Posts from — February 2010

All I can say is that the eleventh season of The Ultimate Fighter better have more going for it than Tito Ortiz’s mouth. Last season’s fights were pitiful. Pi-ti-ful. If there isn’t the talent I don’t know how long I’ll be able to stand watching Ortiz flap his gums at Chuck Liddell.

Wanderlei Silva says he’ll be “more aggressive” when he makes his middleweight debut against Michael Bisping at Saturday’s UFC 110. Think about that for a second – the Axe Murderer is going to be more aggressive. For his sake, given the 1-3 skid he’s posted since coming to the UFC, I hope he makes good. I’ll only be happy if the fight is as entertaining as the pre-fight press conference trash talk that the two engaged in.

Mirko “Cro Cop” Filipovic has to be thinking he caught a lucky break. The Croatian wrecking ball’s back is against the wall – he’s 2-3 in the UFC and was considering everything from retirement to suicide before steeling himself for one last run at MMA glory.

And while his bout with Ben Rothwell at Saturday’s UFC 110 certainly favoured him, the news that Rothwell has dropped out due to illness and has been replaced on just 48 hours notice by Anthony Perosh has to make him feel just a little bit better, maybe steady those killer legs of his a little bit. After all, Perosh is a UFC nobody who went 0-2 against Jeff Monson and Christian Wellisch four years ago and has been fighting in his native Australia ever since.

Anything can happen in MMA, but if Cro Cop loses this – strike that, if Cro Cop doesn’t knock Perosh’s head off like he used to do to opponents back in his PRIDE days, well, he should take his gold watch and go home.

Only Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira would consider a punch in the face as an opportunity to win. As he tells Kevin Iole over at Yahoo! Sports, eating a few fists and elbows comes with playing a jiu-jitsu game:

“If you’re going to play jiu-jitsu in the UFC, you have to be comfortable enough to play on the bottom. You have to have a strong chin and not be afraid of the punches when you play guard. You can’t have any fear to play jiu-jitsu. You know you’re going to open holes. You know you’re going to get hit and take a lot of punishment, but you have to remain calm and watch very carefully because a hole will open at any time.

“When your opponent is punching you, yes, he’s hurting you maybe, but he’s opening holes and putting himself at risk, too. In my last fight [at UFC 102] with Randy [Couture], if you watched, you can see that Randy threw the elbow and I swept him. I let him stay [in my guard] and be comfortable because I knew he would be open. You learn from experience. There’s pain, but there’s also gain. When you are going in competition you have to be prepared to win but you also have to be prepared to lose.”

If that doesn’t get your respect and admiration you’re not a true fan of the sport.

Big Nog will have a chance to put his submissions – and his face – to the test when he faces Cain Velasquez in Saturday’s UFC 110 heavyweight headliner from Sydney, Australia. Nog is an MMA legend, a PRIDE and UFC champ with a 32-5-1 record and a list of opponents that reads like Batman’s rogues gallery – Fedor Emelianenko, Couture, Dan Henderson, Mark Coleman, Bob Sapp, Mirko “Cro Cop” Filipovic, Josh Barnett, Frank Mir and on and on.

And his fight with Velasquez, a 7-0 wrestling stud who’s biggest challenge previously was Cheick Kongo, could earn him the first shot at heavyweight champ Brock Lesnar when Lesnar finally makes his return to the octagon. Yes, Shane Carwin and Frank Mir are set to face off for the interim belt at next month’s UFC 111 – a bout that was arranged even before we knew Lesnar would likely be back by July – but everyone still has to prove they deserve the title shot, according to UFC president Dana White. And who’s to say Mir or Carwin won’t be too injured following their battle to face Lesnar when he returns?

For my money, I’m hoping Big Nog out-boxes Velasquez and knocks him out, saving himself a beating in the process. Barring that, I expect Velasquez will use his wrestling and put Big Nog on his back, maybe start dropping some fists onto his face and opening the door for Big Nog to tap him out. Letting someone smash you while you hunt for submissions is a rough road to take to victory. It’s certainly not the safest or easiest or smartest or least painful, and it sure can’t make it easy to look in the mirror the next morning, but that’s what makes Minotauro a legend.

The sky is not falling. MMA is not sanctioned in the province of Ontario. MMA won’t be sanctioned here any time soon. Premier Dalton McGuinty says it’s simply not a priority. No big deal. “Showdown” Joe Ferraro, the most inside guy in MMA in the province, says the same thing over at Sportsnet.ca. Things are status quo, the wheels are in motion, MMA will be sanctioned eventually and when it does it’ll blow open the door for the UFC, Strikeforce, Bellator and any small-time McDojo mogul with dreams of being the next Dana White.

That’s all well and good. Nothing to get upset about, as Joe says. MMA is coming. Patience, Joe preaches, and what else can we do but wait? Slow and steady wins the race, they say, and this is one of those situations. Except I know, and Joe knows, and everybody else knows that “slow and steady wins the race” is only true if you do in fact win the race. Otherwise, you were never in the race to begin with.

Oh, Josh Barnett, how you vex me. I don’t mean your doping scandal that killed your bout with Fedor Emelianenko and led to Affliction folding. Bygones, I say. Anyone who thinks you’re alone – or even in the minority – when it comes to steroid use in MMA is kidding themselves. There’s doping in the Olympics, and it’s widespread despite the advanced testing procedures and the sense that the Games are holier, more sacrosanct than other sports. So don’t tell me there’s not a lot of steroid use in MMA. No need to crucify you for it.

No, my problem is I just want to see you fight, and not in those fake Japanese wrestling shows or small-time grappling tournaments (as you did last weekend). I want to see you in a cage with five-ounce gloves and a glare and a desire to moidah somebody.

That’s why I’m confused by an interview you’ve given to Hardcore Sports Radio in which you say that your drug issue is behind you and you can now fight “anywhere in the world and [in] any state in the union.” Seems you’re just waiting for a promotion (the UFC or Strikeforce, presumably) to “come correct” and “throw me an opponent” who you feel isn’t “a slap in the face or ridiculous.”

From that I’m to believe that you’ve been approached by a promotion (I would bet on Strikeforce given that it would be an opportunity to finally stage the showdown with Fedor), and that promotion has either not offered an opponent you deem worthy (Fedor) or haven’t trucked out enough cash to convince you to fight. You’d rather wrestle for big yen and grapple for peanuts, it seems.

And that’s what vexes me. If you want to fight – fight. Stop the talk and just walk the walk.

Now Five Ounces of Pain is reporting that IFL vet Claude Patrick is in negotiations with the UFC. It’s a done deal, the way it’s reported, with his octagon debut expected for UFC 115 in Vancouver.

Yesterday, I wrote that I’d heard the same rumour, and although Patrick denied it in an e-mail he sent me, I suspected that there was something to it and he just didn’t want to tip his hand. I’ve reached out to the Toronto fighter again to see if I can’t get something a little more concrete.

Patrick is an 11-1 welterweight whose lone loss was to Drew McFedries in a 185-pound tilt. He’s got heavy hands and some slick submissions (I believe he’s a jiu-jitsu brown belt now), and would make life difficult for fighters in the UFC’s welterweight division.

I like this match-up: Bellator Fighting Championships lightweight champ Eddie Alvarez, a top-three fighter in the division, will face discarded UFC vet Josh Neer in a 160-pound Super Fight at an event in May. The bout is one of several non-title, non-tournament bouts slated for Bellator’s second season. Other season one champs (Joe Soto, Lyman Good, Hector Lombard) will also have catchweight “hype” fights while they wait to defend their titles against the season two tourney winners. I love the format, which makes every fight relevant and important and worth paying attention to.