MMA Review

What’s going on everybody? Its time for MMA Review

Tomorrow is the big, big day in mixed martial arts as UFC 87 takes place with three major fights. I’m going to preview each of the fights, give you my top-10 pound-for-pound fighters and then comment on children training in MMA.

First, lets preview the three big UFC 87 fights.

-Brock Lesner vs. Heath Herring (Heavyweight). This is a classic fight between strength vs. guile. Brock is a physical specimen who may be the strongest fighter in all of MMA. His ground and pound skills are solid as shown in the Frank Mir fight. His standup/boxing is unknown because in his other two professional fights, he has gone for the takedown to take advantage of his exemplary wresting skills. I worry about two big things from Brock. First, you have to worry about his defense on the ground because Mir was able to get that knee bar in on him and submit Brock. However, Frank is an excellent Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu (BJJ) practitioner and Herring isn’t at that level. The second thing you have to worry about is stamina. Brock hasn’t been in the ring more than three minutes combined and he’s fighting a dude who can go.

Herring is an interesting character who has been around for a long time. He mainly fought in Japan for many years at Pride before coming over to the UFC in his last four fights. He’s 2-2 in those contests with four straight decisions. Herring has a problem finishing a fight, but he does have the stamina to last all three rounds. He will forever be known for standing up Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira when he was pounding him on the ground. If Heath wins that fight, he may well be heavyweight champion right now.

I see this fight going to another decision. Brock will try to be aggressive and will get some takedowns or two and maybe get a round. However, I see Herring doing just enough to win two rounds and get a boring decision. I would like to see these guys exchange some punches and make it exciting, but I see a lot of sloppy ground work taking place. Herring in Decision.

-Roger Huerta vs. Ken Florian (Lightweight): This has fight of the year potential. There should be no worries about stamina and effort because both of these guys will come in there ready and prepared. Both guys strike decently; however, Florian has the better ground game. Ken Flo’s submissions are top notch.

The best game plan for Huerta is to hopefully just keep a blistering pace and outpoint Florian. Huerta can submit a guy or two himself so don’t be surprised to see Roger get a choke in. I also don’t like Huerta’s mentality coming into this fight. He’s complaining about making no money doing media appearances and his contract. I don’t like a fighter who is concerned with money going into a big fight.

Florian by submission in the third round.

-Georges St. Pierre vs. Jon Fitch (Welterweight): This one is for the title. GSP is on a major role right now and has no weaknesses accept one, which I don’t think that Fitch can exploit.

The scary thing is that the one thing that Fitch should have an advantage in, wrestling, GSP has become world class in only a few years. GSP was able to outwrestle Josh Koscheck, a better wrestler than Fitch, easily and made it look flawless.

You do have to worry about GSP’s chin which was exploited by Serra in their first fight. However, I don’t see Fitch getting to that chin because GSP is so focused right now.

Both guys have endurance and Fitch is an excellent worker and deserves this title shot. If Fitch wins, its not shocking because Jon is a world class fighter. However, GSP is special. GSP by TKO in the fourth round.

Ok, now its time for my top-10 pound-for-pound fighters, which will be updated every month.

Outside looking in: Dan Henderson, Carlos Condit, Randy Couture, Chuck Liddell, Kid Yamamoto

10) Lyota Machida
9) Quinton “Rampage” Jackson
8) Antonio Rodrigo Nogueria
7) Forrest Griffin
6) Miguel Torres
5) Urijah Faber
4) Fedor Emelianenko
3) BJ Penn
2) Georges St. Pierre
1) Anderson Silva

My list is pretty standard accept for one thing. I have Fedor at #4 because of his inactivity of the past few years and the lack of quality opponents he has fought. Anderson is #1 which shouldn’t be an issue and I have GSP ahead of BJ Penn because these two fought and GSP won.

There are many ways to look at a top-ten ranking like this, but I look at it this way. If every single one of those guys fought at the same weight, which one will have the skills to beat the other nine on the list? I also like versatility. Anderson, GSP and BJ have the ability to beat you in multiple ways while someone like Rampage or Torres have one way to do it. Now that one way is world class, but not enough to usurp the guys above them. I would love your thoughts on this or if you know someone who is a MMA fan, tell them my list and get their thoughts.

Finally, I linked to an article in my “Cleaning out my Links” post earlier in the week. It was about young children training MMA. Here’s the link: http://www.mmatraining.com/featured/why-i-want-my-children-to-be-mma-fighters/

First, this isn’t a completely new concept. Children have been practicing martial arts, wrestling and boxing for thousands of years. I don’t see how MMA is different because the sport combines all of those elements.

Training is good for several reasons. It preaches discipline mentally and physically. Your child gets some good exercise also.

The main issue of course should be safety. Make sure that they are wearing head gear, have extra protection for their hands and shins and just have good adult supervision.

I think that only children about 10 and up should train. There are developmental issues with younger kids training.

What do you think? Would you let your child train in MMA?

That’s all from me. I’ll have some daily posts on the Olympics on the blog the next week or two, so look forward to those.

As usual, I have the latest episode of MMA Live below for your viewing to learn more about the sport. Good fight, good night.

MMA Review

What’s going on everybody, hope your week was good. Mine was tiring going back to work full-time, but it was good getting back to a consistent schedule. You can only play video games and watch daytime court shows for so many days, right? OK, bad question. It’s time for your MMA Review!

Like last week, I’ll go over each promotion and give you my thoughts:

Elite XC: They had a major program on CBS this past Saturday and I watched every minute of it. Even before it took place, I knew that the ratings would be down for several reasons. First, the second show is always a let down from the first one. CBS put a lot of promo into that first show a few months ago and had their two biggest stars Kimbo Slice and Gina Carano fighting. In this show, none of those two were fighting. Secondly, there was actually a big boxing PPV match that took some viewers.

However, I liked the card because it established the promotion. There are actually other fighters besides Kimbo and Gina. The women’s fight featured a victory by Cyborg, who is a Brazilian fighter out of the Chute Box Academy, which is one of the premier MMA training camps in the world. She is no joke and can beat a respectable amount of men. She dominated and hopefully will fight Carano because those two are probably the premier women fighters in MMA right now.

Nick Diaz picked up a victory and continued his quest for a lightweight title. I look forward to his future fight with Noons whenever that takes place.

The two title fights that were on the CBS portion of the show established two men in their respective weight classes in MMA. Lawler kept his middleweight title and showed that he’s legit. I would love to see him go to the UFC and give Anderson Silva a shot. Robbie is in the same boat as Jake Shields, who won the welterweight title.

Both men are legit top-10 fighters in their classes but have minimal competition in Elite XC.

WEC: They have a big, big show coming up this Sunday on Versus with three title defenses. Jamie Varner defends his lightweight title against an undefeated and dangerous Marcus Hicks, Brian Stann makes his first title defense against Steve Cantwell and my man, the Natural Born Killer, Carlos Condit defends his welterweight title against Hiro Miura.

I think that all three guys will keep their titles, even though Varner needs to be careful and it’s always tough defending the title for the first time, no matter who you are, just ask Georges St. Pierre.

I really want to see Condit continue his rise in the welterweight division. I love the attitude, the swagger he has, the look, and most importantly the game. He fights a very aggressive, pleasing style to view. He’s the best non-UFC welterweight in my opinion. Check this fight out if any on this card.

Affliction: It looks like Fedor will fight Arlovski in his next fight. That’s a good test and it’s nice to see two top-ten heavyweights fight.

UFC: Everything is pointing towards their amazing event next Saturday, UFC 87. I’ll have an in-depth preview of that card next week so I’ll save my opinions on that.

It looks like Silva will defend his middleweight title against Patrick Cote in UFC 90 on Oct. 25. Wow, they’re really stretching to find a middleweight contender for Anderson, that’s all I’ll say.

MISC NEWS

-Its looks like the UFC vs. Randy Couture legal battle won’t end anytime soon. It’s a shame because both sides have good points, but we’re missing out on seeing one of the greatest fighters ever practice his craft and the most important people, us fans, end up losing. Sherdog.com gives a good breakdown of the situation here if you want the details: http://www.sherdog.com/news/news/coutures-legal-battles-continue-13838

-I was going to give you a breakdown of fighting in a ring versus a cage this week. However, I found an excellent link to an article with actual fighters explaining it. I think you would rather hear their opinions then mine. Here’s the article: http://www.sherdog.net/forums/f2/cage-vs-ring-big-nog-anderson-silva-other-former-pride-fighters-opinions-815846/

-Next week, I’ll have a breakdown of UFC 87 and my own top-10 fighters. Here’s a link to ESPN’s new online show, MMA Live. As much crap as I talk about ESPN, good job by them acknowledging mixed martial arts. Also, my boy Frank Mir is on the show. Love it!

I also threw in some Pride highlights. Gotta respect that.

Good fight, good night.

MMA Review

Welcome to my second installment of the Friday MMA Review.

Once again, even if you aren’t a mixed martial arts fan, you can like this post. I try to speak in generalities to give you an idea of what’s happening in the MMA world today.

This past week has some outstanding fights that were enjoyed by all. This Saturday, Elite XC will have their second network TV event on CBS, which I will watch with high anticipation. I think that the best way to do this is to list each fighting organization and give you my thoughts:

Elite XC: On Saturday, we will get to see the rematch between Robbie Lawler and Scott Smith for the middleweight title. These two guys gave an excellent effort in their last fight and it ended unnecessarily. However, Lawler is the better fighter and should win this one easily.

Jake Shields and Nick Thompson square off for the welterweight title as well. Shields should take care of business in this one.

Don’t get persuaded to not watch these fights because it’s not the UFC. Lawler is no joke and I think would give Anderson Silva a run if they ever fought. Shields is legit too and would be an even fight against Georges St. Pierre.

Finally, Nick Diaz squares off against Thomas Denny. Diaz should win this fight if he stays away from the bong! Ha, I make myself laugh sometimes. Seriously kids, stay away from the weed.

UFC: Last Saturday, the UFC had their Fight Night event featuring the main event of Anderson Silva vs. James Irwin. Silva looked sick. People kept talking about how Anderson was moving up in weight from middleweight to light heavyweight and that would be a problem. I didn’t see that happening because Silva is a big and lanky guy anyway and carries his weight evenly. He looked pretty much the same physically. He made James Irwin look like an amateur. Silva wants to go back to middleweight, but I think he should stay at light heavyweight if you ask me.

The rest of the card showed some interesting stuff. I love Brandon Vera and his potential. He a minority, has a good personality and usually has a fighting style that’s aggressive and exciting. However, he has looked weak in his last few fights and his recent win against Reece Andy was troublesome. Hopefully he can get his stuff together at light heavyweight and I just heard that he’s fighting Keith Jardine, which is interesting.

Frankie Edgar and CB Dollaway looked good in wins. BTW, Dollaway’s finisher, the Peruvian Neck Tie, is classic and may have to be my nickname in the future.

The person who looked the most impressive however besides Silva was Cain Velasquez in his win over Jake O’Brien. Cain is an impressive heavyweight who has a pleasing style to view. The UFC is starving for some new heavyweight contenders and Cain may be that guy in the next year. His potential is amazing.

On Saturday, Spike is replaying UFC84 which featured the title fight between B.J. Penn and Sean Sherk. I won’t be watching that because I’ve seen the event already,

UFC 87 on August 9 is shaping up to be an outstanding PPV with GSP facing Fitch for the welterweight title and some other good bouts. My preview of that will come closer to the event.

Affliction: The main event was both a good and bad thing, but you can blame Fedor for that. The man is a beast. Fedor is the man and no heavyweight is going to stop him. He made Sylvia look like a little kid out there fighting.

Arlovski looked good in his fight as well and I believe that he’s going to fight Fedor later this year, which is a fight that everyone wants to see and would represent progress in the heavyweight division.

There were two intriguing parts to the event. One, look at the salaries that some of these guys got: http://www.sherdog.com/news/news/CSAC-Sylvia-Arlovski-Lead-Affliction-Paydays-13758

The fact that Sylvia made $800,000 for that fight is crazy. Those figures are straight salaries and don’t include potential percentage of PPV profits and endorsements. Affliction won’t last long if they keep paying guys those salaries. However for MMA fighters in general, this is a good thing because they can use those figures when they negotiate new deals with the various fight leagues and the pay has increased.

The second thing about the event was that the fighting took place in a ring and not a cage. Since there isn’t a fight coming up next weekend, I’ll break down why this is a big deal. The cliff notes version of this is that one of the two main reasons that Fedor will probably never fight in the UFC is because of the cage. I’ll break that down more next week.

For Fedor, the main reason that he isn’t in the UFC is that it really doesn’t work with his business plan as a fighter. If he signed with the UFC, he would have to exclusively fight for that company. Fedor makes a lot of money fighting for various federations in Europe and Asia, specifically Japan and they don’t do business with the UFC.

If he wanted to fight in a sambo tournament in Russia or do a New Year’s Eve fight in Japan and make high six figures doing it, he can’t do it in the UFC because it’s an exclusive deal.

I was just happy to see the man fight in America. He needs to fight more in general and from what I’m hearing from his camp, this is going to happen.

That’s all from me, enjoy the fights and I hope to hear from some of you after Saturday.

Here’s a video showing the painful side of MMA.

Sunday Reflections (MMA Review Edition)

This weekend was a good time for mixed martial arts with two major events taking place.

I’ll get to this more on Friday with my MMA review, but I’ll give you a quick review.

I saw the entire UFC Fight Night, which was a decent event. Anderson Silva did what was expected by defeating James Irwin. Silva did look thicker as a light heavyweight, but he really looked the same. The scary thing about Anderson is that he was a super huge middleweight and a solid sized light heavyweight. If he wants to stay at 205, he definitely can.

Brandon Vera is one of my favorite fighters, so I was disappointed in his performance. He got the win, but you can tell that even he knew that his performance was sub-par.

The rest of the fights were ok. I’ll give you more Friday.

I didn’t see the Affliction card, but I did go to my sources and saw the Fedor/Sylvia fight. Not much here to say but Fedor won.

I’ll see the rest of the fights by Friday and have more info in my MMA review.

Until then, here’s are two video montages of MMA action.