Results of Dream Opening Round

The Dream opener for their middleweight grand prix was awesome. The card was packed with serious fighters and serious fights, and the tournament only promises to get better as it goes on.

Shinya Aoki beat J.Z. Calvancante by unanimous decision, making him a top lightweight in the world in many minds.

The brief recap of the seven middleweight fights that opened the tournament:

Kiyoshi Tamura beat Masakatsu Funaki by TKO in 57 seconds. Unfortunately, even his highlight reel performance won't give him any weight as he moves to the next round, because there are some seriously legit fighters and he is not at the top of the bracket.

Zelg Galesic whipped out an armbar submission victory in a little over a minute and a half to advance to the next round. His muay thai skills are notable, but the fact that he's displaying some groundfighting is very, very good.

Ronaldo "Jacare" Souza choked out Ian Murphy in Murphy's debut. The fight lasted almost 3:40. Jacare is still my pick to win this whole competition, as he is the best grappler in the tournament by far.

Taiei Kin upset Japanese fan favorite Ikuhisa "The Punk" Minowa on the judges scorecards, and he was convincing the whole way. It's not likely Kin will win the whole competition, as he couldn't finish Minowa and the Punk is hardly a top competitor, but it is a legit win that improves the look of Kin's 3-2 record. (Note: Kin's record is more impressive than it looks, as his losses are to top middleweights in Galesic and K-1 warrior Yoshihiro Akiyama)

Dong Sik Yoon beat out Shungo Oyama on the judges scorecards. This is Yoon's fourth straight win, which has brought him up to 4-4 for his career. Still, he's beaten Galesic before (with an armbar back in K-1 in mid-2007) and, though he lost to Sakuraba in his MMA debut, he's definitely looking to his momentum to carry him through this tournament. We'll see if he has it, though I don't really think so.

Kazushi Sakuraba finished Andrew Nakahara with a neck crank almost eight and a half minutes into the first round. Sakuraba seems to be one of the heavy favorites, especially among the Japanese fans, and we'll see if the Gracie Killer can hold this one together at his age. Many would like to hope so, for nostalgia's sake.

In the biggest shocker of the night, Gerard Mousasi choked out Denis Kang with a triangle. The fight makes the underdog Mousasi look more interesting and his record is very impressive, including the little sidebar that he's now finished his last seven fights. I'm liking Mousasi more and more, but we'll see if the skills he has been using in the smaller circuits pay off against bigger competition, they certainly did against Kang, who's no small fish and was, for many, the pick to pull this one out.

I had Jacare before this card started and I'll stick with him, because I have no reason to think that anyone else in this bracket is going to out-grapple him and, while I'm well aware that this is not Abu Dhabi, I'd like to see Jacare get some respect in MMA, as he definitely deserves it.

All Hail the King

My writeup on one of my longtime heroes, the great Fedor Emelianenko, is on MMA opinion. A copy is posted below.

I first saw Fedor Emelianenko fight in 2002, when he took on Heath Herring, and just by looking at the guy, I was not impressed. He’s not big, he’s not muscular, and he’s not angry. But, I didn’t really know what it meant to be a fighter. Sure, I knew about the Gracies, but the way I had figured it, Rickson was built like a truck and he was the best, so it wasn’t like Gracie Jiu-Jitsu was this huge exception, where athletic prowess was irrelevant.

There is a moment in the lone round of the fight with Herring where Fedor picks Heath up and slams him down into the canvas, and I remember being twelve years old, watching that slam and going, “Damn.”

To say I follow Fedor with personal investment in his career is overstating it. There are fighters that I believe that I have a much bigger stake in, fighters who I have backed a little bit more than I realistically should have because I want them to get some extra attention. Still, there is something about Fedor that makes me, and every hardcore MMA fan I know, revert to the child/enthusiast in them, yelling and screaming at the TV.

Fedor is not as polarized as Muhammad Ali, nor as well covered as Mike Tyson. He does not have the mass media appeal of Bruce Lee, or the beard of Chuck Norris. Still, there’s no doubt in my mind that Fedor is the greatest fighter in the history of combat sports. He has dominated in a way that not even Rickson Gracie did, because Fedor has done it in the presence of men who, without him, would have been just as legendary, and anyone familiar with the history of the sport knows that Rickson only fought a handful of guys worth talking about.

Mirko CroCop and Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira are titans of our time in a way that Sonny Liston and Evander Holyfield weren’t, because they bring aspects of the game that no one else does. They don’t talk big like Liston or boast some of the flamboyance that Holyfield did. They are, very much like Fedor, stone cold killers, who are explosive and dangerous and respectable, and they are well feared by those who are going to step in with them, a respect that doesn’t get pushed aside by big-talking boxers trying to make names for themselves.

People will ask me why Fedor is the greatest fighter ever, and I pull up Fedor vs. Randleman on youtube, or (if the UFC pulls it off for copyright reasons) the DVD I have of the Critical Countdown 2004 event where it went down. If they say that’s only one fight, I’ll point them to the Zuluzinho fight, the Goodridge fight or both Coleman matches. For those who understand how big the matchups between Fedor and his top rivals (fighters like CroCop and Nogueira) were, I walk them through Fedor’s game, and how he controlled those fights, even when it looked like he didn’t.

The fact is, nobody in the sport has stayed as dominant as long as Fedor has and, while people will dispute his status because he hasn’t fought top tier competition in a little while (though the fight with Mark Hunt wasn’t that long ago), when he fights Tim Sylvia in Adrenaline, he’ll remind us something very important: there’s a reason why he’s feared, because he is dangerous anywhere and everywhere.

I, like many of my fellow long time Pride fans, will be watching the approaching Adrenaline card, as it has offered us the opportunity to see Fedor fight a top heavyweight, even if that heavyweight is Tim Sylvia. Certainly, a war with the former UFC champion/ogre will be exciting. It will be the second time Fedor has fought an opponent with a size advantage and a supposed advantage in the standup department, but if Randy Couture can put the Maine-iac down with a punch, who’s going to say that Fedor can’t end this fight standing, as well as on the ground.

The sport is changing, but Fedor seems to evolve even faster. Hopefully, we will see a new level of performance in his fight with Sylvia. While a debut in the UFC seems unlikely, at least in the immediate future, the presence of Fedor as a force in the world of independent MMA and as the most dominant heavyweight in the world seems unquestionable.

Travis Lutter Talks (and talk, and talks) to Pramit Mohapatra

Well, Pramit has done it again: he's officially struck interview gold.

Lutter spills his guts about everything, and it's pretty fucking funny, especially when he gets down to talking about Franklin and Silva.

A little excerpt:

I think most of them are dumb-ass kids. I’m not saying MMA fans. I’m saying the people that are writing me this shit. I think the average MMA fan rules. They’re following my sport. I like them a lot. But, the guy who is taking the time out of his day that lives in Kentucky to email me to tell me what a piece of shit I am. You really have to question, what is his motivation? How sad of an individual is that? I don’t know what to say to that. It’s like, “I saw you on TV so you suck. As a fighter you suck. You’ve got no cardio, blah blah blah.” What motivates these guys to send hate mail? I don’t understand it.

A Response to Kimbo Slice

... and anybody else who thinks that they should be fighting the best fighters in the world without any real MMA experience.

I posted the abridged version in the comments of our little Kimbo section on MMA opinion.

Here's the long, ranting version:

If you're going to be a fighter, shut your mouth. There's been a long tradition of great fighters who don't talk shit, and there are days that I wish that would extend to the ridiculous gimmick fighters in the smaller shows. Still, I guess that's not how it works.

Obviously, it's important to be real with Kimbo, because the guy is not a legitimate fighter and he should know that. He's fun to watch, he's explosive, he's got a cult following. But all of those things are true for Butterbean, the only difference is that Kimbo's management is arrogant enough to push him as the greatest fighter in the world.

It's like the kid in school who always acts the toughest and peacocks, acting out and disrespecting people. Being loud and obnoxious and arrogant. Then he gets into a fight with the real powerhouse at the school and his freinds, who spent that whole time talking shit too, have to clean his ass up off the pavement.

The point is, one of these days Kimbo is going to go on youtube and make a bad yo' mama joke about Fedor, and the King is going to show up at his gym, dangeda-dangeda Baz Rutten's old ass through a wall and then proceed to beat Kimbo down like the rookie he so clearly is.

Nothing annoys me more than people who don't show respect to the guys who have built this sport up from nothing. Honestly, when Tito did it that was totally different, because he was trying to get attention for the sport and draw in fans. All Kimbo is trying to do is build up the fanbase for his beard.

Maybe he has a God complex, maybe he thinks that he's beloved everywhere because he got to have his last fight in his home town. Let me tell you, though, Kimbo has a major problem with most of the MMA community at this point, because everybody is sick of him disrespecting the guys that built this sport with their bare hands.

What was Kimbo doing while Chuck was knocking out NCAA wrestling champions? Videotaping his grimy-ass backyard pit fights?

I'll point this out again:

Kimbo has yet to fight a serious athlete. He's fought two over the hill, out of shape brawlers. I love Tank as much as the next guy, but even in his prime he wasn't much of a fighter, and now that he's past that point, it's done.

If Kimbo really wants to fight Chuck, he should start by scheduling a rematch with Sean Gannon, to show that he actually knows enough now that he doesn't need his manager to jump in and protect him every time he eats a serious shot, because if one of those punches came from Chuck, Kimbo's beard would not be able to absorb the force, contrary to what superpowers some might believe it has.

So that's all for Kimbo, and I hope he fights Ricco Rodriguez, so that fat, unconditioned hot-air bag can ground and pound Kimbo into respect.

Adrenaline MMA Makes Fedor vs. Tim Official

Honestly, I don't care as much about this fight as I would have pre-Randy Couture ass whupping.

Still, I think that this is a great fight in terms of what it allows Fedor to do: show that he can still beat the shit out of top fighters.

A New Piece on MMA Opinion

Check out the second part of my inside the guard series.

If you missed the first one, check that out too.

My Response to SI's Top 25 Toughest List

Now, for those who don't know, Sports Illustrated released a list on the top 25 toughest athletes in the world.

Anderson Silva, the man that Americans are quickly starting to recognize as the most dominant force in the western hemisphere, was listed as number three, while Fedor was listed at 8.

Now, I like Fedor and Anderson, and I'm glad that we had 2 guys in the top ten. But when I first heard about this, I posted this short response on MMA forum. (and, yes, for me this is a short response):

I'm not sure that I understand the justification for putting Anderson higher than Fedor.

Has Anderson spent more time dominating the sport than Fedor?

Has Anderson been in more wars than Fedor?

Has Anderson beaten fighters from every generation and style of the sport?

I think that the answer to all three of those questions is no.

Fedor's beaten two K-1 champions, UFC champions, Pride champions and fighters from every stylistic component of the sport, and he beat most of them where they are good. (he beat Coleman off his back, he beat CroCop standing up, he beat Nog from inside the guard)

I think Anderson is a great fighter, but I do think that he's very much a man of the moment. I'm not questioning his legitimacy as a fighter, but I do think that he's been pushed very hard by the mainstream media while Fedor, who has been around alot longer and hasn't burst into the American scene since it's been huge, hasn't.

Just look at Fedor's record and look at Anderson's record.

There are a half dozen guys on Fedor's record who were top 10 when he fought them, and his fights with Nogueira, CroCop and most of his breakthrough fights weren't really originally thought to be in his favor. There are only two guys (maybe three, but I don't really count Marquardt) on Anderson's record that I looked at right before the matchup and thought was a toss up (Henderson and the first Franklin fight), and that includes the fights that Anderson dropped to Chonan and Takase. He should have dominated those two guys.

This really doesn't make sense to me, but given SI's long history of MMA-illiteracy, I'm not shocked.

Some New Stuff

For those of you who don't read MMAOpinion, you really should. I have two articles running on the ticker bar right now.

One is a piece on Matt Serra and his legitimacy as UFC welterweight champion. There will be a cooperative piece for this on Georges St. Pierre coming out soon.

The other piece is part one of a four part segment I put together on the evolution of the modern guard game.

Hope you like 'em, and hope that you check out MMA opinion often, as there are some great writers on there.