The Verbal Submission 10.21.08: Fighting Fedor = EPIC FAIL, Plus UFC 89 Review & UFC 90 Preview

Posted by Chris Robinson on 10.21.2008

Two shows in one week from the UFC? It must be my birthday! It's not though so don't get me anything. You missed my birthday. I'll never forgive you. Plus, I discuss the pros and cons of Strikeforce on NBC, why Fedor's new reality show is doomed, and why Clay Guida is lame.

After a solid UFC 89 from the land of tea and crumpets, this is "The Verbal Submission" and I am Chris Robinson. Needless to say, my predictions for the show were hit and miss. Let's hope I fare a bit better when predicting this weekend's UFC 90 which is headlined by Anderson Silva and Patrick Cote. Of course, you already know that because the UFC DRILLED IT INTO YOUR BRAIN during the live broadcast on Spike. By live I mean "on a six hour tape delay but this magical graphic in the top right hand corner makes it live". Anyway, in today's column I'm going to jump to a number of topics including a review of UFC 89, a preview of UFC 90, why Clay Guida is a douchebag, why "Fighting Fedor" won't work, and a review of Strikeforce on NBC. Looks like I've got a lot planned. Plus, some broad from the UFC got naked in Playboy? I wish I had a link to those pics in the middle of my column. That's right scroll to the boobie link you predictable bastards. Then scroll back up and read.

After seeing him up close, I'm pretty sure Herb Dean was created by Jim Henson.


UFC 89: UNANIMOUSLY MEDIOCRE
Let's start from the top and work our way down. Michael Bisping's win over Chris Leben was a kickboxing match, plain and simple. Bisping ran from Leben for most of the fight and worked his straight forward punches to turn Leben's face into mush. Leben was frustrated throughout the fight, and landed shots that did little damage while attempting takedowns that led to nothing. Michael Bisping is officially not ready for a title shot. As one of my favorite fighters, I wanted to cut him some slack, but his post fight comments about trying for a decision infuriated me. Who the hell goes out there and doesn't try to finish a fight? Then says they weren't trying to finish the fight? Granted, Chris Leben isn't the easiest guy in the world to knock out, but it's been done before. If Bisping thinks for a second that the style of fight he put on Saturday night is going to give him long term success, he needs to watch the replay again. If he attempts that stick and move garbage against a Rich Franklin or a Dan Henderson (one of which will be his next opponent), he's going to get a rude awakening.

I also acknowledge that with all the hype about Bisping heading up a team on the next season of TUF that he didn't want to go in there and get knocked out. I hope this was a one time game plan and Bisping will attempt to finish fights in the future. On the Leben side of things, the Crippler looked good during the fight and probably should've attempted more takedowns combined with ground and pound. I'd love to see the rebooted Chris Leben get a chance to avenge his loss to Jason MacDonald, or even a match-up with Kendall Grove. The future is still bright for Chris Leben, and I hope he continues to be a force at 185.

Please.....please....just stay down.....oh god this hairstyle was a bad choice.....you limey fu....


The co-main event of the evening featured falling star Brandon Vera lose yet again to Mr. 50/50, Keith Jardine. Neither fighter looked overly impressive, and this fight took "Snoozer of the Night" in my book. Vera should pack it in at this point. I don't know where the old Brandon Vera went, but I don't think he's coming back. It's time for a camp change or a coaching change or something. Bottom line is that Brandon Vera can't hang with top talent. They need to give him some fights against maybe a few WEC 205 stragglers to build his confidence back up. Then throw him in there with another top guy. As for Jardine, I'd love to see him score a fight with Lyoto Machida. Both fighters have horribly awkward styles and the fight wouldn't be super entertaining, but it would knock one guy out of title contention permanently. Let's face it. The Machida vs. Thiago Silva was designed for Silva to knock out Machida and take his less than marketable abilities out of title contention. Jardine has KO power and would be a suitable competitor for the Dragon until Thiago returns to action. Again, Brandon Vera sucks. That is all

Well color me wrong about Chris Lytle and Paul Taylor. I'll admit it. I said this one would be a bore-fest and they proved me wrong. Their slugfest even scored them Fight of the Night honors. Sadly, neither guy will ever rise up the ranks, but if they keep putting on fights like that they'll always have a spot on televised cards. Kudos to "Lights Out" and British Paul #1.

Good LORD!


Luiz Cane's TKO of Sokoudjou was impressive. Sokoudjou always carried too much hype, and now the shine from this PRIDE days has officially worn off. They should continue to build up Cane up slowly in the talent rich 205 division, and by the end of '09 this guy could be a contender. As for Sokoudjou, release him. He'll be fine.

Marcus Davis returned to his winning ways against Paul Kelly. The loss for Kelly has got to sting with the UFC promotional machine as they would love to have a second British stand-out to compliment Bisping. Kelly still has a definite upside and hopefully will get a fight at UFC 93 in Dublin. As for Marcus Davis, it looks like he's on a collision course with Chris Lytle. That fight should be swEEEt with a capital SWEET. If the fight does happen, and Davis wins, he's back on track towards a title shot someday. The welterweight division has a lot more depth in it than most people realize and is probably the third deepest behind 205 and 155.

Overall it was a solid showing for the UFC, but definitely not a show I would've paid for. In all honesty, with the exception of the Kimbo/Petruzelli charade, the recent EliteXC Heat show was probably on par with UFC 89 in terms of in-cage action. Just saying.

NAKED GIRLS ARE BAD
Rachelle Leah graces the cover of Playboy Magazine this month. If you didn't know that, you should really pay closer attention to these types of things. The former UFC ring girl turned UFC All Access host has an impressive body. The mammaries are a tad small for my liking, but breast size is always a matter of choice. Thanks to the fine folks at CagePotato.com who have a scanner, a copy of the actual magazine, and free time. Click on the pic to enter a world of NSFW. Enjoy.

Remember girls. Dreams really do come true if you walk around a cage long enough holding up numbers.


CLAY GUIDA: GAIN 30 AND THEN TALK SMACK
I liked Clay Guida once. Then he opened his mouth and someone wrote it down. If you missed this over the weekend, Clay, along with various other MMA fighters, gave their opinions on the main event of UFC 89 over at Sherdog. Most of the fighters were respectful, and gave clear cut opinions on why they thought Bisping or Leben would win the fight. Well Captain Caveman decided to go a different route. In an attempt to be a moron, which he was successful at, Clay called Bisping "the most overrated TUF winner in history". Sounds like someone is still sore about his fat, tub of crap brother getting cut from the show. As far as "overrated" goes, Bisping may have held back a bit at UFC 89, but at least he threw punches instead of constantly taking down his opponent and doing nothing. It must've been real tough holding Mac Danzig down for three rounds and squeaking out that decision. God, now I sound like Junie Browning. "You're just a boring ass wrestler!" Seriously though, if you're going to talk smack about someone on a fairly well known website, talk smack about someone close to your weight class. You don't see Urijah Faber calling out Chuck Liddell. You don't see Miguel Torres talking trash on Brock Lesnar. So Clay, on behalf of fight fans and fans of Geico Caveman commercials, pick on someone your own size. Of course, I'm sure your brother could teach you how to put on weight so you could move to middleweight. He's probably got some no name, local show to fight on though, so good luck with that.

The man always has a strawberry kiwi-tini in his hand. I'm just saying!


UFC 90: THE SPIDER VS. THE PREDATOR
UFC shows only a week apart! Are we living in a beautiful dream world? With five big match-ups on the televised card, UFC 90 is set to be a stellar card even if the main event is considered highly predictable. Let's see if I can fare a little better with predictions here than I did with last week's show. Also, I'm once again going to try to churn out a prediction video, which I did last week, so look for that late Friday on YouTube. Let's predict!

SEAN SHERK vs. TYSON GRIFFIN

Well if it isn't the Muscle Shark returning to the cage for the first time since his destruction at the hands of BJ Penn. Speaking of "boring" wrestlers, former 155 champ roidturns...returns to the Octagon to face Tyson Griffin. Tyson has rattled off four straight decision victories and now faces his toughest test in Sherk. Did I mention Griffin holds a victory over Clay Guida? Guess Clay couldn't hold Tyson down for fifteen minutes and do nothing. Weird. I'm not overly excited about this match-up because neither guy finishes fights very often. This one is going the distance. I'm doing to go out on a limb here though. I don't think Sherk has recovered mentally from this loss to BJ Penn. I think Griffin is going to have the edge here and work some serious ground & pound. Then he's going to submit Sherk in the 3rd round. All jokes aside, Sherk will grind out a decision though.

Marcus Davis shouted out a wonderful doctor after his fight that could probably help you with some of that.


FABRICIO WERDUM vs. JUNIOR DOS SANTOS

Who? Who's Werdum fighting? Junior Two Saints? What is he some sort of Brazilian mobster? They seriously couldn't find a better opponent for Werdum than this? Old Junior has finished all six of his wins by TKO or submission, but it's weird to me that Werdum gets placed against a newcomer when the heavyweight division is so dee........it'll be a good fight. Werdum is someone the UFC would love to fast track to the top of the heavyweight division after the whole "four man tournament" is over. I guess they want to keep him fresh, and pad his win column with this one. I know nothing about Junior other than he finishes his fights. Werdum does the same. This fight should be pretty boss, but I'd say Werdum's experience plays a role here and he nabs a TKO in the 2nd round.

RICH CLEMENTI vs. GRAY MAYNARD

Did I seriously hear that Joe Silva was having a difficult time finding opponents for Gray Maynard? I've never been impressed by Maynard as he's pretty one dimensional with the wrestling thing. He's a tad less boring than a Clay Guida or a Sean Sherk, but he doesn't finish fights. "No Love", on the other hand, likes to choke people out. Clementi should just let Maynard take him to the ground and then work his submission game. Hopefully, "No Love" won't spend too much in the tanning salon he owns (who owns a tanning salon?) and will spend time putting the first loss on Maynard's record. I'll go with a second round guillotine choke victory for Clementi in this one.

JOSH KOSHCECK vs. THIAGO ALVES

Label Josh Koscheck one of the smartest guys in MMA. When Diego Sanchez went down with injury, you would've thought it was Koscheck that caused the injury with how quickly he stepped up for the Alves fight. After Dana White made it known that the winner of this fight gets a shot at the gold, Koscheck comes off looking like a genius. This is the perfect fight for Kos as Thiago has had problems in the past with wrestlers. Jon Fitch and Spencer Fisher both took Alves out, yet Matt Hughes had a horrendous time with the Pitbull. Koscheck's stand up game has improved tremendously, but there's no way he wants to stand and trade with Thiago, especially when it comes to Muay Thai striking. On the Alves side of things, he's probably still kicking himself for missing weight against Matt Hughes. Winning that fight should've landed him in the cage with GSP, but the UFC isn't about to be burned by a guy missing weight again(cough, Travis Lutter, cough). Alves' trademark has apparently become 2nd round TKO's, but he'll have a tough time knocking Kos out. Frankly, no one has done it in the UFC yet, and Kos has gone the distance against Diego Sanchez, Chris Lytle, and GSP, all of which are good to great strikers. This fight is probably the more intriguing than the main event because the outcome is highly unpredictable. Look for Kos to grind out a decision in the upset of the night.

It seems as though they're implying Thiago may not be um, how do you say...steroid free?


ANDERSON SILVA vs. PATRICK COTE

Silva with a first round TKO. NEXT! You really think I'm going to go out on a limb and pick Cote? I hate Canadian fighters! Kidding. Seriously though, Cote has no real chance here. This is a guy that lost four straight fights to start his UFC career, then rattles off four straight wins against guys no where near Silva's caliber. How does he get a title shot again? Oh yeah, the UFC middleweight division is paper thin thanks to the Spider. All this retirement talk on Silva's part is a tad silly by the way. If he really wants to go down as the greatest ever, he'll clean out the rest of the division in 2009, then go for the light heavyweight belt in 2010. Just a thought. Anyway, like I said before, Silva by first round TKO in Chicago. It must be weird for Chicago to have a champion in their town. Oh snap!

How can he retire and turn those abs into a beer belly?


STRIKEFORCE: MMA at 3AM on NBC
For the last two weeks I've utilized my magical digital TV recording device, or DVR, to watch Strikeforce on NBC. For those who think Strikeforce is a WWE tag team from the 1980's, you are correct. It's also a MMA promotion with a weekly 28 minute show on a major network. Strikeforce boasts such names as Babalu, Bobby Southworth, Josh Thomson, Joe Riggs, Gilbert Melendez, and various other UFC castaways. Their biggest claim to fame has been their two shows at the Playboy Mansion, which have been the focus of their recent television offerings. Another interesting aspect of the show, Ken "Ow my Eye" Shamrock is on commentary with ESPN Poker Play-by-Play announcer, Lon McEachern.

This show isn't half bad. It's all bad! Kidding. For a 28 minute show, which is virtually a half hour commercial, they do several things right. They feature interesting fights from recent shows, which is better than featuring a match from years past with fighters that may not even be relevant. Upon visiting Strikeforce.com, they have listed that eight "best of" shows will air, which is also good, but better in small quantities. You want to create the perception that you're competing with the other promotions in the sport, and not relying too heavily on the past. Another positive was the recent episode featuring Terry Martin vs. Cory Devela. The fight itself wasn't super exciting, although Martin scored the KO, but they made up for it by doing a short piece on Martin's background and how MMA brought focus to this life. Now I know Martin is a former UFC fighter with a 2-3 record in the Octagon, but for fans who may not be aware of that the video package helps fans connect with Martin. Anybody can put on a MMA show, but a promotion that wants to survive needs to have their fighters connect with the fans on some level. How do you think EliteXC is still in business?

One suggestion for Strikeforce would be to profile both fighters next time because Martin's KO didn't come until the third round, and Devela controlled most of the fight. Devela was also riding a 7 fight win streak into the match, so Martin's victory could've played up as a big upset. Also, get Ken Shamrock off of commentary. I'm sure having Ken's name attached to the show makes the executives at NBC feel all warm and fuzzy inside, but the truth is Ken was pretty bad on commentary. They have Frank Shamrock on the active roster for Strikeforce. Why not have him on commentary. Hell, you want some fireworks, have a three man announce team with both Shamrocks. I'll stay up until 3am to watch that instead of recording it.

Bottom line, if you have a TiVo or a DVR, give the Strikeforce show a chance. Word on the street is NBC is close to giving them a slot for a live event in 2009. Who knows? It may even be televised at a reasonable hour. Of course, Dana White could probably run a "Best of Patrick Cote" and beat it in the ratings, but do ratings really count? They do. Trust me.

Who is this broad?


FIGHTING FEDOR: GOOD IDEA? BAD IDEA?
So the talk of the town lately has been the green light given to a reality show featuring Fedor Emelianenko. You might say, "Chris, you've been clamoring for Fedor to get more mainstream attention on US television for a while now. How could you possibly think this is a bad idea?". Well I'll tell you why. Does M-1/Affliction really think they're going to find someone, some unknown fighter, that will truly be able to challenge Fedor after spending a month or two on a reality show. I've heard the participants on this show will be training in Russia with Fedor's Red Devil Team. Do you really think the Sambo experts on the Red Devil Team are going to teach some schmuck how to beat their beloved Fedor?

Look at the season of TUF where "the comebacks" filled the cast. Granted, Serra and Lutter were given title shots, but they had decent careers up to that point and weren't extreme nobodies. I highly doubt there are any highly touted heavyweights out there, not currently signed by a major promotion, that are just a few training sessions away from competing realistically in the ring with Fedor! It's just not going to happen!

I appreciate that with Donald Trump's backing they're trying to get Fedor on television and build him into a superstar so his fights will garner more attention. I know the language barrier plays a major part in his lack of marketability. I just fail to see the entertainment or marketing value of a show designed to feed Fedor an easy win. Now if the show's goal was simply to add some new teammates to the Red Devils, that could work. If Fedor is the coach, and the winner of the show gets a big money contract with M-1 or Affliction, the show would make a little more sense. I'm all for thinking and going outside of the box, but the concept of this show is just a little far fetched for me.

I'm not saying I have all the answers. I understand that M-1 is doing the best they can to market the world's best heavyweight without the help of the world's #1 MMA organization (pay the man in gold bars!). I just hope they fine tune the concept of "Fighting Fedor" before it debuts on television and becomes a disaster. Plus, all this talk is wishful thinking until they lock down a TV deal, which they probably will with HDNet. How are the ratings on HDNet these days anyway?

We're only days away from delicious Fedor Pretzels on store shelves everywhere.


END OF THE THIRD ROUND
That ends another Negative Nancy edition of "The Verbal Submission". Thanks to CagePotato.com, Sherdog.com, Round5MMA.com, MMAWeekly.com, and Google Image Search. Make sure to check out the latest columns here at 411Mania from Daniel Plunkett, Todd Bergman, Larry Csonka, and Bren Oliver. All the MMA writers at 411 are a great read and they don't molest water fowl (unlike those sickos in the wrestling section).

The Empire Hardcore Podcast is around now and then at Podomatic.com and on iTunes. Be sure to check out my zany UFC predictions in video form on YouTube. Also, control your temper here. I'll be back next Tuesday to review UFC 90 and explain why Junie Browning's parents weren't biologically related. Enjoy your week!

Kick. Punch. It's all in the mind.

-CPR