Arena Let's get it on!: The Mixed Martial Arts Discussion Thread

I watched it and was pretty impressed with the entire PPV.

Randy took some pretty good shots too, but the nose thing definitely was the key. Randy never let up and at times Gonzaga was too preoccupied with his nose, like when he asked for a break. I'm sure it hurt so I can't blame him for trying.

GSP looked great too! I was hoping he'd finish Koz, but outside of about the last 2 min of the first rd, he really domninated the fight and poured on some darn good gnp.
I can't wait until he fights for the belt again.

Huerta was great too. This guy's fights are always exciting!

it's not just that it hurt... when your nose gets busted open like that, it constricts your breathing, you have blood running down the back of your mouth, you can't breathe out of your nose anymore. He ran out of gas about a minute after his nose got busted. He had no chance after that.

I find it funny that everybody is talking about cracking down on Steroids and yet NBC is bringing back American Gladiators. Here's the casting sheet from NBC:

NBC is relaunching the classic competition series "American Gladiators" and .... American Gladiators is back! If you're big, bad and outrageous, apply now.

I don't really see what one has to do with the other. Or what American Gladiators has to do with MMA.

It's a UFC night tonight. Unleashed for a few hours and then UFC 75 on Spike. Mostly because I liked the hilite reel of Cro Cop I'm kind of rooting for the guy to make a good comeback win.

The weigh in

Quinton ?Rampage? Jackson (204 lbs) vs. Dan Henderson (204 lbs)
Mirko ?Cro Cop? Filipovic (220 lbs) vs. Cheick Kongo (231 lbs)
Michael Bisping (205 lbs) vs. Matt Hamill (205 lbs)
Alessio Sakara (205 lbs) vs. Houston Alexander (203 lbs)
Marcus Davis (169 lbs) vs. Paul Taylor (171 lbs)
Thiago Silva (204 lbs) vs. Tomasz Drwal (204 lbs)
Jess Liaudin (170 lbs) vs. Anthony Torres (170 lbs)
Dennis Siver (154 lbs) vs. Naoyuki Kotani (155 lbs)
Gleison Tibau (156 lbs) vs. Terry Etim (155 lbs)

Houston Alexander puts an @ss-whoopin' on Keith Jardine and ends up curtain jerkin' a free PPV while Jardine gets a main event fight with Chuck Liddell. Where's the justice in that?

Dan Henderson's gonna get owned tonight

Thanks for reminding me this was on tonight. I haven't caught any UFC since the Rampage-Lidell fight, but I was entertained that night.

So yeah, Kongo beats Cro Cop in a rather uneventful match. It was just control, no major damage, aside from one heck of a shot to the groin to slow down Cro Cop even further. My opinion of Cro Cop is not good.

Well, that was slightly less than captivating. The main event couldn't keep my attention from football. Not a bad match, just not quite enough to get me to watch it fully faithfully.

My initial impression is Bisping got the hometown win tonight. I really thought Hamill won, but maybe I'll watch it again later. Can't believe Rogan said it was good Hamill couldn't hear the boos for entering to Springsteen.

From WrestlingObserver.com:

--Governor Rod Blagojevich signed legislation this week to legalize and regulate MMA in Illinois. The law goes into effect on 6/1, which means UFC will likely hold a major show during the second half of 2008 in Chicago

I just watched a hour high lte show featurng Fedor Emelianenko.

Good grief. I guess he is the baddest man on the planet.

UFC Fight Night Wednesday night at 9pm followed by new season of Ultimate Fighter.

Pretty good fight night last night. All the fights were exciting, although it did look like a bummer if Din did blow out his knee. That was a pretty good fight up until he shot in. I was wondering why he just basically covered up there at the end.

As for TUF, I thought it was an okay episode, but I like both Hughes and Serra and their interaction (and just the differences between the two) so I think it should be a good season.

Haven't watch TUF yet, but the Fight Night was good. Leben/Martin was brutal as was Quarry/Sell. Those two fights showed you have to battle to the end. Both of those guys possibly could've drawn or lost without their KO's. The Diaz fight was a fun technical fight. Din's knee did look like it may have shifted sideways when he shot in. That was too bad.

It looks like MMA is going the rout of Boxing.

Randy Couture just quit the UFC because he could not line up a fight with the #1 world recognized Heavyweight Fedor Emilianenko.

Fedor signed with M-1.

This might not seem that big of a deal, but if you have multiple promotional companies signing the best fighters, who fight for different titles, the confusion that now plagues boxing will plague MMA.

Having the best fighters fight for one title is what was right with MMA. If this is now the trend, I can't see MMA rising anymore than it has. In fact, it may take a hit.

Go to Boxingtalk.com for the story.

I just saw that on ESPN.

It'll hurt briefly right now just cause they have a vacant title, but in the long run it won't matter much, assuming the UFC keeps signing everyone else. Up until the beginning of 2007 the UFC had a weak Heavyweight division anyway, and the HUGE growth was based off all the other divisions and their Champs. It wasn't until they signed all the Heavyweights from Pride and when Randy won the title did the Heavyweight division really get a shot in the arm early this year.

The UFC was able to grow fine with Pride around.

Obviously it would be great to see Fedor and Randy fight but even if they aren't in the UFC, Randy can't fight anywhere else (still under contract to UFC), so it is just like '06 when he was retired. As for Fedor, I'd soooo love to see him in the UFC, but since he signed with M-1 there's not much you can do about it now.

The UFC has enough good fighters in the Heavyweight divison now where they'll be able to field a good champ come '08.

But the UFC still has the top fighters in the other divisions and are absolutely loaded at 205, 170 and 155. 185 is a little thin behind Silva and Franklin, unless Henderson will be fighting at 185 soon, and I'd love to see that.

The UFC may have to up its ante to star fighters, but there really is no competition here in the US that will be able to sign fighters away for what the UFC can pay and the exposure they can give.

The only reason Randy can walk away is b/c he's 44 has made his money and was close to retiring anyway, he really has nothing left to prove esp when Fedor didn't sign.

Yes, but will that last? UFC cannot keep all of the good fighters. Other companies will throw money around to get the UFC talent. Money talks.

I agree.

I know Mark Cuban is doing something in MMA and he's got cash, but the UFC has such a HUGE lead in brand name right now, it would take probably 2 or 3 more champs in their prime to walk away and move to another organization.

Maybe in time someone will come along, but I think of what happened with the USFL and NFL in the 80's. The USFL threw money at players and signed some very big names, but the NFL is still the NFL, and the USFL eventually went bankrupt. Now if UFC can continue to make its name equal MMA in the US, it will be very hard to steal enough talent away to end up with a boxing scenerio where you have 4 or 5 belts.

It really isn't about different companies or organizations...but different titles.

If boxing had one title for every weight class, it would be as popular today as it was in the past.

Now, Dan Henderson turns down a contract extension from the UFC, claiming they want to under pay him.

Is it me or has TUF been a bit slow this year? I know the first few shows are usually kind of bad because they're introducing everyone and the weak fighters tend to make for weak fights, but this season has seemed really boring so far. Nobody seems to have much of a personality, including the coaches. Supposedly they hate each other, but all of their insults seem forced. Not like Tito and Shamrock - those guys were hilarious on TUF!

Yeah, it has been slow, probably cause the first 3 episodes were basically about Joe, last week was the first Joe-free episode.

Hopefully it'll pickup.

Actually they should make sure a Diaz on on that show at all times.

Brock Lesnar is now offically with UFC.