Performify's picks at UFCJ

As usual Performify shows us his thinking on the upcoming UFC 74 card for Saturday. I'm jacked for this one, and I've pondered it long and hard. I came to a lot of the same conclusions as Performify, but there are a couple discrepancies. For one, he's got Marcus Aurelio beating Clay Guida in one of the undercard fights. I disagree with this pick, mainly based on the gas tank. Guida comes on at about 100 miles per hour and never stops. He fights like a Tasmanian devil and is exceptionally dynamic going from level to level, and will out-cardio Aurelio at the end, either by ground-and-pound or a choke brought on by strikes. Aurelio is a great fighter, but Guida has an unstoppable motor. I'd sure like to see this card instead of Kendall Grove vs. Patrick "The Submittee" Cote. Feh.
Performify also believes David Heath will be able to pull off the mild upset against Babalu Sobral. While I don't fault his reasoning, I think he's looking at Babalu wrong, believing he'll be tentative. He's right in saying that if Sobral loses, he's probably out of the UFC. I think this will make him even more ferocious. Lambert outfought Babalu pretty well in their matchup, but Sobral is a lion. He'll take some licks but I think he'll come through in the end and show his heart.
Perfomify has Grove by decision, while I think he'll submit Cote within two minutes. Maybe three. For a while, I thought maybe he'd submit him so fast that it would acutally warp time, and send us back before the fight, in which case I could make a lot of money remembering the undercard, but no, I think Grove's submission will come within the standard flow of linear space-time as we generally perceive it.
Sadly for UFCjunkie, most weeks we see at least one or two articles shilling bodog's sports book, and all of his articles analyzing fights come from a wagering perspective. I have nothing against wagering, believe me, but I'd like to see fight analysis from what I consider one of the top three MMA sites in the world that doesn't include a sportsbook line. His picks are generally well thought-out and interesting, but when, in the GSP-Koscheck fight, for instance, he bases his call on "a small play at this line", it kind of makes me go, "Eh". I personally don't see how Koscheck can beat GSP...I know I've overestimated GSP in the past (Hi, Matt!) but come on...Matt Hughes couldn't take down GSP. Is Koscheck that much better a wrestler than Hughes? We know for a fact that Kos has no striking compared to GSP, and the repeated takedown is his only offense. I see a KO or dominating decision win for GSP, and a rematch with a Matt of some variety.
Performify also sees Randy "The Natural" Couture as being unable to beat Gonzaga. I thought there was no way Randy could beat Tim Sylvia. I mean, he's got most of the same problems he had against Sylvia...size, age, striking, etc. And what did he do? Dominate Sylvia for 25 minutes, like a dog ripping at a bone. Gonzaga is impressive, I'll grant you. But no one is smarter than Randy, and no one comes in more determined. Of course Couture could lose, all fighters can lose. Ask GSP. But Randy won't. I have Randy winning by TKO in the fourth, covered in blood. One of these dudes is leaving on a stretcher. Either way, it should be a war, so keep your hats firmly on your head or they may fly off.
Ok, I don't know if anyone can tell but I'm pumped.

Tito Ortiz

I've been thinking about Tito Ortiz^Sherdog and his history a bit. I've never been a huge fan of his, mostly because of his incessant trash talk. If he couldn't talk shit he'd be silent. Still, thanks to UFC Unleashed on Spike, and my brother's almost encyclopedic knowledge of UFC fighters, I've come to appreciate just what the guy's done in his career, even in his losses. I've seen him get beat twice by Chuck Liddell, pretty much whupped both times. The second fight I still believe should have been stopped in the first round. I've seen him win as well. Twice over Ken Shamrock, in fights that were more hype than substance, but against Forrest Griffin he dominated. That fight was odd because of the constant nuthugging going on from the announcer's booth. Stephen Bonnar was about the biggest cheerleader I've ever heard. The sad part is that what I saw was Forrest Griffin getting dominated. He was beaten all three rounds. Even though all the judges gave at least one round to Griffin (what fight was the other judge, who scored it for Forrest watching?!), I didn't think he did much of anything at all in that second round. Some punches, sure, but why not punish the chicken legs? One judge gave round one to Ortiz 10-8! Sheesh. Anyways, numbers:
In a 21 fight professional career, Ortiz is 15-5-1. The fight against Rashad Evans at UFC 73 Stacked was his only draw, after losing a point for grabbing the cage. I thought he frankly dominated Rashad as well, even into the third, before turning passive from what I can only believe was fatigue.

Notable Wins:
Ken Shamrock three times
Guy Mezger
Wanderlei Silva
Yuki Kondo
Elvis Sinosic (back when that counted in '01)
Vladimir Matsyushenko
Evan Tanner
Vitor Belfort

Notable losses:
Chuck Liddell twice
Randy Couture
Frank Shamrock
Guy Mezger

That's a pretty damn good resume. He's fought the top tier his whole career. The first UFC he entered, according to his wikipedia page, was for no pay, and he won his first match before later falling to Guy Mezger for in their first fight. He's had controversy, yes, appearing in general to be a complete dick to opponents at every opportunity, especially in victory, with his "famous" insulting t-shirt sayings. But he's still gotten in the ring with the best, and taken beatings when they were coming to him. So Tito Ortiz is still in my top ten light heavyweight (205lb) fighters list, at #10, til someone shows me something impressive.

mystery solved

My general response to someone asking me anything is "GFE", meaning "Google f-in exists". SO I took my own advice (hard to do sometimes) and hit the two best friends an MMA fan has, Google and Youtube.
One thing that had been bugging me was the shifting results listed for Fedor Emilianenko's bout against Tsuyoshi Kohsaka at RINGS King of Kings in December 2000. Sherdog had it listed as a NC at first, then as a TKO loss. He has one other no contest, for an accidental cut against Minotauro Nogueira.
So I looked it up on google, then youtube. Here's the whole fight. Apparently he got cut in a previous fight, and from what I can se Kohsaka threw a punch and his elbow grazed Fedor's brow, reopening the cut. The ref stepped in and it was all over. Apparently elbow strikes were illegal in RINGS, but since Fedor could not go on, Kohsaka got the win.
The screwed up part is that had Fedor continued, and won the fight, he would have met up with Randy Couture. That's something people still want to see. Fedor-Randy seven years ago would have been about the height of greatness.
As an aside, here's Fedor beating Kohsaka five years later in Pride.

ah crap

I wrote a long post covering Mike Freeman's post of racist, idiot hatemail he's received (while conveniently ignoring the respectful, unhappy email he got from people like me). Then Safari took a dump on me and I lost the whole thing. I'm redoing in Firefox. Summary: Freeman is a moron who deserves no more attention.

Also, Sean Salmon has a post up at UFCJunkie.com. Good stuff.

Better head kick knockout this year?
Gonzaga?
Or Rashad?

Enter "MMA" in a Youtube search and you'll be entertained for HOURS.

I want Mike Freeman to fight one of these guys:

Chuck Liddell hit Babalu so damn hard Renato started fighting Big John McCarthy.

Randy Couture: "Captain America", or "The Natural". When you got two nicknames you MUST be good.

Takanori Gomi lost a fight, and the other guy had a completely broken face. And tested positive for like 500x the illegal amount of THC after the fight.