"Filthy" Tom Lawlor and Tri-Coasta recently put out his latest shirt for pre-sale, and it’s nothing short of amazing.
Lawlor did the full Hulk Hogan routine when walking in to fight Aaron Simpson at Ultimate Fight Night 20. Perhaps this shirt means we can see that walk-in again for his May 8 bout at UFC 113 against Tim Credeur. That would mean more feather boas, and the one thing that MMA is lacking is feather boas.
Pre-order the shirt here for $19.99.
Join Cagewriter for a chat live from Columbus with WEC 47 fighters on Thursday. Stop by to ask Scott Jorgensen about his fight with Chad George and what hair product he uses in his mohawk, and ask L.C. Davis about the viciousness of Deividas Taurosevicius and what it means to be a charter member of Team Thirsty. We’ll start the chat at noon E.T. Be there.
Here’s a sneak peek at the cast of the eleventh season of "The Ultimate Fighter." Unlike last season, which featured well-known fighters like Roy Jones Jr. Nelson* and Kimbo Slice as well as former professional football players, this group doesn’t feature any huge stars, outside of the coaches, Chuck Liddell and Tito Ortiz.
Read the entire cast list here, and Kevin Iole’s profile of castmember Court McGee here. "The Ultimate Fighter" premieres on Mar. 31, right after Ultimate Fight Night 21: Florian vs. Gomi.
*Sorry about that.
Bellator’s season premiere is April 8, and if you’re not excited about their upcoming tournaments, you will be by the end of this post. They’ve been on an announcement spree. Here are the highlights.
Signings: Bellator has picked up lightweight Carey Vanier, middleweight Eric Schambari, featherweights Shad Lierley and Eric Marriott, welterweights Ryan Thomas and Brett Cooper and re-signed Wilson Reis.
But their biggest signing — both literally and figuratively — is heavyweight Cole Konrad. When I spoke with Bellator CEO Bjorn Rebney in January, he mentioned that the promotion plans on expanding to heavyweight and light heavyweights, and Konrad is an excellent addition.
He’s not only Brock Lesnar’s training partner, but Konrad was a two-time national champion wrestler for the University of Minnesota. (Lesnar had one national championship.) A strong and powerful wrestler, his skills should transfer well to MMA, where his record is 2-0.
Another heavyweight during that same time? Cain Velasquez. Konrad beat Velasquez in the semifinals of the 2006 NCAA championships.
Matchups: Bellator also announced the opening bouts for their welterweight and featherweight tournaments.
Welterweight: Ben Askren (3-0) vs. Ryan Thomas (10-3); Dan Hornbuckle (19-2) vs. Sean Pierson (9-4); Jacob McClintock (6-0) vs. “Judo” Jim Wallhead (18-5) and Steve Carl (12-1) vs. Brett Cooper (12-5)
Featherweight: Joe Warren (2-1) vs. Eric Marriott (17-2); Georgi Karakhanyan (12-1-1) vs. Bao Quach (17-9-1); Wilson Reis (9-1) vs. Shad Lierley (5-2) and Patricio Pitbull (12-0) vs. William Romero (5-0)
Also, a non-tournament bout between former UFC fighter Josh Neer and season one lightweight champion Eddie Alvarez some time in May.
Locations: For many of you, Bellator is coming to a theater or arena near you. (That includes me!) The promotion is headed to Kansas City, Mo. (April 29, June 24, Aug. 26, and Oct. 14), Chicago (April 15 and Aug. 19), Boston (May 6 and Oct. 21) and Florida (April 8). Dates and locations will continue to be announced, so continue to check with Cagewriter for more information.
In the wake of the devastating earthquake in Chile,
the world is on tsunami watch. Hawaii is on alert, getting ready for a
possible tsunami. Who should CNN turn to for trusted information in
this frightening time?
UFC lightweight champion B.J. Penn, of course.
The 24-hour news network used the live feed from BJPenn.com
to keep an eye on Hilo Bay. They also spoke with Penn, a lifelong and
proud Hawaiian, who gave his own view of the impending storm. He
mentioned that he and his family and friends are up on a cliff, safe
from the water.
For more information on how to help those affected by the Chilean earthquake, click here.
A weird video of a man that appears to be Chuck Liddell working out popped up at the Big Lead today. He does a short workout in what looks like a home gym with his girlfriend. Not weird, unless you consider that they’re both completely naked. (Well, they’re both wearing shoes.)
This video brings up so many questions. First of all, why? Secondly, is the camera man a crazy, obsessed fan? How is this person still alive? Did Chuck know about the video? But most importantly, who works out in the nude?
UPDATE: To the shock of no one, the video has been removed from Youtube.
UPDATE OF THE UPDATE: The video is back up.
In a close fight that made the Australian crowd happy, Wanderlei Silva won a 29-28 unanimous decision over Michael Bisping.
Bisping ran through the first round methodically, taking down Silva three times, but Silva was able to get up after each takedown. At the very end of the round, Silva threw a flurry of punches, including a left that tagged Bisping.
Silva started the second with a takedown, and after not doing much damage there, the fight returned to its feet. In the final 20 seconds, Bisping scored a takedown but was caught in a guillotine. Silva squeezed hard, but the time ran out on the round.
As the Australian crowd chanted "Silva," standup ruled the the third round, as did inadvertent illegal strikes. Bisping hit Silva with both a crotch shot and an eye poke. Again, Silva finished the round with a huge flurry of strikes, dropping Bisping with a right hand.
After the fight, Silva mentioned the facial surgery that improved his breathing as a big help in the match. With his trademark good humor, Silva also said that it made him look pretty.
Despite seeming gassed, Ryan Bader pulled out a knockout of UFC veteran light heavyweight of Keith Jardine at 2:10 of the third round.
Bader easily controlled the first round, with effective wrestling and punch combos, but that didn’t fly in the second round. Jardine’s kick, which was effective in previous wins, did some damage in the second round.
Bader was starting to look tired as he entered the third round. That changed when Bader threw a flying right knee that hit Jardine’s chest and followed up with a left hook that made Jardine slump to the ground.
This extends Bader’s undefeated record to 11-0, while Jardine falls to 15-7-1. This is Jardine’s third loss in a row.
DirecTV and Versus — the televised home of World Extreme Cagefighting and the station that will air a stacked Fight Night on March 21 — are still far away from coming together for a TV deal. They released this statement to our brother-blog, Puck Daddy.
"At this time, we are not optimistic that an agreement will be in place with DirecTV in time for the start of the NHL Stanley Cup playoffs."
The Stanley Cup playoffs start in mid-April, meaning that it’s unlikely that a deal to get Versus back onto DirecTV will happen in time for UFC on Versus 1: Vera vs. Jones. Not only that, it means that the March 6 WEC card, equally stacked, will not air on DirecTV.
This is getting slightly ridiculous. Live MMA on non-pay-per-view or premium television is rare, but it’s also key to the growth of the sport and the growth of the fanbase. Zuffa, which owns the WEC and the UFC, has been hands off of the DirecTV/Versus negotiations, but it’s time to get involved. For the good of the fans, Dana White, the Fertittas and Reed Harris need to speak up, and work with the NHL to push both sides to get the deal done.
Otherwise, both hockey and MMA are going to have cadres of angry fans. I don’t know about you, but angry hockey and MMA fans united in hate are not a group I’d want to come across.
Demian Maia has deadly submissions, and Dan Miller knew that coming into their fight at UFC 109. Appropriately, Miller tried to keep the fight standing all along, but he didn’t do enough to win. Maia took the 30-27, 29-28, 29-28 unanimous decision.
In deciding to stand, Miller gave Maia an opportunity to show off how he’s improved in striking since Nate Marquardt knocked Maia out in August. Maia loaded up with body and leg kicks. Miller’s skin was bright red from all the strikes he took.
Finally, in the third round, Maia got his takedown, but he wasn’t able to do much with it. Maia, one of the best jiu-jitsu players to ever fight in MMA, easily avoided Miller’s submission attempts. Miller was recently awarded a black belt in Brazilian jiu-jitsu, but his jiu-jitsu aptitude is nowhere near Maia’s.
This win was important for Maia, who needed to get back on track after losing to Marquardt.
Melvin Guillard won a unanimous decision, all three judges scoring it 29-28, over UFC newcomer Ronys Torres at UFC 109. Torres showed off excellent grappling but Guillard won it with patient defense and a few highlight-reel shots.
Torres’ game plan was clear: Keep Guillard on the ground. He started with a takedown in the first round and worked to keep Guillard down. When Guillard was on his feet, he landed a few beautiful shots.
At the very end of the fight, Guillard avoided a takedown attempt and mounted Torres, landing a flurry of shots. It wasn’t enough to finish Torres, but the strikes that landed clearly mattered to the judges.
Guillard has been working with Greg Jackson’s Submission Fighting, and the calmer, more strategic coaching style has helped Guillard after he hit a rough patch — both in the octagon and in his personal life.
Torres’ corner — which included WEC featherweight champion Jose Aldo — created a keystone cops moment between the first and second rounds. They spilled a bag of ice as they worked on Torres. Fight officials had a hard time cleaning up the ice, prompting UFC commentator Mike Goldberg to yell, "Get a zamboni!" On Twitter, WEC fighter Miguel Torres called it the Brazilian ice bag trick.
It’s a rare occasion that will make me, a proud Illinoisan, give kudos to the state of Wisconsin, but it’s happened. Wisconsin’s governor, Jim Doyle, signed legislation making the Dairy State the 43rd state to regulate MMA.
New York, for those wondering, still hasn’t legalized our fair sport. New York has been working on legalizing MMA for years, and just now has the governor introduced legislation to legalize and regulate the sport. It took Wisconsin about five months.
My hope is that the regulation of MMA will lead Zuffa to host a Fight Night in Milwaukee. For some reason, Zuffa has given the Midwest the cold shoulder as of late. In 2008, the UFC visited Minneapolis, Minn., Omaha, Neb., Columbus, Ohio and Chicago. They returned to Columbus and the WEC came to Chicago in the spring of 2009. Since then, there has been no love shown to Midwesterners — home to many UFC and WEC fighters — save one WEC event coming up in Columbus. There hasn’t even been a hint of a Zuffa fight back in a Midwestern state.
What do you say, Dana White? Head to Wisconsin. Have some amazing cheese. Drink some good beer. Dance to the "Beer Barrel Polka." Put the fights near Summerfest, and fighters will even get to see some great concerts while enjoying cheese and beer.
Remember how last Saturday, you were supposed to be able to catch Hieron/Riggs but then EA Sports screwed up the stream, resulting in this? Also resulting in me yelling loudly at my computer screen?
Well, Strikeforce wants to make it up to you. Watch Hieron/Riggs for free here. I won’t say who won, but, you already know who won.
After much discussion, World Extreme Cagefighting has announced its plans to jump into the pay-per-vew pool. The first PPV will air on April 24, headlined by Jose Aldo’s first title defense against Urijah Faber. This will go down in Faber’s hometown of Sacramento in one of the WEC’s favorite venues, the Arco Arena.
Donald Cerrone and Ben Henderson also will fight — a rematch of their much-disputed October bout — and Manny Gamburyan will face Mike Brown.
“We wanted to wait until we had this type of card to go to pay-per-view,” WEC general manager Reed Harris told the AP. “We didn’t want to do a pay-per-view show until fans would say at the end of the night, ‘This was worth it.’ This will truly be the biggest event we’ve ever done.”
There is questioning the strength of the card — it has two title fights and a total of four champions or former champions fighting — but the price of $44.95 is a bit tough to swallow. The WEC has given out its product for (sort of) free on basic cable for years. Jumping from $0 to $44.95 might be difficult for the biggest of fans.
Not only that, it falls right between a six-week stretch with three UFC pay-per-views. All three cards have title fights: 111 with GSP vs. Dan Hardy, 112 with Anderson Silva vs. Vitor Belfort, and 113, with a rematch between Lyoto Machida and Mauricio "Shogun" Rua. It will cost MMA fans roughly $180 to buy all four cards. It’s not that the WEC card isn’t worth the money — it is — but will the fans have the cash to make these fights a success?
OK, maybe that headline is a bit hyperbolic, but the WEC 47 card on March 6 in Columbus is nothing short of amazing. Have you taken a look at it lately? Let’s take a gander.
Brian Bowles vs. Dominick Cruz for the bantamweight title: This will be Bowles’ first time back in the cage since his upset knockout of Miguel Torres and since breaking his hand on Torres’ skull. Cruz won his shot at Bowles by beating Joseph Benavidez and quietly putting together a run of five straight wins.
Joseph Benavidez vs. Miguel Torres: It’s easy to focus on Torres and his return to the fighting after his first loss since 2003 because that in and of itself is a compelling story. However, Benavidez, Urijah Faber’s training partner, always brings excitement to the cage. He is also coming off of a loss and has much to prove in the bantamweight division.
The debut of Chad Mendes: Though he’s on the undercard, Mendes is one you should hope gets bumped onto the televised card. He was an NCAA Division I runner-up wrestler for Cal Poly, and has been training with Urijah Faber since graduation. Mendes has five wins in five fights and will look to continue his undefeated streak against Erik Koch.
That’s not enough for you to tune in or buy tickets? Fine. Then how about Scott Jorgensen against Chad George, or Jens Pulver taking on Javier Vazquez? Still not good enough for you? Will L.C. Davis fighting Deividas Taurosevicius satiate you?
The WEC reliably puts on exciting cards, but this one might be the best that they’ve put together since Faber/Pulver I, a card so packed that Mike Brown, Jose Aldo and Dominick Cruz were all on the undercard.
Joe Warren has been busy. Bellator announced Monday that the world champion wrestler has signed on for the promotion’s featherweight tournament. This weekend, he returned to the wrestling mat for the first time in three years.
Warren talked to Cagewriter and said he is slated to fight on Bellator’s first show of the season on April 8 in Hollywood, Fla. He also said that after fighting three times in Japan, he’s looking forward to fighting in the U.S.
"We see eye-to-eye," Warren said. "They’re excited about marketing me, and it’s a perfect fit. I can still fight in Dream and do all the things I want to do."
One of the things that Warren wants to do is win an Olympic gold medal in Greco-Roman wrestling.
"It’s the one thing I haven’t done. I won the world championship, Pan-Ams, World Cup, but I need to be training every day to win it."
Warren was the odds-on favorite to win gold for the U.S. in Beijing, but was suspended before the Games for a positive drug test. That sped up his transition to MMA. He had planned to fight after the 2008 Olympics, but with the suspension, he had the chance to fight in Dream. In his MMA debut, Warren beat former WEC champ Chase Beebe and followed that up with an upset of Norifumi "Kid" Yamamoto.
‘I can call myself a fighter now’
His last fight was a loss to Bibiano Fernandes in October. Since then, Warren has been focused on training for MMA.
"Getting ready for the Dream fights were like cramming for a test. I was jamming so much in," Warren said. "In the last few months, I was able to slow down and focus on my striking and jiu jitsu. I can call myself a fighter now."
He is still a wrestler at heart, though. Warren wrestled this past weekend at the Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs, Colo., his first time back on the mat since the suspension. Warren lost both matches and learned that wrestling isn’t exactly like a bicycle.
"I wanted to get back on the mat, but I’m still focused on fighting for now," Warren said. "I need to get through these next three fights. I’m excited about fighting. I want to do that every morning. I’m going to go win that Bellator belt."
That determination, along with the wrestling pedigree, made Warren an extrememly attractive free agent. Signing Warren was one more win for Bellator, who has made waves by snapping up free agents Ben Askren, Dan Hornbuckle, Patricio "Pitbull" Freire and Bao Quach. Adding Warren, one of MMA’s most decorated wrestlers, is one more feather(weight) in the Bellator cap.
Like many MMA fans, I’ve enjoyed quite a few fights from drinking establishments. When funds were running low, or I wanted to enjoy the fights with a group of friends, I’d head to the Tap Room, Brudder’s, Buffalo Wild Wings or any of the other bars that have earned the reputation as fight-friendly to watch the UFC and both Affliction shows.
That option is not as readily available to fans for Strikeforce fights. Reader Jon Anderson said that he had a hard time finding Saturday’s fights anywhere, and I had a similar experience when I was out of town.
In my case, I was in Columbia, Mo., home of the University of Missouri. Tyron Woodley, a Mizzou grad, was headlining a Challengers card, and a group of Mizzou wrestling fans who were in town for a match wanted to see Woodley fight. I called 12 different bars. Not one had Showtime, so not one of us saw Woodley fight.
Showtime and Strikeforce should work together to make fights available for bars to purchase, and both fans and Strikeforce should annoy encourage bars to buy the fights. This benefits Strikeforce in both the short and long runs.
Casual fans will be able to see more of Strikeforce’s fights and get hooked. Who wouldn’t want to watch Strikeforce again after watching Robbie Lawler’s unlikely KO win from this weekend, or the epic bout between Josh Thomson and Gilber Melendez from Strikeforce: Evolution?
Though their CBS show was a hit in the ratings, Strikeforce needs to stay top of mind with fight fans and make themselves more available. Letting their fights make it to a bar television screen is one way to do that.
Cristiane "Cyborg" Santos continued her reign of dominance in women’s mixed martial arts on Saturday night, winning by TKO over Marloes Coenen at 3:41 in the third round and defending her championship.
Coenen gave Cyborg a better fight than many of Cyborg’s previous opponents, lasting through exchanges where Cyborg clearly got the better of Coenen. Cyborg was more strategic in this fight, calmly getting out of submission attempts and returning to her feet when Coenen preferred the ground.
By the third round, it was clear that Coenen was weakening from Cyborg’s many strikes. Desperate to take the fight to the ground, Coenen shot in on Cyborg’s legs, but Cyborg stuffed the attempt and landed a barrage of punches, ending the fight.
The question that hangs over Strikeforce is this: Who can handle Cyborg? There are few women who can challenge her.
Herschel Walker won his MMA debut with Strikeforce on Saturday night. Reread that sentence. Walker, who won the Heisman Trophy in 1982 and was an Olympian in 1992, won by TKO at 2:17 in the third round over Greg Nagy.
Even before the fight was called, Walker dominated. He started out the fight with stiff standup and yelled at his opponent to engage. When Nagy did engage and try for a takedown, Walker sprawled to stuff the takedown attempt. Walker controlled the rest of the round from the top.
In the second round, Walker continued to impose his will over Nagy. At one point, he had a standing front headlock and the crowd yelled, "Knees!" to the inexperienced Walker. He obliged. In the third round, Walker stretched Nagy out and pounded him out until the fight was stopped.
"Don’t boo guys in the ring because this is the hardest thing I’ve ever done," Walker said to the crowd afterward.
It’s hard to judge Walker’s abilities from this bout, as his opponent has just two professional fights and a record of 1-1. But Walker was nothing short of impressive in the cage, no matter his age.
Want to show up at a party and outclass anyone who dreams of wearing the tuxedo T-shirt? We’re here to help.
That’s right, a boxing or Gi T-shirt. Are you cool enough to pass it off? Buy the boxing gloves shirt here and gi shirt here, and let us know if you can handle the coolness.