Author: kmowatt

Only days removed from Frank Mir’s WTF comments regarding the life of Brock Lesnar (which were likely met by a few thousand ‘oh that’s no good, that’s no good at all…’), the former champion will now look ahead to his upcoming March 27^th bout with Shane Carwin; yeah, remember him? The dude whose enormous fists could take out three dudes with one shot?

In a recent interview with MMA Weekly, Mir didn’t discuss the Lesnar drama, but after explaining why he smack talked the hell out of Cheick Kongo (which includes Mir’s contention that Kongo may in fact have the worst ground skills in the UFC…this is what Frank said Cheick, not us…), he moved on to Carwin. But just like Mir’s past comments regarding his next opponent, the outspoken heavyweight continues to offer very little in the way of ‘constructive criticism’.

“In the Shane Carwin fight, honestly it’s not that I’m down playing anything or not trying to get into his head. I’m looking for different angles and honestly to my disadvantage, he doesn’t have a lot of fight time on footage. He stays pretty reserved, and in a lot of ways he’s a likeable guy. He’s a tough competitor. He keeps himself kind of on the straight path. There’s really nothing bad for me to say about him.”

Huh. Nothing to work with there really, and considering Carwin has spent less than 4 minutes combined in the Octagon bombing out 3 opponents, we understand Frank’s comments regarding ‘footage.’ Should be a dandy.

Recently we speculated that Strikeforce likely would roll out the ‘big guns’ (meaning notable fighters; not ‘well proportioned’card girls…although one can hope for both) for the promotion’s next CBS broadcast event. After all, what better way to build the promotion’s brand than by having its top fighters like Jake Shields, Dan Henderson, and Fedor Emelianenko, among others, fight live again on network television.

Well according to a report today from MMA Weekly, Shields has confirmed that he’ll fight Henderson in April, although he couldn’t (or wouldn’t) confirm whether or not the bout will in fact be broadcast on CBS.

“I have a date (and) venue, but they told me to hold that back,” said Shields. “Hopefully CBS. I think it’s CBS. There’s a slight possibility of Showtime because they’re still (working it out). I don’t know the rest of the card or any of that yet. But me and Dan’s on, and I’m hoping it’s on CBS.”

So, clearly a bout between the promotion’s middleweight champ in Shields (and one of the planet’s best 170lb. fighters) and the former Pride champion Henderson (who can also roll dudes at 205), is a great place to start. Will it be enough to bring in the big ratings? Obviously Strikeforce will add more to the card (they didn’t sign the 47 year-old Herschel Walker to sign footballs), but there are rumours floating around that they might not use Fedor in April, meaning Hendo vs. Shields would probably be the top draw. Guess it’s wait and see time.

Recently we speculated that Strikeforce likely would roll out the ‘big guns’ (meaning notable fighters; not ‘well proportioned’card girls…although one can hope for both) for the promotion’s next CBS broadcast event. After all, what better way to build the promotion’s brand than by having its top fighters like Jake Shields, Dan Henderson, and Fedor Emelianenko, among others, fight live again on network television.

Well according to a report today from MMA Weekly, Shields has confirmed that he’ll fight Henderson in April, although he couldn’t (or wouldn’t) confirm whether or not the bout will in fact be broadcast on CBS.

“I have a date (and) venue, but they told me to hold that back,” said Shields. “Hopefully CBS. I think it’s CBS. There’s a slight possibility of Showtime because they’re still (working it out). I don’t know the rest of the card or any of that yet. But me and Dan’s on, and I’m hoping it’s on CBS.”

So, clearly a bout between the promotion’s middleweight champ in Shields (and one of the planet’s best 170lb. fighters) and the former Pride champion Henderson (who can also roll dudes at 205), is a great place to start. Will it be enough to bring in the big ratings? Obviously Strikeforce will add more to the card (they didn’t sign the 47 year-old Herschel Walker to sign footballs), but there are rumours floating around that they might not use Fedor in April, meaning Hendo vs. Shields would probably be the top draw. Guess it’s wait and see time.

Twitter can be a wonderful or damn annoying thing. In fact, it’s just like the internet; at times providing unfettered access to vitally important knowledge, or an opportunity for morons to drone on incessantly about sh-t they know nothing about. Like anyone gives an eff (hey wait a sec…).  This time around Twitter has blessed us all, as both Quinton “Rampage” Jackson and Rashad Evans have confirmed the date of their upcoming bout, before the official word came down.

For those that don’t know. I fight Quinton May 29th in Vegas at the MGM. I’m gonna do most of my camp in Denver at Grudge still team Jackson.

 I’m knocking Rashad out May 29th!! It’s on!!

Sweet, although unfortunately much of the hype that had built up during Rampage’s and Rashad’s numerous hee hee, ha ha, ‘here they go again’ moments during the last season of TUF has faded; we’re still damn excited to see them throw down. Kevin Iole noted in his recent mailbag (thanks to Cage Potato for the heads up) that he thought Rampage looked “plump” in Australia. Yeah, we noticed that too while watching this weekend’s UFC, although we weren’t sure if it was a case of ‘that’s just from the lighting’ gut. Iole also mentioned he saw Rampage smoking a cigarette…Hollywood…

Anyways, we thought Rampage would be back, now let’s all sit back and enjoy the show.

Mirko “Cro Cop” Filipovic was kind of screwed from the git go when news surfaced that Anthony Perosh was replacing the ill Ben Rothwell for last weekend’s UFC 110. Although Perosh is a UFC vet and one of Australia’s more accomplished grapplers, Cro Cop was fully expected to crush the Aussie, particularly because he took the bout on short notice. If Mirko had lost, however, the curtains couldn’t have fallen fast enough on the Croatian’s UFC career.

Despite dominating throughout the fight, Cro Cop has caught a little flack apparently for not finishing the fight sooner, or even, for not stopping Perosh more ‘convincingly’ (evidently spilling a gallon of blood doesn’t qualify). In an interesting report from Fighters Only Magazine, Cro Cop maintains he took it easy on Perosh, as the fight drew to a close.

“I admire Perosh for accepting the fight. There were much better fighters there who turned it down but I understand why; they did not have time to prepare. [But] I am very sorry that I had to hurt Perosh. I tried to fight with as much consideration for him as I could. I even avoided the ground because I am 7, 8 kilos heavier than he is.”

Damn. You don’t hear that every day. Sounds like Perosh has a nice cozy place in Cro Cop’s Special Forces heart; the guy’s parents are Croatian after all…Ultimately, we get people saying that ‘this is MMA’, ‘he should have finished him sooner etc,’ but really, he got the easy win he was supposed to.  Time to move on.

Clearly one has to have huge kahunas and a ton of self confidence to step into the Octagon; if a fighter didn’t, it’s not likely they would last long in a sport where your opponent is trying to give you temporary amnesia from the get go (although temporary amnesia can be a good thing; particularly after drunk dialing your ex).

After Paulo Thiago’s recent ‘it’s nap time’ victory over Mike Swick at UFC 109 last month, the Brazilian welterweight’s stock continued to rise, so much so, talk that Thiago could be close to a title shot has begun. Kind of surprising really, considering that Jon Fitch beat him last summer, but the UFC seems to prefer giving new dudes cracks at the belt (hi Dan Hardy) rather than running repeats too often.

At any rate, while speaking to the Brazilian publication Tatame, it doesn’t sound like Thiago is overly confident about his chances of beating GSP right now anyways.

“I’m not worry about it yet. On the right time UFC will give me the chance. I’m getting experience, feeling more comfortable. I’m not ready yet.”

Really, judging by the way Fitch avenged Thiago’s win over AKA teammate Josh Koscheck, one would have to think that at this juncture, another elite all rounded fighter like GSP would be a huge favorite to defeat Thiago too.

And speaking of ‘Kos,’ considering he was scheduled to rematch Thiago at UFC 109 until he got injured, here’s hoping that fight gets done first. If Thiago gets by Koscheck for a second time then maybe the title shot discussion should begin no?