Posts from — September 2009

Thiago Alves was the number one welterweight contender until he was dismantled and derailed by champ Georges St. Pierre at UFC 100. But according to a new interview with Tatame, Alves has been reborn (not in an “I’ve found Jesus” kind of way) and rebuilt (not in an Oscar Goldman/Steve Austin kind of way):

“You’re gonna see a different Pitbull. You didn’t see my wrestling and my ground game, because I didn’t have an opportunity to use it, and I feel that my career started after this last fight… I grew up a lot as a person and as a fighter, I’m recharged and I’ll get what I want, the belt. I’ll fight at December 5. I have an opponent, but I can’t say yet.”

Okay, so the Muay Thai stylist whose strikes GSP parried rather easily and whom GSP took to the ground at will has suddenly become a great wrestler? Or is he saying he was a good wrestler even then but he didn’t use those skills against GSP for some reason? Maybe this is some sort of “fake it till you make it” philosophy.

Regardless, I wonder who Alves will face on The Ultimate Fighter: Heavyweights Finale? Jon Fitch, Marcus Davis, Dan Hardy, or maybe it will be Paulo Thiago whom Alves had been rumoured to face at UFC 107 on December 12.

So this is what has been keeping Cung Le from defending his Strikeforce middleweight title: Pandorum, a grimy glowstick-illuminated sci-fi monster movie that owes much – well, pretty much everything – to the Alien films as well as bits of Pitch Black and Resident Evil. Yet for all its genre-splicing derivativeness, it still manages to be a more-than-above-average thrillride.

Pandorum is set aboard an intergalactic Noah’s Ark, where crewmen Ben Foster (3:10 To Yuma) and Dennis Quaid (Any Given Sunday) awake from years of hyper-sleep to find their memories and fellow crewmembers missing. From there it’s a struggle to figure out who they are and what happened to everyone else while also trying to fix their malfunctioning spaceship. Toss in the aforementioned monsters in the dark, a serious case of deep-space psychosis and enough muck and grime to make you feel like you need a shower, and the result is, well, exactly that, a space movie that flirts with Lovecraftian existentialism and the occasional disemboweling.

The film is heavy on atmosphere, and it’s a pretty heavy atmosphere at that – paranoid, claustrophobic and just plain icky. Fortunately, you can tell that the man at the helm, director Christian Alvart, loves the space monster genre and does his best to hold our attention, even when it slips into the occasional blackhole of bleakness and boredom. Sure there are plot holes big enough to swallow a supernova – how many times can Foster fall down a shaft, tunnel or tube without collapsing a lung? And how many glowsticks did he stuff into that tight little flight suit of his? But those are minor quibbles. I mean, what movie about a spaceship infested with cannibalistic creatures hasn’t had a few tumbles in logic? It’s the nature of the beast and in Alvert’s hands, and aided by solid performances all around, Pandorum pretty much pays off.

Now, if you’re seeing this for Cung Le, you might be disappointed. He has an important but minor role and his ass-kicking is kept to a minimum and is unfortunately shot in that Bourne-inspired shaky-cam style that prevents any appreciation of his martial arts ability. Still, he’s a charismatic presence even when he’s speaking only in Vietnamese. That he only speaks in Vietnamese and his dialogue has no subtitles makes it difficult to know how good his line delivery is, but he seems convincing given the restraints and limitations of his role.

Is he good enough to warrant abandoning MMA for acting? That’s hard to say. On a scale of one to ten, with one being Steven Seagal in Fire Down Below and ten being Jean-Claude Van Damme in JCVD (and yes, JCVD really is that good), Le comes in around a Chuck Norris-circa-Code of Silence level six.

Mat rat Scott Wallace over at Scott On The Net has compiled a bunch of videos of matches from the weekend’s ADCC in Barcelona as well as links to interviews with some of the winners. Below is Pablo Popovitch vs. Marcelo Garcia in the -76.9 kg final.

In the ADCC Men’s Absolute Final, divisional champ Xande Ribeiro suffered an arm injury during an inverted triangle escape and had to tap out to Braulio Estima. Estima, who also claimed the -87.9 kg title over Andre Galvao, is now slated to face Ronaldo “Jacare” Souza in an ADCC superfight in 2011. Third place went to Vinny Magalhaes, who defeated Gunnar Nelson 3-0 in overtime.

The Abu Dhabi Combat Club World Submission Wrestling Championships handed out its hardware today with Rafael Mendes, Pablo Popovich, Braulio Estima, Xande Ribeiro and Fabricio Werdum each earning men’s divisional titles while Luanna Alzuguir and Hannette Staack Quadros took home women’s titles.

Men’s -65.9 kg

There is a new name on the world jiu-jitsu stage and it’s Rafael Mendes. Mendes is just 20 years old and has had his black belt for less than a year, but he showed no signs of youth or inexperience en route to capturing the ADCC title.

Mendes earned a 7-4 win in a 30-minute double-overtime over Ruben “Cobrinha” Charles in the final, avenging a loss to Cobrinha at the Mundials earlier this year in the process.

In the third place bout, Ryan Hall defeated Jeff Glover 3-2 after taking his back in the final seconds of the bout. Hall and Glover advanced against each other only after semi-finalists Rani Yahya and Leo Vieira bowed out due to injury following their contests with Charles and Mendes, respectively. Vieira’s loss to Mendes marked only the second time he’d ever been submitted in competition.

Men’s -76.9 kg

Pablo Popovitch upset his arch-rival and three-time defending champ Marcelo Garcia 3-2 after losing to Garcia in the finals in 2005 and 2007. In the division’s third place bout, Gregor Gracie outpointed Keita “K-Taro” Nakamura 10-0.

Men’s -87.9 kg

Braulio Estima earned his first ADCC title with an inverted triangle submission over Andre Galvao. In the third place match-up, David Avellan slapped an Achilles lock on the injured foot of Raphael Lovato Jr. to force a quick tap. Lovato’s injury came in the semi-final loss to Estima.

Men’s -98.9 kg

Alexandre “Xande” Ribeiro repeated as divisional champ with a 2-0 win over Gerardi Rinaldi. In the third place bout, Ultimate Fighter vet Vinny Magalhaes subbed Glover Teixeira via armbar from a triangle set-up.

Men’s +99 kg

Defending champ Fabricio Werdum took a 9-0 points win over Roberto “Cyborg” Abreu to earn the title. In the bronze-medal match, 2005 champ Jeff Monson defeated Saulo Ribeiro on points. Afterward, Ribeiro, a six-time BJJ world champion and two-time ADCC champion announced his retirement from competition.

Women’s -59.9 kg

Luanna Alzuguir beat Sayaka Shioda 3-0 to win the division while Hillary Williams dispatched Laurence Cousins 9-0 to take third.

Women’s +60 kg

Hannette Staack Quadros picked up another ADCC belt with a kneebar submission over Penny Thomas. Quadros won the +67-kg title as well as the women’s absolute in 2007. Meanwhile, Strikeforce champ Cristiane “Cyborg” Santos won on negative points against Rosangela Conceicao in a bout that remained almost entirely on its feet.

The 47-year-old former NFL great has signed an MMA contract with Strikeforce. Now he’s explaining his decision. He says it’s not a gimmick, it’s not about the money (he’s donating his purse to charity), and he’s “here for the real thing,” whatever that means.

The last time anyone saw Forrest Griffin was during his embarrassed sprint from the octagon at UFC 101 two months ago. Oh, and a couple of sightings by Quinton “Rampage” Jackson, who’s become a bit scarce himself lately.

Well, now he’s breaking his silence in an interview with Dave Farra of MMA:30. And it’s a strange interview, even for Griffin. The chucklehead factor is turned to eleven. He doesn’t get into the loss to Anderson Silva at all, claiming he doesn’t know how it ended because he hasn’t watched it yet and that the one thing he learned from it was to not fight while on quaaludes. Not all his fault as Farra doesn’t push him at all on the subject. Anyway, I’ll leave the rest for you to watch. I will say that Farra does get in one good zinger when it comes to Griffin’s current workout regimen.

If you’re looking for the results from Saturday’s fights in Seoul, South Korea, which I fell asleep during sometime around 4:30 this morning causing me to also miss the first couple of hours of the ADCC championships, I suggest you head on over to Bloody Elbow. They have a pretty good breakdown of all the action for you kickboxing fans.

I did see that Remy Bonjasky took a unanimous decision from Melvin Manhoef that I thought went the other way when I finally got around to watching it. And while it was nice to see Alistair Overeem in action with a unanimous decision over Peter Aerts. I wish he’d get back in the cage and defend his Strikeforce heavyweight title. It’s been almost two years already.

The stage is set for Sunday’s semi-finals and finals at the ADCC World Submission Wrestling Championships in Barcelona. Here’s how Saturday’s brackets played out:

Men’s +99 kg

Two-time ADCC champ and six-time world champ Saulo Ribeiro will meet defending ADCC heavyweight champ Fabricio Werdum in one semi-final after out-pointing Koji Kanechika (5×2) in the opening round and Romulo Barral (3×0) in the quarter-finals. Werdum’s path included wins over Rogent Lioret (via kimura) and Tomaz Janiszewski (3×0).

The other semi-final pits 2005 ADCC divisional champ Jeff Monson against Roberto Abreu. Monson beat Karol Bedorf and Janne-Pekka Peitilainen to advance while Abreu submitted Tom DeBlass and out-pointed Asa Fuller.

Men’s -98.9 kg

Ribeiro’s younger brother, two-time world champ and defending ADCC divisional champ Xande Ribeiro, easily dominated Ilir Latifi and Radek Turek, the latter by armbar submission, to make it to the semis. He will face Ultimate Fighter 8 alum Vinicius Magalhaes, who make a spectacular run through the first two rounds by leglocking Rodrigo Henriques and catching Marcio “Pe de Pano” Cruz with a spectacular out-of-nowhere flying armbar.

On the other side of the bracket, Glover Teixeira beat Vesa Vuori (6×0) and 2003 ADCC absolute champion Dean Lister to advance against the funnest name to say in the competition, Gerardi Rinaldi. Rinaldi opened the tournament with a win over Yoshiyuki Nakanishi followed by another over the consonant-endowed Tamasz Szczerek.

Men’s -87.9 kg

BJJ world champion and 2007 ADCC absolute bronze medalist Andre Galvao and David Avellan will square off in one semi-final. Galvao dominated Kassim Annan (11×0) and a very game Matt Serra purple belt named Chris Weidman (4×0) while Avellan heel-hooked Trond Saksenvik in the opener and subbed Tarsis Humphreys in the quarter-finals by choking him out from the back crucifix.

Raphael Lovato Jr. beat Tom Lawlor and Bruno Bastos to make it to the semi-finals against Braulio Estima, who choked out Yuji Arai and earned the referee’s decision over James Braco.

BTW, the Gunnar Nelson who lost to Brasco in round one is an Icelandic BJJ fighter and not the Gunnar Nelson who is the son of late actor-singer Ricky Nelson who formed the duo Nelson with his brother Matthew. I had to Google it just to be sure.

Men’s -76.9 kg

Trying to win his fourth straight ADCC division title, Marcelo Garcia submitted Rodney Ellis via guillotine and choked out Rickson Gracie offspring Kron Gracie via a nasty guillotine from the mount in overtime (see video below) to make the semi-finals. He’ll meet Keita “K-Taro” Nakamura, who out-pointed Marcelo Azevedo and Milton Vieira.

The winner of that bout will face the winner of Pablo Popovich versus Gregor Gracie. Popovich beat Don Ortega by rear-naked choke and then subbed highly touted wrestler Ben Askren. Gracie out-pointed Marilo Santana and Leo Santos.

Men’s -65.9 kg

WEC fighter and 2007 ADCC divisional champion Rani Yahya defeated Kohei Yasumi by rear-naked choke and Jeff Glover (7×0) to advance against 2003 and 2005 divisional champ Leo Vieira, who guillotined both David Marinakis and Ryan Hall.

Reuben “Cobrinha” Charles, who tapped Hiroshi Nakamura by reverse armbar and Joel Tudor by rear-naked choke, will meet Rafael Mendes on the other side. Mendes triangled Jayson Patino and anaconda choked Justin Rader.

Women’s -59.9 kg

Hillary Williams beat Megumi Fujii by rear-naked choke to advance against 2007 champ Sayaka Shioda, who had beaten Bianca Andrade.

The other semi-final will see Luanna Alzuguir take on Laurence Cousin. Alzuguir opened with a guillotine win over Ina Steffensen while Cousins beat Ana Michelle Dantas.

Women’s +60 kg

Strikeforce MMA champ Cris “Cyborg” Santos beat Ida Hansson on points in overtime to advance against former ADCC champ Penny Thomas, who beat Shanti Abelha.

Reigning divisional and absolute champion Hanette Staack Quadros armbarred Hitomi Hiraiwa to earn a spot against former Olympic judoka and Greco-Roman wrestler (yes, she was both) Rosangela Conceicao, who earned a ref’s decision over Lana Stefanac.

Men’s Superfight

Ronaldo “Jacare” Souza squeaked out a win (2×0) over 2007 ADCC absolute division champ Robert Drysdale despite having taken the bout on just two weeks notice when Roger Gracie backed out due to illness. Sherdog reports that Souza, who will make his Strikeforce debut on November 7’s Fedor Emelianenko-Brett Rogers undercard, was “aggressive from the get-go, succeeding in several takedowns even before the points period had began” and “showed off an array of double-leg takedowns, inside trips, and even a brilliant outside foot sweep that put the Xtreme Couture grappling instructor on his backside.”

A couple of days ago I reported that former light heavyweight champ Rashad Evans might face Thiago Silva at UFC 108 on January 2. Yesterday, an L.A. Times story added Vitor Belfort and Anderson Silva in a middleweight title bout to the card. This morning, “Showdown” Joe Ferraro over at MMA Connected updated his Facebook status – so take this for what it’s worth – with news that Dan Henderson vs. Nate Marquardt would also meet.

None of this is confirmed, none of it’s in writing, hell, Henderson doesn’t even have a UFC contract and has been complaining that he only wants to fight Anderson Silva, but if it pans out it would make for a hell of a good way to start 2010.