This weekend has bee eventful if you are a fan of K-1; the K-1 Final 16 show went off without a hitch and only with one fight with a head-scratching finish (hint; it was a DQ and it doesn’t matter).
Today K-1 had their K-1 World Grand Prix draws and the tournament has shaped up nicely, with the Golden Glory gym making an incredible showing with four competitors in the tournament; Alistair Overeem easily one of the favorites, up there with teammate Semmy Schilt and Badr Hari. The draw is set as such.
Ruslan Karaev v. Badr Hari
Alistair Overeem v. Ewerton Teixeira
Jerome Le Banner v. Semmy Schilt
Errol Zimmerman v. Remy Bonjasky
A couple interesting notes from the draw: Hari specifically chose to face Karaev in what should be a great rematch. The two men are 1-1 in a pair of exciting fights from 2006-2007. Also, Errol Zimmerman called out Bonjasky and the champion accepted – a bold move from Zimmerman that may backfire. Finally, the 4 Golden Glory fighters (Karaev, Zimmerman, Schilt, Overeem) all were very conscious to space themselves out to avoid any conflicts in the quarter finals.
My gut reaction is that we’ll see semi-finals of Hari v. Overeem and Schilt v. Bonjasky – two fights that will be extremely difficult to call. With all four men looking strong this weekend, the Grand Prix could very well come down to who has the easier road to the finals.
September 25, 2009: The September 2009 Independent World MMA Rankings have been released. These rankings are independent of any single MMA media outlet or sanctioning body, and are published on multiple web sites.
Tim Kennedy is a guy that is hard to not like; a fighter who puts his heart into his fights and into defending his country. Kennedy talked to Heavy.com about his upcoming fight and his past military experiences, as well as them accomidating his fighting career. Tim, a true fighter, looks forward to being deployed again in the future.
Heavy.com: So you feel like your potential is far from being reached?
Tim Kennedy: Yes. Both in skill in technique and physically. Having been a full time soldier for the past six years, deployed in Afghanistan and Iraq and other places, the mixed martial arts game, certain aspects of it have evolved and I wasn’t part of that evolution. So I might be behind the curve on a lot of the stuff and I’m playing catch up. I think the learning curve is gonna be very steep and I’m getting up it fast, but truth be told, I’m behind it right now.
Heavy.com: What do you feel is the biggest evolution that you’ve kind of missed the boat on?
Tim Kennedy: I think the guys like Georges St. Pierre that are amazing athletes in the first place and have been able to train with the best in all of the different realms of mixed martial arts: boxing, kickboxing, jiujitsu, wrestling, and really take a certain skill set and perfect it. You can take guys like Anderson Silva and throw them in a professional boxing ring and he’s gonna do really, really well. Or a professional muay thai fight. Or you can send him to NAGA or Grappler’s Quest or Abu Dhabi and watch him crush people in jiujitsu. I know what I’m really good at and fortunately I’m able to use my experience to put that onto my opponents. Sure, there are still aspects of my game that need to be refined. You know, one of them has been my muay thai kickboxing.
I just spent some time up in Boston with Matt Phinney and Mark Della Grotte at Sityodtong just working on my finesse kickboxing. Working on elbows, knees, footwork, sweeps, you know, all that stuff that I’ve really been neglecting because I was just that powerhouse boxer, wrestler, Pit style kickboxer. I think I’m behind on some of the niche tricks of the trade that you’re able to integrate into an MMA fight.
Rumor has it, from Rampage Jackson himself, that he is done with MMA, most notably of course his home in the UFC. Dana White is a master of the PR wars, often times doing whatever it takes, including making himself a target, to get what he wants in the end. Rampage is playing a dangerous game engaging Dana in a battle like this, especially after his incident where he Rampaged through SoCal streets in his custom-decal-laden truck. Dana and the UFC were there to bail out their star. Rampage sounds conflicted when talking about his decision to leave the UFC.
The UFC has done a lot for me but I think I have done more for them. The UFC bought WFA to get my contract & they saved my life, so I felt loyal to them. They pushed me into a fight with Chuck Liddell even when I clearly stated I wasn’t ready to fight for the belt because the American fans didn’t know me but I took the fight and didn’t complain & after I won the American fans booed me for the first time which changed the way I saw them & it hurt me deeply.
Rampage, truly out of character (but still clearly himself) in a blog posting, declares how hurt has has been over certain things, namely Dana White joking about Rampage’s relationship with his father and decision to make this movie. The A-Team film can be huge for Rampage, no doubt. If it is a smash hit and is signed on for sequels, merchandising, TV spin-offs and whatever else, Quinton Jackson will be a household name. If it opens up the door for other action films and he becomes a Hollywood darling, even better.
Honestly, this guy from Heavy.com is very, very lucky that Koscheck was still chewing his gum, because he has some incredibly heavy hands (no pun intended).
Oh the irony of it all. Last night saw UFC counter-program the return of boxing’s Pretty Boy; Floyd Mayweather, Jr. Floyd, the oft-controversial performer came back after a two-year retirement after seeing Manny Pacquiao take his place on the top of the food chain in the media’s fickle eyes after destroying Oscar De La Hoya and Ricky Hatton. Floyd saw this and saw dollar signs, while UFC saw this as their chance to take another jab at the sport they and their rabid fans see as a dying art and proclaim dominance that they could do well against boxing’s biggest star.
The numbers aren’t out yet, but the results are in, and they can be weighed against each other. UFC saw no real surprises on their main card; Cro Cop is washed up, Hermes Franca isn’t very good, Martin Kampmann was overrated and Vitor Belfort when he trains for a fight can beat a gatekeeper handily (with illegal blows to the back of the head). The undercard was just rather dull and the card featured some of the worst preliminaries UFC has offered on a PPV. The card was easily the least entertaining since UFC 55; Andrei Arlovski vs. Paul Buentello.
Mayweather vs. Marquez on the other hand saw a lively undercard as Chris John took Rocky Juarez all twelve rounds for a decision, Michael Katsidis overwhelmed a scrappy Vincente Escebedo and Cornelius Lock devastated Orlando Cruz with a left hook. All three of these bouts were incredibly exciting and put on this card to prove that they can not only compete with UFC quality-wise, but put on a better overall show.
A lot of talk right now from UFC fans is that the Mayweather fight was a “multi-million dollar sham” of a fight; Mayweather was fighting a lighter fighter who stood no chance against him. The truth of the matter is, after coming back from a two year layoff, taking on a fighter like Manny Pacquiao would be a giant risk, as would a fight with Shane Mosley. Plus, from a business perspective, a multi-million dollar warm-up fight before the big fight makes perfect sense. Instead of people asking the question “does Floyd still have it?” there will be no doubt that he still has it when he goes into his next fight against whomever it is.
Again, fight fans are faced with a choice between offerings from the biggest players in MMA and boxing tonight, as UFC goes head to head with HBO PPV. Hey, it’s not the worst problem to have; and in fact I think we’ve got a pretty clear decision here.
I can already hear the arguments against it, and I’ll admit UFC 103 will probably be enjoyable enough. I’ll even concede that the welterweight bout between Floyd “Money” Mayweather Jr and Juan Manuel “Dinamita” Marquez may have lost a bit of luster with Mayweather’s issues at the scale. (See this ESPN report if you haven’t already.) But Mayweather and Marquez still offer a great pairing of two pound-for-pound entrants, and the bout’s winner will be primed for an even bigger night against Manny Pacquiao or Miguel Cotto next year. Let’s be honest: Vitor Belfort and Rich Franklin are very good and their catch weight bout that will likely be entertaining, but win or lose it will really do little for either guy’s standing. Plus, it’s a weak undercard, while HBO PPV is (uncharactaristically) offering several excellent bouts in support of the Mayweather/Marquez main.
When push comes to shove, we never tire of the Diaz boys. Tonight will be no exception as Nate Diaz will square off with cocaine-abuser Melvin Guillard. Coke vs. Weed will happen tonight.
After being a it over last night, Nate Diaz made weight on his second try, so all is prepared for tonight. Heavy.com has a preview (by some dashingly handsome writer) for the main event.
The Diaz brothers are known for being brash, arrogant, loud-mouthed and talented enough to back up everything they say, but somehow Nate Diaz finds himself with two losses in a row in a company that generally issues a pink slip to fighters after they suffer three losses in a row. The challenge that faces Nate Diaz is Melvin’s wrestling (Nick and Nate are not exactly known for takedown defense) and hard-hitting muay thai skills. Nate, like his brother, has a hard time turning down an invite to a firefight standing up and prides himself on his boxing skills. After the tough loss to Joe Stevenson, whose wrestling made a fool of Nate last time around, Nate needs to not lose faith in his jiu-jitsu. Especially against Guillard.
Melvin Guillard has a wrestling background to go with his crushing muay thai, but it seems like his wrestling has only led him into deeper waters that he was not yet ready for, as 6 out of his 7 losses were to submissions. Clearly both men are going to need completely different gameplans for this fight; Guillard looks to keep Nate standing up and knock him out, and Diaz to take this to the ground and gain another Submission of the Night honor and ensure some job security. The real test is to see if Nate can stick to his guns and use his superior jiu-jitsu against Guillard.
The debut of Satoshi Ishii, Beijing 2008 Olympic Gold Medalist at heavyweight for Judo in Mixed Martial Arts is official. He’ll make his debut on the World Victory Road: Sengoku New Year’s Eve special against other former Japanese national hero and Olympic Judoka, Hidehiko Yoshida. While the date is not set in stone yet, watch for it to be on the 31st or the 3rd.
If on the 31st, it is a bold move, competing with a possible DREAM/K-1 Dynamite! show and the other array of Japanese entertainment that happens on New Years Eve. NYE in Japan is a big deal for television, with combat sports formerly being some of the main attractions. Dating back to the wrestling boom days up until about the death of PRIDE, there has always been an attraction to ring in the new year, but eventually, as Japan is a fad-based culture, it wore off.
The Japanese audiences have lots of choices when it comes to programming on New Years Eve, and most are simply looking to watch what will be the most-talked about program. It will take a lot for MMA to become this most-talked about program again, is Ishii the man to bring this change? On top of that, Sengoku is generally very careful when it comes to prospects, and are throwing Ishii immediately into the fire against a veteran, which smells of desperation. Yoshida’s debut was against a fellow Judoka as well, the man we know and love, Don Frye.
If you know this site and myself, you know that the Diaz brothers are regarded as some of the best around. Both are incredibly skilled, yes, both also exude this natural aura around them; they do what they want and could care less what you or anybody else thinks. But the reality is that they are two hard working guys who came from a modest background. The San Joaquin Magazine has what I would regard as an incredible fluff piece on two guys I would never imagine being written about this eloquently. Ridiculous.
Enter Nick Diaz. Almost like the MMA gods were punching out cookie-cutter molds of young men and decided this would be the ideal model for a fighter, both boys are slim where they need to be and all muscle where you’d expect them to be. Long hyped in the media since they broke onto the fighting scene, they both wear the tentatively healed wounds of a fight for ‘every three months since they were 16’.
Inside the ring they’re all nightmare—two separate men, two separate fighters, two different levels of the sport, all bound by blood. Whether it’s their own blood or that of their opponents, MMA affords the fan plenty of both. Where wrestling and boxing both limit fighters to what’s legal and illegal in a brawl, MMA draws the line only at the most inhumane eye gougings and crotch shots. In other words, when you step into the ‘cage’ someone’s leaving on their own accord and someone might have to be carried off the floor. Pummeling opponents with a flurry of punches, kicks, attacks, and takedowns, the sport is relatively new and has become popular in recent years based on a few simple merits—it’s brutal (Nick has been bloodied so many times above the eye that he underwent a new surgery to reduce the ability for that rehealed cut to bleed), and it’s as high adrenaline as a sport can get.
Very understanding of the fact that there’s ‘life inside the ring’ and ‘life outside the ring’, this is where the similarities meet the differences. Polite but not warm, the boys seem to have a calculated amount of personality they are willing to show to a journalist. Never raising their voices above a conversational tone even amidst the thumping of workout music playing in the background, the boys offer up answers to everything I want to know and nothing extra. More important than the Q and A of understanding their training (they compete in Ironman triathlons), and what it’s like to have a brother in the same sport (‘It’s great, I get to learn from his mistakes”), our short sit-down reveals one very apparent thing—they know their goals and they’re here to accomplish them.
This weekend has bee eventful if you are a fan of K-1; the K-1 Final 16 show went off without a hitch and only with one fight with a head-scratching finish (hint; it was a DQ and it doesn’t matter).
Tim Kennedy is a guy that is hard to not like; a fighter who puts his heart into his fights and into defending his country. Kennedy talked to 
Rumor has it, from Rampage Jackson himself, that he is done with MMA, most notably of course his home in the UFC. Dana White is a master of the PR wars, often times doing whatever it takes, including making himself a target, to get what he wants in the end. Rampage is playing a dangerous game engaging Dana in a battle like this, especially after his incident where he Rampaged through SoCal streets in his custom-decal-laden truck. Dana and the UFC were there to bail out their star. Rampage sounds conflicted when talking about his decision to 
Oh the irony of it all. Last night saw UFC counter-program the return of boxing’s Pretty Boy; Floyd Mayweather, Jr. Floyd, the oft-controversial performer came back after a two-year retirement after seeing Manny Pacquiao take his place on the top of the food chain in the media’s fickle eyes after destroying Oscar De La Hoya and Ricky Hatton. Floyd saw this and saw dollar signs, while UFC saw this as their chance to take another jab at the sport they and their rabid fans see as a dying art and proclaim dominance that they could do well against boxing’s biggest star.
The debut of Satoshi Ishii, Beijing 2008 Olympic Gold Medalist at heavyweight for Judo in Mixed Martial Arts is official. He’ll make his debut on the World Victory Road: Sengoku New Year’s Eve special against other former Japanese national hero and Olympic Judoka, Hidehiko Yoshida. While the date is not 
If you know this site and myself, you know that the Diaz brothers are regarded as some of the best around. Both are incredibly skilled, yes, both also exude this natural aura around them; they do what they want and could care less what you or anybody else thinks. But the reality is that they are two hard working guys who came from a modest background. The