(Video courtesy YouTube/WandFightTeam)

For the past several months fellow Brazilians have been rallying for Murilo "Ninja" Rua to be added to the UFC’s 185-pound roster.

Wanderlei Silva posted a video blog on YouTube last week asking UFC president, Dana White to sign the former PRIDE star to the organization.

Besides "The Axe Murderer," Ninja’s younger brother, UFC light heavyweight champion, Mauricio "Shogun" Rua as well as welterweight contender Paulo Thiago also appeared in the clip to express their support for Murilo, who is undefeated in his last four outings, being brought into the UFC’s middleweight mix.

Speaking with TATAME this week, Ninja says that the ultimate goal would be to join friends like Wand and Shogun in the UFC, but he isn’t banking on it happening without him proving that he deserves it.

“I see it from a positive perspective, but I’m fighting and doing my job. If one day I’ll fight for the UFC it’ll only be a consequence. I’ll wait and it’ll come," Rua explained. “[The UFC's middleweight division] is a great division; there are great fighters, it’s really hard, but I’ll try to be on my best to go for the belt. That’s my dream, my goal, and I want to deserve it. On the right time, I’ll join the UFC’s cast."

(Video courtesy MMAWeekly)

During a media scrum ahead of his UFC 119 bout with Frank Mir, Mirko Cro Cop Filipovic was asked about his career, his future in MMA and whether or not chasing a title is in his plans.

When asked where he sees himself in the UFC’s heavyweight division, Cro Cop danced around the question like a politician.

"I see myself only Saturday night in front of Frank Mir. That’s where I can see myself so far."

(Video courtesy Vimeo/TheReem)

Our favorite online MMA biography series, The Reem, is back after a two-month hiatus and the latest offering proves it was well worth the wait.

In this episode, Alistair explains how he got into mixed martial arts and talks about the early days of his career when promoters couldn’t find an opponent in Holland to face him.

He also details his fights with PRIDE and the behind the scenes things that were going on his life that contributed to the series of losses he dropped, which is interesting to hear his account of, but it’s during this portion that you realize just how slick the production of these videos really is.

One story I had never heard before that "Demolition Man" tells in this segment is how he came to fight in K-1 on a whim against Badr Hari to shut up the Dutch-born Moroccan who had been incessantly dogging him to face him in a kickboxing match.

Regretfully, there is no mention of horsemeat or Fedor ducking him this time around, but there’s always episode 7.

 
(Who the hell is this guy? I thought you said Mark Hunt was coming here.)

Former PRIDE and K-1 star Mark Hunt is taking his last kick at the can of his mixed martial arts career seriously as evidenced by the photo above. Not only has he transformed his body from its rotund former self, he has also joined American Top Team, where he will spend the last month of his training camp preparing for his September 25 UFC debut opposite former fellow super heavyweight, Sean McCorkle at UFC 119 in Indianapolis.

Hunt’s critics have always pointed to his lack of conditioning and the fact that he didn’t train with a top-tier team in his native New Zealand as the reasons why he never got past his role as gatekeeper in PRIDE. Even fights that Hunt was winning, he always seemed to find a way to lose, usually as a result of his lack of cardio or his lack of a ground game.

(Video courtesy YouTube/WandFightTeam)

If you can make it through the terrible music without poking your eardrums out with a Slim Jim, this short Wanderlei Silva retrospective is definitely a good watch.

The video opens with Wand heading to the hospital for knee surgery, which, be forewarned if you have a weak disposition, they catalogue in graphic detail.

("So, do you chicks party?")

Here’s one for the Pride nerds out there: A report from MMAFighting.com on Saturday says the UFC may have softened its stance on Ricardo Arona enough to slide a contract his way some time in the near future.  This news comes after a report by Tatame.com last year quoted company president Dana White saying some not-so-complimentary things about the streaky light heavyweight.  Now Arona says he hopes to make his Octagon debut by October or November.

(Three out of four former PRIDE announcers agree: Jerry Millen is an opportunistic douchebag.)

By Cagepotato.com contributor Mike Russell

Nearly two years have passed since the collapse of PRIDE Fighting Championships and although the future of the organization most assumed to be dead is somewhat foggy, one fact that has been made crystal clear is that a growing number of ex-employees of the beloved Japanese promotion despise the show’s former American producer, Jerry Millen.

If you recall, Bas Rutten was the first to open up about Millen’s lack of professionalism and knowledge of mixed martial arts as well as his abusive treatment of former commentators Stephen Quadros and Mauro Ranallo. Here’s the quote from Bas’ original post from the Sherdog forums:

Ranallo, who like Rutten worked for the promotion prior to Millen being hired, quit PRIDE in 2006 citing his differences with Millen as his primary reason for leaving:

Now Ranallo’s former broadcast partner Frank Trigg has entered the fray to add his account of Millen’s evil ways in an exclusive and candid interview with Cagepotato.com.

(Takanori Gomi wins the PRIDE lightweight title by knocking out Hayato Sakurai at Shockwave 2005.)

This would have been incredible if it happened three or four years ago, but hey, better late than never, right? According to MMA Fighting, lightweight legend Takanori Gomi has signed a multi-fight contract with the UFC; no word yet on the date of his debut or who his first opponent will be. Gomi visited the States last month to meet with the UFC and Strikeforce, and take in a training session at American Kickboxing Academy.

Holding a record of 31-5, Gomi is best known for his dominant run in PRIDE from 2004-2006, where he won the organization’s lightweight belt and took out such notable fighters as Jens Pulver, Tatsuya Kawajiri, Hayato Sakurai, and Mitsuhiro Ishida. However, his last PRIDE appearance was a shock gogoplata loss to Nick Diaz in February ’07, and he then went 2-2 in Sengoku, dropping matches to Sergey Golyaev and Satoru Kitoka; after the Kitaoka loss, Gomi began to question his training and motivation. Though Gomi has won his last two bouts, he hasn’t been facing the kind of top-level competition that he regularly enjoyed at his peak. Will the UFC’s talent-rich lightweight class re-ignite the Fireball Kid, or will he join Mirko Cro Cop and Wanderlei Silva in the PRIDE Curse Club?

(Massive props: GYVIDEOS, The Killers)

Cro Cop‘s head kicks. The Gracie Train. The double-knockout. The Randleplex. The flying inverse triangle choke. Severn‘s suplexes. Inoki’s slaps. Coleman‘s daughters. The entrance. The face-off. The blood. The towel. The destroyed limbs. The shaving gel endorsement. The agony and the ecstasy. The subtitle of this film is "MMA Is Just a Sport." We know better than that. Two more GY PRODUCTION films are after the jump. Happy Monday.

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.

Internet video savant Lookoutawhale has done it again.  Here we get a chance to see what it might have looked like if the production teams from both Pride and the UFC had gotten drunk together and engaged in an orgy of fight hype.  The result is a beautiful and slightly comical love child.  It really makes you grateful for the wonders of technology and the things it can be used for when people have too much time and not enough of a social life.  The special appearance by Bruce Lee at the end is what takes this from mere tomfoolery and carries it into the realm of genius.  Bravo, Mr. Whale.

(Don’t fear Arona.  Fear his freaking cat-like reflexes.)

Hey there, people who have been following MMA for more than just the last six months, remember Ricardo Arona?  Muscular Brazilian guy, had a rivalry with Wanderlei Silva, got knocked out by Sokoudjou…any of this ringing any bells?  Well now that Dana White has more or less ruled out any possibility of signing Arona to the UFC because, hell, even Dana thinks he can beat Arona, the big man is looking at making a return to action soon, possibly in Strikeforce.

It takes a special kind of cojones to stare down permanent injury and say "Eff it, I ain’t tappin’." Inspired by the DVD we’ve been plugging lately, we decided to pay tribute to the technical submission — that thrilling moment when a fighter is caught in a health-threatening submission hold, but is too stupid much of a warrior to concede defeat, so the referee has to do it for him. Because as a wise man once said, "Tapping out is for bitches." Enjoy…

***

#8: Daniel Gracie vs. Wes Sims
IFL Championships 2006, 6/3/06

After their first chaotic mess of a bout was ruled a “Technical Draw,” Gracie and Sims met again in the IFL for another technical ending.  Though Sims has always had a hazy understanding of the rules in any given MMA bout, he got taken down too quickly to launch any illegal stomps in this one, and had to settle for giving up his back and then trying to grab on to the ropes (thankfully Stephen Quadros reminds him that he can’t do that) as Gracie stayed on him like a backpack and choked him unconscious.  There’s nothing quite like seeing a 6’10” guy drop to the canvas like somebody just pulled his plug.  Sleep well, buddy.

#7. Frank Shamrock vs. Phil Baroni
Strikeforce/EliteXC: Shamrock vs. Baroni, 6/22/07

(Choke starts at the 8:35 mark.)

Thanks to Shammy’s pioneering work in video trash talk, this fight was epic before it even began. Strikeforce’s first middleweight title fight paired two loud-mouthed badasses who would never admit defeat — but unfortunately, there could be only one champion. After battering the NYBA with punches for almost two full rounds, Shamrock took Baroni’s back, wrapped an arm around his neck, and squeezed. While most men would tap to the hold, Baroni went out like a warrior, throwing punches into Frank’s mug until he lost consciousness. Shamrock celebrated his win by shoving Baroni’s lifeless body then kicking him in the ass, proving that he wasn’t just the better fighter that night, he was also the bigger asshole.

#4: Takanori Gomi vs. Ralph Gracie @ PRIDE Bushido 3 (5/23/04), 6 seconds

Known for his very un-Gracie-like hard-charging style, Ralph Gracie racked up five-straight first-round stoppages in vale tudo matches during the ‘90s before re-entering competition in 2003 to test himself against modern mixed martial artists. But his PRIDE debut against Dokonjonosuke Mishima at Bushido 1 didn’t go so well — he only won by decision — and he returned to the ring seven months later ready to murder somebody. And that babyfaced little Japanese dude in the red corner, who Ralph’s student BJ Penn had choked out the year before? Yeah, he’d do. But Gracie was a little too anxious to get out there and kick ass (as evidenced by his refusal to touch gloves), and when he shot in right after the bell, his jaw ricocheted off Gomi’s knee; the Fireball Kid took over from there. This was the fight that officially put Gomi on the map — and served as the final six seconds in Ralph Gracie’s MMA career.

CLICK HERE FOR THE VIDEO…

#9: Aleksander Emelianenko vs. James Thompson @ PRIDE 28 (10/31/04), 11 seconds

Beginning with one of the greatest face-offs in MMA history — which pitted Thompson’s theatrical fury against Aleks’s nose-picking stoicism — it was clear that this fight was going to provide an entertaining clash of styles. Thompson’s ridiculous “gong-and-dash” routine actually succeeds in catching Emelianenko off-guard, but as soon as the Grim Reaper springs back to his feet, reality sets in. Thompson proceeds to eat punch after punch until his legs give out, thus proving a very important lesson: It doesn’t matter how big you are, or how angry you look — real power comes from having tons of Russian prison tattoos.

CLICK HERE FOR THE VIDEO…

#10: Luiz Azeredo vs. Naoyuki Kotani @ PRIDE Bushido 9 (9/25/05), 11 seconds

The unspoken first rule of Chute Boxe seems to be, “When you’ve got a guy hurt, hurt him worse.” Representing the notoriously aggressive Brazilian camp at PRIDE’s 2005 lightweight tournament was Luiz “The Joker” Azeredo, who may as well have taken a baseball bat to the ring with him during his quarterfinal match against Naoyuki Kotani. Azeredo wastes no time in dazing the Japanese fighter with a dead-on right straight, then place-kicks Kotani’s melon like he’s aiming for a set of goalposts 40 yards downfield. The knees to the head that came directly after might have been a bit unnecessary, but the Joker was too consumed by bloodlust at that point to stop. Despite his intimidating opening-round performance, Azeredo went on to lose a decision to Takanori Gomi later that night. As for Kotani, he has finally regained the use of his lower body, though he still pronounces his “th”s as “f”s.

CLICK HERE FOR THE VIDEO…

(Sometimes you have only one friend, and he’s somewhere at the bottom of that next mug of beer.)

In a recent interview with Sportsnavi (via Suki) Takanori Gomi talks about his fall from the top of the lightweight division and his loss to Satoru Kitaoka (video here, and it doesn’t take long) in the Sengoku lightweight Grand Prix.  Give him credit for owning up to his poor performance, as Gomi more or less says that he has sucked lately and doesn’t seem entirely hopeful that things will get better.

As you saw, I couldn’t do anything. I suppose fans who knew me since PRIDE considered that I looked like a totally different person. I don’t even know why. I didn’t feel any energy in the ring. After the fight, I felt like I was free. I thought I fulfilled my duty.
- Do you mean that you resigned from a representer of the top lightweight fighter?
I suppose so. I hadn’t proven myself in the last few fights. I was training, yet everything was fall in apart. I couldn’t put together because my training wasn’t enough. My skills went down in the last 2 years. I experienced a lot in the last 2 years. I quit Kiguchi dojo without thinking well, and started my gym. I felt responsibility to take care of my students, and I was passive about my fight. I was just waiting and see who I fought with.
- The title of the tournament was “road to Gomi”
I have no excuse about my performance and my loss. Kitaoka was entirely better than me. I I hope he becomes a great champion and defends his title.

#10: Kaitlin Young @ HOOKnSHOOT 2007 Women’s Grand Prix (11/24/07)

Defeated: Suzi Smith (KO, 0:22 of R1); Miesha Tate (KO, 0:30 of R1, shown above); Patti Lee (KO, 0:53 of R1)

Though HOOKnSHOOT has been putting on high-caliber women’s MMA bouts since 2001, the organization’s most infamous moment was the eight-woman tournament it held last year, where an unknown Minnesotan named Kaitlin axe-murdered her way through three opponents in less than two minutes of combined fight time. Young would go on to face Gina Carano in the first women’s MMA match to be broadcast on network TV, at EliteXC: Primetime in May of this year. Even if she never wraps her wrists again, Young’s MMA legacy is secured.

#9: Gegard Mousasi @ DREAM Middleweight Grand Prix Final (9/23/08)

Defeated: Melvin Manhoef (sub. due to triangle choke, 1:28 of R1, shown above); Ronaldo Souza (KO, 2:15 of R1)

Unless you caught him in his PRIDE Bushido appearances in 2006, you probably had no idea who Gegard Mousasi was when he entered DREAM’s middleweight tournament earlier this year. But after choking out the highly-regarded Denis Kang in the opening round in April, and beating Dong Sik Yoon to a decision in June, he proved that he had a right to be there. And after the finals in September, he proved that he was one of the most talented middleweights in the world.

The event was almost anti-climactic in the way that it played out. These were not epic battles — this was Gegard Mousasi simply outclassing Melvin Manhoef (who had famously massacred Kazushi Sakuraba in the quarterfinals), then upkicking the daylights out of “Jacare” (who had torn through Zelg Galesic and Jason Miller in the tourney’s previous rounds). When the dust settled, Mousasi had picked up his 10th and 11th straight victories as well as a DREAM championship belt — a perfect ending to a breakout year.

#8: Don Frye @ UFC Ultimate Ultimate 1996 (12/7/96)

Defeated: Gary Goodride (sub. due to fatigue, 11:19); Mark Hall (sub. due to achilles hold, 0:20); Tank Abbott (sub. due to rear-naked choke, 1:23, shown above)

You have to remember — beating Gary Goodridge and Tank Abbott used to mean something. Both men were responsible for some of the most gruesome finishes in the UFC’s early history, from Goodridge’s crucifix/elbow-smashing of Paul Herrera to Tank’s starching/mocking of Jon Matua. The Ultimate Ultimate ’96 was just about the toughest eight-man field that the UFC could throw together in those days — it also included Ken Shamrock, Kimo Leopoldo, and Paul Varelans — and Don Frye notched his second UFC tournament win by cruising through it.

Frye pushed Goodridge past the breaking point in the quarterfinals (back before there were those cushy one-minute breaks between rounds that our spoiled fighters have today). After eleven-and-a-half minutes of back-and-forth brawling, Big Daddy found himself underneath Big Mustache and decided to tap before he suffered permanent damage. Frye’s semi-final match was a breeze — he’d already defeated tournament alternate Mark Hall twice in his career, and the third time was no different — but the Frye/Abbott final was a true superfight. Tank had just finished nelmarking Steve Nelmark in the semis, and his intimidation quotient was at an all-time high. Though the Predator got clocked with some big punches early, he was able to capitalize on a Tank Abbott slip, quickly sinking in a rear-naked choke. Don Frye — the toughest S.O.B. alive — collected his big-ass check and strolled out, never to fight in the UFC again.