Thursday, January 17, 2008

fucking sherdog

Good god...for pure info, sherdog.com is hard to beat, with it's mighty database and constant interview-scrounging. But holy fucking shit, do they have to write so fucking execrably? I feel like I have to pick through a god damned dumpster behind the chinese place to get useful info out their prediction articles, they're so choked with stupid "jokes". What's next, something about Britney Spears? Opening fucking paragraph:

The latest overseas offering from the UFC features what any mixed martial arts fan can only hope to be the first step toward returning sanity to the lightweight division as well as a rematch between two of Brazil's finest and also more Europeans than a Jane Austen movie adaptation (insert audible groan here).

Dude...if you have to call yourself out for a shitty joke, just don't put it in. Don't try to shove four or five references into a couple paragraphs. Dennis Miller does that, and he has never, ever been funny.
The suckiest part is that the analysis is good, so I have to sort through these dirty diapers to get the shiny diamonds. Feh. Damn you internet. You ruined my favorite language.

Thursday, January 10, 2008

tatoos

Don't be these guys.

The first one is just unfortunate. The second one is hilarious. There's also a benefit of his Nazi tat he has on his chest. I've read interviews by Sam Caplan of this dude, and he goes on about how it's about "heritage" or whatever code word for hating brown people they use now. I painted over the tat because it makes me fucking sick. It does make one wonder though, does he have a small penis because he's a Nazi asshole, or is he a Nazi asshole because he has a teeny weeny? The implications are staggering.

Wednesday, January 9, 2008

WCO show in my backyard

I was aiming to attend the WCO "Return" card that's being staged right here in San Diego, in my very own backyard. I've missed Total Combat cards and other small orgs, but this card features Babalu vs. Tiger White, Mark Kerr, David Louiseau, Drew Fickett, Cabbage, Ricco, etc. and I thought it would be a cool one to catch. Sadly it looks like I won't make it. While the talent featured isn't exactly elite A-list across the board, as an MMA fan it's compelling enough for me to want to invest a few buck in. Shit, I paid full price for Rashad Evans vs. Michael Bisping...a chance to see the legendary Smashing Machine, however diminished, should be enough for me to shell out the bucks. Right now the main issue is my wingman can't go, and I'm basically unwilling to go to the show without my bro. Rhyme rhyme rhyme.
Well, there's an option. Ringside Junkie is offering the show using something called Microsoft Silverlight, which I've never heard of but apparently works on OSX. Preorders are $5, night-of-the-show $8 (which is confusing since it's an internet broadcast, but whatever). I don't know if you can order it after the fact and watch it "like live", but I may get it anyway. I've watched a few events on the web and while it's not the same as the big screen it's not terrible, and fuck it, free or cheap MMA is awesome. I pay almost the cost of this event a day for my cable/internet anyways.
As for other shit, the UFC looks to be on a full-court press to put some killer events on for free. From shelving a belt (again) for the duration of their reality show to putting the #1 lightweight contender in my mind against basically a popular also-ran on their Fight Night Live event (free on Spike), they're going after the casual MMA fan like a house on fire. 2008 could be the year where we see the challengers shake out. EliteXC is positioned extremely well, with a lot of good fighters and a cable deal with Showtime. Of course they're nowhere near the UFC, which boasts a successful PPV business as well as the Ultimate Fighter franchise and basically the most impressive fighter stable on the planet, but of the contenders they're on top. Whatever FEG decides to do in Japan with K-1 Hero's (stupid apostrophe...possessive? plural? what? Pay me to spell check your shit!), or Mark Cuban and Floyd Mayweather get up to in Dallas, EliteXC is the one with some serious fighters and the willingness to work with and/or buy out competitors. The UFC's "no quarter given or asked" policy is good in that it protects the brand and builds a fortress of a sort in their fans' heads, but it also leaves the ground outside that fortress unguarded in a lot of ways. While that fan, the one who enjoys TUF so much that he starts digging through Sherdog.com looking at other promotions (the guy who ten years ago ran across PRIDE and immediately started telling people how shitty UFC fighters were because they couldn't head stomp while holding the ropes), is rare compared to the basic "I like Forrest Griffin cuz he has funny ears and punchzorz" fan, their relative sway over other viewers in their circle can be much greater (compare an evangelist to a casual viewer). I know that's splitting hairs and running on sentences in a cruel and unusual way, but that's an important way that sports (and any other business venture) grow, through the evangelist or story-teller. Marketers KILL for those people. I haven't (or have I? No), but I might.
That is a long and overly complicated way of saying that the UFC is top dog now, but the talent base is growing too fast for them to hold every great fighter, and I believe eventually they'll form some relationship with other promotions as a pure necessity. Combine that with the possibility of fighters pooling their influence in either a union or some facsimile thereof, and you see an increasingly hash landscape for the UFC's "go it alone" stance that has served them so well. I'm not casting judgment on how they've done business by any stretch, that's their own knot to unravel. But I see the landscape getting a lot more labyrinthine, and the fighters getting more savvy. 2008 will be the year when we see a significant bloc of fighters wresting some serious control away from the promotions. I'd guess Couture and Lindland will be at the tip of this.

Friday, January 4, 2008

Damn


Sam Caplan has an article up about fighters who may breakout in the upcoming year (I'm guessing he didn't mean actually break out of jail, like Krazy Horse or something was going to hide in a laundry bag), and suggested I look up Ed "9mm" Ratcliff, a fighter I was aware of (he fights out of San Diego). I did...WOW. Keep an eye out for this guy. Let the vid load and pull it forward to about the 6 minute mark if you want to see something keen. Otherwise watch the whole thing, it's a good fight. Bret Cooper's a tough, tough dude, too.
Other stuff to watch out for in 2008: Jake Shields may take over America, and force a showdown something like Fedor-Randy and Liddell-Silva with GSP in the coming years. Shields is the real deal, and would give about any welterweight fits right now. Brian Bowles in the WEC is going to get a couple more quality wins and maybe a title shot. Kieth Jardine will continue to win and lose to quality opponents. Randy and the UFC will not come back together, and Randy will be 46 before he fights again after a crazy-assed court battle. HDnetfights will eventually partner or merge or whatever with EliteXC and Showtime will start showing regular events from Cuban's arena. They'll get a major basic cable deal as well.
Melvin Guillard will destroy people in some small-time promotion, win 14 in a row in 9 months, then get choked out by a mid-level BJJ player in the first minute of his return to the UFC. Dana White will not learn. Cung Le will hurt Frank Shamrock, then get taken down and bloodied for most of the rest of the fight. at the start of a round he'll knock out Frank with a crazy-assed roundhouse kick and Jean Claude Van Damme's reanimated corpse (he's been dead for five years) will be all like "Motherfucker!"
Maybe not the last one. Well, not the Van Damme part.

why babalu, why?

stuff like this is why I hate that Babalu had to make a punk move against a second tier fighter. It pisses me off that he had to pull such a bullshit act when we could have seen some great jui-jitsu matchups in the LHWs.
God damn it Sobral.

Wednesday, January 2, 2008

ow


fightlinker put up an animated GIF of Ryan Schultz caving in Chris Horodecki's face at the IFL event last weekend.
That's not a KO, that's fucking reckless endangerment by the retarded ref. Good god I haven't watched someone get smashed like that since that chick got hit by that Volvo over on El Norte Parkway...errf
btw. click the link to see the GIF, i'm too busy to figure out why its not playing right now.

gomi gomi gomi

I ask, it appears.

new year

MMA exploded like mad this year, yielding such shining gems as this blog. OK, other stuff too. We saw PRIDE die, UFC expand, and M-1, HDnet Fights, and EliteXC come firing in. We saw some big hits and some big misses. UFC missed Fedor. Gonzaga hit Cro Cop's head with his foot. Rampage threw one lucky punch and changed UFC's outlook completely.
I dunno, I wanted to write up a long post about the year in review or whatever, but it's kind of lame. 2007 was more of a pain in the ass than anything else. Couture running away, Fedor giving us a total of two fights (wins over Matt Lindland and Hong Man Choi by armbar both times), the WW UFC belt sitting on the shelf waiting for TUF 6 to finish, then Matt Serra getting hurt...fuck, what about Matt Hughes getting a shot at the "interim" belt for what, beating Chris Lytle? He was rightly dominated by the better fighter.
Unfortunately 2008 already has a blight on it, with the light heavyweight UFC belt slated to be on hold til the middle of the year at the earliest due to Rampage and Forrest Griffin coaching TUF 7. What a crock. What about other great LHW fighters? they get to sit. Although I kind of hate myself for saying it, Lyoto Machida deserves a shot ahead of Forrest Griffin. Forrest has two wins after a loss, while Machida has zero losses, ever. His dismantling of Sokodjou at 79 just adds to the injustice of this guy having to probably fight twice more to get a chance at the belt. Kenny Florian is rumored to be fighting Roger Huerta in a bout that leaves Kenflo with everything to lose and little to gain. Although his win over Din Thomas wasn't exactly dominating, he deserves a lightweight shot.
I didn't see it, but the Yarrenoka one-off show seems to have gone over well, tho Fedor-Hong Man Choi seems to be little more than a freakshow gambit. I'd rather watch Fedor-Monson, to be honest. The Strikeforce 4 man tournament was kickass, tho too short. I'm looking forward to Cung Le getting torn to shreds by Frank Shamrock. Speaking of Frank, his ridiculous bout with Renzo Gracie was overshadowed by a dominating win over Phil Baroni, for some reason. While he was awesome in destroying Baroni, the bizarre fuckup against Gracie was too awful to just fade away.
Nick Diaz had a hell of a year...opening the year with an absolute war with Gomi, that lead to a win via gogoplata and an overturning for high pot levels for whatever reason, then not being allowed to corner his brother because of his bongfondness, then an uninspired (tho correct) decision win over Mike Aina in EliteXC, and finally a cut loss to KJ Noons in November. I'd imagine that his pot dealer is fucking working overtime delivering keys. Hopefully Diaz figured out a thing or two after his classless display losing to Noons, who beat his ass.
Speaking of Gomi, he's been on the pine since February. I have no idea what his plans are. Josh Barnett hasn't fought since 2006. Yamamoto just got back on the horse with a win at Yarrenoka! (also a september win at K-1 hero's)
Overall I hope 2008 will be better, but it looks like the money guys are moving on MMA, and the fighters are too independent to be intimidated into doing what they're told. So we most likely will have a year of labor strife, with fighters sitting instead of fighting for less than what they feel they're worth. The end result? Fans miss the best fighters fighting the best opponents. eg, Tim Sylvia vs. Big Nog for the the UFC HW title, instead of Couture vs. Fedor or the like. I hope I'm wrong. I'd like to see the best fights this year, but the fractured MMA organizational landscape has been very poor at delivering. There's a lot of other crap I'd like to blab about but I'm tired, and work looms. Prost!

 
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