Ben vs. Ben: The Elite XC Argument

(BG)
(BF)

Remember when you were a kid and your parents would argue and it was really loud and you got scared so you went to hide under the bed and cry until it was over? This is kind of like that. Except instead of your parents it’s Ben Goldstein and Ben Fowlkes, the two editors of Cage Potato, and we actually care about you. We’re still not coming to your Little League games, though.

Could James Thompson rain on the Kimbo Slice hype parade? If so, what then?

Fowlkes: Look, we all know Elite XC didn’t make this fight because they want to be in the James Thompson business. They brought him in because he’s knockout fodder, and also because he’s big and scary looking and to the average sports fan he seems like a monster. Kimbo beats him, then they sell Kimbo as a monster slayer. That’s their plan, no doubt about it.

That said, a guy like Thompson should never be completely counted out. He hasn’t looked good lately. This much is true. But when you’re 6′5″, and hovering in the 265 region, you’re never more than one good punch or knee away from victory. Even so, I have hard time imagining him winning this. His flash chin, his reliance on aggression over technique, that spells trouble.

If he were to win, well, Gary Shaw would cry. That’s the first thing that would happen. Then Elite XC would immediately begin hyping a lukewarm rematch. Basically, they’d lose a lot of steam. Almost all their steam, to the point where their steam levels would be dangerously low. Which is why Shaw will do anything short of leaping into the cage himself to stop it from happening.

Goldstein: It’s kind of a moot point considering there’s absolutely no way in hell that the Colossus will win this fight. MMA pundits talk about Thompson’s need to take the action to the ground against Kimbo — but since when was Thompson ever skilled on the ground? Just because Slice is a novice in MMA, it’s automatically assumed that Thompson’s jiu-jitsu is far superior? His brief stint at Xtreme Couture gave us hope that he’d be rounding out his game, but now he’s back in his comfort zone, working out at an outfit with the sadly appropriate name “London Street Fighters.”

(more…)

EMAIL THIS ADD COMMENTS (9) DIGG THIS

10 Questions With Kaitlin Young

(”I’m not a little girl by any means.”)

The hordes of screaming Gina “Crush” Carano fans who tune into the premiere of CBS’s “Saturday Night Fights” this weekend to see EliteXC’s poster girl kick some ass might be in for a seriously rude awakening. Carano’s opponent for the co-featured bout is Kaitlin Young, a 21-year-old Minnesota Martial Arts Academy product who famously knocked out three women in a one-night HOOKnSHOOT tournament last November; the combined fight time was just one minute and 45 seconds. We gave Kaitlin a call last night to ask her about rolling with dudes, the advantages she’ll have in her fight against Carano, and her shitty ‘91 Honda Accord.

***

CAGEPOTATO: We recently posted the video of your “Caveman Training” at Athletic Performance Incorporated. Be honest — they took they engine out of that pickup truck you were pulling, right?
KAITLIN YOUNG: No, everything was as-is, just as it came from the factory. Honestly, it’s not as hard as it looks. The wheelbarrow is the real killer.

When did you know you wanted to be a competitive fighter?
It’s really all I ever wanted to do. I did Olympic-style Tae Kwon Do starting when I was 14, and I’ve enjoyed the fighting arts ever since then.

Are there enough women at Minnesota Martial Arts Academy to spar and roll with, or do you usually have to train with the guys?
There are a couple of other girls, but it’s mostly guys that I’m training with at this point. Greg Nelson and Tom Schmitz help me a lot. My boyfriend Ryan Murray is a big heavyweight pro Thai boxer, so he helps me with striking and pads, and some of the wrestlers from the University of Minnesota have been working with me too.

What else do you do when you’re not training for a fight?
This semester I was a full-time student at the University of Minnesota, studying kinesiology — exercise science, which kinda fits in — and I also do a bit of strength and conditioning coaching on the side at API.

You took your first pro loss in February, against Sara Schneider at a BodogFight event. What do you think went wrong?
She did a good job executing her game plan, so I don’t want to take anything away from her, but I think I made the mistake of following a good grappler to the ground when I’m a striker. I was winning pretty decisively on the feet, and I tried to pound her out and got caught in an armbar.

How do you think you’ll apply that lesson to Gina Carano? She comes from a Muay Thai background, but she’s at least serviceable on the ground.
(more…)

EMAIL THIS ADD COMMENTS (4) DIGG THIS

The Best Photos of UFC 84

(Wandy’s triumph; courtesy of UFC.com)

(Penn outboxes Sherk; courtesy of Sherdog)

(Tito Ortiz comes within a ball-hair of submitting Lyoto Machida; courtesy of Las Vegas Sun)

(Michael Jackson takes in the fights; courtesy of TMZ)

(more…)

EMAIL THIS ADD COMMENTS (14) DIGG THIS

‘Ben vs. Ben’: The UFC 84 Argument, Pt. 2

(Ring girls: Who needs ‘em?)

Here’s the second half of CagePotato’s head-to-head bitchfest on “Ill Will,” brought to you by the two similarly-named editors of this site. If you missed part one, click here.

***

QUESTION: What does Wanderlei Silva’s future hold?

Fowlkes: Keith Jardine will beat Wanderlei Silva at UFC 84, and when he does it’s going to create some difficult questions for “The Axe Murderer.” Dana White says that he loves Silva. You can see why he would. But as great as he is in terms of showmanship, aggression, and “gameness” (as the Brazilians say), Silva’s best days may be behind him, as is evidenced by his lack of significant wins in recent years.

He’s just taken too many beatings and slowed down too much for his style to be effective any more. He’s got to evolve or get out the game. The question for the UFC is, do they bet on a Silva renaissance or try to convince him to drop to middleweight and start anew?

If Jardine really thumps him, the UFC has to go with door number two. If he has a strong showing, they might try putting him against someone like Matt Hamill or Sokoudjou and figure either way someone gets a bump. Regardless, anything less than a win on Saturday means Silva’s UFC career begins to slip away, even if it might take another fight or two before it completely disappears.

Goldstein: I’m also expecting Jardine to win tomorrow, but not because Silva’s game hasn’t evolved or because his physical condition is on the decline. It’s simply because the rule sets and environments of the UFC and Silva’s old home in PRIDE are so different that they’re barely the same sport. Until Silva can prove that he can work effectively in the Octagon, I’m not betting on him. But I think he can get used to the new terrain in time, and once he does, he’ll have some more thrilling fights left in him.

Losing to Cro Cop, Henderson, and Liddell doesn’t mean that your career is over — it’s the kind of setback that can befall any fighter who continuously fights top competition. Dana White knows that too. Still, Wandy will probably be ordered to drop to 185 if he loses to Jardine. There aren’t a ton of big-money matchups for Silva as a middleweight, but if he can score wins against guys like Rich Franklin, Yushin Okami, and Michael Bisping, he’ll certainly be invited back up to 205 to rematch Chuck Liddell or take on Rampage for the first time in the UFC. Dana White has to be taking the long view on the Wanderlei Silva situation, especially when there are so many other rival leagues that would step over their own mothers to pick him up.

(more…)

EMAIL THIS ADD COMMENTS (22) DIGG THIS

‘Ben vs. Ben’: The UFC 84 Argument, Pt.1

(BF)
(BG)

Fowlkes and I spend a lot of time pondering and writing about MMA. Often, we disagree. With that in mind, we’d like to present the first installment of a new feature where we argue about the topics of the day — in this case, all the major themes coming out of Saturday’s UFC 84. This one’s actually a two-parter; come back tomorrow for spirited debate on Wanderlei Silva’s future, the necessity of ring girls, and the intensity of BJ Penn and Sean Sherk’s personal relationship.

***

QUESTION: What will be the best fight of UFC 84?

Goldstein: The best fight of a given event generally starts with a large dose of drama and ends with a decisive finish. Penn/Sherk has drama out its ass — these guys hate each other — and Ortiz/Machida has it too, as it’s Ortiz’s last fight, and one that Dana White desperately wants him to lose. But I wouldn’t bank on Ortiz/Machida to be a particularly exciting match. Both fighters are questionable finishers (five of Machida’s last seven matches have gone to a decision, compared to four of Ortiz’s last seven) and before his punking of Rameau Thierry Sokoudjou, Machida was widely thought to be a boring fighter. The UFC set this match up to make Ortiz look less marketable, and it isn’t likely to be a barn-burner.

As for Penn and Sherk — how can this be anything less than legendary? Penn tends to make any fight exciting, and both guys will be looking to finish. Penn has to exploit his striking advantage and avoid being laid on by Sherk; a dull fight is not in Penn’s best interest, strategically speaking. I think Sherk is too tough to get stopped earlier than the third round, and if the fight goes into the championship rounds, his conditioning advantage will kick in. So Penn has this sweet spot of the third round where he’s most likely to win, and as the minutes and rounds tick by, anticipation will amp up the drama even further. If BJ wins, he’ll be the UFC’s undisputed lightweight ruler, and his reaction could be just as memorable as the fight itself.

Fowlkes: While I agree with your preconditions for what makes a great fight, I don’t necessarily think it will be Penn-Sherk that turns in the best performance of the night. Seems to me that you’re forgetting about Wanderlei Silva/Keith Jardine. That has plenty of drama — Silva needs a win badly and Jardine needs something to force the UFC to stop overlooking him — and it features two guys who like to stand and bang, which always yields great potential for a decisive finish.

On top of that, when’s the last time you saw Wanderlei in a boring fight? Tell me. I demand to know. I think Sherk-Penn will be worth the pay-per-view price alone, but Silva-Jardine is going to produce some fireworks either way, my friend.

(more…)

EMAIL THIS ADD COMMENTS (15) DIGG THIS

Frank Trigg: The World’s Toughest Salesman

(Photo courtesy of MySpace.com/triggonomics.)

Frank Trigg is a one-man industry. How many other fighters can claim to train in a gym they own, show up to fight in a shirt they designed, then talk about it the next day on their own radio show? In this exclusive interview, the man behind Triggonomics, TAGG Radio, the R1 Training Center, a handful of truly bizarre TV appearances — as well as some legendary beatdowns in the UFC, PRIDE and Icon Sport — gives us the “Twinkle Toes” perspective on fighter branding, reality television, and why he would kick Robbie Lawler’s ass in a rematch.

***

CAGEPOTATO.COM: Let’s get this out of the way first: Who, where, and when are you fighting next?
FRANK TRIGG: I don’t know yet. I thought I was going to have something set up and ready to announce this week, but we don’t have anything finalized.

But you are still actively pursuing your fight career, right? It’s not like your five other jobs are getting in the way…
Absolutely, I’m trying to get as many fights as I can. I was trying to be in the DREAM middleweight tournament, but it didn’t work out.

You told MMAJunkie that doing that tournament wouldn’t benefit your brand. What exactly did you mean by that?
That’s really what all of us are trying to do — Chuck Liddell, Roger Huerta, Georges St. Pierre — all of us are trying to brand ourselves to a big enough name that we can make money outside of the fight world, and I have to make choices on what’s going to help me accomplish that. Doing commentating for TNA Wrestling helps me as a brand — it pushes me forward, it gets me in front of a different demographic and increases the size of my network. And when you’re with an organization that’s not going to do that for you, whatever level you’re at, it doesn’t help.

DREAM was waiting and screwing around, and I was trying to figure out whether or not the tournament was going to be shown in America on HDNet. They finally agreed to a deal like three days before the event, and I thought “that’s just stupid, they should have had this stuff done a long time ago.” The way that they’re running the organization, it just wasn’t going to be any good for me in trying to get my brand out there.

Do you think you’ll still try to deal with DREAM? Their fight-booking process seems disorganized at times, to say the least.
I would have gone back to them, but somebody sent me a link to a story in the Japanese press where they said I was a liar and that I agreed to do the tournament but backed out. I’m not going to work with someone who’s going to call me a liar. It’s not gonna happen.

(more…)

EMAIL THIS ADD COMMENTS (13) DIGG THIS

Gerald Harris’s ‘TUF 7′ Blog: Down But Not Out

(Sadollah about to get Harrisplexed.)

Every Thursday morning, Team Rampage member Gerald Harris blogs his reactions to each new episode of The Ultimate Fighter. And this was the one we’ve been waiting for — the night Gerald actually gets to fight. But despite his early domination against Amir Sadollah, things didn’t turn out the way he’d hoped. Read below for Gerald’s rundown of the fight and how he felt about it, and give him a shout at his MySpace page.

***

It’s 8:58 p.m. and I’m staring at the clock hoping that it doesn’t click to 9:00. I’m sitting on the couch with my friends because every Wednesday we get together to watch the show. It was cool for the first couple weeks, but this one was different — I wasn’t smiling as much and I wasn’t excited. No one noticed and things went on as they did in the past. I’m flooded with text messages, phone calls, and high fives from my friends when the fight picks are announced. The fight starts and people are sending texts, calls, and jumping up and down as I slam and strike Amir the entire first round. Then it happens — “Bam,” in a quick flash — the fight’s over. You talk about silence? No one said a word for about 15 minutes, my phone stopped ringing, and nobody even looked at me. I broke the silence by saying “I’m sorry that I let y’all down, but it’s not over.” They’ve all seen the show and the success of fighters who got a second chance or at least earned a career in the UFC.

Now, let me take you back a couple months before I got there. I trained my ass off, running miles in the morning, and never missed Team Quest practice unless it was an emergency. I dreamed about holding The Ultimate Fighter trophy as Dana handed it to me and joining the ranks of Stevenson, Griffin, Evans, and many others. I was also doing bad financially and could barely afford to support my family, so winning those fights would help me provide for them. I’m the father of two and that’s how I feed them; this is my life, and the only thing that I do to earn money. When I lost that fight I felt like I let everyone down, I didn’t earn money to feed my kids, and lost the chance to become the next Ultimate Fighter. Once I took a deep breath and talked to Rampage I realized that it was ok. I still have a future in the UFC and a possible second chance to get into the tournament. During the fight I injured my ankle and scratched my eye, but that healed in a few days — the doc cleared me as good to go.

(more…)

EMAIL THIS ADD COMMENTS (41) DIGG THIS