Author: kmowatt

This Saturday’s main event tilt between Randy Couture and Mark Coleman is interesting on a few levels; whose wrestling will prevail? Will Coleman’s lungs say ‘uncle’ early in round two? Or will the 45 year-old-fighter shock the hell out of people once again, aka, taking out  Stephan Bonnar style?

One thing you can be damn certain of is that if Couture wins Saturday night, (and let’s face it, Mr. ‘on paper’ is saying he will) the speculation as to who “The Natural” will fight next, will soon rival talk regarding when Tiger Woods is going to get back into the swing of things…Actually it will be nowhere near that, and two, what do we mean by ‘swing?’

In a story posted on Sherdog today, Couture had this to say about his immediate future:

“I started out doing that,” he said. “I thought, ‘Let’s try this,’ and 13 years later, I’m still doing it. I have to take fights as they come. I still feel like I’m getting better as an athlete. Hopefully, I can get a shot at Machida. He’s an interesting guy. Shogun’s a great fighter. If they were to throw me one of those guys, I’d definitely take it.”

Well, we’d definitely watch it, either of those bouts. Would a win over Coleman really merit a title shot for Couture? Does it matter? Well maybe if you’re Rampage Jackson and you’ve just beaten Rashad Evans it might. But we hear completely made-up reports that Rampage might be cast in a remake of D.C. Cab , so what difference does it make.

To bet on Couture vs. Coleman head here.

There was a time when a lot of MMA fans (at least from what are dulled senses could tell) weren’t exactly ‘keen’ about seeing Nate Marquardt throw down with Anderson Silva for a second time. Really, after Silva pounded on Marquardt’s head in piston like fashion at UFC 73, the ‘yeah…I think I’ve seen enough’ vibe was pretty understandable.

Since the loss, however, Marquardt has done a damn fine job in campaigning for a rematch, taking his game up to a new level with ‘holy sheeet’ stoppages of Demian Maia, Martin Kampmann and Wilson Gouveia. Marquardt’s opponent for this weekend, Chael Sonnen, is a different breed of fighter than Maia, Gouveia, or Kampmann though; he’s a dude whose wrestling has turned a lot of notable fighters into Octagon ragdolls. Speaking to MMA Weekly Radio recently, Nate “The Great” stated:

“He’s definitely a very tough guy.  I don’t think he’s super well known, but he’s definitely one of the best fighters at 85,” Marquardt said.  “He beat Paulo Filho and Yushin Okami, who are both top ten ranked guys.  He has a great wrestling background, his striking has come along, he definitely can hang on his feet, and he has very good submission defense, good ground and pound.”

We agree. Sonnen tends to get overlooked at times, (although his recent rant on Silva likely raised a few thousand WTF eyebrows) and if Marquardt can pound out Sonnen Saturday night, he should face the winner of Silva / Belfort no?

To bet on this weekend’s UFC 109 head here.

World Extreme Cagefighting has announced today that the ‘lil bro’ of the UFC will finally make its pay-per-view debut April 24^th, with a card that (and there’s no surprises here) will feature former featherweight champ Urijah Faber taking on the current champion Jose Aldo. Further, the event will take place in Faber’s hometown of Sacramento, and if you didn’t see that coming, you were probably surprised by the ending of Avatar…

Of course it makes complete sense to roll with the promotion’s top draw in Faber for the first WEC PPV, even more so by throwing him against Aldo, who rose steadily on MMA Fix’s “Now That’s What’s Up” index in 2009. What will be interesting to see (or not as Zuffa doesn’t often release pay-per-view numbers) is how many people buy the card.

In these times of economic ‘queasiness’ MMA household bills continue to rise; with one or two UFC cards per month, some people may have to set some new ‘priorities’ to raise that extra $44.99 by April 24^th (we found switching from bottled tap water to tap water saved a nice shwack of cash). Of course there’s always the option of cutting costs by heading down to the local drinking hole to watch the show, where you can talk with buddy who is an “Ultimate Fighter” and whos “manager” has been talking to “David White.”

Although the bout has been ‘out of the bag’ for sometime now, the UFC confirmed today that Kenny Florian will take on former Pride champion Takanori Gomi, at the promotion’s upcoming March 31^st Fight Night 21 card. Now, if you’re a newbie to the sport and are thinking ‘who the hell is Gomi’, it’s probably best to keep that question to yourself.  Just keep an eye out for Spike’s new “Best of Pride” series, and you’ll  find out why Gomi had one of the biggest nuthugging legion of fans the sport has ever seen. It’s umm, 100% likely that the show will be running some of Gomi’s finest moments (and there’s plenty) as we head towards the end of March.

That’s not to say that Gomi doesn’t still have a lot of fans, but after losses to Nick Diaz (yeah, yeah, no-contest nonsense aside), Sergey Golyaev (cue Google search) and Satoru “Where’s my ACL?” Kitaoka, the “Fireball Kid’s” stock isn’t exactly at an all time high. Still, Gomi can punch effin hard and is a decent wrestler, so, the potential for a  great throwdown with Ken Flo is definitely there.

The UFC has also announced that it will do its best job of impersonating the number 10 at Fight Night 21, by matching up its lankiest heavyweight against its fattest (thus the image of ten…) Yup, 6’11 tall Stefan “Beanpole” Struve is going to face 6’0, 260lb. plus Roy “Big Country” Nelson. Although Struve has only lost 3 times in over 20 fights, we’re seeing a sweaty belly crucifix in his short term future.

To see all of the confirmed bouts for the March 31^st Fight Night 21 card, which will take place in Charlotte, NC, head here.