Posted on December 9th, 2008 by sagescott
Tomorrow – Wednesday, December 10, 2008 – the UFC will take a break from its usual reckless abandon to funnel their energies towards a greater cause. Tune in to Spike TV at 9 pm ET and you’ll see what we mean.
It’s called “UFC Fight for the Troops”, and to many it will come as a familiar and cherished ritual, since this will be its 16th incarnation. It will take place at the Fayettesville Crown Coliseum on Fort Bragg, making it only the 2nd sanctioned UFC fight to be held at a US military base.
The aim of this year’s event is to raise money for the Intrepid Fallen Heroes Fund to help fund a $70 million traumatic brain injury research center. In Iraq, traumatic brain injuries are among the most prevalent combat injuries troops suffer.
On the fight card for the 2008 Fight for the Troops are Marine Corp veteran Luigi Fioravanti, who himself served in Iraq, as well as:
• Mike Swick
• Jonathan Goulet
• Josh Koschek
• Yoshiyuki Yoshida
• Razak Al-Hassan
• Steve Cantwell
And 13 others, 10 bouts in all.
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Filed under: UFC Events
Posted on November 20th, 2008 by sagescott
At last weekend’s UFC 91 the big media-blitz kicked off for a highly-anticipated match coming up soon between UFC Lightweight Champ B.J. Penn and UFC Welterweight Champ Georges St. Pierre.
It will happen at Las Vegas’ Mandalay Bay on January 31, 2009, which also just so happens to be Super Bowl weekend.
Penn and St. Pierre are currently touring with Dana White, UFC president, in promotion of the event, which won’t be the first time these two have faced off.
The last time they met in the octagon St. Pierre won in a tight split decision. But Penn’s skills have vastly improved in that time, and he seems to be ready to take down his heavier-weight opponent.
Since both of these fighters are already the best in their weight class, this bout will determine something far more than “mere” championship title status. It will determine who deserves to be called the next MMA legend in recent UFC history.
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Filed under: UFC Events, UFC Fighters
Posted on November 18th, 2008 by sagescott
On Saturday November 15 at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in front of a nearly sold-out crowd of 14,000+, UFC 91 saw 31-year-old former WWE champ Brock Lesnar rise to the top as the new UFC Champion, taking it in a round 2 TKO from 45-year-old Randy Couture.
This is only Lesnar's fourth MMA fight, coincidentally the same feat achieved by the man whose crown he took, "The Natural" Couture who 11 years earlier, when in his fourth MMA fight he topped Maurice Smith and claimed the title for himself.
Although most MMA fighters couldn't hope to even compete in the UFC after just a few fights, Lesnar is a unique case, with not only a WWE title under his belt, but an NCAA wrestling title a well.
To his credit, Couture was not only 11 years younger than his spry opponent, but also an inch shorter and 50 pounds lighter, plus he hadn't stepped into the octagon in 15 months.
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Filed under: UFC Events, UFC Fighters
Posted on October 27th, 2008 by sagescott
Much exciting stuff took place last week at UFC 89, which was held in Birmingham, England. With a victory by unanimous decision, native-son 185-pound Michael Bisping took down Chris Leben to notch up a thurd consecutive win. Bisping has been announced as one of the coaches for “The Ultimate Fighter” season 9.
One of the highlights, earning both fighters an extra $40k for giving fans the “Fight of the Night”, was between Paul Taylor and Chris Lytle, with Lytle winning in a contentious split decision.
Lytle and Taylor weren’t the only ones to win $40,000 bonuses, though. Brazlilian Luis Arthur Cane took home “Knockout of the Night” for his obliteration of Rameau Thierry Sokoudjou of Team Quest by second-round strikes. This is the 3rd such bounty for Taylor, who won the same honor in UFC 80 and UFC 75. That’s a lot of bonus money for a fighter who just joined the UFC in April of 2007.
Also that night, Brandon Vera delivered Keith Jardine his very first loss
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Filed under: General UFC, The Ultimate Fighter, UFC Events, UFC Fight Night, UFC Fighters
Posted on October 13th, 2008 by sagescott
UFC 90 is coming up soon, taking place on October 25 at the Allstate Arena in the Chicago, Illinois area.
Undefeated 24-year-old Croatian middleweight MMA fighter Goran Reljic 1-0 UFC, 8-0 overall) has suffered a back injury that’s forced him to back out of his scheduled bout with UFC veteran fighter Thales Leites (4-1 UFC, 13-1 overall), who is seeking his 5th straight win with this bout, his most recent coming in a split-decision against Nate Marquardt in UFC 85.
Leites, who is currently in the midst of a 4-fight long winning streak, will now be fighting Drew McFedries (3-3 UFC, 7-4 overall).
In response to the scheduling change, the fight between lightweights Rich Clementi (5-3 UFC, 32-12-1 overall) and Gray Maynard (3-0 UFC, 5-0 overall), which previously was not intended to televised, has now been bumped up to be broadcast on Pay-Per-View as part of the Main Card.
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Filed under: UFC Events, UFC Fighters
Posted on October 1st, 2008 by sagescott
The New Year in Mixed Martial Arts is set to get off to a killer start with the first UFC event of 2009, UFC 93, coming up on January 17 taking place in Dublin, Ireland's new O2-Dublin arena, which opens just a few weeks earlier, in December of this year.
The light-heavyweight main event that evening looks like it will be former UFC middleweight champ Rich Franklin (11-2 UFC, 24-3 MMA) might be facing down former PRIDE 2-division world champ Dan Henderson (3-2 UFC, 23-7 MMA) for 3 intense rounds of raw MMA action.
Fans can also look forward to a surprising rumored rematch between 2005 PRIDE Grand Prix Champ Mauricio Rua (0-1 UFC, 16-3 MMA) and Mark Coleman (6-3 UFC, 15-8 MMA), the UFC Hall of Famer who broken "Shogun" Rua's arm when the two last met in Japan in 2006.
See all the bone-crushing action right from home via pay-per-view on Jan, 17, 2009, 7 pm PT/11 pm ET.
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Filed under: UFC Fight Night
Posted on September 24th, 2008 by sagescott
Randy Couture battling Brock Lesnar wont be the only big bout to look out for this November. UFC 91 has a new entry on its “Couture vs. Lesnar” fight card, that being Alvin Robinson against Mark Bocek. After losing by submission at the start of this to first Mac Danzig and then Nate Diaz, Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu brown-belt Robinson was eager to accept the personal invite from Marcelo Garcia to try and save some face, even up against Bocek’s unevenly matched black-belt.
Mustafa Al-Turk will have his UFC debut in December’s UFC 92 against Cheick Kongo (who was last seen at UFC 87 TKO-ing Dan Evansen) after Cain Velazquez recently pulled out of the match because of pressing surgery to fix a recent knee injury.
And Quinton “Rampage” Jackson will get a third shot against rival Wanderlei Silva, this at UFC 93 where the match-up will be listed as the top bout on the Penn-St. Pierre undercard.
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Filed under: UFC Events, UFC Fighters
Posted on September 11th, 2008 by sagescott
November 15 is a day MMA fans have marked down on their calendar as a day that will surely make UFC history. That is the day UFC 91 will take place, the event that brings relative newcomer Brock Lesnar (with his 2-1 fledgling MMA record) and current and 3-time heavyweight champion and 2-time heavyweight king Randy Couture face-to-face in the Octagon to see who will come out on top.
As Randy Couture sees it, according to a Joe Rogan interview at UFC 88, the biggest challenge of battling with Brock Lesnar will be his size (280 pounds to Couture’s 225) and the fact that he, like Couture, has a wrestling background.
Typically Couture relies on those elements as his edge over other combatants, but he says that considering the atypical evenness of the matchup, he’s going to have to bone up on his striking and submissions, not his greatest skills but also, he believes, not Lesnar’s either.
Fans wonder how much the age difference between them (Lesnar is 31, Couture 45) will come into play.
Everyone watching the UFC is already on the edge of their seats waiting to see whether a pro-MMA freshman can take out a Hall of Famer.
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Filed under: UFC Events, UFC Fighters
Posted on July 26th, 2008 by admin
UFC 88: Breakthrough scheduled for September 6th, 2008 has been announced and there is no shortage on big names for this card in Atlanta, GA. The headliner of the evening will be The Iceman himself, Chuck Liddell facing off with Rashad Evens, winner of TUF 2 heavyweight division.
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The full fight card will also feature Rich Franklin taking his first fight at 205 against Matt Hamill. Also, making his return to 185 will be Dan Henderson who will be fighting for the first time since his back to back defeats to Anderson Silva and Quinton Rampage Jackson. Of which both fights he lost the Pride middleweight and light heavyweight title.
Check out the full scheduled fight card below.
Main Event
Chuck Liddell Vs. Rashad Evans
Rich Franklin Vs. Matt Hamill
Karo Parisyan Vs. Yoshiyuki Yoshida
Dan Henderson Vs. Rousimar Palhares
Fights below may not be broadcast:
Thiago Tavares Vs. Kurt Pellegrino
Dong Hyun Kim Vs. Matt Brown
Tim Boetsch Vs. James Lee
Roan Carneiro Vs. Ryo Chonan
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Filed under: UFC Events
Posted on May 26th, 2008 by sagescott
August 9 2008 is UFC 87: Seek and Destroy, happening at Minneapolis, Minnesota's Target Center and broadcast live on Pay-Per-View.
Replacing UFC Hall of Famer and former PRIDE heavyweight star Mark "The Hammer" Coleman is Heath Herring (2-0 UFC: 28-13 MMA) as the man out to pummel Brock Lesnar (0-1 UFC: 1-1 MMA).
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Lightweight co-headliners are Kenny "KenFlo" Florian battling Roger "El Matador" Huerta.
Other fights slated for the main card include:
- Georges "Rush" St. Pierre vs. Jon "Two Face" Fitch
- Cheick "The French Sensation" Kongo vs. Dan Evensen
- Demian Maia vs. Jason "The Athlete" MacDonald
Antonio Rodrigo is also on the fight card, against an as-of-yet unnamed opponent.
Lightweight Frankie Edgar will be stepping into the UFC 87 cage as well, looking to reclaim his good name after a loss by unanimous decision loss Gray Maynard.
And two The Ultimate Fighter 5 contenders, Rob Emerson (1-0 UFC: 7-6 MMA) and runner-up Manny Gamburyan (2-1 UFC: 8-2 MMA) will also face off.
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Filed under: General UFC, UFC Events, UFC Fighters
