The Takedown 10.02.09: Title Implications Abound

Posted by Daniel Bonnizzio on 10.02.2009

Join 411's Daniel Bonnizzio as he talks about title shots everywhere, from Vitro Belfort and the top contender to the UFC's Middleweight Title to Strikeforce's Women's Title scene and the injury to Cyborg, back to the UFC's Welterweight Title scramble; plus discussion of the new DREAM.12 format and what was the biggest fight as well as the biggest flop in TUF history!

Welcome to week THREE of The Takedown!

Drop to your shooting knee and welcome to:


In My Opinion…
Just a section to discuss my opinion on something
Title shots used to be earned not given. Seeing Strikeforce want to give Nick Diaz a shot at to be their first Welterweight Champion without ever competing at 170 pounds for the company was a no-no in my books. After one fight sure, but not in the first fight.

This is why I am glad with the UFC making their guys go through at least one match before giving them a title shot. Rampage v Marvin Eastman, for instance. Eastman was a can but that way it wasn't just a free title shot.

That is all for now.

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The Spider gets a new opponent

It was reported recently that Vitor Belfort has verbally agreed to a bout with the reigning UFC Middleweight Champion Anderson Silva. While many will point at Vitor's difficulty in making the 195 catchweight limit he asked for against Rich at UFC 103, I think he'll have no troubles making the 185 pound limit at 108 if it happens. He probably just didn't want to give up too much weight to Rich.

I think this is the best thing business-wise to do with Silva right now as the Spider has no interest in fighting Dan Henderson or Nate Marquardt again, despite both men laying a reasonable claim to be the #1 contender to Silva's belt. Silva's disinterest in having rematches will probably cause him to mail in another performance ala UFC 90 or 97. With Vitor though, he wouldn't have the luxury, or even the want, to do anything but his best. Vitor's hand speed is legendary and while Silva has shown the greatest head movement I've ever seen in any kind of fight even he would get tagged a few times against the Phenom, and if one of those happen to clip him or lands flush enough Anderson is going down.

While both men are primarily strikers and neither are going to try to take it down to the ground, I feel that if Anderson starts to lose the standup game (which I honestly think might happen) he'll be the one to go down because he has shown better ground skills than Belfort from what I have seen. Submitting Henderson and Lutter, both highly regarded grapplers shows this.

While this puts Dan and Nate on the back burner, it also lets them put down the arguing over who should get the next shot because it lets them fight each other for the true #1 contender's position, and it will be much more justified because while beating Rousimar Palhares, Rich Franklin and Michael Bisping is nice for Dan, and beating out Martin Kampmann, Wilson Gouveia and Demian Maia is nice for Nate, they need that really big name win to get that cemented status and facing each other would give one of them that name to lay claim to the next challenger. And by that time, Silva might not be the champ so it would be a new match up for all men involved.

In the coming weeks we should be seeing official decisions announced regarding the super year-end card and hopefully we'll see Belfort vs. Silva headlining.

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'Cyborg' possibly out of big CBS show

The newly-crowned first ever Strikeforce Lightweight Women's Champion Cristiane 'Cyborg' Santos has reportedly suffered some undisclosed injury, which may keep her from fighting on the company's November 7 show on CBS.

This is a major bummer I admit. When they announced this card to have 4 fights on the card, I hoped that they would work a women's title fight into it somehow, already knowing that Fedor/Rogers and Mayhem/Shields were going to be on the card. While having two title fights in a 2 hour timeslot may not seem smart it was the greatest way for the people to get behind the ladies' champ, just like they were behind Kimbo and Gina from EXC. Absolutely nobody knows who Cyborg is outside of the hardcore fans, so seeing the monster of a woman on TV for all to see would be great PR.

However, that's not to say that there can't be a women's fight on the card. Strikeforce is one of, if not the only, promotion that can lay claim to having a monopoly on women's fights. They should use this opportunity to make a #1 contender for Cyborg so she has a fight when she is able to come back, because just like any champion she needs challengers (ha pun) and they need to get them fast. Several women come to mind, and while I could list them I'll cheaply plug Mullin's column where he dissects possible contenders for Cyborg's belt.

Don't go looking to see Gina on the card though as she has that movie thing she's doing now so she'll be out for a while. Plus, after their fight I'm not too sure Gina is in the mood to meet Cyborg in the cage again.

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The Ultimate Fighter is BIG

In the latest installment of The Ultimate Fighter: Heavyweights, we saw both literally and metaphorically the biggest fight in TUF history as street fighter extraordinaire Kimbo Slice took on IFL Veteran and world-renowned tubby Roy Nelson in a first-round elimination fight.

The episode started with Kimbo in some kind of wired epiphany where it sounds like he's having a stroke until he explains something about the inner-me being the enemy (say it drunk, you'll get confused I swear) and talking about Kimbo being done when he shaves the beard. Does that mean that the spirit of his inner fighter lies in his beard? That's how you finish him then: shave the beard.

Roy let us all now what he was going to do and he did just that: Take Kimbo down, hold him in a crucifix position and start pummeling Kimbo's bald head while counting to the ref until he has to stop the fight. And he did just that. First round he took Kimbo down, EASILY mounted him, transitioned to crucifix and laid on him with the rabbitest punches I've seen recently, but he was counting the whole time and I counted about 40 punches during the first round unanswered, he says 44, we'll say his number. That's 44 possible bombs Kimbo could have taken to the head. While they weren't strong per se, seeing Herb Dean let it go on was terrible. The bell sounded, and when the second round started, Kimbo tagged Roy a few good times but then Roy took him down again and repeat Round 1. Except the fight stopped this time after around 20 or so.

The strategy Roy used was perfect in this setting. If it were a real fight and he had another few months between now and then we may have seen him go a little more all out, but he's fighting again in the next few weeks and he didn't want to take any real damage or exert too much energy. He did enough to win and still walk away healthy. I support that. Plus, his demand for two whoppers with no pickles was incredible. Gotta love Roy.

Kimbo has a ways to go but if he manages to work on his takedown defense enough and become a good sprawl-and-brawler we may actually have a legit striker in the UFC's grappler dominated heavyweight division. Face it, when's the last time you saw a striker in the UFC's heavyweight division. I'd say Arolvski and TIMMAH would be it. Everyone else is a strong wrestler or jiu-jitsu player. Junior dos Santos maybe is a good striker for the top echelon but we have to wait to see for him.

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UFC 105 co-main event to determine GSP's next challenger

After the news broke from Hardy and Swick's official meeting at UFC 105, it was announced that the winner of this fight would be considered the new #1 contender for GSP's welterweight title.

I remember back when they challengers for this title had to go through nearly eight fights in order to get their shot. Fitch, Alves, even Penn was on a decent streak when he was granted the shot against GSP back in February. Now though they seem to allow most people to go after the number 1 contender's spot. Hardy, though showing a decent game in his 3 fights has only had that; three fights in the UFC, two of them being split decisions and a KO over Rory Markham. Not a world-beating record. Mike Swick, though undefeated since his drop to 170 after his initial run as a middleweight, has only had 4 fights as a welterweight, and only managed to finish the last two in his old Quick fashion. The only way I will buy either man as a legit contender is if they run over the other in this fight or its so close that its a razor-thin split decision, but due to both men being highly skilled and not because of a lack of skill on either man's part.

The only gripe I have with the speedy contender's bout being announced is that GSP is an insanely talented man and to see people getting fed to him for his title defenses is not very pleasing, even if its the UFC's only chance. I blame poor prior booking. He already outwrestled Koscheck, submitted Trigg, made BJ quit, controlled Alves, beat down Fitch, fended off Karo, made Serra quit, and put on a clinic against Hughes twice. There is nobody else to face outside of possibly Daley, Swick, and Hardy, pending their showdown.

The UFC needs to use the time GSP has off right now to build up several welterweight contenders, so they need to start booking more 170-pound matches to get those records up. Try to get Koscheck built back up maybe, or get Daley up there in name. In the meantime, GSP has time to rest and get his groin fixed so he can go on mauling the world's elite at 170 pounds.

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In the Lands of the Rising Sun
Here I'll cover the happenings in Japanese MMA

DREAM.12 uses 5-minute rounds
DREAM.12 will be reportedly using the American standard of 5 minute rounds as opposed to the DREAM standard of a 10 minute round followed by 5 minute rounds. They are still working out the scoring system, but hopefully we could see some nice scoring used here, such as my favored scoring by PRIDE as opposed to the 10-point must. Whole fights, not rounds people.

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Quick Jabs
• Round 5 is out with their next series of collectible figures featuring Shogun, Machida, Hendo, GSP, and Chuck Liddel. How I don't own one of these yet I don't know.
• The UFC has confirmed that the tryouts for the next season of The Ultimate Fighter will take place October 26th, in Los Angeles, CA. This season will apparently feature some combination of middleweights and light heavyweights. You must be 21 and have a pro record to try out.
• Strikeforce's original plan of drafting Bobby Lashley to Strikeforce may happen soon as Lashley current promotion (Palace Fighting) has constantly delayed his next fight. We could be seeing Lashley come over to Strikeforce who would work with Lashley's plans to remain in TNA.
• Strikeforce is potentially adding a third show to their November schedule for November 20, one day before UFC 106. Any fights for this card are currently unknown.

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Bozo's Corner
Just stuff about me for the week.

My wisdom teeth surgery went fine and I'm back up and around. My folks called me a freak because the day after my surgery I was back on normal life, just looking a little puffy. I got to keep the teeth but they got lost when I took them in. Boo.

Still training for the Dec 5 tourney. Lifting weights is a pain though. But what is pain but weakness leaving the body?

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And that finishes the shot for today people. If you wanna say something, feel free to leave a comment below and let me know what you have to say, or you can drop me a line at my email at [e-mail].