Lei Tong

It's really not that different than boxing, and at least the UFC hasn't withheld a belt from from a title match winner because he couldn't pay his sanctioning fee.

While it's likely Ken is off the sauce, it's not as though there's no way to pass a urine test while cycling. Strength? Ok. Conditioning? Like Herman alluded to, they're MMA fighters, not body builders, and neither Ken nor any of his fighters outside of Vernon White and Jerry Bohlander have ever shown above average cardio. Ken has never come off as a great coach outside of the early days on the Lion's Den, when in reality their advantage was simply being in better shape and having more basic submission knowledge than the most of the mediocre North American MMA field of the time.

I was more impressed with Rashad's takedown defense throughout the second season than the rest of his wrestling game. He's a good wrestler, but simply not on Koscheck's level. I think I already mentioned to you the other day a couple of times Koscheck showed toughness in my eyes (the Sanchez match, the Fickett choke), which Rashad has yet to do (granted, the most peril he's been in thus far is getting his closed by Hoger & Jara, and surviving Hoger & Jardine's close submission attempts).

Honestly, Koscheck has about 10 times the potential Rashad does. He's a far more accomplished wrestler, has already shown a natural ability to ease his way out of submissions, good striking power, some developing submission skills, and a shitload of mental toughness. Also, TUF 1 probably had the highest quality of fighters thus far. Forrest, Diego, Bonnar, Swick, Quarry, & Leben were all at or close to UFC level already, Koscheck was easily the biggest blue chipper to come from the show thus far, and Florain & Hoger are decent enough prospects.

Christison was actually my pick to take TUF 2's HW division, so it doesn't suprise me too much. He had the most solid resume amongst the HW's, and a hint of well roundedness. As it was, he completely underperformed against Seth, whether due to his injuries or just plain choking.

Stevenson/Neer was watchable, as was Jardine/Bonnar. On the undercard, Burkman/Fitch, Imes/Christison & our boy Koscheck all sounded watchable, as well.

Obviously a drunk Kazuo Misaki was brought in to help both guys pick MW's. Also, Herman is doing a great Leben impersonation thus far.

It basically is a tournament; two, 8-man tournaments, with the eventual champion having to win 3 fights.

Thus far, Ken's team lacks: - submission training - Muay Thai training - a hands on head coach But hey, they do have a bodybuilding coach who doesn't take weight cutting into consideration.

Well, aside from Tito being more personable, these guys Ken's trained over the years seem to exist merely for him to push around and use to inflate his ego.

Well, it only took them half an hour to state the obvious: British accents are hilarious.

Irony alert: Pointon immediately talking shit while the true badass Bisping comes off as calm and collected.

Bullshit.

Evans is a guy who for the biggest fight of his life (against Imes), went and trained with his fucking college wrestling team. That should give you an idea of how seriously he takes other aspects of the game.

If Hoger was slightly more athletic than his current sausage-tit self, he could've easily taken Evans.

Rashad seems to buy into the idea that arbitrarily bobbing and weaving makes a good boxer. This got him put on his ass against Jardine. Good to see that even after moving to Jackson's camp Rashad refuses to train in submissions. Fucker.

Apparently they don't train leglocks at 10th Planet Jiu Jitsu, or Rogan toked up with Bravo minutes before they went live if he thought those leglocks were close.

Well, Stevenson still has the same problems that he did as a teenager: a weak-ass bottom game and no stand-up. If Josh had any guard passing ability, this would've been over long ago. Good for Neer, as thus far he's bounced back from the Fickett loss well.

- Chris doesn't have one punch KO power unless his opponent comes in wild... - ...which is exactly what Swick would do again. Swick is infinitely more skilled than Chris, but would leave that giant asshole of a chin of his up in the air and get caught again.

Ugh. This fight thus far is pointing out one of Chris' biggest flaws: he struggles when his opponent is not actively trading with him. His hands are too slow and lack KO power unless his opponent come in wildly swinging and get caught with a blind punch.

The only likely JD's are Rashad/Hoger, Bonnar/Jardine & Christison/Imes. I expect most of the other fights to end within 2.

I usually respect your opinion, but I don't see how you can say Quinton sucks. I think a move to UFC would revitalize him both physically and mentally not to mention his style would work more to his advantage in the cage. He has adequate enough standup, his takedowns are some of the best in the game, his wrestling is good, he's good in the clinch (unless he's against Chute Box), and he's never been subbed except by Kazushi Sakuraba in his first fight on the big stage. His only losses are against the previously mentioned Sakuraba, the LHW champion Silva, and the LHW tourney winner Shogun, so saying Quinton sucks, even kind of sucks, is pretty off base right now. Maybe it's because I ride Quinton's nuts like Rudo rides Shogun's but whatever, Quinton, in my eyes and the eyes of a lot of other people, hasn't really looked impressive since picking Chuck apart over two years ago. Since then, he's: - been KO'ed twice by Wanderlei - had some slight problems en route to pounding out Minowa & Yokoi - had serious problems taking JD's against Ninja & Yoon Dong Sik - KO'ed Arona in a fight he was losing rather badly - defeated by Shogun Of course, he's still a Top 10 caliber LHW, but he's not what he once was, and you can only expect to get a victory by the skin of your teeth so many times. Add in the fact that his act is wearing a bit thin and his high asking price, and I agree with YPOV that it'd be foolish to sign him.

Y'see, the problem is Quinton kind of sucks nowadays.

Actually it was the CFL, and Marvin was also a high school wrestler and has trained in Muay Thai for nearly a decade. He's still not that good, though.

Substitute "Aurelio" with "anyone with top skills" and they'd still be right. Props to Marcus for timing the double perfectly.