In case you wondered what the disparity looks like.    PicProps: MsTracyLee/CombatLifestyle

Well, it took our boy Pat Barry about two years to get a fight that he’s long thought would be fun: he’s set to face off with Stefan Struve in October at UFC Live on Versus 6. UFCLoV 6 (that acronym is still roughly half as ludicrous as DREAM’s last show) is expected to go down in Washington, DC; so far it has not been confirmed that all fights on the card will take place in five-sided cage dubbed The Pentagon (Trademark Pending), which will be manufactured under contract by KBR for a taxpayer cost of six million dollars.

MMAJunkie reported that verbal agreements had been made for the bout, and we assume smear campaigns and sex scandals are being developed as we speak.

Skyscraper comes into the bout off of a pretty gnarly KO loss to Travis Browne at UFC 130 in May.  For the record, Struve is 6’11″ with 83 inches of reach.

Our boy HD comes off of a KO loss as well, in a bout that you may remember with Cheick Kongo last month.  Barry stands at 5’11″ in his tighty whiteys with 74 (and 1/2) inches of reach.

This is happening, people.  There’s going to be raw viciousness and genuine dislike in the air, plus we’re going to send trained fighters who like to kick people really hard into a cage and let ‘em fight.  Should be awesome.  Did we mention this shindig is supposed to go down in DC?  Man, Congress is full of scum — won’t this hurt the sanctioning effort?

[RX]

#10: Shinya Aoki’s Flying Guard Pull/Japanese Backpack

(Aoki vs. Cavalcante and Moore, respectively.)

When you fight Aoki you know he wants to get things to the ground, and he knows that you know it.  Takedowns and sweeps can be hard to come by against an opponent looking to defend them and almost nothing else, so Aoki has had to find other , more creative ways of getting the fight where he wants it, even getting thrown and briefly mounted from time to time.  One of our favorite maneuvers is his flying guard pull.  It may look silly, but more often than not you’re coming down with him and playing the ground game.  If you defend that, he can always jump on you from behind like a kitschy Japanese backpack.  Think "Hello Kitty," only way more dangerous. 

#9: Matt Hughes‘ Slam

(Hughes KO slams Newton at the 1-minute mark, Frank Trigg gets his at 3:20.)

When wrestlers first emerged as a dominant force in MMA they faced an obvious problem: nothing in their background had prepared them to finish fights.  In the UFC, pinning dudes will just get you boos and a call for action from Big John, so you’d better come up with something else.  Matt Hughes did, and that something was his farmboy slam.  He knocked Carlos Newton out with it at UFC 34, and used it as a staple in his game for years.  Even if it was rarely as effective in ending fights as it was against Newton, it still looked cool when he walked across the cage with an opponent on his shoulder like a sack of flour, and it sure got the fans fired up, like it did in Hughes’ dramatic comeback victory against Frank Trigg at UFC 52.