MMA Review

Hey everyone, this post is my MMA Review. Sorry that it’s a day late, but I got home last night, watched Blades of Glory for the first time (my review of that will be in my Sunday Reflections), caught up on some Chuck episodes (good times) and just got tired.

I gave some initial analysis of UFC 91, which was the biggest MMA event in the past year or two and my opinions haven’t really changed from that night. If you want to read that post, its here: http://pourtoutpancakes.blogspot.com/2008/11/mma-review-ufc-91-edition.html

I think that Couture isn’t done fighting and I do think it’s a possibility that he drops down to light heavyweight, that wouldn’t be the worst thing. He weighted in at 220 and could easily drop another 15 pounds. However, I think that he may be entering no-mans land.

The heavyweights are getting bigger, so he’s going to have to continue to have a disadvantage in weight that he can’t make up. The good news is that the pool isn’t extremely deep. I would like to see him face the loser of Nog/Mir after their fight in December. Both of those matchups would be good for Couture, especially if he faces Nog, a fight that many hardcore fans have been wanting to see for years.

If he drops down to light heavyweight, the pool is deeper, but he would be a big light heavyweight, which is a good thing for him. However, when you have monsters like Forrest Griffin dropping down from as heavy as 235 to fight at 205, that size difference isn’t as big as it once was.

The reality is that the man is 45 years old and he can’t fight forever. Physically, your body just can’t hold up to the physical punishment that MMA does to you. I think that he has two more fights in him, max and then he will move on to his many other interests, which are both excellent and profitable like his Extreme Couture gyms and his acting career.

For Lesner, he’s a mixed bag for me. For the sport of MMA, this may actually be a good thing. He’s a big name and will bring more exposure to the sport. As much as everyone likes to talk about how big MMA has gotten as a sport, there is more room to grow. It will never become mainstream like baseball, basketball or American football, but it can become more on the radar of sports fans like ice hockey or even boxing.

However, Lesner only has four professional fights in his career and for him to be the champion is odd. I see some major holes in his fight game that need to be improved if he wants to keep that belt for more than a fight or two. His biggest benefit is physical. No one is that big and that fast. I don’t think he moves like a 155-pounder like the king of hyperbole Dana White says. However, his speed in the heavyweight division is decent. His biggest hole is obviously on the ground and submissions. However, even in that, he showed some marked improvements from the Herring fight and Couture.

I think that Nog would beat him if they end up fighting in early 2009 because Nog has more experience and is more skilled in the standup. However, if Lesner wins against Nog, then he might have a long title reign in him.

That’s all for the MMA review. I should have commeted on Faber losing his WEC lightweight to Brown, but I don’t really have much on that.

Until then, here’s this week’s edition of MMA Live and Inside MMA for your viewing enjoyment.

MMA Review

Hey everyone, finally, the return of MMA Review.

Tomorrow or today or last night, depending on when you read this, the UFC is having their latest event, UFC 88 featuring the main event of Chuck Liddell against Rashad Evans. I’m mad that its in Atlanta and I won’t be there. I had to cover an event on Friday and just can’t make the trip. Maybe next time.

Here’s my breakdown of the main fights on the card:

Rashad Evans vs. Chuck Liddell: This matchup doesn’t look well for Rashad. Chuck is an excellent striker and if Rashad tries to take him to the ground, Chuck’s takedown defense is great as well. Furthermore, if Rashad tries to stand with Chuck, that’s not good. If Wandy Silva can’t knock out Chuck, Rashad isn’t. This fight is pretty much a warm-up for Chuck to take on Forrest for the light heavyweight title in December. However, this is MMA and anything can happen. I just don’t see Evans winning this fight.

Matt Hamill vs. Rich Franklin: This fight is interesting. Franklin was the king of the middleweights until Anderson Silva became a bad ass. Now, he’s coming back to light heavyweight to test that weight out. He’s fought at this weight before, so it isn’t unique to him. However, while he was a big middleweight, he’s an average-sized light heavy. Hamill is a great story as well. His wrestling skills are excellent and he showed some strong hands against Bisbing. He’s also a large light heavy. Rich is an excellent striker, but we haven’t seen much of his ground game. I’m taking Hamill in a mini-upset.

Dan Henderson vs. Rousimar Palhares: I must admit, I’ve never heard of Rousimar, but if he’s fighting Hollywood Henderson, he’s a legit fighter. Hollywood is on a two-fight losing streak, but when those two losses are a tough decision to Rampage and a destruction to Silva, that’s not the worst thing. Anderson beats everyone up. I think Hondo gets the win and fights his way back up the rankings.

The other huge news of the week was the resigning of Randy Couture to the UFC. Furthermore, he’s now slated to face Brock Lesner in November for the interim heavyweight title that he currently holds. The winner of this fight will face the winner of the Nogueira and Frank Mir fight to truly crown a legit UFC heavyweight title.

It also means the imminent end of the Affliction promotion.

The whole time that Affliction has been in business, they have been hyping a Fedor vs. Couture under their promotion. Well, since Randy has signed an exclusive three-fight deal with the UFC, that ain’t happening.

The UFC is eventually going to work on getting Fedor in the fold, but why did Couture go back to the UFC after all of the bitterness he expressed towards the company.

I read somewhere that Couture may be Captain America, The Natural and a whole bunch of nicknames, but he isn’t Perry Mason.

He took the UFC to court to get out of his original contract and lost. He tried to openly promote himself as a free agent at other promotions but lost. In the end, we’re looking at a 45-year old fighter who knows that he only has about three fights in him anyway. The more time he sits, the weaker his skills will become. Furthermore, if he’s not fighting, he’s not making money and that ain’t funny.

Why did I just sound like Deion Sanders in that last sentence?

Anyway, Randy now gets to face Brock in a potentially highly entertaining fight and Dana White looks like the man once again.

That’s it for the MMA Review. I would love to hear your thoughts on this, even if you’re a novice fan and want to learn more about the sport. No question is too dumb. Even I started out as someone who was watching TV one day and saw Tito Ortiz fighting Chuck Liddell and found it interesting. The Ultimate Fighter then premiered on Spike TV and a MMA hardcore fan was born.

As usual, I have the latest edition of MMA Live linked below for your viewing. Until then, good fight, good night.

http://sports.espn.go.com/broadband/video/videopage?categoryId=2881270&brand=null&videoId=3569166&n8pe6c=2

MMA Review

It’s time for my MMA Review. Sorry that I didn’t do one last week but I was out of town taking care of family business. But I’m back now and ready to start.

-It’s not a really active week coming up in MMA because no events are coming up. However, it has been a bad week for Elite XC, a new promotion.

If you’re reading this, you’re of course familiar with the promotion that has brought us Gina Carano, Kimbo Slice and other characters. They’ve made an assertive effort to confront the UFC directly and become the top dog in mixed martial arts.

Plans haven’t gone so well.

Fighters are getting tested positive for drugs, the promotion is losing millions and millions of dollars (55 Million to be exact), weakened TV ratings, shakeups in the leadership and many other things. A good detailed breakdown is here if you really want to read about it more: http://www.sherdog.com/news/articles/elitexcs-impending-doom-averted-for-now-14140

This isn’t uncommon in sports. There have been countless leagues over the years that have tried to compete with the big professional sports leagues. For every NFL, there’s the XFL, USFL, CFL (when the league tried to expand into the USA in the 90’s). For the NBA, there’s the CBA, Developmental League, ABA and some others. Even sports that have solid followings like auto racing have seen their viewership decline over the last year or two.

The key with all of these organizations is that each of them knew their role and the ones that were stubborn ended. Elite XC should have approached their product slowly and built up their fan base before taking on the UFC, because that’s a battle that you’re going to lose.

I’m not saying that Elite XC shouldn’t exist. In fact, I love all of the different federations besides the UFC. A monopoly is not good for any sport, especially MMA. We need to see as many fighters perform as possible for a diversified product. Furthermore, every fighter has to start somewhere and the lower leagues give these fighters a chance to improve their skills.

-The last UFC event was solid. Brock Lesner is a beast and is a scary, scary dude. I don’t like his taunting, but he does play to a crowd well and brings a much needed personality to the UFC heavyweight division. Him and Cain Valasquez are going to fight for the title in two years, mark my words.

St. Pierre did what he does and made Fitch look like an amateur. Good win by Florian over Huerta as well.

-That’s all for this week. Enjoy MMA Live below.

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.