Pictured: Frankie Edgar and BJ Penn square off at UFC 118 weigh-ins yesterday. Picture from Tracy Lee of CombatLifeStyle.com

The TD Center in Boston takes center stage for one of UFC’s bigger shows of 2010 tonight, as BJ Penn rides into New England to try and take his lightweight crown back from the man who took it from him: Frankie Edgar. UFC 118 also features the MMA debut of James “Lights Out” Toney (I think this is a bad idea, but hey, it’s a free country), squaring off against UFC legend Randy Couture, and a strong undercard to boot — including Kenny Florian vs. Gray Maynard and Nate Diaz vs. Marcus Davis.

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Pictured: Sengoku 14’s official poster. Jorge Santiago and Kazuo Misaki battled for the Sengoku middleweight title this week — in what Total-MMA writer Jacob Lawton calls a fight of the year candidate.

As a group, Total-MMA has offered no coverage of the recent Sengoku event thus far. And who can blame us? Strikeforce was held the same night, and in the lead up to the event WEC had another of their edge-of-the-seat exciting shows. So let me remedy that now. On paper the card was standard Japanese fare – a collection of hometown boys with “squash matches” against various foreigners, the first rounds of the SRC Welterweight Grand Prix and Asian Bantamweight Grand Prix, former BJJ Mundials champ Leonardo in action. The main event was a rematch from the beginning of 2009 Jorge Santiago vs. Kazuo Misaki for the Sengoku Middleweight strap. The first fight between the duo was great – four and a half rounds of Misaki dominance capped by a Santiago come-from-behind submission – but this fight was the far superior. Please, click the link below and watch the fight before reading on through the event analysis, which continues after the jump. I do not lie when I say this is a fight of the year contender.

Check the video out: SRC 14: Santiago vs. Misaki II

While you get an energy drink and calm down, I’ll go ahead and analyze the rest of the card.

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Pictured: Ronaldo “Jacare” Souza weighs in for StrikeForce: Houston yesterday. Photo by Esther Lin courtesy of StrikeForce. Total-MMA staff agrees on the result of every bout but Souza vs. Tim Kennedy!

It hasn’t been all smiles under the warm California sun for our friends at StrikeForce. The San Jose-based promotion has taken a few hits in its recent attempts to go “international” — among them, the defection of middleweight champion Jake Shields, an embarassing showing on national TV, and most recently, injury issues with their newly crowned champion Fabricio Werdum. But as the lineup for tonight’s StrikeForce: Houston show illustrates, they still have the roster to put on a strong show.

A light heavyweight title bout which would be a good offering on any ZUFFA show headlines, while the absence of Shields makes way for two of the game’s grittiest to take center stage, to contest the vacated middleweight crown. A solid undercard airs in a webcast on Sherdog.com, including the sublime jiu-jitsu of world champion Andre Galvao against old favorite Jorge Patino.

So maybe sometimes things fall apart… but they still end up okay, at least for this viewer who just wants to catch some good MMA action on a Saturday night!

Tonight’s show is handicapped by Jacob Lawton (JL) and me (TH). Read the rest of this entry »

Pictured: Dominick Cruz & Joseph Benavidez face off at the WEC 50 weigh ins yesterday. Photo by Tracy Lee of CombatLifestyle.com

Today’s bantamweight division is like a time warp ten years into the past. It’s a fantastic situation of utter chaos, much like the major weight classes were at the turn of the century, which, in my humble opinion, makes for riveting viewing. It’s top dog has already changed twice over the past twelve months, and you wouldn’t bet against it happening again tonight as champ Dominick Cruz (15-1) and Urijah Faber protoge Joseph Benavidez (12-1) go at it for the WEC strap in a rematch of a fight that took place just last year. It was the fight that secured Cruz his title shot, his perfect footwork and dizzying head movement taking him to an unanimous decision over a frustrated Benavidez, who could not work his grappling game at all as he liked. That particular duel is intriguing, but so is the top of the bantamweight division in general. Let’s try and unravel the twisted mass of the top five or so bantamweight fighters currently fighting in the WEC…

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Pictured: Anderson Silva refuses to acknowledge Chael Sonnen at the weigh in yesterday. Picture by Tracy Lee of CombatLifestyle.com.

UFC 117: Silva vs Sonnen is on tonight, live from Oracle Arena in Oakland, CA, promising a lively night of fights… and maybe answer a few questions.

Will Matt Hughes earn the “Second Gracie Hunter” moniker that Jacob likes so much? Will Anderson Silva come out of his shell and really come at somebody, now that he’s been offended by all the trash talk? With every matchup featuring a Brazilian vs an American, will “U-S-A” chants drown out the commentary? Will we see a slower and more methodical game at the top of the card or will the glamorous strikers have their day in the sun? Or does it matter? As Oakland Radiers legend Al Davis used to say — “Just win, baby…”

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Pictured: Jon Jones, who will face Vladmir Matyushenko in San Diego at tomorrow’s UFC on Versus show.

Fight fans have enjoyed a breakneck pace in 2010, until recent weeks where we’ve gone a month or so without a major MMA show. Call it a quick summer vacation, or time off for good behavior from all that MMA overload of late. But the fight game is finally heating up again — as ZUFFA begins a busy few weeks with UFC on Versus: Jones vs Matyushenko tomorrow night in sunny San Diego, CA.

Offering predictions this week are Total-MMA regular David Bateman (BB) and a returning Jacob Lawton (JL), along with newcomer Brandon Lamb (BL). I’m sitting this one out and working on my tan — along with the bizzare formatting issues that popped up last week (sorry about that!). As always our predictions are for entertainment purposes only, so don’t blame us if you get burned…

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Pictured: Ken Shamrock blocks an advancing Pedro Rizzo, along with advancing age, during last night’s listless encounter in Sydney.

Any card featuring Ken Shamrock, Paul Daley’s first fight (since his UFC firing) and names like Murilo Rua, Denis Kang and Paulo Filho is enough to at least grab the attention of most MMA fans.

On paper, this past Saturday’s Impact FC 2 in Sydney, Australia had some potentially great fights. But, fights happen in a cage, not on paper. Although the fights were not completely disappointing, neither did the initial promise of the card produce any lasting memories.

It could be that the main event just sullied my opinion of the whole event.

Ken Shamrock v Pedro Rizzo should simply never have happened. Read the rest of this entry »

Pictured: Ken Shamrock and Pedro Rizzo weigh in, from TheGarv.com

It’s been a slow week or so in the MMA world. It’s enough to make you forget what’s on tap. Some kind lads down under are promoting a show which may have slipped under your radar — featuring MMA legends like Ken Shamrock, Murilo Bustamante, Pedro Rizzo, and more.

You can catch the internet PPV at http://www.impactfc.au.com/.

Jacob Lawton has contributed his predictions for this show. Jacob will be taking a brief hiatus from writing and he’s going out (temporarily) with a bang…

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Pictured: Chris ‘The Crippler’ Leben

Chris Leben’s already interesting story took another colossal twist at UFC 116 with his shocking victory against Yoshihiro Akiyama, in a fight he’d taken just two weeks removed from another fight, a victory over Aaron Simpson. And now he’s shot from being a relatively sedate Middleweight journeyman to a potential title contender. Something I find amusing considering he’s lost to (among others) Kalib Starnes, Jake Rosholt and Jason MacDonald, all fighters later cut by the UFC. In this article I’m going to take a look at the MMA career of Chris Leben, and offer my humble two pence about him as a fighter and as a person.
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(Editor’s note: Alexia Krause is a usual contributor to MMAIndustries — and we’re happy to have her contribute to Total-MMA this week. If you’re interested in writing for Total-MMA, please contact us! — Tommy)

With the New York state deficit hitting $8 billion, steps need to be taken in order to right the ship that is the state’s budget. Recently New York Gov. David Paterson stated that the projected deficit for the upcoming fiscal year has grown by an additional $750 million. There’s no doubting that the Empire State is in dire straits trying to fix their deficit.  It is extremely difficult trying to balance a state budget at a time when the country as a whole is going through some of its most difficult economic hurdles in recent history. This forces us to take a fresh look at which programs will continue to receive funding. As a result, the state has been forced to cut, reject, and outright shut down many state programs and projects in order to make some type of movement out of the red and back into the black. Many of these budget cuts (like closing down state parks and cutting funding to public schools) were rampant and have cast an unfavorable light on politicians in Albany in the eyes of many New Yorkers. However, something must be done in order to fight the ailing state economy.

As coincidence has it, a good fight might just be the answer to the budget problems.                             

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