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Have a nice retirement frank Trigg..
prelims have been good so far
Have a nice retirement frank Trigg..
Chael Sonnen is getting a le shot, this could get interesting lol
I didn't see the Swick vs Thiago fight yet but i'll comment about the others..
Serra/Trigg- Not quite what i expected but not shocked at all Serra got the KO. Trigg is not a great fighter, he wasn't great years ago in his first run with the UFC. A lot of people were confused as to why he was brought back and his 2 losses in his return confirm that confusion. Of the big guys he's fought in the UFC, Hughes twice, GSP, Koscheck and Serra, he has been finished in all those fights.
Marquadt/Sonnan- Shocked by this fight, totally shocked. I had Nate as the number 2 MW in the UFC, with Hendo gone to SF and man did he get beat the up by Sonnan. Viscious GNP, Nate got it going good at the end of the Round 3 with a Guilatine Choke and some GNP of his own, if it was a 5 rounder maybe but he was dominated in the first 2 rounds. Tough tough setback for Nate and Sonnan with a le shot, interesting..
Randy/Coleman- Not much to say here. Randy wins by Sub, i thought he'd get it by decision.. Randy while the same age as Coleman is still a top notch fighter, Coleman is not at his level and he never really was. If they had fought 5 or 6 years ago i think it would have looked about the same. Coleman may be done with the UFC Dana said after the fight..
Come on Regulars, Evan, Leonard, A-Train and the gang
Get in here and comment..
Couture finishes Coleman at UFC 109
By Kevin Iole, Yahoo! Sports
LAS VEGAS – Randy Couture has held the Ultimate Fighting Championship’s heavyweight le three times and its light heavyweight le twice.
After a dominant submission victory over Mark Coleman in a battle of Hall of Fame fighters on Saturday in the main event of UFC 109 at Mandalay Bay, Couture may be nearing yet another light heavyweight le shot.
He dominated Coleman with his boxing in the first round, punched his way to a takedown in the second round and then finished Coleman at 1:09 with a rear naked choke.
“I feel I’m improving each and every time I get out here,” said Couture, who is 46. “This is my third fight in seven months.”
Coleman, who said, “The guy is tough, real tough,” never was in the fight and took a beating from start to finish. Couture (18-10) landed a great uppercut in Round 1 and then followed it with a knee that badly hurt Coleman.
“I was a little slow tonight,” said Coleman (16-10).
Champion Lyoto Machida and challenger Mauricio “Shogun” Rua are headed for a rematch for the 205-pound belt on May 8 at UFC 113 in Montreal. Couture could get a shot at the winner of that fight.
He was impressive in all aspects and won his second fight in a row after leaving the heavyweight division and moving back to light heavyweight. He defeated Brandon Vera at UFC 105 in November.
In the co-main event, Chael Sonnen dominated Nate Marquardt and earned a shot at the UFC middleweight le with an impressive unanimous decision victory. Marquardt went off as a 5-1 favorite.
Sonnen’s wrestling was the difference in the fight. He repeatedly took Marquardt down and pounded him with elbows. Marquardt fought back hard, tried for several guillotines and cut Sonnen badly in the second round with an elbow from the bottom.
But Sonnen survived and won all three rounds on all three judges’ scorecards to earn a shot against the winner of the le fight at UFC 112 between Anderson Silva and Vitor Belfort.
“I don’t want to be an also-ran,” said Sonnen, whose last two wins, over Yushin Okami and Marquardt, were the most impressive of his career. “I’m here to be the king of the mountain or I’ll move on and do something else. I think I can beat every man God ever made.”
Former welterweight champion Matt Serra got back on track after a controversial defeat last year to Matt Hughes by scoring an impressive first-round knockout of tough veteran Frank Trigg.
Serra landed a counter right hand to Trigg’s cheek that essentially ended the fight. Trigg went down and was out, but Serra managed to land three hard shots, at least one too many, before referee Josh Rosenthal jumped in to stop the fight at 2:23 of the first round.
“The power comes from being stocky,” said the 5-foot-6 Serra, who won the welterweight le from Georges St. Pierre in 2007 in a similar manner.
Trigg is a wrestler and Serra was concerned about that, but he said he felt good about trading with Trigg. Trigg was willing to throw hands and Serra took advantage.
“Frank is such a stud wrestler and he’s got a vicious ground-and-pound,” Serra said. “I believe in my standup. It’s not pretty, but when I land it, it hurts. If it got hairy, I was expecting him to shoot. No disrespect, but when he hit me, I didn’t feel it.”
Demian Maia won a lackluster victory over Dan Miller, winning by scores of 29-28, 30-27 and 29-28. Both are excellent jiu-jitsu fighters, but the fight was basically a standup battle.
Maia did just enough to pull out the slow-paced battle with few major shots landing.
“I wanted to show the people that I can also fight standing up,” Maia said. “It was my choice to fight standup the first two rounds.”
Paulo Thiago did next to nothing in a slow first round, but he exploded in the second to submit Mike Swick with a D’Arce choke.
Thiago landed a counter right and followed with a crackling left hook that floored Swick. Thiago spent a few seconds maneuvering for position and slapped on the choke at 1:54 of the second.
Paulo Thiago is better than I thought he was. I thought he was a decent fighter with a lucky punch against Kos. I gotta pay more attention to him.
Big-talking Sonnen shows star power
By Kevin Iole, Yahoo! Sports
LAS VEGAS – There hasn’t been much sizzle in the Ultimate Fighting Championship’s middleweight division in the last few years. Champion Anderson Silva has been so dominant since winning the le in 2006 that most challengers are beaten before they step into the cage.
That changed in a big way on Saturday at UFC 109 at the Mandalay Bay Events Center when Chael Sonnen pummeled Nate Marquardt, a 5-1 favorite, and earned a le shot with a unanimous decision victory.
It’s a shorter list to name the body parts that Sonnen said weren’t hurting after the physical, bloody battle with Marquardt. He looked like Frankenstein with a long set of s ches across his forehead. He had another set of s ches crossing his nose, his face was dotted with welts and he was gingerly shaking hands.
Sonnen, though, performed as big in the cage as he talked prior to the fight when he trashed Silva, referred to most of the sport’s fighters as dirtbags and raised such a fuss that he caused UFC president Dana White to say Sonnen’s comments in a Yahoo! Sports column were “as crazy as some of my video blog rants.”
An Olympic alternate wrestler, Sonnen used his wrestling ability to repeatedly take Marquardt to the mat, where he held him down and blistered him with punches and elbows.
After the fight, he was as defiant as ever. He’ll fight the winner of the le fight at UFC 112 in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, between Silva and Vitor Belfort. Silva is the top-ranked fighter in the world, but Sonnen said he’d much rather have Silva win.
It wasn’t some corny token comment about wanting to test himself against the best. Rather, he took the opportunity to taunt Silva once again.
“I hope Anderson wins because I think Vitor is a lot tougher fighter,” Sonnen said. “If I have to choose between the two, I’m going to take the low road and choose the easier opponent. I really do mean it. Vitor Belfort, in truth, has really never lost a fight. The blueprint to beat Vitor is out there, but it’s not to stand up with him. I am picking Vitor.
“But look, at the end of the day, if you want to get to the top of the card in the UFC, you have to fight tough guys. If you want to be a fighter, get in the cage and be a big deal at your local strip club, go to Showtime. But if you want to fight real guys, this is the place to do it.”
Sonnen hasn’t been regarded as among the elite middleweights, though he has wins over many top fighters, including Paulo Filho, Dan Miller, Yushin Okami and, now, Marquardt.
His coach, Matt Lindland, isn’t surprised by his sudden emergence as an elite compe or. Sonnen, he said, has always had the skills but was dogged by a tendency to give in when the going got tough. Somehow, Lindland got through to him and convinced him to gut it out.
The result is that he’s become a legitimately dangerous man, as evidenced by how thoroughly he thrashed Marquardt.
“He had to learn how to get tough,” Lindland said. “If there was one thing he lacked in the past, it was toughness. If he took a knee to the head, well, you can take that knee and say, ‘I’m good,’ and keep fighting through it. But nobody would have blamed him for quitting. You get knocked out with a knee to the head and everyone would say, ‘Hey, good job. You worked hard. You fought tough.’
“But you know what? That’s not good enough in this sport. It’s not good enough if you’re going to take a le. You have to fight through that [expletive]. That’s what he’s willing to do now and that’s what he’s going to do when he goes out and shocks the world and wins the world le.”
Sonnen’s next move isn’t to start breaking down film of Silva, however. He’s got a campaign to run.
He’s running for a seat in District 37 of the Oregon House of Representatives – he plugged his campaign website, VoteSonnen.com, and noted that UFC chairman Lorenzo Fer ta made a generous contribution – and will begin plotting fundraising and campaign strategy.
It’s not the norm for a professional fighter, but Sonnen said he needs to make a contribution to society.
After the way he described the experience of sharing a cage with Marquardt, the frequently nasty, cutthroat world of politics may look good.
“He knocked the heck out of me [with an elbow from the bottom in the second round],” Sonnen said. “He knocked me out with a flying knee. He nearly choked me to death in the third round. It was a miserable experience. I’m glad it’s over.”
He was clearly on his way to a life-changing win when Marquardt caught him in a guillotine choke along the fence late in the third round. Sonnen’s faced looked like a Lakers’ road jersey as Marquardt squeezed with all his power as he tried for the stunning finish.
Somehow, though, Sonnen found a way to wiggle free. Only a few minutes later, he was officially the winner and headed for a le shot.
He had a lot to deal with, including the repercussions that his comments caused. But he said he was never bothered by anything.
“I can say I’m going to beat up Nate Marquardt and he can say he’s going to beat me up, but the real truth is that no matter what I say, it’s not going to help my skills,” Sonnen said. “No matter what he says, it’s not going to help his skills. No matter how much [betting] money comes in on him, or how much comes in on me, it’s not going to help our skills.
“My skills are my skills, and when we get into that ring, I have to make sure I can use them. I can’t let my mind buy into anything else. I have to shut everything out and be ready to fight hard for 15 minutes.”
He angered a lot of fans with his bold prefight talk. He made a lot more fans with his superb performance on Saturday. And he convinced White that he’s a serious contender.
“This guy,” White said, shaking his head, “is the real deal.”
And he’s a guy, Lindland insists, with the style to knock Silva off from his lofty perch.
“You know that’s true,” Lindland said. “He’s a bad matchup for Anderson. Everybody knows that. If there’s a style that beats Anderson, it’s Chael’s style. There’s no question.
“The big question is, he’s going to get hit – will he keep going through those and put him on his back and beat him up?”
It would have seemed more than outrageous just four months ago to say these words in succession: Chael Sonnen, middleweight champion.
While he’s a long way from wearing the belt, one thing became abundantly clear: Chael Sonnen is no joke, and the middleweight division just got a heck of a lot more intriguing.
Couture’s next stop: le shot
By Dave Meltzer, Yahoo! Sports
LAS VEGAS – Fighters with more than two decades of experience in two different sports collided Saturday night in the first-ever battle of UFC Hall of Famers as Randy Couture scored just the third submission victory of his storied career in stopping Mark Coleman.
The main event of UFC 109, which took place before a sellout crowd of 10,687 fans at the Mandalay Bay Events Center, pitted two guys who started as national champions in amateur wrestling and later became heavyweight champions in mixed martial arts.
The 46-year-old Couture (18-10) was the heavy favorite and he appeared quicker standing, employing his usual strategy of using a Greco-Roman wrestling-style clinch against the cage, his best position, to tire out Coleman (16-10) and throw punches.
Couture used mostly uppercuts in winning the first round. Coleman was unable to take Couture down or really get any strong offense going, and Couture was happy to keep Coleman in a clinch for most of the round.
The match ended at 1:09 of the second round, as Couture got Coleman again in the clinch and was able to fire punches before taking Coleman down – a position that Coleman said before the fight he needed to avoid.
Couture threw more punches on the ground, forcing Coleman to turn his back, and from there he seized the choke in a fight that had to be almost a blueprint of what he was hoping would happen.
Through both luck and sound training, Couture preserved far more of his athletic ability than is logical to expect from someone of his age. Coleman, on the other hand, looked his age, not maintaining the speed or power that made him one of the great MMA fighters of the 1990s.
Couture took little punishment and was never in trouble, as Coleman is not the same striker as his last two opponents, Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira and Brandon Vera, who both knocked Couture down.
“I enjoy what I’m doing,” Couture said. “I’m the best fighter I’ve ever been. I have benchmarks in training and I hit them.”
In one respect, though, the game plan was different for Couture, showing respect for Coleman’s freestyle wrestling game.
“Usually I like to move forward, but with Mark, it would have opened me up for a takedown,” said Couture. “I went to make him come forward and come after me.”
“He’s a great fighter, one of the best of all-time,” Coleman said after the loss. “He beat me to the punch. I was a little slow tonight.”
There were a lot of themes going into the match. It was Greco-Roman vs. freestyle in wrestling, as Couture was a four-time national champion in Greco, just never during an Olympic year. Coleman was a freestyle wrestler who won a college national championship at Ohio State (Couture’s best finish in the NCAAs was second) and made an Olympic team (1992). At his peak in 1991, he was second in the world championships.
Coleman defeated Couture in a freestyle match in 1989, the only time the two had ever met, but he said that didn’t play a part in his motivation, noting that it was a long time ago and in a different sport – and it wasn’t a match he’d thought about a long time.
In fact, Couture has helped Coleman, inviting him to his gym in Las Vegas last year to train with a wider variety of training partners and coaches than he ever had in his career leading up to Coleman’s July 11 win over Stephan Bonnar. Coleman did have to find a new gym, the Tapout gym, to train for this fight, but he did train with Shawn Tompkins, who was one of Couture’s coaches in the past.
“We both come from the wrestling background,” said Couture . “On paper, he was a little better than I was. He was a national college champion, which I tried to be and never was. He went to the Olympics, which I tried and never could do. Fighting him wasn’t an issue. In wrestling, we often have to fight our best friends to make an Olympic team.”
Couture also noted that Coleman using his former striking coach was nothing that upset him, and that in a roundabout way, he owes some of his success to Coleman.
“He was one of my inspirations to get into this,” said Couture, who followed Coleman from the elite level of wrestling into the UFC. “I watched him take people down and ground-and-pound them.”
The win opens up all kinds of possibilities for Couture, who behind the scenes has had three of the UFC’s five champions – Anderson Silva, Lyoto Machida and Brock Lesnar – showing interest in fighting him. Couture, probably one of the three most popular fighters in UFC history, brings marquee name value to any championship fight, both due to his enduring popularity and because the story of the aging warrior going for a record sixth championship is easy to market.
Plus, for fighters who are paid based on how well pay-per-view events draw, he would be the biggest money fight possible for Silva and Machida, and the second biggest, behind Frank Mir, for Lesnar.
Of the three, the Silva fight makes no sense because it would have to be at light heavyweight and thus wouldn’t be for the championship. The light heavyweight champion, Machida, or possibly Mauricio “Shogun” Rua, who faces Machida on May 8 in Montreal, makes the most sense, since Couture has scored two straight wins in that division.
A possible fight with Lesnar brings with it the most financial sense, but it’s harder to justify since Couture lost his last heavyweight fight to Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira.
Couture said he’s happier to stay at light heavyweight, but he also said that if he’s asked to face Lesnar in a rematch of their 2008 fight, he would most likely not turn it down.
“I like being at light heavyweight,” said Couture, who walks around at 217 pounds and had what he considers an easy weight cut – 55 minutes in the sauna on Friday – to sweat out eight pounds and make 205. “The camp is better going against guys my size. The heavyweights are good and it’s hard when giving up 30 pounds.
“I’ll fight whoever they ask me to fight. I think I was doing pretty well against Lesnar,” said Couture, who gave up close to 60 pounds on the day of the fight in their initial meeting, where Lesnar captured the heavyweight le. “If they ask me to take the fight, I’ll most likely say yes.”
Coleman is in a tough position. He may not have needed a win, but for him to remain in the mix with the top guys, he needed an impressive performance. His conditioning was improved from most of his recent fights, but he didn’t really show any new tricks. He was admittedly slow – in a sport where he can’t get away with that, particularly when he’s no longer fighting as a heavyweight.
Perhaps a small door opened for him after the fight. While he was doing an interview with Joe Rogan, o Ortiz walked past him at ringside and said, “Payback’s a [expletive],” and followed with another expletive, apparently mad at something Coleman, or someone in Coleman’s camp, said about his girlfriend, Jenna Jameson. Or perhaps because Coleman was his scheduled opponent on Nov. 21 but had to pull out due to injury. Ortiz lost his UFC return to Forrest Griffin instead.
Coleman fired back in kind as a response.
“ o’s fighting Chuck [Liddell] next,” said Dana White, referring to a match scheduled for the summer while not wanting to touch on the possibility of an Ortiz-Coleman match. “That’s just o.”
That might be sig worthy.
Randy won't beat Brock in a rematch and i don't think he deserves a le shot at 205 either. IMO he lost to Vera, bad decision. We'll see who he fights next, i'd actually like to see him fight Rashad after Page gets done beating him up. UFC asked Shad to fight Randy and he declined once before. Maybe he's afraid of Randy..
I'm not real interested in Lesnar-Couture, either (I agree about the Vera decision).
Randy, to me, is a lot like Tua was in his prime at this stage. The truly elite, championship-caliber guys are going to outclass him but he's the gatekeeper for those types; you get through him and there's a good chance you're a real contender.
Randy's still capable of pulling off an upset because, well, he's Randy in' Couture, so it wouldn't bother me to see a Machida-Couture fight, if for no other reason to see how Lyoto reacts to the physical pressure and how effective Randy's clinchgame would be; I'd like to see Lyoto be tested with one of those dirty fights that really tests his will and mettle (that's if Randy's got the right mojo on the given night).
'Shad-Couture I wouldn't mind, either (as long as Couture wins, that is). I'm really hoping 'Page puts a hurtin' on him and, should the fight come to fruition, Randy just destroys what's left of him mentally.
Yes Randy is the guy to see at 205 if you are ready to step it up to the next level. You need guys like that around, so you can tell if somebody is being over-rated by fighting lesser foes.
Randy matches up well with Rashad, that clinch game would give him trouble and i think that is why Shad turned the fight down. He called out Silva because he beat Jardine (His team-mate) and thought his wreslting would be the difference in the fight.. It was. Page better knock his head off, Shad deserves a whooping..'Shad-Couture I wouldn't mind, either (as long as Couture wins, that is). I'm really hoping 'Page puts a hurtin' on him and, should the fight come to fruition, Randy just destroys what's left of him mentally.
Great post BTW BlackJack..
I've been slackin' on my MMA, which hasn't left with much in the way of takes lately, but I'm hopin to get back in the mix shortly.
The only thing with Randy, when it comes to 'Shad and 'Shad-types, is whether we're going to see the type of fighter we've come to expect from him.
Once you're up in age, and Randy's beyond "up", you just never know when they're going to reach back into that reserve and come up empty; it's what's so amazing about Couture still fighting at this level in such an advanced age.
Hopefully if/when he needs to reach back against 'Shad, he finds a handful of KTFO to render him unconscious..
Just saw the Swick fight what a dissapointing fight for Mike. HE had Thiago going man, won the first round was picking it up in the 2nd on the feet and got caught and sub'd. He hit Thiago with a great right but got countered with a left and went down. Thiago did the same sort of thing to Koscheck when they fought. How about this card, with the surprises??
Nate and Swick 2 guys that in their divisions were thinking le shots and now huge steps in the wrong direction..
$60K bonuses handed out at UFC 109
By Jeff Cain/MMAWeekly.com
The Ultimate Fighting Championship handed out $60,000 bonus checks for the top performances at UFC 109 at the Mandalay Bay Events Center on Saturday night. Matt Serra, Paulo Thiago, Chael Sonnen and Nate Marquardt all earned bonus money.
Fight of the Night honors went to the middleweight contender bout between Nate Marquardt and Chael Sonnen. Sonnen dominated the better part of the fight with superior wresting, although Marquardt came on in the final round before falling short on the judges’ scorecards.
The Knockout of the Night went to former UFC welterweight leholder Matt Serra who caught Frank Trigg with a right hand, sending him to the canvas. He finished off the former MMAWeekly Radio co-host with strikes on the ground half way through the first round.
Paulo Thiago scored Submission of the Night with his D’arce choke of Mike Swick. They fought a close first round, but a counter punch in the second sent Swick to the canvas where the Brazilian was able to finish with the choke.
Total bonus money paid out for UFC 109 was $240,000.
Yo Djohn what are your thoughts on the fights??
damn missed the event, but sounded like an eventful night of action. Too bad for nover, ive been rooting for him since the TUF days.
Nover doesn't have it..
I didnt order it because in my honest opinion that wasnt a PPV card. It was just a really good free TV card. So I watched the Thiago-Swick, Sonnen-Marquardt, and Couture-Coleman fights on the internet and this morning I looked up Phil Davis and Brian Stann. Davis won that fight by decision, and IMO hes a guy to watch for as he was an All American wrestler at Penn State. Paulo Thaigo I really think has a bright future and with his wins over Kos and Swick...well those are a few pretty good notches under your belt. I really really enjoyed the Sonnen-Marquardt fight. I really didnt give Chael much of a chance but Damn he proved me wrong. Great fight. Mark Coleman...hang it up boy. You had a real nice career but you aint no Herschel Walker
Randy i thought Dominated Coleman because he is a great wrestler with a more complete game. Coleman is a wrestler with GNP, that's about it. As good as Randy still is i think most of the elite 205 division will beat him..
Two losses in a row for one of my favs. If Fitch loses to Alves I don't know what I'm gonna do as a fan. I'll probably curl up into a fetal position
I know for a fact Rashad, Shogun, Machida, Rampage, and my boy Jon Jones would. Randy still has fight in him. But hes not gonna be winning any more gold...in either of the divisions.
Swick is still young so he's not done but one thing we see that is concerning is a lack of a good chin in his last 2 fights. Hardy hurt him early and he was tentative rest of the way. He was winning the standup with Thiago and that left put him down, and he was out of it enough to be sub'd..
soo basically 2 old white dudes go into retirement and 2 others will live to fight another day. Serra is sill a nice gatekeeper and probably a little marketable. Randy is timeless but dont like him fighting for a belt, though it is probably going to happen regardless. Thiago and Sonnen were impressive but neither will do anything signifigant in terms of the le. Umm nate didnt really fall much with this loss. just sad because this fight never should have happened. nate should have been in line to fight silva but they gave that to belfort and now that fight is OFF. so maybe sonnen somehow gets a crack at the belt. Nate-Vitor needs to happen and should have been the fight to happen in the first place. Swick, my man, he really needs to start over from square one. First thing swick needs to do is leave AKA. to much of his future compe ion lies there and if he wants to climb the division someday that is who he needs to fight. Now is the time to leave mike. props to my boy melvin for getting another dub. i think hes starting to turn his career in the right direction. ive been pretty sold since the tibau fight..
good little card here, but the UFC needs to start doing something more, not sure what. TUF was huge in 2005 and i think they have something up their sleeves to kick off the new decade. im really pumped for ufc 110. looking to see wandy with the ko and nog with a slick sub!
Cain Velasquez son....Cain Mother ing Velasquez
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