In typical Japanese promotion fashion, FEG has finally announced their full Lightweight Grand Prix matches. On the other hand, with only 5 days until the event a full card has not yet been finalized as the they have been unable to fully secure an opponent for Mirko Cro Cop and Ikuhisa Minowa. There are signs coming out of Japan indicating that Yoshihiro Nakao could step up to the plate. Takumi “Handlebars” Yano joked about the Yakuza may “abandon [Nakao] at the Sea of Tokyo”. Not too many people have seen Yano in action, sadly. He trains with Nakao and the guy is VERY unorthodox in everything and is a very fun fighter to watch. Anyways, the card looks alright at the moment. There is alot of kind of bad matches but I guess it makes the 2 round anticipation thicker.

Heiwa DREAM.1

1. Shinya Aoki vs. Gesias “JZ” Calvancanti
2. Tatsuya “Crusher” Kawajiri vs. Kultar “Black Mamba” Gill
3. Kazuyuki Miyata vs. Luis “Buscape” Firmino
4. Joachim “Hellboy” Hansen vs. Koutetsu Boku
5. Mitsuhiro Ishida vs. Jung Bu-Kyung
6. Katsuhiko Nagata vs. Artur Oumakhanov
7. Andre Dida vs. Eddie Alvarez

Super Fight

1. Hayato “Mach” Sakurai vs. Hidetaka Monma

The plan is to obviously have 10 fights with Cro Cop and Minowaman with unconfirmed opponents thus far. It’s very apparent that there are only 7 GP matches meaning only 14 fighter but due to the lack of fighters, supposedly Caol Uno and Vitor “Shaolin” Ribiero could have the fortune of being passed directly to the round of 8. Personally, I think everyone in the GP should fight. No bye-rounds unless you’re the Champion and even than it’s really iffy. Also, you have to remember that Takanori Gomi did manage to secure a win at Sengoku and I’m incredibly sure that World Victory Road might be willing to co-promote if it meant getting a bit more eyes on their product. Read the full story

Ed Herman Interview continued…

CC. What are the best things about being a pro fighter?

EH. There are a lot of good things; I get to support my family doing something that I love. I get to travel and see the world. I get to meet a lot of cool people. One cool thing is that you get the chance to influence people and motivate people that you have never even met. I get MySpace emails, and stuff like that on my fan site from people thanking me for motivating them to get off of their ass. It is pretty cool to be able to motivate people you have never even met.

CC. Worst?

EH. Man, you know, I think the hardest part is staying in good shape all the time, and staying healthy, and being disappointed. You know, in the summer when all of your boys are going to the river, you have to say no that you have to go sit in the hotbox sweaty gym all day and train. That’s probably one of the hardest parts. I like to get out and have fun. That is probably the hardest part with all of the time you have to put in to be top notch.

CC. If Dana came to you and said you could have any fight, who would you pick and why?

EH. Any fight I want. Haha, I would like to fight Jason McDonald pretty bad. I would love to fight him. Kendall Grove and Jason are both on my list. Another guy is Kazuo Misaki who I lost to a couple of years ago in Japan. I was winning that fight until I made a mistake and got caught. I don’t have any animosity toward any of those guys, or really anyone else, but those are three guys that beat me, and I would love to get that back. I feel that if I had a shot at any of those three guys it would be great.

CC. Rumors today on the internet is that Wanderlei is dropping, any interest in fighting him?

EH. Wanderlei is dropping, huh. I would fight Wanderlei. I watched him as a kid, I mean that is not who I would want to fight right now, but if they came to me I would take the fight.

CC. If you could put together a dream fight, which would it be between?

EH. Of course I want to see Randy and Fedor throw down. There is a lot of stuff out there it is hard to say. Maybe Gomi and B.J. Penn, There are a lot of good matchups it is hard to pick. Personally, I would like to see Ryan Schultz, a teammate of mine, get a rematch against JZ. They fought to a draw, I was at that fight and Ryan won that fight hands down. I am not sure what the judges were watching but I would love to see that rematch. I think that Ryan Schultz is one of the baddest men out there!

CC. Presidential Candidate John McCain has gone on record saying that MMA is human cockfighting, what are your reactions to these absurd statements?

EH. Those statements were made a few years ago, about how the UFC used to be. In a way he was right. It was very brutal back in the day. In a way it helped push the sport to the level that it is at now, to be a professionally ran sport with the great set rules and commissions. If he is still saying that I don’t think it is cool. It is not. Anyone that doesn’t like it, they don’t have to watch. People that are educated on our sport know that it is a legit sport, and that it is not as bad as people think.

CC. I personally feel that the NFL is a lot more violent than MMA.

EH. I think it was NBC or someone big like that, that did a story on the UFC and IFL awhile back and it was a real good story. In that they compared the two, and how football and other sports have a lot more injuries than we do.

CC. What would you recommend to young fighters that are trying to crawl their way into the UFC?

EH. I would recommend working hard; harder than they could ever imagine. I can remember back when I thought I was working hard it is a joke now. Working hard and being dedicated are important. Having good partners and a good team around you is also important. There are a lot of crooks getting into our sport these days, so fighters have to watch their backs. Having a coach that is not going to throw you to the wolves that will build you up, and back you up is also important.

CC. What is the biggest problem you see with young fighters?

EH. There are promoters that are all about making a dime off of everybody and they don’t care about the fighters. You have guys that want to make money and jump right into the Pros. I believe in coming up amateur and fighting your way up, like in boxing. Most of the guys have a lot of amateur experience, and I think that MMA guys should do the same. I am not saying have as many as the boxers do, but at least have a handful of fights. A lot of guys go in there and get hurt, or get a bad taste in their mouths, and it ruins it for them.

CC. What do you think about steroids in MMA?

EH. I think there was, I think their used to, but it is getting a lot better. Especially with the merger of Pride and UFC, most of the big shows are in the U.S. now and they are testing everybody. I am glad too, I don’t want to have to do steroids because everyone else is, I don’t want to have to do it because everyone else is, just to keep up. Which eventually would have happened, but now in the UFC the guys coming in from Japan are a lot smaller. I think it is a great thing for the sport that they are stepping up on the testing.

CC. Other than MMA, what sports do you enjoy?

EH. I have been an athlete my whole life, I enjoy watching football. I don’t really got down and play anymore. I am a little bit of a basketball fan. I like to go and ride quads. I enjoy wakeboarding

CC. Are you still coming to Virginia at the end of March?

EH. Yea as far as I know, my agent is taking care of that. As far as I know they are still advertising it, and that I am going to be there.

Prior to completing the interview Ed wanted to give a shout out to his sponsors Condom Depot, Warrior Wear, and all of the guys from Team Quest with recent fights which included StrikeForce at the Dome, all the IFL guys from Team Quest who fought on February 29th, and Jon Fitch’s latest challenger, Chris Wilson.

I want to thank Ed Herman for giving me this opportunity to pick his brain, and wish him nothing but good luck on his training and upcoming fight. Expect more articles related to Ed Herman and the Team Quest camp in the future, and possibly exclusive interviews as well.

Team Quest fighter Ed “Short Fuse” Herman is an amazing athlete who is currently fighting in the UFC with an exceptional 15-4 MMA record. He is recently coming off exciting stoppage wins over Scott Smith at UFC 72 and most recently, Joe Doerkson at UFC 78. Faced with a tough year in 2006, Herman returned with a vengeance in 2007 to stop all three of his opponents before the final bell. Ed took the time out of his busy training schedule to talk with me to discuss his next fight in 2008, his training, and several other topics of interest. This is Part 1 of this exciting interview with the Team Quest fighter.

CC. Rumors around the internet (graciemag.com) are that you are fighting Demian Maia at UFC 83, are these rumors true?

EH. Yes that’s true.

CC. After your KO in your last fight, can we look for you to throw more of the leather in your future fight?

EH. Yea, you know. It would be nice to get another knockout. He is a submission grappling world champion so I figure I would be a lot smarter if I keep the fight on our feet.

CC. It never hurts to get that knockout of the night bonus either.

EH. I would rather get a submission of the night; I think it would be cool to get a submission over the world champion.

CC. How has your training for the fight been going?

EH. Great! Originally I was suppose to fight March 8th, they rescheduled to April 19th, which gives me even more time to get in even better shape, so that was fine by me.

CC. What type of cardio workouts do you do?

EH. I run, I do a lot of stairs, running hills, airdyne workouts, and things like that.

CC. Are your workouts anything like we seen on Sean Sherk’s UFC All Access?

EH. I do some stuff like that, I workout at a place called SportsLab. We work on things like plyometrics. I run a lot of steep stairs like they showed him doing in the All Access, I run hills. I don’t get on my hands and knees, but I do run hills.

CC. When you are training for a fight how much tape of your opponent do you watch?

EH. I watch a little bit yea, I have a boxing coach that watches tape on it, as well as Robert Follis, my Jui Jitsu coach Fabiano Scherner. They all take a look at it and tell me what they see.

CC. I am sure that helps out a lot, there are some fighters that train their style, and have the mentality if they are going to beat me then they are going to beat me.

EH. Well I am not going to change my style for them; I am still going to fight the same way. I will know what to look out for, what your opponent is going to do. If he is going to try to take me down, then I will take a look at his takedowns, what kind of shot he shoots, and stuff like that

CC. How does training differ when you are training for a fight, and not?

EH. It differs a lot you know, I try to stay in shape all the time, but when I have a fight coming up; usually 8-10 weeks out I am in the gym 2-3 times a day. If I am not in the gym then I am somewhere else working out. I usually just step up the cardio, and make sure I am in top shape.

CC. Can you tell me a little bit about your diet? I heard a rumor that you have a different diet than most, is that true?

EH. Um, everyone has a different diet I guess. I walk around at 210-212 so as the fight gets closer I get tighter and tighter with my diet. Yea, we refer to it as the Dolce diet. My strength and conditioning coach, who is kind of like my nutritionist Mike Dolce designs a diet. It is a lot of common sense. It is cutting out a lot of simple sugars and carbs. It is a real simple diet, it is very clean.

CC. Is it hard to stay on?

EH. You know, it gets rough; it gets tighter and tighter as the weeks go by. You know, you will be thinking about those Cheetos and things like that. Things that I don’t really crave that much, I don’t really eat fast food, but when you’re cutting weight and dieting, and drive by McDonalds, you want to stop.

CC. Do MMA organizations need to regulate weight cutting?

EH. I don’t think so, no, because if a guy cuts too much weight then it is his own fault. You have to be good at every aspect of the game, your diet, how you cut weight. You have to have it all down to a T, that is part of being a champion doing things right.

CC. If you are cutting wrong then you are going to gas in the 3rd.

EH. Right, people throw an outfit on, and cut 30lbs the day of weigh-ins aren’t doing it healthy and it is hard to do. Hopefully the people that do it stupid don’t ruin it for the rest of us that know what they are doing.

CC. Do you think that cutting weight is a big deal in Mixed Martial Arts

EH. I think it is a big part of the game, yea. As long as you do it right it is a good thing. I have it down to a science now. Making weight is easier now than it’s ever been, and I am bigger now, and I think it is just part of the game.

Prior to completing the interview Ed wanted to give a shout out to his sponsors Condom Depot, Warrior Wear, and all of the guys from Team Quest with recent fights which included StrikeForce at the Dome, all the IFL guys from Team Quest who fought on February 29th, and Jon Fitch’s latest challenger, Chris Wilson.

Check back tomorrow for Part 2!

Wow. In a surprise move that has potential to shake up the MMA industry, ProElite and EliteXC will soon be announcing a TV deal with Showtime owner, CBS. Kid Nate of Bloody Elbow beat me to punch by asking how did Gary Shaw beat Dana White to a television deal? I get a lot of flack for publicly denouncing White’s means of running the UFC (along with many many others, I might add), but this only solidifies my standpoint. Will White come out and publicly say that he had the ability to sign with CBS but he didn’t due to some outrageous comment? My guess is that he says they wanted too much control. Thanks to MMA Junkie for breaking the news! Sam Caplan, a ProElite writer who runs Five Ounces of Pain, has more commentary. It seems that everyone beat me to the good talking points already!

Does this mean that UFC will be going over to HBO? Well, if talks broke down in the past, White better hope he can revive them or risk being stuck with Spike TV for a little while. I’m sure he’s not a huge fan of HDNet right now.

It was announced today in Japan through a very Dream Stageish new website, www.dreamofficial.com the official DREAM website, that 3 new bouts have been added to the very much anticipated March 15th Lightweight Grand Prix. While not neccesarily the most compelling bouts thus far, they will serve as an appetizer for the 2nd round, which will be one for history books. Another thing that should be noted is the appearance of Kultar Gill, who wasn’t originally announced but is now participating and he is no stranger to the FEG GP circuit The announced match-ups are:

Heiwa DREAM. 1

1. Tatsuya “Crusher” Kawajiri vs. Kultar “Black Mamba” Gill
2. Kazuyuki Miyata vs. Luis “Buscape” Firmino
3. Joachim “Hellboy” Hansen vs. Koutetsu Boku
4. Shinya Aoki vs. Gesias “JZ” Calvancanti Read the full story

It was announced today in a Press Conference in Japan that the HERO’S will now be replaced by DREAM. DREAM is basically some of the people who made the PRIDE and Yarennoka!! show and the people who made HERO’S mixed together to create one incredible production staff. Although all the specifics aren’t known yet the announced schedule was released and they will have 2 Grand Prix, a Lightweight and Middleweight. It should be noted that in 2007 PRIDE had plans for a Lightweight GP but they never materialized due to the sale of PRIDE. The tournament is beyond stacked with a lot of great fighters.

The competitors thus far are:

HEIWA DREAM.1 Lightweight GP 2008 Opener
Date: March 15th, 2008
Place: Saitama Super Arena in Saitama, Japan

LW GP 1st Round Fights:
J.Z. Calvan vs. Shinya Aoki

LW GP Participants:
Andre Dida
Mitsuhiro Ishida
Tatsuya Kawajiri
Caol Uno
Joachim Hansen
Gilbert Melendez
Luiz Azeredo
Artur Oumakhanov
Koutetsu Boku
Jung Bu-Kyung
Kazuyuki Miyata
Luiz Firmino

Read the full story

Source: Team Crocop and thanks to the fella’ on the Sherdog Forums.

The UFC is losing their big names quickly these days. With rumors of Tim Sylvia wanting out, Tito Ortiz fighting his last fight, Andre Arlovski moving on, and the refusal to sign guys like Josh Barnett, what is Dana White thinking?

PRIDE’s 2006 Open-Weight Grand Prix champion Mirko “Cro Cop” Filipovic has officially parted ways with the UFC and signed with DREAM - a new collaborative effort between FEG (K-1, HERO’S) and former DSE staff (PRIDE).

The new event is a drastic change following new creative leadership over HERO’s. FEG is hoping to bring new life to their MMA show and the addition of former DSE staff is what they are looking for.

At an official press conference on Wednesday the promotion announced that “Cro Cop” had joined their ranks and would be fighting on their upcoming March 15 card. No opponent was named.

Specific details surrounding his departure from the UFC are currently unknown.

Filipovic (22-6-2) signed with the UFC following his first major championship - winning PRIDE’s 2006 Open-Weight Grand Prix. He made his UFC debut against Eddie Sanchez in February of 2007. Following his TKO win he lost his next two fights - succumbing to a head kick KO from Gabriel Gonzaga and dropping a decision to Cheick Kongo.

Prior to his 1-2 run in the UFC, “Cro Cop” was considered the number two heavyweight in the world. The Croatian striker holds wins over former UFC heavyweight champion and PRIDE’s 2006 Open-Weight Grand Prix finalist Josh Barnett, Olympic Judo gold medalist Hidehiko Yoshida, Aleskander Emelianenko, former PRIDE middleweight champion Wanderlei Silva, Igor Vovchanchyn, Kevin Randleman, Mark Coleman, Heath Herring, Kazuyuki Fujita, Japanese superstar and MMA legend Kazushi Sakuraba, and Ikuhisa Minowa.

It was not so long ago that if you wanted to make a name for yourself, Japan was a very great place to do it. They had everything going for them. Great productions, great and charismatic fighters, etc. but all that would be erased quickly with the sudden demise of PRIDE and things shifted stateside. I’m not stating that Japan is at it’s former peak but they’re slowly and surely starting to climb up the latter of relevance. 2007 is a year that will definitely live infamy if you’re a fan of Japanese produced MMA. No top caliber shows other than Yarennoka!! 2007 and the HERO’S Middleweight GP Opening and Final Rounds were really stand out and didn’t really manage to attract a lot of attention. In March, all that will change with the new FEG Show and World Victory Road’s Sengoku.

World Victory Road has recently announced that Kazuyuki “Ironhead” Fujita, Duane “Bang” Ludwig, and Nick “The Goat” Thompson will all participate in their inaugural Sengoku show this March. Kevin Randleman has also inked a deal with WVR but it is unknown if he will participate on March 5th. Randleman and Fujita are coming off very long lay-offs and both men are coming off losses. Fujita lost a strange fight to Jeff Monson at PRIDE 34, while “The Monster” lost by submission at PRIDE 1st show in the states, PRIDE 32. “The Goat” on the other hand is fresh off a title defense at the last Bodog show and “Bang” bounced back from a loss to Paul “Semtex” Daley and managed to secure a win at Ring of Fire 30.

Read the full story

What seemed to be a bit more improbable turns out to be true, Josh Barnett is slated to face Hidehiko Yoshida at the inaugural World Victory Road (WVR) Show in Japan. Originally slated to face Roger Gracie, Yoshida is no stranger to fighting men larger and sometimes more talented than him. He is inevitably one of the largest draws in Japan and will no doubt headline the star studded show this coming March. Personally, I would’ve preferred to see Yoshida take on Takimoto. Both are a bit closer in weight, compared to Barnett, and both are Olympic medalist in Judo. That would’ve meant that Josh Barnett could’ve maybe had the chance to take on Roger Gracie in what would’ve been a grappling dream.

The original set of rules for WVR are basically K-1 HERO’s style, without elbow strikes to the head. They will use 3 X 5 Minute Rounds and title fights will be 5 X 5, identical to the North American style. the weight classes thus far are as follows:

World Victory Road Weight Classes

1. 60 kg (132 lbs) - Bantamweight
2. 65 kg (143 lbs) - Featherweight
3. 70 kg (154 lbs) - Lightweight
4. 76 kg (167 lbs)- Welterweight
5. 83 kg (183 lbs) - Middleweight
6. 93 kg (205 lbs) - Light Heavyweight
7. 93.1 Or More - Heavyweight

Seen these before? Well, these are identical to those used by SHOOTO Assiocation and International SHOOTO Commission.

The Announced fights and participants thus far are:

World Victory Road: Sengoku

Fights:
Hidehiko Yoshida vs. Josh Barnett
Phil Baroni vs. Sanae Kikuta
Kazuo Misaki vs. Siyar Bahadurzada
Makoto Takimoto vs. Evangelista Cyborg
Takanori Gomi vs. TBA
Ryo Kawamura vs. TBA

Rumored Participants:
Fabricio Monteiro

(Thanks to Nightmare of Battle for the weight classes and fight card)

But did you really expect him to beat the guy someone who could exploit his biggest weakness? As I noted back on November 5th of last year, the UFC picked a bad opponent for their rising star. Noted for his ground and pound in MMA and his amateur wrestling skills back in college, Lesnar needed to go up against someone who would try to stand with him. Heath Herring, Cheick Kongo (who is actually up against the former in UFC 82), or even the big and boring Tim Sylvia.

Lesnar did, however, take Mir down early in the fight and land some heavy punches which left the former heavyweight champ dazed. I actually thought Lesnar had a chance to end the fight, but Mir was able to pull through and submit Lesnar with a kneebar. It was exactly what I expect - Lesnar came out swinging, but he left himself open after hastily attempting to ground and pound someone who wasn’t Moo Soo Kim.

Overall, I was impressed with Lesnar and I feel he has amazing potential if he could just slow himself down. It sounds weird, but it was almost like his punches were too quick. He didn’t take his time to pick Mir apart when he had the change. I can see Lesnar walking through many heavyweights if he can work developing a better MMA style if the near future.

I’m just hoping a lot of people didn’t drop a lot of money on Lesnar because of the betting odds. I also wish I would have bet on Mir’s submission win during the opening round.

With a fight finally under his belt, Joachim “Hellboy” Hansen’s long 2007 lay-off will not be repeated in 2008. The Norwegian born fighter has stated that he will take part in FEG’s next show, which is set to take place in March. Also announced on that card are 2 Time K-1 GP champion Gesias “JZ” Calvancanti and Shinya Aoki, who will be facing each other. Although no opponent is confirmed, it is believed that it will most likely be one of Japanese origin. Hellboy is no stranger to the Hero’s circuit. Not too many people remember that Hellboy actually fought in Hero’s before making the jump to PRIDE. He debuted against Caol Uno and won by KO due to a Knee. Strangely, FEG and Hellboy are together maybe be chance. He was originally signed on to take part of the Yarennoka!! 2007 show but was switched mid-way, when it was announced that FEG participation would occur. He would go on to secure a win over Olympian Kazuyuki Miyata.

Sticking with FEG, they put on a great show in Japan for the 1st MAX (Middleweight Artistic eXtreme) tournament of the year. This weekend was filled with MMA action, but K-1 was definitely a must see for me. I didn’t have a chance to follow the full MAX circuit last year but this year I plan on it. There was a couple of attention grabbing fights that were a must for any combat sports fan. It was the 1st big K-1 show in 2008 and it definitely did not dissapoint.

I’ll quickly go over the bouts as they appear on the FEG fightcard and not the order in which they were broadcast.

The only aired preliminary bout was the one involving HIROYA and Robby Hageman. If your memory serves you well, than you can remember to New Years when K-1 put on an under 18 yrs. tournament in Japan to possibly find the next best Japanese Talent and star. HIROYA was one of those teenagers involved. He faired well and made it all the way to the finals were he lost a decision to YUDAI. Here was a chance to get back on the winning track against Robby Hageman, who was representing the Dutch contingency.

I expected HIROYA to basically steam roll the Dutch fighter considering the number of fights he had under his belt and his performance at the the Dynamite!! show but the Hageman proved alot tougher than appeared. Even though the fight was stopped, it was stopped a bit controversially (early). HIROYA looked rather liveless and very uncomfortable with Hageman’s height advantage. If anything I feel Hiroya was the bigger loser of the bout. Also reportedly, could partake in the K-1 World MAX 2008 Championship Round of 16, where hopefully his career doesn’t get ended by experienced MAX competitors. He didn’t look impressive but the boy is 16 and will definitely improve within the coming years.

The 1st bout televised fight of the night was the fight between Artur Kyshenko and the colorful Shingo Garyu. For those who haven’t seen Garyu, the man is something to behold. He’s really entertaining to watch. In one of the weirdest clips I’ve ever seen, Garyu is trying to blast away at this guy and he starts like touching gloves in the middle of the exchanges, kind of like he was playing patti-cake than continued to try and decapitate his opponent. He’s not the most serious individual but he’s always fight. Kyshenko on the other hand is pure business. He is definitely a favorite this year to take the World MAX title. His last 2 years are nearly flawless stumbling only against an ultra-inspired Masato at last year’s MAX Finals and an overtime loss to HAYATO. Personally, he’s my pick to be champion this year. Anyways, this fight definitely lived up to the hype from staredown to the end.

Both men came to receive instructions and Garyu just crossed his arms faced the his body towards the crowd and tilted his head sideways to look at Kyshenko. The bout started and Garyu proved a little more than advertised especially against somebody of the caliber of Kyshenko. Kyshenko did manage a couple of trips but to no luck really. He worked Garyu’s body in normal Kyshenko fasion and set him up for a big punch that saw Garyu go down. Garyu beats the count but is again met with a nice left hook that sends him down. He beats the count for a 2nd time but only to be met with another solid left that sent him crashing down. Kyshenko gets the KO win and is definitely on a good route to becoming a top MAX fighter.

The 1st GP bout of the night pitted Nigerian born Andy Ologun, younger brother of Bobby Ologun, against veteran Yuya Yamamoto. Both men had the exact same K-1 record of 2-3 and wanted to get some wins around their belt but most importantly win the GP. Ologun seemed incredibly calm, while his counterpart Yamamoto was constantly pressing forward and hitting Ologun with combinations. Yamamoto definitely threw alot more than Ologun but Ologun’s strikes were alot more powerful and damaging and his work from the clinch especially the knees were devastating. Ologun did manage to drop Yamamoto quickly in the 2nd round but more of the same followed thoughout the fight. The 3rd round was again the same except both men increased their punch rate, especially Ologun compared to previous rounds. Even though he did outwork Ologun, Yamamoto was not awarded the decision and Ologun would advance to the semifinals.

The 2nd GP bout pitted Keiji Ozaki and his always weird pants against Yasuhiro Kido. There wasn’t necessarily too much action in the 1st or 2nd round but all of that was out the window in the 3rd. Both men stood and began just unloading on each other. Ozaki trying his traditional spinning back fists and spinning back kicks, while Kido just stood and outboxed Ozaki’s wild attempts. At one point it was all Kido just going to work on Ozaki’s head but he managed to stay up and continued to take lots of damage to the point that the referee gave Ozaki a standing count with only 10 seconds left. The count basically sealed the win for Kido, whose height seemed to be a huge factor in the scheme of the fight. Kido would advance and face Ologun.

The 3rd GP fight saw MAX veteran TATSUJI take on Hiroyuki Maeda. Maeda came into this bouts with no K-1 wins and was a clear underdog but that didn’t stop him. He started at a very quick pace from the get go and it payed off for him as he saw TATSUJI quickly dropped. TATSUJI managed to beat the count but should’ve rather stayed down. He was visibly still shaken and was pounced upon by Maeda, who didn’t forgive. The referee had no choice but to end the fight standing, which resulted in a huge upset.

The 4th and final of the 1st round bouts was definitely the most even and one of the best of the night. The 2 men, HAYATO and RYUJI, were definitely there to fight. Both men seemed very intent on exchanging and not necessarily to keen on defending punches. At one point in the 1st round, the punishment that HAYATO was receiving seemed very unhuman as RYUJI just unloaded on his face but to no success. This would cost RYUJI, who clearly expended too much energy and was than almost finished by HAYATO as he hurried to try and finish strongly in the round. It was almost a mirror image in the second as RYUJI again began pouring it on. As he was tiring HAYATO threw a desperation blow to try and sedate RYUJI and lucky for him it caught RYUJI and sent him down. Visibly angry over this momentary lapse of judgement, he stood back up and continued the fight through the 2nd and an uneventful 3rd. Like the Ologun-Yamamoto fight, the man who scored the knockdown was victorious, even though they were less pressing and landed less strikes.

Now in the semifinal round the pairings were: Ologun vs. Kido and Maeda vs HAYATO and 1 win seperated these 4 men from the Finals. The 1st bout was Ologun vs. Kido. This was a pretty even match from the beginning. It was apparent that whatever Kido could do, Ologun could too. Also, Kido didn’t necessarily have the height advantage he sometimes enjoys. Both men were countering almost everything on par and it was kind of uneventful in the 1st. The closest thing to any different action was a trip later in the round by Ologun and Kido landing a couple nice shots to stagger Ologun but no real damage was done. Round 2 was almost an extension of the 1st. Both men were throwing a nice number of high kicks. Also, it should be noted 1 thing that I found strange and kind of almost useless was during the clinches Kido would throw heel strikes ala Royce Gracie to the back of Ologun’s Hamstrings. Not too much action as Kido gets a unanimous decision win over a visibly disgruntled Lil Ologun and advances to the finals.

The 2nd semifinal bout would prove entertaining, while it lasted. Maeda and HAYATO went to work for the 1st 3 minutes. It was eerily similar to HAYATO’s 1st round fight against RYUJI as HAYATO again would find himself recieving way to many shots and not going down. Of course, he is human so with about 20 seconds left he goes down. He’s very vulnerable at this point and you can tell that only 1 real good shot is needed to seal the deal. Thankfully for HAYATO the round comes to an end as he stumbles to his corner. Even more incredible is the fact that during the break Doctors deem Maeda not able to continue for some reason and HAYATO luckily advances to the Finals after a weird turn of events.

There were 2 super-fights that night, the 1st one being Kyshenko-Garyu and the 2nd being the much anticipated match-up between Yoshihiro Sato and Buakaw Por. Pramuk. Pramuk as we all know is a K-1 MAX legend, who along with Andy Souwer has won the MAX Title on 2 different occasions (2004 and 2006). Sato himself is no slouch with 2 consecutive MAX Japan Tournament Titles (2006 and 2007), but no of those really compare to Pramuk’s accomplishment. The odds were clearly against Sato, who had a bad showing at the MAX Finals last year. Sadly, the broadcast only showed the 3rd round of the bout for some unknown reason. Both men were clearly exhausted in what seemed to be a very even ordeal all the way through. The 3rd round was also close and it was left in the decisions of the judges, who all had the match as a draw. Luckily, the 1 round extension period was aired.

There are many things that separate pretenders from contenders and Buakaw symbolized the champions spirit in this extension. He looked like a man on fire. He went out and threw everything possible to try and win this fight. Though visibly tired he threw harder and harder to try and finish Sato. It was very obvious that Pramuk would not settle for a loss. When it mattered most he went stronger. Towards the end of the fight he did suffer a bit of a scare though when he got caught but only stumbled for 1 second. Time ran out and again it was up to the judges to place a verdict. Pramuk got the win but only by a split decision.

Finally, the moment that these men have endured punishment for. The Final: Yasuhiro Kido vs. HAYATO proved to be the best fight of the night and not necessarily because it was for the Title but mainly because of the action that went on. Sadly, this fight would end as fast as it would start. Both men obviously came in not so great shape due to the fact that both had gone to decisions earlier and also logically because it was their 3rd fight that night. HAYATO looked quick to press the action but was caught of gaurd and caught a punch that sent him crashing down. HAYATO would get up but again to only go back down. At this point all hope had basically dwindled until HAYATO again got up and managed to connect a nice blow to Kido, who now found himself knocked down. It was a bizarre turn of event. HAYATO was dancing around getting his step back. Quicker than you can say comeback, HAYATO was again caught and put down for good. 4 knockdowns in a span of 1 minutes. It was surreal. Yasuhiro Kido was now the K-1 World MAX Japan tournament champion after a long night and also earns himself a spot in the upcoming K-1 World MAX Championship Tournament Round of 16.

Great night of fights and hopefully the rest of the shows are as great as this.

Russian model Anna Loginova wasn’t just a pretty face and a toned body. Apparently, she could hold her own as a high-profile bodygaurd protecting men from attackers in Moscow. One of these men even included a fellow fighter; boxer Kostya Tszyu. Before she was thrown out of her own luxury SUV as it was stolen on Sunday, Loginova had talked about using Jiu-Jitsu to thwart a potential car-jacking a few months back.

“So while I was closing my car, a guy of 30 years old or slightly older jumped on me,” Loginova said. “So I did a jujitsu move — I bent his hand that grabbed mine, and struck him in the face with my elbow. It was a total surprise for him.”

Unfortunately Loginova was found dead on a busy Moscow street while her vehicle, a Porsche Cayenne, was recovered a few blocks away. A sad day for Russia as the model was well known amongst the public. Loginova learned that everyone, even mixed martial artists, have a limit; the hard way.

RIP fellow MMA enthusiast Anna Loginova.

It was announced today that Takanori Gomi has finalized a deal with World Victory Road and is signed on to fight on the star studded March 5 show. “The Fireball Kid” is coming off a year long lay-off and looks to regain his winning ways and silence the critics. Gomi is shrouded in controversy especially when it comes to the usually chaotic issue of rankings. Some feel that he is the consensus number 1 Lightweight Fighter in the World, while others seem enraged at the notion of putting a 1 next to his name. It’s very hard to find another fighter in his weight division who has faced as much current World Class competition and come out victorious.Wins over Tatsuya “Crusher” Kawajiri, Mistuhiro Ishida, and Hayato “Mach” Sakurai give Gomi a strong case but recent droughts of inactivity leave it open for discussion, not to mention 1 loss and 1 NC in the last 2 years in which Gomi looked less than spectacular in.

The Fireball Kids start in SHOOTO to his future stint in WVR seem like complete opposites when you reflect on his past and current skill sets. It’s really weird to think of Gomi as a wrestler using takedown to secure positions and also winning decisions seems kind of a thing of the past. He became SHOOTO’s World Welterweight Champion at 20 years old beating Rumina Sato by Decision. His reign as World Champion would last about 2 years until he was derailed by Joachim “Hellboy” Hansen, whom squeezed out a very close decision. Desiring to pursue different ventures he ended up fighting the talented BJ Penn in Hawaii, where he suffered his 1st stoppage loss.

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It looks like MMA Junkie has learned that The Ultimate Fighter Season 7 had a “big” change in format. Yes, just one and it’s really not what we had expected, but it’s better than nothing. If that is the only big change this year, is that going to be enough to keep viewers from complaining about the lack of real action on the show? Maybe. Is it going to be enough to keep the entire show interesting? Well, no.

With the news that The Ultimate Fighter will initially feature 32 fighters, you may be wondering how the show will be able to keep track of 32 guys over the course of two hours or less. Well, with 16 matches determining the 16 fighters to stay on the show, we’ll quickly learn who stays and who goes and the 16 losers won’t get their 15 (or even just 10) minutes of fame.

In just one or two episodes, we can expect up to 16 fights - most likely crammed into a highlight of fight inexperience and wrestling abilities. While that sounds like a good reason to watch the upcoming season, it really only gives us a reason to watch the first couple episodes. After the initial fights, should we expect the same boring “16 fights in a house” drama? For the sake of all viewers, I certainly hope not. Let’s see if the UFC had some other ideas for TUF 7 before we start complaining again.

There is speculation that Olympic Gold Medalist Hidehiko Yoshida might not be fighting another Gracie after all. Yoshida, who was supposedly going to match up against Roger Gracie, might not get the chance to fight the 2005 Abu Dhabi 88+ kg and Absolute Weight class Champion as originally reported. GracieMag.com had originally reported that Yoshida vs. Gracie was close to finished but there is still a chance for that to change. The name Josh Barnett has been thrown around as a possibility to face the Japanese Judoka.

There seems to be a weird lust in Japan for seeing their Idols get smashed, literally, by bigger fighters on a constant basis. I guess popularity comes at a very heavy price. Ikuhisa Minowa, Hidehiko Yoshida, and Kazushi Sakuraba have all been subjected to this kind of treatment. Not to mention fighters some of the time get the discourtesy of not having a “tune up” fight to get their careers rolling, which is definitely the case with Kazuhiro Nakamura, who questionably has one of the craziest looking records in MMA. In his 1st 2 years of fighting he’s faced Wanderlei Silva, Igor Vovchanchyn, Dan Henderson, Murilo Bustamente, Kevin Randleman, and Antonio Rogerio Nogueira on 2 occasions and 1 of those being his MMA debut.

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A crazy 2007 left us with a lot of questions and discussion to last us a while but 1 fight, Misaki vs. Akiyama, definitely gave us a lot to talk about in early 2008. Was it legal? Was it wrong? His hand was down.. etc. We saw lots of good arguments from both sides but finally I feel some justice was done. Even though we rarely see it in MMA, we saw a fight overturned due to video and photo evidence that the Grabaka Hitman, Kazuo Misaki illegally struck, the always controversial, Yoshihiro Akiyama with an illegal kick in their much anticipated bout at Yarennoka!! 2007.

I think that it is a great thing that the Yarennoka!! staff and FEG went back and reviewed the issue at hand and came out with a fair and honest decision, which was also a not so lenient one. We see very often in fights were fighters are unable to continue due to illegal strikes and are usually awarded the fight. The case was this with Yoshiyuki Yoshida’s less than spectacular win at the Cage Force Tournament Finals in December against Dan Hardy, where he was not only awarded the tournament title, but also a 4 Fight UFC deal too. I think the judging should have been the same for this fight. The fight should definitely be awarded to Akiyama like we’ve seen so often in the past. My only thought is that the reason why this fight wasn’t given to Akiyama is for reasons that don’t necessarily pertain to fighting but that’s a whole different story.

Where do they both go from here? Akiyama is recovering from an injury sustained in the bout, which definitely sidelines him to until March. FEG is having a show in March but I doubt Akiyama will be participating in it due his need to recover. Misaki on the other hand will be very active when he meets Shooto World Champion at 83 Kg. Siyar Baharduzada at the Inaugural World Victory Road (WVR) Show, Sengoku also in March. Also recently announced was the match up between Evangelista “Cyborg” Santos against Makoto Takimoto and Phil Baroni vs. Sanae Kikuta. Also, the 3rd standout member of the Grabaka squad, the colorful Akihiro Gono was supposed to see action against the very talented, Jon Fitch, but Gono was forced to pull out due to an injury he suffered.

If this is true, their may be a very marketable free agent floating around. Time is running out in the relationship between the UFC and Tito Ortiz. The UFC believes that Ortiz is no longer the fighter he once was, and that he is no longer worthy of the pay check that he desires. Tito, once a world champion in the UFC, has became more of a celebrity than a fighter of late. He is currently on the television show Celebrity Apprentice, he runs his own clothing line and is dating Jenna Jameson. With all of the time he has spent on television, I am curious how much training he has done.

Over his career he has fought the likes of Randy Couture, Chuck Liddell, Wanderlei Silva, Ken Shamrock, and Forrest Griffin, but the biggest fight of his career has been with Dana White. Throughout his career the two haven’t exactly seen eye to eye. It was bad enough to schedule a three round boxing fight that never happened. It seems that feud is still continuing between the two. It has been reported by multiple sources that the two have been in contracts talks for over 6 months, and Ortiz even skipped Dana and went to Zuffa. He still had the same results, and still doesn’t have a new contract.

At this point it does not look like the UFC will renew his contract. This means in the future a bidding war could ensue. This winner of this war will get one of the highest profile fighters in the history of the UFC, a former Ultimate Fighter Coach, and former UFC Champion. That in itself is will attract fans. If he goes to an organization such as HDNet Fights, he could help lift them into the limelight. Add Tito to a card with Floyd Mayweather at 155 and you have a monster fight card! Marc Cuban is not a dummy, and he would market such a card to the extreme.

No one knows what the future holds for the UFC or Tito Ortiz. Unless he fights and loses again, or fades away in the sunset, he will continue to be a popular fighter. People want to see him fight, and will pay to do so. Tito needs to get back in the gym and commit to training. He has the ability to be a superstar in other organizations. The UFC has left him behind. He will never be champion again in the UFC. He can’t beat Evans, let alone Chuck or Rampage. He is better off leaving the UFC, and starting a fresh career somewhere else. If he can not rejuvenate his career somewhere else, then it may be time to hang it up and use his celebrity status to make a paycheck.

Back on December 6th, I wrote an article detailing Videosfight.net and their theft of online MMA blog content. I had noticed that the site was receiving trackbacks (people clicking links from other sites that pull up MMA Opinion articles) from one site in particular nearly every day. After simply opening one of the links, I saw that the site was taking works from many other MMA sites in the midst of what seemed like 20 Google Adsense advertisements. Obviously someone wanted to make some money off of our work.

The owner of the site, Jeff Hudson, was contacted via email. No response. I pleaded my case to Yahoo! after receiving word from a few other bloggers (Zach Arnold of FightOpinion and Kris of UFC Daily), but nothing happened. After talking back and forth with Kris, he mentioned contacting Google since Jeff Hudson and his site were violating the Google Adsense policy of stealing content and placing advertisements where they could be mistaken for literary content.

It looks like Google was able to do something to help us out. Although they haven’t yet contacted me in regards to the site being taken down, but Videosfight.net is no longer taking our content. If you look at one of the trackback links (the link for “Putting Fighters on a Pedastal is here) you can see that it has become another one of those bland “search” spam sites which just links MMA sites. The site was up and running last week and now it has been reduced garbage within a matter of days. Thanks Google and thanks to everyone for their support.

MMA Opinion and the MMA blogging community: 1 VideosFight.net: 0