I really hope Lorenzo Fertitta is calling Dana White right about now, starts off with a huge sigh of disappointment and says:

"I should have quit my casino job about a year ago. --another sigh-- I just watched Affliction's , as you called a T-Shirt company's, PPV event and I gotta ask you Dana, W..T..F... Better yet, How TF did you F that up? Why wasn't this a UFC card? Crazy Russians you said? Who cares if they wanted a few bum Red Devil fighters bundled with Fedor? So what? We have bums fight all the time in UFC! I mean, take tonight for example! I wish you didn't have that black mail on me, so I could Fn get rid of your rude "personality" and non existent negotiation abilities. Did you see Arlovski? Did you see Barnett? Did you see Fedor? WTF Dana!"

Anyways, as of now I only caught the few last fights of the event and in short it was awesome!

• John McCarthy is one of the most elloquent commentators/interviewers ever and who comes with the unmatched experience of being "in" the most fights ever. He was always good in interviews, but he was great as a commentator. Why didn't UFC add him on their commentating team?
• Production Quality - who cares!? It's about the fights for me, but I liked the whole "boxing like" atmosphere and the production was pretty good for a first event.
• Celebrities - Affliction by far beat UFC Fight night in this category. UFC had like what? Usher and some basketball dude who was texting instead of watching fights. PFFFFT! Affliction had like a whole part of the show where they showed Donald Trump and announced like over ten+ other celebrities. Say what you will Dana, but "T-Shirt" companies do pretty good with celebrities cause they like "all the cool kids are wearing it" t-shirts.
• Josh Barnett is one the top guys at heavy. It was a pretty good fight and he knocked Pedro Rizzo out cold with a hook ala Roman Zentsov, in a sense that Rizzo fell the same way after a hook. After the fight he said he wanted to avenge his loss to Rizzo from 7 years ago, I don't believe it though. Come on, Rizzo used to be tough, used to. He had way too many knock outs in recent years and since this event was Barnett's return to US and a big deal, he played the revenge angle to get an easy fight. No matter, he'll take other top competition after this warm up.
• Andrei Arlovski was awesome in his third round TKO victory over Ben Rothwell. Arlovski was the agressive fighter he used to be during his UFC heavyweight champion days. He did it all, flurries of puches, kicks, flying knees and leglock attempts. Rothwell did ok for a while but Arlovski kept a fast pace. Rothwell did have a good chance to do some damage after Arlovski's failed leglock attempt, but didn't take full advantage of it.
• Donald Trump is a pimp and I'm glad he's somehow involved in Affliction's  or WAMMA's or whatever event. He was all up Lennox Lewis during last apprentice because he likes fighting. So hopefully he can make an impact in MMA too, especially if this event was any indicator of what may happen in the future.
• Many thousands of Afflictions shirts in one place was making me dizzy. I hope they can scale back on requiring everyone to wear them, especially Fedor's old coach. It was just wrong.
• Fedor Emelianenko is freakin awesome! He yet again proves everyone why he is the number one heavyweight fighter in the world! Cause he is Fedor, that's why. Again when everyone is doubting his chances against an ugly huge and dangerous monstrocity in Tim Sylvia, an effective UFC representative in this case in my opinion, Fedor comes out and punches Tim Sylvia with such ferocity and speed that Sylvia falls where Fedor follows up  to punch him some more, take his back and choke Sylvia out! Fast, furious and easy. About 30 seconds is all it took to dispose of Dana's boy. Dana's next best boy is Noguera who Fedor already beat 3 times!

The stars lined up for Affliction's event tonight, the fights turned out great and they shut Dana's big mouth up with Barnett, Arlovski and Fedor having awesome performances. I don't know who else they have on payroll as far as fighters go, but I'm willing to bet there will be many fighters trying to get involved with these guys. I hope Affliction made good money or please investors to do another event or more.

Oh, ya, I almost forgot a minor happening at the event.  Fedor Emelianenko vs Randy Couture does actually look like a possibility, cause Fedor said he's interested and Randy came out to say he is too and called Fedor a TOVARISH. He messed it up, but at lease he tried. Respect was the aura of that face off. I can't wait for it and will definitely be buying it. If you consider yourself an MMA fan YOU should too, even if you split it with your buddies that's ok too.

Check out and learn Fedor's MMA style from his book: Fedor: The Fighting System of the World's Undisputed King of MMA

I think Tim The Lame-iac Sylvia is lame. Why? This loss to Nogueira is a prime example of why Sylvia is lame.  He could possibly have the heavyweight belt all to himself to parade around on his scooter and M-16 in remote areas of Midwest while listening to snappy honky-tonk country songs. Like in his numerous prior outings in UFC he was fighting a hurt fighter and couldn't not finish him no matter what. It was like that against and injured and hurt Arlovski, against a hurt Vera and again last night against a hurt Nogueira. Only this time it was Sylvia who hurt Nogueira, so it should have been painfully obvious to him that he should just go in for the kill instead of just flailing his arms. He has the size and physical attributes that he needs to hurt people standing and thwart most takedown attempts to keep it standing. What he doesn't have and may never will is killer instinct and aggression to go out there and finish fights without being afraid of getting banged up a little in the process. That's why he is lame.

As soon as the fight started it was very obvious that Sylvia had the reach and size advantage over Nogueira. In the begining of the first round both fighters did some light striking with Sylvia getting more in. Nogueira tried a half hearted attempt at a takedown and pulled guard, which moments later Sylvia just stood out of. Some where mid first round, Sylvia slipped to the left and landed a left hook and right cross combination right on Nogueira's chin sending him down to the mat. Sylvia pounced on Nogueira, landing in his guard to try to finish the rocked Nogueira, but couldn't and eventually stood out of the guard again. While standing, Sylvia failed to land any significant punches again and Nogueira actually managed to finish a single leg takedown and landing in the side mount only to have the round end.

Getting the takedown in the first round probably gave Nogueira some confidence in his ability to take Sylvia down again, but in the second round he didn't manage take Sylvia down at all. Sylvia though continued to land shots throughout the round. In the third round Nogueira gain shot for a takedown and instead of pushing through, he rolled under Sylvia and pulling a half guard. From there he was able to reach under Sylvia's other leg and managed to sweep him. He immediately passed guard to sidemount and moments later went for a step over armbar. Sylvia rolled to his knees and Nogueira switched to an arm in guillotine choke. Sylvia quickly tapped.

Nogueira took a lot of punishment but found a way to win after being nearly out. He is one of the most resilient fighters out there. I was very happy for him and his win, but I'm really starting to doubt his longevity in the sport. I hope these last two fights were just a streak of bad luck and he won't be nearly out again in his next championship defense. Will his recent performances draw out Couture for one more fight?  Or is Mir next in line? Both would be good fights.

What's next for Sylvia? Fight with Mir or winner of Kongo vs Herring?

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.......

I already posted the pictures from Fedor Emilianenko and Randy Couture's photoshoot for Affliction in my previous post.

Following that up check out a short clip on that same photoshoot.

Fedor Emelianenko visited United States this week to meet with Affliction and Randy Couture, check the news bits on that at M-1 Global news site and MMAJunkie.

Fightlinker.com also had nice find on Fedor possibly travelling with out babysitters.

Well the meeting between Fedor Emelianenko and Randy Couture did take place. Hopefully they talked about actually fighting each other and how to go about fighting each other. I personally, as many of you I'm sure, would love to have this fight actually happen sooner than later.

Anyways, I came across several pics from the photoshoot for Affliction. Last one is just precious.

In this week's The Celebrity Apprentice Episode 2, "mega-mma-supastar" Tito Ortiz again comes out on top and stays on the winning team Hydra. Tito again did almost absolutely nothing the whole episode, except for really trying to look like an idiot. I have a feeling that with each episode there will be more and more of that.

This weeks episode teams are tasked with making a sappy TV commercial for sad doggies. Gene Simmons and Steven Baldwin took the lead on the task. Tito also showed some initiative by pretending to be a man-secretary and writing down some note, while other team members actually did some half productive brainstorming. Well, Tito didn't take any notes, look at this pretty picture of his doodles after the meeting. Yes, you're seeing that right, that is all the talented Tito Ortiz doodled down.

After the team decided on what to do for the commercial and filmed it the two leaders for this project made a decision to get rid of whiners and productivity detractors, like Tito Ortiz, for the final editing session. Reluctantly they left and left the leadership to finish the job.

But whiners and productivity detractors, like Tito Ortiz, couldn't let it go be cause they didn't want to go to bed and stormed in like some tough looking punks into the editing room and proceeded to whine about not having any input in the final 40 minutes of editing time left.

That's exactly what the leaders were trying to avoid and like real men sent the whiner out to complain and moap to each other. That's where Tito Ortiz really shined, after all that exactly he was best at through out latter part of his MMA career as a crappy fighter.  While comlaining and moaping, he acted real tough behind the backs of those who told him to beat it, just like in MMA, he was all mouth and no results.

Anyways, while moaping in his femenine whiny voice, he proceded to tell his team mates that he wasn't going to take it and that he "owns a multi billon dollar business" and "that he is not going to leave his LIFE in the hands of others" and not do anything about it. HUH?! He was REAL mad that he didn't get a chance to contribute absolutely nothing to the project. I mean, come on, they should have at least given him a chance to contribute nothing and whine some more!

After the team did win the task of making a doggy commercial, Tito acted way too happy about it and realized that he acted like a complaining little girl and immediately jumped on everyones coat tails and proceded to ride them and trying to high five anybody any chance he got. It got real annoying to everyone quick. Check out Lennox Lewis snubbing Tito's yet another high five offer.

In all seriousness, for every time some one like Randy Couture will amaze casual MMA fans and newcomers to MMA with how elloquent and smart MMA champions can be, there will be a Tito Ortiz on some reality TV show self-proclaiming to be a champion and act and talk like an idiot. Looking at Tito, is someone really going to buy the punchline that Joe Rogan always throws out there about a lot of MMA being a "chess match"?

Till next week...Until then I'll be doing some more serious MMA posting.

MMA is a very popular sport in Japan. In fact it is so popular that on new year's eve several competing MMA promotions, for many years now, hold a "New Year" editions of their respective MMA events. PrideFC had Shockwave, K-1 has K-1 Premium Dynamite, Inoki had Inoki Bombaye. Each promotion goes out of their way to book the most dream matches for serious MMA fans and the most "spectacle" matches with famous sports and entertainment icons in Japan. There are always fights that will please a variety of fans and international audience too.

One of the best MMA promotions ever, PrideFC, is no more, UFC bought out the troubled organization back in March so there was no blockbuster Shockwave event at the end of 2007. But many of the same people that worked under PrideFC successfully co-promoted a new event, Yarenokka, together with a new MMA organization on MMA scene, M-1 Global. M-1 Global has a big ace under their sleve, only the most successful heavyweight fighter on the planet russian Fedor Emelianenko, who headlined a star-studded fight card with mostly Japanese MMA stars like Hayato Sakurai, Shinya Aoki, Tatsuya Kawajiri, Yoshihiro Akiyama, Kazuo Misaki, Mitsuhiro Ishida. Unfortunately, if you haven't been following Pride Bushido events, the later events and tournament were all time MMA's best, or K-1's MMA flavor, you may not have even heard about these great fighters. But that's for a later post.

On to Fedor Emelianenko vs Hong Man Choi.

Most MMA fans must have at least heard about Fedor, but probably not much about Hong Man Choi.  Some may have heard his name promoted vs Brock Lesnar for K-1 Dynamite USA, an absolute disaster of an event, but that fight never happened. Choi's fight with Fedor was to be his's second MMA fight. Hong Man Choi has fought in several K-1 kickboxing events mostly because he is an absolute giant of a man at 7 feet 2 inches tall and weighing in at 360 lb. He is very big but very slow.

So why was an inexperienced Choi fighting Fedor, cosidered by many the number one heavyweight fighter in the world? Because sometimes Japanese fans love drama and spectacle with their holiday serving of MMA. After all, not matter the skill and experience difference, fighting a giant like Hong Man Choi can be very dangerous and exciting for the fans. It's the whole David vs Goliath thing.

Why was Fedor fighting Choi? Well, after UFC closed shop for PrideFC, Fedor had a one-time deal for a fight against a middleweight Matt Lindland in Bodog Fight earlier last year (2007). Then after long and unsuccessful negotiations with the UFC  a brand new organization with a lot of investor money, M-1 Global, picked Fedor up and jumped in at the first opportunity to hold an event when an opportunity presented itself in Japan.

So Fedor is fighting because he actually got a chance to fight and because he is no stranger to "spectacle" fights on New Year's Eve against opponents famous in Japan; an inexperienced pro-wrestler, an big inexperienced really fat guy and an inexperienced in MMA kickboxer. Fighting a big inexperienced giant beginner kickboxer must have felt like Deja Vu all over again for Fedor. Kind of like when he fought that bear that one time...

Anyways, on to the fight itself. Fedor once fought an almost as tall a fighter as Hong Man Choi was when he fought another giant Semmy Schilt, who he has taken down numerous times but it required him some effort. Fedor must have though he could try the same on Choi. When he tried his first takedown after easily closing the distance, it was like he hit a wall and that wall started falling on him. Choi dragged Fedor down and ended up in Fedor's half guard where Choil just held on. Fedor soon worked to get full guard and as soon as Choi started to move to punch from the top, Fedor quickly locked up an armbar. He was unable to go to his stomach to finish the armbar because of Choi's long knees blocking Fedor's head from moving. Choi then picked Fedor with his one arm and was able to shake him off. They scrambled back to their feet. Fedor then lunged in with a nice left hook that landed but again was unable to even move Choi with his takedown attempt. Choi just went down on top of Fedor who again got full guard and quickly went for an armbar as soon as Choi tried to punch. This time Fedor was able to turn to his stomach and finish the armbar. All under 2 minutes for his 6th submission win by armbar, his most used submission to date. Decent fight for what it was, a "spectacle" fight for Japanese MMA fans.

Fedor won as expected. Choi goes back to K-1 to entertain and may be win some fights, but mostly to entertain fans with his giantness. What about Fedor? I'm sure he is glad to beat such a big giant guy. I don't care who you are, it's a personal achievement to defeat someone like that.

Now what? I hope M-1 finds some decent competition for Fedor soon so Fedor can continue his reign by being actually seriously challenged by some top fighters, otherwise, he will fade into history books as a once the most dominant heavyweight fighter.  Then there is also a remote chance that Randy Couture can get out of UFC's tentacles and have a chance to fight Fedor. I, personally, really hope they both get the chance to fight each other.

Also, how cool was it of HDNet Fights to show Yarenokka and Fedor for the MMA fans in US? I now they're involved in some way with M-1 Global, but it's nice that they don't have any issues, yet, about working with other organizations. For 2008, I hope more MMA organizations start collaborating to make dream fights a reality for the fans. A Ninja can dream, right?

Check out and learn Fedor's MMA style from his book: Fedor: The Fighting System of the World's Undisputed King of MMA

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?

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?

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.