Tag: daniel cormier

Mo Lawal: Strikeforce Organization Is ‘Like a Dying Cancer Patient’

Filed under: ,

You didn’t really think that “King” Mo Lawal — he of Team GDP, he of Team Thirsty — was going to return to action against Roger Gracie on Saturday’s Strikeforce card without some new nickname at his disposal, did you?

Oh, no. That wouldn’t be Lawal’s style. Not after being out of the cage for over a year. Not when he’s taking on a member of the famed Gracie family. As he told Ariel Helwani on Thursday’s edition of The MMA Hour, he’s come up with the perfect moniker to mark his return: Blackuraba.

As in, the black Sakuraba. “Hell yeah, ‘the Gracie Hunter,’ fool,” Lawal explained.

The former Strikeforce light heavyweight champ even has a new team to match his new nickname, but will it be enough to knock off the ring rust and get back in the win column?

The last time we saw Lawal in the cage was August of 2010, when he lost his 205-pound title to Rafael “Feijao” Cavalcante via third-round TKO. Since then he’s had surgery, he’s done his rehab, and he’s relocated his training camp to the friendly confines of the American Kickboxing Academy in San Jose, Calif., where longtime friend Daniel Cormier makes his home.

The move was “a breath of fresh air,” according to Lawal. What remains to be seen is whether it’s prepared him to deal with Gracie’s submission game, which has accounted for a slew of jiu-jitsu titles as well as all four of the Brazilian’s MMA victories.

“I’m not afraid to go to the ground with him,” Lawal said. “This ain’t Abu Dhabi. This ain’t [the Jiu-Jitsu World Championships]. This is MMA. Wherever the fight goes, I’m prepared to battle.”

And while Lawal, who came to MMA from wrestling, said he still thinks high-level grapplers hold major advantages over most opponents, he doesn’t seem terribly worried about Gracie’s ground skills, saying, “It’s going to be an interesting fight, but I think I’m going to smash him.”

The question Lawal and many other Strikeforce fighters are wondering is, what then?

The current Strikeforce light heavyweight champion, Dan Henderson, seems poised to make the leap to the UFC, which would leave yet another Strikeforce belt vacant.

“If I’m going to fight for the belt, I want to fight the champ, and that’s Dan,” said Lawal, who insisted he had no interest in owning a title that’s been vacated by the previous champ.

“The thing is, what’s the point? What’s the point of having the belt when it’s been vacated, and the person who vacated it is still fighting somewhere else within the same umbrella, but not the same organization?”

At least for the time being, it’s a conundrum that’s familiar to many fighters on the Strikeforce roster. The welterweight and heavyweight champs have already been removed from the picture by the Zuffa brass, and the same seems likely to happen in Lawal’s division, leaving him wondering what’s really at stake in these fights.

“It feels a little weird, because it’s not the same,” Lawal said. “It’s like a cancer patient, like a dying cancer patient. That’s how I feel like the organization is. We’re just waiting for it to die, to pass. As long as I can get my fights in and they’re still around, I want to get them in.”

After more than a year off, he’ll get his chance to get another one in this Saturday in Cincinnati. Considering the precarious position of the promotion he’s fighting for, he’d better make them count. Who knows how many more there will be under the Strikeforce banner, particularly for the losers.

 

Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments

Filed under: ,

You didn’t really think that “King” Mo Lawal — he of Team GDP, he of Team Thirsty — was going to return to action against Roger Gracie on Saturday’s Strikeforce card without some new nickname at his disposal, did you?

Oh, no. That wouldn’t be Lawal’s style. Not after being out of the cage for over a year. Not when he’s taking on a member of the famed Gracie family. As he told Ariel Helwani on Thursday’s edition of The MMA Hour, he’s come up with the perfect moniker to mark his return: Blackuraba.

As in, the black Sakuraba. “Hell yeah, ‘the Gracie Hunter,’ fool,” Lawal explained.

The former Strikeforce light heavyweight champ even has a new team to match his new nickname, but will it be enough to knock off the ring rust and get back in the win column?


The last time we saw Lawal in the cage was August of 2010, when he lost his 205-pound title to Rafael “Feijao” Cavalcante via third-round TKO. Since then he’s had surgery, he’s done his rehab, and he’s relocated his training camp to the friendly confines of the American Kickboxing Academy in San Jose, Calif., where longtime friend Daniel Cormier makes his home.

The move was “a breath of fresh air,” according to Lawal. What remains to be seen is whether it’s prepared him to deal with Gracie’s submission game, which has accounted for a slew of jiu-jitsu titles as well as all four of the Brazilian’s MMA victories.

“I’m not afraid to go to the ground with him,” Lawal said. “This ain’t Abu Dhabi. This ain’t [the Jiu-Jitsu World Championships]. This is MMA. Wherever the fight goes, I’m prepared to battle.”

And while Lawal, who came to MMA from wrestling, said he still thinks high-level grapplers hold major advantages over most opponents, he doesn’t seem terribly worried about Gracie’s ground skills, saying, “It’s going to be an interesting fight, but I think I’m going to smash him.”

The question Lawal and many other Strikeforce fighters are wondering is, what then?

The current Strikeforce light heavyweight champion, Dan Henderson, seems poised to make the leap to the UFC, which would leave yet another Strikeforce belt vacant.

“If I’m going to fight for the belt, I want to fight the champ, and that’s Dan,” said Lawal, who insisted he had no interest in owning a title that’s been vacated by the previous champ.

“The thing is, what’s the point? What’s the point of having the belt when it’s been vacated, and the person who vacated it is still fighting somewhere else within the same umbrella, but not the same organization?”

At least for the time being, it’s a conundrum that’s familiar to many fighters on the Strikeforce roster. The welterweight and heavyweight champs have already been removed from the picture by the Zuffa brass, and the same seems likely to happen in Lawal’s division, leaving him wondering what’s really at stake in these fights.

“It feels a little weird, because it’s not the same,” Lawal said. “It’s like a cancer patient, like a dying cancer patient. That’s how I feel like the organization is. We’re just waiting for it to die, to pass. As long as I can get my fights in and they’re still around, I want to get them in.”

After more than a year off, he’ll get his chance to get another one in this Saturday in Cincinnati. Considering the precarious position of the promotion he’s fighting for, he’d better make them count. Who knows how many more there will be under the Strikeforce banner, particularly for the losers.

 

Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments

Josh Barnett: Antonio Silva’s Size Only Thing Allowing Him to Be ‘Decent Fighter’

Filed under:

Fight fans weren’t the only ones sorry to see Alistair Overeem pulled from the Strikeforce heavyweight Grand Prix in the midst of a contract dispute with Zuffa. Fellow tournament participant Josh Barnett said on this week’s edition of The MMA Hour that the Grand Prix had undoubtedly lost something in his eyes now that Overeem is gone from the field.

“I can’t speak for anybody else, but I know that I wanted to face him in the finals,” Barnett told Ariel Helwani on Thursday’s edition of the show.

According to Barnett, who is slated to take on Sergei Kharitonov in the Grand Prix semifinals on September 10, the fact that Overeem could be dropped from the tournament and released from his contract so suddenly got his attention for more than just competitive reasons.

“From a fighter perspective, it stinks,” he said. “You’d like to have the opportunity to fight the guy, plus he was the champ. Seeing the champion just get let go is kind of a jarring reminder, I guess, that you’re not really all that important.”

Barnett, who said that “nothing really surprises me” in MMA these days, had his own issues with the new Zuffa ownership when he requested permission to participate in a pro wrestling event in Japan, which his Strikeforce contract allows for, he said. Zuffa turned down the request, citing the proximity to the tournament semifinal match, which didn’t please his employers in Japan, Barnett said.

“They were upset. It was pretty much the biggest show of the year for them, and I was their main event.”

Still, Barnett has a full dance card back in the states, with the tournament nearing its conclusion and questions swirling about what Zuffa will decide to do with the winner. Barnett has to get by Kharitonov on Saturday, but he’ll also be keeping a close eye on the other semifinal match between alternate replacement Daniel Cormier and Antonio “Bigfoot” Silva.

Barnett said he was picking Cormier to win that fight despite Silva’s considerable size advantage.

“The thing about ‘Bigfoot,’ he’s a big guy and he’s agile for a big guy, but he’s not that agile and he’s not that athletic. In fact, being a big guy is probably his greatest asset.”

Silva suffers from acromegaly, which causes the enlargement of certain physical features, but which also might be his saving grace as a fighter, according to Barnett.

“You could almost say that I’m sure he’s had his issues growing up with a thing like gigantism, and all the difficulty that’s come from that. But gigantism is what actually allows him to be a decent fighter, because he doesn’t do anything particularly awesome, but he’s just massive,” said Barnett. “But all of his fights come down to him getting the takedown. Those are the ones he wins, and against Cormier I don’t think that’s going to happen.”

Barnett added that, ideally, he’d like to face Cormier in the tournament finals, if only to find out whether he’s capable of taking down the former U.S. Olympic wrestling team captain.

As for whether he’ll once again put his pro wrestling expertise on display at the open workouts, Barnett wasn’t ruling anything out, saying, “Who knows? I hate to disappoint.”

And though he said he caught some heat from some fans for seizing the microphone from Gus Johnson after defeating Brett Rogers in the Grand Prix quarterfinals, don’t expect Barnett to play along with the typical post-fight Q&A anytime soon.

“The interview moments to me, they’re stupid,” he said. “They’re a waste of time. Just give the guy the mic, let him say what he’s got to say, get him out of there, and let’s move on. But let’s keep it fresh, keep it original, keep things going instead of [saying], ‘Talk us through the end of this fight.’ Nobody gives a s–t. If you want to see the end of the fight, go hit rewind on your DVR. There’s about 18,000 slo-mos after you’ve won, so why don’t we get something more personal, more individual about the guy.”

For now, Barnett just has to make sure he’s on the right side of those slow-motion replays. Against a slugger like Kharitonov, even an experienced fighter could very easily end up as a highlight-reel victim if he isn’t careful.

 

Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments

Filed under:

Fight fans weren’t the only ones sorry to see Alistair Overeem pulled from the Strikeforce heavyweight Grand Prix in the midst of a contract dispute with Zuffa. Fellow tournament participant Josh Barnett said on this week’s edition of The MMA Hour that the Grand Prix had undoubtedly lost something in his eyes now that Overeem is gone from the field.

“I can’t speak for anybody else, but I know that I wanted to face him in the finals,” Barnett told Ariel Helwani on Thursday’s edition of the show.

According to Barnett, who is slated to take on Sergei Kharitonov in the Grand Prix semifinals on September 10, the fact that Overeem could be dropped from the tournament and released from his contract so suddenly got his attention for more than just competitive reasons.


“From a fighter perspective, it stinks,” he said. “You’d like to have the opportunity to fight the guy, plus he was the champ. Seeing the champion just get let go is kind of a jarring reminder, I guess, that you’re not really all that important.”

Barnett, who said that “nothing really surprises me” in MMA these days, had his own issues with the new Zuffa ownership when he requested permission to participate in a pro wrestling event in Japan, which his Strikeforce contract allows for, he said. Zuffa turned down the request, citing the proximity to the tournament semifinal match, which didn’t please his employers in Japan, Barnett said.

“They were upset. It was pretty much the biggest show of the year for them, and I was their main event.”

Still, Barnett has a full dance card back in the states, with the tournament nearing its conclusion and questions swirling about what Zuffa will decide to do with the winner. Barnett has to get by Kharitonov on Saturday, but he’ll also be keeping a close eye on the other semifinal match between alternate replacement Daniel Cormier and Antonio “Bigfoot” Silva.

Barnett said he was picking Cormier to win that fight despite Silva’s considerable size advantage.

“The thing about ‘Bigfoot,’ he’s a big guy and he’s agile for a big guy, but he’s not that agile and he’s not that athletic. In fact, being a big guy is probably his greatest asset.”

Silva suffers from acromegaly, which causes the enlargement of certain physical features, but which also might be his saving grace as a fighter, according to Barnett.

“You could almost say that I’m sure he’s had his issues growing up with a thing like gigantism, and all the difficulty that’s come from that. But gigantism is what actually allows him to be a decent fighter, because he doesn’t do anything particularly awesome, but he’s just massive,” said Barnett. “But all of his fights come down to him getting the takedown. Those are the ones he wins, and against Cormier I don’t think that’s going to happen.”

Barnett added that, ideally, he’d like to face Cormier in the tournament finals, if only to find out whether he’s capable of taking down the former U.S. Olympic wrestling team captain.

As for whether he’ll once again put his pro wrestling expertise on display at the open workouts, Barnett wasn’t ruling anything out, saying, “Who knows? I hate to disappoint.”

And though he said he caught some heat from some fans for seizing the microphone from Gus Johnson after defeating Brett Rogers in the Grand Prix quarterfinals, don’t expect Barnett to play along with the typical post-fight Q&A anytime soon.

“The interview moments to me, they’re stupid,” he said. “They’re a waste of time. Just give the guy the mic, let him say what he’s got to say, get him out of there, and let’s move on. But let’s keep it fresh, keep it original, keep things going instead of [saying], ‘Talk us through the end of this fight.’ Nobody gives a s–t. If you want to see the end of the fight, go hit rewind on your DVR. There’s about 18,000 slo-mos after you’ve won, so why don’t we get something more personal, more individual about the guy.”

For now, Barnett just has to make sure he’s on the right side of those slow-motion replays. Against a slugger like Kharitonov, even an experienced fighter could very easily end up as a highlight-reel victim if he isn’t careful.

 

Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments

Scott Coker: Talks With Strikeforce Light Heavyweight Champ Dan Henderson Ongoing

Filed under: Strikeforce, NewsAs if Scott Coker didn’t have enough championship belts already in flux, Dan Henderson’s last win on his Strikeforce deal just added to Coker’s list.

Henderson beat Fedor Emelianenko last month to finish off his Strikefo…

Filed under: ,

Dan HendersonAs if Scott Coker didn’t have enough championship belts already in flux, Dan Henderson‘s last win on his Strikeforce deal just added to Coker’s list.

Henderson beat Fedor Emelianenko last month to finish off his Strikeforce contract, making him a free agent. The UFC has expressed interest in bringing Henderson back into the mix, and Henderson has expressed interest in returning to the promotion.

But Coker said Tuesday nothing has been figured out yet, and that if Henderson did return to the UFC, vacating his light heavyweight title, he was not yet sure how that belt would be filled – but that the winner of a fight between Muhammed “King Mo” Lawal and Roger Gracie, on Sept. 10, could position himself to be in the picture.

“There are ongoing discussions with Hendo, and it hasn’t been determined yet,” Coker said during a Strikeforce media call.

“I like to watch the fight and stir the pot after,” Coker said. “Let’s see who wins and how they win. We also have some other fights coming up in the 205 weight class – Mike Kyle will be fighting again shortly, and Gegard Mousasi will be probably be fighting before the end of the year. When the time is right, we’ll let everybody know.”

Lawal has not fought since he lost the light heavyweight title to Rafael Cavalcante a year ago, his first career defeat. Gracie is 4-0 with four submission victories, but has fought just twice the last three years.

No decisions yet on vacant heavyweight title
When heavyweight champion Alistair Overeem was given the boot from Strikeforce earlier this summer, many assumed the easiest solution to fill the suddenly vacant belt would be to hand it over to the winner of the ongoing heavyweight tournament.

But that won’t be the case, Coker said. The CEO said there are no plans for the tournament winner to automatically assume the role of Strikeforce heavyweight champion, and that the promotion was “in discussions” to figure out what will happen.

Coker reiterated that he expects the finals of the heavyweight tournament to take place sometime in the first quarter of 2012.

In other news from Coker on Tuesday’s call:

Cormier always in the heavyweight tournament mix
Daniel Cormier was inserted quickly into the heavyweight tournament when Alistair Overeem was cut from the promotion, and Coker said that was no coincidence.

“He was always considered the top alternate,” Coker said. “Cormier was the first person under consideration. He had a great performance against a seasoned veteran like (Jeff) Monson. That fight, he looked like a kickboxer. He showed he had the ability to take it to the next level. We just felt he was the right guy. Anyone who has Olympic-level wrestling is going to give people in this tournament a tough time.”

Cormier stepped in for Overeem and will face Antonio “Bigfoot” Silva in one semifinal bout. The winner of that fight will face the Josh Barnett–Sergei Kharitonov winner.

“Cyborg” Santos should fight again by year’s end
Coker said Cristiane “Cyborg” Santos has officially re-signed with the promotion. Santos reportedly signed a new deal with Strikeforce last week after more than a year on the sidelines.

Santos (10-1, 4-0 Strikeforce) has not competed since a June 2010 knockout win over Jan Finney to retain her Strikeforce 145-pound title. Coker said no opponent has been set for Santos’ return, but he expects she will fight before the end of 2011.

 

Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments

Daniel Cormier Has Message for Wrestling’s Critics: ‘Learn Takedown Defense’

Filed under: Strikeforce, NewsDaniel Cormier has a message for critics of wrestlers, and it doesn’t sound like he’s going to budge on it anytime soon.

Cormier, one of the most decorated college and amateur wrestlers ever to break into mixed martial a…

Filed under: ,

Daniel Cormier has a message for critics of wrestlers, and it doesn’t sound like he’s going to budge on it anytime soon.

Cormier, one of the most decorated college and amateur wrestlers ever to break into mixed martial arts, has found himself smack-dab in the middle of the Strikeforce Heavyweight Grand Prix against Antonio Silva in the semifinals. And while he believes the fight is his most important test to date, he isn’t going to apologize for being a wrestler.

Simply put, the unbeaten heavyweight believes if his opponent can’t stop his takedowns, well … too bad.

“It’s not my job, it’s not Jon Fitch‘s job, it’s not Josh Barnett‘s job to actually teach someone takedown defense,” Cormier said Tuesday during a media call. “It’s their job to learn takedown defense. If they can’t defend the takedown, then they deserve to lay on their back for 15 minutes.”

While other fighters accused by fans and other fighters of being “lay and pray” practitioners have often tiptoed around the accusations, Cormier is more to the point.

Cormier (8-0, 5-0 Strikeforce) was inserted into the heavyweight tournament as an alternate after Zuffa suddenly cut Strikeforce heavyweight champion Alistair Overeem earlier this summer. After six straight stoppage wins to start his pro career, including five in the first round, Cormier has won back-to-back decisions, both scorecard sweeps.

Against Devin Cole in January, Cormier landed three takedowns. But against Jeff Monson in June, he attempted just two and instead dominated the fight in the standup game. According to FightMetric, Cormier out-struck Monson 110-19 in the fight. So as his overall MMA game progresses, Cormier knows he’ll have to fall back on other skill sets besides his world-class wrestling.

“I think it’s always good to put on exciting fights,” Cormier said. “I like to fight. This is my job. If that means I have to stand with him and fight, then I have to fight. What if I can’t take him down? But at the end of the day, it’s about winning.”

Which might just be Cormier’s way of saying that standing and banging may look fun from outside the cage, but he may think twice about being on the receiving end of “Bigfoot” Silva’s paws – especially since Silva is coming off a devastating TKO stoppage of Fedor Emelianenko in February.

“Why should I or anyone else that knows how to wrestle give up their biggest advantage?,” Cormier said. “If a jiu-jitsu guy can get you down, he’s going to use his jiu-jitsu. If a striker can keep you standing, he’s going to use his standup ability. It’s your job, which MMA is, which fighting is, to learn all areas of the game.”

Silva (16-2, 3-1 Strikeforce) has won three straight and nine of his last 10, including a TKO win over one of Cormier’s American Kickboxing Academy heavyweight teammates, Mike Kyle. And though he is a Brazilian jiu-jitsu black belt, he’s only submitted two fighters in his 16 wins. It’s his heavy hands that seem to be feared the most.

Cormier, though, said that while getting hit in the face was foreign to him from his wrestling background when he started MMA, training at AKA – especially with UFC heavyweight champion Cain Velasequez – has gotten him used to it.

“Nobody likes to get hit,” Cormier said. “Wrestlers, kickboxers – nobody likes to get hit. But it doesn’t affect me. I train with the No. 1 heavyweight in the world on a daily basis, so I actually get hit a lot. And not only from Cain, but from King Mo (Lawal) and Mike Kyle and all the guys I train with. I’ve adjusted to it because they beat me up so much.”

Cormier and Silva fight Sept. 10 in one half of the semifinal bracket of Strikeforce’s continuation of the heavyweight tournament in Cincinnati. The other side of the bracket features Josh Barnett vs. Sergei Kharitonov. The winners are expected to meet sometime in early 2012 for the tournament title.

 

Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments

Former Olympian Daniel Cormier Takes AKA’s Wrestling Program Back to the Basics

Filed under: StrikeforceAsk Daniel Cormier what he changed about the American Kickboxing Academy’s wrestling program and you’ll get a very simple answer: “Everything.”

It wasn’t so much tweaking as it was ripping it all out and starting from scratch. …

Filed under:

Ask Daniel Cormier what he changed about the American Kickboxing Academy’s wrestling program and you’ll get a very simple answer: “Everything.”

It wasn’t so much tweaking as it was ripping it all out and starting from scratch. Which, according to AKA co-founder and trainer Javier Mendez, is exactly what they needed.

“He 100 percent revamped the wrestling program,” Mendez said. “When he came over and I saw his ability with teaching, I told our management, I don’t care if this guy develops as a fighter, because worst-case scenario, we got a great wrestling coach. As it looks, we got both: great fighter and great wrestling coach.”

It wasn’t that the San Jose, Calif.-based gym was lacking in wrestlers before Cormier showed up. Between Jon Fitch, Josh Koscheck, and Cain Velasquez, the squad had plenty of guys who had done their time in college wrestling rooms.

What they didn’t have, according to Mendez, was somebody willing to take the lead as a teacher and a coach.

“We didn’t have anybody who really loved the teaching. Koscheck didn’t like it. Fitch didn’t like it. They’re more interested in themselves. Daniel actually loves to teach, and that made him better with technique than anyone else. He’s got a passion for teaching and a knack for it like I’ve never seen.”

It wasn’t that Cormier brought in new ideas, necessarily, but rather that he helped his teammates return to the old ones that had helped get them to where they were.

“I went in, and these guys are good wrestlers,” Cormier said. “Really good wrestlers. Fitch, Kos is an NCAA champion, four-time All-American. Cain’s an All-American three or four times. But what we did is we went back to the basics.”

And by basics, Cormier means they started having wrestling practice again, just like some of them had done in college, and others had done, well, never. As the only two-time Olympic wrestling team member in the gym, Cormier made it his mission to strip everything down and start from the beginning in order to focus on technique above all else, he said.

“We all develop bad habits over the course of our careers, in terms of wrestling and everything else. But we went back and went to the basics, started doing basic wrestling practice. We’d get in there two days a week and we’d do wrestling practice as if we were at Oklahoma State or the Olympic Training Center. No punching, just straight wrestling practice. Not many gyms around the country do that. That’s why you see some of the better wrestlers [in MMA], their skill level diminishes as they move forward.”

Cormier was determined not to be one of those guys as his MMA career advanced. He showed up at AKA with a wealth of wrestling experience, but not much else. Strapping on the gloves and getting on the mats made for a humbling experience at first, he admitted. The first time that he got taken down in sparring by a fighter with no formal wrestling training he realized that this was whole new sport, with entirely different demands.

What really drove that lesson home was taking on Velasquez — the current UFC heavyweight champion — in some seriously one-sided sparring sessions.

“Some days I’d only be able to go a half a round with him, half a five-minute round, and I’d roll under the ring I’d be so exhausted. Well, when I was down on myself, [Velasquez] would come over and talk to me. And Koscheck, you know, most people don’t expect it from him…but he did it. He came to me and told me, ‘You’re getting better, just stay the course and learn.’ And Fitch, Fitch is one of the best leaders you can ever find. Those guys lifted me up when I had hard days, and it’s paying off now.”

At the same time, while Cormier gave his AKA teammates the benefit of his wrestling knowledge, they were equipping him with what he needed to become successful mixed martial artist — and they were doing it whether he liked it or not.

“It’s not like I can just take Cain down any time I want, so I have to stand in the pocket with him and fight him,” Cormier said. “I can take him down, but I can’t just go in there and say, I’m going to take Cain down this time. It doesn’t work that way; he’s a world champion. So I have to stand in front of the best heavyweight in the world and bang with him. I do it on a daily basis.”

Cormier’s gains in the striking department were evident in his bout with Jeff Monson on last weekend’s Strikeforce: Overeem vs. Werdum card. For three rounds he battered the MMA veteran on the feet en route to a unanimous decision.

It was almost enough to make you wonder what all that time working on straight wrestling was for, since Cormier never looked to engage Monson on the mat. That’s a lot of hours invested in takedowns for a guy who relied so much on his right hand.

But then, it’s not like Cormier really needed to improve his wrestling game to begin with. The changes he made at AKA, he did for the other people in the gym. And seeing it pay off for them is reward enough, he said.

“We train wrestling hard and we do it two days a week. At first it was physical. It was real physical and hard and it was hard for us to get through the rest of the week… But the guys love it. They enjoy it, and everybody’s getting better. I saw a kid in the room the other day that couldn’t wrestle to save his life. But by just paying attention, wrestling every week hard, he’s getting a ton better. Now, that’s not me — that’s him. He’s paying attention to everything we’re trying to teach him and he’s learning and committing himself to the sport. Now he’s taking down wrestlers.”

And you better believe that nobody gets more excited about that turn of events than Cormier — even if you wouldn’t know it if you watched him forego double-legs in favor of switch kicks and Superman punches.

 

Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments

Keyboard Warriors #3: The Ream

If you missed Keyboard Warriors Monday, hey thanks. Nice to know someone actually appreciates all I do to entertain you jerkfaces. For the rest of you: hey guess what i did?

Yup, prepare yourselves for KBW #3! In the aftermath of the weekend’s Strikeforce action, Dana takes the time to address the heavyweights, evaluate their performances, and fill them in on his short terms plans. And his long term plans. Say what you will, but Big Daddy White dreams big, son.

If you are interested in 100% made up conversations between characters that are mostly fabrications, come on in and enjoy. Feel free to comment your little hands off. If you don’t like comedy … well, i’ve got nothing for you.

Why do you keep coming here again?

[RX]

If you missed Keyboard Warriors Monday, hey thanks. Nice to know someone actually appreciates all I do to entertain you jerkfaces. For the rest of you: hey guess what i did?

Yup, prepare yourselves for KBW #3! In the aftermath of the weekend’s Strikeforce action, Dana takes the time to address the heavyweights, evaluate their performances, and fill them in on his short terms plans. And his long term plans. Say what you will, but Big Daddy White dreams big, son.

If you are interested in 100% made up conversations between characters that are mostly fabrications, come on in and enjoy. Feel free to comment your little hands off. If you don’t like comedy … well, i’ve got nothing for you.

Why do you keep coming here again?

As always, thanks to Christopher and those jokers at WithLeather.

[RX]