Strike Force: Diaz vs. Daley Spoiler What a fantastic set of fights. Gegard Mousasi vs. Keith Jardine: I love watching The Dean of Mean. Always entertaining, and it looked like he was taking it to Mousasi, but then his lack of conditioning really started to show and he just gassed out. Props to him taking the fight on 2 weeks notice, but I wish he'd had a few months to train. Entertaining fight, but there was NO way it was a fucking draw, even with that point off due to the strike. Mousasi should have won, and Ranallo was right; the sport needs more fighters as judges. Gilbert Melendez vs. Tatsuya Kawajiri: Annihilation. Melendez fucked him UP. Nick Diaz vs. Paul Daley: What a great fight. Thought Daley was going to take it, and was glad for that (can't stand Diaz for some reason), and then Diaz comes back and rocks his world. One of the best, most exciting 1-round fights I've seen in a long, long time.
I didn't get to watch the whole telecast, did they make a big deal about the fact Strikeforce is now Zuffa owned? More specifically did it just get a couple mentions or did they interview Coker/White/Fertita and make it a big announcement? Spoiler Diaz vs. Daley might have been the best one round fight ever, that shit was bananas. It was a testament to both guys chins and power, and a REAL testament that Diaz isn't fucking around in the stand up
Throughout the fight the announcers kept making mention of rule changes due to the UFC purchase, and they showed White and one of the Fertitta brothers in the audience, but that was about all I remember. All in all I think it was more like the new boss just sitting around watching, and not getting involved... just like the UFC has said they'd do (for now, anyway). I think they're going to slowly modify the Strikeforce rules/etc into UFC rules so that everyone gets used to it, and the two organizations are very similar, then I'd expect a proper merge. But that's just an uninformed guess on my part.
I agree (also uninformed) that there will probably be a merger ala the WEC. I'm assuming Coker put in some stipulations that he gets to have his position for x number of years after the purchase and after that they'll give him the boot and merge the two. It just doesn't make sense to have two organizations pushing the same exact product unless they start offering less money and turn Strikeforce into their own feeder league. But that seems kind of dumb since there already are organizations all over the place that basically do that for them free of charge.
They already have fully merged the Strikeforce rules to the Unified Rules that the UFC uses. The only real difference was that Strikeforce didn't allow elbows on the ground. I can't imagine that they'll change the Strikeforce cage into the Octagon though. They're just waiting on the Showtime deal to run its course and for the fighters to make their way over in piecemeal fashion rather than all at once (it'll hurt the UFC's bargaining leverage if they're all brought over with new contracts at the same time). Great fights though. Nick Diaz is just super boss. I hate watching him get tagged so much though. If he keeps fighting so reckless, he's going to go the way of Big Nog and Wandy long before his athletic prime is over.
UFC 129 Spoiler Aldo vs. Hominick is a good early candidate for fight of the year, great fight. It's amazing they let Hominick keep going with the size of the welt on his forehead, it was the size of a fucking softball. His whole face was a mess. Aldo gassed pretty bad in the later rounds, seems like his cut is hard on him. Despite that softball on his forehead Hominick nearly came back to win in the 5th round. If he had another round Aldo might have been too gassed to do anything. Awesome to see Diaz get spanked again, Rory MacDonald was supposed be a new star in the UFC but got stopped in a fight he was winning last year. Then he got injured and was out awhile. Diaz literally got tossed around in the 3rd with a few nice slams. Hated to see Couture go down in his probably last fight like that but I don't think many other fighters would have been able to take that kick. Good game, Couture. St. Pierre simply outclassed Shields everywhere, Shields seemed pretty hesitant to push the action and the times he did he got caught. Shields has a pretty wooden stand up game but did land a few decent shots that left St. Pierres nose pretty banged up. I'd guess if it wasn't for the eye injury St. Pierre sustained in the 2nd round he probably would have finished Shields at some time. I'll still say St. Pierre is a fairly boring fighter, this fight no exception, but he does what he needs to do to win. It would be nice to see more of what he did to Koscheck.
I was in Hominick's hometown last night hanging out with his friends that didn't go to Toronto (His best friend's kid and my own were in NICU together). Spoiler Many were REALLY upset they gave the descision to Aldo (I'm talking spewing rage here). Why? Aldo clearly won the fight. Hominick just gave better action on the ground & pound. A great fight, though he didn't win I think he earned a rematch against one of the best pound-for-pound fighters there is. Machida's knockout was fucking ridiculous. Only an athlete as great as Couture could recover that well from getting blasted so hard like that. Good fucking NIGHT, Irene. All class after the fight, too. St. Pierre vs. Shields was not as exciting as I hoped but still decent, and St. Pierre simply outclassed him for the entire fight. Does anyone think we may finally see A. Silva vs. GSP?
UFC 129 Spoiler I didn't get to watch until the Machida-Couture fight, which unfortunately meant missing 2 knockouts, one of my favorite WEC fighters (Bendo) giving a clinic and a Diaz brother getting his ass handed to him by a Canuck. Props to Randy for taking his swan song fight against Machida. He could have taken a can and gone out with an easy win but went with one of the top 4 light heavy's in the UFC. Machida is fun to watch as long as the other guy is bringing it to him and he can throw those perfectly timed, nasty counters. Machida-Rampage rematch for the next Bones opponent after Rashad/Mr. Wonderful anyone? GSP had his most interesting fight since BJ Penn 2, which isn't saying much. The more I learn about MMA though, the more fun GSP's fights are to watch. He has mastered so many different disciplines and is bull-strong for a guy his size. Even Dan Henderson couldn't stuff Shield's takedown or clinch attempts and GSP threw him off like an annoying cat. I'm sure he's slated to move to middleweight despite not sounding enthused about the switch. Both welterweight and middleweight need some new blood. Hopefully a year of hype around a GSP-Anderson fight will give a chance for some new contenders to emerge.
Sounds like Fedor/Hendo is gonna happen. While I've never been too high on Fedor I do think the size difference in his 2 recent losses was a factor. I just don't understand the point of the fight though. I know there was some talk about Fedor going to LHW and maybe this is the start of that even though this is fight would be at heavyweight.
I don't think size had a lot to do with him getting caught by Werdum, but you're right; Bigfoot dwarfed him. The decline of Fedor can be mostly attributed to a lack of evolution on his part. He was so good for so long because he possessed such a variety of skills, while so many others didn't. Now? Everyone has evolved to the point where, at his size, being dominant at heavyweight isn't feasible. With that being said, he matches up excellently with Hendo, as Henderson is another guy who hasn't evolved at the rate that others have. Unless Hendo goes to his wrestling -- and it's worth noting that Henderson's MMA wrestling is vastly overrated -- I see Fedor winning by a finish of some sort. If I had to take a stab at it, I'd say he subs him after getting him to the ground via knockdown, somewhat similarly to how Anderson Silva beat him. As far as what weight this'll be fought at, it looks as though it's going to be at heavyweight, with a 220 pound limit. Or something. We'll see.
Holy shit. Brock out of 131. Carwin in. <a class="postlink" href="http://twitter.com/#!/ufc" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://twitter.com/#!/ufc</a>
Damn! <a class="postlink" href="http://www.ufc.com/news/Lesnar-Out-of-UFC-131-Carwin-to-face-dos-Santos" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://www.ufc.com/news/Lesnar-Out-of-U ... dos-Santos</a>
I'm not sure where to put this, but this seems like the most relevant place. I picked up Muay Thai recently. When I started practicing on the heavy bags, I noticed some pain developing in the pinky area of my left hand. Like an idiot, I kept going, ignoring the pain as it built up. Fast forward a week later, after fairly regular NSAIDs and irregular icing sessions, the pinky pain can flare up when committing to punches or pulling heavy objects. Throwing hard left hooks are out of the option. The pain originates more on the flexor (palm) side of my hand. It's pretty bad when trying to do pull ups or when connecting hooks. When not subjecting my left hand to a load, I can extend and flex the pinky with minimal discomfort. I haven't noticed any swelling or discolorations to suggest superficial tissue damage. I'm asking on here because I won't be able to see my doctor until the end of the month. I was more wondering if anyone else had this problem before and how long it took before things got better? I'm thinking about holding off on Muay Thai while my hand rests up. It pisses me off, since this is the last month and a half before I move.
UFC 130 Spoiler While I admire Hamill for what he's done in the UFC despite being deaf he is clearly not someone who should have been headlining a fight and was only put in that place due to the Maynard/Edgar fight being taken off the card. Rampage easily stuffed every take down attempt and put on a clinic. Hamill really had no chance. Rampage supposedly had a fractured hand coming into the fight. Overall a fairly boring fight, probably due to the bad hand. Rampage won via unanimous decision. I like Roy Nelson but he got dominated by overrated/asshole Frank Mir. Nelson got taken down repeatedly but Mir only got in a few decent elbows. Nelson should drop to LHW. Mir won via unanimous decision. Travis Browne KO'ed Stefen Struve with one of the cleanest superman punches I've saw in awhile. Both guys are tall as fuck and it was like Struve had to fall 9 feet to hit the ground. I hate Struve so this was fun to see. Rick Story won via unanimous decision against Thiago Alves. This was a good fight, Story worked Alves with his wrestling in the 1st and 2nd rounds. In the 3rd Alves stepped it up and caught Story a few times but it wasn't enough. Brian Stann put a beat down on Jorge Santiago and won in the 2nd with a KO. Santiago got dropped in the 1st, recovered but never really had a chance. Stann will probably see a title shot with 1 or 2 more wins. Not only is he fun to watch, but he's a very likeable guy and a former Marine. Demetrious Johnson won via unanimous decision against Miguel Torres. I feel that Torres got robbed and most websites said the same. He was on his back a lot but still did much more damage than Johnson. Torres should have been given 2 rounds. This was really a fun fight to watch, lots of grappling action. It was my favorite fight on the show. I missed the rest of the card, forgot the show times are an hour earlier. There were several fights on Spike and on Facebook. I think it's cool that the UFC is doing that.
Mayhem from Strikeforce (and Bully Beatdown), was apparently on the Nerdist podcast late last year. <a class="postlink" href="http://www.nerdist.com/2010/12/nerdist-podcast-48-mayhem-miller/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://www.nerdist.com/2010/12/nerdist- ... em-miller/</a>
Oh fucking shit. I don't even know where to post this shit. I was listening to Joe Rogan's pocast and they accidentally said that: Spoiler Rampage is supposed to fight Jon Jones in October. WTF?! For reals?
Spoiler In the UFC's defense, who else is there for Jones to fight? The only other person I could think of is Machida, but he's only got one win after two consecutive losses. Did they say what happened with the fight with Rashad?
No reason to spoiler that stuff, IMO... I'd only spoiler recent fight decisions, not future matchups. But yeah, I thought it was going to Rashad? And with Rampage having a fractured hand, I wonder how well he'd do?
Just remembered, Jones injured himself and won't be ready, Rashad is going to fight Phil Davis in August to keep busy. I would say just wait it out till October, but he got burned the last time he did that. Not an injury specialist but I assume it will be fine by then. Won't matter though, barring a lucky punch he gets smashed just like everyone else. Jones is on another level.