Alan Belcher vs. Yushin Okami

Japanese in the UFC are like Koreans in Pride: not meant to last. That said, I don’t think Okami is going to “put over” Belcher here. Belcher is a finisher when he fights totally inexperienced fighters below his level, but he has trouble with fighters like Buck Meredith and Marvin Eastman. Okami has fought more and tougher opponents, and has never been stopped with strikes either (barring his unfortunate “win” over Anderson Silva). Okami doesn’t have killer instinct and Belcher is most likely bigger than he is, so he might throw the fight away to a big shot late in the match, but I expect him to pull this one out in an unremarkable fight. Basically the Japanese circuits are superior to the low-level American ones. Okami by decision.


Wilson Gouveia vs. Wes Combs

Combs has a much more impressive-looking record here, stopping a huge number of fighters in under 2 minutes. However those opponents are frequently stopped in the first round. Gouveia has won far fewer fights, but has fought more talent than Combs. Look for combs to come out blasting early in the first, gas, and be TKO’d on the ground. Gouveia by TKO in the 1st

David Heath vs. Cory Walmsley

Here was have more impressive records, Heath being undefeated. Similar level of opponents, but Walmsley hasn’t been in a fight for almost two years. Heath is going to GnP him into a submission in the second. Heath by submission/tko in the 2nd

Rob Macdonald vs. Eric Schafer

Rule of thumb: when 3 of a fighter’s teammates have recently been on PPVs, and his opponent is new to the organization and not with a big team, he’s being set up to win and win big. Eric has an okay record but can’t get it going when he faces someone with a winning record. Rob is being gifted here, look for a smash. Macdonald submits Schafer round 1.

Nick Diaz vs. Josh Neer

Usually a late replacement is some random guy from the weightclass below you. In this case, it’s a scrapper with all the pent-up rage of a 15 year old who just got his homework thrown in the mud by the school bully. Plus serious BJJ credentials. Diaz is pissed to be alive, and he’s going to smash Neer, submitting him if he can get the fight where he wants it, and knocking him down if he can’t. Nick Diaz submits Neer round 2

Hermes Franca vs. Jamie Varner

When the UFC actually lays out money to aquire a talented property, they do one of two things. They either immediately put the guy against another popular UFC fighter, for the ‘instant street cred’ of crushing a TUF guy (Anderson Silva) or to boost that TUF fighter’s reputation should they beat the known talent (Yves Edwards vs Stevenson). The second option is they slowly feed the guy better and better throwaway fighters (Joe Jordan and now Jamie Varner) until he is clearly a top contender for the division. Varner has a good record but Franca is one of the best in the division. Franca defeats Varner by decision.


Cheick Kongo vs. Christian Wellisch

Don’t bet against a dutch striker vs an American kickboxer. This should be an exciting fight until Christian gets kicked in the face and falls over. Kongo KO’s Wellisch 1st round.

Forrest Griffen vs. Stephan Bonnar

Well, it’s a revenge match and their last match was a standup slugfest. Both of them are extreme company men, so look for them to try to emulate it for the first round at least. Both of them are durable and only Forrest has knockout power and only then when he really winds up and bombs it, and Bonnar is a good enough boxer to not get hit by any of Griffen’s knockout bombs, so expect it to last at least into the second. If someone is badly cut by then, or otherwise obviously losing the brawl, look for a change in gameplan. Bonner can’t stop Griffen on the feet, and I don’t think he has what it takes to get the fight on the ground and end it there. Forrest is going to come close to finishing him, but I don’t know if he’ll have what it takes to do it. Forrest defeats Bonnar by decision.

Chuck Liddell vs. Renato Sobral


Babalu has what it takes to beat Chuck, but the question is will he be able to? A lot of people forget Babalu is a monster wrestler, which he’s going to have to rely on to win the fight. Chuck’s obviously the favorite, but I think that his luck is going to run out. Ou can only fight so many top guys without losing to one of them. Babalu is going to last until the later rounds, and Chuck’s going to slow down. The question will be whether Babalu is totally ruined in the face by then. If he is, he’s going to die out in the 5th round and get stopped. If Bablu can make it into later in the fight without being too crushed up, he’s going to beat Chuck by managing to take him down and working his voodoo. Babalu submits Chuck Liddell round 4.

Kampmann vs Wallace: Kampmann by KO – never bet against a dutch striker vs. another striker, especially if the dutchman has subs too.

O'Brien beats Midoux: his wrestling will see him through the night

Healy will sub Torres after a close fight

Morgan will sub Petz early.

Riggs will hurt von Flue badly, so long as he doesn't fall into that weird guillotine counter choke he does--Riggs is simply too powerful and too damaging.

Koscheck is going to show us yet again why no one wants to see him fight, and win a decision over Goulet.

Sasaki is going to put up more of a fight than most people expect. He's fought a lot of tough guys. Dean Lister is going to win a decision on positioning and sub attempts.

Leben is going to re-assert himself by hurting Jorge Santiago badly.

Main Event: I don't like Diego. He seems like a space retard. That said, Karo isn't going to sub him. Karo has stopped only one fighter with strikes (the unheralded Nick Thompson), so I don't think Karo is going to lay him out either. Diego is going to end up out-positioning Karo for the win, unless Karo manages to throw him into an injury.

Disclaimer: all of these picks are excluding the possibility of a horrific cut opening up because of elbows. Remember kids: in the UFC, anyone can win at any time from any position.

Highlight of two of the strongest fighters in LW MMA today. Let me know if you like it.

Non-Title Fights, Paper Champions, and Takanori Gomi

Marcus Aurelio has really done a number on the lightweight picture in Pride. He summarily dispatched Gomi in a non-title fight, casting a huge shadow across the belt that Gomi still wears. For his next act, Aurelio took a beating at the hands of Mitsuhiro Ishida, a relatively unheralded fighter that 'experts' who had never watched him fight in shooto gave little chance. So Aurelio simultaneously put himself in the title picture, destroyed Gomi's image as an unbeatable winning machine, and pushed Ishida into the picture too.

What a lot of confusion.

So first, the role of non-title fights. UFC doesn't have them... aside from Hughes/Riggs and Hughes/Gracie. Those were fights we as fans were happy to see, right? That's why non-title fights should exist. Sometimes a guy doesn't deserve a shot at the title, but you want to see him fight the Champ. Big Nog/Henderson is a great example here. It was a revenge match, and one of my favorite fights of all time, but it wouldn't make any sense at all if Henderson had been able to win the fight and had to defend a heavyweight title belt. Sometimes fights have a backstory like that, or Liddell-Horn II. Horn had no business trying to win the LHW title belt in the UFC, but there was a history. Sometimes it's just nice to see the champ smash someone to remind us why he's the champion. This would be Fedor/Zulu and Hughes/Riggs. Don't ask me about Franklin/Quarry because there was no reason for it to happen.

However undeserving of a title shot the challenger may be, sometimes they win. A fighter can have an off night, or they can just fall victim to the fact that at the top level of competition any mistake can lead to a loss immediately, as Gomi found out. Aurelio might not have belonged in the title picture, but he's a solid fighter and dispatched Gomi with ease once the mistake was made. The only sensible solution at this point is to give that fighter an immediate title shot rematch. That way you can't have fluke belts awarded to fighters who had a great night, only to have them lose it to a better man in their first defense, but you have an undisputed champion who's unquestionably the best in his division, like Wanderlei Silva after Wand/Arona II.

If you don't have that, you end up with a paper champion. While the term is bandied about on internet forums for any champion seen as undeserving, it is literally reserved for situations like Gomi is in, where he is no longer indisputably the champion, having lost a fight or received the belt through some other shady means. A non-title fight that has the champion losing must immediately be followed by a title-fight rematch to preserve the integrity of the belt and the status of the champion.

Where does this leave Aurelio, Gomi, and Ishida in the rankings?

To this writer, Gomi is still unquestionably number one with a bullet. His past performances have cemented that. However Joachim Hansen, and to a lesser extent Sakurai are nipping at his heels. He is beatable, but I don't expect we're going to see him taking back-to-back losses again anytime soon.

Ishida has exploded onto the international scene with his impressive wins in Pride. With his sub defense and stamina, it's only a matter of time before he earns his way to a title shot, but he needs a few more solid wins to join the elite. Azeredo is in the same position, racking up close losses to the titans of his division. Have them fight.

Aurelio? While he's earned another shot at Gomi, and needs to fight for the title, I don't expect him to emerge as a world-beater. He's huge for the division and very dangerous, but he doesn't have the stamina, wrestling, or drive to be able to force his game onto elite fighters. I expect him to have some more ups and downs in pride and then move back out of the organization and into the smaller shows. DSE doesn't maintain foreign fighters who aren't contenders, popular heros, or reliable company men.

Organizations in Trouble

Both the major orgs are in some degree of trouble. The UFC is facing attacks on all sides, from ICON in Hawaii, the IFL, the WFA, just to name the organizations buying up fighters that the UFC has spent money developing and promoting. Pride isn't bleeding fighters (the losses of Sakuraba and Rampage aside) and its pockets are still deep, but the loss of their cable contract in Japan is serious business. Today I plan to look at the model each business is using in these troubled times.

Revenues for the UFC are exploding, between TUF, UFN, whatever is going on with HBO, and an increased number of PPVs and growing PPV buys, monopoly rents are coming in like there's no tomorrow. Much of this money is surely going to grease the wheels of further deals, and more promotion, but some of it is getting kicked back to the fighters.

Rival leagues in sports cause this. When the UFC was the only game in town, they could pay whatever they wanted because they were the only ones hiring fighters. Just like baseball's reserve clause, when one has an effective monopoly in a sport's top league, profits go primarily to the owner of the league/team. When players gain power because they can switch to another league/team, prices don't go up (despite the claims of every baseball team owner in existence) the owners just get a smaller share of the profit pie. The prices are invariant here because they've already been set to maximize profit, the only thing that changes is the power relationship between the players and the owner.

That's why the UFC's solution to their problem is so interesting. A fighter like Chris Leben 2 years ago has no power over the UFC, sure he's a solid fighter and a rival league would be happy to have him, but they're not going to get into a bidding war for him. A fighter like Chuck Liddell or Randy Couture, however, did have this power. TUF means that Forrest Griffen sells like Couture. The UFC has created a two-tiered system this way. Couture, Ortiz, Liddell, these guys are getting paid big money contracts, as they'd be paid in any other organization, because that's what they're worth. They have huge drawing power created by their skills, and the UFC has to hold on to them. The odd part is the aforementioned drawing power of Griffen. Forrest is a product, not of his own skill, but of the TUF fighter machine. I'm not decrying his skills, but he is what he is today because he signed the dotted line and the UFC put their machine behind him. The key thing here is his signing on the dotted line. Forrest is a steal now. The guy is getting paid less than what Matt Lindland was being paid, per fight, with that “six figure” retainer spread over 3 years, and he's as big as Ortiz.

We all know that the UFC has many of these guys set up, and it has its hooks in deep with all of them. It owns these guys, and its banking on them for its future. Sure it's bringing in free agent lightweights, a weight class chronically underpaid in every organization, and I'm not going to talk about the heavyweight division, because there might be children reading, but the UFC is dropping Ivan Salaverry and Matt Lindland and replacing them with Nate Quarry and Chris Leben. Another factor worth considering is the reject TUF guys. Bobby Southworth, Lodune Sincaid, half the IFL. All these guys are getting face time and drawing (some) buys for other organizations, on the UFC's promotional dime.

Will reality television really bring in new stars for the UFC, or two years from now will we have the hardest working crew of contenders lining up to get knocked out by millionaire champions, for 6,000 to show. Of course, Rich Franklin will only be halfway through his contract by then, so he'll still be earning less than Mayhem Miller is getting to fight for Hawaiian crowds. I guess we'll have to wait for the proof to come out.

Pride doesn't bleed fighters a) because they have more money and b) because they rehab their fighters in-house. Ivan Salaverry lose on national TV? Toss him out on his ear, if he wins in other people's promotions, Dana White will consider bringing him back. Same with Baroni, Robbie Lawler, Nick Diaz, etc. Crocop get his ego hurt by Kevin Randleman? Pride gives him some pro-wrestlers (or the ever-durable kanehara) in a Bushido show. Granted, Pride USA seems to have chased off Rampage and Bas, but I'm pretty sure Sakuraba was whisked away on a flying carpet of yen notes in large denominations. Prides' problem is needing to make up for the loss of revenue from their missing PPV contract, without cutting production values too much.

The solution: raid shooto hardcore and sell Bushido. What do Japanese fans like more than japanese pro-wrestlers or judo players? Japanese fighters that have the skills to embarrass foreigners and be champions. Meaning the lower weight classes. It's cheap too, despite being the most professionally-run MMA organization in the world, Shooto isn't overflowing with cash. Gilbert Melendez was paid $3,500 for his win over Naoya Uematsu, and he was the number one contender. His, and other recent signings point towards Pride playing around with the idea of an official 143lb weight class through superfights at contract weights lower than 160, much as happened in the early Bushido shows prior to the codification of the weight classes.

For Pride, the question is whether the smaller Japanese fighters can draw big. Despite the incredible quality of the Bushido cards, more fans buy tickets to see the thundering heavyweights. Will Japanese blood outweigh foreign mass?

My only prediction is that we're in for a serious out-of-the-ring bloodbath on America's west coast. As fans, we can only hope it leads to more fights and more cooperation between top leagues.

WFA: King of the Streets, Lessons Learned

Any serious MMA fan looks not just at the results of an event, but at what each performance means for the future of the fighter and the fight game in his weight class. Thus, I am going to make this a regular series after I'm able to complete each event.

The Event: The sound quality (and lack of commentary) during the fighter walk-ins was jarringly like watching one of those youtube videos of Jens Pulver filmed by Eddie Pulver in the stands at Cattle Congress: Extreme Cagefighting, but production values were okay other than that. It was very pleasant to hear the fight professor's velvety voice again. Goldberg is okay for some color once he loosens up, and the third man is obviously an excellent commentator with no MMA experience. Hopefully Quadros can hang with those guys and bring them up to speed and they could form the best announcing team in MMA. (Hardly a feat). The ring announcer guy is forgetable, but Bruce Buffer has just been pounded into my skull through repetition.

I can't commentate on the dark matches as I don't exactly get press passes right now, but a first round knockout is always nice. The Beastman isn't the greatest fighter in the world but he always shows up to fight and is genuinely pissed about it too. Someone should really have the Beastman fight James Irvin as the first live fight on a PPV card. The UFC absolutely wasted Irvin giving him the matchups they did. 1-dimensional striker vs. wrestler? Come on, give us 1-dimensional striker vs. brawler, nothing like seeing a clean knockout by two guys who aren't anywhere near title contention just to get the juices flowing.

Razor Rob McCullough over Harris Sarmiento by Decision (Leg Kicks)

155 is the most stacked division in MMA right now, with Shooto, Pride, K-1 Heroes, and the UFC all churning out awesome talents. Rob's striking was incredibly sharp here, although he did play it safe, he's at the stage where he needed a win and he was really beating his man up and moving forward almost the entire fight. Harris didn't do anything so the knockout didn't come to Rob, and chasing it would have been foolish. Find a brawler and match him with Rob and you're going to see a great match.

Ricco “Meatloaf” Rodriguez def. Ron “Really Strong” Waterman TKO (right hand bombs X 20)

Ricco was never an incredible athlete. He was extremely skilled. Now he's really fat. Waterman is really strong (I'm still horrified by the kimura he put on Randleman). Apparently now Waterman is also slower than Sakuraba after a tussle with Wanderlei. Ricco showed he still refuses to train properly for a fight, and Waterman can't make any kind of reaction until after the punch has landed and Ricco has stepped away. At first I thought Waterman was just being a tough guy and eating punches Mark Hunt style but he really just couldn't react to Ricco's speed. That's right the Ricco who was surprised when he weighed in at 298lbs and said “Hey, I lost weight.” Was too fast for Waterman. On a side note, Ricco's flying knee could have killed a man, what with 1200 quarter pounders (with cheese and extra pickles) behind it. This fight had all the depth of a UFC Heavyweight division fight.

Ivan Salaverry def. Art Santore KO (ninja skills)

Art couldn't hit Ivan in this match. Ivan used distance and footwork worth of an olympic fencer to prevent anything from touching his weird-looking head, while peppering Art with all manner of strikes. Ivan is really someone the UFC should not have let go, and they aren't going to get him back unless they start a bidding war with the WEC. For information on bidding wars in rival leagues, refer to chapter 8 of Pay Dirt by Quirk and Fort. Ivan made a talented fighter look awful here, as he tends to do when he wins. He kept plugging away with those awkward high kicks until he snuck one in, only to follow it with a very nice combo. Ivan is a competent, skilled striker with excellent footwork. He's not going to outstrike the best strikers in his division, but he can most likely outgrapple them if he can take it to the ground. Santore has the limited boxing skills of Dan Henderson without the killer instinct, tougher-than-nails body, and lead right hand to make up for it on the feet.

Jason Miller def Lodune Sincaid Submission (banana slamma)

Jason Miller has several screws loose, and he's great to watch. The UFC paid him 2,000 bucks to get his face turned inside out by GSP, and cut him loose. If they want to do a successful show in Hawaii they're going to have to shell two hundred times that much to get him back. Smart move Dana. In this fight, Lodune seemed confused by what was happening to him, much as I imagine many of Miller's dates in highschool felt. I doubt Miller opened those dates with a chute-boxe impression followed by a back-mount bonanza. Miller may not be the absolute top of his division (whatever division that IS, Joe Riggs Junior) but he's a big draw, a surefire entertainer, and hardcore fans approve of him more than Tank Abbot and Ken Shamrock combined. Although I will never tire of seeing Tank KO'd or subbed. Paging James Irvin.

Ryoto Machida def Vernon “Tiger” White decision (Shotokan Side Stance)

Ryoto was born to a karate master and put in a time capsule at the age of 17, then emerged to fight journeyman Vernon White with a classic side-stance karate style. Whereas Ivan Salaverry nimbly pranced out of all harms way, Ryoto kept his hands low, dropped both hands whenever he threw anything, and simply ran away from the slower Tiger whenever he tried something. Ryoto mixed it up with what is apparently his money punch, a blindingly fast straight left. To finish or hurt Vernon he was going to have to really beat on the man, and that wasn't going to happen. Vernon looked tough and game, but wasn't aggressive enough to force the Karate Master to get anything started, mostly seeming confused and unable to effectively land.

Bas Rutten def Replacement Fighter TKO (paycheck)

Warpath entered this fight afraid, and took shots to the face in the way only a pro-wrestler can. He knew he'd done his job and laid down once he really started to get a beating. Bas looked very sharp and powerful, but with the injuries he got just training for this fight, he might really need to fight off his incredible warriors spirit and sit back in the broadcast booth for good. Bas, you don't have to prove anything to anyone, don't take another fight unless it's against Rickson or Ken Shamrock. You've still got it, but your body probably can't take it. Step out of the fight game while it's your choice.

Quinton Jackson def Matt Lindland Decision (fight)

Traditionally a rival league's best chances of success are if it can lure away the oppositions best players with higher salaries and move into a city with a demand for the sport that isn't fufilled by the current league. In the case of the WFA, they just need to wait in the locker room after a UFC event and say “hey, you're not in the UFC anymore because you offended Dana white/lost once (whatever happened to building a fighter as a draw through fights and not reality tv shows)?/got paid 2,000 and had to go back to being a plumber. Lindland is another big loss to the UFC. He can fight slow fights, and he ALWAYS fights ugly fights, but he can fight good fights with the proper matchmaking, and I KNOW the UFC has a great matchmaker who could set it up for them. The sherdog crowd is going to dog Rampage because he didn't rip off lindland's head and shit down his neck. And they're going to continue to dog him until he kills Liddell and Wanderlei in a 2 on 1 handicap match. He's the new Alistair Overeem – the talented fighter everyone loves to hate.

Styles make fights. Rampage wins by using powerful basic standup combined with a powerful and dominating clinch wrestling game. CLINCH WRESTLING you know, like Greco-Roman style. Lindland was able to slow this to a crawl and sneak in many sneaky sub attempts (how many times has rampage been caught in a guillotine (I'll tell you: every fight he's ever in, and never subbed by one. How many times has he been caught in a Kimura (every second fight he's in, and never subbed by it.) Lindland came close to finishing both those and the RNC, because he has more technical grappling. Rampage was really only saved by his strength and agressiveness. If you watch closely you'll see Rampage had about 30 seconds total where he didn't have Lindland all over him like the rash Lodune Sincaid is going to get from Mayhem Miller. In those 30 seconds, page threw about ten strikes (including a flying knee) and socked the creepy-looking farmboy good with about half of them. And sherdoggers say 'page has lost his killer instinct. The man gutted out of sunk-in subs and tried to kill his opponent by any means possible, and even cut a decent promo after the fight. Put page in with another striker, or a grappler who isn't a silver medalist, and you'll see someone take a ride on the pain train.

And have Lindland fight Rich Franklin. Fuck you Dana White, the ugly bastard has earned it and more. What does he have to do, kill Nate Quarry in the parking lot 30 minutes before airtime?

You don't even need to know any Korean.
Click to enlarge.

Fujita Vs. Silva
Oh boy oh boy.

Unstoppable force vs. Immovable object. Although a more apt comparison would be "a fighter whose will to fight is only matched by his aggression" vs "a fighter whose will to fight is only matched by his skull's thickness".

Neither one of these guys will quit. Look at any number of silva fights, where he's been smashed right in the face, dropped, yet kept trying to kill the other guy. The best one is the shot Tito dropped him with, because it seriously looks like silva is about to try to bite off his ankles after face-planting. The guy will fight you until you make it physically impossible for him to do it. Same thing with Fujita; he's never been stunned like Silva has, but he's walked through vicious prolonged beatings vs. shamrock and thompson, and eaten monster shots from fedor and crocop. This fight could get ugly, with silva slowly smashing all the skin of fujita's face and fighting a screaming skull. Or Fujita could just deliver another brutal mugger beating like he did to Sapp, or just stretch silva like happened to Ibrahim.

Both of these fighters bring an incredible amount of power to the table.

Wand's power punching power and ruthlessness are off the scale. Knocking out Quinton Jackson is no mean feat, as many people forget. Rampage is a guy who took huge shots from Kevin Randleman (who has massive punching power if not technique, ask Ninja or Crocop) and Igor (nothing need be said) and kept fighting--even in the Shogun stoppage his head was clear, he just gave up due to his rib injury. And Kondo has only been finished in a couple of his 70+ fights. Silva does this by simply beating a man with everything he can, until that man stops moving. Silva punches extremely hard, and anyone who doubts that he can stop any man in the business given the chance (Hunt and Noguiera included) is a fool. Fujita may have a hard head, but he's still mortal, and an accumulation of strikes will put him out of this fight if he lets Silva tee off. And he just might, lacking a defense other than his football-helmet like head and wrestling ability. It's become fashionable to criticise silva's aggression after his fights with Arona, but it is extremely difficult to fight aggressively when a man is pining you to the floor as hard as he can. Which may happen again vs. Fujita, given the Yvel fight. Put Silva in there with a BJJ guy with no wrestling or an inferior striker, and he will throw until his arms fall off, I guarantee.

Fujita's power is his strength and arm power. This guy muscled SAPP around the ring, and stood up to James thompson too. He will just keep coming at guys and grab hold of them, making them deal with his strength, until he has worn them down and can smash them with an extremely primitive array of strikes that look like the monkey smashing the other with a bone in the "Dawn of Man" segment of 2001: A Space Odyssey. You know I'm right. It's hard to gauge against a monster like Thompson, but in his last fight Fujita didn't seem to have the same kind of strength he used to, weighing in a good deal lighter too. Silva is extremely strong for a middleweight, but I think Fujita is still going to have little problem powering him around the ring, especially given that Silva's wrestling is about on par with Noguiera's.

The thing so many people ignore about Fujita is that he has extreme KO power. Look at what he did to Fedor's head in slow-motion, or the punch that finally put down Thompson, or the one that nearly killed Ibrahim. All of those punches were thrown starting down at Fujita's hip, but he didn't turn into them or use his leg strength. He simple picked up his hand, and used his awesome upper body strength to sling it to the other side of the guy's head. This guy can KO a man easily, and he's hard-nosed enough to punch through punches and rely on his chin. It's entirely feasible that we see Wanderlei dropped by such a punch and then hammerfisted into unconciousness.

However I feel the most likely outcome is that Wanderlei uses his superior speed to set up strike after strike, and unloads an unholy barrage to eventually stop the fight, either on a cut or a TKO, when Fujita gets disoriented and doesn't defend himself. I do not expect him to knock Fujita out cold, although of Fujita finishes him, that's how it's going to be. If this becomes a brawl, both men have suffered massive cuts before, especially Silva, so one could open up again and create another unsatisfying cut stoppage. Given both guy's will to fight, and Silva's reasonable ability to counter groundwork and get back up, I expect this will be a fight, not another Yvel control session from Fujita, and Wanderlei is a finish-or-be-finished fighter when he's not on his back. But we never know what will happen until it happens, and that's why they fight.

The Case for Bob Sapp

In the serious MMA/K-1 fanbase, Sapp is an almost universally reviled character. He's a giant-sized, steroid-using buffoon, he's an untalented fighter, a marketing gimmick. He's a failed NFL player who doesn't train much and gives up easily. Some of this is certainly true.

Sapp is also a man making a living; he was essentially broke before he started with K-1, and he knows he doesn't have the skills to be a fighter when his popularity receeds. So who can fault him for trying to make money to support himself, in any way he can?

But I won't be talking about the human side of this story, that's not why we're here. I would argue that Sapp is good for mma.

First of all, Sapp is a character. That doesn't translate to exciting fights, but it does produce emotional investment in his fights. Fedor doesn't cower and cover up for major portions of his fights, or display amateur-level skills, but he doesn't bite the head off crocop dolls prior to fights either. It's the Tito effect - tito runs his mouth and people develop an emotional investment in the guy. Either they enjoy seeing the brash guy back up his loudmouth statements, or they enjoy seeing Chuck Liddell smash his mouth shut. Keeps it interesting.

However, that's not the reason to keep Sapp around and continue to pay him big bucks. Lebanner is big and brash and cartoonish, and the guy can fight. Rampage and Gary Goodridge are quite capable of playing black stereotypes to a Japanese audience that eats it up, and they are both far better fighters than Bob.

What Bob Sapp does, is what Royce Gracie did in '93. He destroys the myth of the big man. Of course, Sapp is on the other end of the table, so he's like an inverse Royce, but still.

Hollywood loves the big man. The big man is invincible; Indiana Jones can't hurt him with a punch, he has to wait for the plane propellor; Jackie Chan must similarly outwit enormous foes who are immune to his strikes. However, when we see a much smaller Ray Sefo or Mirko Crocop absolutely blasting Sapp, it means that training is still better than size. For one, it establishes the guys who beat the Beast as certified badasses. Look at the respect that Minotauro gets for his absolutely incredible performance vs. Sapp. It's good to see our favorite fighters tested by a force of nature like Sapp.

He isn't just a freakshow--he brings freakshow talents in with him- his incredible size and strength. He's a danger to anyone they put in the ring with him-ask Hoost. (dodgy officiating aside, Hoost was in rough shape). A Sapp fight isn't going to be a technical masterwork, but it WILL be impressive, no matter who wins.

He deserves to be there more than a lot of warmed-over TUF failures, or legends who are past it like Sakuraba (We can only hope that K-1 has the brains to take a page from Shooto's book and put Saku in grappling-only exhibition matches or hand him gentler matches than Matt Hamill is going to get). Besides, I think that in the fight game today there is no greater threat than Bob Sapp to Fedor Emelenienko.

So, to start off with. Here's one to boil your noodle.

Have you ever seen Fedor make a mistake? I'm not the BJJ guy some are, so maybe his grappling is more in the Russian style than a tight technical Brazillian style, but still. Has he ever tried something to have it countered, failed in a takedown to land in a bad position? (I'm not talking about being taken down)

Whenever he does anything, he does it correctly, and whenever he tries something, he succeeds. That's pretty scary.

The only miscalculation I can think of is him getting sloppy vs. Fujita in the standup. Yeah I know, real insight there. But still. I mean, Herring swept him once or twice, and Herring has terrible wrestling (both statements are true of Nogueira too), but he was never in a really bad position.

Call me on it if I'm wrong.