Archive for April, 2009

To continue my push for K-1 talk, I figured now was as good a time as any to launch some kickboxing rankings.  These are a work in progress and will be updated regularly, so I welcome your feedback.  In the interest of some sort of unified rankings, I opted not to include every single weight class, but instead go with the two simple categories of Over 70 kg, and Under 70 kg (the division between K-1 and K-1 MAX).  My apologies to purists who would like every separate weight class listed.  We’ll start with the Over 70 kg list, and add Under 70 kg next week.  On we go:

Top 10 Kickboxers (Over 70 kg)

1. Remy Bonjasky

2. Peter Aerts

3. Badr Hari

4. Semmy Schilt

5. Errol Zimmerman

6. Ewerton Teixeira

7. Keijiro Maeda

8. Gokhan Saki

9. Tyrone Spong

10. Alistair Overeem

Honorable Mention: Jerome Le Banner, Ruslan Karaev , Zabit Samedov

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In a recent interview with Fight Magazine, Lyoto Machida was asked what was in his refrigerator. The Brazilian MMA phenom known as “The Dragon” (or, as I prefer to call him, “The Next Light Heavyweight Champion of the World”) didn’t surprise me when he included açaí (pronounced a-sigh-ee, more or less) in his response. Why? First, I enjoyed açaí for the first time last year and have been hooked ever since. Second, and more relevant to this site, the purple berry has made mention all over the MMA world lately.

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I am finishing my look at the accuracy of my predictions for the year’s biggest MMA bouts today. If you missed part one, it’s just down the page. If you don’t care, find something else to read. HA!

As always, I offer predictions on the evening’s four biggest bouts.

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OK, time to face the music. Starting with my predictions for Affliction: Day of Reckoning, and finishing with UFC 97, I’ve provided my opinions for most of the 2009’s big MMA events. We have hit about mid-term and I think it’s about time to see how many chips I’ve kept on the table. I of course do not gamble and just do this for fun (perhaps luckily, as we will see)…
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Let’s face it, the older you get, the less fun or cool stuff you can do. It is just a matter of fact and a fact of life. After a certain age certain things just aren’t fun anymore, or you just don’t have time for them. I feel like for people in the super targeted uber age demographic(C) (18 - 34) we have a wealth of new time-wasters that are completely engrossing and acceptable forms of entertainment for fledgling adults. One of these is the videogame. What started out as something most of us dicked around with as kids, it has turned into something we can do after a long day of work or with our buddies over a few beers. It is no longer for the shut-in nerd playing 100+ hours of some Final Fantasy game to make sure they have the most points and saw every elaborate cut scene.

What I’m getting at is, if you currently own an Xbox 360 or a PS3 and have it connected to the internet, do yourself a favor and grab the UFC 2009 Undisputed demo. It is around 700mb and is well worth the download. Right now your only options are the tutorial to learn the moves and to play an exhibition match between Chuck Liddell and Shogun Rua. While it sounds limited, both fighters together have the combined skills to show off exactly what this game can do and why it is so fun. Shogun can show you what kind of stuff to expect from the ground game as well as the clinch game, Chuck can show you some of the finer points of stand up as well as takedowns and ground defense. It is incredibly engrossing and beyond fun, at this point I can see myself easily purchasing the full game come May 19th and holding a tournament with a few friends as soon as possible.

You may have noticed a lack of Ultimate Fighter content. To be honest, I started work on a preview of this season and then gave up. You know why? Because this season is bad. Listen, I get that there is resistance to calling this a bad season of the show from a lot of people on the internet, but the truth is this season sucks. I’ve barely bothered to keep up with it and neither have any of the other contributers here. Two guys look like the dominant forces early on: Jeff Lawson and Jason Dent. If you know anything about MMA beyond the UFC, or hell, if all you know is the UFC, you know that Jason Dent isn’t an elite level guy. And that makes the fact that there’s about 14 guys worse than him on this show so amazing.

The ugly truth is that guys like Mushin Corbbrey and John Gunderson (who tried out) were turned down for this show for Ray Elbe and Waylon Rowe. The only reason that you would turn down a guy who’s fought on Showtime for guys that lost to guys that lost on Showtime is obvious: You’re intentionally looking for weak fighters. TUF 9 is not about building new American talent. It is completely about building new talent for the UK. Its about finding another Bisping to sell tickets over there when the live gates have been dropping with each show put on. You don’t just have to believe me that these fighters suck: Look at the TUF 9 Finale! There’s already 7 non TUF fights booked; more than any other Finale in history. Mix that with a tired setup of house and riled up young fighters and we’re all finding something else to do with out Wednesday nights. Since the ratings were down to a 1.1 in week 2 and…well, I can’t find a rating for week 3. But I’m gonna go on a limb and say it wasn’t record breaking in a good way. But it doesn’t look like we’re alone either.

Of all the things you’d think would be able to unite the MMA blawging world, its a armless and legless man fighting. You would be wrong. Understand as I write this short piece that I am not knocking Maynard personally. Hey, he’s accomplished something amazing, certainly. An inspiration even! That doesn’t change what him fighting in MMA is: Its a freakshow. It is the most exploitative of acts in a sport that is defined by exploitation. And please, don’t sit here and say that because he’s a willing participant that it is not exploitative. Prostitutes (adult and child) can be willing participants; That doesn’t mean the act of them having sex with 50 year old men so that they can get a hit isn’t exploitative either. Porn stars are exploited. Strippers are exploited. Boxers are exploited. Race car drivers are exploited. The people on Maury Povich, COPS, America’s Wildest Police Chases…all being used to make a buck for a production company, promoter, both, other, etc.

What makes this so much more than just your garden level exploitation that almost any amateur MMA show often becomes is that the participant is missing the majority of all four limbs. The term “freak show” is adopted from, well, “freak shows”: Vaudeville type acts that depended on the gross deformities or wild actions of the participants, whether human or non-human, to sell tickets. Kyle Maynard is not being trotted out towards the typical southerner mouth breathing MMA fan as an inspiration, it is for the novelty value of a man without arms and legs being put in a position where he will be punched, kneed, and kicked. There can be no good from this, and if you pretend that you’re interested in the well being of the sport, you too should be mortified. He is not a long term prospect. He is not a guy you can build a promotion around. He is not someone who in 3 years we could discuss fighting for a title. This is promoter looking to make money by putting together the most abhorrent of events; a fight in a sport once called “no holds barred” in which one of the participants has severe physical deformities.

Anderson Silva has quickly found out that the fans (which then turns into the media — CREDENTIAL LUKE THOMAS ALREADY~!) do not love you if you do not give them what they want. They do not care about your health your well-being, they do not care about your reputation, how you feel, they do not care about your artistry or your values. No, not at all. They want you to go out, put on a show, be entertaining and win at all costs.

This is the reality that must sink in for him right now; that people are going to hate him unless he clowns everybody like he did RIch Franklin. I keep seeing the word “pretention” in relation to him from fans, when anybody that knows him always talks about how down to earth and modest he is. Does it translate into his fighting style? Not always. When Silva is fighting and becomes bored he starts doing whatever he wants. It has happened twice in a row for him now, with the second sub par opponent in a row. This is what happens when you are exceptional, it happens in every walk of life; you claw your way to the top and then realize there are no more challenges for you in your current path. Do you accept and revel in mediocrity or do you rise above and seek out new challenges?

Thales Leites was never going to defeat Anderson Silva. He just wasn’t, just like Patrick Cote wasn’t. Sure, anything can happen, but outside of the off chance, it wasn’t going down that way. Even then, these guys are no slouches, it is just that nobody at 185lbs can challenge Anderson Silva. Leites continually dropped to the ground any time Anderson was getting into his groove or even threw a decent strike. We will, rightfully so, hear talk about how there should have been a penalty for essentially avoiding fighting, but don’t blame Silva for that. Silva’s only other options were to engage on the ground, which he waited to do until he worked over the leg of Leites enough to nullify his guard or ability to use submissions.

The fans only love you when you excite them, and exciting them means taking risks and turning into Chuck Liddell eventually, who suffered ths third brutal knockout within the past few years, each one scary in their own right. The big difference is Chuck is Chuck, a dude that likes to have fun and just hang out, Silva is a martial artist and does the things he does for respect and honor, not for the cheers and love of the fans. He needs to remember that, because the path he has chosen is not the one of the Chuck Liddell’s of the world who are big money draws and make tons of money.

In the wake of K-1’s mostly successful 2009 kick-off show, much of the talk surrounds reigning Grand Prix champion Remy Bonjasky.  Despite defeating Alistair Overeem in the main event, any viewer should have doubts concerning Bonjasky’s position as the current #1 fighter in K-1.  Many of these doubts were in place long before the Overeem fight.  A highly technical and cautious fighter, Bonjasky has never been a tremendous fan favorite, due both to his fighting style and his reputation as a flopper who exaggerates fouls.  After a highly successful 2008, Bonjasky looked to be in a strong position with a number of big wins added to his highlight reel and his 3rd Grand Prix crown.  All that may have changed in Yokohama.

To call Bonjasky’s win over Overeem unwarranted or lucky is unfair – Bonjasky used superior defense to avoid trouble and strong technical skill to finally get the knockdown and the victory.  But it certainly was not an impressive performance.  Bonjasky looked sluggish, tired, and not on top of his game physically or mentally.  Watch him get to his feet in the 3rd after yet another Overeem throw and you see a man who looks like a defeated fighter, not a top of the line champion.

As we look ahead to K-1’s 2009 and beyond, it’s clear that the company is missing just that – a champion.  Right now, there is no one to definitively take the spot as the top man and maintain that position.  The two men with the best chance of winning the 2009 Grand Prix are Bonjasky and former champion Semmy Schilt – both fighters who struggle to find love from the K-1 fans.  Meanwhile the most popular fighters – Peter Aerts, Ray Sefo, Jerome LeBanner – are able to have some impact, but likely past the point of a sustained run at the top.  While a Grand Prix win would be a fantastic, emotional moment for any of these men (none more so than LeBanner), their time at the top is certainly limited.

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Around the age of 12 I began to realize that I was never going to become a professional athlete. I decided that being a sports journalist would be the next best thing, so that became my new dream. After two semesters of college I realized that the odds of becoming a sports journalist were not much better than those of becoming an athlete and pushed that particular dream aside, seemingly forever. Well, a decade later the chance to be a journalist (in the loosest of terms) fell into my lap. For one glorious weekend I lived my dream. Here is my account. 

I arrived to the HP Pavilion in San Jose at 2pm, a full two and a half hours before the gates opened. Why? Why the hell not? I had the A’s game on the radio and a good book (TOTAL MMA by some cat named Jon Snowden) and the time flew by. Around 4:00 I simply couldn’t wait any longer and headed down to the media entrance. There was a line of about 6 people, all holding expensive looking cameras and laptops. I held my note pad and crappy Kodak. No matter, I was there for the story and my pen and paper were more than enough to achieve that goal. When I made it to the front of the line I produced my ID then sat there as the man working the door riffled through a seemingly endless pile of tangled credentials. Mine was sitting on top, and I pointed this out to the gentleman several times. Eventually he found it and I was officially IN. Laminated plastic with MY NAME on it and a kick ass lanyard. Sweet. 

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