Author: kmowatt

Losing to Frankie Edgar by UD may not have been the best way to kick off a tour for BJ Penn’s new book “Why I Fight”, but considering the former champion’s legacy, world class abilities and gift for sometimes controversial gab, we’re thinking the recent loss won’t set sales back very much (although with a rematch likely upcoming, that could make for some nice ‘new edition’ material no?)

With all the post UFC 112 drama focused on Anderson Silva’s ‘mostly flair and little fight’ antics, the fact that apparently the UFC and Dana White aren’t too thrilled with Penn’s new book, is flying under the radar a little bit. According to a report from Sport’s Illustrated’s Josh Gross, not only is White saying that the book is full with “lies”, the UFC has allegedly informed the book’s co-author and UFC freelance contributor, David Weintraub, that his services will no longer be utilized (White reportedly said Penn claimed he didn’t write or read the book…huh…). Here’s a quote from Weintraub regarding the reception “Why I Fight” has received from the UFC.

“I never thought for a second that the book would be received by the UFC in a way they wouldn’t want to promote it or help B.J. I never thought it would be like that,”

Well, we haven’t read the book yet, so clearly we can’t vouch for what the source of contention is, but anyone who has followed BJ’s career knows that his relationship with Zuffa hasn’t always been BFF.  To read the entire article head here.

With Alistair Overeem set to defend his Strikeforce Heavyweight Championship against Brett Rogers May 15^th, for the first time since he won it in 2007, fans that are mostly on a North American MMA diet are finally catching up with just who the hell Overeem is. Although Overeem may not be widely considered as a top of the chain, top 5 kind of heavyweight, the Dutch fighter has terrifying knees (in a smashing sense rather than appearance) and is no slouch on his feet, so if he does get by Rogers a bout with Fedor Emelianenko would certainly be interesting.

In an intriguing interview with MMA Mania, Overeem talks about his upcoming bout with Rogers, the growing ‘beef’ between the two, before moving on to the subject of Fedor. Really, most of Overeem’s angst is directed at Fedor’s management M-1, who the Dutch fighter believes is preventing “The Last Emperor” from fighting the best in order to ensure that the company keeps raking in dough (you know, the whole golden goose thingy…) When asked to convey a direct message to Fedor, Overeem offered this:

“Fedor, you are a great fighter and like many other great Russian fighters in history you do your talking in a ring or cage. Leave this M-1 circus and start fighting the best. It’s okay to lose sometimes but hiding makes you look like a coward, which Fedor is not, Vadim is!”

We’re just hoping to see Fedor throw down sometime in 2010…

Few good things arose out of Anderson Silva’s recent UD victory over Demian Maia, unless of course you have a strange fascination with learning new taunting techniques, then clearly Silva provided you with a showboating demonstration that the sport has never seen. Although the UFC would clearly prefer for fans to watch Silva because he’s crazy good and fun as hell to watch (when he’s actually, you know, interested in fighting), having a heel around (to use the pro rasslin vernacular) can also be good for PPV numbers.  

By now you’re probably aware that Dana White recently confirmed on Jim Rome’s show that Chael Sonnen is getting the tap to face Silva on August 7^th. If there’s a guy who can hype a bout with Silva, whose approval rating has taken a serious hit recently, it’s Sonnen.  Speaking to MMA Junkie recently, Sonnen offered more ‘Sonnens’ on the whole Silva situation. For example:

“Nobody has challenged Anderson Silva,” Sonnen said. “Not one human being, not one interview. Go to what the kids call ‘Google,’ and prove me wrong. Show me one athlete in any weight class that’s challenged this guy except me.”

“What’s different about me is that I acknowledge Anderson Silva’s going to hit me and kick me,” he said. “I acknowledge it’s going to hurt a lot. But I don’t care.”

Although the article reports that Silva has yet to sign off on the bout, mark our words, this is going to get good, real good.

It’s almost fitting that after Frankie Edgar’s controversial decision win over former lightweight champ BJ Penn, the next UFC will feature another P4P candidate in Lyoto Machida, looking to reclaim his MMA demi-god status against “Shogun” Rua. Of course, unlike Penn, Machida managed to retain his title, but due to the fact many saw their first bout going the way of Shogun, an immediate rematch was set up (which we strongly endorse, likewise for Penn vs. Edgar II, this way precious bandwidth is conserved from years of keyboard debating on who won the first meeting, and can be directed towards more productive endeavours like locating pictures of Jessica Alba…).

Sherdog.com has posted an interesting interview with Shogun, where the well rounded fighter discusses the fact he’s training regularly with various karate practitioners, judging (a common topic lately in case you’re new to electricity), as well as Jon Jones. After all, a bout with the rising prospect could very well be in his future.

“He is a great young fighter, too damn good, and he’s coming with everything in our division. He is very good in wrestling. I think he and Cain Velasquez are the two guys with the best wrestling in MMA today, together with Georges St. Pierre. He’s a very good wrestler, very dangerous. He’s a guy who will give a lot of people trouble.”

Yeah, after watching Jones bomb out Brandon Vera recently, how can you not say he’s damn good.

To bet on Machida vs. Rua II head here.

For those of us not blessed with the ability to speak Portuguese (we’re just grateful we’ve managed to attain an 8^th grade level of English), we had no idea what Anderson Silva was incessantly screaming at Demian Maia Saturday night. If you were that dude who claimed to speak ‘a little Brazilian’ and offered some BS translation, well, prepare to be exposed….

Now, it doesn’t take a linguistics’ major to figure out that what Silva was yelling couldn’t have been very nice; after all, usually pleasantries aren’t accompanied by a flying knee or punch to the face. While speaking to Gracie Magazine Maia commented on Silva’s recent actions, and to no one’s surprise, the jiu-jitsu master is claiming that the champion was far from being kind.

“I just thought it was disrespectful for him to swear at me during the fight, saying things like, ‘You (explicative) momma’s boy, show me your Jiu-Jitsu.’ That type of stuff. I felt it was disrespectful and unnecessary. Aside from that, it was a normal fight,” says Demian.

Yup. You know things are about to get ugly when people start bringing your moms into it. Now Silva has maintained that heading into the fight Maia was the first to really crank up the nasty ‘now it’s personal’ talk, something Maia denies in the Gracie Mag interview. In fact, Maia is claiming that Silva “begged for his forgiveness” afterwards….crazy. Read it here.

Judging by the angry rhetoric that is firing around MMA sites these days, one might be drawn to believe that bonfires are erupting across the world, fuelled by Anderson Silva and Georges St. Pierre paraphernalia. Of course that would be absurd, because grown adults shouldn’t light bonfires unless you’re burning ‘inappropriate’ books, although to be honest we did consider lighting a small waste can fire following UFC 112.

Now clearly, Silva is drawing way, way more heat for his recent ‘WTF is he thinking?’ performance against Demian Maia, then GSP drew for not finishing Dan Hardy last month. And really that makes sense; you didn’t see GSP running around screaming ‘au revoir Monsieur Hardy’ when he was working over the Brit’s arm. That said, a lot of people were also choked at the welterweight champ for not finishing Hardy, and speaking at a recent Q&A this was one of the responses GSP offered, when asked about the recent criticism he’s received (thanks to MMA Junkie for the quote):

“I think there are two kinds of fans,” St-Pierre said. “There are the fans that like only to see a brawl, and there is the type of fans that know the game and know what’s going on. I think for the fans that know what’s going on, I’m talking about the technical aspect, I think they will appreciate those kind of fights.”

It’s a good point. We weren’t hysterical with excitement during his bout with Hardy, but we weren’t bored to tears either; Silva’s performance, well, that’s a whole other bizarre story. Isn’t it also interesting that usually the fans who “only like to see a brawl” are either wearing leather ball caps or enough cologne to fumigate a 2 bedroom apartment?