brashleyholland

Things are looking really shaky for the UFC 141 main event right now. Spoke to Randy Couture over the weekend - he was telling people that Overeem had left to look after his mother. Now, I'm hearing two stories from there... 1 - He went home to look after his mum, and in doing so missed a sceduled pre-fight screening. *IF* this is the case, he'll likely be given a pass, as there are extenuating circumstances and he has no past history of failing tests. 2 - He failed a pre-fight drug screening. This is massivly unlikely, as if he'd failed a screening then I believe we'd know about it already, and he certainly wouldn't be on the agenda for today's commission meeting under "Request by mixed martial artist Alistair Overeem for a license, for possible action" as he currently is. It's possible that he missed a scheduled screening due to his family situation and is having to request that a licence is granted if he returns to the states and passes a test pre-fight. You need a clean set of tests to be licensed, and this situation with his mother could have simply thrown his plans out of kilter. Or not. We'll find out later today. Meeting starts at 3pm local, which is about 11 in the UK, I think.

Anyway, personally I'm surprised that they didn't pick up Mamoru Yamaguchi for this tourney. Assuming that he'll get nabbed soon-ish though, along with Jussier da Silva (only loss to Ian McCall), Darrell Montague (only loss at 125 to McCall), Ulysses 'Useless' Gomez (if only for the nickname) BJ Kojima (Shooto flyweight star) and Kiyotaka Shimizu (King of Pancrase). FYI, the shortest of all those guys is 5'2, the rest are 5'4 to 5'6. Same as Frankie Edgar, not that it matters a jot. Also, Kenny Florian has just revealed that he'll be taking up the Dolce diet and going after the winner of the 125lb tournament.

So presumably you can't take Manny Pacquiao or Floyd Mayweather seriously as the world's top boxers? Or Giorgio Petrosyan (or any Thai boxer ever) as the world's top kickboxer? Why does size matter when they're only competing in their own weight class? It makes me laugh when people say they're a fan of the sport just not little guys/heavyweights/whatever. You either like fighting or you don't. Some of the best fights in the history of the sport have happened at 155lbs and below.

Ahh, the good ol' days of the WEC, when Chael Sonnen, Carlos Condit and Brian Stann were lightweights. Damn those guys got fat.

http://i19.photobucket.com/albums/b174/brashleyholland/IMG235.jpg Front row at BAMMA, cold beer, Streets of Rage 2. Oh the good life.

So just to be clear, if he'd made a joke about a news story of kids being asaaulted that broke a couple of years ago, that'd have been totally cool, right? Can we all drop this now anyway? Gone past the point of MMA and I dont want to dicuss it here anymore.

No I don't. I thought what Evans said was funny. You might not, but that doesn't mean it was wrong. Should he have said it? Probably not. Was it 'wrong'? Matter of opinion. Should he be vilified for it? No. Miguel Torres (another victim of 'media backlash' this week) retweeted something great today. "People are perfectly happy to laugh at offensive jokes until the joke offends them. Then it's not funny anymore." Either everything is ok, or nothing is ok. So if anyone is going to give Rashad grief over this, I hope that they've never laughed at any kind of non-PC joke, ever. Because that would make them the worst kind of person in the world: a hypocrite.

Anyway, on an infinitely more pleasant subject... It may be UFC weekend, but is anybody going to/watching BAMMA this weekend? It's on HDNet in the US, Fight Network in Canada and SyFy in the UK. Strangely the SyFy broadcast is only scheduled for 1hr on most TV guides right now, which means 2 fights at the most. HDNet (US) are advertising a 2hr show. They're also saying that Leeroy vs Jack Marshman will be broadcast, which would indicate 5 fights in total. The Fight Network have a 2.5hr slot for the event. I'm guessing folks in North America will get... Manuwa vs Rea Wallhead vs Villasenor Winner vs Gonzalez (sick fight) McVeigh vs Perez Marshman vs Barnes (Lonsdale British Middleweight title fight)

That's entirely a matter of opinion. Many people would agree with you, many wouldn't. Neither party is 'right'.

I don't think he's gonna get in trouble at all, at least not publicly. It seems to be another one of those situations where the media are jumping all over him for what he said, making a bigger issue out of it than it otherwise might have been. Personally...I dunno, I feel that it's a human reaction to use humour/comedy to deal with tragic things. Whenever a celebrity dies, or something awful happens in the news, Twitter, Facebook, email etc is full of jokes about it. Not to everyone's tastes, and certainly not politically correct, but it happens. With Evans, the consideration is that he's a public figure/role model whether he likes it or not. Should he be making comments like that? Probably not. Should he be dragged over the coals for it, fined, suspended etc? Probably not. At most, he was probably spoken to afterwards. Can't see it going any further than that.

This could be a game changer for GSP. 10 months means its a bad tear...I've done it myself and it's unpleasant and difficult to rehab. Will be very interesting to see what kind of fighter GSP is when he eventually steps back in the cage.

Also my little birdie tells me that Bisping vs Maia will be announced today. Evans vs Davis Sonnen vs Munoz Bisping vs Maia That's a particularly sick free card if ever I saw one. Might even make the trip stateside for it.

Faber/Cruz has been on the cards for ages. I think its a great choice. Both have had a few UFC fights now and been exposed to the audience (the reason I'm told that they weren't used to coach the BW/FW season), so it makes perfect sense. In Cruz you have one of the most unbeatable looking champions in the sport and a top pound for pound fighter, and in Faber you have one of the best all time sub-155 fighters with a great personality. He's also a great coach. I'd prefer these guys to previous coaches like Rampage or Mayhem for the shows big revamp. I'm just hoping a few of my pals make it through...BAMMA 155lb champ Rob Sinclair, Tommy '2Gunz' Maguire (brother of John, was actually in the elimination round for season 9) and a couple of others made the interview stages. Got my fingers crossed!

Bellator will be moving to Friday nights from March next year. Now, maybe I'm out of touch with US social habits, but everywhere I've lived in the UK and Europe, Friday night has not been a 'stay in and watch sports/TV' night. Like I say, maybe its different in the US, but Friday night is the traditional 'go out after a week at work night' for most people I know. Also, the move will put them in direct competition with the new, live TUF. Nice move. Don't get me wrong, moving away from Saturday's was a great move considering some of the scheduling stupidity they had last season (Chandler vs Alverez on the same day as Shogun/Hendo, Silva/Le and Faber/Bowles). With the number of cards the UFC are gonna have next year, they'd be blown out of the water. But Friday nights still seems like jumping out of the fire back into the frying pan, so to speak. What's the problem with Thursdays?

Little birdies are telling me that Bisping has been offered Maia or Stann on the undercard.

Exactly what it says on the tin; how far a fighter can reach. It can be confusing sometime though, as some organisations measure it fingertip to fingertip while others go armpit to the end of the fist. So when you hear about Jon Jones having a 84.5 inch reach, that's obviously fingertip to fingertip. Otherwise each of his arms would be 7 feet long :-p

I was being facetious

Yup. Like that guy who soccer kicked Jacare in the face that time. What was his name? ...oh yeah, Jason Miller! :-p

Lay-offs have nothing to do with your cardio as long as you've trained and prepared properly. Miller looked absolute garbage tonight. Getting ready for Cotto vs Margarito now...hopefully a fight where two people have come to throw down, rather than just one.

So which is it, lol?

Yeah, Brandao won me over on the show. Crazy as a bag of spanners and a guy who swings for the fences from the get go: What's not to like? As for the fight, Bermudez' best chance is to drag it out. With that said, his striking defence is garbage, and he gives up submissions easily. Brandao is a legit BJJ blackbelt...I can see him rocking Bermudez, defending the desperation shot then taking his back for the RNC finish. Dodson is a flyweight, pure and simple. He's a great fighter, but he could be just a bit too small for Dillashaw. With that said, he's an incredible athlete and his movement in the cage is exceptional. Plus, his low centre of gravity could actually work to his advantage when it comes to defending takedowns. I'm gonna go with Dodson sticking and moving his way to a decision victory. As for the main event, I read this earlier on Yahoo, which totally sums up Mayhem for me... Anything can happen in MMA...but I could never pick a guy like Miller over a guy like Bisping.

<p>Amazing video from the guys at Ranger Up.</p><p> </p><p> </p><div class="ipsEmbeddedVideo"><div><iframe width="200" height="113" src="https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/exXt5vncJK4?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="" title="Ranger Up Presents: Save the Planet"></iframe></div></div>

<p>Finish of the year? </p><p> </p><p> <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u-uyRzpNqs8" rel="external nofollow">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u-uyRzpNqs8</a></p>

<blockquote data-ipsquote="" class="ipsQuote" data-ipsquote-username="damonster" data-cite="damonster" data-ipsquote-contentapp="forums" data-ipsquote-contenttype="forums" data-ipsquote-contentid="26660" data-ipsquote-contentclass="forums_Topic"><div>Munoz vs. Sonnen for UFC on Fox 2? Does anyone believe this rumor, I don't but hope it's true.</div></blockquote><p> </p><p> I know for a fact that it's been offered and is still on the cards. </p><p> </p><p> The original plan for UFC on Fox was to have Rampage fight Shogun if A) Shogun beat Hendo and B) he didn't get smashed to bits in the process. Obviously neither of those things happened. </p><p> </p><p> Because of that, I'd say there's a pretty good chance of Munoz/Sonnen going down. </p><p> </p><p> In terms of the fight...I've really rated Munoz for a while, but after seeing how he struggled with the likes of Okami, I can see Sonnen giving him fits. I know its a sweeping generalisation, but if you're getting taken down by Chris Leben, a fight against Chael Sonnen probably isn't gonna go too well for you.</p>

<p>James Thompson might just have taken the title for "Best Post Fight Speech" from Chael Sonnen after his fight at KSW 17 tonight.</p><p> </p><p> NOT safe for work, unless your work involves swearing at Polish people. </p><p> </p><p> <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0dnat46Pb4U&feature=player_embedded" rel="external nofollow">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0dnat46Pb4U&feature=player_embedded</a></p>