All Purpose UFC/MMA/That Kind Of Thing Thread

Also, an interesting point...

The UFC signed three people to be the future of their heavyweight division.

Brock Lesnar, Shane Carwin and Cain Vasquez.

They are all similar. They’re physical freaks with good wrestling backgrounds.

Lesnar you all know. I think that, Vasquez will end up the best fighter. Carwin is the most frightening though as he seems to have real honest to God killer instinct. If he smells blood...

Someone on another forum described the dynamic between the three very well…

 

As there is no running boxing thread (well, not one that I know about anyway) I’ll put this here….

On December 6, 2008 Carl “The Cobra” Froch took on Jean Pascal for the vacant WBC Super Middleweight Title. Froch was 23-0 going into the fight. Pascal was 21-0.

It was one of the best, regardless of the sport, fights of the year.

It’s one of those classics that I just know will fall under the radar. It’s a throwback fight. It’s a war in front of a ridiculously passionate crowd.

It’s one of the best fights I have seen in along time.

http://www.badlefthook.com/2008/12/8/684689/carl-froch-vs-jean-pascal

 

Affliction held their second PPV last night headlined by Fedor Emelianenko taking on, former UFC Heavyweight Champion, Andrei Arlovski.

Arlovski’s stand-up looked very slick. He won the initial exchange. Fedor closed the distance and clinched. They traded knees. Arlovski tried a takedown, which Fedor blocked. They continued to clinch. The referee separated them. There was another exchange. Arlovski threw a good right. He caught Fedor with a kick to the chest. Fedor looked hurt. It looked like Arlovski had Fedor in real danger. Then Fedor knocked Arlovski out cold.

In other news, the editorial writers of the New York Times seem to hate MMA.

http://theboard.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/01/22/the-disturbing-rise-of-ultimate-fighting/?scp=2&sq=mma&st=cse

Strangely, two days before that blog they ran this nice piece on Fedor...

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/21/sports/othersports/21fight.html?_r=2&ref=sports

 

A few weeks back Sports Illustrated did a very good piece entitled The tragic tale of Evan Tanner. It's a very well written piece about someone who, in many ways, was one of the most fascinating charters in sports.

It's worth reading...

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2009/writers/the_bonus/01/13/tanner/index.html

 

On my third viewing, without the drama of Fedor possibly losing, Arlovski doesn't hit him that much. Arlovski’s stand up looks much slicker but Fedor dodges most of his shots.

For all the talk, on certain MMA boards, of Fedor being exposed he didn’t look that bad at all. In retrospect, when you look at the fight clinically, Fedor is on the defensive stand-up wise. He isn’t exposed though. In fact his ability to slips shots looks good. Arlovski has good boxing. That’s what I noticed first time around. However, for his working with Freddy Roach, if you watch the fight again without the drama, Fedor doesn’t look bad.

Literally, Arlovski barely hits him.

 

I haven't gotten to see the fight yet, but your summary seems to be typical of Fedor fights. He "seems" to take more damage than he actually takes and he "seems" to just get lucky with a perfect punch.

But when you watch it again, you realize he deflects a lot of damage and counters very well. People will continue to hope to see Fedor fail (and he will, eventually), but right now he's the best fighter in the world.

 

This is quite the picture...

 

So, it looks like MMA will still be airing on CBS.

Strikeforce have reached a deal with Elite XC to acquire select assets including the fight contracts of all the key players and the TV deals with both CBS and Showtime. The first Showtime show is scheduled for April 11 and will be headlined by Frank Shamrock.

It will be interesting to see how this plays out. Unlike most of the UFC's North American competitors Strikeforce has the distinction of actually being well run.

Dave Meltzer has a piece on the deal up at Yahoo Sports.

http://sports.yahoo.com/mma/news;_ylt=AkNoPXsdQ.fJMV9oHHRiB6M9Eo14?slug=dm-strikeforce020509&prov=yhoo&type=lgns

 

A trailer for Bully Beatdown, a new MTV show presented by Jason "Mayhem" Miller. The show’s premise is that professional MMA fighters fight bullies.

It looks like it will be entertaining television. There are probably moral questions about having everyday folks, even if they are bullies, fight professional fighters. The word is that the bullies, to use a colloquialism, get pretty much fucked up. Also, I can see the danger that the fighters come across as the bullies in the end, and maybe they are being the bullies. There are probably a lot of people walking around that think they could take, ”those faggots from the UFC”. That doesn’t mean that they should have $10,000 waved in front of their face and be encouraged to try.

 

MMA is back on Showtime tomorrow.

In the main event, one of MMA's most fascinating personalities, Frank Shamrock takes on, another of MMA's interesting personalities, Nick Diaz in an intriguing catch-weight fight.

http://sports.sho.com/mma/events/shamrock-diaz-apr-11-2009.html

Also, this week Nick Diaz talked to the LA Times about his love for, as Joe Rogan calls it, the Devil’s Cabbage.

http://www.latimes.com/sports/la-sp-mma-diaz-strikeforce8-2009apr09,0,5110887.story

There was also a press conference a few weeks back that I enjoyed.

http://vimeo.com/3617975

I especially liked this exchange; the paraphrasation (yay, new word!) of which is stolen from someone else…

 

I found this online…

Renzo Gracie vs. James Warring(World Combat Championship - First Strike) (October 17, 1995) (Charlotte, North Carolina)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?gl=GB&hl=en-GB&v=TRouMeO-_dE

Warring was kickboxing world champion who transitioned to boxing, and on the September 7, 1991 won the vacant IBF cruiserweight title by beating James Pritchard by first round KO, in a fight held in Italy. He made a few defences before losing the title to Alfred Cole on July 30, 1992 in New Jersey.

In MMA he holds a victory over Erik Paulson.

 

God bless Japanese MMA. They do, sometimes, book interesting freak shows. Next month Jose Canseco is fighting Choi Hong Man at a DREAM show.

From Dave Meltzer's daily update...

http://www.f4wonline.com/content/view/9163/