Tapping Out With TBerg 12.19.08: Episode X: A Festivus For The Rest of Us

Posted by Todd Bergman on 12.19.2008

In this edition of Tapping Out With TBerg, I rate Affliction’s new announcers, discuss why a Japanese person would want to live in America, rate the new UFC poster and touch on the very serious situation concerning the death of Justin Levens. Plus, your chance to vote on the Best Of ’08 and Gina Carano returns in picture form.

Awesome Quote For Episode X
Quadros: "Rampage, where do you see yourself in 2 years?"
Rampage: "Well, right now I'm 23, so in two years, I see myself 25."

Sad News
When I woke up this morning, I saw a sad headline appear on CNN.com, which stated, "martial arts fighter and his wife found dead." I soon discovered that Justin Levens and his wife were found dead of apparent gun shot wounds in their home. According to the police report, it is being ruled as a murder/suicide. While the situation could be different, I still have that sick feeling in my stomach that I had when I heard about the Benoit family murders. Levens' former agent, Ken Pavia, had this to say in an interview with MMAjunkie.com.

"I worked with Justin for a period, and we remained good friends after. He loved to compete and was a great fighter. Justin was one of those guys that it seemed suffered from a lot of bad luck in life. I think the default setting for a lot of fighters is to have demons inside, and it seems like his demons escaped. It saddens me that Justin succumbed to it. He was an intelligent, charismatic guy and a good kid. In hindsight, you wish you could have done something about it."


A sad end for two lives

I can't imagine what both families must be going through at this moment. We at 411mania.com extend our thoughts and prayers to all involved in this horrible situation.

T-shirt company's next show looks great
Unless you've been living under a log recently, then you know that Affliction will make its second attempt at operating a Pay-Per view broadcast on January 24th live from Anaheim, California. I only joke about calling Affliction the "t-shirt" company because in all honesty, they are slowly becoming a force in the North American Mixed Martial Arts scene. Here is how the card looks:

MAIN CARD (PPV)
Fedor Emelianenko vs. Andrei Arlovski (Nominee for Fighter Of The Year)
Josh Barnett vs. Gilbert Yvel
Vitor Belfort vs. Matt Lindland
Renato "Babalu" Sobral vs. Rameau Thierry Sokoudjou
Chris Horodecki vs. Dan Lauzon
Paul Buentello vs. Kiril Sidelnikov

PRELIMINARY CARD (Airing live on HDNet)
Vladamir Matyushenko vs. Antonio Rogerio Nogueira
Jay Hieron vs. Jason High (Nominee for Rising Star Of The Year)
L.C. Davis (Nominee for Rising Star Of The Year) vs. Mark Hominick
Antonio Duarte vs. Albert Rios
Patrick Speight vs. Brett Cooper

There also seems to be a nice storyline developing here with the addition of Tito Ortiz to the broadcast booth. While he hasn't signed a fighting contract with Affliction, Ortiz will join Sean Wheelock and Jimmy Smith in replacing the old commentating team of Frank Trigg, Jay Glazer, and John McCarthy. Depending on Affliction's ability to stay in business past three shows, one would have to think that they are trying to set up Ortiz vs. the winner of the Sobral vs. Soku fight. It will also be interesting to see what Tito has to say about Vitor Belfort considering there was a great deal of bad blood between the two when they fought each other back at UFC 51: Super Saturday.

After the initial criticism of the original broadcasting crew, Affliction decided to change things up a bit. I think that Frank Trigg does an average job as a color commentator but he needs a strong lead from someone else in order to truly be entertaining. McCarthy, on the other hand, is just plain terrible when it comes to commentating. He's certainly knowledgeable about the sport but lacks a strong delivery and basic broadcasting skills. However, Jay Glazer should still be on this show. He could at least be the post-fight interviewer. Glazer did a great job on the EliteXC shows and is entertaining to watch every Sunday during NFL broadcasts. Maybe WEC could pick him up and sign him to a deal as he could easily replace Todd Harris or their current terrible post-fight interviewer. It's something WEC should seriously consider.

Poster peeking time
Here's a look at the UFC Fight Night 17 poster. What do you think about it?

An 8th grader from Hoboken, New Jersey made this

My opinion could change, but I think that they poster looks like something that I could've made in 15 minutes using Photoshop. It is nice that the UFC has gotten a different logo for the Fight Night and Ultimate Finales, but it just doesn't do much for me. Then again, we are talking about posters here.

Even the Japanese want to carry the American Top Team Flag
It looks like former Olympic Judo Gold Medalist Satoshi Ishii wants to become a UFC fighter. Many MMA fans will remember that Ishii called out Fedor after Satoshi won the gold medal at the Beijing Olympics. The story gets a little confusing because Ishii originally gave a verbal commitment to DREAM upon announcing his interest in MMA. Now it appears that Ishii backed out of that agreement and will make the move to America and join up with American Top Team. His announcement was made official earlier this week in a published report in Fighters Only Magazine. Ishii said of the situation:

"I made up my mind finally - the UFC is where I want to fight. I'm a white belt in MMA. I understand the possibility of starting from WEC. If I was an unknown judoka, I would definitely build up my MMA experience in Japan first. However, I have decided put my Judo gold medal to use. I believe my name value will attract the UFC."

One must think that the Japanese audience would love to watch this guy compete, and perhaps Zuffa can even use him as a marketing tool across the ocean. It would certainly be a good idea to include him on a UFC PPV under card. That way, if he were to lose it wouldn't air on Pay-Per view but one would think that he would get a favorable match up being his first time fighting in the UFC. Even if he did lose in his first attempt inside the Octagon, would it matter? It didn't matter for Brock Lesnar, and by the way; he's the UFC Heavyweight Champion right now. With that said, I highly doubt that American Top Team would allow him to be unprepared coming into the fight. Ishii could also be of use during season 10 of The Ultimate Fighter. That would work if the UFC uses my model for the show and has 4 fighters from 8 countries fight to see who is the best in the world. It's just an idea, but if the UFC does use it then you heard it here first.

The Best Of ‘08 Awards Show
As announced in last week's column, during my January 2nd Column, I will declare the Best Of '08 in the form of shiny plastic trophies. These winners are selected by you, the readers, and reflect what and who you think were the best things, events, and people in '08. All you need to do is either pick one of the people that I've nominated or nominate someone yourself. It's just that easy! So again, here are the categories and nominees.



Fighter of the Year-
B.J. Penn
GSP
Brock Lesnar
Anderson Silva
Eddie Alvarez
Forrest Griffin
Rashad Evans
Andrei Arlovski

Promotion of the Year-
UFC
Strikeforce
DREAM
Affliction

Rising Star-(best up-and-coming fighter not in a major company)
Matt Jaggers
L.C. Davis
Jason High
Rafael Cavalcante
Ryan Ford

Fight of the Year
Alvarez vs. Hansen "DREAM 3"
Alvarez vs. Tatsuya Kawajiri "DREAM 5"
Griffin vs. Rampage "UFC 86"
Miguel Torres vs. Yoshiro Maeda "WEC 34"
Jens Pulver vs. Urijah Faber "WEC 34"
Cung Le vs. Frank Shamrock "Strikeforce Le vs. Shamrock"
Paul Taylor vs. Chris Lytle "UFC 89"

Moment of the Year
Elite XC on Network TV
Kimbo getting knocked out
Gina Carano towel dropping
Fedor submitting Tim Sylvia
Brock Lesnar winning the UFC Heavyweight Title
Anderson Silva stepping up to LHW and destroying James Irvin
"Hellboy" Hansen winning the DREAM LW Grand Prix as an alternate
B.J. Penn taking finally winning the LW title
GSP dominating Matt Serra in Canada

Tapping Out Subject of the Week
With every MMA columnist doing a Christmas wish list, I've decided to give you my 5 Festivus Wishes for MMA.

1.) MMA to be sanctioned in Indiana- It should really be regulated and sanctioned in every state; however, I mention Indiana because I live here. The Midwest is a hotbed for MMA talent, and it's a shame that the great state of Indiana can't host a UFC event because it's not sanctioned. Numerous MMA events do happen in Indiana each month, but the Boxing Commission needs to sanction the sport so that the fighters can perform in a safe environment. Sanctioning would also cure the numerous amounts of one-sided match ups that occur. Case in point, my buddy weighs 215lbs. and recently beat a guy who was well over 315lbs. Sanctioning in the state of Indiana is something that I will personally work towards in 2009. I encourage you to do the same if your state hasn't sanctioned MMA.

2.) Get rid of the WAMMA titles- While some (people who are against the UFC) think that handing out WAMMA titles are good things, I beg to differ. Handing out these titles and claiming they are the worlds best of the best, isn't going to help the sport. Obviously, the UFC isn't going to have any part of these titles and won't allow their talent to fight elsewhere, but what true value is placed in these belts? When you think of Fedor do you think, "Oh man, he's the WAMMA Heavyweight Champion?" Hell no, you don't, and you shouldn't. This is what ultimately killed boxing with the handing out of fake title belts. What's next, the Ultimate Grappling Heavyweight Champion Butterbean? Let each organization have their titles and don't allow these "companies" to place their belts on your fighters.

3.) Affliction to have a stronger presence- Competition is certainly a good thing when it comes to business of MMA and the UFC is currently dominating this world. While I don't think that it a bad thing, I certainly think that sometimes no competition allows a company to get stagnate and not operate at its full potential. Affliction needs to last past three shows and develop its own stars for this goal to happen. They already have a solid heavyweight division and American fans really love to watch the big men fight. They need to be smart and money savvy, especially during the current economic recession. Tomorrow is not guaranteed but with smart investing, it can be.

4.) DREAM a little DREAM- I have a guilty pleasure, and it's DREAM. I often find myself watching replays of their events on HDNet almost daily. I'm pretty sure that my wife has caught me dancing to Shinya Aoki's entrance music as well. Was there anything cooler then watching Eddie Alvarez do that beautiful back flip? Well, for all of this to continue, DREAM must find a way to relieve itself of its financial issues. Reports of fighters not getting their pay have not helped their reputation. Let's hope that the situations get cleared up because I can always count on DREAM to put on an exciting fight.

5.) No More Ultimate Title Holdups- I'm talking about the UFC constantly holding up their title belts due to The Ultimate Fighter. I, along with millions of other people, don't want to see this happen again. I realize that the UFC wants to hype the showdown between the coaches, but they don't have to use their champions for this purpose. Title fights usually sell themselves and, if they don't, put a double main event on the card. It appears that next season the UFC will not hold up a title showdown as they will have Bisping vs. the winner of Hendo/Franklin. It's a step in a positive direction, I hope!

Tap That Of The Week
Last week, I brought back Gina Carano and thought that she would have a challenge from Traci Brooks, but that didn't happen. This week Gina returns to take on former WWE Diva/Fitness Model Torrie Wilson.



The rules are still the same as they always have been. Vote for the winner by adding a comment stating that person's name. Hopefully, Gina can draw some competition instead of steamrolling another diva. It's up to you, the readers, to decide.

Since this is my last column before the holidays, I want to wish everyone a safe and very Merry Christmas and a Happy Hanukkah. Remember to vote for the Best of '08, support your local MMA, and keep your tapping hand strong.