Non-UFC Calendar

Upcoming MMA Shows:

April 4th      IFL
April 5th      ShoXC
April 29th     OLYMPIA DREAM.2 Middleweight GP Opening
May 10         Cage Rage 26
May 11th       HEIWA DREAM.3 Lightweight GP 2nd Round
May 16         IFL Mohegan Sun Arena
May 18th       Sengoku 2
May 31         Elite XC on CBS
June 1         WEC
June 8th       Sengoku 3
JUNE 14        Adrenaline MMA IN CHICAGO
June  14th     EliteXC in Hawaii
Mid June       OLYMPIA DREAM.4 Middleweight GP 2nd Round
JUne 27th      IFL Location TBA (was to be LV)
July 19th      Fedor vs Sylvia Affliction/HDNet
July 21st      HEIWA DREAM.5 Lightweight GP Finals
August 8th     IFL Izod Center New Jersey
Late Sept      OLYMPIA DREAM.6 Middleweight GP Finals

le shammy refcam

........

Ideas for EliteXC 5/31

Since a majority of the UFC's Hall of Famer's are on the outs with the organization have these guys as your special guests at the network debut, sitting cageside.....maybe on commentating for a fight or two. Ken is already under contract with EXC so I'd have him as a guest color guy, but bring in HOF'ers Royce Gracie and Dan Severn. You are kinda limited to what you can do with Randy Couture due to the lawsuits flying about but you could probably get away with showing a him in a crowd shot or possible doing a short interview like he has done at live HDNet cards.

I liked the usage of the CageCam on the Shammy - Cung Le fight, they should use that a little more on the CBS show. It differentiates them from the UFC production-wise, and could possibly intrigue viewers.

Night of the fight weigh-ins are something i would like to see EliteXC use. This is a staple of HBO's boxing coverage and would be a good addition to MMA Coverage. They could also use the compubox stuff that Cuban used on his couple of HDnets cards.

Old Pic is Old....

....but this is the first time I've it so:



...Wanderlei Silva sporting a modified Brazilian mullett...

Strikeforce Wagers and Fantasy Tips

The all knowing, all seeing Leland Roling over at MMA-analyst.com has posted up his picks and wagering advice for the Strikeforce card. Leland is very insightful and knowledgeable of MMA, and he is especially good with non-UFC stuff. He does the mmaplayground.com thing, winning the Secondary league wagering title, and picking non-UFC fights at over a 70% clip. That is impressive to me when realizing how hard those fights are to pick with the limited exposure most of the fights have.

Here are the Picks

Here is the Wagering

Karo vs Nick

By way of fightlinker.com




Just great stuff!!! Would love to see these guys rematch at some point....

Karo, Manny, and Roman

Cool article on Armenian fighters at NBCsports.com (via Bloodyelbow.com)

The Animals at ATT

WEC: Marcus Hicks

The Dark Side of MMA

The life and times of Mark Kerr

What in the name of Frank Gotch....

via fightlinker.com

Angle
Uploaded by johnob

Lauzon on Florian

Talkin that shit:

“Diego ran him over, Sherk ran him over, and in the toughest fight he’s had, against Din Thomas, his opponent blew out his knee. A win is a win but I’m never, ever going to have a guy blow his knee and then brag about how I finish fights. I think he came off really bad. I have so many people sending me messages, ‘You have to finish [Florian],’”

WEC: Ratcliff vs Hicks

really looking forward to this fight on the midweek WEC card.....

another Ratcliff fight..... against Brett Cooper......with the nastiest spinning back hook kick i have seen in my life....




...... all i gotta say is ...Karate, Bitches!!!!!!!!

NY Times piece somewhat MMA related

Felonfights, UFC and Shad Smith, oh my

UFC 83 Hype

The Dana/Rogan spiel has just become "blahh blahh..blahhh....best ever....blah blah" at this point....

Baroni, Post-Hose Fight

(thanks to Angler in the sherdog forums)

Feel the Love

Suzukicrash does it again....(via Bloodyelbow, mma.tv)

Jay Hieron Interview

Jay Hieron talks with the Zsports lounge about is title win and upcoming fight.

Ultimate Grappling asks the question, I answer

Is Matt Lindland #1 at 185? No, Matt Lindland isn't even Top10 at 185 at this point.....

I like Matt and enjoy his matches but I can't make a good case for him even being a top 10 middleweight at this point in his career. The facts just don't support it.
Sure you point out the silver medal and say he is one of the most dominant wrestlers in MMA ever, but looking at his fight card combined with his inactivity has rendered him kinda meaningless in the big scheme of things at 185.

Looking at his fight resum'e, the wins he has don't warrant him any consideration for elite status at 185. His last two fights at middleweight have been against Jeremy Horn and Carlos Newton. I don't want to denigrate the talents of these two guys because in their day they were high level competitors, but at this point the tread is off the tire as far as their fighting careers. Lindland's victories over them are kinda meaningless at this point due to that fact. His other two most recent fights have been outside of the 185 division, at 205 with Quinton Jackson and 205+ with Fedor Emilianenko. While Matt made a good accounting for himself in both those fights (some argue he deserved the win over Rampage), at the end of the day they were losses on his card and didn't really give us any measure of his worth at 185.

Another drawback of his fight card is the overall weakness of competition he has faced and beaten at 185. I generally think the most impartial and best rankings are those at fightmatrix.com. To use a ncaa basketball term, Matt's RPI ain't too good in my book. Lindland hasn't beaten anyone in their Top 25, showing only a loss to #23 Murilo Bustamante. His quality wins are over #27 Vitale, #41 Doerkson, #42 Jeremy Horn, #53 Ivan Salaverry, and unranked Lutter and Almeida. To borrow another NCAA analogy, that would have Matt on the bubble and possibly headed to the NIT, not in discussion for a number one seed.

In addition, Lindland's inactivity in general and at 185 in particular precludes any serious talk of him for #1 at middleweight. Matt has been in a contractual tussle with BodogFight but commonsense should have told him that the only big money fights he was getting out of Bodog was the Fedor fight.....nothing else made sense monetarily. Why it took him about a year to figure this out is beyond me. Matt has signed with Affliction/Golden Boy and hopefully he will be more active this year but I have to wonder about the level of competition he will face with Golden Boy. There were would seem to be little high level competition for him to face that isn't already locked up in competing orgs like EliteXC, Dream, or Strikeforce.

Oldie but goodie

Editorial: Gotta love the intro image for this video........ the painkillers look like they have just taken affect on Mark Kerr as he is cutting his promo......look at those lidded eyes.....

IFL to Vegas: Buh-Bye...

According to the Tarheel guy over at mmapayout.com , after dismal sales of their Vegas event the IFL has shitcanned the idea of doing anymore cards in Sin City. You have think that Jay Larkin and the IFL brain trust will step up their efforts to further penetrate the Northeastern US market. The idea at first for this year was to hit Vegas and the The twin Northeastern markets of Foxwoods Casino and the Izod Center in Northern Jersey/NYC metro Area. At the time i thought this was a decent idea but they left out some markets where they actually have drawn good houses like Portland and the Quad-Cities area. They should bring these two markets back into the fold since Vegas is no longer an option. Another cities in the northeast market they might want to possibly pursue are Philly and Boston.

Dream to HDnet......Sengoku to...

With the new that Dream is close to finalizing a deal with HDNet to air six installments of the new japanese fighting organization...you have to ask yourself where that leaves the other Japanese promotion hoping to replace Pride, that being World Victory Road's Sengoku. The idea that makes the most sense would be a partnership/working relationship of some degree with EliteXC. A meeting of the minds would be beneficial to both parties for many reasons.

A working relationship between WVR and Elite would provide Elite with an additional source of programming for their Showtime/ShoXC/CBS/Proelite.com media slots. Adding Sengoku events to the plothora of cards already offered would provide Elite with a prescence on an almost weekly basis on their various properties. Having Sengoku events on their fight card would also boost the bona fides of Elite with hardcore fans. At times their seems a dearth of top shelf talent in the Elite offered cards, introducing Top 5 talents like Josh Barnett and Takanori Gomi would go aways to amending this view.

Working with EliteXC would allow Sengoku a leg up when it comes to using American Based talent, and conversely would allow EliteXC to have a favorable relationship with American Gaijin who may want to fight in the states. American fighters like Josh Barnett and Nick Thompson fight for Sengoku and could be marketed to the American public without the need to have them under contract and on Elite's dime. If these guys decide to comeback stateside Elite would be a natural conduit since they would already have been hyped on Elite show stateside. On the Sengoku side, they could get first dibs on Elite-based talent that is looking internationally. Instead of Elite lightweight eddie alvarez going to Dream's lightweight GP, you could possible see him in Sengoku instead in a match-up with resident superstar Takanori Gomi. Other lightweights like Nick Diaz or Yves Edwards could also be opponents for Gomi, either in Japan or on a stateside card.

EliteXC owns the Korean based fighting org SpiritMC. Increasingly the Japanese fighting market is evolving and spreading through out greater asia. FEG in the past has sought to extend their MMA brands over into the Korean market, using Korean-descent stars like Denis Kang and Akiyama to break the market. They had a Heroes show in Korea this past October and likely will have future Dream cards there. If Sengoku is to have a level playing field with Dream, the Korean market will need to be in Play. Working with Elite's Spirit would allow for an exchange of talent to supplement Sengoku cards and would also provide an in country organization familiar with the intricacies of that particular market.

More Bart P love.....

Devidas Taurosevicious vs Bart 1

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Bart Palaszewski vs Deividas Taurosevicius IFL
Uploaded by Princenino

Gesias Calvancanti vs Palaszewski - IC 6
Uploaded by kreem

Against Calvan, Bart got caught.... shit happens....

Bart Palaszewski Interview

Bodine at the Zsportlounge sits down with Bart P to talk his April 4th Fight



full interview here

Baka Survivor!!!!!

In all the lead to up to the Aoki-Calvan showdown at Dream1, and all the controversy coming out of the finish, one thing remains certain.....



Aoki's theme song kicks ass!!!! That promo show had this thing on a fucking loop....and it has been burned into my brain!!!!

At the Newstand

The Grabaka Hitman Invades...

Inside MMA reported on Friday that Top 10 middleweight fighter Kazuo Misaki has signed a two fight deal with StrikeForce. The deal is non-exclusive, allowing Misaki to continue fighting in Japan. Misaki probably has the best resume in the 185lb division, there isn't anybody this guy won't fight.... He's sort of the Anti-Lindland. He's fought henderson twice, Marquardt twice, akiyama, kang, frank trigg, filho, baroni, jake shields, ricardo almeida......just a laundry list of great fighters. Hopefully they will maybe try and use him in a co-promotion with eliteXC and some of their MW's or they will pair him with Cung Le in their own division.

Dream 1 Thoughts.....

This wasn't a bad card overall, not nearly the disaster that some are making it out to be. I gave the card somewhere in the 6.5 to 7 range out of 10. The card had it's freak show fights and huge mismatches but then again this is a Japanese MMA card, so what were you really expecting. Those two items are staples of the MMA Scene in japan, and are vital to helping get the product over to the average man on the street in Tokyo. You gonna see Bobby Ologunun, Zulu Jr, Giant Silva on future cards so you may as well get used to it now.

The lightweight grand prix had it's moments good and bad. One general feeling i got from the card was that the 155 ranks in the former K-1 Heroes was not very good. Just looking at the guys, a lot of them look like blown up 145ers. Discounting the quality of Heroes 155ers also tend to make me question the guy that has been running roughshod on them, one JZ Calvan. Calvan looked very impressive in his match with Aoki, despite the no contest. The main event of Aoki vs Calvan was a bit of a let down with the NC finish, but Calvan is lucky he made it out of the fight without a DQ loss on his record.

Some of the fights left a little to be desired action wise. One of the main draws for me of the old Pride cards was the wide open free flowing nature of the fights themselves. The Kawajiri and Ishida fights tended to be anything but wide open or free flowing. If i want to see boring lay and pray control from the top with no effort to finish, I can stick with most UFC cards.

The star of the card could turn out to be American Eddie Alvarez. He came in with his wrestling but unleashed a brutal round and pound that had the Dide that was mad-dogging him at the pre fight presser cowering and turtling up in submission. Alvarez is coming down from 170 and looked fresh and full of energy at 155. Whoever draws him in the next round will have their hands full.

Buscape and Hellboy Hansen looked impressive in their matches and pairing them up for the next round would be a really good contest. Hansen was choked out by Aoki's gogplata a while back, so Buscape's BJJ prowess would be a good measure to see if he has raised the bar for his game when the fight hits the ground.

Here is how i would pair them up for the next round:

Aoki vs Calvan 2
Hansen vs Buscape
Alvarez vs Ishida
Kawajiri vs Nagata - assures at least one japanese fighter makes it to the semi's

Dream 1:

Mirko CroCop vs Tomatosu Kanyoru
Buscape vs Miyata

Kawajiri vs Black Mamba
Ishida vs Jung
Nagata vs Oumakhanov


Eddie Alvarez vs Andre Dide Amare

JZ Calvan vs Shinya Aoki
Hansen vs Boku
Minowa-man vs Some Freak
Sakurai vs Monma

Another Reason MMA is not a sport:

Let me preface this by saying i love MMA and can't watch enough of it, but deep down I don't feel it is truly a legitimate sport. It occupies a territory somewhere between specatacle, entertainment, and sport. Reading this most recent passage tends to fuel this sentiment. Randy Couture on Bubba the Love Sponge recently:

When asked if he wagers on the fights at all, Randy said he had only bet on fighting once. And that was the Phil Baroni vs. Evan Tanner fight. He said Tanner was considered an underdog at the time and he felt he would win. Since then he hasn’t bet on any fights including his own.

This isn't aimed at Randy, I'm sure he's not the only MMA fighter to ever bet on a fight. I'm sorry but in any other of the big four sports, betting on your sport would get you a nice long ban from competition. MMA is a post modern sport in may respects, and one of these areas is it's oddly symbiotic relationship with wagering and gambling. In MMA, you don't get thrown out of the league for wearing a t-shirt with a sportsbook sponsor, you get thrown out for wearing the wrong sportsbook sponsor (the whole Dana vs Lindland imbroglio). Hell, for a little while you had a sportsbook actually running a promotion, in BodogFights. Can anyone imagine a basketball or football league being run by betting interests and being taken seriously in anyway?

I know that my feelings run contrary to what you will see in most of the MMA media, but then again with out bettor advertising, would there even be a MMA media? The pre-imminent magazine in the industry, Fight Magazine, is published by gambling media stalwart Bluff Media. Most of the early blogs that popped up like UFCJUnkie.com and UFCmania.com relied heavily on sportsbook advertising for cashflow. They both had their in house touts (Performify and Desert Dog) to hype their picks and point you in the direction of the sportsbook they were getting premiums for referring. The early incarnations of those sites were as much tout sheets as news sites.

Horodecki opponent named

According to the IFL website New England fighter Nate Lamotte has been matched up with Chris Horodecki for the April 4th IFL card. The northeasten Grappler will be coming down in weight from 170 to fight Horodecki, who is coming off his first professional loss to Ryan Schultz.

Masterpiece

Beef Volume 3: A Japanese Conflict - Yoshihiro Akiyama x Kazuo Misaki

Misaki Akiyama by Genghis Con

Yoko

Barnett vs Yoshida

Worst Skin?

Fedor's forehead



Nick Diaz's scar tissue around the eyes




Luke Thomas' thin skin when being disagreed with.


You make the call!!!!

sanchez

B - s
by eMMA-TV

Prediction Performance

UFC 82 Performance

MMAGirls(entire card via her MMAPredictions page): 5-5
robnashville: 8-2

Year to Date UFC Picks
MMAGirls(entire card via her MMAPredictions page): 27-10
robnashville: 25-12

Damn Roy

Get more pictures like this from SHERDOG.COM