Dustin

brashleyholland (or anyone that knows): is shooto not an MMA organization but actually a sport itself? Wikipedia says so but the site is unreliable at times.

Fedor beating Werdum and then fighting Overeem in his last fight would be the perfect ending IMO. It would also be cool to see it happen in Japan where they both had most of their fights.

That's a good number. I think 116 will be the biggest one since UFC 100 and probably only second to UFC 100. Hopefully they get Primetime behind it for maximum potential.

Diaz is excellent and has been on a good roll lately but hasn't faced any good wrestlers with sub defense. I would pick GSP, Fitch, Koscheck, Shields and maybe even Hughes to beat him. Alves also even though he is not a wrestler. I rank Diaz behind all of these WW's, number six.

Behind every good wrestler in the division IMO.

Makes sense. Frank Mir is the best in that case IMO.

Goldberg does a perfect job IMO. You have to understand that MMA is still a new sport and not everyone watching knows what they are watching. Thus, he messes up, asks questions that a new fan would ask, etc and Rogan explains things.

Schiavello is excellent IMO but Frank Trigg needs to go in favor of Guy Mezger. I feel that he only got the job out of pity for having his career ended on a bad note.

How dare you? Wand was probably NOT on roids.

OK, I thought you were originally saying that Rampage should have won by KO, was robbed, etc. I do feel that Rashad is the better fighter overall though due to him being more well-rounded, but hope you're right about the rematch as I, much like you, am not very fond of him. Good thing we have Shogun!

I saw Evans as the dominant fighter because he out stuck Rampage, outwrestled Rampage, was much faster, imposed his gameplan and more. Rampage did only two things the entire fight in rocking Rashad (did absolutely nothing to follow up) and getting some ground and pound (most of which was blocked). How long Rampage was off or how he would do in a rematch does not change the fact that he was dominated this time.

Four stars? Thanks man.

Let's be honest, this post screams "I don't know what I'm talking about."

OK, I stand corrected then (even the website is pretty great).

The owner of multi-chain discount store (they even have some in Hawaii) is apparently a massive fan of MMA. Huge. In fact, Don Quijote is probably one of the main reasons why Shooto is even around at all. Their sponsorship enabled Shooto (and Pancarase) to be a competitive force in Japanese MMA. Don Quijote has also been a long-time sponsor of Sengoku. On August 11th 2009, Yahoo! Japan reported that Don Quijote was doing pretty well financially which led Sengoku to sign more lucrative guys like Gono and Ishida. During Sengoku 10, the organization announced they were changing their name to the astronomically cooler 'Sengoku Raiden Championship' and that they would be promoting an event the same time as FEG's Dynamite!! 2009. If you're not familiar with Dynamite!!, just imagine stuffing a blender with thermite, plutonium, high kicks and red kryptonite, setting it to 'rawesome' and throwing the mixture right in the middle of the Saitama Super Arena. Everyone from Brock Lesnar to Fedor Emelianenko has participated in this bangemite fest known as Dynamite!! (can't forget the two exclamation marks or the entire universe will collapse...and it will be your fault). So it goes without saying that when Sengoku announced their head to head NYE event, beef started to ensue. Everyone was stoked, Sengoku purchased a 4-hour time slot on December 31st and out of no where Sengoku's main sponsor, Don Quijote, jumped ship to FEG's NYE Dynamite!!. A big 'holy crap' was heard from Sengoku's office and plans for the entire event started to fizzle. World Victory Road (Sengoku's parent company) ceased ticket sales and they officially announced their NYE event will not take place at the Ariake Colosseum. Things looked somewhat grim for Sengoku until FEG (Dream, Dynamite) president, Sadaharu Tanikawa, announced a co-promoted Sengoku vs. Dream NYE card that would feature 5 vs. 5 or 7 vs. 7 bouts along with the supercards we've come to love with FEG (Genki Sudo vs. Butterbean ftw). Now it's being reported that the president of Don Quijote, Yasuda, set up a meeting between FEG to enable this Sengoku vs. Dream co-promotion as an attempt to strengthen Japanese MMA. Initially, Sadaharu Tanikawa planned on letting Sengoku fail and then scooping up as many fighter contracts as possible (including Ishida). However now it looks like FEG's MMA division may be in trouble. FieLDS, Dynamite!!'s primary sponsor, will not renew their contract next year. Today on NHBNews Pro, it was announced that Don Quijote not only wants to replace FieLDS as Dynamite!!'s primary sponsor...but they want to purchase the entire FEG MMA division (which would include Dynamite!! and Dream). This would mean a chain of discount super-stores will own all of Japanese MMA. FEG will hold a joint press conference with Sengoku tomorrow to inform everyone of what exactly is going down in Japan. If anything goes down, we'll let you know...in the meantime, gawk at Alistair Ubereem nearly flying out of the White Cage at Dream 12. Source: Middle Easy Don Quijote sponsored Dynamite!! because we got together with SRC but they are not a sponsor of DREAM. Don Quijote is a company that Japanese MMA must hang on to but for us to enter a relationship with them is a completely different thing than those other companies. Of course, we have our relationships with the TV networks to consider too. Even though we have a good relationship with them, we are completely different story than those other promotions. Source: MMAFighting.com (straight from Keiichi Sasahara) Tokyo Sports reports that the president of Don Quijote, WVR's main sponsor, and FEG president, Sadaharu Tanikawa, have been meeting privately since last month. After a series of meetings, they have reached the co-promotion deal for the NYE event earlier this month. Source: MMAMania.com Don Quijote’s Yasuda arranged some very secret meetings with FEG President Tanigawa to discuss a union angle which would excite MMA fans. FEG were however originally not going to agree to this and just leave SENGOKU be until a possible death and then maybe try to sign Ishii. However, talks came up that FEG’s sponsor, pachinko manufacturer FieLDS, will not renew their contract next year (I think the pachinko industry is doing really bad right now so FieLDS itself might be in a lot of trouble). The article states that currently there is not just discussion about Don Quijote becoming a sponsor of FEG’s MMA branch, but buying it. The article also goes on about how things are currently difficult for K-1 as well. Source: NHBNews Pro Four excellent sources or a guy on a forum who comes from a website that no one has ever heard of (no offense)? Tough one. Got tired of looking for sources but I also heard this from a person on HDNet (the home for MMA here). This may be true. However, it is not hard for me to believe that a young national hero making his debut against a legend (also a national hero) would be able to do that. Even you said they were like Tiger Woods over there. Minowa, etc. A loss in your first ever fight, to a legend, did very well under the circumstances, etc. He is signed to Sengoku and they didn't have an event this month. I'm sure they sent him over there to get some confidence, shake the jitters, etc. I'm not familiar with any but there is bound to be some.

This is not the case or Don Quijote wouldn’t have sponsored Dynamite. That is what lead to Sengoku co-promoting with Dream on the show. The Ishii vs. Yoshida portion had higher ratings than Masato vs. Souwer. You should know that losses are easily forgotten in Japan. Toss a few popular pro wrestlers at Ishii and he will be solid gold. Don Quijote is/was interested in buying it. With the relationship that the company has with Sengoku (even Shooto and Pancrase), this could mean a full merger which would be the best thing that could to Japanese MMA at this time IMO. Mariusz Pudzianowski and sumo wrestler Asashoryu could also be the intriguing freak shows that Bob Sapp once was. The rumored return of Genki Sudo would do wonders as well.

Mr. Know It All brashleyholland (I mean that in a good way): Explain this to me about the state of MMA in Japan. I remember hearing that Kid vs. Warren and Ishii vs. Yoshida both did great ratings in Japan, I don't remember the exact numbers, but one of them got around 20 MILLION viewers. Now, Japan has a smaller population than the United States, yet Dream can draw much more viewers there than the UFC has ever done in the US. How on earth does that mean that Japanese MMA is dead when it is doing fine with much less in America?

Also, Roger Gracie is going to be something if decides to dedicate himself to the sport full time.

Not saying he has done anything, but if Overeem turns out to be clean and can continue to fight this way...<img alt="" data-src="//content.invisioncic.com/g322608/emoticons/eek.png.0e09df00fa222c85760b9bc1700b5405.png" src="<___base_url___>/applications/core/interface/js/spacer.png" />. Good luck to all heavyweights, they will certainly need it.

Who here knows if Brock's last fight against Mir and his upcoming one against Carwin are counted as title defenses or just unifications?

Josh Neer/Melvin Guillard comes to mind.

Off topic I know, but I by some fluke happened to stumble across Jon Fitch's college wrestling page and was surprised to find out that he was not as good a wrestler as I gave him credit for. 1998-1999: 8-8 season record 1999-2000: 8-21-2 season record 2000-2001: 11-8 season record Overall: 27-37-2 Then I looked back and noticed that he hasn't fought many wrestlers during his career: GSP - dominated him Diego - decent wrestling but favors his jiu-jitsu far more Mike Pierce - pretty good wrestler, solid win for Fitch Brock Larson - same as Pierce There could be an explanation for all of this, but that record looks horrible compared to someone like Koscheck who went 42-0 in a single season.

I think it will look like this when all the dust settles UFC: HW 205 185 170 155 WEC: 145 135 125 115 105 And we will have some seriously awesome fights.

@RingofHonorGuard: Thanks for the laughs. Randy Couture has been an elite wrestler for most of his life and will have no problems getting Toney down. He also has a lot of octagon and MMA experience in general with Toney having none and he is ten million times smarter than Toney. It all adds up to a very easy night for Couture IMO.

Give them the reasons I just stated in the previous post as an excuse and tell them to look back at the previous show to see what they are capable of? Something along those lines I'm sure. CBS deserves more credit than they get, they did come back for more after the EliteXC/Kimbo debacle after all. Hopefully Strikeforce will change the way they do cards from here on out, especially CBS cards. Each fight on the last one looked great on paper, but also had the potential to turn out just the way they did (except maybe Aoki-Melendez as I for one never expected that). They were banking on the fact that Hendo and Mousasi were supposed to win in spectacular fashion and overlooked Shields and Lawal's ways to win because it wasn't very likely that they were going to. I think now they should do one main event level fight and fill out the rest of the cards with hungry up and comers who are looking to make a name (Tyron Woodley).