Your Paragon of Virtue Posted January 12, 2005 Report Posted January 12, 2005 What's up with the lack of postage? - Silva is offered a million dollar deal from K1. - The UFC has decided to drop its LW division. Discuss.
Guest Deft Posted January 12, 2005 Report Posted January 12, 2005 Reading rumors of Rampage vs. Rogerio. I hope its in April for the MW GP and not the February show because that would be pointless. Eh, not too upset over the UFC LW division. More viable options are starting to appear (PRIDE, Euphoria, Shooto, K-1?). Wand won't sign with K-1. I dont know, I just think he's the type of guy that would put his career over money. I'm sure he's making plenty in PRIDE anyways(gotta be at least $250-400,000+). He knows theres no depth to the K-1 MMA division at all and in no way does he want to be seen as the guy who left the good competition after suffering a loss. He's an animal, he'll resign.
Masked Man of Mystery Posted January 12, 2005 Report Posted January 12, 2005 If Silva goes anywhere he'll go to UFC to fight Coultre. I wonder why UFC is dropping a whole weight division though.
Lei Tong Posted January 12, 2005 Report Posted January 12, 2005 - The UFC dropped the 155lbs. class because they don't have enough shows to promote 5 weight divisions properly. They can only have 9-10 fights per division at most, and that's not including the balance issues (ie- certain weight classes getting more fights), with most guys only being able to fight 3 times a year at the most (as UFC won't let most fighters compete elswhere). As was already said, there's other options out there for LW fighters. It sucks that they'll no longer be featured in the event most accessable to American fans, but that's the way it goes. - Rampage (assuming the Silva fights haven't broken him mentally) should tear through Rogerio, who's not much better than he was when Vladimir Matyushenko tooled him in UFO.
RavishingRickRudo Posted January 15, 2005 Author Report Posted January 15, 2005 Can I just mention how much my sig rules? I'm sorry, I didn't mean "sig", I meant "Fedor"... A lot of the lightweight guys could realistically move up to welterweight as BJ did. Edwards in particular could easily.
AboveAverage484 Posted January 16, 2005 Report Posted January 16, 2005 Can I just mention how much my sig rules? I'm sorry, I didn't mean "sig", I meant "Fedor"... A lot of the lightweight guys could realistically move up to welterweight as BJ did. Edwards in particular could easily. Yeah but why the hell would they? Conceivably they could all jump ship and sign with Bushido in time for the tournament. That would rock. Conceivably.
Lei Tong Posted January 16, 2005 Report Posted January 16, 2005 Well, why bother moving up and risking not being able to handle bigger opponents? Aside from cases of guys not handling weight cutting that well (and thus feeling more comfortable and heavier weight classes), more likely than not the fighter moving up won't fare as well. I imagine Yves would get beat handily by all the good wrestlers at 169lbs. BJ, on the other hand, is just that good.
RavishingRickRudo Posted January 18, 2005 Author Report Posted January 18, 2005 Money and recognition, clearly. If the money is in a higher weight, move up to that weight. Yves may be cutting weight as well, Bang does. At 185 he cut down to 155.
Your Paragon of Virtue Posted January 18, 2005 Report Posted January 18, 2005 Bang's moving up to WW, and wants to fight in the UFC next year. I think he's too one-dimensional to be successful at this point.
Masked Man of Mystery Posted January 19, 2005 Report Posted January 19, 2005 UFC's always struck me(pun intended) as more of the striker's MMA company anyhow, so if he's like what I saw in King of the Cage, he'll do okay. Is he still working with Bas?
Your Paragon of Virtue Posted January 19, 2005 Report Posted January 19, 2005 UFC's always struck me(pun intended) as more of the striker's MMA company anyhow, so if he's like what I saw in King of the Cage, he'll do okay. Is he still working with Bas? Probably, but the cage is made for wrestlers, but I agree, submission guys have been much more plentiful in PRIDE. In UFC a lot of it is spraw and brawl, or ground and pound, and I don't think that's coincidence.
Lei Tong Posted January 20, 2005 Report Posted January 20, 2005 The cage really helps to stifle alot of guys from performing submissions, top or bottom, but one technique that a whole lot of fighters (at least when on the bottom) forget is cage-walking. Guys like Barnett & Babalu have shown that it can be damned effective, but the its lack of useage might be attributed guys not training with the cage specifically in mind.
Masked Man of Mystery Posted January 20, 2005 Report Posted January 20, 2005 Well, rings are almost certainly more plentiful to train in, but for some reason in the US they fight in cages and in Japan they fight in rings(at least, I've never seen US MMA in a boxing ring)
Guest Deft Posted January 20, 2005 Report Posted January 20, 2005 Interesting bit... Pedro Rizzo stated in an interview recently that he looks to return in February. Erik Apple (also of RVT) posted over on Sherdog that PRIDE agents are going to negotiate with Rizzo sometime next week (as well as Wanderlei). We could be seeing Rizzo vs. Kharitonov? Hunt?
Your Paragon of Virtue Posted January 20, 2005 Report Posted January 20, 2005 Well recently Rizzo has stated that he is more skilled then Fyodor, so now he has the change to own up to it.
RavishingRickRudo Posted January 22, 2005 Author Report Posted January 22, 2005 Finally caught Shockwave, here's muh thoughts. Gomi vs. Pulver was amazing. FOTYC IMO. Great technique by both guys with Gomi showing more diversity in his strikes and combinations which ultimately won him the fight, I can't wait for a Lightweight tournament. Fedor vs. Nog was AMAZING. Why did this get no love? WHERE WAS THE LOVE?! Fedor's head movements to avoid Nogs striking was great, as were his strike/takedown combinations. Listening to Couture and Bas talk during the fight, it was like they were in awe of Fedor. This was so much fun. Chonan/Silva... it was a wrestling match. Or at least, it had wrestling match psychology. Silva uses his long legs to neutralized Chonan, Chonan works on Silvas legs the whole match, Chonan wins with a diving leglock. Some really good exchanges, had it been more active on the ground, it would have been a surefire FOTYC. Henderson is god. The heart that man has is unrivaled. I was expecting shit out of him because that's what I heard coming out the event, and watching it now knowing that hendo was sick, that was a great performance. I feel bad for Kondo because he had some effective combos on Hendo, but fuck it, Dan rules. It was scary watching Hunt/Silva. It's like Hunt was the physical manifestation of Kazushi Sakurabas frustration with Wanderlei. What was really scary was watching the monster Silva back away and looked scared against Hunt. It was like Dracula vs. The Wolfman and Dracula was like "SHIT! I can't bite him on his neck! SHIT!! He can bite ME on the neck! SHIT!!!" Ok, let's kill Jerry Millen. They could have taken off Giant Silva/Bae, Leko/Minowa, Gracie/Anjo, and that silly rap video ending and given us (1)Fighters entrances, (2)Replays, (3)Show openings, (4)Pre-match commentary. These are part of what I loved about the Quadros era of PRIDE. Watching the show without those breaks made it feel TAPED, and you want a LIVE atmosphere for fighting. God dammit.
Lei Tong Posted January 22, 2005 Report Posted January 22, 2005 Overall, I'm none too excited about the LW tourney yet. I figure it'll be a bit like 2004, with Gomi beating up FW's & sub Top Ten LW's en route to the title.
Lei Tong Posted January 22, 2005 Report Posted January 22, 2005 Jadson Costa: .500, 143lbs. fighter Ralph Gracie: Formerly retired 155lbs. fighter w/recent win over Top 15 Mishima Fabio Mello: .500, 143lbs. fighter Charles Bennett: nigh .500, 155lbs. fighter submitted in his last 2 KOTC fights Jens Pulver: Top Ten 143lbs. fighter, with 2 crushing losses to the last decent LW's he fought in 2003.
RavishingRickRudo Posted January 22, 2005 Author Report Posted January 22, 2005 I'm sorry, that was a typo, I meant to say "You Lei". The wins over Gracie and Pulver were impressive, no matter how you try to spin it. Gomi showed great striking ability against Pulver and KTFO of both him and Ralph.
Lei Tong Posted January 22, 2005 Report Posted January 22, 2005 Impressive, no doubt, but far from indictive of a Top 5 (or Top 10, even) 155lbs. fighter. In the course of a year, Gomi went from being one of MMA's most underrated fighters to one of its most overrated. I've been a Gomi fan for a while, but he really did little to establish himself as one of the top LW fighters in the world last year (in comparison to what he accomplished before).
RavishingRickRudo Posted January 22, 2005 Author Report Posted January 22, 2005 Who would you rank in the top 10, and who do you see being in a PRIDE LW Tournament?
Your Paragon of Virtue Posted January 23, 2005 Report Posted January 23, 2005 Impressive, no doubt, but far from indictive of a Top 5 (or Top 10, even) 155lbs. fighter. In the course of a year, Gomi went from being one of MMA's most underrated fighters to one of its most overrated. I've been a Gomi fan for a while, but he really did little to establish himself as one of the top LW fighters in the world last year (in comparison to what he accomplished before). I figured that Pulver was Top 10, made some bad mistakes underestimating Bang, but still has beaten lots of established guys. Guys off the top of my head better then Gomi are Kawajiri Hansen and Shaolin. But I don't know much about SHOOTO, and Shaolin came off a loss and his stock has dropped considerably. I still think it's nothing to sneeze about though.
Your Paragon of Virtue Posted January 23, 2005 Report Posted January 23, 2005 Pulled from Sherdog: Read this off a Japanese site http://www.angle-j.com/ Rodrigo was late to Pride NYE because of the snow and couldn't make it to the opening ceremonies, so Pride asked his twin brother Rogerio to go out instead. Rogerio: Why do I have do it? Bustamante: Because you are the only one who can. So during the opening ceremonies Rogerio put on a hoodie and pretended to be Rodrigo. Rogerio supposedly acted a little weird because he didn't want anyone to see his face during the opening cermonies. Makes me even more angry now that the opening ceremonies weren't included in the US broadcast because this is something I'd love to see. When I first saw the thread title I thought that it was for the actual match, how messed up would that have been. Still, if Nog was late to the arena, he can't have been very focused, that's pro wrestling-ish in it's lack of responsibility. Has anyone heard about all the drama within the BTT?
Lei Tong Posted January 23, 2005 Report Posted January 23, 2005 Impressive, no doubt, but far from indictive of a Top 5 (or Top 10, even) 155lbs. fighter. In the course of a year, Gomi went from being one of MMA's most underrated fighters to one of its most overrated. I've been a Gomi fan for a while, but he really did little to establish himself as one of the top LW fighters in the world last year (in comparison to what he accomplished before). I figured that Pulver was Top 10, made some bad mistakes underestimating Bang, but still has beaten lots of established guys. Guys off the top of my head better then Gomi are Kawajiri Hansen and Shaolin. But I don't know much about SHOOTO, and Shaolin came off a loss and his stock has dropped considerably. I still think it's nothing to sneeze about though. Pulver IS top ten, but in a lower weight class then Gomi & the rest. He's had some good wins at 143lbs over Palling & Uematsu, but he hasn't been a top dog at 155 for a good while now. And for as understandable as the Ludwig loss may be, Jason Maxwell isn't exactly a world beater. My tope ten LW's: 1) Tatsuya Kawajiri (SHOOTO) 2) Vitor Ribeiro (SHOOTO) 3) Joachim Hansen(SHOOTO) 4) Yves Edwards (UFC) 5) Takanori Gomi (PRIDE) 6) Josh Thompson (UFC) 7) Hermes Franca (SHOOTO) 8) Caol Uno (SHOOTO) 9) Ryan Bow (SHOOTO) 10) Ralph Gracie (PRIDE) Bubbling under: Marcus Aurelio, Dokonjonsuke Mishima, Genki Sudo
Your Paragon of Virtue Posted January 23, 2005 Report Posted January 23, 2005 Well at least we agree on the top three, but I think Gomi is better then Yves, I think Yves lost to Franca, so that hurts his place in my eyes.
Lei Tong Posted January 23, 2005 Report Posted January 23, 2005 Well, I tend not bother considering who I BELIEVE won a fight, unless the JD was a total and utter roberry. So Yves' 2 wins over Hermes & Thompson were enough reason for me to rank him over Gomi for the time being.
Masked Man of Mystery Posted January 25, 2005 Report Posted January 25, 2005 Okay, I just rented the Ultimate Brazil tape from Blockbuster(who woulda thought BLOCKBUSTER would be a nice source for old school UFC? I got UFC 20 there used in very nice shape, and they have Ultimate Samrock, is that clipped?) Anyhow, I was watching the Mikey Burnett/Pat Militech fight and they spend the whole fight grabbing each other's tights. To the point where Pat spends like 2 minutes with half of his BUTT exposed. They don't allow that anymore, do they?
RavishingRickRudo Posted January 25, 2005 Author Report Posted January 25, 2005 Don't watch Ultimate Shamrock. For the love of god don't. Holding the tights or gloves is illegal.
AboveAverage484 Posted January 25, 2005 Report Posted January 25, 2005 VERY tentative match list for Pride 29, from Shooto Panama from Sherdog.com, who is generally very credible. Not official information but more likely the card will look something like this: CroCop vs. Coleman Rogerio 'Minotoro' Nogueira vs. Alistair Overeem Ryan Gracie vs. Kazuhiro Nakamura Mark Hunt vs. Sergei Kharinotov Ninja Rua vs. Igor Vovchanchyn Mauricio Shogun vs. Mario Sperry Paulo Filho vs. Hirotaka Yokoi Debate.
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