MMA Hot Stuff

Fighter Q & A at Sacramento Kings Game

Come meet WEC fighter Urijah Faber and UFC Fighters Chuck Liddell, Tito Ortiz and Diego Sanchez while you take in a little basketball! The Sacramento Kings are presenting the Mixed Martial Arts Game January 9th at Arco Arena... 

 
 
  

 
 

Nominations for 2009 World MMA Awards closes on Wednesday

Who do you think was the BreakThrough Fighter of the Year? Best MMA Promotion? 

As a reminder, the nomination stage for the 2009 World MMA Awards closes this Wednesday (tomorrow), Sept. 30. 

The World MMA Awards, which is operated by Fighters Only magazine, is viewed as one of the most prestigious awards for the sport, awarding in 18 different MMA related categories

Nominees will be announced on Oct. 5, and final voting will then run until Dec. 5. Winners will be announced at a Dec. 30 "Oscars-style" black-tie ceremony, which streams live on Versus.com (and throughout January on Versus) from The Joint at The Hard Rock Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas. 

"Response to the World MMA Awards has been huge this year with thousands of fans worldwide taking part," Fighters Only CEO Rob Hewitt recently stated. "Nominations have been very diverse, and ... most of the categories are still wide open." 

The categories range from Fight of the Year to KO and Submission of the Year to Best MMA Brand and best MMA Media Source. MMA equipment manufactures also vie for a variety of categories. 

But before you place your vote I encourage you to take a minute and think about things. What makes someone the Best Fighter of the Year? Is it the number of wins? Is it the most vicious KnockOut? The biggest upset? Or is it because of heart and dedication?

Another category is Best MMA Journalist. I've thought a lot about this one (for obvious reasons). Always keep in mind the best Journalist may not be the one that breaks every 'story'... Sadly, fact checking has taken a back seat more often than not over being the first to the party. And then there are times the stories are known weeks before the story actually gets out but can't be discussed for confidential reasons. I personally take pride in the fact that while I consider many Fighters (UFC, WEC & Strikeforce) my personal friends, a lot of the information I hear I keep to myself. I'm so proud of what my friends have accomplished and there are times I know the information is just best left unsaid or unwritten. I want them to have time to train in private for a fight before it's publicly announced who their next opponent is. Who do you consider to be a Journalist that writes funny or interesting stories? Gives a different perspective than the 12 other sites that covered the same thing the day before.

So now that I've given you something to think about, please hurry and vote. 

Also, feel free to follow me on Twitter at twitter.com/MMAHotStuff

Chuck Liddell On Dancing With The Stars

We're in the final hours for the much anticipated debut of Chuck "the Iceman" Liddell as he dances his way across the television sets in front of more than 20 million viewers on Dancing With The Stars (on ABC). I think I've seen something like 45 seconds of the reality show, but now that one of MMA's legends has agreed to show the world what he's got as far as dancing skills go, I am definitely tuning in.

If you're not familiar with Dancing With The Stars, this is what you need to know. There are three judges and 16 professional dancers that have been coupled up with 16 celebrities to dance there way into the heart of the viewers at home, because we're the people that vote to keep them on the show. They each learn a routine and dance off against the other teams. Think American Idol but with teams, and well dancing. The outfits are as flashy as you'd expect. Sequins, unbuttoned shirts with some skin showing and lots of spray tans. 

We've all seen the competition between Chuck and Dana White about Chuck dropping weight. Not only did Chuck win the bet but his six pack is back. Dancing seems to agree with Chuck.  When asked about Chuck at the post fight conference for UFC 103 Dana said: "Chuck weighs like, 212. “He doesn’t weight 212 the week of a fight, so he’s taking this more seriously than he was taking the fight. I’m happy that he’s found something to focus on.”

When asked about tonight Chuck said "I'm ready for tonight but everyone I've seen looks good so I need everyone's votes!" 

If you are a Miami Dolphins fan like I am (or an Indianapolis Colts fan BOO), at least tivo Dancing With The Stars if you're watching Monday Night Football. And DON'T FORGET TO CALL IN and VOTE FOR CHUCK.

You can call between 8pm-midnight your local time zone. Vote for Chuck (and his dancing partner Anna) at 1-800-868-3402. Spread the word!

Chuck Liddell and dancing partner Anna - Photo: abc.go.com

Don't Forget To Thank The Fighters

You can say what you will about the sport of Mixed Martial Arts. Whether you love it, hate it or just don't understand it, you can definitely walk away with one understanding of the sport if you have time to watch just about any given fight. A big reason why the fighters are in the cage and doing what they do is because of the fans. Okay so not ALL the fighters are always so generous to their fans but never mind the exceptions. The vast majority of the fighters are extremely thoughtful, respectful and GRATEFUL for their fans.

Think about it. After every fight when Joe Rogan (or whoever) is talking to the winning fighter, the fighter always thanks his team, sponsors and the fans. When was the last time a baseball player thanked the fans? A football player? Okay, you can make the argument they're on a team and not being interviewed individually so I'll make more points.

Name a fighter. Any fighter. Have you ever tried to get into contact with that fighter? Most likely they're on Twitter. Or Facebook. Come on give me a name. You even have the Real Chuck Liddell now on Twitter. Randy Couture? Check. Tito Ortiz? Yep. And no offense but those are exactly the youngest of the fighters! Okay mind you I just mentioned the three fighters that probably need the most help with their Twitter-skills! LOL They're great with posting but not so great with being interactive. But come on, they're at least on there and posting what they're up to right? And why do they do this? Purely for the fans. Umm where's Peyton Manning? Not on Twitter. Reggie Bush on Twitter but let's be real here, it's probably just because Kim Kardashian got him up and going on it! Okay, I kid I kid!

Some fighters are very interactive on their personal websites. Daily video posts? Hello have you been on BJPenn.com? The guy shows you what he eats for every meal. 

Oh you want to roll around with these guys. Most likely you can find a gym in a city near you where there's a top tier fighter that's a household name you can roll around with. I'm not kidding. Of course they're not looking to give free lessons to any Larry or Stan off the street, but if you're a dedicated fighter in the making, these guys have opened gyms and are teaching classes. When they're not personally training for a fight they're most likely helping one of their team mates prepare for a fight. 

And now you're starting to see fighters go one step further in how they interact with fans. Shane Carwin will send you a hand written and signed letter. The guy is BUSY. I mean crazy busy. And he hand writes letters. Who even writes letters now days? You can go to Shane's store http://www.performancemma.com/Shane-Carwin-s/215.htm?Click=1592  buy something and you'll get the letter with the merchandise! 

I just think it's worth noting and making sure the MMA fans (like me) don't take the accessibility of fighters for granted. I think this is one of the many things that makes this sport so special. The next time you see a fighter you should thank him for everything he does since they're so quick to thank us.

Chuck Liddell and TapouT's "Mask" To Be Inducted Into UFC Hall Of Fame

Today, UFC President Dana White posted on his personal Twitter page, that former UFC light heavyweight champion Chuck Liddell and Charles Lewis Jr., the late co-founder of the TapouT, will be the newest inductees into the UFC Hall of Fame.


The UFC Hall of Fame inductions take place this Friday, July 10, at 6:30 p.m. PT (local time) during the UFC Fan Expo at the Mandalay Bay Events Center in Las Vegas. I’ll be there! Hope to see you…

UFC 100 FanExpo - Who will be there?

Today the UFC® confirmed the fighters that will be attending the first ever UFC^® Fan Expo™. The two day expo will be held at the Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas July 10th and 11th. The fighters that will be at the expo for meet and greets will be UFC light heavyweight champion Lyoto “The Dragon” Machida, UFC Hall of Famers Royce Gracie and Randy “The Natural” Couture,  and former world champions Chuck “The Iceman” Liddell, “Suga” Rashad Evans, Forrest Griffin, and Quinton “Rampage” Jackson. UFC contenders Kenny Florian, Steve Cantwell, Shane Carwin, Marcus “The Irish Hand Grenade” Davis, Tyson Griffin, Clay Guida, Dustin Hazelett, Keith “The Dean of Mean” Jardine, Anthony “Rumble” Johnson, Martin “The Hitman” Kampmann, Josh Koscheck, Joe Lauzon, Junie Browning, Nate Marquardt, Gray Maynard, Karo Parisyan, Diego “Nightmare” Sanchez, Sean Sherk and Mike Swick will also be meeting fans, along with The Ultimate Fighter winners Nate Diaz and Efrain Escudero.

 Fans of the PRIDE Fighting Championships will have the chance to re-live the excitement of Japan’s classic organization as well, with MMA icons Renzo Gracie and Gary Goodridge being joined by “The Texas Crazy Horse”, Heath Herring, and Brazilian superstars Wanderlei “The Axe Murderer” Silva and Mauricio “Shogun” Rua.

And if that’s not enough MMA star power, the premier fighters of the WEC will be on hand to sign autographs, with current champions Miguel Torres, Mike Brown, and Jamie Varner sharing the convention center floor with Urijah Faber, Jens Pulver, Brian Bowles, Joseph Benavidez, Donald Cerrone, Leonard Garcia, Ben Henderson, and Alex Karalexis.

For a list of bars/restaurants showing the historic UFC 100 Pay Per View event - check out this link.

Styles Make Fights (boring sometimes)

We’ve all heard the old adage, “styles make fights”, but they never told us “sometimes styles make fights boring”. Styles make fights… That’s what made the UFC and MMA so damn appealing and fun when it first hit the scene. We had the striker versus the wrestler, the striker versus the Jiu Jitsu practitioner and so on. It was the ultimate test of styles to answer the age old question of “who would win between…”

Years later, with the demise of the one dimensional fighter, styles are far more complex and thus so are the fighters’ game plans. Gone are the days of just keeping the fight standing or simply taking the fight to the ground. After watching Anderson Silva destroy so many fighters with his striking, everyone’s game plan was to get the fight to the mat. However, Travis Lutter and Dan Henderson found that game plan to be detrimental to their title aspirations.

Fast forward to Silva’s most recent fight against Thales Leites. First and foremost, everyone knew Leites’ plan would be to get the fight to the ground, both because he’s great on the ground and because Silva is so dangerous on his feet. Typically a wrestler would get a striker to the ground by taking advantage of an over-aggressive combination, but that doesn’t happen too often with Silva because he’s a counter-puncher. So should Leites press the action with his striking in order to set up the takedown, thus risking getting knocked out via counter strikes, a la Chris Leben? It’s quite the dilemma for an Anderson Silva opponent.

But why should all the responsibility to push the action fall on Leites’ shoulders? What about Silva’s responsibility to push the action? Should he be more aggressive with his striking and possibly leave himself vulnerable to the takedown? According to Franklin McNeil on ESPN’s MMA Live, he thinks the challenger has the responsibility to press the action and take the belt from the champ. I don’t disagree that the challenger has to go and take the belt, but I also don’t believe he should throw his game plan and years of work to get to that fight out the window just because the fight isn’t exactly a barn burner.

 

Although neither fighter was very aggressive or impressive, ultimately I would have to say I was more disappointed in Silva’s performance. He’s clearly a more dominant striker, yet he continuously waited for counter punching opportunities as opposed to being an offensive striker. It’s not like Silva has terrible jiu jitsu, he’s submitted some great fighters, so going to the ground with Leites shouldn’t have been that scary. In fact, Leites has only won 3 of his 7 fights in the UFC by way of submission. Whereas 5 of Siva’s 9 UFC fights have ended via strikes (I’m not including his victory of Lutter because it was finished on the ground, even though Lutter tapped due to elbow strikes). When the fight did go to the ground, Silva avoided any damage and was able to escape.

At the end of the day, styles do make fights but they don’t always make them exciting. A counter striker won’t be much fun to watch unless he’s fighting someone that pushes the action against him. In Anderson Silva’s case, I’m not sure there are too many exciting fights for him at middleweight in the UFC, I think he’s going to have to move up to light heavyweight again in order to get a real challenge and earn back the respect of the fans.

The next question we have to ask is not of the fighters, but of the fans. Are we the fans willing to put up with a fight that is not very exciting because of the game plan required by those fighters? Is it really any different than watching your favorite football team run the ball every down in order to eat up the clock and pull out a victory? After all, if the NFL teams aren’t judged on style points, it’s all about winning, regardless of how exciting the game may be.

ESPN's MMA Live: Recap of UFC 97

Here's this weeks version of MMA Live, where the team recaps the performances and fights from UFC 97. The team is joined by Frank Mir from Las Vegas!

First up, who's to blamefor the boring fight between Anderson Silva and Thales Leites? Does Silva have a responsibility to be more aggressive since he's the champ? Or does Leites have a responsibility to come and take it away from the champ? And speaking of responsibility, do the fighters have a responsibility to put on an entertaining fight for the fans, even if that means ignoring an obvious game plan and strategy? You may be surprised to hear how the MMA Live team disagree on this issue!

And what about Chuck Liddell's fight against Shogun? Is Shogun back to his PRIDE dominance? Should Chuck be forced to retire? Frank Mir weighs in here.

And what does Frank Mir think of Cheick Kongo's performance? And who will be the next heavyweight in line for a title shot after Brock and Frank unify the title?

Hear from Pat Miletich run through the latest WAMMA rankings.

Best line of the show though... Kenny says that Jon Anik "isn't really familiar with the information super-highway". Hilarious! Great job guys!

Chuck Liddell

The dust from Saturday's UFC 97 has almost settled. Many people are talking about the main event and how it left a lot to be desired. Controversy similar to that of the GSP BJ Penn match up. And while I care, I just don't think it would be appropriate for me to overshadow the history made with Chuck "The Iceman" Liddell.

April 18th 2009 was Chuck's last fight, at least in the UFC. Dana White hasn't been shy about going on record saying “You're never going to see Chuck Liddell on the canvas again. At the end of the day, I care about these guys. I don't want to see anybody stick around too long.” As good as saying, ‘Chuck, that’s it. It’s all over’.

You can say what you want about Chuck, but he's one of the most successful and decorated fighters. He won the Light Heavyweight Title by beating another legend, Randy Couture. He then went on to defend the title four times and lost it on the fifth attempt. He was the first fighter to grace the cover of ESPN the Magazine.

Whether it be in the octagon, the back office for Zuffa or in the crowd, Chuck will always be known as a legend, one that could draw a crowd regardless of who he was set to fight. His blue shorts and haymakers will never be forgotten.

While I can't imagine Chuck ever fighting for another organization, I admit it would be sort of interesting to see him fight Tito Ortiz in Strikeforce... One can wish.

Chuck Liddell UFC 97 Bound - Video

Chuck's version of the vlog. Here he is wrapping up training in SLO before he heads to Montreal. And everyone deserves to be pampered before a big event!