brashleyholland

I have been told by someone who works for the UFC as one of their Spike TV liaisons, that the network has final say over what goes on....which is the same with any network and makes perfect sense. So while they may not have the kind of influence to say "We want Jeff Hardy to be the TNA champion for the next six months", it's probable that if TNA did a storyline where a good guy with a white supremacist gimmick beat up on 'evil' black guys each week then burned a Koran live on Impact, they could certainly veto the idea. The issue is that TNA doesn't really have anyone or anything that Spike can 'ask for' in order to spike (no pun intended) ratings. They've often come to verbal blows with the UFC over wanting certain fights or fighters (Penn, Rampage, even Lesnar at one point) on Fight Nights or 'numbered' UFCs on their network. However who or what does TNA have that would give them cause to say "We want THAT every week"?

Seconded. Downloaded the first episode of series 3 this morning (we're years behind on TV in the UK), really enjoyed it. Great episode, great soundtrack again.

I train takedown defence with Rugby players, have done for years

Just heard an interesting rumour from somebody 'in the know' that Todd Duffee's dismissal from the UFC had something to do with him faking (or at least exaggerating) the knee injury that forced him out of his fight with Jon Madsen at UFC 121, only to be caught out accepting roles in movies to be filmed during that time. Interesting.... Also, Overeem vs Edwards and Le Banner vs Kyotaro have been officially confirmed for the final 16, with more bouts coming today. It seems like Aerts, Saki and Spong have been chosen from the 'fan vote' list...with Daniel Ghita also tipped. That leaves two spots.... Heard a rumour of Aerts fighting Teixeira. DEEP have announced that Jung Hwan Cha will step in for Yoshiyuki Yoshida against Ryo Chonan, the man who he upset earlier this year at Astra. Aoki, Minowa, Kikuno, Mizaki (very doubtful) DJ Taiki, Kikuta etc still not confirmed.

Well there you go. Game, set and match. British fighters need to do something about their takedown defence/ability to get up/win from the bottom. We suck at it. End of story.

Here's how I see it. Maurice Smith, at 36 years old and after a career that consisted of nothing but striking sports, got to the level where he beat Mark Coleman, under a rule set that favoured the wrestler infinitely more than the current system. If that is possible, then Dan Hardy, a young man with his best years ahead of him who has trained striking and grappling arts for nearly a decade, can figure out how to defend takedowns. With that said, I do agree that something should be done about stalling in MMA. I don't like the Yellow card system as it stands because it's too subjective and until there is a unified training/qualification system in place for refs, it'll be more trouble than it's worth. If there *was* standardised training for refs, you wouldn't need the cards, as everyone would be clear on what constituted 'timidity' under the Unified Rules, so there wouldn't be a problem with stand-ups/point deductions. Unfortunately I don't see it happening this decade, if ever.

That was the risk with Ken though, or any MMA/wrestling crossover. It's tough to bill someone as a legit bad ass, or 'The World's Most Dangerous Man' when they're....well, not. Ken's record is 3-10 since leaving the WWF...even in the years immediately following his departure, he had two high-profile losses in Japan, and was used as nothing more than a punch bag by Tito Ortiz for three rounds in what was at the time the UFC's highest-profile fight. If I was the WWF at the time of his departure, I'd have been dubious about investing in Ken as a top-shelf wrestler. You'd never know if he would up and leave to fight again (and as it turned out, their no-compete with regards to that wasn't worth the paper it was printed on), and what shape his image would be if he did. History has shown that they made the right call.

Ken was a pro-wrestler long before he became famous from Pancrase and the UFC though. He started in 1988 in the US (remember that story about him getting beaten up by The Nasty Boys?), before going to Japan and learning 'shoot-style' and eventually doing a legit shoot-fight before his 'MMA' debut in Pancrase in 1993. It wasn't a case of him coming to the UFC from the WWF and being a natural. Also on the whole 'Shamrock being better at crazy' thing....Ken is a legitimately troubled and volatile person. I've been lucky enough to meet him numerous times over the years and even went through a toned-down version of the infamous Lion's Den 'breakdown' routine...he is one of the few MMA guys I've met who is legit intimidating, not because he's any tougher or scarier looking than anyone else, just because he has that thing about him where he seems like he could lose it at any second. I guess it's a case of a guys 'real' personality making for the best character.

Don't worry, you'll have him back soon :-p

So, with less than a week until belltime, Shine Fights have supposedly moved the location of their PPV event from Virginia to Oklahoma, which I'm informed is about halfway across America for all intents and purposes. Reason for the move: Shine, which is promoting it's PPV around an 8-man lightweight tournament, allowed fans to vote for the first-round match-ups. The Virginia commission, remembering for a moment that they were not, in fact, in Japan, reminded Shine that a professional matchmaker's duties include making sure fighters are matched up fairly in terms of record, ability and experience, not on the whim of a couple of hundred MMA fans who probably only recognised the names 'Drew Fickett' and 'Crazy House Bennett'. (Surprise surprise, Fickett and Bennett got paired up, by the way.) As such they denied Shine a licence. So the event is now in Oklahoma...although Shine's website still says Virginia and has a link to buy tickets there. There is no venue for fans to buy tickets at in Oklahoma, nor is there any advertising locally for the show. At all. More worryingly, given Shine's track record, is that there is currently nothing advertised about Virginia fans who had already purchased tickets getting their money back. Looks like a disaster and if it's all true, probably the end of Shine, which is absolutely a good thing. This is two events in a row they've put in jeopardy through incompetence; frankly, the MMA world is better off without promoters like this. Got a more in-depth look at it going up in a few days (giving Shine time to respond to some questions first), will link it here.

Hehe, I always thought he was far too nice to be called 'Ice Cold' :-p Rodney 'Sho Nuff Tha Masta' Wallace has got to be up there while we're on topic.

When he was at school, American kids who couldn't pronounce his name 'Ulysses' would call him 'Useless' as a jibe. He adopted it as his fighting nickname as an adult...apparently on one of his first day in the gym someone asked him what his name was, and the guy thought he said 'Useless', so it stuck. Awesome nickname, probably one of my favourites in MMA. Fun fact: He knocked out former WBA and IBF champion Fernando Vargas at a UFC 71 after party. Completely tooled him. Here's fun....favourite MMA nicknames? Always loved 'The Ukraine Freight Train' for Igor Vovchanchyn.

This is probably the best news I've heard all year. SOA is just awesome, start to finish. Only discovered it early this year, watch both seasons in a week. Quality.

You wouldn't have missed too much live....Bellator had technical difficulties and couldn't broadcast pretty much the entire first fight on the live broadcast. With that in mind, I won't spoil the results for anyone who hasn't seen it yet...but while we're on the subject... This is yet another reason why Bellator are destined to fail. Their TV deal is almost counter-productive. You can't build an audience if your shows are bouncing around time-slots, or sometime just not shown at all. Warren-Sota was a big fight for them, but I wonder how many people saw it live, as it happened? It's another indicator of how un-ready America is for MMA as a sport. Bellator have two USP's that make them perfect for TV. Firstly, they can produce 'seasons' of weekly programming fairly cheaply. Secondly, they have the tournament format that provides an ongoing narrative, giving people a reason to tune in next week, the week after and so on. Unfortunately the seasons, the tournaments, the champions and the promotion itself all becomes irrelevant if nobody can watch or a stable, regular basis. If, and it's a big if, Season four takes place, a new TV deal is going to make or break them.

Yeah, I'm jumping on a plane for that one

Seconded. The shirt is on my shopping list, but they seem to sell out in seconds over here. Bodes well for Paul Daley coming back once the dust has settled in a year or so. If Karo shows up looking like he did in Oz though, he'll be one-and-done. Would love to see a fight between him and Nate though.

<blockquote data-ipsquote="" class="ipsQuote" data-ipsquote-username="Self" data-cite="Self" data-ipsquote-contentapp="forums" data-ipsquote-contenttype="forums" data-ipsquote-contentid="26660" data-ipsquote-contentclass="forums_Topic"><div>Gray Maynard came off to me as a fantastic heel against Ken-Flo. He's got this 'jerk' look, and he fought to win, and thoroughly embarrassed the hometown babyface/let Kenny embarrass himself. Based on what little I know, I'd put my money on Maynard to beat Edgar. He beat him before, and Frankie Edgar didn't hugely impress me against Penn. Styles win fights, and while Frankie has BJ's number, I think Maynard has Frankie's. <p> </p><p> Interested to see what happens. It would need one hell of a co-main event for me to buy the show.</p></div></blockquote><p> </p><p> The word at the moment is that this will be the co-main event of the Silva-Sonnen rematch.</p>

I'm going to disagree. I think Maynard is a horrible match up for Edgar...once he's on his back, everything that was good about his last two fights will be irrelevant. As much as I'm not looking forward to it, I think it'll almost be a carbon copy of their first fight. What I'm really not looking forward to is the hundreds of "Edgar should move down to 145" comments that will follow the five-round grind-fest that Maynard will put on him.

Brett Rogers is taking a 'get right fight' outside of Strikeforce against (wait for it)......Ruben 'Warpath' Villareal (16-16-3...and god knows how many unsanctioned fights). He's the big Native American dude who used to fight in King of the Cage and Gladiator Challenge in facepaint.

Completely agree with this. It does irk me tremendously when I see something copy-pasted onto an MMA NEWZ site or forum and think "Hmm, that looks familiar...oh yes, I wrote it" :-p The long and short of it is that even if you link back, who needs to click it if the entire article is posted? That's taking money out of my pocket as far as I'm concerned. I guess it's the nature of the internet though...

Andrei Arlovski is being considered for a free pass into the K-1 Final 16 this year. HA! I wonder what it would look like if a man's jaw was actually punched right off his head...guess we could be about to find out... Basically, because K-1 weren't able to run the number of regional GP's they had originally planned on, there are more 'wildcard' spots than usual this year. The 8 finalists from last year (Schilt, Hari, Overeem, Le Banner Zimmerman, Karaev and Teixeira, minus Bonjasky, who is recovering from eye surgery), the heavyweight champion (Keijiro Maeda) and the winners of the two regional GP's they managed to hold (Freddy Kemayo and Ben Edwards) are already in, leaving SIX open slots. K-1 are asking fans to vote in a poll on their website for who deserves the final slots. Notable names on the list are: Peter Aerts Daniel Ghita Singh Jaideep Melvin Manhoef Tyrone Spong Alexi Ignashov Gokhan Saki Chalid Aarab Sergei Kharitonov Making up the rest of the list are a wealth of Europe-based fighters and Takumi Sato, who is probably a lock, what with him being Japanese and K-1 having one of the most blatant national biases in the history of sports :-p I'd be very surprised if Aerts didn't make the final 16 for similar reasons, he's an institution in the GP. I'm surprised that Le Banner's name is in the mix though, as there was a lot of talk of last year's GP being his sawnsong as far as the tourney's go. With that said, arriving in Japan hours the night before the fights and basically laying down for Schilt would have been a horrible way to go out.

The takedown was pretty much perfect for a low single, it's just not the kind of takedown you see very often in MMA. The lack of wrestling shoes, combined with the fact that anyone with intermediate-level grappling skills will be able to avoid/counter it, make it a no-no in MMA. I remember Kurt Angle, when he was in one of his "I'm going to the UFC" phases, saying something about ankle-picking Chuck Liddell because "nobody ever did that". I was gutted that he never got to find out why "nobody ever did that" :-p

I think that's where the interest is. If it was Toney vs Machida, Shogun, Velasquez, Mir etc, then it'd be a much more cut and dry situation in most people's minds. Couture's supposed 'frailty' at his age is the x-factor in this fight. You make an excellent point, and I'm sure you're not alone in that way of thinking. I've been talking to a number of people in the business as well as fans, and one of the things I keep hearing is how surprised they are that the UFC didn't go for the real hard sell on this PPV. Obviously the Toney/Couture fight was always going to be the selling point, but Edgar has received almost zero coverage. He's the champion, he's the number one ranked lightweight in the world...and he's fighting one of the best of all time in a 'revenge' match. This had UFC Primetime written all over it, even a dual one including Toney and Couture would have made sense. I'm really looking forward to seeing the numbers for this one....

Ahhh, the Schilt method of defending takedowns...gotta love it!

Yeah, I read that yesterday, it's a really good overview of the situation, and it's not a great situation by any means. Couple of other interesting notes: No money has changed hands yet between PUJI and FEG K-1 are still paying off the huge tax bills from when Kazuyoshi Ishii (K-1's 'Godfather') went to prison for tax evasion, etc. According to this interview with the editor of Kampiro, Tsui Saito (Japanese MMA mag), there's even more afoot. - Japanese fighters aren't getting paid either, but are warned not to speak out. - FEG have been using their profits from Dynamite! 2009 to pay fighters during the 2010 calender. - At one point there was talk of canning Dream 16, the MAX Finals and even (GULP) the WGP 2010 Finals. On the plus side, Dream 16 is going to shown on at primetime on TBS, with the latest Kameda boxing match as a lead in. Last time they did that their ratings were great. Also, with the lack of money in Japanese MMA right now, there is less and less involvement from the Yakuza. They'll never leave the fight business alone, but they've actually taken to promoting their own MMA/fight shows (not for TV, obviously). They usually involve riots, brawls and random chaotic interludes at least three or four times an evening, but the fights come first. Now THAT I'd like to see on HD Net!