frankie edgar has the chin of a 400 lb gorilla... i can't believe he survived that first round - again!

ps: the commentators confirmed what i thought - edgar doesn't even have to cut weight, whereas maynard walks around at 200lbs.

pps: some of you may know about this already, but you can watch MMA fights here: http://www.pancrase.org (they're usually up the next day after the fight night)

Yeah hes tiny, i would say hes not much bigger than dominick cruz even. Dana white was saying that he wants frankie to fight jose aldo which would be amazing, i can see it happening as there arent too many guys left for aldo to fight part from mendes and maybe the winner of hioki/roop.

Frankie Edgar definitely has a lion's heart. He's shown glimpses of Big Nog in his last couple fights and miraculously overcame huge adversity in both of them to get the wins. I don't think anyone should be questioning this guy anymore, not that anyone should have been before this fight even. That he's on such a tear despite the fact he shouldn't even be fighting at 155 is unbelievable. I can't say I feel too bad for Gray though. I just don't know how you can get so close on not one but two different occasions and manage to blow it in precisely the same fashion both times. Like you said George, midway through that second round he should have been having flashes of deja vu because I know I was. But I was thinking to myself there's no possible way that someone who trains so hard could make the same mistake like that twice but sure enough he did. It should have been one of the focal points of his training camp to fix the critical error in his last fight and know what to do should it arise again. Fool me once, shame on you, Fool me twice...? Gray is a great talent and he's going to keep on winning but he's got to get his fight iq to snuff. I gotta point out too that Goldberg's statement about Gray walking around at 200 pounds was grossly overstated. Rogan said "He does?!" right after in disbelief. Nobody at 155 is walking around at 200 pounds. Guys are making huge weight cuts but I can't see anyone getting past 185-ish in the off-season in that division. There should be 'Bergisms much like Bushisms to account for all the ludicrous exclamations he makes. Great great fight though! They need to get Melendez in their now who I think can shake up the whole division.

And Aldo again went the distance but his win was no less dominant and impressive I thought. Kenny Florian is a serious fighter with more high-level experience than anyone Aldo has ever fought. The thing that really impressed me was how dominant Jose was on the ground. He improved position so easily and so flawlessly against a very seasoned and experienced jiu-jitsu practitioner in Florian. He mounted him a couple times like it was nothing. Kenny really had nothing for Aldo besides stalling tactics against the cage. If Kenny spent less time pressing and holding Aldo I think he could have put Kenny in more danger. Mendes will be a very interesting fight with his top notch wrestling but after seeing how good Aldo was on the ground I'm not so sure it'll be enough. And as was mentioned by BlueTrain, should Aldo get past Mendes I'd love to see them line up Hatsu Hioki (I figure he should have no problem submitting Roop).

And Sonnen getting the submission? I know I never seen it coming! Sonnen is just so good at getting guys to the ground and effectively beating them up and pounding them out. He uses wrestling in the way I think it should be used and that's to set up meaningful and effective offense, not to gain dominant position and nothing more. Off the top of my head I don't know if anyone else at any division is using their wrestling quite as effectively as he is against elite opposition. Never settling for dominant position, he smashes away at every opening he gets. The Silva -vs- Sonnen rematch has got to happen now and it will be a good one. I really can't wait for that.

Maia and Pettis' wins wern't super impressive by any means but will still take them one step closer to contendership. The fight I really want to see for Maia is a rematch with Mark Munoz because I feel he won the first fight despite the judges' decisions (although admittedly it was a close fight) but I doubt we'll see that fight anytime soon because I don't think anyone is calling for it. And how about Pettis -vs- Lauzon now?

Speaking of which, Guillard's loss was a huge letdown for me and I can't help but think if they fought 9 more times, Guillard would win basically all of them. There's no way Lauzon was rocking him like that if not for Guillard walking straight into that punch like he did. And without rocking him he probably wasn't getting the fight anywhere near the ground to get a submission which was his only real way of winning. It was just such a perfect sequence of events in Lauzon's favour that I could never see happening again. A win is a win though and I won't take that away from him and he deserves another big fight. Further proving I think there was alot of luck involved, I'll almost guarantee he loses the next fight he gets against anyone in the top 10 of the division. Listen to me, I'm probably just bitter!

Lastly, anyone catch the Darren Elkins fight? I havn't had the chance yet but he's quietly working his way into relevance with his last couple wins. Darren "the Asian-Killer" Elkins? I think a main card or television prelim fight should be deserved at this point. Give him one of the young up-and-comers like Dustin Poirier or Erik Koch.


Peace fellas!

Well i think gray gassed himself the first time round when he had frankie hurt then the second time he over compensated and basically let frankie back into the fight. The thing bout gray being 200 at one point was true according to this http://www.cleveland.com/sports/index.s ... t_edw.html though he definitely didnt cut from that weight he probably went from 185 and cut bout 15-20 of water weight.

I think the guillard loss was him underestimating lauzon and getting overconfident, he looked great in that opening exchange then he came in wild and joe caught him. I think he'll learn his lesson, he'll be a top contender in a year or so i believe. Pettis/Lauzon seems like a good fight to make now and it would deliver in spades.

shame about gsp

kevin iole thinks matt mitrione will be fighting for the heavyweight championship in a year... do any of you guys agree? (i think that's reaching a bit too far... i'm not even sure he can handle kongo, i'd give him maybe a 50/50 chance at this point)

btw i do think blagoi ivanov is a potential top 10 heavyweight...

Yeah, the card is still stacked though im really looking foward to it.

I doubt mitrione will get past cup chieck for a start, i certainly dont see him fighting for the belt anytime soon. Then again we havent seen him against a higher ranked heavyweight yet, so we'll so how he goes. Chieck is definitely a good test for him, mitrione is a guy who likes to throw down and chieck is a real good striker. To me mitrione has some technical flaws in his striking but has some great power and reach. Hes also 33, so he doesnt have much time left in his physical prime unless hes some randy or hendo type of guy. I see him being a gatekeeper type who regularly puts on fun fights.

Nick gave bj a hell of a beatdown, showed how legendary bj's chin is. He took an incredible amount of punches right to the face and still didnt go down. So now nick has been placed ahead of a condit for a shot at the title, apparently gsp got really upset and wants to fight nick badly. Should be a very interesting fight, hopefully george actually tries to fight him instead of outpoint him.

Rest of the card was ok, sucked seeing cro cop lose again. He had big country in some trouble there but that guy is just impossible to put away. He never seemed the same after the gonzaga fight for whatever reason, hasn't looked sharp like he did in pride for years. Mitrione/Kongo was a letdown, i was expecting fireworks but neither guy went all out. Hioki's debut was a bit disappointing, i was hoping he'd go for more submissions given how many dominant positions he had but he ended up fitching his way to a win. All three prelim fights i saw were excellent, cerrone is on a tear and has to be one win away from a title shot. Marshall/Vera got really intriguing at the end, i thought it should of been a draw with vera winning the first 2 then marshall getting a 10-8 at the end.

apparently vera broke his arm and just had to survive that last round.

i also made a post about how kongo-mitrione was supposed to be fireworks and said there's no way it's anything but a 1st round KO... then after the fight deleted it out of embarassement

btw, did you guys hear anything about tim kennedy going to the ufc? if it's true, i'm quite excited... i don't know if this is overrating him, but he may be the best middleweight outside of sonnen to challenge anderson silva. if i were dana white/joe silva, i'd put him in a title eliminator fight right away, either vs bisping or munoz/leben winner.

the strikeforce middleweight division is a total mess... actually all their divisions are a mess - three of their titles are vacant with champs going to the ufc; that's shameful... with fedor gone, melendez leaving after one more fight, and their talent pool halfway depleted, how long will it be before zuffa pulls the plug?? it seems that half of the guys have hinted at switching to ufc very soon - lawal, mousasi, werdum, et al.
how sad after just a year ago they seemed to be on the verge of challenging ufc with their depth of talent pool and the heavyweight grand prix...

Can't blame you for that, i was expecting it to be a war given the way kongo and mitrione fight usually.

Yeah strikeforce is really screwed at the moment with 3 vacant titles as well as gil looking likely to make the switch to the ufc, the whole 'business as usual' thing from dana was rubbish. I agree they were strong competition for the ufc at one point with fedor, overeem, werdum, diaz, hendo, shields, mousasi, lawal, melendez etc. all on their roster as well as a tv deal. I think mma in america is so strongly associated with the ufc that its going to be difficult for anyone to legitimately compete with them, strikeforce mostly made its name through their acquisition of fedor who ended up being a disappointment. In some ways its good that we have all the top names in one organisation so that they cant fight each other but its kinda sad to see strikeforce crumble as badly as it has. Zuffa may keep it as a feeder organisation to the ufc maybe in the way that shooto and deep work in japan.

ha... i think most things coming out of white's mouth are rubbish... two days after guaranteeing condit the title shot over penn/diaz, he gives it to diaz... and then all the tall tales of flying to russia and holding extensive talks with "crazy russian guys" (aka fedor's camp) which turns out never happened

just a week left before "the fight"... nice show from ufc on the background of the two guys... obviously made more for the casual fans - not much is said about their fight styles or their careers - but it's fairly interesting anyway...

http://sports.yahoo.com/video/player/mm ... a/27140989


btw, any thoughts on the fight? predictions? frankly i have no idea... both guys seem unbeatable... (though if you put a gun to my head, i'd probably say cain)

Very evenly matched fight. JDS seems like the bigger fighter and has more mustard in his punches i believe, cains got the advantage in the wrestling and cardio. Junior showed good take down defence against shane which leads me to believe cain wont be able to take jds down at least early in the fight. If the fight goes into deep waters cain will have the advantage and he throws lots of leg kicks which will wear on jds later on. Im gonna make a bold prediction and say junior by knockout in round 2 via an uppercut. From what ive heard fox is only airing the cain/jds fight which is disappointing, i believe they'll regret that choice when guida/bendo ends up being a fight for the ages. Id liked the original idea of airing the main event then picking and choosing from the prelims.

whoa.... so you think if Cigano couldn't knock out Roy Nelson and Shane Carwin (admittedly, two dudes with iron chins), he will knock out Cain? I think Cain's chin is as good as theirs.... and I also think Cain is too smart and too patient to do something as stupid as rush at him with his head exposed for a KO. (Cain reminds me of Fedor at his peak - super well-rounded, super focused, super tough, super cool under pressure)
and i think you're right on the mark - cardio may be end up being key.... the first round or two, Junior may have the slightest edge... in almost all his fights i've seen, 90% of the damage he's done was in the first round... but the further it goes the more Cain is favored and the more of a chance he has of controlling Cigano by either taking him down (i think Cain is very capable of doing it) or closing the distance and perhaps roughing him up against the cage with dirty boxing.

i also agree that guida-henderson might be at least as interesting as the title fight. who do you have in that one?

You'll be happy to know that Henderson -vs- Guida as well as Poirier -vs- Garza will be broadcast on Fox Deportes at 7pm ET.

I was kind of shocked seeing Leben give up after two rounds last night. I understand that if you can't see it's unfortunate and it's a judgement call only you can make but I still never would have imagined Leben throwing in the towel like that. And I couldn't believe how gassed Leben was after only the first round too. Munoz does have some power when he can open up from top position but other than that I'm just really not that optimistic about his prospects in a fight with Anderson Silva. His takedown ability and wrestling is severely overrated (according to FightMetric he only hits 23% of his takedown attempts) and he's been rocked in way too many of his fights for me to think he can even survive for 5 rounds, let alone win the fight. In fact he even got wobbled by Maia in his last fight which I had scored 29-28 in Maia's favour. Unfortunately, Munoz really is one of the best options for a title shot right now considering the middleweight landscape.

Renan Pegado was extremely impressive though with his submission over Brad Pickett. The combination he used that dropped Pickett was particularly brutal and his stand-up in general seems to be getting sharp and potent. And his reflexes and quickness to react on the floor is top notch too. It's not often you see someone get choked out with their entire lower face involved in the squeeze! Very impressive stuff. Should Miguel Torres win his fight at UFC 139 I'd love to see him paired against Pegado. Nova Uniao is really pumping out the talent right now.




There's so much MMA coming up over the next couple months. Almost every weekend from now until New Year's there is atleast one major card taking place. The UFC on Fox next weekend is a going to be a great freebie, especially considering we'll be getting Henderson -vs- Guida and another top notch prelim fight in Dustin Poirier -vs- Pablo Garza.