brashleyholland

It's gonna be interesting to see how the UFC play it. My guess is that (for now, at least) we'll see women's bouts as 'featured attractions' - co-main events on PPV or Fox cards. You've got Honda Housey vs Cyborg, which seems inevitable. Then there's Coenen, McMann and a few others down the line. Something is definitely going on with the UFC and Invicta at the moment - I fully expect them to become the unofficial (or possibly even official) feeder league to the UFC before long. Invicta on FUEL in a years time? Ronda vs Carano TUF? Maybe not a million miles away...

You don't understand the appeal of the company's best salesman versus the guy who will probably be their biggest and most prominent star over the next five years, with nearly half a year's build up? Seems pretty clear to me.

Serra vs GSP, maybe. Gonzaga vs Cro-Cop. JDS vs Werdum and Thiago vs Koscheck, to a lesser extent. Sokoudju vs Little Nog and Arona.

Sons of Anarchy is back....wow, what an episode. Loving where they're taking some of the regular characters - can't wait to see how it pans out. What stood out though was, for me, one of the most harrowing scene's I've ever seen in a TV show. If you've seen it, you know exactly what I'm taking about...if you've not - go see it!

From the legendary 'Dear Don' column. Ken Shamrock: I heard a rumour that you copied your moustache from Freddy Mercury...is that true Don? Don Frye: I heard that you lost your virginity to Freddy Mercury. But I defended you. I said no...Ken Shamrock lost his virginity to a man waaaay before he started dating Freddy Mercury. Don Frye wins the internet.

Wash your mouth out, Don Frye on the mic can do no wrong!! Was that the show where he was talking about getting into a fist fight with his wife when he came home drunk? I love Don Frye.

I don't particularly mind someone *like* Angle in the booth as a third man, although I'm not a fan of three-man booths in MMA. UFC used to get it right when they occasionally had someone like Couture pop in for one fight, but otherwise it's too crowded for me. Angle chiming in on the wrestling side of things could be ok...but as far as I'm aware the guy is delusional as far as MMA goes. I remember reading an interview with him years ago when Liddell was on top, saying that he's simply ankle-pick him and the fight would be over. If he *ever* starts talking about what he'd do in there, or what he could do in there, I fully endorse Bas choking him out like on air. Best MMA commentary team for me will always be Quadros and Rutten in the 90's/00's. I guess that's probably a case of what you grew up with always being the best in your eyes. Mauro has come on a lot though, and for all the stick they get (because it's cool to hate the UFC), Goldy and Rogan are the best in the business right now. Having started commentating on fights myself recently, I've got a new found respect for what they do.

Someone has to do it! My girls Brooklyn and Nat! Get involved with Cage Warriors Fight Night 7 on Sat, MMAJunkie, yo! http://i19.photobucket.com/albums/b174/brashleyholland/424359_481357408550380_757440318_n1.jpg

Guys, I can't stress enough how awesome this Saturday's Cage Warriors card is going to be. With UFC 151 not being on, you'd be mad not to tune in. If you're outside the UK, it's free on MMAJunkie as well, with the prelims on Facebook. If you're in the UK, you can catch the Facebook prelims free, and the main card on Sky Sports this Wednesday at 11pm. Get involved!

Combining the MMA and 'Grinds My Gears' threads.... I just arrived in Amman, Jordan for Cage Warriors this Saturday - we get a 20% discount on food at the hotel...and I still shelled out over 25 quid for a burger and a pint of lager. Wow.

Contracts and bout agreements are separate things. Many UFC contracts stipulate that you can turn down your first opponent but have to take the second one offered to you. I don't know if Jones' contract has that clause - I'm leaning towards 'no' though as he's one of the 'elite' guys they have on the books and has a powerful management team behind him. Even if there was a clause that said "You have to fight whoever we say, whenever we say" how are you going to enforce that? You can't force a human being to fight, any more than you can force him to stack shelves in a shop, paint houses or sell insurance. You can fire him if he breaks a clause in his contract, maybe even get some money out of him...but you can't force him to fight someone he doesn't want to fight.

It's nothing to do with earning a shot, it's an 11th hour replacement. And if that was the reason Jones' camp were giving (its not) then tough - it's not up to them to decide who has earned the shot. The champion should fight whoever he's told to fight by the promoter who pays his wages, just like every other fighter. The champion is supposed to be the guy who takes on all comers, any time, any place. If Sonnen is such an unworthy opponent, why not smash him to bits and make seven-figures for the privilege? Jones is all about money, right? He said not a week or so ago that he wan't interested in the Machida rematch because nobody wanted to see it so he wouldn't make as much money off it. Now he's happy to fight Machida in a few weeks time, but not an 85'er with no camp who apparently isn't good enough to deserve a shot anyway?

I'm just going to say this for now... When fighters can pick and choose who they compete against and under what terms, things are going wrong. See: Boxing - a sport with clearly defined ranking systems that leave no doubt as to who is next in line for a particular belt, but where it's possible to pay that person to step aside so that the 'champion' can fight whoever he wants. With that said you can't force a man to work, whether his job is fighting or selling shoes. You can only deal with him afterwards. I'm going to be very interested to see how this affects the Jones/UFC relationship.

Here is the latest in what is quickly becoming a series of pictures I shall call 'Brad gets far too drunk and bumps into people who look like MMA fighters'. This dude seriously looks like Clay Guida. %5Bimg%5Dhttp%3A//i19.photobucket.com/albums/b174/brashleyholland/IMG_2223.jpg[/img] I tried to get a better picture (or at least one where my eyeballs were pointing in the right direction) but he wouldn't keep still. Wait a minute....

So I was at Warning, a big drum 'n' bass rave (10pm till 6am - I'm getting to old for this you-know-what) last Saturday. Obviously due to the time, I missed UFC 150 live. But look who I bumped into working security at about 4am...Josh Koscheck! Glad he's keeping busy through his injury. http://i19.photobucket.com/albums/b174/brashleyholland/bradkos.jpg (And yes, that is the new Korean Zombie shirt I'm rocking )

I think people often confuse the term 'robbery' with 'I thought the other guy won'. That fight wasn't a robbery in any way shape or form. I love close fights - to me it means that the two guys are evenly matched, which is exactly how it should be at the top end of MMA. I get more bored (well, maybe board isn't the best term) watching guys like Silva and Jones smash everyone to bits. As for Edgar, I can't see how people can get bored of this guy. He went from 'why is he getting a title shot?' to beating one of the all-time greats twice, then putting on possibly 9 of the best rounds of MMA ever against Maynard, to two agonisingly close decisions against another incredible talent in Hederson. What more do people want from the guy? Hopefully he goes down to 145 for a while now, where at least he won't be giving up as much size. How good would Edgar vs Hominick, Jung or Poirier be?

You'd be surprised dude. Lots of guys at all levels brick it.

Update on what I posted earlier - Kizer says no. http://www.mmafighting.com/2012/8/10/3233642/nsacs-keith-kizer-no-way-for-alistair-overeem-to-apply-early-for

C-c-c-crazy news from Alistair Overeem!

<p>The problem they're gonna have is time. Technically, it is possible for them to pull this fight off. They'd need to get a special hearing convened for the day before the fight and they'd need Reem to be licensed at that hearing. They'd have to basically set a new precedent here, as usually a fighter cannot apply for a hearing until his suspension is up. Presuming it'll be in Vegas though, they might get it pushed through. </p><p> </p><p> The risk is huge though - what if something comes out in the hearing that means they can't licence him? What if he fails a test a couple of days before? I'm not even sure if it's legal to sell tickets for a fight where one of the participants is unlicensed. It's a bit of a grey area, I'm trying to get it clarified. </p><p> </p><p> Lets say they can get around the red tape - there's still the chance, however minute, that Reem doesn't get licensed. That would mean that someone (presumably Cain Velasquez) would have to step in on a day's notice. That makes no sense for anyone. There's nothing to be gained by either Cain or JDS taking that big of a fight on a day's notice. Even if he's already in a fight on the undercard, he'd have to be prepping for two guys which is never good. Reminds me of the Shamrock/Ortiz/Liddell situation from way back.</p>

Kinda surprised that FO didn't verify it themselves before posting it, or at least say that they were awaiting verification. I'm guessing with it being wrestling that they simply didn't care enough - but that's no excuse. My guess is that the story probably wasn't true (or nearly as dramatic) and that the story went out on WO by mistake. It's happened to me before - I've had a story up and accidentally put it live before I was ready too. So then some sad act who's constantly F5'ing the WO page sees it and fan-shots it on BE, then it's taken down from WO. FO saw it and went a bit cavalier, posting it without checking out the story. With that said - according to someone on twitter it never showed up in their WO RSS feed, which it would have even if it was deleted 5 seconds later. If that's true then the BE fan post was a troll job and FO bit. Fighters Only have since taken the story down.

<p>If you click on the link in the Fighter's Only report (where it cites WO) it actually takes you to a dead BloodyElbow (part of SBN) page. I'm guessing that it was a troll fan post or fan shot that got deleted, and someone at FO bit without checking. D'Oh! :-p </p><p> </p><p> Their assistant editor here in the UK is a pal of mine, I'll give him a shout an see what's up :-p</p><p> </p><p> EDIT: The story was apparently deleted from the WO a short while ago, with the BE story pulled just after that.</p>

<p>So Brock Lesnar has apparently beat somebody up and gone AWOL. LOL.</p><p> </p><p> <a href="http://ht.ly/cMrVs" rel="external nofollow">http://ht.ly/cMrVs</a></p>

It was, the decision was made on the day, just a few hours before the fights. I can't really say a whole lot about it at the moment, but lets just say that somebody should have been a little bit more careful when they were sewing up the rights to their catchphrase :-p

Did anybody notice Bruce Buffer's new catchphrase? "It's fight time!"