Features

(What can we say, Dan?  The girl is obviously a die-hard Anacondas fan.)

It's time again for us to raid our forums and single out the most and least ridiculous among you for mockery and education.  Buckle up.  If you've got a question of your own, and dear God we hope you do, please go here and jot it down.  Extra points for making it semi-coherent.

Do you think it’s a huge mistake for the UFC to let Dan Henderson just go like they have? – Ballentine

Short answer: yes.  Long answer: probably, but it depends how much money he really wanted and how much money they really thought he could get elsewhere.

The upsides with Henderson are: 1) he’s a hard-ass who doesn’t bitch and complain a lot, and does more or less whatever you need him to, 2) fans know who he is and generally like him, 3) and he’s the only guy in the UFC so far to convincingly win a round against Anderson Silva.  At a time when the UFC is struggling to find both credible challengers for Silva and main event-caliber draws, Hendo is a guy who can offer both.  Hard to understand why you wouldn’t want to keep him around.

(The suit may make your opponent feel like a bum, but we'll see who's laughing when the sponsorship money gets tallied up. Photo courtesy of Sherdog.)

With our technical problems now solved (for the moment), we bring you the UFC 104 edition of Ben vs. Ben in its entirety.  There will be no further interruptions.  We hope.

Realistically, what chance do you give Shogun Rua to pull off a major upset at UFC 104 this Saturday?  If you had to bet on him, what odds would it take before it seemed like a good idea?

BF: Here’s the problem with Shogun – when he was at his best in Pride’s twilight years, he was beating people thanks largely to his aggression and constant pressure.  He was like a Wanderlei Silva who threw straighter punches and didn’t have a flash chin.  But against Machida, being hyper-aggressive on the feet just means getting knocked out faster.  If you aren’t technically superior (and Rua isn’t), the only option left is to put him on his back and try to wear him out on the mat, which isn’t exactly Rua’s forte.  No two ways about it, he’s getting knocked out.  Whether it happens early or late-ish is up to him.

(Weird, that's the face I make when I even consider drinking urine.)

While you can usually find odds on the full fight card for a UFC event – even the dark matches that some ticketholders don’t bother to show up for – most online bookies seem to be trimming back their activity for UFC 104.  Is that a statement on the undercard itself?  An indicator that they’ve realized the futility of trying to lay odds on guys who most people know almost nothing about?  A freak occurrence?  We have no idea.  All it means to us is that we’ll have to scratch Stefan Struve over Chase Gormley from our parlay.  Bummer.

The best lines on the internet come courtesy of BestFightOdds.com:

Lyoto Machida (-405) vs. Shogun Rua (+353)
Cain Velasquez (-290) vs. Ben Rothwell (+280)
Joe Stevenson (-225) vs. Spencer Fisher (+205)
Anthony Johnson (-300) vs. Yoshiyuki Yoshida (+300)
Ryan Bader (-412) vs. Eric Schafer (+355)
Antoni Hardonk (-115) vs. Pat Barry (+115)
Yushin Okami (-215) vs. Chael Sonnen (+200)

The breakdown…

Due to popular demand, we now bring you the second installment in our ongoing series: What Your Favorite Fighter Says About You.  This is where we do a little psychological profiling of MMA fans in an attempt to discover exactly what type of bloodsport-loving jerk you really are.  If you missed part one, do yourself a favor and check it out here.

NICK DIAZ

You grew up on the wrong side of the tracks.  The town that side of the tracks was located in was really not that bad, but still, you’re from the worst part of it and people need to recognize that.  You most likely finished high school or at least eventually got around to getting your GED, or maybe you got confused and did both.  One thing you are not confused about, however, is your personal policy of taking no shit off nobody.  This has led to numerous unnecessary fistfights, loud arguments with family members on various front lawns, and a lifetime ban from at least one bowling alley.  You don’t have a girlfriend, because bitches are always expecting you to go and do stuff with them, so forget that noise.  You probably work in a service industry establishment, but the goal of both you and your manager is to keep you from interacting with the customers at all costs, which is why you now work “in the back.”  You smoke a lot of weed, even though you have to take a drug test every six months.  You just get some pee from your ten-year-old cousin and outsmart those fuckers.  You absolutely love jam bands.
Your favorite fight: Diaz vs. Takanori Gomi

Fighting for a living is a lot like teasing a really mean dog: you can’t do it forever without something bad happening to you.  Even the great ones get to a point where their drive becomes sluggish and their bellies are too full for them to stay hungry, and that’s usually when a particularly bad beating takes what remaining fire they have and douses it with the fury of a God pissing on your dreams.  It doesn’t necessarily mean they’ll quit right then, even if they should, but it does mean that they’ll never be the same again.  Here now, in chronological order, are the most notorious breaking points in MMA history.

IGOR ZINOVIEV vs. FRANK SHAMROCK at UFC 16, 3/13/98

It’s hard to say that Igor Zinoviev was really on his way to being a legend of the sport, because he got stopped almost before he really got started.  The former Soviet Army commando was one of the first fighters in the early days of MMA to beat a Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu black belt when he TKO’d Mario Sperry, and he took out Enson Inoue the next year.  All this came after years of fighting underground brawls in Brooklyn warehouses following the fall of the Soviet Union, so his toughness was never in question.

When he joined the UFC the future was, as they say, wide open.  Then he came up against Frank Shamrock, who wasted no time in scooping him up and slamming him down so viciously that it shattered his collarbone and knocked him out cold.  It was Zinoviev's first career loss, and he would never fight again after that.  We’re not saying the devastating finish served as the catalyst for Shamrock’s out of control ego over the next 10+ years, but we’re not saying it helped, either.