UFC Middleweight and TUF 3 Champion, Kendall Grove says he asked matchmaker Joe Silva for a fight with Demian Maia because he is at a point in his career where he only wants to fight the best. Grove doesn’t think the caliber of fighters he’s beaten lately mean much to advancing him up […]
UFC Middleweight and TUF 3 Champion, Kendall Grove says he asked matchmaker Joe Silva for a fight with Demian Maia because he is at a point in his career where he only wants to fight the best. Grove doesn’t think the caliber of fighters he’s beaten lately mean much to advancing him up the ranks or testing his true abilities. Whether he wins or loses he wants to see what he can do against a respected talent like Maia.
As Grove has been fighting in the UFC since 2006, RawVegas.tv thought they would test his cognitive skills and see if he could answer a few trivia questions to gauge how the years of fighting have effected him. Grove says he’s a “dumb fighter” and didn’t expect to know the answers… Watch full video below:
After watching Stephan Bonnar grind out consistently exciting, if not bloody fights throughout his 5 year UFC career, the no brainer is to stay tuned for his Main Card TUF 12 Finale bout against Igor Pokrajac. But who is Pokrajac and is watching a fight with Bonnar against a virtual unknown worth not tuning […]
After watching Stephan Bonnar grind out consistently exciting, if not bloody fights throughout his 5 year UFC career, the no brainer is to stay tuned for his Main Card TUF 12 Finale bout against Igor Pokrajac. But who is Pokrajac and is watching a fight with Bonnar against a virtual unknown worth not tuning in to the if anything, *interesting line-up Strikeforce has put together
About an hour after the TUF 12 Finale card begins on Spike TV, Strikeforce will be airing its card onShowtime with a match-up between an aging Matt Lindland, who at 40 years old can be summed up as an Olympic wrestler with a spotty MMA record (he’s also a politician) and Robbie Lawlor, whose recent losses were met at the hands of notables, Jake Shields and Renato “Babalu” Sobral. Lawlor should grind out the win against Lindland via TKO, but despite the odds stacked against Lindland, he does put in the effort to keep the fight interesting.
Up next on the Strikeforce lineup would be former UFC Welterweight Paul Daley, the guy who got kicked out of the promotion for sucker punching Josh Koscheck after the 3rd round bell. To this day we don’t know exactly what kind of trash-talking Kos did to provoke the punch, but Kos does admit he said something pretty vile. Daley is facing a fellow striker in Scott Smith. The wild nature of Smith’s style and Daley’s technical skills will make for a standup slugfest that should leave Smith on the ground in a TKO.
Finally, the long-awaited rematch, 10 years in the making or that’s what the hype tells us, is the Main Card event between Dan Henderson and Renato “Babalu” Sobral. Henderson is a wrestler who’s developed a powerful right hand and Babalu is a crazy jiu-jitsu artist. The fight should go the 3 rounds, as neither fighter is expected to submit and overall this should be a good one.
Let’s skip back over to the TUF 12 Finale. Let’s face it, you can’t claim anyone on this card is at the tail-end of his career. In addition to Stephan Bonnar versus Igor Pokrajac which should be nothing short of a stand-up and possibly blood-shed war, we have Demian Maia paired up against Kendall Grove that may end with Grove tied up in Maia’s masterful jiu-jitsu, but watching “Da Spyda” trying to use his long legs in defense against Maia won’t be boring.
Also on the TUF 12 Main Card are Welterweights Johny Hendricks and Rick Story. Hendricks is from the hailed wrestling Team Takedown and has yet to take a loss in his pro MMA-career. Rick Story is no joke either, as a Southpaw with a four fight win-streak in the UFC. The fight should go a full three grinding rounds leaving Hendricks the victor.
Both Strikeforce and UFC seemed to be very considerate offering some great fights at no cost (if you already pay for cable) but with the fights overlapping, thank goodness we live in a world of “why choose?” when we have those extra special features like DVR and Tivo to enjoy.
(Stephan Bonnar: He will stand there all day like that.)
The finale show for The Ultimate Fighter: Team GSP vs. Team Koscheck — slated for December 4th at the Palms in Las Vegas — just picked up its first two official matchups. According …
(Stephan Bonnar: He will stand there all day like that.)
The finale show for The Ultimate Fighter: Team GSP vs. Team Koscheck — slated for December 4th at the Palms in Las Vegas — just picked up its first two official matchups. According to a press release sent out by Spike this morning, the event will feature a middleweight contest between former title contender Demian Maia and TUF 3 winner Kendall Grove. Maia most recently outpointed Mario Miranda at UFC 118 in Boston, while Grove is coming off a split-decision win over Goran Reljic at UFC 116.
Also on the card, Stephan Bonnar will try to follow up his TKO victory/Fight of the Night against Krzysztof Soszynski (also at UFC 116) when he meets Igor Pokrajac, the man responsible for choking James Irvin out of the UFC. With his 1-2 Octagon record, Pokrajac isn’t exactly a step up in competition for Bonnar after the K-Sos fight. But it’s a fight that Bonnar can win, and if you don’t like seeing Bonnar win fights, we have one question for you: Why do you hate America so much?
Related: According to an MMAJunkie report, the TUF 12 Finale will also host a welterweight battle between Johny Hendricks (9-0, 4-0 UFC) and Rick Story (11-3, 4-1 UFC).
(Where’s your glass trophy now, playboy? Props: thesun.co.uk)
By CagePotato contributor Jim Genia
In a perfect world, The Ultimate Fighter would give us an up close and personal look at some of the most promising mixed martial artists out there, vyi…
(Where’s your glass trophy now, playboy? Props: thesun.co.uk)
By CagePotato contributor Jim Genia
In a perfect world, The Ultimate Fighter would give us an up close and personal look at some of the most promising mixed martial artists out there, vying for greatness in the crucible of combat. But in reality, it’s become a perversion of manufactured drama and prefabricated stars — stars made bright not by the depth of the competition they must face but by the trouncing of whatever hapless wannabes a SpikeTV producer chose at the tryouts. You see, it stopped being about “who’s the best” a long time ago, and was twisted into “who makes for the best TV,” so what we get now is more Jersey Shore than Ultimate Fighting Championship, only instead of Snooki and JWoww’s cleavage we get an IFL champ or Sengoku veteran beating the ever-loving crap out of people with maybe a handful (if that) of fights.
That’s why, when a TUF winner loses in Octagon — sometimes after facing real UFC-level competition for the first time — it’s totally awesome! Because, sure, Michael Bisping, Joe Stevenson and Mac Danzig are tough, likeable guys, but don’t try to fool us into thinking they’re the definition of “badass” just because they defeated a personal trainer from New Orleans, a boxer from Maine and some kid who should be working on a farm. We’re not the ignorant general public flicking through the channels, we’re knowledgeable MMA fans. We know better!
Therefore, here, in no particular order, is a list of the ten greatest TUF winner fails of all time. It’s a list based not on animosity towards any particular fighter, but on animosity towards the Spike TV executive who skipped over the few hundred fighter hopefuls with real talent and real skill, and instead chose the clown with the funky hair, the drinking problem and the propensity for trashing houses…
Michael Bisping vs. Dan Henderson, UFC 100 British fighter Michael Bisping was a stud in the UK MMA scene (which is a lot like saying you’re a gold medalist in the Special Olympics) when he got the call to compete on TUF, and he took Season 3 top honors after beating, well, pretty much no one of note. But he continued to rack up wins on the pay-per-views, defeating such marginables as Elvis Sinosic, Charles McCarthy and Jason Day. However, TUF 9 saw him pitted against Dan Henderson as an opposing coach, and we were supposed to believe the inevitable Octagon conflict between them would be competitive. It wasn’t, and fans everywhere rejoiced over a knockout so devastating Bisping has no recollection of anything to do with the weekend of July 11, 2009 and about nine days before and after.
Filed under: UFC, NewsKendall Grove’s next opponent will be former title contender Demian Maia on Dec. 4 at the TUF 12 Finale in Las Vegas, the TUF 3 winner revealed late Tuesday on his social networking pages.
Kendall Grove‘s next opponent will be former title contender Demian Maia on Dec. 4 at the TUF 12 Finale in Las Vegas, the TUF 3 winner revealed late Tuesday on his social networking pages.
The fight is a huge opportunity for Grove to rise into middleweight contention as well as to ensure an extended career with the UFC, especially after Grove was punished for criticizing Spike TV and The Ultimate Fighter show, prompting the demotion of his most recent fight at UFC 116 against Goran Reljic from the Spike TV broadcast to the untelevised undercard.
(Sakuraba vs. Mayhem at DREAM.16: A fight so amazing, it can only be described as ‘Fantasista’. Props: YouTube.com/DREAM)
Some selected highlights from our friends around the MMA blogosphere. E-mail [email protected] for details on how …
(Sakuraba vs. Mayhem at DREAM.16: A fight so amazing, it can only be described as ‘Fantasista’. Props: YouTube.com/DREAM)
Some selected highlights from our friends around the MMA blogosphere. E-mail [email protected] for details on how your site can join the MMA Link Club…
– Todd Duffee Released By The UFC; Manager Calls Him an "Ass" (MMA Convert)
