(“Look kid, I’m gonna find the man who did this to you. And when I do, so help me God, I’m gonna dock him one point for shorts-grabbing.” / Photo of Stout vs. Edwards aftermath via ESPN)
With a little help from the Potato Nation, we spent the last couple days gathering videos of the nastiest, ugliest, most-painful looking knockouts and submissions from this year. Finding 25 of them was the easy part. (Damn, MMA fighters. You seemed especially angry this year. Problems at home?) Putting them in order was a little more challenging.
Obviously, Frank Mir snapping Nogueira’s arm at UFC 140 was the people’s choice for #1. But how do you rank a head-kick knockout against a spinning-backfist knockout, when they both leave their victims zombie’d on the mat with their eyes open and their arms in the air?
So here’s what we’ll do. Instead of arranging these brutal stoppages in some arbitrary order, we’ll arrange them in groups. Use the links below to navigate through the sections, and take a moment to appreciate the human devastation that our great sport has caused in the last 12 months. And all this without a single death! Enjoy…
(“Look kid, I’m gonna find the man who did this to you. And when I do, so help me God, I’m gonna dock him one point for shorts-grabbing.” / Photo of Stout vs. Edwards aftermath via ESPN)
With a little help from the Potato Nation, we spent the last couple days gathering videos of the nastiest, ugliest, most-painful looking knockouts and submissions from this year. Finding 25 of them was the easy part. (Damn, MMA fighters. You seemed especially angry this year. Problems at home?) Putting them in order was a little more challenging.
Obviously, Frank Mir snapping Nogueira’s arm at UFC 140 was the people’s choice for #1. But how do you rank a head-kick knockout against a spinning-backfist knockout, when they both leave their victims zombie’d on the mat with their eyes open and their arms in the air?
So here’s what we’ll do. Instead of arranging these brutal stoppages in some arbitrary order, we’ll arrange them in groups. Use the links below to navigate through the sections, and take a moment to appreciate the human devastation that our great sport has caused in the last 12 months. And all this without a single death! Enjoy…
Filed under: StrikeforceStrikeforce’s 2011 came to a close on Saturday night in San Diego, but the organization will live on in 2012. Whether that’s good news or bad news for the fighters on the roster remains to be seen, but this latest event did seem…
Strikeforce’s 2011 came to a close on Saturday night in San Diego, but the organization will live on in 2012. Whether that’s good news or bad news for the fighters on the roster remains to be seen, but this latest event did seem to be some kind of harbinger of things to come, for better or worse.
Biggest Winner: Cris “Cyborg” Santos
There aren’t many ways to enter a bout as a 9-1 favorite and still exceed expectations, but by crushing Hiroko Yamanaka in 16 seconds, Santos found one. If anything, Santos is a little too dominant for her own good. After a year and a half out of the cage, she probably could have used a round or two of work just to stay sharp. Instead she went out there and Mike Tyson’d yet another overmatched opponent, leaving us to wonder whether there’s any woman in the world who can possibly compete with the Brazilian. The powers that be seem to be eyeing Ronda Rousey as the next challenger, but Rousey seems savvy enough to know she’d be better off dropping to 135 pounds and chasing smaller, less terrifying prey. Now that Santos has laid waste to the 145-pound division, she might have no choice but to try and follow her down. If she can lose that much weight without the aid of a tapeworm, that is.
Biggest Loser: Jorge Masvidal
This might have been his last best chance to break out of the journeyman mold and claim some bit of greatness for himself, but he sure didn’t fight like it. Word is that he went into this one with an injured hand, which might explain why he wasn’t swinging for Melendez’s brain stem with wild abandon down the stretch. Still, he had to know he was down on the cards and wasn’t going to end it with takedowns in the final round, so what exactly was his plan for victory? Even with Strikeforce’s lean roster, he’ll have a hard time getting another title shot while he’s still young and able. He needed to make this one count, and he didn’t. Even with Melendez’s eye swelling shut in the fifth, Masvidal kept fighting like he had two more rounds to make his move. It isn’t easy to go for broke with an injured hand, but when you’re running out of time to dethrone the champ in what might be the only shot you’ll ever get, what other choice do you really have?
Most in Need of a Change: Gilbert Melendez
What’s the worst part about his continued stay in Strikeforce? Forget the lack of money and attention, it’s the dearth of quality opponents. You look around the Strikeforce roster and there’s not a single potential challenger who Melendez wouldn’t be a huge favorite against. And when you’re the favorite, as he was against Masvidal, it’s not always enough to win a smart, strategic decision. Not if you’re trying to create a buzz and get fans to demand your presence in the UFC. You can’t fault Melendez for fighting the way he did, but neither can you say that it upped his stock on Saturday night. Unless Strikeforce signs some new talent — or the UFC loans it some — Melendez is looking at more and more of these fights for as long as he’s stuck in the Hexagon. If you want to be the best, you have to beat the best. And if you can’t even get a fight with the best, then you need to absolutely smash the other guys just to stay in the conversation. It’s a tough situation for Melendez, and it isn’t getting any easier.
Most Improved: Gegard Mousasi
Looks like someone finally had enough of getting out-wrestled on the American MMA scene. After having that aspect of his game exposed by Mo Lawal (and, to a lesser extent, Keith Jardine), Mousasi clearly spent some time in the wrestling room and made some real strides of late. Granted, he’s still not going to double-leg his way to a win over someone like King Mo, but maybe he can at least get good enough to stay upright against him. That is, maybe he can get there if only he’d start believing in himself a little more. After his decision win over Ovince St. Preux, Mousasi did his best to talk his way out of a potential title shot, implying that maybe there were others who might be more deserving. It reminded me of his demeanor after the draw against Jardine. He stayed in his seat well after the post-fight press conference ended, staring down at the table as his coaches tried to cheer him up. No matter how much they told him that he got robbed by the judges (which he did) or that he fought well (which he sort of did), he still looked and talked like a kid whose puppy had just been run over. It’s nice to be honest with yourself about where you stand. It’s also good to expect better and better performances from yourself. But at some point you cross the line from demanding to unnecessarily negative, and that doesn’t help you. Cheer up, Gegard. You’re not doing so bad for a 26-year-old pro fighter.
Least Improved: Showtime broadcast
You’d think that with as many Strikeforce events as the Showtime crew has done, they’d have it down cold by now. You’d be wrong. First they got off to a late start after the Super Six aftermath turned into a Wimbledon-style trophy presentation. Then, once the transition from boxing to MMA was complete, the simple task of reading the results of a clumsy Facebook poll proved more than any one person could handle. Between awkward interviews, weird sound miscues, and a broadcast team that seemed like it would have rather been somewhere else, it was a rough night. Even Pat Miletich, who’s usually the very best ex-fighter commentator out there, had to be repeatedly dragged into the conversation by Mauro Ranallo. What’s normally fun banter between the broadcast team became simply distracting, and you almost wished some producer would have stepped in and told them to play nice. I realize that broadcasting live sporting events isn’t easy, and anybody can have an off-night, but if you compare Showtime’s product to the one the UFC puts on pay-per-view more than 20 times a year, they aren’t even close. It’s like the difference between the picture of the cake that’s in the cookbook and the half-sunken, dried-out mound you pull out of your oven after failing to read the directions carefully. If you want me to believe that Strikeforce is a top-tier organization, start with presentation.
Most Surprising: KJ Noons and Billy Evangelista
Who would have guessed that this would be one of the most exciting and competitive fights on the card? Noons and Evangelista mixed it up something fierce, and in the end the judges got it right when they gave the nod to Noons. But what’s also surprising is the word that Noons was supposedly considering retirement (at least in theory) if he lost to Evangelista. I can understand feeling like he needed to win one — after two losses in a row, he did — but it’s not like Evangelista is some chump that any decent fighter should be able to stroll through. He’s a skilled, game opponent, and he showed it in the later rounds. Noons can be proud of that win, and with a few tactical changes here and there he’s right back in the conversation at lightweight. Strikeforce’s roster might be thin right now, but that’s good news for guys like Noons. It means there’s a short climb to the top of the 155-pound division, even if there’s a heap of trouble waiting for you when you get there.
Filed under: StrikeforceStrikeforce 135-pound women’s champ Miesha Tate doesn’t think it’s fair for Ronda Rousey to leverage her looks into a title shot, and she’s got a point.
Rousey thinks that, when it comes to selling a fight and getting MMA fans …
Strikeforce 135-pound women’s champ Miesha Tate doesn’t think it’s fair for Ronda Rousey to leverage her looks into a title shot, and she’s got a point.
Rousey thinks that, when it comes to selling a fight and getting MMA fans interested in what’s happening with the women’s division, fair doesn’t enter into it. She’s also got a point.
It’s an argument that — especially among female MMA fighters — isn’t new and isn’t unique. The fact is, when you’re trying to scratch out a living in the women’s division of a sport marketed primarily to young men, it helps to be pretty. It might not be fair, and it might not be right, but we need only look at who’s getting paid and who’s getting ignored to know that, at least for now, it’s the way things are.
But watching Tate and Rousey present their respective sides of the issue while my colleague Ariel Helwani struggled to get a word in, I couldn’t help but wonder if it’s always going to be this way, and whether we’ll ever stop arguing over it. And if we don’t, is that necessarily such a bad thing?
To be fair, this particular iteration of the argument isn’t as simple as beauty versus the beast. You might look at Rousey and see Judo Barbie, but there’s more to her than just eye candy. For starters, she’s an Olympic bronze medalist. If you want to hear about that, just ask her. If you don’t want to hear about it, fine, but she’ll probably tell you anyway, and who can blame her?
Sure, she’s only had four pro fights in MMA, but none of them have been even the least bit competitive. You could call her career one long armbar clinic, except that a) it hasn’t even been that long, and b) any clinic that injures that many people isn’t going to get a whole lot of repeat customers.
Still, Rousey knows what she’s doing. She’s attractive, she’s got an attitude, and she’s using both to get herself noticed. When Tate told her, “If you weren’t pretty, it wouldn’t matter what you said or didn’t say,” she’s probably right. But then, is that so wrong?
If Tate thinks so, she must have come around to that conclusion pretty recently. Seems like she’s had no problem playing up her own good looks when it served her purposes (exhibit A: the background of her Twitter page). Then again, as Tate pointed out, she also won a bunch of fights. Being good-looking is, as she tells it, “just a bonus” for a female fighter, since at the end of the day each woman still has to acquit herself in the cage, where a pretty face won’t help you.
But then, the problem for women’s MMA hasn’t been a lack of skill from the fighters — it’s a lack of interest from the fans. For whatever reason, a lot of the same people who love to see two men beat each other up just aren’t into watching two women do the same thing. I don’t know why that is, honestly, and I’m not sure it matters. You can tell people that they should like and support women’s MMA. You can tell them they’re a bunch of jerks if they only want to see pretty girls fighting. That might make a few people feel bad about themselves, but it won’t create many new fans.
You know what will, though? Stuff like this Tate-Rousey rivalry. Already it’s produced what might be the best segment in MMA Hour history (no offense to “The Mitrione Minute”). For the first time in a long time, the MMA world is buzzing about women’s MMA. And, contrary to how it might seem on the surface, it’s not their looks that’s driving the interest (though, okay, it doesn’t hurt). Really, it’s the argument over their looks and over how much it matters, and it’s the same argument women’s MMA has been having with itself for years.
It shouldn’t be enough to be pretty. I don’t just mean in MMA, either. Whether you’re a man or a woman, good looks might be a minor win in the genetic lottery, but they don’t make you a good or talented or even worthwhile person. We know this, even if we don’t always act like it. To give a good-looking person special considerations just because we like looking at their face is embarrassingly dumb, not to mention unfair. That’s why it makes for such a fascinating internal conflict for a women’s division that’s still struggling with its own identity.
No one wants to see women’s MMA become a sideshow where untalented, untrained pretty girls fight it out in sports bras for the sexual satisfaction of a caveman crowd. At least, I hope no one wants that, and if they do there are websites specifically for them (I’ve heard there are, anyway). At the same time, just as in the men’s division, promote-ability matters. Brock Lesnar got a title shot after three fights — which, in retrospect, still seems insane — because he sold tickets and pay-per-views.
Some fans and fighters might want to see MMA become an egalitarian utopia where none of that matters, but in the meantime promoters still have to market their product to the world that is rather than the world that could or should be.
The good news is, MMA has a built-in lie detector to keep anyone from skating by on looks or attitude or popularity for too long, and that’s the same for the women as it is for the men. If you can’t fight, we’ll find out soon enough. Eventually some ugly, boring person will punch you in the face until you can’t stand up, and that will be that. Facial symmetry might be a useful gift, but it doesn’t hold up too well in a sport that allows elbow strikes on the ground.
By forcing this discussion, both Tate and Rousey have done women’s MMA a favor, whether either of them realize it or not. As much as female fighters love to frame their sport as a battle for attention and respect that they’re all waging together, they don’t always act in their own self-interest. It doesn’t help them at all to be nice or to be friends or even to be fair to one another. What helps them is selling fights. What helps them — just as it helps the men — is getting fans interested in what’s about to happen a few Saturday nights from now.
That’s the business of fighting. As Josh Barnett likes to say, the business of fighting has very little to do with actual fighting, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t important. This conflict — trying to give fans what they want but without losing your identity or self-respect in the process — might turn out to be an ongoing and inescapable struggle for women’s MMA. And maybe that’s okay. In a sport that’s all about conflict in its various forms, you could do a lot worse than have public arguments that lead to publicized fights.
Just four fights into her professional fight career, Strikeforce‘s Ronda Rousey insists that she is ready to face reigning women’s bantamweight champion Miesha Tate, and that the fight should be signed imminently. Tate, however, says that the young upstart is not quite ready for the increase in opponent caliber, and that she should wait her turn.
The debate between the two stems from the fact that Strikeforce has yet to announce its intended direction for the division’s future. For her part, Tate hopes to bypass Rousey’s challenge in order to face Sarah Kaufman in a rematch of their May 2009 fight.
In a charged, joint interview on Monday’s edition of The MMA Hour, the two debated their opposing viewpoints on the 135-pound weight class. While Rousey believes that a title fight with Tate would be the most marketable women’s fight available, Tate is skeptical about Rousey’s experience level and thinks it would be unfair to see her leapfrog more seasoned fighters simply because she asked the loudest for a title shot.
Tate opened up the proceedings with the first shot.
“What happens when she gets a failed arm bar and someone ends up on top pounding her face in?” she said. “Is she going to tap out or quit? We don’t know. We haven’t seen that yet. I think it’s kind of silly to put her in with me because that’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to take it to her. A lot of people are underestimating me. That’s fine. That always seems to be the case. Make no mistake, if Ronda is my next fight, I’m going to come in with a vengeance you’ve never seen before, because to be quite honest, it’s probably going to piss me off.”
Tate said that she believes either Kaufman or Alexis Davis is more deserving than Rousey by virtue of their respective experience levels and longer histories of success. Kaufman — a former divisional champ — is 14-1 while Davis is 11-4. Rousey, meanwhile, is 4-0 after turning pro less than nine months ago.
Despite her relative neophyte status in MMA, Rousey’s early performances have been so dominant — each win has come in less than one minute, and finished in arm bar submissions — the thought of Rousey-Tate has grown steam as Rousey has continued her campaign for the slot.
Rousey responded by noting that Strikeforce does not use a ranking system and simply looks for the fights that will make them the most money. In her mind, Rousey-Tate is the money fight.
“I really feel 100 percent that a fight between her and me needs to happen,” Rousey said. “It’ll be great for women’s MMA. It’ll be the first highly anticipated fight in women’s MMA for a long time … We need to capitalize on the opportunity while we still have it. I don’t want to risk her losing the title and us not being able to fight each other for the title.”
Tate said that Rousey’s approach to it has been insulting to the other fighters in the mix, but Rousey justified her tactics, noting the attention it’s gotten them in recent weeks.
“I think it’s working because she’s pretty,” Tate said. “If you weren’t pretty, it wouldn’t matter what you said or didn’t say. That’s why you’re getting this attention. I don’t know, I guess I personally like more of a humble approach. You can say you want to be the Chael Sonnen of women’s MMA, and Chael gets a lot of press and everything like that, too, but no one likes him.”
“Yeah, but he makes a lot of money and he gets a lot of title shots, too, doesn’t he?” Rousey responded, pointing out how much Sonnen’s profile has grown since changing his promotional approach.
After Tate pointed out that Rousey hasn’t even yet competed at 135 pounds a single time, and should have to do so before fighting for the belt, Rousey made a different comparison, one to former UFC heavyweight champion Brock Lesnar, who captured his title in his third fight in the octagon. That led to an interesting exchange between the two about a possible matchup.
“What happens if I go out there and I just cream you?” Tate asked. “Then all your hype is just over. Then Ronda was just another pretty face.”
“That’s a risk I’m wiling to take, and you should be willing to take some risks, too,” Rousey said.
“I’m willing,” Tate said.
“The longer you wait, the more of an advantage I’ll have,” Rousey said, predicting that she’ll be improving at a faster rate than Tate in the future.
Moments later, Tate shot back, saying, “I feel like you’re being really selfish and only thinking about yourself.”
“If you want to be an idealist, go to the Olympics,” said Rousey, herself a former judo Olympic bronze medalist. “Go do wrestling in the Olympics. There is no ranking system in the UFC or Zuffa. It’s completely up to powers that be, and I think that us debating about it is kind of a moot point, because they’re the ones who make the decision when it comes down to it, and they don’t care about any rankings. They only are about what’s going to sell tickets. You want to be an idealist? Go to the Olympics. I did that. I didn’t make anything.”
Of course, there is at least one other side to this story, and it’s Kaufman’s. The former champion wasn’t a part of the debate between the two although she did give her take later on. While Tate said that a rematch between her and Kaufman could sell based on the revenge angle, Rousey doubted it would be a big hit with audiences, saying it probably wouldn’t gain much more interest than their first go-around.
“Sarah Kaufman kind of gives boring interviews, she’s not a supermodel and the way she fights, she doesn’t finish matches in extraordinary fashion,” she said. “It’s just kind of being realistic. I’m sorry that I have to say things bluntly and offend some people. I just want there to be a highly marketable, exciting women’s title fight, and I want to be part of that because I feel like I could do a really good job, and you could, too. I think the two of us could do a better job of that than you and Sarah Kaufman.”
The two ultimately agreed on little except that in the end, they would abide by the decision of the Strikeforce matchmaker Sean Shelby. That, and the fact that they hope to increase the number of eyeballs on women’s MMA, though they disagreed on the method to do so.
As for Kaufman, she is expecting the fight she was promised against Tate, and has no qualms about dealing with Rousey at a future date.
“It would be way smarter for the longevity of the division to work her way up,” she said. “If she runs through people — which I don’t think she will — then I’ll be happy to beat her face in. She wants to be pretty? She won’t be as pretty after our fight.”
Just four fights into her professional fight career, Strikeforce‘s Ronda Rousey insists that she is ready to face reigning women’s bantamweight champion Miesha Tate, and that the fight should be signed imminently. Tate, however, says that the young upstart is not quite ready for the increase in opponent caliber, and that she should wait her turn.
The debate between the two stems from the fact that Strikeforce has yet to announce its intended direction for the division’s future. For her part, Tate hopes to bypass Rousey’s challenge in order to face Sarah Kaufman in a rematch of their May 2009 fight.
In a charged, joint interview on Monday’s edition of The MMA Hour, the two debated their opposing viewpoints on the 135-pound weight class. While Rousey believes that a title fight with Tate would be the most marketable women’s fight available, Tate is skeptical about Rousey’s experience level and thinks it would be unfair to see her leapfrog more seasoned fighters simply because she asked the loudest for a title shot.
Tate opened up the proceedings with the first shot.
“What happens when she gets a failed arm bar and someone ends up on top pounding her face in?” she said. “Is she going to tap out or quit? We don’t know. We haven’t seen that yet. I think it’s kind of silly to put her in with me because that’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to take it to her. A lot of people are underestimating me. That’s fine. That always seems to be the case. Make no mistake, if Ronda is my next fight, I’m going to come in with a vengeance you’ve never seen before, because to be quite honest, it’s probably going to piss me off.”
Tate said that she believes either Kaufman or Alexis Davis is more deserving than Rousey by virtue of their respective experience levels and longer histories of success. Kaufman — a former divisional champ — is 14-1 while Davis is 11-4. Rousey, meanwhile, is 4-0 after turning pro less than nine months ago.
Despite her relative neophyte status in MMA, Rousey’s early performances have been so dominant — each win has come in less than one minute, and finished in arm bar submissions — the thought of Rousey-Tate has grown steam as Rousey has continued her campaign for the slot.
Rousey responded by noting that Strikeforce does not use a ranking system and simply looks for the fights that will make them the most money. In her mind, Rousey-Tate is the money fight.
“I really feel 100 percent that a fight between her and me needs to happen,” Rousey said. “It’ll be great for women’s MMA. It’ll be the first highly anticipated fight in women’s MMA for a long time … We need to capitalize on the opportunity while we still have it. I don’t want to risk her losing the title and us not being able to fight each other for the title.”
Tate said that Rousey’s approach to it has been insulting to the other fighters in the mix, but Rousey justified her tactics, noting the attention it’s gotten them in recent weeks.
“I think it’s working because she’s pretty,” Tate said. “If you weren’t pretty, it wouldn’t matter what you said or didn’t say. That’s why you’re getting this attention. I don’t know, I guess I personally like more of a humble approach. You can say you want to be the Chael Sonnen of women’s MMA, and Chael gets a lot of press and everything like that, too, but no one likes him.”
“Yeah, but he makes a lot of money and he gets a lot of title shots, too, doesn’t he?” Rousey responded, pointing out how much Sonnen’s profile has grown since changing his promotional approach.
After Tate pointed out that Rousey hasn’t even yet competed at 135 pounds a single time, and should have to do so before fighting for the belt, Rousey made a different comparison, one to former UFC heavyweight champion Brock Lesnar, who captured his title in his third fight in the octagon. That led to an interesting exchange between the two about a possible matchup.
“What happens if I go out there and I just cream you?” Tate asked. “Then all your hype is just over. Then Ronda was just another pretty face.”
“That’s a risk I’m wiling to take, and you should be willing to take some risks, too,” Rousey said.
“I’m willing,” Tate said.
“The longer you wait, the more of an advantage I’ll have,” Rousey said, predicting that she’ll be improving at a faster rate than Tate in the future.
Moments later, Tate shot back, saying, “I feel like you’re being really selfish and only thinking about yourself.”
“If you want to be an idealist, go to the Olympics,” said Rousey, herself a former judo Olympic bronze medalist. “Go do wrestling in the Olympics. There is no ranking system in the UFC or Zuffa. It’s completely up to powers that be, and I think that us debating about it is kind of a moot point, because they’re the ones who make the decision when it comes down to it, and they don’t care about any rankings. They only are about what’s going to sell tickets. You want to be an idealist? Go to the Olympics. I did that. I didn’t make anything.”
Of course, there is at least one other side to this story, and it’s Kaufman’s. The former champion wasn’t a part of the debate between the two although she did give her take later on. While Tate said that a rematch between her and Kaufman could sell based on the revenge angle, Rousey doubted it would be a big hit with audiences, saying it probably wouldn’t gain much more interest than their first go-around.
“Sarah Kaufman kind of gives boring interviews, she’s not a supermodel and the way she fights, she doesn’t finish matches in extraordinary fashion,” she said. “It’s just kind of being realistic. I’m sorry that I have to say things bluntly and offend some people. I just want there to be a highly marketable, exciting women’s title fight, and I want to be part of that because I feel like I could do a really good job, and you could, too. I think the two of us could do a better job of that than you and Sarah Kaufman.”
The two ultimately agreed on little except that in the end, they would abide by the decision of the Strikeforce matchmaker Sean Shelby. That, and the fact that they hope to increase the number of eyeballs on women’s MMA, though they disagreed on the method to do so.
As for Kaufman, she is expecting the fight she was promised against Tate, and has no qualms about dealing with Rousey at a future date.
“It would be way smarter for the longevity of the division to work her way up,” she said. “If she runs through people — which I don’t think she will — then I’ll be happy to beat her face in. She wants to be pretty? She won’t be as pretty after our fight.”
The MMA Hour is back in your life on Monday with another two-hour live episode. Below is the show lineup:
* We’ll be joined by Strikeforce women’s bantamweight champion Miesha Tate and top contender Ronda Rousey at the same time to discuss Rousey’s climb up the 135-pound ladder and a potential title fight between the two.
* Later, contender Sarah Kaufman will weigh-in on the Strikeforce title situation.
* Featherweight Mark Hominick will discuss his UFC 140 fight against Chan Sung Jung.
* Friend of the show Matt Mitrione will stop by for another edition of “The Mitrione Minute.”
* And we’ll go “5 Rounds” on the news making headlines in MMA with reigning champion Ben Fowlkes and ESPN.com’s Chad Dundas.
Of course, we’ll also be taking your calls as we look aheard to Saturday night’s TUF 14 Finale, so give us a shout at: 212-254-0193, 212-254-0237 or 212-254-0714.
*** You can also stream the show live on your iPhone or iPad by clicking here.
Subscribe to The MMA Hour on iTunes: audio feed here; video feed here. Download previous episodes here. Listen to the show via Stitcher here.
The MMA Hour is back in your life on Monday with another two-hour live episode. Below is the show lineup:
* We’ll be joined by Strikeforce women’s bantamweight champion Miesha Tate and top contender Ronda Rousey at the same time to discuss Rousey’s climb up the 135-pound ladder and a potential title fight between the two.
* Later, contender Sarah Kaufman will weigh-in on the Strikeforce title situation.
* Featherweight Mark Hominick will discuss his UFC 140 fight against Chan Sung Jung.
* Friend of the show Matt Mitrione will stop by for another edition of “The Mitrione Minute.”
* And we’ll go “5 Rounds” on the news making headlines in MMA with reigning champion Ben Fowlkes and ESPN.com’s Chad Dundas.
Of course, we’ll also be taking your calls as we look aheard to Saturday night’s TUF 14 Finale, so give us a shout at: 212-254-0193, 212-254-0237 or 212-254-0714.
*** You can also stream the show live on your iPhone or iPad by clicking here.
Subscribe to The MMA Hour on iTunes: audio feed here; video feed here. Download previous episodes here. Listen to the show via Stitcher here.
Strikeforce’s 2011 came to a close on Saturday night in San Diego, but the organization will live on in 2012. Whether that’s good news or bad news for the fighters on the roster remains to be seen, but this latest event did seem to be some kind of harbinger of things to come, for better or worse.
Strikeforce 135-pound women’s champ 
Just four fights into her professional fight career, 
