The MMA thread (mk1)

[TheFeniX]

As I said in the comments over on this link: "Goddamn you for making me hate Koscheck less."

If it was anyone else or if the original scene didn't play out like it did, I might buy it. Editing can only do some much. For all they've been playing up how annoying Leeroy is, there's so little footage of him making an ass out of himself, otherwise the editors have always loved an in-house heel for drama. Unlike, say Junie Browning or Chris Leben, there's likely not much Alex does to look like an idiot. Entire episodes could be cut of Junie making an ass of himself and proving he belongs far away from society.

Anyways, I started through my Bellator backlog Saturday. The fights themselves were pretty good (think I watched 30 and 31), but they're getting stuck with the same shitty judges everyone else is. Zoila Frausto, a striker, gets out-struck and backpedals the entire fight by a wrestler and wins a split decision. Maybe I need to check what landed, but she looked to be decidely losing the stand-up. It got so bad, I wondered why the wrestler was wearing the Muay-Ti style shorts. It took me till round 2 to realize she wasn't the wrestler.

Ward was fucking doomed from the start. It's not even worth commenting on when you're fighting what's basically a female Aoki. The rest of the fights were either brutally fast KOs or guy circling and pawing at each other for 3 (or even 5) rounds. There was one guy, and damned if I cant remember his name, that had an awesome jab combined with a few switch-kicks he used to setup combinations and takedowns. Crazy thought.....

[Edward Yee]

The worst part re: Junie Browning is he's aware of this, just see his "late 2009 World MMA Awards" commercial. (That same year also had "Randy Couture, divorce attorn-eeeeeeeeeeeeeey...") The footage for "Leeroy" Cacares makes it seem like he just got on the other fighters' nerves at a time after his win.

I had this strangely funny (to me) of Robert Drysdale and Roger Gracie ending up as assistant coaches on a future season only to start shit then decide to "take it to the mat"...

[weemadando]

Two great things to come out of this season of TUF so far:

1) KOS'd. Which I'm seeing turn up more and more. Spilled Bag of Fights claims it, so I'll show you their definition: For clarification, the definition of KOS’d is: “Any ‘prank’ that is either so lame that the victim of the prank doesn’t even notice the ‘prank’ or requires a disproportionate amount of energy to pull off, thus causing the person pulling the prank to be more inconvenienced than the intended victim.”

2) This YouTube video:

[Edward Yee]

I actually completely missed the rise of "KOS'd." o_O

Incidentally, for some reason I'd really, really like to see Roger (it's Roger, not "Hodger") Gracie on a future TUF season.

[weemadando]

Andre Galvao was auditioning last weekend for the next season. That intrigues me somewhat as I feel he'd have a field day with some of the people who end up in the house.

[Edward Yee]

Andre Galvao was auditioning last weekend for the next season. That intrigues me somewhat as I feel he'd have a field day with some of the people who end up in the house.

Based on what you've heard about the other applicants? It's interesting to hear Galvao of all people auditioning*, but I'm somewhat more intrigued by Karl Amoussou's auditioning since he's M-1/DREAM/Strikeforce-affiliated.

* I'd rather see Roger (I misspoke, it is "Hodger") as a coach, personally, for him to get mad at a fighter, go on his back, spread his legs and go "don't be scared homie." Speaking of him, here (press CC for English subtitles) he is teaching that cross choke (using the gi) from mount.

[weemadando]

Mang, I can't land a cross-choke or any other lapel choke for shit. I think I got someone with one once and that was more of a garotte with the hem of their gi than any real choke. Then again, if I see a chance at the Pan-Pacs (a fortnight away!) I will be belt-choking the shit out of someone.

[Edward Yee]

It's rare as hell to see any instruction footage by Roger, apparently because he feels that he just uses the same basics everyone else learns -- then again, if Ricardo "Demente" Abreu wasnt'd saved by the bell (but losing 13-2), Roger would have had two consecutive years of choking out every opponent at the Worlds.

[weemadando]

Our black belt frequently says that the difference between white and black isn't how much you know but how well you can do the basics.

[Edward Yee]

The version I'd had had blue belt instead of white belt, but I understand and can agree with that. Apparently that's Roger's reason for not releasing any instructional DVDs.

[weemadando]

Watch a lot of black belt fights and you'll hardly ever see any truly flashy technique, it's two guys absolutely nailing the kind of sweeps and moves that you learn as a whitebelt. A lot of it is also in the gameplanning/mental side as well. One friend explained it to me like this:

White - You're focused on defense and whatever you are working on right now.
Blue - You're confident enough that you shouldn't have to concentrate on your technique as you should it properly on instinct. You should be thinking at least one move ahead of what you are doing right now.
Purple - You should be thinking at least two moves ahead.
Brown - You should be thinking at least three moves ahead.
Black - [and they said this only partly jokingly] Back to focusing on defense and whatever you are working on now because GODDAMN is that a nasty sharkpool to be in.

[weemadando]

...I for one want to be the first to congratulate Johnathon Brookins for winning this season of TUF.

Seriously.

Fuck he is good.

Goddamn.

Once again he ippwns a Judo-Ka and then chokes them out. Here he is doing the same lateral drop to Jose Aldo:


JOSE FUCKING ALDO.

WHO THE FUCK IS IN THE HOUSE THAT CAN BEAT THIS GUY?

Also, he's got the best personality on the show by far. That dude is deep as hell.

From CP:
Jonathan has made winning look as simple as following a script. Step 1: Lateral drop. Step 2: Jump on back. Step 3: RNC. Step 4: Profit.

As for Cody getting beat, it's not entirely surprising, but to see Nam finish with a body shot again was awesome. Sadly, it was not awesome to see the Kos wearing off on him.

I pick Wilkinson and Johnson to come through in the semis and we'll see Nam v Johnson and Brookins v Wilkinson.

[Edward Yee]

Nam Phan getting "da liiiiiivah shot" on Cody led to Bas jokes on BE. Also, expect to see Urijah Faber get the next title shot at 135. A shame that Javier Vasquez's tough talk about BJJ and wrestling in MMA get shot down by Chad Mendes, but WAR Benavidez for getting a guillotine choke from the mount, how often do you see that?!

[weemadando]

It's been a nutty week for MMA already.

Australian Fighting Championship held their inaugural show in Melbourne last night (sadly I didn't get to go), but it sounds like it was entertaining, if crude.

WEC 52 blew everyone's socks off, what with Faber actually murdering Mizugaki and Chad Mendes doing the greatest open guard pass ever.

MFC went down in Edmonton and also sounded like a solid show - looking forward to seeing that.

And we've still got what may be a pretty solid set of UFC fights in Germany.

[aerius]

I haven't been keeping up with MMA lately, missed most of the TUF episodes and haven't had a chance to watch the other events. UFC 122 looks pretty weak so all I gotta say is thank god it's free, 123 on the other hand should be fucking awesome. BJ claims he hasn't peaked yet and is going to be the best BJ ever, somehow i have a bit of trouble believing that. He said the same thing before the 2nd fight with Edgar and he got tooled for 5 rounds, and he looked like crap in that fight. I want to see Hughes slap a sub on him, that'll be so fucking awesome, not to mention Joe Rogan will be at a complete loss of words.

[Edward Yee]

Australian Fighting Championship held their inaugural show in Melbourne last night (sadly I didn't get to go), but it sounds like it was entertaining, if crude.

Well, if it met the criteria of entertaining, legal, and money's-worth -- good shit, here's hoping for more. Any prospects you heard of coming out of this show? (It sounds like it beat Impact FC for starters... which at least gave us the "judo incident" with Barnett, Sokoudjou and Parisyan.)

WEC 52 blew everyone's socks off, what with Faber actually murdering Mizugaki and Chad Mendes doing the greatest open guard pass ever.

Funny thing is, I actually saw a TUF applicant (it was one of the seasons after 10) do this during the rolling phase. As for Mizugaki though... here's hoping the damage was minimal, and I don't know why Josh Rosenthal took that long to notice the choke-out and stop the bout -- or, for that matter, lifted Mizugaki's head up instead of his feet (to facilitate blood flow back towards the head).

[Lesnar] never asked for Roy Nelson, that’s not true. The last thing I did hear was that he wants to fight Frank Mir again. That fight kind of makes sense so… We will probably see Lesnar fight Mir next, I think that the rubber match makes sense.

Edward: Not even Mir is interested at this point...

Speaking of UFCs held in non-American countries, apparently UFC 128 is off to Abu Dhabi, now that there's been several months to get the stink of Silva vs. Maia off.

[weemadando]

Yay. Mir v Lesnar III. As I said over at MiddleEasy: "BUSTER".

I can understand exactly why the fight is being made - sell a dubious "rivalry" and the trilogy fight concept, add Lesnar and Mir (both known quantities) and bam. CASH.

This doesn't make it a compelling fight for the hardcore though.

[aerius]

Lesnar - Mir 3? Are you shitting me? I should boycott that event on general principle. If this is what the UFC wants to sell me I ain't buying, I'd rather watch Liddell vs. Couture 4. Or hell, give us Shogun vs. Couture.

[weemadando]

Roy Nelson v Lesnar. They both asked for it and it's a fantastic matchup - former title holders first fight post loss and former contenders first fight post loss.

[Edward Yee]

Mind you, you have White directly denying that Lesnar wants Nelson for his next fight... oh, and Jorge Rivera vs. Alessio Sakara got scrapped because the latter got sick, BOO.

[The Spartan]

I don't follow MMA as closely* as you guys do so maybe this is a stupid question, but I'll ask it anyways: Would Roy Nelson stand a real chance against Brock Lesnar? My totally uninformed impression is that Nelson is good, but Lesnar's ridiculous athleticism is just too much, even if cracks are open now in the invincibility shield.




*That is, I like to watch the fights, but I don't follow rankings or study the science/technique/etc.

[weemadando]

Roy Nelson has an amazing BJJ game (probably better than Mir's - as he beat him at Grappler's Quest), he appears to have a chin made of unobtainium, and he is deceptively athletic. He doesn't have a problem doing 15 minutes in the ring, unlike a lot of other heavyweights.

Most important though is that he's a good strategist and will come into fights with what's usually a solid gameplan. And let's face it, of his recent losses there was Junior Dos Santos who punched him in the head so many times that JDS gassed out and was getting combo'd on by Nelson in R3. Before that was a TERRIBLE decision that went to Jeff Monson. Before that was the worst stand-up in history in the EliteXC match against Arlovski (where he got stood up while he had Arlovski in a kimura) and was. And before that was an IFL finals loss to Ben Rothwell in a split decision.

He's a way better fighter than his appearance would show and I think it makes for an interesting matchup for Brock. I don't really want to call it either way, but short of a killer punch from either of them (which both are capable of) I think this is a decision fight.

[The Spartan]

Well then, in that case, it sounds like a fight I'd like to see.

Reading that and thinking on it a little, would I be right in thinking that Lesnar is vulnerable to Nelson's BJJ, but that Nelson would have to use his unobtainium chin to get through Lesnar's fists in order to initiate said BJJ?

[weemadando]

Well then, in that case, it sounds like a fight I'd like to see.

Reading that and thinking on it a little, would I be right in thinking that Lesnar is vulnerable to Nelson's BJJ, but that Nelson would have to use his unobtainium chin to get through Lesnar's fists in order to initiate said BJJ?

Well, he did get KO'd by Arlovski, so the chin isn't undefeatable - but he doesn't need to eat punches to get it to the ground, Lesnar's basic gameplan is aways to go for the ground.

[The Spartan]

Which plays right into Nelson's strength...

See? I'm getting it.