Mixed Martial B0nes

A lot of us have been waiting for UFC83 to happen. The Ultimate Fighter 6 promised us a fight between the two coaches. We were really psyched to see Matt Serra face one of the greatest welterweights of all time and finally Matt Serra and Matt Hughes will fight for the Championship… err oh yeah! Make that Matt Serra and Georges St-Pierre. When will *that* fight happen? Who knows. I just hope we don’t get robbed out of a Forrest Griffin vs. Rampage fight too. For now, lets see what’s going to happen April 19th. Holy smokes! That’s tomorrow night. Whip out your credit cards and get your pay per view TV or Yahoo going. Or, if you’re feeling really adventurous, make a run for North American Frenchyland in Montreal, Canada where this event is being held.

Matt Serra Vs. Georges St-Pierre figures to be the marquee matchup of the night. Of course, that’s what we thought when GSP fought Hughes in UFC79. GSP completely discombobulated Hughes and we were all left wondering if that was the last we’d see of Hughes fighting in the Octagon. Serra missed that fight because of a back injury he received during training. I think we’re going to see a replay of that fight except just plug in Serra for Hughes and watch GSP just demolish Serra with an array of ground and pound with an arm bar or rear naked choke for good measure. GSP will be crowned Champ and then we get our long awaited fight between the leftover shells of men that will be Serra and Hughes.

Travis Lutter Vs. Rich Franklin These two are both trying to shake recent losses to the same guy from their memories. Anderson Silva handed them both a big “L” in their fight record. I’m kind of on Franklin’s side for this one since he fought more recently than Lutter in UFC77.

Nate Quarry Vs. Kalib Starnes I’m only able to give my thorough Newbie investigation results on this one: I just don’t like the way Kalib looks! He’s got a freaky wall-eye in his promo photo and “The Rock” just looks the part. Of course, Quarry’s a cheap lousy ripoff of the *REAL* Rock but we’ll see if we’re going to smell what he’s cooking!

Charles McCarthy Vs. Michael Bisping We haven’t seen McCarthy do anything since 2006. Bisping fought last year in UFC77 but lost. It was his first loss after four consecutive wins. I think he’ll get back on track and continue with a win over this event’s Couch Warrior.

Mark Bocek Vs. Mac Danzig I think *THIS* will be the fight of the night. Big Mac was unstoppable in TUF6 and I believe he’ll be a force to reckon with for years to come. Bocek won the decision in UFC79 but I don’t think he has enough meat stuffed in his colon to defeat the Mad Vegan Danzig. As a fellow veggie-freak myself, I’m pulling for Danzig to smack some green upside Bocek’s head. BTW, we’re still friends right Mark? I may have to buy him a bunch of beers if I ever meet him in person… sheesh!

If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!

OK, so far I’ve seen a few of these shows and let’s just say right off the bat: This isn’t yo Daddy’s MMA show. We have team owners from some heavy heavy Rap hitters like Ludacris, Nelly and TI. We also have Floyd Mayweather on board as one of the only owners with ring experience. The coaches the teams have assembled are all old school guys back from the days that MMA really was **mixed** martial arts. Events used to look like a scene out of Bloodsport complete with the weird monkeystyle dude fighting against Bolo.

I’m going to give this thing a cautious “thumbs up.” The fighting is really really raw so far since they are all jockeying for position. Once the teams are all laid out, I’m sure that we’ll see some higher quality fights. For now, it’s all “gangsta” and hugging is ABSOLUTELY frowned upon. About the only two things I can’t stand so far is the stupid announcer yelling in my ear and Moneymaker Mayweather. He’s quite the farggin’ icehole if you know what that means… About the only time I warmed up to him was when he saw one fighter get his eye knocked up and sided with the doctors to keep him from fighting. One of the other old schoolers thought he was being a wuss. The guy’s eye was in awful shape so I think Money was right with protecting the fighter.

My pick for overall winning team so far is Team Luda. Ludacris has the right attitude and seems to be serious about winning this thing. I was hoping for a Kimbo sighting but I haven’t seen him at all on this show. Maybe we got punked on this one? Anyway, give it a shot on your DVR of choice, it’s only a half hour out of your life.

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!