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Ontario Grapplers Gearing Up for the 32-Man Showdown

Mixed martial arts fans in Ontario are set for a unique, combat treat at the end of February as Adrenaline Training Center and Pecker’d Services presents the third annual “32-Man Showdown”.
The Showdown will pit 32 of the best No-gi grapplers…

Mixed martial arts fans in Ontario are set for a unique, combat treat at the end of February as Adrenaline Training Center and Pecker’d Services presents the third annual “32-Man Showdown”.

The Showdown will pit 32 of the best No-gi grapplers in the province against each other in a five-minute match, double elimination tournament. A bracket will be drawn prior to the tournament and then it will be non-stop action from the start to finish.

The event is being presented by Adrenaline Training Center and Pecker’d Services which is owned by Alex Gasson. Gasson is deeply involved in the local MMA community through his company and he helps run the show at Adrenaline, one of the top mixed martial arts training centers in the country. I was able to visit earlier this week to chat with the man running the show.

“There’s gonna be 63 matches, five minutes per match and possible overtime at two-and-a-half minutes. it’s Grappler’s Quest rules. It used to be single elimination but now that we have it going pretty smooth we can go match after match after match so we changed it.”

The event itself has grown in popularity in it’s third year of existence and Gasson has more help running the event. “It has gotten more popular and we have more people available to help out. I have also been working closely with the OGA, they know their stuff and they know how to put on a show. We have been working well together and will probably do more in the future.”

The Showdown is one of the few true open weight grappling competitions available and the list of competitors range from 135-pounds right up to 270-pounds. Gasson’s event came from his vision to see who truly is the best of the best.

“That’s how it started, from the idea of seeing who’s the real best. There are all these events that go through the tournament and crown a winner in each weight class, then at the end of the day they pit them against each other to see who the winner of the tournament is. I was like why not just start from the beginning and have that open style of format you know.”

Gasson is a trainer, manager and staple at Adrenaline Training Center and he continues to find ways to bring fun and competition to the community while teaching self defense and values through mixed martial arts.

The event will be held on Sunday February 26th, from 12-5pm at the Agriplex in London and will be held in conjunction with the “Sports and Recreation Show” held in the Western Fair District. A $5 entry fee to the Sports and Recreation Show is all that is needed to catch some of the most explosive action and athletes Ontario has to offer.

It is sponsored by Everlast, Brass Knuckle Therapy, Fight Planet, The Print Firm, Adrenaline Training Center and The Ontario Grappling Alliance.

I’m looking forward to seeing who will be Ontario’s Royce Gracie this year!

Dwight Wakabayashi is a Featured Columnist for Bleacher Report MMA, MMA Editor at CKSN.ca and correspondent for MMACanada.net.

Catch him on Facebook and Twitter at wakafightermma.

Read more MMA news on BleacherReport.com

UFC on Fox 2 Fight Card: Bisping ‘I Will Fight My Fight and I’m Gonna Win’

The UFC on Fox 2 media call went down last week and the UFC had the six main-card fighters on conference call with the media. It marked the first time that pound-for-pound trash talk champions, and recently announced opponents, Chael Sonnen and Michael Bisping were both available to throw barbs at each other leading up to the fight this weekend.

Even though Bisping has amped up the talk over the weekend saying some interesting things about Sonnen’s luggage, let’s all hope the fight is much more vicious and exciting than the pre-fight lead up. Both fighters admitted that they respect each other in this sport and that the fact that the fight has been set so late is the culprit for the lack of verbal vitriol.

Bisping is well aware of the challenge he faces in Sonnen and what is at stake in this fight.

“I want the biggest fights possible and when the UFC said Chael Sonnen I jumped at it. It’s a bigger fight with bigger ramifications. People say I haven’t fought tough guys well here we are.”

Say what you want about the brash and cocky Brit, but you have to respect his response to those who think he is risking a title shot accepting this fight with a short camp.

“It’s all there for the taking, if I lose I don’t deserve a title shot. Obviously, I would have brought in more wrestlers, but I have been working with jiu-jitsu guys like Dean Lister and Jake Shields trying to take me down and submit me, so if Chael takes me down, a lot of it crosses over. I’m not gonna make excuses, I’m gonna fight my fight and I’m gonna win.”

Bisping also had some advice for those tuning in for the entertaining trash talk.

“Forget the trash talk, tune in for the fight. Who cares about the trash talk.”

For once, I actually like what Bisping is saying heading into one of his fights.

Dwight Wakabayashi is a Featured Columnist for Bleacher Report MMA and correspondent for MMACanada.net.

Catch him on Facebook and Twitter at wakafightermma.

Read more MMA news on BleacherReport.com

Power Ranking Every Pride Tournament

The holiday season always reminds me of the glory days of Japanese MMA and the much-hyped New Years Eve events that the Pride FC organization always used to hold. The days of Pride are long gone, but the memories of that unique era with pyro-show …

In human nature, variety is the spice of life and with the modern era of weight classes and individual event fight card’s there is one thing that Pride delivered that I truly miss most of all, The Tournament.

Pride held eight tournaments in it’s history and they delivered some of the toughest, most compelling mixed martial arts matches we have ever seen. Here is my power ranking of Pride tournaments.

Happy Holidays to everyone!

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UFC 141: Why There Will Never Be a Dominant UFC Heavyweight Champion

The UFC has never really had a dominant heavyweight champion and it is becoming abundantly clear that they never will. Randy Couture is probably the closest thing ever to a dominant UFC heavyweight, holding the title three diff…

The UFC has never really had a dominant heavyweight champion and it is becoming abundantly clear that they never will.

Randy Couture is probably the closest thing ever to a dominant UFC heavyweight, holding the title three different times and defending it three times as well between 1997-2008. While Couture held the title for approximately 1,113 days during that span of 11 years (4,015 days) and 629 days consecutively, the title changed hands to seven different fighters in that time period alone.

In a time and era when the heavyweight division was the weakest in the world, a big man who was ahead of his time had a great opportunity to clear out all comers and stay fresh with two fights annually. Couture was the standout big man of that early era of MMA.

The sport has evolved since that time, and that evolution has created more and better heavyweight fighters, more and better training and in essence a parity that the division has never seen before. The division is as deep as it has ever been and with the recent announcement that the Strikeforce heavyweight division will dissolve into the UFC, the water will only get deeper.

Evolution has also created a demand for title fights and expectation of fighting three to four times in one year a la Jon Jones. That demand also minimizes the chances of a lengthy, dominant reign. Injuries, fatigue and lack of focus creep in as each training camp goes on.

The days of the dynasty team in other sports has been crushed by salary caps and collective bargaining agreements aimed at creating a level playing field. In MMA, the evolution to parity has been a much more natural thing based on growth and development of the sport.

Sure, there are still dominant champions in the welterweight, middleweight and even the light heavyweight division, but it is easier to dominate at the lighter divisions where mistakes can be overcome, grind on the body is less and in-fight comebacks are more of the norm.

One example to explain what I mean is lightweight champion Frankie Edgar compared to former heavyweight champion Cain Velasquez.

Edgar made early errors in both his title defences against Gray Maynard but the power shots Maynard landed were not enough to put the champ away. He was able to come back and hold on to his title both times. In contrast at heavyweight, Cain Velasquez made a mistake early against Junior dos Santos and due to the power of a heavyweight strike, it was all she wrote for his title reign.

Is Dos Santos, the man who looks unbeatable, going to have a dominant hold on the heavyweight gold? I don’t see it that way and believe that his title reign will also be a short one. History, evolution and parity says that the big belt will remain a hot potato in 2012.

Dwight Wakabayashi is a Featured Columnist for Bleacher Report MMA and correspondent for MMACanada.net.

Catch him on Facebook and Twitter at wakafightermma.

Read more MMA news on BleacherReport.com

The 20 Greatest Heavyweights in MMA History

Mixed martial arts fans have been treated to some of the best heavyweight fighting action ever in 2011 and the picture is heating up towards New Year’s Eve with the colossal battle between Brock Lesnar and Alistair Overeem. From the epic scramble …

From the epic scramble and roll between Mir and Nogueira to the bombing overhand right to Velasquez’s temple that won Junior Dos Santos the title, the division holds some exciting matchups for fans to want to see in the future,

With the recent news that Strikeforce will dissolve it’s heavyweight’s and almost all the best big men will be fighting under one promotional roof for the first time in history, the question remains who is the Best Heavyweight MMA Fighter Of All Time?

Take a look at my list:

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UFC 140 Aftermath: Mir, Jones and Brutal Finishes That Defied the Norm

It is the aftermath of UFC 140 in Toronto and living in the city, the buzz is surely on the brutal finishes of the fights from the card on Saturday night.All the coverage and talk of Frank Mir breaking Nogueira’s arm, along with local reports of …

It is the aftermath of UFC 140 in Toronto and living in the city, the buzz is surely on the brutal finishes of the fights from the card on Saturday night.

All the coverage and talk of Frank Mir breaking Nogueira’s arm, along with local reports of how all the Maple Leafs and hockey players in attendance thought it was quite a brutal sport, has left me throwing caution to the wind.

The finishes, and some of the fights we saw this weekend fall directly into the five-90-five percent rule, and it must be explained before any judgement is passed by the uneducated MMA fan.

Five percent of all fights will end in some sort of shocking, brutal or even gruesome fashion, 90 percent will end in exciting, even thrilling but normal finishes and the other five percent will end in boring and uneventful fashion.

Usually, the shocking and brutal finishes are spread and sort out among the many different fight cards in a year or period of time. In my opinion, a case could be made that we saw three fights that had finishes in the first five percent.

Frank Mir’s brutal kimura on “Big Nog” is definitely one, Jones’s somewhat brutal-looking choke and how he landed plastered face-down was another.

It could be argued that Chan Sung Jung’s knockout seven seconds in qualifies in there, too.

Mir’s destruction of Nogueira’s arm is comparable to the worst injury in any other sport suffered under the rules, like a broken neck on a clean hit in football, a broken leg on a knee-on-knee hit in hockey or a broken arm from a collision at home plate.

You can’t judge the sport on the most brutal of its incidents. They happen but they are rare. Just like Machida getting choked out on his feet and dropped or Hominick getting knocked out in seven seconds.

The only difference in these incidents is what makes MMA even safer than some of the other sports mentioned.

Both Nogueira and Machida could have stopped these incidents on the spot by swallowing their pride and tapping out to the opponent—a choice not available in mid-action in most sports.

But both men chose not to tap, and both men suffered very cold and real consequences.

Dwight Wakabayashi is a Featured Columnist for Bleacher Report MMA and correspondent for MMACanada.net.

Catch him on Facebook and Twitter at wakafightermma.

Read more MMA news on BleacherReport.com