As I try to work toward my blogging goal for 2008 of keeping up with MMA news and happenings, I decided to start on that right away and post something really MMA news worthy.

A MMA "supasta" and "antrapranuer", Tito Ortiz was part of tonight's season premier's cast of Donald Trump's Celebrity Apprentice TV show. Whenever a MMA personality appears on TV, even if it's a former paper champion and crappy boring fighter, all MMA news and entertainment outlets still report it like something extremely important and it's possibility to doing wonders for general public accepting MMA and treating it with respect.

Well, I'm happy to report that Tito Ortiz, very fortunately for MMA, has not spoken but a few words and only when introducing his vile girlfriend (Mr. "Eloquent" himself is still convinced he's got a catch by getting her, what's wrong with his insecure self?). He has managed to not yet make a complete fool of himself on national television and due to his team of other celebrity apprentice hopefuls like Gene Simmons, Steven Balwin, some english prick and "the shut up already, you talk too much" Lennox Lewis winning the first round of the competition. This strategy worked really well for him and he is still on the winning team.

I'm excited to see the next episode of Celebrity Apprentice with Tito Ortiz not talking at all again and hopefully not introducing his vile girlfriend any more.

You know, I used to like Tito when he used to be fearless. But on 9/24/1999, the ever tricky former interim King of Pancrase Frank Shamrock, took Tito Ortiz's fearless warrior spirit and ability to evolve to any degree as a MMA fighter and a person and turned him in to an insecure pile of scared mush that would occasionally even cry after his fights in front of everybody. Frank Shamrock even enabled Tito Ortiz to be able to talk trash in a really high pitch voice that earned him victories over the most dangerous man in the world Ken Shamrock.

Till next week's episode of Celebrity Apprentice with Tito Ortiz!

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?