MIXED MARTIAL ARTS

Couture looked decent but way too small to be fighting Lesnar. I think with the power in Lesnar’s hands he could knock out big Nog, dude’s been punched in the face so many times he can’t have much of a chin left. Kinda surprised Yamasaki would let a 45 year old dude take that many punches though, that could have been dangerous.

Florian looked good, he’s fighting Penn next, that should be a great fight.

Hazelett’s jiu jitsu is fucking awesome. I feel like gogoplating my girlfriend while smacking my balls off her forehead.

Gonzaga’s looking like he’s got his head back in the game after back to back losses. Kicked the shit out of Hendricks.

Maia/Quarry went exactly the way I figured it would. Not very exciting, but very effective.

I’m more impressed every time I see Matt Brown fight, his wrestling and jiu jitsu have gotten pretty good and his striking is solid. Good fight. Wouldn’t mind seeing him fight the winner (or loser) of Lytle/Davis.

A lot of shit happened this week in the world of MMA and I’m way too lazy to write long articles about everything that happened, so here’s a quick recap.

Affliction co-owner Todd Beard resigned from Affliction Inc. whose Affliction Entertainment division started promoting MMA events earlier this year. Long story short, Todd Beard is a drunk asshole and a criminal. Randy Couture’s wife filed a restraining order against him earlier in the week and, just… yeah… what a fucking gongshow! If you want to read full details about it, check out the story over at MMA Junkie.

The various agents of EliteXC fighters got together to block Showtime’s attempt to auction off the fighters contracts. Showtime backed down and won’t be auctioning off the contracts on Monday as originally planned. What happens next is anyone’s guess. Full story at MMA Junkie.

The Ultimate Fighter 7 winner Amir Sadollah has a staph infection in his leg and had to pull out of his UFC 91 bout with Nick Catone. A replacement couldn’t be found in time, so the bout was scratched off the card. Dustin Hazelett vs Tamdan McCrory has been pushed up to the maincard to take it’s place on the PPV.

Strikeforce lightweight champion Josh Thomson is also injured and had to pull out of his title defense against Yves Edwards. Duane “Bang” Ludwig has been chosen as his replacement in what will now be a non-title affair on November 21st.

Recently signed Denis Kang will be making his UFC debut in Dublin, Ireland at UFC 93 against Alan Belcher on January 17th.

Former WWE star Bobby Lashley will be making his MMA debut against fellow rookie Joshua Franklin at the first Mixed Fighting Alliance event, December 13th in Miami, Florida.

Wilson Gouveia will be taking on Jason MacDonald at the December 13th TUF 8 Finale.

KJ Noons won in his return to boxing earlier in the week beating some guy with a shitty record by decision.

Terry Martin will be returning to Strikeforce to take on fellow former UFC competitor Scott Smith at next week’s Strikeforce event at the HP Pavilion in San Jose, CA on November 21st.

Finally, here are my predictions for tonight’s UFC 91 event:

-Randy Couture vs. Brock Lesnar
Couture has 24 pro fights. He’s had 14 title fights. Brock has had 3 pro fights. Couture should be able to win this fight with ease. All Lesnar has going for him is natural athleticism and size. Couture has everything else. If Couture loses to a rookie, he doesn’t deserve to be champ.

-Gabriel Gonzaga vs. Josh Hendricks
Gonzaga has better stand-up and better jiu-jitsu. He should win the fight any way he wants.

-Joe Stevenson vs. Kenny Florian
Stevenson has okay wrestling and a really tight guillotine. That’s pretty much it. Florian’s stand-up is better and his jiu jitsu is way more technical and complete. Florian should win this one pretty easily.

-Demian Maia vs. Nathan Quarry
Maia will take this to the ground fast and submit Quarry early in the first. Quarry has a good chin and decent striking, but Maia isn’t going to play that game at all.

-Dustin Hazelett vs. Tamdan McCrory
Hazelett will win this by McLovinplatta.

-Jeremy Stephens vs. Rafael dos Anjos
Stephens is a decent striker, but dos Anjos is the real deal on the ground. dos Anjos should win this by a second round submission.

-Alvin Robinson vs. Mark Bocek
Robinson seems like the more skilled ground fighter, although both guys haven’t done too well against stiffer competition. It’s a toss up, but I’d say Robinson.

-Jorge Gurgel vs. Aaron Riley

Riley gets his ass kicked every time he fights a UFC-caliber fighter. Gurgel will probably win.

-Ryan Thomas vs. Matt Brown
Matt Brown really impressed me in his past few fights. He’s a really tough guy. I think he’ll take this one.

AOL Sports reports that Tito Ortiz’s recent back surgery was a success and that he plans on signing somewhere soon.

When last we saw Ortiz, he was at the October 4 EliteXC show announcing that he was going to sign a contract with the organization soon. EliteXC is now finished, but Ortiz isn’t finished saying he’s close to signing a deal.

In an appearance at last weekend’s Rumble in the Park in Fresno (broadcast today on HDNet’s Inside MMA), Ortiz said, “It’s either going to be with the UFC or it’s going to be with Affliction, but guaranteed, you guys will see me fight — no matter what — by July.”

Ortiz also mentioned that he had back surgery last month, which he deemed successful. He also said it was the same surgery that Nate Quarry had, and Quarry was out of action for 15 months after his back surgery. So Ortiz is very optimistic if he thinks he can guarantee that he’ll return just seven months after the surgery.

Tito Ortiz had a “guaranteed done deal” in place to make him the “highest paid fighter in MMA” with Affliction a few months back, but that obviously fell through.

Let’s face facts. Tito Ortiz hasn’t finished anyone other than Ken Shamrock since 2001. In all of his bouts with other opponents he’s either gone to a decision or been completely dominated. He’s 5-4-1 in his last 10. The only thing going for him in his favor is he has a draw with the #1 lightweight contender Rashad Evans (a fight he would have legitimately won by decision had he not gotten a point deducted for grabbing the fence) and had a controversial split decision victory over the current champion, Forrest Griffin in 2006.

Tito believes he’s worth big money. Who is going to pay him the money he’s looking for is another question entirely. Affliction are in such rough shape I doubt they’ll be around long enough to still be in existence come next summer and the UFC doesn’t seem particularly interested in his services, especially considering his long running feud with UFC president Dana White. EliteXC are dead and I don’t see Strikeforce as being willing, or able, to offer him the type of money he’s looking for.

Considering Tito Ortiz just came off of a serious back surgery, I don’t think anyone is going to be throwing around the millions of dollars he’s looking for. Unless he lowers his asking price to match his recent performances I’d say by this time next year look for Tito Ortiz to be fucking his leather-faced wife on camera just to earn a couple bucks.

Loretta Hunt at Sherdog is reporting that California State Athletic Commission Executive Officer Armando Garcia is stepping down from his position on November 18th.

The California State Athletic Commission will formally accept the resignation of Executive Officer Armando Garcia at a commission meeting on Nov. 18 in Los Angeles, according to a notice posted on the CSAC Web site. Garcia left the position he held for over three years this week, Sherdog.com has learned.

The commission will also name an interim executive officer and appoint a search committee to review candidates for Garcia’s replacement on Nov. 18, according to the agenda notes.

Numerous commission-hired employees who asked not to be identified confirmed to Sherdog.com on Saturday that Garcia had left the post, but were not given details of his exit. Sherdog.com corresponded with Garcia via email as late as Thursday to discuss the CSAC’s decision to suspend the promoter licenses of Pro Elite and King of the Cage last Wednesday.

Although Garcia was instrumental in regulating MMA in California, he’s also well known for making some rather questionable decisions during his tenure, including the drug suspensions of Antonio Silva, Phil Baroni and Sean Sherk, as well as not allowing Nick Diaz to fight because he had a prescription for weed.

He was kind of a douche so his departure won’t be met with much sadness from fighters and promoters alike. Especially Nick Diaz and Sean Sherk.

Randy basically calls Todd Beard, the co-owner of Affliction, a drunk asshole. I don’t think he’ll be dealing with them much longer from the sounds of it.

Hermes Franca is an awesome fighter, too bad he’s an idiot. Last year Hermes Franca got suspended from MMA for a year after testing positive for steroids. Today, Hermes Franca faces possible jail time after getting arrested for DUI in Florida. MMA Weekly has the story:

Ultimate Fighting Championship lightweight competitor, Hermes Franca, was arrested last night by the Jupiter Police Department in Jupiter, Fla for a DUI offense as confirmed to MMAWeekly.com by members of the police force on Thursday morning.

Authorities could not release much more information than what was listed on their official police blotter confirming Franca’s arrest.

According to the report, Franca was arrested at 2:38am by an officer who suspected the fighter was under the influence of alcohol or drugs.

It was also listed that this was Franca’s first offense.

While officials of the Jupiter Police Department could confirm the arrest, they had no information about his detainment or release from being held from the arrest.

There’s no excuse for drunk driving. It’s not like it’s a brand new law, everyone knows if you drink, don’t drive, yet people still get caught and still come up with excuses and get their lawyers and try to weasel their way out of jail time. Hopefully Hermes feels like an asshole and ends up with jail time to really hammer home the point that what he did was really stupid and completely unacceptable. What a fucking idiot!

So episode 8 of season 8 of The Ultimate Fighter was on TV last night and for the first time in the series history, people ate piss and jizz. Yep. The Ultimate Fighter has turned into the set of a gay porn flick. These retards are the people Dana White and Zuffa want representing the sport of Mixed Martial Arts and the UFC? Jesus fuck!

Rather than bore you with all of the piss drinking, jizz eating details, here are a bunch of episode recaps, so I don’t have to:

Recap from UFC.com
Recap from SpikeTV.com
Recap from Sherdog.com
Recap from MMAMania.com
Recap from MMA Junkie

Fighter Blogs:
Team Nogueira light heavyweight Ryan Bader’s Blog from MMAJunkie.com
Team Nogueira lightweight Phillipe Nover’s Blog from FiveOuncesOfPain.com
Team Mir Assistant Coach Ken Hahn’s Blog from MMAJunkie.com
Team Mir lightweight George Roop’s Blog from MMAWeekly.com
Team Mir lightweight Junie Browning Blog from UFC.com
Team Mir light heavyweight Krzysztof Soszynski’s Blog from Sherdog.com

And, once again, some previews from next week’s episode:
Leak - Krzysztof Fights!
Post Fight: Frank Mir cries after Dave Kaplan gets his ass kicked

On a serious note, Phillipe Nover, the Filipino kid who passed out in the first episode, looks like the guy to beat at lightweight. That dude is shredded and has some serious stand-up skill. I’d be afraid if I was any of the other lightweights right now.

I was pretty pumped up about last night’s WEC 36 event and it certainly provided some bigtime excitement. Here’s a quick recap:

Jake Rosholt vs Nissen Osterneck
This fight was a fucking war. Coming into the fight Jake Rosholt was being hyped by Frank Mir as being “the next big thing” in the middleweight division. Apparently Frank Mir’s definition of “the next big thing” requires a guy to have absolutely no stand-up offense or defense because Nissen Osterneck smashed Rosholt’s face so many times, by the end of the fight he looked like he just got beat in the head with a can of tomato soup.

When Osterneck stayed on his feet he completely dominated Rosholt, smashing his face at will. I give Rosholt credit though, the guy can take a punch… although tiring out your opponent by letting him punch you in the face isn’t the best fight strategy ever, it seemed to work, combined with Rosholt’s wrestling as he took Osterneck down seemingly at will… he just got his face punched in to do it.

The end of the fight was exciting, Osterneck got back to his feet after getting dominated on the ground and beat on Rosholt like he was his drunk uncle and Rosholt was his redhead stepchild that spilled his beer. My memory is a little hazy, but I think midway through punching Rosholt’s face into a bloody pulp he missed a shot and Rosholt was able to capitalize, get the takedown and from there pounded Osterneck out. The ref gave Osterneck a really good chance to improve his position but he was stuck there getting beat up like the fat kid on the playground getting pink bellied by the school bully.

Winner: Jake Rosholt via a small punchdrunk miracle at 3:48 of Round 2.

Leonard Garcia vs Jens Pulver
In the pre-fight interviews Garcia was talking about wanting to knock out Jens Pulver. Jens Pulver went on about how he was glad Leonard Garcia wanted to stand and bang, because Jens Pulver *slow jerking hand movement* is a world class stand-up fighter who claims Leonard Garcia has 1 knockout to his credit, while Jens Pulver has a lot.

Unfortunately, Jens Pulver forgot he also has a suspect chin, because around a minute into the fight Garcia clubbed him with a huge shot and Jens pretty much folded. That didn’t stop Garcia from punching him in the face a few more times though. Some people call it an upset, but Pulver was 4-5 in his last 9 going into that fight, including 3 KO/TKO losses, whereas Garcia was 7-2 in his last 9 and he’d never been knocked out or submitted in his career. I guess Pulver won’t be getting his rematch for the belt any time soon…

Winner: Leonard Garcia via ass whuppin’ at 1:12 of Round 1.

Aaron Simpson vs David Avellan
This was a prelim fight that was aired between fights. I can’t remember in what order the fights were in, but it didn’t really matter. My girlfriend was cooking me dinner last night (as a good woman should, it was delicious, by the way) and she was in the other room. She likes watching the fights with me, I think the violence and blood makes her horny, but anyway… when the fight started I called to her to let her know the fight had started. Before she even had time to put her spatula down I called out “The fight’s over!”

Simpson landed one big punch and the fight was over. Unfortunately, I think the referee was off on a donut run, because Simpson punched an unconscious Avellan several times before the ref sauntered over to save him. It was definitely a brutal, but clean, knockout.

Winner: Aaron Simpson by baseball bat to the jaw 0:18 of Round 1.

Paulo Filho vs Chael Sonnen
Pre-fight interview Chael Sonnen cries because he promised his dad he’d win a world title on his death’s bed. Most people would just say something like “I love you, dad!” but instead Sonnen chose “I’ll kick somebody’s ass and be famous, dad!” Filho gets booed like crazy when he walks out, he looks pretty pudgy too.

I could discuss the fight, but there’s nothing to talk about. Paulo Filho stumbled around like a meth addict wandering around a back alley looking for cigarette butts while Chael Sonnen stayed as far away as possible, seemingly terrified to go on the offensive, like he was worried Filho might have a broken crackpipe in his back pocket and could pull it out and any moment and stab him in the neck with it.

By the third rolled around it was obvious Filho didn’t give a shit anymore. Sonnen went on about how he wanted to be a world champion so badly and put on an embarassing performance. If Forrest Griffin had been in his corner he’d be screaming at Chael Sonnen to “UNLEASH THE ANIMAL!” The only thing Sonnen unleashed was one of the most boring fight performances of all time.

Winner: Chael Sonnen via who gives a fuck?

Urijah Faber vs Mike Brown
I looked over at the clock and saw it was 10 to 7, almost Ultimate Fighter 8 time. After watching the boring Sonnen/Filho fight I was ready for a fight. I wanted a fast fight because dinner was being served and I wanted to eat. I got what I asked for.

I’d seen Mike Brown fight before, he didn’t have the best stand-up ever, but he was strong as fuck and had great wrestling. Urijah Faber, the posterboy for the WEC, cut his hair going into this fight. I’m not sure if the hair gave him power, but Mike Brown kicked his fucking ass. From the opening bell Brown dictated where the fight would take place, he got Faber down a few times, but Faber would pop right back up. 2 minutes into the 1st Urijah Faber got his striking going and, for some unknown reason, decided to go for a spinning back elbow… against a really good wrestler. A spinning elbow can knock a guy out, but it requires really precise timing, because if you’re too slow, you’ll miss and put yourself in a position to either be A) taken down or B) knocked the fuck out with a well placed shot. Brown went for the latter, stepping back a step and throwing a huge shot just when Faber finished doing his fancy little spin. Wheee!!!!!!! Plop! Faber dropped like a bag of bricks and Brown kept punching him until the ref had to step in to save him.

Winner: Mike Brown via punch in the mouth after a really really really stupid elbow attempt at 2:23 of Round 1.

The undercard had even more big upsets, here are the full results;
Donald Cerrone def. Rob McCullough by Unanimous Decision (30-27, 29-28, 29-27), R3
Jose Aldo def. Jonathan Brookins by TKO (Strikes) at 0:45, R3
Carmelo Marrero def. Steve Steinbeiss by Split Decision (29-28, 29-28, 28-29), R3
Danny Castillo def. Rafael Dias by TKO (Strikes) at 2:54, R2
Rani Yahya def. Yoshiro Maeda by Submission (Guillotine Choke) at 3:30, R1

Rob McCullough was expected to beat Donald Cerrone and go after his lightweight title again, but Cerrone beat him in what was the fight of the night. It wasn’t televised, so I haven’t seen it, but apparently it was.

The other upset saw Rani Yahya choke out Yoshiro Maeda really quickly. Yahya had lost his two prior fights and hadn’t fought in nearly a full year. Maeda just finished a thrilling war with Miguel Torres in June and was expected to win to take another shot at the belt and get a rematch. I guess that’s not happening.

Overall, WEC 36 didn’t disappoint. It was a night of upsets as nearly all of the favorites got beat. Rosholt won, but got his ass fucking kicked in the process. Jens Pulver got his big mouth shut. Paulo Filho didn’t even bother showing up to fight and Urijah Faber got tooled after acting like a tool. A spinning back elbow? Are you fucking serious? HAHAHAHAHA!!! You retard!

It seems I’ve been asleep at the wheel lately and missed this big story from Bloody Elbow.

A few months ago, Affliction announced its deal with Golden Boy Promotions and crowed that this would be a major challenge to the UFC. A few weeks ago, we heard that it would no longer be a mixed show, and instead would be a pure MMA show. Now it appears that Golden Boy is putting a boxing show on HBO on January 24, the same night as Affliction’s PPV.

Dave Meltzer reports in the November 5 Wrestling Observer Newsletter that Golden Boy Promotions will feature Antonio Margarito vs. Shane Mosley on HBO on January 24, 2008. That is a pretty big fight and it will air opposite of Affliction, on (almost) free TV.

Here’s the rub: I don’t think there is any joint promotional deal between Affliction and Golden Boy. I heard a few weeks ago that nothing was signed, and it looks like all they have is a t-shirt deal, or a production deal at most. They announced it prematurely to distract people from the fact that they cancelled their October show because it sold about 700 tickets.

Wow! So not only are Golden Boy Promotions not teaming up with Affliction, they’re actually competing against them with a mega fight of their own. It’s looking more and more like Affliction won’t be around much beyond their second PPV. I guess they probably should have accepted the UFC’s offer.

The Sports Network (TSN) owns the broadcast rights to WEC events in Canada. Normally we MMA fans get shafted. Instead of airing the MMA event live, TSN airs curling or hockey or football instead and we end up getting to watch it on a tape delay 3-4 days later. Tonight TSN is airing a hockey game (Edmonton Oilers vs Columbus Blue Jackets… Go Oilers, Go!), however, TSN2, their new secondary sports channel, will be airing WEC 36 LIVE! at 8PM EST/5PM PST.

Fuck yeah!