I am not trying to make a insightful well thought out fanpost here. Look at my previous fanposts and comments and you will see that I am an eternal noob always putting my foot into my mouth.

BRING US HIS ARM!!!

 We know you can throw hands with the best of them. As fun as it would be to watch you clown Paul Daley on the feet, we want his arm. We don't care how you do it. We want his arm. A flying arm bar would be absolutely tremendous! First round first minute. I know everyone wants to see a slug fest. They want it to go five rounds. They want to see your blood. We want his arm. Pull guard, grab, twist and rip it too fast to tap. We want his arm!

"You either have to have a character or just be a plain bad-ass fighter, but sometimes being a bad-ass fighter isn't enough," Koscheck offers earnestly. "If you look at the WWE, they've done it for years -- building characters and storylines -- and I think that's a big part of our sport."

I am not trying to make a insightful well thought out fanpost here. Look at my previous fanposts and comments and you will see that I am an eternal noob always putting my foot into my mouth. MMA is a sport. I don’t need characters and story lines to be fabricated in order to enjoy the sport of MMA. As a fan of MMA I find Josh Koscheck's recent comments insulting. MMA is not about acting or "playing a part". The sport of MMA is entertaining in and of itself.

Entertaining: Courage, Technique, Positional Awareness, KO Power, and Superior Conditioning

Insulting: Trash Talk, False Persona, Exaggerated Dislike between Fighters, and Generalizations Regarding Race

The Associated Press is reporting that one-time The Ultimate Fighter cast member Jeremy Jackson, 28, is charged with three counts of rape and one felony count of criminal threat and one felony count of witness intimidation. 

From the AP:

On Friday, his ex-girlfriend tearfully testified that her relationship with Jackson included physical and sexual abuse, death threats to her and her family, and intimidation.

She described the June 2008 ordeal, saying Jackson held a gun to her head, which was later determined to be a BB gun, and forced her to text message another man to ask him to have phone sex with her, the Ventura County Star reported.

"If I didn't do what he told me, my kids and I were going to die," the woman said.

She will be cross-examined by the defense Monday.

So, you are getting sick and tired of "Lay & Pray" wrestlers in the UFC. You are not alone in dreading a UFC full of champs who are really good at taking their opponent down and keeping them there with good wrestling while doing just enough soft ground and pound to keep the ref from standing the fight up. What can be done to thwart this? Ivan Trembow is about to "face palm". It is time to allow knees to the head of a grounded opponent. I know that spinal injuries are a real drag but I seriously wonder what evidence there is that spinal injuries will increase if "Pride Knees" are allowed. Is there a laundry list if ex-Pride fighters with spinal injuries?

If a fighter with a strong wrestling base suffers no consequence when he fails to take his opponent down then why stop? If that same fighter shoots in for a take down, fails, and ends up eating 3 or 4 knees to his head and face while he is on his hands and knees he might not be so careless with his next attempt, if he survives. There are a lot of examples where fights would have had a completely different end had "Pride Knees" been legal. One recent fight I think of is Sonnen vs Marquardt. At the end of the 3rd round Marquardt gets on top of Sonnen in North South and lifts his knee for a fight ending strike but may not deliver the blow.

I am not trying to make a insightful well thought out fanpost here. Look at my previous fanposts and comments and you will see that I am an eternal noob always putting my foot into my mouth. I was entertained and totally impressed with Chris Leben on Saturday. First, he fought on seriously short notice. Not just short notice, two weeks after a fight against a serious threat. Just taking that fight is impressive. The first round he spent a good deal of time fighting off submission attempts. The second round I doubt he even remembers after getting seriously rocked and eating several well placed blows to his head and face which I am now convinced are probably bullet proof. In the third round it looked like once he got taken down it was probably over but the crazy mother fucker sets up and completes triangle choke in the last minute of the round for the win! Like him or not that shit was impressive and he deserves some props.

Elbows rarely KO an opponent (unless your Anderson Silve in "Cage Rage"). They have great potential to end a good fight due to a cut. Most promotions do not allow elbows on the ground nor standing. Do we really need them in the UFC? I would like to read some of your reasons for the allowance of elbows. Blood is cool and all but it sucks when a competitor with plenty of fight left in them gets cut and can't continue. Leave a comment or just take the poll below.

This from FightersOnlyMagazine:

 

RVCA and Clinch Gear have become the two latest additions to the UFC’s sponsorship blacklist, it was confirmed today. The bannings were the subject of much discussion among industry insiders at the weekend’s UFC 105 event, but were not confirmed until today.

RVCA has attracted the ire of the UFC by sponsoring Fedor Emelianenko for his fight with Brett Rogers on the recent Strikeforce/CBS show. As a long-time sponsor of lightweight champion BJ Penn, the brand is a familiar one with UFC fans.

Clinch Gear has been banned from the Octagon for obvious reasons. The brand is Dan Henderson’s own clothing line and as the UFC and he are no longer seeing eye to eye, the label is not welcome in the cage. Relations between UFC president Dana White and Henderson have apparently been cordial during negotiations but this latest move may upset the former Pride double-champion.

The UFC and a Zuffa have a history of banning certain brands from sponsoring athletes in the UFC and WEC cages. And earlier this year, an arbitrary sponsorship tax was also introduced with the aim of filtering out the small-scale companies that were finding their way into main-card sponsorship slots.

 

Once again the message is sent from the UFC to everyone. If you're not on the bus you'll be under the bus.

We all know judging something as subjective as a MMA fight is never going to be perfect. There are so many factors at play and just as many opinions of how one can interpret such factors that it is inevitable that we will have decisions that some will find wrong. Ofcourse we would all like to see a great fight with a clear decision we all agree upon. In light of the slightly controversial Machida / Shogun decision, I offer the following poll to BE readers:

 Optional title: Wag the Dog

Ok, so Carano got beat down by Cyborg. I and many others are not surprised.                        

Carano had and still does have a lot of hype. Now is the time to make some moves.  

The goal is to get a career in acting. She has to stop fighting soon. One more fight

that she can win and maybe a re-match against Cyborg and thats it. It is very important that she not get her nose

broken or endure any facial damage that cannot be easily repaired by plastic surgery. She may not even need

to fight again. Next step is to do something that will really get the blood flowing to the male

audience penis.

or some kind of Playboy spread. After that it is time for a  reality show of basic design. Something

that plays the fight angle or some kind of dating theme. Follow this with a super sexy

commercial during the Super Bowl and then a supporting role in a major motion picture.

Carano money train leaves the station in approx. 3 - 4 years.

This fight has the potential of being totally awesome or really boring. I am certain it will be better than the Silva vs. Leites fight. During the Machida vs. Ortiz fight Joe Rogan stated that he thought the type of fighter that would give Machida trouble would be a really good striker. Well, with Rashad we have a great wrestler with very accurate and powerful striking. But is this the the view to take. The betting odds favor Machida, however, Evans is the champ and he would be wise to force the "elusive" Machida to come to him much the way he did with Liddell.  

Lyoto on the other hand needs to make Rashad really uncomfortable. He must continue to be his elusive self but also frustrate Rashad in the exchanges in the hope that Evans falls back on his wrestling. If Lyoto can get Rashad to take him down I think he stands a good chance of pulling off a submission. We haven't seen a ton of Lyoto's ground game but I am pretty sure he has some good BJJ.

This is how I feel about this fight at this moment though I am certain my opinion will change. I really just want to get the discussion going surrounding this fight. Please challenge my analysis of this match up because it is the only way I can get an objective view of it. Who do you favor and why? I am salivating over this one already and to quote Willy Wonka, "The suspense is killing me. I hope it lasts."

I may be wrong but I remember Montreal demanding foot stomps be illegal in order for the UFC to put their event on in that city. I found it very interesting that Anderson Silva attempted two foot stomps in the first round. That was the only new rule and he tried just that. By now we have seen the gifs of Silva rubbing his arms and chest with the tiny amount of vaseline from his face. Surely he knew of all the vaseline controversy around the GSP vs. BJ fight. This is a mole hill that will never be a mountain but it seems that Silva either doesn't follow MMA news or he has very little respect for what he may believe to be arbitrary rules.

 

Women's media group to UFC boss: Apologize

A national women's sports media group is calling upon UFC President Dana White to apologize for disparaging comments he recently made about a female reporter, FOXSports.com has learned.

The Association for Women in Sports Media (AWSM) issued a press release Wednesday calling for the Ultimate Fighting Championship to "take action in regards to misogynistic comments" that White made in a video blog posted on the promotion's Web site. AWSM President Jenni Carlson said her group's request for an apology from UFC went unanswered.

 

 

http://www.comcast.net/articles/sports-boxing/20090409/Marvez.WomenSlamWhite/

What I find interesting is that it didn't seem that White was attacking Hunt for being a female reporter but rather for attacking him and the UFC with no proof of the allegations. What do you think? Does the AWSM have reason to demand an apology or are they just trying to gain some relevance?

With his trust for fighters diminished, Vaughn has become defensive of his gym and his methods. "Nobody has ever left my gym and done better somewhere else," he said. "If he does, he'll be the first guy."

Obviously Condit did not do better as he lost after an 8 fight win streak. I personally think that Condit did really well against a really high level of competition in Kampman. I also feel like he handled the pressure of his first fight in the UFC like a true professional. I think everyone agrees that the decision could have gone either way. It may be too early to tell but I was wondering what the BE community thought. Was Condit's move to ACS a good one?

I was entertained by the fights last night. There were a lot of commercials but that is to be expected from a free event on cable.

Anthony Johnson was disappointed with his performance but I thought he looked pretty solid. The fight definitely had that "only a matter of time" feel to it. Fiorvanti seemed as though he was just waiting to be knocked out. Johnson was telegraphing his kicks a bit. It was a good start to the night.

Josh Neer is a crazy fighter. He looked crazy and acted kinda crazy. Danzig's striking looked really good to me. I loved the way Mack set his feet underneath him and threw good combos from the pocket. Some of those combos were pretty standard and seemed to amuse Neer. My question is this; How does a guy as seasoned as Danzig get caught in a triangle the way he did? The big difference maker in this fight appeared to be top game. When Neer was on top Danzig was in danger. This was not the case when Danzig was on top.

Cain gets KO of the night? Is this a bonus that has to be given out? There was no KO last night IMO. Cain could not finish his fight in an entertaining fashion and fans don't like that. Why didn't Cain deliver knees to the body or just stand up? That fight was stopped on the basis of lameness. People talk about Cain's huge potential but I need to see more.

My favorite fight of the night was Veach vs Grice but that was not a fair stoppage. Veach was in worse shape on the ground early in the round and it wasn't stopped. Grice gets dropped and takes one clean shot and it is over? Laughable. Veach showed an old truth in fighting last night. A good chin and powerful hands are still a good combination of assets. Especially at 155lbs.

Joe Lauzon is awesome! I was never a fan of "Creepy Joe" until last night. Lauzon had complete and total control of that fight. He showed poise and skill. Stephens never had an answer. When I read Lauzon's pre fight comments I thought he sounded too cocky but the kid delivered. I love how he got it to the ground by attacking the leg over and over. His butterfly guard was almost artistic. The thing that comes to mind when I ponder this fight is "control, control, control". "Creepy Joe" is a great nickname but if Lauzon wants to be called J-Lau he has earned the respect to be called whatever he wants to be called. I am the newest J-Lau fan!

One Last thing: Rosholt needs to listen to his corner.

I don't want to sound like a dick but why do we have Watch Kaleb Run? Zak is awesome, no doubt, but I don't understand why we need two MMA blogs. The title bothers me because I don't like giving attention to an idiot and I have yet to see anything at WKR that I couldn't have missed. Does anyone have any thoughts on this that can help me to appreciate WKR?

Was anyone else really annoyed with the ref. of the Maynard vs. Clementi fight? These guys weren't on the ground for 10 seconds before the ref. started to tell then to "do something". Seriously, Maynard and Clementi were working really hard for positions and the ref. keeps saying "C'mon guys do something". He must have said it 15 or 20 times in less than 1 min. while Clementi tried to set up for a sub. and Maynard tried to get into a better position. Fighters should not need to be distracted by the ref. telling them to "do something" while they are working their asses off on the ground. The crowd in Chicago sucked and was probably booing fighters as early as Friday night but that shouldn't dictate the ref.'s actions. Lately I have noticed that ref.'s have started to encourage fighters to "do something" as fans start to boo. This is a bad trend that needs to be thwarted immediately. The UFC needs ref.'s that have worked a BJJ match or two before they step in and start distracting fighters during a ground battle.

I tuned into Spike last night excited to see Anderson Silva train with the fighters. I was looking forward to seeing an awesome fighter train and give instructionto some eager up and comers. Instead I watched a bunch of idiots sprinkle itching powder on beds and robes, freeze underwear and spread sardine juice on walls. I basically saw all the Silva footage in the preview last week. I know that I do not have to watch this show but what a waste of an opportunity this show is turning out to be. We have all of this controversy over promoters discouraging their fighters to engage in the ground game and it seems to stem from the casual fan not understanding the complexity nor the art of ground fighting. This show could be educating fans while still giving us the alcohol fueled drama it is saturated with now (I understand that the editing has been done and the episodes were in prior to said controversy). I am sure Anderson Silva was on the show because of some contract obligation but he seemed enthusiastic and I imagine he did more than we got to see. With all of this being said Eliot Marshall fought a perfect fight. He ended it quickly without suffering any injuries. However, so far this is the most disappointing season yet.