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By Anthony De Franco  March 13, 2010, at 12:45 pm  Is the Iceman coming back sooner than we thought?
According to Fighters only, his return may be roughly a month away. Chuck would forgo his UFC 115 fight with Tito Ortiz to take on former middleweight champion Rich Franklin on April 15th. This, of course, is the same day that Strikeforce will be on CBS, with the main event being Dan Henderson v. Jake Shields.
Chuck Liddell will be fighting Rich Franklin in his next bout and not rival TUF 11 coach Tito Ortiz, Fighters Only has heard from a reliable source. The switch was initially reported to us just under two weeks ago but was only a rumour at that time.
However, the rumour hit message boards late last night and an industry source confirmed that Liddell will indeed be facing former middleweight champion Rich Franklin. The fight is to headline an April 17th Fight Night event which will counter Strikeforce’s show on the same date.
Bloody Elbow (which is just an awesome site) is quick to point out that Fighters only is credentialed by the UFC, which means that this claim probably has some legitimacy to it.
Let’s look at what this does for the UFC. First off, they will lose the UFC 115 main event between Ortiz and Liddell. This fight had a chance to be a big PPV moneymaker, so there are some who will question Zuffa’s logic. Instead, they will put the Iceman on free cable, and some that he draws some eyes over from CBS.
Inside the cage, this should be an interesting fight, and it’s a win-win for Dana White. If Liddell loses, he will likely retire, which Dana publicly said that he would like Chuck to. That would mean that Franklin is back on the map in the light heavyweight division with a win over someone who, at the very least, is still a name.
If Liddell wins, then Chuck will likely be given another fight, and that one would not be free. Even if Liddell isn’t a championship caliber fighter anymore, he is still a name that can make money.
It’s also an interesting test of Liddell’s drawing power. Can Chuck still draw like The Iceman could a couple of years ago or are people going to think of him like they do LaDanian Tomlinson nowadays and react with general apathy?
If this fight goes off, there are a lot of interesting dynamics involved
[Update: (1:37 PM) Okay, maybe not. MMA Junkie is now reporting that Liddell and Franklin will take place as the main event of UFC 115, not on a new card scheduled for April. They also are reporting some other strange news...]
By Anthony De Franco February 27, 2010, at 6:05 am Yancy Medeiros defeated Raul Castillo via Unanimous Decision (30-27, 30-27, 30-27)
This is a tough fight to get excited about. It’s not that Medeiros did anything wrong, or didn’t impress. It’s that we saw him outstrike a grappler who clearly is not comfortable on his feet whatsoever. However, let’s choose to be positive. He defeated an American Kickboxing Academy member by using effective, if not dominant striking and showed some really nice takedown defense. The only offense that Castillo put together came after a low blow. That should say something.
Saffiedine defeated Terry via Unanimous Decision (30-27, 30-27, 30-27)
I’ll say it again: Training with Cung Le might be a mistake. I keep saying that Anthony Johnson needs to get with a real camp if he wants to be a legit contender, and we saw again here that Terry was simply overmatched. Terry has a great highlight reel TKO with a head kick, but against a tougher opponent in Saffiedine, he was peppered with shots throughout and couldn’t get a takedown. Saffiedine looked good, and I like the combination of all the different arts he combined in his attack.
Luke Rockhold defeated Paul Bradley via TKO (Knees to the Body) at 2:24 of round 1.
Rockhold was absolutely dominant. He was winning the standup battle many times over and did it by using impressive counters. The finishing sequence was impressive as he threw a couple of really nice knees against the cage to drop Bradley. Combine this win with some of Luke’s submission wins, and suddenly this is a guy that we really need to start looking at.
Trevor Prangley vs. Karl Amoussou ends by Technical Draw due to accidental eye poke from Prangley at 4:14 of round 1
Everyone is going to get on the referee for this, but it isn’t really his fault. He was a slave to a dumb rule. When someone gets poked in the eye like that, why should they not be allowed five minutes to recover? Is it any different then getting hit with a low blow? After a few minutes, unless you really got gouged, your eye starts to open and you can go on fighting. That was a good fight for four minutes, and it’s a shame that it was stopped because of a stupid rule like that.
Sarah Kaufman defeated Takayo Hashi via Unanimous Decision (50-45, 50-45, 50-45)
Kaufman was just too strong for Hashi. The reality is that 135 is not a very deep division in women’s MMA. Hashi is a 125 fighter who was fighting up in order to give Kaufman an opponent. Kaufman boxed well throughout the fight, but Hashi simply could not keep up with the Canadian fighter. The problem is going to be finding an opponent for Kaufman. Even Jordan Breen might have to dig deep into the bag of tricks to find one.
By Anthony De Franco February 25, 2010, at 4:23 pm I know that it’s an average hype video, but I think that Brandon Vera says a couple of interesting things here.
Vera is right about one thing: Jones hasn’t really been hit by anyone yet. He’s steamrolled all his competition and at no point have we seen Jones get tagged and walk through it. While I don’t forsee Vera knocking Jones out in this fight, It is probably the best gameplan to try and stand and knock the athletic freak out.
The other thing that Vera said that is true is that he needs to get back to trying to finish people. I am sick of the safe Vera that we saw in the Randy Couture fight, I want to see some violence from him. I want to see the knockouts that made people believe he was legit back in the day. I need to see some power from him, while having enough takedown defense to stay on his feet.
By Anthony De Franco February 24, 2010, at 7:56 pm Looks like Rampage is looking to end his MMA career sooner rather than later. He recently sat down with Fighters Only Magazine in the UK, and said some interesting things:
“I like MMA a lot less than I used to,” Jackson said.
“They’ve said some things and done some things I don’t agree with — that’s not the way I do business,” Jackson said. “I’m a loyal person so I take care of people who take care of me, but people who don’t take care of me, I don’t take care of them. So I’m done with the UFC. They can’t ask me for anymore favors. Nothing. I just want to finish my contract and get out of there, do my own thing. Dana lied to me. He told me I didn’t have to fight Rashad, I could fight Machida. I did the show and then after that he told me I had to fight Rashad.”
Why do I feel like a lot of this isn’t true? Am I the only one who ahs a hard time believing anything Jackson says at this point? For all the complaining that he is doing, it seems that he is forgetting that Dana was the one that bailed him out of jail after he went insane a couple of years ago.
In all honesty, I think Rampage is becoming a bit of an afterthought anyway. If he loses to Rashad, He might be in danger of disappearing completely.
By Anthony De Franco February 14, 2010, at 6:11 am In late 2009, the UFC suffered there worst injury plague in their 10-plus year history. They lost main carder after main carder and had to cobble together main events for at least three events. In 2010, we were to see a return to form. After all, that couldn’t happen again could it?
We certainly hope not, but the after the last couple of days, I’m beginning to get worried. First, Vitor Belfort has to pull out of the main event of UFC 112, and now Anthony “Rumble” Johnson is injured and out of UFC on Versus. Pro MMA Now broke the story.
Anthony “Rumble” Johnson (8-3) has had to pull out of his highly anticipated March 21 “UFC on Versus” bout with John “Doomsday” Howard (13-4) due to a knee injury. Pro MMA Now (www.prommanow.com) was notified of the bout cancellation this evening from an associate who spoke directly to Howard’s manager.
“Rumble’s” last fight was a second round submission loss to Josh Koscheck at UFC 106 in November. “Doomsday” is on a five fight win streak, he is still undefeated (3-0) in the UFC, and is coming off a spectacular come-from-behind knockout win over legendary MMA veteran Dennis Hallman at the “TUF 10 Finale” in December.
Well, there goes another good fight down the tubes. Johnson also pulled out of the TUF 9 Finale against Matt Brown with a knee injury. Here’s hoping that it’s not a lingering problem. Johnson’s last fight was a loss where he was dominanted by top five welterweight Josh Koscheck.
No word yet on who will face Howard at UFC’s first card on Versus.
By Anthony De Franco February 7, 2010, at 2:28 am Stock Up
- Chael Sonnen – Fuck. The UFC’s newest super-villian seems to actually have something behind his insane rants. We all knew he could wrestle, but no one expect Nate Marquardt to be taken down so easily. Sonnen said that both the flying knee and the guillotine by Nate almost put him out. Best case scenario: Anderson Silva defeats Vitor Belfort and then ends Sonnen’s life with Muay Thai knees.
- Paulo Thiago – Thiago had Swick timed so quickly that the American Kickboxing Academy student couldn’t land anything. Thiago is no joke in welterweight division, and don’t be surprised if he gives up his police job to start training full-time. For some reason, Jason and I both agree that we see him getting the Paul Daley v. Josh Koscheck winner.
- Randy Couture – Obvious? Listen, we all knew that Randy was going to win this fight. It was designed for him to win. The next big fight at 205 is Machida and Shogun. If Machida wins, don’t be surprised if we see Randy get his shot for another light heavyweight championship.
Stock Down
- Nate Marquardt – My bad. I wrote a whole article about how Nate was the next big thing at 185, and then he loses. The sad part? I still beleive it. Take some time to go and train takedown defense against Georges St. Pierre and then come back in a couple of months. My only concern is that someone like Nate who relies so much on knees and kicks will always be susceptible to takedowns.
- Frank Trigg – It’s been fun Frank. This is likely a career for the Rochester, New York native. He said that he would quit if he was cut from the UFC, and after being knocked out by Matt Serra, he’s likely to be cut. Frank should head back to the broadcast booth. He’s better than most out there right now.
- Mike Swick – That’s two losses in a row for Swick. I think that we’ve seen that Swick just isn’t championship material. While his striking is excellent, he just lacks the overall level of skill necessary to really make a mark at 170. Swick can still carve out a career hanging around the top 10, but don’t expect him to get to the top of the mountain. Leave that to his teammates, Koscheck and Jon Fitch.
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