Posts from — December 2009

Forget cursed. UFC 108 is at the point of “why should I care?” The latest – Sean Sherk is out of his lightweight fight with Jim Miller due to a severe cut suffered during training, according to Sherdog. Sherk was just moved up from the preliminary card last week. Miller was supposed to fight Tyson Griffin, who is injured, while Sherk was originally supposed to meet Rafaello Oliveira. It now looks like Duane Ludwig will step in against Miller. Remember when this card was supposed to feature Brock Lesnar vs. Shane Carwin and Anderson Silva vs. Vitor Belfort? Yeah, us neither.

A bit outside the realm of fighting, but we’re nearing the holidays, so… It appears that UFC octagon girls Logan Stanton and Natasha Wicks are out of work. According to several reports, both card carriers have been let go – Stanton did not have her just-ended contract renewed and Wicks was just plain booted. That’s three this year (remember Edith Labelle was axed last summer).

The reason for the layoffs/firings is pure fanboy speculation, ranging from backstage catfighting with lead octagon girl Arianny Celeste to MMA ignorance (since when was fight knowledge a pre-requisite for holding up a numbered card? An ability to count to five and not fall down seems all that’s really needed in the skills department). Regardless, they’re gone and rumour has it that Playboy playmate Chandella Powell will step into their heels and booty shorts. Looks good to me. I wondered why there wasn’t a little more colour in the mix back when the So Cal-looking Wicks was hired in August.

Guess what boys, a female MMA star has just been offered an invitation to pose for Playboy. Before you go grabbing for the Kleenex, it’s not Gina Carano or Sarah Ponce or Miesha Tate, but Cris “Cyborg” Santos.

Years ago, stumbling around Amsterdam I learned an important lesson: You cannot unsee things in life. Certain images will haunt you for the rest of your days (as anyone who has watched WWE star Chyna’s porn can tell you). You can shower but you will not be clean.

I have a ton of respect for Cyborg. She holds the Strikeforce 145-pound women’s title, easily beating Carano and simultaneously shortening the amount of time I spend in the shower by about five minutes (hurry up, make that movie, Steven Soderbergh!). Cyborg will defend her Strikeforce title on January 30 against Marloes Coenen. She trains with the Chute Boxe Academy and is an outstanding athlete. There has been a lot of speculation that she takes performance enhancing drugs, but as far as I know she has never failed a drug test so these accusations are almost vindictive in nature since there is no evidence that her athletic prowess is attributable to anything other than hard work.

MMA has a peculiar relationship with female fighters, often focusing more on their personal lives than their fighting abilities. There is not much hype about who Wanderlei Silva is dating and Playgirl will not be calling him anytime soon. That said, some female MMA fighters (notably Carano, Tate and Ponce) pose suggestively for men’s magazines, thus promoting themselves as a sex symbol as well as fighters. Therefore, commenting on what they do as hotties, as well as fighters, is fair game.

Cyborg vs. Carano was billed by some as Beauty vs. the Beast. As far as I know, Cyborg had never publicized herself as anything other than a fighter. Therefore, I thought commenting on her looks was inappropriate. However, once she admits she’s considering posing for Playboy, her looks become a fair target.

Cyborg says that in her entire life only one man has seen her naked and she needs to “think deeply” about posing for Playboy. If she decides yes, I’ll be buying “Jugs” that month instead.

Seems UFC president Dana White isn’t interested in waiting to see when/if heavyweight champ Brock Lesnar might be well enough to defend the belt. According to MMA Junkie, top contender Shane Carwin and former champ Frank Mir will meet in an interim title decider at UFC 111 on March 27. If true, it would likely be the co-main event alongside the welterweight championship between Georges St. Pierre and Dan Hardy. While Mir looked impressive – and significantly bulked up – against Cheick Kongo at last weekend’s UFC 107, it seems a little soon to have him contending for a belt, even a temporary one.

Disgraced ex-UFC fighter Karo Parisyan offers up an apology and discusses the “highs and lows” (no kidding, those are the interviewer’s words when discussing the fighter’s drug problem) of the last few months. (From Hyefighters.com via Five Ounces of Pain.)

A rough week around FW, so this is a bit late. Better late than never, as they say. UFC 107 is in the books. BJ Penn proved he’s the most-dominant lightweight in UFC history. He out-struck Diego Sanchez 150-8 and stuffed all 27 takedown attempts en route to a fifth-round ref stoppage victory after he opened a nasty gash in Sanchez’s forehead. Simply remarkable.

The only interest in his future fights in this weight class is to see how badly he beats his opponent. Gray Maynard, Frankie Edgar, a Kenny Florian rematch, all punching bags. Ditto Shinya Aoki, if he ever brings his magic grappling pants to the UFC. So basically, the UFC lightweight division just got as boring as the welterweight and middleweight divisions.

Give Sanchez credit, he’s got heart and guts and a “never say die” attitude. You can’t teach that. Wonder how he’d do with better MMA coaching? Make no mistake, Saulo Ribeiro is a jiu-jitsu genius, but if the game never gets to the ground then Ribeiro’s best game never comes into play.

What’s next for Sanchez? How about a rematch with his Ultimate Fighter Finale opponent, Kenny Florian?

Speaking of Florian, his boxing looked very crisp against Clay Guida, whom he beat on and submitted with relative ease. Stil an exciting fight, which is what Guida gets paid for.

Added mass seemed to add a lot more pop to Frank Mir’s punch as he put Cheick Kongo’s UFC future into doubt seventy-two seconds into round one. Mir is definitely serious about rematching with Brock Lesnar for the heavyweight title and with the added muscle to match his striking and ground game Mir has a legitimate shot at taking the belt (assuming there’s no interim belt created while Lesnar recovers from his illness).

Unless Jon Fitch is fighting for the belt he shouldn’t be allowed within sixty minutes of the main card ever again. Another three-round decision win – yawn – over Mike Pierce drags the pay-per-view to a screeching halt, and this on a night when all fight night bonuses went to preliminary card bouts.

Stefan Struve. A 6-foot-11 Dutch kickboxer with a strong ground game. He won a majority decision over Paul Buentello but all anyone remembers from the fight is Struve’s attempt at a flying knee that led to him eating a sharp right that Buentello had to actually jump up to throw. Still, he deserved the win and he’s only 21. Give him time and thirty more pounds and he’ll be scary.

Weigh-ins are usually pretty tame affairs, but there does seem to be some energy in the air at yesterday’s UFC 107 event. Whether it’s Cheick Kongo turning his back on Frank Mir and refusing to do the requisite photo op stare-down or the audience spontaneously chanting “Yes!” as Diego Sanchez took the stage or the intense face-to-face between Sanchez and lightweight champ BJ Penn. BTW, Penn looked really lean while Mir tipped the scales at 264.5 pounds, or 21.5 pounds heavier than he did against Brock Lesnar.

I’m getting a little tired of all the post-Matrix/post-Crouching Tiger chop-socky wire fu in films. It’s getting stale. But I’ll cut Bodyguards & Assassins some slack because it stars the super bad-ass Donnie Yen. Here’s an extended clip from the film, a fight scene with Strikeforce middleweight Cung Le, who is my excuse for posting this video.

This is a super hulk/freakshow fight if I’ve ever seen one. Five-time World’s Strongest Man winner Mariusz Pudzianowski needed just 43 seconds to win his mixed martial arts debut on Friday in Poland, pummeling a shmuck with zero MMA experience named Marcin Najman to win by TKO. I would’ve figured a fighter carrying around that much muscle would’ve gassed after about three punches. Now, before you start calling for this Pudz to step in with Brock Lesnar or Fedor Emelianenko – both events that would resemble the tossing of Christians to lions – I’m not sure we should be encouraging him. Of course, pitting him against Lesnar or Fedor may also be the quickest way to dissuade him from continuing his new profession.

Just a quick update on UFC 108: Titanic. Sean Sherk will likely move up from the undercard to face Jim Miller on the main card. Miller was supposed to fight Tyson Griffin, who is injured, while Sherk was originally supposed to meet Rafaello Oliveira (which sounds like a microwavable pasta meal).