One of the best made vids of MMA I have ever seen
This has been brewing for a while and now Antonio "Bigfoot" Silva has made his decision:
Antonio Silva has accepted an offer to face Yoshihiro Nakao at World Victory Road’s upcoming Sengoku event on Jan. 4 in Saitama, Japan, confirmed his manager Alex Davis on Sunday.
The American Top Team heavyweight’s decision comes in the wake of a letter received last week from California State Athletic Commission Assistant Executive Director Bill Douglas, who said he will recommend Silva’s license be revoked if he does not adhere to a suspension imposed on him last July.
...
“Antonio has decided to fight, he really has no option,” wrote Davis in an email to Sherdog.com. “He’s innocent, he’s tried to prove it and it fell on unwilling ears, and he has financial commitments that to not meet would have serious consequences for him. In light of these, he has decided to continue his career in Japan until when and if his situation with the CSAC is resolved.”
If the CSAC hadn't been through a massive reorganization, including the ousting of former head Armando Garcia and the suspension of their drug testing program I would be more sympathetic of their hard ass stance here.
Douglas knows that Garcia's administration was running a screwed up drug testing operation or they would not have cancelled any drug tests at the last Strikeforce event.
I am in sympathy with Douglas' desire that their suspensions be respected but at the same time, when everyone agrees that the regime that suspended Silva and refused to modify his suspension at hearing was utterly corrupt and incompetent, I think it behooves them to find a compromise.
One of the best made vids of MMA I have ever seen
Nice. Go Andre.
From bloodyelbow:
On the heels of the news that Diego Sanchez is moving to 155lbs to fight as a lightweight, MMA Weekly reports that former UFC lightweight champion Sean Sherk is already calling him out:
"If he wants to drop to 155, I'd like to be the first guy that fights him," Sherk said.
...
"I think I match up great with him," Sherk said. "I think his ground game is phenomenal, but so is mine. I know his conditioning is phenomenal. So is mine. His boxing... is okay. But I think it would be a great match-up. You get two guys that are really aggressive fighters who have great conditioning who are going to go and bang it out for fifteen minutes."
I hope I'm wrong, but I think there's a very good chance that Sherk can smother Sanchez and grind out a decision. Combine that with Sherk's utter domination of #1 contender Kenny Florian in their le match and Sherk's win over Tyson Griffin and you've got an ugly situation at lightweight.
Sean Sherk could easily become the Rich Franklin of the UFC lightweights: a dangerous fighter who can snuff out the le hopes of all the top contenders and yet stands almost no chance to take the belt himself.
Sure Sherk has only lost one fight to B.J. Penn and I'd be happy to see him get a second shot if he earns it, but its pretty clear from the first fight what the outcome of a rematch would be.
Also like Franklin, Sherk is a good buddy of Dana White's and is unlikely to be cut from the organization.
Of course, if B.J. beats GSP and holds both the 155 and 170lb belts, then Sherk could help out by beating the top lightweights and B.J. could just drop back by the division once a year and beat Sherk. ()
Well that was quite the biased interview now wasn't it??
I'm sick of the excuses as to why Fedor is not in the UFC. He had plenty of chances to sign and he never did. Whether it's him or his management that's the problem, who cares anymore??
LAS VEGAS – It can hardly be a coincidence that the two men who won les on “The Ultimate Fighter 8” were also among the few who avoided rowdy and disgusting behavior in the house.
Ryan Bader knocked out Vinnie Magalhaes in the light heavyweight final and Efrain Escudero bested Phillipe Nover via unanimous decision on Saturday in the lightweight finale at The Pearl at the Palms in what can only be described as a victory for taste and common sense.
If the best eTV producers and the UFC can do is to show men urinating and ejaculating in others’ food, throwing a glass at a defenseless fighter and making a star out of someone without a whit of class, then it’s time to put a wrap on the reality series.
UFC owner Lorenzo Fer ta has called the show the company’s Trojan horse, because it enabled the UFC to gain widespread exposure at a time when it was on its deathbed. The show has been phenomenally successful in and out of the cage, not only introducing another generation of fans to mixed martial arts, but also producing two world champions (Forrest Griffin and Matt Serra) and numerous other fighters who have become main-card regulars.
But each season, it seems, the show degenerates just a little more. Season 7 will best be remembered for Jesse Taylor acting like a drunken fool and getting booted off the show after taping was completed for kicking a window out of a limousine and then terrorizing casino guests.
Season 8, despite quality performances from the likes of Bader, Escudero and Nover, will be remembered for the antics of Junie Browning, who was twice nearly thrown off the show by UFC president Dana White for antisocial behavior.
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It’s clearly not representative of the way MMA fighters conduct themselves, yet no one at the UFC has done a thing to halt it.
Bader, a one-time wrestling star at Arizona State, was baited by a drunken Browning in one of the season’s early episodes and was dragged into a pool.
“That sucked,” Bader said of the incident with Browning.
Bader didn’t react, because he’d seen the show before and knew White would likely kick him off if he defended himself.
“In any other situation, any other man, I would have killed him,” Bader said, grinning. “But I thought about being kicked out. Every time a guy got kicked off the show before for fighting, I’d be thinking what an idiot he was. I wasn’t about to be that person, even though it was forced upon me. You never know. People have been kicked out for less. I didn’t do anything and I’m glad I didn’t.”
Bader’s self-control also helped him to the victory over Magalhaes, a former jiu-jitsu world champion. Bader was as focused in the cage as he was on the show and refused to allow Magalhaes to take the fight to the ground.
He ended it in a flash, connected with an overhand right that, though Magalhaes managed to block it partially with his left arm, sent the Brazilian spiraling to the canvas. Bader quickly finished him on the ground at 2:18 of the first.
“I have a heavy right hand and I hit him square in the temple,” Bader said. “It doesn’t take much when you hit someone there.”
Escudero neutralized Nover’s vaunted striking power, which had prompted White to dub him the “next Anderson Silva,” but using his wrestling ability. Escudero repeatedly took Nover down throughout the three rounds and, while he didn’t inflict much damage, he prevented Nover from ever seriously mounting an attack.
Escudero stayed in the background for much of the show, even when he was antagonized, and like Bader, focused on learning from his coach, Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira. Because of White’s comments about Nover, Escudero was overshadowed and overlooked going into the finale. He never, though, lost sight of what he needed to do.
It was no different from the way he carried himself during the show’s taping in the house, when he was harassed by a drunken Shane Nelson.
“The guys who were confident stayed in the background and we did our work, and the guys who had doubt, they tried to make a name for themselves by pulling pranks and drinking and doing all that other stuff,” Escudero said. “It got them some publicity, but do you think they’d trade with me? It got them a little publicity, but everyone knows who we are because (Bader and I) won the thing. That’s what it was all about.”
At least it’s what it should be about. But the show has devolved into little more than gutter behavior and the emphasis is as much on zany behavior as on mixed martial arts and the fights.
Frank Mir, who coached one of the teams, was turned off by everything that went on and called it “disgusting.”
“The Ultimate Fighter” has been a great marketing tool for the UFC and has been a boon to the sport, but it’s lately begun to portray the fighters and the sport in the wrong way.
Season 8 was as much about Junie Browning’s bizarre behavior as it was about the talent of Ryan Bader and Efrain Escudero.
If Fer ta and White don’t act soon, they’re going to turn off an entire generation of fans and attract lowlifes who think watching a couple of drunks urinate in someone’s food is funny.
It’s beyond time to act.
Yahoo Sports
anyone see the VGA awards? Rampage, wanderlei, etc were on there.
I didnt watch it, but while flipping through channels I saw Rashad.
yeah he was doing some with kevin james
For a guy who supposedly trains in mma kevin james is pretty ing fat
If by training in MMA you mean, sitting on his couch, drinking beers and yelling at the TV when UFC events are on..
He's actually at almost every ufc event
if not all
Another Wrestler Turned MMA Fighter
Bobby Lashley-Yahoo Sports
Usually when fighters make their professional debut, only friends and family know about it.
When you are Bobby Lashley and you’ve already spent two years as a pro wrestling star, quietly starting in a new sport is not an option.
He’s a little too well known and far too big to go unnoticed. And the spotlight isn’t likely to go away, because people are already talking about a match down the line with Brock Lesnar.
Lashley, the latest wrestling star to move into mixed martial arts, didn’t take long to win his first match. In the semi-main event and most talked about match on Saturday night’s Mixed Fighting Alliance show in Miami, Lashley took only 41 seconds to open a deep cut near the hairline of Joshua Franklin, who was also making his pro debut, before the match was stopped.
Lashley wasn’t sure which blow opened the cut, which reportedly needed 32 s ches to close. There were a few quick punches on the ground, and one solid shot just as Franklin was trying to get up before the match was called.
“It was a good start to get rid of some of the pressure,” said Lashley, 32. “There were some worries because it would determine my future and in MMA, anything can happen.”
Lashley, at 6-foot-1 and weighing 252 pounds for his debut fight, isn’t quite as large as Lesnar, but he is, if you can believe it, significantly more muscular. Lashley’s training, working on his boxing and jiu-jitsu defense, as well as stamina, have only slightly changed his physique from his World Wrestling Entertainment days.
But despite the modest size differences, the similarities between Lashley and Lesnar are striking.
Both grew up in families with money problems. Both gravitated toward amateur wrestling, with Lashley winning three NAIA championships from 1997-99 at Missouri Valley College, in the 177-pound weight class. Unlike Lesnar, who left amateur wrestling in 2000 to join WWE after winning the Division I le, Lashley continued on, becoming an Army champion.
Like Lesnar, Lashley had the choice of either going into pro wrestling or MMA. Lashley came heavily recommended to WWE by Kurt Angle, the 1996 Olympic gold medalist, who at the time was one of the company’s biggest stars. He was looking at doing either pro wrestling or MMA at the time.
Lashley and Lesnar ran through opponents in the first round in their MMA debuts to heavy fanfare, with Lashley’s win very similar to Lesnar’s debut win over Kim Min-soo.
In 2004, before UFC got on cable television, like with Lesnar, pro wrestling seemed the smarter career option than MMA. Lashley, like Lesnar several years earlier, chose the WWE. He may be one of the last of the generation of amateur wrestling stars who went into wrestling’s entertainment version, as from 2005 on, most college wrestling stars who would have gone to pro wrestling in the past have instead taken the MMA route because it enables them to remain active in legitimate athletic compe ion.
Like Lesnar, Lashley was on the fast track to entertainment s om. Lashley signed at about the same time Lesnar quit. Lashley was even given Lesnar’s trademark ring entrance, where he would jump from the floor to the ring apron, because both men had ridiculous vertical leaps for large men. The two have never met, and Lesnar, who broke almost all ties with pro wrestling when leaving, didn’t even know who Lashley was until Lesnar started being asked about him a year ago when Lashley left the company and started hinting at doing MMA.
Lashley’s s om was expected to skyrocket in 2007, when WWE owner Vince McMahon told the writing staff that they were going all the way with him, in an attempt to build him for a long-term run as one of the company’s signature stars.
He was put in a storyline where he was picked by Donald Trump to represent the billionaire at that year’s WrestleMania, in a match where either Trump or colorful McMahon, who doubles as a performer on his own shows, would get their head shaved upon conclusion of a wrestling match where each would pick their emissary. Lashley was scripted to win the match, and in the follow-up, Trump shaved McMahon’s head.
WrestleMania 23 before 74,687 fans at Ford Field in Detroit was the most successful event in company history, doing 1.25 million pay-per-view buys. But after taking time off for shoulder surgery, Lashley was ready to return, but he had a conflict with a member of the WWE’s writing staff and quit.
But Lashley has nothing bad to say about the company or his time there.
“I really love pro wrestling,” he said. “Some MMA fans may not want to hear that. I love to still watch. I love to perform. If an opening came, I’d consider my options. Right now I’m focusing full-time on fighting. I won’t say I’ll never go back.”
“There’s a lot of people who want to see me lose because I was a pro wrestler. There were a lot of haters.”
Lashley lives in Denver, but flew to South Florida every week for the past several months and trained Monday-Friday with the American Top Team. He regularly worked out with Elite XC heavyweight champion Antonio “Bigfoot” Silva and UFC stars Thiago Alves and Wilson Gouveia, as well as Olympic judoka Hector Lombard and former UFC fighter Carmelo Marrero.
“He’s helped me out a lot,” said Lashley of Silva, who is his main training partner. “If I do something wrong, he’ll stop and point it out. He knows the better I get, the better he gets. But when the whistle blows, it’s all out.”
Unlike some who are taught everything at once, at ATT, Lashley is being taught in stages, with most of the emphasis being on boxing and submission avoidance. In the little that could be ascertained in his first fight is he still has his wrestling skill, as he slammed Franklin early, and he’s got strong punching power.
Lashley, who was already back training two days after the fight, is looking at fighting again in February, and is entering stage two of training, where he starts focusing on kicking. He’s under contract to the American Fighting League, which isn’t currently running events, but has to get their approval in taking a date. He’s got offers for his second bout from the Palace Fighting Championships based out of Lemoore, Calif., as well as an organization in Oklahoma.
Chum for Cain, Carwin, Kongo, Lesnar, Mir, Nog and DeSantos
http://mmajunkie.com/news/13502/repo...c.mma#comments
I have seen several of this guys fights…nothing special to it. Very basic thug but he will be a good draw for the UK guys.
I expect Overeem eventually if he wins another 2 fights…and Arlovski is a free agent after he fights Fedor. He is still tossing around boxing but so do a lot of other non UFC roster guys. I'm not buying it.
Dana is going to have to get on his hands and knees for Arlovski but it will happen.
Yeah I heard back when he left WWE that he was going to do this. However I dont see him making the same progress that Brock has. He is a beast though.
YES!!!
UFC needs the pit-bull back...
Id love to see him back.
Dont get me started.
haha
This is good!
From UFC.com:
"UFC® Fight for the Troops" Raises Over $4 Million for Fallen Heroes Fund
"UFC® Fight for the Troops"
Raises Over $4 Million for the Intrepid Fallen Heroes Fund
Money Will Go Towards National Intrepid Center of Excellence for Traumatic Brain Injury (NICoE)
New York, New York – e TV and Ultimate Fighting Championship® today announced that its "UFC Fight for the Troops" event last week in Fayetteville, NC in front of 15,000 Ft. Bragg troops raised over $4 million for the Intrepid Fallen Heroes Fund's new medical center to be built in Bethesda.
According to Bill White, President of the IFHF, UFC and e TV should be applauded for their efforts. "We are profoundly grateful to the UFC and e TV for their extraordinary support of our nation's Wounded Warriors," White said. "Their efforts have moved us that much closer to complete the traumatic brain injury center in Bethesda for the service members that are fighting for our freedom overseas."
According to the ratings, 2 million viewers watched the fight live on e TV and was one of the most watched programs that night, highly popular with male viewers.
NICoE will be a $65 million, 75,000 sq. ft., state-of-the-art treatment and rehabilitation center to provide leading edge services and support for soldiers with traumatic brain injury (TBI). Further, the center will conduct research, test new protocols and provide comprehensive training and education to patients, providers and families while maintaining ongoing tele-health follow-up care.
The project is being funded by the Intrepid Fallen Heroes Fund (IFHF), which provides assistance to our nation's military heroes who have been critically injured in the performance of their duty, and their families. The IFHF previously raised more than $60 Million to support families of military personnel lost in Operations in Iraq and Afghanistan and to construct the Center for the Intrepid, an advanced physical rehabilitation facility at Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio, Texas, which opened in 2007. Construction for the NICoE is scheduled to begin this summer and with its opening in late 2009.
He'll probably get a few easy fights on U.K. cards. He could sell seats over there. Im honestly tired of seeing the same damn fighters fighting in Europe.
"Inside MMA" preview: Arlovski says Emelianenko is "just human"
by MMAjunkie.com Staff on Dec 18, 2008 at 4:22 pm ET On this week's edition of "Inside MMA" on HDNet, hosts Kenny Rice and Bas Rutten propose the following question: How do you go about beating a seemingly unbeatable fighter such as Fedor Emelianenko?
The show debuts Friday at 9:30 p.m. ET, and thanks to our partnership with HDNet, MMAjunkie.com (www.mmajunkie.com) presents a preview clip of the conversation.
A star-studded panel of Frank Shamrock, Gilbert Melendez and Emelianenko's upcoming opponent, Andrei Arlovski, all weigh in.
How would Shamrock prepare for the bout if he were in Arlovski's shoes and scheduled to fight Emelianenko at the Jan. 24 "Affliction: Day of Reckoning" main event?
"I'd lean to run backwards," he joked. "Fedor's a tough nut to crack."
Shamrock said the problem with the famed Russian fighter and longtime former PRIDE heavyweight le-holder is that he's so well-rounded. While the fight would take a certain amount of strategizing, Melendez said ultimately, "There's nothing to do but go in there and do it."
Rutten compares Emelianenko to superstars such as Mike Tyson, Kazushi Sakuraba and Wanderlei Silva -- fighters who were so dominant their opponents oftentimes felt defeated before the fight had even taken place.
But don't put Arlovski in that category. He saw a in Emelianenko's armor during his recent loss at the 2008 World Sambo Championships. Emelianenko was undefeated in the Russian martial art, but he suffered a loss to Blagoy Ivanov at last month's championships. It was his first sambo loss in eight years and prompted Emelianenko to cancel a U.S. press tour so he could concentrate on the Arlovski fight.
"A couple weeks ago he lost his sambo match," a confident Arlovski said. "He's just a human. Yeah, he's probably a little bit better -- he's unbeatable for like seven years. But he's a human."
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