Posted by Jonathan Snowden on 31st March 2008
Editor’s Note: Hardcore MMA fans live in their own insular little world. I know before I click what Josh Gross or Zach Arnold are going to say before they say it. I thought it might be interesting to send an outsider to watch a show up close. A, dare I say, TUF-Newb. What does a California hipster goofball think about MMA. We’re about to find out…
By Andrew Wallace
It was with great excitement that I accepted Jonathan’s kind offer to go to Strikeforce as a member of the prestigious total-mma.com’s elite journalism team. I don’t know much about MMA, or journalism, or anything. As I write this, I am on a train headed towards San Jose. My frantic writing in this notebook will probably give me away as a complete fool. I’m nervous. As a member of the media am I expected to sit passively, completely neutral to the nights proceedings? Or am I allowed to just completely lose my goddamn mind? I guess that all depends on if I find a bar before the show starts.
I have arrived and my mind is completely and utterly lost. As I write, I am in the press room watching Dave Meltzer eat meatloaf. This is the most incredible moment of my entire life, I want to just start laughing. Meltzer has a hearty appetite and an awkward manner of interpersonal interaction. He is my king.
Oh, the sneaky little fellow has crept off somewhere. I shall try to find him!
Total-MMA is apparently lacking in the prestige department as I am seated in a wheelchair landing. This is not ideal.
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Posted in Andrew Wallace, Elite XC, Frank Shamrock, Strikeforce | 1 Comment »
Posted by Bill Thompson on 30th March 2008
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By: Bill Thompson
Admittedly I am in the group of MMA fans that care about the fight and the fight only. All the pre-fight and post-fight antics don’t matter to me now, never have in the past, and likely won’t in the future. I only care about two competitors getting in their chosen arena and giving it their all for my entertainment. I derive my entertainment from the actions of those two competitors in the cage or ring, and that is all I need. Others look for more, they want that post-fight smacktalk or the pre-fight staredown at the weigh-ins. There is one man however that seems to understand just how entertainment works in MMA to a level that no other man can claim to have reached. Even for one such as I, where the fight is all that matters, I am inevitably drawn in by this man’s antics before, during, and after the fight. Frank Shamrock is a polarizing figure, most fans either love him or hate him, but for a different reason than most may suspect he may very well be the only true MMA legend out there.
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Posted in Bill Thompson, Frank Shamrock | 1 Comment »
Posted by Tommy Hackett on 30th March 2008
Maybe they’re not all thunder gods, but it’s safe to say that the Scandanavians have something of a fighting heritage. Blame the Vikings who conquered most of Europe, or blame Wagner for writing the immortal Ring Cycle, I don’t know, blame Stan Lee for the Thor comics. But it’s hard to think of that peninsula without images of reindeer hide capes, helmets with mastadon horns pointing from either side, slaying giants, killing wabbits, and so on. Sure, they’ve got great pancakes too, but mostly, it’s warrior country.
So it may surprise you to learn that the good people of Norway and Sweden have often found their modern combatants in MMA, boxing, and kickboxing with no battles to fight. Yep, all three sports have been struggled to survive legally on the professional level. That’s why last year, following the sale of PRIDE, Norway’s Joachim Hansen took a series of amatuer boxing bouts to stay in shape, and not make a dime, as his career was left in limbo. In a video interview Hansen revealed that his trainer and manager left the sport behind entirely, and “had to go back to his normal job… because he has to make a living.”
So it’s tough going for a Viking in 2008, but there’s signs of hope too. This year, Sweden’s MMA community has rallied together to re-attain legal status. The Zone FC promotion ran a show in Solna, Sweden last month which featured an appearance by Enson Inoue. Earlier this month, the fine folks at Asgard MMA ran a story on Jörgen “The Last Viking” Kruth, the Swedish Muay Thai standout now making the switch to MMA.
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Posted in Jörgen Kruth, K-1, MMA, Tommy Hackett | No Comments »
Posted by Iain Liddle on 28th March 2008
The annual K-1 calendar continues to tick along in its standard perenially-ignored way. I’m not sure why the heavies receive so little appreciation amongst the usual suspects in fight sport reporting. Possibly because Semmy Schilt seems to dominate the eventual GP finals every year and so there’s not a lot of fun to be had covering the early rounds of the tournament when the victor seems set in stone ahead of time.
Regardless, in an effort to address the balance somewhat, the fact they’ve announced the card for April’s Amsterdam GP was recently brought to my attention and it caught my interest.
Last year the corresponding fixture was responsible for one of the biggest embarrassments I’ve ever seen when Bob sapp took a dive (allegedly) against Peter Aerts, co-incidentally at a time when he was in contract dispute with the company.
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Posted in Iain Liddle, K-1 | No Comments »
Posted by Kendall Shields on 27th March 2008
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In a tragic turn, Paulo Filho’s enthusiasm for drugs has taken from me the only fight on this card where I knew both fighters. I’m pretty sure I’ve watched every WEC card on Vs., but I have some kind of a mental block that prevents me from remembering pretty much anything that has happened on any of them, excluding Urijah Faber’s matches, Filho vs. Sonnen, and the smooth, smooth voice of Joe Martinez, so all of these fighters are new to me each time. It’s an Oliver Sacks situation.
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Posted by Lee Casebolt on 26th March 2008
by Lee Casebolt
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This is not a new rant. I was perusing the Sherdog database a few weeks ago and came across an ad for an upcoming event from the “Xtreme Fighting Association”. I was torn between my dismay at the death of literacy in America (even ECW could spell “Extreme” properly) and my interest in the main event of Mike Whitehead vs Vernon White. Neither man is going to be frightening Quinton Jackson any time soon, but both are talented, veteran light heavyweights with versatile skills. A fine main event for a fledgling promotion, I thought. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in K-1, Lee Casebolt, WCL | No Comments »
Posted by Marc Staehling on 25th March 2008
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By Marc Staehling
Originally posted at Nokaut, and then subsequently at MMAmania, and MMAjunkie.com, rumours are swirling that ProElite, parent company to EliteXC is the leading suitor to gain the services of the Russian superstar. While I personally would like to see Fedor end up in the UFC, it appears as if that’s a pipe-dream at this point and in the long run, a spot on CBS might be the best move for the sport of MMA on the whole.
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Posted in CBS, Elite XC, Fedor Emelianenko, Marc Staehling, Television | No Comments »
Posted by Bill Thompson on 23rd March 2008
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By: Bill Thompson
We are just a few days away from what will be yet another, at the very least, good card from World Extreme Cagefighting, WEC. On the larger MMA scale of fans drawn and monies earned the WEC has yet to become a player, but on the more important scale of fights waged and action provided the WEC has already skyrocketed to the top of the MMA ranks in my book. There is no denying that organizations like the UFC and Pride can always lay claim to having great fighters, important cards, and a high standing within the minds of MMA fans. However for a lot of fans, myself included, some smaller organizations are able to draw you in with great talent, good matchmaking, and an intangible sense of belonging or an almost clique like nature that isn’t found in the bigger orgs. For the longest time my number one MMA organization in the world was Shooto. Shooto could lay claim to putting on exciting cards with great fights, and a great combination of known and up and coming talent. Shooto also left you with that feeling that you were involved in something big that not everyone else was in on and as a result it was something special. I lost that feeling with Shooto a few years ago as a rapid loss of talent led to its fall from the top of the ranks in my eyes. Now a new promotion has come along to once again give me that old Shooto feel of yore, and that is the WEC. With their focus on the lower weight classes, their action packed cards and their nice mixture of young and veteran talent they are currently providing the best action in MMA. However there are some decisions that need to be made about the WEC by their parent company, Zuffa. Is the WEC its own separate entity or is it simply a feeder system for the UFC?
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Posted in Bill Thompson, UFC, WEC, Zuffa | 1 Comment »
Posted by Dave Walsh on 22nd March 2008
by Dave Walsh
Do you miss Japan’s boom? Miss Genki Sudo’s long, elaborate dance sequences and freak show fights? There are people at our forum who agree with you. Go figure.
I think after the past few weeks we’ve had some questions answered when it comes to the future of the sport of MMA. If anything, to some it might have been a cold, hard reality check, while to others it was the expected result. MMA in Japan was the standard for years. While the UFC was being shunned by the mainstream in the mid-90s we had PRIDE selling out big arenas and Inoki beginning to scheme up ideas to break into the market. That was then and this is now, and right now things have changed drastically. Two events in particular over the past few weeks; World Victory Road’s Senkogu and most recently DREAM.1 have proven that the Japanese style of MMA still has its place in the world of MMA, but not like it used to.
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Posted in DREAM.1, Dave Walsh, Japan | 1 Comment »
Posted by Kendall Shields on 20th March 2008
by Kendall Shields
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Lee Casebolt is a very old man. I say this neither pejoratively nor dismissively, but instead as a value-neutral statement of fact. I mean no disrespect of any kind. But it must be said. Lee Casebolt: irrefutably an old man. And so it should surprise exactly none of us when, in yesterday’s “Iron Ring Report”, Mr. Casebolt revealed that he had never before watched an hour of BET programming. He concedes that he is “not BET’s (or Iron Ring’s) target audience” in that he “listen[s] to 80s metal and watch[es] current sitcoms, rather than listen[] to current hip hop and watch[] 80s sitcoms,” and that, “[t]o be perfectly frank,” our friend Lee doesn’t know “who half of these ‘celebrity owners’ are,” nor does he “care to.” And fair enough: as Dave Meltzer wrote in recent Wrestling Observer Newsletter, BET’s Iron Ring series is not intended to broaden the station’s audience to include MMA fans so much as it is an effort to create content appealing to its existing viewership.
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