artmonkforHOF

Turns out Bisping is hurt as well, Lombard is fighting Boetsch at 149 now.

So if Lombard tears through Boetsch, does he still get a title shot next? I can't see it happening, with Munoz, Bisping & Stann being in front of him, but stranger things have happened in the UFC. If Munoz or Stann won their next fight, I was content putting them at the top of the list for next title shot, but Lombard throws a wrench into the mix, especially since he is not fighting Bisping anymore, we have no idea where to rank him amongst the others. At least with a Bisping fight, win or lose you could easily slot Lombard ahead or behind of Bisping, but if he beats Boetsch, does he really move up or down at all in people's general rankings? (since there is no official rankings, but you know what i'm talking about)

Chael is calling into Jim Rome for the Smack off, and he is on FIRE! slamming all other sports. I hate this guy, but damn is he entertaining.

Another great interview from Dirty Uncle Chael. Check out his new take on the first fight:

Sonnen did dominate his first encounter against Silva, but he ended getting caught in an arm-bar/triangle choke combo in the fifth round. Sonnen still believes he won his UFC 117 encounter against Silva, and he had a pretty amusing version of what really went down that night.

"That was a misunderstanding of the rules," Sonnen added. "The way I thought it worked was that if you tap, you lost that round. I thought what they were going to do was go to the judges' decision; they'll go four rounds to one, then we'll go home and I'll be the new champion. And if anyone had explained to me that that stops the fight in its entirety, I would not have tapped. … I'd never been in a five round fight, I just didn't know."

http://sports.yahoo.com/news/chael-sonnen-anderson-silva-don-t-want-autograph-203100348--mma.html

News is breaking that Cruz tore his ACL and is out of his fight against Faber.

No big lose IMO. That card is good already & anything else is playing 2nd fiddle to Silva Chael 2 anyway. Was anyone really excited to see that fight before this TUF? I say move Uriah to another card, the main event is strong enough anyways that any other main card event can take co main status & no one would complain.

I think he'll struggle in the UFC. He's been fighting cans for a long time now, stepping up in competition might be a shock to his system.

I agree, I think his first couple of fights in the Octagon will be big dissapointments, look at the last MW champ from another promo, Jake Shields- who looked like crap against Kampmann, even though he still won. I can see him struggling in his first couple of fights before he gets used to the competition.

Sonnen and Anderson press conference is live right now 11AM ET

http://www.ufc.com/media/UFC-147-Special-Announcement-Press-Conference

And it is moved to 148 in Vegas. way to screw this one up Dana. I swear, ever since they signed the deal with Fox, it is as if all their other business takes a distant second place. How do you not know that there is a UN conference in town the same week you plan to go there? Even if you didn't check the UN website, or a local Rio event calender, you would think that before announcing a big fight you would check to see what hotel availability will be like that week? I'd expect this type of mess up from a smaller promoter, but not the UFC.

What makes no sense is that they will still go ahead with a 147 card in Brazil, but no Anderson at a smaller venue because 'the fight is too big", yet they move it to the MGM which holds less than 17,000. Something is fishy here. maybe Sonnen got scared or the Brazilian authorities would not give an exception for TRT or high Testosterone levels, but something ain't jiving with this load of BS from the UFC.

This sort of reminded me of the Shields/GSP fight. After about three rounds it was apparent that while GSP wasn't completely blowing Shield out of the water, Shields was not interested in doing anything to take a chance at winning if it meant possibly making a mistake and getting finished.

Oh and Henderson has more than his right hand. He is also a great wrestler, which might actually be the way to go.

yeah that fight got boring in the Greg Jackson trained don't do anything to lose type of strategy. I have to say I was impressed that Rashad stood in there that long, if anyone had offered you 2:1 odds on the fight going 5 rounds I doubt many would have taken it. It was obivious those elbows hurt, and I would not be surprised to see Rashad out 90 days + with some sort of facial fracture.

I'm not really excited to see Hendo Jones, Hendo has less of a shot at beating Jones than Rashad & Lyoto had IMO, but he is hot right now so he gets the title shot. Hopefully Jones ends Hendo's career, but taking a beating at an old age has never made him quit yet. I just want to get all the TRT users, like him Chael and anyone from Team Quest, out of this sport ASAP. And Hendo's wrestling ain't going to help at all, just like it didn't help when he got on the ground with Anderson Silva. All he could muster from top position on Anderson was cupping his hand over Anderson's mouth, trying to make it hard for him to breathe, too bad all it did was piss him off and ended with Andy putting a rear naked choke on a guy who is suppose to be a good wrestler. Heck, he couldn't even out wrestle Jake Shields at middleweight, how the hell is is going to handle Jones at 205lbs?

As for my boy Hominick, man did that suck. I though he was barely winning the fight, but said during the broadcast that if he doesn't start pressing the action, Yagin could steal this fight on the judges scorecards which is exactly what happened. Hominick has now lost 3 straight- including fighting Aldo for the belt, but I think the UFC will give him a bit of leash, he puts on good fights and should get at least two more fights before the UFC decides to cut him.

And after what that shot by Rothwell did, I don't think anyone is afraid of facing Brendan Schuab anymore.

Looks like Silva Sonnen II in Brazil was too good to be true after all:

Anderson Silva-Chael Sonnen rematch reportedly moved to UFC 148

http://www.fighters.com/04/20/anderson-silva-chael-sonnen-rematch-reportedly-moved-to-ufc-148

This would suck IMO. Dana & the UFC look like complete amateurs when it comes to event setting ever since they got the Fox TV deal. They screwed up the Montreal card, which is why there was the 6 week layoff and why there is so many Canadians fighting in 145, and now this? Maggie Hendricks at Yahoo pointed out (and Dana's gotta love her for doing it, lol) that these mistakes are something not even a noob to event promotion would mess up, like finding out what else in going on in an area at the same time (a UN conference should be a big red flag), checking hotel vacancies and not to mention they already screwed up the first venue for this fight.

Once the Fox deal was signed, it is almost as if the UFC treats big PPV events as a second thought. Some people on hear, including me have already pointed out that the free Fox cards are some of the best cards of the year, I would gladdy pay $60 to see the Diaz Miller card, but am finding it hard to find people who want to shell out for 145. Even with the title fight and 2 Canadian fan favourites in Rory McD & Hominick, that's not enough to get hardcore Canadian fans excited to buy. I will watch somewhere, don't know where yet but it is looking more and more likey that it will be in a bar rather than at someone's house.

The Jon "Bones" Jones Fan Club.

No matter what this guy does to act like a "good guy," it always comes out smug. I suppose he's earned it though.

Count me as another rooting for Rashad for the first time ever. It's not that I don't like the guy, I just always seemed to like his opponents more, lol.

I cannot root for Jon Jones, the guy is too full of himself and such a phony. I hate when PR gets in front of a guy and coaches him what to say, like they have with Jones, I would have much more respect for the man if he jsut acted like the ****y egomanic like he is instead of trying to come across all humble and respectful. he tweeted after the Sweden card that Stann made a classy move by not hitting a KO'd fighter, but if he truely felt that way and did not have some PR slut tell him that send out that tweet would be a good idea ( or probably sent the tweet out for him), then he probably wouldn't have let Machida drop to the ground like a wet sack of hammers with AIDS as he did. He dropped the Dragon and got out of there quickly to bask in his own glory, and only went to check on him after Jackson & his corner told him too.

Just be who you are Bones, even if that means being a major prick, at least I would respect you for staying true to yourself instead of doing what the UFC's PR team tells you to do.

I'm picking Rashad by gogplata in the 3rd round

I'll also pick Rory McDonald over Che Mills, 2nd round gogplata and Hominick by gogoplata in the 3rd, the rest of the fights I really don't care about, I'm just waiting for the Miller Diaz on Fox fight, as that card is freakin stacked.

Gustaf looked pretty good last night. I'm not on the bandwagon yet though. If he fought Shogun, I'd take Shogun. Machida, I'd take Machida. People rushing to throw him in the title picture is premature. I'd give him Bader, Lil' Nog or Forrest if Forrest beats Tito.

He was suppose to fight Lil' Nog until he got hurt, and while I agree that he is not top tier yet, the guys you listed are not really that big of a step up from Thiago Silva. I would like to see him fight Phil Davis, Shogun, Machida or the loser of Rashad v.Jones (would love to see Jones lose just to set up a fight with Alex) to see if he can tread water with those guys or is a notch below and will become the 205 gatekeeper for the next few years. He would kill Forrest, and I think he could handle Bader pretty easily.

With all that being said, I think Bader is the most logical choice for his next fight, with two wins after the Tito loss, the top contenders won't want to fight him (Hendo, Rua, Machida, Rashad) unless they are coming off a loss. I also want to see Jones and Alex move up to heavyweight. I don't want these guys to add on 60lbs of muscle, but I really want to see a HW fight between a good 240lb striker (like dos Santos) vs. a tall guy who cuts to get to 205lb but fights at their natural weight of 220-230lbs, just to see if power or speed wins out.

I personally don't think Overeem's body was ever meant to be that big naturally which is why I believe he kept using whatever he was using. I don't believe his body is capable of handling that much muscle.

yeah, dude looked good at 205, and probably could do well at 225-230, but 265 of muscle is way too big for him. Even my ex GF commented on when she first saw him at the bigger weight (she thought he was handsome at 205), and was shocked to see him that big saying he doesn't look good now, he looks too much like one of those "bullfrog like" roid freaks you see in the club with no shirt on.

Here's hoping he has one heck of a lawyer and by some miracle, the B sample comes back clean, cause I don't want to see JDS vs. Mir, I just don't like Frank.

Star Wars Episode 1 in 3D.....because it is Star Wars in 3D duh!

Last dvd Rum Dairy, I liked it and I like how it inspired his desire to fight oppression and corruption even through a rum flavored haze.

I read the Rum Diary and hated the movie since it was no where close to the story in the book. The movie is alright, but doesn't hold a candle to the story in the book.

The last new movie I saw recently was Exit Through the Gift Shop, about famous street artist Bansky and Mister Brainwash.

Starts off as a quasi documentary on street art and Banksy, but transforms into a documentary on Mister Brainwash, a new street artist who filmed a lot of other street artist doing there work which would have been the original base for the doumentary. had MBW not screwed it all up. Banksy sends MBW off to do some art while he re edits the street art film, but no one could have guessed where MBW took a simple small piece of advice from the great Banksy.

I have no idea if the plot of MBW is real or not in this film, or it was just a Banksy trick but I don't care, I was entertained and I live my life by the old adage never let the truth get in the way of a good story. If you like Art, graffiti, mocu-mentaries or just laughing at French people, watch this movie.

I bought an old movie on the weekend that I haven't watched yet but it is a classic IMO.

This is one funny film. "What is that? Velvet!?!" But the funny thing to me about this particular DVD lists other movies the starring actors have been in (In attempts to draw a larger audience). If you check next to Eddie Murphy's name, the films they give as his are Norbit & Dreamgirls. Really? not Beverly Hills Cop, Raw, former SNL cast member, The Golden Child, Trading Places, 48 Hrs, Bowfinger, Shrek etc. Eddie Murphy is now known for Norbit & Dreamgirls.

But its not his first offense. He also got popped for weed after his Pride fight in Vegas in 2007 against Gomi. I know you probably know that, but he could very well get a harsher penalty since it is the second time. I don't have much of an issue with weed, but he knows that he is going to be tested and has already been caught once. You just have to be smarter than that.

He is not getting cut, just like Chael was not cut after his failed drug test, subsequent suspension and pleading guilty to fraud. The guy is too big of a draw to cut, and I don't think it is because he has a ton of fans, but he is polarizing, people either love him or hate him and will tune in to see him succeed or fail, whichever one they are rooting for.

Even though I'm a pro weed kind of guy, if your employment depends on you not using it, then you shouldn't use it. Seriously Nick? You couldn't lay off the herb for 30 days prior to the fight?

However, doesn't he have a legit perscription for it?

that license , if he has one (I assume he does, but don't know), would only be valid for California, and since the fight was in Nevada, State laws apply-which is why the Nevada State Athletic Commision is the organization that licensed the event,issued the fine and the ban.

Rumor has it Nick failed his drug test. Tested positive for weed.

and now we will have a NSAC statement later today on who failed which drug test. This is getting comical and making the UFC, and Dana White look like fools. We go from Dana saying there will not be a rematch after the fight on Saturday, to him saying there will be a rematch earlier this week only to have Condit and Diaz deny it, then Condit's camp confirms the rematch, Dana announces it and now Gracie tells us there will be no rematch as we wait to hear from the NSAC. Way to keep things professional Dana.

In one part of your statement, you say you think Diaz was robbed. In another part, you admit that is was closely contested in each round. The two cannot coexist.

I have no problem with anybody who thinks Diaz won the fight, reasonable minds can disagree on an outcome of a fight, but there was no robbery in that fight.

As for GSP/Condit, I think it looks like another GSP special, 5 rounds of takedowns. Although I expect Dana & Co. to let GSP sit back and recuperate the knee injury, letting Condit & Diaz rematch.

I think Diaz got robbed in that it was a close fight in all five rounds, but 2 judges scored it 4-1 Condit, and one scored it 3-2 Condit. like I said, it could have been a draw-split or unanimous, or a split decision for Diaz IMO, but there is no way I thought Condit would get two 4-1 scores, maybe 1. Now that I think about it, maybe he didn't get "robbed", since when watching the fight with some friends, two of whom have fought professionally, no one could agree who won 3 of the 5 rounds, be we all agreed that if whatever a judge scored the first questionable round, they had to score the other 2 the same way, so I could see how you could go 4-1 for one fighter, I just didn't think that fighter was Condit.

I like both fighters, but was upset with both during the fight, Condit for backing up and running away and Diaz for letting him by not mixing things up and changing his attack. I think a rematch is a great idea, but I don't think it will happen, I don't think we will see Nick Diaz fight again,....this year anyway. I think Condit ends up fighting someone else-(Ellenberger, Shields, Hendricks??) late this summer, and the winner fights GSP by the end of the year.

Now the big question is, what does a title fight between 2 Jackson MMA fighters look like? does either Condit or GSP move forward, or do they both move back and wait to counter? do the judges give a round to the guy who back up the least or throws the most feints?

MMA fans who practice MMA or boxing will probably enjoy the Condit GSP fight for their technical skills, but to the casual fight fan, this could be the worst WW title fight of all time, 5 rounds of guys trying to slightly outpoint each other and not much action.

As for Diaz, I think he got robbed, I had a hard time scoring the bout, I gave 1 round to Diaz and 1 round to Condit and the other 3 where a coin flip IMO, but I thought that with Diaz pressing the action, he should have been leading on the score cards. The fight was so close that I would not have been surprised at a draw, or not surprised if Diaz wond a SD, but Condit by UD caught me by surprise.

That is a HUGE line for this fight because of Rashad's stature. Rashad is gonna get ****ed up by Jon Jones regardless, but he deserves more respect in the line than that. Anyone remember what GSP's initial line was against Shields?

I think it was around 500 or 450, and ended up at like 600. I ended up taking a flier on Shields since I was getting 12:1 with a local bookie (he had no money on Shields at all) the day of the fight. My bets turned out alright as I also bet on Machida and picked Aldo on that same card.

Bisping got robbed IMO ( I gave him the first, slight edge in the 2nd and Chael the third), and the only thing more painful than watching that calf slicer was watching jon jones reading his notes to us and trying to act "natural" in the booth.

As for Chael, he is up to his old crap again, and I can't wait for Silva Sonnen II. I think Andy with his world class striking will open a nasty cut on Chael and will have a doctor's stoppage between rounds 2-3 or 3-4. Even though Sonnen has gone off the deep end with his comments lately, the guy is starting to grow on me, I still don't think he is a great fighter, a decent one with a heck of chin and great wrestling, but his I am starting to like, or at least be entertained by his act.

You have to hand it to Chael, he is a middle of the road MW in he UFC, yet he has talked himself into being the #1 contender even after failing a drug test, being convicted of fraud and having his license suspended for lying to a state athletic commission, continued use of TRT and tops it off with a poor performance in his title eliminator fight. If even one of those things had happened to another fighter (except poor showing in eliminator), I doubt you would see them back in the UFC for a few years, but Chael has been able to keep himself relevant wit his mouth, and I kinda respect and loathe him for that at the same time.

Give us Maia vs Paul Harris!

I second that, first one to get hold of a leg wins. As for Maia getting screwed, it's not like a win over Bisping or any other top guy would get him closer to a title fight. There is no way in hell Dana will put on Silva Maia II.

As for Sonnen & Bisping, I kinda hope Bisping wins just so I can see Anderson toy with him and give us another incredible KO.

LOLOLOL

wtf man seriously how the **** did he ever make 170

he barely did, missed it twice in the ufc, both by about 7 lbs in welterweight, so this will now be his 3rd time over in 10 fights. It's the amount I can't believe, 11-12 lbs over 185 is insane, you could imagine that much over on a heavyweight, but not a middle.

So now I am going to wait until 2pm tomorrow to see if AJ can make 205, if not I will be heading to the bar to watch for free, I'm not interested in paying for that card without Belfort.

If you had to pick a Fight camp of the year would you pick Caesar Gracie's Camp?

Melendez, & both Diaz brothers had a pretty good 2011.

---------- Post added January-1st-2012 at 06:46 PM ----------

If you had to pick a Fight camp of the year would you pick Caesar Gracie's Camp?

Melendez, & both Diaz brothers had a pretty good 2011.

It would be hard not to pick them. The other obvious choices are Greg Jackson with Bones, but he also has so many guys, and guys who have lost big this year, that I don't think Jones on his own gets the team title for them. Another group is Blackhouse with Anderson, Aldo, JDS, Machida and the Nog's. I think I give the edge to the team that now has 3 UFC belts under it's roof in Blackhouse, but I would be willing to listen to a compelling argument for another team if someone has one.

I've heard other people say this and it doesn't make sense to me. When you choke someone unconscious and the ref tells you to let go of the choke, the safest thing you can do is let go if it immediately and let the blood start flowing back to their brain.

yeah that is the proper thing to do, but when you choke a guy out who is standing up, you don't let him fall where he could hit his head on the matt or anything else for that matter and do further damage. You could give a guy a serious neck injury, even a broken neck by letting an unconcious man drop from a standing position. To me it showed that not only does Jones not have respect for his opponent, he lacks respect of human beings in general,and the whole Greg Jackson "get some fans" incident afterwards just confirmed the lack of respect Jones has. The very least he could have done is let go, wait for the ref to take Machidas weight and then leave, but in my mind the proper thing to do is to let go and steady Machida and help set him against the cage or on the mat. Jones is one ****y MF'er, which is one of the reasons I think people want ot seee him get beat so bad, and I can see how some people will use the Machida fight as an example of why they dont like the guy..

I don't get Fuel, but I don't think that will be much of a problem since the UFC has a distribution deal with Sportsnet in Canada, so I at least will get the fights, other Fuel UFC programming I might not get though. The Sportsnet feed is in HD over 5 channels, so even if I miss a live fight, they usually show it later on another channel.

Not having HDNet anymore is what pisses me off, or at least losing it as soon as they started airing MMA stuff on a regular basis. Due to dome rights issues, and Canadian content laws, even when they put a US network on a cable package here, we don't get exactly the same programming, so when HDNet started here about 2 years ago, they did not show any MMA- it was replaced by what little Canadian content HDNet had and sometimes just blacked out (stupid since no one else was showing the fights-Dream & K1- on TV in Canada, but someone had the rights). Then they started showing DREAM fights and made the announcement that Inside MMA will be on HDNet Canada starting a certain date-Bas even flexed with a Canadian flag in one hand in the promo-, and my provider dropped HDNet 2 days before the launch date.

Forgot to post about my night at 140, it was pretty sweet, I had seats on the floor in the corner of the arena which left us with a pretty nice sight line into the cage, and a huge screen right above us. Best fight of the night- or worst, where 2 juiceheads fighting in the beer line about 3 people ahead of me. I didn't see how the guy got taken down or the initial blow that cut him, but eventually one guy was standing, kicking the other guy in the head and there was so much blood on the floor after the paramedics took the guy away that they closed the beer stand and blocked off a good section of the concourse to clean it up. That fight made me miss Hominick's 7 second loss, I never would have thought it would end that quick, and the crowd seemed to be in a shock that lasted until the main event.

Jones is a freak, he is so much faster than anyone I saw that he looks like he is on meth or speed compared to everyone else, even the smaller 145 guys. As for his fight, I was impressed, until he dropped Machida, that showed no class or respect for your opponent.

I don't know if I would go to an live event again, unless Anderson or someone else I really wanted to see was on the card, in fact I would need at least 3 good fights to interest me again. Part of the reason is that I am a smoker and both venues in Toronto do not let smokers back in, and the other reason is price. I had great seats, $500 seats that I paid a fraction for, but I do not see the value at full retail price, and the price of ticket I would settle for on my own- $100 or less, puts me so far away that I would end up only watching the fight on a screen, and if I was dong that I could do it in the comfort of my home, at a friends house or a bar for a lot cheaper-and be able to smoke. The UFC& MMA really are a TV sport, unless you have really really good tickets, you will not miss anything watching at home vs an upper bowl/crappy ticket at the live event.

Athletes can say whatever they want, whenever they want. If they should say something stupid that embarrasses the person or company that employs them, they shouldn't be surprised of any consequences that come their way.

My issue is the double standard, both Forrest & Torres have made multiple rape jokes on their twitter pages, yet only one was terminated.

well we all know why one was cut and the other 2 not, money. Would anyone be surprised if Chael Sonnen comes out with a worse rape joke in the next few weeks and does not get fired? Bottom line, even if you are under contract with the UFC, if you are not making them money, they will cut you and give any reason as an excuse.

EDIT: forgot to put in my picks for 140. I was not planning on going, but found a friend who bought a bunch of tickets, scalped some for a profit, and only wants $40 for $500 seats.

Hominick vs Zombie- Hominick by gogoplata, 2nd round

Patrick vs Ebersole- Ebersole by gogoplata, 3 rounds

now for the legends tour....

Tito vs Lil Nog- Lil Nog by gogplata, early 2nd round

Mir vs Big Nog- Big Nog by gogplata late 2nd round. I'm a twin so I will always pull for twins, especially when they are on the same card. These coudl be two of the ugliest fights of the night if they go 3 rounds.

and finally for the strap

Jones vs Machida, Jones by gogplata, late 4th or early 5th round, even though I would really like to see Machida win.