The Official MMA Thread - Part V

[BravesMG]

Originally Posted by MrX

That fight was awful but I don't know how you give both rounds to McSweeney, especially the 1st.

I cannot fathom how anybody could give McSweeney the 1st. What part of that round did he win, especially on two damn cards!? I even gave the 2nd to Shivers, but that was close.

That fight was borderline embarrassing midway through the 2nd when both of them were literally standing there with their hands on their knees. I looked to the clock to make sure that there wasn't a low blow or something. At this point, anyone with decent skills and mild cardio should be a favorite. I can't see how Nelson doesn't win this, but admittedly we haven't seen all of the 'talent' yet. I can't wait to see the black NFL dude who gassed during the drills fight.

[MrX]

Yeah, all McSweeney did was kick and run. If he turns his back against a mid-level fighter like he did in that fight he's going to get KTFO real quick.

Even by TUF standards these fights are awful

[Thrush]

The fact that there are 4 football players on the show tells you something about the talent pool at HW.

[starseed1981]

I had visions of Coleman / Williams when Wes kept dropping his hands. Sadly, it did not happen. I did find Rampage's "ghetto blast" comment hilarious though.

Also, multiple sites are reporting that Rashad Vs. Thiago Silva is being targeted for UFC 108.

[lysander]

I'm new to this show and format. So what happens to the last 2 guys who lost? Are they eliminated? With some conditioning Shivers might be decent. With the backgrounds of the 2, I thought he was gonna get killed. Or is McSweeny not as good as he is touted to be?

I was surprised that Shivers lost. he seemed more in control of both rounds. Took McSweeny down several times and connected with more punches. McSweeny landed a bunch of kicks though and seemed to be able to get out of trouble quickly. I don't know how the scoring works.

I'm sure it's really exhausting, but it was pretty funny to see them both standing there in Round 2 gasping and not moving at each other with 3 minutes to go.

should be good to see the fight next week. I've never seen either of them fight. Roy Nelson seems to think alot of himself. Is he any good? He looks really out of shape. I know they said he was a champion from another league.

[MrX]

Originally Posted by lysander

I'm new to this show and format. So what happens to the last 2 guys who lost? Are they eliminated? With some conditioning Shivers might be decent. With the backgrounds of the 2, I thought he was gonna get killed. Or is McSweeny not as good as he is touted to be?

I was surprised that Shivers lost. he seemed more in control of both rounds. Took McSweeny down several times and connected with more punches. McSweeny landed a bunch of kicks though and seemed to be able to get out of trouble quickly. I don't know how the scoring works.

I'm sure it's really exhausting, but it was pretty funny to see them both standing there in Round 2 gasping and not moving at each other with 3 minutes to go.

should be good to see the fight next week. I've never seen either of them fight. Roy Nelson seems to think alot of himself. Is he any good? He looks really out of shape. I know they said he was a champion from another league.

The guys who lose stay in the house and are used as replacements if someone on that team is hurt.

All you need to know about the talent level is this is season 10 and the show hasn't produced any top contenders since Gray Maynard in season 5, and he's improved greatly since the show.

Nelson was the champion of the IFL, a mid-level organization that folded. He fought Andrei Arlovski on one of the EliteXC shows on CBS and didn't do too bad until he gassed and got knocked out. He probably is the favorite to win the show.

[MrX]

Team Rashad's Brendan Schaub's blog is interesting.

http://mmajunkie.com/news/16293/bren...isode-no-2.mma

Says Shivers was more burnt out from Rampage over-training his team than poor cardio.

[BravesMG]

New Rampage blog in reponse to Dana:

Spoiler:

Make no mistake the UFC treated me a lot better than Pride. If you get hurt in training in a UFC fight then will send you to the best doctors. If you get hurt in a Pride fight most of the time they will tell me "oh you better take care of that!" The UFC will always let you know in a timely matter who you will be fighting & give you enough time to train but with Pride if I knew 4 weeks ahead I would be happy cause most times they just give you a 2 weeks notice. Pride will rip you off on your merchandising but the UFC would find someway to hook you up on merchandising deals. Pride will make fights easier for certain fighters inside the ring (like standing up fights early). With the UFC whatever happens happens. The only thing I see the UFC needs to fix in this area is to get better judges. Ones who know about MMA & not from the boxing world.

The reason why I'm talking about all this is that I feel like this whole situation could have been avoided if UFC would have respected me more & rescheduled the fight about a month or more in my hometown, which I know fights can be rescheduled because of the Matt Hughes & Matt Serra was postponed due to injuries. Instead, Dana went on the internet & started talking bad about my decision. All we had to do was come to a certain type of argreement or understanding, which later came after a lot of trash talk from Dana. My manager flew to Vegas & talked to them & tried to work things out like a MAN. & still I keep quite & I didn't talk trash back on the internet. The only reason why I'm even talking now is because I feel like I owe my fans an explanation because I am a MAN, a real MAN. Yeah I made good money with the UFC more than Pride, but I made both shows more money than they made me. I didn't care too much about Pride treating me like crap cause I was an American in a Japanese company. Now in my own country, I feel like I'm being disrepected. Everything is not about how much money you make. You could be the richest man in the world but if nobody repsects you then it don't mean shit. You can't buy respect. It should be earned. & thats what I'm all about.

Now Rashad wanna put his two cents in. Rashad remains to be a boy under me. He wins a few fights, and some of them I thought the judges fell asleep during the fight & woke up & saw him playing with his nipples & guessed he won. He knocked Chuck Liddel out when Chuck wasn't even the same man anymore. & now he thinks he's on my level. Yeah he talks about how he beat Forrest & I lost. But when I fought Forrest that was the worst Rampage I had ever seen. & I still know in my heart I won that fight. So now he's Mr. All Cocky & says I got a big mouth & talk a lot of smack. If my memory serves me correctly, he's the one that got into my face after the Jardine fight & started talking trash when he was the one that was originally supposed to fight me that night, but he told Dana on the phone he didn't want to fight. He wanted to keep his belt longer. Now, I'm not saying wether or not I would have beaten Machida, but I wouldn't have went out like a bitch like the way he did. So I'm the one that was looking forward to the Rashad fight the most. I have always been a fighter my whole life. As a kid my family treated me like shit which made me the person who I am today. This is why when I meet people I treat people the way I want to be treated (unless they approach me wrong or piss me off). I grew up thinking that I wasn't even important to my family which made me not even care about myself. That's why I can get knee-ed in the face 15 times & come back for more. That's why I can get my legs seriously hurt in a fight & still try to win. Thats why I can get my ribs broken in a fight & not tap out because my whole life I never thought I mattered to anybody or anybody cared about me. But now I have kids that love me & care about me & I'm not used to people caring about me but it feels good! I'm a very loyal person. Wolves are the most loyal animals on the planet. I was very loyal to the UFC, but now I owe all my loyalty to my kids... the ones who really care for me. The majority of my fights on the street I fought for free & they all were with emotion. I am a fighter, I will always be a fighter but my professional fights that were fought with emotion, I ended them all in devestating fashion. I am the wrong fighter that should fight pissed off professionally. I don't even consider it fair. So Rashad says he will fight me for free. I will gladly meet him at any gym & fight him just to shut his mouth up. & I mean that for real!

When I told Dana I did not want my belt back & that I just wanted to make money, it was around the time when they gave me Vanderlei & actually it was around the same time when my mind wasn't right (my mind was at TRUCK status) & that's the way I felt because I felt I had been robbed out of my belt. After the Jardine fight I did want my belt back because my family was so proud of me when I was champion & I want to make my family proud cause now I finally feel like my family cares about me & they accept me & this is what I've been wanting my whole childhood... for my family to like me. If I got to beat some ass for my family to like me, so be it. But now, I'm a grown man & I'll be damned if anybody disrespects me. I'm not having it, it's not happening!

This is a tough call, but I do believe that Rampage is being more forthcoming than Dana in this whole mess. What sucks is that Rampage is leaving himself really only the one out, if the movie is successful. It doesn't sound like he and his family are set for life but I also highly doubt the situation doesn't get rectified. I believe that Dana really stuck by him during his breakdown but also unnecessarily killed him in the press over the movie deal. Given the tone of that latest blog, I'd be fairly shocked if Jackson doesn't end up back in the UFC at some point.

[tbird2340]

He will be back in the UFC by months end...

On a side note.. Rashad vs Thiago Silva is rumored as the replacement match..

[whoopdido]

Originally Posted by Thrush

The fact that there are 4 football players on the show tells you something about the talent pool at HW.

I guessed it had more to do with Dana trying to make it as easy as possible for Kimbo to win.

I know Dana has said he doesn't respect him and I know he'd get destroyed by ANY current reputable UFC heavyweight, but it would be huge business for the UFC to have him in the organization.

I really don't know why Dana didn't just hire him, give him a couple fights, make huge money from those fights and when he loses get rid of him. I guess, in a way, he's doing the honorable thing and making him earn it, but I think he's just making it easy on him. Put a bunch of cream puffs up against him and if he wins, cool...he'll get huge draws from a couple of his fights. If he loses, also cool...probably getting big ratings for TUF and he's proven right about Kimbo's lack of skill.

I mean come on...a bunch of football players and Rashad's top choice can't even make it 2 minutes without completely gassing. Pretty amateur if you ask me.

[tbird2340]

I just watched last nights episode.. OMG I can't believe how both of them were standing there holding their knees almost the entire second round.. Then wes holding onto the fence, basically the fence keeping him up.

Rashad "JAMES YOU HAVE TO GO NOW! GOOOOOO! NOWW!!!!!!"

Oh my goodness!! Mazagatti @ the end of round 2... "Awesome guys" WTF!?

[Slumbering Fist]

Originally Posted by whoopdido

I know Dana has said he doesn't respect him and I know he'd get destroyed by ANY current reputable UFC heavyweight, but it would be huge business for the UFC to have him in the organization.

I dont know about that. They dont need him and basically its only morons (admittedly, they make for the majority of UFC profits) who find Kimbo appealing. It wont last. Kimbo cannot beat anyone who is half decent in an always terrible division and doesn't have much charisma- image, yes- mike skills, no. Most people already know that and the casual UFC crowd will soon see it too.

Grabbing Kimbo was probably just a way to stick it to Elite/Strikefoce, grab up their main commodity, crappy or not, because the UFC could. He's not going to be the TUF HW champ. They'll throw cans at him and have him open a ppv, or headline a UFN. Probably in a short matter of time Kimbo will be on prelims or tossed aside altogether, back to the boatyard or maybe fighting Hong Man Choi.

[starseed1981]

Originally Posted by Slumbering Fist

I dont know about that. They dont need him and basically its only morons (admittedly, they make for the majority of UFC profits) who find Kimbo appealing. It wont last. Kimbo cannot beat anyone who is half decent in an always terrible division and doesn't have much charisma- image, yes- mike skills, no. Most people already know that and the casual UFC crowd will soon see it too.

Grabbing Kimbo was probably just a way to stick it to Elite/Strikefoce, grab up their main commodity, crappy or not, because the UFC could. He's not going to be the TUF HW champ. They'll throw cans at him and have him open a ppv, or headline a UFN. Probably in a short matter of time Kimbo will be on prelims or tossed aside altogether, back to the boatyard or maybe fighting Hong Man Choi.

If Kimbo headlining an event means more people will watch an undercard stacked with real great talent I don't really mind.

[kevinlord190]

ive been watching tuf 1 for the first time and i gotta say compared to TUF10 tuf1 is up on a pedestal with TUF10 bowing down to it wishing it was as good

[Thrush]

Originally Posted by MrX

All you need to know about the talent level is this is season 10 and the show hasn't produced any top contenders since Gray Maynard in season 5,

I just think they are looking for personalties more than actual talented prospects.

Anthony Johnson tried out for TUF and was turned down.

[MrX]

Reports are that Anderson/Vitor will headline UFC 108 on Jan 2nd

[tbird2340]

Forrest finally breaks his silence (but doesn't really say too much)...

[stingermck]

Wow. Is Forrest ok?

[BravesMG]

It's an obvious observation, but Forrest's schtick only works when he's winning. The lovable underdog full of heart, winning TUF... blah blah blah, but he's funny. When he's losing, especially after being humiliated, he comes off as a sarcastic asshole.

[tbird2340]

Mike Swick vs. Dan Hardy in Works for Title Shot Against GSP

The UFC is targeting a Mike Swick-Dan Hardy matchup to determine the top contender to Georges St. Pierre's welterweight championship, company president Dana White confirmed to FanHouse in a text message.

Swick (14-2) had been scheduled to face off with Martin Kampmann at UFC 103 for the right to face St. Pierre, but suffered a concussion in training about two weeks before the fight. The UFC brought in Paul Daley to replace him, and the debuting Brit upset Kampmann with a first-round TKO, shaking up the title picture.

Hardy most recently defeated Marcus Davis at UFC 99, and was expected to follow up that outing with a UFC 105 bout against unbeaten Korean Dong Hyun Kim. That match, however, is expected to be scrapped. Hardy (22-6) has been perfect in his three forays into the octagon, besting Rory Markham and Akihiro Gono in addition to Davis.

White told FanHouse that the Swick-Hardy matchup is not yet finalized, but expects to make it official shortly. He made no indication as to which event will host the bout, but UFC 105 seems like the logical choice as both Hardy and Swick have recently spent time in training camps.

St. Pierre, meanwhile, is on the shelf until early 2010. Last month his manager Shari Spencer told FanHouse that GSP was targeting a January return from a groin injury, but a Swick-Hardy November matchup would likely give him even more time to recover before returning.

St. Pierre, the consensus top-ranked welterweight in the world, has won six in a row, winning the UFC interim title in December 2007 and capturing the undipsuted belt with an April 2008 win over Matt Serra. He is 19-2 overall.

[tbird2340]

Expect Rampage to be back in less then a week..

EXCLUSIVE: Quinton “Rampage” Jackson provides answers to his fans

“I’m addressing the fans only here, I think I owe them an explanation. Yeah I feel the things I said (in my blog) are true and yeah, I don’t like Rashad Evans because of the type of person he is. He talks smack and he tries to turn around on how it’s me that’s the one who’s talking smack and not him. At first I really wanted this fight to get my belt back but since doing “The Ultimate Fighter” show and six weeks of him talking the way he’s talking and him just being the way he is, yeah it makes me wanna fight Rashad, especially after he said he’d punch me in the face for free. I’m having none of that either.”

“The bottom line is I’m thinking, ‘What should I do?’ My family is standing behind me 100% and my kids are too young to even care. All my kids know is I’m always gone and I’m not spending much time with them and I even asked my dog how does he feel and my dog said, ‘Who the hell are you, I don’t know even know you no more. I don’t even know you, why you even talking to me?’ My dog just looked at me, licked his nose, lit up a fart and walked out my room.”

“Everybody knows I’m doing this A-Team movie and now I’ve got a lot of other movie offers and it’s for big money. So I’m thinking, ‘What should I do? Should I let an organisation disrespect me, tell me what I can’t do, make loads of money off me and call me a baby?’ I love the fans. I really do love the fans and I’m thinking, ‘Should I go out there and give them what they wanna see?’ The fans buy the Pay-Per-Views, they give you the strength to go out there and put on a show because their cheering for you but I’ve grown to like making movies. This movie is really fun, I get to shoot people and that something I’ve never done before because I’m too nice of a guy. But every time I shoot somebody I see Rashad’s face over and over, like I get to shoot Rashad thousands of times and it’s fun. I get to beat people up. I can put anybody’s face on them and beat the hell out of them.

“People are coming up to me with all these other movies and I’m thinking, ‘Man, do I really wanna bust my ass in training every day, have all these injuries, worries about whether I look good and whether I’m going to win?’ I don’t have that with the movies, I already know what’s gonna happen, it’s scripted so there’s just no worries. At the end of the day I go home, I can just kick back and enjoy myself. But I can’t lie, my heart is with fighting. When I meet my good fans on the street and they say, ‘Oh man, you’re the reason why I got into the UFC’ or I see a fan wearing my t-shirt it, means a lot to me. It means a lot to me that the fans like me and my fighting style and I really respect that. That’s a part of fighting that would keep me there and keep me motivated.”

“I want the fans to know that I’m not abandoning you just because of the comments from Dana White or the UFC. Don’t think that I’m running away or selling out because the main reason I got into fighting is to make money, I’ve always been honest about that. I want to take care of my family cos my Mom and Dad never really had a whole lot. they’ve never really gone nowhere. I want them to go on vacation to Hawaii, and do what normal people do on vacation. I want my Mom to have a nice house, a nice car, wear nice dresses and never have to worry about anything like that. Whether you guys know it or not I’ve always wanted to do movies, but I know fighting is what got me there and I’ve still got love for my fans.”

“But Rashad, that boy, he just don’t know who I am really. He don’t know that he shouldn’t talk to me like that. He has no idea what he’s dealing with. The only thing I can tell you fans is everybody knows I’m a spiritual person and I have to leave it up to my heavenly father. I’m gonna pray to him and ask him what role he wants me to take, what road he wants me to go. He’s the one that’s given me all the skills that I have. For Dana to say that I’m not a movie star and that he’s heard it before, I don’t think there’s been someone like me. So I’m going to pray to my Farther who gave me these skills and see where he wants me to go and leave it up to him. If he wants me to fight and do movies or just do movies or just fight then he’ll direct me. I’m gonna put everything in his hands.”

[MrX]

Seems a little early for Dan Hardy to be 1 win away from GSP. If you can barely get past Marcus Davis you probably need a few more fights.

[BravesMG]

Originally Posted by MrX

Seems a little early for Dan Hardy to be 1 win away from GSP. If you can barely get past Marcus Davis you probably need a few more fights.

No kidding, I can't imagine they would go with a Hardy/GSP title fight. I'd rather see Daley in there with Swick if he's able to take that fight on relatively short rest.

[tbird2340]

Originally Posted by MrX

Seems a little early for Dan Hardy to be 1 win away from GSP. If you can barely get past Marcus Davis you probably need a few more fights.

Especially when his three UFC wins have been:

1. A split decision win over Gono
2. A KO Over Rory Markham, who?
3. A split decision win over Davis..

Don't get me wrong.. I love Hardy, but I totally agree that he shouldn't be one win away from GSP..

[starseed1981]

Ugh...I can't stand Hardy. If Davis was able to outwrestle him, Swick is gonna manhandle him IMO.