Archive for November, 2007

Nov 17 2007

UFC 78: Validation

Published by GG under Uncategorized

Here are the quick results for UFC 78.

1. Frankie Edgar vs. Spencer Fisher

Edgar easily wins the first round, by taking him down twice and staying busy from the top. Fisher did next to nothing.

Second round is very much like the first. Edgar is really controlling it and Fisher can’t keep him off. The only thing Fisher is doing is keeping him within his guard.

Third round is pretty much a duplicate of the second. Fisher did nothing. Edgar’s fight all the way.

Winner: Frankie Edgar by way of unanimous decision

2. Joe Doerksen vs. Ed Herman

Herman dominates the first round and is much stronger than Doerksen. He was dropping heavy punches and elbows from the top. Doerksen has a cut on his right eye lid.

Herman starts the round the same way he was fighting the first, but Doerksen gets a takedown and tries for a choke. Doerksen gets a triangle at the end of the round, but the bell saves Herman.

Herman throws a nasty left hook and it’s over. Doerksen went limp and Herman followed it up with a big right on the ground.

Winner: Ed Herman by way of third round TKO.

3. Ryo Chonan vs. Karo Parisyan

Parisyan controls the first round largely with his takedowns.

Chonan connects with a good punch, but it’s again, Parisyan’s round. Chonan also scores with a couple knees to the body, but Parisyan continues to take the fight to the ground and is on top for the rest of the round.

The third was mind numbingly boring. Parisyan’s round again. Very easy win for him.

Winner: Karo Parisyan by way of unanimous decision

4. Thiago Silva vs. Houston Alexander

Silva is staying away, and when Alexander gets in tight, he grabs him and they clinch. Alexander slams him down hard and grabs on a guillotine. Silva is now on top and gets the mount and starts hammering Alexander. He throws a ton of punches in a row and Alexander looks to go out. The fight is over.

Winner: Thiago Silva by way of TKO.

5. Rashad Evans vs. Michael Bisping

Evans is really active with his takedowns. He’s quick and is swinging hard in his stand-up. Easily his round.

Bisping is better in the second. Evans gets a huge takedown, but Bisping doesn’t stay down for long. They trade and each lands about the same amount. Evans looks tired. Close round.

Evans is the more tired of the two, but he’s also the one pushing the pace. He continues to go for the takedown and is landing the harder punches, but Bisping never seemed hurt or in trouble. It’s going to be a tough one to decide. I’d go Evans.

Winner: Rashad Evans by way of split decision

6. Jason Reinhardt vs. Joe Lauzon

We get one of the prelims from earlier on. Lauzon takes down Reinhardt and gets his back easily for a rear naked choke.

Winner: Joe Lauzon by way of first round submission

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Nov 16 2007

Rear Naked Ramblings – 11/16/07

Published by GG under Uncategorized

News and notes from around the MMA world …

- The match-ups for Strikeforce’s middleweight tournament have been selected, but there might be some issues with the scheduled fights.

- Dave Meltzer calls it, the “Cung Le Show”.

- If you’re within a 150 mile radius of San Jose, you’re going to get blacked out from Yahoo!’s live stream.

- Sportsline.com has predictions for UFC 78.

- USAToday.com has a story on the UFC targeting New York.

- Rashad Evans is confident in his ability and believes in himself.

- Frankie Edgar says he won’t get caught up fighting in his hometown.

- Sokoudjou has signed with the UFC and faces Lyoto Machida next month.

- Randy Couture is scheduled to be featured in a new MMA card set from Donruss.

- Kimbo Slice says he’ll fight again next February.

Talking Points

I will be live at the Strikeforce event tonight and will have a write-up of the event up sometime in the next few days.

I’m really interested in the middleweight tournament. It’s one of those things that just seems special because it hasn’t happened in a while, especially in the US. Also, watching Cung Le live is great, not only because he’s entertaining, but also because the atmosphere is insane. With his fight being in the main event tonight, I’d expect a wild crowd reaction.

UFC 78 isn’t huge on star power, but it has a chance to be a really good show. With Frankie Edgar and Spencer Fisher on the card, you’re guaranteed at least one good fight. I’m also excited to see Joe Doerksen fight Ed Herman in one of those veteran versus up and coming young fighter type battles. I think Doerksen is going squeak out a decision, based mainly on his experience. Also, Herman has struggled a bit in his young UFC career, but has won his last two bouts.

Also, I think that at this point, anytime Houston Alexander fights, it’s must see. At least, until he loses. He’s the closest thing to Mike Tyson that the UFC has and he should be better tested this time around by Thiago Silva, who is undefeated and is 2-0 in the UFC. I think the main event will be pretty good as well. People are selling Michael Bisping a bit short because of his questionable decision victory against a determined Matt Hamill in his last fight. But you can’t question the guy’s talent. He’s well rounded and is charismatic. But at this point, Rashad Evans, based on his draw with Tito Ortiz, has shown an ability to fight at a higher level than Bisping. I think the fight is going to be close and it will be Evans’ wrestling that probably controls the fight. I think he’ll win a unanimous decision.

You can see the entire card here.

If you want to contact me (I’d love to hear feedback), click here.

Thanks for reading,

Garrett M. Gonzales
MMA.Consumerhelpweb.com

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Nov 15 2007

Interview With Anthony Figueroa

Published by GG under Uncategorized

I interviewed up and coming Strikeforce bantamweight fighter, Anthony Figueroa this past weekend. It’s the first “podcast” that I’ve done for this site. Definitely a “first” interview, though not as rough as it could’ve been.

I talk to him about a bunch of things, including how he got into the sport, his young career thus far, who his mentor is, how he balances out family with work and fighting, and his future in the sport.

Anthony fights tomorrow night at the HP Pavillion at the Strikeforce 7 show.

Listen above (though give it time to load), or right click here and save in order to download it and listen on your computer or iPod (or whatever other music player you use).

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Nov 14 2007

The Ultimate Fighter Season 6: Episode 9

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It’s quarterfinals time.

The show starts with a recap of the fight from last week, which was Tommy Speer vs. War Machine. They show Mac Danzig walking out while Speer was in the rear naked choke, before hearing cheering from his teammates, letting him know that Speer was coming back.

Matt Serra asks his team if they want to put Mac Danzig vs. Tommy Speer in the quarterfinals, thus making sure only one guy from Matt Hughes’ team gets into the semi-finals.

Dana White says he’s going to talk to Matt Serra and discuss the quarterfinals match-ups. Serra asks if he could put Danzig and Speer together. White says they can do anything, but they should do what makes sense. White calls the fighters in to hear who they want to fight. Ben Saunders wants Speer. Troy Mandaloniz wants Richie Hightower. George Sotiropoulos says he’s the best fighter in the house and when Dana asks him who had the best shot at beating him, he didn’t have an answer.

Danzig says it would be uncool of Serra to match him and Speer up, but it would also be very smart. Hughes says he would throw a fit if that’s what was decided. White announces Danzig vs. John Kolosci as the first fight. Kolosci says he wanted Danzig because everyone was afraid of him and he wanted to mash him. Serra thought Kolosci was one of those guys who could rise to the occasion. The second fight is Matt Aroyo vs. Mandaloniz. The third fight is scheduled to be Sotiriopoulos vs. Hightower. Hightower didn’t look very happy about that one. The last fight is Saunders vs. Speer. White says that Serra will need to choose who he wants to corner in the matches where it’s his guy vs. his guy. Serra says he’s not going to choose and White says Hughes is one of the best of all times and he will do the right thing. I’m not sure why Serra is surprised as if I remember, they’ve done this in every season that this was the case.

Serra is upset because Hughes laughed at his picks and then during the season, they ass raped them (meaning they won 6-2). His words, not mine. Serra is blaming this situation on Hughes, which is funny. All Hughes did was smile. Hughes is under Serra’s skin, and all he did was smile. That’s great. White says that if he can’t choose, they’ll flip a coin.

Hughes says that Serra is such a meat head. Hughes says he expects both his guys to win, so he’s happy. Danzig says Kolosci has the size and strength advantage. Danzig says he’s better, more well rounded, and has more experience and says he won’t lose.

Danzig says he’s starting to lose it in the house a bit. The guys are saying that Danzig is a grump and he’s up and down. He orders a bird feeder, trying to get humming birds to come to the house. He thinks that he’ll be able to relax watching the humming birds come to the feeder. He says the animals stay their distance because they can sense his frustration with the house. He doesn’t like being negative because it’s not good karma.

War Machine moves the bird feeder and Danzig doesn’t know who it is, but says if it keeps happening, there are going to be problems. He blames the team Serra guys. He goes off on the house.

Serra says that styles make fights, and Kolosci sold them on this fight. He doesn’t seem too positive, but says he thinks he can pull off the upset. Serra says that Danzig is a little bit more experienced than Kolosci, but not much more.

Danzig says that he hasn’t sparred much because his guys are all hurt and he says that Billy Miles hates sparring, so his sparring situation is crap. Danzig and Blake Bowman chat about how his negativity is killing his experience on the show. Danzig agrees with him and walks off, not answering Bowman’s question about if he was going to sleep or not.

Danzig writes on the wall to remind himself to be nice to Blake, have sympathy, be positive, think positive, and that he’ll get good karma out of it. Danzig says he does enjoy his company when he can look past the fact that he’s not a real fighter.

Kolosci says that they are still a team and they work well together, even though two of their fighters will have to train under Hughes. He says that no one wants to go train with Hughes because they don’t trust him to be a good corner man. If you can’t learn from more than one person, I’m not sure how well rounded you are going to be. Can you imagine someone saying that they don’t want to learn from Matt Hughes? Are you kidding?

Hughes says he’ll choose which Serra guys he wants. Serra would rather let the flip of the coin choose for them. Hughes says that Serra is taking his worst two guys and putting them up against his best two guys and making Hightower and Arroyo the sacrificial lambs. I’d think that Saunders is in the mix as Serra’s best guys. By the flip of the coin, Hightower and Arroyo go to Team Hughes. They go to talk to Hughes and Lawler and tell him that they just want to let Hughes know that it’s going to be a bit awkward just because they’ve been training with Serra for six weeks. Hughes thinks they’re being somewhat unprofessional. I’d agree with him on that one. Hughes says he’s there to make whoever he’s cornering, as good as they want to be. Arroyo isn’t sure that Hughes meant what he said.

(Really, from watching the show, it just seems that Hughes brings a different style of coaching to the table. Serra is much more of a “rah rah” kind of guy who gets to know his fighters personally and wants to be liked. Hughes is more like a drill sergeant and doesn’t care if he has relationships with his guys after the show. He just wants to make them better than they are. Hightower seems to be bothered by Hughes’ coaching style.)

Danzig says he’s not going to let someone who fights only part time, take this away from him. Danzig writes his mom’s name and his girlfriend’s name on his trunks. Danzig says that no one wants to win it as badly as he does. Really, Danzig could compete right away in the welterweight division in the UFC. I could see Sotiriopoulos competing immediately and maybe Saunders as well just because of his height, but I’m not sure about anyone else.

Round One

After a feeling out process, Danzig gets the first big blow with a knee from the clinch. He has Kolosci down, but Kolosci is back on his feet. Danzig stuffs a single leg takedown. Kolosci has him up against the cage. Danzig is throwing elbows at the side of his head and to his side. Kolosci is bleeding from the bridge of his nose. He goes for another takedown and Danzig stuffs him again and sits up against the cage and puts on a rear naked choke. Kolosci taps immediately. Danzig just wipes his brow.

Winner: Mac Danzig by way of first round submission.

Danzig says Kolosci was nervous and all of his movements were predictable. Kolosci says that he panicked when he couldn’t get the takedown. Danzig announces to his team that he loves his team and wouldn’t change anything.

Next week: It’s Matt Hughes vs. Matt Serra in a bowling challenge for money! That’s going to be awesome. Serra also says he’s not going to corner his guys who are fighting their once teammates. Also, there are two fights next week, which tell me that one of them ends quickly. I’m going to guess Hightower goes pretty quickly.

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Nov 14 2007

Rear Naked Ramblings – 11/14/07

Published by GG under Uncategorized

We’ll start with a few in house notes.

- We have results of the EXC show from last Friday, in which K.J. Noons upset Nick Diaz to win the lightweight championship.

- We’ll also have a recap of tonight’s The Ultimate Fighter Season 6, which you can access by clicking on the The Ultimate Fighter Season 6 tag in our blog. You can also check out recaps of every episode of the season thus far.

- We’ll have an interview with Anthony Figueroa, bantamweight fighter for the Strikeforce organization, up sometime soon.

News and notes from around the MMA world …

- Here’s an article on Kimbo Slice’s victory on Saturday night.

- Yahoo! Sports will air this Friday’s Strikeforce show.

- Strikeforce’s tournament is an ode to the olden days.

- Dave Meltzer writes about the history of the early UFC shows.

- Dana White talks about the future of Sean Sherk and Randy Couture.

- Here are some notes on the UFC’s Fighter’s Symposium which was held almost two weeks ago.

- Houston Alexander and Spencer Fisher answer some questions.

- Michael Bisping says that his fight with Rashad Evans at UFC 78, could determine whether he stays at light heavyweight, or goes down to middleweight.

- There may be a change in the fight schedule for the IFL’s Grand Prix. Also, the IFL is working with YouTube and Google.

- Chael Sonnen will be the first title defense for WEC middleweight champion, Paulo Filho.

- Riddick Bowe wants to give MMA a shot. This doesn’t look too good.

Talking Points

There hasn’t been anything (that I’ve read at least) reported on the UFC deal with CBS that was rumored last week.

Things to ponder:

If Randy Couture and Dana White kiss and make-up, does it make Couture look badly? Will it leave him looking like a money hungry guy who doesn’t care about his sport? I’m not quite sure yet, but if I’m reading the landscape clearly, if Couture comes back to the UFC, he’s at least admitting to being wrong in one or more cases. Dana White has definitely played his cards right so far, but until he gets Couture back, he’s not going to be seen completely as the good guy either.

Is a Michael Bisping and Rashad Evans fight worthy of a main event for the largest mixed martial arts company going? Of course not would be my answer. But if this fight does any business above normal whatsoever, it would show what the power of having television gives you. Bisping and Evans probably would’ve eventually found their way to the UFC without The Ultimate Fighter show. But with that show, they immediately had more opportunities to market themselves than probably 90% of all fighters. It’s kind of like the American Idol syndrome. Even the worst of the top 12 singers will sell more albums than most independent recording artists, specifically because of having 25 million people watch you on a television show gives you a built in audience. Now TUF doesn’t have nearly that kind of reach, but they really target who they reach well. You can risk putting Bisping and Evans in the main event, pretty much for the same reason.

Is the current format for The Ultimate Fighter stale? Based on this season, I’d have to say yes. The season is very good, and is building up the fight between Matt Serra and Matt Hughes in excellent fashion. It’s probably right behind the first and third seasons, and is right on par with last season. But the style in which the editing and stories follow, is showing it’s wear. This was eventually going to happen. Has anyone watched The Real World lately? When you do the same style of show twice a year, with nothing really changed, you’re not going to get ground breaking television. It does show that the format works, but it probably needs to be freshened up a bit. Much like the IFL is doing, I’d look into putting fight camps together to really create some strong competition. Imagine having Team Hughes really be his guys, going against a Team of real Matt Serra students. Obviously, you’d have to find more students, especially if you want to continue the format of having guys at one or two weight classes specifically fighting in a tournament. It’s just one idea.

If you want to contact me (I’d love to hear feedback), click here.

Thanks for reading,

Garrett M. Gonzales
MMA.Consumerhelpweb.com

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Nov 10 2007

EXC: Renegade

Published by GG under Uncategorized

The show comes from Corpus Christi, Texas and the announcers are Mauro Ranello, Stephen Quadros, and Bill Goldberg.

1. Antonio Silva vs. Jonathan Wiezorek (Super Heavyweights)

Silva chokes Wiezorek out in the first round. Silva came in right at the limit for heavyweight (rather than super heavyweight), so he was fighting at a lighter weight than usual.

Winner: Antonio Silva by way of first round submission.

2. Seth Kleinbeck vs. Kyle Noke (Middleweights)

Noke controls the ground for most of the fight, and then wins the fight after a nasty cut opened up over Kleinbeck’s eye.

Winner: Kyle Noke by way of second round stoppage because of a cut.

3. Mike Pyle vs. Jake Shields (Welterweights)

This is supposedly Pyle’s last fight for EXC and he’s cornered by Randy Couture. This was also supposed to be a title fight, but Pyle didn’t want it. Pyle gets a takedown, but Shields turns him over and grabs a rear naked choke for the submission.

Winner: Jake Shields by way of first round submission.

4. Kimbo Slice vs. Bo Cantrell (Heavyweights)

Slice eats a kick, throws a punch, and an elbow that drops Cantrell. Before Slice can finish him, Cantrell taps. The crowd booed the finish heavily.

Winner: Kimbo Slice by way of first round TKO.

5. Nick Diaz vs. K.J. Noons (Lightweight Title Fight)

Diaz gets a nasty cut over his eyelid from a knee and then one on his nose from a right hand that dropped him. The doctor stops the fight because of the cuts and Diaz stomps out of the ring, flipping the bird.

Winner: K. J. Noons by way of first round stoppage because of cuts.

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