The newly joined MMA personality Mark Cuban had mentioned in one of his interviews that MMA might even be shown in 3D in a movie. I didn’t really take the guy seriously, but it looks like it might be closer than it might seem. I don’t know if Cuban owns it, but I am sure he will be invloved with it.

It is a HD company called Owned and they recently aquired Dean Lister to be cast in one of their movies.

AUSTIN, TX. Oct 18, 2007 (PRIME NEWSWIRE)
– Owned Entertainment, Inc. announced today that it has cast Dean “The Boogyman”
Lister in a supporting role in the feature film ‘Owned.’ Mr. Lister comments on
the casting, “I am very excited and thankful to James and Stephanie for allowing
me to be part of ‘Owned’ because it is going to give me an opportunity to
showcase my skills as an actor. I have to also say that I am very much looking
forward to playing a villain in the movie and I am sure that will give me an
opportunity to show some deadly moves that I can’t display in the octagon. I
can’t wait!”
Dean is a UFC and MMA fighter who was an assistant coach on the
third season of the popular Spike TV show ‘The Ultimate Fighter.’ He is a two
time US National Sambo Champion, a four time US Machada National Brazilian Jiu
Jitsu Champion, former King of the Cage middleweight champion and National
Gracie Jiu Jitsu Champion.

Source:
http://www.ownedentertainment.com/news/pdf2.pdf

Article Source:
http://www.prleap.com/pr/101847/

Owned Company News Source:
http://www.ownedentertainment.com/

Anderson Silva is like a politically correct machine when answering questions form the media. He is always talking about how great his opponents are and answering loaded questions perfectly. So when I was reading today’s interview from Sherdog one of his answers got my attention.

GV: And now are you enjoying your vacation in Brazil?

AS: I’m not on vacation. I’m wasting my time training in a
gi with the guys from the Black House. Next Nov. 4, I’ll return to
Curitiba to see my family and then I’ll go to the United States to continue my
wrestling training at a university in L.A. I’ll be there for 20 days and then
I’ll return to Brazil to train in the Black House gym.

I guess Anderson is not a big fan of the Brazilian Jiu Jitsu Gi. Alot of others in MMA and even people in the BJJ world are not big fans of it. Each fighter or grappler usually has a style that either is complimented by a Gi or not. In MMA you can’t even use a Gi anymore, but in BJJ tournaments it is still used along side other No-Gi matches. I personally prefer No-Gi matches because I use over/under hooking more during grappling verses alot of sleeve and collar grabs. Eddie Bravo is another well known grappler that prefers No-Gi. He states that he learned alot of techniques from his instructor that favored No-Gi grappling mostly in part because his instructor had no fingers on one hand. In recent interviews Diego Sanchez has noted that he started to train on his ground game with a Gi since moving to California. I don’t know if this is good or bad for MMA training, but alot of other seem to think it helps so why not.

Source:
http://www.sherdog.com/news/interviews.asp?n_id=9820

The Specimen, The Titan, or Mark Kerr is scheduled to fight tonight in the Xcess Fighting event in California. Since leaving PRIDE he has not had a fight in the win category and even before leaving PRIDE he was on a losing streak. Ever since then he hasn’t been the same guy. Alot of the die hard fans have seen him in the HBO documentary, “The Smashing Machine“. Mark got the nickname “The Smashing Machine”, from the Japanese fans. In this film you see him get his first no contest and then later a loss in the PRIDE 2000 Grand Prix.

His last couple of fight have ended in a bad way. So much in fact that it has all the Kerr fans in a disbelief. I too feel it is hard to watch each fight because I have a hope that the old Kerr will unleash and end the fight. The last two fight have ended in pretty much the same fashion with a couple of exchanges ending with Kerr’s opponent on top punching away. The last one with Turk, Kerr actually submitted to strikes and the Whitehead one was actually a referee stoppage TKO. I don’t even want to bring up the Yoshihisa Yamamoto fight at PRIDE 27.

I think Bas Rutten put it best when he was commenting about Kerr in the HBO documentary. You take away his knees and head butts and you really take away what he is best at. Maybe Kerr was best at the true Vale Tudo. I like to believe so, but I still hope he can get back in the win column tonight.

Mustapha al Turk
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2hjan_cage-rage-20mark-kerr-vs-mustapha-a_extreme

Mike Whitehead
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F2Gun0YCN9E

Article Source:
http://www.sherdog.com/fightfinder/fightfinder.asp?FighterID=71

The book is out for anyone looking to buy a Christmas present. The review I read below seems to be good about it. It says that the book is informative and explains everything in depth. I will probably pick up a copy for my self to learn more. I don’t pretend to know it all in MMA and I would love to get an in depth review from an actual fighter.

Rich Franklin is the guy co-authors it with John Merz. The UFC sells it online, but Amazon seems cheaper.

But it:
http://www.amazon.com/Complete-Idiots-Guide-Ultimate-Fighting/dp/1592576559

Source:
http://insidefights.insidepulse.com/articles/71752/2007/11/05/review-a-complete-idiots-guide-to-ultimate-fighting.html

Dean Lister will be opening up an Xtreme Couture gym in San Diego with Randy Couture around the beginning of 2008. Couture has other location like:

Las Vegas, Nevada
Lombard, Illinois
Vancouver, Washington



Source:
http://www.myspace.com/xtremesd

Dean Lister My Space:
http://www.myspace.com/deanlister

The historic fallout of Randy Couture and his “Former” employer or we might think is all over the MMA news so much I want to do a quick play by play. I will try to get it as close as I can.

Randy comes out of retirement earlier this year and gets a new contract signed with the UFC. Randy said he wasn’t happy with it at the time, but had to sign it because he wanted to fight. Dana said that Randy was very happy with it at the time. The amounts are a little skewed and hard to figure out with all the he said he said conferences.

Randy says: He only got 250k per fight and no signing bonus like other PRIDE fighters were being offered, but he did recieve a bonus for he thought were his Ancillary rights. He did say he got PPV percentages and had collected up to 500k to date for this year. He said he did have one PPV payment to come from the Gonzaga fight.

UFC says: He got 250k per fight plus a signing bonus totaling 500k, 250k paid before the Sylvia Heavyweigth fight and the other 250k paid after the fight. They also claim that Randy has been paid 936k to date from the Sylvia PPV with more to come for the Gonzaga fight estimated at $787,500.

I say: The 250k per fight is agreed upon by both parties and not disputed. It is alos properly documented in the paperwork.

I say: The cover page on the payment agreement says in the subject line “RE: FIGHTER SIGNING BONUS”, but the letter below says, “In consideration for execution of the Exclusive Promotional and Ancillary Rights Agreement (the “Agreement”), dated January 12, 2007. This page is so conflicting. The subject line calls it a signing bonus so in some ways you could make a case that this money was only paid to randy because he signed, but in great detail the description of the agreement is called a name, “Promotional and Ancillary Rights Agreement”. With that said I can see why both parties are calling it something different. I say this fight point is a draw.

I say: The UFC 68 PPV bonus in the document presented add up to $703,800 for UFC 68. This does not add up to either 500k as Randy claims or the amount of 936k that the UFC claims. The one check that keeps this off balance is the amount of $218,715. In one section of the documents is listed on the PPV bonus payment leger, but on the actual pay stub column it is described as a signing bonus. Yet again the facts don’t add up on either side. As far as the total earned per year, it was reported from the UFC in the conference as 2.9M from the mouth of Fertitta. I still don’t see any of this adding up the way it has been presented from either party. These guys are just confusing the fans and at the end of the day people will choose a side and stick with it.

Article Source:
http://www.sherdog.com/news/articles.asp?n_id=9728

Randys Payroll Evidence Source:
http://www.fightlinker.com/couture_docs.pdf

I think this card in NJ was in trouble at one point, but was raised from the dead with some really good fighters now on the card. Alot of good fighters fighting opponents with similiar styles make for exciting fights. Hopefully they don’t just stay at arms length in respect of each others game and make a bunch of boring decisions. I really don’t think this will be a big problem because of most of these guys have aggressive characters.

RESULTS: A lot of good fighters and maybe an upset or two depending on your perspective. I still havent seen any undercard fights yet, but I am sure they were good to.

Michael Bisping Vs. Rashad Evans
(Rashad Evans defeats Micheal Bisping via Split Decision)

RESULTS: Good all out fight with both guys giving it everything they had. Only what they had wasn’t enought to finish the fight. This fight has me wondering the MMA rules again because what constitues as a fight winner these days? If all we need to do is go in there and take down fighters to death and do nothing to win? I like both of these guys alot and they fought with alot of heart, but I hope they are not gonna keep letting the judges do this to us.

Both these guys are coming off of fights that were almost made into instant rematches. Bisping won a controversial decision win over Matt Hamill and Evans got a draw fighting Ortiz. I among many people did not want to see a rematch of either. The UFC has too many fighters waiting to showcase themselves on the big stage to have anymore boring fights. Anyways this will be a good fight to adjust the pecking order a bit in the light heavy weight division. Provided Bisping stays a light heavyweight and doesn’t go down to middle weight as everyone thinks he should. Bisping can probably get off more crisp punches than Evans we are able to. I hope Bisping has worked on his power more since it was lacking against Hamill. Evans isn’t like Hamill, but he is also good in the clinch and can control his opponents well. I think this will end up being another decision with a win for Bisping just because he landed more strikes.

Thiago Silva Vs. Houston Alexander
(Thiago Silva def. Houston Alexander via TKO (Strikes) Round 1)

RESULTS: Wow what an upset. For me anyways, I had this fog about me that the UFC was so lucky that it has discovered a fighter that could go in there and KO everyone. Kind of like a superman. Well, Houston has a kink in his armor and I guess it was his ground game. He could have done a few things fighting from his back to keep Silva from climbing up his mount to the point that Houston had nothing left to defend the top mount attack from Silva.

I am so excited to Alexander again. This guy is so bad. I hope it wasn’t too early for him to fight again. This should be a fight ending in the first round for sure. I would bet on it ended in the first round not because Alexander always ends the fight within under a minute, but because both of these guys are aggressive striking machines. Both of these guys can KO like crazy, but Alexander has fought the tougher tier of MMA fighters so I will have to go with the new KO phenomenon Houston Alexander getting a TKO in the first round.

David Terrell Vs. Ed Herman (Changed from Terrell to Joe Doerksen)
(Ed Herman def. Joe Doerksen via KO Round 3)

RESULTS: Ed Herman has improved alot and this fight showcased that he is doing more than treading water in the UFC middleweight class. Ed did get lucky at the end of the round oen time when Joe had a sick Triangle and would have submitted him, but Ed got saved by the bell.

UPDATE CHANGE: Joe last fought against an overpowering Paul Filho in the WEC for the middleweight title. I actually thought he might pull that fight off, but was surprising blown away. Hopefully he has fixed his mistakes and can rebound to his old self. Doerksen will be a good fight and I will have to go with Doerksen getting a submission in the first round.

I am very excited to see David Terrell back in the mix after taking off more than a year from the sport. The middle weight class needed a guy with champion type fighting back in the competition. Terrell is what a dangerous fighter is, BJJ skilled and KO power. A lot of these fights tonight will be fighters with the same type of style so interesting fights will be all night. I am not sure if Ed will be able to submit Terrell so I am expecting that both fighters will respect each others ground game and pick to keep most of the fight up. If this happens I would have to give that advantage to Terrell for sure. I am going with Terrell getting a TKO in the second round.

Ryo Chonan Vs. Karo Parisyan

(Karo Parysian def. Ryo Chonan via Unanimous decision)

RESULTS: Karo is the man when it comes to winning via decision. He wasn’t happy with his performance although physically he looked alot better appearance wise, but he just didn’t do anything to finish the guy.

Both of these guys have some cool techniques and can be interesting to watch. This will be one of Karo’s tougher opponents. Chonan is that guy that beat the UFC’s Anderson Silva with that crazy scissor heal hook. This will be a fun fight to watch so I hope it goes the full three rounds. Maybe Parisyan with a win via decision.

Frank Edgar Vs. Spencer Fisher

(Frankie Edgar def. Spencer Fisher via Unanimous Decision)

RESULTS: I was really depressed watching Spencer in this fight. He really didnt do much to defend the takedown and pretty much fell a couple of times. I don’t think Spencer was robbed at all, but you gotta start wondering about this evolving strategy trend that seems to be occuring. Take a guy down 2-3 times in a round and you win. You don’t have to do anything when you take him down and if he gets up even better, it gives you a chance to take him down again. Wooopee! They should change the winning title from Unanimous Decision to “Wins via Takedown”.

This fight should be epic. Fisher stand up is advancing light years with every fight. Edgar can control a lot better and is way more comfortable in the scramble. The only kink I have seen in Fisher’s armor in last few fight was when he was scrambling he would leave openings for his opponent. I hope Fisher has been working on his sprawl because he will need it against a guy like Edgar. I am pulling for Fisher so I will base this predication on them standing up and Fisher picking Edgar apart. I am going with Fisher getting a decision win over Edgar on strikes and leg kicks.