MMA Thread (UFC, Pride, K-1, etc) - Page 3

Martianman, it looks like you are getting your Olaf wish. According to The Pride FC Official Website, Olaf Anderson is on the next Bushido card on June 4. He's scheduled to get his lead leg snapped in half by Mach Sakurai's leg kicks.

Oh yeah, I almost forgot that that UFC 60 is this Saturday. They have a decent card lined up, headlined by Matt Hughes v. Royce Gracie (the fights on the main card are in bold):

Matt Hughes v. Royce Gracie (175 lb limit, non-title fight)
Brandon Vera v. Assuerio Silva
Mike Swick v. Joe Riggs
Diego Sanchez v. John Allesio
Melvin Guillard v. Rick Davis
Spencer Fisher v. Matt Wiman
Dean Lister v. Allesio Sakara
Gabriel Gonzaga v. Fabiano Scherner
Jeremy Horn v. Chael Sonnen

Vera-Silva and Swick-Riggs are going to be monster fights. Someone is getting knocked out. If Vera beats Silva, he will automatically become a contender for the HW belt. While Gonzaga-Scherner might be kind of a slow, methodical BJJ fight and Hughes-Gracie has the possibility of ending up with manslaughter charges being brought against the WW Champ, I see a bunch of really good matchups.

Edited to show fights on main card (i.e., guaranteed to be televised).

If you like quick brutal knockouts and slick submissions, UFC 60 was a great show. Only one of the nine fights went to a decision. It was also the only fight that went into the third round.

John Allesio took Diego Sanchez the distance behind his jab and takedown defense. Diego pushed the fight all three rounds, trying takedown after takedown. Allesio stuffed every single one. Alessio threw stiff jabs, but didn't use any combinations. Neither fighter really did anything to hurt the other until the surreal final 3 minutes. In the clinch, Diego took Alessio's back, climbing up and getting hooks in. Allesio calmly carried Diego over to Allesio's corner where Jeremy Horn started giving instructions. Allesio attempted an odd-looking arm bar while Diego worked hard for a rear naked choke. They remained in this piggyback position for the final few minutes as Diego gave up on the choke attempts and unleashed a flury of punches to Allesio's head to close out the fight. Diego won the unanimous decision as Allesio made no real attempts to close out the fight. The crowd booed, but I saw no way Allesio was going to take this fight with just takedown defense.

Brandon Vera submitted Assuerio Silva via guillotine choke in the first round. They traded low kicks and quick jabs early, until Vera accidentally poked Silva in the eye. After a break, Silva came out angry and agressive. As Silva shot from a good distance away, Vera grabbed Silva's head, pulled guard, and sunk in the choke. This is a huge win for Vera, who finally showed his great submission skills.

Mike Swick also used the guillotine choke to end his fight with Joe Riggs in the first round. The fighters circled each other for the first minute, before Swick stepped in to throw some quick combinations. Riggs shot in and got caught. Swick gets a quality win and puts himself on track for a title shot in the next year or so.

Dean Lister completely outclassed Allesio Sakara, slapping on a slick triangle choke early in the first round. Lister took the boxer down early and put on a guard clinic. After using the omoplata shoulderlock to improve position, he set up the move a second time. When Sakara moved to defend, Lister transitioned smoothly to a triangle choke, forcing Sakara to tap. After the fight, Lister said he would be dropping down to 185.

In the main event Matt Hughes punished Royce Gracie, getting the TKO late in the first round. Royce, fighting for the first time in MMA without his gi, started out throwing solid leg kicks. Matt quickly took Royce to the ground and landed in the side mount. Matt went for a kimura, then used his arms to straighten out Gracies left arm, apparently hyperextending Royce's elbow. When Royce refused to tap, Hughes changed strategies. Hughes went for the mount and Royce gave up his back, attempting to roll out of a bad position. Hughes defended the escape and ended up with rear mount. After Hughes landed about ten unanswered punches to Royce's head, Big John McCarthy stepped in to stop the fight.

On the undercard, Melvin Guillard knocked out Rick Davis in the first, Jeremy Horn submitted Cael Sonnen via armbar in the second, Gabriel Gonzaga got the TKO on Fabiano Scherner in the second, and Spencer Fisher knocked out Matt Wiman with a brutal flying knee.

Riggs is still kind of young and has a unique personality. Like Nick Diaz, he'll keep getting more shots than he probably deserves based on his performances.

Hughes is set to fight GSP in either September or October. The UFC is hoping to schedule the event in Canada. I just wonder at this point if anyone at 170 can beat Hughes. I'm pretty high on GSP right now, but Hughes is just so versatile. I think GSP's best chance is to keep it on the feet, use his reach advantage and score enough points to take the decision. GSP isn't going to outwrestle Hughes and I don't see him sneaking a submission past Hughes's defense. Then again, even though it started with a kick to the groin, Trigg almost finished Hughes with a choke in their second fight. And of course BJ Penn choked out Hughes a couple years ago. I just think that Matt has evolved since the Penn fight.

Time to resurrect this thread as we have a big two weeks of events coming up. June 24 (tomorrow) is the finale of the Ultimate Fighter 3 on Spike TV. Before the card, they are running an all-day marathon of the show.
-Kenny Florian vs. Sam Stout
-Keith Jardine vs. Wilson Gouveia
-TUF Light-Heavyweight Finals: Michael Bisping vs. Josh Haynes
-TUF Middleweight Finals: Ed Herman vs. Kendall Grove
-Matt Hamill vs. Jesse Forbes
-Kalib Starnes vs. Danny Abaddi
-Rory Singer vs. Ross Pointon
-Solomon Hutcherson vs. Luigi Fioravanti
-Mike Nickels vs. Wes Combs

On June 28, we have Ultimate Fight Night with a pretty decent card:
-Anderson Silva vs. Chris Leben
-Stephan Bonnar vs. Rashad Evans
-Luke Cummo vs. Jonathan Goulet
-Josh Koscheck vs. Dave Menne
-Jon Fitch vs. Thiago Alves
-Jorge Gurgel vs. Mark Hominick
-Jason Lambert vs. Branden Lee Hinkle
-Justin Levens vs. Jorge Santiago
-Kristian Rothaermel vs. Rob MacDonald

Silva-Leben will be a big fight. Former MW champ Dave Menne is back, as is Jorge Gurgel, who was a pretty good LW before moving up in weight for TUF 2.

On July 1 (2nd in the US) is the second round of Pride's Open Weight Grand Prix:
Second Round Tournament Match-Ups
-Mirko Cro Cop vs. Hidehiko Yoshida
-Wanderlei Silva vs. Kazuyuki Fujita
-Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira vs. Fabricio Werdum
-Josh Barnett vs. Mark Hunt

Non-Tournament Match-Ups
-Kazuhiro Nakamura vs. Evangelista "Cyborg" Santos
-Vitor Belfort vs. Yoshiki Takahashi
-Antonio Rogerio Nogueira vs. Alistair Overeem
-Yoshihiro Nakao vs. Lee Eun Su
-Pawel Nastula vs. Edson Drago

And a week later is UFC 61:
-Tim Sylvia vs. Andrei Arlovski
-Tito Ortiz vs. Ken Shamrock
-Joe Stevenson vs. Yves Edwards (at 155 pounds)
-Frank Mir vs. Dan Christison
-Josh Neer vs. Josh Burkman
-Drew Fickett vs. Kurt Pellegrino
-Gilbert Aldana vs. Cheick Kongo
-Hermes Franca vs. Roger Huerta
-Jeff Monson vs. Anthony Perosh

Here's the fight card with my predictions:

Anderson Silva vs. Chris Leben - Silva by TKO (cut) in Round 2. His elbows are deadlier than Loiseau's.

Stephan Bonnar vs. Rashad Evans - Bonnar by submission in Round 3. Expect it to be a boring fight

Luke Cummo vs. Jonathan Goulet - Goulet by Unanimous Decision

Josh Koscheck vs. Dave Menne - Koscheck by Unanimous Decision

Jon Fitch vs. Thiago Alves - Fitch by submission in Round 1.

Jorge Gurgel vs. Mark Hominick - Gurgel by submission Round 2

Jason Lambert vs. Branden Lee Hinkle - Lamber by KO Round 1

Justin Levens vs. Jorge Santiago - Levens by Unanimous Decision

Kristian Rothaermel vs. Rob MacDonald - Rob MacDonald by TKO in Round 1

Tomorrow we can laugh at how wrong I was. But seriously, Bonnar-Evans is going to be one boring fight.

Leben got smoked. Silva has some of the best striking skills of anyone in the business. With Leben's recent win streak, it was kind of easy to forget that this is a guy who went 0-2 on TUF Season 1, losing to two guys who have dropped down to the 170 (Koscheck) and 155 (Florian) weight classes. Leben got a reputation for having an iron chin, but had never really been hit that squarely on the button. He usually would absorb shots with his head and keep coming. Silva tagged him straight on the chin over and over. It's Leben's fault for coming in flat-footed with his arms out wide. Speaking of Silva, I hope we seen Silva-Marquardt in September, with the winner getting a shot at Franklin in November. Either way, Franklin will get a good challenge when he's all healed up.

Rashad is boring. He's a skilled wrestler, but his ground and pound sucks and he doesn't even try for submissions. He needs to get with a decent team pretty quickly to learn the skills he needs to actually finish a fight. As for Bonnar, after a Forrest rematch, he'll slip quietly into the IFL, WFA, Strikeforce, or some other up-and-coming organization for a while till he racks up some wins.

Okay. Pop quiz, hotshot. Your stand-up skills are average, but you are one of the most skilled BJJ experts in your weight class. You are fighting a good kickboxer who likes to knock people out, but has lost 3 fights by submission. What do you do, Jorge Gurgel? What do you do? Stand and trade the whole fight without trying to take it to the ground? Good strategy. How did that work for you?

We haven't gotten to see any of his 3 UFC fights, but the future of the 170 lb division may be Jon Fitch. He's on a 10 fight win streak dating back two years. In that time he has beaten UFC vets Thiego Alves, Josh Burkman, and Shonie Carter. He gave Brock Larson his only loss in his UFC debut. His only two losses are to Mike Pyle (who we will likely see in the UFC or Pride soon) in Fitch's first fight and Wilson Gouveia, a 205 pounder who almost beat Keith Jardine the other night.

Agree 100%. Arlovski should be in pretty good shape for this fight mentally. If he wasn't overconfident coming into the last fight, he sure got that way when he dropped Sylvia mid-way through the first round. After the knockdown, he stopped moving sideways and came right at Sylvia, which is the dumbest thing you cand do against a flat-footed fighter like Sylvia. Arlovski will be a lot more cautious this time. He'll keep moving throughout the fight, using his quickness to land shots. I'll honestly be surprised if this one ends in the first round.

And Ortiz should pound on Shamrock till the ref saves him. I've never liked Ken or Tito, but Tito's definitely started to grow on me after TUF Season 3. The only real question for the fight will be how Tito's injured knee holds up. The only way I see Ken winning is if Tito blows out his knee in the fight.

And don't forget that the second round of Pride's Open Weight Tournament is happening tomorrow. Silva-Fujita should be a slugfest.

The problem with the final round matchups is that Cro Cop has already faced all three of these guys. But he faced and beat Barnett twice in the last year or so. I'm thinking we'll see Barnett vs. Nogueira and Cro Cop v. Silva. Either way, it's going to be a good event. I think they would want to save the Cro Cop-Nogueira rematch for the finals. They are the #2 and #3 HWs in the world.

And Cro Cop fought Silva to a draw four years ago (although the consensus was that Silva won the fight). That would be an exciting fight. The best HW striker against the best MW striker. In reality, the two would probably come in at about the same weight. Cro Cop is a small HW and Silva won't have to cut. Barnett is one of the solid grapplers who Nogueira hasn't fought. That would be a decent match, as well.

The problem with the final round matchups is that Cro Cop has already faced all three of these guys. But he faced and beat Barnett twice in the last year or so. I'm thinking we'll see Barnett vs. Nogueira and Cro Cop v. Silva. Either way, it's going to be a good event. I think they would want to save the Cro Cop-Nogueira rematch for the finals. They are the #2 and #3 HWs in the world.

And Cro Cop fought Silva to a draw four years ago (although the consensus was that Silva won the fight). That would be an exciting fight. The best HW striker against the best MW striker. In reality, the two would probably come in at about the same weight. Cro Cop is a small HW and Silva won't have to cut. Barnett is one of the solid grapplers who Nogueira hasn't fought. That would be a decent match, as well.

No Fedor. They only had 7 opening round matchups with the plan of giving Fedor a first round bye due to a hand injury that's been bothering him for a few years. Fedor needed another surgery in May or June and wasn't healed up in time to fight in the second round. So, they gave his slot to Wanderlei Silva, who held out of the first round due to a contract dispute. Fedor will probably be fighting next in October at Pride's first US show in Las Vegas. No word on who he'll be fighting yet.

And YouTube is great about two days after a Pride event. You can see all the Grand Prix fights there now. By the end of the week, the videos will probably be removed.

UFC 61 is tomorrow night. Arlovski-Sylvia 3 is the main event, with Ortiz-Shamrock 2 as the third fight of the night.

Here is the card with my predictions:

Tim Sylvia vs. Andrei Arlovski - Arlovski by TKO in Rd. 2. Arlovski will be a lot more cautious here and will take his time to set up his shots. Arlovski will use his quickness and eventually drop Sylvia like he did in their two previous fights. Hopefully, this time Arlovski will actually finish Sylvia on the ground.

Tito Ortiz vs. Ken Shamrock - Ortiz by TKO Rd. 2. Expect brutal ground-and-pound. Only an injury to Tito (how bad is his knee?) or a stupid mistake will give Ken much of a chance here. Once Tito takes care of business here, he is next in line for a shot at the LHW belt.

Joe Stevenson vs. Yves Edwards - Stevenson by Unanimous Decision. Edwards is a seasoned fighter, but Stevenson is a big, aggressive LW. And Stevenson has been perfecting his wrestling and ground-and-pound with Tito and the boys at Team Punishment.

Frank Mir vs. Dan Christison - Mir by submission in Rd. 1. Mir looked bad in his last fight, but a lot of credit for that goes to his opponent, Cruz. Christison is a good fighter, but his sub defense isn't nearly good enough to survive Mir's excellent and aggressive submissions. It might take Mir a little time to shake of the ring rust, which could be a bad thing for Mir. Christison doesn't quit and if it goes beyond the second round, Mir's poor cardio could doom him to a decision loss.

Josh Neer vs. Josh Burkman - Burkman by TKO Rd. 1. This fight should be pure aggression from the start. Burkman wants to redeem himself after his loss to Fitch and Neer is looking to beat his third straight TUF alum. Neer has a tendancy to get in trouble early in his fights, but never gives up. Joe Stevenson had a tight knee bar on Neer, but Neer gutted it out, escaped and won the fight. If Burkman catches him, he will hurt Neer.

Drew Fickett vs. Kurt Pellegrino - Fickett by submission in Rd. 2.
Gilbert Aldana vs. Cheick Kongo - Aldana by TKO in Rd. 1
Hermes Franca vs. Joe Jordan - Franca by submission in Rd. 3.
Jeff Monson vs. Anthony Perosh - Monson by unanimous decision.

You're probably right on Ortiz-Shamrock. I'm just thinking of Shamrock's last two fights. He got knocked out by Franklin (no shame there) and by Sakuraba. He can be stopped. Of course Tito might not have the skills to stop him. The guy couldn't finish a gassed Vitor Belfort or Patrick Cote who is a natural 185 pounder. He pounded the hell out of Forrest in the first round, but couldn't close it out. I just think that Ken is going to get caught in a bad position going for a sub, allowing Tito to rain down elbows till the ref steps in. Or, it could turn out to be 15 minutes of rough cuddling.

Thanks for the write-up Martianman. And how do you like my new avatar?

I am absolutely disgusted with Frank Mir. He had 5 months to get in shape for this fight. Instead, he comes in 20-25 pounds above his usual fighting weight. All the weight was in his gut. Instead of talking about the fight, my friends and I took turns making fun of Mir's weight:
- The guy looks like he spent all of his time training at Krispey Kreme.
- Didn't Mir come in second in the hot dog eating contest last Tuesday?
- Is that a tattoo on his stomach or a stretch mark?
- He makes Sylvia look like he's in shape.
- Maybe we should all chip in and buy Frank a treadmill.

That decision he got was an absolute gift from the judges. A lot of times in 3 round MMA fights, the judges will split the first two rounds if neither fighter dominates the other. That way, the third round can decide it. That's probably what happened here. I thought Christison won the first two rounds, but barely. Mir clearly won the third. Mir has an insane amount of talent, but no work ethic. He was so gassed so quickly that any decent heavyweight with a killer instinct would have put him away in the first round.

Ortiz-Shamrock was as anticlimactic as I thought it would be. Was it stopped early? Maybe. But what the hell was Ken going to do from there besides take 20 more elbows and get knocked out? Ortiz-Shamrock 3? No thanks.

Sylvia and Arlovski did not come to fight. Arlovski was aggressive at first, then inexplicably backed off. Why didn't he keep up the leg kicks after the first round? Sylvia's leg was hurting three minutes into the fight. By the end of the second, Sylvia wouldn't have been able to stand. But Sylvia was happy just to sit back, jab, and counter when Arlovski came in. By the third round, it was clear neither one of these guys had any intention of trying to finish the fight.

Burkman-Neer was the war I thought it would be, as was Stevenson-Edwards. Thanks to Sylvia and Arlovski doing their best impression of Severn-Shamrock 2, we didn't get to see any of the four prelim fights, all of which ended with submissions or KOs. Pretty lackluster event. The highlight for me was the announcement of Liddell-Silva in November. I still have chills.

Just wanted you guys to see what Frank Mir has become. Frank last night compared to a shot from about 3 years ago:



And this is what was on his mind last night:



I really like Frank. He's got the potential to dominate the heavyweight division. He just needs to decide whether or not he is serious about his career. With Arlovski, Sylvia, Monson, Vera, Silva, Kongo, and other HWs who train their asses off, Mir can't coast by on talent alone. More time at the gym, less time at the Circus Circus Buffet.

I guess we know now why Arloski's aggressiveness dropped off considerably after the first round. Sherdog.com is reporting that Arlovski's left knee was injured when he checked one of Sylvia's leg kicks in the second round. With his lead knee injured, he wasn't able to throw leg kicks or attempt to shoot, leaving boxing as his only real option for the final few rounds. He is on medical suspension from the NSAC till September and will be undergoing an MRI soon. He says his knee swelled to four times its normal size after the fight. He didn't mention the injury after the fight because he didn't want to make any excuses for his loss.

Cro Cop-Silva will be a war. I don't expect Silva to get caught with Cro Cop's famous left high kick (lhk), because Silva is always moving forward. Cro Cop catches guys who are standing still or retreating. Silva would be smart to clinch early and often, work the knees, and maybe even take the fight to the ground. Cro Cop will want to stand and trade. His kicks, both low and high, are deadly, but he has a tendency to rely too much on them. It's a little early for predictions, but I think Silva has a good chance of pulling this one out.

Nogueira-Barnett should be a good fight too. Barnett has decent standup, but can't really match Nogueira's boxing skills. Nogueira also has an iron chin, so it's doubtful Barnett will get the KO. Barnett's wrestling and takedowns are superior, but Nogueira is better with transitions and submissions. Barnett will likely end up with a dominant position once the fight goes to the ground. The fight will be determined by whether or not Barnett can take advantage of it. If he can, he may get a TKO by ground-and-pound or ride it out for a decision. If not, Nogueira will probably be able to lock on a submission.

Parisyan-Sanchez has the potential to be a better ground battle than Diaz-Sanchez. These are the two most aggressive ground fighters in the UFC. I was never very impressed with Karo until the Josh Thompson fight at UFC 59. Thompson is no slouch, and Karo came out and dominated. I've never seen anyone try so hard to end a fight with every move he made. Sanchez can match Karo's intensity, but he didn't look that great against John Allessio at UFC 60. He couldn't get Allessio to the ground despite constant attempts at the takedown. But Karo wants the fight to go to the ground. That's where the war will happen. Expect a lot of submission attempts and reversals. A win by Diego gives him undeniable credibility as a fighter. Fights with Penn and the loser of GSP-Hughes 2 should follow. A win by Karo would set him up for a title shot by early next year.

I've got to stop writing these dissertations. I'm turning into Giant Baba in the WWE thread.

I guess the WFA card was a bit of a bust with Kimo testing dirty and the Rampage-Lindland fight being a bit on the boring side. Machida-White was pretty lackluster too, from what I heard.

The UFC has their next Ultimate Fight Night, or whatever they're calling it, on August 17 with the premiere of The Ultimate Fighter Season 4 to follow. Here's the card:

-Karo Parisyan vs. Diego Sanchez
-Dean Lister vs. Yuki Sasaki
-Josh Koscheck vs. Jonathan Goulet
-Chris Leben vs. Jorge Santiago
-Joe Riggs vs. Jason Von Flue
-Sam Morgan vs. Forrest Petz
-Anthony Torres vs. Pat Healy
-Jake O'Brien vs. Kristof Midoux
-Crafton Wallace vs. Martin Kampmann

Parisyan-Sanchez will be a great fight. Both guys are aggressive as hell. The winner should get BJ Penn with the winner of that challenging the winner of Hughes-GSP for the title. We'll see how Lister looks at 185 (I expect him to challenge for the belt by next spring) and we get to see Joe Riggs yet again. I seriously don't know why Dana White has such a crush on Riggs. Can't we leave him off of one card? Please? Other than that, the card looks like a decent mix between TUF alumni and up-and-comers like Crafton Wallace and Martin Kampmann (finally, a good Dutch kickboxer in the UFC).

Yeah, Ryan Bennett. He was an NBC sports guy for some California station. He left to work with the Fight Network and was in between health insurance policies at the time of the accident. That sucks because his family supposedly has over $1.5 million in medical bills. He founded MMAWeekly.com, which is a pretty good place for MMA news. He's also done broadcasts for Pride and the UFC. He was a pretty big part of the MMA Community. He'll be missed.

As for Olaf, I didn't realize he's fought 9 time in the WEC, including 8 straight WEC events. The guy's an animal.