brashleyholland

It was bittersweet...I've been following the careers of both these guys for a long time now, Fedor nearly a decade and Hendo since his first UFC appearance which was...(checks wiki)...damn, 13 years ago. Thankfully it was a great fight, good bit of back and forth action and a crazy "It's all over...no it isn't...NOW it's all over" ending. Top notch drama for sure. Size wise there was what, 16lbs or something between them on the scales? Not a huge amount of difference, and as we saw Fedor wasn't really able to use any kind of size advantage anyway. Anyone calling that an early stoppage wants their head checking btw...if a fighter gets hit so hard that he goes limp and face-plants (even if it's only for a second) then any ref who doesn't stop it is being irresponsible, simple as that. Herb is respected amongst referees world wide as the best in the business right now..I completely agree, with Grant Waterman a close second.

Or this guy.... ...dunno about good, but I'm sure he would have let it go, lol

Ha! Awesome!

You sure it was the real Chael? Because you don't show up in his feed and he doesn't usually tweet much....if it was from @thechaelsonnen then it's not him :-p His real one is @Sonnench

Cheesy I know, but it's like Rocky Balboa said - "It ain't about how hard ya hit...it's about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward". Both these guys can get hit pretty hard and keep moving forward...should make for a war.

....maybe? They're scrambling round at the moment, as there's a slight worry that Kong won't be able to make the Trigg fight. Tom was supped to fight British kickboxing champion Luke Sines in a UK-1 rules bout at Ultimate Challenge next weekend, but he pulled out last night (Dean Amasinger has stepped in for what will be a very tough test)...he's told Dave O'Donnell, who I interviewed today) that he could be out till the end of the year. Now whether he's just making excuses to get out of the UCMMA fight...I'm not too sure. Thing is...BAMMA and UCMMA don't exactly get along and it seems like UCMMA signed Kong and Valentino Petrestcu (both announced for BAMMA 7) to kickboxing bouts as an 'F-you' of sorts. It could be that BAMMA have leaned on Tom to pull out of UCMMA, or it could be that his injury (which is real, but he says he can fight through it) is legit bad. So yeah, if it's the latter, then a spot could open up at the top of the card. That's all I can say really :-p I'm looking forward to the fight, I don't know that Fedor is getting sleepy-timed though. He's never been knocked out...then again neither has Hendo. I'm thinking that this will look a lot like the Lindland fight, except Hendo will last longer and put up more of a fight. Still think he'll get subbed though. Whatever happens it should be a lot of fun...although Fedor having fought Lindland and Henderson but not Couture will always bum me out :-p

Is there any possible way to be clearer than that? All this happened about three days ago, he wasn't hurt at all. Apart from in his wallet of course :-p

Nah he's fine. He'll be going after that sub of the night bonus again though to get his Royce fixed...that won't come cheap! :-p

At least Joe Silva is earning his crust this month! Constantinos Philippou stepping in, should make for a good fight.

You should go anyway, get some cheap seats. Even the cheap seats are good in that arena the way they're gonna configure it at the atmosphere is great. I've seen some of the undercard fight's they're working on and it looks to be value for money from top to bottom. Travellodge are doing rooms for about £30 as well, so if you came with a mate you could go to the event and get a hotel for £40 each.

Some HUGE (in my opinion) BAMMA/UK MMA news. http://t.co/X2EKdAj For those to lazy to read my masterfully crafted bit of typing, the tl/dr is... -BAMMA are going to be bringing in full athletic commission style testing (disease, drugs of abuse, PEDs), full medicals, mandatory MRI's, medical suspensions, the works. - They're doing it in three phases, the first being random drug testing of their contracted fighters. They hope to have full commission-style regulation in place in the next 12 months. - They've been talking about it for 4 months, so it's nothing to do with Marquardt's signing. Lots more details in the article.

Some more details on the Nate Maquardt/BAMMA signing, courtesy of yours truly. http://bit.ly/ouBONX

Last time they were £500, this time I believe they're £150 so I'd say yeah, very worth it. Great view. This isn't a great pic for gauging the other seats, but this is front row in the VIP section at BAMMA 6. So just imagine this, but a few rows back with my mohawk obscuring your view :-p http://i19.photobucket.com/albums/b174/brashleyholland/IMG_0916.jpg You get waitress service all night, a private bar (that will charge you about £4.50 for half a pint, lol) and transport/entrance to the VIP afterparty, where you can buy me a pint. So yeah, come :-D I don't think they will VIP tickets, but we'll be running a contest in a week or so for a few pairs of tix if anyone wants to wait and try their luck. I'll link it here when it goes up.

I'll tell you in about 72 hours :-p I spoke to Liam (BAMMA VP) a couple of hours ago, the situation is basically that Nate is good to go, but the quality of opponent they want for him might not be interested on taking that fight on six weeks notice. They're having some conversations over the next few days. If not, he'll be fighting for them in December and Feb.

Also, my good friends at BAMMA have signed Nate Marquardt....interesting things happening here....

That's pretty cool for you guys, getting a title fight on free TV. First one since the Rampage vs Hendo Pride/UFC unification bout in 2007 if memory serves (which it often doesn't)? Makes no difference to us lot in the UK as the Versus, UFN and numbered events are all on ESPN anyway. In terms of the fight though, it should be an interesting one. We know that Cruz can handle speedy guys and wrestling machines (Faber and Jorgensen)...I'm not sure if Johnson is gonna be bringing anything new to the table in terms of skills. Brad Pickett had his number all night long and Cruz brings a similar challenge. Cruz takes this one by late (T)KO stoppage, and (assuming that Pickett beats Barao in Birmingham, which is no foregone conclusion) sets up a Cruz/Pickett title fight for the ages early next year.

Was that Griffin/Ortiz 2? Or Evans/Silva? Either way, that sucks I remember when UFC 85 in London was supposed to be Liddell vs Shogun (back when Chuck was still a big deal). Then it was Liddell vs Evans. Then Chuck pulled out. Then Evans was supposed to fight James Irvin, but Irvin dropped out and Evans was scrubbed. Then Bisping's opponent (Leben) pulled out. Ryo Chonnan and Neil Wain also withdrew, and a bout between Paul Kelly and Jon Goulet was scrapped outright. We ended up with Bisping vs Jason Day and Matt Hughes vs Thaigo Alves, which was pretty cool...apparrt from when the news spread that Alves was injured and might not fight a few days before weigh-ins, and came in 4lbs over, which caused rumours that Hughes might bail. The card's name? Bedlam :-D

Even if they did go to Sky Box Office and started charging £30 a time (which is twice the going rate for PPV in the UK) we'd still be getting it cheaper than our American cousins. $900 to watch all 15 PPV events last year. In the UK you're looking at $190 for a year's ESPN subscription which gets you tons of sports and every UFC live event. Most people have it included in their TV package gratis anyway. I dunno, I see this every year...people moan that they don't come, then they moan that they don't come often enough, then they moan about the fight cards when they do come. Yet every time the arena's are pretty much full (far more tickets are sold percentage-wise than most US events)...so clearly fans are happy enough to buy a ticket. I agree, it would be nice if the UFC put title fights on over here, etc. My question is this: Why on earth would the UFC throw millions of dollars away by staging a PPV-worthy fight in the UK? Why would any company do that in the current climate? Because it'd be nice? They're running a business, not a charity. They don't owe us anything. Looks like Brad Pickett is going to be on the card as well btw, another great value for money fighter. I was at his last fight in Birmingham against Paul Reed...war is the only fitting description. Brutal, brutal fight.

Cheap seats aren't bad in places like the MEN, but I've only ever sat in them for the weigh ins. Lower tier are great though. Probably won't be an expo, as the last one they did over here was a total disaster financially. Tix usually go on sale 8 weeks-ish before the fight. Go sign up to the UFC newsletter and you get a pre-sale code. And no worries man, happy to help

If I remember rightly, cheap seats for the last one in London were 75-80 quid. Lower tier were 120, floor were 250, cageside 500.

You've got three months dude, start saving those pennies! :-D

This I really don't get...how is this taking the you-know-what? It's a great fight between two fringe title contenders. Just like every other Spike TV main event. People who are complaining about this fight...I really don't know what to say to them. If you like fights, you like this fight.

Yeah, that never happened :-p Gracie beat Ichihara, LeLucia, Pardoel and Smith, none of whom were alternates, or had beaten alternates. The only alternate at UFC 2 was Fred Ettish, who stepped in for Frank Hamaker (who, fun fact, I've taken kickboxing lessons from) in the 1/4 finals. You might be thinking of UFC 3, which was won by Steve Jennum, who was himself an alternate, replacing Ken Shamrock in the final. He beat Harold Howard in the final, who had received a bye of sorts in his semi-final bout when Gracie came to the cage before deciding not to fight. Shamrock fought Felix Mitchel in the semi's, who was a replacement for Keith Hackney. This is exactly what I, and many others, said when this whole thing was announced. I can't be bothered going back to look for it, but I wrote an article saying that there was no way in hell that A) This thing would be finished in 2011 and B) With all it's original participants in place. I specifically stated that Fedor and Overeem would be the problems here...got that one half right I suppose :-p I've said it before and I'll say it again - the timing of the fight is not the issue here. I know I sound like an ass saying that I know without actually saying what I know, but there are certain things I get told in my line of work that are told to me 'off the record'. When that happens, I literally don't tell my colleagues, my Mrs or my own mother. It's nothing crazy or sinister...completely the opposite in fact. It's just that with situations like this, it's bad form to discuss it in the press. There are also legal considerations - MMA contracts aren't historically the most water-tight things in the world (especially Strikeforce ones), but they're still contracts. Fighters, their managers and promoters have to be very careful what they say in public. Remember business as usual? :-p

Is Rey wearing a KISS mask? Well that's made my night!

If anyone is buying that this is all because of an injured little toe, I've got a couple of famous bridges for sale that you may be interested in :-p