How did I do in my UFC 104 Picks?

Well first of Okami really disappointed. He got taken down at will by Sonnene and did nothing offensive. But like I predicted it was a boring fight. I guess now we say bye bye to Okami. Poor Okami we barely knew thee.-1

I was right about Bader he did not crush like I called but he did beat Eric the Red. Time for Bader to step up in competition. +1

AJ by KO over Yoshida. I called it and it came true but I think everyone called that fight. Again I think now is the time for AJ to step up in competition and take on a Fitch or Kos. +1

Joe Stevenson stopped Spencer Fisher. Again I called this victory as well. Nice to be me. Stevenson looked good and I hope to see him continue to do well. +1

Cain put Rothwell down and dominated. I predicted the Cain victory but not the TKO. Cain is legit. He needs to keep moving up the ladder. I wonder who is next? +1

I was right to pick Lyoto to win as the judges did give him the decision over Shogun. I picked the winer right but I think the judges got it wrong. It was a close fight but I think Shogun was more precise and more accurate in the 5th round. I cannot wait for the rematch. Maybe it will be a wake up call for Machida? +1

Overall 5 and 1 not too bad. I also hit my Machida, Bader, AJ and Cain parlay!!! Now if I only wasn't playing with hypothetical dollars....

Who Will Win UFC 104?

I try and post my picks before the each UFC PPV. I won't pick every fight just ones I have a good feeling about. My picks for tonights fights are as follows.

Yushin Okami vs. Chael Sonnen- I pick Okami in this one. Should be a boring fight but I pick Okami to keep winning.

Ryan Bader vs. Eric Schafer- Bader is better in every area. Bader by crush.

Anthony Jonson vs. Yoshiyuki Yoshida-AJ came in over weight but should dominate...he might have to go up to 185lbs. I hope the cut did not hurt AJ too much. I pick Johnson buy KO.

Joe Stevenson vs. Spencer Fisher- I went back and forth on this one. I really couldn't decide. I know that Fisher has opened up a new gym and has not been working with Milletich anymore. I also know that Joe Daddy has been working with Greg Jackson. I think Joe Stevenson will submit the King Fisher.

Cain Velaquez vs. Ben Rothwell- I worry about this one to. Rothwell has heavy hands but I think Cain will put him on his back and win a decision.

Lyoto Machida vs. Mauricio Rua- Lyoto will knock Shogun out. Lock...

my 4 fight parlay would be Machida, Velaquez,Johnson, and Bader.

UFC in VA?

The rumor mill is grinding on and the latest rumor I am excited about is that the UFC is coming to my neck of the woods. The rumor is that the UFC is coming to Farifax, VA on Monday January 11. Although nothing is official I am getting excited already. I hope that I have enough Christmas Cash left over to spring for some good tickets for me and the kids. I hope I can get good seats. I am very excited right now about the prospect of seeing the cage live, going to the weigh in, meeting some fighters etc. I cannot wait.

In a side note the article also mentioned that UFC matchmaker Joe Silva lives in Northern VA! I had no idea that the man behind the curtain at the UFC lived in VA. Well lets hope that th rumors are true.

How do you score submission attempts?

Last night was WEC 43 Cerrone v. B. Henderson 1. It was a great fight and while I thought it was a close fight, I felt that Cerrone won. Of course Henderson won a decision and today the MMA boards are buzzing with debate about who won and why. In the fight Henderson was caught in an assortment of very deep submission attempts. In the last round it seemed like his shoulder was dislocated , but he popped up obviously uninjured.

In arguing the decision many fans point out that the attempts were just that- attempts and as such should count for nothing since they were not successful. The argument is that they should score like like missed strikes, nothing.

I disagree. Sub attempts are different than strikes and sub attempts should be scored differently. A sub attempt basically puts one fighter on the defensive. While they fight off the sub attempt they are not being offensive, they are merely trying to survive. Because of this the sub attempt should count for something, the sub artist is controlling position and trying to finish the fight. Because of these factors sub attempts should count for something when judging a fight.

Afterall when going for sub you are controlling the fight and aggresively tribg to end it. This should not be ignored by judges who reward lay and pray tactics.

Hey Marc Laimon...How good is Shinya Aoki?

Marc Laimon is the head trainer at Cobra Kai JuJistu in Las Vegas. He is an expert grappler and trainer and has trained many of the top level MMA fighters in the UFC and other Organizations. Currently he is training UFC fighters Johny Hendricks and Jake Rosholt. Laimon was also the Grappling Coach for the first few seasons of The Ultimate Fighter TV show. He has competed in and coached JuJitsu at its highest levels. I wanted to find out what an expert thinks about Shinya Aoki's BJJ- so I asked him how Aoki would do in the UFC...since Aoki has been talking about it a lot lately. He answered me- so I posted it.

Hey Marc Laimon-

Just how good is Aoki's BJJ? A lot of people seem to pretty down on him, saying that he wouldn't beat anybody in the UFC etc. I was looking for an expert opinion on his skills.I was wondering where do you think he would rank in the UFC? Top 10, middle of the pack or gate keeper?

Marc Laimon answers-


"I think aoki is very good! His bjj is sick, has been improving stand up , and is very fun to watch. I am a fan of his. I think he is very technical and makes bjj work in mma. With that being said he has been a guy who has got very favorable match ups in Japan. He tends to fight guys that are not great at BJJ, and tends to exploit guys that do not pressure his guard, but rather lay in it and eventually get caught. He fought smart against shaolin and was able to beat him with better striking I really wanted to see how his guard held up to shaolin's passing, but I didn't get to see it.
I don't think he matches up well with a lot of UFC guys I think their is a short list of guys he can beat. I think he would beat clay guida, cause he does not pressure the guard and I think aoki sans pants could still tap him. Great style match up for aoki. Another guys that Aoki matches up well with is Gray, Gray like to lay in guard and I think Aoki could catch him like diaz did, but Gray might be able to try to keep it standing, but he does not posses the bjj pedigree to do anything to Aoki on the ground

Sherk on the other hand really pressures the guard and has passed florian and franca's guards. Not good match up for aoki. BJ, Diego, Edgar Tyson would all beat him easy. This is just off the top of my head. I thinks some mid tier guys he would match up better with, but I 'm to tired to look....good night"


Thanks Marc for answering my question...plus remember to check out the mmajunkie.com forums were Marc can be found answering questions for fans.

What did he say?

Just for fun, here are some things usually heard at our regular UFC PPV get together.

"See what they are doing here is reminiscing back to the gladiator days, trying to show that these fighters are the modern day equivalent of gladiators." Someone ALWAYS says this during the corny UFC opening. That opening and music needs to be updated.

"This fight could be fight of the night." Someone usually says this before every fight as a joke. After all every fight could be fight of the night.

"Go to your corner Georges." Usually said after someone is rocked, harkening back to Penn vs. St. Pierre 1 when BJ told this to Georges after round 1.

"Demian Maia is my favorite fighter right now." I said this about 10 seconds before Maia gets knocked out with one punch in Marquardt v. Maia (ouch)

"I bet you one hypothetical dollar so and so will win." Said when we are so broke we don't even have a dollar to bet.

"Now would be a good time to employ pressure point attacks or death touches. Or illegal ninja moves taught by the government." said as a joke

"Hit him in t he groin, you'll get one free warning!" Again a joke usually yelled out when the clinch is stalled against the cage.

Should the WEC and the UFC merge?

Zuffa owns the WEC and the UFC and in recent weeks there has been some speculation that Zuffa would fold the WEC under the UFC banner and just present all the shows under a unified UFC promotion. It seemed that the company was headed in this direction over the past year when the WEC slowly eliminated their Light Heavyweight, Middleweight, and Welterweight divisions. Dana White recently answered a question about WEC absorption by saying that it was being considered.

There are many fans that would like to see the best Lightweight fighters from the WEC go into the UFC and just have ZUFFA own everything under one banner. I do not want to see that happen for one big reason. "If it ain't broke, don't fix it."

I love the WEC events. Focusing on the smaller weights gives a place for those athletes to shine. WEC events never disappoint and their cards are always full of fast paced and exciting fights. Not only that but they have had some great fights in the Lightweight Division and have some more on the horizon (perhaps Varner v. Cerrone 2). If anything the WEC lightweight Division could be a feeder division to the UFC. Dominant WEC champions could make their way to the UFC lightweight division. The lightweight division is stacked in the UFC and fighter who are n a losing streak, but still have strong skills and fan interest could be shifted over to the WEC to get back on track. The WEC could continue to be the home of the best 145lbs and 135lbers in the world.

The WEC has a feel all of its own and it has a great product. I think that ZUFFA should carry on as it has been since the WEC is doing a great job putting on great fights in HD on free TV on Versus.

I can't wait until they add a 125lbs division. Reed Harris the President of WEC said it is on the way. That is the kind of change Zuffa should make, leave the rest alone.

The UFC in Japan??

Dana White recently was asked if the UFC was headed back to Japan. He responded by saying that there "are people in Japan who want to kill me." I am curious how much White is really threatened by Japanese organized crime? Why would the Yakuza want to kill White anyway? How much of this threat is real and how much of it is hyperbole? Does the Yakuza have that big of a vested interest in Japanese promotions like Dream and Sengoku? If they do, than how much stock can we put in the outcomes of those fights as being legitimate?

I might be blowing Whites comments out of porportion or just taking them out of context. White might simply mean that Japanese fans hate him for dismatling Pride and will do him bodily harm when his plane touches down over there. That seems to be a strange take on the quiet and conservative Japanese MMA fan base however.

This post is more questions than answers. But stay tuned fight fans because one way or another the UFC will end up in Japan eventually.

What is the future of MMA?

We all know that in the words of UFC announcer Goldy that MMA is on a "meteoric rise". Put aside for a moment logic, which dictates that meteors actually fall and do not rise, and really think about how big can this sport get. Well, people all throughout the world and for all of history love to watch fights. The little picture in my About Me section is a close up of the wrapped hands of a statue dating to sometime around 200 B.C entitled "The Boxer" or "The Pugilist". With this piece of Hellenistic art as evidence, it is a given that people throughout the world have always been fascinated by some form of hand to hand combat.

In every corner of the globe, mankind has engaged in some type of striking or grappling for entertainment or ritual. MMA takes all of these regionally grown, and developed styles put in the crucible of reality, and has begun to produce Olympic caliber, professional athletes that are truly a hybrid of regional styles. Guys that are experts in Thai kickboxing, and American Catch Wrestling, and Brazilian Jujitsu, and Japanese Karate, and on and on and on. Modern MMA is an example of the globalization of pugilism.

That being said, just how big can MMA get? If there is one sport that most humans on the planet, everywhere have at least some cultural connection to, it is MMA. People everywhere love fights. In America we love football, in Canada they love Hockey...these are great sports that many people are passionate about. But huge swaths of the world could care less. They have little understanding and little appreciation for the intricacies of the games that fans in America or Canada grew up playing and being passionate about. Foreign fans often don't value a game they did not grow up watching or playing. Try to get an American excited about Cricket. But people everywhere can understand and appreciate fights.

Why, because world wide we have all seen and often probably been in a fight. So while American Football can only get so big, what is the limit on MMA? White and the UFC are already thinking globally putting on shows in Europe. MMA is growing in China and already established in Korea and Japan. Where is the roof? What stops this sport from continuing to grow on a global scale? What stops this sport from becoming bigger than baseball...bigger than soccer even? You heard me right one day, perhaps in my grand kids lifetime MMA will be bigger than soccer throughout the world. It is too exciting, to fast, to simple not to be. Maybe? We can still screw it up.

We are in the infancy of the sport still and we are just now seeing the truly hybrid fighters emerge. Imagine what the fighters will be like two generations from now when their is real money in this sport to attract all the best athletes from a young age. Imagine the caliber of fighters who will exist when fighters start getting well balanced training in multiple disciplines for MMA, from a young age. Most of our athletes now came from one discipline and then tried to transition it to MMA. Like the Collegiate wrestlers learning striking, or the kick boxer trying to learn Jujitsu for a MMA career. Can you imagine what the future athletes will look like when they started training wrestling, Muay Thai, boxing and Brazilian Jujitsu FOR MMA in childhood. We cannot begin to imagine these athletes and what they will be able to accomplish in the ring or the cage, much like the athletes and fans of American football during the era of the leather helmets could not imagine a Ben Rothlesberger or a Mario Williams.

So if the future athlete is nearly unimaginable and the popularity of the sport seems limitless, what can we guess about the future of MMA. We can guess that the stigma that marred the sport in the past is just that in the past. We can figure that new fans find MMA everyday. And we can hypothesis that one day in the distant future some amazing athlete probably not yet born will be standing on a podium somewhere, listening to his countries anthem playing, holding the first Olympic Gold Medal in MMA closely to his chest.