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.