Wednesday, October 29, 2008

tonight's TUF sucked ten assholes

What a piece of shit episode. Big Nog acted like an oversensitive schoolgirl with a vagina full of sand, the fight was stupid and the fighters unlikeable and/or retarded, and no fewer than two fighters baked fucking cakes. Cakes.

You know, it is as sad as can be that the only saving grace of a show is a drunken, idiotic, inbred hillbilly who should have been kicked off the show immediately. In the context of that show, that is the saddest thing ever.

Candid Scott Smith Talk

Scott Smith talks to MMAMania.com about the demise of EliteXC, and his experiences with the company. A few choice quotes:

“When I saw Kimbo lose (to Seth Petruzelli) I thought oh this isn’t good for EliteXC, they’ve got all their eggs in one basket. Then when I saw the controversy I knew it was just a matter of time at that point. We were kind of hoping for the November card just to get one last payday but everybody knew it was inevitable, it was just a matter of when.”

“I’ve been in camp for over eight weeks and I’ve been pushing myself hard. It’s one thing if [it happens] two months out from a fight, but two weeks? It’s devastating. Even if I lost, worst case scenario, (including sponsorship money) I would still be out close to $40,000."

“Jeremy Lappen actually called me last night. He was very professional, very nice. He apologized for having to cancel the card and I kind of felt bad for the guy, that’s a tough phone call to make. (Lappen) said they even offered for upper management not to get a paycheck for this fight to try to make (the November card) happen. I consider Jeremy a friend and I really appreciated that phone call, it was very professional of him.”
And my favorite:
“The hard thing is I just don’t know what’s going to happen. All I can do is keep training. And if I’ve ever said anything bad about Strikeforce or the UFC or Affliction, I take it all back. I love all those guys!”

Tuesday, October 28, 2008

FGP Ranks Tiny Fists of Fury: Featherweights


Unlike LHW's, the featherweight division is stocked with many non-US fighters. Some of the best are in the WEC, including a man who shows up on many pound-for-pound lists, Urijah Faber. The UFC has no featherweight division because Dana White is terrified of leprechauns, and he thinks Urijah Faber will get him in his sleep. You know what? I bet he will, too. I count Kid Yamamoto because :

  1. Urijah "The California Kid" Faber

  2. Akitoshi "Ironman" Tamura

  3. Hatsu Hioki

  4. Wagnney Fabiano

  5. Rafael Assuncao

  6. Masakazu "Ashikan Judan" Imanari

  7. Norifumi "Kid" Yamamoto

  8. Takeshi "Lion" Inoue

  9. Hideki Kadowaki

  10. Wilson Reis

  11. Jeff "Big Frog" Curran

  12. Jens "Lil Evil" Pulver

  13. Rumina "Moon Wolf" Sato

  14. Antonio "Pato" Carvalho

  15. Bao Quach

  16. Mike Brown

  17. Rani Yahya


Since the lighter weight classes can see a lot of turnover, some of these guys don't necessarily have a ton of fights at exactly 145lbs, and if you think one of my picks sucks, tell me so! If I agree, I'll change it. Let's talk it over.
Bao Quach is interesting, he's on a nine fight winning streak, but he's been beaten pretty regularly when he steps up to the highest levels of competition at 145. With ProElite out of action, will we see a new fighter stepping up, or will...I'm sorry for this...the Bao break? TEEHEE!

Monday, October 27, 2008

The Spider: No disrespect

Anderson Silva says he wasn't disrespecting Patrick Cote by clowning around, offering to help him up, and backing up whenever he had him hurt.

Okay.

Also, he says he's heading to Thailand to "sharpen" his Muay Thai. Everyone in the world, surrender. Now he'll be able to kick bullets out of mid-fucking-air.

Rankings? Fuck yes, rankings!


Well, since I have some time on my hands before they foreclose on me or whatever they do when your mortgage is 100k more than your house is worth, I decided to do my own rankings. I'll take into account any commenters' rankings as well. If I like them, I'll change mine. If it's any fun, I'll do it again. For now let's talk light heavyweights.
UFC's light heavyweight division is just as turbulent as most of the rest of the weight classes outside middles. However, with their absorption of the WEC's LHW division, they are pretty much the only game in town, nowadays.

  1. Forrest Griffin

  2. Lyoto Machida

  3. Quinton Jackson

  4. Rashad Evans

  5. Wanderlei Silva

  6. Chuck Liddell

  7. Vladimir Matyushenko

  8. Antonio Rogerio Nogueira

  9. Mauricio Rua

  10. Keith Jardine

  11. Luis Arthur Cane

  12. Thiago Silva

  13. Dan Henderson

  14. Renato Sobral

  15. Tito Ortiz

  16. Rich Franklin

  17. Stephan Bonnar

  18. Ricardo Arona

  19. Steve Cantwell

  20. Goran Reljic


The vast majority of LHW's are in the UFC...a couple exceptions are Lil' Nog, The Janitor Matyushenko, Tito Ortiz and Babalu Sobral. While those are some quality fighters, the UFC has more than enough men under contract to be far and away the number one promotion for the division. The title picture is a bit murky as well, with some of what would have been considered elite fighters suffering losses, such as Shogun Rua's loss to current UFC Chanp Forrest Griffin, and Judo Thierry's losses to Machida and Cane (sandwiching a convincing victory over Kaz Nakamura, who needs to jog).
Forrest Griffin has a defense against Rashad Evans coming up due to his upset of Rampage and Evan's upset of Chuck Liddell. I figure on Forrest keeping his title in a hard-fought decision, and matching up, I hope, against a very deserving Lyoto Machida.

Image property Sherdog.com, used without permission.

Alves gets a shot?

I guess Dana White feels like since Thiago Alves got past Karo, Hughes and Kos he deserves a shot at the winner of BJ Penn-GSP. While I can't deny the kid's skills or results...I think he'll be killed.
Thiago actually is on a seven-fight win streak, and is 9-2 overall in the UFC. His level of competition has been relatively high as well, with his only losses coming to Spencer Fisher and Jon Fitch in the Octagon (will it be renamed the Cocktagon if Brock Lesnar wins a belt?). But really...GSP and BJ Penn are on different planes than everyone else. Either guy is going to school Alves. I'd put money on it if, as a California homeowner, I wasn't completely out of money. Thank dog blogger is free!

One problem with MMA contraction

I was just watching Denis Kang KO Marvin "The Beastman" Eastman (thanks Cage Potato) and it occurred to me: contracting MMA promotions, with some failing like EliteXC, IFL, etc, and the UFC being possibly more frugal in paying and holding fighters, will mean that more and more cards will be held dark, with either no video at all or just handheld viral-type videos available. That, to me, is sad. There are definitely more great fighters out there than the UFC can pay...and even at the height of MMA's expansion, with bododfight airing cards, and HDNet and so on and so forth, we STILL missed great fights.
I guess we'll wait and see. It seems like EliteXC's death is pretty sad in yet another way, even if Jared Shaw and Tappen were douchenozzles.

UFC 90...give him a hand


What, Anderson? You can help a guy up when you knock him down, but not when his knee blows out?
My brother and some friends met up to watch UFC 90 at a bar here in town. It was relatively full of mostly people watching the show. Woodies is an OK venue, even though the TVs in typical bar fashion are a little high up, so you have to get a sore neck or sit really far away. Also, the bar staff was hot, and the bar patrons were horrible, horrible sacks of the fried food they served.
I'm pretty bummed out that since Anderson Silva is claiming he's retiring at the end of his current contract, (every 185 pound fighter in the world suppresses a joyous leap and giggle combo at that news) this bout with Cote was one of the final six. You get the feeling you're witnessing something special with Silva...it blows that there's no special opponents, at least not right now, to challenge him. It's like the Bulls after the Lakers fell apart at the beginning of the '90's.
Is Fabricio Werdum more like GSP, Cro Cop, or Jens Pulver? I'm going with Cro Cop, as they were trying to keep him a legit title contender for next year after their little tourney plays out. What a punch! Welcome to the UFC, Junior dos Santos. Thanks for fucking up my fantasy picks.
Initially I thought that the Maynard-Clementi fight was promoted from the undercard to the main card, but Eric at MMARatings said nah, it was added as a main card fight. Ok. Still, I wish we could have seen Spencer Fischer vs. Shannon Gugerty instead. "The King" has sure fallen into the middle of the lightweight pack. Some tough losses, to Franca and Edgar, have put the title shot he was so close to seemingly out of reach. Will he get his shot before time erodes his skills? I hope so! I'm a huge Fischer fan.
Drew McFedries is an exciting fighter to watch, but is he UFC-level talent? He's like a huge Melvin Guillard, minus the idiocy of course. He can hit hard enough to knock out a moose, but his grappling is suspect. Of course, Leites isn't an average grappler. Here's an idea: Get Houston Alexander to drop down, or Drew to go up, and match those two. Slugfests are fun!
Speaking of which, I thought the Sherk fight was judged right on. My friend thought Tyson Griffin won, which made me question his sobriety.




Pic property o' the National Post.

I thought Thiago Alves did a great job, and he made weight, which erases some concerns I'd had. It still blows me away that that guy makes 170lbs. He's fucking enormous. Josh Koscheck, I hate to say it, impressed me with his toughness and his heavy hands. The leg kicks Alves deployed may have taken down a weaker man. As much as I think Kos is an assclown, he is one tough fuckin' assclown. Congratulations to Alves for a good fight against a very game opponent.
Hermes Franca picked up a unanimous decision in a bad blood fight against Marcus Aurelio.
Overall, I'd give it a 3 out of 5 stars. Go rate it yourself over at MMARatings.net, I write some articles there (my last one was "Does Werdum Deserve a Title Shot Yet?" Hah, no, no he doesn't).
Also, I added my friend Esther Lin's photography site to the links at the left. If you need someone to give a huge bag of money to in exchange for the best fight photos you can get, call her up. She is willing to have blood sprayed on her head to get the shot. Are you that dedicated? I didn't fuckin' think so.

Thursday, October 23, 2008

Brock Lesnar: Huge Fucking Retard

Huge in many ways, stature and relative retardedness being the most obvious. But this is new: He doesn't want Mazzagatti to be considered to ref his next fight.
Let's forget the fact that he's a freakshow pro wrestling idiot with a huge cock tattooed on his chest. He's got three professional fights. He doesn't dictate to the governing bodies who they set to ref his fights. They dictate. He fights at the pleasure of the people, not by some royal edict.
Well, let me just say this now: I believe Randy Couture is going to find a way to take Brock Lesnar, fold him into a wet, messy ball, and elbow him to oblivion, sending him to 2-2 in MMA competition and the undercards where he belongs, with the other freakshow heavies.

oh boy

i know there's plenty of good reasons that Elite XC went out of business. But man...they're replaying the Cung Le - Frank Shamrock fight tonight, and that was just a really good card. Probably because it was Showtime, but whatever. it was fucking good. Mainly from the pure crowd energy...there's few things, even on TV, that get you jacked up like a big arena full of people. That's why some of the UFN/TUF/WEC events kind of leave me saying...meh. The main event fights in EXC reminded me of being at the Chargers' home playoff win in 1994, 30 rows from the field. Just sound, bearing down on you.
When Chuck Liddell walked in with his LHW belt it felt like that. The last time I saw that in the UFC, where I was really jacked up, was Tim Sylvia vs. Randy Couture.
I guess I'm an adrenaline junkie, still. But since I'm a fat fuck, too, I'm an adrenaline junkie who gets his thrills from the couch.

That's just fucking sad!


PS: I just wanted to add that yes, I realize that possibly the best card EliteXC put on was a Strikeforce card. But fuckin' A, their name was on the ring supports, and that Cung Le-Frank Shamrock fight was just awesome.

Last night's TUF

All righty then...after a few weeks of bullshit, Junie Browning got in the ring against Roli Delgado. the fucked-up hillbilly talked shit the entire time (at least the time they showed it to us) and swore he'd KO Delgado in the first round. Not only did he NOT KO Delgado in the first round, he didn't KO him at all, despite what looked like some good shots, and at one point seeming to drop him. As a matter of fact, Junie was a little beat-up looking by the end of the fight. He edged a split-decision victory...hardly the dominant performance claimed. Roli's fight wasn't exactly inspiring, despite a great show of heart. His strength is jits, and he seems to have zero ability to get the fight down to the mat. He needs to find a way to bring his opponent down if he's going to actually fight MMA.
As for Browning's performance, it seems that:
1) He doesn't hit hard
2) Delgado has an iron chin
3) I don't have a three.
Delgado's strikes were pitty-pat crap. Junie's handspeed was pretty awful...he'd be eaten alive by someone with faster hands. Can you imagine Junie fighting Melvin "I suck at MMA" Guillard? That would be a slaughter! I'm annoyed that Browning is continuing...he looked pretty gassed, and had Delgado had any clinch game and been able to either throw elbows or greco the guy down it would have been over. Browning...I cannot figure he'll win. Efraim Escudero already called him out for the second round.

 
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