Weekend predictions

Not an overly busy weekend of fights. No post tomorrow and doubtful for Sunday. Kinda getting married on Saturday. Monday will be monthly rankings. Record for the year is 217-107-5-12 for 67.0%

BELLATOR FIGHTING CHAMPIONSHIPS
Chilo Gonzalez vs Nick Ring - Nick Ring
Damien Stelly vs Hector Lombard - Hector Lombard
Jared Hess vs Yosmany Cabezas - Jared Hess
WAR GODS
Bryan Travers vs Tom Belt - Bryan Travers
Kit Cope vs Steve Magdaleno - Steve Magdalenoa
Lew Polley vs Vernon White - Lew Polley
THE FIGHT CLUB
Dave Mazany vs Ryan Ford - Ryan Ford
Isaiah Larson vs Victor Valimaki - Victor Valimaki

Top 7 Submissions ever

Like all my top lists, in no particular order.

*Ryo Chonan over Anderson Silva (December 31, 2004) - I'm still not sure if what it is listed as in the sherdog fightfinder is accurate, a Flying Scissors Heel Hook, but I do no it was impressive as hell.

*Dustin Hazelett over Josh Burkman (June 26, 2008) - Years from now, it will just be in the recorded in the record books as an armbar submission victory, but how he set that up coming over the top from whizzer position, incredible.

*Toby Imada over Jorge Masvidal (May 1, 2009) - Sure some schools may teach the inverted triangle choke,but nobody ever expected anyone to actually ever pull it off in a fight did they?

*Shinya Aoki over Katushiko Nagata (June 15, 2008) - Maybe it had been done before, but that was the first time I ever saw a gogoplata done from the top.

*Rumina Sato over Charles Taylor (January 15, 1999) - Flying armbars are pretty rare. Flying armbars that happen 6 seconds into the fight? Even rarer.

*Carlos Newton over Kazuhiro Kusayanagi (March 1, 1998) - Newton looked to be in serious trouble with his arm cranked behind his back, and two seconds later he had picked up the armbar submission victory.

*Genki Sudo over Leigh Remedios (July 13, 2002) - Not the submission so much, but the speed in which Sudo took Remedios' back still to this day impresses the hell out of me.

MMA styles

Four days later and everyone is still going crazy about Machida's domination of Rashad Evans at UFC 98. Machida fought that fight perfectly and like most people, I am still wondering what it was that Evans saw in Machida's style that he said he was going to exploit. But now everyone is talking about how karate is either a) making a comeback or b) going to be the next big thing. Depends on your point of view I guess if at one point back in the day it was effective or not. But the fact that Machida is trying to brand karate now as 'Machida Karate' (much like how it's Gracie Jiu-Jitsu to many people still instead of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu) is opening up a whole world of discussion.

Is Karate going to take over the MMA world and in two or three years will all the best fighters be the guys who use karate as there main source of attack? Of course not. You will still need a combination of Muay Thai, Wrestling, and Jiu-Jitsu to be a great fighter. But every style of martial arts has some aspects of it that work in this sport. It is called MIXED Martial Arts for a reason. It takes the best of all elements and combine them into one sport. is Capoeira overall an efficient MMA style? Not a chance, but that did not stop everyone from getting excited about it after Marcus Aurelio's (not the UFC Marcus Aurelio) half moon crescent kick KO a few months back and talking about how capoeira can be effective in the sport. Karate definitely has some aspects that will work very effectively in MMA. Machida is not the first to prove this, but he has been the best. The fact that it is so hard to gameplan for because it is so unpredictable makes it an effective style to use in MMA, but it will not be replacing any of the big three (muay thai, wrestling, and jiu-jitsu) as a style you need to know to be effective in MMA.

Canseco work conspiracy

For the second time in about 10 days the MMA world is abuzz about another major fight being potentially worked. First it was Bobby Lashley in the MFC (and for the record I don't think that fight was worked) and now, after Jose Canseco's comical performance at Dream a few hours ago, the world is saying work again. I honestly don't think the fight was a work. Jose Canseco just had no idea what he was getting himself into. The guy has no MMA training and had no buisness being in this tournament. He was only in the tournament for the freak show aspect of it. Hong Man Choi is by no means a great fighter, but at least he is a fighter. Jose Canseco is a baseball player. Now if a few months from now it came out that this fight was indeed a work, I wouldn't be surprized at all. But until then, I'm saying the fight was real and Canseco is really just that bad of a fighter.

The big news I guess is that Joe Warren might indeed be the real deal. Now Yamamoto had not fought in 17 months or whatever since his "injury" (read: marijuana accusations). But Joe Warren controlled most of the fight and definitly deserved the decision. Say what you want about hometown judging and how Japan always gives close decisions to the Japanese fighters, but lately they have been giving them to the winning fighter. But yeah, Joe Warren looked great and he could definitly have a future in the sport. Warren being a world class wrestler could lead to him being a world class MMA fighter. The main event ending in a no contest is a big disapointment. I'm assuming they will have a rematch at Dream 10. Is anybody really surprized that the four total fights in the first round of the Super Hulk tournament went a grand total of 6 minutes and 19 seconds? For the featherweight tournament semi-finals, I would like to see Fernandes and Warren kept apart until the final cause they are the two best fighters but being Japan, I can see them putting them in the one semi-final together so then Tokoro and Takaya face each other in the semi-final and that way it guarantees one Japanese fighter in the final. But Fernandes and Warren should be in the final in a just world.

Dream preview

Dream goes down in about 24 hours. I am very interested in this card for both the good fighters aspect as well as the freak show aspect. This super hulk tournament has a ton of people interested in this card while there are enough good fighters on the card to interest the hardcore fans who don't want to see the freak show aspect. I still am not 100% convinced that Canseco will fight in this tournament. I don't think I am going to believe it until I see it. I am definitly going to be up at 3 in the morning to watch live on hdnet.

While there are a couple good fights on this card but at the same time there are a lot of apparent mis-matches. The Super Hulk tournament only has a few legit fighters, and they are not matched up together in the first round. So it should be easy fights for both Gegard Mousasi and Rameau Soukoudjou. Mousasi, despite being one of the two lightest guys in the tournament, is probably the tournament favorite. Although this is the first time Mousasi has fought at this high a weight so it will be interesting to see how he does. The Lightweight tournament also I think features three mismatches as Kid Yamamoto, Abel Cullum, and Bibiano Fernandez are all significantly better than there opponents. Although Joe Warren had the upset win at the opening round so who knows. The two single fights are both very good. Mayhem Miller and Souza should both be good, although Souza's jiu-jitsu is so much better than Miller's and that I think will be the difference.

After an ugly UFC 98, my record for the year stands at 212-103-5-11 for 67.3%

DREAM
Bob Sapp vs Ikuhisa Minowa - Bob Sapp
Hong Man Choi vs Jose Canseco - Hong Man Choi
Rameau Soukoudjou vs Jan Nortje - Rameau Sokoudjou
Gegard Mousasi vs Mark Hunt - Gegard Mousasi
Gesias Calvancanti vs Tatsuya Kawajiri - Tatsuya Kawajiri
Abel Cullum vs Hideo Tokoro - Abel Cullum
Hiroyuki Takaya vs Yoshiro Maeda - Yoshiro Maeda
Bibiano Fernandez vs Masakazu Imanori - Bibiano Fernandez
Joe Warren vs Norifumi Yamamoto - Norifumi Yamamoto
Jason Miller vs Ronaldo Souza - Ronaldo Souza

UFC 98 thoughts

Still recovering from that beating I took on my predictions. But I don't think very many people did all that well on this card prediction wise so I feel a little better knowing that.

Wow. I always knew that Lyoto Machida had the talent to be champion some day, but I have no idea just how good he was. He looked amazing in dismantling an undefeated champion. He knocked Evans down on three separate occasions and finished the bout alongside the cage with a devastating left hook that floored the champion. Like most people, I was concerned that this fight could be a snoozer but I was very happy to be proven wrong. Evans did not have much offense at all except for a little early in the second. Machida just dominated him and now has to shoot up everyone's Pound-for-Pound rankings. And it goes without saying that he is the number 1 LHW in the world. Next up for Machida is Quinton Jackson, but I am more than a little upset that we will apparently have to wait half a year for this fight because the word is that they will be coaching TUF 10 first.

Matt Serra gave Matt Hughes a much tougher run for his money than I expected. I was really expecting Hughes to use his size and power to overwhelm Serra and blow through him but that did not happen. It was a really close fight and could have gone either way on the scorecards. I had it 29-28 Hughes but a case can certainly be made for Serra. The second round you for sure have to give to Hughes. But the first and the third rounds could have been scored for either guy. It looked for a bit like Serra would finish Hughes in the first but Hughes survived nicely. I had the first round for Serra and then rounds two and three for Hughes. Hughes says he still has more fights left in him but I'm not sure what exactly. It's not like anyone wants to see Hughes/GSP 4.

Chael Sonnen really impressed me. I thought Miller would use his submission skills to control the fight on the ground but Sonnen put him on his back and kept him there for most of the fight. Frankie Edgar also really impressed me. I thought his huge size disadvantage would be the difference but it was a complete non-factor as he kept Sherk at bay on route to the unanimous decision. Apparently Sherk had a meltdown after the fight and went running through the streets of Vegas in just his fight shorts and gloves. I am still in shock that Tim Hague won. I have seen Hague fight in person before and for the life of him he could not defend a simple leg kick. I thought Pat Barry would leg kick him to hell but Hague got the fight to the ground and won. I still think Hague has no business being in the UFC though. I've read Bradley's victory over Nover was a horrible stoppage but I haven't seen it yet so I can't really comment on it. And while most people have the Soszynski victory as a huge upset, I was not shocked by it one bit. Overall, I would have to give this PPV a 7 out of 10.

WAMMA

UFC 98 is hours away but I am blogging today about the apparent death of WAMMA. It's come out over the past few days that Pat Miletich, who had something to do with fighter relations, and Sam Caplan, Cheif Operating Officer, have both left WAMMA saying that they no longer have the same overall vision of WAMMA. All I can say is what the hell was blinding them so badly for the last year and a half?

WAMMA was a joke right from the very start. No one took them seriously and their attempts to legitimize themselves were hilarious at the best of times and down right pathetic at the worst of times. Nobody saw them as what they tried to be, a legit unbias rankings committee. They said they wanted to be seen to MMA what The Ring magazine rankings were to boxing. People were intrigued when they first announced their aim, but then they released their first rankings and people realized what a load of crock they were. Considering that the biggest organization in the world, the UFC, wanted nothing to do with them and did not recognize their rankings, it rendered their organization basically useless. Considering that a great deal of the best fighters in the world fight in the UFC, it is impossible to have a legit world rankings system without the consent of the UFC to recognize the best fighters as the best fighters. The UFC only wants you to recognize there fighters, no one elses.

The basic idea of WAMMA was not bad, but nobody took them seriously from the start and the things they did over the past 18 months has just made it worse. How can you have a "World Lightweight Champion" that does not involve BJ Penn even fighting for the title? The WAMMA belts were arguably the most disgusting pieces of trash in the history of title belts (I feel they were the worst but some people will argue the IFL's snakeskin belts). WAMMA was organized in November 2007. It looks like the beginning of the end happened in May 2009. Unfortunately, it probably should have happened in December 2007.

weekend predictions

slow weekend for picks after two busy ones. Currently sitting at 207-96-5-11 for 68.3%. And of course, a list of who I think is gone from the UFC is they lose tomorrow night:

UFC
Andre Gusmao vs Krzysztof Soszynski - Krzysztof Soszynski
David Kaplan vs George Roop - Dave Kaplan
Brandon Wolff vs Yoshiyuki Yoshida - Yoshiyuki Yoshida
Drew McFedries vs Xavier Foupa-Pokam - Xavier Foupa-Pokam
Patrick Barry vs Tim Hague - Patrick Barry
Brock Larson vs Mike Pyle - Brock Larson
Kyle Bradley vs Phillipe Nover - Phillipe Nover
Frankie Edgar vs Sean Sherk - Sean Sherk
Chael Sonnen vs Dan Miller - Dan Miller
Matt Hughes vs Matt Serra - Matt Hughes
Lyoto Machida vs Rashad Evans - Rashad Evans
ZST
Keisuke Fujiwara vs Yuichiro Shirai - Keisuke Fujiwara
*It was announced literally twenty minutes ago that Mike Pyle will be stepping in for Chris Wilson against Brock Larson.

And people who I think will be cut from the UFC if they lose this weekend: Drew McFedries, Xavier Fopua-Pokam, Kyle Bradley, Brandon Wolff, Dave Kaplan, George Roop, and Andre Gusmao

UFC 98 undercard

Sean Sherk vs Frankie Edgar is going to be a very intriguing match-up between two wrestlers. The winner of this could very well be in line for a title shot against the winner of BJ Penn/Kenny Florian. There is going to be a huge size difference in this one as Sherk could be fighting at Welterweight and Edgar I think would probably be best be at Featherweight. Sherk needs to use that size to his advantage and bully Edgar to the ground. Edgar has good wrestling so the takedown won't come easy, but I think it will happen eventually and Sherk needs to take advantage of that.

Dan Miller vs Chael Sonnen is a fight that I should be more excited about, but I just can't get up for this fight. Both guys are very solid fighters and Miller especially has a long future in front of him. Maybe it's just because the middleweight division is so stacked and I am hung up on the top 5 or 6 guys, but this fight doesn't not do all that much for me. It will be Miller's submissions against Sonnen's wrestling. The difference I think could be that Miller advantage is more so (his submissions) than Sonnen's advantage (his wrestling)

The rest of the card does very little for me at all. The last fight on the main card, Foupa-Pokam vs McFedries does little for me at all. The only fight on the prelim that really interests me is Brock Larson vs Chris Wilson. Wilson is just coming off a robbery while down in Brazil so who knows what his psyche is at right now. Tim Hague is someone who has no business being in the UFC and Pat Barry should have his way with him. Phillipe Nover could be something down the line, but all he is to me right now is another Ultimate Fighter guy. Soszynski gets props for a quick turn around and steeping in on sort notice, but he could be in tough against Gusmao. And Yoshida will be looking to bounce back in a big way from that hilight reel ko at the hands of Josh Koscheck back in December.

No minors at UFC 99

Well it looks like the German government has gotten what they wanted in part at least, and that is banning people from attending the UFC 99 card in June. The city council and some national newspapers are really against the UFC coming to Germany and they scored a minor victory in getting the event to be 18 and over only. Ideally what they wanted was the whole event to be cancelled but it looks like the two sides are meeting in the middle.

Honestly, I am not as upset about that as some people are. The UFC is aimed at males between 18 and 35. yes I'm sure there were a couple hundred tickets sold to people under the age of 18 and those will have to be refunded. But high school kids are not the target demographic of the UFC and it will not cost them all that much money. I realize that this ban is a result of some very high powered people getting wrong information. Apparently they believed that the UFC only banned biting and eye poking. Of course the UFC has had unified rules since UFC 28.

Some people are just not fans of MMA and there is very little that can be done to change that. Everyone has there own favorites and MMA is obviously not for everybody as it is a violent sport. However the days of having to fight on indian reservations and in illegal underground shows. The UFC is borderline mainstream and the UFC has done a very good job of changing perception on the sport of MMA. Unfortunately, they apparently did not do a good enough job in Germany. The expansion of the UFC worldwide will have to be done slower and more carefully in the future. Germany is not a huge mma country and the UFC was hoping to make it one. But by the looks of things, they still have a long way to go.

Machida vs Evans

This Saturday there will be something that I did not expect to see this soon and that is Ryoto Machida fighting for the UFC Light Heavyweight champion. Like most people, I thought Dana White and the UFC would do everything in their power to not let Machida get a crack at the title because against anyone, he would have a really good shot of taking down the champ, whoever the champ may be. That all changed with his performance against Thiago Silva where he was anything but boring. That, combined with Rampage not being ready for a title shot yet, gives Machida the chance to become UFC Light Heavyweight champ on Saturday night.

This is a very tough fight to predict and I still don't know who I am going to predict in the end. Both guys have their strengths that could get them the W but both guys are also more than capable of countering the other's strengths and preventing their opponent from implementing their game plan. Now both guys are very effective counter punchers, and there is a chance that both guys could both sit back on each other and that could lead to a repeat of the Silva/Leites. There is no way the fight will be that bad, but it is a possibility that this could be a lackluster fight.

The UFC I still don't think is keen on the idea of Machida being champion, but there is nothing they can do about it now. Machida can not conduct interviews in English and he is certainly not a huge name fighter that will be able to headline PPV's and sell lots of tickets. Evans on the other hand is very charismatic and is quickly becoming a name. Starting with the Ultimate Fighter, the Evans names is quickly becoming more and more of a household name. Obviously no GSP or Anderson Silva level, but it's growing.

Something that pisses me off is that apparently Quinton Jackson has agreed to coach the 10th season of The Ultimate Fighter against the winner of this fight. I am sick and tired on divisions being put on hold just so that the champion and his number one challenge can coach against each other on the show. Sure it builds up hype and leads to more buys, but it is frustrating as hell seeing a division go on hiatus for 6 months just to accommodate a television show.

Hughes vs Serra

UFC 98 is this coming Saturday and Matt Hughes is finally going to be facing off against Matt Serra. Of course this all started back when they were opposing coaches on The Ultimate Fighter season 6. I can't wait for this fight to happen. Why? Because as soon as it happens, then I get to stop hearing about it.

Seriously, I can't remember a fight with as much promotion behind it that that I have cared less about. Matt Serra is a one hit wonder. He will forever live off his one fluke victory over Georges St. Pierre and his 15 minutes of fame as UFC Welterweight Champion. If he and GSP fight 25 times, GSP wins 24 of them. Because the one time Serra does win did actually happen, he is a much bigger name than he should be. Is Matt Serra a good fighter? Yes, of course. He is amazing on the ground and is alright on his feet. But he is not a great fighter, he will never be a great fighter, and will lose more often than not whenever he faces top 10 talent.

Matt Hughes on the other hand is well past the prime of his career. He is 35 years old and he could still stick around for a few more years, but I don't think he will. He knows he doesn't have much left in his career. Like Serra, he will lose to a lot of the top 10 guys and he certainly is not going to be making another run at the welterweight title. There are very few fights that he will gain anything from winning. Once he beats Serra, and I think he will beat him quite easily, there are not too many fights left that he can win that the UFC will give. He would be given to hot up and coming fighters so if they win, the UFC can say he beat the man who was at one point the most dominant champion of all time.

So I want this fight to be over so I will stop hearing about it. Once Matt Hughes beats Serra, Serra will be considered by everyone to be a one hit wonder and he will have very little name value left at all. And Hughes can wind down his career with an amazing performance over Serra. Thankfully Machida/Evans is on this card and that fight is the reason I am purchasing this PPV, certainly not for Hughes/Serra. At this point, I wouldn't pay $5 dollars for this fight.

MFC thoughts

My apologies for no post yesterday. I left Edmonton at 9 in the morning and drove till almost midnight to get to my parent's place for the long weekend.

MFC was a pretty good card and I was lucky enough to be ringside, reporting for sherdog.com. The main event was really good. Emanuel Newton redeemed himself nicely after his last performance as he and Trevor Prangley went toe to toe for the whole 25 minutes. It was a close fight that could have gone either way. I had it 47-47 and would have loved to see them do it again, but the judges saw it otherwise (48-46, 49-46, 49-46 for Prangley the judges saw it). Both guys stand and banged the whole fight. Each guy would dive in, throw a three or four strike combo, then back out. Excellent fight. This derails Newton a little. He obviously takes a step back with the loss but I still can see him in the UFC some day.

Bobby Lashley didn't prove much to me, despite winning in 24 seconds. He was fighting someone who was obviously outmatched and had no business being in the ring with a former three time NAIA wrestling champion. Lashley will be in tougher against Sapp at the end of next month, but even then I still think it will be a fairly easy victory for Lashley. He needs to fight an experienced vet, like a Ricco Rodriguez or a Travis Wiuff to see where he is.

Lastly, John Alessio looked great in picking up a victory that he needed very much. Coming off back to back losses, Alessio needed this win. He bounced back nicely from his loss in Japan last month. Buckland is a good young prospect and a decent challenge for anyone. Alessio looked great and looked a million times better on the ground. Galbraith/Heath was close. I think the hometown Galbraith got a bit of the benefit of the doubt. Marvin Eastman was expected to stand and bang with Lofton, but won the fight on the ground. I would love to see Marvin Eastman vs Emanuel Newton next show.

Weekend predictions

Another busy weekend for MMA action. Overall record for the year is 194-89-5-11 for 68.6%.

MFC
Aaron Lofton vs Marvin Eastman - Aaron Lofton
Mychal Clark vs Ryan Jimmo - Ryan Jimmo
Andrew Buckland vs John Alessio -John Alessio
David Heath vs Travis Galbraith - David Heath
Bobby Lashley vs Mike Cook - Bobby Lashley
Emanuel Newton vs Trevor Prangley - Emanuel Newton
SHO MMA
Bao Quach vs Tito Jones - Bao Quach
Aaron Rosa vs Anthony Ruiz - Anthony Ruiz
Carl Seumantafa vs Lavar Johnson - Lavar Johnson
Miesha Tate vs Sarah Kaufman - Sarah Kaufman
Billy Evangelista vs Mike Aina - Billy Evangelista
KSW
Daniel Acacio vs Mamed Khalidov - Mamed Khalidov
BFC
Eddie Sanchez vs Jay White - Eddie Sanchez
Alonzo Martines vs Victor Meza - Victor Meza
Jorge Ortiz vs Lyman Good - Lyman Good
Dave Menne vs Omar de la Cruz - Dave Menne
CTA
Brett Cooper vs Joe Cronin - Brett Cooper
Daniel Puder vs Jeff Ford - Daniel Puder
Brian Warren vs Tiki Ghosn - Tiki Ghosn
Jason Lambert vs Vladimir Matyushenko - Vladimir Matyushenko

MFC tomorrow night

In Edmonton right now for MFC 21 tomorrow night. Covering the event for sherdog. Just got back from the weigh-ins which were your typically boring weigh-ins. Jay Whitford weighed in 9 pounds overweight for his fight with Dwayne Lewis. Mike Cook weighed in with a Rey Mysterio mask on. John Alessio and Andrew Buckland had a pretty intense stare down.

Really excited for this card. The main event is going to be a great fight. Emanuel Newton is taking on Trevor Prangley for the MFC Light Heavyweight Title. Newton is one of Antonio McKee's fighters and won the title from Roger Hollett at MFC 19. He is undefeated over his last 10 fights and is 11-3-1 overall. He is a good all-around fighter. I wouldn't say he is really great at any one thing, but solid all around. He's young, mid 20's, and still has a ton of growth potential. I can definitely see him in the UFC someday. Prangley has been around forever, he had his first fight back in 2001. Most people know him from his 4 UFC appearances, but he also has solid wins against Chael Sonnen, Andrei Semenov, and Falaniko Vitale outside of the UFC. Prangley is also a really solid all around fighter and this should be a really good fight.

I am excited to see Bobby Lashley fight live to see if he really is a legit prospect or not. I don't expect Mike Cook to be too much of a test, but it should tell us something. John Alessio is fighting the Canadian prospect Andrew Buckland. For the record, John Alessio was the first interview I ever did for sherdog back in the spring of 2002 before he fought Chris Brennan. He really needs the win to bounce back from his disapointing showing in Japan against Andre Galvao. Ryan Jimmo, one of the most entertaining fighters in Canada, is fighting Mychal Clark, another one of McKee's guys that I know nothing about. And Aron Lofton is taking on Marvin Eastman in the first fight on the HDNet broadcast. I guarantee that that fight will not get out of the first round.

Top 10 Pride Fights Ever

In no particular order:

*Mirko Filipovic vs Fedor Emelianenko (August 28, 2005) - Not an overly close fight, but it had that big fight feel to it and CroCop pushed Fedor the whole time.
*Royce Gracie vs Kazushi Sakuraba (May 1, 2000) - How two guys in this day and age can go 90 minutes and still be willing to go longer is beyond me.
*Quinton Jackson vs Wanderlei Silva 2 (October 31, 2004) - These guys went toe-to-toe the first round and the hilight reel KO was just the icing on the cake.
*Kazushi Sakuraba vs Carlos Newton (June 24, 1998) - The first great submission, mat battle ever in Pride. Very evenly matched.
*Don Frye vs Ken Shamrock (February 24, 2002) - Wasn't excited heading into this fight cause I thought both guys were over the hill, but this was a war.
*Josh Barnett vs Rodrigo Nogueira (September 20, 2006) - Couple nice on the feet exchanges but mostly a ground war with both guys going for submissions throughout.
*Bob Sapp vs Rodrigo Noguiera (August 28, 2002) - Most people remember this fight for the one slam, but the whole fight was excellent.
*Don Frye vs Yoshihiro Takayama (June 23, 2002) - No technique, just good old-fashioned slugfest with two guys swinging as hard as possible.
*Takanori Gomi vs Tatsuya Kawajiri (September 25, 2005) - The best fight on an amazing card. Both guys went to war on the feet.
*Takanori Gomi vs Nick Diaz (February 24, 2007) - Unfortunately most people remember this fight not for how good it was, but of the Diaz failed drug test.

Roy Jones to MMA

It is now confirmed that the UFC turned down an offer from Roy Jones Jr. for him to fight Anderson Silva. Now a quick question for everyone, if this fight were to actually happen, would anyone seriously read anything into the outcome of the bout? It would be a completely pointless bout. Sure it would attract hundreds of thousands of curiosity viewers and would do a huge buy-rate, but it would be the most one-sided fight in UFC history.

If Silva and Jones were to fight in a boxing match, Roy Jones Jr. would walk through Silva inside of two rounds. If they were to fight in a MMA match, Silva would walk through Jones Jr. inside one round. These guys are in their own sport because that is what they are good at. Yes they are both amazing athletes who could someday be half decent in the other sport, but you can't do three months hard training in the other sport and expect to take out the other guy in his own sport.

I would have no interest in a match between the two because I know what would happen. Now if Anderson were to take pro boxing seriously and get some pro fights under his belt, I might be interested. If Silva were to get to maybe 10-0 or something, then I would show some excitement. And I don't think I could ever get interested in a MMA fight between the two. No matter how much experience Jones got in MMA, he would never be good enough to even come close to Silva in MMA. The ground game takes a lifetime to perfect, and by the time Jones puts in 15 years on the ground, he will be needing a walker to get to the ring. If Jones wants to do MMA, the UFC and Anderson Silva is not the place to do it. He should pull a Jose Canseco and fight in Japan if he wants to.

Perfect MMA Day

7:00 a.m. - Alarm clock goes off
7:01 a.m. - Smash alarm clock with my Alistair Overeem replica hammer
10:14 a.m. - Wake up on my own
10:16 a.m. - Reintroduce myself to Gina Carano
11:25 a.m. - Shower
11:50 a.m. - Read Newspaper over breakfast. See that amateur MMA has been banned across the country
12:30 p.m. - Get in limo to take me to the country club. Notice that Chuck Liddell has rebounded nicely from his mma career....as my limo driver
1:05 p.m. - Warming up on the driving range. One ball "accidentally" beans Junie Browning
1:15 p.m. - Tee off. In my foursome is Bruce Buffer, Tito Ortiz, and Enson Inoue
2:34 p.m. - Served lunch from the roving golf cart girl. Lemon Pepper Wings, nachos, and a Mickey's Can with BJ Penn's picture on it
2:35 p.m. - Take my five iron to the empty Mickey's Cann with BJ Penn's picture on it
3:47 p.m. - Ace the 13th
4:12 p.m. - Inoue tells me the truth about the Japanese Yakuza
4:58 p.m. - A group is slow in clearing the 17th green. Tito goes up ahead and takes care of it
5:12 p.m. - Sign card for a one under 71
5:45 p.m. - Bruce ok's me filling in for him at that night's ufc card. helicopter lands on the 18th green to take me to the card.
5:56 p.m. - Pen thank you note to Rick Reilly for this column idea
6:24 p.m. - Arrive at the arena. Dana White gives me permission to do one thing for the company, I re-credential sherdog to media row
6:31 p.m. - Introduce the first bout flawlessly except for the pulled groin when trying to copy the Buffer spin
8:00 p.m. - Make my PPV debut. I look good in HD
8:09 p.m. - Sitting between Edith and Logan, Edith hands me a key to her room for a drink later tonight
8:20 p.m. - Randy Couture announces his retirement. For good this time
8:34 p.m. - Cole Escovedo makes his UFC debut.
9:40 p.m. - Fight of the year between Forrest Griffin and Anderson Silva. Never going to get the blood out of my suit though
9:43 p.m. - Brock Lesnar injures himself backstage and is out of the main event. I am asked to fill in for a shot at the Heavyweight Title
10:09 p.m. - Land the first punch of the fight
10:10 p.m. - Proceed to not land the next 247 punches of the fight
10:44 p.m. - Joe Rogan's scorecard has the fight Frank Mir 50-36 Rob King
10:46 p.m. - The judges, being NSAC boxing judges, mistake me as related to Don King, and fearing for their lives, give me a unanimous decision to make me undisputed UFC Heavyweight Champion
10:49 p.m. - Retire as undefeated champion
11:55 p.m. - Cash my $250,000 paycheck
12:12 a.m. - US government forgets to tax my $250,000 paycheck
1:38 a.m. - Hit a jack of clubs on the river for a royal flush and double my fight paycheck
1:45 a.m. - Enter Edith's hotel room
4:25 a.m. - Fall asleep

Shooto thoughts

Shooto had there awesome card early this morning at JCB Hall in Tokyo and I've seen most of the fights by now. The biggest news was that Takanori Gomi rebounded nicely and put away Shooto Welterweight Champion Takashi Nakakura in a non-title fight. Gomi finished him off with a combo of punches along the ropes, including a very nice body shot. Since this was a non-title affair, what Shooto would normally do would be to book an immediate rematch, but this time with the title on the line. However I don't see much value in this as I don't see how the second fight would be any different. Apparently Nakakura said that if he lost, he would give the belt to Gomi, but I don't see Shooto recognizing that as an official title change. But all-in-all, Gomi took his first steps in getting back on track and once again becoming a legit lightweight contender.

Takeshi Inoue beat Shooto legend Rumino Sato in the main event in what was suppose to be a "passing of the torch" type fight. Problem was that Sato has already passed the torch two or three times before. Sato has no business being in the ring with top contenders anymore. He is well past his prime and will never beat anyone have decent these days. With that said, he is a legend of Shooto (think Ken Shamrock to American MMA...without the failed drug test) and should be moved into a Spokesmen like role. Sato did so much for Shooto, they can't forget about him. However giving him title shots that he didn't deserve (he had lost 5 of 6 heading into this fight and fights he has no chance of winning, is not the way to remember Sato.

Hirota winning over Ishida was definitely an upset. And he just didn't beat him, he destroyed him pretty good. Ishida, with all his big fight experience I thought would be able to handle Hirota. My upset pick in Ueda to beat Boku didn't turn out too well for me. And lastly, Fujii picked up an easy win in 52 seconds over her Jane Doe Korean opponent as expected.

PFC thoughts

Caught the PFC on sherdog.com last night. A pretty decent show. The main event was razor close. I probably would have scored it for Jara from what I saw (I lost my feed for about half the second round so I couldn't really score the bout) but it was close enough that it could have gone either way. Marshall was swinging for the fences and just couldn't land. Kyle Pimental looked pretty good, although it's hard to really judge against Olaf because Olaf is so inconsistent. I was really shocked that Yagin beat Olsen. I knew Yagin was a decent fighter, but as I said the other day, Olsen is someone I believe will be in the big show someday and Yagin beating him that quickly was quite a shock.

The fight I was most interested in was the Cole Escovedo fight. As I said, Cole just making it back into the ring was a huge victory as two years ago he was confined to a wheelchair. He had a tough opponent for his first fight back and he stepped up to the plate. I thought MacDonald did tap at the end of the first round but the ref didn't see it. In the end, it did not matter as Cole won via TKO midway through the second. I couldn't pick Cole in this fight because I thought the three year layoff and the staph infection would be a bit too much to fight back from. I really had no idea what Cole to expect. The Cole who was at one point 11-1 or the one who had dropped his last three. I was very happy to see the old Cole back and I really hope he can build from this win and make a successful career out of it. I don't think he will ever be world champion or anything, but I can see him cracking the top 10 someday... maybe in the not too distant future.

Weekend predictions

Busy weekend of fights this weekend. Need to rebound after last weekend's abysmal showing. Record for the year is 175 up, 79 down, 5 draws, and 9 no contests for 68.9%

PALACE FIGHTING CHAMPIONSHIPS
Emily Thompson vs Erin Toughill - Erin Toughill
Cole Escovedo vs Michael MacDonald - Michael MacDonald
Bryan Travers vs Jon Gunderson - Jon Gunderson
Gabe Ruediger vs Darren Crisp - Gabe Ruediger
Anthony Perales vs Pat Runez - Pat Runez
Carlo Prater vs Dominique Robinson - Carlo Prater
Kyle Pimental vs Olaf Alfonso - Kyle Pimental
Leopoldo Santos vs Phil Collins - Leopoldo Santos
Casey Olson vs Eddie Yagin - Casey Olson
Doug Marshall vs Jamie Jara - Doug Marshall
BELLATOR FIGHTING CHAMPIONSHIPS
Bubba McDaniels vs Prince McClean - Bubba McDaniels
Luiz Palomino vs Nick Gonzalez - Luis Palomino
Estevan Payne vs Yahir Reyes - Estevan Payne
Joe Soto vs Wilson Reis - Wilson Reis
M-1
Dmitry Samoilov vs Leandro Silva - Leandro Silva
Eduardo Pamplona vs Erik Oganov - Eduardo Pamplona
Danny Smit vs Jordan Radev - Jordan Radev
Ivan Ivankov vs Raymond Jarmon - Raymond Jarmon
Danny van Bergen vs Yanko Yankev - Danny van Bergen
SHINE FIGHTS
Antonio Mendes vs Antwain Britt - Antwain Britt
Harris Sarmiento vs Mario Stapel - Harris Sarmiento
JUNGLE FIGHTS
Dion Staring vs Rogerio Nogueira - Rogerio Nogueira
Andre Tadeu vs Emanuel Silva - Emanuel Silva
Ivan Iberico vs Jamil Silveria - Ivan Iberico
SHOOTO
William Chiquerim vs Yusuke Endo - William Chiquerim
Kenichiro Togashi vs Tetsuji Kato - Tetsuji Kato
Chu Won Bun vs Megumi Fujii - Megumi Fujii
Koutetsu Boku vs Yutaka Ueda - Yutaka Ueda
Mitsuhiro Ishida vs Mizuto Hirota - Mitsuhiro Ishida
Takanori Gomi vs Takashi Nakakura - Takanori Gomi
Rumina Sato vs Takeshi Inoue - Takeshi Inoue

BFC tournaments cancelled

News came out the other day that the British Fighting Championships are now dead in the water. For those that didn't know, the BFC was set to be a year long set of tournament with tournaments at 135, 145, 155, 170, 185, 205, and Heavyweight to crown unified British Isle champions. A bunch of promotions were going to be involved, FX3, Ultimate Force, and Cage Warriors Fighting Championships, which in my opinion is the best organization in England over the past couple of years.

I am really disappointed that these tournaments are getting cancelled. The potential match-ups in the semi-finals and the finals had some real potential. The first round had a bunch of veterans verses young guns, but as I said, by the time you got to the later rounds, there would be some great fights. It sounds like there were a couple reasons why these tournaments went down the gutter, but the main reason is that there television deal went down the drain. It would have been great to have a country join forces to create truly unified national champs. In comparison, that would be like the UFC, StrikeForce, WEC, and Affliction joining forces and putting all of their top guys into 16 man tournaments to create one champion.

The thing that sucks most about this is that the state of British MMA is really in trouble right now. Cage Rage for a long time was the leader in British MMA, but over the past year they have folded up shop for a number of reasons, money issues and being associated with Elite XC the two main ones. Then Cage Warriors took over the top promotion but now with the BFC falling through, they have said they are no longer going to be promoting shows in the UK. This leaves a gaping hole at the top of the British MMA scene and one organization really needs to step over and be the face of British MMA. Yes the UFC will still come over 3 times a year, but after that, there is a big drop in competition levels which is something that will be changed soon.

Busy weekend coming up, tomorrow I'll be making picks on Palace Fighting Championships, Bellator Fighting Championships, M-1 Challenge, Shine Fights, Jungle Fight, and Shooto. Making predictions for about 30 fights in total. Need to rebound after a less than stellar last weekend.

PFC on Friday

While Shooto ends the strong weekend of MMA action on Sunday morning, Palace Fighting Championships starts off the strong weekend with there 13th edition out of Lemoore. The fight I am most excited about is the return of Cole Escovedo as he fights undefeated young prospect Michael McDonald. Escovedo is returning to the ring after a 33 months layoff which was a result of a severe staff infection that left Cole fighting for his life. I have always been a fan of Cole, he was the second or third fighter I ever interviewed for sherdog.com back before he fought Christian Allen in the summer of 2002. It is great to see Cole back in action and he certainly didn't pick an easy opponent to get back in the cage against. With that said, win or lose, Cole has achieved a huge victory in just fighting again.

Doug Marshall is taking on Jamie Jara in the main event in a battle of tattoos. Marshall is trying to get back on track after being cut from WEC last year. Jara is certainly a tough opponent. Both guys are in the same boat, very solid fighters but two fighters who will never be world champions, and probably not ever make the UFC unless it's as a last minute replacement. I don't want to use the term journeymen cause both have solid records, but they are local fighters first and foremost.

Casey Olsen, one of my favorite California prospects is taking on Eddie Yagin. Olsen I think will definitely be in the UFC someday, probably sooner rather than later. Phil Collins and Leopoldo Serao for the vacant Middleweight Title. Olaf Alfonso, who won the Welterweight Title in a huge upset against Jeremiah Metcalf, is defending against Kyle Pimental. Dominique Robinson and Carlo Prater should be an excellent fight. Pat Runez, Gabe Ruediger, John Gunderson, and Erin Toughill are all also on the card. Going to be a great night of fights. Everyone should definitely check it out as the live stream will be on sherdog.com Friday night.

Shooto this weekend

On Saturday night/Sunday morning, Shooto will cap off a good weekend of action with an outstanding card. The main event is Takeshi Inoue verses Rumino Sato which is honestly one of the weaker fights on the card. I am expecting Inoue to have not to much problem with Sato. Sato has lost his last 3, and 5 of 6. Inoue on the other hand is about 7 years younger and right at the peak of his career where as Sato is on the downside. Inoue to win fairly easily.

Takanori Gomi is making his return to Shooto after a long absence. I believe his last Shooto appearance was back in the summer of 2003 against Joachim Hansen. He's fighting Takashi Nakakura on this card. Nakakura is really starting to make a name for himself and Gomi is on a bit of a slide. Should be a great fight. Really interesting to see how Gomi rebounds from his last couple of outings. I've heard rumors that Gomi will retire if he losses. If true, he has a lot to fight for.

Mitsuhiro Ishida is taking on Mizuto Hirota. Both guys are right around the same stage in their careers', good fighters who are really on the cusp of breaking through to everyone's "A" list at 155. Hirota looked good against Ryan Schultz but his last two fights he has looked a little weaker. I am leaning towards Ishida in this one, but it's also close.

Yutaka Ueda is fighting Koutetsu Boku. This is the case of a young prospect taking on the established fighter. I really think Ueda can take Boku in this one. Ueda has some pretty decent stand-up and looked pretty good in his last couple of fights. I'm liking Ueda.

Megumi Fujii, who is unarguably the best female fighter below 130 and arguably the best women fighter pound for pound, will be picking up an easy opponent against her opponent. Tetsuji Kato will be making his return to the ring after an almost two year layoff. Yusuke Endo and William Chiquerium should be all right and Akiyo Nishiura will be looking to bounce back since losing out of the Dream tournament. I would pay some pretty big money to be able to check out this card live.

UFC HW Fantasy booker

Not sure what to blog about today so I thought I would play some fantasy booker for the UFC Heavyweight division. Right now what we have booked for the upcoming months is the following:
*Cain Velasquez vs Heath Herring at UFC 99 in June
*Frank Mir vs Brock Lesnar at UFC 100 in July
*Rodrigo Nogueira vs Randy Couture at UFC 102 in August
*Junior dos Santos vs Justin McCully at UFC 102 in August

Right now, in terms of marketability and name value, I would consider Mir, Lesnar, Nogueira, and Couture as the "A" level guys and Velasquez, dos Santos, Shane Carwin, and Cheick Kongo as the "B" level guys. Some point soon, the UFC is going to have to bump one of the B guys up to A level.

Mir and Lesnar obviously is for the undisputed title and the winner of that, there next challenger is probably determined by the Nogueira/Couture outcome. Especially if the two winners have not fought before. So if Mir and Couture both win, or if Lesnar and Nogueira both win, then that is pretty much guaranteed to be the next bout. It would be a lot harder to see Lesnar/Couture and Mir/Nogueira cause both have happened in the last 7 months and both were pretty one sided. And after that happens, you need to boost one of the next 4 guys up.

I am picking Velasquez to beat Herring and dos Santos to beat McCully both fairly easily. By process of elimination, that would mean I would love to see Shane Carwin vs Cheick Kongo fairly soon, maybe UFC 102 in August. Then after that, you should have three guys coming off wins, Velasquez (who would be 4-0 in the UFC by this point), dos Santos (3-0) and the winner of Carwin (would be 4-0)/Kongo (would be 8-2). You could math up any of those three together on the undercard of the winners of the Mir/Lesnar vs Couture/Nogueira car in November or December, and then after that, the winner of that fight gets the next shot at the UFC Heavyweight Title. I would prefer to see dos Santos vs Carwin/Kongo for the number one contender fight and keep Velasquez for the loser of Mir/Lesnar early in 2010.

So in summary, what I would like to see:
*Velasquez beats Herring and Dos Santos beats McCully.
Fight 1- Frank Mir vs Brock Lesnar for the Title in July
Fight 2- Rodrigo Nogueira vs Randy Couture in Aug
Fight 3- Shane Carwin vs Cheick Kongo in Aug
Fight 4- Winner of Fight 1 vs winner of Fight 2 for Title in Dec
Fight 5- Winner of Fight 3 vs Junior Dos Santos in Dec
Fight 6- Cain Velasquez vs Fight 1 loser in Jan
Fight 7- Winner of Fight 4 vs Winner of Fight 5 for Title in May

Rankings

Two days late. Would have been up yesterday but yesterday was my bachelor party and priorities took over. lol. Any changes from last month are noted.

HEAVYWEIGHT
1. Fedor Emelianenko, 2. Josh Barnett, 3. Andrei Arlovski, 4. Frank Mir, 5. Rodrigo Nogueira, 6. Brock Lesnar, 7. Tim Sylvia, 8. Randy Couture, 9. Junior dos Santos, 10. Fabricio Werdum

LIGHT HEAVYWEIGHT
1. Rashad Evans, 2. Forrest Griffin, 3. Quinton Jackson, 4. Lyoto Machida, 5. Maurcio Rua, 6. Wanderlei Silva, 7. Renato Sobral, 8. Rogerio Nogueira, 9. Luiz Arthur Cane, 10. Thiago Silva

*Thiago Silva moves into the top 10 with the exit of Chuck Liddell (7th last rankings). Sobral, Nogueira, and Cane all moved up one spot with the departure of Liddell.

MIDDLEWEIGHT
1. Anderson Silva, 2. Dan Henderson, 3. Yushin Okami, 4. Robbie Lawler, 5. Demian Maia, 6. Nathan Marquardt, 7. Gegard Mousasi, 8. Jorge Santiago, 9. Thales Leites, 10. Kazuo Misaki

WELTERWEIGHT
1. Georges St. Pierre, 2. Thiago Alves, 3. Jake Shields, 4. Jon Fitch, 5. Matt Hughes, 6. Karo Parisyan, 7. Paulo Thiago, 8. Josh Koscheck, 9. Matt Serra, 10. Martin Kampmann

*Martin Kampmann moves into the top 10 replacing Carlos Condit

LIGHTWEIGHT
1. BJ Penn, 2. Joachim Hansen, 3. Sean Sherk, 4. Gesias Calvancanti, 5. Kenny Florian, 6. Eddie Alvarez, 7. Tatsuya Kawajiri, 8. Hayato Sakurai, 9. Shinya Aoki, 10. Josh Thomson

*Hayato Sakurai enters at number 8 following his victory over Shinya Aoki who drops from 3 to 9. Sherk, Calvancanti, Florian, Alvarez, and Kawajiri all move up one spot with the dropping of Aoki. Josh Thomson falls from 9 to 10 with the inclusion of Sakurai

FEATHERWEIGHT
1. Mike Thomas Brown, 2. Urijah Faber, 3. Leonard Garcia, 4. Wagnney Fabiano, 5. Akitoshi Tamura, 6. Hiroyuki Takaya, 7. Takeshi Inoue, 8. Hideki Kadowaki, 9. Hatsu Hioki, 10. Jose Aldo

135 AND BELOW
1. Miguel Torres, 2. Shinichi Kojima, 3. Eduardo Dantas, 4. Mamaru Yamaguchi, 5. Masakatsu Ueda, 6. Akitoshi Hokazono, 7. Yuki Shoujou, 8. Yasuhiro Urushitani, 9. So Tazawa, 10. Joseph Benavidez

*Joseph Benavidez enters the rankings at number 10 following his win over Jeff Curran. Brian Bowles falls out of the top 10 to make way for Benavidez.

POUND-FOR-POUND
1. Anderson Silva, 2. Georges St. Pierre, 3. Fedor Emelianenko, 4. Miguel Torres, 5. Rashad Evans, 6. BJ Penn, 7. Mike Thomas Brown, 8. Forrest Griffin, 9. Quinton Jackson, 10. Ryoto Machida

Griffin vs Silva

Came out over the past day or two that Anderson Silva will be fighting Forrest Griffin at UFC 101 later this year. I really like this fight. Zuffa is obviously giving Silva a fan friendly fight to try and redeem himself after his last two performances. Griffin is obviously going to stand and bang with Silva and not be with Leites who refused to fight the majority of the fight. And obviously Griffin is a former LHW champion and arguably the biggest star in the history of TUF. Should be a really good fight and I am really looking forward to that fight. Sucks for Thiago Silva though. I would love to see Shogun fight Thiago Silva on that show now.

Weekend predictions, pretty good weekend of cards. Couple good smaller shows and then Sengoku is the main attraction for the weekend. Prediction record is 167-73-5-9 for a record of 69.6%

VICTORY FIGHTING CHAMPIONSHIPS
Brendan Seguin vs Jake Ellenberger - Jake Ellenberger
Chris Camozzi vs Darin Brudigan - Chris Camozzi
Joe Ellenberger vs Marshall Martin - Joe Ellenberger
BELLATOR FIGHTING CHAMPIONSHIPS
Dave Herman vs Josh Barnes - Dave Herman
Jorge Masvidal vs Toby Imada - Jorge Masvidal
Eddie Alvarez vs Eric Reynolds - Eddie Alvarez
SENGOKU
Stanislav Nedkov vs Travis Wiuff - Travis Wiuff
Makoto Takimoto vs Michael Costa - Michael Costa
Kazunori Yokota vs Leonardo Santos - Leonardo Santos
Alexandre Ribeiro vs Keiichiro Yamamiya - Alexandre Ribeiro
Marlon Sandro vs Nick Denis - Marlon Sandro
Chan Sung Jung vs Masanori Kanehara - Chan Sung Jung
Michihiro Omigawa vs Nam Phan - Nam Phan
Hatsu Hioki vs Ronnie Mann - Hatsu Hioki