musings on mixed martial arts, Brazilian jiu-jitsu, Muay Thai and all things mano-a-mano

Just as Strikeforce gave loser Brett Rogers a title shot against heavyweight champ Alistair Overeem, the promotion is prepared to do it again, only this time I’m not complaining.

Seems Strikeforce CEO Scott Coker is hoping to line up a title shot for Fedor Emelianenko, the fighter who beat Rogers and who just lost to Fabricio Werdum. The plan is for Werdum to face the winner of the Fedor-Overeem match-up for the title.

Does Fedor deserve a title shot ahead of Werdum? No. Would I rather see a rematch between Fedor and Werdum, which has also been speculated about? Sure, but not right away. Would I rather see Werdum face Overeem next? Not at the expense of Fedor sitting out for months. I just want to see Fedor take big fights before he decides to retire. It’s as simple as that.

Looks like we might not have to wait too long for Brock Lesnar to defend his newly unified heavyweight title. Lesnar, who survived a first-round scare against Shane Carwin at Saturday’s UFC 116, will next face Cain Velasquez – and that could happen as early as UFC 119 on September 25. It’s just a matter of everybody staying healthy, and of Lesnar recovering from the pounding he took from Carwin before pulling off the suprising submission victory.

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Okay, folks, time to curb your enthusiasm a little bit. The UFC needed the media to sell Saturday’s UFC 116 headliner as the biggest heavyweight battle of all time and the media obliged. And now it needs the media to sell Brock Lesnar’s victory as some sort of act of divine providence, a baptism by fire leading to him emerging bigger and stronger and more powerful than ever. And the media is following along like the good little puppies they are and selling this Lesnar-as-Shiva-the-god-of-death shtick without really looking at what really happened in the cage against Shane Carwin.

Lesnar is not the “baddest man on the planet,” as many, including “Showdown” Joe Ferraro, have crowned him (Joe, you should know better). And Saturday’s UFC 116 was hardly the best night of fights. Far from it. But that’s what everybody’s saying after drinking the UFC Kool-aid.

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Chris Leben? Really?! That about sums up the level of my anticipation for today’s UFC 116.

Sure, everyone’s tuning in for the Godzilla-vs-Mothra clash of the titans between heavyweight champ Brock Lesnar and interim champ Shane Carwin, and rightly so. But rarely has such a huge main event – some are calling it the biggest heavyweight fight of all time, and based purely on gross tonnage they’re probably right – supported by such a lackluster, uninspiring and just plain uninteresting card as it is tonight.

Yes, Chris Lytle and Matt Brown should stand and bang, Kurt Pellegrino and George Siteropolous should display a decent ground game, Stephan Bonnar should bleed all over Krzysztof Soszynski and Leben should fight a war of attrition with judo ace Yoshihiro Akiyama. That’s a lot of shoulds. And I’m tired of shoulds. There’s been a lot of that in the UFC lately.

Actually, the loss of Wanderlei Silva from the card due to multiple injuries, including three broken ribs, is a huge hole in the card. And the best that UFC prez Dana White and matchmaker Joe Silva could come up with for a replacement was the flame-haired go-nowhere sideshow Leben? He just freakin’ fought two weeks ago and I can’t even remember what happened or who he beat. How is he a worthy replacement – not skills-wise, because Wanderlei would run a freight train through Leben like he’s a heavy bag filled with pudding. There isn’t another 185-pounder who could/would step up on late notice to take on the Japanese judoka? I know, short notice, yada yada, yawn.

So here’s hoping the main event delivers, that Carwin TKOs Lesnar, as I fully expect him to do early in the second round. Lesnar already has built-in excuses for losing (i.e. illness, ring rust). And that the rest of the card delivers some surprises. It is the 4th of July weekend, some fireworks are in order.

I’ve been paying a lot more attention to the World Cup in South Africa than I have anything in the MMA world, and I’ve gotten used to the buzzing of the vuvuzelas during games. It’s gone from annoying to sort of comforting. Seems UFC prez Dana White doesn’t share my opinion, as he’s banned the plastic trumpet from Saturday’s UFC 116 featuring heavyweight champ Brock Lesnar and interim champ Shane Carwin. Perhaps we could just get Jeremy Horn to scream at the top of his lungs instead.

Is there anyone who can beat Strikeforce women’s 145-pound champ Cristiane “Cyborg” Santos? Short of the Toronto riot squad, I mean. Give Cyborg’s target for the night, Jan “Snuggles” Finney, credit, though, she took a licking and kept on ticking. Some wonder why the fight wasn’t called sooner than the second round, like in the first round when Finney was getting knocked down four times and beaten upon. Or when she took that huge knee to the face that dropped her again. And the reason is because Finney was still intelligently – if feebly – defending herself; she even landed her strongest shots in the opening seconds of the second round. The referee stepped in when she needed to. Any sooner would have done Finney a disservice.

And since the Cyborg-Finney fight isn’t available online, here’s last week’s Bellator bout between Zoila Frausto and Rosi Sexton, which also contained a devastating – and fight-ending – knee.

In his post-Fedor loss piece, “Showdown” Joe Ferraro floats a couple of enticing scenarios. First, he suggests that the UFC may try to woo back Fabricio Werdum, who was cut after his UFC 90 loss to Junior dos Santos, and that it may lead to them trying one last time to sign Fedor Emelianenko, as well.

Don’t hold your breath that the inevitable Fedor-Werdum rematch will happen inside the octagon, but it is exciting to think about, as is the prospect of Fedor in the UFC tangling with the 265-pound monsters in the heavyweight division. On that point, Showdown ponders a Fedor v2.0 that trims the fat and drops to light heavyweight. Imagine that for a second: a 205-pound Fedor Emelienenko. Think of the match-ups that could result, against Randy Couture, Lyoto Machida, Mauricio “Shogun” Rua, Quinton “Rampage” Jackson, Anderson Silva… the mind boggles.

The headlines wrote themselves following Fedor Emelianenko’s loss to Fabricio Werdum at Saturday’s Strikeforce event. Some variation on the Last Emperor being dethroned, his reign ending. Melodramatic stuff, to say the least.

Now, two days later the dust has settled a bit and the shock of seeing the greatest fighter in MMA history beaten so easily has dissipated. Fedor suffered the first true loss in his legendary 10-year, 35-fight career.

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I originally thought this Brisk mock-commercial would’ve been a lot funnier prior to Chuck Liddell’s recent knockout loss to Rich Franklin. But the last 10 seconds are definitely funnier now. Makes me wish Tiny Chuck had his own web series.

Chael Sonnen doesn’t stand a chance in hell against Anderson Silva at UFC 117, especially now that the middleweight champ is training with Steven Seagal.

Laugh all you want – and Seagal’s girth certainly makes it easy to do so – but the direct-to-video action star is a legitimate aikido master (just check out his first and best movie, Above the Law, for some serious joint-popping, bone-breaking action). Admittedly, I have a soft spot for Seagal, having trained in aikido for many years until moving on to Muay Thai and jiu-jitsu, and I still use some of the leverage and joint-lock techniques when I roll to help me get out of tricky situations.

As for this video of Seagal and Silva training at Black House, in all likelihood Silva was just looking to experience a different martial art, much as Bruce Lee experimented in the creation of his Jeet Kune Do, which I also dabbled in for a time. Still, it would be cool if Silva pulled off an aikido move against Chonnen. And who knows, given the way he tends to clown his opponents I wouldn’t be surprised if he did try out a Seagal impression at some point in the bout.