From this week forward, I’ll be doing my best to try and run down all the major events of the weekend ahead here in this section in the world of combat sport. Whether its boxing, K-1 kickboxing, or MMA, this will hopefully become the one stop shop for where and when you can see the best (and occasionally far from best) action for the weekend.

Boxing’s #1 fighter, Strikeforce’s world class lightweight champ, and the most dominant K-1 heavyweight ever all take to the ring and/or cage this weekend.

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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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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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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 »

By Alan Conceicao

The world of sports loves a dominant champion. Always has, always will. Dominant champions are the kind of thing that make for quick editorial pieces in print and highlight packages on Sportscenter. Can’t think of something to cover? Shit, Tiger Woods is doing something right now, right? Does King James like his french fries waffle cut or does he prefer the more traditional shoestring? Barring that, the next best thing are personalities. You don’t necessarily have to be great or even that good at what you do to be one of those. Anna Kournikova made shitloads and never won a tournament. As an American, you’ve probably seen plenty of Danica Patrick, but wouldn’t be able to pick Kimi Räikkönen out of a lineup (even if the rest of the world can). Fuck, you can’t even pronounce the guy’s name.
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It’s safe to say that the deepest, and most consistently entertaining division in mixed martial arts is the lightweight division. Just a glance at fight of the year candidates over the last several years and you’ll see a slough of classic lightweight bouts. Uno/Sato 5/99, Penn/Pulver 1/02, Sato/Nakayama 11/02, Uno/Hansen 3/05, Hansen/Azeredo 4/06, Gomi/Diaz 2/07, Griffin/Edgar 2/07 and Huerta/Guida 12/07 are just a sampling of the fantastic lightweight fights that have taken place over the last several years.
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