Author: kmowatt

We’re extremely excited about the upcoming March 21^st tilt between Brandon “The Truth” Vera and Jon “Bones” Jones; not only is it a good match-up and on cable TV through Versus (meaning more dough for beer), Jones is so effing exciting to watch, even his hands getting taped is highlight reel material (that takes moves folks).

Now Vera has also put together a couple of memorable stoppages in his UFC tenure, just ask Frank Mir, but he’s also been in some real snoozers, recall (or actually don’t) his fight with Tim Sylvia. All this aside, Vera will likely be the best all rounded fighter Jones has faced to date; “The Truth” can strike, submit and wrestle (as well as be honest at all times).

In a recent interview with MMA Weekly, Vera informed the outlet that he’s been spending extra time working on his jiu-jitsu recently, summing it up confidently by stating that “You take me to the ground this year, you’re going to get submitted.” In addition, the former heavyweight gave this prediction, in regards to his upcoming bout with Jones.

“Jones, he’s got the skills; he’ll stand with me. Somebody’s going to go to sleep.”

Yes, Jones definitely has the skills as well as the longest arms in the UFC (no joke), which has made fighting “Bones” for a lot of guys a less than pleasant experience. The potential for a mind numbing stoppage from either fighter is definitely there.

To bet on the Jones vs. Vera head here.

Last week varying reports bantered around the internet stating that relations between Fedor Emelianenko’s management and Strikeforce weren’t real cozy. As the week concluded, however, Strikeforce CEO Scott Coker stated that things were still cool and that fans would likely see “The Last Emperor” throw down sometime this summer (and based off Fedor’s last two fights, throw down means he takes several punches, looks like he might actually lose and then KO’s his opponent with one thundering right… it’s damn dramatic if nothing else)

Well according to a report from MMA Bay, the outlet is reporting that Fedor has incurred yet another hand injury, which could keep him on the sidelines for several months (seems like it’s not a normal year if Fedor doesn’t hurt his hand at least once…). Apparently MMA Bay learned of the injury from a “source close to the situation” at this past weekend’s Arnold Exhibition in Columbus. In addition, the report goes on to say that two more “reliable sources” have confirmed the injury, which has put an early summer clash between Fedor and Fabricio Werdum in doubt.

So, if accurate, the report raises other questions. If Fedor is indeed out until the end of summer, will Strikeforce still look to match him up against Werdum? Or will they roll with somebody else? The Alistair Overeem and Brett Rogers fight is scheduled for May 15^th; so the winner could possibly be ready to face Fedor later this summer, depending on when he’s actually ready to fight of course. Stay tuned for more complications…

If you didn’t catch last night’s WEC then you missed out on some sweet violence; if you don’t even know what the WEC is, well then you have some serious homework to do today ( plus WEC card girl Brittney Palmer is unbelievable…)

Of course a huge story coming out of last night’s show in Columbus was that Dominick Cruz took home the bantamweight championship, as former champ Brian Bowles was unable to continue after the second round, due to an injured hand. Cruz looked awesome in the fight, so he deserves a lot of props, but Joseph Benavidez’s win over former 135lb. champion Miguel Torres is really what resonated on our ‘Now That’s What’s Up’ index.

Torres has long been widely regarded as one of world’s best P-4-P fighters period, but Benavidez hung in there against his much taller opponent, opened up a massive ‘close your eyes hun’ gash on Torres, and submitted the accomplished black belt with a guillotine choke. Yeah, it’s nice to see that he got the ‘Submission of the Night’ and an extra 10 g’s for his efforts.

Now, Benavidez’s only career loss to date was a UD defeat at the hands of the new champ Cruz; so are we talking rematch here? (Thanks to MMA Junkie for the quote)

“I’d love to go in there and avenge my only loss,” said Benavidez. “It was a tough fight with Dominick. I think it is a great fight for the fans. We put on a really good show. We could have both gone two more rounds. It was a three-round fight. I’d love to do that, of course.”

Good stuff.

As the day unfolds, speculation as to what bouts the UFC will actually go with on April 17^th, in its efforts to royally eff over Strikeforce’s scheduled event that same day continues. There had been talk that Mike Swick might be stepping up to face Matt Serra, but the welterweight has effectively put to rest that notion, by ‘tweeting’ that his arm is really messed up .

Not fighting Serra guys. Most likely having surgery soon

Dr appt on Mon. to figure out how they are going to fix my arm which is most certainly only w/surgery. MRI results were pretty bad.

Radio host Carmichael Dave posted on the Underground yesterday that a bout between Kimbo Slice and the newly signed James Toney is rumored to be in the works for April 17th, and that Yahoo Sport’s Kevin Iole also told him that he was hearing the same thing (your eyebrows will likely remain raised for several minutes).

Getting Toney in the Octagon that quick, after just signing with the UFC Wednesday, seems a little unlikely. But we’re the same people that were questioning the brain development of folks saying Toney was UFC bound one week ago, so what the hell do we know.

Earlier we touched on the fact that there are reports surfacing that the UFC might counter Strikeforce’s upcoming April 17^th event in Nashville, with its own event that same night. The UFC has certainly done the old ‘so you want to play with the big boys?’’ thing before, putting together a Fight Night card featuring Anderson Silva vs. James Irvin in no time flat, to take a stab at Affliction’s first show in July, 2008 (ah, remember those days, when Affliction was a promotion as well as the purveyor of cross and skull ridden t-shirts?).

Well,  according to a report from Sherdog.com, the UFC could be taking it up a notch higher, as reportedly the promotion is looking at not only holding an event that same night to diminish television ratings, it might be considering holding an event in Nashville itself. If accurate, that’s not going to be good for Strikeforce ticket sales. The line-up for the Strikeforce card is sick, but, let’s face it, the growing promotion still isn’t exactly the ‘talk of the town’ with mainstream, ‘I only watch a couple of fighters like Chuck Liddell’ fans.

But hold on, the Sherdog report goes on to state that Strikeforce could move the event one week later to April 24^th, which would then go head to head with the WEC’s PPV debut (cue dramatic music). Meaning the UFC might have to decide whether or not it wants the $44.95 WEC to compete with the free CBS Strikeforce card. There’s more drama to come no doubt.

Recently Strikeforce announced a reedonkously good line-up for the promotion’s upcoming April 17^th show; a card that features three huge title fights in Dan Henderson vs. Jake Shields, Gegard Mousasi vs. “King Mo” Lawal, and Gilbert Melendez vs. Shinya Aoki. Aside from reports this AM that the UFC is looking to ‘restrict viewership’ of that show, by tossing together its own that same night, another problem that the Strikeforce card has been facing is a collective ‘how come that Russian dude aint fighting?’

Now of course we’re referring to Fedor Emelianenko, who demonstrated last November in his ‘booya’ KO of Brett Rogers, that he’s capable of packing the network television house. When Fedor wasn’t announced for the upcoming CBS show, it added more fuel to the rumour fire that relations between Strikeforce and the fighter’s management M-1 Global weren’t good.

In a recent interview with MMA Junkie, however, Strikeforce CEO Scott Coker acknowledged that the two organizations have been negotiating, and that an announcement regarding “The Last Emperor” could be coming shortly.

“I can tell you this: we’ve been having really good dialogue with M-1 Global and (M-1 Global president) Vadim Finkelchtein, and I think we’re in the final stages of buttoning everything up to make that happen again,” Coker said. “I think we’ll have an announcement soon on that, but I feel very confident we’ll be promoting Fedor here in the near future.”

Coker went on to say that Fedor would be fighting in the June/ July time frame. Sounds good to us.