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Posted by Jonathan Snowden on 4th July 2008
Your Roundtable:
Lee Casebolt (LC)
Dave Walsh (DW)
Alan Conceicao (AC)
Chris Henderson (CH)
Kendall Shields (KS)
Can Griffin buck the odds and legitimately become THE ULTIMATE FIGHTER? Our staff opines.
Posted in Alan Conceicao, Chris Henderson, Dave Walsh, Forrest Griffin, Kendall Shields, Lee Casebolt, Quinton Rampage Jackson, Total MMA, UFC | 3 Comments »
Posted by Kendall Shields on 3rd July 2008
MMA Junkie reported yesterday that Kazuhiro Nakamura has been released from his UFC contract after his second loss in the organization, and his third consecutive loss overall, dating back to the late days of Pride FC. Quite rightly, Junkie suggests that “with his crowd-pleasing and colorful entrances and willingness to fight all-comers, Nakamura will likely be picked up quickly by another organization.” Sengoku seems the most likely destination, given the strong Hidehiko Yoshida connection, and DREAM presents another viable option as well. No doubt he will land on his feet. We needn’t worry; this isn’t the last we’ll see of him. But the end of Nakamura’s UFC tenure is, I think, significant, in that it was Nakamura’s UFC tenure, however brief, that most fully revealed his character: fundamentally, Kazuhiro Nakamura is a guy who wants to do judo and get high, and not necessarily in that order.
Posted in Kendall Shields, Pride FC, UFC, kazuhiro nakamura | 5 Comments »
Posted by Kendall Shields on 26th June 2008
As you know, Dave Meltzer covers the business of mixed martial arts better than anyone. But, as you might also know, his technical knowledge of the sport is very much a work in progress. This is true of all of us, of course, whether we’re casual fans, devotees, or martial artists who train in grappling or striking arts ourselves. Mixed martial arts is a sport marked by such rapid technical innovation and evolution that we’ve all found ourselves behind the curve at one time or another. We’ve all had our, “wait, what on earth was that?” moments as we’ve been exposed to techniques for the first time. But unlike most of us, Dave Meltzer unfortunately has his “wait, what?” moments recorded for posterity. And the June 23rd edition of the Wrestling Observer Newsletter has a real doozy.
Recapping the June 15th Dream 4 event, Meltzer offers this somewhat baffling analysis of the finish to the Shinya Aoki / Katsuhiko Nagata Lightweight Grand Prix match: “[Aoki] remained on top, doing very little until using what was called a gogoplata from the mount, but really wasn’t, as it was more of a forearm choke except using the shinbone instead of the forearm.”
Wait, what?
Posted in Kendall Shields, gogoplata, jiu-jitsu, judo | 20 Comments »
Posted by Marc Staehling on 24th June 2008
Your Roundtable:
IL: Iain Liddle(UK)
DW: Dave Walsh(USA)
AC: Alan Conceicao(USA)
LC: Lee Casebolt(USA)
KS: Kendall Shields(CAN)
JS: Jonathan Snowden(USA)
MS: Marc Staehling(CAN)
Jake Shields vs. Nick Thompson for the first Elite XC Welterweight Title Live on CBS
DW: As fun as it is to make fun of EliteXC or anything involving Gary Shaw, this is unquestionable content. I can’t wait to see it, but this really isn’t going to wow a CBS crowd. As much as people complain about subpar displays like Kimbo Slice, that is what your average person in the audience is expecting to see.
JS: think the Shields-Thompson matchup is great and should add some much needed technical prowess to the Elite XC CBS show. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Alan Conceicao, Dave Walsh, Elite XC, Iain Liddle, Jonathan Snowden, Kendall Shields, Lee Casebolt, Marc Staehling, Strikeforce, UFC | 1 Comment »
Posted by Kendall Shields on 31st January 2008
DISCUSS THIS STORY IN THE TOTAL-MMA.COM FORUMS
by Kendall Shields
A busy weekend for the MMA fan, to be sure. Aside from the much anticipated UFC 81 — which Jonathon Snowden will preview for you tomorrow on this site — there are a number of smaller shows of potential interest this weekend as well.
Let us adopt the most liberal of all possible definitions of “this weekend,” and begin with last night’s Pancrase Shining show held in Tokyo’s Karakuen Hall. Sherdog has the complete results, but really the two results of note here are Shoji’s upset of Artur Oumakhanov, and Katsuya Inoue’s decision win over Satoru Kitaoka in the main event.
Shoji — who can be seen here wrecking Yuji Miyazaki with a flying knee in a match that took less time, bell to bell, then Shoji’s largely regrettable post-fight dance; and here stomping the daylights out of poor Taku Aramaki, before unleashing an even worse dance, if you can believe it — stopped his Russian opponent early in the second round to become Pancrase’s first lightweight King. Tony Loiseleur reports that Oumakhanov kept atop Shoji for the duration of the first round after catching hold of a low kick and turning it into a takedown, and attempted the same technique to open the second, only to see Shoji escape and connect with a “picturesque” (as opposed to the beautiful or the sublime, I guess) right high kick that sent Oumakhanov to the mat. Loiseleur tells us of Shoji’s “emotional, teary-eyed” address to the crowd, but says nothing on the question foremost in our minds: did he dance?
Posted in Bodog, HCF, Kendall Shields, Pancrase | No Comments »
Posted by Kendall Shields on 24th January 2008
Posted in Hidehiko Yoshida, Japan, Kendall Shields, Roger Gracie, jiu-jitsu, judo | Comments Off
Posted by Kendall Shields on 17th January 2008
DISCUSS THIS STORY IN THE TOTAL-MMA.COM FORUMS
by Kendall Shields
Shari Spenser has big plans for Georges St. Pierre. She takes the long view. In an article posted yesterday on Sherdog, Spenser, St. Pierre’s manager, lays it all out for writer Andy Cotterill (and for us). She tells Cotterill not only what St. Pierre is after — not surprisingly, “[h]e wants to leave a legacy” — but how he’s going to get there. Spenser sets out an ambitious program for Georges St. Pierre to prove himself “the most dominant fighter the UFC and MMA has ever seen.” And here it is: “he intends to accomplish that by dominating the 170-pound weight class, moving up to the 185 weight class and then eventually the light heavyweight class.”
On the one hand, for a man who has yet to avenge his loss against Matt Serra to be thinking about taking on Anderson Silva or Quinton Jackson or Chuck Liddell suggests hubris on a Sophoclean scale. But on the other, wow: this could be really, really awesome.
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Georges St. Pierre, Kendall Shields, UFC | No Comments »
Posted by Kendall Shields on 10th January 2008
When it comes to the fight game, everyone’s an Aristotle. Fight fans love rankings. They downright need rankings. Who reading this site doesn’t have, in their own mind, the perfectly just and true list of the top welterweights in the world, neatly and indisputably ordered one through ten? Heavyweights, middleweights, lightweights — we’ve got it all figured out, and with the newly prominent WEC, featherweight and bantamweight rankings will no longer be the preserve of only the Shooto and DEEP enthusiasts among us. Of course, my top-ten lists bear only passing resemblance to yours (what do you mean Carlos Newton isn’t a top-ten whatever-he’s-fighting-at-now-weight?), and conversations turn into friendly arguments, and then maybe not-so-friendly arguments, until one or both of us walk away convinced that the other has no idea what they’re talking about. That’s what rankings do, and that’s why we love them.
In the last week, two major MMA media outlets, Sherdog and Yahoo!, have released their first pound-for-pound rankings of 2008, and, naturally, I’ve got problems with them. And you’ve got problems with them. It’s inconceivable that any two fight fans would see eye to eye on matters of this magnitude: non-binding, utterly inconsequential lists of who would be the best fighter if everybody was the same size are serious business. But what interests me most about these rankings isn’t whether or not Yahoo! is right to have BJ Penn at number seven (they’re not) or if Sherdog’s inclusion of Shinya Aoki in their top ten is, at this point, premature (it might be). What’s most striking is what’s happening with Fedor.
Posted in Fedor Emelianenko, Kendall Shields, Rankings | 1 Comment »