The MMA thread (mk1)

[aerius]

Damnit! Wandy out with a bad knee and broken ribs. I was so looking forward to Wandy putting another asian guy into a coma.
Leben volunteered to step in as a replacement but Sexyama is now saying he might pull out of the fight.

Strikeforce coming up this weekend, Scott Smith vs. Cung Le promises to be pretty fun but the rest are not that interesting to me. Fedor and Cyborg will get pretty one-sided wins and Josh Thomson should have a pretty easy time too.

[weemadando]

I love leg locks, but seriously, fuck every one of these crazy monkey rolling motherfuckers. There is way too much mata-leon with foot (as Mario would put it) going on.



On actual MMA topics.

This Strikeforce card is bananas. But the rumours are back (prompted by a Fedor interview) that the UFC talks are back on and actually getting somewhere this time.

And Leben v Sexyama is signed. But the most exciting fight on that card remains Pellegrino v Sotiropoulos. Because that has the potential to be an amazing grappling fight of the night.

[Koolaidkirby]

fedor just had his first real loss

got caught.

[aerius]

Can't wait to hear the Dana White gloating & ranting that's sure to come.
He'll probably break his record for use of the word "fuck".

[Edward Yee]

Actually his reaction: ": D"

On the other hand, FEDOR TAPPED~

Hearing that Finney's corner was at fault for not throwing in the towel, though Cyborg made it worse by not going hard with GNP early enough -- conservative, yes, but it gave time for Finney to "recover"...

[weemadando]

Ahahahahahahhahahah!

I can't wait to see this fight. I had gotten spoiled by the simple explosion of outrage from Fedor fanboys.

Dana's reaction is pure gold. I guess that Fedor's management will definitely not want him near any real competition now...


And now I've seen the fight (I bet you Zuffa won't be helping Strikeforce be all FUCK YOU INTERNET on this one)


That was some stupid shit from Fedor. Seriously. Diving into Werdum's guard? Balls of steel, brain of custard.


Also, on a random note - here's why you don't grab the cage. And it's not because it's a point deduction:

[aerius]

That was some stupid shit from Fedor. Seriously. Diving into Werdum's guard? Balls of steel, brain of custard.

Ya think? Seriously, so he wants to finish Werdum after dropping him, but he should've gone right into side control and beaten him up from there. Then when he got out of Werdum's guard for a few moments he went right back in instead of staying the hell out. Then again it was bound to happen eventually, people forget that Fedor's actually human like everyone else.

Also, Scott Smith gets tooled with body shots again, but this time he can't pull off the miracle punch from nowhere. Cung Le was getting hit and backed up for the first half of the 1st round, then Smith let off the pressure and that was the beginning of the end for him.

[weemadando]

IT'S THE FUCKING END TIMES!!!!!111!!shift+1!!!1!1

Fedor Emelianenko's reign atop the heavyweight division lasted 2660 days, and ended on the 26th day of the 6th month of a year ending in 0.

[Edward Yee]

... that is a funky coincidence. o_o (Btw, weemadando, PM'd about the 1815 vs. 2006 story but the system doesn't seem to be letting my PMs out of the Outbox to you.)

Anything on Cyborg vs. Finney?

[TheFeniX]

Anything on Cyborg vs. Finney?

On the fight itself? It was a pretty one-sided beating by Cyborg. Cuddles connected a few times with flush shots, but Cyborg shook them off and kept pounding Finney on the feet and the ground. Cyborg was able to get away with a lot of sloppy striking though.

People have been bitching about Winslow letting the fight go on, but that's pretty much bullshit. Finney was outclassed and outgunned but she was moving and defending. Once Cuddles finally just turtled up in the second, the fight was called shortly after.

All said, I thought the point deduction was a good call. You shouldn't be able to drop big hammerfists like that straight to the back of the head and get by with a warning. It wasn't like Finney was turning her head or anything, Cyborg was just being lazy in her swinging.

Cuddles is tough as nails though and it sucks good female fighters have their records trashed by constantly having to jump weight classes. Put Finney against Yager, she could take him.

[aerius]

Shogun out till next March. That goddamn LWH belt is cursed.


Also, Bas Rutten goodness from way back when

[Edward Yee]

To import a Bloody Elbow tradition:

BROCKLESNARRRRRR!!!!!!!

[weemadando]

Well holy shit.

That card was far better than I was expecting.

BROCKLESNAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAR! The triangle armbar was nice (but not worthy of sub of the night), but surviving the brutality of round one was astonishing. Carwin needs to get cardio and his adrenaline dumping under control, but he'll be back in contention soon.

Leben neck cranks Akiyama into submission with seconds left. Akiyama impressed me with his chin, but cardio is the word of the day.

Lytle pulls off a submission that was deserving of submission of hte night - but depending on whether he intentionally went for the pure evil of the arm snap v actually just applying pressure the decision could've been justified.

Stephen Bonnar has another great back and forth slug fest and actually wins it. That was fun to watch and fuck all the haters who said it's a rematch that no one cared about.

Sotiropoulos has got to get into the title mix now. He'll probably get thrown up against a power wrestler of some sort (Maynard or Griffin) as that's the one that he hasn't really faced.

Gerald Harris slammed the FUCK out of that Renzo Gracie black-belt. That was KO of the night without question.

Seth Petruzelli's axe-handles were awesome, but that was about all.

And Kendall Grove didn't get knocked out. That's the extent of my knowledge of the card.

I'll read all my MMA news and see if there's anything else notable that's come out of this.

Except of course for

BRRRRRRRRRRROOOOOOOOOOOOOOOCK SMAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAASH!

[weemadando]

Further proof that Zuffa are the only guys in the actual MMA business:

Strikeforce is throwing a hissy fit and have refused to talk to Jake Shields or his management at all during his contract renegotiation period. After they completely whitewashed him in the advertising campaign for Nashville, he would have been pissed. When they atrociously mishandled the aftermath of that event due to their ineptitude and inability to maintain control of the cage entrance (and there's still no contact between CBS and Strikeforce for future events apparently) that only made things worse. And now refusing to even talk to him? Yeah, you're really showing your professional colours guys.

DREAM are insisting that Alistair Overeem v Rico Rodriguez is still on for DREAM 15. Despite the fact that Overeem has come out and categorically stated that not only is this fight not happening, but that FEG didn't even talk to him about it, it just got announced without any contact. Combine this with the various Strikeforce and M-1 debacles and some intriguing quotes from Overeem and it looks like he might be angling for a UFC contract.

M-1 Global. Oh where to begin? With the fact that they're haemorrhaging money right now (estimated to be 25 million US since Fedor lost)? That they're madly "restructuring" (read closing shop in various countries) to try and stop the plummet? Or that they still believe that they can have everyone by hte balls in negotiations... Hearing Scott Coker talk about them on the Sherdog Radio Network was... enlightening. And of course, we know what Dana says about them...

[Edward Yee]

Hearing Scott Coker talk about them on the Sherdog Radio Network was... enlightening.

? I haven't heard this one, but according to BJPenn.com (GO TO BJPENN.COM) quoting Jake Shields, Strikeforce actually outright released him instead of bothering to make any offer to keep him... though, one of his complaints was that Strikeforce initially didn't give him any tickets for Fedor vs. Werdum, and that when Scott Coker did get him tickets, they were for the nosebleed section (a Showtime guy got him into front row)... while less substantial, he took it as a sign that Strikeforce wouldn't forgive him for beating Dan Henderson. Reminds me of Dana White looking glum at Carwin smashing Mir while Brock Lesnar was LOLing next to him.

Finally, besides the expectable "Strikeforce is #2, UFC is #1, so that's where I've got to be," this quote interested me because it... oh GODDAMMIT STRIKEFORCE YOU'RE TNA!!

I just don’t see Strikeforce putting the marketing strength behind [Nick Diaz] as they didn’t for me. I feel like they (Strikeforce) want to go after the places that have already been built like Shamrock or Cung Le. They don’t seem really interested in building top young fighters in their prime. They had a great batch of young fighters like me, Nick, Gil and King Mo but they weren’t interested in great young fighters and instead all the push went to “has beens” like Shamrock and Cung Le. It seemed like they wanted to push people who were no where near their prime.”

Go to BJPenn.com!!

Loved this look at technique/skill in Lesnar vs. Carwin, btw.

Go to BJPenn.com!!

[weemadando]

Hearing Scott Coker talk about them on the Sherdog Radio Network was... enlightening.

? I haven't heard this one,

It's heavily implied that he's looking forward to telling M-1 to go fuck themselves come the next round of contract negotiations for Fedor. This can also serve to help STrikforce as long as they can pull themselves away from the TNA (we're a retirement village for classics that ignores our awesome young talent) factor, as Strikeforce is currently labelled as "M-1 Affliction whatever" in non-English speaking broadcast zones.

[aerius]

Loved this look at technique/skill in Lesnar vs. Carwin, btw.

Yup. What people keep forgetting is that Brock isn't just some meathead freak of nature, the guy actually has a brain and uses it. He has technique and he learns. After losing to Mir the 1st time he took a much more patient approach and beat the shit out of Herring for 3 rounds, then he opened it up a bit and Donkey Kong'd Couture to death. Then he rematches with Mir and completely neutralized his jujitsu with his wrestling, then beat him to a pulp. As long as people keep discrediting Brock's skills and ability to learn, they'll keep getting Brock Smashed. He's a fucking freak athlete and he's learning & improving, that is fucking scary shit for anyone in the HW division.

[Edward Yee]

Then he rematches with Mir and completely neutralized his jujitsu with his wrestling,

Funny, I've seen a BJJ instructional video on how Brock was able to navigate and defeat Mir's half-guard to secure that "one-armed full nelson," apparently implying that it could be replicated within the context of jiu-jitsu as well. 'Course, Helio is probably LOLing in the afterlife over the result of the two biggest (in terms of impact) shows of this year's main events coming by way of submission taught in BJJ.

[weemadando]

Yeah, I've been thinking a lot about the Heavyweight division in the UFC lately trying to figure out just what the deal is going to be with it.

People keep talking like Cain Velasquez is going to stand up to Brock easily and destroy him. He presents a dangerous wrestling threat and has decent hands - but let's not forget that he got fucking folded up about a half dozen times in his match with Cheick Kongo and the only reason that wasn't finished was because Kongo didn't have the wrestling chops to hold him down for GnP. Sure he knocked out Nog, but it would seem that doing that isn't exactly a rare talent nowadays. Plus - let's look at the fact that Brock just survived a horrendous blitzkrieg assault from Shane Carwin, a man who I'm pretty confident would still murder just about anyone else in Heavyweight, and managed to maintain his composure throughout, I'd say we can safely assume that Brock's jaw can be used as tank armour if needed. In the wrestling stakes we've seen Velasquez have a real mixed bag - he'll often take guys down but then immediately lose control on the ground. Name the last person who stood up when Lesnar took them down... It's an exciting fight because there are the elements there for a great competition. I just think people are being a little one-eyed about it, mainly because they hate Brock.

JDS v Big Country being a number one contender fight intrigues me. JDS may present an interesting diversion and Big Country would be a showcase fight for Brock to demonstrate whether his BJJ chops are as ever-improving as they seem.

Really though, what intrigues me is the idea that Fedor and Overeem may both be coming to the UFC (dreams are nice). If that was the case, here are a few matches that I think you have to make to sort out the heavyweight division:

Brock v Cain (as it's already booked, this is a given).

Fedor v Big Country - this fight sounds insane on the surface, but think about it for a moment. Roy has been showing some good stand-up of late and more than that, he has a really good ground game. Fedor's stand-up isn't clean or technical, he just throws hand-demolishing haymaker counters that send people back to the womb, and on the ground, well - we've seen what happened there. This is a fight where Fedor either shows that he's still got it in a big way or Roy Nelson gets a major boost in his stock.

Overeem v Junior Dos Santos - Two guys with decent standup and crazy power and solid ground games. Again, it's a nice intro to the UFC for Overeem if he wins it, or a big boost for JDS.

Shane Carwin v Cro-Cop - Cro-Cop showed that he can hang with the young'uns against Pat Barry and who doesn't want to see high-kick v right hook?

[aerius]

Randy Couture's the only one who managed to get back up after Brock got him down, then he ate a 4XL glove to the face in the next round and that was the end of that.

I'm also not sold on the Cain hype, yeah he beat the crap out of Ben Rothwell but he didn't have the power to knock him clean out the way Arlovski did and he couldn't keep Ben down the whole time. How the hell is he going to keep Brock down considering that Brock is bigger, stronger, faster, and a hell of a lot more explosive. Not gonna happen. It's possible that Cain could pull a Frankie Edgar and just outpoint him for 5 rounds but I don't think that's too likely, if Brock gets him down and it's pretty much guaranteed to happen at some point, he's going to be in for one hell of a beating. If Carwin couldn't take out Brock with his punches there's no way Cain's gonna do it, the only thing that might KO Brock is a CroCop head kick. People are fucking stupid if they think Cain's gonna pull off a knockout, he's never demonstrated that kind of power.

I think Overeem would kill Dos Santos, JDS is mostly a puncher while Overeem has the full package of knees & kicks to go along with his fists. This is the guy who was beating Shogun in the standup at 205, unless JDS can put him on his back like Shogun did he's going to get beaten hard.

[weemadando]

I haven't really bought into the JDS hype. I think that Roy will handle him without many problems. Feeding JDS to Overeem is more compelling than feeding Carwin to Overeem as Overeem just beat Brett Rogers and Carwin is really just a white Brett Rogers.

[weemadando]

Thank you Cage Potato and urdirt (the guy who did the shop).

[Edward Yee]

Plausible speculation here that Fedor's actually stagnated and not kept up with BJJ's advances since "beating BJJ" in the Nogueira trilogy... though, yeah, the cage stopped his escape attempt versus Werdum.

Gegard Mousasi versus a 21 lbs overweight Jake O'Brien... how about that.

Faber vs. Mizugaki off due to Faber being injured in training, boo.

Oh, and according to Dana White, because of Zuffa buying PRIDE, the UFC is contractually obligated to give Mark Hunt fights.

Oh, and Chael Sonnen's off to the deep end again.

[Edward Yee]

Souza vs. Kennedy... awesome for the latter, but still no MW tournament, thanks to Texas' "athletic commission" banning elimination tournaments... oh, and neither Le nor Hendo wanted in. *facepalm*

On the other hand, have an interview with Zhang Tie Quan, China's first BJJ purple belt and MMA champ.

[Edward Yee]

*facepalms at reading (thank you Dave Meltzer) that UFC 119 would have been headlined by Machida vs. Rampage until Rampage decided that Machida was, ah, too boring...*