UFC 79 Nemesis this past weekend was an amazing MMA event with great hype of Chuck Liddell vs Wanderlei Silva for general MMA public and a real treat to MMA's more serious fans in a rubber match between two UFC's, and MMA's for that matter, welterweight greats Georges St. Pierre vs Matt Hughes.

At the end of round on during St. Pierre's total domination of Matt Hughes, St. Pierre passed Hughes guard to gain the mount position. Hughes employed a pretty standard defense from the bottom of a tight bodylock with both underhooks. There was only a minute left in the fight and I'm sure he was relatively safe there. Hundreds of fighters used the same defense with good rate of success. For the fighter on top, it is hard to land any meaningful strikes until the bodylock is broken up and usually when the top fighter tries to break up bodylock there are opportunities for a scramble or at least avoiding the damage.

Well, while Matt Hughes unsuspectingly hung on to St. Pierre to ride out a bad position till the end of the round, St. Pierre proceeded to debut a new stunningly effective slamming move on Matt Hughes's head. I've personally never seen this slamming from the mount before. Just look at the gif on the right! I'm sure it took Hughes warrior spirit right out and made him think of the living death (famous Ken Shamrock threat to Cheato Ortiz). Anyways....

In hindsight and in slow motion, it looks like Hughes could have certainly scrambled out of there if he let go and tried to underhook one of St. Pierre's legs and spun out of there.  I bet we'll be seeing this move and it's variations everywhere now. Thanks GSP! Man, Enson Enoue must be kicking himself right now when he had Frank Shamrock in the same positions for around 10 minutes. That's Frank Shamrock's favorite mount defense which he'll now have to rethink or hope his opponent didn't see this St. Pierre fight.

What do you think of it? Are there actual names for it?

So, during UFC 79's Tony DeSouza vs Roan Jucao Carneiro fight, Carneiro was throwing a downward pointed elbow strikes from the bottom of guard at Tony DeSouza's head.  He wasn't using them as viciously as Jared Rollins used them on Jon WarMachine Koopenhaver during Ultimate Fighter 6 Finale, but it brought up a quick discussion regarding downward elbows with the tip of the elbow.

Joe Rogan and Goldberg were discussing the fact a lot of people were wondering why downward elbows were ok to throw from the bottom, from the guard for example, but not from any of top positions. Rogan said that he spoke about this to "Big" John McCarthy, the UFC ref till he recently retired. According to McCarthy when the state athletic commissions were reviewing various strikes during making of the rules for MMA, they, specifically banned them due to strong impressions from Karate and other Traditional Martial Arts (TMAs) "effectiveness" of downward elbows for brick and board breaking. Just like most of us, the state athletic commissions thought that if that's what martial artists could do to a bunch of bricks, what kinds of terribly injuries could happen to a fighter getting with with one from the top.  Damn brick and board breakin! How devastating! To think how many millions of people are deceived and misdirected by TMAs still in this day and age. But that's a topic for another post.

I don't have a problem with downward elbows to the body, front and back, and think they should definitely be allowed. Downward elbows from a top position directed toward the face I'm not ok with. A high profile heavyweight championship fight from UFC 39: The Warriors Return Randy Couture vs Ricco Rodriguez. I'm not going to review that great fight right now, but at one point Rodriguez was on top of Randy Couture and threw a downward elbow towards Randy's face. The tip of Rogriquez's elbow landed right on the EYE...Randy asked for the fight to be stopped immediately after. It looked and sounded nasty. It could have ended Randy's fight career right there, can you imagine that? We all, as MMA fans would have missed out on some of the greatest fights to date! So downward elbow strikes should be allowed to the body, but not to the face or the back of the head, in my humble opinion. Oh, by the way, bring back the knees to downed opponent, but that's for another post.

What's your take on downward elbows from the top?

In my UFC 79 quick picks post I picked Tony DeSouza over Roan Carneiro because of his training with BJ Penn camp and him having more (longer even) experience than Carneiro.  It was a good technical mostly ground fight.  Carneiro took the fight to the ground quickly after clinching and ended up on top in DeSouza's guard. DeSouza played good rubber guard (best defensive guard game there is) right into a deep armbar, which Carneiro got out of with some work. DeSouza scrambled into Carneiro's half-guard where Carneiro applied a pretty good kimura. Desouza straightened/twisted out his arm out of the kimura and in the process got into a loose mount and landed a few punches while Carneiro threw him off. DeSouza scrambled back into Carneiro's guard where Carneiro landed a few downward elbows from the bottom to finish off the round. After that round I felt good about my picking him to win.

Round two with started off with DeSouza pushing the action in stand up until Carneiro clinched him on the fence where the action stalled for a bit. The ref restarted them, DeSouza again pushed the stand up until Carneiro took him down when DeSouza over commited with a straight right.  Desouza tried a few things from the guard and then tried to scramble up near the fence. That's where Carneiro worked his way onto DeSouza's back and straightened him out with tight hook and rained down punches. DeSouza couldn't get out of the hooks and the ref had to stop the fight for a TKO from punches. DeSouza complained a bit to the ref but he couldn't improve his condition and Carneiro's punches weren't slowing down.

Dammit, I just looked at Sherdog.com, and guess I forgot that Carneiro is the same guy that gave Jon Fitch, the next best top contender at 170, real hard time and fits during the first round of their fight. I mean he really threatened Jon Fitch with a loss, I was worried till Fitch showed why he's the top contender. Carneiro also beat Rich Clementi.

I can't believe I picked DeSouza for the win. Carneiro is a top notch fighter. But I made the "quick picks" in a hurry. With that said DeSouza did good for a while againts a very tough Carneiro.

Watch out for Roan "Jucao" Carneiro at 170, he's going to make some waves very soon.

While other big media are covering UFC 79 in their special MMA/UFC sections, Yahoo.com are ahead of the pack and directing front page traffic to their own MMA section. They're recognizing the growing popularity of UFC/MMA and that it is big.

Wow, so UFC 79 was one of the better events for UFC in 2007. UFC 79 had lots of great hype, several high profile match ups and the fights that mattered definitely delivered. In my last post I quickly made the picks, let's see how I did.

Georges St. Pierre vs Matt Hughes - St. Pierre by Armbar (MMA Ninja UFC 79 picks: 1-0) I picked St. Pierre to win, because he was already in shape, was actually hoping for a match and him getting refocused on training and having fun doing it. I thought he would decisively beat Hughes, however, I did not expect him to completely steam roll through Hughes like he did tonight. It was amazing to watch! Even when Hughes had two chances for takedowns, St. Pierre still got out and to add insult to the injury threw Hughes with a high amplitude throw before finishing with an armbar from a kimura attempt. If Matt Serra was afraid to fight with Matt Hughes, he must be absolutely terrified of having to face him now. Matt Serra should retire and let St. Pierre fight Jon Fitch (the only serious contender at this point at 170)

Chuck Liddell vs Wanderlei Silva - Liddell By Decision (MMA Ninja UFC 79 picks: 1-1) I like both Liddell and Silva, but for this fight I liked Silva better. I really thought Silva did good by keeping his cool and inched forward or let Liddell come to him. It quickly became apparent how much longer Liddell's arms were, he had a clear advantage. Silva would have landed many more punches than he did, IF  he could actually reach with them. He had his moments too when he knocked chuck down with a punch, but didn't follow up. He could have gotten on top and take round 2. Chuck was landing lots of straight punches and was generally on for this fight. Is he next in line for Rampage vs Griffin winner?

Eddie Sanchez vs Palelei - Sanchez by TKO (MMA Ninja UFC 79 picks: 1-2) Having never seen Palelei I picked him solely base on his size and the fact that he looked to be in better shape than Sanchez. He also had 10 inch reach which he did zero with. Sanchez beat him up good though, landed some sweet uppercuts to bring down the bit outta shape loof.

Lyoto Machida vs Thierry Sokoudjou - Machida by arm-triangle choke  (MMA Ninja UFC 79 picks: 1-3) Sokoudjou's people must have listened to the people from all the mma forums and bloggers who encouraged Keith Jardine to come out to the "techno viking" music for his next fight. Well, Sokoudjou came out as a Predator because of this picture. How smart was that? Too bad he fought Machida who threw Sokoudjou off, like every one else he fights, and picked him apart till he knocked him down and choked him with arm-triangle choke.  Unfortunately for Machida with Chuck winning, his chances of a title shot are very distant now, probably at least a year. Should he fight Jardine?

Rich Clementi vs Melvin Guillard - Clementi by rear naked choke (MMA Ninja UFC 79 picks: 2-3) Gotta say that these two guys really created some great tension right before the fight. Clementi got through a few dangerous moments of Guillard's striking and over matched Guillard on the ground to sink in body triangle and rear naked choke for submission. He took the fight more personal than any other and really showcased his persona by telling Guillard to "get the hell outta" UFC. He just guaranteed himself several more fights just for mocking Guillard after beating him.

Manvel Gamburyan vs Nate Mohr - Gamburyan by ankle lock (MMA Ninja UFC 79 picks: 3-3) I was pretty much what I thought it was going to be like. Gamburyan took Mohr down, did a bit of ground and pound, then finished with a straight ankle lock. Though I think it was from Mohr hurting his own knee by trying to push his upper body on top while his leg was stuck with Gamburyan. Either way I doubt it would affect the outcome.

James Irvin vs Luis Artur Cane - Irvin by DQ Not going to count this fight as a wrong pick yet. Picked Cane and Irvin getting kneed in the head to win....I'll have to watch the fight first.

Dean Lister vs Jordan Radev - Lister by decision (MMA Ninja UFC 79 picks: 4-3) Will have to see the fight to comment, but I suspected Lister would take it.

Roan Carneiro vs Tony DeSouza - Carneiro by TKO (MMA Ninja UFC 79 picks: 4-4) Wrong pick.

Mark Bocek vs Doug Evans Bocek by Decision (MMA Ninja UFC 79 picks: 4-5) Another wrong guess.

So I didn't have the best night as a far as picking the fights for UFC 79. I picked only 4 outcomes right out of 9 fights. One excuse I'm going to put forth is that I haven't seen some of the fighters before. I'll comment on the undercard fights after I'll watch them.

UFC 79 was a great event to finish up the year. Few things to take away from the event:

• 155 division is one of the most exciting divisions and it stacked with exciting fighters. Clementi is a great part of the mix
• Lyoto Machida is definitely close to title shot picture with shutting down the hyped up Sokoudjou. Chuck and his age will get any chance at the title first though.
• Chuck Liddell was getting the better of Wanderlei Silva. Both are still top fighters. The fans won tonight as the fight lived up to it's hype.
• Yet another pair of former Pride fighters', Wanderlei and Sokoudjou, first fights in UFC were losses. It's a definite trend now. Hope they both rebound.
• St. Pierre is an amazing fighter with not too many fighters left to challenge him. Matt Serra's fight will be a waste of time for him, should fight Jon Fitch.
• Matt Hughes should definitely stick around for a few more fights. He should still fight Matt Serra to settle the score. Then he concentrate on writing more of his books.

Doug Evans vs. Mark Bocek  - Evans should take it. Bocek is a bit too one dimensional.

Roan Carneiro vs. Tony DeSouza - I hope DeSouza's training with BJ Penn will pay off, I'm picking him.

Dean Lister vs. Jordan Radev - picking Lister here, I think he'll outmatch Radev once it goes to the ground.

Manny Gamburyan vs. Nate Mohr - Manvel Gamburyan should overwhelm Mohr for the win.

James Irvin vs. Luiz Cane - I hope sends Irvin to the minor minor leagues for good. Picking Cane to win


Rich Clementi vs. Melvin Guillard - picking Clementi's experience here.

Lyoto Machida vs. Rameau Thierry Sokoudjou - it'd be great if Machida won, but I think Sokoudjou will just out wild him.

Eddie Sanchez  vs. Soa Palelei - Palelei

Wanderlei Silva vs. Chuck Liddell - Silva will beat Liddell. His own training camp, nice time off since his losses and couture's gameplan.

Matt Hughes vs. Georges St. Pierre - St. Pierre cause he wants it more.

 

So I just got a chance to catch SpikeTV's "Countdown to UFC 79 Nemesis". It was mostly a good show except for the narrator, but as most UFC's tv shows it'll get better I'm sure.  I think they really got some good footage, quotes and to a trained eye, like myself, lots of insight with some hints as to what may actually happen during UFC 79 this Saturday night on December 29th.

Georges St. Pierre had the best quote of the whole show: "I'm gonna hit him as hard as I can ON his head" - I love it! I really hope he does, even though I also like Matt Hughes most of the time, just not when it comes to St. Pierre.

When asked about the lovely incident immediately following St. Pierre's TKO loss to Matt Serra (who is a prick btw, but more on that later) when Matt Hughes together with Sean Sherk were laughing and hugging each other in cause they were both apparently very happy see Geoges lose in the biggest upset in MMA of 2007, St. Pierre seemed a bit ticked off but said "he laughed...what are you going to do...now I'm gonna hit him as hard as I can ON his head". St. Pierre is such a respectful guy that he's just going to do his talking and laughing in the octagon.

St.Pierre's loss to Matt Serra was good for him in retrospect, he himself expressed how much it grounded him, made him re-focus on his training. He seemed to be really enjoying himself getting better at each of separate MMA disciplines, Muya Thai, Wrestling, Boxing and Brazilian JiuJitsu and combining them for a complete package. This approach has worked for him in the past.

By the way, did I mention, how smart he was to anticipate the boolsheet (wallid's famous words) of Matt Serra dropping out the fight with Hughes and being in shape and getting another crack at cementing his top contender status and beating MMA legend, again? Well, it was very smart of him to anticipate the fight falling through and being right there to jump on it. There are also numerous reports of St. Pierre looking veerry sharp in final days of training.

Matt Hughes...for the record, I really like the guy, he is what some may say a "straight-shooter" (at fightlinker.com for example). He was great on the last season of Ultimate Fighter TV show opposing the short "kofee and kake" prick Matt Serra and now came across some wonderful excerpts telling it like it is to Tim "The Lame-iac" Sylvia from his new book Made in America: The Most Dominant Champion in UFC History.

Back to the UFC 79 Nemesis Coundown. So it looked like he didn't have a good gym to train in or lots of good sparring partners, well except for current EliteXC middle weight champion, man no words, Robbie Lawler. Hughes's thinking when taking this fight was that St. Pierre didn't have too much time to train and would be unprepared, but as everybody in MMA knows now that wasn't true at all and Georges St. Pierre was very much prepared when he took the fight.

I gotta point out Joe Rogan's thinking that if Hughes has a desire to not to just avenge his loss to St.Pierre BUT re-establish himself again as the most dominant welterweight champion, we could, potentially see Hughes become that dominant champion again. Thing is, Hughes has been saying this whole past year that he's almost done with MMA as a fighter and generally portraying himself as not too motivated.

So I think Georges St. Pierre vs Matt Hughes will be an exciting and possibly lengthy fight with St. Pierre fighting smart and beating Hughes again.

Now, Wanderlei Silva...his english improved quite a bit! So now we can actually understand his interviews. There are also lots of other good news for him from the show:

• his head does not look swollen any more and looks almost normal (no more juice?). He also generally looked leaner so his cardio has got to be great
• for the first time in his career he has a whole camp of trainers and sparring partners JUST FOR HIM. So all the personal attention he is getting will be great for him all around.
• the fact that Wanderlei trains at Xtreme Couture gym and I'm sure will have Randy Couture's support as far as strategy and game plan
• I doubt the fight will go to the ground at all, but Silva's Brazian JiuJitsu coach is Andre Galvao. Awesome! This guy is a Ninja! Marcello Garcia type.

The bad news? Well he was knocked out twice in his last two fights, but I don't think it'll be a factor. Silva had a nice long break since then.

Chuck Liddell... good ol Chuck and Hackleman are singing the same ol tune of "Ima gonna knock him out". Chuck said he doesn't get bored with training but he does. His late night outings right before fight nights and same old routine isn't going to do him any good.  Granted Hackleman does put together good game plans, but he also puts together bad ones and can't control Chuck very well if a first round of the fight isn't going well. We saw this with first Quinton Rampage fight in Pride, his first fight with Randy Couture and lately against Keith Jardine. So Hackleman saying that he didn't really see anything in Wanderlei Silva's game they could capitalize on, they're back to same old stuff and Chuck will be bored through training.

I think Wanderlei Silva has everything going for him to beat Chuck Liddell and put himself in the mix for the UFC's light heavyweight title.

More on the rest of the card of UFC 79 in the next post or two.

Oh, yeah, don't forget to check out Matt Hughes's new book Made in America: The Most Dominant Champion in UFC History. Should be a blast!

Finally got a chance to watch recent HDNet Fights "Reckless Abandon" event broadcast on Mark Cuban's HDNet network.  HDNet Fights is yet another new MMA promotion with TV network support and deep pockets owner/backer. I've read both positive and negative on the very HDNet Fights show and was excited to check it out for myself.

While it was a mixed bag of the few negatives and more positives, overall I liked the show and think it has a lot of potential to compete the number 2 or 3 MMA event United States.

Few negative points:

• interviewer Ron Kruck was very awkward on camera and Jeff Blatnik's co-host were was not yet very knowledgeable about MMA
• TKO of the night award was.....drum roll.......a watch, huh!? Event ended so well and taking time out to announce this "award" put an "amature feel" damper on it. Should have showed highlights of the event instead.
• they hype up the "so much to work with stand up comedy bit" between Mayhem Miller and Tim Kennedy and it was not funny...Mayham's Tapout spoof video was definitely funny, but this forced banana stroking and dull dialog was not funny.
• CompuStrike Stats? How do they "compute" all that? Especially Sub Attempts? Do judges see these? I hope not.

Positive points:

• Interviews with MMA celebrities like Randy Couture about his situation with UFC and Fedor, Ken Shamrock about fighting Frank Shamrock and his IFL issues. This is a bit one up on UFC and them keeping PPV paying fans in the dark as far as what's going on around different weight divisions, like never addressing Randy Couture or Sean Sherk situations.
• Getting Fedor Emelianenko's New Years Yarennoka fight broadcast on HDNet. How cool is that! Just shows that HDNet Fights are a secure in what they're doing and not worrying about giving their fans a glimpse of on of the best fighters out there, even though he's not fighting for HDNet Fights. UFC gained lots of resentment from the fans on repeatedly dropping the ball on getting Fedor.
• Event had a decent fight card with many recognizable veterans of MMA. Pete Spratt, Yves Edwards, Edwin Dewees, Frank Trigg and Jason Miller as well as decent up and comers with good records.
• Production quality was pretty good I thought, watching it in HD and good sound, must have been even better.
• Having Michael Buffer announce the fights.

HDNet Fights is off to a good start as they continue to gain experience in putting on MMA events, getting more known/established MMA fighters and build their own stars. I'm definitely looking forward for more from HDNet Fights.

On to the few notable fights on the card.

Pete Spratt vs Tristan Yunker - Spratt is rebuilding his career with HDNet Fights picking him up after 3 straight losses in KOK and UFC.  His stand up looked powerful and crispy as usual. He did good for a little bit defending Yunker's takedown and pulled off a nice reversal to get on top. While on top he established good posture and started landing hard strikes which cut Yunker for a stoppage. Looked like he started to work more seriously on his ground game and it's showing promise for a nasty combo with his top notch striking.

Bit of MMA trivia, Yunker has a win over Jason Chambers earlier this year, the host of Discovery Channel's Human Weapon series.

Krzysztof Soszynski vs Robert Villegas - was an ok fight with some striking and few interesting leglock attempts by Villegas.

This fight, in my mind, will go down in history of the first time (correct me if I'm wrong) a fight was stopped due to a move made popular by the Gracies, butt flopping. I was as shocked as I was happy about the referee calling the fight OVER after repeated butt flops by Villegas in favor of Soszynski. I was shocked and happy when during Tito Ortiz vs Rashad Evans, when the ref took away a point from Ortiz for grabbing the fence, but this was just a great start to putting a stop to one of the least "warrior" maneuver out there. I think all MMA organizations should take notice and do the same. Can you imagine how easy Sakuraba's Gracie Killer job would have been if this was enforced during early PrideFC days? Think about it.

Yves Edwards vs Alonzo Martinez - Alonzo Martinez definately has a greatMMA game with some hard wild striking and good wrestling and he game Yves a tough storm to weather in the first round. Yves Edwards, being an experienced MMA veteran, showed why he at one point was an uncrowned light weight champion. He weathered the fast pace assault and turned it on in the second round with a knockdown and a choke.

Frank Trigg vs Edwin Dewees - a quick fight with Trigg getting a very low percentage kimura submission from bottom of half guard. Good for Trigg.

Jason "Mayhem" Miller vs Tim Kennedy - Tim Kennedy impressed in the first round dominating the standup and doing good from the top on the ground. What's Mayhem doing with his stand up? Does he train striking? It looked pretty bad here as it looked in his last fight in WEC. Fortunately for Miller once he was able to get the fight on the ground and stay on top, he was doing much better and did enough to win the decision.

Up next for Miller is a fight with Frank Trigg. I'm picking Trigg to dominate standup and finishing with some ground and pound, though I'll have to watch their first fight to see how that went.

Good fights, good production, some interviews with news bits everyone wants to hear and stopping fights due to butt flopping makes up for a good event and some nice momentum for HDNet Fights to be an important player in MMA.

If you had a chance to see it, what did you think?

In a recent interview by Gerbasi at UFC.com, Rampage, who fought both Wanderlei Silva and Chuck Liddell twice each, couldn't pick a winner of the bout scheduled for UFC 79.

When asked  a "A beats B, B beats C=A beats C" type question, does Rampage beating Liddell both times and losing to Silva twice mean that Silva will beat Liddell, Rampage had this to say:

“That’s not the way it goes, I guarantee you that if I would have fought Silva both times in the UFC, I would have won.”

Because of the Octagon as opposed to the PRIDE ring?

“Not the cage, the referees,” he said. “I guarantee I would have beaten him.”

Interesting that Rampage said that, I don't think I heard him say that before.  I agree with him on this, but only in regards to his first fight with Silva at Pride Grand Prix 2003 Finals. (one of the best MMA events by they way) Rampage just beat Liddell in a pretty gruelling semi-finals fight and started off pretty good with Silva taking him down early. But just was he was starting to do some ground and pound from the top the referee stood them up! It was a very quick stand up, especially in such an important fight, but I guess PrideFC favored Wanderlei at the time. I think the stand up threw Rampage off and led to Silva, who was fresher after his fight with Yoshida, to eventually repeatedly kneeing Rampage till the referees stopped the fight.

In the second Rampage vs Silva fight, Rampage was ahead and had Silva reeling at the end of round 1, but there Silva was saved by the bell. The referees had nothing to do with, what seemed like, Rampage feeling tired/discouraged in round 2. In the end Silva nicely side stepping Rampage's lunging straight right and catching him with a moster right hook on the nose that basically ended the fight.

So who does Rampage pick? “I don’t gamble", he said. Again, it's interesting that he didn't pick anybody and especially Silva. (disclaimer: I'm a bit Rampage fan)

I'm leaning toward Silva taking this one if he doesn't follow Chuck or....*gasp* takes Liddell down! Silva is very well rounded. He showed a consistently good ground game from the bottom (vs Fujita, Mark Hunt, even second Sakuraba fight), decent takedowns, sprawling and of course his wild striking. He's comfortable everywhere the fight goes, unlike Liddell who looked uncomfortable during completely stand up in his last loss to Jardine.

If you read the interview, what did you think?

Cool video of Wanderlei Silva sparring Shawn Tompkins, via Randy Couture's Xtreme Couture MMA Gym blog, getting ready for UFC 79 to face Chuck Liddell. It was just light sparring. Looked like Shawn Tompkins tried to emulate Chuck Liddell's looping left hook during the video. Hopefully Silva will watch for that and of course the straight right that Chuck throws while backing up.  Silva ran into a few good straight rights in his last fight with Mirko CroCop. I'm rooting for Silva and hope that he takes notes from Rampage Jackson and Keith Jardine and lets Chuck come to him and press forward. Liddell doesn't do too well going forward, at least in his last few UFC fights.