Bas is getting deeper into the IFL organization. With this new announcment, it makes me think they will be staying around for a little longer. I hope with the new team strategy, it will help a little more and get the organization a little more marketable.

NEW YORK, January 23, 2008 – The International Fight League (OTC.BB: IFLI) today announced the latest step in its reorganization heading into the 2008 season,
naming Mixed Martial Arts legend, Sebastian “Bas” Rutten, to the newly-created
position of Vice President, Fighter Operations. Rutten, who has been with
the IFL since its inception, as a coach and commentator, will oversee the contact
between the IFL, its current athletes, and other athletes in the sport, as well
as working to create potential future match-ups and cards both internally and
with other organizations. He will report directly to IFL CEO Jay Larkin.

Source:
http://www.ifl.tv/Press-080123-Bas-Rutten.html

Drew McFedries had a stellar KO in his last fight against Jordan Radev. I remember it well because it was a good night of TKO’s, and his was one of the best. Since then, it seems, Drew has been fighting two more fights. One was a staph infection and the other was a loss in his family.

About a month and a half after the victory in Florida, McFedries was
diagnosed with a severe staph infection. He spent more than two weeks in the
hospital and was treated for more than a month on an outpatient basis. He
underwent surgery in which a 10-by-8 inch piece of skin was removed, and his leg
was closed up using more than 50 staples.

Just before Christmas, McFedries’ mother, Agnes McFedries-Kennedy, was
found murdered in an alley in Davenport, Iowa.

“I did think about it, but I think I would be doing myself an injustice,”
he said. “Given the circumstances, I need this both physically and emotionally.
If I didn’t have this, I would break down.”

Hearing stories like this make it impossible to not pull for the guy. I know I will be. It is real life stuff like this that makes these fights look like just a regular old thing to deal with. If Drew can make it through two things like that and still have fight in him, then I don’t think he will be leaving the octagon any time soon.

Source:
http://www.lvrj.com/sports/14023142.html

I thought the fight with Manny and Nate in the finale of TUF would have been better without the shoulder injury. It seems as though Manny must be making some remarks lately because Nate doesn’t pull many punches in his statement with Graciefighter.com:

GF: Manny Gamburyan has been looking to get a rematch with you, stating
whenever he can that he only lost because of a shoulder injury. Any
thoughts?

ND: You know up until now I’ve tried to be respectful about him since we
were on the same team and everything but he’s making it hard for me to be that
way. He must have forgotten how our training sessions went in the house. I can
tell you I wasn’t the one getting tapped out and socked up the whole time but if
he’s still holding a grudge and wants to fight me again than let him beat some
guys and work his way back up. He’ll also need to get that operation so he can’t
use that as an excuse again. If he can do that I’ll be happy to fight him again.

Source:
http://www.graciefighter.com/?page=news

Penn has definitely given us several versions of himself over the years as a fighter. Let’s take a look at the main ones.

 

BJ “The Prodigy” Penn - Version 1.0

Remember when this version would run down the plank into the Octagon to let everyone know he was ready to get it on and then run back after the fight was over? This version was ready to start swinging for a K.O. He was young, fit, had hair and a force to be reckoned holding an undefeated record. This guy plowed through Din Thomas with a knee and knocked Caol Uno out in 11 seconds.

 

BJ “Half Way” Penn - Version 2.0

This version had been defeated. This guy still tried to fight the top tier guys, but he didn’t train real hard for the fights. He moved up to a heavier weight class since competing at 155 would mean he would have to train right and eat right. Like Penn said in his recent interview with the UFC, “Back in the day I used to pride myself on how little I could do and get away with it.” Even with little training this version was able to beat guys like Matt Hughes, Takanori Gomi and Renzo Gracie.

 

BJ “The Upgrade” Penn - Version 3.0

This version got new training imposed on him while training for the Jens Pulver fight. This version showed up at the weigh-ins for the Pulver fight and shocked everybody with his new, slim, in-shape look. This version blew through Pulver with ease in every aspect of the fight. This version towered over Joe Stevenson at the UFC 80 weigh-ins with a ripped body and a new look of determination. As Penn states, “Now I try to pride myself on how much I do. I try to work real hard, train as much as I can, eat healthy food, and I want to see how far I can take it.” This version had an epihany and realized, “I said what am I doing, why am I messing around? This is the biggest sport in the world, it’s gonna overtake everything, I’m at the forefront. Why am I playing games?”

 

I guess Penn puts it best when he says, “Something just awoke inside of me where I said ‘what are you doing?” Penn continues. “‘You can beat every one of these people. You’ve been doing it half-assed all this time and it’s time to finally step up and let’s see it. If you can’t, you can’t, but at least you know you tried.’ Words can’t explain how pumped I am about fighting right now. It’s what I am, it’s who I am, and it’s what I want to be.”

 

Source:
http://www.ufc.com/index.cfm?fa=news.detail&gid=9508

This fight is said to not happen until the first quarter of 2009. Although I would love to see this fight, watching a year of hype about it kind of reminds me of political elections.

“Oh yeah. Unless I die, it’s going to happen,” the younger Shamrock told MMA Weekly. Frank is a middleweight (185 pounds), and Ken has fought most of his career as a heavyweight, but his most recent bouts have been in the light heavyweight division (205 pounds). Frank revealed that the two will compete at light heavyweight. Frank said, “I do know the weight will be at 205. That’s what Ken wanted. The where doesn’t matter. The when will be the first quarter of 2009. The how will be right hand, left hook, right hand, and then that will be it.”

Source:
http://www.mmaweekly.com/absolutenm/templates/dailynews.asp?articleid=5494&zoneid=13

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.

Source:
http://www.sherdog.com/news/articles.asp?n_id=10886

Source:
http://www.graciemag.com/news/144/ARTICLE/9229/2008-01-21.html

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.’”

Source:
http://www.mmafighting.com/news/2008/zuffa_seeks_retraction_of_statements_by_meyrowitz.html

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.

Wear your Ear Guards people!

OFFICIAL WEIGHTS – UFC 80MAIN EVENT – VACANT UFC LIGHTWEIGHT CHAMPIONSHIP

BJ Penn (154) vs Joe Stevenson (154)
Fabricio Werdum (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 Alessio Sakara (206)
Per Eklund (155) vs Sam Stout (155)

Source:
http://www.ufc.com/index.cfm?fa=news.detail&gid=9634