UFC 94 Weigh-In Results and Final Thoughts

• Georges St. Pierre (170) vs. BJ Penn (168)
• Lyoto Machida (206) vs. Thiago Silva (206)
• Karo Parisyan (170) vs. Dong Hyun Kim (171)
• Nate Diaz (156) vs. Clay Guida (156)
• Stephan Bonnar (206) vs. Jon Jones (206)
• Jon Fitch (171) vs. Akihiro Gono (171)
• Manny Gamburyan (155) vs. Thiago Tavares (155)
• John Howard (171) vs. Chris Wilson (170)
• Jake O’Brien (205) vs. Christian Wellisch (206)
• Matt Arroyo (171) vs. Dan Cramer (171)

Overall it was a pretty typical weigh-in, lots of cheers for GSP, some mixed signals for BJ, which can be expected.  Georges is a huge fan-favorite and I think he’ll have the crowd behind him tomorrow night.  Some other thoughts can be seen below:

• Thiago Tavares and Manvil are going to have an awesome fight, and for the first time ever I’m actually hoping Thiago pulls off the win.
• It was nice to see Karo actually reach the scales this time.  I think he and “Stun Gun” will put on one helluva fight…and I might honestly change my pick to the “Stun Gun”.  He looked awesome and ready for war.
• Jon Fitch didn’t shake Dana White’s hand after he made weight…could it be due to getting put on the prelim card or something else?
• Akihiro Gono sported a huge black fro during the weigh-ins, and he handed it to Fitch (who put it on) during the stare down.  Gono should have given it to the bald Dana White.
• Stephan Bonnar looked, how should I say it….”frightened” by the intensity of Jon Jones.
• Diaz and Guida had an awkward stare down, but this fight is still gonna kick some ass.
• Machida and Thiago didn’t really do anything special…but Thiago gave Machida the “I’m not scared of shit” look.  That fight should be decent.
• Both Georges St. Pierre and BJ Penn looked to be in very good shape, physically and mentally.  I expect this fight to be the defining moment for one of these guys.  I don’t think the fans will be let down either way.
• Dana White might be giving out three “Fight of the Night” bonuses….Tavares/Manvil, Guida/Diaz, and GSP/BJ all have “EXPLOSIVE” written on them.

HKM’s UFC 94 Predictions.

I would have had my predictions up earlier, but my school has consumed most of my life for the past week and I wasn’t able to, so I apologize for anyone who really cares about these predictions.  UFC 94 is TOMORROW, we’re mere hours away from seeing the most anticipated rematch in MMA since Chuck Liddell/Tito Ortiz II, and that’s between current UFC welterweight champion Georges St. Pierre, and current UFC lightweight champion BJ Penn.  If you’re a fan of mixed martial arts, you’re putting everything else on hold for tomorrow to make room for this event. The main event is one of those “super fights” that comes along every once in a great while, featuring two of the top pound-for-pound fighters in the world.  I really can’t believe that this fight is finally going to happen!

After the jump, you’ll get the usual….some in-depth thoughts/predictions as well as some quick picks.  Once again, please don’t use these when and if you place an actual bet with monetary value, I’m not responsible for you dropping Johnny’s college fund down the pisser.

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Helio Gracie 1913-2009

Props: MMAJunkie

Helio Gracie, the Gracie family patriarch and instrumental figure in the rise of early mixed martial arts, has passed away at the age of 95.

With his older brother Carlos, Helio, who died early Thursday is Rio de Janiero, helped create what we know today as Brazilian jiu jitsu.

With a slight build and weighing no more than 150 pounds, Gracie adapted traditional Japanese jiu-jitsu principles so that leverage and position could make up size differences between opponents.

Called Gracie jiu jitsu, which son Rorion used to help launch the Ultimate Fighting Championship in 1993, the fighting style would soon prove dominant. Another one of Helio’s nine sons, UFC hall-of-famer Royce, successfully implemented the strategies in early UFC events despite facing significantly larger opponents.

Royce’s and the fighting style’s success sparked the explosion of modern jiu jitsu among the martial-arts world.

The discipline, now better known as Brazilian jiu jitsu, remains a key foundation in any MMA education.

Helio, himself, also fought, oftentimes to prove jiu jitsu’s dominance over disciplines such as boxing, wrestling and judo. Many of the fights took place in front of remarkably large crowds as Helio became one of Brazil’s biggest sports stars.

Rest in Peace Helio.

Oooo Baby! 3 days and counting…

Picture Props: Combat Lifestyle

I can’t believe that this rematch is finally going to go down in just a few days.  BJ has done a great job hyping the shit out of this bout, GSP has done his usual thing and kept pretty quit, slipping in a few jabs and pokes once in a while to show he’s not afraid of BJ’s mouth and will simply “do hiz talkeene in d’cage”.   This picture was taken at the UFC 94 Pre-Event Press Conference, and if you’ve got a minute, I recommend taking a peak at the other images the great folks over at Combat Lifestyle managed to shoot.  Here’s the link…

After the jump you can see an video of the conference thanks to ESPN.com

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Hermes Franca tears ACL, so long UFN 17 fight with Joe Lauzon.

Props: DemandMMA

“To all My Fans, unfortunately i am not gonna be able to fight UFC 17 in Tampa Florida, i just tore my ACL on my right knee last saturday….

I think you  guys deserve to hear that from me.

I just want to take care of that , and Joe lauzon you’re lucky mother fucker lololol.(J/K)

Thank you UFC,my fans, friends for the support, i was training hard and i was so excited ,but there’s nothing i can do, (could be worse), so Hermes franca will take a break for some recovery,and come back  stronger than ever like i always do!!!!”

Well that’s some shitty news. I was really looking forward to seeing that fight, which was supposed to take place on Feb 7th aka a few weeks away. I’m sure the UFC is going to get on the ball and find a legit replacement for Lauzon, I keep getting an image of Spencer Fisher in my mind, that’d a be a badass fight right there and even more interesting than the Franca/Lauzon fight. Stay tuned for more updates….

Below is the current UFN 17 fight card:

MAIN CARD:

• Joe Lauzon vs. TBA
• Mac Danzig vs. Josh Neer
• Nick Catone vs. TBA
• Denis Stojnic vs. Cain Velasquez
• Steve Bruno vs. Matthew Riddle

PRELIM BOUTS:

• Rich Clementi vs. Gleison Tibau
• Luigi Fioravanti vs. Anthony Johnson
• Dan Miller vs. Jake Rosholt
• Rob Emerson vs. Kurt Pellegrino
• Matt Grice vs. George Sotiropoulos

Haha, some great Tito quotes from “Day of Reckoning”

Props: Cage Potato

Anyone who got to watch Affliction: Day of Reckoning live last weekend probably got more than a few laughs everytime former UFC light heavyweight champion and “color commentator” Tito Ortiz opened his mouth during the post-fight interviews.  Here’s a collection of some of his hilarious quotes…

Sobral/Sokoudjou:

• “Here we are with Seraldo Babalu, you did an awesome job, saw why you’re a black belt in jiu-jitsu, getting an awesome submission there, I want to tell me what you see, let’s go ahead and see by the fight, what you saw, in the ring.”
• “You showed the dominance by getting the takedown and looking for a choke in that position. We know the weakness that you had, but you actually showed the heart and determination of a champion of how tough of a light heavyweight you really are, here in the Affliction card. What do you think of the future of you, um, future opponents?”
• “Yes, and uh, my back will be better in about three months, so I know all the fans would love to see me and you get it on. You know what, you’re an awesome fighter, congratulations tonight. Everybody lets give a hand to Renato Babalu, one of the greatest light heavyweights, of the night.”

Belfort/Lindland:

• “Matt the Lindland Law…The Law Lindland.”
• “Well, Belfort, we saw you with an astonishing left hand, that’s the left hand that I used to see you knock people out time and time again, we’re gonna go ahead and go over it. Walk me through it, show me exactly what you seen with this.”
• “Well, like I said, you show your hand-speed time and time again Vitor, 185 pounds, lady and gentlemen, let’s give Vitor Belfort a round of applause, an awesome 105 pounder, you just beat the number two guy in the world, buddy, you’re on top of the world tonight!”
• “Wow! That’s all I got to say. Vitor at 185 pounds. I don’t know. I see him beating the, uh, what was it, Anderson Silva. I see him picking him apart because you have two great boxers, and, man, that was amazing. That was the old Vitor Belfort that we all want to see. Him at 131 years old. He’s back for vengeance.”

Barnett/Yvel:

• “Well, here we go, we, here we go we got Josh Barnett, with a dominating fashion. Buddy, he said he wanted to stand up with you. You said you wanted to stand up with him. All the gameplans get thrown out and you shown the dominant heavyweight that you are. He wasn’t getting away from you. Walk me through the fight.”
• “Well, alright, we’re gonna go ahead show some some action from around one right here. I want you to walk me through and how do you feel as you went through this stuff?”
• “Well you should have your head high tonight, you did an awesome job, entertained every one of these fans. You did a great job, I’m proud of you buddy. Keep it up, let’s see the winner tonight, you’ll be next in line.”
• “Well, you showed what type of champion you really are. Everybody lets give a hand to Josh Barnett, the baby-faced assassin, continuing his win career. Good job Josh! We’ll go back to you Sean.”

Fedor/Arlovski:

• “July 4th has come early.”
• “I’m gonna have my interpreter here for Fedor Emelianenko. Everybody had questions on what type of heavyweight you were. You’ve showed it once on Tim Sylvia in 38 seconds. You’ve done it again against Andrei Arlovski in 3 minutes and 34 seconds. Let me tell you how you feelin right now.”
• “Well there’s always been question from other promotions saying that you weren’t the best heavyweight in the world. Well, tonight, buddy, you’ve answered those questions. You tooken out two of the former UFC heavyweight champions and you are the best heavyweight… in my eyes and I believe every one of these guys’ eyes around the world… of tonight…”
• “Well, we got to see, actually, Josh Barnett in the last fight, win in a decision. It looks like you two are going to be heading off and another chance for you to defend your heavyweight title. What do you think as Josh as your next opponent?”
• “Well the millions that are watching at home and the fifteen thousand and more in audience tonight, ladies and gentlemen, the pound for pound best heavyweight in the world today, Fedor Emelianenko, the last emperor, congratulations buddy.”

I can’t stop laughing….

And the whole “Fedor > UFC” thing starts again…

“r3d d3vil” - a devout Fedor Emelienanko fanboy, posted this video over at Cameldog, and as much as I don’t like those over-committed people who hug fighters nuts like that, I can’t deny that this video does sort of speak the truth.

Affliction: Day of Reckoning Fight Videos!

Fedor Emelianenko vs. Andrei Arlovski:

More after the jump…

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HKM’s WEC 38 predictions

This event went under the radar considering Affliction: Day of Reckoning took place this weekend, and to be honest, their fight card was 100 times better than this one is.  Still, free MMA is great and the main event between current lightweight champ Jamie Varner and Donald Cerrone is going to be one awesome clash.  Also, Jens Pulver and Urijah Faber are having a rematch, the two fought back at WEC 34 for the featherweight title, and Faber walked away with a unanimous decision victory.  The first fight was very good, and I can only expect this one will be good too.  After the jump, you’ll find my predictions on just the Varner/Cerrone fight and the Pulver/Faber rematch.

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Arlovski pulls in 1.5 mil for getting his head blown off.

Props: Bloody Elbow

MAIN EVENT FIGHTERS

– Fedor Emelianenko $300,000 (no win bonus) def. Andre Arlovski $1,500,000 (win bonus would have been $250,000)

MAIN CARD FIGHTERS

– Josh Barnett $500,000 (no win bonus) def. Gilbert Yvel $30,000 (win bonus would have been $9,300)

– Vitor Belfort $200,000 (includes $80,000 win bonus) def. Matt Lindland $225,000 (win bonus would have been $75,000)

– Renato “Babalu” Sobral $90,000 (includes $30,000 win bonus) def. Rameau Thierry Sokoudjou $50,000 (win bonus would have been $50,000)

– Paul Buentello $90,000 (includes $20,000 win bonus) def. Kiril Sidelnikov $10,000 (win bonus would have been $25,000)

– Dan Lauzon $12,000 (no win bonus) def. Bobby Green $4,000 (win bonus would have been $4,000)

– Jay Hieron $45,000 (includes $25,000 win bonus) def. Jason High $10,000 (win bonus would have been $5,000)

PRELIMINARY CARD FIGHTERS

– Antonio Rogerio Nogueira $150,000 (includes $30,000 win bonus) def. Vladimir Matyushenko $50,000 (win bonus would have been $30,000)

– L.C. Davis $14,000 (includes $7,000 win bonus) def. Bao Quach $7,000 (win bonus would have been $6,000)

– Albert Rios $6,000 (includes $3,000 win bonus) def. Antonio Duarte $3,000 (win bonus would have been $2,000)

– Brett Cooper $10,000 (includes $5,000 win bonus) def. Patrick Speight $2,000 (win bonus would have been $3,000)

Arlovski pulled in 750k with his three round battle with Ben Rothwell at Affliction: Banned, why in the hell did he get paid double for going out and getting ragdolled in mid-air in 3 minutes? As far as Fedor only getting paid $300k, I think that since Fedor is “technically” under the M1 Global banner,  he probably got paid by both Affliction ($300k), as well as M1 (probably around a mil or so).  I’m confident he brought than these payouts suggest…

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