to a point where they can contend with top-flight UFC talent. In many ways, they are facsimiles of their coaches, which can be problematic in a game that’s evolving by the day.

Issue #2 – Why can’t the old guard just bow out gracefully?

Kelly – Last year one of the “old guys” of the sport retired with little sound and fury when Ivan Salaverry, a class act in every regard, stopped fighting after dropping three of his last four fights. Salaverry acknowledged that the up-and-coming generation of athletes was getting too fast, too strong, and too well-rounded for a guy like him to keep up with. Now if the rest of his generation would follow his lead and do the same. Granted Randy Couture is a genetic freak who’s had success past the age of forty, but the recent talk from John Hackelman that Liddell still has fight in him and Matt Hughes’ stated desire to rematch GSP is absurd. Their moment in the sun has come and gone and they will be forever remembered fondly. But if they keep fighting they’ll end up like Ken Shamrock, foolishly chasing the false notion that they can still be a contender. As is the case for most elite athletes, pride and inactivity are a devilish concoction that makes them drunk on dreams of foregone glory and money is the shot glass that pushes them over the edge. The cash is simply too much for them to turn down, especially when their entourage fills their ears with images of them winning one more big fight, Rocky Balboa style. There’s a fine line between believing in your friend and telling him the awful truth.

Luke - How does one bout out gracefully if they don’t know how to? Or worse, what if one can’t bow out even if the desire to do so exists? That’s the salient issue, unfortunately. Some fighters long past their prime are certainly fooling themselves into believing they still have legitimate chances at regaining championship contender status or the belt itself. But those fighters are typically ones, like Hughes or Liddell, that aren’t lacking for money and a safety net in life. They’ve achieved financial stability and after years of athletic glory – often facilitated by a constant stream of self-perpetuated positive reinforcement – they simply need the self-satisfaction of knowing that where their mind leads them their bodies can follow. Alas, that’s not the situation facing Shamrock or Tank Abbott. I don’t have access to either man’s bank account, but from what I’ve been told and what we can see in similar situations in boxing, aging fighters take fights because, financially, they have to. For a multitude of reasons, they’ve ended up at the end (or long past) their athletic careers without money and no way to earn more except to do what they know: fight. There aren’t any mandatory courses in Finance 101 for fighters and they don’t have any other skills to achieve gainful employment in other fields after a career spent in fight sport. So the tragedy is less that fighters are kidding themselves they can still mix it up with young bucks of the division based on choice and more that they have to keep their car from getting reposed and to make sure their family can afford prescription drugs.

Issue #3 - Should the UFC and the Nevada State Athletic Commission reinstate "Big" John McCarthy as a referee?

Luke - BloodyElbow.com’s Mike Fagan compiled data on which currently practicing referees have officiated...