SB Nation User Blog: Patrick McCauley

Silva vs. Leites Not Yet Official

Patrick McCauley — Thu, 25 Dec 2008 08:39:20 -0000

Despite multiple reports to the contrary, a potential UFC 97 middleweight title clash between champion Anderson Silva (23-4 MMA, 8-0 UFC) and Thales Leites (14-1 MMA, 5-1 UFC) has not yet been made official.

MMAjunkie.com (www.mmajunkie.com) was informed late last night by sources close to Silva that the 33-year-old has not yet signed a bout agreement for the proposed Montreal card.

While Leites has recently told several media outlets he has signed a contract for the as-yet-unannounced April 18 date, it is currently clear that Silva has not.

The sources would not elaborate on what may be causing any potential delays in the champion's commitment to signing the contract, only that the bout was not yet a contractual guarantee. It may simply be a matter of reviewing the document, as Silva's camp did not even receive a copy of the contract until yesterday afternoon.

This fight might even be less interesting than Silva vs. Cote and I don't see it being a draw for casual fans. I hope that Silva's management realizes that a fight with Leites will do little for his career and holds out for an exciting matchup at 205. One problem might be that several of the interesting matchups are tied up with UFC 92. Perhaps Anderson signs on for the Leites fight with the promise of a marquee matchup afterwards?

"Liddell Gets out of Hand in Vegas"

Patrick McCauley — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 01:50:26 -0000

This sounds a little ridiculous--from http://promma.info/:

Tagg Radio reported today that Chuck Liddell was at Corey Hart’s new club inside the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas, NV last night and things got a little out of hand.

The story goes that a lady was sitting at the blackjack table when Lidell comes over to the table and starts talking with her. Once she finds out he fights for the UFC, she asks him if he knows Trigg. He replies yes of course. Following this, according to Trigg, Liddell slaps her on the ass and starts to undo her bra right there at the blackjack table. She tells Liddell to stop, she is married and her husband is right over there. Liddell continues his approach.

The lady’s husband realizes what is happening and confronts the much larger Liddell, “Understand this, you can probably kick my ass but you are hitting on my wife and that is not cool.” Chuck replies to the effect, “Yeah, you’re right it’s not cool” but continues to do it anyway.

The husband told Chuck to back off, Chuck stands up and at that point security got involved and thankfully halted what could have turned into something very ugly.

An anonymous TAGG caller who was present when this all took place confirmed everything and said Liddell definitely was out of his mind on something.

Liddell is a married man himself and actions like this most likely indicate that relationship may be in trouble.

Thoughts?

Sean Sherk Thinks Penn Should Relinquish Belt

Patrick McCauley — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 22:22:40 -0000

From a 5 oz of Pain interview (Nov. 25th):

Sam Caplan: So you’re saying that if B.J. wants to go after the welterweight title currently held by Georges St. Pierre that he should have to relinquish the lightweight title?

Sean Sherk: To be honest with you, if you’re going to be gone 13, 14, or 15 months, I think you should relinquish the belt. There’s a lot of guys right now fighting their way to the top and trying to get that belt. A lot of guys want that number one contender spot. Once you get that number one contender spot, then what? The champion is gone. The champion is fighting at 170 so now when you get up to that number one contender spot you can’t even fight for a belt because the champion is not competing in the weight class anymore.

For me, it’s a hard pill to swallow because I want to be the number one contender; I want to fight for the belt. Okay, but where’s the champion? Kenny wants to fight for the belt. Okay, but where’s the champion? We’ve got no champion to fight so basically we just keep fighting for the number one contender spot. The number one contender spot is pretty much the championship belt, I guess.

Sherk certainly has a valid point here. The upper echelon of the lightweight division has been put in limbo leading up to Penn's second fight with GSP. This is unfortunate for the top fighters at 155, particularly Kenny Florian, the current top contender. That being said, I don’t think it makes sense for Penn to vacate the lightweight championship before his welterweight title bout. If Penn loses to GSP after vacating the lightweight belt, then where does he go? I would imagine back down to lightweight, where he should arguably still be champion.

Both Florian and Sherk have expressed interest in a second bout between them to determine the number one contender at 155 during Penn’s hiatus, but this match has little upside for the UFC. If Sherk were victorious, then he’d have to face Penn again and I don’t think there is much interest for that fight. One could argue that Florian and Sherk should meet (again) for a vacant lightweight title, but the problem is the same. If Sherk wins the belt and Penn loses to GSP, Penn would likely move back down to lightweight for another shot at Sherk, a less than interesting prospect. However, if Penn gets past GSP for the welterweight championship, a title bout between Sherk and Florian doesn’t seem like a bad idea.

The bottom line is that the lightweight division will have to wait until Jan. 31st for what’s next. This might be unfortunate for the fighters, but from a fan’s perspective—GSP vs. Penn 2 is well worth it.

Photo via photos.mmaweekly.com

Checkmate or Knockout?

Patrick McCauley — Fri, 28 Nov 2008 03:39:57 -0000

Photo via news.nationalgeographic.com

The chess-match metaphor in mixed martial arts is both apt and tired. The same can be said for boxing, though the two have been coupled into the cerebral sport of chessboxing.

From the World Chess Boxing Organisation:

In a chessboxing fight two opponents play alternating rounds of chess and boxing. The contest starts with a round of chess, followed by a boxing round, followed by another round of chess and so on.
A contest consists of 11 rounds, 6 rounds of chess, 5 rounds of boxing. A round of chess takes 4 minutes. Each competitor has 12 minutes on the chess timer.

A round of boxing takes 3 minutes. Between the rounds there is a 1 minute pause, during which competitors change their gear. The contest is decided by: checkmate (chess round), exceeding the time limit (chess round), retirement of an opponent (chess or boxing round), KO (boxing round), or referee decision (boxing round). If the chess game ends in a stalement, the opponent with the higher score in boxing wins. If there is an equal score, the opponent with the black pieces wins.

Personally, I love the concept. It's a little outrageous, but switching between a fight mentality and a chess mentality is an interesting challenge.

Here's to hoping for an MMA version...would anyone else watch?

Videos (Note that one of the fighters in the second part apparently has MMA experience):

Highlights of the World Chess Boxing Championships from Germany, 2008 (Part 1)

Part 2