Author: kmowatt

Although it’s now officially less than one month away, it kind of seems like Georges St.Pierre’s upcoming title defence against Dan Hardy on March 27^th, has been somewhat lost in the mix lately. Perhaps it has something to do with the ongoing drama regarding ‘do death threats belong in MMA?’, or, maybe it’s because even the biggest Hardy fans would have to concede, that not too many people are betting the ‘flat’ on the British slugger winning.

Well, ever since GSP got bombed out by Matt Serra in their first meeting at UFC 69 (which shocked the MMA world and left St.Pierre fans in hysteric despair until his tuning of Serra’s ribs at UFC 83), the welterweight champ always seems to talk about cementing his legacy, and that his next opponent, no matter how big an underdog, is the most dangerous yet. Case in point, in a recent article from Five Knuckles.com, St. Pierre was quoted saying:

“Even if I believe I’m a better fighter than Dan Hardy, the night of the fight, I’m going to have to fight the best fight because if I don’t — it might be a bad night for me. I don’t take this fight lightly. He’s the most dangerous guy I’ve fought so far. I’m bigger, stronger, more powerful and more skilled than I’ve ever been. I see it like a marathon, not like a sprint.”

Yes, it would seem like GSP still hasn’t forgotten about the lesson he learned from Serra’s booming right hand. Should be interesting to see whether or not Hardy can also turn the MMA world upside down…

Only days removed from UFC President Dana White stating that the promotion would still like to see Mirko “Cro Cop” fight Ben Rothwell, as he was supposed to before Rothwell fell ill prior to UFC 110, reports are surfacing this afternoon that indicate a little change in plans. According to a report from MMA Scraps Radio, Cro Cop will face fellow K-1 vet Pat Barry at UFC 115 in June. Barry is apparently the co-host of the show so they might have an ’inside track’ . In addition, according to a follow up reports from MMA Weekly and MMA Fighting, both outlets have confirmed with sources that the fight is definitely in the works.

So what happened to “Big Ben” in all this? Well according to the MMA Fighting report, Rothwell wil likely face Gilbert Yvel, who had been expected to fight Barry…make sense? Sounds like the UFC thinks that Barry vs. Cro Cop would make for a better fight. They’re probably right; both guys are killer strikers, so we’re not complaining, but Rothwell and Cro Cop would have made for a nice Octagon ‘duel’ as well.

In case you’re a more casual fan of pugilistic violence and didn’t catch Barry’s last performance, seek out footage of his last win over Antoni Hardonk; you can thank us later.

Just when you thought the soap opera surrounding Frank Mir’s recent comments, stating his ‘desire’ to end Brock Lesnar’s life in the Octagon had come to an end (after all, this is what apologies usually are designed to do), the outspoken former champ is apparently ready to star in another episode. Speaking to SI’s Ben Fowlkes, it sounds like Mir isn’t exactly sure why his comments were singled out and condemned, when other notable fighters like BJ Penn, Chuck Liddell, amongst others, have also used terms like ‘kill,’’ when discussing the game plan for their next opponent.

“No one’s been able to explain it to me yet,” Mir says. “I thought we understood that what we say on camera is part of the entertainment aspect of our sport and we kind of get a little artistic license. It’s not like I said this to my neighbor, that if his dog shows up in my yard one more time I’m going to kill him. That would be bad. That’s a problem. I didn’t understand it, but hey, it came my way, I said it, and I can’t cry about it now. I’ve just got to deal with it, I guess.”

Yes, Mir has a point in regards to the fact that fighters deserve a little ‘artistic license,’ when discussing a sport that can entail sending your fellow human being to the hospital for reconstructive surgery.  In this case, it was probably Mir’s use of the words “first person that dies due to Octagon related injuries” that blurred the lines for some folk. Particularly those who people who still think MMA is ‘barbaric.’ Stay tuned…

There’s no doubting the fact that some MMA fans, like in any sport, are prone to bandwagon jumping. One day a certain fighter is ‘unbeatable,’ after he loses his next fight, the dude ‘was always overrated’ (there are thousands of ankles worldwide that will never fully recover from jumping off and on the Vitor Belfort wagon repeatedly…). At any rate, it wasn’t that long ago that Chuck Liddell was ‘the man’, but after losing 4 of 5 fights, “The Iceman” appeared to be so done fighting that he went dancing…People weren’t jumping off wagons (it was mostly abandoned after his loss to Jardine); they were making acute observations.

Well, despite the widespread calls for his retirement, Chuck is shrugging off the haters and will have another go at Tito Ortiz. In an interview with MMA Weekly, Chuck’s assistant coach on the upcoming season of TUF, Jake Shields, states that Liddell is so full of motivating hate, he believes “The Iceman” is back.

 ”I haven’t seen him this motivated since years ago when I first met him,” Shields said when appearing on MMAWeekly Radio recently. “He’s like a whole new Chuck. I think a lot of people are counting him out, being like, ‘oh, Chuck needs to retire,’ but the way Chuck’s looking right now, I wouldn’t want to fight him.”

Well, due to the fact Chuck is fighting a guy he beat twice before; even Liddell’s staunchest critics are probably preparing their ‘that win doesn’t mean anything’ speeches. But hell, if Chuck looks good, and can make another run as Shield’s predicts, we’ll be damn entertained watching.

Earlier in the week we touched on the fact that it was beginning to look like Strikeforce might roll with Dan Henderson vs. Jake Shields, as the main attraction for the promotion’s upcoming April card. Well according to a report this afternoon from MMA Fighting, M-1 Global officials have announced at a press conference today in Russia, that Fedor’s next bout will be in May (due to the fact that we barely made it through grade 12 English, we made no attempt to decipher what was being said in Russian at the presser).  

As expected, it was also confirmed that Fedor will in fact fight Fabricio Werdum, which kyboshes the more recent rumors that Emelianenko was possibly going to fight Alistair Overeem in Japan. So, once again another 6 months will expire between Fedor bouts, as the Russian’s ‘whammy’’ win over Brett Rogers took place in November. Anyone who is familiar with Fedor’s schedule over the last couple of years should realize that this effectively means “The Last Emperor” will fight just twice in 2010…(we’ve already smashed one coffee mug and eaten 2 extra Twinkies in despair.)

A follow up report from MMA Junkie adds that under the terms of Fedor’s Strikeforce contract, his bouts must be shown on CBS, which would mean that Hendo vs. Shields will likely be aired on Showtime. If Gegard Mousasi vs. “King Mo” Lawal gets inked for the April card it could be pretty sweet. Would have been nice to see Fedor throw down a little sooner though…

Ron Frazier has been widely credited for taking Randy Couture’s game up another notch, as the renowned striking / MMA coach has been working for the legendary fighter and his Xtreme Couture gym in Vegas for some time now. So, naturally, Frazier is more than familiar with the fact that the 46 year-old Couture is a freak of nature, capable of performing physical feats that 99% of 30 year-old males couldn’t even dream of doing (we’re just hoping to add an extra flight of stairs to our daily physical regiment by the end of 2010).

Speaking to Fight Hype, Frazier talked about Couture’s recent dominant victory over the 45 year-old Mark Coleman, and offered this statement when asked to assess Randy’s latest win.

“I wasn’t surprised by Randy’s performance at all. This was his 3rd fight in 7 months. Randy always works extremely hard and with a guy that’s his age, that’s the tough part, are they willing to put in the work, and he’s still willing to put in the work…The fact that he’s never had any serious injuries, he’s been able to be very lucky in that aspect and it allows him to put the work in. It showed in that fight and I wasn’t surprised he looked like he was 25. Unfortunately for Mark Coleman, the wear and tear on his body, he looked like he was 105.”

Damn. No one wants to hear that they looked like they were 105. Not even someone who is 105.  Coleman did look like he was 5 or 6 steps behind Randy though. That aside, it’s going to be pretty, pretty, pretty interesting to see who Couture fights next.