MMA News and Discussion Thread

[Guest Mr. Potato Head]

Observer notes:

-Bob Sapp is a huge star in South Korea right now, appearing all over TV and with a music CD coming out soon. This is at least partially thanks to him being a heavyweight champ in a Korean wrestling promotion. He is also making inroads in Mongolia.

-Quinton Jackson was at UFC 110 cornering Bisping, and "didn't look even remotely in shape"

-Buyrate for UFC 109 looks a lot lower than expected (285,000 by current estimates) and 110 will likely be even worse.

-Lots of talk of Wanderlei Silva vs. Yoshihiro Akiyama

[Guest Mr. Potato Head]

I've been reading a few old Figure 4 Weeklies at random and looking at the MMA section. I'll do this more thoroughly after uni's done for the year, but it's neat to see things like Fedor over Ricardo Arona being considered a huge upset at the time.

Other discoveries: In 2001, UFC was 'hugely popular five years ago', and once upon a time Bryan Alvarez was funny.

[Guest Mr. Potato Head]

Seriously, some of these punchlines are just writing themselves.

From January 2001:

Akira Maeda told the press that he wanted to swing a deal to bring Mike Tyson in for the RINGS tenth anniversary show in August, but Tyson wanted $4 million so the deal fell through. Maeda says he’s now talking to Rickson Gracie.

Speaking of Rickson, a match between him and Naoya Ogawa is rumored for a fall 2001 PRIDE show. They first approached him about fighting Kazushi Sakuraba, who has plowed through four Gracies at last count, but Rickson’s response was that Sakuraba was just too small.

[Guest Sideshow MPH]

No immediate Cro Cop vs. Rothwell match - Rothwell will instead fight Gilbert Yvel at UFC 115 in Vancouver.

[Guest Sideshow MPH]

And Cro Cop will fight Pat Barry on the same card.

[Rich]

I am actually not too happy about that, I think we have lost a good fight for the inferior fights. If they wanted to split the fights between those four I would have prefered Yvel vs Cro Cop and Barry vs Rothwell but I guess beggars can't bve choosers, and I would like to see explosive performances from Mirko and Gilbert. Big head kicks are a must!

[tristy]

Andrei Arlovski VS. Antonio Silva is likely for Strikeforce 5/15 in St. Louis.

Cast of Season 11 of the Ultimate Fighter:

Rich Attonito

Seth Baczynski

Charles Blanchard

Josh Bryant

Chris Camozzi

Brent Cooper

Jacen Flynn

James Hammortree

Joseph Henle

Charley Lynch

Kris McCray

Court McGee

Clayton McKinney

Kyle Noke (who once beat George Sotiropolous)

Victor O'Donnell

Norman Praisy

Constantinos Philippou

Greg Rebello

Nick Ring

Jordan Smith

Ben Stark

Lyle Steffens

Brad Tavares

Warren Thompson

Kyacey Uscola (best known of the fighters with 33 pro fights)

Cleburn Walker

Woody Weatherby

Jamie Yager

[Rich]

Also looks like Overeem is gonna be fighting Rogers on the same card.... but not defending his belt

[tristy]

Stop the presses. Overeem might actually step foot on American soil to fight? It's been, what, 3 or 4 years? I mean, I knew it'd happen sooner or later, but how the hell can he pass a piss test? If Nick can't, then Overeem for sure can't.

And Rogers? Really? I was holding out hope that maybe Fedor pulled out of the April CBS card from Nashville to fight Overeem in the future, but it looks like it's not meant to be. Arvloski/Rogers and Silva/Overeem makes more sense (kinda), to me atleast. Oh, and fuck you Fedor. I would have WALKED to Nashville to see the man compete.

EDIT: Are the 3 championship fights for the April CBS card actually confirmed? Because I might make the drive to Nashville if that's the case. Way to blow your load on one event, though.

[TexasCOUNTRYrc13]

Strikeforce's titles are pretty much irrelevant at this point. Nobody hardly ever defends. If anything it's not consistent like it should be. No point in them having titles without having their champions have exclusive contracts.

[Rich]

To be fair that CBS card looks stacked if it is Hendo vs Shields, King Mo vs Moussasi and Melendez vs Aoki all for titles.. In fact I would go far to say that I am not even bothered about losing Fedor off the card the fights are that good. I can see all of those fights going either way, none of them scream "OUTRIGHT FAVOURITE!" on one side of the bout.

But the card afterwards, if it does have Fedor, looks amazing as well, it would be heavyweight heaven... Fedor vs Werdum, Arlovski vs Silva and Overeem vs Rogers.

However I am hearing rumblings that Fedor wont fight as M-1 feel that Strikeforce have broken the terms of the contract and refuse to consider a fight unless a new one is negotiated, which again comes across as M-1 being really pissy when it comes to negotiations and trying to stiff arm people and flex their muscles. I have a feeling that the percieved breach is something to do with them not getting the fight against Werdum on CBS.

Also TexasCOUNTRYrc13, the lightweight and middlewieght champions regularly defend as does the ladies now with Cyborg and the other Female belt and the welterweight belt have only just been won for the first time, a bit harsh to call them on it when they haven't had time to develop the championships.

Unfortunately they are in the position where they can't always hold the best fighters to exclusive contracts as there is good money involved but the fighters may have commitments elsewhere or want to pursue other fights where they can make money elsewhere. I mean Overeem is a huge name in Japan and can make a lot of money fighting for DREAM and particularly in the K-1 events.

[tristy]

Yeah, either way, it's a stacked card if those 3 matches I saw are true. And the Observer basically just confirmed Melendez/Aoki. Mousasi/King Mo, Hendo/Sheilds.. can't beat it. All within an hour and half drive.

[Rich]

If I was you I would kick myself if I missed that

[TexasCOUNTRYrc13]

Well you've got a point there. But it's mainly the bigger titles. The heavyweight title situation is ridiculous. Overeem became the first champion going on three years ago. They set up a title defense for him twice and he pulled out of both fights. Southworth didn't defend his title for two years. Then after Mousasi beat Babalu for the belt, he fights Sokoudjou IN Strikeforce and the title isn't on the line. Why not? When Cung Le won the middleweight belt, he took the hiatus and never even defended. At least Shields is assumingly going to defend against Henderson coming up here pretty soon. Still a bad situation You're right though about the lower weight classes, can't complain there.

[Rich]

The Overeem situation has been inexcusable, how your champion can't defened in 2 and a half years, which now looks like it'll be 3 years if the match is non title is beyond me. the Cung Le thing was unfortunate, he wanted to do movies and didn't feel he could defend the belt when Strikeforce needed it to be so he gave it up, only for his schedule to open up for a fight (his loss last December) but at least the belt is regularly defended.

I believe the problem we have with it is that we are spoilt by UFC they have established champions with established divisions that are tens of fighters deep, and Strikeforce don't have the resources, exposure or divisional depth to effectively say "Here's our champion, and here's a group of fighters who are vying for no. 1 contendership" in every divison like the UFC, only really in the 185 division can you say that when you have guys like Shields, Hendo, Smith, Lawler, Le, etc...

I think Strikeforce need time and to establish their own stars and divisions and add depth to them, the challenger series is the right step to that, and mix in the fact they have deals with Showtime and CBS, given time they can start to live up to expectations. unfortunately you then have the issue of whether they can keep enough fighters happy in the long run to establish the divisons.

Strikeforce also keep their cards a lot closer to their chests than the UFC, again with us having been spoiled by the UFC's announcements of their intentions for the next four to six months Strikeforce come across unprofessional as they don't announce til late, with good reason as UFC tend to counter program rather swiftly...

[Guest Sideshow MPH]

Strikeforce is exciting me so much right now. Those three title fights will make for an awesome show. 5/15 looks to be a huge focus on the HW division, and I'm almost wondering if it'll end up on CBS even though I haven't read anything suggesting that.

[TexasCOUNTRYrc13]

Mousasi/King Mo is intriguing. Obviously they don't like each other (Mo was saying fuck Gegard right?) I've got to go with Mousasi though, he's had a lot more fights, Mo Lawal's wrestling is legit, but he's still a little green. Melendez and Aoki doesn't excite me quite as much. If anything I see a slick sub from Aoki pulling guard. Hendo fighting Jake Shields is definitely huge though. It makes it go from a show that I'd probably try and see to one that I wouldn't miss. I don't think Shields is as much of a threat to him as people are making him out to be. Size will matter. You've got a good wrestler up against an olympic greco wrestler who's much bigger, much stronger, and the only other thing Jake has to offer for him are subs, which Henderson has great submission defense.

[Fitzy]

Apparently Marcus Davis is the latest fighter who wants his rival dead. On Twitter he apparently said "I hope Hardy dies of aids" but it appears to have been removed now. I saw this on F4W and did a Google search to see if it wasn't something made up and it's on various message boards.

[Toe]

I didn't realize that Arlovski is only 31 years old. I guess he has plenty of time to get his career back on track after those two devastating losses to Fedor and Brett Rogers.

[Rich]

Mousasi/King Mo is intriguing. Obviously they don't like each other (Mo was saying fuck Gegard right?) I've got to go with Mousasi though, he's had a lot more fights, Mo Lawal's wrestling is legit, but he's still a little green. Melendez and Aoki doesn't excite me quite as much. If anything I see a slick sub from Aoki pulling guard. Hendo fighting Jake Shields is definitely huge though. It makes it go from a show that I'd probably try and see to one that I wouldn't miss. I don't think Shields is as much of a threat to him as people are making him out to be. Size will matter. You've got a good wrestler up against an olympic greco wrestler who's much bigger, much stronger, and the only other thing Jake has to offer for him are subs, which Henderson has great submission defense.

I am almost opposite of you on excitement, I am really looking forward to the lightweight match, I feel that we will really get a good idea of where Aoki is against high level western talent. Melendez's performace against Thomson was nothing short of spectacular, he dominated that match at a high pace for the entire 25 mins. While Aoki is going to be tested as Melendez will be much bigger as he doesn't cut weight, and Aoki will have to deal with the standup unless he pulls guard very very quickly, it'll be exciting! I am not a huge Mo fan but he is gradually turning me around, and his dominant win last time in Strikeforce did nothing to hurt him, I like the fight, I like Mousasi, but I can see it going either way, Mousasi hasn't faced an elite level wrestler like Mo, while Mo hasn't met this level of competitor in the cage thus far in his career, great match up. And the middleweight match has two ways it'll go in my mind. 1) It'll vindicate Hendo's decision to leave UFC, he'll go out and win then look towards some of the other 85ers like Lawler. or 2) It'll vindicate and validate (as champion) Jake Shields. I would like the second one and I would like it as to dispel the idea that Jake Shields is a boring lay and pray artist, and it would make Strikeforce look good. Their top 185er beating a guy who was inline for a shot at Anderson Silva in the UFC and is a PRIDE legend? Can only lend legitimacy to their promotion and their methods of signing up fighters