Sunday Soccer Kicks

Well, it’s Sunday and in the wake of UFC 152 you are probably crawling out of bed right now, head throbbing, wondering why you decided to pound so many beers in between rounds last night. Don’t act like I’m the only one who slams a beer in the 60 seconds between rounds, you know you do it too, and if you don’t then this site is not for you. I’m starting off slow today, so let’s enjoy some footage of Shogun Rua soccer kicking his opponent into oblivion back during the glory days of Pride FC. This clip is brutal, one of my favorites, and a perfect metaphor for how my head is feeling right now. Enjoy.

JJ's UFC152 Picks

Remember that scene in Pulp Fiction when Samuel L. Jackson tells Tim Roth that he is trying really, really hard to be the shepherd? That’s sort of how I feel, only I’m not trying to be a shepherd, or in the case of Samuel L. Jackson’s character, not shoot a man in the face in the middle of a crowded diner, but instead I am battling my own personal demon who I have named Balthazar Getty the Demon. Now what Balthazar Getty the Demon does is he prevents from feeling any sort of excitement towards UFC152’s main event and co-main event. I’m stoked for Bisping/Stann and Oliveira/Swanson, but that’s it. I wanted Jones/Hendo and Benavidez/McCall. Anyway with a new UFC event comes new predictions, so check out my picks for this weekend’s card over on Arm Chair Nation. Just click the link below.

UFC 152 Predictions on Armchairnation.com

Frank Mir's Out...

I am slowly coming to peace with the fact that there are several things in life that I will never be able to do because I am in fact dirt poor and barring some insane lottery win or a Vegas trip that actually pays off I will probably remain that way and will someday have to be housed by my yet unborn children because by the age of 65 I will have foolishly squandered every cent I’ve ever made hoping to win the lottery or trying to make a Vegas trip pay off. I recently added to the list, which mostly contains activities such as yachting, infinity pools, and penthouse suites at the Wynn, is Frank Mir v. Daniel Cormier. Mir pulled out of the fight yesterday citing a knee injury, and dammit, I’m disappointed. It’s unclear how long Frank is out or who will be Dan’s final Strikeforce opponent. 

TUF Recap

TUF kicked off last night with 32 welterweight fighters hoping for a shot in the UFC. As the WWs arrived at Mandalay they were greeted with a profanity laced rant from Dana White which, thanks to the censors at FX, made little to no sense. Shane Carwin looked especially uncomfortable next to Roy Nelson who had a seemingly never ending bag of cheeseburgers and a bucket of coke. Then my doorbell rang, the pizza was here. Josh works for Domino’s and has delivered three pizzas to me a week for the last two years, we’ve become tight. He told me he was having a crappy night and asked for a beer before going back. We ended up playing a game of Madden before his boss called his cell wondering where he was. Anyway that’s how I assume the night would have gone if I wasn’t at work. I didn’t watch TUF.

Play the Dana White Drinking Game

Next time you’re bored do what I do: play the Dana White drinking game. It’s really simple, start with a bottle of Sailor Jerry (or whatever happens to be in your particular liquor cabinet), turn on a random interview/press conference with Dana, and take a swig anytime he drops an F bomb. If it happens to be from the infamous UFC151 incident you are guaranteed to wake up the next morning like a frat boy on Spring Break. Dana recently went off on Jon Jones and Greg Jackson, again, and he sounded like a sailor on shore leave, voicing his displeasure with everyone and saying how he can’t wait to get alone with Jon Jones in a small room in Toronto and figure this out man to man. Anyway, you should check out the full story HERE, it’s well worth it, so long as you do the bottle thing. 

Do We Really Need GSP/Silva?

They’re back again, whispers of a Super Fight between GSP and Anderson Silva, and this time Dana is on board talking Cowboy’s Stadium in 2013. If Anderson wants to keep competing there is work to be done at Middleweight: Weidman, Stann, Bisping. In GSP’s case now is not the time, the Welterweights have been holding since he fought Shields in April 2011 and new threats have emerged: Hendricks, Ellenberger, Kampmann, and Interim Champ Condit; GSP has work to do before talking Silva. I know most will disagree, but I am more interested in seeing Champions fight in their own divisions, not Super Fights for the sake of finding out who is the best. I just see this as an instance of if Anderson wins he did what he was supposed to do, if he loses than they say he was always overrated; it’s the same for GSP.

Weidman/Boetsch added to UFC155

In a middleweight bout that I don’t think anyone ever asked for yet oddly makes sense, if you think of it only as busy work, Chris Weidman and Tim Boetsch have been tapped to face each other at UFC155. Weidman is 5-0 since joining the UFC and Boetsch is 4-0 since dropping to middleweight, including the lackluster derailment of Hector Lombard’s hype train. With Anderson Silva sitting out until sometime in 2013 and in talks for a superfight with GSP it’s hard to imagine the winner of this fight not facing the winner of Bisping/Stann for the number one contender slot as Silva weighs his options. This means if the superfight actually happens, the MW Championship could sit undefended until sometime next summer. Somewhere in England Michael Bisping just choked a little on his earl grey.

Holy Crap! Hector Lombard is Fighting Rousimar Palhares

I just got released from the hospital after a month of near death experiences so don’t expect much from me, but at least give me an “A” for effort for trying to blow the dust off MMA150 and get it going again after weeks of having red stuff drained out of my liver through five separate tubes (No, it was not alcohol related either). Hector Lombard needs to blow the dust off whatever the hell that was at UFC149 and try and get back on track, the problem is he’s going to be facing off against Rousimar Palhares whose name literally translates to, “The Remover of Limbs” this December at UFC on FX 6. Lombard claims he was injured last time out which led to his poor performance, but this fight should finally answer all the questions about where he truly ranks as a middleweight.   

An MMA150 Update

If you are a frequent reader of MMA150, you may have noticed a large stretch of inactivity. You would be correct. But I have not shut down the blog, or lost interest, or anything of the sort; I have been very under the weather. I hope to continue work on the blog again as soon as I can get my ass out of bed and start feeling ok. Hopefully it won’t be much longer.

Cheers,

JJ

The Carwin/Nelson Build Up is Just.... Awful

Like a bad hangover, I wish that TUF would just go away, because it leaves me feeling sick to my stomach, sprawled on the couch, clutching my liver, gasping for air and occasionally vomiting into a small plastic bucket. I just can’t take Roy Nelson and Shane Carwin serious as I watch them try to build hype for their upcoming coaching gigs and eventual fight. “Hey let’s trade verbal jabs on twitter, cuz that’s cool, wait, people actually use twitter? Crap, we better delete our comments.” Let’s not forget one of them calling the other a “keyboard warrior” I’m not sure who said it, because I don’t care, and I have no idea what that means unless he was referring to World of Warcraft; the only thing worse than this Carwin/Nelson feud is Nick Diaz calling out Anderson Silva, Busch Lite, or possibly Greedo shooting first, possibly.