UWC's Mike Easton on wearing a speedo: "the ladies love it"

UWC Bantamweight title contender Mike Easton made it on Dan Steinberg's DC Sports Bog yesterday. To say he is quotable is an understatement.

Article highlights:

Mike Easton plans to enter his fight this weekend to the strains of "Bustin' Loose:

"It's Chuck Brown, baby," Mike Easton explained to me over the phone. "It's the Godfather of Go-Go. Since we're fighting in D.C., I had to give the fans some Chuck Brown. Had to."

On his only career loss:

"My arm just flopped backward," Easton remembered. "I'm having a full-blown conversation with my coach while this guy's trying to punch me in the face. I'm like, 'Man, my arm's not working. What's going on with my arm?' This guy's just hitting me in the face....I wasn't worried about him. I don't fear no man."

Regarding his choice of fighting attire:

He wears Speedos in the ring, because he wants to "keep it old school," and because it prevents opponents from finding any fabric to grab when he's using his knees. "And the ladies love it," he added.

And generally proving he's a baller:

He was raised on Miles Davis and Thelonius Monk, loves classical ballet and the District, considers MMA "beautiful," has previously used Mambo Sauce's "Welcome to D.C." as his entrance music, is a "Washington Redskins fan to the fullest," and fights under the name "The Hulk," because, he said, his body somehow swells up before fights.

You heard it here. Mike Easton is the man.

Link to the article:
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/dcsportsbog/2009/02/mma_fighter_mike_easton_all_dc.html

Lee Murray: UFC Fighter turned Multi-million dollar Bank Robber

In 2004, London-born Lee Murray was considered as one of the promising mixed martial arts fighters in the sport. However, he decided to make a career change after a tough fight with Anderson Silva, who is now considered by many as the best fighter in the sport. His career of choice: big time bank robber. You ask what I mean by big time? How about $105 Million? How about being the focus of the biggest man hunt in British history?
The Lee Murray Bank Robbery Story: link

After checking out Murray's wikipedia page, I noticed a section called "Street Brawls". Naturally, I was intrigued so I clicked on it and found out that this man is actually my hero: he finally shut Tito Ortiz's clown-ass mouth: link

Later in 2005, Lee Murray was apparently in another street brawl. This time he was stabbed 5 times and nearly died...3 times. Here is that story: link
In my curiosity I decided to try and find a video of one of his fights on youtube and came across a video of Murray training MMA only five weeks after the open heart surgery that saved his life:

Also on Murray's Wikipedia page is a section called "Film Biography" which goes on to explain that Time, inc. is making a movie based on the Sports Illustrated article about Murray called "Breaking the Bank". Here is the link to the SI.com story about the film: link

Just to give you a sense of who we're dealing with; here is the ESPN E:60 episode that tells the story:



Lastly, I thought it would be interesting to include a Lee Murray interview I found online from late 2005: link
You may not have clicked on the links for the other stories but read this one. It is worth it, trust me.

Jon Jones' Greco Roman Beatdown (Especially for Cam)

Rulon Gardner is somewhere having a hearty chuckle after Jon's performance on saturday night at UFC 94. Jon Jones gave Stephan Bonnar and the entire viewing audience a free Greco Roman wrestling clinic. Since I don't know next to nothing about Greco I'll just let you check out the pictures and gifs.




The word on this one (above) is that Jones designed this move after seeing Tony Jaa do something like it on youtube haha. I've yet to find said video but still his stuff is pretty sweet anyways




all the gifs are from mma-core.com

More UWC Man O War Promo Videos

UWC Man "O" War-2/21/09 @ Patriot Center

UFC 94: St-Pierre vs. Penn II...This Saturday 1/31

Overall Preview: (includes a bit about Georges St-Pierre, BJ Penn, Lyoto Machida and Thiago Silva)



UFC Primetime (Short TV series promoting BJ-GSP fight on Spike)



Interview with Stephan Bonnar--The interview is ridiculous. Both interviews drift way off topic hitting such subjects as sex, masturbation and politics...

Part 1


Part 2

Watch Road to UFC 94 Stephan Bonnar Training at Master Toddys on RawVegas.tv

And Stephan's opponent, Jon Jones:

Mixed Martial Arts Videos on Purefight

WEC question from Adrian

My friend Adrian sent me an IM after watching the WEC 38 card last night about the "unintentional foul" rule that ended the Jamie Varner-Donald Cerrone fight early in the 5th round. Here is what happened: Both guys were momentarily fighting off their knees, Cerrone got up and Varner briefly got into a kind of squatting position but then came back down to his knees. But Cerrone, unaware of Varner's switch back to the position on his knees threw a knee strike to Varner's head and caught him in the forehead. Had Varner been in the squatting position still, this would have been a legal move but with his knees on the ground, it's considered an illegal knee to a downed opponent. This is actually rule #15 in the UFC rules (according to the UFC Rules list on UFC.com). So anyways, since Cerrone only threw the knee strike cuz he thought Varner was still on his feet, the judges and referee considered it an unintentional foul. Had Cerrone done this intentionally Varner would have won by what is called a "DQ" (disqualification), unless he was able to continue, in which case the referee would have deducted a point from Cerrone.

No worries though because there will be an immediate rematch between this two. The fight was great and really entertaining and frankly the WEC doesn't have anyone else worthwhile to throw at Varner. I actually would expect that the WEC is pretty thrilled that the fight was as good as it was because I doubt they really had any other options for a next fight for Varner if he had dominated this fight.

Link to a video of this fight: http://www.mmaimpact.com/jamie-varner-vs-donald-cerrone-fight-video-wec-38/

Fedor vs Arlovski

Too late to talk about it but DAMN is all that needs to be said:

From Affliction: Day of Reckoning...

http://smotri.com/video/view/?id=v82802197ca

also i felt this was necessary viewing:

Lindland was considered a top 3 middleweight before this fight...

http://ballhype.com/video/mmahacks_belfort_vs_lindland/

Get ready for Urijah and WEC tomorrow night at 9pm on Versus!!!!!!!

I'm Back

I know I haven't been very active on the blog as of late but with school starting up again, expect to see much more activity from me. Given that it's been essentially a month since I was posting on a regular basis, I feel like it makes sense to recap some stuff.

UFC 92
I was surprised by the outcome of all three of the big fights. Initially I picked Quinton Jackson to beat Wanderlei Silva so I wasn't surprised by the outcome but I was shocked by Rampage's brutal KO early in the fight.
Frank Mir straight up shocked me with his boxing skills. However, I will say that I was equally as shocked by Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira's inability to defend his chin and at how easily and often he was knocked down by Mir's blows. Now I really can't wait to see how this Lesnar-Mir II fight goes and could not be more thrilled about the matchup despite originally wanting a Nogueira-Lesnar match--seriously, if Nog was getting knocked down by Mir's punches just imagine what Lesnar's punches would have done to him.
I was surprised by the Rashad Evans-Forrest Griffin fight more because of the fact that it only lasted one full round and a little more. Evans is flat out impressive to watch and the more and more fights that I see the more I am impressed by Greg Jackson and his Albequerque-based training camp. For those who aren't familiar with the camp, fighters include Rashad Evans (UFC LHW Champ), Georges St. Pierre (UFC WW Champ), Donald Cerrone (fighting for WEC LW Title on Jan. 25) and Leonard Garcia (fighting for WEC Featherweight Title on March 1). Another trademark of Greg Jackson's camp is the pre-fight nipple twist which is apparently for good luck....(whatever floats your boat).
I also wanted to touch on the CB Dolloway-Mike Massenzio fight and the Cheick Kongo "fight" (more like clinic). First of all, I am one of those CB Dolloway supporters out there, possibly for introducing me to my favorite BJJ move, so I was thrilled to see him win.
The Cheick Kongo fight was ridiculous and brutal..Mustapha Al-Turk practically died before our eyes. A personal message to UFC matchmaker Joe Silva: Please give Kongo someone worthwhile next--please. I finally got my dad to watch a fight and he seemed to be enjoying the build up and was asking questions about the fights but after seeing that Cheick Kongo fight he got up and left. Later he told me he thought it was dumb because as far as he could tell it was just a matter of time before one fighter beat the shit out of the other. I told him that UFC 92 was very unique in the fact that all of the fights were won by KO/TKO but the bottom line for him was that seeing people critically injured is not appealing. I feel like this is a common thought among older men (think John McCain) who see these fighters as young men with many years still to live and don't like the idea of possibly watching them ruin their futures (Al-Turk, Corey Hill, etc). To cap this thought, guys like my dad are far more interested in seeing an exciting technical battle like Griffin-Jackson, but what MMA has going for it with this demographic is that, like a close basketball, football, baseball game, an MMA fight is suspenseful throughout which I know is one thing that grabbed my dad's attention.

In the next few posts I am going to talk about UFC 93 (this Saturday), UWC Man O' War (Feb. 21st), a number of different MMA training camps and the WEC happenings especially in the featherweight and bantamweight divisions (and the brand new flyweight 123lbs division). If there is anything else anyone would like me to touch on let me know.

The Grinch Who Lost The Belt

Ok so Randy Couture isn't really so much of a grinch as he is a stand-up guy but regardless...pretty great costume.

I'll be back soon, I've been gone a while I know.

-ZP

p.s. as usual this is from bloodyelbow.com from combatlifestyle.com

Nasty Nasty Nasty Injury

If you were unaware, last night the UFC had a full fight card on Spike TV and in one of the undercard fights the above injury occurred. The guy's name is Corey Hill and he is 6'4'' and fights at 155lbs. The average height of guys in the Lightweight class is probably around 5'8''. Now this isn't the first time that a guy has broken a leg this way and unfortunately, it won't be the last but you have to wonder if this guy's ridiculous height/weight ratio might have made this worse than it would have been with a 5'8'' guy.

I don't know enough about anatomy to say much about this except that if I knew this guy I would have begged him to move up a weight class. His legs are so long that he's still an obvious target for leg kicks even at 170lbs, so why not move up to welterweight and use the extra weight to bulk up his leg muscles to protect those giraffe-like legs? He still would have a huge height advantage at 170lbs so whats the point? Also, as you go up in weight class, guys generally get a little slower which only could have helped Corey in his boxing. I'm not saying this wouldn't have happened if he was heavier but it's hard to look at him and not suspect that he was at a much higher risk for sustaining such an injury than other guys.

Having said all this stuff about Hill's ability to take a leg kick, I must note that it wasn't his opponent who threw the leg kick in this instance. The injury actually occurred on a leg kick by Corey Hill which means (as you can also see in the picture) that the contact point was the shin, where there is very little muscle on any person, no matter how big they are. But that really doesn't change anything because as I understand it, your bone mass increases as your body mass increases so if he was heavier his shin bone would be bigger, more massive idk the correct terminology but point is that it would have been harder to break.

I know I went on a bit of a rant here but I just feel like this may have been avoidable and now this guy is probably worrying about the next time he will walk when it's possible that as a welterweight he could be worrying about his next fight instead. And dont worry, I realize that in order for anyone to read this I'm gonna have to post it on some other blog but let me have my kicks. (no pun intended)

If you want to see a video of the fight and probably a little footage of Joe Rogan screaming "STOP THE FIGHT!!!" for a few seconds before anyone realizes what happened it's on the front page of UFC.com.

picture by way of bloodyelbow.com

Priceless

This was simply just too good to not post..

"Crooklyn" on mixedmartialarts.com posts:

"So my good friend Jason (president of LGSM) has this beautiful 15 year old daughter. He recently had a dilemma. She wanted to go to her first high school dance with a boy. Now Jason had met this boy once before, and had some impressive guns out to show the kid, sort of like a scare tactic to keep him in line. The boy only found this to be a "protective dad" gesture, and saw right through his ploy. So what's a worried father to do in a situation like this? I'll tell ya. Better yet, I'll show ya:


CB there to do the handoff has got to be unnerving.



The boy was told that if he stood any closer to her than what Bader was standing to him, there would be a major problem. Now THAT is how you send a girl safely to her first dance, IMHO."


Let me explain a little for those who are a little confused:
LGSM=LG Sports Marketing

CB=CB Dolloway, runner up on The Ultimate Fighter 7 and current UFC Middleweight, LG Sports Mktg client and the guy who this site is named after

Bader=Ryan Bader, Finalist on The Ultimate Fighter 8 (he fights on Saturday night), wrestled with CB Dolloway at Arizona State and LG Sports Mktg Client

But here is my favorite part. In the comments section following this initial post, "Mad Xyientist" wrote "that kid should have had Amir Sadollah drive him". (Amir beat CB Dolloway in the finals of TUF 7 on Spike). By itself I didn't really think this was that funny but the picture the guy added later is perrrrfffect...


"Nice to meet you CB. This is my chauffer Amir".

The only thing missing here is the obligatory Fonz-esque "HEYYYYYYY" that comes with that pose. Amir's photos always seem to be great. (one of my first posts that features another Amir photo)

WEC Rankings

New WEC Featherweight (145lbs) Rankings

1. Mike Brown
2. Leonard Garcia
3. Urijah Faber
4. Jens Pulver
5. Wagnney Fabiano
6. Akitoshi Tamura
7. Jose Aldo
8. Cub Swanson
9. Hiroyuki Takaya
10. Josh Grispi
11. Micah Miller
12. Diego Nunes
13. Cole Province
14. Jonathon Brookins

Cub Swanson moves from #10 to #8 with his win over Hiroyuki Takaya @ WEC 37
As a result, Hiroyuki Takaya moves down from #7 to #9
Jens Pulver moves back up from #8 to #4 due to me coming to my senses about him and remembering his destruction of Cub Swanson...I realize that Pulver's good stand-up skills are still enough to overwhelm most of the weight class and combining that with the fact that he's solid on the ground and his wealth of experience caused me to bump him up.
Any other changes are just a result of these three changes...
Note: Wagnney Fabiano and Akitoshi Tamura's positions would have stayed the same without Pulver's move up -- both guys showed that they belong in the upper half of the rankings but didn't show me enough for me to justify a move up.

My first WEC Bantamweight (135lbs) Rankings

1. Miguel Torres
2. Jeff Curran
3. Brian Bowles
4. Manny Tapia
5. Will Ribeiro
6. Chase Beebe*
   
7. Yoshihiro Maeda
8. Rani Yahya
9. Joseph Benavidez
10. Dominick Cruz
11. Charlie Valencia
12. Damacio Page
13. Danny Martinez

*=#6 Chase Beebe is not currently fighting in the WEC but he's a former WEC Champ and I wanted to include him b/c I feel like he might be back in the promotion following a good showing at UWC: Man O War in February

Dec. 3rd Lineup/Upcoming "Fight Nights" and The Ultimate Fighter Semi-Finals Preview

This week is the first of a number of very busy/awesome weeks for MMA fans we can look forward to in the coming two months or so. Tomorrow (Wed.) is packed full of MMA with WEC 37 @ 8pm on Versus and back to back new episodes of The Ultimate Fighter: Season 8 on Spike at 12am and 1am--six straight hours of MMA...
Schedule

• *12/3: WEC 37 @ 8pm on Versus*
• *12/4: The Ultimate Fighter @ Midnight and 1am on Spike (after WEC 37)*
• *12/10: UFC Fight For the Troops @ 8pm on Spike*
• *12/13: The Ultimate Fighter: Season 8 Final @ 8pm on Spike*
• *12/13: Battle at the Capital I @ DC Armory in SE Washington DC at 5pm (Not on TV)*
• *12/27: UFC 92: The Ultimate 2008 on PPV*

WEC 37 is headlined by a Bantamweight Title fight between current champ Miquel Torres (left) and Manny Tapia and is filled with awesome fights. Needless to say, I'll preview this card later today/tomorrow.


Since the UFC and WEC brands are both under the Zuffa, LLC umbrella, The Ultimate Fighter episodes are being shown late so as not take viewers away from WEC 37. Spike will make up for the lack of a new episode last week by showing two new episodes of the show. A story on Spike.com states that each episode will feature two fights (typically there is one fight) which means that the season finale matchups will be set by the end of the second episode, as the number of fighters drops from 8 to 4 (two 155'ers and two 205'ers).

Wednesday is a great day to start watching the show if you haven't seen it before given the number and quality of fights featured and the fact that it's likely that the winners of these matches (and maybe a couple losers) will end up fighting in the UFC in the future, even if they don't actually win the final match. Along those lines, there is a rumor that Junie Browning (right) gets kicked off the show in the second episode due to another "incident" but even if that is true, I am 100% sure that Junie has or will have a contract with the UFC (see Dana White's video blog from UFC 91).
Look for:

• Light Hvy: Ryan Bader over Eliot Marshall in the first episode
• Lightweight: Phillipe Nover over George Roop by utter obliteration in episode 1
• A battle between 205'ers Vinny Magalhaes and Krzysztof Soszynski--can't say who will win
• Bedlam from Junie Browning that will lead to another visit from UFC President Dana White
• Dana giving Junie yet another chance
• Junie to make quick work of Efrain Escudero--possibly a KO

DC MMA: Take Two

Two bits of DC area MMA news in 24 hours...I thought it was impossible. I don't know how this one slipped by me but apparently the DC area will host another mixed martial arts event on December 13th at the DC Armory. The show is called "Battle at the Nation's Capital" and is being put on by District Combat Productions.

Admittedly, I have never heard of District Combat Productions but a visit to their website and Sherdog.com's announcement of the event actually gave me some good insight. First of all, the promotion is brand new and founded by Geoff Dawson, owner of Bedrock Management and Jonathan Reff, an Olympic Taekwondo fighter and trainer at Somafit in DC. (Note: For those familiar with the DC area, Bedrock Mgmt owns Buffalo Billiards and Atomic Billiards near the Uptown). http://bizjournalshire.com/washington/stories/2006/05/22/story7.html

In general, this event is unlikely to be at the same level as the UWC events but fight card does feature a few interesting fighters most of whom are either unproven or new to the sport, such as former Cornell wrestler John Cholish. The one name that did stick out to me right away was Paul Bradley. Bradley is a former Ohio State wrestler (apparently was dirrty) and a contestant on season 7 of The Ultimate Fighter (ended July '08) who won his first fight but was eventually forced off the show after a contagious rash was discovered on his neck.

Tickets for the event are available at ticketmaster.com and range from $30-175. I will most likely be back in DC by the 13th, so I definitely plan to attend. Hopefully it will be possible to get some of the better tickets for cheap outside the armory but I don't know for sure. I will definitely write more about this event in the coming weeks as I learn more about it, so stay tuned.

Also, thanks to Zack and Claire who first told me about this event the other day and proved that I don't know shit haha.