Tim "The Lame'iac" Sylvia is fighting a former PrideFC champion Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira tomorrow night at UFC 81 for UFC's interim Heavyweight Championship belt.  Can't say I'm too excited for the fight, you know, being that Nogueira isn't fighting Randy Couture and because Randy's was substituted by incredibly boring "fighting not to lose" Tim Sylvia.  I'm mildly interested in seeing Nogueira because of all his past glory, durability and experience in taking out a few giants like Semmy Schilt, Bob Sapp and Zuluzinho.  For his debut in UFC he already had to fight a crappy fighter, now he has to do it again.

I can't stand Tim "The Lame-iac" Sylvia. He, his public and private persona, even his nickname, are just so incredibly repulsive and lame. Ever since he started fighting in UFC I have always looked forward to seeing his opponents fight, but never wanted to see him. Even though he did get the UFC belt from Ricco Rodriquez, Ricco lost it without ever defending it to the Lame-iac by trying to hurry the fight up and getting caught. Had Ricco taken Lame-iac down, I believe he'd put him away and we'd never see him fight as much as we had to in the coming years after that unfortunate incident.

The Lame-iac then lost his second title defense to Frank Mir and blowing up Frank Mir hype to incredible levels, who's biggest accomplishment TO DATE is beating the Lame-iac. I share a very similar sentiment toward Frank Mir with Fightlinker. Lame-iac then goes to beat a staple idiot in MMA Wes Sims, who Mir had to fight twice, and lost to then aggressive Andrei Arlovski. After that loss he regroups and collects 2 KO wins over some nobody and a disabled Lion's Den fighter Tra Telligman. After that he couldn't hold all the excitement of fighting on free TV and later admitted that he crapped his pants while getting a boring decision over Assuerio Silva, someone he should have destroyed with ease. He then goes on to get the biggest win of his career by getting knocked down, recovering and catching an over committed Andrei Arlovski to get the heavy weight championship belt.

The Lame-iac immediately starts to demonstrate, and numerous reports confirm, disturbing behavior of wearing the championship belt everywhere and anywhere, like scooter riding, hunting and apparently even during sex. He developed such and unhealthy attachment to it that he held on for dear life to try not to lose it in his next two fights that were widely considered some of the most boring and uneventful fights ever. Luckily for us Randy Couture's itch for fighting again was getting unbearable to him and he fought and dominated the Lame-iac to take the precious belt away and bring some life to the UFC heavyweight championship fights once again.

I recently came across CagePotato's few Top 10 lists, which are a common recommended blogging thing to do, and decided to come up with my own about Tim "The Lame-iac" Sylvia. Since, it's my very first one,so please, let me know how I did with it.

10. The Lame Beginnings

9. Lame Break

 8. Eating a beatiful right hands - The Lame-iacs favorite

7. Crapping your pants on free live TV = LAME

6. Vihicle of choice for the Lame-iac.

5. Playing with guns in your kitchen while wearing your UFC belt = LAME

4. Desperate to fit in your own fight camp = LAME

Lame-iac: “There’s nothing more that I want than to be accepted by you and the rest of the guys.”

Hughes: “You don’t become accepted by buying yourself a ticket to Vegas, following us around while we’re there when no one really invited you, and then crying – again – when Jens calls you out on it.”

Lame-iac: “Is there anything I can do to be friends with you?”

Hughes: “Well, right now I have enough friends and I don’t need any more friends,” I said. “Is that it? Are we done here?”

(more from Made in America: The Most Dominant Champion in UFC History )

3. Talking a tonn of smack and then getting schooled by a 44 year old = LAME

2. Looking like a complete moron = LAME

1. Wearing your UFC belt everywhere 24/7 = LAME

Yes, this is who we have to watch for possibly around 40 minutes plus in two days.......

(reposting this because somehow this post didn't make it to my rss feed)

I was checking in on Fedor Emelianenko yesterday and saw a recent interview he did for his official website fedor.bel.ru. Unfortunately for non-russian speaking Fedor fans, the interview was only available in Russian and it had some, new to me, neat information I have not heard about Fedor yet.  So what's MMA Ninja to do? Here is my professional translation, enjoy it readers.

<<Support of those close to me adds to my strength and confidence, but at the same time adds even greater responsibility for the outcome of a fight...>>

Correspondent: Fedor, first of all, we want to wish you a Happy New Year and Christmas and congratulate you with, of course, the most important for you event - changes in your family and the birth of your daughter Vasilisa. Who let you know about this wonderful event and what where initial emotions to the news of your baby coming into the world?

FEDOR: Yes, it's true, there were changes in my family. Me and Oksana are no longer together: already two years go Oksana and our daughter Masha moved to St. Petersburg....but we keep in touch, I still see Masha and Oksana too. Now I have a new family. I've known Marina for quite a while, and, as many already know, on December 29th our daughter was born.  Marina is the one who gave me the news. Vasilisa was born when we were in Japan. Marina called and gave me the wonderful news. Baby's height - 46 centimeters, weight - 2 kg 600 g. And what were my emotions - of course joy and happiness.

Correspondent: Is Marina also from Starii Oskol? (mmaninja's note: Fedor's hometown)

FEDOR: No, she is from Tula, but very soon I'll be moving mom and daughter to Starii Oskol, I'm just finishing up remodeling my apartment and getting ready for their move.

Correspondent: How are mom and daughter feeling?

FEDOR: The baby was checked out of the hospital, she is with grandma right now, and Marina is still at the hospital, she's having some complications with her health. But everything will get better in time and, I hope, we will all be together very soon.

Correspondent: Is grandma happy that she has another granddaughter now?

FEDOR: Both grandmas are very happy.

Correspondent: Do they trust you with taking care of Vasilisa?

FEDOR: Of course (laughing).

Correspondent: Trivial and common question, who does the baby look like?

FEDOR: She looks like me. Like Marina said "she is a total you!" And I think she looks like me too, my little copy of me.

Correspondent: Were you disappointed that you had a daughter and not a son?

FEDOR: No, not at all. I'm very happy. As far as a boy is concerned - everything is still ahead of us...

Correspondent: One of your fans said something concerting to that "Marina gave daughter for New Year's present and he in return gave her another victory!" With that said we have a few questions. It was your first time fighting for "Yarenokka", what was your impression of the event's organization and matchmaking? How was it different from Pride?

FEDOR: Regarding my present to Marina - while she, of course, is glad to see me win - that wasn't my main present for my daughter's birth. For us, definitely, the baby herself was an amazing present!  Regarding "Yarenokka", I can say that it was organized by former top-managers of Pride together with M-1 Global. Japanese organize this types of event at the highest level. The event wasn't boring, all the fighters gave it their all: fights were interesting, colorful and memorable. They got the fans riled up so much that they were loud non stop.

Correspondent: Your opponent had better physical attributes than you, does the difference in weight and height (Hong Man Choi's 218 cm and 165 kg versus Fedor Emelianenko's 183 cm and 106 kg) significantly affect way you fight?

FEDOR: I felt the difference in size when I tried to take Choi down but it turned out that he tripped me to take me down instead. Then I realized that my weight is not enough and strength is not enough either, so I had to take the fight by mastery. I attempted an armbar. It's important to never forget that in our sport if you slowdown for a moment or thrash around that you never know how things will end. That's why you have to finish a submission from the first try... though in the fight with Choi I managed to finish the submission in my second attempt.

Correspondent: What do you think of the fighting form of the Korean fighter? From what I know he's had some success in K-1.

FEDOR: Yes, Hong Man Choi is on of the leading fighters in K-1. He has a fairly positive fight record there: beating Semmy Schilt, Bob Sapp and Gary Goodridge...because of that  I can say he is a very worthy opponent...

Correspondent: Many famous people came to root for you, Jean Claude VanDamme, world champion boxer Natalia Rogozina, world famous woman-sumatori (anybody know what that is?) Olesya Kovalenko. Does their support help you?

FEDOR: I'm very glad that the guys came to support me...Jean Claude, Natasha, Olesya, several guys from Starii Oskol, few people from Moscow and St. Petersburg...Thank you everyone, it really does help, adds strength and confidence, but at the same time adds even greater responsibility for the outcome of a fight...

Correspondent: When will your next fight take place with M-1 Global and do you know your opponent?

FEDOR: A fight is planned for either April or March, in America, supposedly in Chicago, opponent is unknown...

Correspondent: How many fight are you supposed to participate in this year according to your M-1 Global contract?

FEDOR: According to the contract - 3-4 fights per year, and because the contract is for 2 years, I will have 6-8 fights.

Correspondent: Besides preparing for fights, what are your plans in the near future?

FEDOR: I'm slowly building a house, at the beginning of February I'll participate in Russian Combat Sambo Championship, then mid-February there a President's Sambo Cup... I'll be getting ready for my fight in America and, of course, most pleasant thing I'll be doing is parenting my daughter!

Correspondent: Thank you for the interview. Please, accept our most sincere congratulations and we wish you kindness, peace and prosperity to your family. We hope your baby will be very healthy and that she brings you more joy every day. And of course new a professional achievements in the sport!

-- end of interview.

I thought it was pretty interesting, changes in his family, being a new dad again and his assesment of Choi. While everyone written Hong Man Choi off as a complete scrub, Fedor didn't thinks so, especially after he felt his strength and size.

What did you think?

In my attempt to catch to current events, I made a commitment to myself to finish reviewing Yarenokka and K-1 Premium Dynamite. I started off with reviewing Yarenokka (here and here) and will probably finish some time soon, but after viewing both event I'm going to switch gears here and review some fights from K-1 Dynamite. Frankly, K-1 Dynamite was a bit better event in terms of the fact that there were many more finishes than there were at Yarenokka.

Kazushi Sakuraba vs Masakatsu Funaki (Masa Funaki from here on) is dream fight for many long time MMA fans that were familiar with the Japanese MMA scene that emerged during mid-1990's and grew to being the biggest MMA scene in the world until mid-2000's. Both fighters helped start-up and popularize their respective organizations.

Masa Funaki started up the Pancrase organization in 1993, which is famous for it's special rules during it's early years, giving a start and producing numerous MMA stars and MMA personalities (Bas Rutten, Ken Shamrock, Frank Shamrock, Guy Metzger, Semmy Schilt, Yuki Kondo, Evan Tanner, Nathan Marquardt and many more). Think about this short little list, at one point or another these guys were either champions or top contenders in whatever MMA organization they've fought at the time. Masa Funaki personally built up Pancrase, a MMA organization that held over 190 events, and a big share of Japanese MMA scene in 1990's with literally his blood sweat and tears. He promoted the event, he coached and trained many of the fighters in the organization and fought in just about every show from 1993 to 2000 recording a total of 50 fights and 38 wins over various level of competition but including fighting most of the fighters I just mentioned earlier. In 2000, Funaki faced the infamous "400-0 undocumented" record fighter Rickson Gracie only to lose by RNC once the fight went to the ground. Anyways, history of Pancrase and Funaki and their impact on MMA could take numerous posts, my point here is that in mid-1990's Masa Funaki was one of the better Japanese fighters and legend in Japan. You can check out Masa Funaki in action in his early days in the very few available Pancrase tapes PANCRASE Alive Tour Vol.1, PANCRASE Truth Tour Vol.1 and PANCRASE Alive Tour Vol.2.

Kazushi Sakuraba, while getting his rise to stardom in UFC Japan, is primarily known for his background as a Japanese pro-wrestler, beating up on all kinds of Gracies and some famous BJJ fighters in an entertaining fashion and by doing so helping to propel Pride FC into a premier world class MMA organization till it's unfortunate demise.  He is also famous for valiantly fighting off and receiving 3 spectacular beatings from a now very famous Wanderlei Silva. After those spectacular beatings Sakuraba won a few fights and also received a few more not spectacular but scary beating courtecy of his mis-managers and referees (his fights with Arona and Smirnovas). Spectacular beatings aside, Sakuraba was and is a MMA legend that during his hay day provided fans all over the world with some history making fights and influenced many other fighters with numerous, new at the time, approaches/strategies in dealing with Brazilian JiuJitsu based fighters. You can see some of his legacy making in Pride FC: Pride Fighting Legacy and Pride FC: Pride Fighting Legacy, Vol. 2.

Onto Kazushi Sakuraba vs Masa Funaki fight. I really like both fighters and watched all of Sakuraba's fights and majority of Funaki's.  Obviously Sakuraba had the advantage of having more recent experience and was a big favorite in my mind, but I was rooting for Funaki, him being the earlier pioneer of MMA in Japan and an underdog, and  was kind of worried about this being his first fight in 7 years.  Funaki surprised me, while he was looking kind of stationary once the bell rang his reflexes to Sakuraba's striking were pretty fast. After a slow start of feeling each other other out by a few kicks and jabs, Funaki landed a good body kick while Sakuraba was near the ropes and followed up with a few over committed punches toward a covering up Sakuraba. This gave Sakuraba a chance to take Funaki down into Funaki's guard. When Sakuraba postured up Funaki opened guard and tried to go for a kneebar to please his fans. Sakuraba stuffed his attempt and took his back while Funaki turtled up and was still looking for a kneebar for a short while till he rolled back into the open guard. Sakuraba lightly threw a few punches and stood out of the guard and got caught by Funaki's upkick. Sakuraba was in the position to kick the downed Funaki, after all that's one of things that made him famous, but he chose not to and just engaged Funaki on the ground again and quickly getting the side mount and shortly after finishing Funaki with the most basic Kimura.

I don't know if anyone else picked up on it, but Sakuraba really tried to avoid punching or kicking Funaki on the ground out of respect. You could tell by the way Sakuraba was right after the finish and by the fact that he doesn't take it easy on anyone else.  Sakuraba had a lot of respect for Funaki and what's he's done and did not want to embarras him by beating him up and took him out with a submission, which is a much more honorable way to go out.

Did the fight live up to the dream match expectations? Kind of and no. Kind of because it actually happened and it was a decent fight considering both Sakuraba and Funaki are almost 30 and had very gruelling careers and are past their prime time. This may be would have been a little bit better fight 5 years ago. Funaki would have had a 5 year break to heal and train anew and Sakuraba would have just recovered from his second loss to Silva. With that said, I'm glad it happend and the fans of both got to actually see it no matter the outcome.

No onto another point, Funaki didn't really offer much in terms of defense to Sakuraba's Kimura. He is not alone though, there's been many fights recently where it seems like once kimura is locked, fighters don't get out of it.

The only defense to Kimura fighters are offering to their opponents, this happens time and again, is to lock their hands and push toward the direction from where the kimura is being applied from, which only plays into getting a better grip for the fighter applying the kimura. Usually two things happen, fighter applying he kimura breaks the lock and finishes the move or lets the defending fighter turn to their stomach and take their back.

There is a defense to the kimura that I've known for years, which I've learned from some dude that visited a Renzo Gracie school and I can't take credit for it. So the attacking fighter is in sidemount on my right side and already has a kimura grip on my left hand while I have both of my hands locked. I will push toward the fighter applying the kimura, but only for a split second and immediately turn in the opposite direction (the direction the kimura was being applied), unlock my hands and yank my left hand toward my left side straight out of the kimura grip. Works like a charm majority of the time. Give it a try next time in practice and let me know how it goes. Kimura's will rarely pose a threat to you now. If the description isn't clear enough, let me know and I'll try posting some pics of the escape, or even quick video.