Enter Blue Guy

GSP. I see GSP being 185 by at least 2010. Anybody right now? I don't think so. GSP is a huge Welterweight. He'll be fed up with cutting down to 170 soon enough. He's probably sick of it already.

I love the idea of Anderson staying at 185 and moving up for superfights only. For now. 205 is too bloated and it's kind of a mess. Wandy, Chuck, Lyoto, hopefully Rampage, Shogun when he comes back, Jardine is still in the mix (beaten 2 of the last 3 champs) and Vera who moved down. On top of that you still have guys like Thiago Silva and Rashad Evans who could possibly be contenders soon. I'm probably missing a few guys too. Having Anderson would be great and it wouldn't be that hard to make room for him because he is that damn good, but there is already so much going on without him. Like I said, Anderson seems more than willing to defend his title and take the odd 205 fight for big money. For right now, I love that situation. When things start to settle and the competition starts to thing out, then it will be the perfect time for Anderson.

From the sounds of it, Silva at 205 will just be for money fights. For the time being, Anderson isn't going to completely waste a good thing at 185. EDIT: And yeah, he and Lyoto aren't going to fight each other. With Cote next, Okami, Nate, then guys like Leites, Kampmann, etc, Filho eventually, possibly a Hendo rematch as well, it's not like he doesn't have anything going for him. By the time Anderson gets through those guys, if he keeps the title of course, who knows who'll break out by then or you the UFC will have at Middleweight. I'm really liking Gegard Mousasi over in Japan. He's got a nice place for himself in Dream at the time, but if he's on the market, I'd love to see the UFC go after him. Very impressed by him.

Could be true, but if it wasn't for the looney tunes story, it would make sense if he was there. I hope it's nothing to worry about. He's gone from street fighter, to God fearing fighter, now he thinks he is God. What the hell is next? Also, Tito vs. Babalu at Affliction does nothing for me. Both guys still have fight in them, but Tito especially is so washed up. He's gotten too played out for my liking. There aren't many Tito Ortiz fights I'd still pay to watch. I hate hearing from the guy, with his bag of excuses and delusions of MMA supremacy. I can appreciate what he's done and what he could possibly still do. He needs to start looking elsewhere for training. I'm talking full time, not just for week or two training camps. He's the big dog in his training posse, he hasn't improved in years and his game hasn't shown that he can stay consistent or convincing against world class competition. The way he talks and conducts himself through the MMA media has gotten real stale. TUF proved he's a wise mind in the sport and comes off as a great mentor and trainer, but the whole Tito persona outside that is just annoying now.

Forgot about Hendo. I guess he's the best bet to take Anderson out. I passed over him because it still seems like just yesterday he got beat. I don't know if Lister deserves a shot if he beats Leites. Never been sold on Lister being a contender. He's a grappling stud, but as a complete fighter, he leaves a lot to be desired. Not that making Jeremy Horn tap inside a round isn't impressive. Again, primo grappler.

I can understand how watching the fight for himself may have changed his attitude towards the loss, but to go from being as humble and together as he was when he was on the mic after the fight to what he is supposedly is now... What the fuck? He was also at Affliction apparently as well. He goes to jail, then the looney bin, Dana White is all worried and saying he may be there for a bit longer, then suddenly he shows up at Affliction and is STILL crazy. Sounds a little fucked up. I really wish there were more details, but a little down time is what Page needs now. The last thing he needs is for this to blow up even more. Rampage news has been fairly scarce since he checked in to get mentally evaluated.

Sorry for the double post, but I have new input. Stolen from MMANews.com Do the whole grain of salt deal. I haven't heard this anywhere else but on message boards.

Thanks for the heads. Up. I'll edit that in. Everybody else, if you don't mind editing it in too. No idea who Joe Jones is. Sounds very vanilla.

I think Marquardt is the best shot at 185 to beat Silva. Obviously with a different gameplan than last time. His last fight kind of fucked shit up, but I still think he's the best legit threat at Middleweight in the UFC. I'd say Okami is right after. Okami is one of the few guys at 185 that matches up well physically to Silva. Still, I can see Anderson beating both. Anderson Silva is a fighter that I can't really match any other fighter to skill wise at 185. I don't think I could confidently pick against him without seeing his win streak snapped first. Even then, how could a fighter doing the things he's doing now not rebound and be just as good? Possibly in a heavier weight class as well.

Ok, I'll give this a try for now. It should be pretty easy to maintain if it's just a UFC league. Two or three events tops per month should give my lazy ass tons of time to update. If not, meh. Still, might as well give it a try since the old league was actually nice and active for a good few months or so. Rules During the week of an event, no later than five days before the night of, the fight card will be posted. You have until 5 pm EST the day of the fights to finalize your predictions or they will not be counted. Possible methods of victory KO TKO Submission Judge's Decision Judge's Decisions do not need to be specified, unless you are feeling that lucky. But no extra points will be awarded for that. Medical stoppages, any stoppage due to not being able to continue or by injury or anything like that, will be counted as TKO victories. In the case of a Draw or No Contest, no points will be award. Scoring Tried to make the scoring as competitive and interesting as possible without making it confusing. Main card prediction scoring 3 points for correct winner 1 point for correct method of victory 1 point for correct round Extra 5 points if you correctly predict all three So you can earn up to 10 points for a correct prediction on the main card. Prelim scoring For the sake of the more casual viewer, prelim fights are worth a bit less. One problem with the old predictions league is not everybody knew all the fighters in the prelims. This should make it a little easier on the less hardcore fans to stay interested. I hope. 1 point for correct winner 1 point for correct method of victory 1 point for correct round Extra 3 points if you correctly predict all three So yeah, you can earn up to 6 points for a correct prediction on the preliminary card. Championship Bout scoring Points are doubled for title fights, making it possible to earn up to 20 points for correctly predicted championship bout. EDIT: Changed to if there is no title fight, whatever the main event is will be scored double instead. Pretty straight forward, but for the sake of a visual scoring chart 6 points for correct winner 2 points for correct method of victory 2 points for correct round Extra 10 points if you correctly predict all three A possible grand total of 20 points for a correct prediction. ********** Shall we begin? I'll enter everybody into the league when you post your prediction for the following event. UFC 87: Seek and Destroy Saturday August 9th, 2008 MAIN CARD *Welterweight Championship Bout: Georges St. Pierre © vs. Jon Fitch Brock Lesnar vs. Heath Herring Kenny Florian vs. Roger Huerta Rob Emerson vs. Manny Gamburyan Jason MacDonald vs. Demian Maia PRELIMINARY CARD Luke Cummo vs. Tamdan McCrory Dan Evensen vs. Cheick Kongo Joe Joes vs. Andre Gusmao Steve Bruno vs. Chris Wilson Jared Rollins vs. Ben Saunders I know it's still a bit early for predictions, but just to get things kicked off and set up as soon as possible. So you have two weeks to submit your predictions for UFC 87.

Hell's Kitchen and WWE Raw.

I was kind of kidding about the Gina thing. I can appreciate women fighting just fine, but SheBorg haunts my dreams. Just so I can sleep at night, I'd much rather have more Gina Carano.

EXC Spoiler: Click here to view I've only seen the main event and clips of Eilers/Silva. Lawler/Smith was pretty fun. Back and forth. I really wish Scott Smith would've given the head kicks a rest. It was like every combo was ending with a blocked kick to the head. Who the hell is Robbie supposed to fight next? It'll probably be a rematch against Villasenor. God, for the sake of mankind, I hope Carano mops the floor with Cyborg so I don't have to see less Gina and more of the Manbeast. As for the IFL, I hope they got some contracts in the deal. Some nice prospects that could fit in well in the WEC, a few who I can possibly see making the jump to the UFC right away or at least very soon. Nothing has convinced me that Chris Horodecki isn't going to be a huge star in MMA. He's younger than I am and he's already pretty damn good. And he can only get better training with Tompkins at Xtreme Couture. If the UFC locked up this kid up, I well be very pleased. Also, last night I got home early and ended up watching the replay of UFC 84 on Spike. Amazing presentation. The whole event was trimmed of it's fight and it was replaced by interviews and bacstage footage. It was almost like UFC 84: The Documentary. It was very cool. Not to mention it is probably the best event all year, IMO. I don't remember it being all that, but watching it again with the bad ass presentation has upped the stock of this card about 150% percent. Great event top to bottom.

Off the top of my head. Robbie Lawler vs. Scott Smith, Lawler 2nd round KO Antonio Silva vs. Justin Eilers, Silva 1st round KO Nick Thompson vs. Jake Shields, Shields, 2nd round sub Thomas Denny vs. Nick Diaz, 1st round TKO Cristiane Santos vs. Shayna Baszler, Baszler by 1st round sub Why not?

Whatever the hell Chris Cyborb is, I want none of it. She looks like a gorilla ready to suck the brains out of me with my large intestine.

Stomp the Yard. For like the 5th time. Simply amazing. 15/*****

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x5dtuk_dr...s-shibata_sport

You know who I liked? Kenny Rice. He was doing the DREAM commentary with Bas and I thought they made a pretty good team. Rice as the straight forward play by play and Bas being the informative color man. It is that easy. It wasn't the greatest, but it was better than everybody else besides Joe and Mike. People say they were overrated as an announce team, but nobody was better and had more chemistry between them than Quadros and Bas when they were doing Pride. Plus they were both great at interviewing fighters and their opening skits were pretty good too. Bas trying to get an apple on Quadros' head so he could slice it in half with a samurai sword = classic. Also, Bill Goldberg is by far the worst. I swear to God before the Diaz vs. Aina fight last year, when the focused on some of the ring girls, he yelled out "let's see some tits!" I had shitty audio of it, so it sounded a bit muffled, but that's all I could make of it.

Yeah, like I said when talking about Joe and Mike. Most other announce teams, MMA or boxing, have the three headed monster deal going on where everybody is trying to play the lead and there is nobody left for a supporting role. Which is what makes a good announce team flow.

Frank Trigg, Jay Glazer from FSN, and Big John McCarthy.

Depends what you mean by well known. If you mean well known by casual fan standards, then not a whole lot. Cro Cop is their biggest name. I don't know 100% why he hasn't fought in the last few months. He was supposed to fight K-1 legend Jerome Le Banner, but had injury trouble. Other big names like Overeem, Hunt, Sakuraba, Melvin Manhoef... Er... Denis Kang? Not overly impressive. Nick Diaz is employed by EXC, but he's fought there before and is potentially fighting Mach Sakurai sometime soon. I can see a guy like Gilbert Melendez taking a few fights down there. Mayhem Miller is getting into the groove in Japan too now. No idea what is going on NYE and where Fedor is planning to fight, but he fought on Yarennoka last year, which was a precursor to the DREAM promoted events. Akiyama is a big deal for the sport in Japan and the most marketable fighter they have. I say that because KID Yamamoto hasn't debuted yet. He was supposed to fight the Urijah Faber trained Joseph Benavidez, but had to pull out. Which would have been really interesting since Faber himself wants KID sooo fucking bad. The biggest selling point for me is the lightweights. Kawajiri, Aoki, Hansen, Ishida, Alvarez, with the prospect of guys like Melendez, Diaz, and possibly others coming from the States to a fight or two or more. Hopefully more will come up, preferably ones that I know already. I think Sakurai is too fat to make lightweight.

My favorite Mike Goldberg gem was at the TUF 2 finale during Imes vs. Rashad. The fight is standing, Imes throws a backfist and Goldy goes "spinning backfist... without the spin." So basically just a regular backfist then? Joe and Mike have amazing chemistry together, which has been lacking from all other MMA announce teams. They are complete opposites, but it works. People honestly think Goldy knows nothing about the sport. That's bullshit. Mike Goldberg has been around forever, he has seen more MMA than most fans could ever dream of. He knows his shit. He dumbs it down to go into enthusiastic play by play mode and leaves it up to Joe to do the job of going in depth to describe the action. I love how Mike plays giddy, sometimes corny, announce man, and you got Joe who can suddenly become a really good straight man to balance it out. Neither will win awards for their commentary talents on their own, as a team, it works amazingly. Even in the worst situations, you can always laugh off the awkwardness and they go back to making a great team. You got most of these MMA and boxing broadcasts where you have a three man announce team all trying to steal the show and you get this three headed announcer type feel. Instead, Mike and Joe know their roles and complement each other, instead of competing against each other. Joe does tend to get a little preachy sometimes, which annoys me at first, but then you just got to realize how huge of a fan and practitioner of MMA Joe is and how passionate he is about the sport. He does a great job sifting through BS from fans and critics and setting shit straight. Also, if anybody wants to check out three really great fights, check out Eddie Alvarez LWGP run. Eddie vs. Dida http://www.dailymotion.com/relevance/searc...ez-dream1_sport Eddie vs. Hansen http://www.dailymotion.com/relevance/searc...varez-dre_sport Eddie vs. Kawajiri http://www.dailymotion.com/relevance/searc...atsuya-ka_sport The commentary is Japanese, which folks either love or hate.

This is realization that has just hit me very hard. I'll never get to relive the greatest two saves in Rick Tabaracci history. I did find the goalie comp from 13 on youtube. "Na-bah-kov"... "Lolongo" Silly Grapes. EDIT: Actually, the way Cherry pronounced Nabby's name is probably closer than how most people say it.

I actually had more pirated methods in mind, but I can't find shit. That's a really sweet deal, though. But like I said, I'm lacking a VCR. The offer is highly appreciated.

Yeah, the only reason I posted the Japanese shows were because of Horodecki vs. Gomi and the possibility of Diaz vs. Sakurai. I've only really payed attention to the LWGP.