SB Nation User Blog: Zack Gobie

Yoshihiro Akiyama Banana Milk Commercial

Zack Gobie — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 03:05:35 -0000

Yoshihiro Akiyama Banana Milk Commercial

If GSP wins at UFC 100, where does that leave the Welterweight Division?

Zack Gobie — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 20:14:01 -0000

UFC 100 will be the long awaited title shot for Thiago Alves, who more than earned it after his 3 round beating of Josh Koscheck along with his TKO's of the legendary Matt Hughes and the once periennal contender Karo Pariysan. He comes in as arguablly the best striker Georges has ever faced in his career which is a who's who of the welterweight division. It won't be easy, but I am confident that St. Pierre will come out on top.

If and when this happens, where does this leave the 170 lb. division in the UFC? No one really stands out as a challenger to the belt in my opinion. #3 USAT/SBN Jon Fitch doesn't seem like an appealing rematch right now, and neither does #5 Matt Hughes. #4 Jake Shields doesn't seem like leaving Strikeforce anytime soon. Then there are lots of guys who will be contenders at some point if get some wins together like #23 Anthony Johnson, #17 Dustin Hazelett, #15 Brock Larson, #9 Carlos Conduit, and #12 Dan Hardy. All of which have lots of promise, but just haven't taken that next step yet.

This leaves #6 Martin Kampmann and #7 Mike Swick. Both of these guys have been on a roll, but I think they should get one more win before getting a title shot. Which brings me back to GSP. As long as GSP wins in non-controversial fashion, I think a good idea would be giving him a "testing the waters" fight at 185 to see how he would fare. If they were to do this they would have two choices that jump out at me immediatly. If they want to play it safe, they could go with #10 Chael Sonnen. A middle of the pack 185 fighter that doesn't really pose too much of a threat to GSP outside of the wrestling department, and I think GSP would have a very good chance of being able to win that fight. In the mean time, Swick and Kampmann can fight each other for the next title shot at 170.

Now if they wanted to get riskier, I think another intresting prospect would be to put him in there against #3 Yushin Okami. Okami has been hovering right at a title shot but has just gotten some bad luck lately. Coupled with the fact that there is absolutely no buzz around him apart from the hardcore fans, this could be the perfect opportunity for the UFC to put him in a sink or swim situation. If he can win the fight against St. Pierre, it instantly puts him back in contention and gets him some recognition he's been desperately needing. If he loses, UFC doesn't lose anything because they have plenty of other options to go with at 185 and it does nothing but raises GSP's stock even higher. The only problem with this situation is what would a loss to Okami do to GSP's stock, even if it was a weight class higher.

I know a lot of this is pure specualtion and a certain Brazilian could render all of this a moot point, but it's still fun to think about these kinds of things and all of these possibilites shows why MMA is such an exciting sport.

Fighter Popularity: Facebook Edition

Zack Gobie — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 06:16:12 -0000

As I'm sure all of you know, the biggest thing this side of the Myspace is Facebook. Well there is an option where you can become a "fan" of a celebrity by going to their profile and adding yourself as a fan. Well since I have a borderline obsession with MMA, I figured I would look at fighters profiles and see how many fans they have. The results kind of suprised me:

Top 5

EDIT: Kimbo Slice: 160,000+ fans

1. Anderson Silva: 27.616

2. Chuck Liddell: 23,519

3. Georges St. Pierre: 21,059 fans

4. Fedor Emelianenko 20, 218 fans

5. Forrest Griffin: 15,990 fans

Chuck and Forrest don't suprise me since they are kinda poster boys, and GSP is near Bret Hart levels of popularity in some parts of Canada from what I hear from my Mother Canuker friends. Fedor does kind of surprise me , but you would be suprised how many of my casual MMA fan friends that actually knew about the last affliction but just didn't buy it. Anderson Silva to be number one by that wide of a margin actually kinda shocked me, especially since guys like Matt Hughes, Rich Franklin, Rampage Jackson, and other profiles didn't even break the top 5 mark. Mabye he's not as obscure to the general people as we think...

EDIT: Chris Nelson has brought to my attention the oversight of Kimbo Slice. Well he does have over 160,000 fans on Facebook, but I don't feel he should count since his MMA career was entirely based on his Youtube fame, but nevertheless I shall put him on the list. Still, for Anderson Silva to be over Chuck Liddell, Randy Couture, and Forrest Griffin is interesting nonetheless.

TUF Rematches: Would the outcome be the same?

Zack Gobie — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 01:36:14 -0000

One of the great thing about The Ultimate Fighter is that we get to see future champs and headliners before they realize their full potiental. And with so many good fighters that have come from the show, it's interesting looking back to wonder how a rematch with each fighter would fair present day as their skills have evolved and progressed.

For example, on Season 2,Josh Burkman defeated Melvin Guillard via decision. Would the outcome of this fight be different a second time?

to list some others:

Joe Stevenson defeated Marcus Davis

Travis Lutter defeated Patrick Cote

Jason Von Flue defeated Jorge Gurgel

Rashad Evans defeated Keith Jardine

Diego Sanchez defeated Kenny Florian

Nate Diaz defeated Grey Maynard

Chocolate Cake defeated Gabe Rudiger

Will the success of the past few UFC PPV's hurt the next few?

Zack Gobie — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 04:42:29 -0000

Without a doubt the past couple months have been incredible for the UFC. UFC 91, that featured the superfight between Brock Lesnar and Randy Couture, have rumored to have broken the 1 Million+ buy mark which would put it right there with the record setting Liddell/Ortiz 2. Even more impressive was that the NYE card has rumored to have surpased that number which is nothing short of amazing. With Penn/GSP 2 being hyped like there is no tomarrow, you have to think that PPV will do equally as impressive of numbers.

But beyond this fight, not a whole lot seems to be going on as far as buzz producing fights. With three straight PPV's over a less than three month span, that's $135 out of my pocket in a pretty short amount of time. Thankfully the February card will be free, but with the all the titles except MW likely on hold until at least May, that doesn't leave many, if any, big name fights over the next few months. With the big names stretched thin, how will the next PPV's fare? UFC 96 is headlined by an interesting but not so anticipated of Rampage Jackson vs Keith Jardine, while UFC 97 has Chuck Liddell vs Shogun Rua which could do well but I'm not entirely sure. While I'm a very big fan of MMA, my disposable income can only go so far and I'm not sure in the state of this economy that these strong numbers can continue for these cards. Anderson Silva could be thrown in here somewhere, but unfortuantly he has proven to be a zero draw despite all of his talents.

Then again, mabye I'm underestimating the spending ablility of MMA fans and if so, feel free to take my words with a grain of salt. I'm just wondering if these PPV's are going to be hurting for numbers.

Frank Mir's Best Chance of Victory

Zack Gobie — Sun, 21 Dec 2008 20:02:42 -0000

Promoted from the FanPosts by Kid Nate.

It's no secret that Antonio Rodrigo "Minotauro" Nogueira is a tough opponent to work a game-plan around. He's never been KO'ed, he's never been submitted, to my knowledge he's never even been mounted either. How do you prepare for a guy like that? Frank Mir has never been known for his striking abilities, so how does Frank hope to topple one of the best Heavyweight fighters of all time?

To me, his best hope is probably the least entertaining one: go for the take down and hold him down. Back in 2003, Ricco Rodriguez was able to take Nogueira down, avoid submissions, and keep top position throughout the 20-minute fight. Granted, Ricco lost that fight, but IMO that was a bullshit decision. But still, that fight and the Fedor fights give a blueprint on how to beat Nogueira.

Noguiera himself said that he would give the wrestling edge to Mir. If I was Frank Mir, I would be devoting most of my training camp to working on take downs and cardio to be able to last for five rounds. Some will say that Mir's cardio may not last that long, and they could be right. But Ricco was able to last 20 minutes against him, so is it that much of a stretch to say that Frank can do it for 5 more?

I remember hearing an old phrase that "Minotauro doesn't lose fights, he just runs out of time." That's exactly what Mir needs to do Nogueira. He can't give Nog a chance to get into any type of rhyme. If Mir wants to win this fight, he needs to set the tempo at his pace and be the "ring general", if you will. He can't hang back and play counter-fighter or Nogueria will eat him alive.

To put a local spin on it, Hall of Fame Football coach Joe Gibbs always loved to run ball when he coached the Redskins. His reasoning was that since running the ball eats up more of the clock, that time his offense spends running the clock means less time for the other team to get any offense in. Mir should use the same philosophy against Nogueira.

Mir has excellent Jiu-Jitsu and I am confident he will be able to at least avoid Nog's submissions and maybe even attempt to pass his guard should to opportunity arise. So while it may not make for the most exciting of fights, if Frank Mir has put the hours in the gym he needs to, he at least has a viable game plan to be able to come away the victor in this fight. Whoever this fight goes to though, I expect it to be a long and ugly fight. Unless of course Mir gasses out after the first round which is a possibility.

How a casual MMA fan keeps all the fighters straight

Zack Gobie — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 05:22:41 -0000

Considering this website is my home page and I haven't missed a UFC event in years, it's pretty safe to say I'm not a casual fan. But my dad, a middle class guy pushing 50, has gotten into MMA somewhat in the past year or two. Of course with all of great fighters in the UFC, it can be difficult task to remember them all, but my dad has a pretty amusing system for himself. Obviously he knows the big draws like Lesnar, Rampage Couture, Liddell, and Griffin. But for the other ones, he christens them certain things to keep track of them. For example:

George St. Pierre: Jean-Claude/Celion Deon

BJ Penn: Crazy little Hawaiian guy

Fedor: Russian cabbage patch doll

Anderson Silva: Gumby

Wanderlei Silva: Freddy Krugar [I guess cause he looks scary, this one makes me laugh]

Dan Henderson: Jay Leno

Keith Jardine: Goblin guy

Brandon Vera: local Filipino guy

Huerta: De la Hoya

Clay Guida: Gage [cause I have a friend named Gage who looks like his long lost twin]

Cro Cop: Ivan Drago

Gonzaga: Gorilla Man

Sherk: Little Muscular Guy

Rich Franklin: Jim Carrey [that one's pretty obvious]

Machida: Karate Kid

It gets to the point where a conversation between us goes something like this:

Me: Hey dad, did you hear that Penn and GSP are gonna fight each other.

My Dad: Which ones are they again?

Me: The little Hawaiian guy and Celine Deon

My Dad: Damn, that'll be a good fight.

Rich Franklin or Dan Henderson: Who Needs This Win More?

Zack Gobie — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 21:40:28 -0000

This Fan Post was promoted to the front page by Nick Thomas.

With the Ultimate 2008 shaping up to be an amazing card and Penn/GSP II on Super Saturday, the event between these across the pond is probably going to be fairly overlooked. To me it's a shame, because the main event will be a very good fight between two of the sports best, despite the bumpy paths they have been on as of late.

But another aspect of this fight that's interesting is the situation these two are in. Both are coming off of wins over dangerous up and coming fighters that was guided by their experience and smarts. They are also coming off of devastating losses to the P4P king Anderson Silva and their careers have been left in a bit of a limbo with them bouncing between 185 and 205 trying to find their place. Franklin in my mind is the most overlooked fighter by the hardcore internet fans while in contrast Dan Henderson is probably the most underrated fighter by the casual, Joe Six-Pack.

While every fight at this level of MMA is a must win, who needs this win more?

On one hand, you have Rich "Ace" Franklin. Elite, well rounded fighter, Jim Carrey lookalike, and all around good guy. He broke onto the MMA scene at the 205 division where he got wins over guys including Evan Tanner, Edwin Dewees and UFC HOF'er Ken Shamrock. After a KO loss to still undefeated Lyoto Machida in Japan, he dropped down to 185 and looked better than ever. Winning the title from Evan Tanner, then defending it against David Loiseau and Nate Quarry, Rich was establishing himself as a force to be reckoned with in the MMA scene.

But along came a Spider.......and well you know how it went after this. He has the ability to beat any middleweight the UFC puts in front of him, he just can't beat the champ. Rather than simply be a gatekeeper, he's moving up to 205 and looks to establish himself here, but he's got a long road ahead of him.

On the other hand, you have Dangerous Dan Hollywood Hendo Henderson. Well whatever you want to call him, he's without a doubt one of the all time greats in our sport. The only man to hold two belts at the same time, he holds wins over great fighters such as Wanderlei Silva, Murilo Bustamante, Antonio Rodrigo Nogueria, Vitor Belfort, Carlos Newton, and Kazuo Misaki. Arguably one of the best wresters we've seen in MMA, he is also never been afraid to let his hands go and holds many impressive KO wins, including the legendary final Pride match against Wanderlei Silva.

Since his return to the UFC in 2007 though, he hasn't been on the winning track, dropping two impressive but not impressive enough performances against Rampage Jackson and Anderson Silva. After beating Roshimar Palhares last September, his place in the UFC seems a little unclear. Does this fight at 205 with Franklin mean a permanent stay at 205, or will he just be content on taking the fights as they come regardless of weight class?

Either way, it should make for an entertaining fight and I am looking forward to it greatly.

Chris Leben tests positive for steroids, suspended for 9 months

Zack Gobie — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 21:04:53 -0000

From the Wrestling Observer.

Recent main eventer tests positive, out 9 months
Chris Leben tested positive for Stanazolol in a test administered by UFC on the day of his fight with Michael Bisping on 10/18 in Birmingham, England.

Leben, who lost a three-round decision, has been suspended for nine months by UFC and fined one-third of his undisclosed purse.

When informed of his positive test, Leben admitted using the drug but said it was months back and thought it would have cleared his system.

Leben is the second fighter to fail a UFC administered drug test as opposed to an athletic commission test. The UFC shows in the U.K. are not governed by an athletic commission, so Marc Ratner, the company's Vice President of Regulatory Affairs, who had years of experience as the head of the Nevada commission, oversees the event, doing many of the jobs that an athletic commission would do.

Very dissapointing in yet another rollar coaster event for Leben. Don't really know if I'm entirely shocked about this though with all of the melodrama that seems to surround him. I hope he can use this as a learning expirence and come back motivated and stronger.

And props to the UFC for drug testing the fighters themselves without the commissions while they were in the U.K.

Cro Cop's Career IS Salvagable

Zack Gobie — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 21:12:56 -0000

Note: Let me start off by saying that I am a very big fan of Cro Cop, but I will try my best to be fair in my analysis. Everything posted here is also strictly opinion.

Despite the downward trend of the Croatian's career, he is still one of the greatest heavyweights of all time. Mirko holds wins over Josh Barnett, Mark Coleman, Heath Herring, Hidehiko Yoshida, Igor Vovchanchyn, and many others with most of them being in devestating fashion. I don't care if you are Fedor or Randy Couture or Jesus himself, if you let Cro Cop stalk you, you WILL be in for a night of torment and pain.

However, he has fallen under the fate akin to other greats such as Matt Hughes and Chuck Liddell. After fighting the same way for so many years, the MMA world has developed a solid game plan to combat his style. Fighters have figured out that the best way to fight Mirko is to bring the fight to him. If you push the pace against him, he begins to panic and comes out of his element. With losses to Gabriel Gonzaga and Cheick Kongo, plus the dissappointing display against Allistar Overeem, his career has hit rock bottom without a doubt.

Despite these adversitites though, he can still hop on the saddle and become just as dangerous as the days of old. To do so however, he will have to make some serious changes in the way he fights and trains.

LEARN TO EFFECTIVELY COUNTER-PUNCH

UTILIZE THE CLINCH

MOVE TO LIGHT HEAVYWEIGHT

LEARN NOT TO PANIC

As I said, this is coming from a Mirko fan who wants to see him get back on his winning ways. But the reality of the MMA game is that if you're not evolving, it's going to catch up with you at some point. None of the things I brought up are that outlandish, but after training the same way for years it may be hard to change things up. I hope Mirko can have the insight to improve his skillsets and change with the fight game like others have.

SB Nation User Blog: Zack Gobie

Yoshihiro Akiyama Banana Milk Commercial

If GSP wins at UFC 100, where does that leave the Welterweight Division?

Fighter Popularity: Facebook Edition

TUF Rematches: Would the outcome be the same?

Will the success of the past few UFC PPV's hurt the next few?

Frank Mir's Best Chance of Victory

How a casual MMA fan keeps all the fighters straight

Rich Franklin or Dan Henderson: Who Needs This Win More?

Chris Leben tests positive for steroids, suspended for 9 months

Cro Cop's Career IS Salvagable

LEARN TO EFFECTIVELY COUNTER-PUNCH

UTILIZE THE CLINCH

MOVE TO LIGHT HEAVYWEIGHT

LEARN NOT TO PANIC