Every time I watch video of Filho fighting or training, I see a freak of nature. Not simply a fighter who’s strength is ridiculous and who has the one element that most jiu-jitsu fighters lack cornered (that being substantial wrestling). Filho is a freak of nature because he has blackbelt level jiu-jitsu and he applies it like a blackbelt.

That may seem like a redudancy, but there are a lot of BJJ blackbelts who’s games go all to hell as soon as strikes are factored into it. While Anderson Silva is certainly one of the fighters who has adapted his jiu-jitsu to MMA (perhaps because he only ever trained jiu-jitsu for MMA), Filho has done it on an even higher level.

That said, below the fold are some thoughts on his fight with Sonnen and the rest of his career.

Does Chael Sonnen Have Ely’s Number?

I get this question a lot from friends who are marginal fans of the WEC and hardcore fans of the UFC. This whole understanding is based on the first round of their fight, where Sonnen got to Filho’s back and everyone thought Filho was in trouble.

Filho is a BJJ blackbelt who applies his jiu-jitsu like a BJJ blackbelt. I was worried during the fight, I’m not going to lie, but as soon as Filho moved on in the second round and caught the armbar that finished Sonnen (one of the most technically saavy submissions I’ve seen from Filho, and that’s saying something).

The match played out like I expected it to. The wrestler displayed superior wrestling, but the jiu-jitsu fighter won with superior jiu-jitsu. While Sonnen put Filho in danger, there’s a reason why Sonnen is not ranked by most professional journalists and Filho is top five (in my mind, and many others, top two). Filho is calm and he will work until he gets to the position he can win from and he’ll finish.

Coming to the UFC

I’ll be honest, there’s no one in the WEC who I think can challenge Filho as a contender, and the UFC desperately needs a tough middleweight who can power through the mediocre fighters and earn a shot against Anderson Silva. As great as Okami and Kampmann are, they are not clear cut contenders. Kampmann has health issues and Okami lost to Franklin not too long ago, as well as that mediocre win over MacDonald.

There’s only one fighter in the UFC 185 pound division who will beat Filho at his game, and that’s Dean Lister. Anderson Silva might be able to out grapple Filho, though that remains to be seen (personally, I think that Anderson would win that fight standing up). Filho is a master at imposing his game, and he has done it to every opponent he’s seen. It’s more than worth his while to try his luck on a bigger stage.

The real issue though, is that if Filho wants to keep being called a top 185 warrior, it’s not going to be hard to be seen that way by the hardcore fans, but if he wants the mainstream to believe that he’s a top middleweight, he needs to prove himself in the UFC, where the Joe Six-Pack fans of MMA can see him. Once he does that, he’s going to put him in a much better financial situation, so we may see that soon.

Fighting Anderson Silva

I don’t think that Filho will take that fight. He’s said openly that he doesn’t want to fight a fellow Brazilian, but he does want to fight the top fighter in the world, and as long as he is winning consistently, somthing he’s more than capable of, he will make this the best possible middleweight matchup the Zuffa guys (or anyone, for that matter) can offer.

Personally, it’s a fight I’d like to see after Filho spends about a year in the UFC, so long as Anderson remains dominant.

The Distant Future

The question really becomes not “who is Filho going to fight in the WEC?” We know that those guys are weak, and that while some of them may make for interesting matchups with Paulo, none of them are going to beat him, at least not soon. The question is who is he going to fight when he comes to the UFC? The answer, I think, should be Drew McFedries, a dominant, strong wrestler with substantial power. I think it makes for an exciting fight, and it would be a challenge for Filho. Filho, if he is still the Paulo Filho that we saw in Pride, he needs a new challenge.

ESPN had great coverage of MMA today. After the chat with MMA Live host Jon Anik via ESPN’s Sports Nation they offered up a chat with former UFC champion Tim Sylvia. I was not able to be present while this chat was going on, but I was able to pre-load my questions. Luckily Tim picked several of my questions to answer. I can not post the entire interview because it is not posted under ESPN’s Insider and is password protected. This was done last Thursday well before his fight with Fedor.

Since I was unable to view the chat live, I was unsure how many of my questions would get answered. Question number 3 in the chat was

“Curtis (Suffolk, Va): Tim, What are your favorite things about being a pro fighter? Worst?

Tim Sylvia: There’s nothing that’s not my favorite about being a pro fighter. I love to fight and I love fighting at this level. And I get paid to do it.”

A few minutes later in the chat

“Curtis (Suffolk, Va): Tim thanks for taking the time to chat. Are there any last minute preparations for your fight this weekend, or are you ready to go right now?

Tim Sylvia: I’m ready to go right now. We had a 12 week training camp. All the work was done during that. Now it’s staying sharp.”

No sprints in the hallway or crazy workouts at the hotel? Sounds like he is ready to fight!

I knew going into the chat that everyone would be asking about Fedor. I asked a few Fedor questions but I also asked

“Curtis (Suffolk, Va): Tim, After Fedor who is on your list that you want to fight?

Tim Sylvia: I can’t look past Fedor. I think everyone knows I’d like a rematch with Randy. I’d like to avenge all my losses.”

Is that a hint that Randy could be coming to Affliction once his UFC drama is over?

To complete the chat Tim said “Thanks for the questions. I hoped I answered them how you wanted. Check out the fight on Saturday on Pay Per View. It’s going to be a great card. I appreciate you following me even though I’m not in the UFC anymore and in this new venture.”

Tim will be the first top 10 big guy Fedor has faced in over 4 years. This will be a huge test, and an even bigger opportunity for the fighter the fans love to hate gets the chance to prove that he deserves his top ten ranking and that he is a true force to be reckoned with.

The Queen of Spades has good reason to want to be more than just “the” face of women’s MMA. While the current face of women’s MMA, Gina Carano, has gone undefeated during her six professional MMA bouts, she also faces criticism for her weight issues. Carano came in 9 pounds overweight during her May 31st bout with Kaitlyn Young during the initial CBS Saturday Night Fights event and barely made weight for a prior EliteXC fight. And while Carano is primarily a Muay Thai standup fighter, all of Baszler’s 9 wins have come via submission.

Shayne Baszler will battle Christiane “Cyborg” Santos on Saturday, July 26th on CBS Saturday Night Fights: Unfinished Business.

Now we wait to see what the Affliction PPV numbers show. We may see a slightly lower number, or perhaps we’ll find out that many viewers were switching between the Affliction PPV and the free Spike Fight Night show and the Affliction numbers may be slightly higher than expected.

Either way, 100,000 PPV buys would be a major success for Afflction for their first show on Saturday Night.

Talk about anything you want, but try to make an attempt at keeping the content somewhat MMA related. We don’t want to hear about Uncle Len’s bunion surgery, but if you have any more breaking news about Aleksander Emelianenko’s bout with Hepatitis B, please do share.

He stopped two opponents to win the title, submitting Kultar Gill and knocking out favorite Shinya Aoki to grab the belt. Between the two fights, Hansen spent under 7 minutes in the ring.

Hansens win over Aoki avenged a loss to the Tobukan Judan over a year ago, when Aoki caught Hansen in a gogoplata. While Hansen is not the number one lightweight in the world by any means, this solidifies him as a top fighter, a position that has slipped in his recent decision loss to Eddie Alvarez.

His two finishes put Hansen back in a groove that he seemed to have been out of in Dream, as he hadn’t finished an opponent in his two fights since joining the organization, but now that he’s finishing guys, hopefully he will begin to show the consistency that he has lacked for most of his career. We can only hope.

13:46-24A.16 Injuries sustained during competition

(a) If an injury sustained during competition as a result of a legal maneuver is severe enough to terminate a bout, the injured contestant loses by technical knockout.

(b) If an injury sustained during competition as a result of an intentional foul is severe enough to terminate a bout, the contestant causing the injury loses by disqualification.

 

As you can see the first entry seems to support the current official decision on the fight. While the second statement appears to call for a DQ loss to Kevin Burns, instead of the loss for Anthony Johnson. With Johnson’s management looking into the situation, it seems that an explanation from the Nevada State Athletic Commission may be the only way to clarify which ruling should be appropriate in the Burns/Johnson case.

Pavia had this to say:

I respect the process and am not trying to cry or complain here. I also believe Keith Kizer is the best Commissioner in the game. He has always been fair and is rational. While there may not be a code section that affords the opportunity to overturn a decision as he informed me, he has always considered all input and done his best to effectuate justice. I do believe however, to a man, everyone who has seen the fight believes that the outcome was unjust. I also believe Mr. Kizer will take everything into consideration and if afforded and opportunity at law or equity will correct this unfortunate situation. Let’s figure out a way to untie his hands.

Meanwhile, Anthony Johnson has accepted what has happened and has shown nothing but class through the process. This was most evident in the first round when he inadvertently kick Kevin Burns in the groin and backed off and apologized. He didn’t not call Kevin Burns out for the six or so eye gouges with and open hand or for pouncing after putting three of his finger print on the back of his eye socket. Rumble told me he thought his eye popped out.

Should he challenge the call? I’d say so. Kevin Burns was repeatedly told to stop eye gouging and he didn’t. If anything, this should be turned into a No-Contest for both fighters.

Props to Johnson for acting so classy when he was robbed of a shot at winning the fight with Burns.

From Dave Meltzer at Yahoo! sports:

“I’m human,” he said, noting his thumb came out of its socket during the flurry. “I thought I was the guy to beat him,” said Sylvia. “But I’ve never been hit so hard. I think it was a choke across the windpipe because that hurts. But my pride’s hurt, that’s about it.”

No doubt. Watch this flurry of punches from Fedor Emelianenko and you wouldn’t be insane to wonder who could survive something like that.

Kevin Burns admitted that he couldn’t close his hand, but would you call this a palm strike or an eye gouge? The fight was stopped and Burns was given the TKO win over Anthony Johnson.

Should it be changed to a no-contest?