Toughest chin: That has to be Masakatsu Funaki and my last opponent Ruben Villareal. Funaki I hit and kneed so hard that my palms and knee were bruised, until the final knee where I grabbed Funaki’s hair and drilled the knee in his face, but boy, every time he got back up, it was crazy. Villareal, although I had a rib out and couldn’t hit a bag the last two weeks [of training], I still hit him hard, and right on his chin every time. First he said to me, “Damn, you’re fast.” I said “Thank you,” then I hit him again and he said, “And you hit hard.” I told him, “Apparently not hard enough!” It was funny.
Heaviest hands: I was very fortunate never to have anybody connecting full. I have pretty good defense. So I honestly can’t tell you; I’ve never been hit hard. Though I guess in training I have. Pedro Rizzo has very heavy hands.
Toughest chin: That has to be Masakatsu Funaki and my last opponent Ruben Villareal. Funaki I hit and kneed so hard that my palms and knee were bruised, until the final knee where I grabbed Funaki’s hair and drilled the knee in his face, but boy, every time he got back up, it was crazy. Villareal, although I had a rib out and couldn’t hit a bag the last two weeks [of training], I still hit him hard, and right on his chin every time. First he said to me, “Damn, you’re fast.” I said “Thank you,” then I hit him again and he said, “And you hit hard.” I told him, “Apparently not hard enough!” It was funny.
Heaviest hands: I was very fortunate never to have anybody connecting full. I have pretty good defense. So I honestly can’t tell you; I’ve never been hit hard. Though I guess in training I have. Pedro Rizzo has very heavy hands.
Best grappling/submissions: At the time I would say Funaki and Ken Shamrock. I never faced Ken with my new and improved ground skills, After my last loss against Ken, I finally found one person who would train with me. We would go crazy, only ground, two or sometimes three times a day. From my next eight fights, I won seven by submission. I got “the bug.”
Most underrated:Keiichiro Yamamiya, he beat guys like, Denis Kang, Chris Lytle, Nate Marquardt, Chael Sonnen — he was always flying under the radar.
Fastest on his feet/hardest to hit: Mezger.
Most annoying:Jason de Lucia, was complaining about that I hit him in the throat, pills, and did some other things. First of all, I didn’t hit his throat. Second, you know how hard that is when somebody has his chin down? The kick is also not even close to the pills. You will hear me say in the fight, “Tell them the truth Jason.” But Jason could also be on my list as the most underrated. I think he had a lot of bad luck all the time, but he had good ground and striking skills, one of the first fighters who had both, but for some reason it didn’t work out for him, which surprised me.
Best overall fighter: Probably Tsuyoshi Kohsaka, Kodokan black belt Judo and Maurice Smith taught him striking. I think Guy Mezger also had good overall skills, and later Frank Shamrock, when he improved his striking.
Most surprising:Kiuma Kunioku, he was fast on the ground and hard to submit. I caught him in a guillotine but he used a “rope escape” later that won me the fight. I thought he would be easy to submit or KO, was he was very “slippery” — not from grease, but from skill. From his 58 matches he only lost 4 times by submission.
Sweetest victory: My rematch with Funaki. He beat me the first time, then they waited for my rematch until my last fight on the contract was up. They thought he was gonna beat me again, and that would be, of course, good for the new contract negotiations. They were wrong.
Most bitter defeat: My second match against Ken. I trained to defend that knee bar for four weeks, two times a day, we focused on that exact move, “Knee bar from half guard.” But they taught me wrong! They taught me that he was gonna slide his foot over my hip to get it, and in the fight I focused on that, but then he threw his leg over my head? That really made me angry. They should have told me, “just hold his leg,” but since I didn’t have any ground experience, I, of course, listened to the person that was teaching me. It’s OK though, that fight made me the fighter I became. From that moment on I listened, but I always would look for more ways myself, and it worked — I never lost a fight again!
We’re not sure, but we think that the gal in the above video calling herself Sarah Kaufman‘s “number one fan,” is actually Strikeforce champion Ronda Rousey. Kaufman challenges Rousey for her 135lb women’s title belt on August 18th in San Diego and we think the champ might be having a lil fun with this video.
Rousey Kaufman’s super fan goes on for nearly four minutes talking about what a bad, entitled attitude the Strikeforce champ and Judo Olympic medalist has, as demonstrated by her career ambition. There’s also a weird dude taping and joining in on the fun in the video, and then Rousey Judo flips and “arm bars” a vacuum cleaner. Like most things Rousey does, it is impressive, scary and hot.
Really, we have no idea what she’s doing in the video but we still watched it and so should you. After the jump, video of Rousey Judo-flipping and arm barring Bas Rutten. Just because.
We’re not sure, but we think that the gal in the above video calling herself Sarah Kaufman‘s “number one fan,” is actually Strikeforce champion Ronda Rousey. Kaufman challenges Rousey for her 135lb women’s title belt on August 18th in San Diego and we think the champ might be having a lil fun with this video.
Rousey Kaufman’s super fan goes on for nearly four minutes talking about what a bad, entitled attitude the Strikeforce champ and Judo Olympic medalist has, as demonstrated by her career ambition. There’s also a weird dude taping and joining in on the fun in the video, and then Rousey Judo flips and “arm bars” a vacuum cleaner. Like most things Rousey does, it is impressive, scary and hot.
Really, we have no idea what she’s doing in the video but we still watched it and so should you. After the jump, video of Rousey Judo-flipping and arm barring Bas Rutten. Just because.
(If you were a guest on that gay Indian party bus and want to share your story, please e-mail [email protected].)
Thanks to everyone who submitted stories for today’s crowd-sourced edition of the CagePotato Roundtable. We’ve selected 12 tales from the pile — ranging from drama to comedy to horror — and we’ll begin with a story that comes to us from an actual pro fighter, involving one of MMA’s greatest out-of-the-cage rivalries…
Sal Woods
A few years ago I fought on the Strikeforce: Lawler vs. Shields card. While at weigh-ins I was obviously star-struck from being at Al Hrabosky’s with a room full of legends and badasses. The only guy I had the balls to say what’s up to was Nick Diaz. He was completely cool and super polite, he said hi and introduced himself to the entire table (my cornermen, shaking each one’s hand). We were just shooting the shit about how it was my first time on a big card and that I was fighting T-Wood. I was thinking this dude is nothing like the interviews I have watched.
All of a sudden he looks over and sees Joe Riggs and almost flips shit, starts telling his corner guys “there’s that little bitch right there!” Looks over a crowd of people and called Riggs a punk bitch. Then Gil and someone else walked him away/cooled him down. Proved that if Nick doesn’t like you and fights you he may fight you again in the hospital and almost again at completely different fight’s weigh-in!
Noah “Jewjifshoe” Ferreira
You guys all remember Dan Barrera from TUF 6, right? Well I met him during a math class in the Fall of 2011 and it was one of the weirdest experiences I’ve ever had.
(If you were a guest on that gay Indian party bus and want to share your story, please e-mail [email protected].)
Thanks to everyone who submitted stories for today’s crowd-sourced edition of the CagePotato Roundtable. We’ve selected 12 tales from the pile — ranging from drama to comedy to horror — and we’ll begin with a story that comes to us from an actual pro fighter, involving one of MMA’s greatest out-of-the-cage rivalries…
Sal Woods
A few years ago I fought on the Strikeforce: Lawler vs. Shields card. While at weigh-ins I was obviously star-struck from being at Al Hrabosky’s with a room full of legends and badasses. The only guy I had the balls to say what’s up to was Nick Diaz. He was completely cool and super polite, he said hi and introduced himself to the entire table (my cornermen, shaking each one’s hand). We were just shooting the shit about how it was my first time on a big card and that I was fighting T-Wood. I was thinking this dude is nothing like the interviews I have watched.
All of a sudden he looks over and sees Joe Riggs and almost flips shit, starts telling his corner guys “there’s that little bitch right there!” Looks over a crowd of people and called Riggs a punk bitch. Then Gil and someone else walked him away/cooled him down. Proved that if Nick doesn’t like you and fights you he may fight you again in the hospital and almost again at completely different fight’s weigh-in!
Noah “Jewjifshoe” Ferreira
You guys all remember Dan Barrera from TUF 6, right? Well I met him during a math class in the Fall of 2011 and it was one of the weirdest experiences I’ve ever had.
There was a guy across the room in my math class who kept talking and interrupting the class, mumbling things about The Ultimate Fighter. I couldn’t help but think that I had seen him somewhere before. The guy got up and said something like, “Sorry to interrupt your class, I’m here for my cousin to get notes, his girl is pregnant. Thanks. Ultimate Fighter, UFC, peace.” Then he left and we thought it was over. But in the same way that an obsessive ex-boyfriend keeps popping up in closets and dressing rooms long after the breakup, Mr. Barrera was not willing to let this end. When we went into the computer lab to continue the class, there he was.
He was speaking with different people, who were mostly trying to ignore his ramblings. I, however, felt like a moth being drawn to his glowing beam of crazy. So I asked him what he was talking about and he pulled up a picture on one of the computers showing Dan Barrera weighing in for a fight. “Oh shit, you’re Dan Barrera. Yeah, you fought Ben Saunders.” To which he replied, ”Yeah and I beat him too, I put this hand through his face.”
Sure, I remember him getting a good shot in on Saunders, but Barrera would have us believe he easily won that fight. That is obviously not true, Saunders beat him…twice. Once during the show and once at the finale. Of course, when a mentally unstable, possibly cracked up pro fighter says something like that, I figured I should just let it slide. I find truth and reason don’t mean much to a deranged person.
Then he handed me a magazine article which featured him dressed as a cowboy, looking like he was ready to participate in a rodeo. As any normal person would do, Barrera asked me to read it aloud to the class. After graciously declining, he decided to read it instead, knowing the wisdom was too great NOT to share.
As he did so, I just had to wonder why this guy was crashing a college math class. Why is he showing pictures of himself on the Internet and reading aloud a magazine article featuring himself? I knew Dan was a little nutty from watching TUF, but squirrel shit has nothing on this guy.
Once the article was finished, it was time to leave us all with something really important to think about. Getting into preach mode, he actually pulled a Bible out of his pocket and said (to the best of my memory):
Do you see this? This is the word, it’s the word of our savior. How manyletters does law have in it? Who knows that? How many letters does law havein it? Don’t be scared. *writes “law” on the white board* It has three lettersin it. How many letters does God have? Don’t be scared, it has threeletters. You see? God made the law and his word is law. Now how many linesdoes an ‘A’ have? It has 3 lines. What’s three times three?…
That’s about all I can remember before the teacher came in and asked him to leave. I hope Mr. Barrera was on some good coke or meth, because honestly, if he’s like that sober he is not of this world.
Anytime I feel as though I’m losing my grips on reality, I just remember this experience and feel as though everything will be ok. Perhaps that was the true wisdom of Mr. Barrera. Thank you sir, you have helped change one person’s life for the better.
Derek C.
My brother and I were in Vancouver for UFC 115. Being from Winnipeg, we checked into our hotel downtown. The lady who checked us in said her husband was in charge of the hotel where all the fighters were staying and tipped us off on its location. (Thanks check-in lady!).
As soon as we got to the hotel we spotted Chuck’s trainer John Hackleman so we knew we were in the right spot. Moments later we ran into the Iceman himself so we were pretty stoked already. Then we saw Jon Fitch standing by himself checking in. And we continued to let him stand by himself because it’s Jon Fitch so who fuckin’ cares?
Walking back outside we recognized a chubby Asian dude but couldn’t quite figure out who it was. That is until it dawned on us, he wasn’t Asian at all but Diego Sanchez. Being a big fan of his we asked if we could get a picture with him. If you look at the picture, it is literally three seconds after Diego whispered in my ear, “Yo, I’m in Canada, land
of the good shit. You got any chronic you can hook me up with?” Being from Canada of course we did.
But it was back at our hotel. He said come back and we’d blaze up in his hotel room before he had to make some club appearance. Getting baked with the Diego sounded rad to us so we made the short trek and back. When we got there though he said he had to get going. But we gave him a joint or two anyways seeing as he was all chubby and still depressed from the beatdown BJ gave him months earlier. Maybe we didn’t get high with the Nightmare, but we were happy to hook him up with the best shit in the world
Fight Chix was started by Elisabeth and I back in 2006. I was doing design work for a company called STATS — we developed a statistical system like Fight Metric (before Fight Metric) and used it with the IFL. So I headed up that project and Elisabeth and I also used the networking as a spring board to launch Fight Chix.
Well it was May 19, 2007, and we were at the hotel bar in Hoffman Estates by the Sears Center. We were enjoying some drinks with Bas Rutten and Tiffany Fallon. Typically hanging out with Bas at a bar is an event unto itself, but this evening the focus was on a former champion who has recently lost his belt to Randy Couture. Elisabeth excused herself to use the ladies room and returned to the table PISSED. On her way back, Tim Sylvia was sitting with his feet up on a chair and blocked Elisabeth’s path back to our group. He was also with a group of fighters from the Miletich camp.
Tim looked up and said “So what is this Fight Chix thing” to which Elisabeth replied “It’s my clothing line. It’s for female fighters and fans of MMA.” Tim kinda laughed and responded with “Well that’s dumb, why would you start a clothing line for women, when its not a woman’s sport?” Several of Tim’s friends kinda laughed and Elisabeth stood her ground. “Really Tim? So there are no mothers, wives, sisters, or girlfriends that support you when you go into the cage? There aren’t fighters like Tara Larosa, Roxanne Modafferi or Julie Kedzie who train and compete just as hard? And if it wasn’t for women, you wouldn’t be here, now would you Tim?! Are we done here?!”
And Elisabeth walked back to our table as the Miletich camp cheered in a “you just got served” kinda way for Elisabeth. The result of this encounter was absolutely no bad blood for Tim Sylvia or anyone in his camp. It really lit a fire that still burns today, to be the best MMA Lifestyle brand out there for female fans and fighters. We know Tim isworking hard to get back in the UFC and we wish him well — and we thank him for his comment that was the gasoline on the fire of success.
Mike Osso
My friend’s wife works at NBC and became friends with Dana from seeing him in the building. He got her free tickets to UFC 128 in Newark since she was pregnant and her husband (my friend) are UFC enthusiasts. We didn’t know where we would be sitting until we got to the arena and picked up our tickets. Turns out they were great — 20 feet away from the cage, second row in the arena. The only better seats were the few rows of folding chairs set up on the floor. Our seats were directly behind who I now know was Tiki Ghosn. I have no direct pics of him from fear of him punching me in the face, but I do have pics from the night and other UFC fighters who came into our seating area because it was so close. The following story is 100% true and can be verified by the three other people with me.
So me, my friend, his wife, and her friend get to the Prudential Center in Newark, NJ, and pick up our reserved VIP tickets that Dana White was kind enough to set aside for us. We get there early, as people are starting to fill up the arena. We sit behind this bald man with a weird beard, all alone, who no one pays attention to. We all love the UFC and this was our first event, and were like little children on Christmas spitting out all our UFC knowledge and excitement for the night. The undercard fights are starting, and there she is, Arianny Celeste, holding the ring card 25 feet in front of me. Me and my friend go nuts, as I yell out, “OMG! It’s Arianny, she’s so fucking hot, she’s dated so many UFC fighters, what a slut.”
Then, the bald man with the weird beard turns around, looks at me, and says “You should watch what you say, that’s my girlfriend.” I just get mad that this guy says this to me, so I respond “Oh yea, and who the hell are you?”, not thinking that this is a UFC fighter, since I have been a fan for about five years and have never seen him. Tiki responds “How long have you been a fan of the UFC?” I say, “About five years, why?” He says, “Well then you wouldn’t know me” and turns around.
I am now pissed that he stops talking so I jump on my Blackberry and google “Arianny Celeste’s boyfriend,” and the first choice that comes up on Google is “Arianny dating ufc fighter Troy Burkham” [Ed. note: He means Josh Burkman] so I tap Tiki on the shoulder and say “Hey man, are you Troy Burkham?” This seemed to infuriate him, and he responds “No, I’m Tiki Ghosn.” I laugh, and say, oh ok sorry man then I Googled him and saw that he used to be a UFC fighter. I then proceeded to say, “Hey man, I’m sorry” again and he said “Yeah, yeah, no problem” in a pissed off tone.
Me and my group had an awkward silence for the next couple minutes as we did not want to anger an old UFC fighter, but by the time the next fight came on we were loud and crazy again. Nothing else was said the rest of the night, except every time a fighter that came into the crowd or that I saw would come into view I’d yell out “OMG it’s…….” just to let him know I was a UFC fan, and I did know almost all past and present relevant fighters. The real highlight of the trip was getting my Jon Jones Form shirt autographed by Rashad Evans before they were really beefing, I still have it hanging in my room. Hope you enjoyed my story about how I almost got into a fight with an ex UFC fighter for calling his girlfriend a slut lol.
David Nadeau I got to roll with Shane Carwin while training BJJ in Boulder. I use the term “roll” loosely, of course. He passed my butterfly guard in a heartbeat, crushed me in side position, and laughed a little. I apologized for wasting his time.
[Ed. note: Short, sweet, and to the point. Cool story, bro.]
On the next page: A brutal cockblocking by Bas Rutten, an unexpected staredown with Chuck Liddell, and Viva Hate’s tale of black-on-black crime at the Boston Fan Expo.
Last week, we sent out a call for your most memorable MMA fighter run-in stories, and they’ve been steadily pouring in since then. Some of those stories were not entertaining on any level. But a bunch of them are really, really good, and we can’t wait to share them with you in this Friday’s CagePotato Roundtable column. Just yesterday, a dude named Tony sent in an epic tale of Bas Rutten savagely cock-blocking him with a beautiful Persian chick, and I don’t think it’ll be topped. But you can always try, so please continue to send your stories (with photographic proof, if possible) to [email protected] by Wednesday at midnight ET. Thanks!
(Let’s just say that GSP’s tastes are…specific.)
Last week, we sent out a call for your most memorable MMA fighter run-in stories, and they’ve been steadily pouring in since then. Some of those stories were not entertaining on any level. But a bunch of them are really, really good, and we can’t wait to share them with you in this Friday’s CagePotato Roundtable column. Just yesterday, a dude named Tony sent in an epic tale of Bas Rutten savagely cock-blocking him with a beautiful Persian chick, and I don’t think it’ll be topped. But you can always try, so please continue to send your stories (with photographic proof, if possible) to [email protected] by Wednesday at midnight ET. Thanks!
We first caught a glimpse of the incredible human Whack-a-Mole style training device designed by Nexersys when Matt Serra took us on a tour of Chael Sonnen’s house in between trips to the deli to get some nice gabagool. Chael could not speak highly enough of the revolutionary piece of equipment, so much so that he recently decided to appear in an ad for the product. Sort of.
Basically, the “ad” is nothing more than the “Oregon Gangster” riffing on prison politics and how awesome he is for just under a minute. He not once mentions the product at hand, or even how it works, but that kind of frivolous information is best left for the puny-brained weaklings who think that a few push-ups a day will transform them into the next Ultimate Fighter. So goes the reasoning of Chael P. Sonnen.
Video after the jump.
(Triangle defense sold separately.)
We first caught a glimpse of the incredible human Whack-a-Mole style training device designed by Nexersys when Matt Serra took us on a tour of Chael Sonnen’s house in between trips to the deli to get some nice gabagool. Chael could not speak highly enough of the revolutionary piece of equipment, so much so that he recently decided to appear in an ad for the product. Sort of.
Basically, the “ad” is nothing more than the “Oregon Gangster” riffing on prison politics and how awesome he is for just under a minute. He not once mentions the product at hand, or even how it works, but that kind of frivolous information is best left for the puny-brained weaklings who think that a few push-ups a day will transform them into the next Ultimate Fighter. So goes the reasoning of Chael P. Sonnen.
As you can tell, the Nexersys device is basically a high-tech version of the Bas Rutten Body Action System, proving once and for all that every genius idea to come along in the history of the sport stems from “El Guapo.” In a way, Rutten is kind of like the Kevin Bacon of MMA. And given Sonnen’s history of “borrowing” ideas from legends of their respective sports, it’s not exactly shocking to see him endorsing a product that was half-stolen from one of the greats. On the other hand, we do appreciate Sonnen’s “Cullman Liquidation” style approach to selling the product, which is undoubtedly the greatest marketing technique of the modern era.
So, Potato Nation, where does the Nexersys rank among such MMA-endorsed products as the Body by Jake or the JackRack?
Ronda Rousey truly is a chip off the old block.Unfortunately, Inside MMA host Bas Rutten had to find out the hard way when he invited Ronda’s mother, Ann Maria, to step into the cage with him for a judo demonstration.Ann Maria is a highly decorated jud…
Ronda Rousey truly is a chip off the old block.
Unfortunately, Inside MMA host Bas Rutten had to find out the hard way when he invited Ronda’s mother, Ann Maria, to step into the cage with him for a judo demonstration.
Ann Maria is a highly decorated judoka and is the only American to ever win a world judo championship.
Rutten, a former UFC heavyweight champion, seemed more enamored by Ann Maria’s lack of size than her world-class judo skills.
“Look at the size of her. She’s like a little chi—,” Rutten managed to get out before being tossed to the ground.
After the takedown, Ann Maria took the time to show off her Brazilian jiu-jitsu skills and locked up an armbar to finish her downed opponent.
Rutten, who was completely caught off guard by the trip, was a great sport afterwards and even complimented Ann Maria on her technique.
Ronda seemed just as shocked as Rutten.
“That was a bad explanation mom,” Ronda laughed.
It may not have been the best of demonstrations, but Ann Maria certainly put any would-be purse snatchers on notice. This is one mom not to be messed with.
