The Tuesday Leg Lock Report 05.13.08

Posted by Justin Thomas on 05.13.2008

The Tuesday Leg Lock comes back with your Tuesday dose of news! Tonight, I'll provide my thoughts on the very exciting DREAM 3 show. Also, tonight I’ll discuss Affliction’s chances to start a successful MMA promotion and give my thoughts on UFC 85 updates, UFC’s attempt to steal ratings from EliteXC, Tito's comments and more.

Welcome to another edition of The Tuesday Leg Lock Report! This time, I was able to catch DREAM 3 on HDNet and I have a big review of the show! Also, tonight I'll discuss Affliction's MMA organization. Can they be profitable and will they gather attention of the casual fans? Are Emelianenko, Sylvia and Barnett good enough draws for their first event? Is Jason Day a good enough replacement for Leben? Is Tito Ortiz watching too much pro-wrestling? Read on, if you want to find the answers.




DREAM 3 thoughts



I love that they showed a long introduction. Thanks God, Bas Rutten is here this time and not Frank Trigg. Trigg is good when he's talking about the fight, but he's not exciting and listening to him and Rice talk silently at 3 am IS NOT GOOD. They did a good job of putting over the event and all of the fights. Really made DREAM 3 look like something special.

-SHOJI (6-3-1 MMA) vs. Takeshi Yamazaki (14-7-2 MMA). - Nice ground battle in the first round. They switched positions very quickly. Yamazaki seems to be better on the ground, he got the mount a few times, but couldn't lock in a submission at first and his punching power wasn't that good. The armbar was good, but Shoji managed to hold the pain and get out of the hold. Shoji was more active and he hit harder, especially with those knees, but Takeshi controlled the fight for most of the time. The second round was more of the same, as Yamazaki took Shoji down easily, wasn't too dominant there, but in the end, he did enough to secure the victory. Good effort by both fighters, but both clearly can still improve - Shoji in his takedown defense and Yamazaki in his striking.

-Katsuyori Shibata (2-4 MMA) vs. Jason Miller (21-5 MMA). - This was a complete showcase for Miller and his skills. Jason was funny and he immediately took down Shibata, got the mount easily and inflicted damage from there. Shibata couldn't do anything and he was crushed. Total domination by Miller, but we'll see how he look against tougher opponents in this grand prix.

-Melvin Manhoef (21-4-1 MMA) vs. Dae Won Kim (4-4 MMA). - Wow, another showcase we have. Well it didn't go so well for Melvin when he faced then 0-4 Dong-Sik Yoon, so shit may happen here too. And Yoon is in Kim's corner! Anyways Kim looked quite good at first, I think he landed a nice punch to Melvin's chin and later took him down. Manhoef quickly reversed that and all it took was one knee to the head to make Kim go to sleep. Not a very impressive performance by Melvin, but he said that he didn't train a lot for the fight. Well make sure you do next time or you might miss more grand prix's, haha.

-Daisuke Nakamura (14-9 MMA) vs. Bu Kyung Jung (0-3 MMA). - Jung is also cornered by Yoon! He has a 0-2 record and perhaps he'll be the next Yoon, because he's certainly facing tough opponents. Daisuke comes out with pro-wrestling gear and he's cornered by Tamura. The match started out well with submission attempts from both Nakamura and Jung. There was not a lot of striking in the first round, but it seemed like Daisuke landed a few good shots. I think Nakamura tried too many leg locks in the fight, but he's probably winning it due to more submission attempts. The second round started with a nice armbar attempt by Daisuke, but Jung was able to spin out of it. Is the armbar getting old already? It seems like every time a fighter can just spin out of it or ignore it. Anyways, Nakamura finished the fight with a KO. Poor Jung, he can't get a win. Good win for Daisuke, anyways.

-Katsuya Inoue (16-6-3 MMA) vs. Nick Diaz (16-7 MMA). - Unorthodox punches by Diaz, but they were pretty effective. A big slugfest to start and this lasted almost the whole round. I was kinda surprised that Diaz hardly tried to take down Inoue. Those body shots were nice, but Diaz was getting hit too and if he was there against a stronger striker, he would've been KTFO. Well, maybe he's going to change his strategy when he faces Sakurai. Good victory for Nick, overall, and I'm glad to see him back on the winning track. Sakurai vs. Diaz would be a hell of a fight, despite Sakurai's recent loss.

-Luiz Firmino (12-4 MMA) vs. Tatsuya Kawajiri (22-4-2 MMA). - Time to start our Lightweight Grand Prix! Great production job by HDNet. They used the intermission time well to hype both the middleweight and the lightweight grand prixs. Wow, talk about an intense stare down. And I can't say that the first round was exciting. Kawajiri looked a lot better in striking, but Buscape was relentless with his takedown attempts. However Kawajiri used his striking to knock down Luiz and he was on top for some time landing a few solid punches. Buscape did little damage, if any. Second round was also dominated by Kawajiri. Firmino tried a takedown, but he spent most of the round on his back and rarely tried any submissions. Tatsuya wasn't too active either, but he inflicted enough damage to win the fight, and overall, I think there's no doubt here who the better fighter was tonight.

-Joachim Hansen (17-7-1 MMA) vs. Eddie Alvarez (14-1 MMA). - The fight started out well for Alvarez as he knocked down Hansen. Eddie outstroke Hansen at first, but in the last minutes of the round, Joachim showed his striking abilities too, landing some solid shots. But Alvarez really has the better wrestling skills, he took down Hansen 3 times I think and after the first round, he should be winning the fight. We had a great second round. Less striking this time, but more action on the ground. Hansen tried various submissions from his guard, locked in an armbar, but once again, an armbar just isn't effective tonight, is it? If this was round by round, I'd give the first to Alvarez and the second to Hansen, but judging the entire, fight, Eddie should take this, because he really looked dominant in the first round, especially in the first minutes. The judges agree with me. Good effort by both fighters and it looks like the Japanese people enjoyed it too. Hansen has nothing to be ashamed of.

-Mitsuhiro Ishida (16-4-1 MMA) vs. Caol Uno (25-10-4 MMA). - First round was not too exciting, but I was surprised to see Caol Uno outstrike Ishida. He landed some good punches, but Ishida was able to take down Uno two times, even if he didn't do much on the ground. A close fight so far and I believe we'll have to judge by the second round. Wow, the outcome of the fight really surprised me. In the first round, we saw that Caol has good striking, but I thought that Ishida would have better ground skills. However Uno proved me wrong and submitted Ishida with a nice rear naked choke. Definitely an upset and it will be very interesting to see him fight other lightweights. Uno is kind of a wildcard now.

-Overall thoughts. A great event tonight. HDNet did a good production job and the fights certainly delivered. Not one boring match, fights were different, although we saw more ground action tonight perhaps. Only Diaz/Inoue was entirely a stand-up war. Now I'm looking forward to DREAM 4 and DREAM 5 especially, because then we'll see the "Final Conflict" of LWGP and Mirko Cro Cop in action again. FEG and DSE are certainly doing a good job. The fighters aren't as well known and maybe aren't as good as they were in PRIDE, but I think as the time goes on, DREAM will evolve more and the champions of the organization will be considered one of the best in the world.

Affliction ready to make an impact



Last week I said, that Affliction losing venue was not a good sign for the new MMA promotion. However, a week later, it looks like Affliction is doing well and July 19th event is far from dead. In its own words, Affliction will hold one of the biggest cards ever. On "Inside MMA" they announced the main event (Tim Sylvia (24-4 MMA) vs. Fedor Emelianenko (27-1 MMA)) and co-main event (Josh Barnett (21-5 MMA) vs. Pedro Rizzo (16-7 MMA)) of the evening. These are both very interesting matches and the undercard also has names like Matt Lindland (20-5 MMA) and Renato "Babalu" Sobral (29-7 MMA). Also rumored for the card are Ben Rothwell (29-5 MMA) and Aleksander Emelianenko (13-3 MMA), both top level talent

But the question is, will Affliction earn money from this event? I seriously doubt it. First, the new organization is spending a lot of money for signing the fighters. Emelianenko could've asked as much as 2 million dollars and I'm sure that Sylvia, Barnett and Lindland aren't fighting for pennies. Affliction will likely spend more money on this event, than UFC spends on two shows. And will those fighters help Affliction attract viewers? Fedor is not a draw in the USA and one could question the drawing power of Barnett, Rizzo and Sylvia. Tim is known well for his run as The UFC heavyweight Champion, but he was never a fan favorite, was he? Barnett and Rizzo fought in the UFC before, but that was before MMA got really popular in the US. "Banned" (name of Affliction's debut event) will air on pay-per-view. Hardcore MMA fans, like myself and most of my colleagues, will buy it, but what about casual fans? Nowadays, there is a lot of free MMA on TV, for example the UFC Fight Night events and EliteXC's CBS shows, not to mention other ProElite shows. If this was a UFC PPV, then people would buy it, because UFC's hype machine is that good. But I really doubt that Affliction will do a good enough job to promote the event properly, because it's such a difficult job and a lot of other MMA organizations (anyone remembers K-1 Dynamite?) struggled to do well. Not even PRIDE, which had plenty of superstars, could get buyrates anywhere near what the UFC is getting. Well, one thing is for certain, "Banned" will get more buys than YAMMA. And perhaps with time, Affliction will attract more than only the hardcore fans and make their MMA organization profitable. I wish they would swap fighters with DREAM and ProElite so we could get a supercard with the best non-UFC fighters.

OTHER NEWS

Tito Ortiz Says Georges St Pierre Is Disgusted With The UFC. Yadda, yadda, yadda. This reminds me of pro-wrestling. A wrestler, who left the WWE or got released, always talks trash about the fed. Ortiz (15-5-1 MMA) said numerous times that he learned a lot of showmanship out of pro-wrestling and he probably learned to talk shit out of guys like Kurt Angle and Big Show too. Well perhaps there is some truth to those words, because Ortiz isn't the only one complaining about UFC's contracts, but we shouldn't look too seriously at these comments. I still think that the fight against Machida won't be Ortiz's last fight in the UFC.

DREAM and ProElite form partnership. Great news. Nick Diaz has already fought in Japan and I'm looking forward to future trades. It's so important that non-UFC MMA organizations unite and provide us the fights that we really want to see. Plus, now ProElite has chances to become more known in Japan and DREAM – in United States. Let's just hope that FEG learned from their mistakes and won't book an outside venue next time they come to US.

Bisping to face Jason Day. Chris Leben (18-4 MMA) is, unfortunately, out of the UFC 85 card due to some legal problems. Well one could make an argument that Jason Day (17-5 MMA) will be a weaker opponent for Bisping (15-1 MMA) than Leben. But Jason won 10 of his last 11 fights and quickly defeated Alan Belcher at UFC 83. He's yet to make an impact in the UFC, but I think Jason is a good enough replacement and not an easy opponent to Bisping by any means. If Michael wins this fight, then I'll consider him among the top contenders in UFC's middleweight division.

UFC will show Liddell homage. And that will be on May 31st, when EliteXC makes their primetime debut on CBS. More free MMA on my TV is always a good thing, but I can't say I'm too happy with this UFC's decision. It's very important for both EliteXC and MMA as a whole to make a good impression in its debut on prime time network TV. And UFC could only steal potential viewers from the CBS show and make it a failure. If EliteXC will get bad ratings for their first show, it could damage MMA product and it would probably be a while until network TV would try to show MMA again. I hope it won't affect EliteXC's ratings and that the show will get at least passable ratings and I don't care that Kimbo Slice (2-0 MMA) and Gina Carano (5-0 MMA) will be the main draws. Because I'm sure, that if the CBS show will get decent ratings, it will make popular not only former street fighters with 2-0 records, but some talented fighters as well. So having said that, I'm not sure if it's a good move to show some of UFC's MMA action on the same time as EXC's show. Perhaps, if ProElite is successful, UFC would get a network deal easier? Perhaps then network televisions would fulfill Dana's demands? Well obviously UFC doesn't think so.

BYE BYE!

And that wraps up another edition of The Tuesday Leg Lock report. Thank you for reading and please leave some comments. See you next week everyone!