Your Paragon of Virtue

I thought the UFC would bring him back for two reasons really; he won, and he's a heavyweight who won by KO. Not to mention that he has a ground game, which the UFC seems to want to show off seeing as how they've brought in two grappling phenoms here. A better question is who can beat Arlovski from PRIDE? I'm going by a lot of potential, but I'd say the only one is Fedor that I know for sure, with Cro Cop and Kharitanov perhaps having an even line. I think he'd have a lot of advantages on Nog. I haven't seen Werdum vs. Kharitanov so maybe Werdum is a threat now too.

Oh he is. There are a bunch of great Bas Rutten stories, but the best one is one that I actually have no idea of what happened in between. I know it started with a man with an AK 47 threatening him, and ended with him pissing all over a man he knocked out that threatened him with an AK 47. What happened in between, I don't know. Bas Jitsu>Gun Jitsu

All those wrestlers would have a hell of a problem with him, considering that they would have to set up a takedown with strikes in order to be effective at all. Mark Coleman vs. Cro Cop is exactly how a fight with AA would go I imagine. Mir is a better striker than Herring, is probably stronger and is much better at gaining good positions, considering how quick Herring is to give them up. I can easily see him overpowering Herring to the ground and working some GnP to a submission. Mir vs. Arlovski will be a good indicator of where he stands, as I could just as easily see Herring pulling an Ian Freeman. No way would I favour Vera, like I said before that guy looked really lacklustre against a guy that is essentially a pure grappler. Apparently he has world class wrestling, but I certainly didn't see it in that fight. He would get destroyed by Chuck Liddell, if they actually put that one together. The fact that I can see four UFC LHW beating him shows that he can't really be good enough to beat Herring.

Has anyone seen the second round of this one?

You know damn well what that Gomi picture was RRR

Oh I know about the judo rankings, but I'm saying most of those rankings are based upon standing throws and the like, which shows that in a submission grappling no gi match Karo would have the advantage since his groundwork is seemingly superior. I'm not sure if it was no gi or gi, but you're right it does make a difference. Nonetheless, if it was no gi it wouldn't have been because of a size issue, as he's a small guy. In addition, he mostly trains gi so it's not like he'd be out of place. Though you are definitely right, now that I think about it it was probably no gi. The big deal when Penn visited Team Quest was that he was able to take them down which impresses me more than him being able to tap them out. It was probably off for me to suggest 2001, since the UFC HW division was better then than it is now. Nowadays, Sylvia, Arlovski and Mir would probably beat him. I'll get into Mir vs. Herring later though.

It's sad that I remember hearing that story before on this board, probably by a PBP or something.

That makes sense though about the Judo, because it seems like people knock Karo for not being world class judoka, but in terms of an actual submission grappling match, I'm sure he'd do a lot better than most of them because most of the top matches focus on throws rather than submissions. It seems that in recent years Judo has been getting less time spent on ground work, which takes away a big facet of its game. Being a purple belt submitting black belts is understandable. I know of a blue belt at our gym that submitted a Carlson Gracie Brown belt. Maybe the next BJ Penn? How did that no gi match go? A draw or did someone win on points? Frank always seemed pretty active on his back, and he would have had a big size advantage on BJ so I would guess that he would have won. Then again, Frank's most impressive submissions are on guys with virtually no submission experience (Jackson, Hendo). I guess catching Horn might be impressive, but you don't hear people singing Elvis Sinosic's praises. Heath Herring would have been 3rd at the end of 2001, at least. He showed he could beat wrestlers in Erikson and Kerr, as well as beating a bunch of lower guys and looking good against the top heavyweight in the world. Maybe Couture would have beat him, but Barnett probably wouldn't have. Barnett would have no size advantage there, and that would have caused problems for him.

It is. I do Brazilian Jiu Jitsu and freestyle wrestling. Only started at the beginning of the year though, so still a noob.

I would not say that the fight was even to that point, as BJ took him down at will and dominated the ground game like no other. Sure, Gomi got a few strikes in standing, but not enough to offset the clinic BJ was giving him on the ground. I still can't believe he just slid through his butterfly guard and took mount. That was sick.

Okay, so that's what they meant when they used to say "as a whitebelt he used to tap out blackbelts"? I thought they meant BJJ blackbelts. A black belt in judo lost credibility for me when I found out that Frank Trigg, yes Frank Trigg, is a SECOND degree black belt in Judo.

I read this on Sherdog, it's about Zuffa buying out the UFC. But can anyone tell me what's up with this? It seems that SD is trying to imply that Zuffa didn't make up the new rules. Still, they sound bitter in knocking the mainstream media for getting one fact wrong, when they did a really good job of promoting the sport. "Mainstream Media While we bow our heads and pray that someday we may be considered as wise and important as our mainstream media big brothers, we can’t let ‘em get away with everything. So, Time and Sports Illustrated … and just about everyone else, listen here: GET THE STORY RIGHT, WOULD YOU! I digress. Let’s get a few things straight: Dana White and the boys at Zuffa had as much to do with the making of mixed martial arts rules as we know them today as the Sherdog.com staff had in creating Magnum Condoms. For those of you still confused (and it’s not the easiest metaphor to get), that basically means that Dana and Co. had nothing to do with MMA rules in New Jersey, which promoted sanctioned MMA before Zuffa was anything more than a word thrown around by street kids in Naples, or anywhere else for that matter. And that’s no crime, that’s just the truth. YET, bastions of journalism like Time and SI, which in 2005 ran feature stories on the UFC, purported it was Zuffa that came along and saved all of us from ourselves. Apparently, MMA would be the pastime of drug addicts and pedophiles if it wasn’t for the philanthropic company based in the Nevada desert. Furthermore, numerous daily newspapers in this country have written similar pieces without, it seems, checking their facts. No wonder the UFC prefers this brand of reporting to media that actually knows what it’s talking about. Two roasted Guinea Pigs are to be sent to Time and SI with the note, “Enjoy these wonderful Thanksgiving Turkeys, as even though they look and taste nothing like turkey, this message is surely enough to convince you otherwise. Now eat up.”"

The Franklin KO also has the added bonus of the irony in Quarry saying that he was gonna expose Franklin's weak chin. I hope someone creates a clip or Franklin HL that includes Quarry delivering the line about the weak chin than him getting KTFO and seizing up right after.

Nate's arms seized up as well, that's what I noticed at first. That plus the stiff leg makes him the winner.

Was the grapple with the stars thing essentially supposed to be just a way to get the kid 8 g's? Was the star in question supposed to go with the kid for eight minutes? That story is fucked up, while the other is just pussy-ish. Which division did he lose in? Heavyweight or Absolute? Roger probably would have hurt him anyway. I wonder how Marcelo Garcia would be able to deal with the size advantage. EDIT: I just realized he was hurt anyway. Well, Roger would have hurt him more.

That's what I mean, the majority of the posters drag the place down, making it hard to get any good discussion, which is why rather than going to sherdog, might as well go to UFC or BK.

I'm looking forward to his fight with Jorge Rivera. Jorge's ground game seems to have improved (Hallman admittedly isn't a real MW) and he always had really good standup. Since Swick will probably want to stand with him, this will be his biggest test. I guarantee one thing, it won't end in the first 30 seconds like the other ones did.

Actually it was 55. Also, what did he do to gain such a rep? Winning all the time?

Sonnen walks around at about 195, Griffin at 227. Ortiz is actually the same size, so for once Ortiz won't be fighting a submission fighter much smaller than he is. Still, it will be tough for Forrest. Also, Babalu got a nice little armbar on Sonnen too. No real point to me mentioning that, but with the inclusion of Tito in the UFC and Randy-Chuck 3 talk of Babalu has fallen by the wayside. We need more Babalu.

No one is denying the slickness of his game, and we don't need a win over local job boy Bill Mahood to figure that out. Tito Ortiz has shown to be difficult to submit, while at the same time being able to hold down guys with decent to good ground games. While Forrest is a step above what he's used to, I still think Ortiz will be too much for him, and I have a feeling that with all the circumstances surrounding the matchup, he'll be fired up and fight like he has something to prove, since he does. But who cares about that, BJ Penn is back! Penn-Karo or Penn-Trigg for the winner of Hughes-GSP. That fantasy matchup might just become a reality! I'd be worried for Penn if he fought Trigg though, too many people are forgetting that he fought with a blown ankle against GSP. He will be 100% by the time he fights again.

I remember seeing a little blip on this year's TUF 2 Finale that you get UFC 40 with the TUF 1 DVD set. No? I coulda sworn that was the case, I definitely saw Tito vs. Shamrock. I guess they must have known about Tito being a coach for awhile now since that would be Tito, Sham, and the TUF are now a perfect fit.

While Forrest has a great ground game, methinks that with the problems Horn gave him, not to mention the fact that he couldn't really do much to Bonnar once he got him on the ground, lead me to believe that this will be a slow GnP decision for Ortiz. Ortiz has very good submission defense, and I personally don't think anyone at 205 can submit him. The only way to beat Ortiz is to put him on his back or KO him on the feet. I don't think Forrest is capable of either. It would probably be best for Forrest not to forget about brawling. He's not going to be able to take Tito to the ground, so he might as well brawl till Tito decides to take him down.

OH SHIT!

Those top two suck, the third I've never heard of and it sounds like he's trying to advertise. I don't know if such stats exist, there aren't many studies on the subject. Knucklepit.com is a pretty good site (search on google for it) lots of good fighter interviews and stuff, gives you a good idea of what fighters go through and the like. I don't know about history, I've tried to find that myself sometimes, but it's not that hard to figure out, there are books on the subject if you're willing to read them (I heard some are more biased, like Brawl) but most here could just give you the history, like why the UFC was started, what happened to cause it to go through the dark years, what brought it back, what made it mainstream(or on the way). There was a really good Beyond The Glory on the subject that pretty much clarified all this. I'm sure you can find a d/l somewhere.