11/17 MMA News Recap

UFC/WEC News:

*Duane Ludwig broke his right hand in his UFC 122 fight against Nick Osipczak and will need surgery. Best of luck to Ludwig in his recovery.

*Dana White says Tito Ortiz’ next fight will be his last stand. Fuck em up Lil Nog! Fuck em up!

*Alessio Sakara believes that Michael Bisping has turned down a potential fight against Jorge Rivera. As he should have. Rivera is nothing fight for Bisping. Rivera vs. Sakara should still happen.

Strikeforce/Other News:

*Rolles Gracie has signed with SHINE Fights. Hopefully his lack of conditioning isn’t coming with him.

*SHINE Fights is expected to sign a cable TV deal in the near future. Good for them. Hopefully they don’t screw it up.

*Bellator is expected to sign a new TV deal after Thanksgiving. As long as their shows aren’t pre-empted by meaningless football games, I’ll be happy.

Show Review – The Ultimate Fighter 12: Episode 10

The Ultimate Fighter 12: Team GSP vs. Team Koscheck
Episode 10: Untitled

*Previously: Johnson and Bruce Leeroy don’t like each other. Brookins and Nam Phan won.

*BOOM! ANOTHER HIT HAS LANDED!

11/16 MMA News Recap

UFC/WEC News:

*Cole Miller vs. Matt Wiman has been moved from the UFC 125 prelim card to the UFC Fight for the Troops 2 main card. Good deal. Always like seeing Cole in action.

*UFC 122 drew  2.2 million viewers on SpikeTV. That number is crazy good for UFC. Not only did it beat UFC 120 in ratings but it was also up against the Pacman fight.

*WEC 52 drew 570,000 viewers on VS. And once again Urijah Faber proves he’s the biggest draw in the company.

Strikeforce/Other News:

*Jay Hieron has signed with Bellator and will compete in their Season 4 Welterweight tournament. Good news. Hieron will likely be the favorite as well and him vs. Askren could be really good.

Event Review – UFC 122: Marquardt vs. Okami

UFC 122 had very little going for it heading into things and when news broke that the co-main event, it lost a potential fight that had fight or knockout of the night written all over it. You know the card isn’t all that important when every loser on the main card not in the main event could very likely be released by the time you read this. Your Saturday night could have been worse though. You could have been watching Jon Kitna throw interceptions at Cowboy Stadium while the entire crowd booed. What’s that? Manny Pacqiuao was throwing bombs at Cowboy Stadium while the entire crowd cheered? Well then. If you spent your Saturday night watching UFC 122 then I applaud your dedication to MMA and at least your name isn’t Antonio Margarito.

Show Review – Countdown to UFC 123

*Another UFC Countdown show, another time where it doesn’t start on time because Spike thinks it’s more important for us to watch 20 minutes of Kung Fu Hustle. Well it’s 11:45 and Kung Fu Hustle is still on. I guess they really wanted high ratings for this movie that’s been out for like 10 years now. It’s now 12:45. I’m setting my DVR to record SpikeTV for the rest of the night because Conan is about to start. FUCK YOU SPIKETV~!

*Looking forward to the event this weekend even though the promotion of it hasn’t been great. Rampage/Machida and Hughes/Penn 3 are very interesting fights.

*”For the first time in UFC history, four former champions will enter the Octagon on the same night.” For some reason that doesn’t seem legit but who am I to doubt the UFC voice over guy?

*Nice to see Sotiropoulos/Lauzon will be getting time on this show.

*Rampage is throwing a lot of kicks in these training highlights. I bet he doesn’t throw a single kick in the actual fight.

*Rampage is training with a bunch of nobodies in a rented warehouse. Machida is training with Team Black House and spent time at AKA. How do people not realize that in 2010, you have to train with top guys and with top equipment.

*The Rampage/Machida stuff was actually pretty poor. No talk of how Machida will respond to his first loss (a brutal KO at that), no talk of Rampage losing to Rashad, and no talk of Rampage always having trouble with quicker fighters.

*Hey look, BJ Penn is doing some water training. Nice to see Penn moving away from his comfort zone a bit when it comes to training.

*Penn trying acupuncture to better his conditioning. Whatever happened to just good ol’ fashioned hard work?

*Great Hughes/Penn history lesson.

*It still amazes me that Lauzon is getting to fight Sotiropoulos just because he beat Gabe Ruediger.

*Really good profile pieces on Lauzon and Sotiropoulos. UFC always does a good job of getting new guys over and this was no exception.

*It’s crazy to think that Lauzon/Sotiropoulos got more time than Rampage/Machida. I like the building of new guys but main events sell PPVs and they really dropped the ball on the Rampage/Machida build up.

11/15 MMA News Recap

UFC/WEC News:

*Dana White hopes Rashad Evans vs. Mauricio Rua will happen in March. I hope he’s right.

*Alex Karalexis has been released by UFC/WEC. Sucks for him.

*Jon Fitch would like to coach on The Ultimate Fighter. Flyweights will be added to UFC before Fight is a coach.

Strikeforce/Other News

*Strikeforce wants Fabricio Werdum to return in March but Werdum, who doesn’t have an exclusive contract with the company, is looking to return sooner. And Strikeforce continues to be a really dumb promotion.

*Jesse Taylor and Matt Horwich picked up victories over the weekend. Good for them.

Japan News:

*Yasubey Enomoto vs. Keita Nakamura, Manabu Inoue vs. Shunichi Shimizu, Taiyo Nakahara vs. Akitoshi Tamura have been added to the year end Sengoku show. Hopefully they don’t suck. Enomoto/Nakamura should be pretty good.

11/15-11/21 MMA on TV

November 15-21
All Times Eastern

11/11-11/14 MMA News Recap

UFC/WEC News:

*Tito Ortiz vs. Antonio Rogerio Nogueira is rumored for UFC 128. So Ortiz loses and gets to fight Lil Nog while Hamill wins and will probably end up fighting Stephan Bonnar. Stupid booking.

*Jorge Rivera is “95% certain” that he’ll be fighting Michael Bisping at UFC 127. So Sakara gets sick and now Rivera gets a fight against Bisping? It makes no sense. Bisping should be fighting top guys, not Rivera.

*Dana White believes Brock Lesnar will fight Frank Mir next but Mir wants Lesnar to win a fight before he fights him again. It’ll happen and we all know it. And if Dana is dumb enough to listen to his twitter followers, who are going to buy Lesnar/Mir 3 anyway, then he’s not as smart as I thought he was.

*Square Ring Promotions claims that have Roy Nelson under contract and have blocked him from competing in the UFC until things are resolved. Why is this just now coming up? Not only has Nelson fought multiple times in the UFC but Square Ring Promotions hasn’t even run another show. This won’t last long in court.

*Darren Elkins is out of his UFC 123 fight against Edson Barboza. Mike Lullo will replace him. Two guys making their UFC debuts. Hopefully they deliver.

*The latest episode of The Ultimate Fighter 12 drew 1.8 million viewers. And the show stays consistent.

*Dana White says that he plans on adding the Flyweight division to the UFC sooner than people think. Well I think it will happen by 2020. So if it comes sooner than that then he’ll be right.

Strikeforce/Other News:

*Strikeforce has released Roxanne Modafferi. What a stupid company. She lost a title fight four months ago and she’s just now getting released? Seriously, there is no hope for this company.

*Jonathan Goulet lost to Chris Clements over the weekend and is contemplating retirement. He was never great and his chin sucks. It would probably be for the best if he retired.

Event Review – WEC 52: Faber vs. Mizugaki

WEC delivered their Las Vegas swansong this past Thursday night and it was once again another outstanding event, especially if you are a member or fan of Team Alpha Male. It was a night filled with almost non-stop action, some extremely slick submissions, a spectacular knockout, one of the best fights of the year, and of course the always-lovely Brittney Palmer. If you’re not excited for UFC 122 and you don’t feel like spending $65 on one fight this weekend, just watch this event instead.

Prediction Record Update – UFC 122

I’ve updated my prediction record following UFC 122 after going 3-1 on the main card and 5-5 overall. Thanks to everyone who made me look smart.