Archive for the 'Tommy Hackett' Category

Pictured: Kenny Florian and Takanori Gomi yawn their way through a “staredown” at yesterday’s weigh-ins

Remember back when UFC seemed to hold a show every six weeks or so? In a given month, a MMA fan’s time was sentenced to one PPV, with something here and there on TV, with the occassional time off for good behavior? Friends, those days are gone. With this, its third live event in less than two weeks; ZUFFA clearly expects you to be committed to your relationship.

Eh… well, there are lots of worse problems to have.

UFC Fight Night 21: Florian vs. Gomi, tonight airing from the Bojangles Coliseum in Charlotte, North Carolina, doesn’t appear to have quite as strong a lineup as the last “free” outing, UFC on Versus: Vera vs. Jones, at least not on paper. But, like they say, the fights don’t happen on paper. The Versus show’s succession of quick knockouts left some fans feeling a little empty anyway, and so maybe this one will exceed expectations. It definitely boasts an interesting main event, with the UFC debut of former PRIDE standout Takanori Gomi against Kenny Florian, who is looking to continue his road back to contention following a one-sided loss to lightweight kingpin BJ Penn last Summer.

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Pictured: Georges St-Pierre and Dan Hardy face off at the weigh-ins for UFC 111

Tomorrow night, ZUFFA continues their manic Spring schedule in New Jersey with UFC 111, with Pound-for-pound entrant Georges “Rush” St-Pierre making his fourth defense of the UFC Welterweight title, this time against a massive underdog in Dan Hardy. Backing that are two top heavyweights fighting for the interim championship, with champion Brock Lesnar still inactive due to health issues.

It’s a show with a lot to offer: first, a chance to watch a pound-for-pound entrant in St-Pierre, and second, an excellent fight in what may be the UFC’s deepest division. On the other hand, the former bout is a mismatch, and the latter is still something of a letdown due to the absence of titlist Lesnar. Also, UFC 111’s undercard isn’t the best — particularly with Thiago Alves forced off the show after failing a pre-fight physical.

It’s an up and down show, but certainly worth a look if you’ve got the PPV loot to spare…

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UFC kicks off a busy two weeks tomorrow night, with possibly their best-ever live show on “free” US Cable TV. The first ever “UFC on Versus” card eminating from Broomfield, Colorado features a pair of excellent co-main events, with four fighters among or near the top ten in their divisions battling it out to get ahead of their respective packs. Waiting in the wigs is next Saturday’s UFC 111 and Fight Night: Florian vs Gomi on the 31st. Oh yeah, and another one of those reality show things that I got kind of sick of about two years ago…

Anyway, the staff has weighed in, so on to the show!

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March 13 should have been the night that we crowned a true pound-for-pound champion in boxing. We should have seen a joint effort from the sport’s two biggest promoters in Top Rank and Golden Boy Promotions, finally setting aside their differences to bring the fans the one bout that everyone wanted to see. Top Rank’s Manny Pacquiao vs. Golden Boy Promotion’s Floyd Mayweather Jr. would promise a unification bout at welter for boxing’s biggest ever purse, pay per view audience, and all the glory that comes with it.

But when negotiations broke down, we found ourselves watching Top Rank’s next best welter in Joshua Clottey in what felt like a subpar sparring session against Pacquiao.

So, what went wrong with this show?

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Sam Sheridan’s first book, A Fighter’s Heart, has become a favorite of MMA enthusiasts since its 2007 release. It chronicled Sheridan’s travels around the world, training and talking with many of the fight games’ biggest names, on a quest for insight on what drives them to win — and to find his own “fighter’s heart.” Along the way were stops with Brazilian Top Team in its heyday, a stint with Fairtex in Thailand, where he fought a Muay Thai bout, and a time in Iowa, including an MMA bout, under the tutelage of Pat Militech.

Last month, Sheridan released his follow-up, A Fighter’s Mind, where he turns his focus on the mental game of the world’s fighters and trainers. He describes it as “a gift back to the fighters who gave me so much in the first book. A book for fighters, and we are all fighting something.”

Sheridan spent a few moments with Total-MMA to talk about the book last week.

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What a night UFC 110 was.

A prospect in Cain Valasquez turned into a contender with a vicious one round knockout over a legend in Antonio Rodrigo “Minotauro” Nogueira. Bader continues to impress against an awkward and dangerous Keith Jardine. A more cautious Wanderlei Silva picked his spots to earn a decision over a younger (and much better than I anticipated) Michael Bisping. Even the mismatch to begin the show was made memorable, as Mirko Cro Cop hailed his overmatched opponent as showing the world what a Croatian heart is — reminding us that his Australian opponent was, like him, of Croatian heritage. All of these were punctuated by a wild Australian crowd, which contributed some of its own — at one point, hilariously chanting “Bisping’s a wanker!”

But to me, the UFC 110 highlight reel really belonged to one man: George Sotiropoulos, whose potent mix of jiu-jitsu and boxing carried the day in the fight of the night against Joe Stevenson.

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It’s fight night! Looking back at our last round of predictions, where I spent more time complaining about advancing age than any actual analysis of UFC 109, it’s hard to miss how uninterested I was. What can I say? Trying to drum up interest for Couture vs. Coleman was like bleeding water from a stone. But ZUFFA’s making me forget it tonight (unless, of course, it’s my old age making me forget things again) — by assembling as strong an MMA card we’ll get in 2010 without the luster of a title fight. It also marks the first ever UFC to grace the shores of Australia, so expect a wild crowd screaming along every kangaroo hop of the way.

This, friends, is more like it.

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It’s always a pleasure to hear from the greatest of all time.

Yesterday, two guys on the Underground Forum offered a translation of an interview with Fedor Emilianenko conducted recently by a Ukranian website. One of he two is Igor Karaev, a Moscow-based MMA promoter who has been a great asset at the Underground for some time now. I don’t highlight them or really any other folks’ work too often here, but an exception is in order. There is just a “humble pride” about Fedor which we simply don’t see enough, in any sport, and MMA fans owe it to themselves to give it a look. Total-MMA readers who can read Russian can enjoy it here, otherwise, click on the link at MixedMartialArts.com for the translation from Kareav and his pal who goes by the nick, TMR.

Among the highlights:

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One of the effects of MMA’s boom in popularity has been, predictably, a rise in MMA-themed merchandising. For a while it seemed everybody and their brother was beginning a line of MMA-themed apparell. Generally these companies featured T-shirts with awful “tap or snap” slogans, pitbulls, skulls, and the like. They were generally, to be perfectly honest, crap. Some have survived, some haven’t. A few, like Triumph United and Six Deuce, actually put out some nice designs — and it’s good to see them do well.

But there was an old guard, too, from the days MMA wasn’t all the rage: and some are still alive and kicking. Bad Boy, whose fight shorts were worn by seemingly every other fighter in the late 90’s, has made a return to the spotlight with such fighters as “Shogun” Rua — and the old “squinting eyes” logo, which I was always found somewhat irritating? It now seems, oddly enough, kind of classy. Of course, the TapOut story is well-known. Far from the days of hilariously cheap commercials like this one which showed up at the end of Hook n Shoot DVDs (and please accept my apologies if the implied nudity there offends anyone — it’s really not my style), they now have a big budget, their own reality TV show, and have become one of the biggest employers in their Southern California hometown.

But there’s one company from the “old days” which, more than any of the others, had two things going for them which would seem to be a combination for success. First, and most importantly, they have always put out great and unique designs. Second, their shirts were worn by Dana White in season one of The Ultimate Fighter, the show that really sparked MMA’s recent surge in popularity. If there were one company I’d have picked to break through, this would have been it.

Yet, despite some continued local success in their native Guam and a few parts beyond, they seem to have disappeared from the US mainland and had no part of MMA’s move to the mainstream.

I’m talking about Fokai International. Anyone else miss them a bit?

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Last week, I asked myself who exactly is excited about tomorrow’s UFC 109 card. I got my answer yesterday, as one of our new writers, Jacob Lawton, sent along his predictions for it. According to Jacob, it’s PPV-worthy “just for the value of seeing two UFC legends going head to head.” Me, I’m not so sure. To be fair, I wouldn’t pay for Dan Severn vs. Royce Gracie 2 in 2010, either.

But, I might catch it at a bar. How’s that for a ringing endorsement? Ugh… Read the rest of this entry »