MMA News Thread

[RM211]

With Saffiedine injured, Ellenberger vs. Lawler booked for UFC 173

WOW!!!


LAS VEGAS – A training injury has forced Tarec Saffiedine (15-3 MMA, 1-1 UFC) to bow out of next month’s UFC 172 event in Baltimore. With his intended opponent scrapped, Jake Ellenberger (29-7 MMA, 8-3 UFC) will now shift to May’s UFC 173 fight card, where he’ll meet fellow welterweight Robbie Lawler (22-10, 7-4).

MMAjunkie and USA TODAY Sports today confirmed the changes with UFC President Dana White.

Headlined by bantamweight title fight between champion Renan Barao and challenger T.J. Dillashaw, UFC 173 takes place May 24 at Las Vegas’ MGM Grand Garden Arena. The Ellenberger vs. Lawler matchup airs on the evening’s five-fight pay-per-view main card (10 p.m. ET) and follows preliminary-card bouts on FOX Sports 1 and UFC Fight Pass.

It’s the second time a planned Ellenberger vs. Saffiedine bout has been nixed. The two were expected to meet at a January event in Singapore, but Ellenberger suffered a hamstring injury in training and was replaced by Hyun Gyu Lim.

The hard-hitting Ellenberger returns to the cage for the first time since a lackluster July loss to perennial contender Rory MacDonald. Still, the 29-year-old Nebraskan – who currently lives and trains in Lake Forest, Calif. – is 8-2 in his past 10 outings and is currently ranked No. 4 in the latest USA TODAY Sports/MMAjunkie MMA welterweight rankings.

Meanwhile, Lawler, who’s ranked No. 10, looks to rebound from a failed bid at the UFC’s welterweight title after. Earlier this month, he dropped a thrilling five-round decision to now-champ Johny Hendricks in a “Fight of the Year” candidate. An Iowan who now trains with Florida’s American Top Team, the 32-year-old Lawler boasts nearly 13 years of professional experience.

A timetable for Saffiedine’s return to action wasn’t immediately established, but he’s expected to know more after a doctor’s visit next week. The nature of the injury wasn’t immediately revealed.

The latest UFC 173 card now includes:
•Champ Renan Barao vs. T.J. Dillashaw – for UFC bantamweight title
•Junior dos Santos vs. Stipe Miocic
•Jake Ellenberger vs. Robbie Lawler
•Takeya Mizugaki vs. Francisco Rivera
•Tony Ferguson vs. Katsunori Kikuno
•James Krause vs. Jamie Varner
•Chris Holdsworth vs. Kyung Ho Kang
•Mitch Clarke vs. Al Iaquinta
•Michael Chiesa vs. Francisco Trinaldo
•Anthony Njokuani vs. Vinc Pichel
•Yves Edwards vs. Piotr Hallmann
•Doo Ho Choi vs. Sam Sicilia
•Jingliang Li vs. Danny Mitchell

 

[B-Buzz]

Bellator 114 tonight

main CARD
Spike TV, 9 p.m. ET
Alexander Shlemenko vs. Brennan Ward for Bellator MMA middleweight title
Desmond Green vs. Will Martinez featherweight tournament semifinal
Matt Bessette vs. Daniel Weichel featherweight tournament semifinal
Brett Cooper vs. Kendall Grove middleweight tourney semifinal

preliminary CARD
Spike.com, 7 p.m. ET
Edson Berto vs. Rad Martinez
Jason Fischer vs. Justin Wilcox
Ron Keslar vs. Jordan Smith
Trevor Carlson vs. Linton Vassell
Mike Estus vs. Gavin Sterritt
Michael Arrant vs. Aaron Wilkinson
Bubba Jenkins vs. Sean Powers

 

[RM211]

Shlemenko vs Ward is gonna be a fuccin war!! Well that's what im hoping!

 

[B-Buzz]

Cyborg just got the shit kicked out of her by Baars. Fucking great fight tho

 

[RM211]

^^^^she was asleep for a split second with that knee in the first, just a bad matchup for cyborg, that girl had too much length on her and experience in muy thai fights.

 

[B-Buzz]

yeah I was more impressed by Baars than I am down on Cyborg. That's probably the toughest chick I've ever seen fight. I think it was in the 4th when Cyborg landed a bomb on her that would've KO'd 5 Gina Caranos and Baars just shook it off and smiled. Probably would've helped Cyborg if she had anyone other than Tito in her corner who only kept telling her to circle right between rounds lol.

Shlemenko was classic in his fight. Thought Ward was doing great and Shlemenko comes out in the 2nd landing 20 body shots in a row which stopped Ward in his tracks and then grabbed that dope guillotine with his stomach pressing on the back of Ward's head. Cooper had another great comeback, dude's one of the funnest fighters to watch with how many crazy fights he's had now.

 

[Shaniac]

I watched the Bellator fights. Didnt know Cyborg was fighting anyone have a link to those fights?

 

[InfamousICON]

 

[B-Buzz]

I watched the Bellator fights. Didnt know Cyborg was fighting anyone have a link to those fights?

 

[B-Buzz]

WSOF 9 tonight

main CARD
NBC Sports Network, 9 p.m. ET
Steve Carl vs. Rousimar Palhares for welterweight title
Marlon Moraes vs. Josh Rettinghouse for inaugural bantamweight title
Yushin Okami vs. Svetlozar Savov
Josh Burkman vs. Tyler Stinson
Ozzy Dugulubgov vs. Johnny Nunez
preliminary CARD
MMAjunkie, 6 p.m. ET
Mike Corey vs. Shane Kruchten
Sean Cantor vs. Bryson Hansen
Chris Gruetzemacher vs. John Gunderson
Brenson Hansen vs. Boostayre Nefarios (this is Marvin Eastman Jr. he changed his name so he isn't compared to his dad)
Phil Dace vs. Danny Davis
Gil Guardado vs. Jimmy Spicuzza

 

[RM211]

how the ref (Tony Weeks btw) didn't call a knockdown is beyond me...

 

[RM211]

WSOF 9 tonight

main CARD
NBC Sports Network, 9 p.m. ET
Steve Carl vs. Rousimar Palhares for welterweight title
Marlon Moraes vs. Josh Rettinghouse for inaugural bantamweight title
Yushin Okami vs. Svetlozar Savov
Josh Burkman vs. Tyler Stinson
Ozzy Dugulubgov vs. Johnny Nunez
preliminary CARD
MMAjunkie, 6 p.m. ET
Mike Corey vs. Shane Kruchten
Sean Cantor vs. Bryson Hansen
Chris Gruetzemacher vs. John Gunderson
Brenson Hansen vs. Boostayre Nefarios (this is Marvin Eastman Jr. he changed his name so he isn't compared to his dad)
Phil Dace vs. Danny Davis
Gil Guardado vs. Jimmy Spicuzza

Josh Burkman just blasted thru Tyler, didn't see that coming. I thought josh was going to gnp him, next up Yushin

 

[B-Buzz]

got em DVRd but I saw the results. No surprise Palhares leg locked a grappler who leaves his legs hanging on most of his moves. Sounds like Moraes owned dude too. Would love to see him and Gaethje make their way to the UFC after defending the belts for the next year

 

[B-Buzz]

@BASEDVATO

 

[RM211]

JUNIOR DOS SANCHEZ?? LOL!

 

[RM211]

JUST A COUPLE OF HEADLINES/RUMORS HAPPENING.


DANA WHITE: "GUARANTEED we will be in PUERTO RICO in 2015 and it will be with S @SHOWTIME pettis



Shogun's nose surgery in Brazil today was a success



Erik Fontanez ‏ E @erik _Fontanez 3m
Dan Henderson's going to fight at UFC 175.



TJ Grant will return to action on the Halifax UFC Fight Night card and take on Nate Diaz!

 

[RM211]

Luis Santos blasts Alfredo Morales with a front kick at XFCi 3

 

[RM211]

Please, Royce Gracie, stop making it so hard to remember you fondly

It’s kind of amazing how much damage Royce Gracie manages to do to his own legacy, even years after the matter should have been settled. It’s gotten to the point where, even on a weekend when he’s not doing anything of note, when he shouldn’t be a story so much as a spectator, he still comes out looking bad.

It would be impressive if it wasn’t so depressing for those of us who he used to mean so much to.

This time it happened at the Metamoris 3 event in Los Angeles. At a gathering of grappling nerds so intense in their love of jiu-jitsu that they cheered half-guard sweeps like an MMA crowd cheers knockout blows, Eddie Bravo went 20 full minutes with another member of the Gracie clan, Royler, in a rematch of their 2003 match at the Abu Dhabi Combat Club.

Though Bravo won the first meeting via submission, the rematch ended in a draw, as tends to happen when evenly matched competitors meet in submission-only matches. Still, it was a fun match with plenty of swings back and forth. It left the crowd entertained, and should have left both sides with pride intact.

Enter Royce, the hero of the early UFC events, the man who has adamantly refused to accept a place of dignified refrain after doing his part to help MMA and jiu-jitsu find a foothold in North America.

The story goes that as Bravo was backstage getting his post-match vomit on, Gracie just had to work his way back there to offer a few unsolicited opinions. This was unwelcome, as you might imagine, not only because he had no business there in the first place, but also because, by his own admission, he hadn’t come to offer Bravo his congratulations on a closely contested match. He hadn’t even come just to say thanks for Bravo’s gracious post-match remarks. No, that’s not Royce’s style, apparently.

“I told him that I liked what he said after the fight, but didn’t like the fact that he always talked trash about Royler and my family,” Gracie told MMA Fighting. “He stood up and started yelling, so I also raised the tone of my voice and told him I didn’t like it.”

Imagine that. The guy who had just competed in a 20-minute match (which you, Royce, had nothing to do with) wasn’t in the mood for your attempt to refight old, boring battles? How surprising.

As an isolated incident, it just looks like bad judgment. The trouble is, this seems to have become Royce’s thing. When he’s not bashing the actual fighting members of his own family, he’s a little too eager to claim this overly critical elder statesman status on a sport that has changed drastically since his heyday in it. In the process, he’s tarnishing our sepia-toned memories of those early triumphs, which were important enough to the sport that most of us were even willing to forgive later transgressions, like the steroid bust that helped end his MMA career in 2007.

Royce Gracie was important to MMA and to the UFC. If I’m being honest, he’s a big part of the reason I took up jiu-jitsu, which in turn was a big part of the reason I got interested in MMA. I know I’m not alone in that, either. Plenty of American kids had never even heard of Brazilian jiu-jitsu until Gracie showed up on the scene at the very first UFC. Once we saw what he could do to bigger, stronger opponents, we wanted to learn all about the art that made this possible.

You could argue that he was mostly an avatar for the Gracie family at that point, and just about any other Gracie could have done as well or better than he did in those early UFC events. That may be true, but it’s beside the point.

It was Royce who showed up looking like a skinny guy in a gi, then tapped out one opponent after another before being carried out in triumph on the shoulders of his family. He did that. That’s his to keep. It’s an important part of MMA history that can’t be erased. I just wish he didn’t spend the years since then trying so hard to make us wish that it had been someone else.

Gracie’s time in the spotlight is over, and it has been for a long time. The sport that he excelled in back in the mid-90s is radically different from the one we watch today. Even the jiu-jitsu tournaments, like Metamoris, which you don’t see Royce competing in, are of a different breed than the ones of two decades ago.

Gracie might have played an important role in helping both sports get to where they are today, but that doesn’t give him the right to go puffing his chest out now, starting fights he has no intention of ever finishing.

The thing for Gracie to do is just stop. Stop creating needless drama. Stop trying to be the center of attention. Stop making it so difficult for us to remember you the way we want to, as the grinning, skinny Brazilian in the sweaty gi. We liked that guy. We respected him. We only wish we could say the same about all the versions of him that followed

 

[RM211]

Roufusport kickboxer Dennis Munson dies following decision loss at Knockout Kings eve

n Friday, March 28 kickboxing promotion Knockout Kings put on an event out of Milwaukee, WI. The main event featured a welterweight bout between Richard Abraham and Jesset Abraham. Prior to the headlining fight, Roufusport product Dennis Munson took on Mike Vang in a bantamweight tilt.

In the end, Vang got his hand raised after three rounds of action in a majority decision as reported by the KO Kings twitter account. Following two rounds of competitive action, Munson appeared completely out of sorts, according to an eye witness that spoke to Bloody Elbow:




He shouldn't have been allowed out there for the third round

It's hard to describe, but at the end of the second (round) he seemed to have gassed very very hard. And when he came out for the third he had his hands down virtually the whole time. When his opponent was trying to strike him he fell into the ropes every time. (He) didn't throw a single punch and barely covered up. But his mannerisms were of someone who was delirious. Like, he had no idea what was going on, where he was, and just on his last breath of life. Seriously. I've never seen someone like that before. I've seen guys get KO'd standing and still walk around, but not like this.

I turned to my friend as soon as the bell rang of the third round and said, "We just watched a guy die." And i'm really sad that it was true.

Following the bout, Munson was taken to the hospital. Unfortunately, in the early hours of Saturday, March 29, Munson passed away. The promotion's website recognizes the loss and includes a link to a memorial fund from Roufousport to aid the family with funeral costs. Their statement:


Our community, our family, has suffered a devastating loss.

For reasons still unknown to the medical staff that treated him and tried so valiantly to save him,
Dennis Munson passed away in the early hours of Saturday, March 28 at Mt. Sinai Hospital.
His family was at his side, as were many members of his Roufusport family.

Words can not describe the utter sadness and emptiness felt at this time. Our deepest condolences
and most heartfelt sympathy go out to his family and everyone who knew and loved Dennis.

All we can do is wish Dennis god speed and honor his memory by always giving 100% in whatever
it is you choose to do in life.

A special fund has been established by Roufusport to help the Munson family pay for burial costs.
Please give what you can and share this link.

Dennis Munson, we will all miss you very much.

 

[RM211]

Daniel Cormier vs. Dan Henderson targeted for UFC 175

Daniel Cormier will not be fighting Rafael "Feijao" Cavalcante next after all.
Instead, Cormier (14-0) will face Dan Henderson (30-11) on July 5 at UFC 175, according to sources with knowledge of the situation. The promotion is expected to announce the news in the coming days.
On last week's episode of "UFC Tonight," it was reported that Cormier vs. Cavalcante was being discussed for the event -- and it was -- however, the promotion decided to offer Henderson the Cormier fight following his thrilling comeback win over Shogun Rua on March 23. Had Henderson turned down the fight for whatever reason, the UFC most likely would have booked Cormier vs. Cavalcante.
The fight will pit two former Olympians. Cormier, a 2004 and 2008 member of the USA Wrestling Olympic team, improved to 14-0 in his light heavyweight debut last month when he defeated Patrick Cummins via first-round TKO.
The 43-year-old Henderson, a 1992 and 1996 member of the USA Wrestling Olympic team, snapped a three-fight losing streak when he defeated Rua last week.


UFC 175, headlined by Chris Weidman vs. Lyoto Machida for the UFC middleweight title, will take place at the Mandalay Bay Events Center in Las Vegas.