Fighter Futures: Chad "Money" Mendes

Dana White stopped just short of apologizing to Mendes for wasting his time with Cody McKenzie during the post-fight press conference at UFC148. There are a couple fights that make sense for the featherweight following his win, but there is one in particular I am pulling for: Erik Koch. The way I see it any fire burning for an Aldo/Koch fight was extinguished by the Korean Zombie, who in all likelihood will be getting the next crack at the title. A rebound win over McKenzie is not enough to become the number one contender, especially since Mendes was just KO’d by Aldo in January. Let Aldo fight Zombie so we have a FW title fight with some actual hype people can get behind, and let Koch/Mendes duke it out in a title eliminator to prove their deserving of Aldo.

Fighter Futures: Chael Sonnen

He came, he saw, he talked monumental amounts of trash you will pass off as your own for decades, and just like that he was defeated. I’m not sure Chael has a future while Anderson is still champion; he won't get another shot, so who? So long as Anderson remains there isn’t another fight that makes sense except for “perpetual gatekeeper” and then, best case, he stops a surging contender while gaining nothing in return. Until Anderson retires, or the belt changes hands, every fight Chael has is the equivalent of treading water in the middle of the ocean. Chael was the perfect foil to a champion that comes along once in forever, but like all great villains he fell short. Just for the sake of seeing them fight I would guess Chael gets paired with Wanderlei or Vitor, if they’re not fighting each other. Damn, I’m depressed now. 

Fighter Futures: Anderson Silva

I think at this point Anderson has earned the right to do whatever the hell he wants in the realm of MMA. You can make the argument he cheated, but nothing affected the outcome of the fight, and you know that… that knee was perfectly legal; you can also make the argument that global warming isn’t real, just to keep things in perspective. Naysayers will always be there, but Silva won that fight, just ask Chael. As far as what’s next… anything is fair game. Personally I wish Anderson would ride into the sunset because there’s nothing left. He is a legend, a myth, someone fighters will tell their children about, and if anyone deserves to retire as champion it’s the man who has held it for the last six years and defended it a record breaking ten times. 

Rampage Jackson v. Glover Teixeira is Going Down

Teixeira has been looking for an opponent since his May win over Kyle Kingsbury, and Rampage has been looking for someone who won’t, “take him down and hump him” for three rounds, and I really want to be excited for this fight, but I’m not. Rampage has made it no secret he is done fighting for the UFC once his contract expires, and he is coming off back to back losses to Jon Jones and Ryan Bader. During the Bader fight he even went “Rumble” on us and missed weight by six pounds. My point being, it doesn’t seem like Rampage is in it anymore, he has become the definition of a paycheck fighter. This fight is however very beneficial to Teixeira whose 18-2 resume is lacking any name credibility; a win over Rampage opens the door to better fights such as Thiago Silva, Bader, or Phil Davis.

UFC is Coming to Russia

I’m sure Russia has some kind of amazing and elaborate history, but in America we only find it necessary to educate students about the Cold War, and how we won the Space Race. Other than that Americans are taught that all Russian women are named Natasha or Nikita, and that all the men are name Vladimir. In fact I can only name two Russians and one of them is Vladimir Putin and the other is Fedor. There was that Russian guy from Rocky 4 who was played by Dolph Lundgren, who according to Wikipedia, is Swedish. I guess I also know Dostoyevsky, but his first name is Fyodor, which is a variation of Fedor so naturally I assume they are the same man; I am an ignorant American. Anyway, the UFC is apparently planning an endeavor Russia, and according to Dana White, it is coming, “Sooner then you think.”

Overeem: JDS is Afraid to Fight Me

Clearly, that’s why JDS infiltrated Alistair’s medical compound Solid Snake Style and spiked his injections with testosterone, ensuring he would fail his drug test and ultimately be stripped of his chance to fight for the UFC title. Overeem has been incredibly vocal these last few weeks, calling out JDS and challenging him for the title. There should be a rule implemented in MMA, where if you are suspended for X amount of time you are also not allowed to talk because Alistair is coming across like a raving lunatic. First he admits the “mystery” injections were spiked without his knowledge, then he agrees to submit to his own randomly scheduled drug tests, and now he says JDS isn’t fighting him because he is afraid. No dude, JDS is not fighting you because you got caught with a 16:1 T level and are suspended until December 27^th. 

UFC148 Recap: Cote/Le

I recently discovered that I have a massive man-crush on Patrick Cote, so watching him lose to Cung Le was very similar to being the weird kid in high school who hides under the bleachers at football games so you can watch Ashley the brunette cheerleader, as she throws her legs in the air and continues to try and rally the home team even in the face of defeat, and god, if you only had the time to talk to her, but science class is only 45 minutes long and your lab tables are on other ends of the room and after class you go in opposite directions. That was all one sentence. Cote seemed to play a little too cautious which I found disappointing, I thought he would have gone for broke in his first fight back in the UFC. I wonder what Ashley is up to these days…

UFC148 Recap: Ortiz/Griffin 3

I’ve never cared for Forrest Griffin, but also never had a reason other than I just didn’t like him; kind of like how when you’re a kid you hate vegetables, only to grow up and declare your independence in the rebellious act of becoming a vegetarian leaving your parents completely indifferent because you are finally eating everything they have been trying to feed you for sixteen years. Sorry, I got off on a tangent there, but teenage rebellion is stupid, you’ll figure that out someday. I thought Tito won that fight, in fact according to Chael Sonnen Math, Tito did win that fight. I just invented Chael Sonnen Math, but you can use it on your next college examine, just hope you don’t have to deal with any triangles. Boo Yah, arithmetic humor, bet you weren’t expecting that. This was supposed to be about Forrest and Tito, but F-it.

UFC148 Recap: Silva/Sonnen 2

There has been a lot of buzz left from Silva/Sonnen 2 and frankly, I don’t understand why. I sincerely doubt Anderson was greasing, he was nervous, and whatever small amount of Vaseline he was able to apply seemed irrelevant as Sonnen took him down in under 10 seconds. The short grabbing was strange but had no effect on the outcome. Next came the knee and the “bad intentions” behind it. I’m sorry, but this is MMA, there are no good intentions, the object is to incapacitate the other. “It was too close to the head of a downed opponent,” so what if it was close, the most accurate striker in MMA put his knee where he wanted it. Honestly, I think we all wanted a more exciting fight and right now, after two years of build-up, we’re all a little disappointed that we didn’t get five rounds of fireworks. 

Silva/Sonnen 2 is TONIGHT!!

Remember that episode of South Park where Cartman digitally alters Kenny’s face into a giant butt, then gets it printed as a missing child on the back of a milk carton only to have two parents with giants butts for heads show up at his door thinking that he’s found their missing child? After this happens Cartman is unable to laugh at anything ever again, because he has seen something so funny and he knows that nothing will ever come close to being that funny again. That pretty much sums up my feelings for Silva/Sonnen 2. I doubt I will ever again be this excited for a fight, in fact I hope the Mayans are right and the world does end this December (via the Reptilians), because after Silva/Sonnen 2 the rest of my life is pretty much meh…