middleweight

Wanderlei Silva seems to think so. While discussing his 195-pound catchweight bout against Rich Franklin that will headline UFC 99 (June 13th; Cologne, Germany), he told MMA Junkie the following:

You know what they call mixed martial artists who walk around at 210 pounds? Middleweights. Some of the UFC's top 185'ers, including Anderson Silva and Nate Marquardt (as well as Rich Franklin before he left the middleweight division), reportedly weigh in the 215-220 range between fights. Wanderlei Silva's "situation" is that he's smaller than most light-heavyweights, and cutting weight sucks. That's pretty much it.

At this point, installing more weight classes in the UFC wouldn't do anything besides dilute the talent pool, and a super-middleweight class would only be useful in providing Wanderlei Silva with another venue to fight for a championship belt — because it didn't work out for him in the light-heavyweight division, and Anderson Silva owns the middleweight class, so that's not really an option either. It kind of sounds like Wandy is already psyching himself out for the eventual cut to 185. If he loses to Franklin in June, he may decide that it's not even worth it.

(Props: Japan-MMA.com)

With DREAM's next set of tournaments just around the corner — the featherweight GP starts March 8th, and the welterweight GP starts April 5th — highlight video maestro Genghis Con teamed up with "Bestrafer7" to create this hot-to-death tribute to DREAM's 2008 lightweight and middleweight brackets. We don't know much about this Bestrafer character, but judging from his bizarre J-Pop rap video-themed compilation of Kotetsu Boku, he's got a style all his own. Below: Wanderlei Silva shows off his new gym in Las Vegas. ("Yeah, welcome!") Looks like a great space, though maybe he should have hired a native English speaker to handle the talking. And will somebody please shut that kid up?

(Props: MMA Mania)

(Photo courtesy of Tom Casino @ ProElite)

The dust has barely settled from the EliteXC/Strikeforce event --- and what an event it was. For those on the Kimbo watch, he did make a showing during the broadcast and for some reason thought he was in San Francisco. FYI, the fight was in San Jose, and Kimbo also didn't reveal who he would be fighting on May 31st. Anywho, we all know the headlining event was a war between Frank Shamrock and the undefeated Cung Le. So in the spirit of theatrics, we'll save the main event results until last.

Let's get to the quick results:

-- Joey Villasenor and Ryan Jensen battled in a slow stand-up fight that garnered boos from the audience due to boredom. Villasenor dropped Jensen once, but the fighter came back and rocked Joey with some shots of his own. Just before the end of round one, Villasenor ends it on a KO. Wake me up for the next fight.

-- Mike Kyle fought Wayne Cole for about 42 seconds. The crazy bastard tapped out due to an armbar at that mark in the first round. Cole picked up a well-deserved submission win.

-- Gilbert Melendez took on Gabe Lemley in a title fight. Gilbey rocked it in the first, which was mostly on the ground. Herb Dean stopped the fight in the second when Melendez took it to the ground and pounded the piss out of Lemley.

-- Drew Fickett versus Jae Suk Lim --- which was supposed to be Drew Fickett versus Jake Shields until the latter pulled something in his back --- ended early in the first via a guillotine choke. The win gave Fickett another notch in his impressive 33-5 belt.

(Filho: Rainy days and Mondays always bring him down.)

Paulo Filho was supposed to have a rematch with Chael Sonnen at WEC's March 26th event, but the middleweight champion has pulled out of the fight, citing depression and a lack of motivation. As he said in a Tatame.com interview:

“I wasn’t on a good moment, had depression but I’m rising now and the Americans forced me to fight now. I’m not afraid of winning or losing, but I wasn’t motivated to train, wasn’t training well, so I decided to do what the contract says and transferred the fight to June."

Though the Filho/Sonnen rematch will be a great supporting fight for the featherweight championship bout between Urijah Faber and Jens Pulver in June, it leaves the March card looking mighty thin. That event will feature only one title match — a light-heavyweight contest between Doug "The Rhino" Marshall and Brian Stann, and its next-biggest draw is Brock Larson vs. John Alessio.

Pulling out of a title fight for lack of motivation is some truly weak bullshit, and I hope that the WEC at least fines Filho for this. We feel bad that Sonnen won't be seeing a fight check for another three months — but if you live in Portland area, you could always support him by buying a house.

(Chael Sonnen gets up on it.)

It's being reported that real estate agent Chael Sonnen may be fighting undefeated middleweight Nissen Osterneck in a March World Extreme Cagefighting event. The word from MMA Junkie is that the WEC has offered the fight to Osterneck as part of a multi-fight contract, but nothing has been etched in stone just yet.

Although a WEC event in March has not been announced, rumors have been leaked that something will go down. The WEC's next event is WEC: Condit vs. Prater on February 13th. It'll go down live on Versus from Albuquerque, N.M.

You'll recall that Osterneck fought for HDNet Fights on December 15th of last year against Freddie Espiricueta. He won via verbal submission because of some monster strikes. The report claims the UFC had also looked at Osterneck for a spot on “The Ultimate Fighter” show.

Chael Sonnen, a Team Quest fighter, is a former UFC and bodogFIGHT athlete who lost via a second round submission at WEC 31 to middleweight champion Paulo Filho. It was the real estate hawker's first loss in six fights and dropped him to 19-9-1 overall. However, he does have a lovely 3Bed/2Bath close to public transportation he'd like to show you. The hardwood floors are practically new.