Baroni Wins WW Debut, Gets Headbutted by Asshole

Phil Baroni’s first match as a welterweight was a resounding success, as the New York Badass dominated Scott Jansen to a first-round knockout victory at Cage Rage 27 last night in London. Unexpectedly, Baroni quickly got the fight to the ground, scoring a smooth double-leg takedown shortly after the bell and effortlessly controlling Jansen from the top. After an armlock attempt didn’t pan out, Baroni moved to full mount, but both men were quickly ordered to their feet by the ref. Baroni then reverted back to his bread and butter, turning out Jansen’s lights with a perfect right hook; Baroni returned after the stoppage to shake the hand of his still-sleeping opponent.

About thirty seconds later, Baroni made the mistake of going back again to check on Jansen, and one of Jansen’s cornermen responded by headbutting him — or “nutting” him, as the commentators colorfully put it. (”Wot’a dizgrace.”) The headbutter conveniently disappeared after the confrontation, while Baroni scored big-time respect points for not chasing him down and tearing his dumb ass apart. Video of the fight and post-fight assault is above; the questionable ref standup is at 3:36, the knockout punch is at 3:58, and the headbutt is at 4:45. Baroni competes next at Icon Sport: Hard Times (August 2, Honolulu), where he’ll face 3-5 Jesus Is Lord jobber Ron Verdadero.

In other action at Cage Rage 27, Neil Grove defeated Robert Berry in their rematch, stopping “Buzz” via strikes in the second round, while Mustapha Al Turk scored a first-round ground-and-pound TKO over James McSweeney to win the Cage Rage British heavyweight title. Full results are after the jump.

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She Ain’t So Pretty Anymore…

(Photo courtesy of Sherdog via Combat Lifestyle via Bloody Elbow, or something like that.)

As you can see, things didn’t go so well for Kim Couture during her professional MMA debut Friday at “Free For All: A Night of Combat,” at the Thomas & Mack Center in Las Vegas. En route to a decision loss against Kim Rose — who was also making her pro debut that night — Couture suffered a broken nose, a broken jaw-bone (split in the middle of her chin), and a seriously busted grill. Interviewed after the match, Rose told fans in attendance “I felt like destroying something beautiful.” Nah, not really. Results of the MMA half of the MMA/boxing card are below.

John Alessio def. Pete Spratt via submission (rear naked choke), 2:07 of round 2
Kim Rose def. Kim Couture via unanimous decision
Dave Jansen def. Dennis Davis via unanimous decision
Kui Gonsalves def. Ricky Johnson via unanimous decision
Brice Ritani-Coe def. Rob Mitchell via TKO (strikes), 4:33 of round 1

(Props: MMA Weekly)

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Gerald Harris’s ‘TUF 7′ Blog: Episode 12

(Amir and his hail-Mary armbar against CB. Photo courtesy of UFC.com.)

Every Thursday morning, Team Rampage member Gerald Harris blogs his reactions to each episode of The Ultimate Fighter 7 on CagePotato.com. Here’s what he had to say about last night’s insane ep, which we’ve already summarized here.

***

Damn, what a season! Now, I can’t sit here and say it was the best season ever, because I didn’t watch many of the previous TUF shows, the finale hasn’t happened yet, and who am I to make such a bold statement? All I can say is that we fought our asses off and hopefully built a strong fan base for ourselves while bringing some new faces to the UFC.

I don’t want to overshadow the two fights with Jesse’s incident so I’ll address that now. I feel sorry for him, but every man is responsible for his own mistakes. It’s not like getting caught with a punch or submission — this is a voluntary act that you can control. There are consequences in the real world and unfortunately Jesse picked the wrong time to learn a lesson. I witnessed most of the events that night and even tried to help him get home, but he was out of control. With a son to feed and a future career in the UFC, the decision to go home instead of party would have changed his life.

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TUF 7.12 Recap: The Shocker

(Amir gets all “Rocky” on us.)

I’m assuming that most of you watched last night’s episode of The Ultimate Fighter — which, hype aside, was easily one of the greatest episodes in the show’s history — so I won’t bore you with extraneous details. But here’s a quick recap:

— CB Dollaway and Amir Sadollah square off in the last semi-final fight. Aside from a couple of hard body kicks and a close armbar attempt from Amir, the first two rounds are all CB, who controls the action from the top, and delivers a Rampage-style body slam as well as some brutal elbows that open up a large gash under Amir’s right eye. CB nearly locks in a rear-naked choke in the third round, but Amir spins out, momentarily tries to figure out a toe-hold, then catches CB in another armbar that immediately causes him to tap. With his professional MMA record still 0-0, Amir Sadollah has battled his way to the TUF 7 finale.

(Afterwards, getting sewn up.)

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DREAM.4 Quick Results

(“The goggles…they do nothing!”)

Melvin Manhoef def. Kazushi Sakuraba via TKO (strikes), 1:50 of round 1
Ronaldo Souza def. Jason Miller via unanimous decision
Zelg Galesic def. Taei Kin via TKO (injury), 1:05 of round 1
Gegard Mousasi def. Dong Sik Yoon via unanimous decision
Hideo Tokoro def. Darren Uyenoyama via unanimous decision
Ralek Gracie def. Alavutdin Gadzhiev via submission (armbar), 3:02 of round 1
Alistair Overeem def. Tae Hyun Lee via KO, 0:36 of round 1
Shinya Aoki def. Katsuhiko Nagata via submission (gogoplata…FROM THE TOP!![?]!), 5:12 of round 1

(Shinya Aoki vs. Katsuhiko Nagata)

(Melvin Manhoef vs. Kazushi Sakuraba)

(Alistair Overeem vs. Tae Hyun Lee)

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Noons Beats Ass, Diaz Talks Trash at “Return of the King”

If you’re a fan of quick, one-sided demolitions, last night’s EliteXC: Return of the King card didn’t disappoint. In the main event, lightweight champ KJ Noons and top contender Yves Edwards sparred for the first thirty seconds of their bout before Noons caught Edwards with a jaw-punch that sent him to the mat. Noons leaped onto Edwards and started raining down blows like a man possessed by both Satan and PCP; the ref called it at the 48-second mark, and a dazed Edwards was left wondering what the hell had just happened.

Following the match, Nick Diaz — who weighed in a full nine pounds over his 160-pound limit for his earlier match against Mushin Corbbrey — stepped into the cage to confront the man who’d handed him his last loss at EliteXC: Renegade last November. In an apparent attempt to hype a re-match with Noons, Diaz (along with his brother Nate) mouthed off to Noons and stuck his middle fingers into the faces of Noons and his father. The Noonses lunged at the Diazes, but security intervened before things got out of hand. Amid a chorus of boos, Nick and Nate left the cage, their beloved middle fingers extended toward the crowd.

Diaz certainly had no reason to be cocky. Besides coming into the fight a full weight-class over Corbbrey (which Diaz is trying to blame on the ocean),
Diaz needed nearly all of the three scheduled rounds to put away an outmatched, outsized Corbbrey, which he finally did via strikes from the mount.

In other action, Murilo “Ninja” Rua made Tony Bonello pay for a seriously ill-advised guard-pull at the beginning of their match, dropping elbows and punches from the top until the fight was called, while Icon Sport middleweight champion Kala Kolohe Hose was quickly choked out in a non-title match by King of the Cage/Freestyle Cage Fighting vet Robert “Bubba” McDaniel. Full results are below, and a couple vids are after the jump, courtesy of MMAScraps.

MAIN CARD
K.J. Noons def. Yves Edwards via TKO, 0:48 of round 1
Nick Diaz def. Muhsin Corbbrey via TKO, 3:59 of round 3
Murilo Rua def. Tony Bonello via TKO, 3:16 of round 1
Dave Herman def. Ron Waterman via TKO, 2:19 of round 1
Rafael Feijao def. Wayne Cole via TKO, 2:47 of round 1

UNDERCARD
P.J. Dean and Dean Lista fought to a draw
Mike Aina def. Kaleo Kwan via unanimous decision
Mark Oshiro def. Chris Willems via submission (triangle choke), 2:12 of round 1
Robert McDaniel def. Kala Kolohe via submission (rear naked choke), 0:41 of round one

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Gerald Harris’s ‘TUF 7′ Blog: Brain vs. Brawn

(Tim Credeur in happier times.)

Every Thursday morning, Team Rampage member Gerald Harris blogs his reactions to each new episode of The Ultimate Fighter 7 on CagePotato.com. Here’s what he had to say about last night’s ep, in which Forrest Griffin proved that white men can jump, and Mongo Taylor smothered his way into the finals.

***

This episode was pretty good, but I can’t wait until next week. It feels like yesterday, I was sending in an application and audition tape. Now, I’m sitting at home watching all the action unfold like I wasnt a part of it.

As you know by now, Team Rampage has been losing a lot in everything except Go Karts and shit-talking, so when the basketball challenge was announced I “assumed” we finally had a chance to win. My college coach told me that when you assume you make an ass out of yourself and I felt like a big hairy ass when Forrest started kicking Rampage’s. Before the game started I did every dance move known to man as I held 10 grand in cash, but they were slowly shut down by Forrest’s accurate shooing and Rampage’s attempt to build a house with all them damn bricks. He admitted that he sucked at basketball, but it hurt to lose again — not only did we lose, but Forrest put some stank on it and dunked at the end. Damn!

Well, once again America gets to see the many sides of Jesse. Me and Jesse were cool because of Team Quest and I mentioned before that we were both fathers, so we talked about missing our families. I was obviously rooting for him, but I doubted him because of his actions in the house. You didn’t see me in many scenes of his outburts, but I thought he was throwing his opportunity away; I felt like he was taking his position for granted. Little did I know that he’s an animal — not CoCo the monkey, but like King Kong in that damn cage. He’s not that exciting, but very solid. Sure, the dude pisses his shorts, but he kicks ass, so what can you say?

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