411's MMA Soup 07.12.10: Gimmick Infringement

Posted by Todd Bergman on 07.12.2010

Arianny and Natasha Wicks battle in Round 2 of Tap That, Dana White, James Toney, UFC 116, M-1, and actual video of the Lauzon Brothers fighting are among the other ingredients!

In a world of ‘roided-out douche bags who wear tin foil t-shirts and have awful tattoos, I, Todd Bergman, have stepped forward to point out the comedy and un-funny moments of the week. The name of the column is horribly unoriginal and the attempts at humor will be ill-advised and often not funny. So don't take too much serious here and just sit back and enjoy the week that was MMA here on 411mania.com.

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Monday

-The talk of the start of the week is of course about UFC 116. I said my piece about UFC 116 last week and by now you all know that other people will cover the event. That's the beauty of this article. You come to read this because it's free of the same things being mentioned over and over again. Well minus Strikeforce and Scott Coker nonsense anyway. Anyway, Monday featured the very Soup worthy picture of Ricardo Romero's wired shut jaw. This can only help Romero because his cardio was awful and while he did win his fight, he didn't look impressive at all. Maybe it was the early broken jaw but I'm not willing to give anyone that much credit.


OUCH!!!

-Spencer Fisher inked a new 4 fight UFC deal. I'm all for this because Spencer Fisher is one of the nicest guys in MMA. I hung out with him and his family at UFC 90 and they were good people. With all of that said, Fisher could be cut after any defeat in the UFC. It's good to have a new deal with the world best fighting organization but the defeat clause is always something that puts fighters backs against the wall.

-Dana White finally admitted to liking freak fights. Well at least he admitted that he was offering one up as James Toney meets Randy Couture at UFC 118. I will go on record and stat that I know for a fact that myself & Lord Csonka enjoy the freak fights and think that there need to be more of them. Companies like PRIDE & DREAM have made a living out of these things and it's about time that the UFC put together something fun. Here's a special video of my favorite freak fighter and upcoming star of the Lambert & myself produced: Everybody Love Minowa.



-Shane Carwin used some excuse of his body locked up after the 1st Round. I believe that they call it cardio but hey what do I know? I'm just some keyboard warrior who has done a good deal of MMA training. If Lesnar, Fedor, or BJ Penn would've said this the entire MMA community would've taken the biggest shit on them. Keep up the hypocrisy everybody!


Just saying


Monday 411 Links

MMA SOUP actually had people comment on what I said instead of boobs. What a concept!

Lambert returned from vacation. For those that don't know, vacation for Lambert was the local county jail for that crazy weekend he spent with Dustin James in Vegas.

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Tuesday

-Brock Lesnar started the day out by talking about the beating that he took in the first round of his UFC 116 fight with Shane Carwin with his local Minnesota media guys.

"I took a good ass-whupping in the first round and made a Rocky comeback in the second ... Before the fight [Josh Rosenthal] comes into the locker room and he says listen fellas if things get ugly out there I'm gonna give you three warnings before I stop the fight. I'm gonna be very verbal in this so you gotta show some movement and show you're still in the fight. I knew in my mind there was a time I thought you know what? It's raining punches here and I don't know where to go. If I move I'm gonna create an opening but I have to move to stay in the fight. You gotta do what you gotta do you know?"

Rosenthal probably remembered that time when Lesnar destroyed Earl Hebner back in the day and didn't want to be that guy. I'm only kidding but seriously, he nearly killed Earl.

-Reports of M-1 demise are completely inaccurate according to M-1's Evgeni Kogan. The report apparently surfaced from MMAFighting.com and stated that the once "mighty" M-1 was losing all sorts of investors because of Fedor's defeat. Of course there will be more on this situation later but how dare someone question the credientials of MMAFighting.com. Their main guy is from the Middle East and is said to be the best interview in the world. It's a good thing that we have a Middle Eastern guy on our roster too because that makes us more respected as well.

-Scott Coker was back at it again talking about signing Batista.

"They have the desire to fight in MMA and we're trying to put together a deal that makes sense. Is [Batista] signed right now? No. But is he somebody we'd like to see in the cage in the future fighting for Strikeforce? It's a possibility. Just like we did with Herschel (Walker), we'd have to put him into a gym. It doesn't matter what gym, as long as it's a reputable mixed martial arts academy. He has to go in there and train because if he didn't, we'd probably have a short relationship. [Batista vs. Bobby Lashley] would just be a fun fight to watch. We're not the guys that are putting all the circus fights on but in all fairness, look at Brock Lesnar. He made the crossover. Why not Batista?"

What the fuck is Scott Coker smoking because I will have two of it. Batista has ZERO background of being any sort of athlete. Walker among other things competed in the Olympics in bobsledding and has done training for years now. Comparing Batista to Lesnar is awful because Lesnar again was an athlete and has the amateur wrestling background as well. For everything that I can find about Batista, he's just a "enhanced" muscle bound dude with very little athletic background. In a positive thought, I would be interested in seeing what nickname Batista will use. How about "Deacon" or "Leviathan?" On a serious note here, Batista's past is pretty checkered with violence. He was fired from his job as a bouncer because he beat the shit out of two innocent people while on the clock. He was given one year probation via a plea deal. I'm all for MMA not going the P.R. route but this dude is going to be a nightmare in the media if he truly signs with Strikeforce. Just stick to the awful B-movies with Ja Rule and RVD, Batista and leave MMA alone.

-James Toney everybody. Hey look it's that Middle Eastern guy, who's the best interviewer in the world. I actually think that Samer doubles as this Ariel guy at night.




Tuesday 411 Links

411 Heavyweight Rankings went live and I did actually vote this time. I didn't want to vote Werdum second but I think that the defeat of Fedor negates his defeat to JDS nearly two years ago.

"Cowboy" Bill Wannop broke down the legend of Shinya Aoki. Sometimes men need to wear stretchy pants to feel more like a man.

Plunkett talked about the UFC Heavyweight Division. Plunkett also owned Todd Vote in the comment section, so it's an easy instant win for me.

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Wednesday

-M-1 made news again by stating that Fedor wants to fight in November and wants a rematch against Werdum. I along with everyone under the sun think that this rematch idea is awful to say the least. It's really not about Fedor losing as much as it's about Scott Coker finally growing some nuts and making the logical match up of Overeem & Werdum. Even though the casual crowd might not be brought into the Alistair/Fabricio fight, Werdum is a hot prospect and this might actually get Strikeforce some positive publicity. However, don't take it from me, take it from the horses mouth and by horses mouth, I mean the horse head that I found in my bed this morning. Don't mess with M-1 and the Russian Mob.

"We are ready to fight against anyone, but everyone agrees that the most interesting fight right now is the rematch against Fabricio Werdum. We have one fight left on our contract, so if Strikeforce want to extend it – they should listen to our opinion. Fedor will fight again sometime between October and November. I'll repeat that again: the only thing fans want to see is Fedor vs Werdum II. Fabricio himself said that he would like to rematch Fedor in Russia. It's great, but this fight will not happen in Russia ... I can really feel that the rating makers on the US websites really wanted Fedor Emelianenko to suffer from his first 'real' defeat. They now have Fedor in third Place, and the first is Brock Lesnar. Question: Who's Brock Lesnar? He has only five professional fights, and one defeat. He is a marketable fighter because of his WWE past. They sell-out 60,000 stadiums for that crap, which no one would even consider watching in Russia. That's why Brock Lesnar is popular. As for Fedor, he is not a marketable fighter – he's just the best. He destroyed everyone during 10 years. He has 31 victories."

Let me break it too Mr. Finkelchtein, people don't want to see Fedor/Werdum II. Just because your group of 10 employees that has a personal state in Fedor want to see the fight doesn't mean that the masses do. You also insult Brock Lesnar and the WWE in a very weird way. Given that the WWE can in your words sell out 60,000 stadiums for that crap, you might want to model your company and business after them. I don't think that crowd of 650 people that showed up for your Kansas City show speaks well to your ability to criticize anyone else. Apparently in Russia, math isn't a strong suit for their citizens because Lesnar has had 6 pro fights and his 5-1 career record mirrors where Fedor was after 6 professional fights. Let me tell everyone that it's not Fedor that MMA fans hate, it's these clowns that are running his business.

-In a rare Youtube find, it's the fight that everyone wants to see. Well, actually it happened awhile ago in the packed front yard of the Lauzon's. Apparently this fight was well attended by countless MMA fighters and neighbors. So get your Pabst Blue Ribbon's ready everyone because it's Joe Lauzon vs. Dan Lauzon in a one-sided as kicking.



-Jake Shields took time to hate on Strikeforce before ultimately sign with the UFC.

"I'm brand new to the UFC but they have treated me absolutely wonderful much better than Strikeforce to this point. They return my phone calls and I get seats unlike Strikeforce but so far things have been absolutely perfect. I don't want to knock Strikeforce because that's not my style even though they did treat me like shit which was unnecessary because I never talked bad about them. Honestly I would love to see Gilbert and Nick in the UFC. Even though Strikeforce is a good show, everyone knows it's the number two show. They have a handful of good fighters but all the top competition is in the UFC and I feel that Nick and Gilbert are good enough to fight at the highest level. I just don't see Strikeforce putting the marketing strength behind him as they didn't for me. I feel like they (Strikeforce) want to go after the places that have already been built like Shamrock or Cung Le. They don't seem really interested in building top young fighters in their prime. They had a great batch of young fighters like me, Nick, Gil and King Mo but they weren't interested in great young fighters and instead all the push went to 'has beens' like Shamrock and Cung Le. It seemed like they wanted to push people who were no where near their prime."

I completely agree with almost everything that Shields has to say here. It's crazy to think that Strikeforce will be having a Middleweight Tourney and one of their biggest draws wants nothing to do with it. I know that Cung Le is old and everything but the guy is the former champ and one of their more popular fighters. Maybe the blame should be more on Le and his intentions of only fighting scrap fighters. Anyway, Strikeforce wasn't even kind enough to give Shields a decent dental plan so lets hope that Dana can help Shields grill in the near future. Strikeforce would be smart to market Diaz and Gilbert but then again those goofs just had a massive brawl on national TV a few months back. By the way, does anyone even talk about that anymore?


Wednesday 411 Links

Fact or Fictionfeatured Samer & Scotty K in what could be called the most uneventful showdown of all time. I'm kidding because it was actually really good but the lack of boobies and childish insults turned me off.

King Solomon decided to announce something before his Thursday 9pm ESPN Press Conference.

Scotty K took us to his cheap seats. Shortly there after the police showed up and arrested that dude that use to run Ring Of Honor & those shoot tape distributor.

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Thursday

-Apparently Batista pulled the wool over everyone's eyes as he started training at Cesar Gracie's school in California. I wonder if Batista will run into Jose Canseco there or if that Strikeforce experiment went wrong as well. I would love to be a fly on the wall during those training sessions in which Batista gets owned by a Diaz brother.

-Jorge Gurgel professed his love for KO Queen Zoila Frausto. This of course puts those questionable rumors about Jorge and you know Rich Franklin to rest. This might actually be a bad thing for Jorge because I'm pretty sure that Zoila could own him in a stand up battle.



-James Toney apparently wants Dana White to see his nuts.

"Give him the message, tell Dana White to excuse these nuts. I'm going to make an example out of him and his fighters. After I knock out Couture, if he wants he can get in there too. Dana White say he want to make an example out of me, I make an example out of everybody else. Dana White, I don't care what he say, he can say whatever he want to say, but his ass too scared to get in the cage. That boy don't fight in a cage. I ain't got no problem with Dana outside of fighting; me and Dana are cool. Two peas in a pod, but other than that when it comes to this fighting thing, Dana better stay behind a desk and push a pen, and don't predict nothing cause he'll lose his company doing that."


It rare that I would actually agree with what Toney has to say here but last week, I criticized Scott Coker for publicly stating that he thought that Werdum could beat Fedor. Don't get me wrong though, I despise James Toney a great deal and don't want him in the UFC. However, there is still a really good chance that he could beat Couture if the fight stands standing and then Dana will have to market a pro boxer beating MMA Legends. I can only imagine what would happen if Toney beats Couture. The MMA crowd might actually riot in Boston. Maybe someone will come with a If Toney Wins, We Riot sign. I can only dream.

-The Wandy Silva 2012 Presidential Campaign videos have already started airing.




Thursday 411 Links

411‘s Fighter of the Month was named and it was shockingly Fabricio Werdum. Sarcasm people.

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Friday

-Chael Sonnen took to the press and completely destroyed Lil Nog and is now the #1 Villain in Brazil.

"Lil' Nog…..I read your appraisal of the upcoming fight betwixt your pal Anderson and yours truly and, I'll be damned, you are one sharp dude…. about as sharp as a bag of wet mice. Do yourself a favor: have your mouthpiece permanently installed in your mouth so you can't speak at all. Have them feed you with a tube like a coma patient. You're not doing Anderson any good and you're sinking your own ship too. You say I'm not qualified to fight Anderson…Which means that the UFC brain trust – that thinks I AM and are also YOUR BOSSES — are idiots. It also means Ed Soares – Anderson's manager and YOUR MANAGER TOO – doesn't know what he's doing, either. Smooth, guy. Very smooth. Do you have any other brilliant ideas or scathing critiques you care to impart to the UFC Brass or your own manager? Maybe that shot Sokodjou hit you with was worse than it looked (if that's even possible). You seem like a nice enough guy, and I have no real beef with you (Oh, and speaking of beef: If you can turn your disk over at the Rodizio once in awhile and get down to "185," there's gonna be a new sheriff there in less than a month who'll be happy to ride you right back out of town on a rail). So please see this as the kind of well-intentioned advice I would give to a friend or training partner. And if you lose a few (you looked like Roy Nelson in a Frankenstein mask for that Brilz fight… which you lost, buddyboy), we can scrap in the Fall."

I cannot being to tell all of you the genius that is this statement. While Sonnen will likely be killed in the Silva fight, he's easily the most intelligent and articulate fighter on the planet. I've always called the Nog's "Pumkinhead" clones but Frankenstein works here. Outside of Tito Ortiz and Brock Lesnar, Chael Sonnen is the most wanted ass kicking that everyone wants to see inside the Octagon.

I usually don't post anything from the wrestling aspect of 411mania.com because so many of you don't understand that they are two different sports and really don't relate to each other. Sure, we as MMA writers grew up as wrestling fans because at least for me there wasn't MMA back in ‘83. I also like the occasional wrestling reference as well because I think that they are funny but Eric Bischoff completely blew everything out of the water and it couldn't be stated any better.

People have a tendency to wanna compare MMA to professional wrestling, and for the life of me, I just can't figure out why. It's not even apples & oranges as I've said before, it's apples & bricks. One is a real sport & the other is scripted entertainment, and beyond that, if anyone can point out any similarities between the two and why wrestling should modify its business model based on what's happening in MMA, I would be very interested in hearing it, because last time I checked, they are two entirely different products."

-Lesnar/Carwin referee Josh Rosenthal recently explained his reasoning for not stopping the fight in the 1st Round.

"He took some hard shots when they were against the fence, he was looking for a way out. He was blocking some punches. At one point he tried to spin to push Shane away and took a couple shots. And then again, went for a deep half guard position and took a couple more shots. When he curled up after that is when I commanded him to fight back, which at that point he did, and then he went for feet on the hips to push Carwin away and was able to get to his knees. He pretty much ran with it. He heard -- he responded to my commands."


So many refs take way too much shit here on the interwebz for not stopping fights soon enough and of course stopping fights way too soon. Throw in the occasion bad point deduction and you have the formula for ref hate. Rosenthal did the correct thing in this fight and everyone should recognize this. It's amazing that someone does something logical in the sport and yet very few can give him credit for it.


Here‘s to you Mr. Cool Tattoo‘s Referee!

Friday 411 Links

411‘s "Living Legend" Dustin James named the Top 10 of 2010 so far. My only complaint here is that Marlon Sandro got no mention.

Matt Welch once again mentioned some Japanese MMA, so I'm giving him the writer of the week award.

Samer Kadi made the rare Friday appearance.

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The Weekend

-The weekend started with myself breaking the news of Chris Lytle taking on Matt Serra at UFC 119 in Indianapolis. Obviously, we at 411 didn't receive any credit for this but I will address this a little later. I'm hoping that this fight will actually be a back and forth slugfest but if their first fight was any indication, it's going a lot of clinching and very little slugging.

-Jose Canseco lost an Exhibition Boxing match to an 60 year old man. To be fair to Jose, the 60 year olds last name is Hogan. I'm picturing mid-way thru the fight Hogan hulked up and beat the crap out of the "Evil Cuban" Canseco.

-Nate Diaz and his speech impediment talked about Marcus Davis and his future outside of smoking pot.



As for my prediction on the fight, unless Davis comes in with his spit shield defense high, it's going to be a long evening for the "Plastic Pattie."

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Guest6367 posted this everywhere: you know i think Lesnar will be a guest host of Raw soon. i mean Rampage done it so i am sure he would too. plus he even said he wanted to do it not too long ago. but i think Undertaker would kick Lesnar's ASS in a Shoot fight. Lesnar tho is the top UFC and MMA star now so i will give him his props.

Unless Lesnar makes some sort of action flick, I doubt that he will be hosting RAW. I would actually prefer to see Lesnar opposite Megan Fox in a drama love story in which Fox is a former porn queen who just found out that she has terminal cancer and only has one year to live. In that year, she finds out that she's been selfish and judgmental and falls in love with Lesnar, who is a semi-retarded trash man. I haven't thought of a name but I'm thinking that "Cum-Dumpster" is probably the way that I'm going to go.


Guest5128 thinks: UFC sucks.......

Hard to disagree with that logic. However, I do find myself enjoying DREAM shows a little more because I'm not necessarily in the know with all of the fighters.

Scottyieoittie disagrees with me: Iamm gonna disagree with you Fedor could beat Jds, Cain, Brock especially after last night dude got exposed.

I will give you that Fedor might be able to beat Cain because I think that Cain is below Brock and JDS, even though the rankings won't show that. However, I don't think that Fedor is the same guy anymore. Whether it was the Yakuza or Russian Mob showing up on the doorsteps of everyone or not, Fedor isn't that same smashing machine that he once was.

wolvie316 declares: For an intelligent guy, when it comes to talking about Fedor, Dana really sounds like a retard. Its like he throws everything he knows out the window and start babbling like an idiot whenever Fedor's name is mentioned.

Agreed

Nuclear Sun has had too much sun: Who wants to watch a guy that no one can beat becuase of his size advantage? Brock will end up ruining UFCs heavyweight division.

I hate to be the bearer of bad news but Brock has been beaten previously by Frank Mir, so therefore he isn't unbeatable. I believe that everyone else answered everything else that you had to say.

Dubhagan loves him some Canada: Ren & Stimpy = WIN! On behalf of my fellow Canadians, you're welcome. And I'm definitely voting for Arianny.

Well I aim to please and if you loved that then you are going to love this, at least I hope.


Magog mumbled something: You know sport I understand that leaving a comment I'm a guest in your column and I should conduct myself with a level of tact. I'm reading your column and I'm guessing your not that sort of person and you prefer to be more in your face. If I'm wrong disregard this whole message. However, who the fuck are you to say if Werdum wanted to call himself Rocky? You know.. the ITALION STALLION! Not the American Stallion. As for wether mma would bring money to a state or not who knows. Really of all the fucked up things in mma your peeved about that? Well at least your original. If Condit loses to Hardy it's because his wrestling sucks, and stand up is Hardy's bread and butter. Stop picking on the WEC like everyone in the know had this enlightenment it was the b show. Duh. It's like laughing at IFL bums who fail in the ufc, that's so 6 months ago. Or 2 years I forget, but my point is valid. You just mentioned bum fights and than asked where Kimbo was? I hope you where being ironic.
And yeah we will blame Fedor for Strike Force lack of marketing. He choose to fight there. A choice many other fighters don't have and have to actively settle for Strike Force. I understand Fedor has talent for miles. I also understand sadly that's kind of a secret for some odd reason. Alistair Overeem is a bum who gases out after 5 mins if he's pushed by anyone who can. In short he is Shane Carwin. he's fun to watch but by God don't act like he's the man. And thank God Brendan Schaub beat Brock Bergs house boy. TO fucking bad.

I really don't think that you read a single thing that I wrote in my column to be honest with you. I really don't have a problem with Carlos Condit other then he should really be 1-2 in the UFC and he's slightly overrated in every ranking list. However, what really brought this about is that Condit spent sometime in Indy training with Lytle and some other guys from the recently fractured I.F. Academy. During those trainings Condit was talking shit the whole time and got his ass handed to him. Condit left the training challenging Lytle to fight him at UFC 119. Lytle agreed and thought that it would happen. Well now Condit has a tougher challenge ahead of him in Dan Hardy. Rocky was the Italian Stallion because of his family heritage not because he was from Italy. Take a trip to Philly and you will see this as a common thing. Rocky was an American citizen and that's why he wore those American flag shorts when he fought the Drago. Your logic for Overeem is insanely wrong and I didn't know that Brock's last name is Berg. Thanks for writing and I hope that you comment this week.

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Tap That

The continuation of the 1st Round continues this week with the second half of the Arianny vs. Natasha Wicks battle. Arianny has a pretty big lead over Natasha so it's up to all of you to decide who wins this showdown.

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Thanks for checking out the article everyone. Next week, I will be starting a new addition to The Soup and it's called What If? Basically I'm going to look back at different situations in MMA history and play them out as if they happened differently. Do you have any situations that you particularly would like me to break down please list them below. Remember to support your local MMA and keep your tapping hand strong.