highlight

(Props: MMA Videos)

Is there such thing as elusive judo?  We may get to find out if this video is any indication of where Japanese judo gold medalist Satoshi Ishii is learning the MMA game from.  He even pulls a nice little fireman’s carry on Lyoto Machida at 2:53 in.  You know it’s slick when Machida is smiling even as he hits the mat.

Say this for Ishii, he’s taking his entrance into MMA very seriously and is getting some of the best training he can find.  First he worked out with Randy Couture, and now Machida.  Next maybe he goes to Greg Jackson’s and starts flipping people on their heads.  Better soak it up while everyone still thinks of you as that harmless, nice Japanese guy from the Olympics.  

After the jump, a study in how YouTube’s “Related Videos” feature gets weird in a hurry.

(Props: KingAtRock1)

Okay, this is pretty sweet.  Video highlight-maker KingAtRock1 has put together a look at the five best pound-for-pound fighters in MMA.  Sure, you could say he whitewashes Urijah Faber's recent history in the cage, but overall it's a solid list and I had a good time watching it.  Just good, clean fun.

I was just flipping through this month's copy of Fight! Magazine, which features a photo spread on the UFC's newest Octagon girl, Logan Stanton, and then lo and behold here's Yahoo's Steve Cofield doing a video interview with her at the Arnold Classic.  You have to admit Logan's pretty damn adorable, and her dorky, "Revenge of the Nerds" laugh somehow only makes her more so.  Leave it to that classy son of a bitch Cofield to ask her if she's going to get a boob job.  Nice, Steve.

After the jump, Frank Trigg remembers TapouT's "Mask."

Here's the latest monthly MMA video summary from FightFace, featuring the greatest hits from UFC Fight Night 17, UFC 95, MFC 20 and more; big ups for the Jeff Buckley soundtrack. Anybody know who was responsible for that insane upkick KO at the 1:25 mark? (Update, from Facey himself: "That was Dustin Kempf from the North American Allied Fight Series, although he ended up winning by RNC.") For more great MMA highlights, check out fightface.blogspot.com.

(Skip to the 1:27 mark, where the ass-kicking begins.  And don’t try to act like you aren’t digging the music, either.)

In his time with the IFL, Rory Markham became known as the guy who didn’t really start fighting until he got hurt.  More than one of his bouts began with him getting dropped and ended with him getting his hand raised, so much so that trainer Pat Miletich used to plead with Markham to fight smart before he got rocked.

But as Markham admits in this exclusive interview, that’s just not his style, as anyone who saw his devastating head-kick KO of Brodie Farber in his UFC debut knows by now.  At UFC 95 next Saturday night Markham takes on England’s Dan Hardy in London.  Chances are, things will get ugly fast.

CagePotato.com: Thanks for talking with me, Rory.  Now that you’re in the UFC, how have things changed for you?

You know, I’ve been putting in a lot of time, trying to hone my skills since October.  I found that I was weak in certain areas and I knew I needed to improve.  Being in the UFC now, it’s improve or die.

What areas do you feel you needed to improve in?

I don’t want to touch on bad instances, but there was one moment in the Brett Cooper fight where I really felt like if he hadn’t gotten the takedown and I could have kept it on the feet, there would have been a drastically different finish to that fight.  Since then I’ve been really trying to hone my wrestling skills.  I see what wrestling has done for guys like Georges St. Pierre and even, I think people overlook what it did for B.J. Penn.  When he went out with Randy [Couture] and Matt Lindland, that’s when he really hit his stride.  That’s something I noticed that I needed to work on.  Definitely in the long run, maybe not in this fight or even the next one, I think it’s going to add to the longevity of my career.

I talked to Jon Jones for this week’s SI.com column, in which he discusses what it was like growing up with two brothers who both now play defensive line at Syracuse (with the eldest headed soon to the NFL) and how he learned to strike by watching YouTube videos:

The gym I train at is a really small gym, a lot of wrestlers, so I didn’t have a striking coach until this last fight.  I had to teach myself how to strike.  I would study a lot of videos on YouTube, or go to different websites where I could watch old Pride fights.  I just became obsessed with MMA and watched videos over and over again.  I learned the moves and took them to practice and started using them.  Before I knew it I was considered a pretty good striker. 

YouTube videos can really teach you a lot.  It depends how you search for them.  If you look really hard, you can find videos of seminars from some of the best fighters in the world.  It’s just a matter of taking them seriously.  You have the Bas Rutten’s and the Anderson Silva DVD’s, but you can find most of that stuff on the internet for free, so that’s what I was doing.  I was basically teaching myself with them.  Now I can honestly say I’ve been taught by some of the best teachers in the world because I’ve watched some of the greatest seminars online. 

Obviously, Jones is a freakish athlete who can simply do things other people can’t, such as watch YouTube videos and then beat up UFC veterans.  But what struck me was his humility and obsession with improving as a fighter.  Check this quote, for example, on what went through his mind after the UFC offered him the fight with Bonnar: