Mirko Cro Cop — the Pride FC 2006 Open Weight Grand Prix Champion and three-fight UFC veteran — today held a live chat with fans over at MMA-ID.com.
He answered a ton of questions, including his plan to compete twice more under the DREAM banner and return to the Octagon to avenge losses to Gabriel Gonzaga and Cheick Kongo. In addition, the Croatian is set on rematching Fedor Emelianenko on New Year’s Eve — regardless of the promotion.
Cro Cop also shared his “positive” thoughts on the creepy Jean Claude Van Damme, his Indiana Jones complex (he hates snakes), his favorite movie (”HEAT”), as well as dares a chat participant who calls him a “pussy” to “come and say that in front of” him.
PRIDE vet Ricardo Arona has stated he’ll be back at it very soon. It’s been exactly a year and a day since Sokoudjou KO’d him in the first round at PRIDE 34 and Arona says he spent the time off training and getting his shit together — my words, not his. He has been working on his physical training as well as becoming a better student of the game, and now both US and Japanese organizations are courting him to fight. So he’s weighing his options. While no specific date was revealed or a possible opponent named, a fight for the native of Brazil appears on the horizon.
Any fighter who is outta’ there for more than a year is prone to collecting a little rust, but Arona, who is 13-5 overall, isn’t worried about losing his timing:
Undoubtedly, if you compete all the time you’ll get always better at the ring, but I’m not worried with this kind of challenge. Although I don’t get into the rings, I’ve faced challenges all day in my life, in everything I do. Being well prepared, the mind will be ready too and I’m not worried about that, I’m worried of being 100%.
Good theory, but the challenges I face in everyday life — like pretending I’m not looking at the cashier’s boobs while she rings up my case of beer and pound of jerky — doesn’t really prepare me for anything other than avoiding being creepy while in public. Maybe Arona will have a different experience.
Since the downfall of PRIDE, Arona has been linked to the UFC, Yarennoka!, and HCF events, but none of those panned out. A bout of Dengue Fever further kept Arona out of action. If you don’t know anything about Dengue Fever, it’s not the start of a good week — unless you enjoy a good rash.
Moving on…“Shaolin” Ribeiro is also ready for action again and says he is recouped from his eye injury. He is slated to fight on a DREAM card in the near future, but it’s not clear who he will fight or which event it will be. “Shaolin” had this to say:
“I’m training full-contact fighting as usual and can do everything. My eye’s 100% and this was just another injury like any other. I should fight in April or May, I’m ready for them to call me, whether its a normal match, part of the GP or a reserve fight, I have a contract with K-1 and I’m ready. On the winners of the first phase of the GP, I wasn’t suprised by anything, all the ones to win were really tough, including Eddie Alvarez who beat Andre Dida. I already knew of him from Bodog. He’s really tough and I knew that if he wasn’t doing well standing, he’d take him down.”
The Brazilian lightweight is 19-2 overall and is a veteran of Shooto, Cage Rage, and K-1 Heroes.
Episode two of The Ultimate Fighter (TUF) 7 is underway and tonight’s episode begins where last week’s left off: With a boatload of beatdowns. Dana, Rampage and Forrest will evaluate the remaining 16 fighters and so far Rampage’s method of evaluation is to flip through the fighter profiles and remark “There are some ugly-ass guys here.”
Middleweight Elimination Fight #9: Dan Simmler (1-0) vs. Matthew Riddle (1-0)
Simmler comes from Serra’s camp and admits his stand-up is limited at best. Apparently so is his personal grooming as Simmler rolls with a Leonidas-style beard that prompts a Gerard Butler comparison from Rampage.
Riddle declares that he’s not a pussy and considers TUF 7 the Olympics of fighting.
Round 1: High kick by Riddle who then clinches and throws a knee. Riddle drops down and flips Simmler to the mat. Simmler escapes and Riddle lands a front kick. Low kick by Riddle. Simmler goes for a flying armbar and lands on his ass. They clinch and fall into the cage. Both guys look winded but Riddle is smiling and throwing upward knees. More cage resting and Simmler lands a knee of his own. Riddle ducks a shoot. In the tradition of Coach Serra and Coach Penn, Simmler’s cornerman is shouting “Good job! Good job!” ad nauseam. Simmler looking for a single leg and gets dropped on his back. Simmler busy from the bottom but Riddle escapes and goes for an illegal stomp. Referee Herb Dean doesn’t even bat an eyelash. The round ends with Riddle on top doing minor damage.
Round 2: Simmler walks straight into a brutal right and folds up like an aluminum beach chair. He hits the mat with a sickening thud and takes a few more shots from Riddle until Herb Dean can save him.
Matthew Riddle defeats Dan Simmler via knockout.
Riddle celebrates while Simmler begins moaning like a wounded animal causing the gym to fall silent. This very uncomfortable moment is followed by Simmler unclear of his surroundings. Rampage calls it the knockout of the century. Simmler takes a ride in the ambulance. Scary stuff.
Middleweight Elimination Fight #10: Luke Zachrich (7-1) vs. Patrick Schultz (7-1-1)
Zachrich doesn’t like Schultz’s haircut. Fortunately for him he lives in Ohio and not California. Shultz considers TUF the Ivy league of fighting. Olympics? Ivy League? There’s gotta be a teleprompter somewhere in that gym.
Round 1: Schultz jabs and Zachrich throws a lazy front kick. Schultz catches it and drops him with a punch. Schultz scrambles to the top and lands a few shots. Zachrich escapes and gets to his feet. They clinch and Shultz takes himself down. Before he can regret it he reverses and escapes. They tie up and Zachrich flips a reversal of his own. Schultz on the bottom is starting to take punishment. Nasty elbows on top force Schultz to give up his back. Zachrich sinks in the rear naked choke and after a shift in positioning Schultz can do nothing but tap.
Luke Zachrich defeats Patrick Schultz via submission (rear naked choke)
Rampage complains that his assigned cornermen are jinxed since each contestant that gets any advice from them ends up going home.
Middleweight Elimination Fight #11: Erik Charles (10-5) vs. Tim Credeur (10-2)
Charles lets it be known that he wants to fight everyone in the house because he is one of the fastest guys there - if not THE fastest. Since Simmler predicted a first round triangle and got knocked into next season, I silently fear for the safety of Erik Charles.
Round 1: Credeur shoots and they go to the cage. Single leg gets Charles to the mat. Credeur on top and transitions into side control. Credeur spins into a textbook armbar and Charles taps. Charles was right - he was the fastest. Fastest at tapping out.
Tim Credeur defeats Erik Charles via submission (armbar)
Prior to the remaining televised fights, we get highlights (and lowlights) of four fights that took place during the second wave of the middleweight elimination tournament.
Brandon Sene (2-0) defeats Aaron Meisner (2-0) via submission (armbar) Gerald Harris (6-2) defeats Mike Marello (7-1-1) via unanimous decision Daniel Cramer (0-0) defeats Jeremiah Riggs (1-0) via unanimous decision
During the Cramer/Riggs fight, Riggs landed four illegal upkicks. Rampage asked aloud: “Were those illegal?” Dana responds: “They’re not fighting in PRIDE.”
Unfortunately for some fans, neither is anyone else.
Middleweight Elimination Fight #15: Nick Rossborough (8-3) vs Jesse Taylor (6-2)
Rossborough gets an unflattering comparison to Eminem which of course means we’ll get treated to at least a dozen 8 Mile jokes during the fight.
Round 1: Rossborough swings, misses and gets taken down. Taylor smothers him against the cage. Rossborough escapes but Taylor is on him and takes him right back down. Taylor landing elbows and punches. Rossborough in trouble. Rossborough tries to roll out of danger and gets choked out for his efforts.
Jesse Taylor defeats Nick Rossborough via submission (rear naked choke)
Middleweight Elimination Fight #16: Josh Hall (3-2) vs. Matt Brown (9-6)
Brown is very upfront about his approach to the fight: No strategy except kill or die. Hopefully Brown never pursues a career in law enforcement.
Round 1: Hall shoots and backs him to the cage. Hall with a knee. Again. Brown returns the favor. Punches start flying. Hall eats a jab and then a low kick. Hall has seen enough and dumps Brown to the mat. Hall with strikes from the top. Brown trying to fight him off. Hall with shoulder strikes. Brown goes for a triangle and Hall gives him half a slam. Rinse and repeat. Brown gets it deeper. Hall rolls him over and forces his way out. Brown gets to his feet first and lands a couple of shots that daze the grounded Hall. Brown pouring it on with seconds to go. Hall gets a warning and can’t recover. Brown finishes him off.
Matt Brown defeats Josh Hall via TKO (strikes)
Afterwards Dana commends the entire cast for proving him wrong. There were no pussies or posers in this group. The guys who didn’t make it say goodbye and take the walk. We have our 16 contestants.
The announcer gets us ready for the remainder of the season by referring to it as a “baptism of blood”. I thought that was the highlight of the night until I see Coach Griffin submit Coach Jackson via flying Spiderman web.
Stay tuned next week for more blood, backstabbing and bitchslapping. Ain’t life (as a TUF contestant) grand?
About three weeks ago, EliteXC lent out its up and coming lightweight star, Eddie Alvarez, to the Japanese promotion DREAM so he could compete in a 16-man lightweight grand prix tournament.
EliteXC allows most of their fighters to compete outside their organization, probably because more exposure can’t be a bad thing for any fighter. So Eddie was shipped overseas to represent the promotion in a tournament that they knew a lot of people would be watching … or at least paying attention to.
Alvarez did not disappoint, stopping Andre “Dida” Amade in the first round with strikes. The fight was not only impressive for Eddie because of the level of competition, but he was fighting a long way from home, really on the big stage for the first time in his career, and he dominated.
That left five possible candidates for a round two opponent: Tatsuya Kawajiri, Joachim Hansen, Katsuhiko Nagata, Luiz Firmino or Mitsuhiro Ishida. All very good fighters and any one of which would provide a solid fight and test for Alvarez.
It was recently announced it would be “Hellboy” Hansen and the fight would take place at the Saitama Super Arena in Saitama, Japan, on May 11.
Hellboy made his way in the quarterfinals by defeating Kotetsu Boku in a unanimous decision. He’s a six-fight Pride FC veteran and holds wins over Yves Edwards, Caol Uno and Takanori Gomi to name a few. He is considered by a lot of people in the MMA world to be a top 10 lightweight fighter.
Alvarez will have his hands full for sure. This is a big step up in competition for him. Plus Hellboy is used to fighting on the big stage in Japan — he’s got a little bit of home court advantage.
I’d say Hansen has the advantage on paper because of his experience, but Alvarez is a Philadelphia fighter with a lot of heart. He’s going to Japan to win, regardless of the opponent. This fight is going to be an absolute war.
I can’t wait.
This is what a tournament like this is all about, two fighters who fight on opposite ends of the globe, in different organizations, who might not have ever fought each other. Kudos to EliteXC for allowing their fighter to compete.
At 38, The Iceman is talking about doing what scores of athletes in every sport have done before him: go into coaching after he’s done competing. Liddell has stated that he loves what he does — not sure if he meant getting drunk and groping chicks, or fighting — but he figures he’s got between 2-4 years left in the cage. The reality of age is starting to creep in and he’s got a plan for the future…or at least an idea of what he might do in retirement.
“I definitely will be moving into coaching. I’ve got a couple of guys that have been training with me for a long time and they’ve helped me get to where I’m at today.
“So if nothing else I’ll be around for a few years helping them out with their careers.”
“I hope I’ll be doing some movie work - I’ve had a couple of offers but trying to work it around a training regime is real hard to do and I haven’t been able to get anything I’ve really wanted to fit around my fight schedule.
“But If I can get something to fit in with my fight schedule, I might do it now but for we’ll see what happens.”
Shit.
And if you’re interested in some semi-related news, MMAJunkie recently had a sit-down with Chuck’s next opponent, the undefeated Rashad Evans. The fight will go down at UFC 85 on June 7th in London. Among the things discussed — a strategy to beat Chuck, training with Keith Jardine, and where the hell Evans feels he ranks among the UFC light heavies.
(And boom goes the dynamite. Photo courtesy of UFC.com)
According to UFC welterweight Thiago Alves on Monday’s edition of TAGG Radio, Karo Parisyan has come to terms with his sort-of controversial TKO loss at UFC Fight Night 13, which Parisyan immediately protested as soon as he regained his faculties:
“You can look at the replay,” Alves said. “Even I looked at it after the fight. He was out. He fell. He had no reaction at all. I kept punching and punching, and sometimes when you’re out, when you get punched again you wake up. You don’t know what just happened.
“That was [Parisyan’s] concern. He thought that nothing happened. ‘Why’d you stop the fight?’ you know? When he saw the replay, even (Parisyan’s coach Randy) Couture was like, ‘You got knocked out.’ After a while, [Parisyan] texted my coach and apologized and everything. Karo’s a great guy.”
Sadly, Karo is probably still trying to wrap his head around the fact that he just lost his highly cherished title shot — which, to hear the guy talk in previous interviews, seemed to be his sole reason for fighting. To add insult to injury, UFC matchmaker Joe Silva all but promised Alves a future crack at the 170-pound belt:
“Right now I heard I’m right behind Jon Fitch,” Alves said. “That’s what Joe Silva told me.”
And I guess that makes sense, except for two things:
“No more decisions. I’m going to do everything I possibly can to make sure this fight doesn’t go to a decision. I’ll even retire if it does go to a decision. I can’t have them anymore…. After this fight nobody will talk about my wrestling background anymore, because I’m not even going to try to clinch. I’m not even going to try to go to the ground. I’m going to try and knock this dude out. So much for not giving away a gameplan … there’s my gameplan.”
– Josh Burkman jokes (I think) with MMAWeekly.com that he will retire if his upcoming welterweight fight with Dustin Hazelett at The Ultimate Fighter (TUF) 7 Finale on June 21 goes to a decision. “The People’s Warrior” has had his last five fights go to the judges scorecards and he’s dropped two of them (Mike Swick and Karo Parisyan). He narrowly won a split decision over Forrest Petz during that span.
Kimbo Slice will meet 6′5″ 265-pound British fighter James “The Colossus” Thompson in the main event on May 31 at the Prudential Center in Newark, N.J. on the the mixed martial arts network debut on CBS. NBCSports.com recently confirmed the long-rumored heavyweight showdown.
While it doesn’t seem Thompson deserves to be fighting in any main event — let alone the MMA network television debut main event — this is a fight that makes some sense for EliteXC. Obviously, EliteXC Live Events President Gary Shaw and his promotion are trying to milk Kimbo’s star power for all its worth by feeding him guys that will play right into his strength … his knockout power.
Thompson fits right into that mold as he’s known for having a suspect chin. He’s been knocked out or stopped due to strikes seven times in his career, most recently in the first round to Brett Rogers at the February 16 EliteXC show in Miami.
It’s not Kimbo vs. James Thompson that’s being sold in this main event. It’s Kimbo’s raw punching power vs. Thompson’s weak chin.
And I’m buying.
Sure, EliteXC could have given Kimbo some stiffer competition in this fight. Ken Shamrock, Antonio Silva, Ricco Rodriguez, heck even Brett Rogers would have been a better fight. But at this point in Kimbo’s career, it’s more important to continue to build the lore that surrounds him, especially for the new fans who EliteXC is hoping CBS brings in, than to test his actual overall MMA abilities.
Put simply, he’ll be tested with some tough fights eventually in his career — there’s no reason to rush that. This is, after all, only his third professional fight.
I know that way of thinking is a bit hard to swallow for some MMA fans, but EliteXC is a company that is trying to compete with a monster (UFC) and they only way it can do that is to build some stars.
And right now its biggest star is Kimbo Slice.
Don’t get me wrong, this isn’t a guaranteed win for Slice. He still has to go in there and take care of business, and the Colossus could provide some problems for him.
First of all, he has a significant size advantage over Kimbo. I remember being at the weigh-ins for the February show in Miami and seeing them in person. Kimbo seems like a small heavyweight while Thompson is huge.
Also, Thompson trains with Randy Couture — the master of game planning for fights. Don’t think for one second that Randy will have his guy go out there and play right into Kimbo’s hands. He’ll have a gameplan,. One that will probably include a lot of wrestling and clinching.
There’s two ways I can see this fight playing out. The first is the most obvious: Kimbo knocks out Thompson early and in highlight reel fashion. Or second: Thompson could come out and look for takedowns and use his size to wear down Kimbo from the top position on the ground.
We saw in his fight with Brett Rogers that Thompson went for takedowns early. He wasn’t too successful, but that might have had something to do with Rogers’ size (he’s huge). Thompson shouldn’t have as tough a time taking Slice down, but who knows, we haven’t really seen Kimbo’s takedown defense.
Will Kimbo get another highlight KO to put on his resume or will his size finally be tested? I guess we’ll have to wait for May 31 to find out.
Since this morning’s Baszler/Chan viddy was pulled off YouTube in nothin’ flat, here’s another must-see: Gesias “JZ” Calvancante vs. Joe Lauzon in an amateur MMA match that took place I don’t know when and I don’t know where (if you can fill in the blanks, please hit us with the info in the comments section). The fight starts out as a jiu-jitsu chess match — honestly, it looks like the guys are just playing Twister at one point — until Lauzon scores the full mount and rains down some green leather. But JZ reverses the position and the round ends. In the second frame, Calvancante patiently works to Lauzon’s back and slips in the rear-naked choke; Lauzon stands up with JZ on his back, and eventually goes down like a wounded animal. It’s an interesting look back at a time when Joe was just starting out and Gesias wasn’t such a freakin’ beast.
