Fight Game Blog

It’s been a good year and a half since I missed watching a UFC PPV, but with their recent UFC 85: Bedlam show, I couldn’t talk myself into paying $44.95 to watch a very average card. Had this been on live television, I’d have been all over it. But there just wasn’t anything that I had to see. It wasn’t really the UFC’s fault though. Originally, Chuck Liddell was supposed to face Shogun Rua (and then Rashad Evans), but Chuck hurt his hamstring and turned it purple and he was out of the fight. Chris Leben and Michael Bisping were also supposed to fight, but Leben had issues with the authorities which didn’t allow him to train for the fight, and that one was scrapped too. Matt Hughes and Thiago Alves became the main event and while I’m a Hughes fan and Alves is a good fighter, there was nothing there. It was simply put together at the last minute and I wasn’t moved to buy the show.

Even though I wasn’t going to pay to watch MMA last night, I got my fix via the sweet science. Showtime and HBO both had fight cards last night and while it’s a pity as to what relates to big boxing cards on cable TV these days, at least I had some fighting to watch.

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News and notes from around the MMA world …

- I wrote a review on Matt Hughes’ new biography and let’s just say that it’s lacking.

- If you missed UFC 81 (and if you did, you need to check out the replay) we blogged it live while it was happening.

- Fox Sports has photos from UFC 81.

- Dave Meltzer thinks Brock Lesnar showed superstar potential in his loss to Frank Mir.

- The lineups are official for the next two UFC cards.

- Dana White doesn’t think Kimbo Slice would fare well in the UFC. He also thinks they could have their own ranking system sometime in the future.

- It looks like Chuck Liddell vs. Shogun Rua is happening at UFC 85.

- Todd Martin says that Minotauro Nogueira is never far from victory.

Talking Points

I was definitely wrong about both outcomes of the double main event at UFC 81. More importantly, I was also wrong about how exciting of a card it would be. UFC 81 was definitely one of the better UFC cards of late, and if it’s true that there were more first time PPV buyers for this show than ever, those folks got to see what makes MMA an action packed sport. I myself was watching the show at my parents’ house with a few non-hardcore fans. My father used to enjoy watching boxing and with some great hype, my mom can get into it too. Both seemed to be entertained and my dad stated the thing he didn’t like most about the sport was that you could take a beating and then pull off a submission and still win. I guess he wasn’t too fond of Frank Mir and Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira pulling wins out with submissions. I may have also hyped Brock Lesnar up too much because after he tapped out, there was a bit of a deflated feel in the room. But the feeling was still that he was a monster.

While it would’ve been better for Mir had Tim Sylvia won the belt, I still think that coming out of this fight, he has the most buzz of possible heavyweight contenders not named Randy Couture. While Fabricio Werdum had a nice victory in January over Gabriel Gonzaga, Nogueira has already beat him and really, can you market Fabricio Werdum as your heavyweight champion if he is able to pull off an upset? I think Mir needs to be thrown in there immediately as a contender for the heavyweight championship. Nogueira isn’t going to be a big draw on his own, but if Mir is the new “pro wrestling killer”, act on him now. I think people would pay to see Mir fight Nogueira. And if Mir were to win, you could always do the rematch between he and Silvia.

News and notes from around the MMA world …

- If you missed UFC Fight Night 12, we summarized it on the blog.

- The payouts have also been reported and Kurt Pelligrino (dark match) made just as much as the headliner, Mike Swick, if the report is accurate.

- Sam Caplan interviews WEC vice president Peter Dropick and they talk 2008, PPV, and other things upcoming for the WEC. He also chats with Eddie Alvarez who fights tonight on the ShoXC card.

- Todd Martin gives readers insight about who “The Beast” Bob Sapp is and why you need to know about him if you don’t already.

- Dave Meltzer writes about the perennial semi-main eventer, Tim Sylvia.

- Matt Hughes says he wants Matt Serra if Serra loses to Georges St. Pierre.

- Mia St. John is putting her boxing gloves away for MMA gloves. I talked to her when she was in San Francisco trying to fight at the MMA show that never happened during the wrestling convention at the Cow Palace. She said that at the time, the California State Athletic Commission didn’t think she knew enough jiu-jitsu to be cleared to fight.

- Kevin Iole talks about how people were right not to give up on Patrick Cote.

Talking Points

Although he was promoting a show on the National Geographic, Randy Couture talked mostly about how he’s done with the UFC and how he’s not their heavyweight champion, though he’s still called their champion. At the end of the three minute piece, the interviewer asked him if we would ever see him fight again in the UFC. It really shows that to most media, the UFC is the only game in town. She didn’t ask him about MMA and probably didn’t even know there were other organizations. I just thought that interview told the entire story about how much UFC has become the Xerox of MMA. Couture tried to say that he hoped to fight again, but by then, it seemed like it was an afterthought.

News and notes from around the MMA world …

- Frank Shamrock and Cung Le are ready to do battle on March 29th in a Strikeforce/EXC joint show.

- Thiago Silva could be facing Rashad Evans in a light heavyweight battle in the near future.

- Gary Shaw takes some shots at Dana White and the UFC.

- And White fires back.

- Joe Daddy answers some questions.

- The IFL starts up again on Leap Day.

- Might the UFC be talking with Budweiser?

- Dave Meltzer looks at The UFC’s “money” division.

- Spike TV is using the UFC to reach possible new voters.

- Here’s one book review on the new Matt Hughes book and it’s not a positive one.

- Sean Sherk will face the winner of the interim lightweight title match between B.J. Penn and Joe Stevenson in May.

Talking Points

At the last Strikeforce show in November, Frank Shamrock interviewed Cung Le, who had just beaten Sammy Morgan in a one sided fight. Shamrock was laying the foundation for a possible match-up between he and Le, two of San Jose’s most popular fighters. At the time, I figured that Shamrock and Le each had at least one more fight before they’d get in the cage together. For one, Le hasn’t necessarily fought enough competition, in my opinion, to be ready for someone as savvy as Shamrock. And it seemed that Shamrock wanted a rematch with Renzo Gracie before he would go after Le. But that doesn’t seem to be the case. It looks like they want to build off the mini confrontation that they had in November. It’s the best drawing main event that Strikeforce could put together today, unless Ken Shamrock were agree to fight Frank.

It will also be the second joint card between Strikeforce and EXC. The first was the fantastic summer card in San Jose where Shamrock beat Phil Baroni, the winner of our first match of the year award. According to Dave Meltzer’s blog, the show will have at least two Strikeforce title fights and two EXC title fights, along with a fight in which one Strikeforce fighter will battle with an EXC fighter. It will also be broadcast live on Showtime.

News and notes from around the MMA world …

- Where does Matt Hughes go from here?

- Thales Laites is out of UFC 81 because of injury.

- Sam Caplan predicts his breakout stars for 2008.

- Adam Swift chooses his 2007 awards and summarizes 2007’s power players.

- Tank Abbott vs. Kimbo Slice is on for February.

- What’s next Mirko Cro Cop?

- Dave Meltzer recaps the business of 2007 and and foretells the business of 2008.

- How well do you know MMA? (I scored 7 out of 10. If you take the quiz, let me know your score in the comments section.)

- Guess who’s back, back again?

- It looks like Diego Sanchez is staying at welterweight.

- Look at how they are building up Brock Lesnar.

Talking Points

Two big MMA names are on prime time network television, and there’s not much buzz about it. Tito Ortiz is one of the contestants on Donald Trump’s Celebrity Apprentice and Gina Carano is a gladiator on American Gladiators. I missed the first episode of Celebrity Apprentice because of DVR difficulties, but I’ll be watching it from here on out. Based on previous episodes I’ve seen of the show, this is tailor made for Ortiz and he should do well. As for American Gladiators, based on the Sunday Night premiere (I haven’t watched Monday’s show yet), Carano isn’t really show cased and doesn’t stand out, but she is the prettiest of the female gladiators (though really, that’s not saying much). I’m interested to see how she does because by being natural looking, she’s not memorable right off the bat.

If you get the chance, make sure you check out the UFC 81 site that I linked above. There’s a trailer where they show Brock Lesnar with his WWE belt and in the hype video for Mir and Lesnar, they even talk about his pro wrestling background. I think it’s great that the WWE allowed the UFC to use the footage, and let’s face it, it probably helps WWE just as much as it does UFC to have WWE footage on UFC TV. I especially liked it when Lesnar called Mir, Frank Mur.