So, anyone hear anything about Rampage lately? Still waiting to see what he’s been up to.

You may remember this little writing device from such classics as my Comment Army of One and Comment Army of One: Pt. 2 articles. What? You don’t? Well, that’s why I have links for examples. Essentially I bother someone else’s site with comments on their articles/news items, and then I copy and past it onto MMAOpinion and call it a column. It’s that simple.

This week I’m switching it up, as I go with a semi review/response piece to this past week’s Fight Opinion Radio with Zach Arnold and Jeff Thaler. Zach is always looking for reaction to his audio, and often demands to know (often rightfully) why people aren’t reacting to a certain story, or why someone is getting a pass from the MMA online community. Zach takes and deserves a lot of crap at times for his harsh know-it-all ways, and I’ve definitely given him crap, but this show is timely and relevant. Everyone take a listen, because when Zach is being fair, his criticism really does carry a lot of weight. And don’t forget about Jeff Thaler. When he’s not chumming it up with Zach he’s a perfect counterweight in the conversation.

I take you to my responses via varying multimedia platforms. Their audio to my digital comments. Technology and our advancements all dressed up. I essentially ease drop on two guys having a semi-righteous conversation on a niche topic, and I semi-righteously respond back with a letter. How far we’ve all come.

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Question; what’s a WAMMA? World Alliance of Mixed Martial Arts? Well, what is it that it does? Sanction fights? Sanction?

Sanctioning bodies don’t promote fights. Companies like the UFC and Elite XC promote them - and quite well. Sanctioning bodies don’t create fighter unions or take care of fighters. Theoretically managers and agents, or even fight teams/camps take care of the individual fighters. Sanctioning bodies don’t make rules and regulations for MMA fighters or promoters. State Athletic commissions do that. All it seems sanctioning bodies do is create and promote their own independent belts. While that might be attractive if everyone was going after those individual world titles, they aren’t. Fighters are going after UFC belts because they’re the championships of the leading fight organization. And since the UFC isn’t recognizing anyone else’s belts, and even Elite XC and Strikeforce aren’t, then why should I. The outside sanctioning doesn’t even seem to fit into lowly IFL’s team plans.

The only thing I do know that sanctioning bodies will bring to MMA is rankings. Alphabet soup sanctioning bodies rely on top ten rankings to supply their organization with opponents. I think rankings are random and subjective opinions that are often laughable and best left to opinion columnists like me for content fodder 4-6 times a year. They aren’t something for anyone to take to seriously. There’s a reason UFC doesn’t get locked into their own ranking system. You need to be flexible when booking fighting. Rankings invite disappointment and eventual indifference of fans and analyst alike.

So why should I want or encourage outside sanctioning as a fan when it doesn’t seem to add anything as a fan or supporter of the sport. Anyone?

If you couldn’t afford shelling out $12.95 for 6 issues of Fight! Magazine, today is your lucky day. Actually the month of December is your lucky month because you can get your hands on a year subscription for only $9.95.

Go to the Fight! Magazine website and click the yellow “Subscribe Now” button. Take a survey and save $3. Not a bad deal at all, my MMA loving friends!

P.S. - Now is the time to laugh at the Fightlinker guys because it’s $20 a year for them and no discounts!

And he wasn’t at a photo shoot for men’s shaving products. It might as well have been at the latest Nation of Islam meeting.

If you don’t remember John Philapavage asking where Rampage Jackson was in his article a few weeks back, here it is. Apparently Jackson has emerged in a “semi-controversial” interview with TMZ, according to MMA News.

This is what Jackson had to say regarding the recent shooting death of Washington Redskins free safety Sean Taylor during a botched robbery attempt:

“Black folks, when you get in trouble [and you] call 911, please sound white when you call … We all sound white when we need to.”

Why Rampage, why?! As the light-heavyweight UFC champion, you need to think before you say stupid stuff!

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I had a chance to listen to yesterday’s Hughes-St. Pierre UFC Press Conference. The kid sounds good. Mentally, he’s all the way back. He actually seems re-energized. He’s aware the fight was put together on short notice, but he’s ready, and I think he’s got big plans for next year. In short, he’s refreshed, reinvigorated, and confident.

“He” is not Matt Hughes, who sounded pleasant, but dejected and falsely confident. He wanted that Serra match and I think he needed it (and the title if he won) as a springboard to get up for the St. Pierre rubber match. Sadly, I think he knows he’s not ready for the jump from Serra to GSP.

“He” is also not George St. Pierre, who sounds like the pound for pound best fighter in the world after defeating Koscheck in August. St. Pierre sounded aware of the challenges of taking this fight and I think it motivates him.

The “he” referred to in the opening is Dana White, who seems to finally be finding that home run trot again after being derailed by the Couture resignation and HBO let down.

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By: Kris Hartrum

Nagoya, Japan - November 25th, 2007

It was a lively afternoon in Nagoya as the fifth installment of Nagoya Heat went underway. With a large crowd of vivacious fight- fans, it was sure to be a passionate day of victory, blood and overcoming. In the open-weight, headlining fight, the towering Alex Robert managed a win over K-1 veteran, Tatsafumi Tomihira in a fast paced 3 rounder that left the crowd reeling in the excitement.

The first round opened furiously, as Tomihira managed a beautifully executed uppercut, knocking Roberts down for the eight count. Immediately taking the offensive, Robert answered with a flurry of good punch/kick combinations and aggressive footwork.

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UFC 78 made me sick. Literally.

Sunday morning I woke up to fever, cold sweats, and a sore throat. The doctor termed it “strep throat” and I’ve been in bed for the past week. My pages and pages of clever notes for an article to accompany Brandt Delorenzo’s great live coverage on the site were collecting dust by Monday night, and I was too weak to shout my frustrations over phone calls or e-mails. I didn’t even go online last week. I heard two audio reviews of the show and that was enough for me.

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As reported by MMA News and his wife in the TXMMA.com forums, fighter Sammy Vasquez is still hospitalized following a knockout loss on October 20th.

More bad news was reported on Friday as Vasquez apparently suffered a stroke after reported improvements. You can view of his wife’s posts on the forum to learn more. You can donate to the family as well.

Not only is this bad news for the Vasquez family, it’s a huge blow to the MMA community and the sport as a whole. While boxing has avoided most of the media fallout, MMA has not been as lucky lately. With many inaccurate stories reporting regarding the fights and the fighters, MMA still has a growing list of enemies. If Sammy Vasquez does not make it, I expect the media to jump back on the bandwagon to claim MMA is evil on their front pages again.

It was bound to happen one time or another even though Mixed Martial Arts is far from the top of the list of the most dangerous activities. There are more deaths and head injuries from cycling than MMA. Banning the Tour de France won’t solve a thing. Claiming that MMA is deadly is far from the truth, but one major news story can change the opinions of many.

Although I certainly hope Vasquez can pull through for the sake of his family, but I also worry about the bigger picture as well.

Donations can be sent to the Texas MMA Fight Shop:

TEXAS MMA FIGHT SHOP
c/o Sammy Vasquez
5720 Mobud
San Antonio, Texas 78238

And this is bad because more people read ABC News than MMA blogs like Luke Thomas’s Bloody Elbow. Luke wrote a rightfully scathing review of her article on ABCNews.com, but didn’t go in depth with many of the “points” author Nellie Sciutto tried to make.

Keep in mind that Nellie Sciutto knows less about MMA than your mother. She typically writes about more women-friendly activities like frozen babies and yoga.

Not only has Mrs. Sciutto, a self-proclaimed writer over at the ABC New’s site, mis-interpreted whatever facts she found about Mixed Martial Arts, she also helped create more enemies of the explosive sport. Let’s take a look at what she wrote.

Here’s the idea: It’s a blend of techniques that include judo, jujitsu, karate, tae kwon do, wrestling and sumo wrestling. Two fighters face off in circular ring that’s 40 feet in diameter — and that’s about where the rules end.

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Sorry for the lack of stories on the site. We have all been busy with respective issues and MMA Opinion will be back in full force shortly.

You may have noticed that MMA Opinion is a bit quicker to respond. That’s because we moved the site to a faster server with more web space! Expect more opinions and editorials with less lag!

Also, MMA Opinion is now on MySpace! Check out the profile and add us to your friends. We promise not to send annoying bulletins or post ridiculous pictures of our dogs. The layout of our MySpace page is still in the works and I (Brandt) apologize for the boring layout and lack of fun pictures. Give me a few weeks and it will be worthy of your top 24 friends!

We now have 5 active writers, but we are still looking for more. Please contact us if you would like to contribute. You don’t need a long list of references or a black belt in Jiu-Jitsu to write for us.

Hope everyone is enjoying the site. Thanks to Zach at Fight Opinion, Luke at Bloody Elbow, Pramit at The Baltimore Sun, John at MMA on Tap, and Caleb at MMA Predictions for plugging our stuff.

Not quite. At least not yet. Unless more fighters are forced to pull out of the December 29th card. Although the highly anticipated title fight between the Matt’s is no longer happening on December 29th, we still have some other action to look forward to.

We still have Wanderlei Silva and Chuck Liddell, right? We have only been waiting years for this one. Now that I think about it, if it wasn’t meant to happen before, it probably won’t happen now for one reason or another. It’s the curse of “what Dana wants.” Or maybe it was just bad planning.

Don’t forget about the undefeated Lyoto Machida up against a very formidable Rameau Sokoudjou. I’m impressed with Sokoudjou’s striking and this might be the end of Machida’s impressive record. It could also expose Sokoudjou as another Pride fighter who can’t transition in to the UFC cage. His only loss came from Glover Texiera in a WEC cage. This fight should be interesting. Hmm.

The rumored undercard boasts the return of a few other popular fighters like Tony DeSouza, Roan Carneiro, and Melvin Guillard. You may have seen all three of these fighters on Spike TV recently. Tony DeSouza was seen often on The Ultimate Fighter 5 as one of BJ Penn’s coaches. Roan Carneiro, a Brazilian Top Team fighter, lost to Jon Fitch on UFC Fight Night 10 via a rear naked choke. Melvin Guillard almost immediately lost to Joe Stevenson at UFC Fight Night 9 after claiming that Stevenson was doping. Guillard was found to be using cocaine as well. Who could forget that?

I’m not worried about UFC 79 yet. Training injuries happen, cards change, and it’s all part of the sport. As long we can keep some of these fights on the card, the UFC can avert another UFC 78 borefest.

The televised show starts with Evans and Bisping trash talking. If you weren’t aware, Bisping angrily responded to a blog post by Evans last week and an internet war began.

The crowd looks excited, drunk, and from New Jersey.

Mike Goldberg started the show talking about the two TUF champions going up against each other for the first time.

As mentioned by me before, the UFC is starting things off with a lightweight fight. Good choice!

We won’t be seeing our typical UFC referee’s tonight either.

Michael Bisping vs. Rashad Evans

Round 1: The battle of the unbeaten begins with both fighters trading and Rashad moving into a quick takedown with Bisping up against the cage. Rashad is able to get Bisping down, but he stands back up after taking a few shots to the face. The crowd is shouting “U.S.A!” There is not action and the ref moves the fighters back to the center. Rashad is working for the takedown, but Bisping is able to defend. Evans with a big right hand that misses and Bisping goes for a high kick. Evans takes him down, stands up, and ends up with side control after falling back down on him. Bisping is able to spin out and stand up. Evans takes Bisping down again and works for mount. Bisping is able to force Evans back to guard and the round ends. 10-9 Evans.

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Check back here at 10:00PM EST for UFC 78 live coverage from the staff writers of MMA Opinion. We’ll also be reporting on anything exciting before, during, and after the fights. If you don’t wanna pay $40 for this event, check back for the details.

• Will Bisping get booed out of the arena like he did at the weigh-ins?

• Can Karo Parisyan finish a fight?

• Will Houston Alexander knock someone else out?

If anything exciting happens, you’ll hear it first* at MMAOpinion.com!

*We may not be first, but it sounds cool, right?

Whatever happened to Rampage Jackson? I mean, I took a week and a half off, and I feel irrelevant and out of place. Magnify that by a million and maybe you’ll get a sense of the deep down insecurities Quinton Jackson might be feeling.

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I’m finally back from extended leave. Expect a column here on Quinton Jackson within twenty-four hours. For now I have something to tide you over.

I’ll be doing some freelance work for Caleb over at MMAPredictions.com, and I invite you to hop over and check the place out. He has a great system for tracking predictions and looking at how the results fall by things like region you live in. It’s fun and there’s a team compitition you can get in on.

I’ll be doing most of my work here at MMAOpinion, but I’ll be doing some op-ed pieces exclusively at MMAPredictions. The first is a preview of UFC 78 with a look back at UFC 32 from 2001. They have something in common. You’ll figure it out.

Wrestling star Bill Goldberg will join FBI Veteran David Szady, MMA legends Pat Miletich and Don Frye, as well as boxing manager Godwin Asifo in announcing WAMMA the,‘World Alliance of Mixed Martial Arts’, to be the sports first-ever sanctioning body, unifying the MMA world and setting the stage for first ever cross-promotion fight cards.

NEW YORK:”Respected figures from the business world, professional and amateur athletics, medicine, and sports journalism will gather at a lunch/press conference next week to launch the first ever MMA sanctioning body. WAMMA , the World Alliance of Mixed Martial Arts, will rank fighters by weight division, establish unified rules, ensure the safety and welfare of fighters, and sanction world championship bouts. Most important, it will enable the best fighters in the world to face off against each other, creating unified legitimacy and increasing the integrity of the sport.

The press conference is on Wednesday, November 14, 2007, at 12:00 pm and will take place at Gallagher’s Steak House, 228 West 52 Street, New York City. Steak lunch will be served for reporters.
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The guessing game of Brock Lesnar’s first UFC opponent is finally over. While we may have thought the UFC was going to dump a can into the ring with the ex-WWE wrestler, they did exactly the opposite. They put a fighter that Lesnar supposedly hand-picked to fight during his first battle in the cage in February ‘08. It won’t be another 1-0 fighter. It’s certainly not someone who hasn’t been up against some of the better fighters in the division. It’s not Andre Arlovski. It’s against someone with a ‘mere’ 12 fight advantage. Frank Mir, that is.

While Frank Mir may not be one of your top 10 heavyweights in the world right now, he’s certainly leaps and bounds ahead of the UFC’s newest supposed rising star. Brock Lesnar, Divison 1-A college wrestler turned WWE wrestler turned MMA fighter, has only fought once - Against Min Soo Kim. Kim is 4-6. Kim has beaten other no name fighters like Jin Ho Yang (2-2), Yoshihisa Yamamoto (7-17), Sean O’Haire (1-2), and the illustrious Minowaman (who has lost to every big name in heavyweight history in the past 11 years). Let me get to the point. Lesnar has a long way to go before fighting someone who has already beaten Tim Sylvia (Mir actually broke his arm) for a vacant UFC heavyweight championship belt during UFC 48.

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It was a tough 60 minutes as the two sides fought it out on live television. Like an archetypal MMA fight, only one will truly be victorious at the end. One side will emerge with defiant hands in the air. The other reeling in defeat. In this scenario, neither side is a flesh and blood fighter - it’s the IFL vs. the Ratings. The battle was waged tonight and the results will not be announced soon enough for the struggling organization.

After the televised fights have ended and the production crew begins to edit the tape, the big question looms. Did the IFL do enough to win a decision to stay on the air in 2008 or did the ratings game beat the organization at its own game? Not unlike the conclusion of the Horodecki vs. Palaszewski rematch that took place tonight at the Sears Tower in Chicago, a decision is much awaited.

As noted last week, the IFL needs a strong showing tonight during their Grand Prix Semi-Finals to retain their two hour time slot on MyNetworkTV. If the IFL can prove they have what it takes to continuously produce live shows with intense fights, they could still be in contention with the other small organizations like the WEC and Strikeforce. If the IFL fails to show impressive numbers tonight, they will have to fall back on the paid attendance of their Grand Prix Finals on December 29th, 2007. Even then, can a cable network justify putting the IFL back on television for another year of potentially dismal  ratings numbers?

Back in March, the IFL was pulling in great numbers for MyNetworkTV in the 18 to 34 year old demographic. MyNetworkTV, not typically known for attracting males viewers, drew a weak .2 rating for the highly desired group before showing any fights. After the organization began airing its show, MyNetworkTV was looking at ratings of .7 and .8 - up to 400% improved. Considering that a rating of 1.0 means approximately 1.1 million viewers across the U.S., the IFL was bringing in more than 500,000 extra viewers. But, that was the past. As the year continued, the IFL ratings dropped lower and lower and eventually down to .34 in October. That’s barely above what MyNetworkTV was doing before they signed the organization.  With these numbers came a schedule change and the IFL was moved from Monday nights to Saturday nights. When it rains, it pours.

This, however, could all quickly change.  Expect to see the numbers at Dave Meltzer’s Wrestling Observer soon.