AboveAverage484

Robbie Lawler $10,000 Joey Villasenor $3,000 Kazuhiro Nakamura $10,000 Travis Galbraith $2,000 Phil Baroni $15,000 Yosuke Nishijima $15,000 Dan Henderson $50,000 Vitor Belfort $30,000 Eric Esch $30,000 Sean O'Haire $15,000 Josh Barnett $60,000 Pawel Nastula $20,000 Mauricio Rua $25,000 Kevin Randleman $40,000 Fedor Emelianenko $100,000 Mark Coleman $70,000 source: Keith Kizer So now will people ease up on Dana White a little bit? He pays his champions more than Pride does. I don't really know how reliable these numbers are, I've seen like three different estimates for the card. No knock on you at all, but I think some of these figures may be a bit off.

Of course if Tito wins, that will lessen the aura surrounding the match

Not as bad as I expected, entertaining enough I guess and I suppose it served it's purpose to the American audience. Wonder how the whole Silva/Chuck/Dana/DSE deal will work out. Fedor's "business as usual" expression when armbarring Coleman was great. Kevin is psycho for staying in that kneebar that long. Nastula keeps impressing against tough competition. Baroni did the smart thing and won. Henderson and Belfort both gassed pretty quickly, and 30-24?!, what the FUCK was that?

Centers are pretty thin nowadays in the NBA. I've got Nazr Mohammed and Eddie Griffin.

If Barnett doesn't fight than this show will be complete ass; his matchup is the most interesting. Fujita beating O'Haire in a squash doesn't pique my interest in this show at all. At least Hunt/Butterbean had a train-wreck type of feel to it.

At any rate, this card sucks some serious dick even in comparison with some of the recent UFC's. Hopefully it follows in their footsteps by becoming "pleasantly surprising," although I doubt it.

It looks like he's lost some weight since I last remember, although at this point in his career it doesn't really matter. Sad about what he could have become.

IK Cool Jew's team looks pretty stacked. I guess it's because he said screw it on a couple of picks that some considered risky because of injury concerns, i.e. J. O'Neal and Boozer.

This is why the BCS is universally hated, it rips friends and families asunder.

EDIT: Nevermind.

I still can't buy Swick as a legitimate contender. He needs to get a top 10 fight, pronto. Also, I'm heavily biased towards Pride, so that must be taken into consideration

I just think it shows how shallow the division is when a fighter can come in and after winning won fight be in a title match.

I have to disagree on the MW part. They have who, Silva, Franklin, Marquardt, and Loiseau? Pride has Hendo, Okami, Filho, Amar Suloev, Gono, Chonan, Bustamante, Denis Kang, Minowa, Baroni, etc. Pride had Okami for one fight. I meant Misaki, sorry. On related notes, Eastman and Hunt are OUT, to be replaced by Travis Galbraith and Sean O'Haire respectively. Ugh.

I have to disagree on the MW part. They have who, Silva, Franklin, Marquardt, and Loiseau? Pride has Hendo, Okami, Filho, Amar Suloev, Gono, Chonan, Bustamante, Denis Kang, Minowa, Baroni, etc.

Marquardt vs Lister scares me; it could either be really competitive or horribly boring.

I thought the Randleman/Ninja fight was pretty good. Don't know if you can use that as a litmus for Randleman/Shogun, because though they have similar styles, Shogun does everything Ninja does, just better. I really want to believe this will be competitive, but I have a gut feeling Shogun will submit Kevin early in the first.

What do you think of Henderson/Belfort, Lei? It's a tough one for me to call, but I guess Henderson by decision in a fight that will probably be less exciting than it should.

Being a professional boxer is an excellent way of measuring someone's striking ability. And since Baroni seldom uses kicks or knees I think it would be best for Baroni if he takes it to the ground. The differences between striking in MMA & boxing are pretty vast, not to mention the fact that despite holding a WBF belt nearly a decade ago, it's not like Nishijima was anything special whatsoever as a pro. But it's not like it's illogical to say that he can beat Baroni standing. Nishijima is a pro boxer, Baroni a banger who throws punches and little else and is overconfidant at times standing; Nishijima has zip as far as the ground as concerned, while Baroni, while far from being a wizard on the ground, has decent ground and pound and relatively tons more experience on the mat than Nishijima. I'm just looking at this logically, doesn't necessarily mean it's going to be accurate, Phil might knock him out.

Lei, have you heard anything about Aoki's status after getting kicked in the nuts? Would be terrible if he had to pull out of his fight with Melendez.

Being a professional boxer is an excellent way of measuring someone's striking ability. And since Baroni seldom uses kicks or knees I think it would be best for Baroni if he takes it to the ground.

Okami has the all-around skills necessary to defeat Silva, plus the ability to exploit Silva's ground weaknesses. Silva is not the unbeatable superman everyone is making him out to be now. Yes, he is VERY, VERY, good, but you guys should know from watching as long as we have that nobody is unbeatable and everybody can be beaten on any given night by anybody... ...except Fedor

Okami can beat Anderson Silva, but that title match would never happen.

Silva was very impressive, as long as UFC doesn't bring in any Japanese fighters he should be all right

So much for Kongo being the "next big thing," he looked like shit.

Huge friggin brawl in Miami in a close game with FLORIDA INTERNATIONAL. Fuck Miami.