The Randy Vs. Fedor fight is still in the making, but a little bit on the back burner. Randy has re-injured his arm and since Zuffa recently filed a lawsuit it is a little harder to make it happen in the short term. Mote Cox has talked about a few others like Ben Rothwell. I would think this would be the fight to expect since Monte Cox is Rothwell’s manager.
Should the event to take place in America, a name often mentioned is IFL fighter Ben
Rothwell, who has not lost in 13 fights. On the fight between Fedor and Couture,
Monte Cox, M-1 Global president, chose not to promise the fight would take
place, as the wrestler is still under contract with the UFC, but guaranteed that
as soon as he is available they would spare no effort in making the much awaited
fight become a reality.
Fedor Emelianenko and his manager, Vadim Finkelstein, were in Los Angeles over the weekend along with M-1 Global Vice President Apy Echteld. Officially the trio made the trip to California because Emelianenko is spearheading a large-scale advertising campaign for Affliction, a popular clothing company.
Finkelstein, however, made no secret of the fact that they were also planning to meet UFC heavyweight champion Randy Couture. On the agenda was Couture’s health — the 44 year old recently re-injured the arm he had broken in his last title defense against Gabriel Gonzaga–as well as the lawsuit between the fighter and Zuffa.
Obviously, M-1 Global is working hard, even in the early stages, to make the
multi-million dollar Couture-Emelianenko fight happen. In the short-term, M-1
Global pushed back its U.S. debut from February to April. The promotion had the
chance to book the United Center in Chicago for Feb. 16 but opted against it as
fighter negotiations had not progressed accordingly. April 11 now appears to be
the targeted date for either the Allstate Arena in Rosemont, Ill., or the Izod
Center in East Rutherford, N.J.
Also, somebody needs to figure out if Randy & Fedor will fight in a ring or a cage, because it will make a difference.
Before UFC 80 I really thought that Joe and BJ would be a closer fight. Once BJ put the rear naked choke on Joe Stevenson the first thing that came to my mind was, “I thought he would win”. I really wasn’t sure until that point though even if BJ had better stand up. After a year of upsets in 2007 the MMA community have come to almost expect an upset in every card of the night. All the legends that had permanent places had all been knocked down by the end of 2007. This made all those guys start thinking about retirement, the road back to the belt or what they needed to do to get back on top. Since we do not have any more long reigning champs to date or have any one guy that dominates his weight class it isn’t as likely we will have any upsets left for 2008.
I am not saying that there won’t by any more good fights, but fights that have clear underdogs won’t happen as often in 2008. I look at the next four main UFC events and all the main cards have guys that have legitimate shots to beat each other. What this translates into is when you have two guys that are so closely matched you have great fights and that alone. You have all the fans not knowing who is gonna win which creates even more excitement leading up to the fight. I am not saying I don’t enjoy a good upset, but having equally matched opponents usually makes for great fights.
Can somebody give Mike Zambidis some 4oz gloves, please? Take a look at the damage he can do. Granted it is only kickboxing, but you gotta believe Zimbidis could dominate in MMA. Tons of fighters have come from K-1. In kickboxing he has KO wins over MMA notables such as Norifumi “Kid” Yamamoto and Pete Spratt. He has had 83 Knockouts in 150 fights. All his losses have come from decisions and one unlucky cut.
I heard this when I was watching this show and when I heard what this guy said I thought, Hmm, that’s weird. They kept going on in the interview like it was no big deal and I thought it was odd that Lorenzo would do something that was so blatantly a conflict of interest. I am not a conspiracy person by any means, but I smell a story here.
Zuffa, the parent company of the UFC, has formally requested that CNBC air a retraction concerning “misstatements and inaccuracies” regarding the Zuffa Owners’ purchase of the UFC brand and Lorenzo Fertitta’s conduct as an NSAC commissioner.
CNBC recently aired a documentary entitled “Ultimate Fighting: From Blood Sport to Big Time” featuring an interview with Robert Meyrowitz regarding his role as President of Semaphore Entertainment Group (SEG), predecessor-in-interest to the Ultimate Fighting Championship brand.
When discussing SEG’s need to obtain Nevada State Athletic Commission approval for mixed martial arts prior to selling the brand to Zuffa, LLC in January 2001, Meyrowitz stated: “We went out there [to Nevada], it looked like we had the votes, we were told we did, and about midnight I got a phone call that one of the commissioners had changed his mind… and it turns out that commissioner was Lorenzo Fertitta, that he had changed his mind and that we wouldn’t be able to get approval.”
According to UFC President Dana White, Zuffa immediately challenged the false claims made by Meyrowitz and proof of the misstatements prompted CNBC to correct the content of the program in subsequent re-airings.
Mr. Meyrowitz also gave an inaccurate portrayal to CNBC of how the Zuffa owners first contacted SEG regarding the possible purchase of the UFC brand by claiming that he first received a phone call from Dana White in which Mr. White stated “I have somebody who wants to buy this, you’ll never guess who… I said give me one guess… Lorenzo Fertitta… he said ‘how’d you guess?’ I said ‘call me lucky.’”
Is it just me or does BJ look like hes got some crazy Cauliflower ear in the UFC Rapid Fire Picture. I know its Gonzaga’s glove, but at first glance I had to take a second look. Look at the weigh in picture. BJ looks pretty good.
BJ Penn (154) vs Joe Stevenson (154) FabricioWerdum (247) vs Gabriel Gonzaga (255)
Jess Liaudin (170) vs Marcus Davis (169)
Wilson Gouveia (205) vs Jason Lambert (204)
Jorge Rivera (185) vs Kendall Grove (186)
Antoni Hardonk (244) vs Colin Robinson (238)
Paul Kelly (170) vs Paul Taylor (170)
James Lee (206) vs AlessioSakara (206)
Per Eklund (155) vs Sam Stout (155)
Attention Tappers! Check out this fight in Arkansas last weekend. This girl goes to sleep instead of tapping. Not a lot of fighters out there much less guy fighters that are willing to do that. Congrats to Hillary on the well rounded win.
For all you Ultimate Fighting purists and original Kimbo Slice fans out there here is something for you. If you haven’t heard about Dog Brothers Martial arts you soon will. National Geographics will be a doing a documentary on it and is interviewing people that do it now for their upcoming show. If you want to learn about it or join them here is the information below. Their next “Gathering” is scheduled for August. Click on the link I provided below to see what the UFC thinks about the Dog Brothers Art in a letter to them.
Greetings from the National Geographic Channel! We want to hear from you about your experiences with Dog Brothers Inc.What we are looking for is to hear about your experiences in this group and why you decided to join. It doesn’t have to be anything long, a short paragraph will do. We’ll pick the best ones and publish them on our channel’s blog in a post leading up to the show and possibly as the show
re-runs later through the year. What we will need from you: - The short
paragraph that was mentioned above - Your first name (We want to respect
your privacy) - Your professional occupationWe can’t promise much, except
an additional story that you will be able to brag to your friends about. We
bet you all have some!We look forward to hearing from you.
Click here to let National Geograhpic hear from you:National Geographic Blog The adventure
continues!Marc “Crafty Dog” DennyDog Brothers Inc. Martial Arts
I am guessing that the UFC is waiting until all their own UFC rules are accepted before they hold an event. Instead of changing there rules per the state they are in they would rather wait until the state changes its rules.
White, who told the Star Bulletin six months ago that he was close to
finalizing a deal to hold a show at Aloha Stadium this year, said he will wait
until a recently passed bill to regulate mixed martial arts goes into effect.
House Bill 1866, which establishes many new rules to help legitimize
the sport, was enacted into law last July, but isn’t effective until July 1,
2009.
“Thirteen new states regulated (mixed martial arts) last year and
Hawaii is one of them, so we want to go over there, but the regs aren’t done,”
White said. “We’re not like all these other cheese dog shows that go over there
before the regs are done.”
Setanta Sports has acquired the exclusive broadcast rights to UFC programming in
the UK and Ireland.The multi-year deal covers all UFC UK fights in 2008 and
2009, and from July all other UFC fights will be exclusively live on Setanta.The
broadcaster added that supercards would not be made available on an additional
pay-per-view basis and will simply air on Setanta Sports 1.
Sorry, a little late on this one. Maybe they will have a rerun. Supernanny brings a kid with a lot of energy to the gym to try and show the parents that he can burn it up in a positive way.
The episode of Super Nanny featuring Mike Pyle and Gray Maynard airs tonight on
ABC at 9 Eastern & Pacific and 8 Central.
Check out the episode preview here.
