They recap the fight between Junie Browning and Roli Delgado. I still can’t believe how terrible Roli was on his feet. It’s like he never threw a punch in his life.

Frank Mir told Junie that it wasn’t good enough. Mir says it was a victory that was almost a loss. Mir says that Junie scares the shit out of him outside the ring.

Krzysztof thinks he fractured his thumb. Mir says that Vinnie has a good ground game, but MMA is a different animal.

Big Nog loves Jules for his heart. He’s worried because he can’t pick the fights since he doesn’t have the control.

Frank Mir’s team has to run with snorkels in their mouth which restricts oxygen. Then he has the guys jump into a trash can of ice water so that it immediately treats the inflammation.

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Cactus Jim and I should be attending the next Strikeforce card scheduled for November 21 at the HP Pavilion in San Jose, California.

Josh “The Punk” Thomson defends his newly won lightweight championship against Yves Edwards. Edwards beat him in the UFC several years ago and this is a chance for Thomson to avenge one of his two losses. His other loss was to Clay Guida.

While I would’ve rather seen a rematch between Thomson and Gilbert Melendez, though this should be a good fight.

Renato “Babalu” Sobral is also challenging for Bobby Southworth’s light heavyweight championship. That’s definitely a step up in competition for Southworth.

Here’s the full card thanks to MMA Mania.

Main event:

155 lbs.: Strikeforce Lightweight Champion Josh “The Punk” Thomson (16-2) vs. Yves Edwards (34-14-1)

Rest of the card:

205 lbs.: Strikeforce Light Heavyweight Champion Bobby Southworth (9-5) vs. Renato “Babalu” Sobral (30-7)
170 lbs.: Joe “Diesel” Riggs (28-11) vs. Luke Stewart (6-1)
175 lbs.: Lemont Davis (2-1) vs. Brian Schwartz (0-1)
135 lbs.: Brad Royster (1-1) vs. Darren Uyenoyama (4-2)
185 lbs.: Tony Johnson (3-0) vs. Eric Lawson (7-2)
145 lbs.: Alvin Cacdac (4-4) vs. Jose Palacios (3-1)
155 lbs.: Bobby Stack (5-1) vs. Cyrillo Padilha (2-2)
155 lbs.: Zakary Bucia (0-1) vs. Jaime Rodriguez (0-0)
185 lbs.: Kurt Osiander (3-1) vs. Raul Castillo (5-0)
185 lbs.: Nik Theotikos (5-1) vs. Luke Rockhold (2-1)

Though I’d been following the UFC for about a year through newsletters and the Internet, I hadn’t bought a PPV until UFC 43. I was a big Chuck Liddell fan, mostly because my co-worker Jeremiah Miller was a college buddy of Chuck’s. He gave me a signed poster that I still have today and I’ve been a big Liddell fan since. Jeremiah was even named in Chuck’s biography.

I remember buying this show mostly because my then wife was out of town on business and I had two toddlers to watch all weekend. When they went to sleep, I didn’t really have anything to do and figured that because I was a young dad home alone with his two young boys, I deserved to spend some money on an event. But also, I expected Chuck Liddell to win the interim light heavyweight championship in his match with Randy Couture and I wanted to see it happen. Let’s just say that I wasn’t a happy Chuck fan that night.

Couture wasn’t necessarily a set up for Liddell that night, but the fight was there for Chuck to win. Couture was a former heavyweight champion, but he was 38 years old and people were saying that he was now over the hill. He dieted down to make the 205 lb weight limit and looked to have nearly zero body fat. The reason Randy and Chuck were fighting rather than Chuck and Tito Ortiz (who was the champion at the time) was because Ortiz bailed on the fight. After beating Ken Shamrock (which was actually the first UFC PPV I ever saw), Tito seemed noncommittal about fighting Chuck after pretty much saying that he had to take care of Shamrock first and then he’d be ready. When push came to shove, Tito wasn’t there so Dana White and company decided to put Liddell in there with Couture to determine the interim champ. And then, Ortiz would have to face the winner.

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I think she’s alone now.

Photo by aliasadsum

Tiffany is no longer with us, and after tonight, another wannabe wrestler will be gone as well.

Frank Stallone said that Dennis Rodman hits hard. That’s quite obvious. Erin says that her team followed the rules and that’s why her team didn’t have anyone eliminated from their team.

Danny decided to pick on Erin and then she asked him about his ex-wife which was a low blow. Danny then digs at her a bit and she starts crying. He said that he’s been making her cry since she was six years old.

Hogan, Bischoff, and Hart come in with a big surprise. That surprise is jumping from the top of a crane to the world’s largest air mattress below. They say it’s 30 feet. Todd and Danny go without hesitation. For some reason, after some trepidation, Trishelle jumps feet first. But at least she jumped. Then Butterbean deflated the air mattress. All of Team Nasty jumped except Frank Stallone. Knobbs said he’s always reminded that Frank is the other Stallone.

Bischoff asks the crew what they learned and Nikki couldn’t come up with an answer.

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The big news is that Batista is the new World Champion after defeating Chris Jericho as Stone Cold Steve Austin was voted in as special guest referee. That’s an unnecessary title change, but oh well.

HHH wrestled Jeff Hardy, even though they tried hard to influence the fans to make it a three way with Koslov. HHH pinned Hardy again in the middle of the ring.

Dave Meltzer has the results up at F4W/Wrestling Observer.

Photo by Department of Defense

Thanks to Cactus Jim for logging the play by play of last night’s UFC 90.

About a week ago, I wasn’t so sure that I was going to order UFC 90. There was really two matches that looked outstanding on paper. I was sure that Tyson Griffin and Sean Sherk would be excellent, and I was sure that Josh Koscheck and Thiago Alves would be good as well. But do you spend $45 a show ($50-55 in HD) on two good undercard matches? No, you don’t. You pay for the main event. And on paper, Anderson Silva vs. Patrick Cote was severely lacking.

The undercard match-ups delivered. Griffin vs. Sherk was a stand-up war and those guys were hitting each other hard. They were throwing great combinations, highlighted by Griffin throwing a high kick and then following up with an off balanced right hand, which landed. But Sherk was too strong. Griffin made the fight, but in making the fight, he was in Sherk’s wheel house. Griffin pressed the action and was the more active fighter, but Sherk’s striking was a tad bit more pinpoint.

Koscheck was his cocky self until he got hit with a left hook that dropped him to a knee. (Photo by East817) After that, he was pretty much done. I give him all the respect in the world for coming back and continuing to fight. But at that moment, he went from someone who probably thought he was going to win, to someone who didn’t think he was going to be able to win. Thiago Alves has the perfect nickname. He was a pit bull in the ring. He almost looked like a machine rather than a human being. I started to wonder who would be the next big match-up for Alves. If George St. Pierre and BJ Penn are fighting in January, the next fight for either guy would probably be April/May. Alves will need to fight again between then. I was thinking that a rematch against Jon Fitch could be interesting. Fitch is so big, Alves wouldn’t simply be able to punch right through him. Or, if Jake Shields joins UFC, that could be a great fight for both guys.

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