March is a great month for UFC fans, with a ton of great events lead­ing the way towards this year’s install­ment of The Ulti­mate Fighter. With the UFC on Ver­sus on March 21st,  fol­lowed by UFC 111 - St. Pierre vs. Hardy on March 27th, and of course, Ultimate Fight Night 21 on March 31 ‚the UFC has all the bases cov­ered in terms of pro­mo­tion and great events lead­ing towards TUF’s Sea­son 11 pre­miere — also on March 31st.

This sea­son, a new for­mat will debut that plans to freshen up and rein­vig­o­rate the TUF pro­gram. With coaches Tito Ortiz & Chuck Lid­dell, you can expect great coach­ing, great fights and bad blood between these two that will make this another must-see season.

It’s a  great time to be a UFC fan. Here are this season’s competitors:

 

The Ulti­mate Fighter pre­mieres on SpikeTV on Wednes­day, March 31st — check your local list­ings for showtimes.

It feels like only yes­ter­day when I watched my first MMA event - which hap­pened to be the orig­i­nal UFC Super Fight. After watch­ing, I real­ized that this sport could only be on PPV due to the sheer amount of vio­lence it pre­sented. Since those days, the UFC obvi­ously has come a long way — not only in terms of fights but also in allow­ing MMA to tran­scend the moniker of a “bar­baric” sport­ing event. While the sport has numer­ous orga­ni­za­tions and tons great fight­ers, the suc­cess of sport has always hinged on fans and it cross­ing over into the main­stream. The UFC slowly started get­ting real spon­sors like Harley David­son, Burger King and a host of oth­ers. MMA was slowly gain­ing accep­tance and com­pa­nies were embrac­ing the pro­mo­tion the sport got their prod­ucts. Com­pa­nies like BSN, which aren’t usu­ally widely heard of, are a per­fect exam­ple of MMA help­ing them become known in main­stream media. Now when I enter a GNC and see a Syntha-6 bot­tle it has a lit­tle UFC logo next to it. It is things like this that help move the sport forward.

Nowa­days, you open a mag­a­zine and you see MMA fight­ers (both male and female) endors­ing prod­ucts. Whether it’s t-shirts, sup­ple­ments or apparel, Mixed Mar­tial Arts has become a viable mar­ket­ing machine that cap­tures the key demo­graph­ics for a lot of prod­ucts across the board.

Let’s not for­get that MMA is now seen on broad­cast TV, thanks in part to the now defunct Eli­teXC, as well as Strike­Force, which broad­casts on CBS. In addi­tion to that, com­pa­nies like Fat­head are now acknowl­edg­ing MMA fight­ers as “main­stream” ath­letes with “main­stream” appeal. You can now hear names like GSP, Fedor, Gina Carano, Chuck Lid­dell and many oth­ers men­tioned in the same sen­tences as ath­letes like Michael Phelps, LeBron James, Kobe Bryant and Dwayne Wade. This shows that com­bat sports other than box­ing have now assim­i­lated them­selves into today’s sports cov­er­age and beyond. 

Here are just a few exam­ples of how MMA is now part of main­stream media.

(con­tinue reading…)

With all the talk of the Olympics, many peo­ple have been debat­ing at length about the inclu­sion of MMA in the Olympic games. Many detrac­tors feel that the “bar­baric” nature of the sport would be inap­pro­pri­ate for the squeaky clean games. As a fan, I feel that this argu­ment is really poorly researched and con­tin­ues to enforce the fact that peo­ple still need to learn about the sport. For those detrac­tors, I present the fol­low­ing cour­tesy of Wikipedia:

Mixed mar­tial arts (MMA) is a full con­tact com­bat sport that allows a wide vari­ety of fight­ing tech­niques, from a mix­ture of mar­tial arts tra­di­tions and non-traditions, to be used in com­pe­ti­tions. The rules allow the use of strik­ing and grap­pling tech­niques, both while stand­ing and on the ground. Such com­pe­ti­tions allow mar­tial artists of dif­fer­ent back­grounds to compete.

As described above, MMA is a mix­ture of a wide vari­ety of fight­ing tech­niques such as Wrestling, Judo, Taek­wondo and Box­ing ‚which are all Olympic sports. Dis­ci­plines alreadyrec­og­nized by the Inter­na­tional  Olympic Com­mit­tee — Karate and Wushu, are also prac­ticed by some MMA fight­ers. The Olympics preach broth­er­hood and equal­ity among it’s ath­letes and MMA shares a sim­i­lar broth­er­hood and desire to rep­re­sent one’s coun­try. I feel that the global appeal as well as the diverse mix of ath­letes would allow most, if not all, coun­tries to be represented.

The IOC will need to make some adjust­ments to keep the blood­shed to a min­i­mum, but with the proper safe­guards I feel MMA would do well and allow fight­ers another avenue to grow the sport on a global scale. In research­ing the Olympics, I learned that Pankra­tion at one point  was an Olympic event. Pankra­tion was the first form of MMA and was a viable Olympic sport.

I am sure many peo­ple will agree with my rec­om­men­da­tion, just as I am sure oth­ers will dis­agree, but in the end it would be quite a sight to see. Imag­ine GSP  as Wel­ter­weight Cham­pion and Olympic Gold Medal­ist. Dana White I am sure would love to that become a real­ity. We can only hope as fans that when the Olympics visit Rio in 2016, they request the inclu­sion of Vale Tudo or BJJ into the Olympic games.

Would you like to see MMA in the Olympics? Share your thoughts below:

Last night, after some B.S with the cable com­pany, I had the chance to sit down and watch UFC 109. Before I get into the fights, I must say that the card was very good and a lot of the fights had sur­pris­ing fin­ishes. I also stand by the fact that UFC has the best event prepa­ra­tion in the game today. Strike­force take notes.

I will give my thoughts on the main card since I did not get to watch the the prelims.

Matt Serra (16–6) v Frank Trigg (19–7)

Every­one I spoke to expected this fight to go the dis­tance. But after the trash talk­ing and the fact that this was a make or break fight for either one of these guys, you knew a lot was on the line. The fight started as you’d expect with Trigg keep­ing Serra away with punches and Serra work­ing the body. Then the unex­pected hap­pened — not a mir­a­cle sub­mis­sion or a ground bat­tle but a big right hand from Matt Serra that lev­eled Trigg. Serra cap­i­tal­ized on the K.O with a pound­ing and the ref stopped it.

Matt Serra is a favorite fighter of mine because he is tena­cious and has a real “no quit” atti­tude that makes him fun to watch. It helps that he’s a fel­low New Yorker, but let’s not let small details like loca­tion take away from the fact that he always enter­tains and sur­prises me.

Serra by K.O.

Dan Miller (11–2, 1NC) v Demian Maia (11–1)

Demian Maia came in to this fight with some­thing to prove after his KO loss to Mar­quardt, and Dan Miller was a great oppo­nent for him on his come­back trail.

First round was a healthy mix of standup from Miller with some take­down attempts from Maia. There was an inad­ver­tent strike to the groin that Maia deliv­ered, but the pace was solid and it was a great first round for both guys.

Sec­ond round had more strik­ing from Maia, but noth­ing that really changed the tide of the fight. Miller con­tin­ued work­ing the strik­ing game but couldn’t hit his stride which annoyed the crowd. Why does the crowd boo this really solid chess match? It bog­gles my fuck­ing mind.

Third round had Maia really work­ing on some take­downs. Miller con­tin­ued to land solid shots and even cut Maia but it was not enough.

Maia wins by Decision

Brian Stann v Phil Davis

Phil Davis at first glance reminded me Jon “Bones” Jones due to his ath­leti­cism and explo­sive­ness. Stann gave him some trou­ble in the first half of the round, but Davis woke up and put in some work in the sec­ond and  third rounds to take the fight via unan­i­mous decision.

Davis by Decision

 

Paulo Thi­ago (12–1) v Mike Swick (14–3)

Swick was sub­sti­tut­ing for Josh Koscheck here and wanted to avenge the losses of fel­low A.K.A mem­bers to Thi­ago. Swick and Thi­ago exchanged a bit in the first, but nei­ther fighter dis­played a clear advan­tage. The sec­ond round started fairly the same but Thi­ago dropped Swick with a left and applied a darce choke for sub­mis­sion victory.

Thi­ago by Sub­mis­sion (Darce Choke)

 

Chael Sonnen(25–10-1) v Nate Mar­quardt (32–8-2)

Chael Son­nen came into this fight with a great per­for­mance against Yushin Okami and Mar­quardt was expect­ing a title shot after this vic­tory. Son­nen proved to be the spoiler and pro­ceeded to use his supe­rior wrestling to bully Mar­quardt for the entire fight.  Son­nen may have got him­self into the title pic­ture with these last two great performances.

Chael Son­nen by Decision

 

Mark Cole­man (16–9) v Randy Cou­ture (17–10)

Cole­man gets props off the bat for com­ing out to Lil’ Wayne. Both of these leg­ends have made some of  the great­est con­tri­bu­tions to the sport of MMA, and at the end of the day their per­for­mances will some­thing we can all remem­ber. Cou­ture came out and pro­ceeded to bully Cole­man into the fence in typ­i­cal Cou­ture fash­ion. Cole­man had no answer for Randy’s offense and Randy eas­ily took the first round. Cou­ture came into the sec­ond round using the same game plan and scored a take­down and the sub­mis­sion vic­tory via rear naked choke.

Randy Cou­ture by Sub­mis­sion (Rear Naked Choke) 

It wouldn’t be a post fight inter­view with­out some fire­works and those fire­works came in the form of the one and only Tito Ortiz who made some dis­parag­ing remarks to Cole­man. I am sure what­ever Tito said was far from cor­dial when it ends with Cole­man say­ing “Fuck you, Tito” and “Any­time douchebag”. I am sure Dana saw some dol­lar signs with a poten­tial Cole­man v. Ortiz match.

Over­all it was a solid card with some great fights. Randy Cou­ture con­tin­ues to improve with age and is a his best every time he fights. He is still dan­ger­ous at 205 lbs. and poses a threat in the divi­sion. Con­grats to him and Cole­man for going in there and putting on a great show. Noth­ing but respect for those two legends.

Strike­force has shown that they can be a major con­tender in MMA against the UFC, just check out any media web­site where they nor­mally talk all about UFC. Strike­force flooded the MMA web­sites this past week­end due to the Jan­u­ary 30th Strike­force: Miami event.

Although I really enjoyed Strike­force: Miami, it wasn’t any­thing spec­tac­u­lar, but still a good show. There were a total of 12 fights on the card,  6 of which had major impor­tance to Strike­force. I’ll break down those 6 cards real quick before get­ting into the upcom­ing Women’s Tour­na­ment at Strikeforce.

Jay Hieron vs. Joe Riggs
This fight was shown free on www.easportsmma.com, obvi­ously to pro­mote the upcom­ing EA MMA game (which actu­ally doesn’t look too bad, but I’m still unsure whether or not I will buy it). It’s dif­fi­cult to for­give a hyp­ocrite game com­pany like EA for bash­ing MMA a cou­ple of years back when the UFC wanted to make an EA MMA game, and then they come out with an MMA game of their own. But we’ll see.

Any­way, the Jay Hieron vs. Joe Riggs fight was sub-par, end­ing with Hieron win­ning via Unan­i­mous Deci­sion. Hieron won, and there­fore was sup­posed to get a shot at whomever won the fight that night between Nick Diaz and Mar­ius Zarmon­skis for the Wel­ter­weight Title. Though, it now looks like Diaz may be head­ing over to Japan to fight in Dream against Hay­ato Saku­rai for one fight, since Strike­force has aligned them­selves with the Japan­ese promotion.

With that, I’ll jump into the head­lin­ing fight of the evening.

Nick Diaz vs. Mar­ius Zarmon­skis
Mar­ius Zarmon­skis was sup­posed to be the man to give Diaz the most dif­fi­cult time in the Wel­ter­weight Divi­sion (out­side of the UFC), but Diaz pretty much picked apart Zarmon­skis through­out the whole fight, never let­ting Zarmon­skis estab­lish a game plan. Diaz ended the fight 4 1/2 min­utes into the first round via TKO.

Bobby Lash­ley vs. Wes Sims
This fight went pretty much as expected. The out-of-shape Wes Sims, who had a week to pre­pare for the fight, was dom­i­nated through­out the fight, and was taken to the ground, and treated like an ama­teur. Lash­ley fin­ished Sims two min­utes into the first round, which prompted Sims to start a bar­rage of name-calling after the fight. He even called Lash­ley a “juiced-up turd” in a post-fight inter­view.….. really? It wouldn’t break my heart if we never see Wes Sims in the MMA cage again. Unfor­tu­nately, he is get­ting back into the cage in March, against for­mer UFC Heavy­weight Cham­pion Tim Sylvia in an MMA event in Ohio. You know, I’d actu­ally love to see Tim Sylvia vs. Wes Sims - at a hot­dog eat­ing con­test. That would be more entertaining.

So, what’s next for Bobby Lash­ley? Strike­force needs to give him a step-up in com­pe­ti­tion, and he just might get that step-up in Brett Rogers. Strikeforce’s CEO Scott Coker has talked about the pos­si­bil­ity of Bobby Lash­ley vs. Brett Rogers, and although it would most cer­tainly be a great fight to watch, I don’t see Lash­ley sur­viv­ing that fight. Lash­ley is a very lik­able guy, and is fun to watch, so I’ll be root­ing for him in that fight.

Her­schel Walker vs. Greg Nagy
Her­schel Walker didn’t look too bad in his MMA debut, but he was fight­ing against Greg Nagy, some­one who nobody knew any­thing about until he fought in the cage. It didn’t take long to see why they put him in against Walker. Nagy shouldn’t have been in there in the first place. Nagy went after Walker like a zom­bie goes after brains. Hands out front, wav­ing around, and he even ducked down like he was going to ram Walker with his head. It took three rounds to for Walker to fin­ish off Nagy, and even that fin­ish wasn’t very con­vinc­ing. Again, I like Her­schel Walker a lot. He is a tremen­dous ath­lete and great per­son­al­ity, but he should prob­a­bly just retire from MMA undefeated.

Rob­bie Lawler vs. Melvin Man­heof
It’s been seven months since Lawler’s defeat against Jake Shields, and in this fight he was look­ing to get his grove back. Man­heof was dom­i­nat­ing Lawler through­out the entire fight with dev­as­tat­ing punches and leg kicks. 3 1/2 min­utes into it, Lawler threw a hail mary punch which con­nected with Manheof’s chin and knocked him clean out. Just goes to show that any­thing can hap­pen in MMA.

So, what’s next for Rob­bie Lawler? Noth­ing has been dis­cussed as of yet, but per­son­ally, I would really like to see Rob­bie Lawler vs. Cung Le. I think that would be a hell of a match!

Cris­tiane “Cyborg” San­tos vs. Mar­loes Coenen
This was pos­si­bly the fight of the night, and was also the fight that showed how well Cyborg can take a punch. Coenen hit Cyborg with every­thing she had, and Cyborg barely flinched. At the end of the fight, Cyborg became vic­to­ri­ous 3 min­utes and 40 sec­onds into the third round via TKO, and the pun­ish­ment she dished out showed on Coenen’s face. I don’t think there is any­one in the 145-lb women’s divi­sion that can defeat Cyborg right now.

Strike­force is now set­ting up tour­na­ments in the 135-lb. and 145-lb. Women’s Divi­sion, which is some­thing I’m look­ing for­ward to! There are a lot of great fight­ers in those divi­sions. Unfor­tu­nately, unde­feated 135-lb. fighter Sarah Kauf­man will not be com­pet­ing in the tour­na­ment, but instead, she may be fight­ing for the vacant title against Smack­girl vet­eran, Takayo Hashi.

Other nota­bles to look for in the upcom­ing 135-lb. women’s tour­na­ments are Miesha Tate, Kaitlin Young, and Shayna Bas­zler; and pos­si­bly Kerry Vera and Kim Cou­ture tak­ing their spot in the 145-lb. tournament.

No set date for the tour­na­ments as of yet, but expect them to start in the spring.