Interesting MMAWeekly.com article

MMAWeekly.com has an interesting article on the myths surrounding MMA up. Rami Genauer says he's going to take on the myths surrounding MMA one at a time, and discuss whether they're real, imagined, or even relevant. First up is the idea that the cage is safer than the ropes. What do y'all think?
Personally, I like the cage. I call it a cage, not an octagon, which is hard to say and remember to say. A cage is a cage. Rami makes a good point about the negative aspects of the term "cage" in people's minds, but there's other things that the cage is connected to mentally that are either neutral or positive (though I'm having trouble making a positive connection), stuff like bird cages, toll cages, etc. Positive: batting cage. Hm. Just thinking out loud.
I alos like the fact that you almost never need a restart in the cage. In Pride, with the long first round, the restart isn't a huge deal, but I still hate the idea of pausing the action. I think the ref should count to three on the ground, and if one fighter isn't improving position or delivering blows, then they stand up. Action is what gets the sport where it's going.
I'd love to hear other opinions, though.

Total Combat Xtreme Fight Card

I got an email from Total Combat with the fight card for their upcoming event here in San Diego. Sherdog.com is the greatest.

Total Combat April 13th @ The 4th & B
Fight Card

1. Richard Dalton VS Ray "The Big Easy" Seraille – Heavyweight

2. Frank Salgado VS Virgil "Corn" Zwicker – 210lbs

3. Diego Cardijo VS Eric Urek – 155lbs

4. Tony Velarde VS Josh Griggs – Heavyweight

5. Ryan Bixler VS Mike Granche – 155lbs

6. Paul Ingrassia VS Joey Beltran – Heavyweight

7. Joshua Williams VS Mario Rivera – 170lbs

8. Courtney Thomas VS Jose Martinez – Heavyweight

9. Tony Roberts VS Paulie Ascala – Heavyweight

Card Subject to Change

I did a quick look around sherdog.com's fight finder (awesome resource) and found a few of the fighters. I'll take a more in-depth look and see if I can contact some of the fighters and get some words to put up here. I'm going to try and get down to this one, since its so close to my house. Stay tuned!

This weekend

As I mentioned before, this weekend is crazy. Here's the "Upcoming Events" sidebar at Sherdog.com:

» 4/5/2007 - UFC: Fight Night 9
» 4/6/2007 - CITC 2: CHAOS IN THE CAGE 2
» 4/7/2007 - IFL: Moline
» 4/7/2007 - UFC 69: Shootout
» 4/7/2007 - American Bushido: 2007 Grand Prix Semifinals
» 4/7/2007 - Turf Wars III: Extreme Fury
» 4/7/2007 - Warriors Cup: Stockton (myspace page...)

There's an assload of MMA stuff on myspace, which is good, I suppose, for the fighters and promotions, but not so good for the users. There's not much worse interface, design, etc on the web than myspace, AND it's owned by the reprehensible NEWS Corp & Rupert "Repressive Regimes are my BBF!" Murdoch. Meh.
That list doesn't even mention the fact that you can get PRIDE 34 at midnight on PPV and that the Ultimate Fighter 5 starts after UFNL on Spike! I'm hyperventilating a bit waiting for this evening. Even though I'll miss mc chris...some sacrifices must be made. Here's Performify from UFCJunkie.com running down some of the fights at Fight Night Live tonight.

Rich Franklin has been reported as fighting Martin Kampmann (from Sherdog.com):

The next chapter in Rich Franklin's (Pictures) quest to regain the UFC middleweight crown will unfold on June 16 Sherdog.com has learned, when "Ace" faces Martin Kampmann (Pictures) in the main event of UFC's first foray into Ireland.
In his return to the Octagon after losing the belt to Anderson Silva, the 32-year-old Franklin easily stopped Jason MacDonald (Pictures) in early March. On that same card Kampmann, 24, endured Drew McFedries' power before winning by arm-triangle choke.
Having won each of his three UFC contests, the Dane (15-2-0) gets a chance to prove he belongs among the best at 185 when he steps in against Franklin (21-2-0, 1 NC; 8-1 in the UFC).
It's expected Zuffa will officially announce the fight during Thursday's UFC Fight Night telecast from Las Vegas on SpikeTV.
Also, a fight between Forrest Griffin (Pictures) and Hector Ramirez (Pictures) is being discussed.

I'm looking forward to a rematch for Ace, personally. He's an impressive fighter, even if the UFC brass has a bit too big of a hard-on for him. I liked how he told the crowd to STFU when they started booing the amazing Spider Silva. Boo-birds always amazed me. Boo before, if you must, but after everything's been laid on the line, shut your porkhole. Anyone who steps up deserves at least respect.

I got lots more I want to talk about, so stay tuned!

Start!

This week seemed as good as any to start an MMA blog. With Ultimate Fight Night and TUF 5 on Thursday as well as UFC 69 Shootout and PRIDE 34 Kamikaze AND an IFL show...it boggles the mind. I'm going to try and post from very much a fan's point of view, with none of the snotty "I could roll with Minotauro" BS you see in some other blogs.
Hang in there, check back, and thanks for coming by.