Wrestle Mania 28 will be headlined by The Rock returning to action to take on John Cena; it’s been that way since the night after Wrestle Mania 27, the first time the WWE has booked the main event for the years biggest show a year before it is actually supposed to go down. But what’s the intrigue that keeps this match-up fresh come Mania time this spring? It’s the image of The Rock standing face-to-face with WWE’s most important baby face character, telling it like it is; even adding in a few things that have been on the minds of WWE fans for years now. Whether it’s Cena’s obviously fake good-boy persona, or the fact that he does the same moves in every match that he’s apart of, when The Rock is speaking about Cena, he’s not only venting his own possible frustrations, he’s also venting the fans’. Now fast forward six months.

What happens if The Rock and John Cena compete in a tag team match together before their Wrestle Mania showdown? Furthermore, what happens when they are on the same team in that match? If The Rock hates Cena so much what would make him want to tag with him? Maybe it’s the constant interruption of important business by The Miz and R-Truth. But The Rock has been away from the ring since the night after Wrestle Mania 27, why would he care what they’re up to, especially since it doesn’t involve him at all?

The success that Wrestle Mania 28 could have will depend, in large part, on how the WWE and The Rock handle this on Monday when The Rock is set to officially announce his decision on Raw, and in the weeks to come.

The two men that hate each other so much as to have the WWE book their match a year in advance cannot coexist in a tag team together. If they do, good luck selling people on that “hate” anymore. But if they don’t, it gives all parties even more opportunity to build to the eventual match at Mania; and the options could be endless.

The opportunities that lay at the hands of the WWE bookers are vast, but included in the pile are some very wrong answers, and a few right ones. The key to a good Wrestle Mania main event, and more specifically THIS Mania main event, is hype in the storyline, and prolonging the “fight”. WWE has made the mistake before of jumping the gun when something bigger and better was just a little further down the rabbit hole. This time, they’re taking a big chance on spoiling the longest build up to a previously announced Wrestle Mania main event. Which is why I think this all apart of the hype machine. Or at least, let’s hope it is.

The worst thing that can happen to Wrestle Mania 28 is having The Rock and John Cena being a successful tag team before and after their match at Survivor Series. Possibly the best thing would be to have The Rock come back and do this tag match with Cena only to build more drama for their match.  

On the other side of all this is a little bit of reality. The WWE has seen its pay-per-view numbers fall and only stop for a short period of time, like when CM Punk dropped genius on all of us. If the WWE has any plans of turning a good number and profit from their biggest event of the year, it’s going to need a little more promotion. If that’s all this is then I say job well done, but just like this ugly John Laurinaitis gag, the WWE doesn’t always seem to have their finger on the right pulse.

We’ll chime back in following this Monday’s Raw to catch up on where we’re at and possibly where we are going.

Thank you.

As difficult, frustrating, and sometimes pointless as it seems, what I’d like to do is this: take away all the hopes, semi-blind foreshadowing, and all the times we “expected” one thing but got another, and focus on the things that actually have been given to us.

In the spotlight today is, of course, this new main event storyline that has been playing out; really since CM Punk was booked to face John Cena in Chicago at Money in the Bank. The weeks leading up to the PPV gave the CM Punk character a lot more to work with, and gave us fans a lot more to look forward to. The actual match those two men had at MITB was actually a spectacular one. That’s saying a lot, considering John Cena was one half of the match; a guy who has a lot of the out-of-the-ring qualifications to be a WWE superstar, but in my opinion, lacks the necessary skill-set to tell compelling stories in a match - outside of him getting his ass beaten for 6+ minutes and then mounting a comeback, ending with the same 3-move combination. That aside, it was indeed a great match that night.

The downfall from Chicago is when the criticisms really started to come in. Most believed the story was moving too fast, and for good reason. There’s no question, much more compelling storylines could have come from that situation had they been a little more patient. But with that said, the WWE does what the WWE does, and I believe the main objective in quickly escalading the story from week to week was merely to make sure SummerSlam had a decent main event PPV draw, and with CM Punk rematching John Cena, they did just that. The “twist” was in having Triple H as the guest ref. The only dimension that that decision made any sense was in hindsight.

Kevin Nash makes a surprising appearance, does some damage, and proceeds to make the story much, much more interesting. With the history between Triple H and Nash it’s not too difficult to come with about 7 different ways the whole thing could play out.

After Night of Champions, it’s pretty clear what’s going on, but not so clear on what’s going to happen. I was surprised while watching RAW last night about the fact that no one, from wrestlers to commentators, pointed out that Laurinaitis was seen texting on his cell phone (obviously to Kevin Nash) after the run ins by R Truth and The Miz proved unsuccessful. That, to me, seemed like the perfect opportunity to publicize the connection between Nash and Laurinaitis. R Truth and The Miz are merely extra faces included in the story because it conveniently matched up with the “conspiracy” bullshit they were doing before.

If this is all ending with a Mr. McMahon return to the scene, then I say “well done”. But if the grand end really is that John Laurinaitis – who I equate to being about as entertaining and useful as an empty tube of toothpaste – then I’ll, unfortunately, be disappointed; thinking about what “could have been”.

I have to be honest and say that there’s one clear soar thumb to me in all of this, and it’s the inclusion of the Laurinaitis character as being important for the story line. He’s really awful on the mic. Judging from the difficulty I have in trying to understand what he’s saying while watching at home, I have to imagine it’s nearly impossible to figure him out in a live setting. Unless he shows us some serious in-ring skills (which he won’t; and doesn’t have) I really see no need for him. Why not get another man that can wear a suit that’s actually clear speaking? I just don’t get his value in any of this.

I believe in their Hell in a Cell booking. Having a triple threat Cell match with the title on the line is a nice idea, especially considering the scheduling of having Hell in a Cell come two weeks after Night of Champions. Without the inclusion of that match, I wouldn’t have bought it, but now it makes you at least think twice about it.

A few times a year we get to experience something very special. The moment Anderson Silva gets ready to compete inside the Octagon is that special moment.

This past Saturday, at UFC 134: Silva vs Okami, Anderson Silva walked out to a screaming crowd. From TV’s perspective, it was one of the loudest crowds the UFC has ever seen. It sounded like there were at least 100,000 people present, when in reality it was just over 14,000 passionate Brazilians in Rio de Janeiro.

“The Spider” took center stage and displayed some of the finest skills of MMA that the sport has ever seen. Yushin Okami is a top level, serious athlete at 185-pounds and Anderson Silva made him look like he should have been on the under card of a ‘Fight Night’. And that’s no disrespect to the Japanese fighter; Anderson Silva is, somehow, just that good.

In the first round Okami had a few shades of success when he utilized the clinch against the cage, but Anderson quickly adapted and made it uncomfortable for Okami as he started landing hard knees to his body. Okami retreated from that game plan for the rest of the fight and proceeded to strike with “The Spider”. That’s a bad idea for anyone, it seems. At the start of the second round Silva displayed some of his finest work yet, and minutes later he was celebrating his victory while Yushin Okami was collecting himself on the ground, with the referee telling him the fight was over.

Since that moment the question started to rise; the same question that comes up after every fight featuring “The Spider”. Who can beat Anderson Silva?

Continue reading this post »

 This Saturday, August 27 2011, UFC 134 will go down in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The event will see longtime UFC Middleweight king, Anderson Silva, go head to head with the last person to hold a victory over him in Japan’s own, Yushin Okami.

All the talk leading up to the fight references the now infamous first bout between these two where Anderson received a disqualification for hitting Okami with an up-kick while Okami was grounded; a move still illegal to this day. On the UFC’s own Countdown show, they showed Anderson talking about the incident; claiming his understanding of the rules was not clear, thus, when he saw the opportunity to use the technique, he did so. And with a high degree of success; Okami was unable to continue, which resulted in Anderson losing via the aforementioned disqualification.

Since that night, Yushin Okami has gone on to win 12 out of 15 fights; with his only losses coming at the hands of Jake Shields, former Middleweight Champion Rich Franklin, and former Middleweight contender Chael Sonnen. On the other hand, Anderson Silva has won 15 straight fights, broken nearly every UFC record and stands today as the best MMA fighter in the world.

Sound like a tall order if you’re Mr. Okami?

With all the accolades and the records that Anderson has conquered in his career it’s easy to look over this match up and assume Anderson will do what Anderson does, and win this fight. It’s only when you take a closer look that you see all the parts at play in this fight.

One very notable detail is that Yushin Okami has been training with Chael Sonnen for this fight, and every other fight he’s had since he fought Chael in Ocotober of 2009. Reason for its relevance? Aside from a few arguable rounds with Dan Henderson and Demain Maia, Chael Sonnen is the only person to take a round away from the Brazilian Champion. Of course, you cannot mention that fight without also mentioning that Anderson and his team claim that the Champ was not 100% that night, and entered the ring with a possible broken rib. If that’s the case, then his fifth round triangle choke that won him the fight is even more spectacular than it already seemed.

With all that said, we cannot discount the success Sonnen had in that fight. The fact is, he had the only game plan that worked against the Champion, and we can assume he’s passed this knowledge onto his new teammate in Yushin Okami. The one question that remains is if Yushin is capable of doing what Sonnen did.

When it comes to wrestling credentials, Sonnen dwarfs Okami. That doesn’t mean Okami cannot adapt, as we saw inklings of in his fight against renowned wrestling Middleweight in Mark Munoz last August. Okami showed a nice sprawl and a little success in offensive wrestling. But the area we’ve seen the most progression in Okami’s game is in his stand-up.

In past years Okami was always critized as being a “one-handed fighter”. His southpaw stance lent him to being able to get away with laying out left hand after left hand. In past years Okami has gotten away with this purely because his style was mainly based around wrestling and overpowering in clinch situations. In recent fights he’s shown that this is not the case. His technical boxing has stepped up, and where we’ve seen a greater improvement is in his timing. Okami isn’t the fastest puncher in the world, which is why much of his career he’s been seen counter punching. That style will be much more effective with improved timing.

But one has to think, if Okami’s game plan is to stand up with Anderson, he’s going to go down just like all the ones before him. If world class fighters like Dan Henderson and Vitor Belfort can’t get it done on the feet, who will? Probably not Okami.

It appears that to have success against Anderson, you need to get him on his back or against the fence, and then keep him there, while doing damage and also avoiding submission attempts.

The question is, can Okami do all those things? Was Anderson Silva not himself against Chael Sonnen because of a rib injury, and was that the only reason Chael had any success? Or was Chael’s style of pressure mixed with wrestling actually on the right track to a winning game plan against the longtime UFC Champion? And finally, can Okami implement the same plan with the same level of success this Saturday at UFC 134, when the UFC comes to Brazil for the first time since October 16, 1998.

In today's news: Brendan Schaub vs Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira at UFC: Rio, but will "Big Nog" be ready?; WTF is happing to Roy Nelson; and later, Jon "Bones" Jones is Rashad Evans' son.

But first; Chael Sonnen.

The 9 month contraversy with Mr. Sonnen has been beat to death. That's not to say there hasn't been great content composed all over the internet, and specifically right here on Mania, with incredible breakdowns and interpretations of this very intimidating subject. Good job to all; so good that I feel no need to go into the details. Here's something to think about though.

Now that we know Sonnen has opportunities to apply for his license again in one month, one has to question: what happens when he reapplies? George Dodd, the Executive Officer of the CSAC, was initially reported saying that Sonnen wouldn't be able to reapply for his license in California for one year. Although the CSAC was quick to put out a press release where they say "my bad, I read it wrong", the fact that Mr. Dodd was so quick to state that Sonnen had to wait another year may be a sign of things to come, IF Sonnen decides to reapply.

Sonnen has taken his case this far shows that he's willing and able to stick it out, at least a little longer. Knowing this, one has to imagine he will in fact reapply at some point in California, or perhaps Nevada.

Oh, Nevada; "What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas", right? Not for Chael Sonnen. In his initial testimony to the CSAC in December, he was quick to mention a phantom "conversation" he had with Mr. Kizer (not "he" as in, "I". But "he" as in, "we"....hmmm), sometime before his fight with Anderson Silva last August; where ol' Keith gave him the 'go-ahead' on his TRT usage. Unfortunately, Kizer was watching this, and heard these statements. After a period of investigation on Kizer's part, he contacted Mr. Dodd in California and explained his side of the story.

The commissions stuck together. Whooda' thunk it?   

In an interview with Pro MMA Radio's Larry Pepe back in April, Keith Kizer laid down his side publicly :

"Somehow, I heard the word 'Nevada'. And Chael said, 'yes, I did talk to someone with the Nevada Commission. And I'm like "Wow, Okay. Maybe he told our doctor, and our doctors talked to him, cleared him, and everything was fine." It doesn't make any sense for testosterone; that that's something you would clear at a weigh-in. I was even kind of thinking, "what doctor messed up". But then they (CSAC) ask "Who?", and Sonnen says "Keith Kizer". I literally kind of leaned back in my chair like, "what?!". It's just amazing to hear that. And then a week or two later, after I said "I never talked to the guy in my life", he was on Inside MMA, and they confront him: "Keith Kizer said you and him never talked". And he leaves the impression that we had talked. When I got face to fact with Chael, his explanation totally changed. But it still made no sense, because he's like "well, I should have said 'my' instead of 'I'." It was just very strange. But, I guess once you dig a hole sometimes you gotta keep diggin'."  

There's obviously still some issues to be settled between Sonnen and Kizer. This is why I believe Sonnen will have to request a hearing in Nevada, with Mr. Kizer's Commission, and clear up the "misunderstanding" in regards to "Conversation-Gate", on the record. In doing this there's really not much he can lose, at this point. That is, unless he comes up with another "colorful" testimony like he did in December. But Sonnen is smart; he should be able to learn from his mistakes and just do what he has to do this time around. 

For Sonnen, it would seem that getting his business straightened out with Keith Kizer in Nevada may in fact be his key to getting his license approved with the CSAC. If California's reasoning behind denying his reinstatement was that he lied in his initial testimony - and he clears that one off the list by becoming buddies with Kizer again. And although many believe it is not within their right or power to deny his license because of his criminal charges, the fact remains that they did. But after time, that has to go away. They seem to be getting themselves into some hot water now by getting nosey about his federal legal trouble, but just imagine if they continue to deny him on this principle. The outrage would ensue. 

Continue reading this post »

The infamous Twitter War. What a wonderful time we live in when professional mixed martial arts fighters can jump on their nearest networking device, say a little comment or two, attach an "@" symbol to someone’s name, send it out for the world to see, and the hits start rolling in. And sometimes, that's all it takes for a match to be made.

In the latest instance of the Twitter War, we see two top middleweights pitted together in what is a cross-promotional, yet still all under the Zuffa umbrella, back and forth banter between UFC’s longtime fan fav, Michael "The Count" Bisping, and Strikeforce’s Special Operations Officer himself, Tim Kennedy.

It appears the saga began when Kennedy mentioned Bisping in what seemed to be a blanket statement:

"It is #disrespectful and unprofessional to illegally knee someone in the face while they have their knees on the ground"

"The Count" was quick to fire back, and immediately the talk ensued. Will Michael Bisping's next opponent be "The Hero" Tim Kennedy?

Let's take a look at the possibilities to come from this new beef that seems to have developed over night.

Continue reading this post »

Let’s go back to last Saturday night at UFC 129. It was the main event. Georges St. Pierre taking on number one contender, Jake Shields. It was the end of the third round, and St. Pierre had looked pretty unbeatable in the fight thus far. But, something was wrong with the Welterweight Champion.

Holding his eye in obvious pain and/or confusion, St. Pierre was in a “Rush” to let his corner know of his injury. He tells Greg Jackson and Firas Zahabi:

“I can’t see out of my left eye”

If you’ve ever seen Georges St. Pierre’s title match at UFC 100 against Thiago Alves, then you already know what Greg Jackson told him about his injured eye. He told him to suck it; to continue despite the injury. And that’s exactly what Georges St. Pierre did at UFC 129.

During the TV broadcast, after St. Pierre made his announcement to his corner, with the help of replay, we were lead to believe the eye injury came at the hands of a Jake Shields jab. But just hours after the event concluded, and with the help of modern technology, we have come to find possible evidence to the contrary. In photo after photo, GIF after GIF, video after video, it’s clear to see that Jake Shields poked St. Pierre in his eyes with his extended fingers on several different occasions. Whether or not these eye pokes were intentional or unintentional is for the referee to decide, and had Herb Dean seen the pokes to Georges’ eye he would have had to make that call. Because he did not see the eye pokes, he did not stop the action in order to make a determination one way or another.

Luckily for the Champion, the contest concluded and he was awarded a unanimous decision victory.

But “what if” Herb Dean heard St. Pierre tell his corner that he couldn’t see out of his eye? “What if” St. Pierre had been unable to continue after round 3?

In response to my article yesterday about the UFC welterweight division, the first thing maniacs wanted to talk about was the eye poke, and it sparked an interesting theory. If St. Pierre had been unable to continue after round 3 of their Championship contest, would Jake Shields be awarded the victory and the Welterweight title?

Upon coming across these points, it raises question about the Unified Rules of MMA. As far as the rules are concerned, what would have happened? Let’s explore the possibilities and perhaps get a closer look at the rules that govern the sport that we all love.

Continue reading this post »

After UFC 129: "St. Pierre vs. Shields," the critics have emerged from the woodwork to get their two cents in about what they thought of the main event between UFC Welterweight Champion Georges St. Pierre and Jake Shields.

The fight went the distance -- like most fights these days that feature "Rush" -- and at its conclusion, many fans in attendance, at home and online, made their feelings heard.

Literally.

Whether the boo-bird criticism is pointed toward St. Pierre for not having that "killer instinct" or you’re confused by what exactly Jake Shields’ gameplan was coming into the fight, one fact remains:

Both men will fight another day.

But against who?

Follow me after the jump to see what options are on the table for both fighters, UFC matchmaker Joe Silva, and you, the fans, who will cough-up your hard-earned cash to see them return to action ... perhaps sooner rather that later:

Continue reading this post »

After UFC 129: GSP vs Shields, the critics have been coming out of the woodwork to get their two cents in about what they thought of the main event between UFC Welterweight Champion Georges St. Pierre and Jake Shields. The fight went the distance, and at the conclusion many fans in attendance were making their feelings heard, literally. Whether your criticism is pointed towards GSP for not having that ‘killer instinct’ or you’re confused by what exactly Jake Shields’ game plan was coming into the fight; one fact remains, both men will fight another day. But against who?

In Shields’ case, you can almost name any top welterweight in the UFC and it would seem like a good fit. I don’t see fans clamoring for a rematch between Shields and GSP anytime soon, and I’m sure the UFC knows that, so it’s likely they’ll put him in with a mid-to-high ranked guy. The upcoming fight between Nate Marquardt and Anthony Johnson could produce his next challenge. Nate Marquardt is making his welterweight debut in that fight, plus he’s coming off of a win at middleweight over Dan Miller at UFC 128, so it’s likely “The Great” only needs a couple wins to secure himself in the title picture. Historically, we’ve seen fighters get rewarded with less work when they drop down in weight class (see Urijah Faber for example). As for Anthony Johnson, he always seems like a guy the UFC is pushing. His comeback fight against Dan Hardy at Fight Night 24 back in March was the co-main event. And although he may have surprised some with him game plan in that fight, he showed that he’s willing to use all of his skills, even if it means putting on a less-thrilling fight. He showed evolution, which surely increased his stock in the UFC’s eyes. If Shield’s next opponent turns out to be the winner of this fight, he’ll be in for another tough one.

But the welterweight division certainly has more contenders to offer a Jake Shields. Carlos Condit is without a doubt worth mentioning. He’s riding a three fight win streak over Jake Ellenberger, Rory MacDonald, and Dan Hardy. Condit seems to be one of the three or four names people are saying when talking about GSP’s next opponent. What’s a better test than the man that just faced the Champion? But who’s to say Condit will make it passed his next opponent, Dong-hyun “Stun Gun” Kim. Kim is officially undefeated in his mixed martial arts career, riding 14 straight wins, with his only near-blemishes coming at the hands of Hidehiko Hasegawa, who “Stun Gun” fought to a draw in Japan back in October of 2007; and the other coming from Karo “The Heat” Parisyan at UFC 94. But luckily for Kim, after the fight, Karo got himself into some “Heat” with the NSAC after testing positive for a banned substance and thus changing the previously recorded unanimous decision for Karo, to a no contest. Since that fight in January of 2009, Kim has looked unstoppable. He’s taken out TJ Grant, Amir Sadollah and Nate Diaz in dominent unanimous decision victories. At UFC 132: Faber vs Cruz, we’ll see whether the “Stun Gun” will be enough to take out “The Natural Born Killer”.

During the Prelims show on Spike TV for UFC 129, we saw two welterweights put on extremely impressive performances. First, we saw Jake Ellenberger, who has quietly won four in a row in the UFC, turn in a first round KO over Sean Pierson. Shortly thereafter, it was Rory MacDonald putting it on Nate Diaz to win a unanimous decision victory. Ellenberger showed the evolution in his stand-up with the quick knock out; while MacDonald showed his over-whelming strength, his wrestling skills as well as improved stand-up. It will be very interesting seeing where these two go from here, as they got the TV broadcast for UFC 129 off to a great start. One could assume the fact that they performed on the same show could lend them to fighting each other in the near future, and if that’s the case, certainly the winner of that fictitious contest will be looking at a top ranked guy on their horizon. 

When analyzing the modern day UFC welterweight division one can’t ignore the conundrum that became after the main event of UFC 127, when B.J. Penn and Jon Fitch fought to a draw. Fitch has now confirmed that he will be undergoing surgery (scheduled for May 5th) on his injured shoulder, while Penn is rehabbing a shoulder injury as well, with hopes that he won’t have to undergo any surgery. If Penn can come back sooner rather than later it’s interesting to find his placement in the division. When you fight the number 2 ranked guy to a draw, what’s to become of your ranking? For Penn he may be looking to wait for Jon Fitch to return, depending on what happens with his own shoulder injury. But if the Hawaiian is ready to compete somber rather than later, which seems to be his desire, the UFC will surely find a niche for “The Prodigy”. He could very well compete with any of the names mentioned here.

And what about Diego Sanchez? Word is he’s up to face Matt Hughes later on this year. One has to wonder where the winner will be in the division. Hughes has gone on record saying he has “one or two” fights left in him. By my watch, that’s not enough time to find himself in a title shot situation. And if Sanchez fights Hughes the way he did against Martin Kampmann at UFC on Versus in March, the Hall of Famer is going to be for one hell of a fight.

So, where are we now? I suppose we’re at the same place we were when we started; just a few names deeper. But the answers will come soon enough, as these 170 match-ups start to unfold. One thing is for sure, though, there is no shortage of competition in this division.

But, can any of them defeat the reigning UFC Welterweight Champion?

(Note: no mention of Nick Diaz because it's still unclear what his contract situation is with Strikeforce/Showtime. If the situation becomes more clear, expect comment)

I think it's safe to say, Dana White is an MMA fan. Just watch his speech as he opened the UFC 129 pre-fight press conference.

There was an extra sense of excitement coming from the president of the UFC. This is an excitement we have seen glimpses of in the past. What is it about these special events? Is it the event? Or is it the market? What makes Dana White more excited for this event than the one last month, or the month before?

Can you say stadium? How about 55,000?

When news first broke that MMA had been legalized in Toronto, Canada the buzz was all about where the UFC would hold their first event in the Province. In the beginning, the decision was between the Air Canada Centre and the Rogers Centre. But even before this, Dana White had made comments about his fear for doing an event in a stadium.

You can thank the Manny Pacquiao vs. Joshua Clottey fight held in Cowboys Stadium in Arlington, Texas for at least partly changing Mr. White's mind. He attended that event; and afterwards had only good things to say about being a spectator at an event such as that one. Prior to this event he had feared the "UFC atmosphere" would get lost in translation in such a big stadium. And he's partly correct. Without the proper measures taken, even the Pac-Man/Clottey fight wouldn't have been as successful as it was. But what he found is that you can bring it right back to an intimate style show that the UFC fans have come to love, with the right production.

For this event on Saturday, the UFC has gone all out on production. Dana White, Tom Wright, and all their crew have been working for months to make sure there's not a bad seat in the house. They're bringing in 8 jumbo screens to post at various points of view around the stadium; their usual is about 4. The biggest of the UFC's production steps have to be in the form of the giant 4-screen cube that the UFC built and is installing in the Rogers Centre for this event.

But it's not only the fancy screens or the production. What's a good fight card without a good, well, fight card?

The UFC knew that, so they made sure that all 55,000 people get their money's worth. From top-to-bottom UFC 129 is stacked with compelling fight, after compelling fight. The under card is filled with local talent that is sure to please the Canadian fans in attendance, but the UFC is also offering ALL of the under card fights for free on Facebook. This is a first and seems to be something the UFC is interested in continuing for future events. Spike TV is also offering two interesting fights in Sean Pierson vs Jake Ellenberger, and Nate Diaz vs Rory MacDonald.

That combined with a stacked pay-per-view line-up is what makes this event so special. It'll be interesting to see the numbers for the Facebook stream as well as the Spike TV broadcast. With all this MMA on a Saturday night, this could be a perfect test for the "over-saturation" theory.

With all that said, a real fan just can't help but be excited for this event on Saturday. History will be made, in more ways than one. If it were any real passionate MMA fan speaking at that pre-fight press conference I’m sure they'd all share the same sentiments as Dana White. That's why this company is so successful.

Enjoy it, everyone!

The MMAdams Sunday Paper

The “Sunday Paper” is going to be a piece I do every Sunday discussing various happenings in the MMA world, but this one is a very special edition, and couldn’t wait until Sunday. Enjoy.

Spoken Too Soon

We’ve all seen the Rashad Evans and Jon Jones pre-UFC 128 drama, and sure, it is all dream-speak until we see the results of UFC 128, but it shouldn’t stop us from rolling the thoughts around our craniums. Here’s the deal as it stands right now; Jon “Bones” Jones faces “Shogun” Rua for the Light Heavyweight Title this Saturday. Jones took this fight on six week notice, after word came out that his training partner, Rashad Evans (who was originally scheduled to take on the returning champion) was injured and would not be ready to compete. All it took for Jones to get the shot was to dismantle Ryan Badar. He did, and instantly after the initial announcement that Jones and Rua would fight, word starts getting thrown around about “IF” Jones becomes the Champion on Saturday, will Rashad Evans fight him? At first, as we all probably expected, the answer was a pretty clear “no”, but now…things may be changing.

We’ve heard Greg Jackson come out and say “I won’t have anything to do” with his teammates fighting each other. What that exactly means is anyone’s guess. It could possibly mean that he wouldn’t train the two of them at the same time for a fight against each other, or that he won’t train them separate, or that he wouldn’t train them at all if their intention is to fight one another. The jury is still out on Mr. Jackson.

We’ve also heard from Jackson MMA affiliate, Trevor Whitman, who had almost the complete opposite response. Even to go so far as to say that Jones maybe shouldn’t have stepped in for his own teammate, because of how young Jones is in his career. What Whitman brings to the table here is that he has trained and assisted training Rashad Evans for his last two fights against Thiago Silva at UFC 108 and Rampage Jackson at UFC 114. It is important to note that up until Rashad had to pull out of his fight against “Shogun” that he had planned on doing his camp at Jackson’s in New Mexico.

During the UFC on Versus 3 telecast there was a sit down interview between Jon Jones and Ariel Helwani that aired, in which Jones made some of the most infamous comments of this whole situation when he said that he “would fight” Rashad Evans, if Dana White “really” wanted him to. I’m no mind reader, but I’d say if the opportunity came up to match Rashad Evans and Jon Jones, Dana White would be jumping ALL over that. But that’s a story for another post.

Just about an hour after this aired, Rashad was asked, during the post-fight show, to comment on what Jones said, in which he replied by basically saying, “I’m no punk, so…”. Even more recently, Evans was the guest on Larry Pepe’s Pro MMA Radio, where the two had a chilling conversation about the issue. I urge anyone with any interest to go listen to said interview at your earliest convenience. Rashad is clearly opening up to the thought of fighting his teammate.

Want more? Earlier this week it was reported that Rashad Evans’ manager (who is ironically “Bones” manager too) talked with MMAfighting.com about the issue of training camps of the two were match up. He stated that if the two were scheduled to fight then they very well could not train alongside each other. Of course, we also have the random (and seemingly incorrect) Chael Sonnen tweet, that sparked much internet talk about what exactly will happen with Rashad Evans should Jones win. Evans cleared it up in that same interview with Pro MMA Radio when he said he would in fact have to “divorce” himself from Jackson’s camp altogether if the team agreed to let teammates fight teammates. And his words made it clear that the only reason he would do that is to get away from Jon Jones, should they become matched up.  

Ladies and Gentleman, we have a situation here. All we can do now is look to the fight itself and see what happens. This is all just fantasy talk for now. We have few short days left before we find out if any of it matters.

Planet Zuffa

On Friday, March 11th Zuffa, parent company of the UFC, purchased it’s most promising North American rival MMA promotion in Strikeforce. It was announced Saturday afternoon when Dana White did a 20+ minute long sit down interview with Ariel Helwani, discussing everything you can imagine about the deal.

On Monday Zuffa did a conference call that featured Dana White, Lorenzo Fertita, and Scott Coker. And what a display it was. To hear Coker’s obvious tone of disappointment was actually upsetting. I hope that it was just the newness of the deal, or his obligation to actually speak about current events, but Coker certainly didn’t sound over-excited to say that his partner in ownership of Strikeforce wanted out of the MMA business. When asked if he thought this move was best for himself, Coker answered by saying it’s a good thing for “the sport and the fans”. You can’t help but sense the nervousness in his voice. But what’s done is done, as they say.

What does this actually means for the fans at this point? They’ve made it very clear that nothing will change. So for fans, we can pretty much forget that they bought them all together, at least for the new few months, I’d say. But Dana and Lorenzo both made it a point to leave open the option of “super-fights”.

The huge elephant in the room is Showtime. Will they be up for televising a Zuffa product? We all know Dana’s battles with various Showtime employees. The big moment of clarity will happen on April 1, when Strikeforce holds it’s first event since the Zuffa purchase in Stockton, CA. The next biggest step will be April 9th for Strikeforce: Diaz vs Daley. Speaking of which, Daley seems to have doubts about his inclusion in the main event. It’d be interesting to find out if bout agreements were signed by him, because if so one would think he wouldn’t even have that option, unless he suffered an “injury” of some kind.

At this point what we know is that most options are still open. Lorenzo Fertita will reportedly be meeting with Showtime officials next week to talk about their future in doing business together. After the results of that meeting become available we should have a much more clear view of what’s to come involving the two companies. One would have to assume that Showtime would want to do business with the largest MMA promotion in the world, because they’ve been doing business with #2 for so long, you’d think they would be open to it. But ego’s have a way of getting IN the way.

Small Talk

-The UFC reportedly had success in Albany, New York when they met with several officials and attempted to educate them about the sport. Then to up the ante they had two New York Athletic Commission affiliates speak at the opening of the UFC 128 pre-fight press conference. The two men were met with huge applauses from the New York crowd. It seems the UFC is doing all they can to help speed up the process in New York. One has to think it’s a pretty genius (and honestly, very ironic) move to not only have the New York native in Jon Jones headline a card in New Jersey, but to hold the press conference for the event in New York City, where New Yorkers got a chance to show their support directly to their favorite UFC Light Heavyweight. As a result of the work done by the UFC, it seems that government officials have put MMA on the next budget plan for the state. I’m sure more on this will come in the next few months. Stay tuned to all of your media sources.

-Everyone has heard about the tragedy that struck Japan last Friday when they were hit with a massive earthquake followed by a huge tsunami. Among the obvious tragedies that the event caused to all the Japanese people, the big disaster has also left Yoshihiro Akiyama unable to fight on Saturday at UFC 128, but how long will this incident actively affect MMA in Japan? One has to wonder that this isn’t good at all for the already struggling MMA market in Japan. There two major promotions, DREAM and Sengoku, have had well documented financial issues over the past year and a half, and this is sure to cause more of the same. We can only speculate, but there is a chance that this could affect the ability to get Japanese fighters over to North America to fight, or vise-versa. It was reported that Shinya Aoki and Tatsuya Kawajiri were going to able to make the trip and will proceed to fight on the upcoming Strikeforce fight card on April 9th. That is very good news, and while I’m sure the two men will fight with heavy hearts they also will be inspiration for the struggling Japanese people. For now, let’s just hope the issue gets resolved very soon and life can go back to normal in the Land of the Rising Sun.

The “Sunday Paper” is a weekly article where I discuss various happenings in the MMA world. Check back this coming Sunday for report on the immediate fallout from UFC 128 and various other topics.

Mauricio “Shogun” Rua [LHW C] vs. Jon “Bones” Jones

THE BREAKDOWN

“Shogun” Rua will come into UFC 128 with just over a 10 month long layoff, and another knee surgery. In his UFC debut, which was a submission loss to Forrest Griffin at UFC 76, he was coming off of a 7 month long layoff; and a knee surgery. He then came back with the “Fight of the Night???” performance against a gassed out, and terribly one-dimensional, Mark Coleman. Since then he’s taken out Chuck Liddell and basically defeated Lyoto Machida twice to become the UFC Light Heavyweight Champion.

Before joining the UFC Rua's surgeries took place outside of the United States. We can assume that “Shogun” wasn’t under the proper care for his previous knee surgeries and post-op physical therapy. In the past “Shogun” only took up to 7 months off to heal his knee. With this in mind it makes one think that the extra time off could have been beneficial to him in those past cases. Now being in the United States, and getting care under the UFC’s right-hand docs, with the extra time off to heal himself properly and do all the physical therapy he needs to do, maybe this 10 month layoff doesn’t look too bad for Rua after all.

For “Bones” Jones life almost couldn’t get any better. He’s coming off a dominant win over Ryan Badar in the “Prospect vs. Prospect” match-up at UFC 126. Before that Jones put a beating on the rugged vet Vladimir Matyushenko, elbowed “The Truth” out of Brandon Vera, and basically destroyed Matt Hamill which resulted the in the 12-6 elbow and controversial DQ. The now infamous moment when Jones was offered the Championship fight inside the Octagon after submitting Jones has started the “hype” all over again. The betting lines came out with Jones at a 2-1 favorite in some places. But for Jones his record as of late makes this “hype” that much closer to being reality.

In 4 of Jones’ 7 UFC wins he’s defeated high level wrestlers. His highest level strikers are probably against Brandon Vera, who had nothing for Jones on the feet, and Ryan Badar, who got a punch or two on Jones before the storm came. “Shogun” is on another level on the feet than both of these men; and the people that “Shogun” has defeated, like “Rampage” Jackson, Alistair Overeem (twice), Cyrille Diabate, Chuck Liddell, and the previously undefeated Lyoto Machida, are all much better strikers than Jones has faced previously. It is interesting to note that 7 of Rua’s 16 KO/TKO’s are by either soccer kicks or stomps, both of which are illegal in the UFC.

There’s no doubt that the big question in this fight is going to be Jones’ wrestling. Will “Shogun” able to deal with the wrestling, and grappling, brilliance that Jones has shown in the UFC? Rua has faced 5 respectable wrestlers in his MMA career, and that’s being very nice to “Rampage” Jackson and Chuck Liddell. Both men do have wrestling backgrounds but have a history of NOT using that skill offensively in their fights. Jones is sure to use his wrestling to it’s fullest potential at UFC 128, as he has in almost every one of his UFC fights.

If “Shogun” does find himself on his back he’s going to be well-equipped to handle himself there. His use of leg sweeps from half-guard, as well as his leg locks, will make the ground battle very interesting here. Rua is very experienced and is very good at staying calm when put in bad positions. “Shogun” will come well prepared to be against the cage, and we all know how devastating he can be from the clinch. If he can somehow get Jones back against the cage in the clinch then we may see “Bones” in trouble for the first time in his career.

In Jones’ 13 career fights he has only suffered minor damage; the most probably being in his UFC debut against Andre Gusmao at UFC 87. If a version of “Bones” shows up at UFC 128 that’s anywhere close to that one, then Rua is going to have his way. But to be fair Jones’ stand-up sure wasn’t what it is today back in 2008, and his cardio wasn’t either. Since joining with Greg Jackson in New Mexico Jones has always shown up in the best shape possible. We have seen Rua gas in the past, especially in his fights coming off of knee surgeries. But in his 5 round war with Lyoto Machida at UFC 104, “Shogun” stayed strong until the final bell. Now, that fight had almost zero grappling, and this one is sure to, so it’s tough to gauge exactly how “Shogun” will do in a fight against a high level wrestler like Jon Jones.

The career’s of both of these men, both in and out of MMA, make this fight at UFC 128 a beautiful problem. At this level in the UFC, especially in the Light Heavyweight division, every fight is a match up of very worthy and very skilled fighters. This one follows suit. It is going to be Jon Jones’ wrestling against “Shogun” Rua’s Muay Thai. We’ll see if Rua’s 10 month layoff to heal his knee was strategically planned in his best interest with his past knee problems in mind, or if it’ll be another case of “cage rust” and continuing knee issues on the night. Will it be the return of the Champion, Mauricio “Shogun” Rua, to rule the Light Heavyweight division for years to come; or will it be the coming of the new breed of MMA athlete in the hungry up and coming Jon “Bones” Jones.

UFC 128: Shogun vs. Jones March 19, 2011.

MMAdams Prediction: Every element is interesting in this fight. In fights like that I believe it’s the first man to succeeed early with his particular style that can dictate the way the rest of the fight plays out. To be that person, it will take supreme confidence; so who’s more confident?… I’d say Jones. His wrestling is very strong and his list of incredible training partners tells me his sub defense will be there for Shogun’s tricky moves; it won’t be easy, but I think the young gun strikes early with smart strikes and then takedowns. Not sure how it ends; probably with fans going crazy.

It may have been clouded by the endless amount of "Fedor (blank)" material that’s taken over the MMA world, but over the weekend the UFC released some staggering information about there biggest event to take place that hasn’t even taken place yet….of course, UFC 129. On Saturday February 12 the UFC announced that it had sold an estimated total of 55,000 tickets for their debut show in Toronto’s Rogers Centre for an estimated total gate of $10 Million.

Let’s put that into perspective really quick. Prior to this event, the UFC’s previous gate record was UFC 66: Liddell vs Ortiz 2 and it drew $5.4 Million in Las Vegas. So from UFC 66 all the way to UFC 129 they stayed under $5.4 Million for their gate. In between these events we saw UFC 71: Liddell vs Jackson, UFC 83: GSP vs Serra 2, UFC 91: Couture vs Lesnar, UFC 94: GSP vs Penn 2, and even the ultra hyped UFC 100. Although, these are all powerful events that had powerful fight cards none of them had quite enough to break records. The UFC’s first event in Toronto and the Canadians are already breaking records. This goes to show us Americans just how strong the fan base is up North.

What this should also be very telling about this is the UFC’s future plans. At first, when asked about where they would hold their first Toronto-based event, Dana White was a little bit uncomfortable about it because their brand has thrived on it’s "intimate experience" it sets at it’s shows. This was the reason Dana White wasn’t thinking about doing an event at Cowboys Stadium. That was until he went to Texas to watch Pacman do some work on Joshua Clottey’s face. After that event was the first time he eased up on doing events inside of stadiums. He told reporters that the huge jumbo-trons they hang from the center of the stadium are what pull everyone in together.

After the UFC’s success, both in popularity and financially, I wouldn’t be surprised to see the UFC start to do stadium shows more and more often for it’s biggest and best cards here in the US. Cowboys Stadium is obviously going to be the first one; at least that’s the impression I get from them. Passed that, it’s just about anyone’s guess. It seems to me that at every Q&A or interview that, when asked, Dana says "yes" to going every where around the world for an event; so it shouldn’t bother any of us that they will probably become more and more comfortable with doing stadiums as time goes on and more and more fighters become real superstars like GSP or Brock Lesnar.

The UFC’s roster, at this point, is looking to be pushing 300 fighters. This stat alone, even with the number of cuts they’ve been doing lately, is reason enough not to worry about your local UFC events coming to an affordable arena near you.

At this point everyone and their mother has heard or read Joe Rogan’s comments from the TUF Finale on Saturday night about judging in MMA. Not to rehash what has already been said, but here it is again, just for the sake of reference:

"I don't think the last fight was close and the decision went the wrong way. It puts a tremendous amount of pressure on fighters not knowing what kind of officiating you're getting. It's gross. You should be able to leave it in the hands of the judges. You should be able to just fight. And we should point out, that is the situation because of the Nevada State Athletic Commission. It has nothing to do with the UFC. People keep saying 'oh the UFC!' We have no say whatsoever. And (NSAC executive director) Keith Kizer has denied that there's an issue. I think (Kizer) needs to clean house. There's a few very good judges surrounded by a bunch of incompetent morons, who know nothing about the sport. They need to do something about that, because it's ruining MMA. It's making people think that this sport is corrupt. It has nothing to do with corruption. It's sheer and total incompetence."

While watching the show on Saturday night, when he started saying all of this I was 100% behind him. I thought that this is exactly what needs to happen for change to be enforced. These shit-job decisions are going to stack up and cause more and more outcry, but Saturday we had a high profile MMA personality (if that’s what you want to call Rogan?) publicly, on national television, speaking out about the decision the judges just gave and the many bad decision given by the judges in the past. And not only was he publicly speaking out about it but he gave you a name, Keith Kizer, and he gave you the place, The Nevada State Athletic Commission. This is the proper start for the bad-decision anecdote formula. People need to know who to bitch at. People need, and possibly desire, to have a specific person to place blame.

One point I’ve seen brought up by MMA ‘reporters’ is that part of blame should inherently be put upon UFC’s Marc Ratner’s shoulders, because he ran the commission before Keith Kizer did. Let’s look at the facts here. Ratner left the commission to join the UFC on May 15th of 2006. To put in perspective just how long ago that was in MMA years, the UFC’s next event after Ratner joined the team was UFC 60: Hughes vs. Gracie. Maybe a more educated MMA enthusiast can recall, but as hard as I try to remember, I can’t think of one single bad decision before that event that caused the present day’s public outcry; at least not in the UFC. To blame someone for things that happen at their FORMER employer after they had been long gone makes about as much sense as someone putting the blame for World War II on Obama. And not only that, but when Ratner was head of the commission their main focus sport was boxing; of course he was head while some fishy boxing decisions were made, but we all know that boxing is a completely different animal, in and out of actual competition, than MMA. In boxing there is merit for blame to be put on more people than just the judges when a bad call is made. Its history made that possible.

I’m not trying to say that Ratner is the greatest guy on earth. In fact, his mere existence in the commission during boxing years makes me think he has to be capable of some level of corruption, but he is NOT in that position anymore. The position he has with the UFC would not grant him any power to be able to enforce any corruption. Nothing that we would see anyway. The UFC was smart in placing him, I suppose.

But back to Rogan. The golden line of his whole statement was him explaining the fact that these horrible decisions we see can pretty much be chalked up to incompetence and a lack of knowledge about the sport. And if you dig even an inch deep into the steps the commissions take to making sure their judges are qualified enough, and stay qualified enough, then you’ll see that it really is as simple as people looking at something their just not that familiar with. Of course, there are some phenomenal judges also. For the sake of argument let’s just go ahead and give all of those awesome people a pass. This is not directed towards you.

Since Saturday there’s been even more come out from both sides about all of this. Reporter after reporter has looked at it from all angles. Keith Kizer himself has come out and tried to blame Rogan’s rant on Saturday on his apparent self esteem issues(?):

"Obviously there are people who want to feel superior than others, trash others. Maybe they are full of some self-hate, some self-pity, maybe that’s Rogan’s piece as well. There are ways to criticize professionally, ethically, effectively and legitimately. But then there are ways where you are just trying to make yourself look better."

The only logical response to this mockery of a statement is to ask: so, which part of Rogan’s speech made him look better? Or better yet, which part was about him at all?

It was about judging, Keith. The very subject you decided to not comment on in your response. And besides all that, why do we even bother listening to someone who believes the judges shouldn’t even have video monitors in front of them while they judge a fight.

"That’s why there are three judges."

-Keith Kizer

It’s not about provoking a showdown between the UFC and the NSAC. It’s about doing the right thing for the athletes that entertain us at every event. It’s not about me, it’s not about the fans, it’s not about Joe Rogan, it’s not even about the UFC. It’s about doing the right thing for the people who make all of this possible….the fighters. Trying to make it seem any other way shouldn’t be tolerated any longer. If the people that pay their money to see fights stand up for the fighters they enjoy watching, then this will change.

Thanks for reading.

For about three weeks leading up to the fight between Lyoto “The Dragon” Machida and “Rampage” Jackson all you would hear from MMA analyst is how Jackson’s non-technique would be defeated by Machida’s elusive style. In the fight it was very interesting seeing how their styles matched up. “Rampage” was on the move, straight forward, for nearly the whole fight. He was swinging wild hooks, most of them were air-balls but a few were effective. On Machida’s side, we saw a man coming off of his first loss, his first knock out and possibly the first time that his style was figured out. If you take all of that into account then his performance with the ultra-powerful “Rampage” is reasonable at this point in his career.

He used a more traditional version of the style that brought him to his impressive 16-0 record before the first Rua fight. He would counter a punch-movement from “Rampage” with leg kicks in the beginning. About halfway through the first round, after 4 or so leg kicks, Jackson started to take notice; he would move his leg out of the way and rush forward really quick with wild hooks and power punches, missing most of them. In the second and third round Machida really cranked up the “point-fighting”. When they would come at each other to exchange, whether Machida got a clean strike in or not, he would clinch up with “Rampage”, and usually end up against the cage. This strategy is one we’ve seen Machida use in the past, but not this often. He could have been trying to win rounds by pushing Jackson against the cage, but nearly every time “Rampage” would counter the position and put Machida’s back on the fence. It was fun to see the little technical battles in close between these two very different fighters, but it was clear that Jackson’s strength was winning the clinch exchanges.

Machida’s strategy of “throw little hand strikes, lots of kicks, and clinch often” was only flawed in its execution. On paper that would seemingly defeat the not-so-hard-to-figure-out “Rampage”, but where Machida messed up was being a little too reserved to exchange with the power puncher; which is completely understandable, but that’s the trust of the matter. Had Machida been more aggressive in the first round, included some punches, and made Jackson think a little more than just the times when Machida would kick his leg then he would have had more success in the later rounds. Especially in that third round when Machida had “Rampage” hurt and covering up, retreating. It was one of the first times I remember seeing “Rampage” in a position like that since his fight with Dan Henderson, about three years ago now. It was almost as if Machida became a little too predictable. If it weren’t for that fighting changing exchange in the third and the ground control that followed, I don’t know if the fight would have seemed as close as it was.

One of the best things about this fight, at least for the two fighters, is that it was very close. Obviously, it’s a “win” for “Rampage”, and those are good, but I don’t see it hurting Machida all that much. He’ll get a fight with another top guy next and he’ll have to adjust to whoever they put in front of him. “Rampage” was a really tough fight for him coming back from the Rua knockout. As for Jackson, he’s still in the mix at Light Heavyweight. I could see an argument that after one more win he could be in the title picture again. It’s no secret that if “Rampage” just works hard during training and comes in at 100% he is a handful for anyone.

Because MMA is still such a young sport, we fans have had the chance to see the sport evolve from the sidelines. We’ve seen it grow from the Royce Gracie days of submitting people who have no idea what you’re doing to them, to now, where everyone seems like there on the same page. In the old days when Bruce Buffer would announce your name he’d also say what style or type of fighter you are. These days people are becoming more and more well rounded, but what’s on the horizon is a stable of young die-hard fans that turned into fighters. People that have been taking notes and counting the days until they can also compete in this sport. These people are true mixed martial arts fighters. From the start of their careers they are MMA fighters; not boxers or wrestlers that turned to MMA later in their career. They’ve been around this sport for their whole lives.

A perfect example of this new breed is the “New Breed” Eric Koch; a soon-to-be UFC Featherweight contender, after the merger at the first of the year, is one of the few WEC fighters who still has a WEC promoted fight upcoming before the UFC and WEC merge at the beginning of 2011. Originally he was scheduled to take on surging contender Josh Grispie, but after the announcement of the UFC and WEC merger Grispie was pulled from that fight and promoted to a title fight against division wrecking ball and Champion, Jose Aldo. Now Koch will face Francisco Rivera at WEC 52 on November 11th to prove his worth before the big move to the UFC.

Koch has gone 10-1 overall in his MMA career and also sports a 2-1 record in the WEC with his only loss coming by way of decision to top prospect Chad Mendez. And Mendez didn’t have unkind things to say about Koch following the fight. He told multiple outlets that Koch was the toughest fight of his career. Mendez wasn’t the only one that learned something in that fight. Koch recently did an interview with Pro MMA Radio's Larry Pepe where he touched on just what he took away from his first and only career loss:

“You know the loss, it sucked, but it’s probably the best thing that’s happened to me. And I know all fighters say that, but it’s true. You know, when you have a loss then you really know what to work on. If you dominate all your fights then you really don’t know where your bad areas are at. A lot of wrestlers in MMA, they try to get you to the fence, to try to take you down from the fence. Well, I’m comfortable there. I’m not used to a wrestler backing up, waiting for me to throw a strike, and going under. I feel like my wrestling’s good, I just feel like the transition between my striking and wrestling I needed to work on. I think I needed to be a little more on the counter side, trying to counter fight. I have good range when it comes to other strikers. One problem I had with Mendez was he was waiting for me to open up, so he could shoot on me and take me down. So that’s definitely something I’ve worked on.”

One thing that rings true in almost every combat sport is that knowledge of your sport will take you a very long way. It might even be the difference between being at the top and being just another face around the ring (or cage). It’s obvious that Koch has been watching his sport the begining and has done the proper things with his own fighting career to make sure he stays ahead of the game. Here Larry asks him about his fighting stance and Koch goes into the differences between traditional striking and MMA striking:

“Eric, when I look at your stance you have a bit of an unorthodox stance. And it seemed to bother Chad; it seems to bother a lot of guys. Where does that stance come from? Is that something that came naturally to you, or is that something you kind of tried to put into affect because it does throw guys off a bit?

 

That’s one thing Duke (Rufus) teaches is, you gotta have your own style. He’ll help you with the fundamentals, but have your own style. That style is natural to me, I don’t know where it comes from. Duke says it’s “swagger”. I’ve been doing the sport so long that I kind of made my own unique style. And I mix it up. You’re going to see some different stuff, some crazy stuff. This is entertainment, too. So you’re going to see some crazy stuff, I promise you that. If you notice, a lot of times just when you got a weird stance the other guy doesn’t want to throw a punch; because they don’t know what the hell you’re doing. In MMA now, striking is different. You can’t have the straight traditional…you know, everybody knows you can throw a jab, everybody knows you can throw a cross, everybody knows you can throw a hook. You gotta make things different. You gotta break the rules a little bit because if you don’t they’re going to know what you’re going to do. I can go stand in front of a guy, put my hands up high, and with those little gloves, you’re still going to get hit. I think MMA striking is more based on movement. Like footwork. Look at Anderson Silva, how he clowns people, he uses his footwork; he intimidates people. It’s the exact same thing (as) “Bones” Jones; long lanky dudes, very unorthodox. No one can ever hit him, because they don’t know what to do with it. So I think that’s what you’re going to start seeing. When you’re throwing hands from everywhere, you look at Fedor, the way he throws his punches. The way he lands them is because he throws them at different angles. He’s not throwing the “1-2-3” and load up for a big hook. Striking is not the same in MMA. We don’t have big boxing gloves. We can’t just put our hands up and defend a bunch of punches. Those gloves needle through. They’re very small. So, it’s more of a movement game. You see guys in MMA, it’s back and forth; it’s in-and-out, in-and-out, in-and-out. You don’t really see two guys just sit there and swing, unless they’re like Leonard Garcia and Korean Zombie. When you’re a technical fighter, a lot of times you’re training with other technical fighters. So you’re used to fighting guys that do the technical thing. They have the hands up, jab-cross, jab-cross-hook. But what happens when you get guys like Roy Jones Jr. Look at what he did. He was unorthodox as hell and he was knocking people out. That’s the way I look at it. MMA striking is completely different. You throw kicks in there, and wow!”

For such a young prospect it seems that Koch definitely has his head on straight. When you have training partners like WEC Lightweight number one contender “Showtime” Anthony Pettis, a clear future in the UFC just a few short weeks away, it may be easy to get ahead of yourself and fold under the pressure. But Koch isn’t having any of that:

“You know, some people have pressure and a lot of times it doesn’t bother them. I really don’t have pressure because a fight’s a fight. It doesn’t matter where they have you on the card, it doesn’t matter how many people are watching, it doesn’t matter if it’s on TV. When I walk out there I’m not thinking “Oh God! I’m on TV right now!” I’m thinking of that guy in the cage that’s going to try to rip my head off. I don’t want to look like a fool on TV, but I’m not thinking about that. I’m like “this guy is going to try to physically hurt me”.

And for those who have been counting the Iowa resident out he has this to say to you:

“Those people don’t train. They don’t see what I go through. I’m training 4 to 5 times a day. I’m a mad man. People have to stop me from training. I’m a work horse. This is just what I love to do, and this is my life. I feel like I’m a lot better than what people give me credit for because people don’t see me.”

It seems silly to be on the eve of what the UFC calls a "major anncoument" and still be trying to figure out exactly what is going to be told. Why even bother when the annoucment will be made and spread across the ether of the internet within 60 minutes? Well, number one would be that it's just fun. Number two?

We all know that in the past when Dana has "huge" annoucments they always seem a little grey and/or extremly underwelming. But in their own words this is "major", so shouldn't that mean it's major to us fans too, even if we don't think so right away. What I mean is, it could be a type of annoucment that's meant to start buzz, or it could be meant to actually give us new information. But it very well could end up being another bleak explanation of what the UFC plans to do to the sport of MMA in the next ten years. You know, that grand plan that we're always hearing about.

What we know right now is that last week in the media build up to UFC 121 (one of UFC's most anticipated events all year) Dana White said in several different outlets that the UFC is expanding big time in the near future, and in one interview even went as far as to say they will be in one billion homes by 2011.

He's said in a sit down interview with Fighting Words with Mike Straka that the UFC didn't need a network, but they will eventually get on a network. He's even brought up the UFC starting their own network on TV. UFC fights all day long, you say? I'm interested in that.

The point is, in Dana's most recent media rounds he's made a point to talk about being on network TV, getting a TV deal done, and the UFC expanding even more next year. Now, I realize we hear this talk from him all of the time, but do we ever get a press release the very next week stating that their will be a press confrence held in a few days to announce something "major"? I can't remember that ever happening.

Overall, it could be the UFC pulling our chain a little bit and possibly just announcing something silly like the coaches for TUF season number 423. But the signs point to something else. Could it be that Brock Lesnar is going to wrestle The Undertaker at the next Wrestle Mania in Atlanta? Could it be the brand new UFC Network? Could it be the new TUF coaches? It could be any one of these things, but will it be? I doubt it.

One more hour MMA fans. The Final Hour.

Brock Lesnar came into UFC 121 this past Saturday with the wrong game plan. As everyone knows by now he stormed top division challenger, Cain Velasquez, with a takedown right out of the gate. This first takedown was unsuccessfull; and then came the punches. He stood and exachanged with Cain for a short amount of time before securing two successful takedowns, both of which Cain popped RIGHT back up. When Cain took Brock down is when the game changed. Who has been able to take Brock Lesnar down thus far in his UFC career? Carwin did it in July with a pair of heavy uppercuts, but Lesnar still survived. Other than that Lesnar has never been in that situation. With Carwin, he survived. But he didn't survive with technique, he survived with his tough chin and his bodies unwillingness to go to sleep. This time, Brock was not so lucky.

This time Brock needed that technique, and after he got taken down he realized he was in the Ocotgon with a different kind of animal. After Brock struggled to get back to his feet he was unable to inflict any kind of damage on his opponent and wasn't much more than a sitting target until the fight was stopped. After his spazzy break dance routine that sent him spinning across the entire length of the Octogon, Lesnar was finished with strikes on the ground for the first time in his young career.

It's a shame the term "badest man on the planet" gets thrown around so freefully, because after Saturday night we all now know who that title rightfully belongs to. That's the new UFC Heavyweight Champion, Cain Velasquez.

The talk since Bruce Buffer announced "the newwwwwwwwwwww UFC Heavyweight Champion of the World..." has been what's next for Brock Lesnar (that is until everyone saw Ariel Helwani interview The Undertaker while Brock was leaving the arena, but we'll get to that later). Some say Brock will cancel his upcomming hunting trip and return to the gym as soon as possible to work on his mistakes and come back to action in the UFC. Others have said he'll hang it up in return for a more normal life. The person arguably most invested in that decision, Dana White, seems to think he'll go with the first of those two options. But for Dana, wouldn't this be the perfect time for his former Champion to bow out?

Dana finally convinced Brock Lesnar to do the "Primetime" TV show, he got Lesnar to do some promoting in hopes that this would be the biggest fight (revenue-wise) in the UFC's history. That fact remains to be seen. What we do now is that Brock came in super confident, resonably approachable for the media at least at the press conference, and even after losing he left the Octogon the same way. In his post fight interview with Joe Rogan, which is the ONLY statement we've seen come from Lesnar since the loss I might add, he said he's got to get back to it and work on his mistakes, "that's what Champions do". That tells me Brock is not done. But should he be?

That depends on the reason your asking. When people look back at history and they see that Brock Lesnar came into the UFC and faced the top competition at the time and got the UFC Heavyweight title in his fourth pro fight. He defended the title twice, while on the way avenging his only loss at the time to Frank Mir. He's made a shit-ton of money in the process and he's more open about not liking the public looking in on him than anything else. What more does he want to accomplish at this point in his life? The one thing we know is that Brock Lesnar is a mystery. It's like Sting back in the glory days of WCW. 'The only thing that's for sure about Brock Lesnar, is nothin's for sure'.

Now the talk of the town, post Ariel interview.

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Props: BJPenn.com

Quoteworthy:

"I got this tattoo for two reasons. One, for everything my parents did to come over to this country, all the hardships they had crossing the border. 'Brown pride' when we were growing up meant ‘Mexican pride.' That’s how we would say it. It’s something to say if we’re proud about where we came from. What my Dad did, my Mom did to get over to this country to me means a lot. I’m proud of where I came from. I’m proud of what Mexican people stand for. We’re known as hard working people. We’re known as fighters. We’re known to have a lot of heart. We’re known to never give up in the gym and have a lot of cardio. To always work hard. The work ethic that my Dad, all the Mexican people bring out in the fields and stuff, we bring to the gym and whatever else we do. Another reason why I got is because when I was growing up I didn’t have anybody to look up to. There’s nobody that was my size that was Mexican that looked like me that I could see in the media. I pretty much didn’t have those dreams of 'Hey, I can do that stuff. I can be in the media, I can play professional sports.' I didn’t have that. I didn’t have nobody to look up to so now that I’m in that position, I put 'Brown Pride' on my chest to let people know 'Hey, I’m Mexican. I’m proud to be Mexican. I’m doing good things.' For those people that just don’t know the story behind it, that’s all I can say. The only thing I can do is clear it up by doing interviews like this."

Ever since his debut in the UFC, young heavyweight stand-out Cain Velasquez has had a small issue attached to his name. That issue is the "Brown Pride" tattoo across his chest. Since day one there have been questions, comments, and allegations about the tattoo that seems to mean so much to the heavyweight number one contender. In a rare interview with Velasquez, he finally explains why he got the tattoo, what it means to him, and answered some of the allegations that have been made about the tattoo. As UFC 121 and his title shot against Brock Lesnar approaches, Cain is sure to find himself defending his ink more and more. Where do you come out on his so-called "controversial" tattoo? Is the tat over the top, or just the criticism of it?

And in just seven short months ...

"I can say I am now a full fan of the mixed martial arts. I watched a couple shows in Philadelphia. I got a lot of respect for these guys man. There are two guys that train at a gym in Philadelphia, and I'm going on record, yea Bernard bowed down, man. They put there time in. I got mad, mad, mad respect for those boys. I see how they work and I sat there and watched them. And now I got the panties on and they got the boxers."

Former middleweight boxing Champion Bernard Hopkins has officially made the switch. Apparently "B-Hop" is now an MMA fan, but in a very short amount of time. Although it is nice to see, in October of last year, prior to his bout with Enrique Ornelas, "The Executioner" made some slandering and disrespectful comments about MMA and its fans at a press conference promoting the boxing match:

"Everybody's different. I don't wanna watch two grown men, with panties on, wrestling. I mean, I'm from the hood. We don't play that. To me, I'm not buying a ticket to watch to men with panties on, sweating, you know what I mean. Nuts in there face. That's not me. So to compare that to boxing is ludicris. To compare UFC and (MMA) to boxing based on the whole cosmetic of it... To me it's a porno. It's an entertainment porno. I'm not gonna wrestle a guys with my panties on with nuts in my face. And they call that a sport. I'm not going into that, dog. I mean, I'm suspect. Can you see me sitting ringside watching two men with panties on? I can't diss it. I'm not criticizing people for what they like and what kind of entertainment they like, you know what I mean. I think most of them people are probably in the closet. There's something out there for everybody. I could understand if it's 90% women that were shown on those things, but I can't see a grown man sitting there with a couple of guy friends watching two guys with panties on wrestling and sweating."

My, oh my. What a turn around.

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The talk coming out of UFC on Versus 2 is all about “Bones”. In the main event of the evening Jon “Bones” Jones put a beating on Vladimir “The Janitor” Matyushenko that has to have nearly all of the light heavyweight division trembling where they stand. After eating one or two shots on the feet, Jones took the fight to the next level by unleashing a few of his unorthadox, but very lethal, strikes and then taking “The Janitor” to the closet on the ground. As if the takedown alone wasn’t impressive enough, Jones got his arm out of what looked to be a desperation kimora attempt (we’ll never know), got into a mounted crucifix position and rained down about 10 unanswered clean elbows to the face of Vlady. Referee Herb Dean may have jumped in a little earlier than any of us expected, but there was absolutely no objection from the battered Russian, or the crowd in attendance. It was one of many ultra-impressive performances from one of the top prospects in all of mixed martial arts today. The talk immediately following the contest was the inevitable question: what’s next for Jon “Bones” Jones?

On Versus own post-fight talk show The Dailey Line, Dana White said next for “Bones” would be a top 8 guy in the division. Jon trains regularly with division number one contender Rashad Evans, so that fight is always out of the question. “Rampage” Jackson recently signed to fight returning former Champion, Lyoto Machida. Rogerio Nogueria is tied up with Ryan Badar. I’ve seen talk of a potential Chuck Liddell match-up, but I don’t think that’s anywhere near the UFC’s radar. Because of all this, I expect Jon to take a lengthy lay off and after the division settles a little bit more, I expect a match up with either a Rich Franklin type guy, or the winner of one of the fights listed above, possibly even the loser.

Prior to the fight on Sunday, White made several comments about how long he thinks it’ll be before Jones gets a title shot. Dana’s reply was “within a year”. This leads me to believe they’re planning on continuing to take their time with “Bones”. On the same addition of The Daily Line, Joe Rogan talked about a conversation he had with Jon’s trainer, Greg Jackson, following his destruction of Vlady and Greg was still keen on letting Jon take his time and move up the ranks:

“I just talked to Greg Jackson, Jon Jones’ trainer. He said they don’t want to push him up too early. They want him to take his time and get comfortable before putting him in there with anyone too high yet.”

Rogan also made an interesting point about Jones’ exposure and fan base. It was argued that because Jon’s fights are ending quicker and quicker each time out, fans aren’t able to really attach themselves to him in the fight. And because Jackson and Co. want to keep his rise slow and methodical, he has had to face competition that’s just not up to his level, even this early in his career, and he’s putting people away with ease. So he’s almost too good for his own good. The UFC isn’t able to market him the way they want to because he’s been finishing quickly, but they can’t give him too tough of an opponent because they want to slowly build his experience up.

more after the jump.

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This Sunday (Aug. 1) the UFC makes its way to the Versus network for the second time this year. Headlining the card will be surging light heavyweight prospect Jon "Bones" Jones taking on the always crafty Vladimir "The Janitor" Matyushenko.

The co-main event of the evening will pit middleweight phenom Mark Munoz against the Japanese grinder Yushin "Thunder" Okami.

Both men are coming off impressive second round stoppages in their previous fights. Okami took out UFC newcomer, Lucio Linhares, via doctor stoppage during their UFC Fight Night scrap back in March.

Munoz was last seen opening the live show for the UFC's first venture to Abu Dhabi for UFC 112 with his fight against Kendall Grove. Mark survived a shaky start and came back with a vengeance in round two, working his violent ground and pound on Grove and finishing the Hawaiian to improve to 8-1 overall.

Last night UFC President Dana White made an appearance on the Versus sports talk show, The Daily Line, to discuss this Sunday's UFC on Versus 2 card. His comments about the middleweight contest should definitely catch the eye (or ears) of Yushin Okami as the boss made the claim for "Thunder" getting a UFC title shot somewhere down the road:

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This Sunday, August 1 the UFC comes to Versus for the second time for Versus 2: Jones vs. Matyushenko. Leading into the fight so much has been made about the meteoric rise of “Bones” Jones that his opponent, Vladimir Matyushenko, has seemingly fallen through the cracks. But who can blame them? Jon Jones made his way to the UFC with a 6-0 record and put on strong performances against Andre Gusmao, Stephen Bonnar, and then Jake O’Brian; the first two by decision, the latter by second round guillotine choke. In his first three fights Jones made more noise than any other light heavyweight on the rise at the time and pushed himself to be the most talked about prospect in some time, especially for this division.

In his fourth UFC fight Jones faced adversity for the first time in his young career when he took on Matt Hamill at the Ultimate Fighter 10 finale. This adversity didn’t come in the form of a beating of any kind; it came in the form of a controversial turn of events that ended with Jones being disqualified from the fight for using several 12-6 elbows while in full mount on Hamill. Jones had reined repeated legal elbows and punches for about a full minute or more before that, but referee Steve Mazagatti let the action continued. It wasn’t until Jones raised his elbow vertically straight up and reigned down the illegal shots that Mazagatti stepped in and paused the action. The ref took Jones’ hand, raised it in the air, and preceded to deduct a point from Jones for the shots. The ref then turned his attention to Hamill, who was still lying flat on the mat. Hamill was unable to get to his feet so the fight was stopped. This is where things got a little shaky.

It appeared the referee was stopping the fight because Hamill couldn’t continue as a result of the illegal shots, but in his post-fight interview with Joe Rogan, Hamill made it clear it was his dislocated shoulder (as a result of the toss that Jones took him down with) that made him unable to continue fighting. Nonetheless, this became the first “loss” on Jones’ record, making him 9-1. Next up for Jones was supposed to be his stiffest test to date in veteran Brandon Vera. Vera hyped the fight by saying he was going to answer a lot of questions about Jones when they got in the Octagon together, obviously Jones was a little sensitive to this because at the weigh ins Jones got in Brandon’s face and had a few pre-fight words with the former heavyweight. Jones made it clear he learned from his mistakes in the Hamill fight was set on making an example of Vera. He did so, and then some.

Jones made quick work of Vera and really, except for an illegal up-kick from Vera while Jones was in his guard, it was in fact the dominant performance that Jones wanted. He ended the fight with a perfect elbow to the side of Vera’s head while in his guard. The shot caused him turtle up and retreat; Jones followed and finished up Vera soon after. Jones pushed his record to 10-1.

During all this time, Jones’s Versus 2 opponent, Matyushenko, was putting together a solid 4-1 winning record in his last five fights. After a one-fight-year in 2008 where he defeated Jamal Patterson by TKO midway through the second round, Vlady went three fights deep in 2009 and in doing so faced his first loss since 2003 against Rogerio Nogueira, but then defeating both Jason Lambert and, in his UFC return fight, Igor Pokrajac by decision. So far in his 2010 fight campaign “The Janitor” beat the always tough Elliot Marshall by split decision at UFC on Versus 1; the same night Jones dominated Brandon Vera.

If you would have polled the MMA world on who the follow up opponent for Jones would be after demolishing Brandon Vera, I doubt anyone would have mentioned Vladimir Matyushenko. Jones obviously felt the same way at first; he told Bruce Buffer on his “It’s Time!” Sherdog Radio show about his initial reactions to the Vlady fight and how he sees the match up now after having some time to think about it:

“At first I was kind of bummed about it because you know, obviously fighting guys with big names is always huge for your career. It’s always win-win situations. I thought on this fight I had a little more to lose than gain because not too many people know who he is, but once I started to actually scout him out and watch all his footage, I got really up for the fight and really excited to train for him. You know, his record is 24-4 and that’s a very respectable record, probably the best record I’ve ever gone against. You know, he’s a warrior. He’s an IFL Champion. He’s fought for the belt before, and the biggest thing is that he just knows how to pull off victories and he knows how to win the fight. So I’m very up for this fight, very motivated for this fight. I actually look at Vladimir as my toughest test to date. He’s physically slow and he’s not really a flashy fighter, but he knows how to win so I’m not looking past him. I’m training the hardest that I can.”

The curve ball that is the Jones vs. Matyushenko match-up could be exactly what the young “Bones” Jones needs. His head trainer, Greg Jackson, said on frequent occasion before the Brandon Vera fight that he wanted to take his time with Jon, making sure they get all the necessary basics down that will allow Jones to use his unorthodox, free-verse fighting style to it’s fullest extent when he steps into the cage. A tough, durable, tested and proven veteran like Vlady could be what Jones needs to take the next step in his career, and possibly make up for lost time. I’m sure Jones isn’t happy about the lone “loss” on his record as a result of the Mazagatti/Hamill situation, and the more wins he puts together the further back he can put that instance in his mind.

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So much has been said about the match up between middleweight Champion Anderson Silva and division number one contender Chael Sonnen, but no one has said more than Chael Sonnen. Ever since he upset Nate Marquardt back at UFC 109 in February, Chael has been on a crash course road to the Champion; calling him out on every chance he gets, about everything he can think of. Anything from Silva’s clothing, his attitude, his lack of English speaking with the American media and he also had arguably had the best post-fight comments about Silva’s performance against Demian Maia at UFC 112 in Abu Dhabi last April. That was a fight Chael could have entered had it not been for a nasty cut he suffered in the Marquardt fight weeks earlier. We all know how UFC 112 turned out.

Ever since the fight at UFC 112 Anderson has been put in an interesting spot. Not only does he have to deal with his next opponent bad mouthing him worse than anyone he’s ever faced before, but he also has had to deal with question after question about his performance that night and why he acted the way he acted. There’s been a noticeable change in the champion as well.

At the fan expo event prior to UFC 114 Anderson did a very interesting interview with Ariel Helwani where Anderson showed a little more character than we’ve ever seen before, as well as emotion towards Chael Sonnen and what Sonnen has been saying. When asked by Helwani if any of the talk from Sonnen has bothered him he answered back with a simple “no”. Not only that, but while his translator/manager Ed Soares was translating the question to Silva he did a nice fake tremble; possibly a shot at Sonnen to show that the talk really has got him “shaking in his boots”. To make it even better, Helwani then asked him this:

“Well he says he’s gonna figure you out. He’s the one that’s gonna bring the fight to you and beat you. Do you feel as though he brings anything to the table? Is he a true test to you?”

And again, while Soares was translating the question back to Silva, he began more mockery by covering his mouth as if he had a secret, then he shook his head and almost looked like he felt bad for what he was going to have to do to him. He stuttered a bit but eventually spit out, “it’s fine, it’s ok. No problem”.

The part that Sonnen should definitely take note of is when Helwani replied with “So you will solve this problem in August?”, and Anderson answered back with a huge smile and a nod of his head. The Champion is in rare form in this interview. I recommend anyone looking to analyze this fight to watch it.

Could it be that Anderson has been pushed a little too hard this time? Could it be that all of this talk will make Anderson even more of a monster than we all know he can already be? Is he going to bring it to the next level against Chael Sonnen, if only because of all the talking that Chael has done? And for Chael, he’s got the added pressure of having to back up such big talk. Keeping in mind, some of what Chael has said has been enlightening; like his confession that he has had conversations with Anderson in perfect English and that he knows Anderson doesn’t respect the American media. But this is coming from the guy that denied having a twitter account after plugging it in interviews several weeks prior.

A lot of what Chael has been saying is about the personal quest that he is on as an athlete and human being. He’s called it his “moral duty” to beat Anderson Silva. It’s his dream to become Champion. What Chael needs to realize come fight time is that none of that matters. He may have said it best last week when he said Anderson will probably be the better fighter that night, but what really matters is what happens inside of those 25 special minutes. Those 25 minutes are going to tell the world, Anderson Silva, and Chael Sonnen a beautiful story come August 7th.

This Sunday, August 1 the UFC comes to Versus for the second time for Versus 2: Jones vs. Matyushenko. Leading into the fight so much has been made about the meteoric rise of “Bones” Jones that his opponent, Vladimir Matyushenko, has seemingly fallen through the cracks. But who can blame them? Jon Jones made his way to the UFC with a 6-0 record and put on strong performances against Andre Gusmao, Stephen Bonnar, and then Jake O’Brian; the first two by decision, the latter by second round guillotine choke. In his first three fights Jones made more noise than any other light heavyweight on the rise at the time and pushed himself to be the most talked about prospect in some time, especially for this division.

In his fourth UFC fight Jones faced adversity for the first time in his young career when he took on Matt Hamill at the Ultimate Fighter 10 finale. This adversity didn’t come in the form of a beating of any kind; it came in the form of a controversial turn of events that ended with Jones being disqualified from the fight for using several 12-6 elbows while in full mount on Hamill. Jones had reined repeated legal elbows and punches for about a full minute or more before that, but referee Steve Mazagatti let the action continued. It wasn’t until Jones raised his elbow vertically straight up and reigned down the illegal shots that Mazagatti stepped in and paused the action. The ref took Jones’ hand, raised it in the air, and preceded to deduct a point from Jones for the shots. The ref then turned his attention to Hamill, who was still lying flat on the mat. Hamill was unable to get to his feet so the fight was stopped. This is where things got a little shaky.

It appeared the referee was stopping the fight because Hamill couldn’t continue as a result of the illegal shots, but in his post-fight interview with Joe Rogan, Hamill made it clear it was his dislocated shoulder (as a result of the toss that Jones took him down with) that made him unable to continue fighting. Nonetheless, this became the first “loss” on Jones’ record, making him 9-1. Next up for Jones was supposed to be his stiffest test to date in veteran Brandon Vera. Vera hyped the fight by saying he was going to answer a lot of questions about Jones when they got in the Octagon together, obviously Jones was a little sensitive to this because at the weigh ins Jones got in Brandon’s face and had a few pre-fight words with the former heavyweight. Jones made it clear he learned from his mistakes in the Hamill fight was set on making an example of Vera. He did so, and then some.

Jones made quick work of Vera and really, except for an illegal up-kick from Vera while Jones was in his guard, it was in fact the dominant performance that Jones wanted. He ended the fight with a perfect elbow to the side of Vera’s head while in his guard. The shot caused him turtle up and retreat; Jones followed and finished up Vera soon after. Jones pushed his record to 10-1.

During all this time, Jones’s Versus 2 opponent, Matyushenko, was putting together a solid 4-1 winning record in his last five fights. After a one-fight-year in 2008 where he defeated Jamal Patterson by TKO midway through the second round, Vlady went three fights deep in 2009 and in doing so faced his first loss since 2003 against Rogerio Nogueira, but then defeating both Jason Lambert and, in his UFC return fight, Igor Pokrajac by decision. So far in his 2010 fight campaign “The Janitor” beat the always tough Elliot Marshall by split decision at UFC on Versus 1; the same night Jones dominated Brandon Vera.

If you would have polled the MMA world on who the follow up opponent for Jones would be after demolishing Brandon Vera, I doubt anyone would have mentioned Vladimir Matyushenko. Jones obviously felt the same way at first; he told Bruce Buffer on his “It’s Time!” Sherdog Radio show about his initial reactions to the Vlady fight and how he sees the match up now after having some time to think about it:

“At first I was kind of bummed about it because you know, obviously fighting guys with big names is always huge for your career. It’s always win-win situations. I thought on this fight I had a little more to lose than gain because not too many people know who he is, but once I started to actually scout him out and watch all his footage, I got really up for the fight and really excited to train for him. You know, his record is 24-4 and that’s a very respectable record, probably the best record I’ve ever gone against. You know, he’s a warrior. He’s an IFL Champion. He’s fought for the belt before, and the biggest thing is that he just knows how to pull off victories and he knows how to win the fight. So I’m very up for this fight, very motivated for this fight. I actually look at Vladimir as my toughest test to date. He’s physically slow and he’s not really a flashy fighter, but he knows how to win so I’m not looking past him. I’m training the hardest that I can.”

The curve ball that is the Jones vs. Matyushenko match-up could be exactly what the young “Bones” Jones needs. His head trainer, Greg Jackson, said on frequent occasion before the Brandon Vera fight that he wanted to take his time with Jon, making sure they get all the necessary basics down that will allow Jones to use his unorthodox, free-verse fighting style to it’s fullest extent when he steps into the cage. A tough, durable, tested and proven veteran like Vlady could be what Jones needs to take the next step in his career, and possibly make up for lost time. I’m sure Jones isn’t happy about the lone “loss” on his record as a result of the Mazagatti/Hamill situation, and the more wins he puts together the further back he can put that instance in his mind.

more after the jump..

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So much has been said about the match up between middleweight Champion Anderson Silva and division number one contender Chael Sonnen, but no one has said more than Chael Sonnen. Ever since he upset Nate Marquardt back at UFC 109 in February, Chael has been on a crash course road to the Champion; calling him out on every chance he gets, about everything he can think of. Anything from Silva’s clothing, his attitude, his lack of English speaking with the American media and he also had arguably had the best post-fight comments about Silva’s performance against Demian Maia at UFC 112 in Abu Dhabi last April. That was a fight Chael could have entered had it not been for a nasty cut he suffered in the Marquardt fight weeks earlier. We all know how UFC 112 turned out.

Ever since the fight at UFC 112 Anderson has been put in an interesting spot. Not only does he have to deal with his next opponent bad mouthing him worse than anyone he’s ever faced before, but he also has had to deal with question after question about his performance that night and why he acted the way he acted. There’s been a noticeable change in the champion as well.

At the fan expo event prior to UFC 114 Anderson did a very interesting interview with Ariel Helwani where Anderson showed a little more character than we’ve ever seen before, as well as emotion towards Chael Sonnen and what Sonnen has been saying. When asked by Helwani if any of the talk from Sonnen has bothered him he answered back with a simple “no”. Not only that, but while his translator/manager Ed Soares was translating the question to Silva he did a nice fake tremble; possibly a shot at Sonnen to show that the talk really has got him “shaking in his boots”. To make it even better, Helwani then asked him this:

“Well he says he’s gonna figure you out. He’s the one that’s gonna bring the fight to you and beat you. Do you feel as though he brings anything to the table? Is he a true test to you?”

And again, while Soares was translating the question back to Silva, he began more mockery by covering his mouth as if he had a secret, then he shook his head and almost looked like he felt bad for what he was going to have to do to him. He stuttered a bit but eventually spit out, “it’s fine, it’s ok. No problem”.

The part that Sonnen should definitely take note of is when Helwani replied with “So you will solve this problem in August?”, and Anderson answered back with a huge smile and a nod of his head. The Champion is in rare form in this interview. I recommend anyone looking to analyze this fight to watch it.

Could it be that Anderson has been pushed a little too hard this time? Could it be that all of this talk will make Anderson even more of a monster than we all know he can already be? Is he going to bring it to the next level against Chael Sonnen, if only because of all the talking that Chael has done? And for Chael, he’s got the added pressure of having to back up such big talk. Keeping in mind, some of what Chael has said has been enlightening; like his confession that he has had conversations with Anderson in perfect English and that he knows Anderson doesn’t respect the American media. But this is coming from the guy that denied having a twitter account after plugging it in interviews several weeks prior.

A lot of what Chael has been saying is about the personal quest that he is on as an athlete and human being. He’s called it his “moral duty” to beat Anderson Silva. It’s his dream to become Champion. What Chael needs to realize come fight time is that none of that matters. He may have said it best last week when he said Anderson will probably be the better fighter that night, but what really matters is what happens inside of those 25 special minutes. Those 25 minutes are going to tell the world, Anderson Silva, and Chael Sonnen a beautiful story come August 7th.

This past February M-1 Global took a big hit when Gegard Mousasi announced that he would be parting ways with the organization. Gegard kept it professional by releasing this statement:

“After careful consideration, I have decided that it is in my best interest to part ways with M-1 Global. During the time I spent under their wing, M-1 Global, as a promoter and management company, allowed me to achieve many great things. I appreciate all they have done for me.”

Not much came of the situation in the following months. Gegard lost his Strikeforce Light Heavyweight Championship to “King” Mo in March and just recently secured a 31 second submission win over Jake O’Brian at DREAM.15 on July 10th.

In the mean time, M-1 Global Director of Operations, Evgani Kogan, was a guest on Ariel Helwani’s The MMA Hour and had this to say about the departure of Gegard:

“We’re working very hard towards getting him back into the fold, so-to-speak. Officially, he was never under contract with us. He never had an M-1 contract. His relationship with us was based on his relationship with one of the principles of our company, who is his manager. He’s someone we did a lot of work with, we did a lot of stuff for him, he did a lot of stuff for us. And then at some point during the last five or six months, because of the usual problems that ensue, he spoke out and said he was leaving us. There’s no animosity in that split, so-to-speak.”

Interesting. Not only does Kogan say that Gegard never actually had a contract with M-1 but also states that they are working together on entering into a new deal with the Dutch-Armenian fighter and all but grantees that it will in fact happen.

What’s more? MMAJunkie Radio has Gegard on as a guest and he had this to say when asked about the M-1 situation:

“No I’m not back. For I don’t know how many months they say they’re going to talk to you about, I don’t know what they want to talk about, but I never had that conversation. I’m still waiting. So I don’t know what they want to tell me, if they want to offer me anything. I don’t know what the deal is. I’m still waiting and frankly…yea. I’m not very interested to go back unless it’s a good deal, but I really don’t know what they want to talk about. I’m still waiting.”

On why they parted ways in the first place:

“Basically they offered the contract, I didn’t ask for a contract. I never had a contract with them. So they said they were going to offer me this contract to fight for M-1 and I thought it was a good deal, eventually I signed everything. So when it was their turn to sign, they so, “no we don’t want to sign”. So it’s basically, they offered me something and then, I’m agreeing on what they’re offering and then they say, “oh no, we’re changing out minds”. I didn’t like that so that’s why I say I don’t want to have to do anything with M-1.”

More from Gegard about M-1:

“I’m just curious about what the conversation is. It’s not like I’m going back. We’re going to have a talk. Because my manager worked in M-1, or used to work there, so I have a lot of people that worked in M-1 that are friends of mine. So it’s always been a close relationship. It’s not like they’re enemies or anything.”

more after the jump...

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This past February M-1 Global took a big hit when Gegard Mousasi announced that he would be parting ways with the organization. Gegard kept it professional by releasing this statement:

“After careful consideration, I have decided that it is in my best interest to part ways with M-1 Global. During the time I spent under their wing, M-1 Global, as a promoter and management company, allowed me to achieve many great things. I appreciate all they have done for me.”

Not much came of the situation in the following months. Gegard lost his Strikeforce Light Heavyweight Championship to “King” Mo in March and just recently secured a 31 second submission win over Jake O’Brian at DREAM.15 on July 10th.

In the mean time, M-1 Global Director of Operations, Evgani Kogan, was a guest on Ariel Helwani’s The MMA Hour and had this to say about the departure of Gegard:

“We’re working very hard towards getting him back into the fold, so-to-speak. Officially, he was never under contract with us. He never had an M-1 contract. His relationship with us was based on his relationship with one of the principles of our company, who is his manager. He’s someone we did a lot of work with, we did a lot of stuff for him, he did a lot of stuff for us. And then at some point during the last five or six months, because of the usual problems that ensue, he spoke out and said he was leaving us. There’s no animosity in that split, so-to-speak.”

Interesting. Not only does Kogan say that Gegard never actually had a contract with M-1 but also states that they are working together on entering into a new deal with the Dutch-Armenian fighter and all but grantees that it will in fact happen.

What’s more? MMAJunkie Radio has Gegard on as a guest and he had this to say when asked about the M-1 situation:

“No I’m not back. For I don’t know how many months they say they’re going to talk to you about, I don’t know what they want to talk about, but I never had that conversation. I’m still waiting. So I don’t know what they want to tell me, if they want to offer me anything. I don’t know what the deal is. I’m still waiting and frankly…yea. I’m not very interested to go back unless it’s a good deal, but I really don’t know what they want to talk about. I’m still waiting.”

On why they parted ways in the first place:

“Basically they offered the contract, I didn’t ask for a contract. I never had a contract with them. So they said they were going to offer me this contract to fight for M-1 and I thought it was a good deal, eventually I signed everything. So when it was their turn to sign, they so, “no we don’t want to sign”. So it’s basically, they offered me something and then, I’m agreeing on what they’re offering and then they say, “oh no, we’re changing out minds”. I didn’t like that so that’s why I say I don’t want to have to do anything with M-1.”

More from Gegard about M-1:

“I’m just curious about what the conversation is. It’s not like I’m going back. We’re going to have a talk. Because my manager worked in M-1, or used to work there, so I have a lot of people that worked in M-1 that are friends of mine. So it’s always been a close relationship. It’s not like they’re enemies or anything.”

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Jake Shields, the UFC’s most recent addition to their packed roster, officially signed with the promotion on Monday. His signing was met with lackluster joy from fans and media alike. Much like his entire career if you pay any attention. This article was posted on BE very shortly after the announcement of his signing and although Jonathan Snowden did a fine job of telling Shields’ story, he ended his piece with this not-so-flattering gem:

“The UFC machine is well oiled and firing on all cylinders. 2010 looks to be another record setting year at the box office. Shields will join most of the world's top ten fighters on the Zuffa payroll. But hopefully they know what they've bought-the ultimate channel changer.”

Meanwhile, Cagewriter has this to say, sort of putting a positive twist on the situation with this nice comment:

“I'm pro-Shields to the UFC. He's a top 15 pound-for-pounder with a 15-fight win streak. He just manhandled a former UFC top three middleweight in Dan Henderson and his grappling is top notch. Just because his style can be plodding doesn't mean he's not marketable. How is he any different than some of the elite jiu-jitsu aces out of Brazil or better yet the hundreds of elite wrestlers around MMA? These are guys who generally possess rudimentary skills with their hands and if they don't get the fight to the ground, it can be a slopfest. Because almost all of the elite stand-up fighters don't possess the necessary takedown defense to keep the champ at bay, it's pretty clear the sport is short on strikers dangerous enough at welterweight to challenge St. Pierre. Dan Hardy and Paul Daley are primarily strikers and very marketable. Frankly their shots in big fights were borderline dreadful to watch. So why not bring in a guy who can test GSP in the grappling department and see what happens? The sport is all about matchups. We're still very much in the infant stages of MMA and there simply aren't a lot of truly well-rounded fighters out there. If he can get by Martin Kampmann and maybe one other elite welterweight, Shields (25-4) deserves his shot at solving the GSP riddle.”

Cagewrite notes fellow Yahoo Sports writer Dave Meltzer’s comments and has an interesting conversation with him about the recent signing. Meltzer seems to be in the camp that this was somehow not a good addition for the UFC. He only seems to be looking at the marketability Shields has with the casual fan. The most important thing about this addition for the UFC is that it was the right decision for them to make for the purity of MMA. Shields is currently riding a 14-fight win streak (I’ve seen several reports of a 15-fight streak, my research shows 14) and has not lost a fight since 2004. Since that lost he has racked up two TKO’s, six submission wins, and 6 decisions. And just because they’re decisions does not take anything away from the man. Two of those decisions are over current top ranked fighters in the UFC in Carlos Condit and Yushin Okami. His most recent wins were over Dan Henderson, in a fight where Shields came back from adversity to put on a stellar performance in rounds 2-5, and Jason “Mayhem” Miller in a highly entertaining fight last November on CBS where he captured Strikeforce’s middleweight title.

Although this guy is riding one of the longest winning streaks of anyone currently in the welterweight division in the world, there’s still some doubt over the UFC’s decision to sign him. Dave Meltzer seems to think it’s about popularity. He doesn’t seem to realize that the audience Shields had to play to on CBS for his last two fights is not the same audience that he will have come October when he makes his Octagon debut. So in reality there is no telling what kind of “draw” he will be come fight time. It may take him a few fights to warm up to the fans. It may take actually educating the fans on who he is and what he’s done, but the fans are smart. I actually expect him to get welcomed in with open arms by the fans.

Jake Shields is not a boring fighter. The way he’s able to shut down his opponents offense is very interesting and entertaining to watch. In the Henderson fight, Shields showed unbelievable heart by coming back from a terrifying first round and against Jason Miller, who is also a world class grappler, Shields used his ground technique to avoid getting caught in several submissions while also showing some abilities on the feet (even if it’s not much).

Bottom line, the guy can fight, and that’s what it’s all about for the UFC. When they gave Kimbo Slice the boot after his loss to Matt Mitrione at UFC 113 there was an outcry of people wondering why they didn’t keep him around so they can suck as much cash out of his name as possible. But the fact was, he lost to a guy that’s had one real fight in his life. He didn’t belong, and by that same notion, Jake DOES.

Let’s at least give the guy a chance to see what he can do in the division, because in reality he’s one of the only fighters in the world that could possibly hang with GSP in the grappling department.

This Saturday at UFC 116 the world will watch as two men will battle it out to see who the world’s number one heavyweight fighter is…Brock Lesnar or Shane Carwin? And for the first time ever their won’t (or shouldn’t) be any dispute.

This passed Saturday’s Strikeforce: Fedor vs Werdum event changed the landscape of the heavyweight division when Fedor tapped out to Werdum after just 69 seconds. One big question still remains. Now that Fedor Emelianenko has lost, who will now claim his seat as the number one heavyweight fighter today? That question will be answered in five days.

One thing that is certainly clear coming out of the Strikeforce event is that the promotion and M-1 Global, Fedor’s management company, took a big hit by Fedor losing.

Scott Coker and co. hyped up this fight based on the fact that Fedor is “the best fighter in the world” and “the best heavyweight in the world”. That is no longer the case, and again Strikeforce’s lack of desire to promoted BOTH sides of a match-up has come back to bite them on their backside.

When Jake Shields took on Dan Henderson earlier this year, Strikeforce sold the fight based on the fact that the “MMA Legend” would be making his debut and did little to promote their Champion in Shields. When Shields pulled out a hard fought, well earned decision over Hendo I bet no one was more upset than Strikeforce. They shot themselves in the foot. But with ‘Fedor vs. Werdum’ it was the same old song and dance for Strikeforce. Had they put the time and money into letting the public know exactly who this guy standing across from Fedor is they would have set themselves up to walk out of the event in a win-win situation. And to make it a little bit worse, all signs pointed to a future pay-per-view bout against Strikeforce’s heavyweight Champion, Alistair Overeem, had “The Last Emperor” won on Saturday.

Not gonna happen now.

It appears that Scott Coker is not counting out the idea of a pay-per-view event for his promotion, for good reason obviously, but it will be with a much less anticipated fight as the headliner instead of the sure-fire blockbuster fight that was Overeem vs. Fedor.

Scott Coker post-fight:

“I think more people are going to want to see the rematch. That's how I feel. Fedor Emelianenko is going to come back, and I wouldn't want to be the one to fight him in a rematch. You're going to see him come out with a vengeance. That should be a pay-per-view fight. [Werdum vs. Emelianenko II] is a fight fans are going to want to see. He dethroned the king. To me, Fabricio and Fedor is going to be a mega-fight that we should promote. I also think that Fabricio vs. Alistair, the rematch against our champion, is something Alistair is going to want and would be another big fight. I think that he fight between Fedor and Alistair should still happen, as well. A lot of it is going to depend on what M-1 wants to do. They will have some say.”

Out of Fedor vs. Werdum 2, Overeem vs. Werdum, and Fedor vs. Overeem which sells better for pay-per-view? Pretty obvious I would think.

You may note that Coker mentioned M-1 Global having say in what happens next for Fedor; why would “a lot” depend on “what M-1 wants to do” when they only have “some say”? Who’s really making those decisions? I guess that’s always going to be the question for Strikeforce. Who is really behind the curtain? Who pulls the strings? Because it certainly doesn’t appear to be Scott Coker, the promotions CEO.

Vadim Finkelstein, Fedor’s actual manager, says they’re not exactly going to push forward for a rematch, but is confident in Fedor if that’s what happens to take place:

“We knew that Fabricio Werdum is a very dangerous fighter.  Fedor just got caught. He is much stronger than Fabricio Werdum, but it's a fight, so anything can happen. Everyone was sure that Fedor is going to win tonight, but Werdum is the best grappler in the world. If there will be a rematch, which we are not demanding, I am pretty sure that Fedor is going to win next time."

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