Mixed Martial B0nes

The UFC Fight Night 13 has come and gone. I’ve been able to watch it, watch it again, and then re-watch it for good measure. I’ve come away with a few thoughts. The match ups were actually not too bad. There was a really good mix of fighters this time out and very few couch potatoes if you don’t count Tim Boetsch who got dropped in the second round of his fight. Our Ultimate Fighter Alumni fare ok although some of them could have done much much better. I’m talking to you Farm Boy! Just don’t hurt me or try to find me or… hey, how about I buy you a few beers buddy old pal! We also got to see the debut of the new season of The Ultimate Fighter. Was it everything we hoped and dreamed for?

Joe Lauzon was handled without mercy by Kenny Florian late into the second round of their fight. They were pretty even for a while there. This match easily scores as best of the night. That is, unless of course the un-aired Clay Guida or Manny Gamburyan fights were as action packed as this one. I remember Joe on the Ultimate Fighter 5 and he was one of the short listed guys to win it all. It’s funny that he headlines this event while the guys that advanced further than him are second and even no-billed at all.

Tommy (The Farm Boy) Speer was handed an embarassing loss to Anthony Johnson. It wasn’t a good sign when we saw Matt Hughes in his corner. Hughes probably handed Speer a Bible and his patented “gameplan” for Johnson. It was obvious that Tommy was going to try to take this one to the ground and then do some pounding or submitting from there. He did so by charging in with his head wide open and just got rocked by punches that kept coming. He ended up in a little ball on the side of the Octagon. He should have abandoned the gameplan when he discovered that his head was hurting a bit. I hope Tommy does better. He certainly was my pick to win last season. Of course, the mad Vegan Big Mac Danzig had something to say about that.

Nate Diaz is the real effing deal. As much as I can’t stand the guy and believe that he walked away with a fake win on the Ultimate Fighter 5, he is proving himself to be one of those elite fighters. His match with Kurt Pellegrino really proved that he can’t be beat even when he is soundly getting beat. Kurt controlled and layed the beat down on Nate for almost his entire match. Then somehow, he found himself in a triangle complete with double birds for good measure. Manvel the Anvil won his match as well. I will scream at the top of my lungs until it happens: NATE DIAZ VS MANNY GAMBURYAN MUST HAPPEN NOW!!!!

After all this bone crunching goodness, we got to see the new season of The Ultimate Fighter unfold. In a word best used by Forrest Griffin: Garbage. This was just the preliminary fights. 32 guys started shuffling into the gym and none of them had a clue what was going on. “Uh… usually there are only 16 guys on the show but all these other dudes kept walking in the door. We were all like, ‘WTF??!’” Hmmmm… you signed up for a show called “The Ultimate Fighter” and you know only 16 guys are on the show? Duh. So we saw some more fights by guys that were really really raw or “garbage.” So if they drag this part of the show out more, we’re looking at 2 more weeks of this junk. I can’t believe I’m jonesing for an upper-decker or a foosball table in the pool right now!

UFC’s Fight Night 13 is upon us tonight (Wednesday, April 2nd 2008). This event features a full stack of fighters from a number of different Ultimate Fighter shows as well as some other UFC guys under contract looking for a brawl. The fights will be aired on the SPIKE network as usual and the whole thing will last about three hours. After that, we will be treated to the next THE ULTIMATE FIGHTER. This fight card really pisses me off. You can see the entire card HERE. It doesn’t include a fight I’ve been waiting for for a LOOOONG time, so like some of the past Ultimate Fighter contestants I’m going to bitch out of doing an entire fight card analysis.

WOW! It seems like an entire world ago when we were finding out what “upper decker” meant and that Big Mac didn’t like being in the house and that grown men are always crying about something and… ok I’ll stop there. Suffice to say, I like what I saw in the tiny preview of TUF. Especially the part about fighting your way out of the house if you want to wuss out. There’s been too much whining and complaining from these guys. I already outlined just a few steps that could improve the show a while ago. I don’t think Dana got the call… at least if they get tired of getting drunk and trashing someone’s house on the UFC’s dime, they can fight their way out to palookaville.

I don’t know what to make of this card. The featured bout is Joe Lauzon vs. Kenny Florian. Bringing up almost the absolute rear is Clay Guida vs. Samy Schiavo. Clay was the featured fight in UFC Fight Night 12 with Ray Huerta in a match that you *really* must see again. Oh yeah, we finally get to see Manny Gamburyan and Nate Diaz in the same octagon BUT not in the SAME fight. Also, we probably wont be able to see Manny. Just Nate. I *know* Nate won TUF5, but only because Manny couldn’t continue. There has been NO rematch since and here they are together and they still aren’t fighting. I’ve already ranted about this too. UFC83’s match with GSPII vs. Serra is a part of that rant about fights we aren’t going to see. There are also other good matches like Roman Mitichyan vs. Georgie-boy Sotiropoulos that won’t be televised.

I *must* be a complete newbie biiatch not to see the genius that is Ultimate Fighting Championship. The lineup is good and has some great fighters but they could use some shuffling about. Especially if they want to promote this next Ultimate Fighter show. Hell, one of the fighters was Tim Boetsch who they dusted off the couch for UFC 81, another event with a dubious fight card. Well, I’m going to watch this… for the entire 4 hours… but, I’m not going to like it!!!

This past week has come over me like a storm and I’ve been amiss in commenting on the MMA action from WEC and EliteXC that went down. We’ll cover just a little bit of each because I have to get my head straight for what will be another packed month of action. There were championships on the line in both the WEC 33 and EliteXC events. We got to see some action from Doug Marshall and Brian Stan on the WEC side. Cung Le and Frank Shamrock were battling on the EliteXC side. Who would stand and who would fall? Let’s find out!

Both champs underestimated their opponents. Let us begin with my favorite organization, the WEC. Doug Marshall came out swinging like a mad man and was seemingly doing ok with Stann in the standup game. This was his undoing. Stann was the bigger man with a better reach. At about a minute and a half in the first, Marshall fell like a brick. He might have had a chance in the ground game as Stann is relatively new at this but Marshall hasn’t showed a lot of submission work so far. Stann looks like the real deal and it will be difficult to come up with a fighter that can match him. There’s probably a few guys in the UFC that are fighting at the crowded light heavyweight division there that might chance it.

Other fights in the WEC 33 event were pretty great as well. Chael Sonnen gave the unbeaten Bryan Baker a clinic in submissions and takedowns. This puts him back into contention for the championship against Paulo Filho. Maybe this time he won’t get his arm caught in a weird position at the very last minute? Steve Cantwell took down and submitted Tim “The Wrecking Machine” McKenzie. Rich Crunkilton bloodied up Sergio Gomez something fierce. I thought they would stop the fight but Gomez didn’t seem to be affected by all that blood sloshing out the back of his head. Next time keep your hands up Gomez!

OK, EliteXC. I’ll be covering this more when the Saturday Night Fights come into play on CBS. For now, lets just say that a new King of San Jose was crowned on Saturday, March the 29th. King of San freakin’ Jose???!? I guess that makes me the King of South East La Mesa 7-11’s Back Alley. Frank Shamrock had no answer for Cung Le’s legwork. I wish I could have seen this in person. Finally! A MMA’r that knows how to kick! Cung kept piling on the kicks to Frank and kept him at arms length which is exactly what kicks are great for. Shamrock was able to get inside a few times and lay the wood down on Le, but it was too little too late. He complained in between rounds that his arm was killing him. He was right, there was a fracture and he couldn’t continue. Cung is KING! well… of San Jose at least.

Holy Smokes! We’ll be getting a bunch more action from both WEC and EliteXC later this month. EliteXC will get major support from CBS TV for its Saturday Night Fights. It also helps that Kimbo (Flippin’) Slice will be headlining that card. WEC 34 will feature a title match between Little Evil Jens Pulver and Uriah Faber. Wow. That will be something else. Best part of all? It’s all free as in BEER! Let’s all pop a frosty beverage and get comfortable for some good old fashioned head smashing!