Big Fights to Look Forward to This Summer

UFC 98: May 23
Rashad Evans vs. Lyoto Machida
Matt Hughes vs. Matt Serra

Dream 9: May 26
Kawajiri vs. JZ Calvancante
Jacare vs. Mayhem

Strikeforce: June 6
Robbie Lawler vs. Jake Shields
Nick Diaz vs. Scott Smith

WEC 41: June 7
Mike Brown vs. Urijah Faber

UFC 99: June 13
Wanderlei Silva vs. Rich Franklin (at 195 lbs.)

UFC 100: July 11
GSP vs. Thiago Alves
Mir vs. Lesnar
Henderson vs. Bisping

UFC 101: August 8
BJ vs. Florian
Anderson Silva vs. Forrest Griffin

UFC 102: August 29
Big Nogueira vs. Randy Couture
Keith Jardine vs. Thiago Silva (who was originally going to fight Forrest at UFC 101)

Kyle Maynard

Kyle Maynard, a congenital amputee who has amazed and inspired people by his remarkable success in wrestling and submission wrestling, tested his tremendous will in the MMA arena on Saturday.

I found the fight on youtube and I must say that it was hard to watch. Maynard's opponent was able to keep him away by pusing his head away and throwing a punch here and there and prevent him from executing any sort of effective offense.

Kyle has stated on Sherdog Radio that he wants to continue to compete in MMA, and more power to him if that's what he really wants to do. But this fight illustrated one of the major differences between MMA and wrestling and why he will not find success in MMA and that is the striking. Although I am truely impressed by his heart and determination, he will simply continue to lose. He has the right to get his face smashed in as much as anyone, but he just does not have to tools to win in MMA. I wish Kyle continued success in submission wrestling tournaments.

Here are some intereting articles about Kyle Maynard regarding his MMA debut:

http://mmajunkie.com/news/14658/congenital-amputee-kyle-maynards-long-road-to-saturdays-mma-debut.mma

http://www.sherdog.com/news/news/Maynard-Loses-Leaves-Cage-Unscathed-17190

Here's a link to the video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IkvwgL0GiWI&feature=related

Long Beach Fight Night 4

April 19, 2009
Play by Play: Cale Stark
Photos: Chuck Davis

First fight: Anthony “A-Train” Appello, 238 lbs. vs. Many “Bam Bam” Lara, 237lbs
Lara enters to Mariachi music. Bell rings and they touch gloves. Clinch and move to the ropes. Lara reaches down for a single leg and takes down Appello and hits the ground in side-control. Lara mounts but Appello rolls to the side and Lara gives up the mount for side control again. Appello is able to get into half guard but then rolls to his stomach to avoid Lara’s ground and pound. Lara takes his back but doesn’t put in the hooks so Appello rolls back to his back. Lara turns on the ground and pound and the ref stops the fight at 2:24 of the first round.


Second fight: Darby “The Edge” Faulkner, 146lbs. vs. Scott “The Sza” Brommage 144lbs.
Faulkner shoots but Brommage catches him in a standing guillotine. Faulkner finishes the take down and they hit the mat. Faulkner defends the guillotine while in Brommage’s full guard. Faulkner sinks his own guillotine on Brommage while still stuck in his guard. They are both in guillotines, very odd. They roll over and escape each other’s guillotines with Brommage now on top. Brommage starts some ground and pound and gets caught in a pretty deep arm bar from Faulkner’s back. Brommage picks up Faullkner and drops him on his head to escape the arm bar. They both stand up and do a little boxing. Faulkner throws a right and Brommage falls down. As Faulkner rushes in Brommage tries for a guillotine. End of round 1

Second round starts trading leg kicks. Faulkner shoots and winds up in a north-south guillotine. They stand up and Faulkner is knocked down to his knees. Brommage is standing over Faulkner delivering ground and pound till the ref stops the fight at 1:18 of the second round.

Third fight: Juan Rivas, 143lbs. vs. Andrew “Mon Chi Chi” Patlan, 144lbs.
Patlan starts the fight with a right leg kick. The fighters clinch against the ropes then break free. There is a flury of punches and Patlan falls with Rivas on his back, no hooks. Rivas begins to ground and pound and knees to the body. The Ref moves the fight to the center of the ring with Rivas still on top. Patlan escapes and both fighters are on their feet. The round ends with Patlan grabbing Rivas’s kick to the body.

Second round Patlan shoots and finishes a single leg. Rivas lands on his back with Patlan in his guard. Patlan tries to pass and they move back and forth between full and half guard. Rivas tries for a gogoplata but eventually has his guard passed. Patlan takes Rivas’s back and starts to punch Rivas in the side of the head, moves to mount and continues to ground and pound. After a scramble, the bell rings signaling the end of round two.

Third round started trading kicks. Patlan shoots for a double leg and gets caught in a standing guillotine. He finishes the takedown and escapes the guillotine. Patlan passes and as Rivas rolls over giving up his back. Patlan does not capitalize and Rivas escapes now standing over Patlan, who is on his back. Rivas kicks at Patlan’s legs a few times and then jumps on him. No damage, bell rings. End of fight.
Judge 1 Judge 2 Judge 3
29/28 29/28 29/27 Unanimous decision for the red corner-Rivas

Fourth fight: Fabian “Wolverine” Diaz, 150lbs. vs. Sgt. Vince Ortiz (USMC) 148lbs.
A little feeling out at first. Ortiz clinches with Diaz and throws some knees in close. Diaz responds with knees of his own, and Ortiz takes one to the tenders. Ref steps in and lets Ortiz recover. After the break they go right back to the clinch and start kneeing each other again. Diaz is able to get a standing guillotine but is taken down by Ortiz who then escapes the guillotine. There is a scramble for position and Ortiz takes Diaz’s back. Ortiz fights for the choke while Diaz does a good job defending, at first. Ortiz stays with the dominate position and finally gets the RNC. Diaz taps at 2:48 of the 1st round.


Fifth fight: Lamar “Monster” Jiles 202lbs. vs. Keneti “Monsta” Faagata 204lbs.
Monsta starts with some body-kicks. Monster clinches and then takes down Monsta. Monster falls into Monsta’s guard. Monster passes to side control and receives some elbows from the bottom. Monster achieves the mount and sets the hooks. He does a good job of maintaining the mount and administeing some ground and pound, moving back and forth from hooks in, to sitting up and delivering blows. Ref. Herzog steps in and stops the fight, TKO. Red corner wins 2:59 first round.

Sixth fight: Fernando Bettega, 179lbs. vs. John “VooDoo” Walsh.
Walsh clinches with Bettega and takes him down. Bettega is able to get half-guard for a moment but is eventually mounted by Walsh. Bettega takes a few shots on bottom and rolls giving up his back. Bettega is able to escape the back mount, reverses Walsh and sets a guillotine. They stand up and Walsh takes him down again, still with his head in a guillotine. Bettega hangs on tight and lands on his back with Walsh in his guard and a deep guillotine on his neck. Bettega chokes out Walsh. Tap out 1:23 first round.


Seventh fight: Darrell “The Mongoose” Montague, 129lbs. vs. Maurice “Syko” Eazel, 129lbs.
Montague entered the ring with a blue belt wraped around his Gi to the music, Sade “Smooth Operator”. Hmmm. Eazel came with gifts and tossed red “Hitman” hats to the audience. OK, the fight. Eazel shoots for a double leg and lands in Montague’s guard. Montague is able to get to his feet but is taken down again, back to full guard. He escapes again and gets a standing guillotine on Eazel. Eazel executes a spectacular feet over head take down of Montegue and lands in side control. Montague is able to obtain guard and then stands up. He throws a flying knee and then clinches with Eazel. Montague takes down Eazel to his half guard. Eazel is able to get back to his feet and a flurry of punches ensues. The round ends in a clinch.

Second round starts with Eazel delivering kicks and knees to the body of Montague. In the clinch, Montague is knocked down by a right hand. In the scramble for position, Eazel winds up in Montague’s guard. Eazel does a little ground and pound and the bell rings.

In the third round, this time Montague knocks down Eazel. Eazel gets up only to receive a flying knee to the head. Montague finishes Eazel with a little ground and pound before the Ref steps in. Montague wins by KO at 36 seconds of the third round.
Paramedics, with a stretcher, were summoned to assist, however, Eazel was able to walk away under his own power.

Eighth fight: Scott Rose, 181lbs. vs. Tarec Saffiedine, 177lbs.
Rose starts with kicks. Saffiedine lands a left that rocks Rose. In the clinch, Saffiedine forces Rose out of the ring. On the restart, Rose pulls guard. Saffiedine passes to half guard and sets up a head and arm triangle, steps out of half guard and gets the tap. Saffiedine wins by tap out at 58 seconds of the first round.


Ninth fight: Erik Meaders vs. Thomas Kenney, 167lbs.
Kenney shoots but the shot is defended by Meaders. They clinch for a moment and then separate to do little boxing. Meaders shoots and Kenney grabs a guillotine and pulls guard. Meaders gets out of the guillotine and throws punches from inside Kenney’s guard. Meaders stands up and Kenney is still on his back. Meaders throws a few leg kicks to the downed Kenney before the Ref. stands it up. Kenney delivers some leg kicks and the round ends.

Kenney starts the second round the way he ended the first round, with leg kicks. Kenney shoots and gets caught in a guillotine and half guard. Kenney defends the guillotine and mounts Meaders who rolls and gives his back to Kenney. Meaders rolls to his back and is remounted. Kenney is working on a head and arm triangle when the bell rings.

Third round, Kenney shoots and takes Meaders down only to get caught in a crucifix. He escapes, shoots again for a double and passes to side control. He is able to start a kimura on Meaders left arm but Meaders is able to get half guard and stuff his own arm behind his back preventing the finish. Meaders reverses Kenney and is working for a guillotine when the bell rings.
Judge 1 Judge 2 Judge 3
29/28 29/28 29/28 Unanimous decision for the blue corner-Kenney

Click here to view the entire gallery of photos from the event.

Dana White Debacle

A story has developed over the last couple of weeks regarding Dana White, Sherdog.com, Managers Credentials, and Dana's Video Blog. Here's the condensed version with a little background: Years ago, Dana had a falling out with Sherdog.com, according to Dana, stemming from a disagreement over UFC DVD distribution. The UFC ended up pulling the credentials of Sherdog along with several other MMA websites. Since then, there has been tension between Sherdog and the UFC. Fast forward to April 1, 2009. Lorreta Hunt, the news editor of Sherdog.com published an article about how the UFC has limited backstage access to some fighters' managers. An irate Dana White responded to the article on his video blog which included the usual F-bombs as well as a "F***in F****t". The later insult outraged the gay and lesbian community and GLADD demanded an appology from Dana, which he issued, also on his Vlog. Sherdog.com issued their response to Dana's rant here. Dana has since done a couple of interviews where he addressed the incident including The Carmichael Dave Show where he states that he is no longer going to do the Video Blogs. He then went on TSN (Canada's version of ESPN) and fielded several direct questions regarding whether or not he thought he crossed the line. Fans have been begging Dana to continue witht he Vlogs and despite his previous statement to the contrary, he has done one Vlog since the incident.

This Saturday:
UFC 97: APRIL 18, 2009
venue: Bell Centre in Montreal, Canada

Main Card Bouts:
-Anderson Silva (23-4; #1 Middleweight in the World)* vs. Thales Leites (14-1)
-Mauricio "Shogun" Rua (17-3; #5 Light Heavyweight in the World)* vs. Chuck Liddell (21-6; #6 Light Heavyweight in the World)*
-Luiz Cane (9-1) vs. Steve Cantwell (7-1)
-Cheick Kongo (13-4-1) vs. Antoni Hardonk (8-4)
-Brian Stann (6-1) vs. Krzysztof Soszynski (16-8-1)

Preliminary Bouts:
-Nathan Quarry (10-3) vs. Jason MacDonald (21-11)
-Denis Kang (31-11-1) vs. Xavier Fouka-Pokum (20-9)
-David Loiseau (18-8) vs. Ed Herman (16-7)
-T.J. Grant (13-2) vs. Ryo Chonan (15-9)
-Mark Bocek (6-2) vs. David Bielkheden (13-6)
-Matt Wiman (11-5) vs. Sam Stout (13-5-1)
-Eliot Marshall (7-3) vs. Vinny Magalhaes (6-4)

Main card airs on pay-per-view for $44.95 in the United States

* Based on MMAWeekly World MMA Rankings

TUF Contestants' Myspace and Facebook Friend Count

I’ve become more and more fascinated with how being on The Ultimate Figher affects a fighter’s popularity and fame, which in turn affect their pay, matchups, endorsements, etc. It’s difficult to accurately and statistically quantify a fighter’s increase of popularity, however I thought of one fairly simple way to do it: Myspace and Facebook. So for TUF 8, I decided to track the number of MySpace (and in a few cases, Facebook) friends each of the contestants had before the show aired and note the increase from week to week through the finale. It was very interesting to see the correlation between the increase in friends had with success and camera time on the show. Those who won their fights and had more camera time gained significantly more friends than those who lost early of had less than reality-show friendly personalities.

Here are a few comparisons from the start of TUF, Season 8 to the beginning of Season 9, about 8 months later:

Top 5 greatest friend increase:
1. Junie Browning 3,571
2. Ryan Bader 2,331
3. Efrain Escudero 1,458 (1,382 FB)
4. Krzysztof Soszynski 1,198 FB
5. Phillipe Nover 1,049
(Vinicious Magalhaes 1,171 estimated, his GF made him delete all the girls from his MySpace friends)

Average Increase for those who made it into the house and onto the show: 875.4
Average Increase for those who didn’t make it onto the show: 247.8

Just getting on the show, however, doesn’t automatically mean your popularity will increase significantly. Those who lost their first fights in the house only showed an average friend increase of 322 compared to 1,461.9 for those who won. And it goes without saying that the bigger the personality, the bigger the increase in popularity as evidenced by Junie Browning’s significant lead on all of the other competitors. Love him or hate him, he obviously made an impact which translates into fan interest in watching him fight.

Now that TUF 9 has begun, I decided to again track the contestants’ increase in MySpace friends, however this season I’m including many more Facebook pages than last season. So far, here’s where they’re starting off:

Team US:
Welterweight:
DaMarques Johnson W
MySpace 141
Facebook 173
Mark Miller W
MySpace 3,130
Facebook 215
Jason Pierce W
N/A
Kiel Reid TBD
MySpace 110
Frankie Lester TBD
MySpace 318
Facebook 80

Lightweight:
Santino DeFranco W
N/A
Cameron Dollar W
MySpace 507
Richie Whitson W
MySpace 433
Facebook 253
Jason Dent TBD
MySpace 49
Robert Browning TBD
MySpace 344


Team UK:
Welterweight:
Dean Amasinger W
Facebook 900
David Faulkner W
N/A
Nicholas Osipczak W
Facebook 240
James Wilks W
Facebook 83

Lightweight
Jeff Lawson W
MySpace 86
Ross Pearson W
MySpace 182
Facebook 945
Martin Stapleton W
Facebook 207
Andre Winner W
MySpace 59
Facebook 769

Coaches
Dan Henderson
MySpace 37,684
Facebook(Fan Page) 2,778
Michael Bisping
Facebook 4,360
Facebook(Fan Page) 6,748

Out
Team US:
Ray Elbe L
MySpace 5109
Christian Fulgium DNMW
MySpace 241
Kevin Knabjian L
Facebook 444
Paul Bird L
N/A
Tom Hayden L
Facebook 289
Waylon Lowe L
MySpace 87
Josh Souder HERPES
N/A

Team UK:
A.J. Wenn L
Facebook 667
James Bryan L
N/A
Dan James L
N/A
Gary Kelly L
MySpace 195
Facebook 430
James Bateman L
N/A
Tommy Maguire L
Facebook 229
Che Mills L
MySpace 235
Facebook 766
Alex Reid L
MySpace 123
Facebook 492

I'll keep checking the progress from week to week and will post the results on WarMMA.com.

Nick Diaz says smoking marijuana is part of his plan

Nick Diaz says smoking marijuana is part of his plan

STRIKEFORCE: APRIL 11 ON SHOWTIME
location: HP Pavilion in San Jose, California

Main Card Bouts:
-Frank Shamrock vs. Nick Diaz
-Gilbert Melendez vs. Rodrigo Damm
-Christiane "Cyborg" Santos vs. Hitomi Akano
-Brett Rogers vs. Ron Humphries
-Benji Radach vs. Scott Smith

Preliminary Card Bouts:
-Luke Rockhold vs. Buck Meredith
-Eric Lawson vs. Waylon Kennell
-Raul Castillo vs. Brandon Michaels
-James Terry vs. Zak Bucia
-Jeremy Tavares vs. Shingo Kohara

Main card airs live on Showtime in the United States at 10:00PM (ET/PT)

UFC Greenlights Construction of Russian Stadium

UFC Greenlights Construction of Russian Stadium
Take a close look at the capitalized letters in the last paragraph.

Special Attraction Added to UFC Fan Expo
I got Bruce by "Buffer 180"! Joe won't know what hit him.
(Note the first letter of each paragraph.)

Fights Tonight!

UFC FIGHT NIGHT 18: APRIL 1, 2009
location: Nashville, Tennessee

Main Card Bouts:
-Carlos Condit (#8 Welterweight in the World)* vs. Martin Kampmann
-Tyson Griffin vs. Rafael dos Anjos
-Ryan Bader vs. Carmelo Marrero
-Cole Miller vs. Junie Browning

Preliminary Bouts:
-Brock Larson vs. Jesse Sanders
-Ricardo Almeida vs. Matt Horwich
-Jeremy Stephens vs. Gleison Tibau
-Jorge Rivera vs. Nissen Osterneck
-Rob Kimmons vs. Joe Vedepo
-Aaron Simpson vs. Tim McKenzie
-Steve Steinbeiss vs. Ryan Jensen
-Nick Catone vs. Tim Credeur

Main card airs on Spike TV in the United States at 8pm

* Based on MMAWeekly World MMA Rankings


Ultimate Fighter Season 9 follows UFN18 at 10:00pm