Lei Tong

In news that will excite all of 2 people, Tatsuya Kawajiri recently defeated Vitor "Shaolin" Ribeiro via TKO to become the undeniable #1 LW in the world (if you mention Yves Edwards, I will KILL you), while WW Akira Kikuchi won his rematch with Cesar Gracie student Jake Shields.

As for saying Lesnar would have torn him up, that might not be as likely as you think. Lesnar, and Angle, have been out of true competitive wrestling for many years , and plunging them into an all-out shoot, with no prep time, would very likely have seen them embarrassed. as we saw with Angle. If Angle had time to train, then he probably would have schooled Puder. But he didn't, and Puder schooled him. I don't mean to over analyze here, but even with prep time, it's not a given that Angle would have schooled Puder. Angle is nigh a decade removed from his Olympic victory, hasn't trained much for such a competitive sport since and has suffered numerous injuries since then. Also, while amateur wrestlers are very well conditioned and highly competitive athletes who can stretch most people like pretzels, their wrestling training doesn't necessarily prepare them all that well for submission wrestling and/or MMA in their various incarnations. For every great collegiate and/or Olympic wrestler that's held their own purely on their wrestling skills, there's 2 who have found themselves either beaten to a pulp by a kickboxer who knows how to survive on the ground or submitted by a submission fighter for whom being taken down is not a big deal. Kenny Monday, 3 time Olympian (Gold, Silver, & 6th places finishes) & 3 time All-American in college, competed in a submission wrestling comeptition against AMC Pankration head trainer Matt Hume, and in spite of being able to physically dominate him and control the action early with his wrestling skills, he found himself in a toe hold (ankle lock in pro wrestling terms) by the upside down Hume and tapped just a little over a minute into the contest. Lesnar would be a different story however, because in spite of being slightly less-accomplished as a wrestler, his sheer size and strength would make it difficult for someone like Puder to finish a Kimura on him, even with perfect positioning and grip. Then again, there's always the chance Puder catches him in a simple guillotine, rear naked, or some other choke variation as Lesnar tires out or simply positions himself badly. Just my 2 cents.

Not sure what the link to the whole "match" is, but here's the ending:

I don't think Angle's all that much bigger & stronger than Puder. They're certainly closer in size and strength than Brad Kohler & Chris Haseman. Chris Haseman Kimura's Brad Kohler The size difference between the two at the time was about 20-30 pounds, and IIRC, Puder already had Angle's leg trapped and his arm behind his back at the time of the pin. I imagine that if Angle could have escaped, I'm sure he could've given the ref some indication and saved some face by not getting an assist.

Considering Royce had problems with Dan Severn, "a foonote in wrestling history who lost his shot somewhere in the late 80's," it's not totally out of reason to think an in or near their prime Olympic wrestler could have beat him. But that's for a different forum. Also, RRR, I've seen betetr guys than Sentoryu tapped from a kimura in the same (and sometimes more dominant) position, and considering Angle's arm was already getting put around his back, it's not far off to think Puder could've hurt him if left to.

Nog: No need to even go there. Newton: Didn't have the stand-up Nakamura does? I bet Hendo would disagree, as neither Nak nor Newton have great stand-up aside from looking for a big right. Also, Newton has the betetr power in his punches, as Carlos cracked Hendo on several occasions (leading to the baby giraffe dance), and messed his jaw up IIRC. Babalu: Stylistically different or not, he's flat out better than Nakamura. I mean come on, you're going to compare Nakamura with a guy who beat Trevor Prangley, Mauricio Rua & Jeremy Horn in a single night? Babalu's wrestling is very comparable to Nakamura's Judo takedowns, plus his stand-up & submission skills are far and away better. Arona: A bit like Nak stylistically, but once again, better. Unlike Nakamura, his size is pretty much pure muscle, so the similarity in that area isn't as close as you might think. Arona has good takedowns as well, but his ground control and positioning skills are much better than Nakamura's, and his stand-up is better than many people give him credit for.

No doubt Cote took some good punishment, but had Tito been able to mount Cote or at least pass Cote's guard more consistently, he could've landed better shots more often. Very rarely will you see a G&P'er (even the most devstating of them) be able to finish another guy from within the victim's guard.

The big difference between Tito & Randy's G&P, at least last night, was positioning. Randy never gets stuck in someone's guard too long, and is constantly look for a better position to make up for his less damaging G&P. On the other hand, though Tito can throw harder from up top, wasnt improving his positioning for shit, content to let Cote re-establish guard over and over and simply hump away in Patrick's guard. Definitely a very dissapointing fight from Tito.

I have a question for you: You're crazy.

Meh. Arlovski is becoming the HW Liddell in terms of overdue title shots.

Bas had been planning on making a comeback for a while, but long-time, nagging injuries kept him from ever competing in MMA again.

Yep, I would. Steibling fancies himself a striker, yet got knocked downed and nearly put away by a much shorter (and far-from-superstriker) Akira Shoji, not to mention being quickly dispatched by Anderson Silva & Marvin Eastman. I'll give him the fact that he's a tough guy to submit, but it takes more than that to win fights (in these two senses, I'd liken him a bit to Heath Herring, another guy who was overrated for a while). Steibling's wins have been over rather fringe opponents (sans his fight vs. Riggs, who punished him before losing to that out of nowhere triangle), and his losses haven't exactly been to world beaters (Shoji, Eastman & Sasaki have been otherwise inconsistent, and Minotoro has still yet to defeat a top LHW). Mezger, too, looks good in defeat against good-decent competition, yet in the end, close doesn't count for a whole lot when you don't have the wins to back it up.

Alex Steibling is around the same level as Guy Mezger, and at this point, neither guy should be fighting for the Big 2.

Dirtiest fighters around: -"Dirty" Bob Shrijber - Gilbert Yvel (has calmed down a bit recently) - Rene Rooze - Alan Goes - Mikhail Illoukhine Some others I'll probably think of later.

If you watch closely, moments before the KO Tito blocks a Liddell high kick, the force of which causes Tito's own thumb to go into his eye. You can see him try to reassert himself, but it was already too late as Chuck went in for the kill. Tito's eye looked like hell a few days later, though even without the eye gouge, he was on his way to losing that fight.

- Quinton would undoubtedly be a tough fight in the cage for Randy. The cage (and UFC rules, if applied) are total hinderances to Wanderlei's game and only strengths to Randy's. - I don't really blame Lindland for being a bit shocked and upset over his KO loss (which wasn't really the extent of Tiki's tirade). When you get nailed as badly as he did, you're a bit out of your wits, and it isn't until a bit later until you realized just how bad you got fucked up. Perfect example (black-jack @ Sherdog brough this up earlier) is Renzo Gracie's KO of Oleg Taktarov in MARS. Oleg was up quickly, protesting the stoppage after getting absolutely hammered by an upkick and right hand from Renzo. Later however, after viewing the replay and seeing what happened, Oleg realized the stoppage was fair and he apologized to Renzo for his actions.

Quick thoughts: Thompson/ Edwards: -Thompson's goofing off style finally caught up with him. Big props to Yves on his awesome KO kick, but before that, Josh seemed to have things well in hand. The constant pimping of these guys as the best LW's in the world got on my nerves a little bit, and I jsut wish Yves would've added "...I'm just glad most American fans didn't see me get totally worked by Kawajiri in Shooto 9 months ago." Eilers/ Kyle: -Didn't much care about either guy much before, nor do I now. But since someone had to win, I'm glad it wasn't Kyle. Terrell/ Lindland: - David's the real deal. Lindland leaves his chin up like he's a Gracie circa- 1993, but the Power of the Bobble Head usually let's him work through trouble. Not this time. Assuming the KO's of Sasaki & Lindland weren't abberations, David could very well rule 185. Doerkson/Riggs: - I was quite suprised at how this one turned out. Joe's biggest problem last night was, IMO, Riggs' power. Riggs seems extremely strong at 185 (though I hadn't seen him since he dropped down from LHW), and if Doerkson gets a stronger opponent's will imposed on him (I'm thinking of his match with Egan Inoue), he becomes pretty defensive. Oh, and Riggs just qualified himself for the UFC "Shut the Hell Up!" award, along with the likes of Phil Baroni. Liddell/White: -Cardio is your friend, Charles. Liddell totally trounced White, yet was still tagged a few times and puffing wind at 3 minutes in. Yeah, he foguht a very active fight, but so do guys like Silva, Arlovski, etc., and at least they can keep it up for a bit. Parisyan/Diaz: -OMMFG!!!11111 JUDO IS BEST!!!!1111 BJJ IS OBSOLETE IN MODERN MMA!!!!1111... ahem. Anyways, awesome, AWESOME fight, marred only by these guys being unable to keep up with the frantic pace they set for themselves. Also, as I was a little busy during this fight, did they show all 3 rounds? Lytle/ Jhun: - Ronald turned in a pretty dissapointing performance, though Lytle looked very good in making the Machine Gun look very bad. I don't know how he fits into the WW picture right now, but lytle is definitely at least a very dangerous spoiler at this point. Randy/Vitor: - The headbutt was a bit of a shame, but it's difficult to say how much the cut affected how well Vitor did(n't) fight. Randy still showed some weaknesses that look like they'll never go away, but in the UFC, he's undoubtedly the Man. Overall, a very entertaining show, though most of the fights were a bit too quick and/or one sided for my liking (then again, the same happend at UFC 40, but I'll keep my double standards, thank you very much).

Franca actually signed to fight in Shooto against Hansen(though had to pull out due to pasport problems, IIRC), so you can chalk him up for them as well. Also, Pulver fights at 143lbs. now, so him as a LW doesn't mean as much anymore. And in the Atlantic city tourney, UFC's only real representative is Edwards. Also, even including the UFC's best (and seemingly only regular) LW's in Thompson, Yves & Serra, the overall quantity AND qaulity of Shooto's LW division is much higher. Both Thompson & Edwards' biggest wins have been close JD victories over Hermes (Edwards' could've VERY easily gone the other way), with most of their other wins coming over smaller fry. As for Serra, he's had mixed success, beating Yves & some 143 pounders, but losing to Din & Penn.

Shooto's LW division > UFC's

A little info on the UFC first timers participating in the next event: Joe Doerkson Team Extreme 25-5 Notable wins: Lee Murray (submission/ RNC), John Alessio (submission/ RNC), Denis Kang (submission/ triangle choke), Chris Leben (JD) Notes: Entertaining, submission-oriented fighter with improved stand-up skills. Has been long overdue for a UFC shot in many people's eyes. After a three fight losing streak against former Superbrawl champion Egan Inoue, and Canada's Stephan Potvin & David Louiseau, he's been on an unbeaten 10-0 tear, the highlight being his Superbrawl 30, 8-Man tournament win (slightly marred by Denis Kang's injury and withdrawal). Joseph "Diesel" Riggs Arizona Combat Sports 18-5 Notable wins: Andy Montana (submission/strikes), Alan Sullivan (submission/armbar), John Renken (KO) Notes: G&P fighter w/ some submission and stand-up skills, though excelling at none. One of many Arizona natives to get something of a bloated record in the local RITC shows (the mostnotable being Homer "Rock" Moore), he's amongst the best Arizona has to offer, but like many of his statesmen, has failed to break through with wins over fighters on the next echelon, including Rodney Faverus, Wesley Correira, & Alex Steibling. However, it should be that he formerly fought at 205lbs, and many of his losses have been to guys a deal bigger than himself. Has also racked five straight KO wins over lesser comptition since hte beginning of the year. Justin Eilers Miletich Fighting Systems/ Team Extreme 8-2 Notable wins: Jonathan Ivey (submission/strikes), Rocky Batastini (TKO), Vince Lucero (TKO/ shoulder injury) Notes: G&P/ stand-up fighter. Not to knock Eilers or any retards in the UFC head office, but they're REALLY reaching for heavyweight fighters now. Eilers biggest "accomplishment" was a close decision loss to Correira in a fight many thought he won. Aside, from that, wins over mostly out-of-shape and overmatched fighters. David Terrell Cesar Gracie Jiu-Jitsu 4-1 Notable Wins: Osami Shibuya (submission/RNC), Yuki Sasaki (KO), Joey Villasenor (submission/armbar) Notes: Amongst America's best Jiu jitsu stylists, finishing 3rd at ADCC 2003 in the 87kg class, beating Akira Shoji, Fernando Margarida & Ricardo Almeida. Relatiely inactive in MMA for many years, he recently made a comeback in the Pancrase circuit and impressively dispatched long-time gatekeeper Osami Shibuya and KO'ed struggling Grabaka member Yuki Sasaki. Definitely has the toughest match of the UFC newcomers, but is also the one generating the most curiosity and excitement.

I'd tell you about the undercard guys, but that'd cut into my laying around time.

Ortiz/Mezger III? UFC 50: Ultimate Redundancy

- Randy was stripped, IIRC, because of a breakdown in contract negotions with SEG, possibly over likeness issues. - The Rutten Randleman was indeed highly debated, though it's been been a lot less discussed over the years. - UFC 20 was actually the last UFC even with the old time limits, as UFC 21 would adopt about the now widely used 5 minute round system. - Not sure about the gloves. Sorry.

Filho's mostly a takedown & control style fighter with some good G&P and submissions when needed. He's undefeated, having beat Kei Yamamiya rather handily, winning a exciting bout vs. Ikuhisa Minowa and then L&P'ing a deicision win over Yuki Kondo. Most recently beat Diajiro Matsui via Unanimous Decision in Korea.

RE: SHOOTO's 3/28 show, I haven't seen many of the matches (though Sugie usually makes for some entertaining fights). This card focuses on some of the younger, B class fighters, so those are kind've a mixed bag, but for the most part very few Shooto shows are total throw-aways. However, if you want a total kick ass show, the July 9th Hawaii show is looking SICK: Alexandre F. Nogueira vs. TBA Rumina Sato vs. Bao Quach Vitor 'Shaolin' Ribeiro vs. Mitsuhiro Ishida Stephen Paling vs. Jens Pulver Masanori Suda vs. Dustin Denes Jake Shields vs. Ray Cooper