beat by anyone.
IMO he won every rd in the D. Cerrone fight {I am a big fan of D. Cerrone and was pulling for him to win} People call him a punk for not continue’n to fight but that Knee was right on the money!! Plus the broken hand. Hey the kid can fight is all i’m saying. If he is 100% I dont see nobody in that weight class hanging with him.
Whether you like Varner or not, I don’t get how anyone can say that because his hand is broken he is dodging the fight. If the doctor doesn’t clear him, then the doctor doesn’t clear him. And I really doubt anyone would purposely break their hand to not fight, especially 2 months out. If anyone wanted to injure themselves to get out of a fight they’d be much better served to “get headbutted during warm-ups” and have to go get stitches, like Shammy Sham.
On the whole interim title thing, it’s definitely a promotion by promotion decision, and I can’t for the life of me figure out why Strikeforce wanted to do an interim title at 155 when Thompson got hurt, but haven’t done likewise for Le who is out by choice, or simply stripped him of it for not defending. I don’t have a problem with interim title’s, though. If you expect a guy to return, but he can’t defend his title for whatever reason, you should put the division on hold. It allows someone to fight for the “permanent number one contender” spot, essentially. That way the promotion can still hype fights, but whoever happens to be the number one contender will stay that way unless someone beats them, and they won’t have to worry about getting leap frogged for a title shot (99.9% of the time anyways).
Interim titles have been used wisely and poorly in MMA in the past. Three great examples come from the UFC
When Mir got into his motorcycle accident and they created the Interim HW championship it made perfect sense. He can’t defend because of an injury and he will be out for an unforeseen future. Letting HW’s fight for an interim title allows a champion to be crowned and later when his return was still in question he was stripped and the interim champion became the HW champion
The interim belt that GSP won in his fight with Hughes was total garbage and bull crap. You don’t make an interim belt to award a fighter because the fight is too big to not be a title fight, which is in essence the reason Dana gave for it. Now he is the president and can do what ever the hell he wants, but that is a really poor excuse for creating an interim belt. Kinda on that whole “too big to fail” crap.
A third example that is right in the middle is the Randy Couture/Lesnar Nog/Mir belt-feast. If Randy is the champion and he “resigns” from the organization, then he is not the champion. If he declines a fight from the UFc he should be stripped of his belt. Holding on to a champion because he’s popular is a poor reason, then to crown an interim champion, then to have the champion return and not fight said interim champion but a different #1 contender (somehow) and let the interim champion fight another/another #1 contender to only then have the two fight to unite the belts is got to be something out of the “Days of our Lives” world, cause even pro-wrestling can’t be that drama filled.
Randy didn’t fight Nog because Nog-Mir was already signed. Couture fought someone else because it would have been…hmm…about 6 months before he fought anyway. And we all like title fights…
How many times has that been pointed out? And people still don’t get it….
I don’t disagree that Nog/Mir was the proper match up to make, but Randy should have been stripped of his title. In either Randy’s resignation from the UFC or Dana’s interpretation of retirement he should have relinquished the title, making the Sylvia/Nog fight a real championship fight rather than an interim fight. Randy’s return fight against Lesnar should not have been a title match.
I always thought the interim title was due to Serra pulling out of the huge grudge match between himself, the title holder, and his hated rival Matt Hughes, due to injury. I also think there was this Ultimate Fighter show where they were hyping the whole Serra/Hughes fight for like 3 months. And when Serra got hurt, well, you’ve got 18,000 fans who paid big bucks to see a title fight, and a title fight is what they got. If a champ gets hurt and has no exact timeline of getting back, you need to move business forward.
Remember, the UFC waited 7 months for Mir to decide when he’ll return before crowning an interim champ. If you ask me though, Mir’s first fight back should have been for the belt, but instead he got GnP’d by the worst striker in the world Pe De Pano (but that’s another thread).
I think that part of the reason Mir was eventually stripped of the title, and his first fight back was not for the title was the extent of the time off, and the fact that he was a shell of the fighter he was before the injury.