via www.groundandpound.de

Hours after his big UFC fight against top-ranked American welterweight Jake Ellenberger, Brazilian BJJ-standout and German-resident Carlos Eduardo Rocha seems to be very happy with his performance. In only his second UFC fight, his 10th fight overall, he lost a controversial split decision against Ellenberger, with one judge having him winning every round on his scorecard.

After Rocha controlled the first round of the fight completely with his ground skills, switched positions at will and attacked the American with a variety of submission attempts, Ellenberger got cautions in the second and third. Although Rocha attacked with some decent kicks, he showed weaknesses in the standup department and, at the end of both respective rounds, got taken down by Ellenberger who secured important points with that tactic, eventually winning the fight.

After the bout two judges saw the fight going to Ellenberger (29-28) and one judge had it 30-27 for Rocha, which was heavily discussed in the media afterwards. But asked about the scoring, Rocha doesn’t understand the whole fuss:

"Not just me, a lot of people here in America think I won that fight. It was his (Ellenberger’s) strategy to be very careful in the second and third round. He kept the distance and moved away after each strike he committed. I believe he realized that he underestimated me before the fight, so he played safe and won the latter rounds with his tactic. I wasn’t able to fight my natural style anymore, because he avoided going to the ground, so I attacked with kicks and also some punches. I think I won the fight, unfortunately two judges saw it another way."

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via www.groundandpound.de

After beeing awarded the "undisputed" middleweight belt by the WBC, Sebastian Zbik talked on his new title and his plans for the future. Obviously he is very aware of the fact, that he will have to face a lot of criticism for getting the championship without a fight:

"I’m fighting pro since six and a half years and I am unbeaten in 30 professional fights. For sure, it’s better to win the belt in a fight, but I have also been interim champion before. I held that title for one and a half years and defended it three times. I’m not the first champion who got his belt this way, and I am definitely not the last one. Enough challenges are waiting for me now so I can prove that I deserve this title. Of course there will always be critics, saying I didn’t earn the championship and I don’t deserve it, but it is in my hands now to silence those critics."

He would have much rather wanted to fight Sergio Martinez to win the belt and is fairly disappointed that this bout didn't come to frution:

"Of course I would have much rather fought (Sergio) Martinez to win the title, but if he doesn’t want to fight me and I’m getting my title this way, so be it."

"(The fight not happening is) indeed really sad, especially because of the reasons they named. Obviously it failed because HBO thought I wasn’t enough of a name and had a boring style. I mean, sure I’m not the most spectacular boxer in the business, but I have won all of my 30 fights and missing such a big chance, only because some people think I’m too boring, is really sad."

Unlike most experts, Zbik says his chances in a fight against Martinez would have been pretty good.

"Of course it would have been tough. But he has a lot of hype behind him right now, because of his last two wins against (Kelly) Pavlik and (Paul) Williams. But no one knows in which shape Pavlik really was, when he faced him. I mean, after all Pavlik went through pretty tough times before stepping in the Ring with Martinez. And that punch against Williams? In the first fight between those two you could see both men taking a lot of shots and both men going down. In the rematch, Williams got hit on the button pretty early and now it looks like Martinez is the real deal. He is a good fighter for sure, but nevertheless he would have been a good matchup for me. He is fighting at orthodox stance, which suits me and he is a bit smaller than me. I also watched tapes of his fights and saw a couple opportunities to beat him. That’s why I wanted this fight so bad, but unfortunately it didn’t happen."

He also talked about his future fights fights. Obviously his next defense will be against Julio Cesar Chavez Jr:

"As it looks now my next fight will be a mandatory defense against (Julio Cesar) Chavez Jr. This will definitely be a tough test."

Title unifications against Sebastian Sylvester and Felix Sturm are also on his mind, though:

"We have two other middleweight champions in Germany: Sebastian Sylvester and Felix Sturm. Who knows, maybe there is a title unification bout waiting down the road."

"At the end of the day I don’t care who I’m fighting, but a big fight against Sturm would be a good thing for Germany, I think. The fans would love it so they should get to see it. You can see on TV that a lot of opponents are simply no championship material. Sturm’s last challenger certainly wasn’t and his next opponent (Ronald) Hearns won’t be either. He’s bragging about fighting the best in the world, so he should do it. He doesn’t have to get his opponents from across the globe, he can rather start in his own backyard."

Get the full interview at GroundandPound.

via www.groundandpound.de

Sebastian Sylvester will not be fighting Frenchman Mehdi Bouadla this coming Saturday. The IBF middleweight titlist was originally scheduled to defend his belt in Neubrandenburg’s Jahnsportforum. According to Sylvester’s promoter Sauerland Event, the reason for the withdrawal is a viral infection Sylvester is suffering from.

The champion stated he suddenly felt bad and immediately went for a doctor. "The doctor said fighting on Saturday won’t be possible", Sylvester said. Sylvester also stated, he’s very disappointed at the moment. There is no information on which kind of infection he has or how bad he is suffering from it.

According to Sauerland’s event manager Patricia Sattel the fight will be postponed to a new date that will be announced shortly.

via www.groundandpound.de

Former WBC middleweight champion Sergio Martinez (46-2-2, 26 KO) refuses to fight mandatory challenger Sebastian Zbik (46-2-2, 26 KO). Therefore the World Boxing Council (WBC) stripped him off his middleweight belt and handed it directly to Zbik. The WBC officially announced the news last night.

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via www.groundandpound.de/en

The heavyweight title fight between IBF, IBO and WBO champion Wladimir Klitschko and Dereck Chisora will finally take place on April 30th, Klitschko Management Group (KMG) announced yesterday. The fight was originally scheduled for December 11th last year, but had to be cancelled only a few days before fight night due to an injured abdominal muscle from Klitschko. The fight will take place in Mannheim's SAP arena, as planned before. 

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via www.groundandpound.de

The German martial arts website GroundandPound brought the news, that Universum announced today, their WBO light heavyweight champion Juergen Braehmer (36-2-0, 29 KO) won't be able to compete in the big title unification bout this coming Saturday due to an gastro-intestinal disease. He was scheduled to face WBA titlist Beibut Shumenov (10-1-0, 5 KO) in a double championship fight to unify both titles in Shumenovs hometown of Schymkent, Kazakhstan.

"Shortly after arriving in Shymkent [Braehmer] bemoaned strong diarrhea, nausea and vomiting that continued through the whole night", Universum physician Dr. Michael Ehnert informed us. "He also suffered from head- and stomach-aches  that made it impossible for him to train. Under these circumstances a title fight this Saturday seems impossible."

Braehmer will return back to Germany tonight and arrive tomorrow morning. Regarding the reason for the disease, a restaurant in which Braehmer dined out on Monday is subject of speculations right now. Shortly after dining there, he suffered from the first symptoms.

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via www.groundandpound.de

WBC interim middleweight champion Sebastian Zbik is now officially the mandatory challenger for the "real" WBC middleweight title, currently beeing hold by Sergio Martinez. The german martial arts website GroundandPound.de brought the news today.

Martinez is going to defend his title in a coveted rematch against Paul Williams on November 20th. Zbik has to fight the winner of this bout latest until March 2011. The german boxer complained about not getting a shot at the WBC champ several times over the last year, since he has won the interim belt against Domenico Spada - now it seems as if he's getting what he wants. Questions is, if he's biting off more than he can chew here. Zbik faced a lot of criticism in the past for fighting cans and not delivering the best perfomance, to say the least

At least, he and his camp are happy about the fight happening. "This the fight of his life", his manager Dietmar Poszwa said in the official press release.

via www.mma-core.com

The long awaited USA debut of russian prospect Magomed Shikhshabekov has to be scratched from the card of the upcoming Strikeforce event "Fedor vs. Werdum". The german website GroundandPound.de is reporting the news today after talks to Russian Legion President Armen Danelyan. Obviously visa problems are causing the issue. Shikhshabekov was originally scheduled to fight Ron Keslar in a preliminary fight.

According to GroundandPound.de Danelyan said, that they already found a new date for the fight. It will most likely happen on July 22nd in Moscow, as an M-1 Global show superfight.

Although Shikhshabekov is relatively unknown at the moment, he's been a Sambo practioner for years and is widely regarded as the next Fedor Emelianenko.

Source: http://www.groundandpound.de/mma/amerika/news/exklusiv-kampfausfall-bei-strikeforce/

It seems that the UFC is making their way back to Germany this November for UFC 121. Obviously they are planning to hold the event in the König-Pilsener-ARENA in Oberhausen on November 13th. German Martial Arts Media GroundandPound spread the news today after having talked to UFC Event Coordinator Burt Watson who confirmed that the UFC will indeed make their second appearance on german soil within this year.

The situation for the UFC in Germany has been pretty hected over the last few months. After beeing banned from TV, nobody expected them to be back that soon with a live show. Politicians and the media are not making life easy for promoters and supporters of the sport, several politicians are triying to ban the whole thing for good. Media coverage regarding MMA events is biased to say the least. Sadly investigated articles and simply lies are spread via television and print media. A UFC comeback to the country of germany at this time is astonishing, but neccesary to help establishing the sport there for years to come. 

An official statement from the UFC/ZUFFA is expected to be made next weekend, according to GroundandPound.

Source: http://www.groundandpound.de/mma/de/news/ufc-kehrt-zurueck-nach-deutschland/

via www.groundandpound.de

The bavarian media authorities from the "Bayrische Landesmedienanstalt" (BLM) have officially banned Mixed Martial Arts from German television. The UFC Shows "UFC Unleashed", "UFC Fight Night" and "The Ultimate Fighter" will therefore not longer be on German TV.

The Munich, Bavaria based sports television network "Deutsches Sportfernsehen" (DSF), that has been televising the UFC in Germany for almost a year now, is in disbelief, especially after the BLM has sanctioned the shows a year ago and their content hasn't changed since then. The authorities explained the ban with inappropriate depiction of violence and the insemination of questionable moral values.

The president of UFC England Marshal Zelaznik calls the ban "uncommon" and is sad about the development. According to him, meetings with the BLM have already been planned to dicuss further actions. A ban without involving all the concerned parties should not be the way to handle such situations, says Zelaznik.

"Ultimate Fighting is for Nazis." Werner Schneyder spreads ridiculous thoughts on prime time TV.

I don’t really get it. What the hell is wrong with the Germans? Don’t get me wrong, I’m a German, too. But since the UFC is trying to get a foot in the door that is the continental Europe market, things are really getting hostile for those of us who love a good old fashioned fight. But let’s start from the beginning…

When the word was spread that Dana White and Lorenzo Fertitta are going to invite several german journalists to Vegas, to watch Brock Lesnar beating the living hell out of Randy Couture and afterwards have a little meet and greet with Dana, Lorenzo and the fighters, the MMA Fans in Germany were on a role. 'The hype is on', that’s what everybody believed.

Sure, there’ll be some suckers from the government, from the media, from wherever those hypocrites come from, we thought, but no one expected a witch-hunt like the one that’s going on right now in this country. For years there have been countless smaller MMA-Shows all over Germany and no politician or journalist cared about them. But now that we have big elections coming up and there are several real problems in this country that people could start asking questions about, it’s quite fitting that a big organization from the states is coming over here to promote an event where two guys will pound the hell out of each other in a steel cage. I mean seriously: That MUST be bad for our children.

So what happened next? Of course, child protective services made clear that the Lanxess Arena in Cologne, where UFC 99 will take place in two weeks, should ban minors from the show. And they did. As if that isn’t already enough the whole media seems very busy, bashing on the new demon they luckily found. The biggest German newspapers BILD and FAZ for example published several bad investigated and partially bogus articles.

This is all bad, but the biggest hit has been made from the german news TV show "Stern TV" last night. They invited three experts to the show (which is watched by millions of viewers by the way) and started a discussion about "Ultimate Fighting". The experts were: a doc (who was actually pretty cool, as he didn’t say anything really bad about MMA and simply called the things how they really are), a fighter from Germany (Gregor Herb, known from the M1-Challenge shows on HDnet, who did a pretty good job in staying calm and collective and being a respectful ambassador for the sport) and Werner Schneyder, a former boxing commentator, who is by far the most stupid and ignorant person I’ve ever seen. Unfortunately he is one of the savviest persons, too.

He knew exactly he was coming with almost zero arguments. So what he did was, he talked the whole time, interrupted Herb and used every little point where the fighter was staggering a bit against him. On top of that he was basically telling lies to the public. It would take too long for me to tell you the whole story so let me just list the most hilarious or maybe most sad comments by that guy:

- MMA fighters who have a background in other sports, such as wrestling or judo, were basically poor in their respective disciplines. That’s why they started doing MMA.

- He tried to teach Herb how Judo works (even if he has never been on a mat in his life). The funny thing is, that Herb is a Judo black belt (what Schneyder obviously didn’t know).

- He tried to convince Herb and the viewers that, similar to wrestling, MMA fighters don’t really hit opponents when doing ground & pound (of course he didn’t use the term "ground & pound"). Which is a pretty dumb argumentation, because if it WOULD be like that, then no one would get hurt during a fight and the whole "MMA is so barbaric" discussion would be ludicrous.

- The kids on the schoolyard are getting influenced by MMA which results in harder beat downs. Where I come from schoolyard brawls existed long before MMA 'bro. And luckily it is impossible for a trained boxer to lay a smack down on someone else on the street, right Werner?

- He wasn’t able to utter "Martial Arts". He simply couldn’t do it.

- According to Schneyder "Marzial Art" (which is the way he tried to pronounce it) is a "scene word" for ultimate fighting and it is derived from the word "war".

- MMA fighters are no really trained athletes and they are not able to master one single martial art. They only know a few things from a few disciplines which they try to use in an amateurish way. (After being reminded that Decathlon athletes, for example are mediocre in many disciplines, too, instead of being perfect in one, he only responded: "Forget the comparison!")

But the most ridiculous thing that he said was that:

"Ultimate Fighting is for Nazis who go out and stomp people in the gutter."

Good job Werner, very reputable.
There is one good thing about the whole show though: At the end of the discussion the host Günther Jauch told the viewers to vote, if the government should ban MMA or not. By the time the show was over he presented the result of the voting. 13,000 people participated in it. 69 percent of them voted "No" and obviously don’t give a damn about Schneider and his antics. Only 32 percent of the voters said: "Yes, please ban MMA."

A long way to go, indeed. But it looks like there’s some kind of a light at the end of a long tunnel.