MMA Minute #2 – Watch more Funny Videos

Good news (for those of you who like watching a dude talk into a camera for short periods of time)! “The MMA Minute” is back for another episode, breaking down all the action from this busy weekend and giving you more insight than you probably needed into my personal life. This time I discuss which organization came out looking like the winner in the showdown between Strikeforce and the WEC, and then I more or less stare awkwardly into the camera until the strain of all the attention becomes too much for me and I burst into tears. That’s what it felt like anyway. Hope you enjoy it.

(Werdum displays some riveting mic skills in this interview with Ariel Helwani.)

Strikeforce CEO Scott Coker told reporters at the post-fight press conference on Saturday night that Fedor Emelianenko’s next fight would most likely be against Fabricio Werdum on the April 2010 CBS show. As in, the same Werdum who recently won a lackluster decision over “Bigfoot” Silva, and got dropped from the UFC after getting dropped by a monster uppercut from Junior Dos Santos. In case you can’t tell, this isn’t the huge Fedor fight we were hoping Strikeforce would put together for their next CBS offering. With Alistair Overeem still MIA and a dearth of other heavyweights ready to step up to the big time, a guy on a two-fight win streak may really be the best they can do by April.

But if you thought it was tough to do a network TV promotional push with Brett Rogers doing all the work as the only fluent English-speaker in the main event, get ready for things to become even more difficult. Werdum doesn’t exactly speak the King’s English, and selling a fight between an inscrutable Russian and a fairly bland Brazilian to casual sports fans via a series of translators and facial expressions is no easy task. Maybe they can hype this thing through interpretive dance?

(King Mo accidentally gets some Rockstar in his mouth while attempting to lather the mat with it. Photo courtesy of Fight Magazine.)

Two competing MMA events on Saturday night made for a busy weekend of arbitrary numerical calculations for the Potato Index’s super computer. We didn’t even get to play our customary Sunday game of “Oregon Trail,” that’s how hectic things were. But the numbers are in from Strikeforce: Evolution and WEC 45, so let’s take a look at who’s up and who’s down after Saturday night.

Scott Smith +109
A technically brilliant performance it wasn’t. Smith was clearly overmatched, but he hung tough, wore Le down, and then put his power to good use. It might not have been the best performance of his career, but it’s one people will remember for a long, long time.

Cung Le -77
He can say his acting career had nothing to do with the loss, but something made him fade down the stretch. He got tired and he got lazy and then he got knocked out. It’s almost as if taking a fight between movie roles as a favor to your boss is a good way to get your nose smashed into a pulp.

(Props: MMA TKO)

Mike Whitehead enjoyed significant advantages in both MMA experience and sheer poundage when he faced off against "King Mo" Lawal at Strikeforce: Evolution last night, but neither could keep him from getting knocked into a wonderland of confusion before the first round was up.  That might be partly because when Whitehead fights as a heavyweight he shows up looking a little more rotund than usual, which doesn’t seem to help his speed or explosiveness any.  Or it could just be because Lawal really is as good as he says he is.

Whitehead came into this fight thinking he was getting hosed by being labled an underdog, despite having twenty-five more fights than Lawal.  That vacant stare in his eyes as the referee comes over to pull Lawal off of him?  We’d like to think that’s Whitehead looking into the abyss and seeing just how wrong he was.  Maybe with a change of attitude and a little less excess weight it could have been him guzzling Rockstar like it was neon pink champagne last night. 

(Nick Diaz, photographed here saying something very articulate and respectful. Props: AllElbows.)

According to MMA Weekly, Strikeforce’s January 30th event in Sunrise, Florida, will be headlined by Nick Diaz and Lithuanian head-kick-artist Marius Zaromskis battling for the organization’s vacant welterweight title. Diaz, who hasn’t competed since his submission win over Scott Smith in June, was originally scheduled to fight Jay Hieron for the welterweight strap at "Carano vs. Cyborg" in August, but was pulled from the card after skipping a pre-fight drug test.  MMA Weekly points out that while the Florida State Boxing Commission (which oversees MMA in that state) prohibits performance enhancers and narcotic use, it doesn’t require a pre-fight test for "drugs of abuse," and it doesn’t have any bylaws addressing “compassionate use."

In other words, Diaz should be able to compete there without too much of an issue, though who knows if we’ll ever see him fight in his home state again. Unfortunately, this leaves Hieron as the odd man out once again, which must piss him off to no end considering he signed with Strikeforce specifically to fight Diaz for a belt. "Strikeforce: Miami" is also slated to feature Cristiane "Cris Cyborg" Santos‘s first title defense against Marloes Coenen and the Strikeforce debuts of Herschel Walker and Bobby Lashley.

Related: Only one undercard fighter missed weight for tonight’s Strikeforce event. Also, Mike Whitehead will have a 43-pound weight advantage over King Mo in their heavyweight scrap. CagePotato.com’s liveblog of the Showtime broadcast kicks off at 10 p.m. ET. Don’t be a stranger.

(Cung Le vs. Mike Altman, 3/10/06)

Since Cung Le came to MMA in 2006 via the untraditional route of San Shou, many fight fans are still unfamiliar with his early work.  Well, that ends right here and now.  As part of our attempt to get hyped for Saturday night’s Strikeforce: Evolution event (which we’ll be liveblogging, natch) we’re taking a look back at some of Le’s finest moments in the cage. 

We begin with his MMA debut against Mike Altman in a 2006 Strikeforce event.  Take note of color commentator Ken Shamrock‘s stunned disbelief at Altman’s game plan.  Shammy is blown away that Altman decides to stand and trade with Le, and his concern proves to be well founded.  Le picks Altman apart with ease before putting him to sleep late in the first round, proving once and for all that in all matters not related to finance, workout "supplements," and appropriate expressions of rage, you should probably listen to Ken Shamrock’s advice.   Hope you’re paying attention, Scott Smith.

The Cung Le knockout-apalooza continues after the jump. 

(On the next episode of Hoarders…)

According to a new report on FiveKnuckles.com, recent Strikeforce signee Dan Henderson is in "end stage" negotiations to face Strikeforce middleweight champ Jake Shields at the organization’s next CBS event in April. Bout agreements have yet to be signed, but the fight is reportedly in the process of being finalized.

Since his submission loss to Anderson Silva at UFC 82 last March, Henderson has gone 3-0, scoring victories over Rousimar Palhares, Rich Franklin, and Michael Bisping. Shields most recently picked up his 13th straight victory with a workmanlike decision over Jason Miller, but finished his eight previous fights, which included submission wins over Nick Thompson, Paul Daley, and Robbie Lawler. Compared to Shields, Henderson is larger, has fought more elite-level opponents, and has an obvious power advatange with his punches, but it’s hard to count Jake out when you look at the dominant run he’s had over the last four years. At any rate, it’s a great matchup, and it only makes sense for Strikeforce to put their new star into a title fight right away.

The only other fight on the April card at this point is Fedor Emelianenko vs. TBA. Sure, you’d think that would be a perfect time for Emelianenko to take on Alistair Overeem for Strikeforce’s heavyweight title, right? Wrong. Alistair Overeem has one more fight on on his K-1 contract, which he plans to take in the spring, meaning that he won’t be available to Strikeforce until later in the year. Though his manager, Bas Boon, promises that the Demolition Man will return to Strikeforce sometime in 2010, it’s very likely that he’ll be stripped of his title before that happens.

(Using real settings instead of a cheap green screen? Matt Lindland wouldn’t do that.)

It’s been too long since we’ve had Matt Lindland‘s particular brand of no-nonsense bad-assery in MMA.  That’s partly because his last fight ended in a 37-second knockout loss to Vitor Belfort, resulting in a frightening few moments for the 39-year-old Lindland immediately afterwards.  Turns out he was fine, just got caught, and all the other typical post-fight clichés, but the good news is "The Law" returns to action at Strikeforce: Evolution this Saturday night, and we couldn’t be happier about it. 

Lindland is sort of like the ornery grandfather of the MMA world.  He isn’t about to put up with your bullshit, isn’t impressed with the way you’ve chosen to waste your life with internet porn and video games, and he isn’t going to lie to you about any of it.  Tomorrow night he goes from facing one tough Brazilian opponent to another, as he takes on Ronaldo "Jacare" Souza in what ought to be an intriguing clash of styles.  Will Lindland’s suffocating wrestling attack and awkward, orangutan-like striking style be enough to pull off the minor upset?  Or is Souza too young and too skilled on the mat for him?

What you may or may not know is that these two already met once in the submission grappling arena back in the 2003 ADCC.  It was six years ago and there was no punching or kicking, so it’s not necessarily comparable to an MMA fight, though one man was clearly superior on that day.  Check out the video after the jump, then let us know whether you think it’s a harbinger of future doom or just an irrelevant footnote.

(You know Donald, at some point the hat ceases to be an accessory and starts being a prop.)

MMA fans face a very minor conundrum this weekend. On Saturday night both the WEC and Strikeforce will venture back into the cage and onto TV screens, and even in the age of the DVR that allows us to never miss a fight or a re-run of “Designing Women” ever again, we still have to decide which is worth watching live and which gets mostly fast-forwarded on Sunday morning.

But again, this is only a minor conundrum. One look at the respective fight cards tells us that Strikeforce has more must-see quality fights, although the WEC still has a couple of scraps worth watching and maybe even losing some money on, assuming your gambling habit has been upgraded from ‘problematic’ to ‘compulsive’ by now, and we have every reason to believe that it has. Why don’t we look at some odds then, courtesy of BestFightOdds.com:

Donald Cerrone (-370) vs. Ed Ratcliff (+375)
Anthony Njokuani (-177) vs. Chris Horodecki (+160)
Joseph Benavidez (-180) vs. Rani Yahya (+180)
Takeya Mizugaki (-150) vs. Scott Jorgensen (+140)
Bart Palaszewski (+160) vs. Anthony Pettis (-195)
Muhsin Corbbrey (-245) vs. Zack Micklewright (+210)
John Hosman (-245) vs. Chad George (+200)
Brandon Visher (-600) vs. Courtney Buck (+500)
Brad Pickett (-190) vs. Kyle Dietz (+165)
Jameel Massouh (-165) vs. Erik Koch (+145)

The breakdown…

(Don’t get too chummy, Berlusconi. Fedor only came to this thing because Putin told him there would be ice cream.  He’s been patient so far, but his patience has limits.)

CBS was so happy with how well their first Strikeforce event turned out, they’re going to do it again.  Eventually.  MMA Weekly reports that CBS is eyeing April 2010 as their next date for live MMA action, and they want both Fedor Emelianenko and Dan Henderson on the fight card.  Probably not against each other, though.  That would be insane.

According to CBS senior executive vice president Kelly Kahl, they are "looking at a few different dates" but after the ratings the last Strikeforce show did they "look forward to being back in the cage."

As excited as we’ll be to see both Fedor and Hendo fighting for free on CBS once April rolls around (assuming we make it through the winter without being eaten by wolves, and we never assume that), that puts a five-month gap between Strikeforce’s network TV events.  We can’t help but pose the question: is that really the kind of scheduling pace that builds brand loyalty?  Sure, it gives them time to stack the card using the full might of Strikeforce’s roster, but at this rate they’ll only do about two network TV events a year.  Is that the kind of thing that builds a fanbase, or just tries to quickly exploit whatever existing fanbase is already there? 

(Dan also took his stapler and three boxes of ballpoint pens from the supply closet. Photo courtesy of CombatLifestyle.)

Dana White has never been one to lose a fight gracefully. Now that Dan Henderson has scampered off to rival fight club Strikeforce, it’s time for DW to start telling everybody what a farce Hendo is. As White explained to MMA Fanhouse:

(Dan doesn’t usually pick up hitchhikers, but you got such a pretty mouth…)

After months of speculation from the media and a healthy dose of smack talk from Dana White, Dan Henderson has finally signed a multi-fight deal with Strikeforce, reports MMA Fanhouse.  There’s no word yet when he’ll make his official debut in the organization, or whether he’ll compete primarily as a middleweight or a light heavyweight, but at least one thing is for certain — that chubby British kid who demanded that DW resign Hendo is going to be pissed.

Now that we know where Henderson is going to compete, it’s time to play matchmaker.  Say you’re Strikeforce’s Scott Coker.  You’ve just signed one of the best middleweights in the world, so you could toss him in the mix with guys like Jake Shields, Robbie Lawler, "Mayhem" Miller, Cung Le, so on and so forth.  Or, you might decide that you’ve got enough talent at 185 pounds, and shuffle him into your light heavyweight class so that Gegard Mousasi finally has someone worthwhile to fight. 

There are positives and negatives to either decision, but the pressure’s on.  The board members want answers and the Captain is tired of defending your crazy antics to the Comissioner.  You’ve gotta make the call and make it soon.  So what do you do, hot shot?  What do you do!?

(Noons vs. Diaz I.  Yeah, we’re assuming there’s going to be a II soon.)

It’s been over a year since K.J. Noons was stripped of his EliteXC title and accused of all manner of bitchassery by everyone from Nick Diaz to Jared Shaw, but he’s finally decided to sign with an MMA promotion and give this crazy sport of ours another try.  Sherdog reports that Noons has signed with Strikeforce and will make his debut in either December or January. 

What we really want to know, however, is how long until the Noons and Diaz clans get to go at it again.  There’s some serious unfinished business there, and with Nick Diaz’s recent wins over Frank Shamrock and Scott Smith while Noons was off being a mediocre pro boxer, maybe "King Karl" can see fit to give Diaz a rematch and settle this thing once and for all, weight classes be damned.  Like the prophet said, "Thou shalt not be scared, homey."  Only if/when those two do get together again, maybe Strikeforce shouldn’t plan on doing it California.  MMA’s Rosa Parks still isn’t ready to make nice and give up his seat just yet.

The thing about Manhoef is, while he will almost certainly never be champion in an organization with so many adept grapplers, he’ll also never be in a boring fight.  Yeah, he can be taken down and submitted, and ideally you’d like to see more improvement in that area of his game from a guy who’s been in the sport for that long.  But the man is a human tornado of pain.  To put it in terms Dana White would appreciate, if you had a basketball game on one corner, a baseball game on another, a football game on a third, and a fight on the fourth, a crowd of people would still walk to the next block to see Manhoef go crazy on some poor bastard.  I mean, the guy knocked out Mark Hunt for crying out loud.

If you don’t believe it, get your fill after the jump.  Unless you’re a fan of Sakuraba, Evangelista Santos, or intact brain cells.

According to MiddleEasy, Houston-based kickboxer/model Sarah “Sugar Foot” Ponce may be tapped as a competitor for the 135-pound women’s tournament that Strikeforce is planning for next year. Though Ponce has never competed in MMA, she’s a fairly seasoned kickboxer, with a 12-1 pro record and appearances in the World Combat League and the Wushu Tournament Beijing 2008. When she’s not modeling swimwear, Ponce hones her craft at Houston’s Kickboxing Gym with trainer Mike Altman. Could we be looking at Strikeforce’s next breakout female star? More photos of Sarah await you after the jump, courtesy of UjENA/UjENANetwork.

(Bad news like this is never easy to hear. Nick’s just going to have a minor freakout and then he’ll be with you in a moment.)

As any California resident with ADD and a desire to make jam bands seem worth listening to already knows, getting a prescription for medical marijuana in the Golden State is really no problem. Fighting for a living after smoking said medical marijuana, however, that’s a trickier issue.

Nick Diaz has the state’s consent to smoke his little heart out, but he doesn’t have the CSAC’s permission to fight with it in his system. His ability to beat a drug test with sufficient notice is well documented, but so is his inability to even show up for the test when he doesn’t get that notice. Just to make sure their position on medical marijuana use by licensed athletes is clear, the CSAC went ahead and made their case for coming down hard on the Nick Diaz’s of the sporting world, issuing a statement that draws upon state supreme court precedent to arrive at this conclusion:

Because the Compassionate Use Act only provides a defense to criminal charges, any argument that the Act would allow an athlete to use the drug without consequences to his or her license must fail. If the Court were to take up a similar challenge to discipline of a licensee, it would likely find that the Commission has a legitimate interest in whether or not an athlete uses the drug because marijuana could slow a fighter’s reflexes and endanger his or her health and safety in the ring or the cage.

Therefore, given the limited reach of the Compassionate Use Act and the rationale of the Supreme Court in Ross v. RagingWire Telcomm, the Commission may safely discipline an athlete without running afoul of any law or court decision.

(Photo courtesy of Esther Lin.)

It’s a fact of life in the world of MMA: when it comes to getting big paydays in a hurry, fame trumps skill every time. We saw it with Kimbo Slice, who made half a million to dollars to lose to a mid-level fighter in the weight class below him. We saw it with Brock Lesnar, who debuted in the UFC with just one pro fight to his credit and made $250,000 in guaranteed show money. But we also see it in small ways, such as Kim Couture’s $10,000 take for her losing effort in Strikeforce Challengers last Friday. By comparison, Kerry Vera, who starched Couture in the first round, made four grand to show and another four to win. Main eventer Tyrone Woodley made $3,500 and $3,500. His losing counterpart in that bout? He took home just $2,500.

So how is it that a 1-2 fighter who has yet to prove that she has the skills to warrant an appearance on TV can pocket the biggest check of the night on a card that features several more experienced up-and-comers? Simple. She shares a famous person’s last name, which makes her kind of famous. Sort of.

(Photo courtesy of ajc.com. Tie courtesy of Elton John.)

Heisman Trophy winner, two-time NFL Pro Bowl selection, Olympic bobsledder, Dissociative Identity Disorder sufferer, Celebrity Apprentice contestant, Tae Kwon Do black belt, and American Kickboxing Academy student Herschel Walker will make his MMA debut on January 30th at a Strikeforce event to be held at the BankAtlantic Center in Sunrise, Florida. The news was announced yesterday via press release, though Walker’s opponent has yet to be named. The only other match tied to the card at this point is Cristiane "Cris Cyborg" Santos‘s 145-pound title defense against Marloes Coenen.

As Dana White pondered when Walker’s Strikeforce signing was first announced: "Which athletic commission is going to let this guy fight? Who the fuck are they going to find to fight Herschel Walker? A guy in a wheelchair?” We now know the answer to the first question is "Florida," the state that previously signed off on Kimbo Slice vs. Ken Shamrock at the same venue last October. As for Dana’s other hypotheticals, we hope that Herschel Walker’s opponent has some kind of disability, considering that Walker has only been training in MMA since last month, and it wouldn’t really be fair to make him fight a guy who has both fighting experience and the use of all of his limbs. I mean, if Strikeforce really wants to put Walker against Fedor Emelianenko in the spring, they’d better give him a beatable first opponent.

(Photo by Esther Lin, for Strikeforce.)

Kerry Vera and Kim Couture are set to go at it tonight in the Strikeforce Challengers event in Kansas City.  Since they both share the names of famous UFC fighters who just faced one another, it probably seemed like a genius idea to Strikeforce.  But "Sugar Free" is a Couture in the same way that Ivana is a Trump.  When a name helps that much you hang on to it, even if you didn’t hang on to the husband. 

So what do you think, is your interest in this bout harmed by the somewhat disappointing display put on by their male counterparts at UFC 105?  Or does Kim’s shiny weigh-in bikini erase all those memories from your mind?  Not trying to juge or anything, but when these girls show up wearing more than you…

(I think we all know what the young male audience was tuning in to see: Randy Couture’s brilliant and intoxicating smile. Props: MMA TKO)

Spike TV is a lot like those jerks who you play in a fantasy football league with.  There’s always one sure way to know when they did better than you, and it’s by checking your email inbox.  Spike sent out another email today touting the triumph of UFC 105 over Strikeforce on CBS, at least among a few key demographics.  According to Spike, UFC 105 drew an average of 2.9 million viewers on Saturday, which is considerably less than the 4.04 million that Strikeforce averaged.  UFC 105 peaked with 3.7 million viewers during the main event, whereas Strikeforce had 5.46 million watching Brett Rogers get his head knocked off. 

But just because they technically lost the overall ratings battle to a network TV event (which is expected), doesn’t mean they can’t hype their own numbers in the young male demographic that the UFC and Spike TV collectively own.  Just check out this handy breakdown they provided:

(Props: ArkhamAsylum via TheGarv)

Brilliant. Speaking of ugly defeats, Spike’s "Main Events" counter-programming special that aired opposite "Fedor vs. Rogers" on Saturday night drew 2.14 million average viewers — over back-to-back airings. According to MMA Junkie, "The 9 p.m. ET/PT airing of the special drew 1.2 million viewers, and the 11 p.m. replay drew an additional 939,000 viewers." If you’ll recall, Strikeforce’s live show brought in a very respectable 4.04 million average viewers on CBS. (Doesn’t feel good getting outgunned by a larger network, does it Dana?) With their asses chapped by the ratings drubbing, Spike sent out some data implying that Fedor is still no Kimbo-on-TUF when it comes to putting asses on couches. Our advice to Fedor? Learn English, grow a bushy beard, and knock some fools out in a boatyard. And would it kill you to start a Twitter page?

(Mark Miller knocks Josh Neer out cold at an IFL event in 2007)

I spoke with Mark Miller this week for an SI.com article about his Strikeforce cancelation and the ensuing financial difficulties that resulted from losing his sponsorship money while he sat around backstage waiting to fight on Saturday night.  He was excited to hear that Strikeforce would be paying him his win bonus as extra compensation for the mishap, and he seemed generally way more understanding about the whole thing than a lot of guys who had just trained for six weeks might have been:

I was supposed to be the fifth of six fights on the undercard, and then they were going to go to the main card which was going to be aired on CBS.  I was warming up backstage, getting ready to go on, and they told me that they were going to skip us to make sure the women got their fight in, and then after the Fedor-Rogers fight they were going to let us fight after that.  I said, ‘Whatever, that’s fine.’  I unwrapped, chilled out for a little bit, then as it got closer to the main even I got warmed up again.  When the Fedor-Rogers fight ended I heard them call back on the walkie-talke to the athletic commission that the last fight was going to be a no-go.  I was kind of confused at first.  I wasn’t sure what was going on so I stayed wrapped and stayed warm, just in case, but they came back and told us for sure that it wasn’t happening.  They told me the reason was that in the beginning of the fights there was some problem with production.  I don’t know, I was kind of surprised by it all so I wasn’t paying too much attention to what they said.

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