Affliction 2 Day of Reconing turned out to be a good sophomore effort in my opinion. None of the main card fights went to a decision and most fights turned out great with definite outcomes. If you read my Affliction: Fedor Emelianenko vs Andrei Arlovski picks you know I missed the mark on some of the picks, but I have real good explanations though, I swear!

 

So, I'm going to get the negatives of the show right out of the way because it was mostly good and this can be just nitpicking, though a lot of casual fans agreed with me on these:

• Tito Ortiz is a dumbass. He embarrased Affliction at the pre fight press conferences and continued on with crappy commentating and post fight interviews. You can put lipstick on a pig, it'll still be a pig though. I don't know if he completely blocked out his embarassing exit from the UFC but he was very pretentious in his comments through out the show. I wonder if Donald Trump got him the gig. He is a joke and I hope he get a shot at Babalu so Babalu could embarras him yet again and send him off to whereever Sokoudjou will go. WEC?
• The "Rabid" commentator that went behind the scenes to show Babalu relaxing before the fight and kept calling Babalu "intense" and "rabid". Too bad Babalu was yawning throughout. Where the hell did he come from? Get rid of that joker!
• Extensive public display of poor Matt Linland's waking up after a brutal KO. On thing UFC does good if someone get badly KO'd is not show their wake up process until the fighter is ok and can stand on his own. There was no reason to show all that, especially when it was clear that Linland wasn't waking up well at all. 

On to the good of the show.

• Production was just fine. There were plenty of replays and the show moved along at a good pace.
• John McCarthy - I was very happy to see him and that he is still an active MMA referee. I guess his retirement was only from UFC.  Good for him, I'm sure he is being treated better and doesn't have to deal with Dana White. That along be huge in my book!
• The "Fight Quest" alumni was a decent commentator and should definitely be a mainstay for Affliction.

On to the fights.

Paul Buentello vs Kiril Sidelnikov  - well I was right about one thing, just cause you can hang with Fedor in training doesn't mean you can beat everyone else. Sidelnikov also did not take it to the ground where he most certainly would have done better than Buentello. Why? He only tried for one takedown and it was when it was already too late for him in mid round 2. With a big debut like that, his coaches let him down or may be he just didn't listen to them. I am also questioning his training. Was he just helping Fedor with Fedor's fight and getting beat on by Fedor mostly, or was anyone actually helping him train for his fight? I'm leaning towards the first. Hopefully next time when the Russian promoters pretend they're in it to promote other younger fighters, they actually bring a huge camp of fighters to Starii Oskol, if that where Fedor must train, and concentrate on their improvement and preparation and not just Fedor.

Buentello did ok but seemed to be very apprehensive about throwing more than just a jab. He won so that's all that counts for him. Superstar he is not though. Beating an overweight Fedor's very young training partner is not exactly impressive, especially on the heels of three round decision over Gary Goodridge. Who decisions Gary Goodridge? Not a lot of fighters, they usually beat him very quickly.

Renato "Babalu" Sobral vs Thierry Sokoudjou - this one I was exactly right about. If there was any doubt that Sokoudjou had a few great wins early but folds everytime the going gets tough, he folding to Babalu should have cemented his lack of heart and ability to keep any stamina past round one. Yet again another example of how he gives incredibly hard time to Team Quest luminaries like Dan Henderson, but that doesn't mean he can beat other guys. Not sure where he goes from here, he may get another chance in Affliction, may be. If it's anyone decent, he may very well choke again. Then what? Japan? WEC if he is lucky?

Babalu leveraged his experience and weathered everything Sokoudjou had for him and easily took over in round two. It was pretty painful to watch him going through "show and tell" D'arce choke drill in the middle of the fight cause his opponent just sat there already given up. Great win for Babalu and his confidence. I guess stupid Tito was challenging him during the post fight interview. I think it'll be a good fight for Babalu, what can Tito do to him? Babalu's punching is better, wrestling is probably better and definite edge in submissions.

Vitor Belfort vs Matt Linland -Matt Lindland didn't get a chance to out work Vitor Belfort like I thought he would. Belfort took advantage of the very first exchange and Linland's striking weakness. A precise left straight from Belfort put Linland on the floor and Belfort did great capitalizing on the downed Linland. Four punches later fight was stopped with Linland laying almost lifelessly on the floor except for the uncontrollably shaking left leg. He got cought and should have been way more careful than rushing in with his weak sloppy striking against some one like Belfort.

Though the fight didn't show much, Belfort did what he had to do and didn't waste a single opportunity to exploit Linland's weakness. He looked fast, precise and showed good reflexes to get in there and finish the fight. It was interesting to see K-1's showman Ray Sefo in his corner.  Nice to see him keep sharp.

Josh Barnett vs Gilbert Yvel - wow, what a huge disappointment! Barnett looked aweful! Three rounds to finish a huge underachiver and non-crosstraining lazy striker in Gilbert Yvel!? Barnett's corner should have left him in the ring to celebrate his disappointing win by himself. He disrespected their time and efforts by just sitting on top of Yvel for almost 2 full round and not finishing him. What was that? How dared he do his "throat cutting" win gesture after that? Anyways, if he thinks he has a chance against either Fedor or Arlovski with that type of fighting....he probably doesn't though. I just hope he can snap out of his depression in time to get good training in before those fights. Oh, and how stupid was his excuse/give away about his poor nose bleeding and making him choke? I think very. Watch his nose being busted first thing in any of his future fights.

Gilbert Yvel was the winner in my book. Not like a winner in a sense that he'll amount to anything after this display of toughness. But he kind of redeemed himself for all those cowardly times he tapped out at the first sign of trouble. If only he was this tenatious when he was younger and more popolar.  May be he earned another fight with that? Gilbert Yvel vs Paul Buentello? That could actually be a good fight, given how Buentello has self admittedly never initiated a take down in his whole career.

Fedor Emelianenko vs Andrei Arlovski - News flash!!!!! Fedor again looked very beatable and human! This isn't really news by now, is it? Definitely not. 

• Fujita had Fedor sliding on ice when he rocked him
• Nogueira reversed him and got on top
• Coleman had his back and was on top
• Randleman damn near killed him when he slammed him on his head
• Mirko CroCop bloodied him up and landed a bunch on him
• Mark Hunt out of all people was  on top
• Hong Man Choi stuffed his takedowns

He almost always looks beatable. Well in this fight against Andrei Arlovski he looked very beatable again. Arlovski was bigger, a little faster and was actually landing some glancing shots. Why was it such a big deal though? Because Sylvia didn't land any? CroCop did, Fujita did, Mark Hunt did. It's a fight, you're going to get hit! But as long as you don't get rocked or KO's or get hit too many times it's ok. That front kick that Arlovski landed towards the end that pushed Fedor back looked ok, but it wasn't like it doubled Fedor over.  I'm sure that if the fight went on longer Fedor would have adjusted to Arlovski's timing and would have found his rhythm.

Arlovski's jump for the flying knee was aweful! Looked like he was going to do an olympic board diving jump. WTF was that? Per his own words he truly did dump his chance down the toilet. Fedor stood calm and capitalized on the first opportunity Arlovski gave him and finished the fight. Is that his magic? May be.

All I know is that I can't wait to see it again. Affliction together with it's great allies in Trump and Oscar De La Hoya's Golden Boy Productions should strike again while the iron is still hot and promote yet another Fedor headliner event. Hopefully in another six months. I wish they wouldn't give Barnett a chance at Fedor because while it will be entertaining I think it won't have that "this is the fight Fedor may finally lose" type hype. Arlovski vs Fedor 2 would garner more attention and may be Arlovski won't go to boxing just yet. Arlovski is just so much more marketable than Barnett - he is Russian, very hairy, thick beard and those vampire/werewolf teeth gimmick will just sell tickets and PPV buys. We'll see what happens. Until then Fedor is KING!

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

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.

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?