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By Anthony De Franco  March 20, 2010, at 6:40 am  After fighting Dan Henderson on the upcoming Strikeforce CBS card, Jake Shields will be a free agent win or lose. He does not have a “champions clause” in his contract that states he can’t leave while he is the middleweight champion. Therefore, he is likely to be taking suitors as soon as the 18th of April.
At the front of that line should be Dana White.
Shields is a great fit for the UFC for many reason. The first of which is that he simply a great fighter. He possesses great BJJ, and holds 10 submission victories. However, that is what we expect from someone who holds a black belt under Cesar Gracie. However, what separates him from someone like teammate Nate Diaz is solid standup. He’s not going to blow anyone away on the feet, but he can use his standup to set up takedowns. He’s not just throwing a pawing jab out there, he is doing damage with strikes.
Shields has won twelve in a row, including a victory over overrated personality/underrated fighter Jason “Mayhem” Miller in his last fight. That fight was at middleweight, which is not Shields natural weight class. However, since they lacked a star at 185 to put on CBS, they went to a bulked up Shields. The result was Miller being too strong for Shields, and Shields being unable to finish the fight.
If he was able to come to the UFC, Shields could move back down the 170 immediately. In that division there are so many interesting fights for him. He could start near the top of the division because of his previous success the same way we saw Vitor Belfort do. That means that fights with Jon Fitch, Thiago Alves, Josh Koscheck, Anthony Johnson and more are all options.
Another reason why it’s important that Shields come over is what I’m calling the Dan Hardy theory. After UFC 100, when we were watching the presser and Jason was recovering from Frank Mir’s loss, Jason said that Shields was the only person that he was interested in watching the GSP fight. I told him to calm down, and that he sounded like a Sherdog forum member panicking like that. New contenders pop up all the time.
Enter Dan Hardy. Is Hardy the second best welterweight in the UFC? No. However, since we have seen Fitch, Alves and Koscheck all fight the Canadian wonder already, Hardy gets the bump up. If we are willing to give that shot to Hardy, then we could easily give it to Shields. There is a suddenly interesting opponent for GSP.
Shields is a top-ten welterweight. There is never any problem with adding a top-ten guy to your company. However, Shields’ validity has been put into question because of him not fighting the top talent in his weight class. All that talent is in the UFC.
It’s too good to pass up for both sides.
By Anthony De Franco March 19, 2010, at 3:35 pm Yet another good post over over at The UFC Undisputed community site. This one focuses on the revamped striking game that will be in this year’s game, and answers some very important questions that we have all had since last year.
We’ve done a great deal to revamp striking. Last year, many of the reactions that could be generated in the Octagon (like receiving a body kick/punch/ elbow) were tied to pre-scripted animations. This meant that if you were tagged by certain strikes from your opponent, you’d lose control of your fighter for a very brief bit as you recovered your footing or stopped wincing from a body blow.
This time around, we’ve made the stand up much more true to life. Now the reactions generated by dealing and receiving blows and strikes rely greatly on our physics engine. Tech speak translation: the game is faster, more fluid, and more intense, with the player maintaining a greater amount of control over his fighter due to fewer preset animated reactions to fists/shins/elbows meeting someone’s chin/face/obliques. We’ll bring you all a much more detailed post on this topic in the weeks to come, as it has some important standup implications that we want to go in-depth on.
I remember a specific moment in which I realized that as good as 2009 was, it needed work. After watching 3rd String loyal fan and friend Brandon Steinberger and I make a match between Josh Koscheck and Jon Fitch look like an elaborate dance, two of my non-MMA fan friends wanted to play. They picked up the controllers, ran to the center of the cage, and threw elbows at one another from clinch range. The problem was that once one hit, the other person was frozen in an animation, so he couldn’t do anything to block. It was horrifying.
It’s good to hear that this has been fixed. Physics appears to be a big focus this year, which should make for a much more realistic game.
We’ve brought a new layer of striking defense to Undisputed this year by way sways and counters. Why take a haymaker to the face from Wanderlei Silva when you can duck it, right? Mastering the sway in 2010 is going to be a very important key to you competitive Undisputed gamers. There’s more than one way to sway out of the way of strikes, but we’re going to let you discover which sway is right for the range of strikes that will be headed your way.
Also, be sure to keep an eye out for Sway Counters. On the dev team, we refer to a perfectly executed sway counter as “the magic moment”. Again, we’re going to let you find out why we call it “the magic moment”, but it might have something to do with it looking awesome, being a sure sign of elite skills, and being able to do some horrible things to the guy on the receiving end of the counter.
Here is a dirty little secret. When last year’s game came out, I was only about two or three months into being truly obsessed with MMA. Now, I know so much more than I did then. One of the things I’ve learned is that blocking in MMA is not a very functional form of defense due to light gloves. Head movement is what separates good MMA boxers from great ones. Now that this will be represented, it will create a whole new way to counteract all those stupid people online who try to run the center of the cage and overwhelm you with strikes in the first ten seconds of the fight. Duck, Counter Hook, Give me my check.
By Anthony De Franco March 17, 2010, at 10:41 pm According to MMA Junkie, Bobby Lashley will take place in his sixth pro fight during the undercard of the CBS broadcast of Strikeforce’s next card.
No opponent has been determined, though an announcement could come within the next week.
With three title fights already booked for the CBS-televised card, Lashley (5-0) may be part of the night’s un-aired preliminary card.
… A fourth fight could be shown via delay on the CBS broadcast, time permitting. Sources said the Lashley fight is expected be that featured bout.
Lashley on the undercard? Are we serious here? This guy is supposed to be one of the top draws in the company, and we are sticking him on an undercard?
The reason is because Strikeforce is selling this card as having three title fights. Well, that means that you have to set aside a half hour or more for each of those fights. With at least 90 minutes of a 120 minute broadcast taken up, there is no guarantee that another fight will even be possible. Can they run over? Not unless they want to piss off every single CBS affiliate in the country.
They should have saved Lashley for the next card and put him on CBS the next time around.
By Jason Comack March 15, 2010, at 9:08 pm One of my favorite prospects, Charles Oliveira, has been offered a multi-fight UFC deal and is expected to debut with the company soon.
MMAJunkie.com broke the news.
Oliveira has been offered an exclusive agreement and is expected to debut in the near future. Though the contract has yet to be finalized, the process appears to be a mere formality at this point. An exact date for the 20-year-old Oliveira’s first UFC fight has not been determined, and an opponent has yet to be named.
Oliveira has mostly fought in Brazil but he has one U.S. fight, a win over Dom Stanco. Stanco was a former training partner of mine and I happened to have attended that fight. I can tell you that after watching Oliveira he has Damien Maia at 155 type upside. The guy is 20 years old and moves like a snake on the ground. He’s somewhat thin for 155 but should be able to add weight easily to his long lanky frame.
Photo courtesy of Ring Of Combat
The scariest thing about Oliveira is that as good as he is, and as young as he is, he hasn’t even began to scratch the surface of his potential. Jordan Breen has said on his radio show that Oliveira basically trains in his garage with friends. When he gets to a real camp, all bets are off.
By Anthony De Franco March 10, 2010, at 10:35 pm With Dominick Cruz winning the Bantamweight title, I beleive that the 135 pound division in the WEC has officially entered the transitional period that the light heavyweight division did when Forrest Griffin defeated Rampage Jackson. There are a few guys who are capable of holding the belt, and I’m not sure that any of them can hold it.
However, if there was a gun to my head, I would say that Joseph Benavidez would be the guy to do it.
Let’s take a look at the two fights from last Saturday that contained the four best fighters in the division.
When Dominick Cruz won his belt, he did so by TKO because of Injury. It wasn’t an injury that Cruz cause by doing an immense about of damage in the cage. Hell, it wasn’t even a freak injury like Patrick Cote suffered against Anderson Silva. It was a pre-existing injury that snuck up on Brian Bowles and bit him in the proverbial ass. He broke his hand knocking out Miguel Torres, and took seven months to heal up. Then, he throws and lands one punch on Cruz and breaks it again. So, are we really going to pretend that Cruz’s victory isn’t somewhat tainted? Yes, he was winning the first two rounds, but he was doing so with a jumpy, twitchy style that just screamed “Punch me in face!” Bowles continued to rush Cruz, and just seemed a second late at all times. If Bowles had connected, you might not be reading this right now.
Now, look at Joseph Benavidez’s fight against Miguel Torres. Look at the way that he snuffed out almost all offense from a guy who was at one time considered the best fighters on the planet. He continually moved forward, landed his offense and put Torres is tough positions. Most importantly, he finished the fight. He pushed Torres up against the cage, pounded him, and opened up a cut that I’m pretty sure that he used a samurai sword to create. Once the cut was open and Torres was off-kilter, Benavidez finished the job with a guillotine. Done. Fight over, all doubts alleviated.
Can you say that about Cruz?
Yes, Cruz does have a victory over Benavidez. However, as everyone always says, fighters change from fight to fight. I beleive that Benavidez is a better fighter than he was WEC 42, and with him training at Team Alpha Male with WEC godfather Urijah Faber, There is no doubt that he is. As for Cruz, he showed us jab-leg kick-escape over and over again. The best thing he did was gameplan for a fighter who wasn’t as athletic as he was.
This is a prediction and like all predictions has a chance of going terribly awry. However, if you told me that Cruz and Benavidez’s rematch was tomorrow, I’d take Benavidez every single time.
By Anthony De Franco March 10, 2010, at 9:00 am Everybody remember Patrick Cote? He’s the other Canadian guy in the UFC. He hasn’t fought since seriously injuring his leg in a title fight against Anderson Silva. He hoped to be back by UFC 104, but needless to say it took a little longer than expected.
However, he is coming back at UFC 113 in a fight against Alan Belcher. He’ll be hard pressed to fight against both Belcher and ring rust, but If I know Canada, they’ll be behind him.
Cote’s return will be in front of his home fans, and many of them will be wearing this Silver Star shirt. Just in case you didn’t know where he was from, this shirt has a giant maple leaf on the back.
MMA Warehouse has this one for 39.99 American Dollars.
For more Silverstar shirts, check out The 3rd String Store.
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