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By Anthony De Franco  February 8, 2010, at 8:27 pm  I am still amazed by how many people think that strategy is a big part of mixed martial arts. How much money does Greg Jackson have to make before people realize that having a good corner is just important as being well prepared for your fight.
Just ask Mark Coleman. Coleman brought former Randy Couture confidant Shawn Tompkins to the cage with him, and Tompkins gave him some TERRRIBLE advice. Here’s what Josh Gross of SI.com had to say about it:
“Coleman made Couture’s night easy when, at the advice of his trainer Shawn Tompkins and the despite the fact it has never been his path to victory, he chose to stand and trade.”
“…Shortly into the bout, Coleman carried the attitude of a confused athlete, one who was thinking instead of fighting.”
“Between the first and second round, Coleman looked up at Tompkins as the Canadian offered instructions on how to keep distance and how to fire off combination. I’m fairly certain he would have loved if Tompkins told him to run out there and take a shot on a double-leg. If you’re going to go out, go out at what you do best.”
Who besides Tompkins could possibly believe that Coleman had any chance standing and trading with Couture? Over the last few years, Couture has drilled his boxing to the point where it is on par with his wrestling. He has some of the best head movement in the game. As supposed to Coleman, who had no head movement.
What a joke.
By Jason Comack January 21, 2010, at 3:55 pm When the UFC signs an international star I get giddy.
Whenever the UFC signs an international star my friends that are casual MMA fans ask “who is this guy and why should I care?” Usually if you give me 15 minutes acces to Daily Motion and Youtube I can make a pretty convincing case for just about anyone.
Ramapage Jackson? Show the Arona slam. The dominant performance over Liddell (in Pride.) And just about any interview he’s ever done. Like the one where he talks about what he’s going to do when he wins the Pride belt. “When I shit I’m gonna shit with the Pride belt.” Or what about when he said to El Guapo that his strategy was to “whoop that ass.”.
Vitor Belfort? The Phenom. The 8 second KO over Wanderlei. The unfortunate kidnapping of his sister. The highlight reel of KO’s. Easy. Anderson Silva? The entrance to the ring as Michael Jackson. Any of his highlight reel KO’s.
Gomi? Thinking…still thinking. I can’t think of one single achievement in Gomis career that really stands out. He had an epic winning streak but fought his fare share of cans along the way. Does he really have any singular stand out moments?
This was made obvious when they showed Gomi at UFC 108 and the crowd reacted with indifference. Who’s this guy? Oh he’s an old pride lightweight champ. Is he any good? Yea, but he might be past his prime, he’s lost 2 of his last 4 fights. Does he have a shot of beating Penn? No, actually they already fought once and Penn beat him convincingly.
To me this is why the Gomi signing makes no sense. Because the above conversation is the way any MMA fan would describe Gomi to someone who didn’t know who he was.
Why Gomi, why now? Did Dana White get his Japanese lightweights confused? Did he mean to sign Shinya Aoki?
The loigcal answer is simply Gomi is the one that got away. When the UFC and Pride merged Fedor and Gomi were the two fighters that Dana White coveted that he couldn’t get. Now he has a chance to get Gomi and he got him.
The more abstract answer is that the UFC is planning on holding a card in Japan soon. I’m not claiming I have any inside info, I’m just connecting the dots.
Between the Pride stars of old, Machida, Gomi and Sexy-ama the UFC has more then enough talent to appease the Japanese crowd.
Think the Japanese crowd wouldn’t eat up Lesnar vs. ‘Nog? What about Akiyama vs. Anderson or Wanderlei Silva? Machida vs. Jackson? Gomi vs. anyone really? Hell, you can even dig up Mirko Cro-Cops corpse and hope he head kicks someone.
The UFC is dead set on perusing the international market. That much is obvious. First Abu-Dhabi then the world. It only seems logical the UFC would put a card in Japan.
By Anthony De Franco December 2, 2009, at 2:00 pm Come on. Everyone has to be impressed with how little Jon Jones Man-Love I’ve presented since UFC 100. I’ve purposely stayed off his jock this time just to prove that I can, but now, just a few days before his fight, I am in full on clinging to his leg, hype mode.
Jones, the ultra-athletic, super exciting prospect from Endicott, New York will take on Matt “The Hammer” Hamill on Saturday, and it will mark Jones’ coming out party to the main stream audience.
The gameplan, which will be provided by fight strategy master and Jones’ new trainer Greg Jackson, should be to stand and strike with Hamill, an incredibly decorated wrestler. However, Jones doesn’t think that going to the ground with The Hammer is a death sentence. From Bloody Elbow:
Matt had a great collegiate career, but it was so long ago. If you were a great wrestler, unless you’re all about wrestling every day, and still training at that level, you lose a lot of it. And for people to say that Matt’s just gonna take me down, hold me down, ground and pound me and beat me that way, it’s just ridiculous. I can’t wait to show the people that I’m a fresh wrestler out of college. Matt’s college career was like ten years ago. This time last year I was warming up for tournaments. I’m a wrestling coach now at Ithaca College, I wrestle at Cornell University all summer long, so I think it’s funny that people are giving him that huge gap in the wrestling department, and I can’t wait to make Matt prove that he’s a better wrestler than me.”
… “I’m gonna continue to be a grinder and continue to work hard, improve, and keep my head on straight. I’m not resting until I’m officially Anderson Silva status.”
Uhhh…I have chills. Anyway, while I don’t have any doubt that Jon Jones could leap tall buildings if he wanted to, I don’t want to see him on the ground with Hamill. Instead, he should be standing and moving against a much slower opponent.
By Anthony De Franco October 1, 2009, at 8:00 am While we’ve done quite a few MMA shirts on this site, this will be our first venture in MMA gear of other kinds. TapouT has put together a somewhat interesting strategy of not just making fight shorts, but rather turning the shorts you see on fighters in board shorts. So, if you are looking for a new pair of board shorts, you might wanna check these out.
With TUF being as popular as it is right now, it wouldn’t be all that shocking to see these on people this summer. Personally, I love the black and gold coloring on them, as well as the “world order” logo on the side.
They sell for 64.99 on MMA Warehouse.
For more great MMA merchandise, Check out The 3rd String Store.
By Anthony De Franco September 22, 2009, at 3:28 pm Take that Floyd Mayweather. The UFC’s newest counterprogramming strategy of showing the undercard fights from UFC 103 on Spike TV paid off big time as they put up an absolutely huge number on Spike TV. Here’s the whole article from MMA Weekly:
The Ultimate Fighting Championship broadcasted live prelims for the first time on Spike TV for UFC 103 and the numbers are in.
Spike TV’s live telecast of the UFC 103 prelims on Saturday, September 19 (9:00-10:00pm ET/PT) delivered a robust 1.4 million viewers and was the #2 rated program in Men 18-34 in all of cable in the timeslot including out-delivering ESPN2’s coverage of NCAA college football (West Virginia vs. Auburn).
Overall, the fights drew a 1.5 (441,000) in Men 18-34, a 1.3 (738,000) in Men 18-49, and a household rating of 1.0.
That’s terrible news for all those people out there who hoped that this Boxing card would take overtake the UFC. I would assume that this means that the numbers for UFC 103 are going to be pretty impressive as well.
Hey, maybe the UFC can overtake college football too….
By Anthony De Franco July 3, 2009, at 3:15 pm Continuing our theme of fighter predictions from earlier in the day, MMAWeekly has some quotes from Georges St. Pierre that suggest his help is going to put Kenny Florian over the top at UFC 101 in Philly:
“I’ve trained with him two times and he looked really sharp. I put my money on him against B.J. Penn,” St. Pierre stated.
The Canadian has put together some of the most legendary camps to prepare for his title fights, so his physical and mental strategy could be a key edge that Florian will carry into the fight in August.
St. Pierre complemented Florian for the work they did together while in Montreal, and he’s confident that Penn will have no answer for what Florian will bring into the title fight.
“Kenny Florian is a great training partner, and is going to be a great champion, and he’s also a greater person and human being (than B.J. Penn),” said St. Pierre.
Much like his own strategy and gameplan, he wouldn’t let anything out of the bag as to what Florian will do to beat Penn, but he is boastful that it will happen.
“A lot of things, but they are part of his gameplan so I can’t talk too much about it,” St. Pierre commented about what Florian will bring into the fight against Penn. “It basically consists of using his strength and putting it against his opponent’s weaknesses.”
First off, GSP needs to worry about Thiago Alves first. Second of all, this is the best news that I have heard in weeks. It seems like Georges has a legit dislike for B.J. Penn, and since I have an extreme dislike for B.J.’s number one fan, it’s good to hear that my favorite fighter is helping Kenny Florian win. I’ve stood by Florian all along, and I can’t help but think that the stars may be aligning for a title change in Philly.
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