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.

Read the rest of this entry »

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.

Read the rest of this entry »

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…

Read the rest of this entry »

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.
Read the rest of this entry »

Say what you will about Brock Lesnar and Shane Carwin.

Say that they have only a handful of fights, that they perhaps don’t merit discussion with all time greats like Fedor Emelianenko, that the split screen interview segment hyping the bout recently for the TUF finale was the worst in history. Go ahead. Maybe I’ll join you (comfortably on my couch, and far away from them).

But they’ve made UFC 116, eminating live tomorrow night from the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, a huge event. Despite the loss of Wanderlei Silva (who pulled out due to injured ribs), the show is sold out and Dana White predicts a million PPV buys. Two of the biggest and baddest in our sport’s short history are set like planets waiting to collide, and it looks like the whole world is watching. So who’s coming out on top? Read on…

Read the rest of this entry »

Hello, fight fans, and welcome to another round of Total MMA predictions. The event getting the attention his week is UFC 114, a card headlined by the long awaited fight between TUF 10 coaches Quinton ‘Rampage’ Jackson and Rashad Evans. Other featured bouts see two top Middleweights in Dan Miller and Michael Bisping look to get back to winning ways and Antonio Rogerio Nogueira attempt to get past tough wrestler Jason Brilz.

And for those of you who aren’t going to purchase the PPV, you can check out a couple of prelims fights on Spike, between Welterweights Amir Sadollah and Dong Hyun-Kim and Lightweights Efrain Escudero and Dan Lauzon. We won’t be predicting those here, but still, free MMA is free MMA, right?

Unbroadcast prelims include consensus Top 10 Light Heavyweight Luis Arthur Cane against UFC debutant Cyrille Diabate and a renewed Melvin Guillard taking on another UFC newcomer in Waylon Lowe. Look out for vicious finishes in both, and therefore appearances on the PPV should they be required.

Joining me (JL) for predictions are regular Bryan Belangia (BB) and prediction debutant David Bateman (DB). Tommy Hackett is currently abroad and unable to contribute, but he should make his return for our next round of predictions. As always these predictions are just for fun. On no count can we be held responsible if you lose the pension fund on them.
Read the rest of this entry »

Pictured: John Hathaway at the UFC 93 weigh ins

The upcoming UFC 114 has all the recipes to be a great card, starting with an intriguing headliner between bitter rivals Rashad Evans and Quinton ‘Rampage’ Jackson that is sure to provide plenty of fireworks and the first challenger to Mauricio ‘Shogun’ Rua’s Light Heavyweight title. Michael Bisping and Dan Miller both look to set themselves back towards Middleweight glory coming off tough losses. Antonio Rogerio ‘Minotoro’ Nogueira looks to continue his march towards the Light Heavyweight strap by getting through top prospect Jason Brilz, and two Heavyweight up-and-comers collide in the heavy handed Todd Duffee and Mike Russow. But the bout that intrigues me the most is the face off between Diego Sanchez, as he attempts to rebound from that tough Stoppage loss to BJ Penn in the Lightweight title bout, and top Welterweight prospect John Hathaway’s UFC main card debut.

Read the rest of this entry »

Tonight in St Louis, Strikeforce looks to bounce back from last month’s debacle with a solid card of talent — particularly at heavyweight. Two of the top ten face off in the main for the promotion’s crown, with another longtime contender is featured in the co-main. Roger Gracie, now campaigning at light heavy, is among the featured talent on the undercard, against a former UFC heavyweight champion, no less. So, can they do it? Staff writers Jacob Lawton and Bryan Belangia offer their predictions on each feature bout. Jacob sees only one bout going to the judges’ scorecards, and Bryan doesn’t see any of the bouts going past the second round. We’d guess fireworks are in the air…

We do know the show will kick off 10pm EST from the “Show Me” state, and will be televised live on Showtime.

Read the rest of this entry »

Pictured: Lyoto “The Dragon” Machida and Mauricio “Shogun” Rua face off at yesterday’s weigh-ins.

So, will it be a new day in the Machida era? Or is a revitalized Rua the new puzzle in MMA? Tonight’s the night, fight fans, as UFC 113 thunders in from the childhood home of Arturo Gatti (RIP).

This week Tommy Hackett is nursing a flu, and antibiotics have him making less sense than usual (seriously, Tommy picked Jake Shields over Dan Henderson? Oh wait…) – so Bryan Belangia (BB) and Jacob Lawton (JL) are forced to carry the prognostication honors, without our peerless leader. As always, our predictions are for entertainment purposes only, so don’t blame us if you foreclose.

Read the rest of this entry »