Mixed Martial B0nes

Nokaut is reporting that Chris Leben, who was scheduled to fight in UFC 85 after Chuck Liddell pulled out due to injury will be going to jail. It’s not as though we were all googoo gaga about seeing him fight instead of Chuck. It is an indication that MMA has its share of losers just like the NFL has as of late. After watching a few The Ultimate Fighter episodes it shouldn’t surprise me but it does. What a lunkhead..

Speaking of TUF, I’m finding it hard to get into this season. I don’t know, maybe it’s the weight class but it seems like these guys aren’t hungry for the fight. Certainly, if you’ve watched any of The Iron Ring on BET then you’ve seen some **hungry** fighters looking for a shot at some MMA money. They recapped the last fight as they always do and the young kid without a car, Matt Riddle, was almost happy that he lost because his opponent, Tim Credeur promised him an XBox360 for his efforts! “Yeah! I totally bitched out and lost but the new UFC Game is coming out on Xbox and now I get to pretend to be in the UFC for real!” When his team-mates gave him some flack (”You don’t defend the armbar, you get an Xbox!”) for this he seemed miffed. I’m incredulous that he wasn’t upset at losing.

The next match between Team Forest’s Dante Rivera and Team Rampage’s Brandon Sene was pure torture. Thank you for fast-forward! Even Dana remarked that no one is going to say, “Thank God *THESE* guys are in the UFC!” after watching that fight. Dante won the fight but I think he lost the war. Unless he kicks some major aisssh next time, look for him on the long ride back to Palooka-ville. I hope rest of these guys give me a reason to watch the next show. It should be good since someone did the unthinkable and squirted lime juice in another guy’s chewing tobacco. I didn’t know people were still “chawing?” What is this the 1800’s??!? Anyway, them’s fightin’ words and the shoot-out is a coming this week.

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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!!!