Archive for March, 2010

It’s been a while since Yushin Okami fought a crowd-pleasing battle. The Japanese veteran, who quickly jumped into the UFC’s top five at middleweight back in 2008, had fallen just as quickly in the eyes of the promoters. He lost some fights and his ground-and-pound style was effective but boring. Wednesday night, he got the perfect opponent to show off an underrated striking game. Okami destroyed Lucio Linhares on the feet and scored a TKO finish when the doctor said the Brazilian couldn’t continue at 2:47 of the second round. 

It was the type of fight the casual or new MMA fan loves. One onlooker screamed out, "this is awesome," as Okami battered a clearly overmatched Linhares from post to post. Okami was looking to clinch early but Linhares, who kept switching from a conventional stance to southpaw. But he was sloppy and Okami saw that he could land combinations whenever he wanted…

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It’s been a while since Yushin Okami fought a crowd pleasing battle. The Japanese veteran, who quickly jumped into the UFC’s top five at middleweight back in 2008, had fallen quickly in the eyes of the promotion. He lost some fights and his ground and pound style was effective but boring. Tonight, he got the perfect opponent to show off an underrated striking game. Okami destroyed Lucio Linhares on the feet and scored a TKO finish when the doctor said the Brazilian couldn’t continue at 2:47 of the second round. 

It was the type of fight the casual or new MMA fan loves. One onlooker screamed out, "this is awesome," as Okami battered a clearly overmatched Linhares from post to post. Okami was looking to clinch early but Linhares, who kept switching from conventional to southpaw. But he was sloppy and Okami saw that he could land combinations whenever he wanted…

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CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Mario Miranda and Gerald Harris walked a dangerous edge for four and half minutes, in the end Miranda it was the one who fell off the cliff first. Harris, a wrestler, and Miranda, a jiu-jitsu ace, stood for most of the four-plus minutes. Harris landed a big right, that was there all night, and finished Miranda with a flurry punches at 4:49 of the first round in the second fight at Ultimate Fight Night 21 at Bojangles Coliseum.

It was obvious throughout the first round, both fighters were in jeopardy of taking a fight changing blow at any second. Harris, with a low southpaw stance, was in danger of taking a vicious head kick while Miranda, holding his left hands too low, risked taking the counter right to the grill. Harris was dropped with 1:30 left in the first round. He survived some nasty shots as he defended on his knees…

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After playing spoiler to Kevin “Kimbo Slice” Ferguson’s TUF aspirations, The Ultimate Fighter: “Heavyweights” winner, Roy Nelson, is wasting little time to get right in the mix of things in the suddenly stacked UFC’s heavyweight division.

As the co-headliner opposite Stefan Struve (19-3) at tomorrow night’s UFC Fight Night 21: “Florian vs. Gomi,” “Big Country” (14-4) looks to take on a rising 22-year-old talent who towers over the former IFL champion by eleven inches.

Both are gifted submission fighters with solid striking – Struve a kickboxer, Nelson more straight boxing. Thought the Renzo Gracie black belt will also have around 15 pounds on the “The Skyscraper…

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Takanori Gomi returns to U.S. shores with little fanfare outside of hardcore fight fans. Tonight is his chance for a career rebirth and a step towards becoming a star in the States. Can he do it? Is he motivated?

Once considered the best fighter in the world at 155 pounds, Gomi, 31, has been on the downslide the last two years. Too often, he’s looked out of shape and too reliant on one-punch knockout power.

That doesn’t mean he’s not dangerous. He does have rare punching power for the weight and was the winner of 24-of-26 to start his career.

Will Kenny Florian look to stand with him at all? We’re guessing a little to set up a takedown and get it to the ground where Florian can work some ground and pound, and eventually a submission.We find out tonight with UFC’s free card on Spike. The telecast goes live at 8 p.m. ET. Cagewriter is cageside in Charlotte, N.C…

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CHICAGO (March 31, 2010) – The Monroe Civic Center in Monroe, La., will play host to Bellator Fighting Championships again this spring when the promotion returns to Northern Louisiana for Bellator 18 on May 13th.

Tickets for the event go on sale Thursday, April 1st at Ticketmaster.com and at the Monroe Civic Center box office.

“We are thrilled to be returning to Monroe for our May 13th event,” said Bellator founder and CEO Bjorn Rebney. “The Monroe Civic Center, the City of Monroe, Mayor Mayo and Keep Punching Entertainment were tremendous partners for us in Season 1 and we’re looking forward to putting on another exceptional show to a packed house in one of the loudest, most exciting venues we visited last year…

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Former welterweight number one contender Thiago Alves underwent minor surgery today (March 31) to correct the brain “irregularity” that prompted his withdrawal from the UFC 111 fight card at the Prudential Center last Thursday.

TMZ Sports — who broke the initial story regarding “Pitbull’s” condition, first reported the update earlier today.

The Brazilian was pulled from his March 27 fight against Jon Fitch after failing a pre-fight CAT Scan and immediately sought out additional tests from brain specialists to help determine what action needed to be taken — if any.

Those tests prompted Alves to have an angiogram at the Hyman Newman institute for Neurology and Neurosurgery located at Roosevelt Hospital in New York…

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It was clear last week that the UFC was being slightly cooperative with the our good friends over at TMZ. Thiago Alves and his management team made sure to call the popular news/gossip with daily updates about his CAT Scan issues. Even UFC president Dana White was "caught" on the street for a quickie interview. So that means TMZ won’t cover the negative stories around the UFC, right? Fat chance. Even better when a fighter who last fought for the UFC in May of 2008 gets arrested, he’ll still be labeled a UFC fighter.

Jon "War Machine" Koppenhaver was popped again last night. This time for fighting outside a bar in San Diego. TMZ has all the photos and the story is slugged:

"UFC fighter busted – assault with a deadly weapon"

Outrageous, right? War Machine isn’t anywhere close to fighting for the UFC now. He’s had just two of his 13 fights with the UFC. That’s not fair to the promotion…

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Bellator Fighting Championships announced that one-time WEC champ Paulo Filho will fight in a "superbout" on May 13 against season one champion Hector Lombard.

Throughout his career, Filho has struggled with personal demons, pulling out of fights, showing up for fights out-of-shape and mentally unfocused. And in the latest weird move, he got a face tattoo like Mike Tyson’s.

But when Filho is on, he’s an exciting, fun-to-watch fighter, so it makes sense for Bellator to take this approach with him. Instead of putting him in the tournament, which could completely fall apart should Filho return to his unfocused ways, they are putting him in one fight, and an interesting bout at that. Lombard’s hard-hitting will face a challenge in Filho’s submission skills.

A Bellator spokesperson told Cagewriter that if Filho beats Lombard, then Bellator has options…

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