f13.net

I'd like this to be "The MMA Thread", but I'm unsure of the potential popularity around here - I guess MMA has a reputation for being a sport for white trash/rednecks.  I don't agree, because I love it. Maybe I actually AM white trash, and am wholly unaware of it.

Anywho, two really interesting fights this weekend.  Anderson Silva moving up a weight class and fighting a guy who should give him more of a battle than the average tomato can.  The return of Fedor, fighting a former UFC heavyweight champ.  Also, Rampage goes on a rampage and gets his ass arrested.  Bitter over his loss?

Feel free to ignore.  Or discuss.

MMA for rednecks? I thought that was WWE :awesome_for_real:

I used to watch a lot of it back when it was first starting out here (i.e. back when Royce Gracie and Ken Shamrock were doing UFC). Don't watch so much anymore.

That was when I originally got into it to.  When they went underground, I wasn't really following it.  Quite a different sport today, but I still enjoy watching some of the older fights from the Gracie/Shamrock era.

My buddy and I used to rent all the old tapes and watch the PPVs religiously. Now that they have a new event every month or so, that has fallen off. Of course, with the addition of 2 wives, 2 kids (and another on the way), 2 mortgages, etc, we have neither the time nor the funds to watch all of them. I catch one or two a year now. I can barely follow who is who these days, but I still appreciate a good fight.

You had me going... I thought this was a thread on B12 deficiency. 

MMA is great. Looking forward to Fedor entering the US to see how he will do against UFC. Fedor physically and technically is and should be above any of the current UFC fighters, some of the old ones in their top days could give him a heavy go, Randy Couture in his prime days in a grappling fight would be awesome to see. Also I want a Cro Cop VS Fedor rematch, that would be great.

Rampage got his ass handed last time, I admit I was hoping he was winnar, but towards the end the other guy I don't even know the name of was better.

He got his ass handed to him by cops yesterday too.

I, too, used to watch more in the Gracie days. There's been some great fighters since (Bas, Wanderlei, Sakuraba, Vitor), but even those guys are getting old now. My friend still watches a lot, so when he checks it out, I sit for awhile. The lightweights seems to be a lot more exciting than anything else these days.

The lightweights are great. Due to the phsyical difference compared to heavyweight, the fights are faster, dancy and there is more moving invovled and tricks no heavyweighter can pull off. BJ Penn is great in this division.

Yep, I've always been a fan of footwork (dancy, as you said). Octagons are pretty small though, so I can't really expect a big guy moving around like Ali in there too much. What it revolves around is a hockey fight, and then slow submission (which was cool to see at first). Other leagues (mostly foreign) have full rings, and it's a hell of a lot better, I think. They're just not broadcast in the States very often.

The lighter weight classes are awesome, but the heavier ones can be as well.  The light-heavyweights tend to get the most press, and for good reason (usually).

Stray - if you are thinking of Pride, they went throught some financial troubles, got bought up by the UFC and were subsequently closed down for good.  Not sure what other leagues you might be thinking of...

Pride, Pancrase, and Euro and South American leagues. Some of the same fighters that dominate UFC also dominate in those areas, so I guess it's not making a huge difference, but it's cooler to see fighters on their feet more (and to see more styles able to be expressed... hell, even Capoeira gets a fighting chance).

Pride = Yakukza run. Once this became open public knowledge, the TV station pulled it from their schedule, and the other sponsors left too.

Yep, that's what I'd read too.

I like a healthy mix of the stand-up and the grappling.  UFC has a better mix of it these days, but yeah, I like to watch some of the old Pride and even K-1 stuff.

I miss the old school stuff with no weight classes, and fights between single discipline guys. It was really interesting to see the contrast in styles. Now everyone is trained in multiple disciplines at it is far more boring imo.

Oh yeah. I remember the first ever UFC fight. A skinny Dutch Savate guy vs..... a SUMO. Everyone was scared for the smaller dude. No guards, no mouthpieces, etc..

And then this happened, and I was hooked:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FmXreAYwJCQ (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FmXreAYwJCQ)

One of my favorite moments was Don Frey knocking out a guy that was about 250 pounds heavier and close to a foot taller than him. The big guy was a late replacement in the fight IIRC, so he was probably just some local drunk they drug in off a bar stool (AKA the Tank Abbott school of fighting). Nevertheless, it was impressive.

Yeah, BJ is amazing.  St. Pierre is great to watch too, though I'm secretly hoping BJ will move up a class and give him a good fight (this time, without gassing).

I used to watch it in those days. Two hundred pound weight advantages, Joyce Gracie tapping out guys with ankle locks from his back, and Taktarov winning matches by staying in his guard for 45 minutes until his opponent was completely gassed.

I see your Sumo fighter, and raise you

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5zhQb_nkR0U

Keith Hackney broke his wrist or arm that fight and could not continue in the tournament.

Heh yeah, I recall that one too.

The dutch guy in the previous vid did, in fact, break his wrist too -- on the punch to the eye, right after the kick. He ended up going against a Muay Thai dude after that match, and still won it. So then it became him against Gracie...and the way Gracie took him down was, I guess, how his legend was born.

The thing that will forever stick in my mind about the Hackney fight was that overhand shot he landed. You gotta be inventive with your strikes when the guy stands a full foot taller and weighs like 3 pounds more than you.

I am totally renting a bunch of the old fights again, thanks for making this thread :)



Fedor is a beast.  I can't wait to see him fight again.

I raise your tubbys with a real giant with strength and flexibility. This guy is 10 times more dangerous than any of those tubby ones.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=P3QzX1ZadJM

Another David VS Goliath :

http://youtube.com/watch?v=PJeOMih5ceM

I keep forgetting what this thread is about and clicking on it!   (http://www.invision.smileyville.net/smilies/girl%20(9).gif)

Fedor is the Man! Didn't know he fought that big chinese dude though -- someone was just talkin' about him the other day. Total freak of nature. Although, that doesn't seem to stop his luck.

(http://popseoul.files.wordpress.com/2007/11/20071101choihongmin.jpg)

Lucky bastard  :heartbreak:

Guess I should have realized you were not talking about this.... (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P-8_Poseidon)

I love me some Fedor, but I am secretly wondering what will happen when he starts facing former (or current) UFC talent.  There is a part of me that wonders if he isn't going to get his face re-arranged.

Where is the fight airing tomorrow ?

We will see after tomorrows fight in what shape Fedor is.

Judging from the pic, that might be what he is hoping for.

I want to say Vegas, but I'm not sure.  Unless you meant the "where" as in "what network", but I'm guessing you know it's PPV.

Anderson Silva, on the other hand, will be on Spike, which is a direct kick in the testes from UFC to Donald Trump and the other Affliction guys.

Edit: pretty sure it is in Anaheim, actually.  Some place called the Honda center.

Did you see Hackney in UFC...4 I want to say?  Where he gave that idiot Korean wrestler guy (Kimo's trainer AND Jesus advisor) countless unanswered punches directly to the nutsack?  Keith Hackney was awesome.  He'd get totally killed today, but he was involved in some classics.  Crazy Tiger-style Karate or something.

Oh. My. God.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=CE2ZpL2-5BQ

 :awesome_for_real:

He needs to get into a Couture fight asap, or he's always going to have an asterisk next to his record (not necessarily to me).

[edit] Too bad there's a light heavyweight division. I think some of those guys would still be good opponents for him.

[edit] Well shit, didn't realize Couture was 45. Even if Fedor did win, it'd just be another asterisk.

You're probably right about that asterisk...but for my money, Fedor would probably walk through a Randy Couture even in his prime.  We'll never know, but we'll probably get to see him against the 45 year-old version.

Hell, I guess I expected him to win last night , but....words fail.

I have no idea how they gave that fight to Griffin, I need to watch it again maybe but you dont take a title unless you took a title.  For my money he didn't do shit besides not capitalize on fucking up Jackson's leg for shit and fight 3 close rounds with him after losing the first badly.

I love me some UFC.

I'm very very much looking forward to August 9th's ppv.

So...some impressions from the fights Saturday?

I'll give it a whirl. 

First - Silva vs Irvin.  Only reason the fight lasted as long as it did (one whole minute!) was because it took most of that time before either of them either made a move.  Irvin throws a half-assed leg kick.  Silva catches it and sends a straight right into Irvin's face while still holding the leg.  I think I have seen that happen before, but not to such devastating effect.  It was pretty much game over at that point, with the formality of a few smacks about the head only serving to make sure that Irvin really was toast.  Anyone watching that fight having never seen Anderson Silva in action might call it a fluke, but he seems to do crazy shit like that ALL THE TIME.  I do think he will lose a fight in the UFC eventually (it is MMA after all), but they guy is freaky good. 

Sylvia vs Fedor....what can be said?  Fedor basically just waded in and said "I give fuckall about how tall you are and how good of a striker you are" and just...fucking socked Sylvia straight in the face.  When Sylvia goes down, he continues to bash his face in, methodically waits and gets the hooks in, rolls him over and starts choking him.  Not even a regular choke, but a "I'm going to crush your wind-pipe just because I can" choke.  What, thirty six seconds?  The only way I can describe the kind of beat down he gave is to say - with a completely straight face - that I would have done just as well as Tim Sylvia did.  Because he whooped Sylvia like he was any chump off the street.

Other fights I saw...uneventful.  One dude got repeatedly poked in the eye.  Brandon Vera looked like a sack of crap at Light Heavyweight.

I somehow managed to not see the overcard fights just the unbroadcasted stuff (damn pirates) from UFN but here's my thoughts.

Silva and Fedor are dominant, Fedor is like Tyson, how can you not be scared of that guy?  Fucking beast.  Silva is even better, because he's just THAT fucking good.  I think tbh the worst thing that happened in 185 was that fucking knee to the head in the Leitis v Marquart fight.  If that had been a proper win for someone I'd like to see them fight Silva.  Btw, I think Silva would probably kill Griffin, who shouldn't be champ anyways in my mind...  It'd be like the Franklin v Silva fights all over again.

I see the top tier of the UFC 185 as being:
Silva
Marquart
Evans
Leitis
Bisping (I hate to put him here, but he's on a roll, I hate this fucker)

I'd put top four at:

Silva
Henderson
Franklin
Okami

And then its a scrum of Marquart, Cote, Kampmann (if he isn't injured) or winner of Bisping/Leben.  Almeida needs a couple matches, and Leites is kind of meh to me after the Marquart fight.  I think Henderson and Franklin could beat pretty much anyone else in the division,  but would get killed by Silva (again).

- Evans is at LHW still,  and scheduled to face Liddell in a couple months

- Cote has been really, really solid despite the uninteresting fight with Almeida.  Four straight (including two highlight reel KOs) in UFC, and he killed Jason Day outside UFC (same guy that Bisping just KOed)

- Bisping has only had two fights at MW after a mediocre run in the LHW div.  McCarthy was forgettable, and Jason Day was a beating.  But Cote also has a recent KO of Day.

- Leben has had a couple decent wins (Martin and Sakara) lately.


Anderson Silva's next title defense is in October.  Originally scheduled against Okami,  Okami is out with an injury and will be replaced by Cote.  Cote is going to be destroyed.

There is a huge gap between Silva and the rest of the field. Rich Franklin's deer-in-headlights look when he got destroyed in the clinch their first fight was hilarious.

Urijah Faber has been into my restaurant several times and he's always super cool and laid back; NOT white trash at all.  The first time I met him, he gave me his card and said he was opening an MMA gym.  I had no idea who he was at the time.

Actually Nascar is a sport for white trash and rednecks. MMA, beyond the most base level of 2 people beating the shit out of eachother, is wayyyyyyyyyyy too complicated for those 2 particular genres of white folk.

That's awesome.  He's a pretty amazing fighter.  Just think how much ass you'd be able to kick if you'd have joined his gym back then.

Edit: to fix ugly quote

Yeah, I am really, really, really into mma.

Anyway, the fighters I like to see fight in UCF are

Anderson Silva
Forest Griffin (The kid is getting good. Cred where credit is due.)
Kenny Florian
BJ Penn
Keith Jardine
Ivan Saleverry
Dean Lister (I fucking love this guy, his ground game is brutal)
Karo Parysian
Hermes Franco (Kid is sneaky and smart as shit. Ground game from fucking hell.)


Anyway, I loves me some MMA

Anyone see that WEC Jens Pulver/Urijah Faber fight. Pretty decent fight. Pulver lost by decision but it was interesting. That Faber kid needs to get out of WEC and try the light weight in UCF. Super talented.

Yeah, I saw the Faber/Pulver fight.  What was most interesting about it was that Faber very definitely beat Jens at his own game.  You kinda knew Faber was going to win, but likely in a different fashion.

He'd do well in the UFC, probably even be a champion, but he'd certainly face stiffer competition.  I have no idea what would happen in a Faber vs. Penn fight, but I'd sure love to see it.

He'd have to go up in weight to fight in the UFC.  WEC is owned by UFC and Urijah is the face of WEC.  He's not going anywhere.

That's awesome.  He's a pretty amazing fighter.  Just think how much ass you'd be able to kick if you'd have joined his gym back then.


[/quote]

It wasn't even that long ago.  Like 1.5 years.  He tried to get me to join and I gave him the "I'm too old" excuse.

You bring up some good points, but I can't believe you mention Okami.  That fight scheduled was because of the DQ loss Silva had.  I have to hunt down a video of that fight but I doubt he was losing.  Franklin has talent to beat most others but he will never ever beat Silva.  Neither will Cote.  But Cote has a bit more chance, for one he's not terrified of Silva (yet) and he is tough and mean enough to be getting his ass kicked and still land something nasty.  Henderson is a good call, if he still has it in him, tbh I wasn't immpressed with either of his title fights.  It never looked to me like he was putting it all out there, more like he was fighting a good pro fight but sort of on autopilot.  Marquart is good.  Really good.  Leben is a fucking joke.  Chris Leben?  Kidding me?  Fuck that guy.

I'm so stoked to see the Huerta v Florian fight, the August 9th PPV has been bought in my mind since I heard that fight announced.

Here are my favorite fighters:
135
Miguel Torres

145
Urijah Faber
Yoshiro Maeda

155
Roger Huerta
BJ Penn

170
Kim Dong Hyun
Karo Parisyan
Diego Sanchez
Georges St-Pierre
Yoshida Yoshiyuki

185
Anderson Silva

205
Forrest Griffin
Matt Hamill
Quinton Jackson
Lyoto Machida
Goran Reljic
Mauricio Rua
Thiago Silva

Heavyweight:
Andrei Arlovski
Fedor

If memory serves...isn't Okami the guy that Silva knocked-the-fuck-out while on his back and delivering a brutal upkick?  At the time they interpreted it as a violation of the rule for kicking someone in the head while the fighter is on his back - only they didn't expect it to happen in reverse - and subsequently DQed Silva?  Am I thinking of another fight?

Arlovski vs Fedor coming up, so that'll be interesting.  My money's on Fedor, but anything can happen in MMA.

Okami is 6-1 in the UFC,  with his one loss a close decision to Rich Franklin.  He's the guy that bullied Mike Swick around the cage, and sent Swick down to welterweight.  He's also ranked in the top 10 middleweights by quite a few websites.  The biggest knock against him I can think of is that he's boring, often going to decisions.

I think the Silva DQ came because Okami had a knee down when Silva upkicked him for the KO.

Ah yes, that makes more sense.  Knew it was something like that.  Still bullshit though, because Silva was very much on his back, and Okami was very much looming over him.  Not only should they not have DQed him (based on my imaginery rulebook of fairness), but he should have gotten a bonus for such an awesome KO.

So, UFC 87 coming up, and three interesting matches:

GSP vs. Jon Fitch - Georgie boy really should tear him up.  I can't see him giving another title defense let-down.  You never can tell though.

Brock Lesnar vs. Heath Herring - I think Lesnar is going to have his coming out party here.  I've never seen Herring in action, however, which could explain my lack of confidence in him.

Florian vs. Huerta - gonna have to go with El Matador (Huerta), but I can easily see it going the other way.

Herring is a brawler. He got beat badly by a dude with some collegiate wrestling skills who took him down over and over again. If they stay standing he has a chance but if Brock is smart he should win easily.

GSP v. Fitch -- GSP is the pretty clear favorite.  Fitch has a string of good wins,  but none of them have been particularly impressive.  GSP has been dominating top guys for the last couple years, outside of the Serra KO.

Herring v. Lesner -- Herring is inconsistent.  Style-wise,  this looks like a gimme for Lesner who should take Heath down and pound him into jelly.

Huerta v. Florian --  Number one contender match for lightweight, basically.  Should be an amazing fight.

I glanced through the undercard and nothing else particularly jumps out as a great fight.



If you missed it,  WEC had a show last night on Versus.  Not bad mostly,  though alot of quick or one sided fights.  The final fight of the night was Carlos Condit vs. Hiromitsu Miura and was fan-fucking-tastic.

Condit is a muay thai/bjj guy, Miura a boxer/judoka.  Good back and forth stand up with some absolutely amazing judo throws.  Great sweeps and scrambles on the ground,  and it went to the end of the fourth.   

If it wasn't for the Kenflo v Huerta fight I wouldn't pay for this ppv, but Huerta is one of my absolute favs and watching Jon Fitch get smacked will be nice too.  If Lesner or Herring can't end that fight and it goes a full 15min I'll be pretty goddamn pissed.  Lesner is big enough that I expect his ground and pound to end fights quickly.

The WEC shit was great, none of the fights were quality though several were enjoyable until the finale, then it was a really really good fight as Cee says.

Lesner's last fight he was actually quite dominant in until he made a stupid mistake and got pwn'd, and it was against a much better fighter.

He does have to win this one in a convincing fashion though if anyone is going to take him seriously.  Sure he's big and he's got legit collegiate wrestling chops but there are guys out on the MMA circuit with Olympic medals who are at best 2nd tier.

I want Lesnar to just go away. He's an even bigger dork than Tito Ortiz.

So I was watching some MMA on Showtime tonight and there's ex-boxer Jeremy Williams training a guy.  Apparently he's fighting MMA himself these days and is 5-0.  Williams was decent as a boxer, fast, good power, but wasn't very big for a heavyweight and didn't take a punch very well.  I'm kinda curious what he can do.  Usually when a pro boxer ends up in MMA he's some grossly over-the-hill slob who hasn't bothered to crosstrain at all and ends up getting choked silly.  (See old Ray Mercer getting choked out by fucking Kimbo of all people.)  I liked Williams when he was boxing, would be fun to see if he can cut it.

I'm pretty into MMA as well, but I've been avoiding this thread since I have a ..rather large backlog of UFC cards to get around to watching, and I've been trying to avoid seeing spilers, like the one I just saw about Brock getting a loss. I did watch the Affliction event though, and damn, Fedor.

I'm looking forward to seeing him vs Arlovski later in the year, but also kinda not, since I like Arlovski and expect he will be crushed by Fedor. Ditto Randy.

That Huerta fight, pissed me off so fucking much.  The UFC really needs to figure out some kind of scoring system that doesn't suck total cock and lead to "tactical wins" like that one.  Where one guy realizes that he has a good chance at losing to competition that is as good as him so he just sits back and forces the whole fight to be on his terms.  I've seen Koshcheck, Zwick and now Ken (I end fights at 155!!!  :awesome_for_real:  fuckwad) Flo do it.  It has pissed me the fuck off each and every time.

I know its a bitch of a sport to score, but this 10-must isn't working for shit.

Not sure I understand. Are you blaming him for not participating in a slugfest with Roger? Not only does he "have a good chance" of losing at that, but he has a good chance of just getting his ass straight up kicked. He admitted it afterwards too. Finding a way of changing the nature of the fight is the only option there.

But hell, tactical wins is what Gracie did for years. And newer fighters like Machida are the shit imo. Or to take it further in the past, Ali wouldn't be the "greatest" if he decided to just trade punches with people. That wasn't his thing. Knocking people out wasn't what made him great. Frustrating them (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JU9mG7io_mI) (elusiveness) and wearing them down (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N44vdCqI7LI) (rope-a-dope) was.

Some guys are skilled technicians, and some guys are just spoilers.  Corey Spinks has been a successful boxer, but he's just excruciatingly boring to watch.  There's not much you can do, except ask your judges to put more emphasis on aggression.  I do question how the ten-point-must system works in MMA, since they don't score knockdowns the way they do in boxing.

You realize this falls apart in MMA where there is only 15 minutes of fight?  What if Huerta refuses to come forward and engage either?  Now we have no fight?  Machida's style is something that should be embraced but there needs to be a much greater score advantage if you are the aggressor.  A close round where one guy initiated all the action should go to that guy.  Because if your applauding what KenFlo did, thats just stupid.  So he couldn't beat Huerta except via the judges?  Oh yeah, lets reward that type of win...  Machida does damage, but more importantly takes none, KenFlo did JUST BARELY more damage, with a few more takedowns he earned by hanging back and forcing Heurta to just come at him.  It was hardly the type of win that should earn a guy a title fight.  I hope ufc gives him what he deserves, not a title shot.

I think it's unfair to say that Florian was so passive that Huerta could have just not engaged himself. He initiated enough times to say that he was actually in the fight at least. Especially in the second half. He moved in close enough where Roger had quite a few chances to get his hands on him too -- he even did a lot of risky/stupid shit, like trying to roundhouse Huerta a few times -- but whenever Huerta tried to get a grip, Ken simply beat him on skill in that respect. He deserves some credit for getting out every time. It isn't easy.

I mention Machida because a lot of people say the same thing about him (but not you apparently) -- he might make it look easy and lazy, but it's very technical. I'll grant you though that KenFlo isn't nearly as cool. Machida's also big -- when he's had his fun, he's capable of enough impact to go in for the kill eventually. He might win by decision a lot too, but usually kicks up the drama towards the end.

So apparently Williams racked up a 5-0 record against the usual newbie-fodder stiffs between December and March, but hasn't fought since.  Finding out why via Google is difficult, since some OTHER fighter also named Jeremy Williams apparently killed himself last year.  At 36 years old he can't afford to waste time if he plans to get anywhere with it.

Here's (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_vMFAArQ07g) his most recent fight.  I don't know how far he could potentially go, really.  He was a decent boxer, but never really a contender, and was on his way down anyway.  On one hand, his biggest weakness was always a shaky chin, which isn't likely to be as much of a factor here since everyone will be trying to fight him on the ground and most MMA guys punch like girls anyway.  On the other hand, he's presumably a pretty raw newb when it comes to the ground, though he does seem to be striving to learn.

I dunno, I was just tickled to see the guy still around.  Always seemed like a likable dude.

Florian was pretty fucking passive.  He obviously wanted to outpoint Huerta for the win, which is fine, but more likely than not he cost himself a title shot.  If you can't go in and come up with a gameplan to dominate Roger Huerta,  what the hell are you going to do to BJ Penn?

It was especially disappointing considering the other folks in the division.  Tyson Griffin and Frankie Edgar are close to being ready for a title shot,  and I don't think either of those guys has ever had a boring fight.

Machida's style is better,  but it's still as exciting as watching paint dry.  I put it in the same category as the "clinch against the cage" people and the lay and prayers.  I even enjoy a good show of wrestling top control,  but seriously...  you need to do something with it.

It takes some technique, sure.  But then it takes technique to thoroughly hold down a guy on his back so that he can't scramble or escape.  It still is not interesting to watch.

Some kind of stalling/aggression ruling is going to have to be made if you don't want every guy to go out there for the win by points, rather than a good and entertaining fight. 

Please don't interpret this as me saying two guys should go out and throw haymakers until one crumbles.  No.  Guys SHOULD take chances and look to end things though,  or at least just push the pace.  The best example of that I can think of is Clay Guida:  win or lose,  that guy puts on a show.

A contest to see who can be the most patient counterpuncher?  No.

BJ Penn's a completely different beast than Huerta. He's not an aggressive brawler either. I mean, Florian's tactics were for that Huerta fight specifically. Most of the time, he's a straight up kickboxer on his feet. He's also a bjj student like Penn.

Anyways, I understand your concern for entertainment, but that isn't MMA's priority. It's just supposed to be a test of martial arts skills. Always was. And technically, counter-attacking would be the basis of all of it. It's why martial arts even exist and are invented in the first place.

Also, people always used to bitch about grapplers and shooters for not being entertaining too, but they ended up shaping the sport to what it's become.

[edit] More than likely, Penn would keep going for the takedown against a guy like Florian. It'd be the complete opposite as this situation. The time I've seen BJ meet a strong Muay Thai fighter, he tried to take it on the floor as quick as possible.

In principle I agree, but I don't think Dana White sees it that way.  Entertainment first for the UFC.  He loves guys like Wanderlei Silva who, while he is technically very capable, will always prefer to put on a good show.

I can't blame him for liking Wanderlei. I like him too. Funny thing is, KenFlo fights like a mini-version of him usually. They're strong in both of the same skillsets -- Muay Thai and BJJ. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if Kenny learned his whole schtick from Silva. He can be explosive, tends to like leading off with a muay thai grip and kneeing a lot, then after that, getting a guy on the ground. It's the same thing Wanderlei does. One difference is that Kenny does more high kicks if he's on his feet long enough -- but entertainment wise, that would actually qualify him as being more flashy.


If you're comparing him to Machida though, I understand. Then again, I was reading an article the other day where some writer was suspecting that the UFC was biased towards Machida, and totally in love with him.

So that's kinda ironic. There's all kinds of criticism coming from both sides.

I dunno.  If they were so in love with Machida they'd give him what he deserves.  A title shot.  I think he's probably earned it, but the big knock on him is that fans think he is boring.  Or at least they keep telling us that fans think he's boring.

And for the record, I think Machida style MMA is just as entertaining as Wanderlei style.

I disagree with your definition of skill.

Allow small joint manipulation then,  in which case the wrestlers/grapplers would rapidly cripple (literally cripple:  it was pretty common around the turn of the 19th century in pro wrestling, back when they were real bouts rather than scripted testosterone porn) most of the active athletes.

Every VIEWING sport has to make changes to make the sport entertaining for the fans.  It's just that the big three in the US (baseball, football, basketball) made those changes long enough ago the people forgot about them.

For instance:  The shot clock in basketball?  Really?  If one team is skilled enough to keep the ball away from the other team
for extended periods of time,  why do we discriminate against them in favor of team strategies based on scoring points?

By the same token, I don't think that the NBA should just turn basketball into dunking contests because "that's what the fans like".

You need to walk the line between rewarding different strategies of play while at the same time keeping the sport interesting.


I specifically mentioned the so called "lay and prayers" and the clinchers, as well.  Look at Sean Sherk:  that dude is an amazing wrestler, really showing how top control and position work.  He also comes close to the line of stalling/playing it safe, where he just sits on top of someone and does just enough to get the match stood back up.


There's just no way I see Florian taking this fight. 

I think Penn has the advantage in the boxing,  and Florian will be too worried about takedowns to throw a leg out there, which cuts the reach advantage.  I mean,  Penn was demolishing GSP on the feet in their fight.

Florian has bjj,  but Penn has world class bjj.

Florian's best strategy is the same as Huerta:  stay on the outside,  backpeddle,  and throw the occasional strike. 

Point about shotclocks is apt. I'll grant you that. That was a big reason that the Celts won eleven championships in a row back in the day -- Bob Cousy.

I understand that there is a need for entertainment, I just don't think it's the priority. What you said above about dunking though makes me think that we're probably on the same page here. Both of us just want to see a balance. I think I may be a little more tolerant of the Bob Cousy's of the MMA world though.


As for Florian and skill -- I want to give him credit because he knew nothing about wrestling before Huerta. Huerta is heavy greco/roman, and instead of relying on BJJ for his floor skills, Florian worked his ass off to study greco/roman wrestling instead (and counters). And it showed. Huerta couldn't grip him, and it was because Florian invested the time to learn how to counter him. That is skill and lots of training. A lot of fighters tend to rest on their strengths, but Kenny is a pretty versatile dude. He's got his strengths too, but he doesn't leave it at that.

As for avoiding him on his feet, well... he was just weighing his options and saw that he was outclassed in power there -- and Huerta had enough things in his bag to counter him in a straight up fight. So why walk into trouble? I mean, sure, it wasn't exciting, but I think what Florian did was smart in general. And I still don't think it was as passive as you guys make it out to be.

Sorry if the above is a little jumbled. I'm in a rush and very caffeinated.  :-)

I don't think we're that far apart, view wise.

I'm just more of a ground guy (have a bunch of former Div I and Div III wrestlers in the family, grew up watching amateur wrestling) so I appreciate it more.  I mostly enjoy Sherk for instance, despite being the "Muscle Blanket",  though guys like Jesse Taylor or Jake O'brien make even me want to put a pen through my eye. 

If you're more a boxing guy,  than you tend to have more patience for the boxing point wars.  I think the Hammill/Bisping fight is a great example of how,  depending on your prejudice,  you thought one or the other guy definitively won that.

Hammill essentially killed Bisping in round 1,  and then Bisping basically edged Hammill out in light on action point based boxing in round two and three.

Yeah, I'm big on boxing. I think I said on the first page that footwork is one of things I see lacking in MMA (not that it exists, but it's not a big focus...clinching is). Especially the bigger the fighters get. Smaller fighters tend to be more fun to watch. To me, elusiveness is the crowning factor in the greatest fighters. It's what made Ali so good...and Bruce Lee's style so cool as well.

I agree with Stray, staple boxing foot work is nearly non existent in MMA. A deeper understanding of boxing theory would go a long way for many of these fighters. I did MMA for about 3 years off and on and that was one thing I always noticed when we sparred, many of these MMA types can't box to save their lives.

Fancy footwork is the ONLY thing that beats Chuck Norris! (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JLO1YIWQuXE)  :-P

I think they need to ditch control as a scoring factor and just do damage and aggression.

If you control someone but don't do any damage what are you accomplishing? And if you don't control someone but do damage what's the problem?

It seems like the logic is that if you control you are more likely to do damage, but why not just measure the damage directly? Taking someone down and keeping them down for a while should not in itself be worth anything unless the takedown itself is brutal.

They need to change something about scoring.

Florian was fighting for points, not fighting to win.  The judges shouldn't give people like that wins unless they totally outclass the opponent.  What he was doing was just as weak as the rush takedown at the end of a round that does almost no damage but scores big points if everything I hear/read is to be believed.  That shit is bullshit.

That fight reminded me exactly of those the Mick Swick v Diego Sanchez fight.  Sanchez wins fights because he gets into fights and just finds ways to fuck up his opponents head and get all over them.  So Swick just wouldn't fight him, he danced away, landed jabs and frustrated and frustrated.  He just countered and countered and basically ran.  As the sport continues to mature if they dont do something we'll see more and more fights like that.  Fuck that noise.  Machida isn't my favorite fighter but he initiates contact then moves away, thats a huge difference from running once you've landed your handful of counters/jabs as the other guy comes in. 

Koscheck / Diego?

That was where Swick got it from, which was Diego's first loss; the fight versus Swick was his second.  They were(are) both at AKA at the time and so Swick came in and it was like painfully obvious that all he was going for was the most pathetic score points win of all time.  Koscheck clearly just wanted a win, because he's a bitch and instead of fighting him went for winning a decision but while that fight was garbage, it was more down to Diego (similar to Huerta) only knowing how to fight a guy who was trying to fight him.

The Swick fight was terrible because Diego clearly knew he might face the same bullshit but he still couldn't do much to stop it.  If the guy wont fight you except to counter you as you close and he has a reach advantage...  Its not like boxing where you wade inside and start beating him up.  Tiny gloves, punches can do big damage, etc.

I want to see Kimbo fight someone with a pulse and get annhilated.

I totally forgot that Swick and Diego fought.

Diego's second loss was Fitch.  I don't believe that Diego and Swick have ever fought,  unless it was on a TUF.

According to Sherdog's fight finder they haven't. I guess that's why I didn't remember it.

I don't really know a whole lot about MMA, but I like watching guys fight and there's been fuck-all going on in boxing lately.  I like Pavlik at middleweight, but the heavies have been a total loss since Lennox Lewis retired.  There's some MMA hate among the really hardcore boxing fans, spurred on by some of the stuff coming out of the mouths of MMA promoters in recent years, but whatever.  I'll watch anything if it's a good fight.  Boxing, MMA, western kickboxing, Muay Thai out of Thailand when it turns up somewhere, whatever.

If it was Fitch, my bad, but it was one of the pussiest fights I've ever seen.  I'm going to rewatch it right now (I have from ufc54 on somewhere on my HD...)

Klitschko's pretty cool if you ask me. For a second there, I thought he was hype (a few years back). He was building his rep up awhile back, and then got knocked THE FUCK OUT in the first round by some no name Southpaw from South Africa (who was mentored by Lennox himself)... But he's come back with a vengeance. He's beat just about everyone there is to beat in his division. His weakness was left handers, but he eventually overcame even Chris Byrd. His record is pretty damn amazing actually (54-3/51 KO's). Lewis in his prime would probably kick his ass (possibly even now), but I don't think there's anyone currently to do it.

[edit] Thai broadcasted Muay Thai is kinda funny to me. My mom gets it on satellite, so I catch it every so often. Really, it's just a bunch of 5 footers mercilessly beating the shit out of each other. I think actual Muay Thai is a completely different concept in Thailand. It's not for fighting so much as it is about who can take the most pain in the shins.

God real muy thai fights are just crazy to watch. I swear a lot of those lil guys can probably kick trees down and then kick them into pieces for making firewood for as much abuse as their shins can apparently take.

In general, kickboxers are shitty fighters who would be competing in normal boxing for ten times the money if they were any good.  Those muay thai guys seem to be the exception, though.  There have been guys down in the very light weights who came in and won world titles boxing in their third or fourth fights because of all the experience they racked up in muay thai.  Only the real deal out of Thailand, though.  A muay thai fighter from anywhere else is like a Sumo wrestler from Argentina or an American-style football player from France.

Klitschko I'm just not sold on as a fighter.  Between the KO loss to Sanders, another KO loss about a year later to Lamon Brewster, and an early-career TKO loss to Ross Purrity, I just don't think he has the stamina or durability to go into the history books as anything more than the best of a poor lot.  I think a prime Lewis or Bowe would wreck him, and against something like a prime Foreman or Ali he'd be helpless.  I know Lewis had a couple of freak KO losses as well, but both were avenged and he has wins over pretty much every serious contender of his era (save Bowe, who ducked him) to show his true worth.

I loved Chris Byrd, but the guy was always a blown-up middleweight.  That's what made him fun, the whole David versus Goliath thing.  He survived and thrived on pure speed and reflexes, and by the age of 36 when Klitschko beat him, those reflexes were in decline.  It was a nice name for Klitschko to have on his record, but that's about it.

Anyway, I don't know much about MMA, but I saw that Anderson Silva fight where he caught that kick and punched the guy out as he held the leg, and I wanna see more of that guy.  He comes off as a guy who can really fight, not just a guy who was less bad than his opponent.

Just google up some videos of Anderson Silva, and you'll see that the grab-leg-smash-brains move was pretty much par for the course.  He makes really good fighters look like fools. 

Yeah, Anderson Silva is top notch. Also Wanderlei Silva is fun (no relation) - he's Muay-Thai + Jui-Jitsu. But most of his muay-thai comes down to clinching fuckers and kneeing them. It's more of a lead off to taking them to the ground, but he's fun to watch too. Machida is the Chris Byrd of MMA. Unorthodox lefty like Byrd too. Except he switches stances a lot (which, in turn, makes him even more unorthodox). Last, but not least, Fedor Emelianenko. That guy stomps everyone's ass in his class. And it goes without mentioning, since he's a heavyweight, he'd stomp anyone in a smaller class as well. As far as MMA trends/rules go, he's the best fighter in the world, if you ask me.

...and by extension, you could make a case that he is the best fighter in the world, period (assuming no-holds-barred).

To the above list, I'd add BJ Penn and Georges St. Pierre.  Old school Quinton Jackson stuff is also amazing to watch.

Hmm, well, it's hard to say. Anyone who can streetfight with speed and distance could change everything. Even a small guy. In a small ring, where clinching and getting on the floor is most of the name of the game, that's where Fedor reigns. So I won't say that Fedor is the best in the world per se.

Wait, are we talking about a hypothetical fight with no rules at all?  Because under those circumstances the "best fighter in the world" is some crazy guy we've never heard of who likes thumbing people's eyeballs out.  Anything short of that, fighting under some sort of sports rules, the best guy is presumably someone who competes in that sport.

That's basically Bruce Lee then (when he was alive!). Or I mean, a true freeform martial artist. He encouraged ball crushing, eye gouging, and kicking in world with an unspoken rule that said "You don't kick". And most importantly, do as much of it as possible at once.

"Be like wata." i.e. anything fucking goes  :awesome_for_real:

There's quite a few people who "can really fight" in MMA.  Most people forget:  up until the UFC took off,  there was a huge class of professional/Olympic quality athletes who had no professional organization to go to after graduation.  The wrestlers.  Amateur wrestling basically provides a huge talent pool for MMA to draw from.

Of present fighters:

- Anderson Silva (Middleweight or 185 lb champ in UFC) is pretty evil.  Pinpoint striking, great use of kicks, knees, and the clinch; good ground game.  Every one of his UFC fights has been interesting,  though I've only seen clips of his previous fights.

- BJ Penn (Lightweight or 155 lb champ in UFC).  Has heavy, heavy hands and good standup (he's demolished Sean Sherk and GSP on the feet).  He's a world class (Mundial champion) BJJ guy.  He's also got amazing flexibility, balance, and the use of his legs is.......  disturbing.  He's sprawled into full splits when an opponent tries for a single leg takedown, and the whole thing where he uses his legs from the back and traps an opponents arm is  :ye_gods:.

He's a natural lightweight,  but is a former WW champ in the UFC. 

- GSP (Welterweight or 170 lb champ in UFC).  He's got decent standup (practiced some flavor of karate growing up,  which he has a black belt in), good wrestling,  amazing quickness and athleticism.  His takedowns are great.  He's pretty much cleared out the WW division in the UFC.

- Urjiah Faber (Featherweight or 145 lb champ in WEC).  Great athlete, amazing quickness.  Good standup, good wrestling, AMAZING cardio and quickness.  He's been clearing out people in the 145 lb class for a couple years.


Those guys all have pretty great fights.  The only thing I can really recommend is stay away from the Heavyweights.  Not particularly interesting, mostly.

Pretty much any LW bout with Tyson Griffin, Frankie Edgar, Gray Maynard, Huerta (outside of the Florian matchup), and Clay Guida are all pretty entertaining.

Of the other orgs now:

- Affliction seems to have a star-studded roster,  though it's questionable how long they'll be around with the combination of huge salaries (Tim Sylvia got $800,000 for the Fedor fight,  while Fedor got a purse of $300,000 and an undisclosed signing bonus of $1-2 million;  lots of other guys made 300,000-500,000) with poor to mediocre PPV buys (indep sources list it at 50,000 - 70,000,  the company says "well over 100,000")

- EliteXC/Proelite is the org running shows on Showtime and CBS.  They've been bleeding red ink for a couple years now, recently reorganized the corporate leadership,  have almost no decent fighters (Lawler, Ninja, Shields pretty much...  the big draw is Kimbo), and the last CBS show tanked.

Shields is a pretty good fighter,  probably top 10 in the stacked WW weight class but....  he's got no one to fight since UFC basically has a lock on most of the top or up and coming WWs.

Lawler was mediocre in the UFC at MW,  and had a tough time with Scott Smith (who, likewise, has been cut from the UFC a couple times)

- Strikeforce runs shows with and trades fighters with EliteXC.  Have a couple decent fighters.  Frank Shamrock and Cung Le, mostly.


My favorite match this year, if you can find it:

Miguel Torres vs. Yoshiro Maeda at 135 lbs.  Great fight that went all over.

My perception might have something to do with the fact that most of the MMA I watch is on Showtime, and most of those guys are terrible.

just google fighter's names... most matches are streaming somewhere on the net (and not many are longer than 10 minutes).. don't bother with youtube necessarily though, since the ufc tends to pull their fights off of there.

Understood.  EliteXC is....  pretty bad.  The "best" fight I've seen on EliteXC is probably either the Lawler/Ninja fight (even though Ninja looked like he had spent the last three months popping Oreos instead of training) or the Lawler/Smith I fight (which was disappointing, mostly because Smith was a C-class fighter in the UFC).

I've only seen portions of the Cung Le/Frank Shamrock fight (on Showtime some months ago),  but that looked pretty swank.  Le is a kickboxer and former San Shou champ (undefeated),  and basically goes in and throws a huge amount of kicks.  Ended up breaking Frank's arm in the third.

Le still looks like he would get eaten alive by a decent wrestler, though.  And Frank is..... close to washed up.

Nick Diaz has been Captain Mediocre on his run with EliteXC (a squeaker against Mike Aina?  REALLY?).

Shields is a talent.  But he has no one to fight.

__________________________________________________

Versus carries WEC, if you get that cable station.  WEC has a lot of "meh" fights,  and a couple of decent/great ones.  WEC is owned by Zuffa (parent company of UFC) and UFC basically treats it as a combination minor league and unmarketable weight classes (145 and 135 lbs.)

Spike shows a shit ton of UFC branded as the "Unleashed" program,  and also carries quite a few free televised events throughout the year.  Ultimate Fight Nights usually have a pile of lesser names.  Regular UFC shows in England/UK are usually broadcast free on Spike a little later, due to the time difference.

There is a noticeable difference in the production quality of UFC/WEC stuff compared to EliteXC.

I think a great card to watch, if its available, is UFC 84: Ill Will from earlier this year. 

MMA guys are not good boxing guys. Part of that is because they have to be wary of takedowns and clinches, and part of that is because...welll...they suck at boxing. You won't see anyone in MMA who has the pure boxing skills of a real boxer but that misses the point. Even the best punchers in MMA have to have good spawls or takedown defense.

They don't need to have the alacrity of someone who's trained in nothing but punching for their entire life, but a lot of the guys I've seen basically punch like drunks in the street.  If more of them learned to get real leverage behind a punch more often, you'd see a lot more knockouts.

I just laugh when boxing people say shit about how they wish there was real boxing in mma.  Boxing is the biggest joke of a "sport", sure the skill set should/could/might translate well?  I dunno, you've got that Italian and Marcus Davis, both of them had boxing careers to some degree.  There are others.  They've never looked amazing in the ring.  There are too many people in mma who can't punch.  This is true.  Either they don't use their weight or they slap or dont straighten/stiffen their arms/wrists at the right time w/e (I'm no expert but you can tell when the mechanics are way off) but this omg wish there were boxers in mma just has failed to bear out in reality so far.

OTOH, I've never seen a boxing match that I didn't find sickening or boring as fuck.  Sickening because watching someone fight 3+ rounds with only the reptile part of their brain still functioning is gross.  Hooray for big gloves and sport mechanics that result in it taking forfuckingever to finish the other guy, instead you have death by 100 cuts, to his brain.  The only sickening ufc fight I've seen was when Silva fucked up Franklin so bad his eyes rolled back like an animal's does when its absolutely terrified.  He's in the mt clinch and realizes he can't get out, and he's up near the cage.  It was the first fight.  That was disturbing, it was such a look of pure terror that the camera managed to catch perfectly.

Any boxer who'll take the pay cut MMA represents is probably terrible.  I like Jeremy Williams, but after being crushed by Sam Peter he was basically done as any sort of contender.

Nowadays, I think you overestimate what a boxer gets paid. Does anyone pay for/give a fuck about boxing anymore? Top tier guys might get paid, but so do their MMA counterparts (who seem to do ok with sponserships/TV shows, etc).

The boxer's biggest problem in an MMA fight is how easily good wrestlers can just put them on their ass and G and P them. Only the very best guys, such as Chuck Liddell, have the ability to spawl and force a fight to his feet. He isn't exactly a boxer, just a brutal counterpuncher. If you take the best boxer in the world, teach him how to really spawl and not instantly get wrecked in the BJJ game, then maybe you have a chance.

Honestly,  I think the lower/middle tier MMA guys are doing as well or better than boxers at the same level.  The stars are making more money, sure, but most of the name MMA guys are still making a couple million a year.  It's difficult to check, since the UFC/Zuffa likes to structure payments as various kinds of "signing" or "locker room" bonuses rather than purse money.

Yah, that doesn't compare to Oscar de la Hoya making $20 million his last fight, but....

It's only a matter of time.  Boxing seems to be on a major downward spiral.  Fewer and fewer people will pay to see boxing, and there will be fewer stars worth watching.  In my opinion.

Hey!  I tend to agree there, but then again ... Boxing has more of a historical significance, which I believe is the only reason why it still exists in comparison to shows like IFL and UFC.  As stupid as it sounds people tend to believe boxing is NOT a "horrible inhumane blood sport" like MMA supposedly is, I think its just because us fighters have a dirty habit of beating the crap out of our opponents until submission or TKO  :awesome_for_real:

The guys De La Hoya beats the shit out of in his easy fights make as much or more money than the "huge salaries" Affliction was described as paying a couple pages ago.  There are countless Mexican boxers no one here has ever heard of who do six figures per fight.  As to the future of the sport, let's just say I've looked beyond the "bored white middle-class American" demographic and I'm not worried.  It's booming in large parts of Europe, and it has a lock on the ever-growing Latino market.

Umm.  The IFL is going/has gone belly up.  The UFC and Affliction have been cherry picking the best fighters,  and I think the UFC is in negotiations to buy the remaining assets of the IFL.

Come on WUA, claiming countless boxers noone has ever heard of making 6 digits a fight is garbage. How can we prove it? How can we disprove it? We just have to take your word as gold, which obviously over time I have refused to do :)

It's not like boxing is a new thing in Europe. But, meh, I'll give you the latino thing. It seems to be the only combat sport they have a chance in. Boxing is shit. Has been shit for years. Anyone who tells you otherwise is full of....it.

It's not like purse bids and splits are kept secret in most cases.  Usually it turns up in a press release somewhere.

Yori Boy Campas made a million fighting De La Hoya.
Joel Casamayor made 900k fighting Acelino Freitas.
Jose Luis Castillo made 1.2 million fighting Diego Corrales.
Jesus Chavez made 600k fighting Eric Morales.
Danny Williams made 300k getting punched out by Vitali Klitschko.
Javier Castillejo made a million fighting Fernando Vargas.
Zab Judah made 400k against Rafael Paneda
Leonardo Dorin made 500k fighting Arturo Gatti.
Julius Francis made 650k getting wrecked by Tyson.

Six figures is nice money in boxing, but it's the nice money you make as a contender fighting another ranked guy, or a tune-up opponent for an elite guy.  A lot of it depends on weight class and marketability, but guys on fighting on TV in marquee divisions are almost always making a good paycheck.

As for Europe, it's doing real well in Germany and thereabouts, and booming in Eastern Europe.  The UK seems to have a fair amount of stuff going on for it's size as well.  Remember, boxing isn't new there, but being able to compete on the world-class level as something besides "America's bitch" most of the time sort of is, historically speaking.  And the pro game is effectively new in a bunch of countries that were all behind the iron curtain before.

And Asia.  There are guys from South Korea and Thailand and so forth defending world titles and making money fighting in Asia who you'll simply never hear of, because they have no need to fight over here and nobody here cares about them.  Next to the Kronk in Detroit, the gym to produce the most champion boxers is Japanese.  At least last I heard.

EDIT:  Also, I hate to sound like a dick, but I wonder how popular MMA would be with the "dude bro" crowd if it were all black guys and Mexicans year after year.  It's the only combat sport where an American white guy isn't an automatic speedbump.

Anyways, I'll concede the whole boxers make six figures thing even as punching bags.

I won't concede the 'boxing is shit compared to MMA' - but it is just a matter of opinion. I can't even watch boxing anymore, it is a snorefest. Some MMA fights can be as well, but overall there is so much more skill involved in MMA and the variety of endings makes it better TV.

Another good thing about MMA is that the outcome really is more...In Doubt...than boxing.  Sure, upsets happen in boxing - but they are far more common in MMA.  Even a great MMA fighter will likely have several losses on his record.  And the middle of the pack are more likely to put on a good show (in terms of excitement value) than their boxing counterparts.  In my opinion.

Have you actually looked at the ethnicity of MMA fighters?  It's very, very diverse.

Lots of Brazilians, Japanese, Canadians, Europeans (East and West), Africa, to go with a decent proportion of Americans.  Plenty of Hispanics of various backgrounds as well. 

African-Americans seem to be the only ethnic group that is seriously underrepresented.  There are quite a few black athletes from other countries, though (Kongo is French, Anderson Silva is Brazilian, Soukoudjo is from Cameroon, Lousieu is French-Canadian, etc.)

Of the current UFC champs:

- One Hawaiian:  Wildly popular.
- One French-Canadian: Wildly popular
- One white American: Wildly popular
- Two Brazilians:  Anderson Silva is wildly popular,  Nog is very popular with the "hardcore" crowd from Pride.

Tito Ortiz,  who was the face of the UFC for a long time, is half-Mexican.


I won't argue that having very marketable white Americans with a middle class background wasn't a big help.  The big draw, though, is the diversity.

I can watch a Brazilian submission guy fight a French-Canadian brawler?  And then,  some dude from the Czech Republic will fight some guy from France?  The red neck farmboy will then fight some muay thai guy from Brazil?  Japanese judoka against Mexican boxer-grappler?  With a side of the crazy Armenians?

Yes please.

Amen.

Viewing demographics, on the other hand, do tend to depend quite a bit on the "dude/bro" segment.

Also,  UFC 88 this weekend:

Main Card Bouts:

[21-5-0] Chuck Liddell vs. Rashad Evans [11-0-1]
[23-3-0] Rich Franklin vs. Matt Hamill [4-1-0]
[22-7-0] Dan Henderson vs. Rousimar Palhares [8-1-0]
[16-2-0] Martin Kampmann vs. Nate Marquardt [26-8-2]
[18-5-0] Karo Parisyan vs. Yoshiyuki Yoshida [10-2-0]


Preliminary Bouts:

[11-2-0] Mike Patt vs. Tim Boetsch [7-2-0]
[14-8-0] Ryo Chonan vs. Roan Carneiro [12-7-0]
[10-0-1] Dong Hyun-Kim vs. Matt Brown [7-6-0]
[13-2-0] Thiago Tavares vs. Kurt Pellegrino [15-4-0]
[20-10-0] Jason MacDonald vs. Jason Lambert [23-8-0]



The Main Card is full of win.  

- Liddell/Evans is likely for the next title shot at LHW.  Liddell should bury Evans,  since Liddell's style seems to be amazing versus wrestlers (see Tito x2, Randy x 2, Babalu x2, etc.).  

- Franklin vs. Hammill at LHW will be interesting.  Hammill seems to be up-and-coming at LHW (coming off the controversial loss to Bisping and destruction of Boetsch),  and is obviously going to be pushed because he's a classy guy who happens to be deaf.  Franklin is moving up to LHW after getting destroyed by Silva twice.  Franklin probably takes this.

- Henderson vs. Palhares is an interesting matchup.  Henderson is coming off of two losses from the title unification fights with A. Silva and Rampage.  Palhares is supposedly the next big thing at MW.  With a win, Palhares could be challenging for the MW belt some time next year.

- Kampman vs. Marquardt.  Dutch kickboxer versus all around good fighter?  Yes.  Should be a great fight.  Both are top tier MW fighters.

- Karo vs. Yoshida.  Karo was lined up for a title shot before getting destroyed by Thiago Alves.  He's a solid top 10 WW.  Yoshida I know nothing about,  but supposedly comes highly regarded.


Some decent prelim fights as well.

The Boetch fight should be entertaining.  The dude is 1-1, but basically comes out in a very high pace brawling style.   Had Hammill in trouble in their fight in the first round before gassing.

The fight before that,  he had the sweetest hip toss ever on David Heath.

I'm secretly hoping that Evans clobbers Chuck.  I'm getting a little tired of Chuck, to be honest, and I think he's ripe for it...seems to be losing some speed or something.  More than anything, it would be a good shakeup.

If I were running one of these MMA leagues, I think I'd focus signfigant resources on running lots of low-budget shows at the local level.  Get people out to the fights, broaden the interest, and give young fighters places to hone their craft for a while.

There seems to be no shortage of MMA events here in Michigan. Between King of the Cage stuff and a couple others that I am forgetting (one my friend fought in) - you can get some experience at a lower level. I don't think these are 'UFC' Farm Leagues' though, and you are right - they would be smart to break even running these...as they could make it back in PPV sales easily if you get more people hooked.

In the context of the sport as a whole, local-level promotions cropping up independent of the "major leagues" is about the best thing that can happen.  Part of the reason I don't sweat the "Boxing is dooooomed" noise (which has been going around since long before MMA was a factor) is that it's just so damn widespread.  There are kids in Mexico turning pro at 14 and 15 years old, fighting on local cards held in bullfight arenas.  Half the hispanic names on that list I posted came up that way.  There are guys training and fighting on every inhabited continent, in contests you'll never ever hear of unless you're ludicrously hardcore.

Anything that has it taking root outside of the big PPV leagues is good.  Hell, I think they need an organized amateur program with protective gear and softer rules.  Get people participating without worrying about getting seriously mauled their first time out of the gate.  It may not be something that draws major interest, but in the long-term it would provide a larger pool of better-schooled talent to draw upon.

My picks, not 100% I'm ordering this, but if I do its mostly for the Karo v Yoshida fight, that should be awesome no matter what unless Karo is dominating and gasses badly or someone gets wtf ko'd in the first round.

Main Card Bouts:

[21-5-0] Chuck Liddell vs. Rashad Evans [11-0-1]  -- Liddell.
Evans is better in a bunch of ways and is the future but Liddell is still the 2nd best counter puncher in UFC (I give the nod to Rampage)

[23-3-0] Rich Franklin vs. Matt Hamill [4-1-0] -- Franklin
Unless Hamill has improved his striking and his shots for takedown greatly Franklin should dominate this fight, which is too bad, I really do like Hamill but I don't think he's mean enough to be a great fighter.  He didn't lose that fight w/ Bisping but he did.  He should have finished him but he got a bit tired and sort of let up.

[22-7-0] Dan Henderson vs. Rousimar Palhares [8-1-0] -- n/a
Never seen Palhares fight, I never watched much Pride but I'd like it if Henderson would stop making me pay to watch him fight boring fights, he's pretty much looked like he's just there for a check imo.

[16-2-0] Martin Kampmann vs. Nate Marquardt [26-8-2] -- Marquardt
I love Kampmann, in fact I like the dutch kickboxer style in general and this is an AWESOME AWESOME match up, but Marquardt is just a step above.

[18-5-0] Karo Parisyan vs. Yoshiyuki Yoshida [10-2-0] -- Parisyan
This fight will be fun, I love watching both these guys, but it really just comes down to which Karo shows up.  The loss to Alves is the only time he looked like he really wanted to win and didn't.  Alves is a monster.

Preliminary Bouts:
[11-2-0] Mike Patt vs. Tim Boetsch [7-2-0] -- n/a
Never seen either of them fight that I can think of.

[14-8-0] Ryo Chonan vs. Roan Carneiro [12-7-0] -- Carneiro
Chonan looks like another asian punching bag, this other guy's record sucks but I bet he can get a win.

[10-0-1] Dong Hyun-Kim vs. Matt Brown [7-6-0] -- Hyun-Kim
Dong Hyun-Kim was impressive in his debut, I love the idea of Asians that dont suck, I'm really really praying they put this fight on the ppv.  Btw has anyone ever managed to watch a unaired fight FOR FREE on ufc.com?  They always say you can but its never available when I try.

[13-2-0] Thiago Tavares vs. Kurt Pellegrino [15-4-0] -- Pellegrino
This is a tough one, I dont think very highly of either of these guys.  Tavares is way more skilled but doesn't have any of the intangibles from the fights I've seen, I bet Pellegrino outworks him for the win if he doesn't just get caught.

[20-10-0] Jason MacDonald vs. Jason Lambert [23-8-0] -- Lambert
The Punisher hits too hard for MacDonald to use the only tactic he has and just absorb punishment on his way in. 

Those seem like mismatches on paper due to one guy being massively more experienced.  What's the background on the guys with thinner records?

Usually they are guys coming from "The Ultimate Fighter" show :) Or just real deal talent, or guys that always sparred and trained with the best that decided it's time to hit the cage.

1.  Hamill is from TUF.  He's a pretty well decorated wrestler (3 time Div III champ, some after college stuff like the Deaflympics).  His ideal weightclass is Light Heavyweight (205 lbs.)  He's wrecked a few no names,  and probably should have won the Bisping fight.

Rich Franklin is the former Middlewieght (185 lbs.) champ.  He was stuck in the position that he could probably beat everyone in the division but Anderson Silva,  who has completely wrecked him twice already.

Rich is the much better striker, but wasn't really setting the world on fire at LHW before he moved down to MW for a run at the title.  Hamill is the better wrestler, and will probably have a pretty good weight advantage.

This may be a feeder fight for Rich to set up a matchup with a Name LHW (Liddell, Wanderlai Silva, etc.) as a cash grab.  On the other hand,  a win for Hamill will push him as a crowd and marketing favorite and might push him into the title picture.  I'm SURE the UFC wants to keep him around just for the favorable PR of having a successful deaf athlete.

2. Henderson is the former Pride MW and LHW champs,  a wrestler and a former Olympian.  He's a probably top 3 in the UFC at MW,  and he's a guy that has been ranked in the top 10 in MW and LHW.

Palhares I don't know much about, besides the fact that he and Demian Maia have a lot of "next big thing" buzz at MW.  A Brazilian,  not sure what kind of out of MMA credentials he has.  He does train with Brazilian Top Team, which is one of the top camps out there.

He's got a win versus Salavery,  who is a decent fighter.  Or at least used to be.  Looks like he might be washed up.


Really,  there isn't alot of mismatches in the UFC at least on the Main Cards.  Things will lean one way or the other,  but there is still a decent chance of guys pulling something out.  The UFC likes to recognize a guy with talent and throw him up to the upper tier guys as soon as possible.

Edit to summarize

To summarize:

Oftentimes fighters who excelled outside MMA in a related discipline get pushed hard when they move to MMA.  They aren't made to "earn" their way in by demolishing a bunch of cans.

- National champion or All-American wrestlers
- Mundial/world champion BJJ guys
- Guys with a very good boxing, muay thai, or other background
- Olympians or Olympic caliber judo or wrestling guys

Oh, forgot to mention:

Chonan is the last guy to beat Anderson Silva (not counting the DQ in the Okami fight).  It came via a Flying Heal Hook as a huge desperation move, after Silva was working him.  It also came in a much lighter weight class than Silva fights in now.

I've been watching MMA off-and-on ever since UFC2 a million years ago, but I've never followed it hardcore, or learned much about how they do business.  I take it the UFC signs these guys to contracts, and then acts as both promoter and manager?  How much input does the fighter and his team have into the fights they get?

Guys have their own managers.  Fighters are signed to "exclusive" contracts for anywhere between 4 and 7 fights,  with non compete provisions and renegotiation clauses.

Basically,  the UFC functions as one part promotion and one part sports league/governing body.  The UFC sets up matches and offers them to fighters who can then accept/decline,  though there are mechanisms where they can put pressure on the fighter.  For instance,  Vera declined a fight with Machida for his first bout at LHW and eventually got a relatively easy matchup.

I think it's pretty much impossible now for a Champ to duck a specific fighter (see Tito ducking Chuck Liddell). 

Unlike boxing, where everything is divied up by promoter, the UFC has a strong incentive to promote both their brand and the big name fighters they have on contract.  The UFC owns all the broadcasting rights,  so they also turn around and reissue DVDs and edit together the various hourly programs of selected UFC fights.

The UFC also puts together regular live televised matches on basic cable.


Alot of this is supposition and the conventional wisdom.  UFC is owned by Zuffa, LLC which is a "closely held" company,  therefor have much reduced reporting requirements compared to public companies.

WEC 36: FABER vs. BROWN
Date: 9/10/2008
Event Type: VERSUS Live Event
Location: Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino (Hollywood, Florida)
----------
Fight Card:

[20-1-0] Urijah Faber (c) vs. Mike Brown [19-4-0] - WEC Featherweight Championship
[16-0-0] Paulo Filho (c) vs. Chael Sonnen [21-8-1] - WEC Middleweight Championship
[15-3-0] Rob McCullough vs. Donald Cerrone [7-0-0]
[22-8-1] Jens Pulver vs. Leonard Garcia [11-3-0]
[3-0-0] Mark Munoz vs. Steve Steinbeiss [4-1-0]
[11-5-0] Tim McKenzie vs. Doug Marshall [7-3-0]
[4-0-0] Jake Rosholt vs. Danillo Villefort [8-2-0]
[8-4-0] Alex Serdyukov vs. Johny Hendricks [3-0-0]


This is the next WEC card.  Free on Versus, if you get that channel.  Some good fights here. 

Faber vs Brown - Don't know much about Brown.  Faber is a top 145 lber,  and a likely top P4P figther.  Always really active and puts on a great show. 

Filho vs. Sonnen II - Should be interesting.  Sonnen is a decent MW,  while Filho is supposed to be a top 5 MW.  Last fight, Sonnen looked to have Filho in real trouble right before Filho pulled off a sub.  Since then,  Filho has been in rehab.

"Razor" Rob McCullough vs. Cerrone - Cerrone is an up and comer that's looked good,  while Razor Rob is the former WEC WW champ.  Will be for a title match.

Jens Pulver vs Leonard Garcia -- Jens is Jens,  and Garcia isn't affraid to brawl, so should be a fun fight.

Well you have Randy Cotoure vs Brock Lesnar at UFC 91 going on.

I think that card will have Wanderlai Silva vs. Rampage and Kenny Florian vs. Joe Stevenson as well.


I'm excited any time Couture fights, and putting him against Brock makes for a great David vs. Goliath set up.  Brock is mostly a freestyle wrestling guy, where as Randy has a pretty thorough background in both freestyle and Greco. 

Still....  having a sport where a guy in his 40s can still be competitive?  Awesome.

He should kill Lesnar.   :awesome_for_real:

Heh, this didn't happen.  Liddell was out like a fucking light.  


Marquadt punches extremely well, fast and in good combinations.

Was a good card.  Sat around the bar with my brother and a few peeps, got loaded, and yelled at the screen along with another hundred people.

Yah, good win for Rashad.  I think Liddell is done as a top of the food chain fighter.  His unorthodox style was fine,  as long as the guys he faced had poor striking and he had the reflexes on his side.  He still has the potential to put alot of fighters out,  but I think the consistency is done.

This is the second time he's been punished for holding his hands so low.

Kampmann (who is a Dane,  not Dutch...  apologies to the Danes) is a solid fighter on a four fight win streak,  so this is a good win for Marquardt.  Kampmann looks really small for MW, especially next to Marquardt.  I wonder if Kampmann should be a WW?

I like Nate.  The fight against Leites he lost due to stupid mistakes (two point deductions?? really??) but he looked good in that fight.  This sets Marquardt as one or two wins from a rematch with Anderson Silva. 


-Of the other fights,  the first two rounds of Matt Brown vs. the "Stun Gun" were pretty good.  Brown is basically a sprawl 'n brawl figher,  while Kim is a 4th degree black belt in judo.

-The Hammill/Franklin fight was wierd.  Hammill only shot once?  Huh?

-The first two rounds of the Henderson/Palhares fight was decent.  Any of these fights where one guy is a huge, nasy BJJ practitioner tend to be boring....  No one wants to go to the ground with those guys, so it tends to be way conservative.


I honestly think we will probably see a Rich Franklin vs. Chuck Liddell fight next.  It's a big money fight for both guys (who get points on buys),  and the PPV buys will be through the roof so Management will sign off on it.

I hate Rashad... I've hated him since the fucking TV show.
I'll be damned if he doesn't win every time i watch him.

Well I don't know what Liddell thought he was doing.  He just stood there in front of Rashad, no head movement, arms not in any particularly good defensive position, and then paused for a moment before trying to throw an uppercut from the outside.  That's about as open an invitation as you can make for your opponent to put your lights out, and that's what Rashad did.

Rashad is primarily a wrestler, I guess?  His punches weren't as fundamentally sound as, say, those of Marquadt.  But they were fast and powerful, and Rashad seemed to move more fluidly than the plodding Liddell.

Former Ultimate Fighting Championship middleweight champion Evan Tanner was found dead near Palo Verde, Calif. on Monday. He was 37.


http://sports.yahoo.com/mma/news?slug=ys-mmaweektanner090808&prov=yhoo&type=lgns (http://sports.yahoo.com/mma/news?slug=ys-mmaweektanner090808&prov=yhoo&type=lgns)



                                               (http://i241.photobucket.com/albums/ff26/stuabrtow/tanner_682x400_446077a.jpg)

Man this seriously bums me out. One of my favorite fighters. It's a goddamn shame.. :heartbreak:

UFC Fight Night tonight!!!  Live on Spike at 8PM est.

Main Card Bouts:

[9-2-0] Nate Diaz vs. Josh Neer [24-6-1]
[23-9-0] Clay Guida vs. Mac Danzig [18-4-1]
[8-3-0] Houston Alexander vs. Eric Schafer [9-3-2]
[14-6-0] Ed Herman vs. Alan Belcher [12-5-0]
[16-4-0] Joe Lauzon vs. Kyle Bradley [13-5-0]

----------
Preliminary Bouts:

[6-3-0] Drew McFedries vs. Mike Massenzio [10-2-0]
[12-7-0] Alessio Sakara vs. Joe Vedepo [7-1-0]
[11-3-0] Ryan Jensen vs. Wilson Gouveia [10-5-0]
[27-3-0] Rob Kimmons vs. Dan Miller [8-1-0]
[15-1-1] Jason Brilz vs. Brad Morris [9-3-0]


More than likely,  we'll just see the main card shows.  It's a fucking amazing main card, though.

- Danzig vs Clay Guida at 155lbs. is likely to be a Fight of the Year candidate.  Guida has never had a boring fight,  and Danzig has looked like a very good fighter. 

- I dislike Diaz.  He's an obnoxious punk.  Rooting for Neer to wreck him.

- Houston Alexander is a heavy hitting brawler with a solid win over Jardine.  Look for this to be over one way or another in the first 2 minutes.

- Joe Lauzon vs Kyle Bradley. Lauzon has huge amounts of potential,  and needs to get back on track after a loss to Kenny Florian.

Here are my picks, ordered by how confident I am.

Diaz > Neer -- You can't actually beat a Diaz, only outscore them, they are like terminators.
Alexander > Schafer -- This fight is sick, Schafer is a fucking clown who tries to walk in and Alexander should knock his head off.  Ofc I thought that last ppv for the Lambert fight and was wrong...
Vedepo > Sakara -- I want to make a point about what a waste of talent I think this lazy italian is..
Guida > Danzig -- Guida will get stronger as the fight wears on, plus he ought to be hungry.  This fight will be fun.
Belcher > Herman -- Not sure why really, just a hunch

Heh, tomato can backup fighter drops Mr. T Part Deux in 14 seconds.

Oops (http://sports.yahoo.com/mma/news?slug=capress-mma_elitexc&prov=capress&type=lgns)

Yep, the Silverback was regularly abused in the UFC.  He was a big guy with a goofy haircut who could take a punch.  Seeing him knock out Kimbo has to send shivers down the spines of CBS/EliteXC officials.  If that palook can derail their main draw, they have a real problem on their hands.

And, no, Tito fighting for them after back surgery won't improve their league very much.

I think EliteXC are pretty much done after that debacle.  Hilarious.

They suck anyways. Fucking affliction and rockstar logos everywhere. I felt like I was watching Idiocracy.

The affliction commercial for Fedor is cool though.

[edit] Tito is lame. Who cares.

The best part of the Fedor commercial was that they were able to air his entire last fight within that single commercial.  Also, Affliction > EliteXC but many lengths.

Putting this here because I've talked a little boxing here.

Bernard Hopkins, 43 years old, just gave a fucking boxing lesson to 26 year old middleweight champion Kelly Pavlik. Hopkins looked sharp, fast, and masterful. Pavlik looked like an amateur in comparison. It was the single clearest example I've ever seen of experience and the effects of a spartan lifestyle trumping age. Hopkins hasn't weighed a pound over his fighting weight in his entire career, and the benefits of that showed.

Foreman beat Moorer when he was 45, but he did so by losing nine rounds and then landing a Hail Mary bomb. Hopkins went out there and fought his ass off like a man 20 years younger than himself for all 12 rounds. I'm fucking stunned.

EliteXC is done.  UFC is already picking through the roster for value deals.


This weekend is some Anderson Silva goodness.  I'll post the whole card a little later,  but looks like a solid show.

UFC 90: SILVA vs. COTE
Date: 10/25/2008
Event Type: Live Pay Per View
Location: Allstate Arena (Rosemont, Illinois)


----------
Main card

    * Middleweight championship bout:  Anderson Silva vs.  Patrick Côté[5]
    * Welterweight bout:  Thiago Alves vs. Josh Koscheck[6]
    * Heavyweight bout: Fabricio Werdum vs.  Junior dos Santos[7]
    * Lightweight bout:  Sean Sherk vs.  Tyson Griffin[8]
    * Lightweight bout: Gray Maynard vs.  Rich Clementi

Preliminary card

    * Middleweight bout:  Thales Leites vs.  Drew McFedries
    * Lightweight bout:  Spencer Fisher vs.  Shannon Gugerty
    * Middleweight bout: Matt Horwich vs.  Dan Miller
    * Lightweight bout: Hermes Franca vs.  Marcus Aurelio
    * Welterweight bout: Josh Burkman vs. Pete Sell


Some changes on this.  Diego Sanchez, Ricardo Almeida and a pile of others have pulled out do to injury.

- Silva should smoke Cote.  Cote has had a nice win streak,  but Silva isn't human.

- Sherk vs. Griffin is a huge fight.  A win for Griffin,  and he should be a top contender at LW.  Sherk needs a win here,  after the steriod nonsense and BJ pummeling him.

- Alves vs. Koscheck is likely a #1 contender matchup for WW.  Koshcheck's only loss in the last two years is GSP, and includes a pile of decent wins.  Alves has been on a run,  knocking out Karo and destroying Matt Hughes.

- Maynard vs. Clementi is another huge fight at LW.  Both guys are looking to pull out of the cluttered middle tier and into contender status here.  Classic wrestler versus BJJ fight.

Ok, I'll go...

Silva
Koscheck (I want to go with Alves, but Koscheck always upsets my picks)
Werdum (never heard of the other guy)
Griffin
Maynard
Leites
Fisher
Horwich
Aurelio
Sell

- Silva is pretty much a lock.
- I'm hoping Alves wins,  because I want to see GSP fight a good striker.... but I think Koscheck will grapple his way to a victory.
- Griffin or Sherk would be good here. 
- Maynard over Clementi.  Maynard is looking TOUGH.

The rest of the fights don't really need too much comment.

Silva is amazing.

Alves is a beast.  How can you not want to see him fight GSP?  I don't think GSP could take him down with ease like he's been doing to people and it'd be a nasty fight standing.  Two people with legs that are that effective?

The Griffin v Sherk fight proved that scoring still sucks major ass in the UFC.  I don't begrudge Sherk winning persay, but I think it was mostly bullshit.

I won some money though. 

Leites put a clinic, that was fun.

It was a sort of boring card because the fights were long and lame (Sherk v Griffin & Clementi v Maynard) and we didn't get much undercard.  But Silva is now must watch no matter what else is happening.  He was doing Wang Chung (sp??) fucking unbelievable.

See...  I thought that the Griffin-Sherk fight was the best fight on the card.  Griffin had good flurries,  but then he would tire and Sherk would pound on him the rest of the round.  The action was back and forth, and at a solid pace.

Clementi-Maynard was pretty awful.  Maynard held him down, and didn't really do much to him.

Alves-Koscheck was another great fight.  Alves is fucking TOUGH.  Very excited to see him fight GSP,  but it's sounding like BJ and GSP are going to be fighting in January.

The Junior de Santos knockout of Werdum was out of nowhere. 

Cote and Silva was really shaping up to be a good chess match, before Cote's knee went.

On a non mma related note, I wish I believed in myself as much as Roy Jones does. How the fuck does someone get like that?!

 
You almost make it sound like BJ vs GSP is a bad thing. 

I see why some people liked it but honestly.  Both have very boring striking styles, I wasn't thrilled watching 15 minutes of them boxing.  I have been a huge Griffin fan, because he's from Cali, he should have been undefeated coming into that fight (fucking loss versus the Boston kid was bullshit) and he has a great attitude.  But he's just failed to add something to his game to give him a way to dramatically finish fights.

So where does LW stand?  Who did Sherk earn a fight against?  Winner of the Kenflo v Stevenson fight? Huerta? Maynard? What's next for Tyson? I think UFC knows his fights are long and boring, I think they'll force him to fight a rising star nobody next on the undercard and see if he can kill the guy spectacularly.

Also have I gloated about how Florian didn't earn dick with that calculated pussy performance against Huerta yet?  Fucking bitch Florian, man I hate that guy.  If Stevenson wins, would UFC really put him back against BJ so fast I wonder.

Griffin and Sherk were obviously going out there to mix it up, and I think they kept it interesting.  LWs just don't have much knock out power,  and Tyson realized he didn't want to fuck with Sherk on the ground after the first where Sherk nearly had his back twice.

Griffin has been in two or three Fight of the Nights, and the UFC will keep him around.  He always puts on an interesting performance, if you like a good high activity grappler.

Sherk is just.... Sherk.  If you're name isn't BJ Penn or GSP,  he will make you look like an amateur in a grinding, wearing fight. 


Florian can go fuck himself.  His whole "I finish fights!" spiel was tired when he was actually finishing the C level fighters the UFC was giving him, and then bragging about it.  It became complete hypocrasy when he is SOOOO obviously shooting for a point win (Huerta) or a stoppage due to cut against tougher opponents.


The title situation is a mess.  BJ fighting GSP in January puts any LW title fights on hold till at least April.  And that's not even counting the fact that if that fight is for the WW title and BJ wins,  he will now hold up two divisions.  Honestly,  GSP is probably the favorite but....  I think its arguable that BJ won their first match up, when he was still in shitty shape and unfocused.

I'd much rather have GSP vs. Alves  and BJ vs. Kenny/Maynard/Edger.  On the other hand,  GSP and BJ are both so dominant that there aren't a lot of great matchups there.  GSP has killed everyone decent except Alves and Diego (and Swick and Davis,  but these guys look like solid B fighters and not contenders).

BJ made Sherk look like a fool,  and Sherk was pegged to dominate that weightclass for the near future until BJ dropped to LW.  I'd like to see BJ wreck Kenny Florian,  but.....  the rest aren't particularly awesome matchups. 

Maynard and Edger are in the same mold as Sherk:  dominant grapplers.
Clay Guida is the man,  but he is too inconsistent.
Hermes Franca has a couple of recent losses,  and has a steriod problem.
Spencer Fisher is likeable but inconsistent.
Tyson Griffin just lost.
Joe Stevenson was just murdered by BJ.
Huerta just lost.

Last UFC was a disappointment.

Silva dancing around like Muhammed Ali was yawnfest.

Griffin should have won.

Alves won me some cash.

yada yada yada

See....  I thought it was a pretty solid card except for Clementi-Maynard. 


UFC 84 is now out on DVD.  This is, from top to bottom, a great card except for the Clementi fight.  Lots of exciting fights.

Main:

BJ Penn vs. Sean Sherk -- Lots of leather thrown.
Tito vs. Machida -- Machida cat and mouse.
Mendes vs Thiago -- Two good muay thai fighters bang.
Soukoudjo vs Nakamura -- Soukoudjo is amazingly explosive.  And looks waaay too much like the Predator.
Gouveia vs. Reljec -- Reljec is a scary kickboxer,  and Gouveia has nasty muay thai
Wanderlai Silva vs Keith Jardine -- Heh.

Lots of good undercard fights.

I feel the same except I enjoyed the fuck out of the Silva fight, wanted to see him finish it but that only made me more fired up for his next bout.  I also one some cash on the Werdum upset (I made the bet once I heard that he looked even fatter then usual in weigh ins) but I lost a bunch on the Griffin v Sherk fight and feel slightly robbed.  That was a stupid as fuck bet though since I knew it was going to judges.

I thought the card was really boring.  Because lots of punches thrown != good fight imo.  The Sherk v Griffin was boring as hell for me.  Midgets throwing hooks for 15 minutes?  Yawn.

WEC 36 will be live on Versus tonight.  Pretty good card, too:

[20-1-0] Urijah Faber (c) vs. Mike Brown [19-4-0] - WEC Featherweight Championship
[16-0-0] Paulo Filho (c) vs. Chael Sonnen [21-8-1] - WEC Middleweight Championship
[15-3-0] Rob McCullough vs. Donald Cerrone [7-0-0]
[22-8-1] Jens Pulver vs. Leonard Garcia [11-3-0]
[3-0-0] Mark Munoz vs. Steve Steinbeiss [4-1-0]
[11-5-0] Tim McKenzie vs. Doug Marshall [7-3-0]
[4-0-0] Jake Rosholt vs. Danillo Villefort [8-2-0]
[8-4-0] Alex Serdyukov vs. Johny Hendricks [3-0-0]


Urijah Faber is a dominant, exciting 145 lber.  Ranked one of the top pound for pound fighters in the world,  and usually alot of fun to watch.  Mike Brown is a decent fighter, but this should be Faber showing off how good he is.

Paulo Filho is one of the top MWs in the world, many people even giving him a good shot of beating Anderson Silva when WEC folds their MW division into the UFC.  Chael Sonnen is a decent MW,  who looked like he had Filho in trouble their last match before getting caught in a sub.

Razor Rob McCullogh is the former WEC LW champ,  looking to angle for a title rematch.  Cerrone is an up and comer with talent.

Jens Pulver at Featherweight should be good.  Garcia is decent, but Jens should be pretty driven here.

So,  UFC 91 this weekend.


Randy Couture (C) vs. Brock Lesnar -UFC Heavyweight Championship
Gabriel Gonzaga vs. Josh Hendricks
Joe Stevenson vs. Kenny Florian
Demian Maia vs. Nathan Quarry
Amir Sadollah vs. Nick Catone

Preliminary Card Bouts:

Dustin Hazelett vs. Tamdan McCrory
Jeremy Stephens vs. Rafael dos Anjos
Jorge Gurgel vs. Aaron Riley
Alvin Robinson vs. Mark Bocek


- Randy versus Brock.  Oooooo.  The 45 year old superman versus a freak of nature.  I'll be rooting for Randy,  but not surprised if Brock takes it.

- Gonzaga v. Hendricks.  Don't know anything about Hendricks,  got to go with Gabe.

- Florian v. Stevenson.  If Florian wins this, he should be the number one contender.  If Joe wins this,  things are confused in the LW division with no clearcut contender since Joe just got demolished by BJ.

- Maia v. Quarry.  The winner here is probably one fight from a championship match,  depending on the outcome of Franklin v Hendo

- Amir v. Catone was scratched,  so we get Hazelett vs. McCrory which should be an entertaining fight.


This is likely going to be the highest viewed UFC event ever.  Both Lesner and Couture are huge draws.  Brock is probably the favorite but god damn,  everyone will be hoping that Randy can pull it out once again.

(http://hingedman.files.wordpress.com/2007/08/more_2007_03_06_9_49_randy_couture_fight.jpg)

Bodog is only offering odds on the top two fights for 91...

Lesnar is the favorite at -150, Couture is a PICK
Florian is the favorite at -185, Stevenson +155


Lesnar > Couture
Gonzaga > Hendricks
Florian > Stevenson
Maia > Quarry
Sadollah > Catone

I'm not paying for this card, it sucks balls.

I think Brock takes it.  Dude is just too fucking powerful.

I think Brock takes it as well....  but you're a dirty liar if, in your heart of hearts, you aren't hoping for Randy to pull through one more time.

 :grin:

Wow.  That was a great event.

Almost everything finished in the first round, with slick striking or slick ground work.  Almost every fight was broadcast.

-Brock is a fucking scary dude.  Can't wait for him to fight (hopefully) Nog.
-I detest Florian, and his camp, but he put on a great show.  Looking forward to BJ destroying him.
-Hazelett was sooo slick.
-The Gorgel fight was great.
-Gonzaga killed a foo.
-Demian Maia worked Quarry.


I just have to say how much Steve Mazagatti as a referee cracks me up.  Every one of the fights he refs,  he either stops early or stops way too late.  Gonzaga dropped Hendricks with a huge punch,  lands one more.  He stops, looks at the Mazz,  who motions him to continue even though Hendricks is obviously sleeping.  Gonzaga lands another big punch and Mazz comes flying in to break it up like Gonzaga was doing something wrong.

I teased my friends with a horrific fiction in which Brock gets around to fighting each of their MMA favs and destroys them one by one.

Brock Lesnar, the legend-killer. Like Shadow of the Colossus (if you've ever played it), except from the other side of the fence.

He may well be able to.  He is no pretender, that's for damn sure.  Absolute monster.  He'll get beaten by good technique every now and then, but he's going to win more than he'll lose.  Great wrestler, obviously, a surprisingly good striker (even a couple really good knees) and enormous size and strength.  I wouldn't like to be Nog right now.

I say Nog is going to submit him like the overgrown brute that he is

Jeremy Stevens had a highlight reel knockout last night, as well.  It was the most telegraphed, vicious uppercut I've ever seen.  The only thing I can think of is that his opponent thought he was winding up for a head kick and covered,  so was completely unready for it.

The one fight I saw lesnar in was I believe the only way he will get beaten. He was dominating his opponent until the guy got him in a lock and made him tap. If somebody is really slick with the holds you may get lucky if not anybody fighting him is in for a beating that guy is a freak.

Nog has pretty good odds, in my opinion.  Great submission guy, and his standup is pretty good.  Lesner's striking is looking better,  and he has soooo much power its just insane combined with being pretty fast for his size.  The punch that KO'd Randy was actually part of a combination:  Randy ducked the jab,  that left him open to the followup.

I think Lesner keeps it standing and tries to KO Nog.

Mir, on the other hand, is shit on his feet and has the cardio of a 3 pack a day smoker.  If Lesner fights him again,  I think Lesner keeps it standing and destroys his world.


There are some great up and comers in the UFC heavyweight div.  Shane Carwin and Cain Velasquez are both big, athletic wrestlers with decent and much improving standup.  Gonzaga is a possibility, between his size, good standup, and great sub game.  Junior de Santos is small,  but he's an amazing Muay Thai guy.


By the way,  the next card looks AMAZING:

UFC 92

-Fight Card-

Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira (c) vs. Frank Mir - UFC Heavyweight Championship (Interim)
Forrest Griffin (c) vs. Rashad Evans -UFC Light Heavyweight Championship
Quinton “Rampage” Jackson vs. Wanderlei Silva
Yushin Okami vs. Dean Lister
Cheick Kongo vs. Mustafa Al-Turk

C.B. Dollaway vs. Jorge Rivera
Ryo Chonan vs. Brad Blackburn


Nog vs Mir?  Awesome.  Griffin vs Evans?  Awesome.  Rampage vs Wanderlei?  Double awesome.

Kongo and Al-Turk should be good.  Okami vs Lister has the potential to be not very exciting.

I just want to see Okami lose, that guy is horribly overrated.  Not sure Lister is the guy to do it though, if I remember Okami's fights he is a bitch to takedown & Lister is a sub guy c/d?

Right now I'm thinking:
Nog > Mir
Evans > Griffin
Jackson > W.Silva

and I'm downloading small shows where I can find them to get a bead on the undercard match ups.

UFC91 was good though, I thought it was going to be crap and didn't buy the ppv and I do regret that now.  The Maia submission got me some cash, stupidass cracker Nate Quarry :awesome_for_real:

UFC 91 might have snatched the crown of best PPV this year from UFC 84 (Penn vs. Sherk).  Every fight they showed was great.

Hazelett rocking the Evan Tanner beard while throwing slick submissions has really stuck with me.  The Stephens uppercut was straight out of a movie.


UFC 92:

- Nog > Mir.  The Nog vs Lesner fight will be sweeeet.

- Wandy has already wrecked Rampage twice.  I got to go with Wandy.

- Evans vs. Griffin should be a killer fight.  Griffin has great takedown defense, and should be better than Evans on the feet.  Evans is also a small LHW,  while Forest walks around north of 225.  Rashad seems to be constantly improving, though, and he's stepped up each time his competition has bumped up.


I really, really want to see Randy vs. either Kongo or Herring now.  Randy would make Kongo look like a fool,  and Herring would spend 3 rounds being beaten down by an old man.

UFC: Fight for the Troops

Date: 12/10/2008
Event Type: Fight Night free on Spike
Location: Crown Coliseum in Fayetteville, North Carolina


Fight Card:

Welterweight bout: (11-3-0) Josh Koscheck vs. Yoshiyuki Yoshida (10-2-0)
Welterweight bout: (12-2-0) Mike Swick vs. Jonathan Goulet (22-9-0)
Light heavyweight bout: (6-1-0) Steve Cantwell vs. Razak Al-Hussan (5-0-0)
Middleweight bout: (10-2-0) Tim Credeur vs. Nate Loughran (9-0-0)
Lightweight bout: (12-1-0) Jim Miller vs. Matt Wiman (10-3-0)

Welterweight bout: (13-4-0) Luigi Fioravanti vs. Brodie Farber (13-4-0)
Welterweight bout: (11-4-0) Steve Bruno vs. Johnny Rees (10-1-0)
Welterweight bout: (6-0-2) Ben Saunders vs. Brandon Wolff (7-2-0)
Lightweight bout: (2-1-0) Corey Hill vs. Dale Hartt (5-1-0)
Heavyweight bout: (8-2-0) Eddie Sanchez vs. Justin McCully (8-4-2)


Live event on Spike tomorrow!

- Koscheck vs. Yoshida should be good.  Got to go with Koscheck to avenge his thumping via Thiago Alves a couple months ago.
- Swick vs. Goulet.  Don't care.  Never drank the Swick koolaid, though he seems to have alot of fans.
- Cantwell vs Al-Hussan. Cantwell is the former WEC (also owned by Zuffa, famous for having Urjiah Faber) LHW champ. 
- Credeur vs....  who cares?
- Wiman vs. Miller.  Wiman was on TUF, where he was mediocre, but has been on fire since.  Wiman should take it to this guy HARD. 


The undercard is mostly "meh".

Bodog isn't offering lines on tonight's fights... sigh.

My picks (by order of confidence):
Koscheck > Yoshida, too bad they put one of the more promising azn fighters against a guy who is top5 and will refuse to lose.
Wiman > Miller, can't imagine a new fish taking out Wiman right now, this kid has been improving greatly with every fight.
Cantwell > Al-Hussan, Cantwell wont be effected by this being his first ufc fight, this other kid is in trouble.  Also the description he gave of his style made me cringe.
Swick > Goulet, Swick always gets much love from judges, he wont get tricked by any "crafty vet" stuff and AKA always gameplans to win on points. 
Loughran > Credeur, this is just a random guess really.

I do have a partial shine to Fiorivanti:

In his fight with Diego Sanchez (who's moving down to 155lbs!),  he got off a Judo throw that we affectionately called "the Captain Kirk".  Basically,  someone shoots on you,  you roll back with them and put your foot into their chest,  and use the momentum to throw the other person right over the top of you.

Was a pretty good fight night...

Koscheck fuckin laid that guy out. Bad.

Capt. knees was pretty brutal as well.

Credeur has definetely been working on his striking, and training with the Natural has done nothing but improve his overall game.

Swick-Fu ... whatever, beat somebody good.

Miller dominated that entire fight. Looked good even taking the fight with like 3 days notice.

Cantwell is looking strong.

His opponent had possibly the biggest bump on his head I've ever seen.  At the decision announcement it was covering nearly his entire forehead.

- Koscheck had a gorgeous KO.  Yoshida wasn't a scrub, either.  It's too bad that he's pretty obviously either 4th (below GSP, Alves, Fitch) or 5th (if you count B.J. as a WW) in his division, which may be fueling the speculation that he's going to take off for Strikeforce.

- Swick worked Goulet,  but Goulet was a B- fighter at best.  Swick works over the mediocre fighters,  then always chokes up a bunch on the tougher guys.  Nice to see him on form, after the unexciting fights against Burkman and Davis.

- Miller looked GREAT.  Wiman has been really working over people in the LW division too.

- Fuck Cantwell.  I was never particularly impressed with him in the WEC, and Al-Turk was a "gimme" fight for him.  The LHW div is just too stacked for him to hang.

- The Credeur fight was alright.  Credeur has always seemed like a good guy,  but it's obvious he's going to have a mediocre run at MW for a few years and retire.

Warning: Nasty leg break.

OUCH. (http://www.mmaweekly.com/absolutenm/templates/dailynews.asp?articleid=7762&zoneid=13)  And I thought that dude who's elbow popped was bad. 

Looks like they have the fight on UFC.com. 

If they do you probably shouldn't watch it. Once you see it you cannot unsee it /shiver.

Koscheck -- He's like the official gatekeeper to the elite @ 170.  But I just can't see him with the belt.

Swick -- Its time they gave him a real opponent, I know the crowd likes him but come the fuck on.  If they want to put him against someone they are pretty sure he'll beat, what about Ben Saunders from the fight for the troops?  That might be a fun fight.

Credeur -- I'd like to see him use the stand up to setup BJJ or something, right now he seems like a decent chump to put against newcomers and the like.

Cantwell -- This guy is pretty much crap, will enjoy watching him get smacked by a true striker.

Wiman -- I'd really like to know wtf happened.  Need to see the fight again.

Nogueira got his ass whooped.  He really didn't look like he was in great shape, and Mir was on top of his game.

Yeah man, I've been looking around a little today to see what his travel arrangements were.  He looked exhausted, not gassed.  Like he had zero energy from the moment he hit the ramp.  I don't think either were in their best shape, but it could of been water.  Either way, Mir rolled him.

Rise from your grave!


Some great cards are coming up, and the new Xbox game is out, so I thought I'd necro.

- Machida womps Rashad last weekend.  Machida has looked like a killer his last two fights, which is good.  He seemed to play it too safe in his earlier fights, never committing unless he knew he wasn't in any danger.  Word on the street is Shogun is going to fight Machida for the title in October, while Rashad and Rampage are set to match up after they coach TUF 10 in the fall.

- Edger beats Sherk, and the ultimate winner is probably Gray Maynard.  Edger pushed himself into the top tier of the LW ranks with that win,  but his most recent fight before this was a dominating loss to Maynard.  BJ and Florian are fighting in a couple of months,  so it's up in the air who the next contender is.  Probably either Diego Sanchez, Gray Maynard, or Edger.


Coming up:

- UFC 99 from Germany:

Main card
Catchweight (195 lb) bout: Rich Franklin vs. Wanderlei Silva
Heavyweight bout: Cain Velasquez vs. Cheick Kongo
Welterweight bout: Mike Swick vs. Ben Saunders
Welterweight bout: Marcus Davis vs. Dan Hardy
Lightweight bout: Spencer Fisher vs. Caol Uno

Preliminary card
Lightweight bout: Terry Etim vs. Justin Buchholz
Lightweight bout: Dennis Siver vs. Dale Hartt
Welterweight bout: Paul Taylor vs. Peter Sobotta
Lightweight bout: Paul Kelly vs. Rolando Delgado
Heavyweight bout: Denis Stojnic vs. Stefan Struve
Heavyweight bout: Mostapha Al Turk vs. Todd Duffee
Welterweight bout: John Hathaway vs. Rick Story

Main card is pretty solid.  Swick might win himself a shot against the winner of Alves/GSP.  Cain or Kongo could earn themselves a shot for the HW belt.

UFC 100

Heavyweight Championship bout: Champion Brock Lesnar vs. Interim Champion Frank Mir
Welterweight Championship bout: Georges St-Pierre vs. Thiago Alves
Welterweight bout: Jon Fitch vs. Paulo Thiago
Middleweight bout: Dan Henderson vs. Michael Bisping
Middleweight bout: Yoshihiro Akiyama vs. Alan Belcher

Preliminary Card
Light Heavyweight bout: Mark Coleman vs. Stephan Bonnar
Light Heavyweight bout: Jon Jones vs. Jake O'Brien
Welterweight bout: Dong Hyun Kim vs. Jonathan Goulet
Lightweight bout: Mac Danzig vs. Jim Miller
Middleweight bout: C.B. Dollaway vs. Tom Lawlor
Lightweight bout: Matt Grice vs. Shannon Gugerty

All around fantastic card.  Lesner vs. Mir should be interesting.  GSP vs Alves should be amazing.  Fitch/Thiago (dude that KO'd Koscheck) probably won't be great, as Thiago looks like he got really fucking lucky his last fight.  Henderson/Bisping should be great.  Akiyama (a top 10 MW, fought mostly in Japan and Korea) is set to have his coming out party against Belcher, who is mediocre but managed to ruin Denis Kang's coming out party his last fight.

The Jon Jones fight should be good.  Jones is a rookie who's looked amazing in his last few fights.

Affliction's third card is in August, and should be pretty solid.  Fedor vs Barnett.  Lot's of rumors this will be the last card, as the company is bleeding money on it's promotion.

WEC has a couple of great cards as well.  Faber vs. Brown, Torres vs. Bowles.  Miguel Torres is pretty much a skinny, mulletted, 135 lb. MMA god.

Strikeforce has the next good card on June 6th.

I think UFC 99 is pretty crap, not worth paying for and UFC 100 is fucking win, 101 is looking pretty sick as well.

UFC 99:
Rich Franklin vs. Wanderlei Silva - Who cares fight for the main event?  Rich Franklin doesn't even get to fight in Ohio anymore he's so weak and Wanderlei is on the Liddel path to failure.
Cain Velasquez vs. Cheick Kongo - Interesting fight, a  big test for someone who will be amazing in the future (Cain) versus a guy who keeps winning but who I don't think can take on the guys who cut weight to get to 265 in Kongo.  Best fight on the card by miles.
Mike Swick vs. Ben Saunders - This could be amazing if both come out explosive or Saunders could just be outfoxed and outclassed, which would suck because Mick Swick is a fucking bitch.  I don't think Swick will take it to him at all.
Marcus Davis vs. Dan Hardy - A fight so boring they had to invent an internet feud to make it more interesting.  Who cares which one of these guys wins?
Spencer Fisher vs. Caol Uno - Until one of these top fighters from asian orgs can manage to do shit in the UFC I'm going to stop getting excited about fights like this.  Actually I'm never excited about fights involving 34 year olds who are just now coming to the UFC.  Fisher used to be awesome but he only shines against weak opposition.

The undercard is garbage typical of EU fightcard in the UFC.  I'm more excited for the 3 announced fights for the TUF Finale then I am for UFC99, but I'm a huge Sanchez fan so that may be why.  I hope he looks a little better this time around after the weight cut.  Also a Diaz beasting Joe Daddy should be pretty awesome, I've got nothing against that guy but him and Sherk need to fuck off already for much the same reasons.

Other thoughts:
I don't see how Shogun earned a title shot, but I wouldn't be that shocked.  With Forrest fighting Anderson and Rashad fighting Rampage its a tough pick.  Banha Cane needs to prove it against a top fighter -what's Jardine doing he deserves to be the stepping stone again after standing with Rampage for 3 rounds.  Its hard since there has been no title defenses to think of anyone you really want to see get another shot so soon.

Card for 99 looks pretty awful to me. Since when does UFC do catchweight bouts? And I don't see how anyone can care about Rich Franklin after Silva made him his bitch twice.

100 looks great though.

UFC 99 has a solid main card,  but really it can't touch 100-102. 
- The Cain/Kongo fight and Swick/Saunders fights may determine the next challengers at HW and WW.  Shane Carwin is still in the mix, though.
- Franklin/Wanderlei is a tune up fight for Wanderlei as he makes his move to MW, and an interesting fight if you've been following MMA for a while.  Franklin's last fight was a close decision loss to Henderson.
- Dan Hardy has actually been knocking fools out at WW, and may be the second break out Brit in the UFC. 

Uno is past his prime, but this should be a fun fight.  Fisher always brings it.

UFC 101 and 102 are as amazingly stacked as 100.  Couture/Nog, Forrest/Anderson Silva, Florian/Penn, Marquardt/Maia (possibly for next shot at MW), Jardine/Thiago Silva, Hamil/Vera, plus rumors of the return of Cro Cop and attempts by the UFC to sign Overeem (who's been on fire at HW in Japan).

I think UFC is also trying to slot in Koscheck vs. the return of Frank Trig in there.

Cro Cop confirmed he will fight Mostapha Al Turk during UFC 99 in Germany.

Overeem had to cancel the Rogers fight, scheduled June 6th, he nearly lost his hand hospitalising 5 bouncers after he got into an argument in which they hit his brother with a flashlight. The argument started because he didn't have any spare change on him to pay for using the toilet in a Dutch club. A cut on his hand developed a nasty infection and had his management not forced him to see a doctor he might have lost it. He'll be out for the summer.

A Cro Cop fight doesn't mean much anymore either, UFC 99 still isn't worth the purchase.  I hope that the UFC sees the difference in sales between 99 and 100-102 and gets a clue.

You'd be better off getting Strikeforce on June 6th even without the Overeem title defense, the Lawler vs Shields fight is pretty huge for that weight class.  Those are both guys you wish the UFC would poach for the 170 division.  Diaz v Scott Smith (UFC/WEC guy, was in that epic finish fight w/ the liver punch) isn't that bad of a fight either if your a fan of the Diaz brothers, I'd rather see Arlovski fuck up some chump then Cro Cop.  Cavalcante is one to watch also, I got some of his highlights once somewhere and he looked pretty sick against weak opposition.

When the UFC's card doesn't look worlds better then some second tier promotion you know they are half assing it.

Looks like Kimbo Slice is going to be on the next UFC show. Complete gimmick but should be entertaining to watch.

http://sports.yahoo.com/mma/news?slug=ki-kimbo060109&prov=yhoo&type=lgns (http://sports.yahoo.com/mma/news?slug=ki-kimbo060109&prov=yhoo&type=lgns)

The local late night sports talk guy here is buddies with Dana White and has him on all the time.  Over and over again, Dana has said that if Kimbo wants to fight in the UFC, he should go on Ultimate Fighter and earn his shot.

I don't think it's a gimmick.  I think Kimbo decided to expose himself for a shot at the big time.

Yeah, after all the shit he talked about Kimbo, I don't think he'd use him as a total gimmick.  Otherwise we'd be seeing a Lesnar vs Kimbo match instead.

Kinda excited about Faber vs Brown this Sunday.  Prediction:  I have no fucking idea what is going to happen.  I think Brown got lucky as hell with that punch last time (he nearly got killed by an elbow in the process), but up until that point he seemed to be keeping Faber off balanced.  Should be good.

Im sorry if you don't believe Kimbo is a gimmick. Have you ever seen the man fight? Dana keeps saying "if he wants a shot he can go on the show" knowing it will be great for ratings and the guy has no fucking chance. The same reasons he keeps "popular" guys on the show after kicking less popular people the out.

Small gimmick, yes.  Big gimmick, no.  It might be more of a "see, I told you so".

Whatever season Kimbo is on the show will be the ENTIRE focus of that season (unless he gets his ass beat right away). Didn't that kimbo vs nasty ear guy draw the largest crowd for an MMA event ever (or something like that?). Or most viewers?

Well, it probably did, but that is largely because it was being shown on a major network during prime time. 

After watching Strikeforce...

I feel bad for Arlovski, its over for him and it looked like he knew it.

UFC needs to kiss some ass and swoop up the Diaz brothers and Jake Shields would add some depth to those divisions with some good fighters.

The Diaz brothers are ultra-douches and were average fighters in the UFC.

Brown did get lucky as hell, and he had to be helped out of the arena; it looked like he could keel over at any time.

Well, lightning struck twice, because if Urijah didn't break his hand in the first round, Mike brown would have been hamburger.

The younger one will be something someday. I think the older one isnt allowed to fight in the UFC, thought dana gave him the boot. Didnt Diaz Jr win the show, meaning he has a contract for several years? I think its 3 years?

Yeah, I feel bad for Urijah.  I don't know if he wouldn't have killed Brown, but he certainly lost his advantage rather quickly upon breaking his hand.  I think that pretty much guarantees another rematch.  Assuming that Aldo guy doesn't clean out the division first.

That flying double knee by Aldo was just sick.

The Strikeforce card was a decent event, but.... the more I think about it, the more I feel like they took a couple steps backwards.   

- It just seemed like poor matchmaking:  They didn't choose fights that would be exciting or evenly matched,  but fights that were sure to be a viewing draw.  Most of the main card matches were over very quickly, or were very one sided.

- The catchweight fights have vigorously screwed up their divisions.  Lawler and Smith, the only two relatively well regarded MWs they have outside of Cung Le (who doesn't seem to want to fight anymore....) just had their legitimacy destroyed.  If Le wants to come back, who is he going to fight?

- Shields or Diaz should have been positioned this event to become the WW champ, which is currently vacant.  Should have really set up either one of them to fight the winner of Riggs/Baroni for a WW title match.  That's not counting the fact that Strikeforce pretty much destroyed Frank Shamrock's credibility a few months ago....

I guess they could still have Shields move up to MW and try to get Cung Le back for a title match,  and set up Riggs/Diaz II (Riggs beat Diaz in the UFC) for the WW strap....


Not to mention the LHW and HW situation that Strikeforce has going.  Babalu is the LHW champ, but he's been on more Affliction cards than Strikeforce cards and there's no indication he'll show up any time soon.  The only other decent HW, and current Strikeforce HW champ, that they have under contract is Overeem...  and he's been in more fights in Dream in Japan lately than Strikeforce fights.


The WEC card, on the other hand, was awesome.  Lots of fights made the broadcast, and there were some really good fights that didn't completely fuck up future fights.

- Brown and Faber was a decent fight, and the next challenger is obviously groomed in Aldo.
- Jurgunsen/Banuelos was a great back and forth fight.
- The Pulver fight was over quick, but Jens talking about retirement and how much he loved the sport afterwards was a good moment.
- Cerrone showed he's the man.  Looking forward to him rematching Varner for the LW strap.
- Dikun's flying triangle choke was all kinds of cool.

To me, the WEC card had a noticeably better feel/production setup then the Strikeforce broadcast.  Just a better flow.


I really think that Strikeforce needs to knock off the money-grabbing catchweight stuff, and concentrate on making entertaining and even matches.

I don't think Nick can reliably make LW in the UFC, which would put him in WW.  Which is one of the deepest of the UFC's divisions.  GSP, Fitch, Alves, Koscheck, Hazelett, Anthony Johnson, and Swick all are big guys for 170 with either great striking or great ground games, or great both.  Even the mid-tier is pretty packed, with guys like Lytle, Davis, Hardy, etc.

Oh, and Kampmann (who had a good run at MW before Marquardt dominated him) and Condit (who was destroying WWs in the WEC).

The big negatives for Nick:
1. Inconsistent.  He randomly loses to guys that he should whoop, like Noons.  Or puts on an awful performance against third stringers, like Aina.
2. Personality.  His self-destructive impulses are fucking amazing.  Between getting in a brawl with Noons camp in the ring last summer, to testing positive for marijuana and getting his win against Gomi thrown out, to picking a fight with Riggs in the fucking hospital right after Riggs decisioned him his last stretch in the UFC.


I'd like to see Nick and Shields in the UFC, if for no other reason then they have no competition left outside of it.  But I don't have much hope that they would be anything else besides mid-tier fighters there.

Hmm well UFC 100 turned out to be rather dull, none of the fights were particularly competitive save the first.

Was fairly disappointed that they didn't show the prelim fight that resulted in 8 gallons of blood being sprayed around the ring.

Well, Henderson's rockem-sockem block knockoff of Bisping was worth the price alone.  I expect to see replays of that for years to come.

Also, I thought Alves performed admirably but it's pretty fun to watch GSP work an opponent over thoroughly.

I wanted to see that fight too gryeyes.

GSP dominates another fight; if Alves wasn't such a one dimensional fighter it might have been a better matchup. Shame there isn't anyone left in the weight class to challenge GSP.

Lesnar showed a much improved game against Mir; he took his time and imposed his will, rather than go balls out and get caught in a sub.

He better go up after this. I hope to hell he does, it would be very interesting.

In the post fight interview, he seemed to be up for it; he sounded like he knew he needed time to bulk up though so he and Silva are actually the same size. It would be good for both of them though; Silva and GSP have both dominated their weight classes making most other fighters in those weights irrelevant.

Best part of the night, holy shit.

The flying superman-like overkill punch was incredible.

Overall, an average card.

You heard it from his own mouth...he would need to put on some real muscle weight to move up, because he walks around at around 185.  Probably close to 15-20 pounds worth of solid mass, and he isn't the kind of guy that will fool around with something like that.  It might take him a long time to do it properly.  

That said, I'm not sure what the upside for him would be to move up in weight (aside from our entertainment value).  I don't think he can take Silva, simply because Silva is a lot bigger than he is.  He can either be the best welterweight ever, or a really good middleweight.  I'd be tempted to stay at WW and wait for the next big challenger - there are always quality guys at that weight.

The way he threw Alves around...should have seen it in coming, but I'll admit I was expecting a much stiffer challenge.

On Brock Lesnar - I don't think I've ever seen anyone land such bone-crushing punches from that position.  He barely had room to cock his arm, but those fists were just brutal.  Also, it turns out that Brock is an unsufferable prick.  That wasn't just a bunch of old WWE song and dance, he seems to be a genuine asshole with no class whatsoever.  Unfortunately, I don't think anyone on earth can do a damn thing about it.  Probably not even Fedor.

Dan Henderson throws a vicious right that everyone on the planet saw coming except for Bisping.  What part of stop moving to the left don't you get?  What part of the guy lifts his left shoulder and telegraphs his punch five seconds in advance escaped you?  It was a seriously great punch though.  Then Dan has to act like a complete douchebag and jump on top of an obviously unconscious opponent to deliver a crushing forearm.  I was almost willing to believe that it was a "heat of the battle" thing, but then he admits to doing it on purpose.  I lost a lot of respect for him, and am now hoping that Silva dismantles him on their inevitable rematch.

Edit: after reading some of Henderson's comments regarding the elbow, maybe it actually was more of a heat-of-the-moment kind of thing.  Oh well.  

Edit: grammar.

Enjoyed the card, but I really wish Lesnar would suffer a steroids-related embolism already. God that guy is a cunt.

It wasn't a great card, or at least what we saw wasn't great.  Think about it, the Belcher fight was Fight of the Night?  Yikes, that fight started ok but didn't have much to it.

GSP, is well, GSP, none of the AKA kids can take him (Fitch/Kos/Swick) Kos is the best matchup of the bunch considering his wrestling and we've already seen that.  Swick would get run over in a bad bad way.  I thought Alves might score some more damage and make it interesting, sadly though GSP put him off balance in a bad way so fast that he really never seemed to be fighting his fight.

Lesnar, jesus, to be honest I sort of like the guy more then I ever did after that.  The Coors shit was classic.  He's a fucking maniac but there are some other 265lbs fighters out there, the winner of the Cain v Carwin fight?  Fuck yeah I want to see that.  I haven't wanted to see a heavyweight fight for some time.  So he's a great thing for the Heavyweight division.  I wonder if Lesnar wins if UFC will be confident enough to take a Fedor fight.  I really think he might fuck Fedor up, he's just so goddamn freakishly big and fast.

I really wish I got to see the Bones fight.

To be fair to Lesner, Mir was doing some massive trash talking for weeks before the fight.  Honestly, it was neck and neck whether Mir or Michael "I think I'm a better wrestler than Dan Henderson" Bisping was the biggest asshole before the fight. 

Lesner is a meathead, but I can't fault him too much.  Same for Hendo.  Bisping has been a grade A asshole to him for months, and people are surprised when Hendo doesn't want to play the "after the fight we're buddies, hatchet is buried" game. 

Maybe I'm an ass but that after knockout punch by Hendo was probably the coolest part of the whole night. If I had to listen to that prick for months during ultimate fighter, endure a ton of shit talk, and watch USA lose to him....I'd sure as hell make sure he was knocked out too.

Fedor would fuck Lesnar up still. In a couple years, maybe not.

I really don't think Fedor will beat Lesnar, unless he gets in a real solid punch very early in the match (which can always happen with anyone, mind you).  I think Lesnar has all but proven that no matter who you are, he is going to take you down, get on top of you, and there is not a damn thing you can do about it.  To make matters worse, without even getting into a good posture or making any separation, he can absolutely smash your head in.  That's something I've never seen before, and it means that he can avoid getting into too many precarious positions.

I would really love to be wrong, because I love me some Fedor and am starting to really dislike Lesnar.  But I honestly think that Brock will knock him the fuck out.

One thing about Fedor, the guy finds a way to win. I would suspect a similar outcome as Mir, in their first fight Lesnar gets caught in something...and if there was a 2nd he would adjust.

Has Lesnar ever had his chin really tested? We all know Fedor has incredible power behind everything he throws.

Lesner took a couple solid shots from Randy, and a few more from Mir in this last fight.

I was really impressed with how much Brock's game has improved:  His takedowns went straight to half-guard, where he locked up Mir's body (preventing subs from the bottom) and then isolated the head to pound on him. 

The Carwin/Velasquez fight is probably going to Carwin, and then we'll see a pretty interesting fight.  Carwin is a 265 lbs. wrestler with serious stopping power on the feet, and probably decent enough wrestling (former Div I All-American) to keep the fight standing.

TUF 10 should actually be interesting.  All Heavyweights, with the big names being Kimbo, Roy Nelson (looks like a shmuck, but is actually a pretty decent fighter), and Wes Simms.  A pile of NFL washouts are in as well, so it should liven up the Heavyweight division with a bunch of solid mid 200 lbs. professional level athletes.

Afflictions third card is set for August, and more than likely this will be the promotion's last card at the rate they've been bleeding money for paltry PPV orders.  We could very well see Fedor in the UFC before the end of the year.

That punch earned Henderson a $100,000 KO bonus.


There were some interesting preliminary fights, that you can find if you search a bit.  You should probably check out:

Bonner vs. Marc Coleman
Jon Jones vs. Jake Obrien
Jim Miller vs. Mac Danzig - this fight is the reason there was bloodstains all over the mat for the main card.

I don't know, a couple solid shots from Randy? That's not Randy's game. Randy will outwrestle you and ground and pound your ass, feeling fine while you're winded as shit. Fedor beasts people. I've never seen another MMA fighter use his hips so well in his strikes. That is probably offset by Lesnar's pure, unadulterated, roid power.

I'll be truly bummed if they never fight...and they probably won't. They are both freaks of nature in their own respect, but I feel like Fedor has earned his accolades.

I'm not sure size will make much difference to Fedor, Hong Man Choi is bigger than Brock, although less of a brick shithouse of course. Fedor was literally suspended in the air when armbarring him. I'd say Fedor over Brock by submission Rd1.

Big is too simple a word to describe Lesnar.  He cuts 30 pounds to get to 265.  He must come into the ring close to 290.  He is faster than shit, and a dominating, smothering wrestler.  Without getting any sort of posture (and put himself at risk doing so), he beat the fuck out of Mir's head.  Unless Fedor can catch him on the way in, I think he'll get the same treatment.  Can Brock take a punch?  I'm not sure we've seen a really good one connect, but have you seen how big his head is?  That skull must be thick.

Choi is a big, lumbering dufus.  That isn't a fair comparison.

For the record, I don't think Mir's been that good in a long time. Back to commentating in WEC, bro.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6jgDmhY0K4g

He has fought a lot of good fighters.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fedor_Emelianenko

Lost one fight due to a cut. Should be considered undefeated.

Arlovski, Slyvia, Choi, Randleman, Lindland, Minotaro.... 30-1 and nine years of MMA experience.



I'm not saying Lesnar isn't a beast, but Fedor has never been tapped or beat up.

Mir's won three of his last four fights against credible opponents.  He made Nog look like a chump,  and Nog was generally ranked the 1st or 2nd best HW in the world at the time.


The problem with the HW division is that it has always been pretty spread out between orgs.  Combine that with the seemingly short life-span of top HWs and it makes it really hard to compare fighters who have only ever fought in one place. 

Fedor has some good wins, and he's undefeated.  It's really tough to compare him to guys like Brock or Randy, when they only have a very few fights in common and many times those fighters were on the slide.

Example:

- Gonzaga manhandled Crocop, who then got beat by Kongo, and largely looks to be a bit washed up.  Fedor beat Crocop in a war, back when Crocop was highly regarded. 
- Fedor beat Sylvia and Arlovski, but both guys have been looking more than a bit washed up the last couple years.
- Randy has losses to Barnett and Ricco Rodriguez.  Barnett got caught juicing,  and Ricco now weighs more than Alves and GSP combined.

Really, the UFC seems to have the largest stable of consistently alright HWs (Herring, Kongo, Hardonk, Gonzaga) and up-and-comers (Carwin, Velasquez, Pat Barry, Junior dos Santos), leavened with some decent higher tier guys (Nog, Randy, Mir, Brock).

The only guys outside of the UFC I'm excited about are Overeem, Barnett, and Fedor.  Maybe have Monson back.

Here is the gif:

That's beautiful. 

That .gif should totally say "Fatality!" in big letters on the bottom before the (unnecessary) finishing punch.  I'm kind of surprised Bisping's head wasn't embedded into the canvas.

You need to find a .gif from the original broadcast or something, because I think the original view (over Henderson's shoulder) was even more brutal.  IMO.

Well.

Affliction was already pretty shaky, with a good chance that they would fold after this next show.  Now it's all over but the crying:  Barnett just tested positive for roids, which means his license will be pulled for the US for at least a year.  This is the second time for Barnett, who was stripped of the UFC HW title years ago when he tested positive after beating Couture.

To cover the fight, Fedor will now face Vitor Belfort....  Which means if Belfort wins, Fedor got beat by a MW.  Even if Fedor crushes Belfort,  he'll have just crushed a decent but not outstanding MW.

Belfort was slated to face Jorge Santiago on the same card, which would have been a good fight.  Santiago is unbeaten since getting cut by the UFC, and is generally ranked as a top 10 MW, while Belfort has a couple of great wins against Lindland and Martin in his last couple fights.  Now Santiago will either be facing someone who had a week to prepare, or a complete unknown.

Card apparently scrapped.  (http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2009/mma/07/24/affliction.trilogy.canceled/index.html)

Yeh, no just a cancelled event, Affliction is finished as a promotion. There's talk of them becoming a sponsor for UFC.

Barnett has managed to take out the whole damn thing.

I just found out Arturo Gatti's dead.

What a weird way for a boxer to go.  Those 3 fights with Ward were some of the most entertaining boxing matches I've ever - and probably will ever - see.

I followed Gatti from his days as a raw nineteen or twenty year old newb back in the early nineties, fighting little four-round preliminary bouts in New Jersey and Philadelphia on Tuesday Night Fights. I watch him go from preliminaries, to supporting fights, to main events. It was crazy when he finally graduated to HBO and won a world title, because I had just gotten into watching the sport around the time Gatti started fighting, and he was the first guy I had actually watched go all the way from newbie to champion.

RIP and all that.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/sports_blog/2009/07/fedor-emelianenko-ufc-finalizing-deal.html (http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/sports_blog/2009/07/fedor-emelianenko-ufc-finalizing-deal.html)

FUCK YEAH

Oh wowowowowowow

Yeah, Dana White is talking about some "crazy stuff" that will be announced on July 31st.  Possibly Fedor, and maybe even an ESPN contract. 

I find it hard to take Lesnar's antics as anything other than him playing up the 'heel' aspect that the MMA crowd handed him.

He did that everyday of his life for a couple of years and a lot of the WWE guys are his friends.  The whole point of that stuff is to manipulate peoples emotions and sell tickets/advertising/merchandise, by this point I expect he knows that as well as anyone.

I'm not saying MMA is going the sports entertainment route, I'm just saying that Lesnar is selling himself the way he knows how to.

I so hope this is the case and Dana will have to back down on his stance about his fighters appearing in the EA MMA Game.
http://kotaku.com/5325854/ea-signs-fedor-emelianenko-for-ea-sports-mma

That is not even a speed bump on White signing him. UFC does have some unfair Nazi bullshit going on, a headliner like Fedor is beyond that level of bullshit.

Well, turns out that Fedor is either stupid or scared.  Stupid by letting his manager do all his negotiating for him, or simply scared to see if he truly is the best HW in the world.  Signed with Strikeforce.  I think we all lose with that one.

FUCK NO!

Ill restrain myself from blaming the fighter. It was Whites responsibility to get him to sign, he failed. He is also a sheisty fucking dude more than willing to ass rape stipulations into fighters contracts who essentially have no choice. Or straight up threaten to cancel their contract and ban their entire gym if they do not sign away some of their rights for nothing.

I'm guessing you haven't read the details.  I'll grant you that White pulls some crazy stuff, but in this case he gave in to every single demand except for one:  Fedor's M-1 manager insisted that M-1 be allowed to co-sponsor.  You know, basically give 50% of the company to M-1 (well, for at least any of the Fedor events...not sure how far beyond that it would go).  It was a ridiculous demand for several reasons, not least of which because M-1 isn't really even a promotion.

A couple of good cards this weekend.

UFC 101 on Saturday:

Main Card

Lightweight Championship bout: B.J. Penn vs. Kenny Florian
Light Heavyweight bout: Anderson Silva vs. Forrest Griffin
Welterweight bout: Amir Sadollah vs. Johny Hendricks
Middleweight bout: Kendall Grove vs. Ricardo Almeida
Lightweight bout: Josh Neer vs. Kurt Pellegrino

Preliminary Card

Lightweight bout: Shane Nelson vs. Aaron Riley
Welterweight bout: Tamdan McCrory vs. John Howard
Middleweight bout: Thales Leites vs. Alessio Sakara
Welterweight bout: Matt Riddle vs. Dan Cramer
Lightweight bout: George Sotiropoulos vs. Rob Emerson
Welterweight bout: Jesse Lennox vs. Danillo Villefort


- BJ Penn and Florian for the LW title.  We get to see how Penn comes back from the thrashing by GSP.  Florian is on a 6 fight win streak, putting away solid guys like Joe Daddy and Joe Lauzan,  and outpointing Roger Huerta.  Penn should kill him.

- Anderson vs Forrest?  Yes please.

- Amir's debut after winning his TUF season where he had solid wins over CB Dolloway and Matt Brown.  Brown has had solid wins in the UFC at WW since the show, especially the dismantling of Pete Sell, and got robbed of a decision over the Stun Gun.  Likeable guy, classic Cinderella story as he had no pedigree and no pro fights before taking his TUF season.  Hendricks is a 4 time Div I All-American wrestler, 2 time National Champ and is making the transition into MMA.  Basically a fight of who will be a top contender a couple years down the road.

- Grove is a douche.  Almeida is a standout BJJ practioner, with alot of solid wins over top MWs including Nate Marquardt.  Almeida lost a shot at Anderson Silva when he lost a uneventful decision to Patrick Cote.

- Neer is well rounded, has a granite chin, and rivals the Diaz brothers for trash talking and grandstanding in the ring.  Pellagrino is a middle of the road LW, but tough as nails.  Will probably be an entertaining fight as both will look to bang, with Neer just wading forward and walking down Pellagrino.

- The undercard doesn't do alot for me.  Lots of young guys.  Thales Leites is back,  and will likely make short work of Sakara.


On Sunday free on Versus:

WEC 42.  WEC is owned by Zuffa (parent of UFC), focused on the lighter weight classes.  55, 45 and 35 lbers.

Miguel Torres.  He's a skinny, mulletted, Mexican fighting god who is always in great wars.  And his opponent is undefeated.  Some other solid matches on the card as well.


Strikeforce card next weekend, as well.

UFC 101 on Saturday:

Main Card

Lightweight Championship bout: B.J. Penn vs. Kenny Florian
Light Heavyweight bout: Anderson Silva vs. Forrest Griffin
Welterweight bout: Amir Sadollah vs. Johny Hendricks
Middleweight bout: Kendall Grove vs. Ricardo Almeida
Lightweight bout: Josh Neer vs. Kurt Pellegrino

Preliminary Card

Lightweight bout: Shane Nelson vs. Aaron Riley
Welterweight bout: Tamdan McCrory vs. John Howard
Middleweight bout: Thales Leites vs. Alessio Sakara
Welterweight bout: Matt Riddle vs. Dan Cramer
Lightweight bout: George Sotiropoulos vs. Rob Emerson
Welterweight bout: Jesse Lennox vs. Danillo Villefort

This is a really good card, the undercard should produce 1-3 really entertaining fights with all that young talent and the top two fights should be so much fun and will say so much.  I think Florian stands some chance, but I also think he ran and went for points for 3 rounds versus Huerta so fuck Florian I want to see him get his face stomped.  Silva is in for a bit of a tough fight due to the size/strength stuff but I think Forest's "good leg kicks" aren't nearly clean enough and his boxing relies on him wading in and brawling so I just can't see how he wont get hurt versus somebody like Silva unless he executes the "plan" everybody seems to think must work and takes him down and lays on him + G&P.  I think it will come down to how badly can Anderson hurt him when they are in the clinch, if he's hurting him there its over but if Forest can get the clinch then drag him down repeatedly it could be a lame reminder why jumping weight classes isn't always a cool thing.

I want to see Almeida win, because he is so sick on the ground but Grove can hurt people and his stand up is so much better then anything I've seen Almeida do.  It will be an interesting fight for ufc fans though in terms of the styles make fights.

Jesus fucking Christ, Anderson Silva is a scary man.  He pulled out his Matrix dodging punches act, and destroyed Forrest.  According to rumors, Anderson is now going to relinquish the MW belt, and finish out his career at LHW.  Soooo many potential great fights at LHW for Silva, and it will inject some new life into the MW division with Maia, Marquardt, Hendo and possibly Belfort or Rich hunting the title.

BJ took apart Kenny.  Diego is being tapped as next in line, and I think Diego is going to get curb stomped by BJ.  BJ's biggest threat, in my mind, is Gray Maynard, though.  Maynard is a big wrestler with explosive takedowns and some decent power in his standup.  Seems to fit the recipe for a guy that can beat BJ.

The only problem is BJ and Maynard are friends, and Maynard has gone on record as saying he doesn't want to fight BJ.  Of course, BJ being BJ, he said "I'll make him fight me." 


Just a reminder:  Tonight free on Versus is the WEC card.  Should be some great, entertaining fights at the lighter weights.  And you will get to see Miguel Torres who is probably a top 5 pound-for-pounder take on a serious threat.

Florian had exactly the right game plan for an out of shape BJ Penn....trying to wear him down like that was the only reasonable chance he had.  Too bad BJ wasn't out of shape. 

Anderson Silva...I mean, come on.  Forrest beat Shogun.  Forrest beat Rampage Fucking Jackson.  And then Anderson Silva comes along and makes him look like a complete fool.  I expected Silva to win, but not like that.  Is it going to take another precision striker like Machida to do something about him?  We may find out.

WEC card was pretty entertaining.

Torres took the same kind of shots he took from his last opponent, but Bowles just hit a hell of a lot harder.

It's like Silva was seeing him in Slow Mo. Though, Forrest isn't the fastest guy around.

Anyone watch the latest Strikeforce?

It was cool to see the Armenian guy ruin Sobral, he was preternaturally calm.

On the other hand it was not cool to see Gina Carano get pounded by a woman who is twice as manly as I am. You don't see that sort of schism in men, I mean you see guys who are really ripped and guys who are out of shape but not people who appear to be of entirely different species.

Not enough competition to filter out the gene pool. Gina was naturally made the "face of the league" and was put in the ring against people she would beat. It was a foregone conclusion Cyborg would eat her.

Its gotta be disheartening for Forrest to be so outclasses, Silva was teasing him. Silva definitely pushes the barrier of disrespect in some of his fights.

The Armenian guy would have been my favorite fight if Cyborg hadn't beaten the ever living fuck out of Gina. God. Damn. That was pleasing to watch. Also, I said one round and I got my wish. Shame they stopped the fight, I would've liked to see her face ruined.

MMA is not about being pretty. Gina needed to get her ass handed to her.


That statement qualifies as total bullshit.

FALCON PUNCH.

Quite a knockout there, Mr. Marquardt.

That was probably the most entertaining UFC card I've seen in a while.

The italic is plan wrong, funny but wrong. The bold is very true. Really women vs women fights only work if they are both participants are women. Otherwise its just a little girl vs a yeti.

Did anyone see the Machida-Shogun fiasco?

Evidently not the judges.

Other than that, I thought it was a pretty good UFC.  Not a single boring fight on the main or under card.

I didn't get to see it.. All I can do is read about it.  :uhrr: It sounds like another Machida affair (I do like him though, btw), but doesn't look like he stepped it up in some obvious way. Maybe he did really lose, but I hate that he's so comfortable with these kind of results sometimes. It wouldn't hurt to seal the deal.. for your own sake.. not the crowd's necessarily.

Shogun countered all of Machida's attacks with heavy, heavy leg kicks or body kicks while covering up and dodging his punches.  I had it 4-1 in favor of Shogun, maybe a 3-2 as one of the early rounds was really close.

It's really deflated the aura of invincibility that Machida had going, and seems to be the blueprint for beating him: heavy leg kicks when he engages.

That's cool. Traditional Muay Thai would instruct the same thing. Legs are the first thing that get abuse in Thailand matches. "MMA Muay Thai" fighters perhaps didn't go for that before because it emphasizes aggressive clinches and knee smashes, and all as a segue for takedowns. That kind of close aggression doesn't work against a Karate stance. So I'm glad he's here to make people think again. But also it's cool that someone made him think too. He probably needs to learn MT defense, even if he won this one.

How the fuck did Machida win? Shogun dominated him.

Umm, I'm just following the scorecard mentioned here. He won "officially". Like I said, I unfortunately didn't even see it. Just saying that even if he won, sounds like he just crawled there at best. If there's a rematch, he can't act like whatever he did here worked. I think he was always riding on the belief that his defense is impenetrable, but that's against all the watered down styles mma devolved to. What happens if someone takes a measured attack themselves? It's not like Karate is impossible to fight against.

MANCHESTER, England -- Brock Lesnar will not be back in the UFC anytime soon, according to UFC president Dana White.

Speaking with the media after UFC 105, White indicated the heavyweight champion is very ill and will be out of action for the foreseeable future. He went on to state that an interim title match might need to be set up.

White did little to shed light on the specifics of Lesnar's condition, but he did say that the champion has been hospitalized.

"He's in a hospital up in North Dakota somewhere right now," said White. "He went to Canada and some bad stuff happened to him, so we've got to figure it out.

"He doesn't want to talk about it publicly, but he's in bad shape. He's not well and he's not going to be getting well anytime soon."

Lesnar pulled out of his Nov. 18 heavyweight title match with top contender Shane Carwin, and reports suggested he had swine flu. But when rumors began to circle about the rescheduled Jan. 2 date being in jeopardy, it was announced that Lesnar had mononucleosis and could be out even longer than originally thought.

Now, after White's comments, it is apparent that Lesnar is in more dire shape. He is not only suffering from mono but other ailments as well.

"He has other problems too," continued White, fielding a question about his diagnosis of mononucleosis. "He is not good. He is very, very sick and he's going to be out for a while."

White went on to state that the UFC would be doing everything in its power to help Lesnar.

"I am worried about it," said White of his biggest star's medical situation. "You know, I can't really talk about it right now, but he's in rough shape. He's in really bad shape … and we're going to have to do some stuff to take care of this guy. He is not well and he's not getting any better.

"We're going to have to send him to the Mayo Clinic or to Scripps, or one of those really good hospitals to figure out what's wrong with this guy."

Well, I think Lesnar's a tool, but I'm not going to gloat over his sickness. Glad he's gone though. Stay gone plz.. But be healthy too.  :why_so_serious:

edit: Sigh.. I don't even know enough about him to say he's a tool. He's not a great fighter and has stupid tattoos. That's all I know.

My problem is probably more with the UFC to begin with... For scouting guys like him out. I want to see more martial artists (and a good mix of styles), not muscleheads and wrestlers. Also, I'm tired of Dana White as a "spokesman". I know UFC is a business, but his need to speak on every topic, press release etc.. irritates me. MMA should have a proper "league", not a corporation. There's this whole air about it that comes off very Vince McMahon-y/ WWF like, instead of something legit like boxing with committees and shit.

What is a wrestler, if not a martial artist?  Takedowns, TDD, top control, cardio and weight-cutting all provide such a wide base to build other skills on the top of.  That's not too mention things like mental toughness, heart, and hips that get drilled into these guys from a very young age.

More than anything, Lesner is the prototype for what the HW division will become as the money begins to match what a guy could make by going into the NFL.  The professional/olympic level athlete that would normally get funneled into pro football or olympic level wrestling  is going to pick up MMA right out of college (if not dabbling in it after high school).

The lower weight-classes are already lousy with elite level wrestlers that have made the switch.  High school and college wrestling, more than anything else, provides a huge pool of talent for MMA. 

LW is lousy with wrestlers.  Sherk, Maynard, Edgar, Tyson Griffin, etc.
WW is also lousy with wrestlers.  GSP (who started as a traditional martial artist, but whose dominance is completely due to his wrestling and top control), Fitch, Koscheck, Hughes, Anthony Johnson.
MW is the least dominated by wrestlers, but there is still a good amount of them.  Hendo, Sonnen, Okami, Lindlind.
LHW has Tito, Babalu, Liddell (wrestling base used for TDD), Hammel, Rashad, Rampage (wrestler with solid striking), Couture, Jon Jones (state wrestling champ, junior college champion), Bader.
HW you have Lesner, Carwin (Div II standout), Velazquez, Couture.


I think it's only a matter of time before the UFC becomes another pseudo-monopoly sports conference in the US following in the footsteps of MLB, NFL, NBA, etc.  MMA is already too consolidated to fall into the multi-commission pit that boxing is in.

Granted, I might be a tad biased...   My father was a Div I HW wrestler (only 50% win percentage senior year, though he still talks about tieing the previous year's NCAA champ in a match) and my cousin was a Div III All-American.

I think alot of the hate stems just from Brock having been in pro wrestling.

Yes, it's true.. But I have nothing against classical wrestling, be it western or eastern.. I'm just talking about the sloppy muscleheaded shit that's better off as entertainment (although some wrestlers are intelligent martial artists in their own right, I admit. I always liked the Harts, for example..). So much attention and money for some big ass WWE goober like that. Damn shame he got big by beating on a geezered out Couture too. The UFC's HW division doesn't have much else though.

The Heavyweight division across all of MMA is weak.  That's mostly due to what I was talking about above with big paying pro sports draining the talent pool.

The UFC still has the lion's share of the talent, though, just like every other division:

Lesner, Big Nog, Mir, Junior Dos Santos, Shane Carwin, Cain Velazquez, Gonzaga, Kongo, Pat Berry, Hardonk, Rothwell, Big Country....  even guys like Cro Cop and Couture and Herring who have seen better days.  That's not to mention the younger guys (TUF 10 cast who look meh, Struve, Duffee) who may turn into something in a couple of years.  Oh, and Buentello is back in the UFC.

Outside of the UFC, the only real intriguing fighters are Fedor and Overeem.  Barnett is aging and the whole steriods thing will probably mean he's out of competition in the US.  Rogers may be a talent, but I'm not sold on him...  give him a solid win against Werdum or Overeem and I'll hop on board.  Werdum is uninspiring.  Bigfoot Silva was meh in his last bout with Werdum....  and steriods.  Fedor's younger brother gets some hype, but he is off and on and may have medical issues.

Arlovski and Sylvia look like they might be done.  I think they'd both get worked by the top 4 or 5 in the UFC.

I guess Monson.

Lesner was a legit NCAA Div I wrestler (Champion and runner-up another year), and nearly made the cut as a walk on in pro football.  His personality is ass, but his skills are legit.  His gameplan against Mir (take-down, control, pound out) would demolish most of the top 10 HWs in the world.

Really, the worst thing in the illness is how many intriguing matchups there were for him:
- Carwin.  Physically close, with huge power and a very solid wrestling base.
- Nog.  One of the best sub artists in the world.  I think Nog would get man-handled, but there's always a chance of catching Lesner with a sub.
- Fedor.  The dream matchup.  Fedor has power in his hands and great subs.
- Lots of classic "striker/KO artist vs. wrestler" matchups.  Dos Santos, Kongo and Berry all have a decent chance of putting Lesner away if they can stay on their feet.  Either way, you see the monster get KOed or the monster maul a fool.

My dislike of Lesnar stems from the fact that he is a giant prick.  That said, I still want to see him fight.  I think that 9 times out of 10, he'll demolish just about every other heavyweight out there, including Fedor.  I don't see anyone being able to stay on their feet against him, and like he showed in the Mir fight, he can throw devastating short punches when he's on top, even when his posture is all wrong.  That's a killer combination.

There's nothing about Fedor I've ever seen that could make him lose against opponents like Brock Lesnar. He's the right combo of speed and size to negate Brock's advantages, and even if it seemed like Brock pinned him and started beating on the ground, he's uncannily self-aware even in the worst positions.

I think the only way he is ever going to get beat is just a straight up simple knockout punch. Which Brock would be too slow to pull off. Someone like Bas Rutten in his heyday would be the toughest kind of matchup for Fedor imo. Someone big, fast, and perfectly destructive on their feet. The most stupid fucking thing you could do is "pin" Fedor down.

I disagree, but I'll explain:  I'm not talking about the usual take a guy down and then fall into the guard or half guard.  What I saw Lesnar do against Mir (and to Couture to an extent) is that he can simply lay on top of a guy and deliver DEVASTATING punches.  Lots of guys can get you down like that, but I've never seen anyone who can also deliver that kind of punishment in that position.  Everyone else has to posture up or otherwise put themselves at risk before they can rain down blows.  Lesnar seems to be so powerful that he can do it from what would to most people be a useless position.

And there's no question that he can take Fedor down.  Far lesser wrestlers have taken Fedor down.  I do think that Fedor has a better chance that most, because he could clock Lesnar with a good punch, or get him into a submission during a transition.

Well, you make it sound like Mir got dominated. Which he didn't. He lost, but there's a difference. He had some moments of opening up on Lesnar too.


Moments which, btw, Fedor would handle differently and more efficiently. Secondly, since Fedor is such a massively skilled fighter, I don't want to hear how he's going to get beat by half-ass skills and dry humping. He's a man who must be beat by skill himself.

I'll leave it at that. I don't need to state the case of Fedor. He's virtually undefeated with 33 wins. Brock is like 4 and 1.

From where I was watching, Mir got destroyed.  I was cringing at the hits he was taking.

If we weren't talking about Lesnar, I'd agree with you.  I just think that, barring a freak punch or submission during transition, he will basically be able to get on top of Fedor and ruin his face.  I'd like nothing more than to be horribly wrong, because I love Fedor and loathe Lesnar.  Alas, it appears we'll never know.

Yeah, too bad we'll never see it. It seems like Fedor dislikes UFC. I don't really like it either, but he must know something we don't that'd make him go out of his way out of the league. Apparently they've offered a fuckton of money, so that isn't the issue.

Fedor's management dislikes UFC.  UFC will not do co-promotion for just one guy.  They think too highly of themselves (rightfully so in this case) to let M1 Global stick their name on the product.

I'd love to see that fight. But we've got a very sick fighter and an aging fighter with little to prove.  Fedor doesn't really have many interesting fights available outside of Overeem at Strikeforce (Werdum butt scooting for 3 rounds doesn't appeal to me).  Would like to see him fight someone that that's a legitimate threat or at least a big name.  Doubtful that will ever happen.

Supposedly they asked for half of UFC.  No way that's going to happen.

UFC 106 overall was a great card.

- Amir and Phil Baroni was entertaining.  Baroni came out hard and gassed, and then Amir teed off on him for 2 rounds with a bunch of unorthodox strikes.
- Lil Nog destroyed Cane.  Lil Nog had one of the most intimidating corners you can imagine, what with Big Nog and Anderson Silva there.
- Ben Foster was an animal, despite getting fouled twice.
- Koscheck/Johnson had the weird eyepokes and illegal shots, but a satisfying ending.
- Saunders demolished Marcus Davis with brutal knees.
- Tito/Forrest was a solid fight with lots of back and forth until the third, where Forrest took it to him hard.
- Even the Paulo Thiago vs. new_guy fight was pretty decent.  Some good back and forth grappling.


Tito needs to learn to keep his giant mouth shut.  Cracked skull?  Really?

Good on Forrest, Tito's career is pretty much over now. My dislike of Koscheck grows each time I see that douche.

That was satisfying to you?  I hated that card. ESPECIALLY Koscheck pulling some shit out of his ass w/ that OMG my eye that didn't get touched shit.  Then poking him in the eye twice, one of which didn't look accidental at all.  Little Nog was scary, but Cane may just be another Thiago Silva which is dissapointing, I was high on both guys until they got taken apart.

I liked seeing the Aussie win, he's such a cool old guy.  Saunders knees are vicious but we'll see if he is learning fast enough, he's going to earn himself some very tough fights quickly.

The Baroni fight was so lame, why did they even bring him back, iare they having that much of a hard time filling all these shitty cards?  

I will say that the undercard bailed them out big time, it had some good fights and interesting matchups, but the main card just had 2 destructions (Saunders and Little Nog) no enjoyable fights.

*edit missing f, the computer labs at my school don't like this forum*

So Shane McMahon (son of WWE Vince McMahon) recently quit the WWE.  He's now in talks with UFC to buy an interest in the company.  Personally I think this is a great idea.  Shane could help alot with the marketing of UFC. 

Koscheck was poked in the eye.  Johnson got him in the left eye with his thumb right before the giant illegal knee.  There are actually stills of it floating around since people were grumbling about Koscheck's acting.  I didn't see the eye poke by Johnson either at the time, but that was a blatantly illegal knee.  Josh would have gotten 5 minutes to recover anyway.

For Koscheck, that was a solid finish on a much hyped up and comer.  More than likely, that fight alone will set up for number one contender status after Hardy/GSP.

Cane has three solid wins in the UFC:  Cantwell, Sokoudjo, and Lambert.  Looked like a wrecking machine in each fight.  The only loss on his record before Nog tooled him was the DQ loss in the Irvin fight.  Cane is a solid up and comer.  I agree that he might have been getting too much hype now, but in three or four years he should be in the thick of the top of the division.

Thiago Silva is another young fighter who has a huge amount of potential.  He was way overhyped, especially since his wins were over less impressive fighters,  though the dominant win over Jardine after the Machida fight was good for him.

So I'm looking at the UFC 107 card, and find that I'm more psyched by the KenFlo/Guida match than either Penn or Mir.

Random question. Any reason this is not in the sports forum?

Because you didn't use the magic word.

Pretty good card coming up, I may have to buy it.  Penn is probably my favorite fighter, and I also like Diego and his craziness...I don't think Diego has the power to take out BJ (which may be wrong, considering he used to be a middleweight) and BJ certainly has the better ground game.

Mir and Kongo looks fun, and I'd look to see Mir finish it on the ground.

Florian and Guida - don't even care who wins, Guida's fights are always fun to watch.

Looks like a great card.

Also:
Return of Paul Buentello vs. Stefan Struve (the giant skinny Euro guy)
Belcher vs. Gouveia

Matt Wiman, Rousimar Palharras, and Jon Fitch are also on the card.

Its really an ok card to me, better then alot of the cards UFC has done lately.

Here are my picks and thoughts.

Penn v Sanchez -- Penn
I'm rooting for Diego I've been a fan of his for a long time and he's obviously the underdog.  There is no area where Diego is better except take down execution and that is meaningless against BJ 95% of the time.  So I just can't see a way for him to win this fight besides out working him for 3+ rounds and BJ wearing out to the point where he becomes human.

Mir v Kongo -- Mir
Who cares about this fight?  I liked Mir until he got his face raped by Lesnar, he's a smart fighter but he's also one of those guys that mean nothing until they make a 235 pound division.  Kongo is a gatekeeper with a poor overall game.  I don't get what the matchmaker is thinking with this one.

Fitch v Pierce -- Fitch
This is only happening because 2 better opponents got hurt, I'll be pulling for Pierce because I hate all those AKA guys, fuck them but Fitch is just so damn good I can't see him losing to some new guy who has never fought someone at this level.

Florian v Guida -- Florian
Guida doesn't fight very smart, Florian will fight to outpoint him.  Guida needs to get on top to win, Florian is hella dangerous of his back with elbows and submissions.  This fight could be fun but again I don't get the match making.  I'd rather see both of these guys fighting young rising stars.

Buentello v Struve -- I don't know enough about Struve to make a call on this.  I don't remember his last 3 fights even though I think I saw them all.
This is a real, who gives a fuck why is this on the maincard type of fight for me.  Buentello shouldn't even be in the UFC.

Belcher v Gouveia -- Gouveia
NOW THIS is a fight with seemingly no title implications but at least its quite balanced and hard to call.  I mean Wilson has looked much better in his last 4 fights and Belcher's should have been a win versus Akiyama and win over a pathetic Kang mean nothing to me.  On the flip side I think Belcher has the power to put Gouveia to sleep and that is a big threat.  I'm usually too high on Brazilian fighters but I'd still pick Gouveia if forced to.

Wiman v Nelson -- Wiman
I'm a huge Wiman fan and I think Nelson sucks so this is a no brainer.  If Wiman has been improving during this camp he should get this victory no problem.  He's had some really erratic performances though so you never know.

The rest of the card looks interesting, a bunch of first timers against people who have limited exposure but who have impressed during those limited windows.  I wish I could pay to see the under card + title fight instead.

I find every one of BJs fights to be fun to watch.  The fact that he's the kind of freakishly gifted talent that comes along once in every great while adds to that.  Diego is a high energy fighter that will go for the kill.  Decent submission game, great chin, good wrestling, and good striking. 

I think Diego eats BJs jab for a couple rounds, until Penn decides it's time to finish him.


Kongo is a solid midcarder with a lacking ground game.  It's solid matchmaking to build Mir up for a fight against one of the top tier guys in the division after Lesner ate his lunch. 

A Mir win sets him up to fight Velasquez (who I think Mir can beat), a rematch with a healthy Nog (Nog was riddled with a staph infection last fight), or a guy like Junior Dos Santos (who is a small HW, but has world class kickbocking).


Yah, injuries killed this bout.  Fitch is probably the best WW not named GSP, and this is another tune up fight to get Fitch ready for the rematch.


I like Kenny when he isn't fighting...  He does a decent job as an announcer and color personality.  I dislike him as a fighter.  I think Clay will keep this an active fight.

There's just something you gotta love about the heart and enthusiasm of Clay Guida. 


How can you not remember Struve?  He's a 6'10" skinny guy!  Struve is a submissions guy, Buentello a brawler.  Buentello isn't a top HW, but he's another solid midcarder addition to the likes of Gonzaga and Kongo.

This fight is up in the air.  Either Struve pulls out a wicked sub, or Buentello knocks his head off.


Both these dudes are young, pretty talented, but massively erratic.  Belcher beat Jorge Santiago (who has been in and out of the top 10 at MW), Kang (who was a top 10 fighter at the time), and should have beaten Sexyama (who is barely in the top 10 now).  On the other hand, he's dropped awful losses to the likes of Kalib Starnes and Kendall Grove.

Gouveia has had a pretty good run in the UFC.  Except for the Marquardt bout, his losses have been competitive.  The Marquardt fight was the one where Nate pulled out the fucking video game combo finish on him.

His wins are usually pretty impressive.  There were websites putting Gouveia in the top 10 right before the Reljic loss at LHW... 

Both Belcher and Gouveia are guys that could be great fighters, if they can put together the last couple pieces of their fight games.


I like Wiman.  Before one of the Miller brothers ate his lunch, he was looking like a world beater.  Palhares is another guy to watch....  he's supposed to be an amazing BJJ phenom, and had some solid wins before Hendo decisioned him.

I like Mir. After his motorcycle accident he was a total zombie in the ring, his comeback from that has been amazing. And he has a fairly unique fight style for a heavyweight in the UFC.

Guida is awesome. He's lost his last 3 or 4 fights but each was close. He definitely fights dumb sometimes, with some proper coaching he would be a hell of a lot better considering he's apparently made out of some rubber/iron combination.

Mir came in at 264.5 lbs, and looked far more cut than at any time in the past.  Made short work of Kongo.  Mir is obviously stepping up his workout regime to get ready for Lesner, Carwin, and the rest of the giants.

Struve is a solid HW prospect.  He's 6'10", looks rail thin but still weighs in above 240, moves pretty well for a big guy, and he's only 22.  Depending on how his training comes along, and how he fills out, he could be a monster in a couple years.

BJ Penn is just a frightening fighter at LW.  He took Diego apart.  The early rumbling is that the UFC will try to bribe away one of the Dream/Japanese lightweights to give him a fresh face to maul fight.  Other than that, Gray Maynard is probably the next contender if he has an impressive performance against Nate Diaz...

Maynard would honestly be a pretty good fight.  Great wrestler, large for the weight class, improved striking.  Maynard has said in the past, though, that BJ is a friend and he would never fight Penn.

I like when Diego is all "this is going to be war - CRAAAZY FACE!!" and then becomes tentative when he runs into someone better. (Penn, Koscheck)

Got all my picks right except Gouveia, which I should have stayed away from because a) he's a lazy piece of shit and b) it was fucking catch weight.

How boring though because I don't think any underdogs accomplished anything.  The only real "don't miss this" moment was that idiot in the undercard getting all hyped then knocked on his ass and then fucking dude up w/ the upkick to triangle.

Well he did almost get knocked out in the first 15 seconds. Rather impressive how fresh BJ was after the 5 round ass stomping he was dealing out. He wasn't even winded.

(http://www.abjecthubris.com/images/mma/diegobjpostfight.jpg)

http://www.fightmetric.com/fights/Penn-Sanchez.html

I about fell off the sofa when BJ threw that leg kick.  Fucking cracked him and ripped him open!  I can't even remember seeing him ever throw one before.  He was just showing off at that point.  Amazing.

There's actually a pretty good Strikeforce card on Showtime tonight:

Strikeforce: Evolution

    * Middleweight bout: Cung Le vs. Scott Smith
    * Lightweight Championship bout: Josh Thomson (c) vs.  Gilbert Melendez (ic)
    * Middleweight bout: Ronaldo Souza vs.  Matt Lindland
    * Heavyweight bout: Muhammed Lawal vs.  Mike Whitehead

Cung Le makes his return from movies.  I'm not sure how good Cung Le is, but he can really destroy brawlers and definitely puts on exciting shows.  Scott Smith is Scott Smith...  a mediocre brawler who is sure to stand with Cung and get kicked to death.

Thomson and Melendez are both decent fighters who should put on an interesting and high speed fight.

Lindland was considered the top MW in the world for a while, before Anderson Silva really got started wrecking fools.  Has quite a few losses in recent years, but those were all waaaay above his natural weightclass except for Belfort demolishing him.  Shit, he took Rampage to a close decision and did alright against Fedor which is pretty impressive.

Whitehead is a scrub.  Lawal, or King Mo, is considered a hot LHW prospect.  This is a tune up fight for him to set up the title match with Gegard Mousasi, probably.


There's also WEC show tonight, I think. 

Call him Jacare, I had no idea who Souza was.

I'm excited to see Jacare and Lawal put on big shows, dominate lame opposition and hopefully get the ufc's attention.

I don't think I had actually ever heard of Jacare before I looked up the show.  Somehow.  A few of the online sites have him as the favorite.  Seems to have a decent sized hype train.


Honestly, for me, this card is worlds better than the usual Strikeforce showing.  I just don't give a shit about Nick Diaz (Captain inconsistent), Jake Sheilds (zzzzzzzz), or Frank Shamrock (washed up).  Lawler is alright, but he's obviously a B fighter.  Here we have a couple of intriguing matchups and future contenders.

I like to bag on Strikeforce, but that event last night was really good.  Good fights, camera work is much improved, production was better.

Melendez and Thomson is a Fight of the Year candidate.  Great 5 round fight, with some good back and forth.  Melendez on his feet looked like he's been watching alot of BJ Penn tape.  Thomson had a couple good rounds, but got sucked into throwing down at point blank range with Melendez in the second and got caught by the heavier handed fighter.  Never looked the same the last three rounds.

Cung Le vs. Scott Smith was a tribute to Le's mad kicking skills and Smith's endurance and heart.  Cung knocked Smith down over and over with wild kicks (including a spinning back heel kick...  it was awesome), while Smith just got up and continued to fight.  In the third, Cung gassed a bit and Smith connected with a short punch inside.

All she wrote.  Smith is literally Homer from that episode of the Simpson's where Homer becomes a boxer.

Jacare schooled Lindland, who is looking increasingly washed up.  Great win to establish Jacare in the division.  I didn't realize Lindland is 39.

Honestly, it looks like Jake Shields' days are numbered as Middleweight Champ.  Both Hendo and Jacare should pound the shit out of him, as they have better ground/grappling  games than the one dimensional Shields.

You have to realize that Jacare should have been the grand prix winner in Dream, he's a sick submission guy.

Dream is the one major org I just don't know much about.  I know they have some good MWs and LWs, and they have a talent sharing agreement in place with Strikeforce...  Is that the org that broadcasts in the US on HDnet?  I don't think I even get that channel.

I wonder, in the long run, how the talent sharing agreement will treat Strikeforce.  So far, it seems like its sucked some of the bigger name guys from SF over to fight in Japan more like Overeem and Babalu.

Early word is the CBS card is going to have Fedor vs Werdum, which should be an interesting match.  Of course, Fedor will maul Werdum who has mediocre standup and is a slow starter.  Overeem is still recovering from the hand infection he received last summer, after beating up 5 bouncers in a club in Amsterdam.  Hendo is set, but no word of an opponent yet.  A match against Jake Sheilds would be good. 

Yeah that was a pretty good event overall. The one kick from Le that slammed Smith into the cage was awesome, unfortunately even in the second round Cung was noticeably slowing.

Pretty good fights all around with a variety of lengths and finishes.

Dream is the one international org you should follow the fight quality isn't all there but the grand prix fights are good and the spectacle is quite fun.

Did anyone see UFC 108?  Fucked up card due to injuries and also a  bunch of really screwy fights.  The main event was a mess.  Semtex is a fucking beast, if we see him stuff a good wrestler then I want to see him versus GSP once the garbage brit who doesn't deserve the title shot gets his ass kicked.  Nothing else of consequence happened.  Dos Santos looked good, Kampman will make a decent gatekeeper for 170 I suppose, I'd like to see him against the AKA guys but it doesn't look like he's title shot material.

I caught it, though I was going to pass on the card till my weekend plans fell through.  Really a pretty decent card.  The next UFC PPV, despite having the battle of the geriatrics, has a very intriguing undercard:  Marquardt/Sonnen, Swick/Paulo Thiago, Maia/Miller, and Serra/Trigg all look like they could be entertaining.  Also a Gracie on the undercard.

Unfortunately, GSP is talking about relinquishing his belt to go to wrestling full-time in a bid to make the Canadian Olympic Team... 

If the Evans v Silva fight brings us two better fighters it was all worth it.  Thiago needs to diversify his game and improve his cardio.  Rashad needs to learn how to do something with a takedown, he wasn't even employing effective ground and pound.  You have to imagine that Rashad is thinking if he can take Rampage down at will that he has that fight won, but its going to be boring as shit if he can't pound him out or sub him.  If the vegas line is close though thanks to Silva tagging him at the end I may have to throw down on that fight because I doubt Rampage will have a good focused camp and come up with a strategy to stop a wrestle first Rashad.

I hope the UFC gives Thiago Little Nog next not Cane, even Forrest Griffin would be better.  Cane will let him fight and win in his comfort zone and frankly after the Rua rematch if Machida wins there isn't anyone deserving of a shot unless Anderson Silva decides he wants to get paid.

I'm more excited for the upcoming Fight Night then UFC 109, if Maynard wins his match with Diaz which I suspect he will then he gets BJ and that fight has some potential.

The 109 fights you listed:
Marquardt v Sonnen, I don't see Sonnen having any chance if he wins that is amazing and I guess I know nothing.
Swick v Thiago, we've seen this fight several times before the AKA guys are masters of gameplanning on how to out point a fighter who has beaten one of them.  Swick is going to be fighting for a decision win the whole way.
Maia v Miller, this has the most potential but I could see Miller just being too tough and violent for Maia.

UFN 21 tonight....  just remembered.  Free on Spike at 9 PM.

Think the main card is:

Gray Maynard (No. 6 LW) vs. Nate Diaz
Efrain Escudero vs. Evan Dunham
Aaron Simpson vs. Tom Lawlor
Amir Sadollah vs. Brad Blackburn
Chris Leben vs. Jay Silva


It should actually be a decent card.  The Maynard/Diaz match might turn into a hug fest, but if Maynard wins convincingly he can guarantee a shot at the LW title.

Diaz has shown a weakness to good wrestlers not dumb enough to sit in his guard and try to GnP him.  He has limited sweeps, and largely just throws up triangles and goes for kimuras.

Efrain is a high energy fighter.  Sadollah/Blackburn should be an interesting fight.  Leben is a brawler.

It was enjoyable, but another fight that should have been called a draw rather then a bullshit who knows why split decision.  Also how Lawlor didn't get a 10-8 on that first round is beyond me.

The biggest problem with MMA scoring is judges are really averse to giving a 10-8, and almost never give a 10-7, round.  The only 10-7 I can remember is, I think, the Quarry/Starnes fight where Starnes ran from Quarry for 3 rounds while putting out zero offense.

Lawlor should have had a 10-8 first round.  He had Simpson on jelly legs for most of that round, and I'm not sure how Simpson survived.  The second seemed to be close, with Simpson coming on strong in the third.  Not a terrible decision.

The Diaz/Maynard fight was just odd, and really depends on how you personally score things.  Maynard landed lots of power shots, and defended well.  Diaz connected with more shots but had little steam on them, or the shots were blocked/slipped.

I've seen people scoring it on points (basically just how many times connected) and giving it to Diaz all three rounds.  The only round I thought went decisively to one fighter was Maynard in the second,  but I've seen people score that round for Diaz based on times connected.

If Maynard had stopped being an idiot and just grabbed a takedown near the end of every round he would have walked away with a much more convincing win.

Maynard successfully gave Edgar the next title shot, supposedly in April on a card in Abu Dhabi.  Edgar is going to get wrecked. 

Diaz has made noises about moving up a weight class, which actually might be a really good thing.  Nick looks alot better at a higher weightclass, and I think Nate will too if he uses it as a chance to put on some muscle.  Both the Diaz boys don't have frames for 160/155. 

They are still smack talking jackasses though.


Spike is premiering a "Best of Pride" show on Friday, which should be fun.  Same setup as Unleashed, but all the old Pride fights.

Strikeforce card this weekend!

Strikeforce: Miami
Saturday, January 30th, 10PM on Showtime

170 lbs. (WW championship): Nick Diaz vs. Marius Zaromskis
145 lbs. (Women's LW championship): Cristiane Santos vs. Marloes Coenen
185 lbs.: Melvin Manhoef vs. Robbie Lawler
205 lbs.: Herschel Walker vs. Greg Nagy
265 lbs.: Bobby Lashley vs. Wes Simms


A couple of engaging fights, a couple of stompings, and a freakshow fight:
- Zaromskis is supposed to be a solid fighter, so will be interesting to see if Nate pisses away another shot at a major belt. 
- Cyborg will stomp a fool.
- Manhoef and Lawler should be good.  Heard of Manhoef, but I've never seen him in action.
- Herschel Walker will try to beat up a can. 
- Lashley makes his SF debut against Wes Simms, recently of the last season of TUF.

Yeah its a typical Strikeforce card, should make great tv but as someone who watches a ton of mma I could never pay for it, its just too trashy.

Strikeforce was a pretty terrible event from start to finish.

It was a typical SF card.  A bunch of bad match-ups and guys more concerned with putting on a spectacle than fighting a technical fight.

Don't get me wrong, a fun brawl is a good way to start an event and warm up the crowd.  I just don't want to see the guys who are supposed to be the talent going out and flurrying punches with no defense.

Lawler and Diaz won, but in a way that opens up questions on their skills.  Both were in serious trouble in their matches.  Lawler was getting picked apart before getting off the Hail Mary punch.  Diaz looked like he was done when he got dropped, but pulled it out against a guy who was looking sloppy as hell.

Herschel Walker fought a guy with two professional bouts. 

Lashley fought a guy who:
1. Isn't very good.
2. Looked like he's been sitting around eating ice cream since TUF 10.
3. And took the fight on a week's notice.

Cyborg's opponent wasn't bad, but it's obvious she is a 135 lber and it's obvious that Cyborg has to cut weight to make 45.  Cyborg was huge compared to her.

The April CBS card should be pretty damn solid, though.  Fedor/Werdum, Hendo/Shields, and probably some combination of Lashley (hopefully against a decent opponent), Mousasi, etc.

Manhoef was probably the most impressive of the lot, even though he lost.

Yah, he looked really good until he dropped his hands and got caught.  You can tell he's got great speed and that he's a great athlete, but I think he's one of those high-strung guys...  the Melvin Guillard, Vitor Belfort, or Paul Daley types.  When they're on, they look unstoppable.  When they aren't, it's a mess.

The fact that SF bumped Jay Heiron and Joe Riggs to the undercard was a travesty.  Heiron is a solid fighter and probably the number one contender, but they put both Lashley and Walker on the main card. 

Riggs is another guy that either looks like a beast or a joke.


UFC this weekend.  Despite a weak main event, should be solid.

Main card (televised):

205 lbs.: Mark Coleman vs. Randy Couture
185 lbs.: Nate Marquardt vs. Chael Sonnen
170 lbs.: Paulo Thiago vs. Mike Swick
185 lbs.: Demian Maia vs. Dan Miller
170 lbs.: Matt Serra vs. Frank Trigg

Under card:

155 lbs.: Mac Danzig vs. Justin Buchholz (Spike Broadcast)
155 lbs.: Melvin Guillard vs. Ronnys Torres (Spike Broadcast)
155 lbs.: Rob Emerson vs. Phillipe Nover
205 lbs.: Brian Stann vs. Phil Davis
265 lbs.: Tim Hague vs. Chris Tuchscherer
265 lbs.: Rolles Gracie vs. Mostapha Al Turk


All of the main card fights are interesting. 
- Coleman vs. Couture isn't main event worthy, but it's a good match. 
- Marquardt vs Sonnen is definitely for next crack at Silva.  Sonnen isn't an exciting fighter, and he's been uneven, but he still has wins over Filho and Okami.
- Thiago vs. Swick.  Should be a solid fight.
- Maia vs. Miller.  This should be nice.  Maia and Miller are both trying to prove that they're legit.
- Serra vs. Trigg.  Guilty pleasure.  Should be an even match between guys in a similar point of their careers.

Hopefully we'll get most of the undercard broadcast as well.  I'd like to see Gracie, Stann, and Nover fight.

Once again you are underestimating Dream fighters, Diaz dominated besides getting hit with one punch against a really good striker in the Dream grand prix winner.  The great thing about the Diaz brothers is they will take a punch and recover so goddamn fast.   There is absolutely no shame in that win, that guy would rape Heiron who really doesn't have any kind of pedigree he lost to Brad Blackburn and Chris Wilson, two IFL fighters who UFC picked up.

They need to pick someone up to fight Diaz but apparently they can't be bothered.  Diaz has already come out and said he isn't excited to fight Heiron or Sakurai.

The Manhoef fight was a clinic in leg kicks but yeah idiot drops his hands, not sure why you would compare him to Daley unless you've seen some of his pre ufc fights, all he's ever done in ufc is wreck people.

Every other fight was trash, couldn't give less of a shit about any of them.  Also Fedor v Werdum is a joke, what a horrible fight.

***

UFC, bleh its a solid card thanks to the decent undercard but I'm not going to pay for something that has two gimmick fights on the overcard one being the main event.  I don't give a fuck about Trigg, Serra, Coleman or Couture.  I don't think Sonnen has anything for Marquardt tbh either I expect Nate the Great to walk right through him.

Sonnen is the most boring fighter on the planet.  Hopefully, he'll have less luck in keeping Nate on the ground while he throws ineffective strikes or maybe Nate will wreck him as Sonnen dances around the cage throwing happy love taps for maximum pointage. 

Dream has solid MWs and LWs, but....  Zaromskis has no big wins himself.  The UFC just has a deathgrip on all of the top WWs....  something like 8 of the top 10 are in the UFC, and most of the top 11-20. 

Heiron/Riggs should have been on the main card because those are the top two WWs in their roster, besides Diaz.  Yah, they're both journeymen.  You need to set up Diaz's next match.  Otherwise you're just bringing in some guy that none of the US fans is familiar with to lose to the champ. 

Sakurai is the only other guy I've heard of.

I'd love to see some of the Dream LWs in the UFC, though.  They have a great stable of LWs, and it would shake up a division of wrestlers and maybe give BJ a legit opponent.


I caught some of Daley's earlier fights in EliteXC or SF...  he can look terrible.  I mean, he's a great striker but his ground game is pretty blah. 


Fedor should win pretty easily, but Werdum is a legit opponent with some good wins and a great ground game.  SF and Dream's HW stable is really thin.  Bigfoot Silva, Rogers, Overeem (who hasn't fought in SF in 2 years).  Even the free agents are sparse.  Barnett has another steroid suspension so he won't be able to fight in the US for a while, which leaves.....  Monson?  An Arlovski or Sylvia rematch?

When Fedor squashes Werdum, who is he going to fight?

Hershel Walker?  Maybe Bobby Lashey?

Seriously though, you're right.  Going to SF was a fucking retarded thing for him to do.  I think I've said it before in this thread, but I think he's afraid of some real competition tarnishing his legend.  He is not interested in fighting the best anymore.

Just to throw it out there:

The least offensive MMA forum I've found in the past couple years is www.mmaforum.com

Some decent discussion topics, a fairly educated base, no Vault level nonsense posts, and most posters can at least fake functional literacy.  They have fairly active boards for the major mma orgs, and it's not Sherdog.

There were some really great fights on that ufc card, I wish they would stop with the gimmick fights though.  Trigg, Coleman and Gracie looked like such ass it really took a lot of the fun out of it.

Everything not involving those three fighters was top notch.  Even though there were two fights where the fighters were mostly stymied (Guillard v Torres) & (Maia v Miller) I'd like to see all four of those guys again against strong opposition it was mostly a card of really good fights.  What the fuck was the ufc thinking showing Gracie just gas out and lie down at the end?  That was goddamn sad and left such a bad taste in my mouth after watching Coleman be a fucking old man and get beat up for it.

I hope ufc keeps Nover for another fight, if despite ring rust and incredible pressure he 50-50'd with a solid Emerson I'd like to see him stick around maybe a fight with Danzig who won on this card but didn't really wow me?

I also hope somebody mentions to the ufc's commentators that calling every black fighter "an athlete" is getting sort of racist at this point.  It is partially true but its just kind of off putting to hear it all the time.  Phil Davis looked great in his ufc debut admittedly it was a fight with a very one dimensional opponent and he wouldn't have it anywhere near that easy against a bunch of other fighters but if he works hard and improves his strikes and subs he could be something good down the line.

I don't know if they should bother keeping Stann around or not, you aren't much of a gatekeeper if a newcomer wipes the floor with you.  I personally couldn't stand the guy back in the WEC so not having to see him anymore wouldn't bug me in the slightest.

On ufc.com they are talking about Couture being in title contention at 205 now, which seems fairly hasty but ok I'll buy it.  In musing about who he could fight while waiting for Rua v Machida the names Griffin and Kimbo were dropped.  Yuck.  This is the type of shitty fight I don't want to see.  Now putting Couture against somebody he is going to have to actually fight really well against or get killed?  That I want to see.  Especially if this is his match to prove he deserves a title shot.  I'm thinking Little Nog (who was supposed to fight Vera @ 109 but got hurt and I think is available), Thiago Silva or even Luis Cane would make for much better fights then Griffin whose sloppy style plays right into Couture's hands.  Of course I expect them to book the Griffin fight, the Kimbo fight is just too fucking gimmicky but any of those other three?  I'm buying that ppv card unless everything else on it is shit.

If Coleman fights Tito or Chuck that will be more of the same sad fucking shit.  Hope they don't do that.  Its bad enough they are letting Tito and Chuck fight again, I could not give less of a shit.

I could keep going and talk about wtf Sonnen, where does this leave Nate the Great?  What a goddamn shocker, I still think Nate is better but Sonnen went old school on his ass and as a massive Anderson Silva fan I'm worried.  Could that jump on you, grind you down stuff work on Anderson?  Everything else has been tried and failed, who knows.  Not that I'm looking past Belfort, I haven't been so hyped for a fight since I thought BJ would actually have something for GSP.  Might they rematch Nate against Maia?  I don't think Maia's stand up is good enough yet so I  hope Maia gets another fight or two before that but ufc is really short on 185'ers that can compete.  I'd like to see Nate v Miller I guess but I don't know who that leaves for Maia to fight.

....  I was going to stop this post a long time ago but what the hell.

Paulo fucking Thiago.  Fuck yeah.  God I hate AKA fighters.  Swick trying to just out point, only counter punch, going for that bs point takedown at the end of round 1.  I was enraged.  Swick was clearly fighting for a decision win first so when Thiago tagged his bitch ass and took him out I couldn't have  been more happy.  He deserves a break from fighting against those AKA guys now, fuck them.  It also makes the 170 division a little more interesting though sadly Alves and Fitch are already booked and that means he could fight Hardy after he losses or a winner from the Daley v Kos or Alves v Fitch match ups but those would be a bit of a wait for somebody who didn't take any damage in his win.  I like him versus Hardy the most of those fights.

Good post!  Not too long at all.  I'll post some thoughts when I get home from work....  fucking tax season.

Coleman looked bad.  Just old, stiff, and creaky.  Randy looks fucking amazing for a man his age that has been as active and been in the wars that he has been in.

It's a taste thing, but I like Serra.  Very stereotypical NY Italian, but he says what he means and wears his heart on his sleeve.  If he stays healthy, he can be a solid mid-carder for the UFC....  He had a great fight with Hughes, and has held his own with prime Karo and young BJ Penn.  Trigg isn't a bad fighter, but he may be at the end of his rope. 

I think the UFC is grooming both these guys to a bit for post-fighting work.  Trigg has commented and has Emceed MMA radio shows, and Serra has some real flair.

If you want to keep your sanity, Hoax, don't look up what Serra brought in purse wise for that.  The disclosed amount was.... large.


Emerson is another solid mid-carder.  I enjoy his fights solely because he was the butt of an internet joke that grew a life of its own....  A certain MMA forum decided to pick a random noob fighter, and always talk him up as if he was the greatest fighter ever.  And then he started winning.


Stann will get another shot or two.  Between looking like the epitome of white-bread America, a war record, and leaving the Marines as a Captain there is no way the UFC will pass on that PR opportunity.  He makes a great gate-keeper to feed hot prospects to.  You can just tell sometimes when the UFC is salivating at a mediocre fighter with PR opportunities.... 

Marcus Jones from the last TUF, for instance.  Former NFL player, self-avowed geek (quoted as playing D&D when he was a teen), came across as the sweetest man on the planet till he got angry.

Totally agree on the "athlete" thing.  Rogan especially needs to watch the stereotyping.


Lil Nog is slated to fight Forrest next.  Thiago Silva and Cane should be available, and both those guys have the power to ruin Randy's day.  I actually thing Randy has a good shot of beating Shogun...  Shogun has looked weak to freestyle wrestling and he's a small LHW, tends to get wild and give up the easy takedowns.  Machida is even a better matchup than Cane, Silva, or Lil Nog if Randy can close the distance and tie him up.

Really seems like the matchmakers are setting up Rashad/Rampage and Lil Nog/Forrest for the next title shots, giving them coverage if there is an injury in there.  I'd be surprised if Randy can bump the line with another win, but....  he's done it before.


Sonnen seems like he has a good matchup against Anderson.  World-class freestyle wrestling, with good takedowns, and always busy.  His big weakness is subs (specifically guillitone and armbars) from the bottom, and when was the last time we saw Anderson bust those out?  If anything, the UFC MW division is really weak on the elite freestyle wrestlers. 

Hendo is a world-class grappler, but he tends to stick to Greco (which plays into Anderson's Muay Thai clinch) and he is pretty easily suckered into brawling.  Can't think of another great wrestler in the division....  besides Okami.

This version of Sonnen is basically a bigger, better pedigreed version of GSP with much worse striking.  Which is fine, because you have to have brain damage to go out and stand with Anderson.

Poor Nate.  After his loss to Anderson, he really turned it on and he's a fighter I love watching.  The Gouviea video game combo finish was awesome.  I still don't think his style matches up well with Anderson, though.


I dislike Swick.  He's been overhyped for years, despite never beating an A-level fighter.  It's time everyone recognizes that he's a solid midcarder, and he should pull a Chris Lytle and just go out there to put on entertaining fights.  He's never going to catch a whiff of the title.  He had lots of success (and hype) beating the shit out of guys that got cut from the UFC, but he has problems with even mediocre fighters.

Thiago is a badass.  I noticed, before Rogan said anything, that he obviously has stepped up his physical workout regime.  His striking has obviously improved in each of his fights....  He just had power against Koscheck, but his countering and technique has really stepped up.  It's the complete opposite of Swick whose physique has declined while his striking game has stagnated.

The fact he's a police commando in Brazil?  Yah.  Really goes to mental toughness.  No way he's going to be intimidated by anyone in the ring.

Yeah Swick has never been anything special. He often looks tentative and has no power. I think he got exposed a while back in his fight with David "The Crow" Leauso. (Hey I gave the spelling a shot) In that fight he was fighting for a decision and got mauled in the third round when David opened up on him.

As far as future Silva fights, keep in mind that Travis Lutter did ok against Silva.

Sonnen by default is the worst style match up for Anderson, he's killed every other style there is at this point.  Can Sonnen close to clinch without eating something devastating?  You suspect that he can get Anderson on his back and from there what happens is anybody's guess.  I mean I've never seen Anderson get beat up, it would be something different if Sonnen could get on top of him.  I do think that Anderson has some subs and more importantly knows how to throw switches and maintain guard.

There is also the possibility that Anderson would KTFO this guy as he tries to close and end all debate that nobody can really stop him and he might as well just retire.

That talk is really premature though, Belfort is a crazy dude, he's fast as fuck with power.  I think that fight is going to be over really fast and I think Anderson wins but I'm really excited to see it because if somebody will bring out the best in Silva's amazing fucking striking it just might be Belfort.  I'm so damn hyped for that fight.

The two guys that have done best against Anderson are Lutter and Hendo, both because they got him to the ground.  Lutter gassed, and Hendo tried to brawl and they both lost.  Sonnen has good cardio, and he's not dumb enough to try and trade with Silva.

The Belfort/Silva fight looks insane, though.  A mentally prepared Vitor Belfort could take this in amazing fashion.  That card is looking sick as hell when you add BJ vs. Edgar and Hughes vs. Renzo Gracie to the mix.

Damn, is that for 110?  I usually only buy the really good ones, and this sounds like one of them.

It's the Abu Dhabi card, which is 112.

The next three cards are pretty solid:

UFC 110 - Big Nog vs. Velasquez, Wanderlei Silva vs. Bisping, Crocop vs Rothwell, Bader vs Jardine;  Lytle vs Brian Foster is on the undercard and should be fan-fucking-tastic, if it gets shown...  hoping it's one of the Spike free prelims.
UFC 111 - GSP vs. Hardy, Mir vs. Carwin, Fitch vs. Alves, and a bunch of interesting fighters on the undercard
UFC 112 - Anderson Silva vs. Belfort, BJ vs. Edgar, Hughes vs. Renzo Gracie (Hughes should win, then I want to see Serra/Renzo)

Gotcha.  Looks like I'll be getting both 111 and 112 then.  110 doesn't quite do it for me.

That's exactly where I'm at as well.  Any Wanderlei or Crocop fight is a gimmick fight and I hate fucking gimmick fights.

Ugh.  Vitor Belfort is out of UFC 112 with a shoulder injury.

Edit:

There are also rumors of Couture vs. Franklin late Spring or early Summer.

Maia v Anderson because Sonnen is not allowed to fight due to damage sustained in his fight w/ Nate.

I like Maia, I think he's a tough guy who is doing the right things to improve his game and has some of the nastiest bjj in the ufc.  BUT this is too early, he needs 2 more fights at least improving his striking before he can maybe stay alive long enough to find somewhere to threaten Anderson.  Also I don't think bjj experts will ever really threaten Anderson unless they have insane power takedowns or something to go with it.  I'm still stoked for the card but this still sucks balls.  I was more excited for Anderson v Belfort then I have been for any fight in 3-4 years I've been following the ufc.

UFC 113 MACHIDA vs. SHOGUN 2 - May-8-2010

Can Rua win his belt back?   :grin:

That was an event with real highs and lows....

- Stevenson vs. Sotiroupoulos was a great fight.  George was on fire.  I like the guy, but I wasn't convinced he was particularly good.  Awesome ground fighting!  George may have launched himself into the top 5 or 10 of that division with the win.

- For whatever reason, Jardine puts me to sleep.  He goes out every time generally trying to play it safe and outpoint the other guy.  Bader is working on his standup, but he also can be a tad unexciting when he falls back on sitting in the guard and relying on mediocre ground and pound.  Good KO.

- Cain just vaulted himself up the HW ranks by taking apart Nog, and looking completely dominant in the performance.

- Wandy/Bisping was alright.  Both guys played it conservative.  Wandy could have taken apart quickly if he was more aggressive.

- Lytle's fight made the broadcast.  More action in the two minutes of that fight then the 15 minutes of a couple of the other fights.  Good back and forth, and great roll into a sub.  Unfortunately, Foster could be done as I think his knee was wrecked. 

Which is really too bad because Foster looked good up to that point, real good.

It was a good event but none of the fights coming out of it really excite me.  Thank god for the Stevenson v George fight, that saved an otherwise fairly boring event though thats mostly because Cain is too beast for Nog to try to handle.  Really though I can't see Sotiroupoulos earning a title shot, you sort of have to assume he needs to go through Maynard to get there and I wouldn't like his chances enough in that fight to get excited for it.  As for Cain, he's amazing but I hate AKA and I really don't care much for heavyweight MMA as a rule.

The next ppv though...  Oh god that is such a goddamn good card.  The most boring fight on the overcard is a Jim Miller fight?  Yes please.  

GSP > Hardy -- I don't think Hardy deserved this title shot and he's a total dickhead Brit who I can't wait to see get manhandled by GSP's speed + wrestling and then punched in the face on his back until he hopefully taps like a bitch.

Mir > Carwin -- I'm looking forward to the Vegas line on this fight, I can see it going either way.  Its just hard when Mir was always such a smart fighter and he suddenly gives a shit.  I really like Mir these days and I think he has a few more ways to win.  I sorta expect Carwin to just KTFO him though because he's a goddamn human wrecking machine.  I'm more excited for this fight then the GSP fight on paper by a wide margin.  

Saunders v Ellenberger -- I really like Killa B Saunders, those knees are just so damn mean and violent.  Let me see if I can get my hands on the unaired prelims for 108 and see this Ellenberger guy fight though before I try to pick this one.

Fitch > Pitbull Alves -- I want to see Thiago win this but I expect Fitch to have a outpoint strategy in place and I think Thiago's game has holes and its a little too one dimensional at this point.  I predict this fight will piss me off the most.

Jim Miller > Bocek -- This seems like a big step up for Bocek and against a guy who will not be easy to submit I don't figure he has much of a chance.

Undercard is worth picking because it has GREAT FIGHTS TOO, holy hell, I'm almost annoyed at how stacked this card is.

Nate Diaz > Markham -- War Diaz, hope he comes out angry and looking to keep the judges the hell out of this one.  He got played pretty hard against Maynard.

Matt Brown > Almeida -- I think Matt Brown can keep this standing for most of the fight and is too tough on his feet for Almeida.

Yes, completely.  Foster had a great showing before getting caught in his debut, and looked like a beast against Larson.  I really hope that the injury wasn't serious, but....  it looked bad.

I love me some Lytle, though.  Every one of that guy's fights after the Hughes fight is worth a watch....  In every fight, he has either won KO of the night, Sub of the night, or Fight of the night.  Even the Koscheck fight, where he got mauled for a bit, you could tell Koscheck was starting to get really intimidated because Lytle would just get up and start winging giant punches.

It's easy to forget that Lytle has a decent amateur boxing background, with a fair amount of pro fights, and has been a BJJ black belt for years.  Well, easy to forget until he rolls into a beautiful knee bar.


Feel the same way, though I like the "Cain maturing as a fighter" storyline more.  Really shows how stacked the UFC HW division is getting.

One of the forums I check, people loved this event.  Fuck if I know why.  It was solid but not particularly great.

Edit:

The Diaz/Markham fight and the Almeida/Brown fight are both set to be on the free Spike prelims.   Both should be excellent!  Markham goes for the KO and neglects defense, so this should be dramatic either way.  Brown is a scrapper, and Almeida is a solid to potentially great fighter (win over Marquardt in Pancrase, fought Cote for the title shot at Anderson Silva).

With any luck, the Diaz/Markham fight won't make it out of round 1 and we get a third prelim.

There's been some head-scratching MMA news lately:

It appears that M-1 Global and Strikeforce are having some kind of major disagreement.  Fedor is off the CBS card in April now, but may be on the May Showtime card.  There are some weird rumors, from "Fedor doesn't feel Werdum is worth the effort" to money disagreements.

The CBS card, despite Fedor's match being dropped, is looking really good though:
- King Mo vs. Mousasi, LHW title.  Should be interesting, as Mo is a top prospect, but seems really early in his career to fight a legit LHW in Mousasi.
- Hendo vs. Shields, MW title.  Die, Jake, die.
- Gilbert Melendez vs. Aoki.  Not sure if this is for the LW title or not, but this should be good.  Melendez has been looking strong, and Aoki is a top LW from Japan.

Arlovski just signed with SF, and he's supposed to be fighting Bigfoot Silva either in April or May.
Overeem and Rogers is rumored for the May card.
Some combination of Lawler, Smith, and Jacare should be coming up, as well.


The UFC has a couple of stacked free cards on Versus and Spike later this month, including Jon Jones vs. Vera and Florian vs. Gomi. 

The UFC has also signed retired boxer James Toney to a multifight deal.

The Toney signing is...strange...but I sure as hell like the thought of a Jones vs. Vera fight.  For free!

The UFC Live show on Versus, on Sunday March 21st:

Main card:

205 lbs.: Jon Jones vs. Brandon Vera
265 lbs.: Junior Dos Santos vs. Gabriel Gonzaga
265 lbs.: Cheick Kongo vs. Paul Buentello

Under card:

155 lbs.: Clay Guida vs. Shannon Gugerty
155 lbs.: Spencer Fisher vs. Duane Ludwig
170 lbs.: John Howard vs. Daniel Roberts
205 lbs.: Eliot Marshall vs. Vladimir Matyushenko
185 lbs.: Alessio Sakara vs. James Irvin
265 lbs.: Chase Gormley vs. Brendan Schaub
170 lbs.: Mike Pierce vs. Rob Kimmons
205 lbs.: Eric Schafer vs. Jason Brilz

Main card is siiiick.  Could be Jones coming out party as a top tier fighter.  JDS should add another respectable win to set himself up as a title contender.  Kongo vs Buentello should be fun.  I'd imagine we'll get a couple of the undercard fights as well.


UFC Fight Night: Florian vs Gomi
March 31st, live on Spike


Main card:

155 lbs.: Kenny Florian vs. Takanori Gomi
265 lbs.: Roy Nelson vs. Stefan Struve
185 lbs.: Nate Quarry vs. Jorge Rivera
155 lbs.: Ross Pearson vs. Dennis Siver

Under card:

155 lbs.: Cole Miller vs. Andre Winner
155 lbs.: Gleison Tibau vs. Caol Uno
155 lbs.: Jacob Volkmann vs. Ronnys Torres
185 lbs.: Lucio Linhares vs. Yushin Okami
170 lbs.: Charlie Brenneman vs. Jason High

Solid main card.  Florian vs Gomi should be good.  Nelson/Struve is interesting, as Struve is a good prospect and Roy has massive amounts of experience.  Quarry/Rivera should be entertaining.  Pearson has been getting alot of hype as a LW prospect.

The undercard has some solid fights as well.  Miller has been on a tear, Tibau should kill a fool, etc.

Toney is a fat 40+ year old ex-middleweight who's been bumming around the heavyweights for years because he just loves food too much. His last noteworthy victory was a TKO win over the time-ravaged shell of Holyfield back in like 2003. I have no idea what he thinks he'll be doing in MMA.

Maybe someone will be dumb enough to stand up with him. So-called "striker" Tim Sylvia getting one-punched by the almost fifty year old husk of Ray Mercer was pretty hilarious.

It's definitely a PR/spectacle signing.  Probably Toney will kill some brawlers, then get creamed by a few good wrestlers/BJJ guys.  Randy has already asked for this fight, by the way, which would be very bad for Toney as a first fight.


Everybody loved Sylvia getting creamed.  He basically had huge success because the HW was weak, and he's naturally a giant man without any particular athletic gifts.  I think he came into the Mercer fight bloated up to 320+ lbs.

Randy Couture nearly KOed Sylvia in their match in the first 10 seconds.  At the time, Randy was 44 and never known as a particularly great striker.

I'd pick Toney over anyone in MMA in a stand-up fight, but he's way too old and fat and lazy to pick up any serious groundfighting skills. Rumor is he might fight Kimbo. I wouldn't be surprised if Kimbo submits him.

Nobody going to talk about the Versus event?  I will!

For some reason, that is the first Dos Santos match I've ever seen.  Dang, that guy is dangerous.

Kongo vs Buentello - I guess that was fairly predictable, but I was surprised to see Paul tap out like that.

I've never been much of a Brandon Vera fan, but I'm sure becoming a Jon Jones fan.  He tore through Vera, and then basically broke his damn face.  Wow.  After seeing this and what he did to Hamill (despite the stupid DQ), this guy is going to scare some people.


And of course, a big one coming up this weekend.  Pretty sure I'm going to have to buy it.  It's almost a guarantee that GSP is going to win, but the Carwin vs Mir match is seriously intriguing.  I have no idea how to call that one.

Jon Jones' elbows are scary.  He just caved in the side of Vera's face.  Watching that, it looked like a competent BJJ guy might be able to sub him from guard. That's if one of his elbows doesn't destroy their face first.  Initial thoughts are that he'd get the Evans/Rampage loser, which might not be a bad fight for him,  but may test his chin.  Guy is just fun to watch.

Gonzaga looked like a sloth out there against Dos Santos, who looked like a large light heavyweight. Have to wonder how he'd do against some of the behemoths in the division.  They're saying Velasquez may be next for him.  Not sure that's the best way to get the most out of these two guys.

Although Carwin's had a year between fights to work on his game, I'm thinking Mir's going to knock him silly.  He took a lot of solid shots from Gonzaga and was in some trouble before dropping him in a single shot.  You have to think that Mir hits harder than Gonzaga and his chin is probably a bit better.  Plus he's still at the puffed up weight he fought Kongo at.

edit: Going to move this to sports forum. Yah, finally. Shaddup.

I think Jones trains with Evans...so while it's no certainty, I'm guessing they wouldn't fight each other.  I'd love to see him fight Rampage, though.

The Alves v Fitch fight is off due to irregular cat scan on Alves.  Losing that fight would destroy any other card but this one was so good that its still a must buy.  I'm hugely disappointed though that they are moving a local guy fight even if it is Batman onto the main card and not the heavier Nate Diaz debut or the Matt Brown v Almeida fight.

On the Versus card:

- JDS is a monster.  He's KOed Gonzaga, Yvel (who was a decent midcarder in Japan), Crocop, Werdum (at the time, Werdum was getting heat as one win from a title shot), and Struve (good young prospect.  The only potential hole in Dos Santos game is his wrestling/TDD and his work off his back, though the fact he's been training with the Nog brothers for years probably means he's alright.

Word right now is he's in line for the title challenge after the winner of Mir/Carwin, then Cain.  He may even be benched just in case to keep a potential challenger open in case of injuries.

- Jon Jones is pretty much the top young prospect in the UFC.  If you can find it, try to watch his first bout with Stephan Bonnar.  Three rounds of exciting domination that includes spinning back elbows, trips, throws, and a suplex.  He's looked amazing taking out four very experienced guys in O'brien (boring wrestler, but still a bunch of UFC wins at HW and LHW), Bonnar, Hammil, and Vera. 

This guy is a BJ Penn/Machida level of prodigy, especially since he's only 22!  And he's already said he might have to move to HW since his frame is still bulking up and he is finding the cut to LHW more and more difficult.

Most of the rumors seem to point to Jones getting either Lil Nog or Forrest after their fight.  I think we'll see a slow buildup to a title shot in a year for him.  I think the UFC will want to make him a poster boy, and it gives them time to sort out the Machida/Shogun/Rampage/winner of Forrest & Lil Nog situation.

- Kongo schooled Buentello.  Slightly dirty, but all of Kongo's fights are slightly dirty.  Kongo and Gonzaga make great gatekeepers for the top level of HW fighter.  I think Buentello will get another shot, but he's going to be moved down to fighting UFC newcomers like Hardonk.


The card this weekend:
- Ben Saunders has replaced Alves so Fitch has an opponent.  I was looking forward to Ellenburger/Saunders, too.
- I'm really not excited for the Pellegrino fight.
- At this point, I hope GSP murders Hardy in the ring.  Hardy better hope he flukes out and wins, too....  the other AKA boys are looking to avenge Swick's loss.  Fitch would maul him, though he has a chance if the Koscheck that brawls shows up.


There has been some noise that BJ will make the move up to WW again, full time, since he will have pretty much cleaned out LW after the Edgar fight.  Really, the only fights that look interesting there would be Gomi (if Gomi dominates Kenny) or Maynard (who is on a 7 fight streak).  If he makes the jump, it won't be an instant title fight situation and will probably be situational on GSP moving to MW.

BJ vs. any combination of Thiago/Alves/Fitch/Koscheck/etc would all be interesting fights.

The night wasn't that great fight wise and sure wasn't surprising.  The prelims became a saving grace of the event Diaz beasted and you have to tip your hat to Big Dog for his win, I totally did not see that coming though Vegas did (+130 for Brown).  If they stick Nate Diaz on the undercard again its going to be painfully obvious that UFC just doesn't like him.

GSP is done, the division is cleaned out, unless the two potential challengers can prove themselves.  There is nobody left in the UFC (or outside of it, I don't think Nick Diaz has been working hard enough) who is good enough right now to fight GSP and not been seen as being thrown to a wolf.  Paulo Thiago needs to win one more fight and Paul Daley needs to be actually put in danger in a fight before either of them should be given a shot.

If the winner of Koscheck v Daley (UFC 113 in May) is the next contender then once GSP wins that fight its really over.  Doubly so if Kampmann beats Paulo (UFC 115).  Either way though this all means we probably only see GSP twice in 2010 and we'll still be completely out of compelling fights.

My biggest hope is that Thiago Alves' brain is ok and he takes that loss and runs with it improving by big leaps and then maybe I could get excited for a rematch.  There isn't much reason to imagine Paul Daley v GSP would go any different than the fight last night, Daley is even stronger and scarier but what makes anyone think he'll get to hit GSP?

***

I feel really bad for Frank Mir but honestly he needed a better plan, the clinch was not where he wanted to be with that fucking monster.  The Carwin v Lesnar fight is really almost disturbing, they are both such giant meat head animals.

Carwin is a scary dude.  Not only the power, deceptive quickness, and heavy hands.  The receding hairline, heavy brow, and pale eyes make him look like a serial killer.  He's got a real killer instinct, as well.

He still looked small next to Brock, which is disturbing.

Lesner/Carwin is provisionally set for July, with Cain getting the winner.  JDS will have another fight but gets the next shot.  God damn am I excited for the HW division. 


As for GSP:

A wrestling clinic, but where does he go from here?  Daley is exciting, but his ground game is lacking.  Fitch, Alves, and Koscheck have already fought him.  Thiago needs a couple wins, but already lost to Fitch who is GSP-lite.

There is a crop of young guys coming up, but it will be a few years.  Ellenburger, Saunders (despite the Fitch loss), John Howard, Hazelett, Anthony Johnson, etc.

Honestly, they need to find a wizard BJJ guy to fight GSP...  and even then, he could probably work the guy on the feet.  Almeida maybe, or Maia if he moves to WW (which he probably should... he's a small MW).  As much as I think the Diaz bros are idiots, give Nate a few years to grow into WW and polish his skills, or Nick right now, would be a good style matchup to give GSP fits.

Jake Shields contract with SF is up after his next fight against Hendo.  I think there are pretty good odds of Dana stealing him away.


Not many great fights on the card, but there were some great rounds.  Pellegrino/Brazilian dude, Miller/Bocek had two great rounds.  The preliminary fight after the main card was a fund back and forth brawl.

Yes to this.  The rest of it was, unfortunately, a bit too predictable. 

I always root for Frank Mir, but yeah, not sure what he was thinking clinching up like that with Carwin.  On the other hand, maybe he didn't really have any other options.  I think Frank's problem is simply that there are too many freakishly big and powerful HWs right now, and his style just isn't matching up well with them right now.

On Shane Carwin - tale of the tape had him at 6'5" and 265 pounds.  The weigh-in proved that the 265 is accurate, but NO WAY IN HELL is that dude 6'5"...Frank Mir is only 6'3" and he was easily an inch or two taller than Carwin.  Lesnar is FAR bigger than Shane.  Seeing those two standing together...I'm just going to go ahead and call it right here - Brock is going to murder Shane.  Not to take anything away from the guy, because he is every bit the scary motherfucker you guys say he is.  But Brock is going to get his huge ass on top and just maul him.

GSP has been slowly but surely putting muscle on his body.  They are clearly working on moving him up, and I think it will be a fascinating thing to watch.  There are no WWs that having anything more than a puncher's chance against him.  Hell, that will probably prove true for most of the MWs.  Same thing is probably going to happen with BJ Penn, though style-wise I think he'll have a rougher time of it at WW.

Yah, Carwin isn't 6'5", though he does stoop a fair amount where as Mir stands straight up.  There has always been some weird variance in the listed heights.  I think Big Timmy was listed at 6'11" for a while, and Anderson Silva was listed at 5'11" his first fight (same height as Leben, who he towered over). 

Carwin, according to him, was weighing in sub-265 when he started in MMA, but he probably weighed significantly more than that when he was playing football/wrestling in college and trying out for the NFL.  He has said he weighs in at over 275 in training.  Brock has said he weighs in the 290 range, before making the cut for the fight. 

Carwin has a serious chance.  He's got the quickness, power, and heavy hands to ruin Lesner's day.  If he can keep it on the feet and not get bullied against the cage.  Carwin was only a Div II wrestler, which is a big difference.  I think his standup is better than Lesner's, but both guys are sloppy.

Of anyone on paper, he looks like the biggest threat.  Cain is too small, at 240 though he looks a little "soft", though an equally decorated wrestler. JDS is a guy who would rule a 230lb division, and has scary striking, but I think he'd end up on his back eating those huge short punches that turned Mir's face into a war zone.

How good is the HW div though?  So many great potential fights.  The only thing really missing is Fedor, but I think he's going to milk his notoriety for primo paydays in SF/Dream and retire.


I do have a small interest in seeing GSP against both Fitch and Koscheck again, now that they know GSP's style.  See if they can adapt to win in the scrambles.  I'm not very excited for those matches, though.

Compared to the other divs, there just doesn't seem much excitement.  Even BJ has Florian, Maynard, and (potentially) Gomi which aren't amazing fights put are alright.  Anderson Silva has two good matches with Maia and Sonnen.  LHW may be muscial chairs, especially since there are so many great fighters.

BJ has been packing on muscle as well.  His last couple of fights he has a notably different body shape.  I personally would love for BJ to declare victory in LW and make the move, just because he would have a pile of top WWs to fight.  Love to see BJ against most of the top tier of WW minus GSP.

By the way, another good event tomorrow night on free TV.


Event: UFC Fight Night: "Florian vs. Gomi"
Date: Wednesday, March 31, 2010, at 8 p.m. ET on Spike TV
Location: The Bojangles Coliseum in Charlotte, North Carolina

Main card:

155 lbs.: Kenny Florian vs. Takanori Gomi
265 lbs.: Roy Nelson vs. Stefan Struve
185 lbs.: Nate Quarry vs. Jorge Rivera
155 lbs.: Ross Pearson vs. Dennis Siver

Under card:

155 lbs.: Cole Miller Some Brazilian Dude vs. Andre Winner
155 lbs.: Gleison Tibau vs. Caol Uno
155 lbs.: Jacob Volkmann vs. Ronnys Torres
185 lbs.: Lucio Linhares vs. Yushin Okami
170 lbs.: Charlie Brenneman vs. Jason High


A good main card.  Kenny vs Gomi should be great.  Stuve/Nelson, Quarry/Rivera, and Pearson/Siver should all be solid fights.

I'd really rather see Uno v Tibau then anything besides the main event that is on the overcard.  I bet this is a great event though, UFC is due for a not so good looking card to be a really fun night of fights.

I'll admit to being curious about the Nelson/Struve fight...in a packed heavyweight division, it's hard to tell where these guys fit, thought they're clearly 2nd echelon at best.  And Roy surprises me every time I see his dumb fat ass in a fight.

Struve is a genuine prospect, as he's only 22 and he seems to have a world of potential.  If he develops his skills, he could be a contender in a couple years.  Roy will be a reasonably entertaining mid-carder for a while.  He does have a high opinion of himself, which is funny.

I think the rumor is JDS will get Roy if Roy wins, to keep him active while Lesner, Carwin, and Velasquez sort things out. 

So Florian vs Gomi was utterly predictable.  They tried their damndest to talk up Gomi, but I wasn't buying it.  He didn't appear to have a clue what he was doing.  Granted, they threw him into the deep end, but no way that guy is an elite level fighter in the UFC.

Roy Nelson...he continues to surprise.  I knew there was a danger of that happening, but I didn't expect it so damn quickly.  I think they need to throw him in with a Kongo or Gonzaga next.

I liked the Jorge Riviera/Quarry fight.  Jorge just has an interesting story...  He was about to retire a couple years ago after an on-and-off career when things just seemed to click for him.  Since then, he's gone out and put decent guys to sleep.

I liked it too, but I didn't expect it to be so one sided.  Jorge's strikes were sharp.  What?  What?

Watched TUF immediately after....looks like it may be an entertaining season.  Lots of good prelim fights.

Japanese fighters w/ no steroids and refusing to cut weight will never stand any chance in the UFC sadly unless some state forces the double weigh-in system on them.

So, I just found out that Seanbaby now writes articles for Cracked.com....  Two great MMA articles:

http://www.cracked.com/blog/the-top-eight-oh-shit-moments-in-mma/

http://www.cracked.com/blog/10-mixed-martial-arts-knockouts-that-displayed-rag-doll-physics/

Both of these were great, thanks.

Yep, hilarious...as are some of the other articles he wrote (linked at the bottom).

Those two articles had me crying.  Crying.

The fake comic advertisements with Popsicle Pete are also equal parts fucking awesome and disturbing.

UFC 112:
April 10, 2010 in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates.  Should play either live during the afternoon, or with tape delay at the normal time.

Anderson Silva vs Demian Maia
B.J. Penn vs Frankie Edgar
Matt Hughes vs Renzo Gracie
Terry Etim vs Rafael dos Anjos

Preliminary Card

Alexander Gustafsson vs Phil Davis
Paul Taylor vs John Gunderson
Nick Osipczak vs Rick Story
DaMarques Johnson vs. Brad Blackburn
Paul Kelly vs Matt Veach


Main card:
- Silva/Maia:  Will either be interesting if Maia can get Anderson down, or a slaughter if he can't.  The Lutter fight would seem to indicate that things should be more balanced on the ground.  Pray we don't have a Leites repeat.
- Penn/Edgar:  Edgar should get demolished.  Penn makes a domination fun to watch, though.  Penn in the third or fourth, however he wants.
- Hughes/Renzo: You will either dig watching two legends fight, or be completely uninterested by two over-the-hill non-contenders.
- Etim/dos Anjos: Etim has been on a tear, so this is likely his coming out party to becoming another Brit main eventer.

Undercard is actually pretty interesting:
- Phil Davis is a wrestler making the MMA switch, and looked pretty good in his last appearance.  His Swede opponent is undefeated but I don't know a single one of his opponents besides Hammond, who was involved in the fun brawl with Wallace last PPV.
- Paul Taylor is a usually entertaining Brit who likes to bang.
- Rick Story had a great fight against Ben Foster.  Another solid WW.
- Blackburn's record is awful, but he's a fun fighter.  Got smoked by Amir last outing.
- Kelley & Veach have both had some pretty fun and wild fights.

Okay, what the FUCK was that bullshit.  What a bunch of fucking stinker fights.  I feel like Dana White just fucked me in the eye socket.

Ack!  Hold off until tomorrow.  I have to watch it tonight, since I was at work all day.

If it isn't too late, I'd strongly encourage not buying it.

That fight really reinforced what I hate about Anderson Silva.  :oh_i_see: He's good, I get that, but he's not fucking entertaining.

At the end of the day he is without a doubt the best striker in mma by such a wide margin that it just isn't even funny anymore.  Stop putting him in the ring with guys who don't stand a chance.  I blame the UFC entirely for this, they could have just postponed the fight when Belfort got hurt and Chael was not cleared by medical but instead they tried to force a 3rd string replacement who had no business being in the ring with him and the result was what it was.

I wish he would have just ended it, I know he could have, it would have given haters less to bitch about but in the end he's by far and away the #1 p4p fighter in mma and by far the most artistic and best striker in mma so I will continue to enjoy seeing just what exactly he will do next.

Every fucking leg kick (traditional, not those, hey guy fuck your knee ones) practically scored a knock down, this wasn't even a fight.

***

As for BJ, what a lazy fucking sack of shit Hawaiian, that fight was terrible.  Frankie Edgar has guts but I don't know he could beat Maynard or even Sanchez or fuck even Sadface Kenflo so giving him the belt in a very little damage no chance of ending the fight decision is just bleh, what a waste of a fight.

Davis needs more seasoning, Munoz is a fun beast to watch, I'm waiting for a torrent of the prelims to go up.

The problem was that Anderson had been inactive since his August fight with Forrest at LHW....  If the UFC had postponed the fight, the MW title would have gone undefended since the Leites fight in April last year, and that came 6 months after the Cote fight. 

The fight had already been pushed back a couple times for injuries from the December/January card as well.  And through Soares (the manager), Silva had been making noises for a while that he thought there should be a MW eliminator pitting the top contenders against each other.

The UFC had to make do.  The division was getting held up.  Silva had to defend against someone.  Maia is a legitimate top 10 MW with a 6-1 record in the UFC and a slew of decent wins including Sonnen, Miller, Macdonald, and Quarry.  If not for the Marquardt loss, he would have been the obvious contender.

The Marquardt beats Maia beats Sonnen beats Marquardt nonsense confused things further, not to me

Silva is getting heat because the performance was just bizarre.  If he had finished Maia in the third or fourth, no problem.  The extreme inactivity in the last three rounds was just strange....  especially in the fifth when Maia had only one eye and was bleeding like a hemophiliac from his face.

Not to mention the over the top bowing and "respectful" gestures before and after the fight, and the clowning throughout the fight.

If you want to play the heel, fine.  Be the MW Brock Lesner.  If you think the MW division is weak and beneath you, fine.  Relinquish the belt and move up to LHW...  but he won't do that since his buddies Lil Nog and Machida are LHW.

That being said, Maia was scared shitless in there.  He was really fucking tentative, and made more so by eating huge punches when Anderson was just fooling around.


Weird fight.  BJ looked a bit slow, and he visibly slowed even more in round 4.  Edgar looked fresh after 5 rounds.  Another weird scoring, right up there with Machida/Shogun and Maynard/Diaz.  Edgar probably did edge it out, but there is no way he won 4 or 5 rounds.  There is always this disconnect between an active guy that throws alot of strikes, and a power puncher that throws fewer big strikes.

It was a point scoring bout.  Alright, but compared to the usual matches we see BJ in and the underwhelming main event...  too bad.  Makes for a much more fun LW div, though!

Florian vs Edgar for the belt, with Maynard vs BJ for the number one contender slot?  Or have BJ wreck some guys first?  Gomi rematch?  Clay Guida vs BJ?

Lot of good places this can go.


Munoz/Grove was a good back and forth fight, with a mix of action. 
Davis looked good.  I love the anaconda finish!  Any wrestler that picks up a sub game quickly has huge potential.

Strikeforce on CBS this Saturday!

SATURDAY, APRIL 17, 2010

LIVE ON CBS

Bridgestone Arena,
Nashville, Tennessee, United States

Strikeforce Middleweight Championship
Jake Shields (No. 7 MW) vs. Dan Henderson (No. 2 MW)

Strikeforce Light Heavyweight Championship
Gegard Mousasi (No. 6 LHW) vs. Muhammed Lawal

Strikeforce Lightweight Championship
Gilbert Melendez (No. 8 LW) vs. Shinya Aoki (No. 2 LW, No. 10 PFP)

Zach Underwood vs. Hunter Worsham
Josh Schockman vs. Cale Yarbrough
Dustin Ortiz vs. Justin Pennington
Andrew Uhrich vs. Dustin West
Chris Hawk vs. Ovince St. Preux
Thomas Campbell vs. Cody Floyd
__________________

I bag on SF at times, but this is a pretty good main card.

Shields vs. Hendo -- Yes please!  Hendo should KO Shields.  Shields is a WW with an awful standup game and a good ground game.  Hendo has fought at LHW, has huge power, and probably has better wrestling.  Not to mention that he is a very tough man to submit...  Still a fun fight, though, unless Dan decides to play it safe like the Palhares fight.

Mousasi vs. King Mo -- Should be a good fight, but...  King Mo has huge potential but he's novice.  He should be getting eased into the game, not fed to Mousasi this early in his career.  Still, Mo is a good wrestler with great speed, and I'm not sure if Mousasi's ground work is up to that.  Basically, this is like Jon Jones fighting Machida for the title right after he beat Bonnar.

Melendez vs. Aoki -- Yah!  Great fight! 


Don't know much about the undercard guys....  usual amount of TUF rejects and noobs.

This. After seeing that fight, I question if he has the cardio to actually go five rounds with someone who can challenge him. And if he gasses out like that at 185, what's he going to do at 170 fighting GSP?

I think Dana White said that, after that bullshit, he can forget about GSP.  Although that might just be Dana letting off steam.  It's hard to say if a Silva vs GSP card would draw fewer buys after this debacle...or possibly even a lot more, as people may buy it to see Silva get taken down and wrecked by Georges.  Not that I believe that's necessarily what the outcome would be.

I don't know what BJ's problem was.  Fighting in the center of the ring with Edgar was a terrible idea.  And the hole thing sort of rings hollow - it's not like Edgar beat the stuffing out of BJ, he just out hustled him a little and threw a bunch of useless punches.  I can't help but think that this is the best thing that ever happened to Kenny Florian...because I gotta assume Dana will give a shot very soon.

Best fight of the night was actually Munoz and Kendall "the Anorexic Spider" Grove.  Kendall was technically better, but Munoz just ended up beating the tar out of him in the end.  His ground and pound is fucking scary.

Strikeforce card looks pretty sweet for once.

Strikeforce card does look good.

If you are curious as to what Anderson actually said during the post fight presser. (http://www.bloodyelbow.com/2010/4/11/1415333/rate-ed-soares-translations-to)  Not that any of what he said clears anything up really.  Sounds like he just didn't feel like he had to fight this guy, respect this guy or beat this guy.  In the perfect world Anderson would have a different attitude but for me, skills > attitude in a sport that is so often not fun to watch because its being performed by less talented practitioners.

Sure, and it would have all been perfectly okay if he'd have just, you know, done a little bit of fighting and shown more of those skills.  I would have probably put up with his clowning in the first 2 rounds if he hadn't done basically absolutely nothing in the last three.  Even if I could get over the parts where he was massively disrespectful, there really wasn't much entertaining in the fight beyond a little bit of round one.

I really enjoyed the first two rounds as did the people I watched it with, he was masterful and it was obvious that this wasn't even going to be a fight at all.  If it had been a 3 round fight it would have been satisfying.  But sadly the 4th and 5th were what they were which was a bit too silly and embarrassing for both guys as a fan to enjoy watching.

3 out of his last 4 fights have degenerated into uninteresting, goofy, boring fights (I know,  hard to blame Leites on him).  I don't care how much of a fanboy you are, he's becoming unmarkettable.  That's unless Dana can feed him a steady diet of "charge in fists blazing" knuckleheads he can counter punch into oblivion.

Yeah, pretty much this.  Shit, make him move up to heavyweight (he is already blabbering about how he wants to).  He'll have his hands full with some of those monsters, and likely get his ass knocked out once or twice.

I thought the Cote fight was alright, until the unfortunate knee injury.  It was slow, but it was a chess match...  Cote has a granite chin and power in both his hands, so Anderson was more than justified in being conservative.  Cote just needed one good shot.

I still think Cote is a decent match up for Silva.  He's not dumb enough to charge in, not sloppy enough to get caught doing something stupid (Hendo), has the chin to eat a couple early, and can afford to wait for Anderson to slow down....  When Anderson slows down, he pretty much just needs to connect once to swing the whole fight.  It wouldn't be a very entertaining fight, though.

Cote also wasn't scared of Silva.  Maia and Leites were obviously shitting their pants.  One of the biggest problems now is that many fighters are fucking terrified of the guy...  Anderson has that aura of terror that prime Chuck or Fedor in Pride had.

IIRC Cote held up two fingers for surviving two rounds with the guy, like noone else had. That's fear, when your opponent brags about making it to round 2 against you. It isn't a good way of winning a fight.

Maybe it was round 3, and maybe it was a different guy...haha. My memory is shit.

Cote was the first guy to make it out of round 2 with Silva in the UFC, despite being a Serra-level underdog with the oddsmakers.  Most people seemed to think Cote was going to explode in a pile of bloody bodyparts somewhere in the first 30 seconds.  I don't think he was winning that fight up to round 3, but he wasn't particularly losing it either.  Anderson was tentative, and Cote was following a Dellagrotte gameplan to take Silva into the later rounds.

Cote wasn't afraid to exchange when Silva closed, and he kept in tight and didn't leave any openings.

For reference, Cote is a guy who's first UFC fight was as a last minute replacement for a fight at LHW (not his natural weightclass) with prime-2004 Tito Ortiz.  He went out and banged with Drew McFedries and Scott Smith...  both mediocre fighters, but with huge KO power.  I don't think he gives a shit about strikers or wrestlers.

Cote only looks scared against BJJ guys.  Both Lutter and Almeida he looked tentative as hell, leading to Lutter embarrassing him and a play it waaaaay too safe gameplan on Almeida.


The Cote fight is the reason the Belfort/Silva fight seems to have such potential.  Belfort has the speed, power, and striking ability to ruin Anderson's day if Silva gets sloppy or too flashy on his feet.  I bet it will be a snoozer, though...  both guys will circle each other waiting for a counter opportunity and not committing.

A Sonnen fight would be interesting because Chael talks major shit (he may be Tito/Mir/Bisping level of douchebag),  and he would have to go close the distance on Anderson to implement his gameplan.  Anderson would have opportunities to KO, and Chael would make Anderson pay on the ground if Anderson didn't KO him.

This is exactly what happened, watching it live as a huge Anderson fan I thought Cote was scared as fuck and just didn't want to be near him not that he had any sort of gameplay besides move so much he couldn't be hit.  It was an interesting fight though and its too bad that it ended the way it did.

Sigh, Strikeforce.

- King Mo laid and prayed to victory.  Mousassi looked.... uninspired.  They both gassed out around round 2.  Really, neither guy looked very good and it soiled Mousassi as a top LHW.  Don't get me wrong, King Mo could be amazing... but he is still way too green to be where he is now. 

- Melendez and Aoki was okay.  Aoki is famous for butt scooting and playing to the ref.  In Japan, he can get away with it.  Not the most exciting fight, but Melendez isn't dumb enough to jump into the guys guard.

- Hendo looked like Mark Coleman.  Old, stiff, slow and gassing early.  Great first round, and then nothing.  Shields was way too quick for him.  Shields also isn't the most exciting fighter.

- The brawl.  I turned off the show half way through round 5, because I knew the fight was going to decision.  I guess Mayhem Miller jumped onto the microphone to generate some heat for a rematch with Sheilds (obviously staged...  SF got him in the ring, showed clips for his fight earlier, and need a little heat to sell the next big CBS card) when all of Shields teammates swarmed on him.

Namely the Diaz brothers and Melendez.  Fucking Christ.

Will be interesting to see how things settle out.  Besides the question of what happens to the CBS contract after 3 unexciting fights and a in-ring brawl.

- Hendo came for a giant paycheck, and he looked like shit.  It may be that SF severely overpaid for him.  A fight against Lawler or Smith or Cung Le would be fun, but it isn't exactly worth whatever they're paying him.
- Shields is a free agent, and he has been vocal about not being happy with the way SF has been treating him.  He's the champ, and he's been playing second banana in the promotional material to Hendo's debut.  There is a good chance that either the UFC will sign him.  Or at least bid him up so SF is shelling out a huge amount of money for a guy who isn't a great draw.
- Melendez has no one to fight, unless Dream sends over another top LW to get creamed in the cage.  Not to mention he started the Mayhem brawl, so it will be interesting to see if he catches some kind of suspension.
- King Mo started taunting the crowd after his fight.  Another case of "who will he fight next?", with a side of Brock Lesner shenanigans. 
- Mousassi was getting plugged as a top LHW/MW and looked completely uninspired the last three rounds. 

Dana White must be laughing his ass off at home.

I like the UFC card this weekend.  I'm going to pick Shogun over Machida, but I really don't know.  I find I'm also looking forward to Mitrione and Kimbo...though I think that Mitrione hits so stupidly hard and is so much bigger than Kimbo that he will probably knock him out pretty quick.  Other fights look pretty decent, too.

The card this weekend looks pretty good.

Machida vs. Shogun
Cote vs. Belcher  --  I like both these guys alot.  Cote and GSP are the closest I get to having "hometown" fighters.
Koscheck vs. Daley -- Should be good.
Stout vs. Stephens -- Should be fast-paced and a good fight.
Kimbo vs. Mittrione -- Mittrione is flakey, but he should wipe the floor with Kimbo.


Supposedly, the WEC PPV a few weeks ago was AMAZING if you have the opportunity to check it out.  I only caught the Garcia vs. Korean guy with the nickname "The Korean Zombie" and that fight was pretty fucking entertaining.  Aldo vs Faber and Manny Gamburyian vs Mike Brown were also supposed to be pretty good.

It was a really good card, but the Faber fight wasn't that interesting.  Isn't that 3 losses in a row for him?  I wasn't really impressed with his previous fights, either.

He had wins after each Mike Brown fight, but 3 out of his last 5 are losses.  Apparently Faber gave it his all, but Aldo just outclassed him.  The last round was Aldo playing not to lose.  Aldo might really end up being something at LW if he chooses to be.

Brown got caught.  Gamburyan's stand up looked really good.  Aldo will just dance around him though.  Guy is scary quick.

Oddly one of the sherdog writers thinks that Kimbo will just take down Mitrione and outpoint him.  I say it's closer to what you think.  Kimbo does that for a round, but like Jones, gets knocked silly with Mitrione's drunken sailor on acid fighting style. 

I really just hope that we see a non decision in the title fight and Semtex KTFO's Koscheck's stupid face.  Typically I find cocky Brits obnoxious as fuck but you have to love a guy who rips peoples heads off every goddamn fight.

That said here are my picks, I have a bad feeling about sports (might be because of the Sharks getting wtfdrubbed while I was in class tonight):

Machida by tko
Cote by decision
Koscheck  by decision
Mittrione by tko

Honestly though, Sam Stout v Jeremy Stevens?  What the fuck is that doing on my main card, why would I possibly care about that fight?

Was a decent card.  Shogun just knows how to get to Machida.  I didn't expect him to win quite so easily.

Kimbo is really just too small for a heavyweight, and it doesn't help that he doesn't know how to get these bigger guys off of him.  I don't know what they can do with the guy...he'd have to change his body a lot to get down to 205, and then those guys would probably be too fast for him.  They keep saying that Kimbo has powerful punches, but is that really a fair statement?  Who has he managed to punch hard outside of a Youtube video?  On the other hand, Mittrione actually looked like he knew what he was doing.  A couple pretty decent choke attempts, and a really smart and well executed plan with the leg kicks.  He's young enough, he could end up being a force.  Also, he's a fucking psychopath.

It was a long night last night....  ended up having some friends stop by around 1 AM looking for a place to crash, and devolved into me babysitting people until after 4.

- Good main event, after the first fight and the controversy.  Loved that Machida got KOed.  Just a very satisfying end to the whole thing.  Hopefully this dials back the Machida hype from "superhuman fighting machine" to "good to great fighter in a tough division". 

I imagine Rashad versus Rampage will be for a title shot now.  Either way, I'd love to see a Rashad/Shogun or Rampage/Shogun.  Of course, this could also be an opening for Anderson Silva to move up now that his buddy Machida is out.....

- Cote/Belcher was a decent short fight.  Stout/Stephens a decent LW fight.

- Mittrione/Kimbo was a fun brawl, though Mittrione was surprisingly technical and improved.  Mittrione does look like a fucking psychopath, with the huge open faced smile, vacant eyes, and generally babyface appearance.  He looks like he should be in overalls and accidentally killing rabbits....

Surprisingly, when I caught MMA Live on ESPN, he comes off as humble and well-spoken. 


Aftermath:

Daley was cut and banned for life from the UFC for his after fight punch, and more than likely will catch some kind of long suspension.  Fucking idiot.  Don't talk so much shit if you can't take it.

Kimbo was also released.

Best part about Daley cheap shotting Koscheck was that Koscheck could have come back and said "yeah, what a dick!" and taken the obvious high road but he then decided to act like a big dick himself and insult the crowd instead.  At least we'll get to see a rematch with him and GSP...other than the obvious puncher's chance that anyone has with GSP, I think Koscheck (in theory) should be the guy who can actually put it to him and test him.  Unfortunately, I think it'll devolve into a 25 minute wrestling match.

Koscheck would never take the high road.  He revels in playing the cocky villain.  Besides which, bad-mouthing GSP's home crowd works to building the hype almost immediately and guarantees him the title shot.  I'm glad we won't have to sit through a Daley/GSP fight, which would look exactly the same as the GSP/Hardy fight.

If Daley couldn't stop Koscheck's wrestling, he isn't going to stop GSP's wrestling.

I think Koscheck will make an interesting match for GSP.  He has decent standup backed by great wrestling and much more athletic ability than Fitch.  He's also got experience with GSP, and I'm sure his camp has been game-planning the hell out of a GSP remtach.

Strikeforce: Heavy Artillery on Showtime tonight:

Overeem vs. Brett Rogers for the HW title.  Overeem makes his return after a couple of years, first fight for Rogers since Fedor.
Arlovski vs. Bigfoot Silva.
Jacare vs. Villasenor.
Roger Gracie vs. Randleman


Actually should be a pretty fun card.

While I really want to see the Rampage/Evans fight, I'm struggling to gather the desire to buy this upcoming card.  The undercard just seems so "meh" to me.  OTOH, some of those lesser known fighters often end up putting on a really good show.    I dunno.

I would be much more worried about the overcard sucking the undercard looks good with lots of fights to choose from that could be interesting.

The main card is one of the worst we've seen in awhile.  The headline fight is a 3-round hypefest that could easily be a joke, Rampage may just come out looking terrible, Rashad was almost knocked out by the last punch that hit him and was knocked out by the punch before that vs Machida the likelyhood that we're going to see him swarm and wrestle for 3 rounds in this fight is HIGH.

Bisping v Miller, bleh, there was a time when I would get excited to see Bisping get fucked up but nobody is going to do it better than Dan Henderson so his fights hold zero appeal to me.

Very unproven heavyweights make it to the main card just in case Duffee is the real deal? That seems dubious to me. If he wins its going to be by face smashing knockout so why not splice that in from the undercard?

Little Nog fights a shitty replacement fighter? A total waste, who hasn't been excited to see Little Nog fight the next step up in competition after he destroyed Luiz Cane?

The Diego Sanchez v undefeated kid fight could be fun. But as much as I love him Sanchez like all 155'ers has a lot of boring fights in him where lots of punches that on a tv look like they don't hurt that much are thrown and not a whole lot of substance happens.

The best fights may be the two on Spike before the ppv starts.

Overall I agree with alot of what Hoax said.  I was a little depressed because I thought that the Chris Lytle vs. Matt Brown fight was going to be on this card.

I love Chris Lytle.  Matt Brown is tailor made as an opponent to feed into another Lytle Fight of the Night.

Main card:

Rampage vs. Rashad -- Who the fuck knows how this fight is going to go.  Rashad will probably try to Fitch his way to victory, while Rampage looks for the KO.  Rampage used to have good wrestling, but we haven't seen it in a long time....  the Hendo fight being the last time.  Doesn't change the fact that Rashad has a much better wrestling pedigree than Rampage.

Bisping vs. Miller -- I don't like Bisping.  Dan Miller is one of those likeable everyman fighters.  I think Bisping takes this, but can hope for Miller to win.

Duffee vs. Russow -- Pretty much what Hoax said.  Duffee is getting the push for being the next big prospect at HW, so they're giving him a solid journeyman type fighter in Russow.  Russow has a good record with no big wins.

Lil Nog vs. Replacement Guy -- This was originally supposed to be Nog vs Forrest, but Forrest pulled out due to injury.  No upside for Nog in a win against an unknown, besides the payday and staying busy till he can line up a top tier fighter as an opponent.  The problem is that LHW is so deep.

Diego vs. John Hathaway -- This is actually a WW match.  Diego looks alot more dominant at WW than he does at LW.  Hathaway has some really good wins over up and comers, so this could actually be a great fight.

Spike Prelims:

Amir vs. Stun Gun -- Should be an amazingly fun fight. 

Is this Jackson's first fight since leaving/quitting to do the A-Team?

Yah.  It's only been about a little over a year since the Jardine fight, though.  Rashad was KOed by Machida in that time, and his next fight was the weak performance against Thiago Silva.

Apparently Toney is fighting Couture at some point. That should be hilarious. Don't get me wrong, Toney was a hell of a fighter at the right weight/age/sport, but this is like grabbing Royce Gracie off the street today, making him eat cheeseburgers until he weighs 200 pounds, and then tossing him into a boxing match with... I dunno... the middle-aged version of George Foreman who could still kick ass.

I have a feeling Rashad's just going to be gassed about halfway through the second round after repeatedly taking down Rampage and doing nothing with it. He huffs and puffs around tossing enough leg kicks afterward to win a boring decision. 

Now that I've said that, someone's going to get knocked out in the first round.

God damn, Seanbaby cracks me up:

http://www.cracked.com/blog/worst-life-ever-the-story-of-kazuyuki-fujitas-skull/


http://www.cracked.com/blog/the-10-worst-mma-fights-of-all-time/

Those are awesome. 


Do they actually expect people to pay for UFC 115? That's one dull card.

I know I won't be.  Worst card (on paper) in a long time.

UFC 115 looks better than 114.  Bisping bores me to tears when he isn't being KOed, and pretty meh about both Rashad and Rampage.

Main card:

* Light Heavyweight bout:  Chuck Liddell vs. Rich Franklin
- I like this matchup.  Franklin usually has decent fights, and he doesn't have the vicious KO power that has made Chuck look like a fool.  If you've been following the UFC for a while this should be fun. 

* Heavyweight bout: Mirko Cro Cop vs. Patrick Barry
- I like Pat Barry.  Don't think he's ever going to be a top guy (too many holes in his ground game), but this should be a good kickboxing match.

* Welterweight bout: Paulo Thiago vs. Martin Kampmann
- I like both these guys.  Kampmann is a decent to good fighter, and Thiago has had some decent fights.  If Thiago wins, he'll be jostling with Fitch at the head of the pack for winner of GSP/Koscheck.

* Heavyweight bout:  Ben Rothwell vs. Gilbert Yvel
- HW brawlers. 

* Welterweight bout: Carlos Condit vs. Rory MacDonald
- This could be a great fight.  Condit had a ton of fun fights in the WEC, but hasn't been too exciting in the UFC.  MacDonald is a new fish with a perfect record over mostly nobodies.


Spike prelims:
    * Lightweight bout:  Tyson Griffin vs.  Evan Dunham
    * Lightweight bout: Mac Danzig vs.  Matt Wiman

Both those fights look fun.  Winner of Griffin/Dunham probably puts himself in consideration as a top guy at lightweight.  Danzig/Wiman should be decent, though it smells of a loser leave town matchup.


The regular prelims look uninspiring.

Chuck has been declining in ability for a while now. I realize he's still supremely popular but the UFC needs to do better than constantly trotting out (former) superstars past their prime as the main event.

They certainly need to stop trying to sell cards where that is the main event and there is nothing worthy of the co main event moniker.

I thought the Cro Cop vs. Patrick Barry fight was actually pretty good.  Would have made for a better main event than Liddell vs. Franklin.

:awesome_for_real:

Another bullshit early stoppage in the undercard. Is it really that hard to check if a guy is out before calling the fight?

Heh.

Franklin still doesn't have vicious KO power.  Chuck just has no chin at all now.  Rich dropped him with an awkward right hand (Rich is a lefty) while still trying to protect his broken left arm.

The real disappointing thing?  If Chuck still had a chin, he would still be a top fighter.  He's looked pretty good in all of his fights right up until he goes down like someone hit him with a cattle-prod.


Some decent fights on this card. 
- Condit vs. Macdonald was solid.  Macdonald looked great for a 20 year old having his first big fight. Condit has always been a bit of a slow starter, but he came out like a crazy man in the third after Greg Jackson (usually Captain Calm) started yelling at him.

- Barry vs. CroCop another good fight.  Barry looked great in the first round, but has no ground game and broke both a hand and a foot in round 1. He could have a great future as the HW Chris Lytle:  never a contender, but a guy willing to go out and put on show.  Fingers crossed for Barry/Yvel!

- Thiago vs. Kampmann was solid.  Screws up the WW division some more, though.  Thiago would have cemented himself as a top three guy at WW with a win, instead Kampmann has made himself relevant to the title picture.

Even Rich and Chuck was a decent fight despite the anticlimax of the ending.


The only real dog was Yvel vs. Rothwell.  Yvel has a limited gas tank, and Rothwell is a big guy, not very athletic, in the Tim Sylvia mode. 


CroCop has announced his retirement. 

Yves Lavigne (the guilty party this time), Dan Mirgliotta, and The Mazz seem to have a competition going of who can fuck up a match the most.  The Mazz still takes the cake.

The Mazz will alternate between stopping a fight early, and letting a guy get massacred in the ring for an extreme period of time.  The Pete Sell/Matt Brown fight might be one of the worst things I've ever seen.... 

Contract ploy.

Is his Pride following still so strong that he can pull off such a thing?  I mean, I love watching some of his old fights, but I've no longer any desire to see him in the octagon.

Well Zuffa shut down Pride so that's not really an option, though something like Dream may still be a possibility. My feeling, with no real evidence to back it up, is that he's still a pretty popular fighter. He's not a superstar in the UFC like he was in Pride, of course, but people do like to watch him fight since there's always that chance he's going to kick somebody's head off. He's also one of the few Europeans on the UFC roster which I think is important if the UFC wants to continue expanding in Europe. So I believe the UFC does have some incentives to try to keep him fighting for them.

He'll probably go to Strikeforce.  They'll give him someone to destroy then feed him to upcoming heavy weights or guys that need an image boost.

Ohohoho.

Somewhere Dana White is laughing his ass off.

I think it was kind of obvious Fedor was massively overrated, at least recently.  Nothing against the man, but his fans made it very difficult to like the guy.  I'm not saying he isn't a great fighter.  I just think of him as the HW Matt Hughes:  a good/great fighter who dominated his division in a time when it was very shallow.

The internet rhetoric presented him as some combination of Chuck Norris, Muhammad Ali, Rasputin, and the terminator.

He's really only taken safe fights for nearly 5 years now (even his last PRIDE fights were a bit silly). M1 is probably mostly to blame as they needed to keep their cash cow mowing through guys that pose no threat.  And yah, like Hughes (but not to the extreme that Hughes has) he's becoming less threatening.  He's still got pretty scary striking and not every HW is going to have near Werdum's ability to threaten him from guard. But he's a small heavy weight with a physique only Mike Russow would envy.  Sure, Rodgers has no clue how to use his size, but I'm afraid what a Lesnar, Carwin or Velasquez could do to him in the clinch or from the top.

This just absolutely kills the Fedor v Overeem match up they wanted.  Sure they can be lame and have the non #1 contender take on Overeem again, but that will just make Strikeforce look even more silly than they already do.  They just don't have a lot of interesting match ups to make when crap like this happens.

I'd like to see Fedor fight someone interesting and relevant, even if it takes M1 getting co-promotion for an event with the UFC.  But he'll probably do his one contracted fight left with Strikeforce and go retire.

As I think I speculated before in this thread, the whole reason he didn't go to UFC was because he didn't want to get massacred by one of the current crops of heavyweights.  We knew this was going to happen at some point, but I was rather hoping it would be versus a more compelling opponent. 

I honestly think Fedor would get mauled by most of the top UFC heavyweights, outside of a puncher's chance in the flurries if someone is dumb and stands in front of him.  Carwin could push him up against the cage and treat him like Mir.  Brock would take him down and treat him like Mir.  Cain could take him down and GnP him for 3 rounds.  JDS has better striking, but is most likely to stand in front of Fedor and eat a big shot.

I think fights with Mir, Gonzaga, Kongo, and the mid-tier would be great fun fights, though.


I really wouldn't be surprised if we see Fedor avenge his loss and retire.

So, UFC 116 this weekend:

Main card
    * Heavyweight Championship bout: Brock Lesnar (c) vs United States Shane Carwin (ic)
    * Middleweight bout: Yoshihiro Akiyama vs. Chris Leben
    * Welterweight bout: Chris Lytle vs. Matt Brown
    * Light Heavyweight bout: Krzysztof Soszynski vs. Stephan Bonnar
    * Lightweight bout: George Sotiropoulos vs. Kurt Pellegrino

Preliminary card (Spike TV)

    * Heavyweight bout:  Brendan Schaub vs. Chris Tuchscherer
    * Light Heavyweight bout: Seth Petruzelli vs. Ricardo Romero

Preliminary card

    * Middleweight bout: Kendall Grove vs.  Goran Reljic
    * Middleweight bout:  Gerald Harris vs.  Dave Branch
    * Welterweight bout: Daniel Roberts vs.  Forrest Petz
    * Heavyweight bout: Jon Madsen vs. Karlos Vemola

Main card looks pretty good.
- Lesner vs. Carwin: The two biggest UFC HWs fight for the title, and the number 1 overall ranking in the sport.  It's basically King Kong vs. Godzilla.

- Sexiyama vs. Leben: Should be entertaining.  Leben will wade in and try to put Akiyama away.  It's only been a couple of weeks since Leben's last fight.

- Lytle vs. Brown: Should be an amazingly fun fight.  Two solid midcard brawlers.

- Krzysztof vs. Bonnar: A rematch.  These two fought in a fun and bloody fight a few months ago.  The fight was stopped due to cuts, rematch scheduled.

- Sotiroupolos vs. Pellegrino: George has been on fire, and just had a dominating performance beating Joe Stevens.  Pellegrino has been on a tear.  A win for George probably pushes him into title contention.


Not too excited for the prelims.  The only interesting match is Grove and Reljic, which got bumped to unaired prelims from the Spike prelims after Grove ran his mouth in an interview at Spike.  Smart!

Leben vs. Akiyama was an amazing fight that will be somewhat overshadowed by Lesnar vs. Carwin.  Both were really good matches though.

The main card was full of great fights. 

- George Snuffaluffagus and Pellegrino had a decent battle, and George is proving he's a legit contender.  A fight with Kenny Florian or Sean Sherk (what happened to Sherk?) would be very interesting, but I think Maynard would smother him all day.

- Bonnar and Kryzstoff had a fun back and forth brawl.  Both those guys need to learn some fucking defense.

- Lytle and Brown was a good fight, but they both ALWAYS put on great fights.  Lytle's submission was gorgeous.  Transition from the mount to a mounted triangle and then throws in an armbar?  Lytle got robbed on sub of the night.

- Akiyama and Leben was a good fight.  Akiyama impressed me with his grit, good standup, and crazy judo.  He still got sucked into banging with Leben which is an awful idea if your name isn't Anderson Silva.  The come from behind triangle by Leben, who looked like he would have been edged out on the scorecards, was a great ending.

Leben immediately called out Wanderlei, which is another potentially amazing fight.

- Lesner and Carwin.   Back and forth battle where each guy managed to deploy their gameplan.  Carwin just has monster power, and everyone questioned his gas tank since his average fight length is a couple of minutes.  Brock ate some good shots, then laid back and survived while Carwin punched himself out.

I actually said to a friend in the second that, if it were any other fighter, it looked like Brock was going for an arm triangle....  and then he pulled out an arm triangle.

Brock answered alot of questions about his chin, his mental toughness, and his heart.  If Carwin takes his lessons on his gas tank and cardio revealed by this fight, he could get even better.  A rematch in a couple fights time would still be anyone's guess, though the clock is ticking on the 35 year old Carwin.


Lesner and Cain should be going at it very, very soon, with Junior dos Santos waiting in the wings (he should get by Roy Nelson pretty easily, I think). 

That was a great card.

I was probably most surprised that Bonner TKO'd Popinski.  I know he's in good shape, but he's getting long in the tooth, and I don't remember him doing that well the first time they fought.

UFC 117 looks like a great card as well:


MAIN CARD
* Champ Anderson Silva vs. Chael Sonnen (for middleweight title)
* Thiago Alves vs. Jon Fitch
* Rafael dos Anjos vs. Clay Guida
* Ricardo Almeida vs. Matt Hughes
* Junior Dos Santos vs. Roy Nelson

PRELIMINARY CARD

* Tim Boetsch vs. Thiago Silva
* Dustin Hazelett vs. Rick Story
* Christian Morecraft vs. Stefan Struve
* Charlie Brenneman vs. Johny Hendricks
* Dennis Hallman vs. Ben Saunders
* Stanislav Nedkov vs. Rodney Wallace


Main card is stacked. 
- Silva vs. Sonnen should be interesting.  Chael has been doing a ridiculous amount of trash talking.  I still think he has potential to pull this out with his great freestyle and greco wrestling base.  The question really is can Anderson put him away in the first two rounds, or can Chael take him down and drag the fight out to where Anderson has been shown to have weak cardio.

- Alves vs. Fitch.  Rematch. Fitch got the sub on Alves ages ago, before Alves went on a tear.  Since then, Alves has looked dominating against a pile of WW contenders (including Hughes and Koshcheck), and lost a decision to GSP who was content to grind out a wrestling based points victory.

- dos Anjos vs. Guida.  Should be high energy and fun.

- Almeida vs. Hughes.  BJJ prodigy vs. aging WW great.  Go Almeida!

- JDS vs. Nelson.  For the next HW shot after Cain/Lesner.  Nelson will NOT stand with JDS, so we will get a chance to see JDS's ground game.  Or JDS will put Nelson to sleep early.

Prelims:

Great prelim card as well.  I would be happy to get many of these fights as main event fights on a free card.

Boetsch vs. Silva.  Slugfest.  Boetsch is a decent brawler, who wrecked David Heath (go watch that fight if you haven't seen it... ragdoll physics were in effect), had Hammill in trouble early, and lost an uninspiring wrestling match to Jason Brilz (the dude that embarrassed Lil Nog).  T Silva has decent Muay Thai, and has been the victim of a huge amount of hype.  Should be fun.

Hazelett vs. Story.  Hazelett is famous for sick, slick submissions.  Story is an up-and-comer with good boxing, fast-fast pace, and solid wrestling base.  Should be a great fight.

Hallman vs. "Captain Knees" Saunders.  Hallman is the perpetual journeyman who's highlights include 2 wins against Hughes before Hughes was the WW jugernaught.  Saunders has loses to good fighters (Fitch, Swick) and some pure exhibition demolition by Death Knees over a few fighters, including Marcus Davis.


Hendricks and Struve have feeder fights to get them back to the main card here.  Both guys have gotten a bit of hype.

Oh, hey.  Jones vs Matyushenko Live on Versus on Sunday, August 1st.  Good card, too!

Main card

    * Light Heavyweight bout: United States Jon Jones vs. Belarus Vladimir Matyushenko[1]
    * Middleweight bout: United States Mark Muñoz vs. Japan Yushin Okami[1]
    * Welterweight bout: United States John Howard vs. United States Jake Ellenberger[1]
    * Lightweight bout: United States Tyson Griffin vs. Japan Takanori Gomi[1]

Preliminary card

    * Lightweight bout: England Paul Kelly vs. United States Jacob Volkmann[1]
    * Welterweight bout: United States DaMarques Johnson vs. United States Matthew Riddle[1]
    * Light Heavyweight bout: United States James Irvin vs. Croatia Igor Pokrajac[1]
    * Middleweight bout: United States Brian Stann vs. United States Mike Massenzio[1]
    * Lightweight bout: United States Darren Elkins vs. Brazil Charles Oliveira[1]
    * Middleweight bout: United States Rob Kimmons vs. United States Steve Steinbeiss[1]

The entire main card is pretty friggin solid. 
- Jones is a top prospect, and Matyushenko isn't a slouch though he hasn't really fought since Pride.
- Munoz vs. Okami.  Okami can be in boring fights, controlling with wrestling.  Munoz is a Div I wrestling standout with huge power.  You might remember him from scrambling Kendal Grove's eggs.
- Howard vs. Ellenburger.  Should be a great fight.  Both guys are young prospects at WW who have put on some great shows.
- Tyson Griffin vs. Gomi.  Gomi used to be The Man, and wrecked fools in Pride.  Griffin is a perpetual contender.  May turn into Griffin smothering Gomi, but should be high pace and active.

Prelims aren't bad, either!

Yep, that's a great main card.  And free!

And despite my reluctance to pick up another Anderson Silva card, on paper that one is looking pretty interesting.

Chael Sonnen has sold the shit out of that fight.  He might not be the best fighter in the world, and he seems to be horrible against good sub fighters, but he "gets" the marketing aspect.  He's a great heal, and people have been getting a little fed up with Anderson Silva's antics.

Style-wise, I think Chael has a decent shot if he can make it out of the first two rounds.  Silva doesn't seem to have great TDD, doesn't have amazing subs off his back, and has a tendency to gas a bit in the later rounds.  If Silva doesn't put him to sleep, Chael could grind out a decision.

UFC 117 this weekend!

MAIN CARD
* Champ Anderson Silva vs. Chael Sonnen (for middleweight title)
* Thiago Alves vs. Jon Fitch
* Rafael dos Anjos vs. Clay Guida
* Ricardo Almeida vs. Matt Hughes
* Junior Dos Santos vs. Roy Nelson

PRELIMINARY CARD

* Tim Boetsch vs. Thiago Silva
* Dustin Hazelett vs. Rick Story
* Christian Morecraft vs. Stefan Struve
* Charlie Brenneman vs. Johny Hendricks
* Dennis Hallman vs. Ben Saunders
* Stanislav Nedkov vs. Rodney Wallace


This should be a great card.  Main card is all great fights.  Some solid stuff on the undercard, as well. 

And THIS is a great card.  Dana is obviously stacking it in case of more Silva antics, but I'm not complaining.  A must buy....all five fights on the main card are worth seeing.

I have no idea why a Matt Hughes fight is on my overcard but I'll keep buying every Anderson fight because I've never seen a fighter on such a crazy level in mma. Though if Bones Jones keeps tearing shit up I may change my tune.

Predictions:
(-500) Anderson
(+250) Big Country, upset special, I can see it happening either JDS gets over aggressive or gets tagged and then sat on.
(-120) Fitch via some really lame l&p or late round takedown gameplan they cook up because Fitch is a fucking piece of shit.
(-175) Big Dog
(-125) Rafael Dos Anjos, this fight is the hardest one to call of any on this entire card of the fights where I know both fighters.

(-120) Hazelett
(-265) KillaB Saunders
(-800) Phil Davis (now fighting Rodney Wallace) even on short notice, kid is a beast and I hope he keeps his unbeaten streak going, also holy shit look at this line. I mean I agree but goddamn.

You might want to go take a look at the undercard since several of the fights have been switched due to injuries.

Ho.  Lee.  Shit.

Main event was fantastic.  I'm still not even sure what to think about the result.  The whole thing was massively entertaining, though.  Silva earned back a lot of respect in my book, if for no other reason than showing he can take a pounding and still pull it out of the hat.  Sonnen impressed the shit out of me, because despite the ending, he backed up every last bit of his trash talk.  They have to do an immediate rematch.  Sonnen must be crushed, though, jesus.

And the rest of the card was pretty good, too.  Not a boring fight on it.

Yep.  The whole event was great and surprising...  except for the Fitch/Alves fight. 

- Roy Nelson ate Cabbage levels of abuse, and would come back to throw serious punches.  The crowd was really into this fight.
- Hughes dropped Almeida with a punch and then choked him out with a headlock?  Unreal.
- Guida and dos Anjos had a fun, fast paced fight.

Sonnen beat the shit out of Anderson for 4.5 rounds, before Silva slapped on the triangle.  Most surprising was that Sonnen dropped Anderson on the feet.  The fight made Anderson look vulnerable to great wrestlers.  I wonder if GSP is going to reconsider and make the step up?

Instant rematch is unlikely unless they are no longer interested in getting Belfort in there against him. Also instant rematch does nothing for Sonnen, he can't be expected to fight a better fight than that whereas Anderson could do a fuckton of things differently.

The question we will not know the answer to until his next fight is what happened that allowed Sonnen's terrible striking to seem almost effective. I think a ton of credit has to go to the fact that he completely denied Anderson's typical 2.5 minutes of doing nothing but feeling out the range and downloading the movements of his opponent and just bull rushing him from the opening bell. Wonder if his next opponent will see it that way and do the same.

Its funny though in all the fan analysis of OMFG Sonnen dominated him for the entire fight what a huge comeback!@!!oneeleventy12!

-When was Sonnen going to finish that fight? Only the first round did it ever seem like maybe he had a chance to TKO w/ strikes.
-Anderson almost James Irvin'd him twice.
-He tagged him hard with strikes several times even after he had been worn down and peppered with brain scrambling G&P. Most notably in the 4th round where a finish seemed likely had he stayed standing instead of falling to the ground w/ Sonnen and being masterfully reversed onto his back (seriously, I never saw that coming, was a nice move)
-He was looking for subs the entire fight (he locked up the arm a million times but Sonnen was aware and denied anything but desperate attempts that Anderson didn't try).
-He hit that kimura that was looking dangerous but time was running out.

This fight illustrated the need for some kind of rule on when to stand fighters up. There were 90 second periods throughout the fight where Sonnen didn't attempt to advance his position, attempt to submit or throw a punch with fight ending intent. Either remove the entire standing fighters up procedure or explain when and why a stand up should occur. It really felt especially in round 2 that Anderson was trying to just lock up for a reset that was never coming.

I had no problem with that fight.  Sonnen was always busy, either trying to advance position or hitting Anderson.  He would occasionally land big, damaging punches to go along with his constant small punches.  I find Sonnen to be more fun to watch than either GSP or Fitch.  I'd say, one of the reasons Sonnen gets subbed so often is because he pushes the pace.

The first thing both GSP and Fitch are is safe.  GSP had all of.... two sub attempts against Hardy?  GSP never had Alves in real danger of stoppage. 

The problem with standing guys up more often is that you incentize the guy on the bottom grabbing and holding and whining to the ref, which will just make the ground game even more unexciting.  If you don't like being on the ground, LEARN TO STAND UP.  See Chuck, or BJ, or etc. etc. etc.  It forces the guy on the bottom into taking risks to get out of the bad spot, and that provides openings for the guy on top.

I don't like the Jake O'Brien or Mo Lawal style of taking a guy down and lying on him while you pant and regain your wind, but I can't fault Chael for an active, varied performance.
 

FFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUU

I was really pulling for Sonnen.  Silva's a great fighter, but I can't stand his ego.  At least the illusion of Silva being an unstoppable force has been destroyed.  Chael showed some real weakness in his game.

I was surprised by Silva's cardio, though.  Despite having Sonnen on top of him the entire fight, he seemed to have a lot left in the tank.

I'm a f/t Silva fanboi, he's the best fighter I've ever seen live.

That said, people who think this fight exposed holes in his game should think that through a little more. It showed a) he can take beats those punches should have done some damage if just in volume though not in power and b) he has cardio. Two things that were complete mysteries going into the fight since we'd never seen him put in those situations.

As I said in the previous post, the only big secret to beating Anderson I saw in this fight is a) be an amazing wrestler and get top position and try to win via points and much much more importantly b) rush him down before he's acclimated to the fight, go for broke from the bell, take the middle and rush him down.

I wonder though if Anderson will use the rib injury to buy the time for a Belfort v Sonnen match up to determine next challenger though I doubt either way we'll see him back in the ring before the new year.

However you feel about the main event it sure was entertaining.

I loved it when the one guy said "a good surgeon can fix this" when they were checking out the Dutch guy with the assploded lower lip and a second later you hear his coach, in dutch, say 'feck this, let's continue' only to have the guy win 15 seconds into the next round.

Also, why are the vaseline smearing, gash closing guys neutral? Isn't that something that is left to teammates in other fighting sports?

I imagine Silva trained cardio pretty seriously for this fight, since he appeared gassed in rounds 4 and 5 of his previous one.

There was controversy around the second GSP-BJ fight, since the guy who rubbed vaseline on GSPs face was then massaging his back and chest.  BJ made some accusations of greasing, and many states moved to a policy of having only a neutral party lube up the fighters.

Basically, greasing makes BJJ much, much more difficult...

Next two UFC PPV cards look to be as loaded as this past event:

UFC 118, in a few weeks:

Main card

    * Lightweight Championship bout: United States Frankie Edgar (c) vs. United States B.J. Penn
    * Heavyweight bout: United States Randy Couture vs. United States James Toney
    * Lightweight bout: United States Kenny Florian vs. United States Gray Maynard
    * Welterweight bout: United States Nate Diaz vs. United States Marcus Davis

Prelims:

Some good guys here, too.  Gerald Harris (been taking apart people at MW), Joe Lauzon, Dan Miller, Demian Maia.  They all are in feeder fights, though.


Again, a stacked as hell card.  Edgar vs. Penn 2 should be high paced, and we'll see if Edgar just has the speed/quickness/style to beat Penn's game.  Randy vs Toney is a freakshow, but an entertaining freakshow.  Nate Diaz and Marcus Davis at WW should be good.  Diaz looks much better at WW, and Davis is entering his twilight years.  Davis has good boxing (was a pro boxer) and Diaz has that crazy Diaz-boxing.  Should be two guys throwing down until one drops.

Florian and Maynard?  Yes.  Kenny is coming off of the demolition of Gomi, Maynard is undefeated and has wins against a who's-who at LW, including Edgar.  A great number one contender match.  Has a chance of being ridiculously boring, if either Gray just smothers Kenny or Kenny decides to point fight like the Huerta fight.

____________________________________

UFC 119, on 9/25:

Main card

    * Heavyweight bout: United States Frank Mir vs. Brazil Antônio Rodrigo Nogueira
    * Light Heavyweight bout: Brazil Antônio Rogério Nogueira vs. United States Ryan Bader
    * Welterweight bout: United States Matt Serra vs. United States Chris Lytle
    * Lightweight bout: United States Sean Sherk vs. United States Evan Dunham
    * Lightweight bout: United States Melvin Guillard vs. United States Jeremy Stephens

Preliminary card (Spike TV)

    * Middleweight bout: United States C.B. Dollaway vs. Canada Joe Doerksen
    * Heavyweight bout: United States Matt Mitrione vs. United States Joey Beltran

Preliminary card

    * Welterweight bout: Canada TJ Grant vs. United States Julio Paulino
    * Heavyweight bout: New Zealand Mark Hunt vs. United States Sean McCorkle


Main card, again, looks pretty sick. 

- Big Nog rematches Mir, after Mir took Nog apart a couple years ago for the Interim HW title.  Both guys coming off of being dominated by the new breed of HW (Cain demolished Nog, Carwin Carwined ((it's a verb, I swear)) Mir}.

- Lil Nog and Bader.  Bader is the other top LHW prospect, besides the Martian Manhunter.  Champion wrestler, giant size, huge power.  Nog is coming off of the (bogus) split win over Brilz, who took it to the guy and deflated him somewhat.  This is Bader's big step into the upper echiolon of LHWs.

- Serra and Lytle.  Two old veterans, rematching.  Their TUF fight a bunch of years ago was an unexciting split for Serra, which lead to Serra's underdog victory over GSP.  Lytle said "fuck it" after that fight, and has preceded to go out and become one of the most entertaining fighters out there.  He has an ungodly number of "of the Night" bonuses under his belt.  Last seen finishing Matt Brown with a gorgeous inverted triangle + armbar, which he received an unofficial bonus for.

I think these guys will put on a show.  Or they may hug against the cage again.

- Sherk vs. Dunham.  Sherk is Sherk.  Dunham is a hot undefeated LW prospect (4-0 UFC) who has been putting on dominant performances over a range of guys like Tyson Griffin and Efrain.  He's a Brit, but he DID outwrestle Tyson Griffin....  he may be the first Brit with a legit wrestling game. 

- Stephens vs. Guillard.  Should be fireworks.  Both guys have been off and on as prospects, both guys can look like world-beaters or chumps.  Stephens had that vicious video game upper cut finish a year or two ago, while Guillard has amazing speed and power, combined with bad cardio and problems passing the drug tests.  Should be short, fast, and sweet.


Spike card:
- Mittrione looked vastly improved with his demolishing of Kimbo, and he looks like a psychopath.  CB Dolloway was a hot wrestling prospect that has been so-so in practice.

Prelims:
Mark Hunt?  The fuck?  Okay!

Matt Hughes autobiography review (http://www.bullshido.net/forums/showthread.php?t=66067)

 :awesome_for_real:

Great find Evil, thanks.

That's one biography that deserves the holy triumvirate of WTF.

 :oh_i_see: :uhrr: :ye_gods:

I missed most of the WEC card last night, which is too bad.  Caught Roller vs. Pettis which was a good fight.


Great interview with Chael Sonnen the day after his loss:  Link (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ROMpp1oLBu0&feature=watch_response_rev)

Sonnen dials back the douchebag factor a huge amount.  Comes off as well-spoken and very respectful of Anderson.


Jake Shields is officially an UFC WW now, with a match coming up against Martin Kampann.  This will either setup a fight against Fitch for the number one contender, or be for the title shot after GSP/Koscheck and GSP/Fitch.  GSP and Koscheck are held up filming the next season of TUF.

I think Chael Sonnen has possibly become my favorite.  Impossible not to like the guy.

(and now I wait for someone to come along and say what a douche he is).

His act is that he's the World's Biggest Douche, he makes no bones about.  I question how much of that is marketing.  Really great interview though.

Some interesting news has come out:

- Carwin has been implicated in an animal steroid ring under investigation by a US Attorney.
- Big Nog is out of the Mir fight.  His replacement?  CROCOP!!!  I think I like the idea of Mir vs Crocop better.
- Vitor Belfort is still injured, and he's not likely to be back until early next year... sounds like the UFC are setting up a Number One Contender match with Chris Leben.

The Anderson vs Chael rematch is set for the end of the year UFC show, assuming Anderson recovers well from the broken ribs Chael gave him.


Did anyone catch the latest Strikeforce show?  I caught part of it, and from what I've read, it was  :awesome_for_real:
- Lashley got stood up from the mount, and his opponent proceeded to TKO him.
- Jacare beat Tim Kennedy for the vacant (now that Shields took off) MW title.  Per SF insanity, they had been plugging Kennedy as the next big thing in the promotional material as he is a Ranger/war veteran.
- King Mo looked pretty mediocre in a loss to Feijao (who himself has a recent loss to some_can)

Mo took about 15 unnecessary elbows to the head before they stopped it.  Feijao looked like he had a solid 20lbs over him.

Feijao has looked good in previous fights, but he is literally at the same point in his career as Mo:  talented young prospect.

Mo just didn't look very good.  Lot of hanging his hands down low (seems dumb against a good striker who trains with Black House, aka Anderson Silva, Machida, Nogs, Munoz, JDS, etc.), lot of uncompleted TDs.


It just feels like SF keep rushing their young prospects into the spotlight too soon, and they either get complacent or get embarrassed.  Should have been Mo vs. Babalu (who Mo could probably beat) and Feijao vs. Sokudjo to set up a title fight in 3 or 4 months.  Not tough fights, but those two have a bit of Name left and it eases the young guys into the upper end of the LHW rankings.

Who is Feijao going to fight next?  Mousassi, coming off the loss to Mo?

SF is just a giant mess.  They have no continuing narrative for the fights/titles.... it feels thrown together at the last minute.

I've become a fan of ESPN's MMA Live, which is shown on an odd schedule but regularly posted here:  http://search.espn.go.com/mma-live/video/6

Generally good breakdowns for events, interesting commentary (Rashad, Bonnar, Kenny, etc), and decent interviews.  Not up to the standards of other sports commentary shows, but it's getting there.


Fight this weekend should be good.

Haha, James Toney came in fat as a pig, got taken down and owned in the first round just like everyone expected. I don't know why these guys think they don't need to learn to fight MMA to fight MMA. The guy I was talking about in this thread like a year ago, Wilson, crossed over from boxing and went like 5-0 against fellow newbs. But he actually learned how to grapple, won a fight by submission, and didn't challenge fighters of legendary status as a newbie to the sport.

I imagine it must be hard to enter the UFC at 42 years old and really commit to learning how to fight MMA regardless of how much Toney has accomplished in boxing (I don't follow boxing much, but it sounds like he's on the downside of a pretty impressive career).  I give him credit at least for stepping in there, probably with the full understanding regardless of the pre-fight trash talk, that he was going to get his ass kicked, even if it made for a bit of a crap show for the fans.

All things considered though, I'm a little disappointed that this was one of the UFC events they showed at my theater.  I thought it was fairly lackluster all around and would have rather had any of the next three UFC events instead.

Gimmick fight is gimmicky.

Tony was just looking for a paycheck, and White just wanted to humiliate a boxer in the octagon.

I didn't see the point of the Tony fight either. Edgar v Penn was entertaining, again.

I'd have been more sympathetic if he'd come in at a better weight. This is a dude who won his first boxing title at 160. I mean he could weigh whatever and still get his ass beat in a sport where he hasn't bothered to learn the fundamentals, but it would have at least looked like he thought he could win.

He purportedly lost about 40 pounds getting ready for this fight.  Not that I'm making excuses for the guy - he clearly had no idea what was going to happen to him.

The card was pretty "meh" overall.  I didn't even care much for the title fight either, but that may largely be because I don't like seeing BJ lose.  He looked too old and slow.  It's odd hat he can humiliate every other lightweight in the world, yet it appears Frankie will end up beating him 9 times out of 10.

I did enjoy watching Kenny (I Finish Fights at 155!) Florian lose.

It really turned out to be a shitty night if not for Lauzon's beatdown and Diaz v Davis I would be seriously pissed about spending money on it.

Both those fights were good watches.

Lauzon WRECKED that guy. 

The Diaz v Davis fight could have been a Fight of the Year candidate if not for Davis' cut early... that really seemed to throw his game off.   The first round was a good balanced round, but you could see Davis fade in end of the first and second as his vision went.  Davis will never be a favorite fighter of mine, but you have to respect a guy that goes out and fights a hard fight every time. 

I still think that Nate Diaz is only slightly smarter than a pumpkin.  Hopefully the UFC forces him to stay at 170.  He just looks so much better at that weight.

I did enjoy seeing Gray handle Florian, though the fight wasn't that interesting.  Kenny is the most schizophrenic fighter out there.  His last fights, he made guys like Gomi and Clay Guida look like fools.  This fight, he looks uninspired.

Fuck Keith Florian too.  That guy is annoying as hell.

UFN 22 is tomorrow night on Spike:

Marquardt vs. Palhares -- Nate in his first fight since the February shellacking by Sonnen.  Palhares is a stocky Brazilian BJJ prodigy whose sole loss is Dan Henderson.  Could be great, could be Marquardt playing it safe and tagging Palhares outside of his range for 3 rounds. 

Efrain Escudero vs. Oliveira -- Efrain was a TUF winner, and is generally an exciting fighter.  Oliveira is a 13-0 submissions guy who is question mark.

Jim Miller vs. Gleison Tibau -- Jim Miller is an exciting LW with some dominating performances (the Wiman fight immediately jumps to mind).  Tibau is a mini-me version of Thiago Alves.  Should be a great fight.

Ross Pearson vs. Cole Miller -- Both guys are decent midcarders that usually have exciting fights.  Pearson is looking to establish himself as a LW contender.


Prelims:

There are some interesting fighters here, and with any luck some of these will make the main card.  Yves Edwards, Tomasz Drwal, and Brian Foster.  Foster is the guy that Lytle snapped the beautiful knee bar on this winter...  good to see he's alright.

Also:

Seanbaby has a new MMA article:  
The 6 Least Sportsmanlike Moments in MMA (http://www.cracked.com/blog/the-6-least-sportsmanlike-moments-in-mma/)

Edit:

So it seems Chael Sonnen was juicing.  I'm not going to link an article.

Gods dammit.  This was a seriously interesting plot, and then some shit like this comes up.

WEC 51, Live on Versus tonight:

MAIN CARD

* Champ Jose Aldo vs. Manny Gamburyan (for featherweight title)
* Miguel Torres vs. Charlie Valencia
* Donald Cerrone vs. Jamie Varner
* Chan Sung Jung vs. George Roop
* Leonard Garcia vs. Mark Hominick


This seems to be an awesome card. 

- Aldo is The Man.  His career is a basically a highlight reel of amazing, including the flying double knee KO.  Last fight was a 5 round demolition of Faber, where Faber had trouble walking going into round 3.
- Torres is a badass who has had 2 straight losses after a dominating run as the best Bantamweight in the world.  Usually a fast pace and exciting fighter.
- Cerrone vs. Varner is a legit bad blood match.  They HATE each other.  When Varner was LW champ, he was ducking Cerrone.  When they finally met, Varner managed to secure a technical decision by refusing to continue after Cerrone hit him with an illegal knee.  Comments by Varner afterwards left the impression that he knew Cerrone was coming on strong after losing the first couple of rounds, so played up the injury rather than continue and lose the fight.
- Chan Sung Jung = The Korean Zombie, who had the amazing slugfest against Garcia in the spring.
- Garcia is a heavy handed brawler, see above fight with Korean Zombie.

UFC 121 was last night, pretty good card. Brandon Schaub looked really good against Gonzaga. Diego's screaming slam of Paulo Tiago was epic. And finally, Lesnar gets the beating he deserves.

Decent card.  Not alot of surprises, and the only surprises were unfortunate (the decline of Cote and Gonzaga). 

- Cain was the pick of most of the insiders and pros, so not shocking.  Lesner's striking is awful, and Cain just worked him.  Really like the matchup of JDS and Cain for next title bout, though.  If Cain tries standing with that guy, he's going to sleep.  If Cain doesn't get overconfident and mixes striking with takedowns, he should wear JDS down and get the win.

This sets up some wonderful matchups for Brock, as well.  I'd love to see Brock/Nog, Brock/Nelson, Brock/Kongo, Brock/Crocop....  No Carwin II, please.

- Shields vs. Kampmann was alright.  Shields was unexciting but amazingly proficient, Kampmann showed decent scrambling skills and some good clinch work.  Kampmann, though I like him, is a fucking idiot sometimes....  he gets suckered into playing to other peoples strengths.

- Diego had a good fight with Thiago.

- Hammel took it to Tito, which is always fun.

- Gonzaga vs. Schaub was meh.  Good first round, but Schaub coasted a bit later in the match.  Gonzaga just looked out of sorts. 

LOVED seeing Diego take it to Thiago.  I honestly thought (after watching his last match) that he was going to be in big trouble in this fight, but man did he kick Paulo's ass.  The slam was awesome, even if it didn't do much damage.

Jake Shields is boooooring.  He barely deserved that win.  He is going to get worked over by GSP.

The most surprising thing to me about the Cain/Lesnar match was when Brock got on top of him...I thought that was the beginning of the end for Cain.  Much credit to him for getting up as easily as he did, and then putting on that beatdown.

Big debate in the sports media world today was whether Brock getting beat that bad was good for the popularity of the sport across the board.

Thoughts?

Depends on what you mean.  Will Cain sell as many PPV buys?  Not hardly.  I suppose that's bad for Dana White.

The idea was that Brock getting beat hurts the sports ability to grow in national popularity.

Brock is 32/33 with one serious medical problem in the last year, plus the wear and tear of a stint in pro wrestling (which is supposedly atrocious... there's a reason why steroids and painkiller/alcohol addiction are widespread in pro wrestling).  Even if he had won, it's questionable how long he's going to be a dominant fighter.

Brock's loss makes the relatively young Cain another legit draw and sets up the redemption/come back storyline for Brock.  Cain isn't going to draw anywhere near what Brock is, sure....  but he is going to gain a ton of hype.  There is no way that any casual fan that sees Cain's performance and doesn't become intrigued with his next match.

The UFC has been pretty actively marketing towards the Hispanic (especially Mexican) population in the last couple of years.  Having a legitimate and exciting champ is only going to be good for them. 

Also, the UFC isn't about "one big star".  In 2009, they ran something like 20 or 30 events between PPVs, Fight Nights, and other free cards.  They are on track to do that again this year.  The UFC would much rather have a bunch of fairly popular fighters than they want one superstar, since all of those events need a legitimate headliner and you need coverage for dropouts and medical issues.

I agree with that, and it seems to be a big upside for them. They really want to hit the 16-30 male crowd and the Hispanic population.

They broadcast 121 at my theater and I took the night off to watch it.  Now given that I live in the Bay Area (and that Cain fights out of San Jose), there was a pretty large Hispanic crowd in attendance, and they were loving it.  We've had some UFC events at my theater in the past, but this was easily the biggest crowd reaction I had seen at any of them.

The canniness and strategic planning of the UFC is constantly being underestimated.

The two demographics in North America/Western Hemisphere they are weak in has been Hispanics (which is why we got the Huerta push, the move to simulcasting in Spanish, and now Cain) and Black Americans (they've always had a number of athletes of African ethnicity from other countries, but relatively fewer African Americans).

The way the UFC is sneaking into Asian markets is pretty interesting, too.  They have some setup with a couple of Chinese entertainment networks/websites that looks like the UFC will be available almost everywhere in China.  The Abu Dhabi deal was as much to get an inside relationship with Asian broadcasters.  The Australian PPV was mostly to soften up and lay the groundwork for an expansion into East or South Asia, especially since it seems the UFC is going to be locked out of Japan by the....  questionable... state of Japanese MMA (i.e. lousy with connections to organized crime).


I think that's the major reason you won't see a Fedor deal.  The UFC would rather spend that money on being the first into China or India (which has specifically been identified as a market they are going after) rather than pay Fedor a king's ransom.

Well!

Dana White announced that the UFC and the WEC are merging as of January 2011. 

It's a good idea.  There's going to be a bunch of lightweights that get pink slips over this (eventually, Dana said no one loses their job right away).

This puts a lot of able bodies in front of Jose Aldo. Seeing him against UFC lightweights would be aaaaaaaaaawesome.

Aldo is a scary, scary man.

Edit:

There are a pile of rumors floating around about the UFC and a network TV deal.  Folding in the WEC gives them 2 more belts to contest, and a pile more available fighters to match up to fill a regular network programming slot, though I imagine they would have to work out of their Spike contract somehow.

I wouldn't be surprised if, within 2 years, the UFC has a Saturday or Friday night fight slot on network TV.

New Seanbaby MMA article:

http://www.cracked.com/blog/a-book-insults-just-ufc/

"Josh Koscheck is what Cobra scientists would have made if they wanted to make the perfect bully to send back to GiJoes grade school."

 :Love_Letters:

Man, I've been watching this season of ultimate fighter, and Josh really is a giant douche...and as one of the comments on the linked article mentioned, it's made all the more clearer when compared to how much of a great human being GSP is (genuinely).  In a strange sort of way, I don't really want to see them fight - I think Koscheck actually matches up pretty well with Georges and has a better chance than most to pull off a win.  I don't think I could deal with that.

There are some GREAT UFC events scheduled for the next few months:

- UFC 123:  Machida vs Rampage, Hughes/Penn III, Phil Davis (after Bader and Jones, the next hot prospect at LHW), George Snuffaluffagus (Aussie guy who has looked awesome) vs Joe Lauzon.

- UFC 124: GSP vs Koscheck, Struve vs McCorkle (giant HWs), Jim Miller (who has looked awesome), Joe Stevenson vs Mac Danzig, Alves vs John Howard (who has looked pretty good)

- UFC 125: Edgar vs Maynard, Aldo debut in UFC (this guy has a legit claim to be one of the baddest men on the planet), Guida vs Gomi (oohhhhh), Diaz vs Stun Gun (Diaz has looked awesome at WW, but Stun Gun is undefeated and has great judo and wrestling), Chris Leben vs Stann (fun slobberknocker)

- UFC 126: Anderson vs Vitor Belfort (great matchup), Griffin vs Franklin (should be amazingly fun), Miguel Torres debut (Torres is a bad, bad man and exciting fighter), Ellenburger vs Fitch (Ellenburger is a good wrestler with great power, should actually be a fun Fitch fight), JON JONES VS RYAN BADER (likely an eliminator to see who gets the title push)


That is a hell of a schedule.

There has been some preliminary rumors that Bellator is facing getting shut down.  Their TV deal just fell through, and they aren't having any luck getting a new broadcaster.  Combine that with the fact they have been hemoraging money, and....

I haven't watched a whole lot of Bellator, mostly because it's tough to find, but overall I think they put on better shows that Strikeforce.  They run "seasons" where you have tourney brackets to find a challenger for their titleholder, and generally run more interesting fights.  SF generally has the feel of throwing marketable guys at each other to try and sell an event, and lacks a longer term narrative.

Heh, for some reason up until this last post I always thought Bellator was female MMA.

Number of fairly entertaining cards from the UFC last Saturday.  NOT the main event, however.  What a snoozer.  Way to throw your legitimacy down the shitter, Nate Marquardt.

The UFC card last weekend was pretty good.  I bought it for the main event, but the card delivered nicely, IMO.

- Alves is a scary man when on form and in good shape.  Doomsday, not so much.
- Miller with a nice sub on a young Brazilian that had some dangerous looking jiu jitsu
- Mark Bocek...I swear, the guy seems to pull of a cool sub every time I see him.
- Struve, the human punching bag, pulls a pretty cool reversal and puts the smack on that irritating McCorkle guy.  Did like.
- Last but not least, GSP shows Koscheck how it's really done. 

Georges is a bit of an enigma right now, though.  He is probably the "smartest" elite MMA fighter in the world, but frankly, it's getting a little boring.  I'd like to see him take a few more chances and beat the shit out of some people.  We already know he's more talented and that he can out game-plan all of them.  Maybe he does need a move to 185...get some guys up there to push him into a real fight.

Koscheck....damn it if I can figure the guy out.  Just when I buy fully into his bad guy routine, he shows some class and was geniunely gracious in defeat.  Rogan says he actually is a swell guy, the whole thing is just an act.  Oh well, he's an interesting character if nothing else. 

Was a good card, but really needed the finishes on top of the dominations.  Both Alves and GSP need a bit more of the killer instinct, but Alves is coming off of back to back losses so it's understandable that he played it a bit safe against a power puncher.  Kos was out of that fight about half way through the second.  He had no depth perception and was visibly flinching away from the cut man's bag of ice.  GSP should have finished that. 


Some good fights will piggyback on this event. 
- Shields vs GSP could be a solid fight.  Likely, Shields will get mauled on the feet but he does have a great wrestling and top game so he has a solid shot.
- Miller called out Snuffaluffagus, which would be an AMAZING fight.  The LW title picture is booked for at least 6 months between Edgar/Maynard and then the title unification with the winner of Henderson/Pettis.  Snuff and Miller are the top two for the title shot after that with Florian coming off a loss and BJ at WW now....  a title eliminator would be lovely this winter or spring.
- Struve is pushing himself back up the ladder, and with how shallow the HW division is could get the dubious reward of getting Mir, Carwin, or Lesner who will all be looking for rebound fights.  A fight with Pat Barry, though, would be.....  awesome.


In other news, Overeem just won the K-1 (kickboxing) 2010 Grand Prix.