Remember how we said the guy who replaced Aleks Emelianenko against Mirko Crop Cop at Legends 2 probably stood a better chance of defeating the Croatian than Emelianenko did? Well consider this the saddest “we told you so” in CagePotato history. And quite possibly the first.
But after watching his fight with Alexey Oleinik at Legend 2 last Friday, we think it’s safe to assume that Mirko has officially entered the “Money Up Front” phase of his MMA career.
Remember how we said the guy who replaced Aleks Emelianenko against Mirko Crop Cop at Legends 2 probably stood a better chance of defeating the Croatian than Emelianenko did? Well consider this the saddest “we told you so” in CagePotato history. And quite possibly the first.
But after watching his fight with Alexey Oleinik at Legend 2 last Friday, we think it’s safe to assume that Mirko has officially entered the “Money Up Front” phase of his MMA career.
Sure, it’s not like Mirko showed up at 300+ pounds or anything, and it’s not like he was fighting a scrub. But a neck crank? A F*CKING NECK CRANK?!
I say this as one of the biggest Cro Cop fans out there: Retire, Mirko. Retire for good and stop breaking my heart.
Elsewhere on the Legend card, UFC castaway Paul Daley saw a four fight win streak snapped via unanimous decision at the hands of Alexander “Bad Boy” Yakovlev, a 20-4 Russian who is now 21-4 (I dunno, that’s all I got). While Daley dominated many of the standup exchanges in typical fashion, his achilles heel of wrestling was once again exposed by Yakovlev, who mixed up some takedowns and decent ground-n-pound attacks to neutralize Daley for the majority of the fight.
In the kickboxing realm, Badr Hari picked up a unanimous decision victory over Alexey Ignashov in a K-1 Superfight that was as sloppy at times as it was enjoyable. Here’s a gif of Ignashov just missing a head kick in what looks like a poorly choreographed, B-movie fight scene (via Zombie Prophet).
And finally in people you’ve heard of who fought at this event, Melvin Manhoef was routed by Zabit Samedov en route to a unanimous decision loss in a 205 lb. K-1 sem-final tournament bout. Unfortunately, Samedov was not able to continue in the tournament due to a cut suffered during the fight and was replaced by Agron Preteni. It just goes to show that Melvin Manhoef’s legs are a threat to every living creature on this earth.
We’ve thrown a full video of the fight below. Enjoy.
The process of creating a mixed martial arts countdown is like writing a recognition speech; you will inevitably leave someone out and anger others. But after watching Leslie Smith and Jennifer Maia put on one of the finest brawls in MMA history this p…
The process of creating a mixed martial arts countdown is like writing a recognition speech; you will inevitably leave someone out and anger others. But after watching Leslie Smith and Jennifer Maia put on one of the finest brawls in MMA history this past Saturday at Invicta 6, one feels compelled to recall the best brawls of all time.
Webster’s Dictionary simply defines “brawl” as “a rough or noisy fight or quarrel.” However, fans who have witnessed countless brawls know these fights are anything but simple. They are a primal explosion of hypnotizing violence, an hysterical hurricane of testosterone which permeates an adrenaline rush throughout a stadium or through a television. And what they lack in precise technical showmanship, they make up for with an indelible display of pure heart and courage.
Every fight fan has their favorite, so let’s see which ones made the countdown.
UFC on Fuel 10 provided some exciting matchups and as many of you will have already heard, broke the promotion’s record for most submission wins on a card. It is always good to be reminded that cards which are short big-name matches can still provide i…
UFC on Fuel 10 provided some exciting matchups and as many of you will have already heard, broke the promotion’s record for most submission wins on a card. It is always good to be reminded that cards which are short big-name matches can still provide incredible entertainment.
Today I would like to talk about three fights which took place last night, Fabricio Werdum vs. Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira and Thiago Silva vs. Rafael Feijao from UFC on Fuel 10, and MamedKhalidov vs. Melvin Manhoef from KSW 23.
These matches provide wonderful examples of several different principles in combat sports, and I hope you will join me in appreciating them.
Fabricio Werdum vs. Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira
I spoke in the lead up to this fight about Werdum’s improved kicking and love of the collar tie vs. Big Nog‘s new “clinch against the fence” style. I believed that much of the match would come down to Nogueira’s ability to take Werdum to the fence.
I have previously criticized Werdum’s ringcraft, as he routinely fights just a foot or so from the fence on the feet, and I shall not be changing my view of that today, as he did exactly the same thing against Nogueira. The main issue was that unless an opponent has Stefan Struve levels of obliviousness to where he is in the cage, he is not going to run right onto the fence.
Instead it is up to the aggressor, in this case this was Nogueira, to rush the fighter who is along the fence and close the distance between himself and the fence, while keeping his opponent in between. Nogueira just looked too slow and tentative to do anything about it most of the time and let Werdum move around half of the octagon along the fence.
Nogueira attempted to get in with his jab over and over but just as often got caught with a punch or a hard inside low kick. When he did close the distance, he often did it too slowly and head first, allowing Werdum to grab the back of Nog‘s head and use his forearms to keep separation between them in a double collar tie.
Nogueira did eventually get to his favourite position: against the fence with an underhook, his head underneath Werdum’s and working to free his other hand in order land slapping punches to the head and body.
However, Nog just isn’t a great wrestler and Werdum has been working on his own wrestling constantly, allowing him to shift his hips out and escape or work for a single or double collar tie after very brief periods of clinch fighting.
The ground work in the early going of the fight was extremely entertaining as Nogueira kept fighting back to his half guard and working to get under Werdum (something which he did remarkably well in their first bout), but Werdum had the good sense to use his top position from an MMA perspective rather than a grappling one and hammered Nog with some good strikes.
What marked the end of the bout for Nogueira, however, was a tactical decision with his grappling which is almost equivalent to poor ring craft in the stand up portion of the fight.
First, Werdum baited Nogueira into overcommitting on his clinch strikes, then turned Nogueira and threatened the takedown. This caused Nogueira to drop for the guillotine and give up top position to the younger, slicker grappler.
Werdum, with his back to the fence, gripped Nogueira’s punching hand and as Nogueira broke free and threw a punch, Werdum used the opportunity to secure an underhook on that side. From here, he turned Nogueira onto the fence and ducked down onto a single-leg attempt.
Smart stuff to bait Nogueira into opening himself up with the punch. From here Nogueira, obviously pressured by the threat of the takedown, fell back into a guillotine which Werdum briefly turned to his side to escape, then came up on top in Nogueira’s guard. Moments later, he was on Nogueira’s back and moving to lock in the fight-finishing armbar.
Grabbing a guillotine and jumping guard, particularly with arm-in guillotines, just doesn’t work very well against the elite grapplers in MMA. Alan Belcher recently threw away a decision win to world-class blanket YushinOkami by jumping guard with a guillotine and giving away a round on two separate occasions.
Nogueira famously threw away a win over the turtled and hurt Frank Mir by jumping on a guillotine attempt and flopping to his back, giving Mir top position.
Against Werdum, Nog didn’t lose so immediately that we can entirely blame the guillotine attempt, but it seems like Nogueira gave away a move to the ground that favoured Fabricio in hopes of finishing what is ultimately a low-percentage submission for most fighters.
Obviously, it is commendable that these fighters are attempting to finish fights and stay active when otherwise they will just be attempting to fight their way off the fence and defend takedowns, but against good or better grapplers (and Werdum is one of the best in the world), it is often the case that if the submission fails, the guillotine-attempting fighter will lose himself the round and possibly the fight.
Risky guillotine aside, Nogueira is not nearly as durable as he once was, and incremental improvements in punching power and wrestling aren’t going to stop him from getting hurt or losing. Nog looked sluggish on the feet and struggled to even get to the clinch where he has been staying safe in his last few bouts.
It would not be a great shame for Nogueira to accept that he is one of the best MMA fighters ever and to retire to focus on training his many great students.
Thiago Silva vs Rafael Feijao
Rafael Feijao is an interesting fighter but ultimately a very limited one. He has a hard right hand and can stuff takedowns well, as well as a good right low kick, but that’s about it.
He can put decent power in his other strikes but he just isn’t all that practised or scientific in landing them. Against Silva, he simply came forward with the same jab-to-overhand-right combination again and again. He ducked out nicely afterwards and avoided many counter blows but ultimately achieved very little with his predictable attacks.
What Feijao offered was the perfect fight for Thiago Silva. Silva is a good banger with both hands who is pretty good at avoiding punches in the pocket. He doesn’t do a great job cutting off the cage and gets frustrated extremely easily. This is how LyotoMachida and Alexander Gustaffson had such great success against Silva while Keith Jardine ended the night staring at the stadium ceiling.
Whenever an opponent retreats more than once, Silva throws his arms out then rushes in with his chin out in front of him and nothing to stop his opponent from punching him as he comes in.
When his opponent obliges him with a brawl, however, he can work his great counter left hook, heavy right hand and decent jab. Silva’s jab worked well against Feijao, who ended up getting battered against the cage.
The final punch of the flurry was a right hook which sailed between Feijao‘s forearms. While Silva achieved this by muscling Feijao to his side with punches, it can be achieved more readily with a leap to the side a la the great Mike Tyson.
Pat Barry’s knockout of Shane Del Rosario came off an almost identical hook which entered from in front of his opponent rather than the side.GIF of the Barry knockout here.
I often don’t get chance to talk about promotions outside of the UFC, but I thought I’d sneak this in here. If you get the chance, watch Khalidov vs. Manhoef from KSW, because it was a good tactical showing by Khalidov.
Melvin Manhoef is not bad at sprawling. He is ridiculously strong and explosive, and he has sprawled on takedown attempts from decent wrestlers before. What Khalidov did was to make his job much, much easier by using kicks to set up his takedown attempts.
I previously spoke about how I enjoyed the young Chris Weidman’s use of high kicks to stand Mark Munoz up and then shoot in for Munoz’s hips with great success. Khalidov did much the same thing in using his kicks and punches to trouble Manhoef, who was clearly expecting to have to sprawl from the get go.
Using kicks to set up his shot, Khalidov got Manhoef down for a split second then switched to a guillotine as soon as Manhoef was working his way up. This wasn’t Manhoef‘s weak submission defence, this was an excellent example of mixing it all together by an up-and-coming fighter from the new generation.
Pick up Jack’s ebooks Advanced Striking and Elementary Striking at his blog, Fights Gone By.
(Looks like he is training hard for…oh god that was awful. I’ll show myself out now. -SF)
Alright, so we’re being dicks in calling these fights “freakshows,” yes. Only one of them included a former World’s Strongest Man champion swinging his ham hocks around wildly, after all – the other had a legit top Polish prospect against a very good kick boxer – and both of them included guys with the guts to glove up and man-up.
Still, there’s something wonderfully faux-epic/Euro-trashy about KSW shows and Maruiusz Pudzianowski both so we’re going with “freak show.” Not that you shouldn’t watch the videos after the jump – you totally should.
UFC veteran and certified internet troll nut bag Sean McCorkle appears to wilt under Pudzi’s initial strong-man onslaught before getting on top and finishing with a Kimura shoulder lock.
For a few moments in the bout between Mamed Khalidov and Melvin Manoef, the two tried kicking the crap out of each other. Then, Mamed thought better of exchanging with the K-1 veteran and promptly guillotine choked Melly-Mel.
Check out both vids after the jump. Don’t pretend you have something better to do.
(Looks like he is training hard for…oh god that was awful. I’ll show myself out now. -SF)
Alright, so we’re being dicks in calling these fights “freakshows,” yes. Only one of them included a former World’s Strongest Man champion swinging his ham hocks around wildly, after all – the other had a legit top Polish prospect against a very good kick boxer – and both of them included guys with the guts to glove up and man-up.
Still, there’s something wonderfully faux-epic/Euro-trashy about KSW shows and Maruiusz Pudzianowski both so we’re going with “freak show.” Not that you shouldn’t watch the videos after the jump – you totally should.
UFC veteran and certified internet troll nut bag Sean McCorkle appears to wilt under Pudzi’s initial strong-man onslaught before getting on top and finishing with a Kimura shoulder lock.
For a few moments in the bout between Mamed Khalidov and Melvin Manoef, the two tried kicking the crap out of each other. Then, Mamed thought better of exchanging with the K-1 veteran and promptly guillotine choked Melly-Mel.
Check out both vids after the jump. Don’t pretend you have something better to do.
(McCorkle’s most recent performance: A first round submission via kimura loss to Satoshi Ishii at IGF – Genome 24 via Youtube user Sohc Honda.)
Ladies and gentlemen of the Potato Nation, the creme de la creme of freak show MMA fights has just been booked. No, we’re not talking about Canseco vs. O’Neal or Zimmer vs. Martinez II (the latter of which is as elusive as the great white buffalo). We’re talking about McCorkle vs. Pudzianowski, the SHW showdown years in the making that has finally become a reality. Now, you might be asking yourself, “Danga, how is this the aforementioned pinnacle of freak show fights, you good for nothing piece of hyperbolic human garbage?” Well first ask yourself the three prerequisite questions necessary to determine any great freak show fight, you cold-hearted son of a bitch.
2. Will at least one of the participants show up to the fight weighing no less than 300 pounds? You bet your fat ass!
3. How about the organization; is it shady bordering on incompetent? Brother, don’t even get me started.
(McCorkle’s most recent performance: A first round submission via kimura loss to Satoshi Ishii at IGF – Genome 24 via Youtube user Sohc Honda.)
Ladies and gentlemen of the Potato Nation, the creme de la creme of freak show MMA fights has just been booked. No, we’re not talking about Canseco vs. O’Neal or Zimmer vs. Martinez II (the latter of which is as elusive as the great white buffalo). We’re talking about McCorkle vs. Pudzianowski, the SHW showdown years in the making that has finally become a reality. Now, you might be asking yourself, “Danga, how is this the aforementioned pinnacle of freak show fights, you good for nothing piece of hyperbolic human garbage?” Well first ask yourself the three prerequisite questions necessary to determine any great freak show fight, you cold-hearted son of a bitch.
2. Will at least one of the participants show up to the fight weighing no less than 300 pounds? You bet your fat ass!
3. How about the organization; is it shady bordering on incompetent? Brother, don’t even get me started.
While a quick gander over Pudzianowski’s MMA record would give the average MMA fan freak show withdrawal (looking at you, Christos Piliafas), a fight with McCorkle would represent a significant step up in competition for the former “World’s Strongest Man,” quite honestly. McCorkle may find himself on a three fight skid, including a first round submission loss to Satoshi Ishii — who seems to have taken a shining to outclassing UFC heavyweights in the twilights of their careers — in his last appearance, but he poses a hell of a bigger threat than Bob Sapp or Butterbean ever did. At least for the first two minutes.
And on the off chance you find yourself tuning into a KSW event for reasons other than morbid curiosity, you should know that KSW 23 will also feature the likes of Kendall Grove and Maciej Jewtuszko on the card, as well as a headlining middleweight fight between Mamed Khalidov and Melvin Manhoef. As in the case of McCorkle vs. Pudz, the probability that the main event ends inside the first round is higher than Josh Rosenthal.
KSW 23 goes down from the Ergo Arena in Gdansk, Poland on June 8th.
I do not want to reveal too much, but the next card will eclipse the Road FC 11 card. We are very close to getting Melvin Manhoef vs Mirko Cro Cop done for the next event.
If that statement does not make your heart skip a beat, then you are dead inside.
Sure, many of you will look at this as one of those “__ Years Too Late” fights, but we all said the same thing about Wanderlei Silva vs. Chuck Liddell, and how amazing was that fight? Despite the fact that he’s coming off a loss to Brock Larson at One FC 8, Manhoef has actually reeled off three wins in his past four contests and has proven that he can still kick with the best of them (and oft through them). As for the size difference? I refer you to this.
(Oh yeah, they’ll be a lot of this sort of thing.)
I do not want to reveal too much, but the next card will eclipse the Road FC 11 card. We are very close to getting Melvin Manhoef vs Mirko Cro Cop done for the next event.
If that statement does not make your heart skip a beat, then you are dead inside.
Sure, many of you will look at this as one of those “__ Years Too Late” fights, but we all said the same thing about Wanderlei Silva vs. Chuck Liddell, and how amazing was that fight? Despite the fact that he’s coming off a loss to Brock Larson at One FC 8, Manhoef has actually reeled off three wins in his past four contests and has proven that he can still kick with the best of them (and oft through them). As for the size difference? I refer you to this.
Also set for ROAD FC 12, the professional MMA debut of former Korean national boxing champion, PABA champion, and IBF champion, Ji Hoon Kim, who will likely be competing in a bantamweight contest.
