My Take Radio

So, by now, if you fol­low UFC and have been watch­ing TUF-Team Lid­dell Vs. Team Ortiz this sea­son, you are aware that the grudge match that was set between the two leg­endary coaches ISN’T hap­pen­ing. (If not, be ashamed of your­self, as you are a sucky fan.)

Specual­tion and rumors be put to rest right now — here is Tito Ortiz’s offi­cial rea­son for pulling out of the fight.

Many of you are say­ing “Tell us a story we haven’t heard from you Tito”. What do you think? Do you believe the story Tito’s spin­ning? Hate him or love him, it’s not good to fight hurt. Unless you do this for a liv­ing, we as spec­ta­tors can­not fully com­pre­hend what these ath­letes go through train­ing day in and day out.

Being a loyal Tito fan and Team Pun­ish­ment sup­porter, I think if he really is hurt (and I think he is), he shouldn’t be try­ing to do any­thing but heal up. One day, I am hope­ful we will get the third fight in this epic rivalry. Sound off in the comments.

It’s hard to believe that The Ulti­mate Fighter has been grac­ing our tele­vi­sion sets on Spike TV since 2005. I credit TUF with being the show that made me a Mixed Mar­tial Arts fan. Hon­estly, I really didn’t know much about the sport before then, since obvi­ously it was not as main­stream as it has grown to be now. My knowl­edge of the UFC was sadly, only that of Ken Sham­rock and Dan Sev­ern – and that was solely based upon my being a WWE fan.

I’d like to take a look back at all of the sea­sons and refresh our mem­o­ries on what we have seen over the past five years. On top of all the MMA action, let’s not for­get things like the Coaches’ Chal­lenges, as well as all the drunken chaos and other enter­tain­ing stuff that has hap­pened in the TUF house.

(con­tinue reading…)

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.

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.

I had the chance to watch the Spike VGA Awards this past week­end and while I did not like cer­tain aspects of the award show or some of the win­ners, I did enjoy some of the trail­ers for the upcom­ing titles. As a gamer and an MMA fan, one of the titles that got my atten­tion was of course the newest UFC game which was intro­duced by “Street Cer­ti­fied” Kimbo Slice. The trailer was sim­ple in exe­cu­tion and wasn’t overly styl­ish, but that my friends is the  appeal of the UFC game. It’s not meant to be pretty - but it is meant to be the most accu­rate rep­re­sen­ta­tion of MMA today. With smoother graph­ics and even more real­ism this game will be a wor­thy follow-up to the pre­vi­ous UFC Undis­puted. EA may have EA MMA in the near future, but right now the fight game belongs to the UFC.

Are You Ready To Fight?

Be Ready 5.28.10

This past week­end the UFC brought us another action packed card that saw wel­ter­weights go to war in a highly con­tested bat­tle as well as the debut of “Lit­tle Nog”. I am going to share my thoughts on some of the fights. While the card was great, there are some fights that just need to be discussed.

Kendall Grove vs. Jake Rosholt– To me this fight was a must win for Kendall, who has given us some rather lack­lus­ter per­for­mances  as of late. After a fast start by Rosholt, which cen­tered on his wrestling, he got caught by a beau­ti­ful and smooth tri­an­gle choke by Kendall.

Rosholt going for the slam

Aloha Motherf*cker!!

Mar­cus Davis vs. Ben Saun­ders- I am a big fan of Mar­cus Davis and was expect­ing a great per­for­mance from him. Saun­ders used his davas­tat­ing knees as well as the thai clinch to gain the K.O in round one. I was inpressed that Saun­ders stopped Davis and in such a dom­i­nant fash­ion. Saun­ders put the wel­ter­weight divi­sion on notice with his performance.

Saun­ders dis­arms “The Irish Hand Grenade”

Phil Baroni vs. Amir Sadol­lah–Phil Baroni made me a fan because of the mas­sive amounts of shit talk­ing he does as well his excit­ing fight­ing style. I expected him to put Sadol­lah to sleep early. I was extremely sur­prised by Sadollah’s muay thai onslaught which was effec­tive to keep­ing Baroni from get­ting in close to do any dam­age. Baroni was gassed by round two. Baroni always starts strong but gets gassed in the later rounds and it always costs him. I admire the heart he dis­played in the ass whoop­ing he took, but would have pref­fered the vic­tory instead.

Amir work­ing the clinch

Anthony John­son vs. Josh Koscheck-Update: After review­ing some video footage it appears that the poke hap­pened prior to the knee. Nonethe­less it still looked sus­pect but at least now I have a bet­ter under­stand­ing of what went down. I still like Kos and John­son though. Both guys are great fight­ers.

I was really expect­ing a war between these two awe­some ath­letes, but what I got was eye pokes and a knee to a downed oppo­nent which put a blem­ish on the fight.  First, I’ll start with the knee that John­son threw to a downed Josh Koscheck which “allegedly” hit him in the eye. Let’s say that that last time I checked YOU DON’T HAVE AN EYE ON YOUR FUCKING FOREARM!!!! While I admit that the knee was ille­gal, there was zero con­tact to the eye and the replays clearly showed it.  Sec­ond round saw an eye poke from Koscheck to John­son which stopped the fight briefly. Koscheck ended up get­ting Johnson’s back and chok­ing him out. Dur­ing the post fight inter­view Kos made it clear he wanted to fight Dan Hardy before Hardy fought GSP. Over­all the B.S with the eye pokes ruined the fight for me. I hope John­son bounces back and gets another shot at Koscheck.

Koscheck with the choke.

For­rest Grif­fin vs. Tito Ortiz- Tito and For­rest deliv­ered as expected, yet the fight had its’ share of frus­trat­ing moments. If you are a fan of Tito’s then you will be frus­trated with the fact he got gassed in round 2 and really did noth­ing in round 3. If you’re a fan of For­rest you will be happy with his per­for­mance, yet annoyed he couldn’t fin­ish Tito off. I fall in the cat­e­gory of being a fan of both guys. One thing that tends to get under my skin is the fact that when­ever Tito loses he chooses to list any injuries he’s obtained in route to his fight and usu­ally blames them for the loss. While I refuse to believe that he’s lying or bull­shit­ing, it does become an annoy­ance for fans. I think that if he lost ‚well, he lost which is no big deal as both of you are now 1–1. Both of these guys want a rematch to set­tle it once and for all.

For­rest work­ing the leg kicks.

Fore­cast calls for rain­ing elbows

Rumors of course are run­ning ram­pant with spec­u­la­tion that they will coach the next sea­son of The Ulti­mate Fighter. I think that the fight­ers on the show would ben­e­fit from the coach­ing of both of these guys.

Over­all the card was enjoy­able, minus the issues with Koscheck and the unfin­ished busi­ness between For­rest & Tito. On the bright side though their third fight should be awesome.

Feel free to share your com­ments below.

Image Credit — UFC.com

This Sat­ur­day the UFC presents Ortiz v Grif­fin II live on pay per view. The last time Ortiz and Grif­fin fought it was an excit­ing fight with great per­for­mances from both guys. Ortiz is a guy that you either really love or really hate. His wars with Ken Sham­rock are leg­endary as are his taunts and pre fight hype. For­rest on the other hand is such a like­able guy with his self dep­re­cat­ing humor and well rounded fight game that it makes it hard for me to root against him. Both of these guys are com­ing in with some­thing to prove Grif­fin is com­ing off his loss to Ander­son Silva and Tito is com­ing off a long layoff/surgery/spat with Dana.Tito looks focused and reju­ve­nated and For­rest is .….your typ­i­cal For­rest lol. For­rest always has excit­ing fights and to me win or lose has made his mark in the UFC. 

Nor­mally I’d have a pick for this fight but my appre­ci­a­tion for fight­ers tal­ents makes this a tough call.

Here are the other great fights as well as the promo for Ortiz v Grif­fin. My picks are in Red for some of the fights

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sb2r86D3zFg]

MAIN CARD

• For­rest Grif­fin vs. Tito Ortiz–No Pick
• Anthony John­son vs. Josh Koscheck– “Rum­ble” Johnson
• Phil Baroni vs. Amir Sadol­lah–Baroni — How can you not root for “The NY Bad-Ass”
• Luiz Cane vs. Anto­nio Roge­rio Nogueira–NOG
• Dustin Hazelett vs. Karo Parisyan– Hazelett

PRELIMINARY CARD (un-aired) — Some fights will air on Spike TV @ 9pm est

•  Mar­cus Davis vs. Ben Saun­ders–Davis
• Paulo Thi­ago vs. Jacob Volk­mann–Thi­ago
• Kendall Grove vs. Jake Rosholt–Kendall
• Brian Fos­ter vs. Brock Lar­son–Lar­son
• Fabri­cio Camoes vs. Caol Uno–Uno
• Jason Dent vs. George Sotiropou­los–Sotiropou­los