Posts from — June 2009

In a battle of behemoths, ex-WWE wrestler Bobby Lashley overcame a huge weight different – 66.5 pounds! – to defeat ex-NFL player Bob Sapp in last night’s main event at Ultimate Chaos in Biloxi, Miss. Lashley, who weighted in at 255 lbs, took Sapp to the ground early in the first round and ended it with short hammer fists that forced Sapp to tap out. Certainly not the clash of the titans promoters were hyping.

Meanwhile, Xtreme Couture Toronto instructor and IFL vet Chris Horodecki beat four-time world Muay Thai champ William Sriyapai via submission. The Polish Hammer locked in a rear-naked choke in the first round to end it. Horodecki will face Joe Lauzon on the Affliction card in August.

“I guarantee – a money back guarantee – that this book will not help your fighting, will in no way better your life or improve your life in any way. Not only that, but I also guarantee that this book will not help your love life in any regard.” – Forrest Griffin, UFC fighter, best-selling author

The most entertaining fighter in all of MMA is Forrest Griffin. He’s a great gutsy give-’er-all-he’s-got brawler inside the cage and he’s damn funny outside, making him one of the sport’s most popular athletes (there’s a reason he’s on the cover of the UFC 2009 Undisputed video game).

Well, like so many other UFC superstars, he’s written a book. Unlike those superstars, Griffin’s is actually worth reading. I’m about halfway through my copy and it’s laugh-out-loud funny. (I’ll write up a review once I’ve finished it to give you a better idea of what you’re in store for if you decide to pick it up – and you should.)

And I’m not the only one who thinks it’s worth the price of admission: Griffin’s Got Fight? The 50 Zen Principles of Hand-to-Face Combat debuted last week at number eight on the New York Times Best Seller List for hardcover advice books. That’s right, advice. What makes Got Fight? so great is that it’s not a straight-up autobiography; it’s like a self-help book for cage potatoes and wannabe UFC fighters. An alternate title could’ve been Forrest Griffin’s Guide To Manliness.

“I try to tell the truth and use a little humour to talk about how I really feel. Like if I think you’re a fucking idiot, I’ll try to tell you in a funny way. I’m kind of kidding, but there’s also some truth to it,” he told UFC.com. “I’ve always been pretty decent sitting around the bar telling the story in a conversational sense. So that’s kinda what I wanted to make it, just telling a story where you can picture me telling it.”

Griffin says his inspiration for the book wasn’t the best-selling autobios by other UFC champs, like Tito Ortiz, Randy Couture, Chuck Liddell or Matt Hughes, it was books like The 48 Laws of Power, I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell and Stephen King’s On Writing, in particular. “It’s just stuff about his life and then he talks about writing, and that was the kind of book I thought I could do, and have it be on fighting. I would talk about fighting and then talk about my own life.”

Griffin, who co-authored the book with Erich Krauss, is as surprised by its success as anyone. “We all like to be listened to in conversation, so for people to actually spend money to find out your thoughts on stuff is a very flattering concept. I thought that it might just get lost in the shuffle of there being so many fighters’ books. Now, it having the success it has, I’m almost thinking, man, if I had really tried, I could have really written a good book.”

As for his 205-pound non-title fight against middleweight champ Anderson Silva at UFC 101 in August, Griffin is prophetic. “I’m probably going to get hurt, if not die. This guy knows how to fight. The good news is, if I die, this book will sell a lot more copies and be worth more.”

Turns out Brock Lesnar’s claim to have outpunched fellow UFC heavyweight Shane Carwin in a carnival-style power test at UFC 96 was as untrue as Carwin said. Except Lesnar didn’t make up the story, someone over at GroundNPound.org, where the story originated, did.

From GroundNPound.org:

First off, GNP would like to apologize to Brock Lesnar, his fans and all the site members. June 23rd an interview was posted on the front page, somehow access was gained to the main administrator account and the person responsible posted the “fake” interview. I’m not sure if the interview was real and just copy/pasted from another source or if the interview was just made up by the person who gained access to the site. Either way, GNP, myself or any of the other admins on the site had anything to do with it. Again, we are sorry that it happened and we are both looking into the actual cause and method used to gain access. rest assured we will take steps to prevent it from happening again as we find the holes in our security.

I’m not sure this will cool any bad blood between Lesnar and Carwin should they meet down the road. At least I hope not. The UFC could use some grudge match fireworks to juice things up a bit,

Fighters have backflipped before fights, and they’ve backflipped after fights (usually if the win). But how about a backflip mid-fight?

Eric Porter’s third-round stunt – who has that kind of energy in the third freakin’ round?! – was more than just for show as it seems to have surprised opponent Deshawn Parker long enough to land a flurry of fight-ending punches.

UFC 100 isn’t even in the books and they’re already promoing UFC 101: Declaration (of what, I have no idea; and yes, I know the fight’s being held in Philadelphia and UFC 101: Brotherly Love is just a bit gay, but come on, these names are worse than the title of a Steven Seagal movie). Still not feeling much excitement over either BJ Penn vs. Kenny Florian or Anderson Silva vs. Forrest Griffin. Maybe it’s the fan-made feel of this video. Gotta admit, though, love the guy who does the voiceover narration for these things. Whoever he is, he’s like the guy who used to do the movie trailers: “In a world where…”

In the “one more reason to hate on Brock Lesnar” category, UFC heavyweight contender Shane Carwin is calling the heavyweight champ out on a story he’s been telling. Carwin tells FiveOuncesofPain.com that he has no recollection of having a punching contest with Lesnar, which Lesnar has claimed not only took place the day before UFC 96 but that Lesnar won, out-punching Carwin by 150 pounds per square inch. Carwin says he never even met Lesnar at UFC 96.

Makes me wonder if Lesnar wasn’t remembering that scene in Rocky IV where Dolph Lundgren has his punching force measured and somehow Lesnar thought it happened to him.

Fighters shouldn’t try to be actors, just like actors shouldn’t try to be fighters (I’m talking about you, Mickey Rourke). Unfortunately, it’s inevitable.

We’ve already seen Georges St. Pierre, BJ Penn, Anderson Silva and Rampage Jackson in straight-to-DVD dreck (see the trailer above for proof) I could only watch on fast forward. Cung Le had a small role in Fighting opposite Hollywood It boy Channing Tatum (or Tatum Channing, I’m not sure which).  And Randy Couture has done decent work for Pulitzer-winner and BJJ purple belt David Mamet in the MMA-themed Redbelt and the TV series The Unit. Couture also made a Scorpion King movie that’s sitting on my DVD shelf gathering dust and locked-and-loaded for Sylvester Stallone’s new men-on-a-mission movie The Expendables (also starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, Jason Statham, Rourke, Jet Li, Dolph Lundgren, Eric Roberts and “Stone Cold” Steve Austin).

Now, Bas Rutten will star in a new comedy with Paul Blart star Kevin James called The Zookeeper. (BTW, I just have to point out that Blart is the worst movie I’ve seen this year; the worst). Rutten will join Adam Sandler, Sylvester Stallone and Cher as the voice of one of the zoo animals that gives James’s character romantic advice. No idea what kind of animal Rutten will be – a rhino, perhaps? – or what kind of romantic advice he could possibly give. How’d Rutten get the role? I can only guess that he’s friends with James, who’s a huge UFC fanatic and previously cast Rutten in his TV shitcom King of Queens and Paul Blart: Mall Cop.

Gotta say the Aug.1 Affliction: Trilogy card isn’t exactly lighting a fire under me. Beyond the Fedor Emelianenko vs. Josh Barnett title bout and maybe the Gegard Mousasi vs. Renato “Babalu” Sobral bout, what’s to get excited about? Certainly not Paul Daley vs. Jay Hieron or Vitor Belfort vs. Jorge Santiago (although Dana White is working hard to line up a fight between Belfort and UFC middleweight champ Anderson Silva, so that does make this fight against Santiago a bit of a curiousity).

And using Fedor’s pummelling of Tim Sylvia to open this promo video doesn’t exactly inspire me, either. OK, it was a dominant win – a beatdown – but Tim Sylvia? Really? Didn’t he just get knocked the fuck out in 10 seconds by a senior citizen? Why not use Fedor’s much more impressive one-punch flattening of Andre Arlovski? What – Arlovski has been dumped by Affliction because he keeps getting knocked out? Oh… And pumping up Barnett by saying he’s the one guy out there with the tools to beat Fedor? The one guy not fighting in the UFC, they mean, right?

Actually, I’m much more interested in a couple of the undercard fights involving Xtreme Couture Toronto instructors. Former IFLer Chris Horodecki will face Dan Lauzon while UFC vet Mark Hominick’s opponent is still TBA. Gotta cheer for the locals.

This promo for next season of The Ultimate Fighter (aka The Kimbo Slice Show) just depresses me. I know it’s a total ratings grab kind of deal bringing him on the show and essentially building the show around him. But is the backyard hooligan big enough to be a Spike pitchman? I guess so, because there he is, flexing his pecs and being all weirdo-beardo.

Certainly, Dana White is betting he’s a draw. TUF mainstreamed MMA and saved the UFC from extinction but its ratings have been going down steadily since the third season (if you want the TVspeak on the matter, Season 3 peaked with a 1.77 household ratings share – beats the hell outta me what that means exactly – and has declined to a 1.19 by Season 9, which I’m guessing probably isn’t good). To try and boost viewership, the show has been emphasizing the drunken escapades of dipshits like Junie Browning and Jesse Taylor, even when fans were saying they wanted to see more training and less Big Brother bullshit. That’s why the Yanks vs. Brits season was so refreshing. The goofing off was minimal and the fighters, especially Team UK, really took things seriously and professionally.

But there’s a problem. The show isn’t discovering the calibre of fighters that it did in its first three season. I can name all kinds of guys from those seasons off the top of my head – Diego Sanchez, Stephan Bonnar, Mike Swick, Keith Jardine, Rashad Evans, Forrest Griffin, Josh Koscheck, Kenny Florian, Joe Stevenson, Marcus Davis, Kendall Grove, Ed Herman, Michael Bisping, Matt Hamill – and they’re all still fighting in the UFC. I can’t remember anybody but the drunken losers from the last few seasons. Maybe the audition process to get on the show has changed, with a beer-chugging component added to the usual striking and grappling requirements.

So TUF has become less about restocking the UFC pond with fresh fighters as it is an infomercial for the pay-per-views – and for the fight between the show’s coaches, in particular. Quinton “Rampage” Jackson turned down a title shot with Lyoto Machida to be a coach and to fight fellow coach Rashad Evans. Machida’s not going anywhere soon, while the show will boost both Jackson’s and Evans’s public profiles, bring more viewers to the eventual PPV and put more money in both of their pockets.

Which brings me back to this promo video. Seeing an untested wannabe UFC fighter – and if you’ve watched any of Slice’s fights you’ll know he’s never really fought anything but tomato cans – given as much attention, moreso even, as the two coaches leaves a sour taste in my mouth.

For once I hope the TUF frathouse hijinks get taken up a notch and the four NFL dropouts who are also on the show join forces to make Slice’s stay a living hell. Shave him while he sleeps, piss on his mattress, hire tranny hookers to stalk him…

One of the biggest complaints fans have about women’s MMA is that there aren’t any knockouts, women don’t have the power, they punch like girls, etc… Well, let me introduce you to 19-year-old Stefanie Guimareas, who took less than a minute to introduce Yvonne Ruiz’s face to her knee followed by Ruiz’s back to the canvas at Bellator XII last week. Maybe she didn’t like Ruiz’s Brock Lesnar hairdo. Although, on reconsideration, Ruiz kind of looks like Brigitte Nielsen.