UFC

The UFC was first sold as a way to finally establish which fighting style was best and the original tournament had a boxer wearing a glove



Unfortunately for him he had to compete against a guy called Royce Gracie. It looks ridiculous now but I'm sure many would have given the boxer a decent chance due to a lack of knowledge & understanding of the new sport and Gracie not looking the most imposing of fighters (Who would have predicated he would go on to win 3 of the first 4 UFCs by a combination of talent, lack of skilled opposition and the fact that cross-training was a concept not yet considered).

UFC are looking to expand the interest beyond their core market which they probably feel have neared or reached a peak and see this fight as a way of involving sports talk-shows etc which cover boxing despite its decline but wont touch MMA (For example "Pardon the Interruption" on ESPN had segments on Herschel Walker fighting in his first MMA bout only because of his age and the fact he was in the NFL but did not mention UFC 117!!).

Toney sounded terrible in his interview and you have to be concerned that eventually the negatives will outweigh the advantages that the UFC are trying to obtain if the fight is one-sided and quick (Or even worse one-sided and long & brutal).

Yeah that's basically what i'm gettin at.He looks a good beat down away from a wooden box..Go and fight Bernard Hopkins James,get a decent pay day and retire.
Randy's a great guy and won't beat him to a pulp but others in the game would.

Lorenzo Fertitta & his brother are intrested in money, Dana White is ruthlessly passionate in his quest to promote the UFC to it's ever-expanding world wide audience, this is why they work well together, bigger audience more money.
This is just another gimmick on the provisional lines of the WWE wrestler fighting in the UFC only without the potential to go past the 1 fight attraction, Brock Lesnar was brought in to see how a one dimensional fighter would match up against this new breed of underground sportsman, the mixed martial arts fighter, the difference here is Lesnar is a physical sportsman, no disrespect to any boxers out there, up until the recent demise of the top end of the sport i was a big boxing fan & now & again have a session on the bag & pads as thats one fitness workout thats hard to beat, my point is boxers are primarily short term endurance sportsmen where as an mma fighter needs fittness,strength & endurance all in equal measures therefore is fitter & in terms of skill... Err hello mixed martial arts.. Yeah exactly as it says on the tin.
So the age old question is yes an mma sportsman is the better fighter, but these type of fights are sellable as part of the side show to a normal UFC card as the potential for the 1 punch KO will leave the debate open for future experiments.

Toney seems to think this is gonna be a (US) PPV smash hit... Err i think someone may wanna show him the offical figures over the passed 2-3 years, they have nothing to do with a 1 off side show, i for one am not paying ESPN £9 in the month of August to see a fight that as a true UFC fan i have no intrest in, i'm paying to see the lightweight re match title fight, Edgar v Penn as well as Florian v Maynard & Diaz v Davis + Demian Maia, Andre Winner.

As for the fight itself, Toney will come in maybe not as big as Roy Nelson but unlike Nelson & more like Kimbo Slice he will not have the fittness for someone to be laying on him & punching him for maybe 90sec-2min & that time is based on maybe 1 mma training session on the defence in a ground & pound situation (do we expect Randy to win any other way?).
In my opinion the only reason he is going to the top of the tree in terms of the name Randy Couture is due to Randy's age & possible imminent retirement form mma depending on the success of his new film The Expendables which has had mixed reviews & as a potential action man movie star he will no doubt take the positives as a sign that he could carve a career in the film industry.
If you look at Couture's last 3 opponents since the Lesnar title fight, Nogueira loss, Vera win & Coleman win, Nogueira aside they are not 4 fights, 3 wins (including Toney) that are gonna get him in with another title shot not to mention Dana & Joe Silva know he is now too old.

So Shane Carwins been juicing has he......fuck me, anyone with half a brain could see he's a juicer. It really didnt come as a shock to me when it all came out.

Oh and im now a Sonnen fan.....not of his trash talking but because he really deserved that title.

I dont think you can say Sonnen deserved the title really...it wasnt a harsh points verdict,
he got tapped out plain & simple..They say the true sign of a champion is overcoming adversity
and winning when the odds are stacked against you...
in that respect Anderson Silva is a true champion...For sonnen it was close but no cigar!!!

Sonnen DID deserve the belt because he fucking backed his talk up with fighting. He fucking dominated for four rounds.

Now, if the idiot hadnt have been caught, then id have been whooping and everything.

Still, a wins a win....

GSP would MURDER Silva, thats the most pbviosu thing from this bout. Fuck Belfort/Silva, Sonnen/Silva II sounds far better because Sonnen has many MANY new fans.

EDIT - What pisses me off is that people will remember this fight for Silva pulling an ace out his ass.

(15-08-2010 14:38 )cainan Wrote:  Sonnen DID deserve the belt because he fucking backed his talk up with fighting. He fucking dominated for four rounds.

Dominate he did, for the best part of 22min, but at no point did he look like he was seconds away from finishing the fight, Anderson Silva on the other hand had 2 or 3 submission attempts of which the final one was executed & resulted in the end of the fight.
Anderson DID say Sonnen will have the chance to back up his words in the octagon & he was right Silva v Sonnen did take place in the octagon & Sonnen although with a good but not great performance couldn't back up his words with a win.

In my view if you win whatever match or contest your in, then no matter what the course of the contest was you deserve to be the winner, as long as there's no outside influence i.e. in football the ref/lino. I woulld have liked to see Silva lose but the fact is he didn't, the same as most Liverpool fan's will feel we deserved to beat Arsenal today, point apiece it was.

Sonnen just let his guard down and probs thought he had done enough to win and got punished.
I don't know what to make of Carwins situaution??Alot of this stuff comes to nothing.
Until i know the facts and stuff im staying clear of it.

Cro Cop v Mir is the new main event at UFC 119 after Nogueira says he needs surgery, Cro Cop says he will not be going into this fight fully ready as he hasn't had enough time to prepare but couldn't turn it down.
Considering Mir is determined to get another shot at Lesnar it don't sound good for Mirko which is a shame as people are waiting for him to show his quality in the UFC.

Can't believe some of the figures on this from UFC 117
http://sports.yahoo.com/mma/news?slug=mm...7_salaries
Chael Sonnen only made $35,000 compared to Silva's $200,000
Alves made $60,000 almost double Sonnen who was in the main event?