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So i wanted to start out by talking about the recent Randy Couture situation. Looks like that he'll basically be able to fight Fedor after Fedor faces Tim Sylvia. Before I was hoping for a great fight between sylvia/fedor so people could see that sylvia isn't some weakling and he would give fedor a hard time.... but now i want fedor to crush him in round 1 without any issues so that we can hurry up and schedule the randy/fedor fight of the decade.

Ok so now on to UFC 84 discussions.

B.J. Penn Vs. Sean Sherk

I've said over and over again that I've wanted to see this fight more then randy/fedor. I still do. I love smaller fighters and it doesn't get any better then this. This is really a 50/50 fight on paper and i think most people assume that it's bj in the 1st/2nd round or Sherk by a Decision. I semi disagree with that. I think that sherk can actually finish BJ in the later rounds. If BJ gasses or gets injured then with sherk's tank he can mount him and finish him. What's very interesting to see is how well sherk's bjj does against bj. Yeah i mean we all agree that BJ has some serious jits but sherk against florian and franca his positioning (which to me is 85% of bjj) is incredible. His ability to achieve dominant position is so crazy and against someone like penn who has like a top 5 guard in mma that's gonna be so insane to see. I know keanu who's a BJJ practitioner is basically drooling at the mouth to see this ground game unfold.

My prediction is sherk by late round stoppage. I really think that he can push the pace and crack BJ and finish him late. This is a bold prediction since sherk never really finishes anyone but I think this is the day he will.

Wanderlei Silva Vs. Keith Jardine

This fight has KO written all over it. Jardine likes to sit in the pocket and land punches/kicks while Silva likes to get in the pocket and land hooks and clinch. I think that silva has a small flaw that he has major issues against counterpunchers who like to outbox and use wandy's desire to move forward against him. Crocop/Liddell. While that is true i don't think jardine is that type of fighter. He doesn't like to stay out or move in he likes to get into that comfort zone and is completely ok with slugging it out.

Wandy has lost his last 3 fights and people are like "he's over the hill!" ok listen people... the guy lost to Crocop, Dan Henderson, CHuck lidell. Two of those guys are not only the worst matchup for him but also two of the greatest fighters in history(say what you want about crocop but fedor himself said crocop was his toughest fight). Dan Henderson is the man who's given Rampage his hardest challenge since being in the UFC and he's also the guy who has held 2 belts and beaten guys like Big nog... Losing to those guys is no more shameful then say Matt Hughes losing to GSP.

Jardine on the other hand kos forrest beats chuck and now he has to fight wandy? God if this dude beats wandy he better get a title shot or the ufc is the gayest org of all time. I really wish wandy would use some of his ground skills more often in fights. He has really good bjj and great clinch... working with randy now he probably has improved wrestling... i don't see how he can't take jardine down and just beat him up. I'm ok with standing up and showing an exciting fight, but if you have the option take him down Wandy! I think wandy wins this fight by decision. I think that if he uses his ground game this is his fight to lose... however he doesn't like to do that... so it's hard to say. But i go with wandy because i think he has the toolset to win. I HOPE he wins by dominating Ko in the 2nd round to serve notice that he's back and he's waiting for rampage. Say wandy beats jardine then also possibly wins in a rematch with chuck or something he should be in line for a title shot. The 205 division is full of contenders to rampage's throne heck we have two others fighting on this card as well.



Wilson Gouveia Vs. Goran Reljic

Reljic has a sick ground game. Wilson is also got a nice ground game but trains with ATT. I think that if Wilson keeps it standing he should win this fight either by tko/sub/decision whatever. Problem is if he gets in a sticky situation he may try to go to his roots of jits and reljic would have an advantage there. This is Goran's first fight in the ufc but this might be a setup fight against another BJJ guy to give Goran an opening win. Look for Goran to get a takedown and Wilson allowing it because he's used to the ground but then getting out worked in the jits department. Goran by sub/decision.

Tito Ortiz Vs. Lyoto Machida

Machida is one of my fav fighters. The guy fights like no one else in the world. He's this elusive ninja who has weapons from all facets in mma. He's only finished one fight in his UFC career but he's like 4-0 against some good fighters. If you've seen his fight against hoger and nakamura that should tell you that his ground game is legit and against tito who is just 100% ground game and 0 standing I think he won't be able to dominate machida as much as he think he can. I think this fight comes down to who's able to fight there game. If tito can continue to get a hold of machida and take him down machida is losing a decision. If machida can stay away from tito and pick his spots then machida wins a UD. I think ths is machida's fight to lose and he's a perfect fighter to face tito. He's not agressive and tito will have to chase him across the ring. And even if he does get him down machida's good enough to not really have any issues. I think this is machida by UD. People think he's gonna finish tito. Tito is nearly impossible to finish and only Chuck has done so and chuck is like the perfect fighter to face Tito. Chuck is to Tito as Rampage is to Chuck... Machida though isn't far off. Also look for machida to get a title shot between forrest/rampage winner or get a fight against jardine possibly. I think if forrest beats rampage he'll get a fight against jardine. If Rampage beats forrest it will be machida.

Thiago Silva Vs. Antonio Mendes

rofl Thiago is gonna crush this guy. This is like can vs crusher and all they are doing is letting silva get more cage xp so he can be throw into the next teir of MMA fighters. Which should have happend already but whatever...

Ivan Salaverry Vs. Rousimar Palhares

wtf Ivan is still ALIVE!?!?!? he's like maurice smith.....'s FATHER. He's going against another fighter who's making his debut. Probably ivan by decision or submission because he's so experienced. I don't really know Palhares so i'm interested to see his game.

Rameau Thierry Sokoudjou Vs. Kazuhiro Nakamura

If this fight goes to the ground I really see it in favor of nakamura. Nakamura is one of those guys who's really tough and really good but just not good enough to take on the best of the division. Sokou i have no clue what he's made of. His 3 fights are all so quick that it's impossible to tell what he's really all about. Well if he kos nak we'll know! Based on the information i have i think nak wins by decision, taking it to the ground and controlling sokou.

Rich Clementi Vs. Terry Etim

Rich is really putting together some quality wins. I think that after a win or two he' ready to go against the elite of the division. Terry is a very long jits fighter who could give rich issues. I really am excited for this fight. I think it could go either way but i'm picking rich since he's on a roll and i love his balance.

Jon Koppenhaver Vs. Yoshiyuki Yoshida

This should be a good fight. I've seen yoshida fight before he's a pretty tough dude and that's exactly what war machine is. This is a hard fight to pick I'm going to go with yoshida on this. I've seen his ground and i think it's better then warmachine. It's really hard though because this looks like one of those fights setup to give warmachine a win so he can gain some steam. But i dunno yoshida is tough but maybe it's more that yoshida's previous opponents sucked..

Jason Tan Vs. Dong Hyun Kim

Dong Hyun Kim i do watch deep events.. but i don't recall him... but anyone who wins a lot in deep has to have some skills. I really can't pick this fight without information but since i'm a deep fan i'm going with Kim.

Christian Wellisch Vs. Shane Carwin

Um Shane Carwin by anything he wants? He's from denver therefore he's from my state of colorado and obviously he's a hero? In honesty Christian is a AKA member and that spells trouble. That camp is tough... I see Christian winning but I'm going to root for Shane... GO COLORADO.

This card is bonkers it has a lot of great fights. I hope that UFC can continue on this trend and for gods sake can we please stop doing TuF on champs so that they fight like once a year? While i want to see nog show off his skills to new guys I also want to see him submit everyone in the HW division.

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I usually call them and email them. They are pretty cool and the more i'm on there the more they let me talk. Today TJ didn't have his cohost so he looked like he wanted to talk. So we talked for about 10 minutes. About a bunch of stuff. Was pretty fun!

link http://www.nohunters.com/users/fox/foxonbeatdown.mp3

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Where you're trying to play solid poker and you're getting shit on and you keep trying to not get spewy and just keep waiting... Then bam bam bam you get up a few buyins from just not getting impatient and stacking some aggro monkey?

today was that day.

went like 1000 hands and was just losing blinds and not doing much finally got some draws that went my way got AA over some aggro guy pushing KQ. wow playing solid actually works.. who woulda thought. It feels good i went up only like 1.5 buyin for the session but I felt like it was well earned.

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These are in no particular order but these are my favorites.

1. Kazushi Sakuraba vs Royce Gracie.

This fight was like so epic back in the day. The king of all mma in royce vs the japanese superstar. For all of you who don't know this fight. So basically back in the day some of the Gracies were fags and they only would fight fights on their terms. THey did this to preserve records (which i think are so overrated anyway) and told saku they wouldn't fight unless they had unlimited rounds/etc just random shit to make the fight so unappealing to anyone. Saku is like 'LETS DO IT' The fight lasted forever and it was a big cat and mouse fight. Saku was in his prime and he basically turned gracie into his bitch. Not taking anything away from Royce he did get saku into a few difficult positions but saku got through it and ended up legging kicking his way into a victory. It was more then just a victory, Royce's corner threw in the towell. This was like so epic imo. Great fight!

2. Fedor vs Nog 1

omfg... these guys are so the greatest hw of all time probably the greatest fighters of all time. When they met people were like "omg fedor's gnp he has to be in nog's guard to do it! there is no way he can win!" Fedor not only won but he turned nog's face into meat. But nog didn't care he continued to attack fedor and got so many near subs the whole fight but fedor always escaped by 1 second. It was such a great fight. Fedor fought basically his best fight ever and even then nog still almost stole it. Fedor wins by decision but this was just an awesome fight between two gods.

3. Randy vs Tito

rofl this fight was my fav cuz every single person who wasn't a huge mma nerd (like me) thought that tito was going to crush randy. I thought it was gonna be close with tito getting a decision but Randy basically leveled up and outwrestled, outstruck, outcardio tito into dust. IT was so awesome and such a technical inspirational fight. To basically beat tito in his own game convincingly was just astounding. I love this fight!

4. Little Nog vs Shogun

Oh my god shogun vs little nog. These guys imo when they fought were #1 and #2 in terms of talent in the division. Was back and forth shogun knocking nog down with nog knocking shogun down. Shogun doing flying superman punches into nog's guard. I love this fight, my fav thing is watching 2 guys who are at the top of the division battling each other at the top of each other's games. They both fought at 100% and shogun gets the UD of a great fight.

5. Rampage vs Wandy 2

This fight really is why imo wandy should always be in the convo for best 205er of all time. Rampage was a beast he was kiling people. First time around he was green and wandy crushed him. Second time you could tell he had leveled up and was going to give wandy a run. Boy did he ever. In the first round Rampage had the champ on the ropes and was crushing him on the ground. But then in the 2nd round wandy basically got pissed off and they were just going back and forth. Wandy basically went berserk and crushed rampage in the clinch and won by a manly ko. THis fight wasn't as hyped up or epic as the first 3... but it was one of my favs because wandy was losing and he never gave up and actually took the fight and increased the pace which was insane... but he came out with a crazy ko victory. Wandy is a hero.

there are tons of other fights... hansen vs uno... gomi vs kawajiri... sylvia vs randy... randy vs chuck 1... hanesn vs azeredo... guida vs heurta... griffin vs edgar... lots of other fights. But yeah those 5 are some of my favs.

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I was thinking about doing a weekly/monthly podcast with keanu/myself about mma/poker stuff. Just having a debate between keanu and I. We get into some awesome debates about stuff and i always felt that people would love to hear them.

Would you listen to it? We would do things like bring up fun topics to talk about read emails and answer them. Bring on extra guys like naz, daut, whoever...

i'd just have to ask keanu now lol.

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POSSIBLY...

EVER.



if only i could change my handle to "FOXBYGNP"

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This has spoilers so don't read if you haven't seen the event.

I just want to start by saying that ufc83 was a bad event and i was very annoyed by it.

While there was something to be excited about there wasn't really any big names and half the fights included undertrained vaginas.

Let me first say that i was behind serra. I'm a huge fan of his but even then i still picked gsp to beat him. GSP is just so dominant in the ground. Overall for all ground tactics he's top #3 easy. The only thing that i haven't seen from him is the ability to fight in later rounds. But with his skill does it matter? if he can finish in 1-2 rounds who cares if he can't go five. GSP is a monster and i hope after he beats fitch that somehow we could get him to fight jake shields and/or carlos condit. I'd love to see those fights!

Kalib starns is a huge pussy. I was wrong about the fight, i said he would have verbally submitted in round 3, he proved me wrong and went the distance. He almost got caught in the blind hammerfist in the 3rd round but thankfully he was able to avoid them. Nate is a hero now cuz of that shit and kalib should be set on fire.

Maia is a wizard. The end.

I really want to see bigping more at 185, he looked really good and explosive (unlike swick going from 185 to 170) but i need to see him against someone who isn't a huge idiot before i can start calling him a top 185 contender.

I really wasn't a huge fan of the card, i hope that ufc 84 bj vs sherk/machida vs tito/jardine vs wandy changes that. Obviously it has the one fight that i've been wanting to see more then anything (bj/sherk) I will post my thoughts as it gets closer.

OH and i never really talk about poker but i'm going to start playing more omaha and i'm going to post stats about it, i really want to learn the game because i think there is money to be made there.

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Ok lets start with UFC 83!

Matt Serra Vs. Georges St. Pierre

Ahhh just want to start off by saying i think Keanu and myself are the only people in this entire universe who even give serra any credit at all. Serra is one of my fav fighters. He's like the only really good bjj fighter that i know who has incredible power in his hands an in his clinch (bj being the other i guess).

Do i think serra's win over gsp was a fluke? Somewhat. I mean gsp got caught and serra finished him. That being said the fight is not a 10 to 1 like they had it last time. Serra has incredible tools and baring a huge spinningbackfast to the brain serra is nearly impossible to finish. He's got so many tools to finish fights but he's going against a guy who's basically not from earth. But what's funny is mentally serra is far far far more prepared then gsp is. Here's the deal. WHen GSP first fought hughes, he was dominating him and was never in trouble until he went for the kimura then when they fought again gsp already knew he could take hughes he just had to be careful. Against serra he was never in an advantage. Before serra caught him with a huge shot serra was already landing a few right straights. SO i think gsp could be mindjobbed about this. While serra knows he's the underdog again but doesn't care.

Another thing to mention is while GSP dominates wrestlers does he dominate bjj artists? I'll say this once. From there back serra is like a shitton way more dangerous then trigg, hughes, sherk, basically everyone. The only person who comes close to serra on his back is mayhem and even then serra is better fitted to take on gsp cuz of his power.

This fight ends with gsp finishing serra by strikes or a decision. Serra has a chance to win this, but gsp is just so inhuman that if he shows up he basically can beat anyone. There is no fighter like gsp.. maybe a crocop or bj penn that if they show up 100% they are 2nd to none.

Travis Lutter Vs. Rich Franklin

This fight is really great. I'm very excited about this because i have yet to see someone with a very good ground game battle Rich. Travis will get the takedown at one point unless Rich pulls a boring long game and then we'll see if Rich can survive. I think Rich vs Jason was a good measure on this one. Rich stuffed all of jason's takedowns and never got to the ground. I think Rich has good tkd defense but agains lutter i don't think he can hold him off forver. Although Rich has a far far far superior gas tank so i think Rich wins this late 3 round or decision.

Nathan Quarry Vs. Kalib Starnes

Kalib is a better fighter then nate plain and simple. But Kalib is also a crybaby who gives up super easy while Nathan can get his nose broke and still stalked Rich. If kalib can't dominate him early then nathan may squeeze a decision out because Kalib might weep his way into a submission 3rd round.

Charles McCarthy Vs. Michael Bisping

McCarthy has a very good ground game. That being said he has the mental focus of a potatoe and bisping eats potatoes so like yeah.. bisbing by frying mcarthy's head and eating it with ketchup. Bisping shoudl win this but McCarthy will look good on the ground early.

Mark Bocek Vs. Mac Danzig

Have you seen who Mac trains with. Mac by tko.

Joe Doerksen Vs. Jason MacDonald

Jason has a long body, long reach, good skills and yet loses to everyone who's got an ounce of talent. This fight is gonna be boring at beast Jason wins by triangle.

Jason Day Vs. Alan Belcher

I think this will be the sleeper fight of the night. Both guys have great skills and finish fights. I think this will be back and forth with Jason winning by strikes.

Ed Herman Vs. Demian Maia

Rofl this is like me vs pooruser/straate/CTS/etc/etc basically every single good high end player all using their power together in HU. It starts with me posting my blinds and ends with me getting my ass run over and me waking up the next day with an empty roll and a sore ass. Yet somehow my nails were done and my clothes were ironed. PU is such a hero.

In any case Ed is a good wrestler and can bang who trains with quest. Not bad he also got subbed by jason when he had top position. Maia has beaten both JACARE AND GONZAGA IN BJJ AND IS THE BEST 185 GRAPPLER IN THE WORLD WHO IS JUST AS GOOD AT JUDO AS BJJ MEANING HIS CLINCH AND TAKEDOWNS ARE PRETTY DAM GOOD AS WELL. EDITED. JACARE PROBABLY BETTER BUT MAIA IS GODLY!

aka Maia wins by flying body triangle causing Ed to explode. Only hope ed has is to sprawl and brawl but Maia's takedowns are really good so ed will basically be murdered.

Rich Clementi Vs. Sam Stout

I'm a huge rich fan. He's won me a lot of bets and this is no exception. I think rich wins this via submission or decision. Close fight though Sam is a tough dude.

Brad Morris Vs. Cain Velasquez

Cain is from AKA end of story he wins by whatever.

Kuniyoshi Hironaka Vs. Jonathan Goulet

Goulet is the most recognizable can in the history of mma. Kuni by can crushing.



Ok so now that's done. To talk about something that i got into a conversation with Naz. I was telling him how footwork is a HUGE reason why some fighters are super good and can do things that other fighters can't.

Anderson silva has probably the best footwork and probably head movement of any fighter in mma. It's a reason he hits everyone whenever he wants and everyone misses him.

If you watch him vs leben. Leben has average footwork (probably at the level of matt hughes) and watch as anderson is baiting him and bouncing to a spot before lebens fist even gets there and anderson is already throwing a shot. Also anderson has long arms so if he's ever out of position he just throws a long jab and it keeps everyone at bay.

The only other fighters who have footwork who are probably close to anderson's level are Jens pulver and Gomi. Igor is also on that list but he's retired now. Notice the three guys i mentioned have retared power. The If you want you can try this.. do a one two. Which means throw a jab and follow up with a right. The correct way to throw the right is to twist your body to get your back into the punch. Try to hit something and see how strong your right is. Now start over and just try to hit the same target as hard as you can with just your right hand. You may not notice it but you've stepped into the punch with your right foot. 50$ that when you did the one/two you didn't step in with your right foot. That's an example of footwork. Stepping in gives you additional power. It's slower and really hard to do with a standard one/two but that's why some guys can generate power and others can't. Guys like anderson/gomi/pulver/igor will explode and step in at the rigth times and deliver crushing blows. Other times they just keep the shots compact, but they both know when to deliver what shot. The shot that gomi put on azeredo is perfect footwork. Steps in on both shots and it's a reason he knocks him into a coma.

Now the problem is if you step in too hard when you throw a right you put yourself off balance if you miss and you could get in bad trouble. Which is why most mma fighters try not to overthrow shots. You probably look a sherk and go "god he's so huge he should have retarded power!" he has great footwork but he's always doing it to setup takedowns and defend against takedowns so all his strikes are compact and fast. He doesn't want to put his full body behind it because it puts him out of position.

Winging a huge shot can generate power but if you step in you put your body into it then you add weight to the punch giving you knockout power. Look at guys like Melvin guilard who generate huge power. They knock people out cold. But they also are getting taken down left and right because against a good mmaer they miss one shot and they are hugely out of position.

Guys like anderson/gomi only use power shots when the opportunity presents itself. They use good technical strikes to wear down on an opponent. Then when the opponent is running away, is out of position, or wahtever. Step in and BAM. Huge shot. But they aren't constantly flinging monster shots all the time like a guilard.

The reason i wanted to bring this up is because a lot of people see certain fighters and doesn't understand why he can't hit harder or why this guy hits REALLY hard. It's all in technique/footwork combined with strength. I bet you a lot that sherk can hit harder then jens pulver on a bag if he wanted to but pulver will ko more guys because he's got better footwork and will be in better positions to hit someone and sherk doesn't look for the standing knockouts.

Other fighters who have good footwork for striking or grappling. GSP, BJ penn, Rampage(so good), Tim Sylvia (yes haha), Andre Arlovski, Kid yamamoto, to name a few.

It's also not a suprise that those guys are some of the best fighters in the world.

anyway yeah :D

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2tIi9jpOtHQ

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Karo looked great in the first round. But seeing how the second round went it seems thiago was finding his range. Something very curious about thiago. Anderson silva was always a good fighter but it wasn't until the last few years that he found his power. I'm wondering if thiago is the same animal. When i saw him hitting the pads when he was training at my gym he was a beast. Then i learned he cuts like 20 lbs of water. For a 170er that's incredible. Karo was more pissed that he has to wait even longer for his title shot. It wasn't as much of the stoppage imo.

Maynard was like HUGE compared to edgar. I never realized how small edgar was, probably cuz he was able to beat guys like tyson/spencer. Maybe if i had seen that i'd have picked Maynard. In any case i wonder how maynard would do against the wrestling and pace of a sherk. He's got some serious wrestling.

Joe lost cuz he wasn't used to the altitude plain and simple. First round he was doing all sorts of stuff to kenny and i felt he had the advantage. Second round he was gassed and kenny was in shape and against a bjjer of kenny's level he's just gonna mount you and own you. I've lived in colorado for like 11 years now so i don't notice the altitude anymore obviously but people who get here for the first time even if they are in shape are like "wtf" if you don't show up here at least a month or so in advanace or aren't already training high altitude that can be problemsome. I think Joe training in Hilo, HI paid the price for that.

Irvin vs houston went exactly like i predicted. Someone got knocked out in super fast time. But it was a coinflip.

Hammil won and i was pretty happy. After Tim's debut people thought he was gonna be some super beast. But i mean against hammil who's like so freaking strong at 205 i didn't know if that would be the case. Condiditioning played a part in this as Tim did his best to hurt hammil and couldn't finish him and Hammil got on top, i didn't think he'd stop Tim but nice job anyway Matt.

I'm going to do the card for the upcoming ufc as well i need to think it out a bit more though! Omaha is rough shit btw. Set vs wrap variance can get pretty gay.

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