General - Page 9

One Fighting Championships has seen some ups and downs since its inception last year. After a successful debut event, they hit a slight bump in the road by agreeing to take part in the charade that is Bob Sapp. Thankfully, they’ve more than made up for that mistake by signing Korean Model Park Si Hyun to carry the cards for all of its events, starting with the upcoming Babalu/Manhoef headlined One FC 3. This former “race queen” is among the most popular and successful models in South Korea, and rightfully so. Find out all you need to know about Park (ie. more incredibly attractive photos of her) over on her Red Flava page. No, we do not know what a Red Flava page is, so click at your own risk.

(“Where is your hero now?”)

On this day, March 19, one year ago, a lanky 23-year-old from Rochester, NY stepped into the Octagon to face the biggest challenge of his young MMA career. He would meet the challenge head-on and walk out of the cage 20 minutes later a champion.

The fighter was Jon Jones and the challenge was PRIDE legend and then-UFC light heavyweight champ Mauricio “Shogun” Rua, whom he faced that night for the title. Jones demonstrated the poise and skill set of a veteran, finishing Rua in the third round after controlling the first two frames, and in doing so, he quieted the doubters, if only for a moment.

In case you were looking for a self-help book to pick up to aid you in keeping your New Year’s resolutions this year, Victory Belt Publishing has one you’re probably going to want to check out.

Apparently Chael Sonnen kept busy during his one-year suspension from fighting and he penned a new book, titled, “The Voice of Reason: A V.I.P. Pass to Enlightenment,” which he says touches on “physics, politics, linguistics, history, and physiology.” Knowing Chael, he probably just put his dust cover over “The Rock’s” biography and called it his own.

Check out the description of the 320-page tome by Chael P. himself, after the jump.

TATAME.com is reporting that UFC lightweight Dennis Hallman has pulled out of his
upcoming bout with TUF 13 winner Tony Ferguson. While the details are still up in the air, it appears that Hallman has suffered an injury while training. Replacing him at UFC on FOX 3 will be Thiago Tavares.

Since winning The Ultimate Fighter 13, Tony Ferguson has gone 2-0 in the UFC. His most recent victory has been a unanimous decision over veteran Yves Edwards at the TUF 14 Finale in December. During the same time period, Thiago Tavares has also gone 2-0, with his victories coming against Spencer Fisher and Sam Stout. This bout will mark the first
time that Tavares has fought on American soil in over a year, as both of his previous fights have taken place in Rio de Janeiro at UFC 134 and UFC 142. His last fight in America saw him lose to Shane Roller by second round knockout at UFC on Versus 3: Sanchez vs. Kampmann last March.

UFC on FOX 3 will go down on May 5 at the IZOD Center in East Rutherford, New Jersey. The full fight card now looks like this:

By Elias Cepeda

Jon Anik’s silky voice talks us in to episode two of The Ultimate Fighter 15, telling us we’re less than an hour away from tonight’s live fight. We’re about to see what happened this past week in TUFlandia but right now there are two hooded fighters warming up with their backs to the camera in their respective lock rooms.

Could it be? Yes…those two (at present) nameless and faceless fighters will fight each other tonight but we will have to wait and see who they are. Cheesy, but kinda cool. Another new element of this debuting hybrid taped/live TUF format. Also, there’s a fight clock on the bottom right hand of the screen, ticking down.

The 16 winning fighters from last week’s elimination round pull up to the TUF mansion and once again we see a new crop of young fighters enthusiastically explore their new digs with the type of giddiness that can only lead us to believe that they’ve never watched past seasons and thus don’t realize how completely miserable it can be to be locked in that house. Happens every season.

(Video courtesy of HustleShow)

- Cats With Boobs (WorldwideInterweb)

- Build an MMA Fighter’s Neck (MensFitness)

- The Hurt Business: Highs and Lows in the Brick City (MMAFighting)

- Jason Segel Talks Funny (MadeMan)

- The 10 Dumbest Things About St. Patty’s Day (Guyism)

- It’s Come To This: Another ‘Garbage Pail Kids’ Movie (ScreenJunkies)

- 8-Second WMMA KO (BuzzerBeat)

- 10 Awesome, Yet Painful Concert Fails (Break)

- The Peruvian Fight Club Festival, Takanakuy (TuVez)

- Doc Love: The Right Way to Pick Up on Facebook (AskMen)

- Brass Tacks Infographic: Trivia On Jonah Hill (Clutch.MTV)

- How Women Are Wired (TheRugged)

- 21 Jump Street Review (FilmDrunk)

- Jon Jones: Being Champ is My Destiny  (FightersOnly)

- Tom Watson on the UFC, Brian Stann and BAMMA (BleacherReport)

- 25 Reasons Not to Ride the Bus (HolyTaco)

(How about $1 Million dollars and an autographed 8×10?”)

Manny Paquiao told reporters during a recent media scrum that Floyd Mayweather recently called him up and offered him a guaranteed $40 million purse, but said he wasn’t willing to share a cent of the pay-per-view cut.

“I spoke with Floyd on the phone. He called me on the weekend. I told him, ‘Let’s make the fight happen and I agree for 50/50 [on the pay-per-view] and whatever blood testing you want, as long as you agree for 50/50.’ And he said, ‘Let’s do this. I’ll give you this amount and no more pay-per-view for you,” Pac Man recalled with a chuckle. “After that, I gave it to my people [to handle]. He was very serious. It’s okay with me that he has a bigger guarantee and I have a smaller guarantee, but it’s 50/50 for the distribution of the pay-per-view.”

According to Paquiao’s manager, the final offer given to Mayweather was a $50 million guarantee for Manny and a 45-55 percent split of the pay-per-view revenue, but “Pretty Boy Floyd” just wasn’t having it.

UPDATE: The Spreecast room is live!  Get in here!

One thing that sets us apart from most other MMA sites (besides the hatred flung around the comment section like a beach ball at a Metallica concert) is the sense of community you’ve all shown. We’ve met a bunch of you handsome devils at the MMA Expo in Boston and our “Banned” party in Toronto and have always enjoyed conversing with you guys — except for ThisRedEngine. That guy was a douche.

(It was at that moment Ryan Hall knew he would have to defend the integrity of both his hoagie and the Denny’s establishment he had chosen to accomodate.) 

William Shakespeare once said, “Justice oft comes on swift legs, and if thou happen to bear witness, make surest thou placeth thine proof on thine Internet for all to see.” Luckily, we managed to stumble across this video of BJJ savant and 2009 ADCC Bronze medalist Ryan Hall choking out a drunken, self proclaimed “psychopath” at a restaurant, and in William’s honor, have placed it below for you all to see.

Join us as we dissect a classic case of “When Keeping it Real Goes Wrong.” 

(“No rematch for you, Punk”)

According to Gilbert Melendez’s trainer, Cesar Gracie, the UFC are in talks to have either former UFC lightweight champ BJ Penn or former WEC lightweight champ Anthony Pettis challenge his charge for his Strikeforce strap next.

Gracie informed TATAME of the development today.

“Melendez’s situation is complex right now. We still don’t have an opponent, date or place set. They said he could fight in San Jose but it’ll probably change. They mentioned Josh Thomson but then said it was not going to happen”, Gracie explained.“I spoke to [UFC matchmaker] Joe Silva and he told me maybe some UFC fighters will go to Strikeforce. We would really like to see him fighting Pettis or BJ, but we are still not sure about what’s going to happen.”

Given that “Showtime” mentioned yesterday that he is considering dropping down to featherweight to challenge Jose Aldo in the near future, it would seem that the UFC brass are leaning towards “The Prodigy” for the bout. It would make sense since Penn has been uncharacteristically mum about his fighting future since his last fight and likely would have been mulling over the offer to swing over to the UFC’s sister promotion, considering how much less promotion and exposure it gets.