Author: johnrivera

UFC on FX 4 in your Face!!!

Last night’s UFC on FX 4 event was in many ways a microcosm of life. There were ups, there were downs, we laughed, we cried, we got kind of pissed off a couple of times.

Last night’s UFC on FX 4 event was in many ways a microcosm of life. There were ups, there were downs, we laughed, we cried, we got kind of pissed off a couple of times at the end, but overall we left it with no regrets…..mostly because it was free….


CLAY GUIDA VS GRAY MAYNARD
The main event found, Gray “The Bully” Maynard with a questionable decision victory over the man simply known as “The Carpenter,” No, I’m just kidding we know his name it’s Clay Guida…

Right, so by questionable I really mean bullsh*t. Essentially we had a very technical if unorthodox lesson in stick and move style boxing from the Greg Jackson pupil while The Bully went with a different game plan consisting mostly of heavily plodding forward while wildly missing with big 1-2’s. Guida defended his opponent’s takedown attempts in brilliant fashion and in this cocky sh*t’s opinion would have had a nearly perfect performance if he hadn’t straight up run away from his opponent on at least two different occasions.

Don’t get me wrong, I WOULD RUN AWAY FROM GRAY MAYNARD, but then again I’m not a professional badass like the Carpenter. We’ve all seen Guida’s previous performances, and no one with an ounce of sense can doubt his mettle, but this latest foray into the octagon reeks of the same “running man” stench that drove the Condit-Diaz affair.

Aside from being a little boring at times, Guida’s erratic style garnered him a series of impressive combinations that culminated with a beautiful head kick to Maynard’s face that stood his @ss straight up!!

Even though I believe Guida’s clear control of the standup and superb takedown defense outweighed his lapses in technical defense (he ran like a p#ssy twice) and should have been enough to take the decision, the most exciting moment of the fight came towards the later rounds. You should really go youtube it, but essentially a very frustrated Maynard threw caution to the wind, dropped his hands and walked forward while screaming at Guida to fight, in the process eating several shots from the Carpenter all in an attempt to get his foe to engage….like a boss. This f*cking guy is crazier than your ex-girlfriend.

When all was said and done, the judges felt that Gray’s frustration at not being able to hit his opponent was enough to deserve a unanimous decision. I say make them fight again!!!


SAM STOUT VS SPENCER FISHER
In this bout we see the conclusion of a trilogy of brutal engagements between Sam “Hands of Stone” Stout, and the ever-dangerous, Spencer “The King” Fisher. This fight went much the same way as their last two fights, with both men beating the sh*t out of each other bell to bell.

For those who aren’t familiar, Stout had his UFC debut against, “The King” Fisher back in 2006, showing great heart and determination in taking a judges’ split decision. Fast forward almost a year and the rematch showed us very good standup from Fisher, who mainly used vicious boxing to carry him to a unanimous judges’ decision.

At one apiece, each man undoubtedly came ready to go all-out in the cage, and as foreshadowed by their previous clashes, the men delivered another thrilling three round war. Fisher showed the superior short boxing from the inside, employing it very successfully to bust “Hands of Stone” the f*ck up! It looked to be a repeat performance for “The King,” until Stout showcased his evolution as a mixed martial artist—from young rising prospect to veteran octagon warrior. Midway through the fight, Stout surprisingly started scoring with takedowns, allowing him to open up-with some ground-and-pound in the form of repeated short elbows to the head and arms of Fisher.

The final frame saw both men busted up and swinging until the very last seconds of the duel. While one could argue that Stout took more damage at the hands of Fisher, the takedowns as well as the limited, yet effective ground-and-pound swayed the judges in favor of Stout winning him both the battle and the war in this their third and final confrontation. To be honest I would watch these guys fight over and over again, like Nam Phan and Leonard Garcia, or Shogun and Hendo…What do you b*tches think?


BRIAN EBERSOLE VS TJ WALDBURGER
The eternal Brian Ebersole faced off against the up-and-coming TJ Waldburger in a three round battle which concluded with an Ebersole decision victory. If you were to look at their records you might not be very surprised by the outcome of the fight. On paper, Ebersole is the clear favorite. Let’s break it down a little.

Take Ebersole’s record going into this fight: 49-14-1-1. That’s forty-nine wins, and only fourteen losses in over sixty professional fights. It’s safe to say that Ebersole fits the mold for a very particular breed of pro badass, the mixed martial artist that has been around forever, fought everybody, seen EVERYTHING, and is damn near impossible to finish at this point. I call this rare breed, “The Eternals”

If you were to look at Waldburger’s resume, you might think the same thing my 16 year old brother thought when he mentioned the possibility that the UFC was feeding him to Ebersole as they sometimes do when a high profile fighter loses a bout and needs a tune-up fight. With a 15-7 pro record and a 3-1 UFC record, what my brother said made sense. The only thing odd thing was that Brian Ebersole has been on a tear going through some very high level ass-kickers in the process. Wins over fellow eternals, Chris Lytle (31-18-5), and Dennis Hallman (51-14-2-1) stood out in particular. With a 3-0 UFC record and riding a ten fight win streak Ebersole did not fit the profile for a guy needing a tune up fight.

Well one thing became readily apparent as soon as the contest began, TJ Waldburger is one bad hombre. The guy who turned pro at seventeen years old dropped the eternal with a heavy counter punch early on which is ironic considering that Ebersole’s signature arrow shaved into his chest hair is there as a testament to the fact that no one has knocked him out in over sixty fights. It also serves as a tongue-in-cheek reminder to his opponents as to where to direct their violence.

Waldburger then pounced on the stunned Ebersole putting him in several deep submission attempts that the eternal countered beautifully showing exactly how hard it can be to choke out that kind of high level grappler. Eventually Ebersole managed to reverse his situation into a top position where he rained down heavy ground and pound to a very active and still dangerous but slowly fading Waldburger. Throw in some weird ass pseudo-capoeira kick on Ebersole’s behalf and you pretty much had the same thing all the way to the end of the fight, where an Ebersole fully recovered from his near disastrous knockdown in round one raised his arms in victory (his 50th professional MMA victory) as a f*cked up TJ Waldburger took his second loss in the octagon.


CUB SWANSON VS ROSS PEARSON
Ladies and gentlemen, this one was a barnburner. The Jackson’s Mixed Martial Arts representative, Cub Swanson, showed off a very diverse and dynamic striking style as he claimed his second consecutive knockout, this time with less than a minute left in the second round and simultaneously earning Knockout of the Night.

Toward the end of the first round, his opponent Ross Pearson, had some success throwing combinations inside, exploiting the fact that midway through Swanson for some reason reverted to throwing single power strikes.

At one point Swanson through an absolutely beautiful capoeira kick—you should DEFINITELY YOUTUBE THIS ONE— and he landed it straight to dude’s f*ckin NECK. What’s even crazier than that you ask? Pearson just ate it and followed up with some tasty ground-and-pound.

Ultimately, a roughed up Cub Swanson would get to his feet and resume the ass kicking. Pearson had no answer for the speed, accuracy and unpredictability of Swanson’s flying through the air at you with strikes type standup assault.

The end came quickly when Pearson masterfully caught one of Swanson’s kicks, proceeded to drive through, pushing his opponent back towards the opposite cage. His attempts to finish the takedown earned him two hard right hands from Swanson forcing the tough Brit to drop the leg and a follow up hook floored him. A merciful referee stoppage saved him as Swanson began to swarm with punches.

With two consecutive knockout victories, both of which came in thrilling fashion, Cub Swanson is quickly becoming a fan favorite. For the audience’s sake, we can only hope Jay Silva keeps giving him strikers after the healthy diet of grapplers he was fed for so long. With any luck he’ll keep getting matches where he can show off his superb striking game for our viewing pleasure. Buahaha haha!!!!

WRAP-UP
In conclusion, DON’T FORGET TO WATCH UFC 147 TONIGHT!! Live fights from Brazil, will pit headliners, Wanderlei “The Axe Murderer “Silva, and former UFC Middleweight Champion Rich “Ace” Franklin against one another in their second encounter. It should be pretty violent so round up your crew, hit up the nearest bar, get drunk and watch these guys beat the hell out of each other! If you’re lucky you might even get laid after….but knowing you, probably not. I’ll try to have another recap on tonight’s fights for you tomorrow! Later mother*ckas!!

By: John Rivera

“War of the Welterweights” (Martin Kampmann and Rory MacDonald)

Ok, so last year when my brother texted me the catastrophic news that George St. Pierre had sustained a knee injury and would no longer be fighting to defend his title, I may have taken.

Ok, so last year when my brother texted me the catastrophic news that George St. Pierre had sustained a knee injury and would no longer be fighting to defend his title, I may have taken it a little too hard, but after speaking with the crisis hotline, I put down the can of gasoline and decided that not burning the whole world down would probably work out better for me in the long run.

More than six months later, and the guy is still in rehab with no set date for his return. For MMA fans, this sucks, but luckily for us, there are plenty of other badasses ready to beat the living hell out of each other for our viewing pleasure.

That said, the crazy ass Diaz-Condit affair—for those of you who don’t know what I’m referring to, please see the internet—offered a temporary distraction from our suddenly GSP-less world. Well, that sh*t is old now and I want to see more epic violence!!!

My solution to the problem is simple.

Martin Kampmann and Rory Macdonald should fight for a shot at Condit’s belt:

Here are my top 10 reasons why:

1. Welterweight god, George St. Pierre, straight up told UFC Central in an interview that he does not realistically expect to be in the cage before November, which is pretty much another six months. He won’t even be training full out until July. Weak…

2. If the “Natural Born Killer” waits until GSP’s return, he will have held the interim title for 10 months without a single defense…that is a long time to not defend a belt plenty of people (all Nick Diaz fans) think he shouldn’t have in the first place. Hey I’m a huge Condit fan but let’s be honest, the fight with Diaz could have been scored either way. If NBK wants to be widely recognized as a legitimate UFC champion—I say this knowing full well that Condit viciously defended his WEC title several times, and is in fact totally legit—he needs to fight a motherf@!*er or two.

3. GANJA! Nick “F*ck You” Diaz’ unbridled love of the marijuana combined with an unforgiving NSAC hearing completely screwed up the rematch that was supposed to go down with Condit, robbing fans of what would have surely been a very entertaining spectacle of brutality.

4. Martin “The Hitman” Kampmann has been on an insane tear lately, choking out Thiago Alves (dude was coming off his own submission victory) and KO’ing Jake “The Juggernaut” Ellenburger, who, by the way, has 17 tko/ko victories of his own in 27 professional victories. What is really impressive is when you consider that, besides Kampmann, NO ONE ELSE HAS DONE THIS TO HIM in over 30 pro fights.

5. The Hitman has already beaten Carlos Condit once before, which definitely supports his case for at the very least a shot at the number one contender spot.

6. Rory “Ares” MacDonald is also on a crazy winning streak, absolutely dominating guys like Nate Diaz and Che Mills. These are some very scary men and yet MacDonald freaking molested them on national television almost effortlessly. For God’s sake man, he suplexed Nate “I ain’t no b*tch” Diaz three times in like .04 seconds.

7. MacDonald lost by tko to Condit already. But, hey what?!?! Wait a minute, how does that help your argument, John? Well if you were paying attention to that fight, the first two rounds clearly belong to Rory. Referee Kevin Dornan’s controversial stoppage with only seven seconds left in the final round gave Condit the win, but the scorecards show that had he not stopped it when he did, MacDonald would have picked up the split decision from the judges. So while not quite as good as Kampmann’s decision win over Condit, at the very least it raises the question, “How much better is Rory now and could he take the rematch?”

8. I know this probably would never happen because Rory and GSP are BBL’s (Best Bros for Life) but how crazy would it be if MacDonald took the title and then GSP came back and there was all this Jon Jones/Rashad Evans style drama about how they don’t want to fight each other but then maybe they develop bad blood or something…I don’t know. They could sell it…I leave the marketing to the UFC. At the very least it would open the door for some very interesting matches down the road i.e Koscheck/MacDonald, Hendricks/Condit etc. In the end whoever has the interim title is really only keeping it warm until GSP has healed up.

9. It would probably win the “Fight of the Night” award.

10. I really just want to see this fight happen…

I can’t be the only one, right?

Cheers people!

By John Rivera

Recipe For Greatness

As I sit here day dreaming I can’t help but feel a little sad as I recall the fun of Memorial day weekend and how at this point it’s already ancient history…Friday night was spent.

As I sit here day dreaming I can’t help but feel a little sad as I recall the fun of Memorial day weekend and how at this point it’s already ancient history…Friday night was spent sparring in the gym in preparation for my second amateur fight on June 30th. Saturday, I was fortunate enough to attend a Brazilian jiu-jitsu seminar featuring multiple time world champion grappler Pablo Popovitch. On Sunday, my brothers and I made the trip to the Monster training facility in Miami for a FREE grappling tournament hosted by our generous friends at FXG. Monday I enjoyed a healthy dose of ice, ibuprofen, and household cleaning. Tuesday, my first day back on the job, I seem to have blacked out completely. Now Wednesday, my selective awareness has acknowledged my surroundings and I somehow find myself back on the grind.

Before the suffocating tediousness of the rat race sucks away the joy of life for the next few days—I’m writing this at my real job instead of doing what I’m supposed to be doing—I thought I would share some thoughts (maybe too strong of a word) I had during my kickass holiday weekend.

First, let’s spend a few moments considering what makes a good MMA fighter: decent jiu-jitsu, and kickboxing are definitely the utmost barestestEST of essentials. Add three spoonfuls of wrestling, throw in a heaping helping of strength & conditioning, a shake of mental toughness and four hundred pounds of solid technique and you might even have the ingredients for a champion.

Now let’s consider what makes a SUCCESSFUL MMA fighter……….anyone?? Besides all of the above you could probably make pretty good use of outstanding genetics, in the reach and chin departments a la Jon Jones and Dan Henderson. Having rich parents would probably help as well, as BJ Penn, Carlos Condit and Donald Cerrone can all attest. Maybe you just have to be really really good friends with Steven Seagal…look I don’t know that’s why I’m asking. I just want to point out that skill and success don’t necessarily go hand in hand.

To better illustrate my point—or more likely my lack of one—let’s talk about the Popovitch seminar. For those of you who don’t know, Pablo Popovitch is one of the most badass submission grapplers on the planet. He is an Abu Dhabi Combat Club Submission Wrestling Champion as well as a multiple time no-gi world champion. People call this guy “Weapon X,” yeah as in THE “Weapon X”, as in this guy would b*tchslap Wolverine in his mouth and make him say thank you. It’s true….google it.

All that jive aside, the guy was NICE. I mean REALLY nice. After the seminar, I bothered him for a picture while he was eating and then had to go back twice because my technologically challenged friend Moses took terrible pictures. He just smiled and said ‘no problem buddy’. He could quite possibly be the coolest badass on the planet not named Morgan Freeman. Ok back to my original train of thought: what makes a SUCESSFUL MMA fighter?

Popovitch had his MMA debut in 2010 against Jeff Savoy and beat the living hell out of him, scoring a fantastic 2nd round submission due to strikes. Right about now you may be thinking, “yeah dude, he’s a world champion grappler big surprise he won, he probably fought some scrub.” While this might be true, it does offer some interesting insight into our question. Let’s look at a similar case with a totally different result.

Marcelo Garcia is widely considered one of the best grapplers alive. Arguably the pound for pound best, he has personally beat Popovitch twice in competition (although I believe Popovitch eventually beat Garcia to win ADCC). For his MMA debut, Marcelo squared off with CMA Korea’s Kim Dae-Won—a guy with four first round submission losses. Several sloppy takedown attempts later and Garcia is smothering his opponent with constant pressure from the top. Fast forward to the end result and we have a 2nd round TKO doctor’s stoppage when Marcelo’s face explodes after winding up on the wrong side of Kim’s fists. What the f*ck happened? Maybe he had a bad night? Maybe he ran into some bad luck? He was winning the fight handily right up until fate said, “No, not today Marcelo…today you bleed.”

At the end of the day who or what, if anything, is responsible for an individual’s success in the cage? Is it the men themselves, boldly snatching victory from the hands of destiny? Is it the team rallying behind an individual, carrying a fighter to greatness? The training then perhaps, forging hardened monsters through blood and sweat? Could it be some all-inclusive mix of socio-economic and physiological factors? Shit maybe nothing can ensure success in the cage and everything that occurs within is at the mercy of total random chance. After all, it’s MMA, anything can happen, right? Maybe that’s the whole reason we love it.

Maybe the very nature of MMA is defined by this idea: An endless number of variables offering an equally infinite number of potential paths to both victory and defeat, in a way that it then becomes possible for a great fighter to be overcome by a lesser one. So I leave you all with this: one world champion prevails while the other falls…why? Is MMA the great equalizer? All theories/other examples welcome, comment section, go!