RavishingRickRudo

Points dont get lost on takedowns and knockdowns, but they contribute to the overall score. Reshad knocked down Brad twice and it was still a split decision. Judging is rather inconsistent, so it's hard to exactly say what wins for a fighter. Typically, a fighter who ends up on top tends to get scored more favourably than the guy on the bottom, no matter how good the guy on the bottom is there. Submission attempts don't get you as much points as GnP. So they favour wrestlers more than jiu jitsu artists. Leg kicks typically don't score well, no matter how effective they are. A lot of the judges, I believe, are more used to scoring boxing than anything else.

What are the weight classes in MMA and who are the notable fighters in them?

I was trying to think of 15 Minutes, but forgot the name, so I went with Rollerball.

Won UFC 6, made it to the finals of an Ultimate Ultimate, participated in the first PRIDE, had a big superfight with Ken Shamrock. At the time in the UFC, Taktarov was one of their biggest names. Plus, he was FANTASTIC in that Rollerball remake.

I assume your scale some how finds a way to have letters above A.

Fuck, I'm watching Brad/Reshad and fuck, this is a balls out great match. Brad getting knocked down in the 3rd round, getting back up, and going RIGHT AT Reshad was fucking awesome. Its almost a shame there had to be a Griffin/Bonnar, because if you added the weight that TUFF1 had (first ever live ufc show on national television) to this (this was the 4th live show in about 7 months), those two guys would have been huge. I mean, you can't take away from the personalities both Forrest and Stephan have, but the action in this was just as good as Bonnar/Griffin, I think.

It was quite boring, and most of it was bad. Sadly, when ever the WWE doesnt outright suck, those shows tend to be "solid" given the declining curve of expectations. The only pluses I saw were Murdoch and Mickie James/Trish Stratus.

But I'm so good at it here. And yall need someone to look up to.

Stick with just reading about wrestling and posting in the video games folder.

You've got your folder, so stop the discussion here. Nothing personal. I don't tell you what to post despite the fact that I think you provide absolutely no insight into anything you write, so hows about you shut the fuck up, k? I've seen wrestling matches that were insanely boring as well. Infact, they're often happening Mondays and Fridays. The most exciting MMA fight is 100xs more exciting than the most exciting wrestling match.

The writing is on the wall for King. See ya Jerry.

Good stuff. Luke as a farmer is fantastic. Luke "The Ninja Farmer" Cummo.

I agree with that assessment. If BJ was able to over-power Hughes and, as LT said, put him on his back. I think he can do it to Trigg as well. If GSP was able to make it look like playschool and took Triggs back easily, then I don't see BJ having much trouble either. RRR Dream Match: Arlovski vs. Couture - I almost want Couture to lose to Chuck so this fight can happen. It was originally scheduled for, I believe, UFC 42 but it fell through and they put Randy against Chuck instead. Hell, if Randy *does* win, have Champion vs. Champion and draw billions

I was thinking about different time frames in a promotions history. Kerr was very prominent in both UFC and PRIDE at one point, (and certainly Vovchanchyn was(. Plus he had the documentary "The Smashing Machine". And flops are very notable in sports. "What went wrong" is just as important as "What went right". Rizzo, Randleman, and Kerr are examples of guys who had all the tools physically, who had the skills to be dominant, yet weren't. Why they weren't is big in helping foster an understanding for MMA. I put Kid down mainly because of what's going on right now in k-1, at least by what Meltzer is saying. Supposedly Kid is their biggest star, which -if not notable now- will probably be in the future. I will add Inoue, Sakurai, and Lil Nog. I don't think there's anything wrong with a big list of guys, as long as there is a legitimate reason for them to be up there. I look at this as a guide, so when someone is watching a Mark Kerr fight in the UFC and sees him crush his opponents and ask "where is he today" and then "well, what the fuck happened?" then it can be addressed.

The weird thing with this card, IMO, is that it's not a mega-card, but its not weak either. I think losing Bonnar and Parisyan hurt it a bit, but it's still a must-see. It's the first time Franklin is headlining a PPV, IIRC, so it will be interesting to see the numbers he puts up. Hughes has never really been a draw, but with TUF and his fight against Trigg on the biggest UFC show of all time, it will be difficult to see what (who) draws here. Middleweight Title: Rich Franklin vs. Nate Quarry - I think that Rich has better stand-up than Nate, as Nate is rather wooden (from what I have seen) standing. If Rich circles and works his angles well, he'd be able to avoid Nates strong hands effectively and wouldn't really be put in trouble. I don't think Nate has faced the quality of opponent that Rich has, and I don't really see him on the level of Jorge Rivera, let alone Evan Tanner. Rich can get rocked, and Nate could knock him out, but I think he's simply better in all areas of the game to get beaten here. Conditioning may become a factor, as I imagine Nate has been training his ass off while Rich has more things on his plate right now with TUF and stuff. The longer it goes, the worse off Franklin will be. I think it's very important for Nate to push the pace and never give Franklin a chance to implement his game plan. Simply put, Nate needs to outwork Rich, get Rich tired, and then go to down when Franklin gets slower standing. If he doesn't do that, then I think Rich can win it when ever, where ever, and how ever he wants. Welterweight Title: Matt Hughes Vs. Joe Riggs - This is kinda tough. I think its a much harder match for Matt than Parisyan, because while Parisyan is a more skilled fighter than Riggs, I think Matt will have a much harder time muscling around Joe than he would have Karo. I don't know how good Riggs is off his back, but I don't imagine he's good enough to put up much of a fight. Though, his fight against Lytle and the elbows from the ground were very impressive. With the win over Lytle, I think Riggs is a upper-10 fighter, so this won't be a complete blow-out, but I think there's a certain gap in this division -at least in the UFC- between GSP and Hughes and everyone else. The best chance Riggs has is that Matt has shown a willingness to entertain the thought of standing up with his opponents before out-right taking them down. So there will be moments - a few seconds at least - where Riggs can let his hands loose. Unfortunately, the second he steps in to drop a bomb, Hughes will come right underhim and take him down. Whether or not he has the strength to get back up -as GSP has- and outmuscle Hughes - as BJ Penn did - we will have to wait and see. Georges St. Pierre Vs. Sean Sherk - God I'm scared for GSP here. But then again, I was scared for him against Trigg and Rush obliterated him. I think GSP is better at everything except wrestling here, and I think he's strong and big enough to defend Sherks attempts and if he gets taken down, I think he's good, big, and strong enough to get back up. However, there is a bit of an x-factor here. What if he isn't good, big, and strong enough? What if Sherk can keep him down? What mental effect will this have on GSP? Rush is used to dominating, what happens when he gets dominated? This was the same question Frank Trigg asked before his fight with GSP, and while Trigg was unsuccessful against St. Pierre, I think it still is relevant. The second Georges got put on his back with the armbar against Hughes he tapped. He's a young guy. He's on top of the world right now and he's wicked confident. He said after his fight against Trigg that he's twice as good as he was when he fought Hughes, and now he is saying he's so much better than he was when he fought Trigg. St. Pierre is taking this fight very seriously, and it will be scary to see if he is as good as he says he is. Well, scary for every other welterweight out there, at least. It's very good for us Rush fans. Jeremy Horn Vs. Trevor Prangley Kevin Jordan Vs. Gabriel Gonzaga Sam Hoger Vs. Jeff Newton Nick Thompson Vs. Keith Wisniewski The rest of this card is ok. I don't know about half of the guys in them though. Hopefully that will change after the PPV.

I was also thinking about a weighed ranking. Where there the vote of, say, Lei Tong, would be held higher in certain areas like the featherweights (there's a featherweight division now?) than, say, the rest of us. I was thinking of something like 3 different levels, expert, intermediate, notice. Where the expert vote would be multiplied by 2, the intermediates would be by 2, and the novices would be by one. That way people who are new to the game can still have a say, while the people who are more familiar can be properly represented.

In Alphabetical Order: David "Tank" Abbott Vitor Belfort Mark Coleman Randy Couture Fedor Emelianenko Mirko Cro Cop Filipovic Don Frye Masakatsu Funaki Takanori Gomi Rickson Gracie Royce Gracie Matt Hughes Enson Inoue Mark Kerr KIMO Chuck Liddell Pat Miletich Alexandre Franca Noguiera Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira Tito Ortiz BJ Penn Jens Pulver Kevin Randleman Pedro Rizzo Marco Ruas Mauricio Shogun Rua Bas Rutten Kazushi Sakuraba Hayato Mach Sakurai Rumina Sato Dan Severn Wanderlei Silva Frank Shamrock Ken Shamrock Akira Shoji Maurice Smith Nobuhiko Takada Oleg Taktarov Caol Uno Igor Vovchanchyn Kid Yamamoto If I forgot anyone notable (I look at influence, popularity, styles and success), throw in a name where appropriate. I'd like to do a write up for each fighter, it doesn't have to be comprehensive or anything like that, but a summary of why they are notable would be great if anyone wants to contribute.

There's more stuff going on in MMA, with the weekly shows and we almost get an event monthly now, whereas before we'd have something like 2 months on, 2 months off so we couldn't really sustain discussion. I've got a few choce discussion topics if the chatter ever starts to go down

I was thinking maybe two different rankings, one with the panel vote and one with the "popular vote".

Aight, I figure we should start up our own Official TSM Rankings for MMA. We can either have this as an open-poll, or we can have it limited to a panel (or both). Thoughts? (Not on the rankings, just the proposal)

Oh, and its on again. SPIKE TV 12 midnight (sunday/monday).

It's kinda hard to say Diaz/Sanchez was predictable when the majority of people thought Diaz would take it.

Shouldn't Tim Daly be in this?

Ok, this is something I've been thinking about for a while, but never really wanted to invest any time into it. But I figured with the new folder and the rising popularity of the sport, something like this would help generate discussion, answer some questions, and hopefully spread the learnin. Maybe, in time, this can be a comprehensive FAQ. So yeah, ask any questions, I'll throw some stuff up once in a while and pose some questions that anyone can contribute to. Question 1: Who are the notable fighters in MMA history?

UFC should make a deal with K-1. K-1 fighters on UFC shows, UFC fighters on K-1 shows.