As usual, I say these will be super quick fight picks for UFC 92, but then I'll probably end up writing for an hour. Besides the fact that this is a really star studded event, like the old Pride year end event used to be, here are my picks.

Forrest Griffin Vs. Rashad Evans - what a tough pick this is for me, Rashad has been winning steady and last fight was a huge statement, especially for this confidence in his skills. Even though Forrest beat on Rampage a bit in their last fight, Rampage wasn't nearly at his best, but he has that advantage of going through that tough 25 minute championship fight and after being knocked down in the very first. So I like both guys, but I'm leaning towards Rashad and his power. Picking Rashad Evans.

Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira Vs. Frank Mir - I'm honestly not sure what Mir can do to Nogueira. His striking is still isn't good enough for Noguiera and his latest submissions were against guys that are inexperienced at them. I give Nogueira striking advantage, stamina and submissions for that matter. He'll wear Mir out in the very first round, peper him with all kinds of striking. In the second he'll proceed to doing the same and finish Mir in the third. Picking Nogueira by just being better at everything and experience.

Wanderlei Silva Vs. Quinton Jackson - In both of their previous fights Rampage started off better than Silva and as soon as he got into any type of rhythm or a good position he was interrupted. In the first it was the ref for an odd reason, when Rampage was on top and pretty active and could have very well worn Silva out to finish him later. In the second he did great in the first round and spend good energy to get Silva on the ground and be on top before the bell rung. Silva showed why he was still great after exlusively beating up on 10+ japanese fighters and cought Rampage with some amazing forever-highlight reel shots. Again I really like both guys and both faltered lately. I hope Rampage learned from Silva-vs-Liddell, and Silva vs CroCop for that matter, that straight shots are Silva's cryptonite, Achilles's heel, whatever. Silva hopefully got some more good training in at Randy Couture's. So I want Rampage to win and hope he got whatever messed him up for the Griffin fight taken care of and is in better shape physically and metally.

CB Dollaway Vs. Mike Massenzio - picking CB Dollaway and his peruvian necktie, cause I get a feeling Massenzio is there to make CB look good again and promote him further.

Cheick Kongo Vs. Mostapha Al Turk - picking Kongo because he should be pretty hungry for a win after he basically gave away a fight he was winning a no talent hack Heath Herring.

Yushin Okami Vs. Dean Lister - So...like...wtf is Dean Lister still doing in UFC? Honestly! I know Dana hates Yushin Okami, but it is a damn sport that's already so popular that if there are a few guys that are not exiting but beat other good fighters with skill, IT IS OK. I mean, look at how boring Lyoto Machida can be, but he is damn good and in my opinion has redeemed himself when he gave Tito Ortiz the biggest humiliation of his life. Yep, and that's after Randy spaked Tito in front of millions. Anyways, hope Okami beats up Lister and moves on to the contender list for 185 right after.

Ryo Chonan Vs. Brad Blackburn- picking Ryo Chonan.

Other fights - who cares.

Finally, I'm actually have some time to follow up on the quick picks I did for UFC 88. Time is definitely the most needed thing in my world. Anyways, I did pretty good with my picks this time and even the reasoning behind them. Sometimes I do know what I'm talking about.

Rashad Evans KO's Chuck Liddell (picked Liddell)- WOW.  What a nice KO for Rashad. Like I said in my picks for this UFC, the key for Rashad is to be confident in his abilities because he's entered the very top and will have to fight the very star fighters he used to watch on TV. I often compare his fight with Tito Ortiz to the very first Georges St. Pierre vs Matt Hughes fight where St. Pierre was a little more tentative for the sole reason of facing Matt Hughes. Rashad was very tentative against Tito and it almost cost his the fight. Everytime he'd exchange with Ortiz he never leaned in to actually reach for the giant bleached head to knock it out. So confidence was a huge part of Rashad's awesome KO of Chuck. You have to give him and Greg Jackson a lot of credit for being smart and working on his confidence to go with his top notch skills. He was very disciplined with making sure he didn't act on instinct to try to take Liddell down and most importantly not to follow Chuck and play into his strength. Rashad is right up there at light heavy and probably should be either fighting Forrest Griffin for the title or face Wanderlei Silva.

Rich Franklin TKO's Matt Hamill (picked Franklin) - It was a decent fight. The most interesting thing about it was how Rich Franklin would be doing at 205. He did just fine. Definitely a good move for him and he looked to have just as good conditioning, he was nearly fresh in the third! Matt Hamill did pretty good for facing a former champ, but his lack of experience certainly showed and his takedown attempts could have been better. He never really committed. I also found it funny that the UFC called it a "comeback fight of the night". Hamill cut Franklin by an off balance jab and the cut from that wasn't vision threatening. Even with that cut though Franklin was dominating the fight, how is that a comeback? I'm also wondering how far can Matt Hamill go with his disadvantage of not being able to hear his corner? So many top fighters credit their corner men to their success.

Dan Henderson Decisions Rousimar Palhares (picked Henderson) - Henderson did some pretty effective slip'n'slide striking that only he does in the first round and made Palhares look pretty bad. First round pretty much set the tone for the rest of the fight with Henderson being just more active, controlling more and doing more damage. Palhares did have a few takedowns, a decent looking kneebar attempt in the second, but Henderson had an answer for everything. Good win for Henderson to get back on track. May be have him fight Joe Doerkson for a guaranteed exciting fight or have him face Yushin Okami for a complete snoozer and finally retire the unwated Okami from the UFC. Then line him up for another go at Anderson Silva, cause he actually posed some problems for him in their first fight.

Nate "The Great" Marquardt TKO's Martin Kampmann (picked Marquardt) - just like thought and had a sneaking suspicion that the same Nate Marquardt that destroyed Jeremy Horn may show up and he did! He wasted no time and went after the tough Kampmann like he only had a minute and a half to do it. He looked sharp doing it with a variety of strikes and combinations. I guess it helps to have Greg Jackson for a trainer and the new lightheavy bright star Rashad Evans for a training partner. Oh and to have that ugly Keith Jardine around doesn't hurt either. Now that I think of it Marquardt should probably face Dan Henderson for a shot at Anderson Silva. Excellent fight for both.

Dong Hyun Kim decisions Matt Brown (picked Kim) - I loved this fight. Cool of UFC to book Dong Hyun Kim because he is a scrapper and because he bring something different to the table. That was the appeal of early days MMA - fights between different styles. Kim definitely brings an unorthodox MMA style and it was great to see, especially because he made it effective against a tough Matt Brown. Brown actually did sort of start fighting early on but let Kim hang out on his back for most of the first round. It could have gone either way, but I don't see the result being negative for Brown because the fight was very entertaining. Can't wait to see both of them back soon.

Kurt Pellegrino decisions Thiago Tavares (picked Pellegrino) - In my picks for this UFC I said Pellegrino would have weather the ground attack by Tavares first and then take over with improved striking. Turns out I was little too optimistic for Thiago Tavares. I have to say doing a few switch steps does show you did spend some time on footwork, but it seems that's all you did. Kurt Pellegrino came out striking, put Tavares down hard and continued punishing Tavares. Like in most fights, once a dominant pace is set by one fighter the other needs a huge effort to mount comeback. That's why comebacks are so exciting - they just don't happen that often. Pellegrino beating up Tavares while never really being in danger from him was just another example. He knocked him down, mounted him numerous times.  The little time when Tavares had Pellegrino on the the bottom, Pellegrino even managed to submit Tavares with an armbar. That's my opinion on that. Tavares tapped, Pellegrino let go, but because it happened somewhat quick the ref hesitated and Pellegrino just had to keep going. Too bad Tavares didn't have the dignity to stop and admit his defeat, especially because he was badly loosing. Pellegrino finished destroying Thiago Tavares's hype and got a great win. Hope to see him back soon.

Tim Boetsch TKO's Michael Patt (picked Boetsch) - I couldn't quite remember seeing Patt before, but when his awkward self came out I recognized him from Bodog and know "Redneck Judo" was going to get another good showing from Boetsch. "Amature night"-looking fight aside, Boetsch was effective in taking out Patt. Gotta say that "Redneck Judo" is a whole lot more fun when it's effective over a more polished opponent like it was over David Heath, so I hope they match him up against a regular tougher fighter and not another awkward crappy one. Boetsch deserved that.

Jason MacDonald submits Jason Lambert (picked MacDonald) - As I said earlier this trend in fighters to keep dropping weight cause of a few losses is one of the stupidest ones out there, especially dropping down two weight classes. What was Lambert thinking when he took this fight? MacDonald is a huge 185'er, so fighting him is like fighting a 205'er. Like I thought, he had no chance. MacDonald completely overwhelmed him on the ground and submitted him. Lambert should try in WEC for a while and may be come back. MacDonald should probably fight with Kendall Grove.

Ryo Chonan decisions Roan "Jucao" Carneiro (picked Carneiro) - Like many Japanese fighters that come to train with Matt Hume, Ryo Chonan is enjoying the benefits of Hume's training and tuning by being sharper and doing better. It was a complete surprise to me how good Chonan did against Carneiro. It was a close fight with both having good moments. I kind of agree with the judges that Chonan did just a bit more than Carneiro. Good win for Chonan, he should face whoever UFC puts infront of him to prove he'll continue to improve under Hume's tuning. Tough break for Carneiro, second loss in a row. There will lot of pressure for him to win and show the tough Roan Carneiro that gave all kinds of fits to Jon Fitch. Hope he recoveres from this.

Overall, this was a great UFC card with an upset and some nice beatings that turned out about as good as it was on paper.

I didn't get a chance to do quick picks for last few UFC events, but the picks are back. Here they are this UFC 87: Seek and Destroy. Obviously St. Pierre vs Fitch, Lesnar and Roger Huerta vs Kenny Florian are interesting fight, but the rest of the card on paper is so so for me.

Cheick Kongo Vs. Dan Evensen - Kongo was kinda ripped off in favor of no talent hack Heath Herring in his last fight but showed some improvement in his ground game and I think came away with a few lessons from the fight. That's all that matters in a close loss like that and Kongo will be better off. Evenson fought in Bodog several times but hasn't beaten anyone of note. UFC's heavyweight division is lacking right now so they're bringing him in to feed to Kongo. Picking Kongo by KO

Luke Cummo Vs. Tamdan McCrory - should be a fun fight as both of the guys have decent standup and like to push the action in their fights. Picking Tamdan McCrory based on his better record of winning against better fighters and his reach.

Jason MacDonald Vs. Demian Maia - another fight that has the potential to be pretty exciting from the ground game perspective. Both MacDonald and Maia's previous victories were exciting finishes. Picking Maia by submission.

Manny Gamburyan Vs. Rob Emerson - Rob Emerson has actually faced several good guys like Pulver, Vasquez, Mishima in his MMA career prior to his appearance on the Ultimate Fighter TV show. Gamburyan has gotten on a few win streak, both by submissions, since list injury loss to Nate Diaz. Seems like Emerson has had issues with good ground guys in the past, so I'm picking Manny Gamburyan by a few very hard rights, takedown, some pounding and submission.

Kenny Florian Vs. Roger Huerta - after watching UFC 87 Countdown and watching the Roger Huerta segment all I can say is wow. What a story! It's amazing what he has achieved coming off his childhood experiences. He was lucky to have had the people that helped him get on his feet, but his hard work and determination kept him on course. This completely throws out his image of happy go lucky mexican college kid who's fed easy fights. Come on, Clay Guida is an easy fight?

Onto Kenny Florian. He is very intelligent and established himself as a lifelong learner of MMA. His dedication and motivation to be the best has been showing in his recent fights. With that said, I think Huerta's has more power and faster pace, so I'm picking Roger Huera by an exciting decision.

Brock Lesnar Vs. Heath Herring - picking Brock Lesnar to give Heath Herring a retirement beating. Straight right, takedown, vicious ground and pount till TKO.  Herring still sucks on the ground after 11 years of being in MMA. This will be much like Jake O'Brian's domination of Herring, only Brock Lesnar will do killer damage.

Georges St-Pierre Vs. Jon Fitch - the event will start in a few minutes, so I'm out of time. Picking Georges St. Pierre by a clean win over the blood and guts of Jon Fitch in a long exciting and gruelling fight!

Out of all the Yahoo! Sports MMA section newly minted MMA "experts" I always considered Dave Meltzer to be the best out of the bunch as he's been around MMA for a while longer than the rest. Most of the time, if I have time, I usually just quickly scan over their MMA coverage as they're often pretty bland and biased and plain bad...cough...Kevin Iole anyone?...cough...cough.

So when Dave Meltzer's Lesnar faces must-win against Herring article showed up on Yahoo.com's front page today I had to check it out. After quickly looking at it I felt compelled to comment on some of the points and errors in his article.

 "Lesnar can’t afford a second straight loss on a major pay-per-view event and still be considered a long-term main eventer."

First of all, Brock Lesnar hasn't been a main eventer in UFC yet. His UFC debut fight with Frank Mir felt like one though because of how much popularity he brought to the UFC from his WWE days and stellar NCAA background to go with that. He can very much afford a second straight loss on a major PPV event also because he, in my opinion, lived up to the hype of being incredibly athletic and fast for his size and most importantly that he put in some hard training and looked very very good for being so inexperienced in MMA. He handily beat on Frank Mir but got caught by a much experienced fighter in a possibly debilitating, however not quite there, submission and didn't want to risk a long term injury. He only made more MMA fans with his loss and created more hype and anticipation as to what he can really do in MMA. He is also a natural competitor and it will be very hard for anyone to turn a fight with him into a boring affair. So he can afford 3-4 more exciting losses with no problem for his UFC popularity at all. But that's not going to happen, he is not losing at UFC 87 - not to the sloppy Heath Herring.

Meltzer then proceeds to comment on the fact that because Brock Lesnar came in at a higher salary of guaranteed $250,000 a fight another loss could really ruin his UFC career.

"The others have been given lower or mid-level opponents to start out with to build their reputation. UFC decided that with what they were paying Lesnar, there was going to be no such slow grooming process."

Honestly? With how many PPV buys Brock Lesnar brought in with his first fight, $250,000 a fight is nothing to UFC at this point for a celebrity of sorts.  They'd need not even 6000 extra PPV buys to recoup that salary. He brought in quite a bit more than that. Come on, they just got done paying Brandon Vera nearly the same for one of the worst fights this year against a mostly unknown wrestler.

"Texan Herring has 41 pro fights over the past 11 years, in nearly every major organization. He became a star in Japan at the age of 22, and has been in the ring with a Who’s Who list of the greatest heavyweights of all-time."

"Herring, a big star during PRIDE’s heyday in Japan when he was known as “The Texas Crazy Horse” for his unique multi-colored hair, noted he’s beaten men bigger than the 6-2 ½, 277-pound Lesnar, as well as higher credentialed wrestlers. He’s best known for a 2000 win over Tom Erikson"

"Herring (28-13), is known for being difficult to finish; he went the distance twice with Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira in their three meetings, after being submitted the first time. But he was beaten by his most famous opponents in Japan, by Cro Cop from strikes on the ground, and by Fedor Emelianenko due to blood."

Brock Lesnar isn't in much danger facing THIS Heath Herring. Yep. The same Heath Herring who showed his true skills against Jake O'Brian, who couldn't finish Brad Imes (where is he now anyways? Still doing gogo-platas at some tiny shows?), who questionably beat Cheick Kongo. 41 pro fights in the past 11 years and he never amounted to anything in nearly every major organization, besides amuzing Japanese fans with his stupid hair cuts.  His supposed wildness or crazyness only amounts to the fact that in 11 years of fighting and training here and there, he still looks as sloppy and amateurish as he did during his "wild days" of wearing leather cloaks for his fight entrances. Lesnar will retire Herring from UFC by beating him in the first round. 

Why is Meltzer talking a loss for Lesnar when he's fighting Herring? Herring hasn't submitted anyone in 5 years, let alone anybody good ever. Sorry comparing his wins over wrestlers 7 years ago doesn't make much sense. He hasn't KO'd anybody in 2 years. What he has done is get dominated on the ground by a ground game newbie Cheik Kongo and got completely tooled by a much smaller Jake O'Brian. Given all that and an enormous amount of sloppyness, Brock Lesnar's chances to lose are minimal.

Also, Nogueira submitted Herring in his second fight not first and what does "by Fedor Emelianenko due to blood" mean? I share Fightlinker's sentiments in how sad it is that Yahoo's Sports MMA has some of the biggest audience out there, especially when they often get to the front page, but their MMA coverage is being done either by very inept people with not much clue about MMA and the fact that they're very biased and often inaccurate.

I picked Alvin Robinson to outwork Nate Diaz in this match up. When making my guess for this fight I did not take into account Robinson's and Diaz's big size difference.

Diaz immediately clinched an picked Alvin up with out bending down and took the fight to the ground. There he was working to land some punches and elbows inside Robinson's guard. Robinson covered up pretty well until Diaz gave him a chance to try for a guillotine choke while trying to stand up. When they stood up Diaz slammed Alvin down into his halfguard. Alvin held onto the guillotine for a bit and let go. Diaz then passed Alvin's guard to sidemount where he tried to transition into mount where Alvin reversed him. Diaz switched to a umoplata which Robinson turned out of and ended up on bottom again. He reversed it into Diaz's guard. This is where Diaz's long legs started giving Alvin problems. Diaz quickly locked in a tight triangle on a much shorter Robinson for a quick tap.

This was another decent test for Diaz which he passed with flying colors. I think if he fights Manny Gamburyan again, who he's more than willing to fight again to settle the dispute of who really won their first fight. I'll be picking Diaz in that fight, the size advantage will be too much and Diaz knows how to use it well.

Alvin Robinson is a decent hard working guy at 155, he should avoid fighting much taller guys in the division if he can help it.

So much to write, so little time...

Had almost no time to write any kind of preview for UFC 80, so here are my quick picks before that 10 pm replay that I'll be watching:

BJ Penn Vs. Joe Stevenson - picking BJ Penn Here, from watching the UFC 80 count down, Stevenson's stand up is still severely lacking. BJ Penn will light him up standing and offer good takedown defense.

Gabriel Gonzaga Vs. Fabricio Werdum - Werdum should have never gotten another chance before Arlovski, but it's UFC - losers get more chances than winners. I mean wtf is James Irvin still doing in UFC, or Sakara ? Eh?  Picking Gonzaga by distruction.

Jess Liaudin Vs. Marcus Davis - haven't seen my Liaudin, but would like Davis to win. With a heart like Davis and his recovery skills from near defeat should get him through this one. Picking Davis

Wilson Gouveia Vs. Jason Lambert - Lambert can be dangerous, but Gouveia will dominate on the ground. Picking Gouveia

Jorge Rivera Vs. Kendall Grove - Picking Rivera, Grove just doesn't punch that hard. Rivera is due for a win after several disappointments. Picking Rivera

Antoni Hardonk Vs. Colin Robinson - haven't seen Robinson, so I'll make a guess and pick Hardonk.

Paul Kelly Vs. Paul Taylor - don't know, Paul Taylor?

James Lee Vs. Alessio Sakara - Hope Lee wins so Sakara can stop taking up spots of motivated hungry and evolving fighters. I mean how does he keep getting invited back?

Per Eklund Vs. Sam Stout- Picking Stout, just cause he's been training at a good camp with Stevenson and hopefully picked up some more ground skills

We'll see how I do with this one. Made this picks on a whim, who knows may be that a better way to pick fights anyway.

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.

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!

December 2007 was probably the worst time for me to get into blogging about MMA. There were just so many MMA events happening right after another that I'm still catching up on reviewing them all. At the same time it's a great time to cover MMA because there so many MMA events in December 2007 because they provided me with more than plenty to write about.

Out of the 6 events that took place I'm only about half done covering them. I'm going to finish reviewing them and try to stay up on all the current happenings.

• 12/8/2007    - UFC - The Ultimate Fighter 6 Finale
  • Ultimate Fighter 6 Finale was damn good show
• 12/15/2007  - HDNet Fights - Reckless Abandon
  • HDNet Fights Reckless Abandon review - first ever stoppage due to butt flopping?! Spratt, Trigg, Miller win
• 12/29/2007  - UFC 79 - Nemesis
  • UFC 79 Wanderlei Silva vs Chuck Liddell Matt Hughes vs Georges St. Pierre thoughts and quotes
  • MMA Ninja's UFC 79 Nemesis quick fight picks
  • UFC 79 Nemesis quick results - Chuck Liddell beats Wanderlei Silva - Georges St. Pierre dominates Matt Hughes
  • UFC 79 unaired preliminary fight Roan Carneiro beat Tony DeSouza
  • Downward elbow strike was banned in UFC MMA because of Karate and brick and board breaking
  • Georges St. Pierre debuts a new slamming from the mount MMA move at UFC 79
  • UFC 79 unaired preliminary fight Dean Lister decisions Jordan Radev - UFC should not have them back
• 12/29/2007  - IFL - World Grand Prix Finals
• 12/31/2007  - K-1 - Premium 2007 Dynamite!!
• 12/31/2007  - Yarennoka - New Years Eve 2007

So up next is a series of posts on some important fights in the two Japanese New Year's eve events K-1 Premium Dynamite and Yarennoka as I think there are some important fights that took place, at least for Japanese MMA scene. After I cover those two I'll review International Fighting Leagues (IFL) 2007's final event. 

My goal for this blog in 2008 is to catch up to the ever increasing amout of MMA news/happenings, get involved more in commenting on other MMA blogs and get some discussions going here.

So Happy 2008 and drop me a line, tell me how I'm doing.