Thread: The Official MMA Thread

Originally Posted by ASUcruz

Tito is a jackass, he was the one who wanted it written into his contract, now he backs out. What a dope. And I'm a Tito fan!

From what he writes on his blog it seemed that he didn't do too much research into the gig at first. It appears it didn't end up being what he wanted.

K-1, Pride's biggest rival in Japan has gotten into MMA recently. Usually, K-1 events are just kickboxing, but they now have K-1 hereos which is pretty much their MMA branch. Anyways, they put together a card along with EliteXC.

Interesting names on the card,

Royce Gracie
Brock Lesnar
Johnnie Morton. Yes, THAT Johnnie Morton.

Originally Posted by ASUcruz

K-1, Pride's biggest rival in Japan has gotten into MMA recently. Usually, K-1 events are just kickboxing, but they now have K-1 hereos which is pretty much their MMA branch. Anyways, they put together a card along with EliteXC.

Interesting names on the card,

Royce Gracie
Brock Lesnar
Johnnie Morton. Yes, THAT Johnnie Morton.

As long as the Foxy Gina Carano continues to fight on PPV for EliteXc, I will continue to watch.

IT would be awesome if Kazushi was on that K-1 card!

Originally Posted by OvertimeHero

Thinking about the merger, I really hope Dana and the Fertittas go through with their MMA "Superbowl" but at the same time, I hope they don't create belts for it. That was the problem I always had with boxing, was that there were too many belts, and the average person couldn't distinguish which one actually meant the most. I think a trophy for each weight class would be better. That way, you can have the "superbowl" once a year, and there's a good chance that many of the fighters will change from year to year to keep it interesting, rather than knowing that you're going to watch Fighter A again because even though he's lost his last 2 matches, he won the belt here last year, so he's got to defend it. Because I think if you have an event like this too often, it would get stale. Sure, have a few crossover fights throughout the year, but just have the one big yearly event that everyone will want to see.

Thoughts?

I think belts are fine. Keep it where there are Pride belts and UFC belts and in cross over bouts(I bet all of which will happen under the UFC banner in the US), that's where we get unification bouts.

One thing that is interesting is that PRIDE will now adopt the unified rules and weight classes that the UFC uses.

So knees on the ground and stops are out and elbows are in. The Chute Box guys use stops a lot but for the best fighters it shouldn't matter to much.

The weight class thing is interesting. Many have speculated that PRIDE has protected Gomi by having their LW division limit 160 pounds because Gomi can't make 155. With the way things work now 155 will be the LW limit and Gomi might have to move up to 170.

GSP vs. Gomi? I'd pay to see it!

Originally Posted by lagwagon0

As long as the Foxy Gina Carano continues to fight on PPV for EliteXc, I will continue to watch.

Yep, she's on that card.

So is this huge Korean guy Hong Man Choi.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hong_man_choi

Good news. Brandon Vera wants to stay in the UFC.

http://www.thefightnetwork.com/news_detail.php?nid=3519

Here are a couple of interesting reads on the merger, sorry if anybody has already seen them.

http://www.ocregister.com/ocregister...le_1633234.php

http://www.pridefc.com/pride2005/ind...s&news_id=1035

On a side note maybe that other thread should be deleted or merged with this one.

Two UFC cards this week. One free one and one PPV.

Tommorow is an Ultimate Fight Night Card that leads into the first episode of TUF 5.

Card tommorow isn't a bad one, the main event is a really good one. Joe Stevenson of TUF 2 fame and Melvin Guillard of TUF 1 fame. There's been some trash talk between these 2 so I'm expecting a good fight.

Stevenson is a well rounded fighter but his strenghts are on the ground. While Guillard is a pretty good wrestler but his strenght is standing up. He's an explosive striker. Stevenson will try and take Guillard down and pound him out or sumbit him while I expect Guillard to try and keep the fight standing. Although Guillard has pretty good ground skills. This should be a good fight. If Stevenson wins he could be in line for a title shot at Sean Sherk.

I am pretty excited for this seasons TUF. It's all lightweights and that will make for an exciting show. THe coaches are BJ Penn and Jens Pulver who don't really like each other and come from different worlds. Penn is a rich kid from Hawaii and Pulver is a farm boy from Iowa. So its an interesting mix.

All you MMA fans, make sure you check out the UFN card on tommorow as well as the first episode of TUF! We will discuss on Friday!