Archive for May, 2009

A couple of weekends ago, I had a ton of fun at a “Modified MMA” tournament hosted by the good people of Warrior-One, an MMA retailer and training center just north of Seattle. The event offered an opportunity for a hopeful fighter to begin to bridge the gap between jiu-jitsu matches and MMA, by beginning to mix strikes with grappling in a controlled setting. It’s the kind of community event that I hope to see more of.

While at Warrior-One, I picked up our sport’s newest full-length documentary, Renzo Gracie: Legacy. Similarly, Legacy attempts to bridge that gap between the personal side of one of our greatest figures, and his achievements in the sport.

It’s mainly successful, although it also left me wanting more. Read the rest of this entry »

A look at the record of Stanislav Nedkov reveals a potentially noteworthy up and coming Light Heavyweight prospect.  With an admiral 7-0 record, Nedkov scored his biggest victory earlier this month at Sengoku by TKO-ing Travis Wiuff in the 3rd round.  While not a top-tier elite level talent, Wiuff is the kind of solid veteran journeyman that separates those ready for a step up in competition from the countless “not yet ready” fighters littering the MMA landscape.  With this win, you would say Nedkov is on the rise and a fighter to watch, right?

Well, not exactly.

Because what the record alone fails to tell you is that the win over Wiuff came only after numerous illegal groin shots by Nedkov throughout round 1.  Three of these shots required Wiuff to take significant recovery time, while one required doctors to check Wiuff and very nearly stopped the fight.  Wiuff opted to continue.  Nedkov was given a red card (twice), and Wiuff was eventually knocked out.  Wiuff was obviously not fighting at 100% after the groin shots – no fighter would be.  He was visibly less aggressive in the clinch (Nedkov’s main weapon), adopting an awkward stance in order to protect himself from further abuse, and was more gun-shy on the feet – which is exactly what ultimately cost him the fight.  And so, in the end, Nedkov effectively used the illegal groin shots to get Wiuff off his game, then finished him off.  So what does this really tell us?  That after multiple illegal blows, Nedkov was the better man.  That’s it.

This, of course, is not an isolated incident.  As UFC 99 approaches, we prepare ourselves for the return of Cheick Kongo, one of MMA’s most notorious groin strike experts, and Mirko Cro Cop, Kongo’s most high profile victim.  When Kongo defeated Cro Cop in 2007, it was generally looked at as a sign of the Croatian’s irrelevance to the current MMA world – an indication that has was, at best, shot, and at worst, a historically overhyped fighter who wilted without the use of steroids.  But what neither of these theories takes into account is that yes, Cro Cop did wilt against Kongo… after Kongo delivered multiple illegal groin shots.  Again, does this really tell us that Kongo was the better man that night, or does it only tell us that Cro Cop does not have the fortitude to fight through blows that are, for a reason, illegal?  We can speculate that Kongo would have won anyway, but that remains nothing more than speculation, no more or less valid then speculation before the fight started.  The fact is, we don’t truly know who was the better man that night, just as we don’t know who was the better man between Wiuff and Nedkov.

Read the rest of this entry »

Lyoto Machida proved that he deserved every second of his title shot by destroying Rashad Evans in merely two rounds last night in Las Vegas. It was as impressive a performance the UFC could have asked for from Lyoto, countering with full power and dropping Rashad in the first and then demolishing him in the second. The flaws inherent in his game are still present: He still stands straight up, he still holds his hands low, he’s quite wild when finishing. However, Rashad never attempted to try and exploit his strengths, showing no real jab, allowing himself to be timed by lacking a varied attack and not properly using angles, and never showing the ability to throw the straight right. His game plan seemed to be to throw a counter right over Machida’s kicks or punches and stop him with no plan B. 

None of this should take away from Machida, however. Like the dominant heavyweight in the world, he’s spent a lifetime training for this moment and his outstanding preparation for battle will make him an enormously difficult foe for anyone. I think to beat Machida, you must to his right and jab to the body to set up a right hand to the head. You will need to eat shots and you’ll need to get inside. All of these things will prove to be very difficult for the competitors in the UFC, the vast majority of whom lack the technical skill to pull this off.

Read the rest of this entry »

Those of you who enjoy our forums know that I described a possible bout between “Sugar” Rashad Evans and Lyoto “The Dragon” Machida as about the only MMA fight that I’m really excited about this year, and it’s great to see the match finally set to occur tonight! This pairing of two unorthodox, and undefeated, light heavyweights might offer a rare chance to learn something new about the sport, as we see how their rapid footwork, skilled counterpunching, and distinct takedown skills interplay. Unfortunately, the rest of tonight’s UFC 98 doesn’t looks so strong on paper, but hopefully someone on the undercard will step up. As always, I offer my picks on the night’s four biggest fights:

Read the rest of this entry »

With the announcement of Cro Cop being added to the schedule just under 4 weeks away from the event, the chatter for UFC 99 has gone through the roof, discussing issues they’ve run into with local politicians, newspaper journalists, rumored resistance from boxing promoters, and so on. However, very few people understand the fight scene in Germany because of the origin of so many of the writers. As as has been argued many times over before here, the pro wrestling background of the majority of bloggers and writers means you get all sorts of weird assertions mixed in with a complete lack of knowledge, and that’s the case with the Germans, who have no strong national faux fighting background but are filling up a football stadium to see the impressive jab and grab of Wladimir Klitschko.

Read the rest of this entry »

As promised, here is part 2 of kick boxing rankings, this time focusing on the 70 kg division (aka the Middleweight, or K-1 MAX division).  With K-1 dabbling with a 60 kg division, we’ll keep this focused on the 70 kg K-1 MAX area.  This is a deeper talent pool than the Heavyweights, so we’ll go with a top 20:

Top 20 Kickboxers (70 kg division)

1. MASATO

2. Artur Kyshenko

3. Giorgio Petrosyan

4. Andy Souwer

5. Albert Kraus

6. Buakaw Por. Pramuk

7. Nieky Holtzken

8. Gago Drago

9. Yoshihiro Sato

10. Chahid Oulad El Hadj

11. Murat Direcki

12. Taishin Kohiruimaki

13. Yuya Yamamoto

14. Leroy Kaestner

15. Yoshihiro Kido

16. Chi Bin Lim

17. Alviar Lima

18. HINATA

19. Sahin Yakut

20. John Wayne Parr

Read the rest of this entry »

For the uninformed, the Japanese MMA legend Caol Uno has been dabbling in the fashion industry for some time now under his brand name UCS. He has featured everything from sportswear to childrens attire in the past, but his 2008/2009 Fall/Winter collection, which received a sneak peek at HypeBeast this week, appears to represent a new ambition.

I think back to the line from Fight Club where “Jack” ponders which kind of dining set defines him as a person. So, does anyone believe that Uno’s mishmash of tights, beanies, and the pictured Little Lord Fauntleroy getup defines you as a person?

Perhaps not. But that’s OK. I want it all anyway. This man is clearly over all of our heads.

MMA, I’m told, is in better shape than boxing because it doesn’t have as many alphabet soup organizations. I suppose there is truth to that. Instead, MMA has alphabet soup organizations and Shine, DREAM, World Victory Road, It’s Showtime, Kingdom, and lots of other events and promotions that go by full names. Inventive!

Seriously though, its interesting to see that there’s been a push on the internet to say that “regional MMA” is a strong point right now while alternately claiming that no one is willing to try and create new national MMA franchises. To that end, I must ask: What is a “regional MMA” promotion? After all, some of the ones I link to here are open about running new markets (Shine’s second card is slated for Florida, not Ohio) and have national TV (MFC runs on HDNet, not a local canadian network). 

Read the rest of this entry »

After a somewhat lackluster start to the year, April gave us a definite
abundance of high quality MMA action. Unfortunately, the month will
probably best be remembered by the lackluster UFC 97 featuring the much
reviled Silva v. Leites (a fight that I found highly entertaining,
personally) and the end of the Iceman. But there was a tremendous
amount of good. Let’s look at the highlights:

FIGHTS OF THE MONTH
Miguel Angel Torres v. Takeya Mizugaki
Scott Smith v. Benji Radach
Carlos Condit v. Martin Kampmann
Torres/Mizugaki was a strong fight of the year candidate and definitely
leads the pack. But both other fights were tremendous fun, with
Smith/Radach featuring the best comeback win since, well, Smith/Sell.
Dana White’s love for slugfests has given these sort of fights a bad
name, but when done right they can be tremendously entertaining, high
quality bouts. This definitely fell into that category. And with this
win, I officially am on board as a Scott Smith fan and look forward to
his next fight. Give me Smith v. Ninja.

Read the rest of this entry »

Despite being a Pacquiao fan since I first heard of the guy in ‘02 or so, I’m hoping for Hatton to pull off an unlikely upset tonight, and this video of the weigh ins offers some hope…

Read the rest of this entry »