Posts from — October 2009

Forrest Griffin’s stock dropped faster than his ass hit the mat following his loss to Anderson Silva at UFC 101 and it had nothing to do with getting clowned.

It started falling as he was running out of the octagon and continued its descent through weeks of media silence. In his eventual post-fight interviews he came across as a bit of an ass. As I wrote on 09.27, “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.” In a subsequent interview he explained his hasty octagon exit as a need to get a backstage blowjob from a reporter’s mother, a comment which “rates pretty high on the drunken fratboy douchebag meter,” as I wrote on 10.03.

Now, a pair of new interviews have surfaced, ostensibly to promote Griffin’s rematch with Tito Ortiz at UFC 106 on November 21. But they also serve another purpose – to redeem Griffin by showing people he’s still the likable jug-headed hick he’s always been. And they are somewhat successful.

The first is a well-prepped promotional interview in which the Silva fight is addressed and dismissed in just 19 words: “Obviously people want to know what happened with the Anderson Silva fight. I don’t know. It was pretty bad.” That’s the sum total of his insight into fighting Silva. Personally, I preferred his “I don’t remember because I was on quaaludes” response but I understand that he wants to put the fight firmly in his rearview.

As for him fleeing the octagon, he was a bit more forthcoming, saying, “It’s easy to criticize. It’s easy to kind of stand on the sideline and criticize a person’s blood, sweat, and toil. Anyone who says that, I feel bad for them because they’ve never given of themselves so much and cared about something so much that not getting it broke them. You know, those people have never truly lived, you know.” Still, not very illuminating (it was pretty obvious Griffin was devastated by the loss but a little more introspection would’ve been appreciated).

The interview wraps up with him talking about Ortiz, how the fire has been rekindled inside him and that he really wants to punch somebody in the face. Pretty standard – rehearsed – stuff.

As for the second interview, it’s basically the goofy dick-joke-loving Griffin we all remember. Nothing too douchey. Although I am beginning to wonder about his obsession with his own penis.

Five Ounces of Pain is reporting that Thiago Alves has been forced to pull out of his UFC 107: Penn vs. Sanchez bout with Jon Fitch on December 12 due to an injury (a torn knee ligament, apparently).

This is the second opponent to drop out against Fitch in recent weeks. The welterweight contender was originally slated to meet former middleweight King of Pancrase Ricardo Almeida, who pulled out of their UFC 106 clash – also with a knee injury.

Word is that a replacement for Alves is being sought. Fitch has just one loss in 18 fights, to division champ Georges St. Pierre, and last fought at UFC 100, earning a unanimous decision over Paulo Thiago, who was originally scheduled to fight Alves at UFC 107 until Alves was moved into the vacating Almeida slot (got that?).

So who would you like to see sliding in against Fitch?

Here’s how UFC 107 now looks:

MAIN CARD

* Champ B.J. Penn vs. Diego Sanchez (for lightweight title)
* Cheick Kongo vs. Frank Mir
* Jon Fitch vs. TBA*
* Kenny Florian vs. Clay Guida
* Paul Buentello vs. Todd Duffee

PRELIMINARY CARD

* Alan Belcher vs. Wilson Gouveia
* Shane Nelson vs. Matt Wiman
* Ricardo Funch vs. Johny Hendricks
* Lucio Linhares vs. Rousimar Palhares
* Edgar Garcia vs. DaMarques Johnson
* Kevin Burns vs. T.J. Grant

If you don’t like light heavyweight champ Lyoto Machida’s unanimous-decision win over challenger Mauricio “Shogun” Rua at last Saturday’s UFC 104 then “you can go to hell,” says Cecil Peoples, one of three California State Athletic Commission-assigned officials who misjudged the fight.

Peoples made the remark – along with many others that call into question his ability to judge anything more complex than a pie-eating contest – in an interview with MMA Weekly. He also confirmed that he hasn’t seen the fight on video nor looked at any of the statistics that give Rua an overwhelming advantage. It’s the second time this week that Peoples has spoken up about the fight to the media. Obviously Peoples isn’t smart enough to stay quiet on the subject, instead choosing to open his mouth, insert his size tens and further fuel the controversy.

Cory Brady over at Five Ounces of Pain does a great job of breaking down Peoples’ comments, so instead of me rehashing them, I’ll excerpt the highlights here:

“My thing is, Rua did hit him more,” explained Peoples. “But Machida hit him harder, especially in the early rounds.”

So according to Mr. Peoples, the man admits that Shogun landed the bulk of the strikes, but Machida “apparently” landing the harder shots canceled out Mauricio’s strikes because they were somehow perceived as softer.

What sense does this make?

With this logic, the gameplan for all fighters in the UFC going forward should be to absorb as much punishment as humanly possible while landing an occasional haymaker. Are you kidding me?

And since when did Peoples become an on-site human measuring stick for the velocity and impact of strikes. Being convinced that Machida’s blows were somehow more devastating reeks of favoritism.

“I’m really perplexed about how you give (Rua) this round, because Shogun was kicking (Machida) a lot in the legs, but every time he kicked him in the legs, he got hit in the face,” continued the repeatedly controversial judge. “Shogun would put his hand up, and Machida would go right through, sweat’s flying off (Rua’s) face. Shogun kicked (Machida) in the belly – that’s how he got the red mark.”

Perplexed as to how anyone could give Rua a round where he clearly landed more strikes?

I think the world of mixed martial arts is a lot more perplexed as to how one of its most frequent outcome deciders could so easily toss out all of the powerful kicks landed by Rua just because he didn’t knuckle Machida up to his liking.

I could understand giving a few shots to the face more leverage than a few dozen hard kicks back during UFC 1-10, but the year is 2009 and this was UFC 104. If the fossils in place to rule on MMA bouts currently are frozen in time, its time for them to be replaced. Simple as that.

“But you gotta remember, Machida is stepping back, so when he gets kicked, he’s getting brushed,” said Peoples. “But he counters Shogun with a hard kick to the belly. Which one counts more for the exchange? I give it to the (second one), because it was harder. It wasn’t brushed.”

So the same hard kick to the “belly” of Machida that caused the red mark that Cecil so easily explained away as meaningless is no longer meaningless when Lyoto lands it?

Again, somehow Machida must have been landing the harder kicks. Disregard the fact that “The Dragon” was taking steady, visible damage to the legs and body, Lyoto’s kicks were…… well, they were just harder according to the impact expert.

“Machida was controlling that round because he was dominant in not getting beat up in that round,” Cecil attempted to rationalize. “He was the general in that first round.”

I don’t know, but if Machida was dominant in not getting beat up in that round, wasn’t Shogun even that much more dominant being that not only was he “not getting beat up,” he was also pushing the action?

Is this the cast of The Ultimate Fighter 11? I really like giant Afro dude, opera boy, hockey player face, Uncle Morty (aka legendary boxing trainer Al “Stankie” Stankiewicz), the guy with Sho’nuff on his T-shirt and capoeira guy (please let capoeira guy into the house, seriously, he’d just be fun to watch, like Cirque de Soleil). The final cast of middleweights and light heavies will be decided over the next few weeks with season 11 airing starting sometime in April.

Taking the fight on just 10 days notice and moving up a weight class, Roxanne Modafferi has agreed to replace Erin Toughill against Marloes Coenen on November 7’s Strikeforce: Fedor vs. Rogers card. The winner could be in line to face women’s 145-pound champ Cris “Cyborg” Santos.

Modafferi (13-4) and Coenen (16-3) faced each previously at K-Grace 1 in 2007 with Modafferi getting the nod via split decision.

Okay, now if we can only firm up Sarah Kaufman’s next fight.

The promos for last night’s episode of The Ultimate Fighter: Heavyweights promised the “fight of the season” and the show delivered. Sure, it was one-sided, but the way “coach” Quinton “Rampage” Jackson tore that gym door apart was a demonstration of pure power and aggression. Afterward, judge Cecil Peoples gave the decision to the door despite the fact that Rampage landed more strikes and did more damage.

As for the actual fight that preceded the demolished door, ex-NFL player Matt Mitrione and Scott Junk threw marshmallow jabs and noodle-armed haymakers at each other for two rounds in what UFC president Dana White gleefully called a great fight. He said they were dropping bombs on each other. Cherry bombs, maybe.

Mitrione got the better of Junk, who I was shocked to learn has fought in the UFC once already (a submission loss to Christian Wellisch at UFC 76). He knocked Junk down several times in the first round and had Junk grabbing at his ankle like a kid being dragged from Toys R Us before they did a brief waltz against the cage. The second round was less of the same as the two lifeless blobs wailed at each other until Mitrione earned the decision and the seventh straight win for Team Rashad Evans.

Can anyone imagine any of these fighters competing in the UFC? A pie-eating contest, sure, but imagine if they faced Cain Velasquez or Junior dos Santos or Cheick Kongo. At this point, I’m looking forward to Kimbo Slice fighting again, although the episode was lacking any “Kimbo’s coming back” moments so I suspect we’ve seen the last of Slice in the cage on the show.

By the way, TUF 10 has found its Junie Browning in Mitrione. No, he’s not getting drunk and going crazy, but as coach Rashad Evans said, the cheese has certainly fallen off his cracker. He’s ratting out teammates’ supposed insecurities to the opposition, throwing temper tantrums, trying to beat up his own teammates, talking about quieting the voices in his head. It’s either an act, perhaps a mind game (although I’m not ready to give Mitrione enough credit to come up with something like that), or he’s batshit insane or he’s just a tremendous douche.

The episode started with an argument between Evans and Rampage that was heated and grew in intensity as Rampage began to behave more and more like a schoolyard bully and less and less like a professional athlete.

Here’s UFC heavyweight champ Brock Lesnar at the Minnesota Vikings game on Sunday, the day before he pulled out of November 21’s UFC 106 due to a serious illness.

Some things never change. Take for example Mrs. Emelianenko’s little darlings. The creepy psychotic stare of Aleksander Emelianenko and the bored “I need a nap” look on his brother, Fedor’s, face are nothing new. I would love to find a Fedor Emelianenko mask for Halloween.

This extended promo for November 7’s Strikeforce: Fedor vs. Rogers is not bad. It does a decent job of laying out who Fedor Emelianenko and Brett Rogers are without resorting to reciting a resumé of defeated opponents who would mean nothing to the casual MMA fans that CBS wants to attract with this card.

That said, I do have a few problems with it. While the clip of Kimbo Slice is smart from a marketing perspective – he’s one of the most-recognized fighters in the sport no matter how horrible he is – the less I se of him the better.

Worst yet, the video doesn’t convey how absolutely bad-ass Fedor is. If you didn’t know who he was, his record, who he’s fought, the punishment he’s dished out and taken, the talking heads aren’t going to convince you and you wouldn’t think twice about either of these two shmos. The final face-to-face meeting between Fedor and Rogers is unconvincing. I don’t sense any tension between them at all. Okay, so Fedor’s expression never changes, and Rogers has admitted to never having watched a Fedor fight, which strikes me as the height of stupidity, so his utter blankness is no surprise. But they both look like a couple of cows chewing their cuds. Doesn’t help that neither fighter looks in shape – I know Fedor never looks in shape and that this was shot weeks ago so he is probably in better shape now, but still.

A couple of women’s MMA fights have been dropped from upcoming Strikeforce cards.

Erin Toughill has withdrawn from her November 7 Strikeforce: Fedor vs. Rogers bout against Marloes Coenen due to medical reasons. The winner of that fight was expected to advance to a title fight with 145-pound champ Cris “Cyborg” Santos, who was originally scheduled to face Coenen for the title on the Fedor vs. Rogers card but had to withdraw due to an injury suffered during ADCC sub wrestling world championships in September.

Meanwhile, it looks like I’ll have to wait a little bit longer to see Sarah Kaufman back in action. Kaufman’s bout with Takayo Hashi has been scrapped from November 20’s Strikeforce Challengers V: Woodley vs. Bears event. No reason has been given for the decision although MMA Junkie is reporting that the 135-pound bout could be rescheduled for early 2010.