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.