musings on mixed martial arts, Brazilian jiu-jitsu, Muay Thai and all things mano-a-mano

Randy Couture does not deserve a title shot. Sure, he beat Mark Coleman at Saturday’s UFC 109, dominated him really, even managed to choke him out. But frankly, it would only have been news had Couture lost.

So before UFC president Dana White rushes to roll out the red carpet for another Couture run at the light heavyweight crown, how about he beat a legitimate contender or two and actually earn that shot. Wouldn’t that be novel? I know he’s not getting any younger, and I know he’s won and lost more UFC belts than anybody else, but he needs to get in line and wait his turn just like everybody else.

As for Coleman, he’s done. Not officially, of course. At least, not yet. But he doesn’t deserve to see the inside of the octagon again. He just had no answer for Couture at all. And those insults exchanged between him and a cageside Tito Ortiz post-fight? These two have been acting like schoolyard bullies since they were slated to meet at UFC 106. I don’t expect them to actually throw down unless it’s in a parking lot somewhere.

In the battle to determine the top middleweight contender it was over-rated vs. under-rated, as it turns out. Everybody (including yours truly) predicted Nate Marquardt would roll through Chael Sonnen with ease. Perhaps we had our judgment clouded by Marquardt’s highlight reel-type wins over Martin Kampmann, Wilson Gouveia and Demian Maia. I know the 21-second Maia victory certainly caused some over-praising of Marquardt’s stand-up skills. And we didn’t fear for him on the ground – he was a multi-time King of Pancrase who trains alongside Rashad Evans and Georges St. Pierre, after all. We believed the hype. So did he, it seems.

Sonnen put him on his back and kept him there for three rounds to earn the unanimous decision and the title shot. Sure, there was the guillotine attempt late in the third frame but lucky for Sonnen the gash in his forehead (the result of an elbow thrown from Marquardt’s back) bled enough to help him slip free.

And what about Sonnen? Nobody gave him much of a chance. Guess we forgot the guy’s a warrior (he had a 24-10-1 record heading into the bout with more notable losses than wins). So as Marquardt slipped down the middleweight ladder – plummeted would be more accurate – Sonnen took a huge step up. Still not convinced he deserves a title shot, though. He did lose – badly – to Maia in his previous fight. And I don’t think he has much of shot against either current champ Anderson Silva or Silva’s next challenger, Vitor Belfort, but then I said the same thing about Sonnen facing Marquardt.

Just as two wrestlers often end up standing and banging, submission specialists Maia and Dan Miller opted to duke it on their feet. I was a little surprised, and disappointed, as I’d hope to see a jiu-jitsu clinic. Barring that I’d have loved for Maia to knock Miller out to to show he can do it. What we got was Maia’s first decision win in four years and second of his career.

Now, obviously Maia’s striking has improved since losing to Marquardt in 21 seconds at UFC 102. To really understand how much better he’s gotten you have to look back beyond that and past his wins over Sonnen and Nate Quarry (neither of those fighters made it past the three-minute mark of the first round before being submitted) to his third-round win over Jason MacDonald at UFC 87. Still, Maia was impressive on his feet. Strong, crisp striking. He even looked comfortable. I’d love to see him rematch with Marquardt.

I like Paulo Thiago. I liked him from the moment he knocked out Josh Koscheck at UFC 95. Then he took Jon Fitch to a decision at UFC 100. On Saturday, he submitted Mike Swick, who is looking less and less impressive each time into the cage. Yes, I know he took the fight on late notice, but not that late. He’s a one trick pony in a thoroughbred race. Who’s next for Thiago? If I was matchmaking – Georges St. Pierre. Thiago has knockout power and solid jiu-jitsu and could give the champ trouble.

Matt Serra may not be a good technical striker – he’s short and tends to lunge forward, leaving his head open – but he’s got power, turning the lights out on Frank Trigg’s UFC comeback midway through the first round. If Matt Hughes won’t give Serra a rematch after his fight with Renzo Gracie at UFC 112 then put him in against Swick, who desperately needs to redeem himself.

Not a lot of excitement on the preliminary card. Mac Danzig, Melvin Guillard and Phil “Super Thighs” Davis all came up winners while the UFC debut of Rolles Gracie was a colossal bust as he gassed out and was TKO’ed by Joey Beltran in the second round. Not a good sign but still, the Gracie name carries enough weight that he’ll get another chance to prove himself.

If Lyoto Machida vs. Mauricio “Shogun” Rua II isn’t enough to bring you to Montreal for UFC 113, maybe Kimbo Slice vs. Matt “Meathead” Mitrione will convince you visit La Belle Province. If that’s the case, though, I really have to question your sanity.

Regardless, the Ultimate Fighter 10 cast members will put their 1-0 UFC records on the line at the May 8 event (yes, it was slated for May 1 until Floyd Mayweather decided he would actually fight somebody, in this case Shane Mosley, on that date and the UFC didn’t want to compete for pay-per-view buys; smart move by the UFC to change dates).

Adding Kimbo to the card is a pure money grab – Slice means TV viewers no matter how horrible a fighter he actually is. Pairing him with Mitrione, someone who’s more than willing to stand and trade haymakers and who is the obvious heel of the two makes perfect sense. Slice has a reasonable chance of notching another win – meaning this little cash cow is kept from the slaughter house for one more fight – while Mitrione is merely cannon fodder for the division no matter how he performs.

As for the rest of the UFC 113 card, there’s Paul Daley vs. Josh Koscheck; Marcus Davis vs. Jonathan Goulet; Alan Belcher vs. the now-healthy Patrick Cote; Jeremy Stephens vs. Sam Stout; and TJ Grant vs. Johny Hendricks.

Is UFC 111 the next UFC event to really get excited about? It’s got the welterweight title bout between champ Georges St. Pierre and Dan Hardy, which I’m sure will be as lopsided as GSP’s last six bouts but then, as with Anderson Silva, it’s entertaining just to marvel at his athletic prowess and could always provide another “Hit him with your groin!” moment.

Then there’s the heavyweight fight between Shane Carwin and the newly bulked-up Frank Mir for the interim title, an interim title that’s now wasteful and unnecessary given Brock Lesnar’s expected return at UFC 116 on July 3. Still, it’ll be interesting to see Carwin really tested and might give us some idea of how he might have done against top-level talent like Lesnar if they had met at UFC 106 or UFC 108, as was originally scheduled.

Next on the card is the rematch between welterweights Jon Fitch and Thiago Alves that was originally slated for UFC 107 back in December until Alves blew out his knee. This is a chance for the Brazilian to even the score after a 2006 loss to Fitch and marks his first fight since losing to GSP at UFC 100.

Further down the card you’ll find Martin Kampmann taking on Ben Saunders in a one of those middling match-ups that might entertain in a scrappy sort of way but could fizzle into a three-round borefest just as easily. Sneaking into the opening slot of the night is perennial undercarder Mark Bocek vs. Jim Miller, which doesn’t exactly feel like it’ll provide an explosive start to an event backloaded with nitroglycerin.

Scattered throughout the preliminary card you’ll find Nate Diaz vs. Rory Markham; Ricardo Almeida vs. Matt Brown; Fabricio Camoes vs. Kurt Pellegrino; Jared Hamman vs. Rodney Wallace; Tomasz Drwal vs. Rousimar Palhares; and Ricardo Funch vs. Matthew Riddle. Funch and Riddle… I’m sure there’s a joke in there somewhere.

There’s a battle of opposites slated for next month’s UFC Fight Night 21 that just sounds… hilarious: Roy Nelson vs. Stefan Struve. Just picture it – the master of the blubber guard against Skyscraper, a 6-foot-11 Dutch beanpole kickboxer (who also has decent submissions thanks to those long legs). It’s a Laurel & Hardy match-up. Add 70 pounds of fat to Struve’s opponent in the photo above and you get the idea.

Also on the March 31 card are headliners Kenny Florian vs. PRIDE ans Shooto star Takanori Gomi, who’s making his long-awaited UFC debut; middleweights Nate Quarry vs. Jorge Rivera; and lightweights Ross Pearson vs. Dennis Siver. Relegated to the undercard are lightweights Cole Miller vs. Andre Winner; middleweights Yushin Okami vs. Lucio Linhares; and Gleison Tibau vs. Caol Uno.

Of course, the whole event is just a warm-up to season eleven of The Ultimate Fighter, featuring coaches Chuck Liddell and Tito Ortiz, which premiers immediately following Fight Night.

At first glance, Saturday’s UFC 109 looks like a total snooze. Randy Couture vs. Mark Coleman in the main event? Twelve years ago, sure, but now? Aesthetically, this is an ugly fight, two old war horses battling it out, a last grasp at glory, slipping and sliding on each other’s wrinkle cream, yada yada. Shades of Ultimate Warrior-era WWF wrasslin’.

The Matt Serra vs. Frank Trigg main card opening bout is like a dehydrated version of the main event – two scrappy, yappy mutts clinging to UFC relevance. Granted, a second straight loss by “Twinkle Toes” Trigg (whose first name is actually Dewey, FYI) and he’ll be gone, while Serra has enough cache – he’s liked/hated in about equal measure, he’s both an Ultimate Fighter winner and a former welterweight champ, and he’s the last person to beat Georges St. Pierre – to ride out a loss even though it would be his third in a row.

None of the other match-ups on either the main card or preliminary card scream “Fireworks!” With the exception of Brazilian jiu-jitsu ace Paulo Thiago vs. striker Mike Swick, none of the other fights even feel balanced.

I don’t mean mismatched or lopsided; I’m not talking about one fighter being obviously superior to the other, although in the case of Nate Marquardt vs. Chael Sonnen, I have to say that’s clearly the case. A Sonnen victory would be an upset in anyone’s book.

What I mean is that the pairings involve one well-known or recognizable entity, a marquee name of sorts, at least among hardcore MMA fans, versus somebody nobody but their family really cares about.

Sure, that creates an automatic underdog situation and everybody loves a Rocky story, and it’s certainly not indicative of skill level or the likely outcome. As great as he is, it’s hard to get psyched up for a Demian Maia fight when his opponent is Dan Miller, a significantly less capable submissions specialist and owner of a 3-1 UFC record who most people – myself included – couldn’t pick out of a lineup. (Quick: name three fighters Miller has beaten. Exactly.)

The preliminary card is riddled with fights that I really only want to see half of (and I’m only half interested in that half): the once highly touted yet kind of annoying vegan/PETA poster boy Mac Danzig, who’s a loss away from exiting the UFC, against Justin Buchholz; the sometimes exciting until he gives up his neck and gets choked out Melvin Guillard against Ronnys Torres; the prone to passing out Phillipe Nover against Rob Emerson; Brian Stann against Phil Davis (neither of whom have left any kind of lasting impression in past fights; maybe if they had cool nicknames they’d be more memorable); Tim Hague, who has the Canadian thing going for him, against Chris Tuchscherer, who I’m sure will be wearing a reinforced-steel cup; and Rolles Gracie against Joey Beltran (it should be obvious from their names alone which fighter will garner more of my attention).

So, on paper there’s no one great fight in the offing. But as a whole, it’s really not a half-bad. It’s not half-good either, though. And I suspect we could be in for a long night of three-round decisions.

Everybody’s calling out Georges St. Pierre. Even fighters who aren’t in the UFC. Especially fighters who aren’t in the UFC. Makes it easier to take on the welterweight champ when you’re in a different promotion. Kind of like taunting the lions at the zoo.

Strikeforce middleweight champ Jake Shields has Dan Henderson in his headlights but has expressed a desire to move down to his natural 170 pounds. That would put him on a collision course with newly crowned Strikeforce welterweight champ Nick Diaz, who also happens to be Shields’ Cesar Gracie training partner. So that fight’s not likely to happen. Instead, he’s floated the idea of fighting GSP, which of course requires he leave Strikeforce for the UFC, which is not unlikely at all.

Diaz, meanwhile, says he wants to fight GSP next. Presumably he’s aware that they’re in different promotions, although you never know given Diaz’s penchant for smoking pot.

A little closer to home (as in, a fighter who’s actually currently signed to the UFC), Diego Sanchez has his sites set on the welterweight belt. After three fights a 155 pounds, including one of the most lopsided beatings in UFC history at the hands of lightweight champ BJ Penn, Sanchez has decided to move back up to a 170 pounds in hope of an eventual encounter with GSP. He’ll start down that path at UFC 114 (likely scheduled for May 29) against John Hathaway, a 3-0 UFC undercarder.

Okay, and while he’s expressed no interest in fighting GSP, Strikeforce heavyweight champ Alistair Overeem says he’d happily sign with the UFC as soon as they show him the money. That would be a huge loss for Strikeforce, which has a fairly solid heavyweight division. Then again, since he hasn’t defended his belt in two years it really wouldn’t be much of a loss at all.

For the first time since Royce Gracie fought Matt Hughes a member of the famed Gracie family will step into the octagon. At UFC 109 on Saturday, Rolles Gracie, son of the late Rolls Gracie (who was Helio Gracie’s nephew), will face, well, it looks like he’ll face fellow UFC newcomer Joey Beltran in a heavyweight match-up. Rolles was supposed to fight Mustapha Al Turk, who apparently has travel visa problems and can’t make it into the country.

Rolles Gracie is a 3-0 IFL vet while Beltran is 10-3 and is coming off a knockout win over UFC throwaway Houston Alexander at a 5150 Combat League event.

And while this is slated for the preliminary card, I for one hope it makes it onto the pay-per-view broadcast. A Gracie in the cage, especially a new-generation Gracie (and a heavyweight!), is something to pay attention to.

This video makes it pretty clear that Demian Maia will never be UFC champion. Don’t get me wrong, I love him as a fighter, his jiu-jitsu is unmatched (I have a big soft spot for BJJ fighters), and I would like nothing more than to see him destroy Dan Miller at Saturday’s UFC 109. I think it would be great if Maia beat Miller up with strikes and knocked him out just to prove that his stand-up has improved since his embarrassing 21-second knockout loss to Nate Marquardt. A more likely scenario is Maia takes Miller down and submits him, easy peasy lemon squeezy.

Back to him never becoming champ. It’s got little to do with his weak striking game or his lack of a monster physique and everything to do with his attitude. He’s a low key, soft-spoken guy – there’s a surprising amount of very boring footage of very boring stretching exercises in the video, so much so that I almost expected Richard Simmons to show up. And he makes it very clear he wants to beat people with jiu-jitsu to prove the art’s effectiveness and – this is the important part – he wants to do it without hurting his opponent.

Now, I know he doesn’t mean that literally. He means he wants to cause them as little pain as possible. He’s not going to grind out a win by beating on somebody or lock on a submission and try to rip an arm off like Shinya Aoki. He’s not a destroyer. But I’m sorry, you can’t be a UFC champion if you’re holding back in some way. It’s not kill or be killed (as far too many fighters hyperbolize), but it is a fight to the finish. That means getting mean and nasty and aggressive, and I just don’t think Maia has that in him. You might argue that Georges St. Piere isn’t mean and nasty and you’re right, he isn’t, out of the cage. But inside the cage he is completely focused on punishing his opponent, on hurting his opponent, on destroying his opponent, on getting the job done so he can make nice afterward. That’s how you become a champion. I hope Maia proves me wrong someday.

BTW, it’s interesting to see Maia training out of The Arena in San Diego alongside jiu-jitsu world champion and MMA fighter Xande Ribeiro (whom you can see at the beginning of the video). I’d have thought Maia would’ve gone to Black House where he could work on his grappling and his stand-up with the Nogueiras. Maybe it’s because fellow middleweight and current champ Anderson Silva would also be there and didn’t want the distraction of training alongside a potential future opponent. Just speculating.

Promises, promises. UFC president Dana White has confirmed that the winner of Saturday’s UFC 109 showdown between Nate Marquardt and Chael Sonnen will be the next to vie for the middleweight belt currently held by Anderson Silva. Of course, the last time White made such a statement it was to promise Dan Henderson a title shot if he beat Michael Bisping.

Marquardt is on a three fight winning streak, including a 21-second KO of Demian Maia, who was the last fighter to beat Sonnen, in his last bout. If he beats Sonnen – and he should – he certainly deserves a crack at the crown given Henderson’s departure for the greener pastures of Strikeforce and the relative thinness of the middleweight division.

Sonnen, on the other hand, I’m not buying as a viable top contender. He’s 3-3 in the UFC and his last fight a decision win over Yushin Okami, who was considered a contender himself until the loss. But Sonnen will have to show something he never has before – a truly dominating, beat-him-standing-up/beat-him-on-the-ground, end-it-before-it-goes-to-the-judges kind of performance – for me to think he deserves to fight for a belt. And that’s not likely against Marquardt, which will leave him more time to focus on his political campaign. He certainly knows how to handle himself like a politician during interviews, as you can see below. His comments about Anderson Silva at the 2:00 mark definitely pegs him as a Republican. And I love his comments about how well Silva can or can’t speak English that comes at the end of the clip. Hilarious.

I’m inclined to root against Mark Coleman – not just when he faces Randy Couture at Saturday’s UFC 109 but in everything he does in life – based solely on the photo above. Can you guess why? Yep, there he is hitting the focus mitts with coach Shawn Tompkins while wearing a freakin’ ballcap! Who does that? I wonder if he’ll wear it during his octagon walk-in.

Okay, Coleman has given me a second reason not to be in his corner. Around thirteen minutes into the video below he talks about his two daughters, how he’s a father first and fighter second (aww, how sweet) and then he talks to them in a video chat, saying something about wanting to get this fight over so he can get back home to them and – well, at that point I stopped watching. It just felt like a painfully obvious and completely staged ploy to gain sympathy, garner fans, to humanize Coleman. Coleman barely looks human so he could use a little of that, especially considering he’s not as well-known or popular as Couture.

So, what about the fight itself, between two guys with a combined age just south of triple digits. They’re both former UFC champs (Coleman was in fact the first-ever heavyweight champ and a ground-and-pound pioneer), and both were Olympic-class wrestlers. Coleman actually competed in the ‘92 Games while Couture was always an alternate (always a bridesmaid, never a bride). Coleman was also a freestyle wrestler, which is considered harder, tougher, more athletic than Greco Roman, which Couture competed in. It’s likely a moot point, though, considering the deciding factor in the bout will probably come down to who has the better striking and can impose their will on the other, clinch, use dirty boxing, keep the fight up against the cage. Oh yeah, and stamina, cardio, an ability to not require an oxygen mask between rounds and be taken out of the cage in a wheelchair. Flip a coin for the winner.

As Don Frye says,Couture vs. Coleman is “going to be like sex with a grizzly bear, you know, a lot of scratching and growling on both sides.” Not sure I want to pay to watch bears bumping ugly, though. That’s what the Discovery Channel is for.

It’s easy to judge when you’re not in the cage. If you’ve never gotten in the ring, never put on the gloves or a gi, hit and been hit, then you really don’t have any business discussing MMA, Muay Thai or jiu-jitsu in any serious fashion. I’m not saying you have to be a professional fighter; you just have to know what you’re talking about from the inside. Fast forward to the 4:10 mark of this MMA Prime TV interview with Fabricio Werdum (who talks about his upcoming fight with Fedor Emelianenko), you’ll see reporter Aaron Tru get a taste of what the sport’s really like. Better put some ice on that, Aaron.

It’s well known that Mirko “Cro Cop” Filipovic is some sort of Croation anti-terrorist super-cop (it’s in his nickname, fer crissake!). But I wasn’t aware that Paulo Thiago’s day job is busting down doors and cracking skulls as a member of BOPE (Batalhão de Operações Policiais Especiais), the infamous elite special forces commando unit of the Brazilian military that gained notoriety for its rather ruthless war on gangs and rumours of carrying out assassinations and other nasty wet works. There was even a book and movie based on BOPE that I think I’ll have to track down.

We got a peak at Thiago in action during the preview for Saturday’s UFC 109, when he fights Mike Swick (who is subbing for the injured Josh Koscheck). It’s typical SWAT team type stuff but still cool, and definitely different than the usual usual for these now-repetitive and boring Spike shows.

Thiago is certainly more bad-ass than he’s appeared in the octagon. I also like what he and his trainer have to say about his “lucky” punch that knocked out Koscheck in their first meeting. Essentially, it was a combination – right uppercut/left hook – that that the jiu-jitsu fighter practiced all the time and he was lucky enough to connect with it when it counted most. Basically, he made his own luck. Look at the replay of the combo and you can tell it wasn’t a fluke.

Does this get you excited for UFC 109’s Randy Couture vs. Mark Coleman bout? If the fight guaranteed that whoever lost never fights again then I might – might – be interested.

Does Erin Toughill have a hope in hell of beating Cris “Cyborg” Santos? Does anyone?

Toughill is expected to be the next to face Cyborg following the Brazilian champ’s impressive overpowering of a very game (read: solid striking, more resilient and less intimidated than I’d expected) Marloes Coenen at Saturday’s Strikeforce: Miami event. Coenen, a submission specialist, stood and banged in the early going and was clearly stunned when the shots she landed didn’t even make Cyborg blink. Cyborg ate whatever Coenen could dish out and asked for more, beating her against the cage, throwing her to the floor and and dropping hammerfists like a female Wanderlei Silva until the referee stoppage in the third round. Give Coenen credit – she fared better than Gina Carano did in the same position (although Coenen and Carano both looked about the same afterward – bloody and bruised and completely demoralized), and any question about Cyborg’s stamina is now moot. Definitely the fight of the night.

The other title fight, for the vacant welterweight strap, saw Nick Diaz pepper DREAM champ Marius Zaromskis with punches from long range (Diaz has arms like a chimpanzee) and weird angles for a first-round TKO but it was by no stretch a “striking clinic,” as some have written. Diaz’s striking is not a style any fighter should try to emulate – his punches zip about like a swarm of mosquitoes, with no real power behind them. But it was enough to knock Zaromskis, who’s known for his fight-ending head kicks, off his game as he never got one off, in large part because Diaz pinned him against the cage and drove knees into his right thigh until he could barely stand.

Herschel Walker is an incredible physical specimen but he doesn’t walk on water. The 47-year-old NFL great and former Olympic bobsledder won his MMA debut – via third-round TKO – but it was a sloppy effort against a wet blanket named Greg Nagy. Still, he stalked Nagy, nagged him with punches and kicks, landed the rare takedown and delivered a bit of ground-and-pound, nothing to be embarrassed about. Nothing to write home about either.

Dutch knockout specialist Melvin Manhoef should be embarrassed. For an entire round he had Robbie Lawler backing away and covering up as he delivered brutal leg kicks that repeatedly knocked Lawler’s leg out from under him. He showed patience and delivered sharp piston-like punches. Then he leaned a bit too far forward, dropped his hands a bit and Lawler clipped his paper chin and he folded. Lights out. A tste of his own medicine. Give Lawler credit – other than the leg damage, which left him hobbling around the cage post-fight, he did a good job of covering up during the barrages of punches. But the fight was Manhoef’s to lose and he did.

And it was paint-by-numbers as former WWE wrestler Bobby Lashley dumped Ultimate Fighter loser Wes Sims on his ass and ground-and-pounded him until he rolled over and cried uncle. Certainly not the kind of test Lashley needs if he wants to prove he deserves a shot at Fedor Emelianenko or any of the other top Strikeforce heavyweights.

Great card? No. A couple of okay fights – and one great one in Cyborg/Coenen – but that’s it.

This sounds like a National Lampoon’s Vacation movie but it’s true. UFC 112 – featuring a middleweight title bout between Anderson Silva and Vitor Belfort, a lightweight title bout between BJ Penn and Frankie Edgar, and Matt Hughes against Renzo Gracie – will be held at Ferrari World. In yet another example of the gratuitous wealth possessed by Middle Eastern oil sheiks, an outdoor arena is being constructed in the Abu Dhabi theme park specifically for the April 10 event. Is it just me or does it look like something Pixar animators might have drawn up on their computers, a secret lair for an Incredibles villain maybe?