UFC 84 Main Event Confirmed

The UFC, sticking with the latest trend that is providing the fans with fight cards that are loaded from start to finish, has announced 3 of the fight slated to take place on May 24 at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas.

The main event as expected will be the current light weight (and former welterweight champ) BJ Penn taking on the steroid champion Sean Sherk.

Sherk as everyone knows believes the rest of the world is not that smart, and we are all out to get him. I guess in this day and age, testing positive for illegal substances on two separate tests means that not only is the lab at fault that handled the tests, but the state athletic commission and the public are wrong for believing them instead of him.

Sherk is a strong wrestler and......well, thats it, a strong wrestler. He has mediocre stand up and will be out boxed on his feet by BJ and once it hits the ground Penn will surely grab one of his steroid built arms and break it in about 4 places. Which will intern send Sherk crying to the dressing room looking for his next fix of HGH to help him heal.

BJ Penn by 2nd round submission.


Also on that fight card is Tito "My Old Lady Sucks Rod on Film For Cash" Ortiz vs Lyoto Machida.

They are both good on the ground and average on their feet.

I call the winner as.....actually I could care less. This fight has all the makings of a typical Tito Ortiz Lay and Pray 3 round decision. I would rather stick a screwdriver in my eyes then watch Tito execute an INSANELY boring gameplan. Is there a way they could both loose? Maybe a double KO, or Tito can infect Machida while trying a take down with some rare jungle STD that he aquired from his old lady during "training" and then Herb Dean can call the fight early on the count of "Infectious Rash"

Winner - Not the general public that is paid to see good fights and gets stuck with that crap.


Also on the card, Keith "The Dean of Mean Sardines" Jardine vs Wanderlei "The Axe Murder" Silva.

Uhhh, well. R.I.P. Keith, we hardly knew you my friend.

Jardine was picked apart, no, DESTROYED in the clinch by Houston Alexander. Who? Yeah exactly Houston Alexander. You all saw they had to drag Jardine out of the cage after that fight, and now he has to fight Silva? Silva lives in the clinch, Silva is the best there is at dirty boxing in the light heavyweight division. Oh yeah, and Silva is mad as hell after 3 straight losses. (Crocop, Henderson and Liddell)

Run Jardine....RUN!!!

Silva wins that fight by 2nd round horror movie finish.
And the only reason I say second round is because Jardine is going to be doing a lot of running in the first. It might take Silva that long to catch him.

Thats my 2 cents.....after all, isnt it really only my opinion that counts anyways?

-The MMA-Hole

Beating a dead horse (Fedor Emelianenko vs. Randy Couture)

Is it hype or legal angling that is keeping the rumor alive? Are we really going to see Randy Couture and Fedor Emelianenko, two esteemed heroes of MMA, go at it? According to the LA Times, Billionaire Mark Cuban's organization "HDNet has sued the parent company of the Ultimate Fighting Championship". Evidently Mark wants Dana White to give him and the fans an expiration date on Randy's contract. The lawsuit is intended to free up Couture to that the battle royal of MMA can become a reality.

Besides the expiration date of Randy's contract, there is another issue, "Dana White says the contract doesn't just have nine more months on it, it also has two more fights on it." It's too bad that we can't watch the court battle on SpikeTV, because both sides are looking for the KO.

And just how much gas does Couture have in the tank at age 44? After all, he will most likely be 45 before he fights Fedor. I guess that remains to be seen. If Couture can come back looking like he did against Tim Silvia, the question will be definitively answered.

Matt Serra vs. Georges St. Pierre 2

So Matt Serra is ready to fight GSP at UFC 83? Matt Serra is a nice guy, but he should do himself a favor and throw in the towel. His back is “not going to be a factor” (as Serra said in a episode of The Lights Out Show on the TAGG Radio Network), Georges St. Pierre is going to be a factor.

Last time against Serra, St. Pierre beat himself. I have no doubt that GSP is going to be there mentally this time. Georges can adapt his fighting style when he needs to, and systematically destroy his opponent, just like he destroyed Koscheck and Hughes.

The only thing that Serra has going for him going into this fight is that he is not going to underestimate GSP and that he has a lot of respect for him. That should buy him another 5-10 seconds in the octagon...maybe.

Death by MMA

Is MMA a brutal sport? It certainly isn't ballet. But how dangerous is it? Fighters get their face beat in, lose teeth, bleed all over the place and get their noses broken, but what are their chances of dying from participating in MMA? How does a hard-charging sport like MMA compare to other contact sports in terms of the number of participants that are killed?

Interestingly enough, sanctioned MMA events now have more rules and regulations than ever. There has been only 1 death in any event by a sanctioned MMA organization (UFC, Pride, etc.) in this country since 1998. On October 20, 2007 Sammy Vasquez was critically injured in Houston Texas in an event by Renegades Extreme Fighting. Vasquez died nearly 2 months after the match. The only other reported death in MMA was at an event in Russia. Douglas Dedge, who died, was said to have blacked out several times in training sessions before being killed in the Russian match. He would never have been allowed to fight in any sanctioned MMA event in the U.S.

Here is the tragic video of the passing of Douglas Dedge.



By contrast, in boxing there have been 71 deaths since 1998. Professional and Semi-Pro Football has claimed 17 lives. Despite not being a real sport, professional wrestling is responsible for some 65 deaths since 1997!

So, should fighters hang up the MMA gloves? I think not. You have a better chance of getting killed driving home from an MMA event!


REFERENCES

Gregory H. Bledsoe, Edbert B. Hsu, Jurek George Grabowski, Justin D. Brill and
Guohua Li (2006) INCIDENCE OF INJURY IN PROFESSIONAL MIXED MARTIAL
ARTS COMPETITIONS. Journal of Sports Science and Medicine (2006) 136-142.

Anthony Armstrong (2007) TEXAS FIGHTER DIES.
http://www.thefightnetwork.com/news_detail.php?nid=5555

Frederick O. Mueller, Ph.D. (2007) Annual Survey of Football Injury Research.
National Center for Catastrophic Sport Injury Research http://www.unc.edu

The Tank is half full

We all knew that Kimbo Slice could slug it out. We knew that Kimbo had the determination and will to fight in the cage. But who knew that Kimbo could be a real MMA fighter? Certainly not Tank Abbott. Kimbo knocked Tank to the ground in only 20 seconds! Kimbo made the rookie mistake of punching Tank in the back of the head, but the ref stepped up and did his thing. Less than a minute into the fight, Tank went down again and wasn't gettin' up.

My hat is really off to Bas Rutten. Bas has been training Kimbo for MMA for some time now, and it shows. Kimbo looked nothing like a backyard brawler, and much like a seasoned verteran of MMA. I can't wait to see Kimbo fight again. Even though I don't expect Kimbo's fights to last very long, I enjoy every second of them.

Look at all these rumors (Kimbo Slice in the UFC?)

Just who is Kimbo Slice? If you don't know the answer to that question,
you probably don't know what youtube.com is either.

Kimbo Slice grew up in Miami, Florida and was a big part of the underground fight scene. Kimbo, who stands 6'2" and typically carries around about 260lbs of lean bodyweight, has suffered very few documented losses in the streets, his most notable loss to ex-cop Sean Gannon. Many of Kimbo's fights can be seen on youtube.com, and he is, in fact, somewhat of a youtube.com legend.

Seeking legitimacy for his legacy, Kimbo Slice has been training with former UFC heavyweight champion Bas Rutten to make his mark in the MMA world. His next fight in the cage will be against the menacing Tank Abbott, who's fighting style makes him somewhat of a brawler himself. You can catch that fight on February 16, 2008.

As for fighting his way into the UFC, Kimbo is all over it. The skeptics are already talking about it. According to http://www.mmamania.com, Dana White had this to say about Kimbo Slice fighting in the UFC, “Sean Gannon beat him in a street fight. Everyone saw what happened to Sean Gannon when he fought a guy that no one ever heard of (a decisive TKO loss to Branden Lee Hinkle in the UFC). Gannon was in the hospital for three weeks. That’s what would happen to Kimbo Slice if he fought
in the UFC. He would get hurt bad – real bad.”. However, not everyone is a skeptic. Just ask Bas Rutten who said, “I am training Kimbo right now, and I have to say that he is one of the BEST fighters I have EVER trained. He really listens to you and does what you say, do you know how hard that is? If he’s dead tired, and I tell him five more rounds, he looks at me, but doesn’t say anything, he just does it.”.

So no matter which side of the fence you're standing on, nobody can deny that Kimbo Slice would be a major source of entertainment for the UFC. Just watch him on youtube.com and you'll see exactly why. Kimbo may have a long way to go in MMA, but at only 33 years of age, he could have a bright future in the octagon.

The Iceman Cometh (to Orange, California)

I went to see Chuck Liddell yesterday at the WalMart in Orange, CA. I met some friends there and stood in line in the hot sun and waited for the Iceman, and waited, and waited. After 2 hours or so, the line hadn't moved. Another friend who had arrived earlier had already met Chuck and he said that the reason that the line moved so slowly was that Chuck was such a nice guy that he was spending a lot of time with each fan.

After 3+ hours, we finally got to meet Chuck. What a stellar guy he is! This guy knows just how to treat his fans. Chuck is a lot larger than he looks on TV and he looks like the elite fighting machine that he is.

Although I was tentatively granted an interview with the Iceman after the whole ordeal, I could clearly see that Chuck was wiped out and he needed to catch a flight. I made plans to interview him at a later date. After all was said and done, it was worth the 3+ hour wait. Chuck is a great guy and I can't wait to interview him in the near future.

Lesnar gets schooled in MMA

Former WWE superstar Brock Lesnar made his debut in the UFC last night at UFC 81. Lesnar went up against former Heavyweight champion Frank Mir. To nobody's surprise, the fight ended in the first round with Lesnar submitting to a kneebar.

As expected, Brock Lesnar was disliked as much as Tim Silvia (maybe more), which was evident by the boos from the fans. What wasn't expected was Lesnar's great performance in the first 30 seconds of the fight. Lesnar came on strong and shot in right away on Mir. On Lesnar's first takedown of Mir, Lesnar unleashed a flurry of punches which initially seemed to overwhelm Frank Mir. Unfortunatley for Lesnar, a couple of strong punches connected with the back of Frank Mir's head which prompted a timeout by Steve Mazzagatti and gave Mir some time to recover. Lesnar got a point deducted however, it was pretty obvious that this fight was not going to go to a decision.

As the fight continued, Lesnar got another seemingly easy takedown. Mir used his jiu-jitsu tools right away and attempted to get into a more dominant position but, Lesnar proved to be a lot stronger than Mir. Lesnar easily got out of Mir's initial traps and stood up, which was Lesnar's fatal mistake. Mir went right for Lesnar's leg and easily got a knee bar on him. Lesnar tapped out before Mir did any major damage and Lesnar had a free lesson on what real MMA is all about.

I left the fight having a little more respect for Brock Lesnar, but even more appreciation for Frank Mir's jiu-jitsu skills.
At age 30, Brock may have a bright future in MMA with the right training. The hype leading up to the Lesnar-Mir fight wasn't all hype, and taking on a former champion for a UFC debut is respectable. The early stoppage of the fight left you wondering, "what if they hadn't have stopped it?".