Posts from — August 2009

Are you not entertained?!

What the hell does Yushin Okami have to do to get a little respect from the UFC?

The Japanese middleweight is 23-4 with a 7-1 record in the UFC. He’s beaten Evan Tanner, Dean Lister, Mike Swick and Alan Belcher among others (he also has a disqualification victory over Anderson Silva, who delivered an illegal and fight-stopping upkick to Okami’s chin while both fighters were grounded during a Rumble on the Rock event in 2006). His only octagon loss was a close decision to Rich Franklin at UFC 72. He’s a top-10 ranked middleweight (he’s number 9 on Sherdog and number 2 on the Independent World Rankings list).

So why is Okami fighting on the preliminary card (i.e. the untelevised card) at UFC 104, where he’ll face journeyman Chael Sonnen (22-10-1 MMA, 2-3 UFC)? In fact, Okami has been undercarded three of his last four fights (including UFC 104 in October).

Okami’s a good fighter who’s been ghettoized by the UFC and I don’t understand why. You could argue that he doesn’t have the fanbase to warrant main card attention, but that goes nowhere because without TV time he can’t grow a fanbase. It just doesn’t make sense to me.

Hopefully, some of the main card fights – light heavyweight champion Lyoto Machida vs. Mauricio “Shogun” Rua, Sean Sherk vs. Gleison Tibau, Spencer Fisher vs. Joe Stevenson, Ben Rothwell vs. Cain Velasquez and Anthony Johnson vs. Yoshiyuki Yoshida – will run short and Okami vs. Chonnen is used to fill up some pay-per-view time.

Feel free to suggest your own headline for this photo of Chuck Liddell rehearsing for Dancing with the Stars.

As I wrote here earlier, Fedor Emelianenko held an open workout in New York on Wednesday, where Strikeforce CEO Scott Coker announced the Russian juggernaut will fight Brett Rogers next/first. Here’s the video of the ring work. Hard to tell for sure, but Fedor looks in good shape, light on his feet. The guy holding the focus mitts looks a little nervous.

Quinton “Rampage” Jackson is not stepping into Mr. T’s mohawk and gold chains to play B.A. Baracus in a big-screen version of The A-Team. Yes, I think the UFC fighter would be awesome in the role of the aviophobic green beret-turned-mercenary. He’s got the look, the attitude, the sense of humour required. And no, I don’t think acting ability is a huge requirement of the role. But it’s not going to happen.

I mention this because the London gossip rag the Sun reported Jackson had been cast and then every MMA site out there (like this one and this one) was only too happy to jump on board the rumour train. Except it’s only a rumour and nothing more.

As soon as I read what the source was I knew it was crap. Rampage was talking about wanting to be in The A-Team over a year ago and all the Sun did was rehash that as fact. Well, the casting story was proven false over at the MTV Movies Blog, which got in touch with Rampage’s management, something the MMA sites like Sherdog failed to do I guess.

What we do know is that Liam Neeson will play Col. John “Hannibal” Smith, leader of the A-Team, and Bradley Cooper (The Hangover) will play Templeton “Faceman” Peck. Rappers The Game and Common are rumoured for the Mr. T role (of the two, I’d go with Common, he’s the less obvious, i.e. more acting experience, less muscular choice).

There’s no word on who will play “Howling Mad” Murdock. So let’s start our own rumour and say that Diego Sanchez has been cast as the A-Team lunatic.

Let me ask – does anybody miss the Texas Crazy Horse? Heath Herring hasn’t fought since he pushed Brock Lesnar to the scorecards at UFC 87 over a year ago. He was supposed to face Cain Velasquez at UFC 99 but had to withdraw because of illness.

Now, a new interview over on MMA Fanhouse indicates he’s not really interested in returning to the cage. Seems he’s happy being an actor:

“It’s not that I’m not really happy with the UFC … It’s just, you know, like I said, I think that last fight just took a lot out of me. Now with acting, and things kind of taking off, it just left a bad taste in my mouth. And not necessarily with the UFC. Just with the training … you know, some of my trainers and things like that. I think I just needed a little time to step back and maybe do some other things for a little bit…”

That’s right. Herring is an actor. Or at least he wants to be an actor. I wouldn’t call anything he’s done so far acting.

Herring did have a small role as an underground MMA fighter in the worse-than-straight-to-DVD Never Surrender, which also featured Georges St. Pierre, BJ Penn, Anderson Silva and Quinton “Rampage” Jackson in less-than-illustrious roles. And that same crew also appear in something called Hell’s Chain, another MMA-set actioner from the same writer-director-star, Hector Echavarria. (I haven’t seen it and probably never will.) Herring plays somebody called Demoledoe in King of the Cage and also has a role as a henchman in Salt, which is actually a big-budget Hollywood thriller starring Angelina Jolie.

“I’ve been trying to get into acting a little bit; it’s actually been taking off. I’ve got a bunch of different movies lined up. Don’t have anything signed just yet, but you know, the film industry is kind of like the fight industry, there’s always rumors, but things always seem to fall in place afterwards.”

And while Herring still has three fights on his UFC contract, fighting isn’t his priority:

“You know, I don’t have anything scheduled right now with the UFC. Like I said, this acting stuff is kind of taking off, I’ve got some other things going on. I’m really not in a big hurry to jump back in there right now. I’m kind of riding this wave and seeing where it’s going to take me.”

Chuck Liddell might think he can dance, but I’m pretty sure he doesn’t have the kind of moves Keith Jardine does.

MMA Fanhouse has a good interview with Jardine, who fights Thiago Silva at UFC 102: Couture vs. Nogueira on Saturday. I especially like his comments about if his played up his personality to be as colourful and distinctive as his physical appearance that it would help his career, bring him more fans, maybe even get him a title shot sooner, but that it’s just not his nature: “I don’t need to get all WWE on anybody.”

In that interview the subject of Viking techno comes up. Jardine is a bit of a YouTube celebrity thanks to his crazy misspent youth and a certain dance video: “I think it’s funny, man. When people ask me on the street and stuff, I always tell them that, Yes, it was me, and it was a long time ago, and that kind of stuff. And I have a lot of fun with it.”

And while there’s an online petition to have Jardine borrow a page from Anderson Silva’s pre-fight playbook and dance his way into the octagon, Jardine says there’s not much chance of that happening. “I think I’d have to take some techno dance lessons first. I think I’d rather come out to … I like weird music, I’d rather use Tom Waits or something first. I don’t know, man, I don’t know. We’ll see. Maybe. I like practical jokes, so we’ll see what happens. I don’t know if they’ll let me fight in those shorts, though.”

Bringing things back to MMA, here’s Jardine’s third-ever pro fight. It’s from February 2002, against future Pride FC and Sengoku slugger Travis Wiuff in the quarterfinals of an Extreme Challenge eight-man heavyweight tournament in Iowa. The action starts at around the 2:18 mark and stops just a handful of ticks later. I had to replay it several times just to figure out what happened. BTW, the winner of the tournament was Ben Rothwell, who fights Cain Velasquez at UFC 104.

And finally, here’s Jardine being rather insighful about his upcoming bout with Silva.

Last week, MMA Junkie talked up relative unknown Cindy Dandois as the future of women’s MMA. Yesterday, Five Ounces of Pain pimped Erin Toughill as the next challenger to Strikeforce women’s champ Cris “Cyborg” Santos. Today, it’s Miesha Tate.

Now, I’m all in favour of giving women’s MMA a bigger spotlight, and Tate’s a good young fighter (she’s 23 and has a 6-2 record). She’s a great addition to Strikeforce’s growing roster of female fighters and she’s certainly “marketable,” as you can see above.

But her last fight was a unanimous-decision loss to Sarah Kaufman at a Strikeforce Challengers event in May. Kaufman is 10-0 and went on to beat Shayna Baszler by unanimous decision just one month later. Kaufman has incredible boxing and Muay Thai and great takedown defence, and as she showed against both Tate and Baszler, her submission skills are sharp, too. She’s the real future of the Strikeforce 135-pound division. (Of course, in the Tate interview she does say that she wants to face Kaufman for the Strikeforce 135-pound belt if and when they create it.)

I really like this photo of Antonio “Minotauro” Nogueira sitting in a tub of ice after a workout. It’s a great shot. Just another day at the office for the Brazilian. Then I saw the video that shows him getting into the tub. Watch his face. He hardly even flinches. Ice water is several degrees colder than just a tub of ice and it’s in no way a comfortable experience. But he climbs in like it’s a hot tub. Stone-faced. Just one more reason I’m picking Nogueira to beat Randy Couture at UFC 102 on Saturday. He’s all business.

Fedor Emelianenko held a public workout in New York City this afternoon where Strikeforce CEO Scott Coker announced that the Russian heavyweight’s first opponent will be Brett Rogers. No surprise there. It was either going to be the Mr. T lookalike or jiu-jitsu ace Fabricio Werdum.

Personally, I was pulling for Werdum, who looked impressive in a first-round submission win over Mike Kyle at Strikeforce: Carano vs. Cyborg two weeks ago. The Brazilian has a much stronger ground game than Rogers, which will be a huge factor in any fight with sambo wizard Fedor.

Rogers is 10-0 in his MMA career, and is coming off a first round-knockout of former UFC heavyweight champion Andrei Arlovski at Strikeforce: Lawler vs. Shields in June. Coincidentally, Fedor’s last fight at January’s Affliction: Day of Reckoning saw him knock out Arlovski in the first round as well.

No date for the Fedor vs. Rogers fight has been announced.

Let’s face it, if you didn’t start hitting the Thai pads before you hit puberty then you don’t have much of a shot at being a world champion. This is the kid’s fourth round and his technique looks pretty crisp and sharp. And he’s probably not even the best at his school.