shit!

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jake shields-drew fickett canceled because of a back injury to shields' shoulder. god damn it.
On the plus side, ryan jensen was signed to fight joey villasenor on short notice, after cyborg had to cancel. that's a badass replacement at the last second. ryan's got a win over travis fulton and one over curtis stout, but two straight losses to leites and meaiaiaiaia in the UFC. 11-3 overall.
i actually listened to "the low blow" on itunes today, fightlinker's podcast. Pretty good, i just hope they don't do it sober. i think at some point that jake and ryan will come out of the closet for each other tho.

this week in MMA

Good looking week coming up, especially since I don't have to pay extra to watch it.
On Wednesday, WEC puts their Light Heavyweight belt on the line setting up Doug "Rhino" Marshall vs. Brian "I fight for my fallen brothers" Stann. I'm not too comfortable making a solid call on that fight...Stann has some strong, fast hands, but Marshall is experienced at hanging onto his belt. If I was forced to pick, I'd go for Stann via TKO in the third or fourth round, but I'm not in love with the pick. Marshall can obviously end a fight with his hands as well.
Chael Sonnen fights Bryan Baker, a last minute replacement for Paulo Filho, who either had a nervous breakdown or a 'roid withdrawal-induced freakout, depending on what you listen to. Chael Sonnen could have some trouble here as he's spent weeks prepping for Filho who he nearly beat a couple months ago. I'll still take Sonnen, he's a big, strong middleweight from a great camp. Baker is a tough up and comer who really can't lose in this fight...if he puts up a good showing and loses, good job! He's young and exciting and should have a number of fights coming up if he continues to develop.
One guy I'm VERY excited to see is Ed 9mm Ratcliff. I don't know his opponent, so of course it could end up a mismatch/style clash one way or the other, but 9mm looks like the real deal.
There's some other fights "downcard" that could be interesting, but I'm not in love with WEC on Versus' ability to get the best fights onto the aired portion.

On Friday (3/29)(edit: I had the wrong day! Its NOT Saturday.) Strikeforce/EliteXC gives us Shamrock vs. Cung Le, battling for ownership of San Jose. It airs on Showtime. I don't think Cung Le can beat Frank Shamrock. But I didn't think Sokoudjou could beat lil' Nog or Arona. Or Patrick Cote could avoid being submitted by Kendall Grove, so that's why they fight the fights. Also on the card is Jake Shields who'll finally get to wear a championship belt after finding a way to beat a cagey Drew Fickett.
Nick Diaz's fight against "The Korean Icepick" Jae Suk Lim is probably the most important fight in Diaz's career so far. If Diaz loses, he's officially a gatekeeper. Even if he wins and looks lackluster, like he did against Aina, his stock drops precipitously. If he looks dominant and subs or KO's JSL, he's back in the hunt for a rematch with KJ Noons.
Gilbert Melendez is on the card against someone I don't know, I'm looking forward to seeing him fight.
Sorry my updates suck so much ass. I'm going to try to spend more time working the blog.

holy fickin shut

dayum.

UFC 82

Me and my brother hunkered down to watch a black screen with no picture on it ons Saturday night, considering emergency plans of going to my house or a bar or something while his wife called tech support. After about 45 minutes I looked at the channel, he'd bought the HD feed by accident. For some reason the fucking tech support person never asked what channel we'd bought (We can't see anything on channel 798! Oh, no wonder sir, that's the HD channel. Do you have HD?)
So we found the non-HD channel and came in in the middle of Fitch-Wilson. Kind of a dull fight, though Fitch is a tough character to eke out a win against a much better than expected fighter.
We also failed to DVR it correctly, so Chris ended up staying awake til 4AM watching it again.
The main event was okay at first then a bit disappointing, I was rooting for Hendo. I've been rooting for that guy for a long time. He's a class act, and he'll be back.
Anderson Silva vs. Yushin Okami...you don't have to be a genius to figure that out. Once he beats Yushin, is there anyone left for him to fight at 185? He could fight a series of out-matched TUF fighters with dangerous possibilities...but the risks really outweigh the rewards. Say he beats the tar out of Patrick Cote. Who gives a shit? But if Cote, while having his tar-removal duly processed, throws out some eyes-closed Lebenschtrike and catches the Spider flush, knocking him out colder than Dana White's heart? That would suck. So Yushin is the only guy left with the chops who can claim to fight Silva...he's even got a "win" over him, though the tape is owned by EliteXC I believe.
Decent card, all in all. I wish we hadn't tarded out quite so hard on the PPV purchasing.