At UFC 84 we will see a battle of lightweight monsters.In one corner we will see one of the best American Jiu Jitsu practitioners ever in B.J. Penn and in the other we will see one of the best conditioned fighters in the organization.As we get closer and closer to the bout, many are asking does Sean Sherk really deserve to be fighting for the title?
Sean Sherk is a physical specimen in the 155 pound weight division.He is the never get tired and top conditioned athlete that many strive to be like.If the UFC was a body building contest he would not have many competitors.However it is not, and in this game of fighting certain things are illegal.
After his last fight, Sherk tested positive for the steroid Nandrolone Metabolite.Other notable athletes that have also tested positive for Nandrolone are Roger Clemens (not confirmed yet), Sean Merriman, and Kurt Angle.This anabolic steroid naturally appears in the body andit’s one of the most abused steroids taken by athletes and other users.Nandrolone accelerates muscle growth, strength, aggressiveness, and recovery.
What a change of pace from DREAM. 1 to DREAM. 2. In that short span, number of bad things have been mounting up in the FEG front. With this 2 Organization war going on in Japan, It seems that by garnering less attention and just basically letting things go on around them World Victory Road (WVR) has almost won the battle without much action. It seems that bad planning, or the lack of, will be the early coffin in DREAM. I don’t think anyone wants to see this happen but the little things have caught up to them and the future is definitely uncertain for DREAM at the moment. Being Dropped from Primetime, lack of Fighters and bad management all together are definitely to blame for this whole thing becoming a tragedy.
Anyways, enough of the negativity, back to the reason of this little writing. As announced DREAM. 2 will be held on April 29th and the card looks like so:
OLYMPIA DREAM.2 Middleweight GP 2008 1st Round Date: April 29th, 2008 Place: Saitama Super Arena in Saitama, Japan
Middleweight GP 1st Round:
8. Kazushi Sakuraba vs. Andrews Nakahara
7. Denis Kang vs. Gegard Mousasi
6. Kiyoshi Tamura vs. Masakatsu Funaki
5. Ronaldo Jacare vs. Ian Murphy
4. Magomed Sultanakhmadov vs. Zelg Galesic
3. Yoon Dong Sik vs. Shungo Oyama
2. Kin Taiei vs. Minowaman
Lightweight GP 1st Round:
1. Shinya Aoki vs. J.Z. Calvan
My father’s generation had Walter Cronkite, respectable and stoic, to talk them through the death of John F. Kennedy on live TV. In those days people respected the news media. Cronkite was a calming voice on a chaotic day.
My generation had a tragedy of its own on September 11, 2001. It played out in a much more graphic sense, live on TV as planes hit and then buildings fell. I had Peter Jennings, as did so many other Americans, as my touching voice to both encapsulate history and calm any sense of fear. It was Jennings who had taught me about death as a six year old. Pre-school let out early and I sat on my father’s lap in front of a TV as Jennings explained why a school teacher, much like my own, had passed away with others on a space shuttle called Challenger.
These are extreme examples of citizens all experiencing a traumatic event at the exact same time through eyes provided to us. While it is certainly hyperbole to compare these events to tragedy and triumphs in sports, there are threads of reactionary behavior and thought that remain the same in any example. A sociologist or psychologist knows there are a few common bonds that link any event with another.
The first is basic. When Cronkite spoke, he spoke through a relatively new box Americans had placed in their homes. Similarly, my memories of Jennings were viewed through this same box. When CBS/Elite XC has their first event in front of the nation, millions of first time viewers will see the sport of MMA through this same box: The TV.
I first saw Fedor Emelianenko fight in 2002, when he took on Heath Herring, and just by looking at the guy, I was not impressed. He’s not big, he’s not muscular, and he’s not angry. But, I didn’t really know what it meant to be a fighter. Sure, I knew about the Gracies, but the way I had figured it, Rickson was built like a truck and he was the best, so it wasn’t like Gracie Jiu-Jitsu was this huge exception, where athletic prowess was irrelevant.
There is a moment in the lone round of the fight with Herring where Fedor picks Heath up and slams him down into the canvas, and I remember being twelve years old, watching that slam and going, “Damn.”
To say I follow Fedor with personal investment in his career is overstating it. There are fighters that I believe that I have a much bigger stake in, fighters who I have backed a little bit more than I realistically should have because I want them to get some extra attention. Still, there is something about Fedor that makes me, and every hardcore MMA fan I know, revert to the child/enthusiast in them, yelling and screaming at the TV.
People get fired from their jobs for many different reasons each year.If I was to tell you that a fighter could lose to Anderson Silva and Rich Franklin in consecutive fights, and get cut because of it, you would think I was lying.In what I feel is a surprising turn of events for this TUF 4 winner, he is cut from the UFC.Travis Lutter no longer can call the octagon his home.
In a recent blog post, Lutter confirmed the news.
Lutter’s record does not really tell his story.He is 1-2 since the UTF 4 finale and his only recent win came against Patrick Cote in that fight at the finale.Since then he has fought 2 of the best fighters at 185 in the world.In both of these fights he at one point seemed to have the upper hand.
MMA Junkie ran their weekly interview with recently eliminated Ultimate Fighter, Matt Riddle, earlier this week. While most of the interview is pretty standard; the laughing, the joking, and a couple curse words here and there, there’s a couple of interesting tidbits worthy of reading.
Apparently Riddle, who trained at Team Russel Jiu-Jitsu before moving to Rat Pack Fighting Systems where he was currently training, had some news to share:
I’m probably going to train with (fellow castmate Mike) Dolce and all those guys at Team Quest North and then with Rampage at Big Bear (Calif.) with the high altitude and stuff to get ready for my fight… Rampage and I got along very well. I got along with Juanito, too, and all the coaches. They still call me to see what I’m doing.
The news doesn’t come as much of a surprise if you think about it. Riddle really needs to be training with other top caliber fighters like his friend from Team Quest and ex-IFL fighter, Mike Dolce along with Rampage and his friends at Big Bear. The surprise comes at how Riddle hints about his treatment from his friends at Rat Pack Fighting Systems.
If the debacle that we called “YAMMA Pit Fighting” did anything for the MMA community, it confirmed a few things about MMA fans as a whole. With an obscure announcing style, a heavyweight tournament, and a cage with an abnormal fighting surface, YAMMA took us back 15 years to the early days of modern Mixed Martial Arts fighting. Unfortunately, it seems that fans these days don’t want to go back or change the style of MMA right now. If you think about, the sport of MMA is perfect where it is and the growth proves it. The rules, the cage, the fighting styles have begun to make the sport mainstream enough to escape John McCain and the rest of legislature, but still tough enough to keep the hardcore fans excited. YAMMA proved that fans don’t want the potential changes that Bob Meyrowitz presented earlier this month in Atlantic City.
Fans don’t want a new fighting surface. Professional wrestling would have seen the benefit of a cage with banked edges to help set up crazy tag team combinations, but MMA fighters only saw it as an obstacle which discouraged takedowns and encouraged stalling. The “pit” was a novelty idea that we’ll hopefully never see again in a real MMA competition.
Matt Riddle has a lot to say on this season of The Ultimate Fighter. The young fighter from New York is shown throughout the show talking to fellow fighters, his coaches, and the camera. He has been nicknamed “Smiley” and “Chipper” by the fighters and the coaches and you can see why. He’s certainly got a lot to say about himself and the sport, including this:
It doesn’t matter where you train - if you want it, you can get it.
While other fighters are training at Top Team, Serra’s BJJ Academy, and Team Quest, Riddle reminds us that he trains out of Palmerton, PA at Rat Pack Fighting Systems. And with his performance last night, you can clearly see that while a professional training team may help a fighter, it’s certainly not what makes a fighter.
Kimbo Slice needs no introduction. If by some slim chance you haven’t been on the internet lately, Kimbo is a street fighter that has turned to MMA. The YouTube sensation has finally responded to the comments made by Chuck Liddell. In an article posted on www.mmajunkie and Yahoo, Chuck had nothing good to say about the EliteXC star.
In response to the negative comments made by Chuck, Kimbo recently made and posted a video that is swirling about the internet.In the attached video you can hear his comments, as well as him challenging the UFC super star to a bare knuckle fight.Not only does he challenge him to the fight, but Kimbo also says he would do it at Chuck’s gym!Check it out and let the comments roll.
The decisive win by Georges St. Pierre was not the only highlight of the evening, but there’s something to be said for a fight that creates that amount of hype. Still, as a result of St. Pierre’s win (which I’m as happy about as anybody), we are almost garunteed a fight between Matt Hughes and Matt Serra and, in the vent that Serra wins, a rubber match between the New Yorker and the Canadian.
As far as Joe Silva’s options for a title contender, the welterweight division is not seriously promising, but I think that we are more or less garunteed a fight between St. Pierre and Jon Fitch. While this fight isn’t particularly interesting to me, I do think that it will give Fitch some credibility to see him step in with a big name like Georges. Those are my simplified thoughts on the future of the welterweight division with its new, expected champion.
Mac Danzig is quickly establishing himself as a force in the division. He was one of the rare anomalies on TUF not to win because of a decision or freak injury (I throw that last part in to take out Nate Diaz, because I have a hard time calling that win legitimate). I like Danzig, and I’ve followed his small circuit career a little bit (mostly because I wanted to scout him when he was signed by Pride).
The crowd in Montreal had just welcomed another Canadian in the cage and was eagerly awaiting a showdown. Instead, three rounds of potential fighting turned into a 15 minute stall tactic riddled with boos from the crowd and taunts in the cage. British Columbian fighter Kalib Starnes tried to do everything but engage with his opponent, Nate Quarry, during their UFC 83 bout. In the final minute of the fight, an extremely frustrated Quarry began taunting Starnes with his rendition of the running man and started blindly punching the air as he covered his face as if he were Screech from Saved by the Bell. As the final bell did ring, name calling between fighters and their opposing corners rounded out what was to be an unforgettable night for many at the Bell Center in Montreal. So what went wrong?
Let’s take a look at some of the possible scenarios.
I know that there is plenty going on for the Ultimate Fighting Championship right now, but I think that it’s about time we look ahead (besides, there will be plenty of articles written on Serra vs. St. Pierre, and I’ll talk about the aftermath soon).
Still, I’m willing to look past the Serra vs. St. Pierre matchup because I want to aware that the best matchup the UFC has promised this year is coming, and while there’s been some talk, it’s not getting the credibility it deserves, and part of that is political, and all of it is crap.
If you’re still not aware of which fight I’m talking about, I’m talking about UFC 84’s main event: Sean Sherk vs. BJ Penn. It’s going to be a war, and everybody knows that this is going to a challenge for both fighters, because of how perfectly their skill sets match up.
Being the what the rest of the world would call a dumb American, I assumed that Montreal was much farther away from the United States than what Google maps just showed me. The predominently French Canadian city, on the eastern side of Canada, is less than 50 miles away from the upstate New York and Vermont borders. So while the Montreal crowd will obviously be predominantly Canadian, I wouldn’t be surprised to find a few outspoken Serra supporters mixed in the crowd and ready to support their fighter…and fight against the hometown crowd. It’s New York versus Montreal at UFC 83.
Canada is known for beer, cold weather, and hockey - and the fights that come with the sport. And for the first time, the UFC will be bringing the fighting to Canada in another sport which is quickly gaining mainstream attention by the Canadian press these days. It’s a move that many hardcore fans have been talking about ever since Georges St. Pierre made Matt Hughes verbally tap out during UFC 79. It’s also a move that will make the UFC a lot of money through the nearly-instant gate sellout along with the potential Pay-Per-View numbers which may rival some of the UFC’s other big PPV events if both Canadians and U.S. fans decide to watch the event live on television. And after Matt Serra decided to call out St. Pierre as “Frenchy” last May, you just might see the most eclectic UFC crowd on television ever.
But there’s more than hometown crowds, beer, and PPV numbers when it comes down to fighting. Let’s take a look at the televised matchups, including two of the five middleweight bouts, for UFC 83. (Note to UFC: Just hold a middleweight tournament and left the winner fight Anderson Silva.)
It’s been a LONG time since my last contribution to MMAOpinion.com, which was due to school, exams and other attention grabbing things but I hope to come back with a lot more frequency during these days…
Anyways, moving to content, FEG is finishing up its 3rd major event of the month in Japan with its 2nd DREAM Show. My last posting before my “break” was specifically updating this card and I’m not too happy to inform you that there has been no additions thus far to the 183 Pound Grand Prix until Today that is. The card is most likely 100 percent finalized and the Grand Prix matches look like this:
Got a few extra bucks to spend this weekend? Bodog and BetUS are both showing odds for UFC 83 that just might make you want to drop a few bucks on Matt Serra, Travis Lutter, or even Mark Bocek.
After watching Matt Serra dismantle Georges St. Pierre during UFC 69 last April along with St. Pierre’s domination of Matt Hughes, this fight could easily go either way. Bodog is showing lines of -500 for St. Pierre and +300 for Serra while BetUS has Serra up at +350. You could make $350 for every $100 if Serra pulls off another “upset.” It’s only an upset if Serra wins because it’s one of those fights where many are thinking St. Pierre will come away with the victory, but there’s some uncertainty. Remember the last time this happened? It was Anderson Silva and Dan Henderson and although a great fight ensued, the upset just wasn’t there. Things may change this time around if Serra doesn’t let the Montreal crowd get to him.
There’s gotten to be alot more anticipation and anxiety over the matchups that we use to just see as glorified ass-whuppings, advancing the UFC’s top stars to the top. If nothing else, 2007 changed the way that we view the stepping stone matchup forever. We learned the hard way that sometimes stepping stones step back.
It’s not easy to say, simply, that this fight is going to go one way or the other. People will say that Franklin has a clear edge. He’s a multiple time UFC champion and a serious warrior in terms of his ability to stand and trade. There’s no dispute that Franklin is the favorite in this fight, but there’s something about this fight that makes it more than just a promising, starching knockout and the physical dominance that we have seen from Franklin in many of his highlight worthy performances.
After watching Kenny Florian dismantle Joe Lauzon it should be clear that this guy means business. Having tracked Kenny from his TUF days and even getting to train with him at one point, I have been able to watch his evolution from a frail looking and one dimensional fighter to a true well rounded fighter.
Kenny Florian’s grappling needs no discussion, it has always been crisp and dangerous, but his hard work in the Muay Thai field is what deserves the most attention. He knew that his MMA game had too many holes and weaknesses and that he needed some serious work in his stand up game. He also knew that if he wanted to get difficult training with the best results he had to go to the source, which is Thailand.
The fruits of all his hard work could be seen in all his fights after and up to this point. Kenny Florian has become a true MMA fighter and is again a serious contender for the gold, but has a tall order with his next fight looking to be against Roger Huerta. Even though Huerta will put on a tremendous show of heart I just can’t see him overcoming the new and well rounded Ken-Flo.
Kenny Florian has went from the kid who was lucky to have cut Chris Leben to someone who is legitimately feared in the Lightweight division, with the only real flaw in his game being his wrestling. He must also address this issue if wishes to not be taken down and controlled by such phenomenal wrestlers such as Sean Sherk, but with someone as diligent as Florian it shouldn’t take long to see him also patch up this last flaw.
Loading ...
I do still love MMA and have...
