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mahvaladara · 6 years ago

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Nightmares (DMC Oneshot - VxM!OC)

V x Wanderley (OC)

Teaser for my fanfic

Synopsis: After a series of bad events, V’s sleep is increasingly plagued with nightmares, and Wanderley has become quite an expert at dealing with them.

Genre: Angst and comfort.

Nightmares

Wanderley was a light sleeper. He had always been. The smallest of sounds or shifts in what he saw normal was enough to spring him out of sleep. He’d learned to identify what was to be expected and what wasn’t, and with V, he had nearly memorized the summoner’s sleeping patterns.

Whenever V’s sleep was plagued by a myriad of nightmarish memories, the red-haired lightkeeper quickly woke to the change in his movements. The quick gasping and shallow breathing, the twitching and struggling, and even the soft groans and pants of pain. So, that night, when the nightmares came again, Wanderley woke to the first signs that V was having anything but a pleasant night.

In the past weeks, V’s nightmares were becoming increasingly more severe, to the point the man would often go without sleep. The exhaustion starting to affect his performance on the job, and actually leaving him at times disoriented, the demons not oblivious to V’s state and Griffon often quick-tempered to taunt and mock him for it, calling the attention of the rest of the Devil May Cry crew to it.

As a result, the red-haired man had tried to find small tricks that would help his lover sleep better. He knew it was an almost permanent sense of dread and alert that left V like this. Therefore, in an attempt to make V feel safe, Wanderley had gone as far as to get the bed against the far wall of the room and build a pillow fort on top of it. Placing the bed in a protective dark corner, where they could easily see whoever entered the room, but were hard to see themselves.

The pillow fort and blankets for added comfort.

When Wanderley suggested V slept with him there, V had been offended by it.

“Do you take me for a child?”

“It’s not for you, it’s for me!” Wanderley had been quick to dismiss. “Did you forget I got my life saved by hiding under the bed? I sleep better in pillow forts, so it will help me sleep on top of the bed.”

It was only part truth. Wanderley was quite capable of sleeping anywhere, top and under the bed. Heck, he slept up rafters while doing stakeouts. His childish side just loved the idea of a cosy pillow fort. And the fact was that the position of the bed actually had helped V sleep a bit better.

Wanderley’s half-lie was a way to help V without telling him he was helping him. As much as both V and Vergil denied it, the two men had a lot of one another. Much like Vergil, V was too stubborn to show his weak side to those around him. He didn’t like feeling vulnerable and disliked, even more, showing it, until the point he could no longer hide it or deny it. And at that point, he was usually already falling apart.

Sleeping on the pillow fort, surrounded by large pillows and soft blankets, V relaxed. Sometimes even using his lover's chest or biceps as a pillow. He felt safer and not as exposed to that dark corner in the company of his lover.

That night, Wanderley was using V’s slender chest as his pillow when he felt the sudden shift on the summoner’s heartbeat and breathing. His senses picked the way his lover’s heart fired up, the sharp intake of air as the summoner's breathing became shallow and hurried, and the stir. The hands that rested over Wander’s shoulder’s clenching around his skin with an iron grip. The knuckles of his hands white, nails digging into his lover's skin, as if he was afraid that if he let go he’d drown.

Wanderley woke instantly, amber eyes looking in the dark for V’s expression, to see a brow furrowed in pain, eyes clenched shut, lips parted but teeth grinding. Beads of cold sweat ran down the pale skin. The red-head sighed and slowly dislodged himself from V’s chest, carefully trying to shift his position to lay next to V instead of on him, without waking him.

It was something he’d become a bit of an expert since that one morning he woke up the man amidst a nightmare only for V to, in his altered state, actually overpower him and nearly choke him.

The black haired man laid on his side, starting to move into the fetal position. Wanderley pulled his lover closer, ever so gently, wrapping his arms around his shivering form, and pressing his hands against his back. Right now, V appeared so small and frail, his ivory skin contrasting heavily against Wander’s own tanned skin.

“V, you’re alright. It’s okay, you’re safe, I’m here, we’re all here,” Wanderley whispered, laying his chin on top of the summoner’s head.

One of the lightkeeper’s hands drew gentle circles on V’s back, the other playing with the ends of his black silky hair that was becoming drenched on the sweat that slid down his neck like small beads of a broken necklace.

V trembled, pressing his hands hard against Wanderley’s chest, clenching them and giving the man a hard audible punch as if trying to pry himself from what should have been a tender embrace.

“You’re safe, Vitale, I’m here,” Wanderley mumbled, placing a kiss on V’s hair, repeating the words, ignoring the second punch that hit him once more.

“You’re safe.”

Usually, that was enough. It would take only a few more minutes of this calming words and movements until either V lolled back into a peaceful dreamless sleep or for him to slowly wake. But now, regardless of how much Wanderley tried to soothe him, it seemed that nightmare was clinging to him like a parasite.

He watched a soft shift on the tattoos that covered V’s pale skin, the cold sweat glistening under the play of light, almost as if following the shifting ink.

This was a first.

There had been one time while a particularly hard nightmare that V had accidentally released Shadow only for the demon to lay in bed with the confused V and Wanderley. But the lightkeeper had never seen the tattoos move, especially not with a nightmare. It was almost as if the nightmare was actually affecting the demons too.

Was he dreaming of what happened to him? Of what had been done to him while he was under the control and torture of Pandemonia and her cultists?

Wanderley was certain that was what plagued his dreams. Nightmares of the corruption that poisoned and nearly killed V before, of whatever form of torture he endured while Pandemonia held control over him. He was a mess when they finally got him back, even the demons appeared wary and suspicious of the crew.

V twitched and struggled, pushing Wanderley away, and he let go of the summoner, lest he be punched a third time as the summoner was becoming more and agitated.

He was becoming vocal now, groaning, and vocalizing words that Wanderley couldn’t exactly understand but that came out agonizing, strangled. Like desperate pleas that cut deep into his very core.

Once again he tried to reach for V, only for V to start to shudder, clutching the sheets under him, kicking the blankets and pillows away as if he was trapped or trying to take something off of him. His body arched and for a second it almost appeared as he was having convulsions.

Concern flooded the redhead like a heavy drowning wave and he sat up. He tried to reach for V once more and hold him, get him to stop, perhaps try to pry him awake, despite knowing he barely ever awoke lucid from these. Suddenly, V yelled, green hazy eyes bursting open, glazed over by the madness of the nightmare as ink splattered right out of his skin, like a burst of rain.

V’s hair became milky white and the tattoos faded as both Shadow and Griffon came out of the ink, followed by Nightmare, who was was smaller than usual.

“GET THE FUCK AWAY FROM HIM!” Griffon yelled.

The demonic blue bird flew around the room disoriented, thunder charging within his very form, looking for a target as if a demon had gone mad. Even Shadow appeared confused. The demonic panther looking for something, red lines crossing her form angrily as she cowered rather menacingly like a cornered cat, getting closer to the summoner.

“The fuck?! What is going on?! V! Buddy! Shit! You can’t call a bird like that! ”

Wanderley jumped out off the bed, rushing to the three demons. Before they attacked anything. He chased after the avian demon first, as he was always the instigator, trying desperately to catch Griffon. His eyes shifting from him to the bed as he heard the sound of rustling.

V had sat up, his breathing coming out as a heavy sickly wheeze, white bangs hiding his stormy green eyes, lips parted, panting heavily. He held a hand over his chest. His frame appeared so small and frail right now. He was an already pale man, but right now, he appeared almost ghostly, his skin glistening ivory under the faint moonlight that shyly peered in through the window, casting pearlescent heavy shadows over him.

He almost appeared like the day he was born, incomplete and undone.

Okay, stop the demons first! Wanderley decided.

“Griffon, it’s okay!” The lightkeeper yelled, jumping at the bird that flapped around the room crazily.

With a sudden yank, Griffon was pulled down by his large talons, and before he could struggle, Wanderley wrapped his arms around the large bird’s torso, trying to contain his wingspan between his arms. The bird flapped against his face, the large beak dangerously snapping too close to the redhead’s neck for comfort.

“Let go of me! You fucking ghost chimpanzee!” Griffon yelled.

“It’s okay! Griffon! It’s me! It’s okay!” Wanderley yelled, tightening his hold around the bird that was starting to charge up the electricity.

“Wait, ghost chimpanzee? Van Hellsing?! It’s you! Where are we?!” Griffon suddenly stopped, recognizing the voice.

Finally, the bird’s eyes seemed to focus on him and there was recognition. The thunder died down and the bird stopped. The panther also seemed to finally recognize him and ran over bumping her large head against Wanderley’s leg. With all this he had forgotten about the biggest of the three demons and sighed relieved when saw that Nightmare, without a target simply had sat down, looking mindlessly at its master, patiently waiting.

“We’re not… This is Devil May Cry!” Griffon sounded surprised. “Heh, we’re okay! Heh! Yo, Shakespeare! We’re okay! It’s okay! It wasn’t real! Woot! Fuck yeah!”

Griffon started laughing almost hysterically.

“Fuck! I thought she had caught us again! Fuck! That was scary!” Griffon confessed. “I have never been so happy to be manhandled by a halfwit light ghost Van Hellsing wannabe!”

Wanderley let go of the bird that flew off to perch on top a chest in the room. For once relieved the demon was again insulting him.

He turned around to face V who’s breathing still sounded uneasy and laboured.

What were you dreaming off? What did she do to you? Heck, what did she do to the demons for them to share of your nightmares?

The redhead man did not voice his questions and slowly walked to V. Hands open, waiting to see if there was any semblance of lucidity on the man or if he was still being plagued by the aftermath of whatever horrid dream had gone so far as to disorient even the demons.

“V?” He called. “Vitale?”

“I’m…” V started. “I’m fine…” there was a pant, “rest assured. I am fine…”

He didn’t sound fine.

Shaking his head, Wanderley walked to the bed and placed a knee over the mattress, right in front of V. He reached over for V, who, without voicing anything looked up at him. Wander gently cupped his cheek, brushing it soothingly and V tried to grin, that confident smug grin, failing at the wary turmoil that tainted his dark green eyes, stubbornly trying to appear as if everything was alright.

“I-it appears I woke you,” he mumbled. “My apologies. I will get up, so you can rest.”

Wanderley wrapped his arms around V’s stomach and using the entire weight of his stronger body, pushed V back into bed. The green-eyed man gasped, surprised, meeting amber eyes.

“Nope, you’re my pillow. You’re not going anywhere,” Wanderley stated.

And Wanderley settled his head right between V’s neck and shoulder, pecking his neck gently as if hoping that soft brush of lips was enough to cast the pain away. The summoner laced his fingers through Wanderley’s dark red hair, gently brushing it and kissing the top of his hair with a softer smile.

Not budging from V, Wanderley looked over at the three demons and grinned.

“What you three waiting for? Cuddle pile!”

Shadow was the first to run over. The large panter jumped onto the bed, laying right next to the two of them and pressing her soft body against V. Griffon shrugged and flew over, perching on one of the many pillows above their heads. Nightmare was the only one left, but Wanderley signalled it over, and it, being the hulking giant that it was, ran to the four of them, and wrapped its body around the entire pillow fort, actually causing the bed to break under his weight, pulling the sheets and pillows so that they were partially on the mattress and partially on it. Its mass hanging over and around them almost like a protective cave.

“Oh, for the love of-” V sighed. “Is this for real?”

“Shut up and sleep! You woke everyone up,” Wanderley grinned. “We all need to rest!”

V watched him and shook his head, with a smile. Finally giving in, V laid back down, against the body of Nightmare and sighed, closing his relieved tired green eyes as they met the amber eyes of his lover. Wanderley smiled and pecked his collarbone gently.

Yet, Wanderley waited. Waited for his lover’s chest to start raising gently and calmly as his breathing slowed down to a soothing rhythm. And he listened to it, drawing gentle circles on V’s chest until he was certain V had drifted back into a dreamless sleep.

“You’re safe,” Wanderley mumbled. “All of you… You’re safe.”

“Go to sleep, Van Hellsing,” Griffon whispered back. “He knows! We know.”

Wanderley looked up at V. The beautiful white hair contrasting against dark lashes and high cheekbones, brow now relaxed, as he slept peacefully framed by all his demons. With a small smile, Wanderley made himself comfortable, listening to the soft heartbeat underneath him and the purring by his side.

But he didn’t fall asleep.

No.

His sleep was gone, replaced by a need to understand, to know what had been done to the man he loved.

#dmc v #dmc vitale #ts4 #the sims 4 #sim v #sim vitale #sim wanderley #v #vitale #wanderley #my writting

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flauntpage · 8 years ago

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PRIDE Brought Wrestling's Pageantry to MMA

This week marks the twentieth anniversary of the first PRIDE Fighting Championship show in Tokyo, Japan. PRIDE is now defunct, and has been since 2007, but you need only look at the booking on any UFC, Bellator or Rizin card to realize that many of of us who are willing to part with cash to watch fights dearly long for it to still be that era. Fedor Emelianenko, Wanderlei Silva and Mirko 'Cro Cop' Filipovic can still fill arenas as main event attractions even though they just cannot go like they used to. That's partly because of the fighting ability they demonstrated in their heyday, but just as much a product of nostalgia for the theatre and spectacle that PRIDE built around them.

The secret to creating the perfect mixed martial arts product—which so many have tried to imitate—was to infuse it with Japanese professional wrestling or puroresu. The new Japanese promotion, Rizin is hosting a card this weekend which lacks star power. But most of the fans who intend to watch that show will tell you the same thing: "it is the spiritual successor to PRIDE." "No Holds Barred" was always a hit and miss sport, there were great fights but just as many thirty minute snoozers that resulted in draws. What PRIDE brought to the table was the pageantry, the storylines, and the drama before and after the match.

The Birth of PRIDE

PRIDE 1 was built around Nobuhiko Takada. A professional wrestling icon in Japan, Takada was a good worker from a classical catch wrestling lineage. Takada's Union of Wrestling Forces International (UWFi) was built on shoot style matches with a focus on real holds and transitions rather than big slams and high spots. The UWFi drew attention to this, calling out other professional wrestling organizations as "fake" while insisting that theirs was "real." (It is worth noting that the UWFi's invasion angle with New Japan Pro Wrestling would also inspired the WCW's N.W.O angle which many of our readers will have grown up with.)

The UWFi wrestlers were always keen to spin an angle and get some exposure, but also believed they could scrap. Yoji Anjo famously "dojo stormed" Rickson Gracie in 1994, only to be savagely beaten by the legitimate fighter. While he had no professional record, Takada saw himself as "legit" and was willing to work his way into a shoot if he felt he needed to. When Takada worked a high profile match with the controversial former yokozuna, Koji Kitao, the two agreed that the bout would result in a time limit draw, but at the beginning of the third round Takada stiffed Kitao with a head kick. This event was eerily reminiscent of the night in 1953 when "The Father of Puroresu," Rikidozan, double crossed the great judoka Masahiko Kimura and knife hand struck him in the neck for real.

The UWFi's inventive angles and interesting in ring work could not keep them afloat, however and after they folded Takada was approached by a new promotion for the possibility of a professional bout against Gracie.

Home Grown Talent

But Takada was not the only home grown pro wrestler entering the PRIDE ring that night. In the opening bout, Kazunari Murakami worked a suspicious looking hip throw to arm bar on the largely unimportant John Dixson. It was a great beginning to proceedings for the forty thousand Japanese fans in attendance for the Takada—Gracie showdown.

Bas Rutten and Stephen Quadros provided commentary on the U.S. release. This was recorded after the event which lead to awkward moments where they had to stop an anecdote midway through because the conclusion would spoil the result of the fight that they were commentating. On other occasions, Rutten would have to pretend to run up to the ring when the camera caught him coaching in the corner of Mark Kerr. During the Dixson-Murakami match, which had very low stakes, Rutten and Quadros engaged in an interesting moment of foreshadowing. Quadros asked Rutten about the last time he had seen Dixson fight—in a tournament in Kiev—and Rutten brushed over Dixson to hint at the abilities of a young Ukranian who blasted through Dixson and had been winning one night tournaments all over Europe. Igor Vovchanchyn would make his way to PRIDE the next year.

Takada was not even the only Japanese talent taking on a Gracie that night. The great Renzo Gracie was matched against the seemingly undeserving Akira Shoji. Shoji had just three fights to his name, and a 1-1-1 record. The Gracies were still undefeated as a family in the world of mixed martial arts and the Gracie legend was still in full force. Renzo had a 5-0 professional record, with one No Contest as his last fight had started a riot! Shoji surprised everyone by slithering out of Gracie's submission attempts, but was aided greatly by the referees. When Renzo climbed on Shoji's back, Shoji dived between the ropes onto the ring apron, ran around the side of the ring, and the two men were restarted from a standing position. When the two clinched, Shoji headbutted Gracie. Shoji landed illegal knees to the head on the ground without reprimand, then when Shoji tried to pour it on in the later going, he unleashed a flurry on underwhelming punches to the back of Gracie's head.

Perhaps the most intriguing part of the bout was its foreshadowing of developments in the grappling game. Shoji spent much of the fight holding Gracie around the waist from inside his guard, stalling for dear life. Gracie repeatedly pulled his own foot up and tried to weave it between him and Shoji to attack the omaplata. It was a very simplistic attempt at what would develop into the knee-hugging omaplata game which has become a staple of closed guard play in no-gi and MMA environments. Gracie's own student, Shawn Williams would go on to pioneer what is now called the Williams guard, hugging his own knee and attacking the omaplata on the trapped arm. Eddie Bravo's rubber guard game is built on the same principle but with more chance of a meniscus tear. Gracie was unable to attack the omaplata successfully in this bout but he did demonstrate a beautiful sit-up sweep off one attempt.

While the pace was slow, the action was oddly riveting. The Gracie family had a name to maintain and Shoji had nothing to lose. Each time Gracie took the mount or attacked an armbar, his job got harder as Shoji—the better conditioned man—became slicker and slicker with sweat. Each time Shoji squirmed out and returned to his feet he screamed and the crowd went ballistic. When the end of time came, Shoji had put a draw on Renzo Gracie's record. It wasn't the result the Japanese fans wanted, but it was more than most expected. Akira Shoji would come to be known as "Mr. PRIDE," competing on all but one of the first ten PRIDE cards. His record ran to an unspectacular 14-17-5 but he became a staple performer for PRIDE even after they acquired genuine world class talent.

Renzo Gracie picked up more losses than Royce, Rickson and Royler, but then he put himself in position to have that happen by fighting much stiffer opposition. He went on to be a regular contestant in the ADCC no gi championships, and now runs one of the most successful grappling camps in the United States out of New York. During his bout with Shoji, Renzo began working on an arm-in guillotine choke and Rutten and Quadros remarked that it only works if there is a large strength difference and that it is not a reliable technique—a standard attitude for the time. The arm-in guillotine became a Renzo Gracie trademark. Not only did he use it to submit Pat Militech in 2006, many of his students, such as Ricardo Almeida and Joe Capizzi, have become famous for it. Another Renzo Gracie alumni, Gordon Ryan just won his first ADCC gold medal with an arm-in guillotine choke against Keenan Cornelius.

Sumo's Shame

Koji Kitao was a heat magnet. Through two different sporting pursuits he had turned everyone he ran into an enemy. Kitao had been elevated to sumo's highest rank, yokozuna, at the age of just twenty two. He had been runner up in a couple of tournaments, with impressive wins over the current yokozuna , but his promotion was more to do with the glut of wrestlers ranked at ozeki. He had won no major tournaments but it was assumed that he was on the way up. Kitao proceeded to win nothing after his promotion and his bratty attitude turned his stablemates against him. After allegedly hitting the wife of his stable leader, Kitao became the first yokozuna to be expelled from sumo, also securing his place in history as the only yokozuna to never win a major tournament.

Kitao turned to professional wrestling and caused drama wherever he went. In 1990 he made his way to New Japan Pro Wrestling and was promptly fired for racism towards Korean wrestlers. Super World of Sports threw him out on his arse after he no-sold for "Earthquake" John Tenta, and grabbed a microphone to tell the audience that pro wrestling was fake and that he'd destroy Tenta in a real fight. In 1992 he went to UWFi, where Takada put a stop to his antics before they even began by kicking him upside the head.

After taking time away from wrestling to become a karate black belt, Kitao was afforded the chance to show John Tenta and wrestling fans everywhere what a legit fighter he was in 1996. Instead he lost in first round batterings against Pedro Otavio and Mark Hall. A year later, he was approached to fight in PRIDE.

Taking on Australia's Nathan Jones, Kitao turned up in slacks and a belt, with sneakers like he was Ric Flair phoning it in on Monday Night Nitro. Perhaps he was contractually obliged to be a scumbag, because Kitao promptly spat on a ringside photographer seconds after the fight had begun. Nathan Jones circled the ring, threw a surprisingly quick wheel kick for a three hundred pounder, and was then bundled to the mat. Jones audibly grunted and panicked on the bottom before Kitao applied a very loose Americana to take the submission in just over two minutes. It was underwhelming and marked the end of both men's MMA careers. Nathan Jones went on to team with The Undertaker in the WWE, while Kitao was given a retirement ceremony at PRIDE 4.

For those who felt let down by the lack of Kitao drama, Branko Cikatic was more than happy to oblige. Cikatic, the first K-1 champion but already an old man, took on the overmatched Ralph White in a kickboxing match wearing the gloves from the opening scene of Enter the Dragon. Cikatic was famous for his ability to starch anyone with his right hand, but he was just as prone to cheating. Cikatic, all class, opened the bout with a glove touch into back kick.

Knocking White off his feet in the opening minute, Cikatic punted him in the head on the ground and raised a ghoulish hematoma. When White's corner protested, Cikatic acted as if he had done nothing wrong. The break in the action gave Rutten and Quadros the chance to recount other instances of Branko causing near riots in the kickboxing ring. The fight was waived off but Branko was brought back for PRIDE 2, where he was disqualified after multiple, surprisingly lenient, warnings for elbowing Mark Kerr in the brain stem while clinging to the ropes. As Cikatic and White left the ring at PRIDE 1, Quadros referenced the attempts to ban mixed martial arts that were giving the UFC so much trouble in the United States, saying "good thing John McCain didn't see this match."

The Extremes of MMA

No fights show the extremes of mixed martial arts more than the two billings between name fighters on the PRIDE 1 card. Gary Goodridge vs Oleg Taktarov was breathtaking. Taktarov was a UFC champion, master of sambo, and came into the fight having worked extensively on his boxing at the Wild Card gym. Gary Goodridge was an arm wrestler who hit extremely hard and was strong enough to shuck off Don Frye for a good length of time in the UFC. Taktarov's focus on boxing during his camp didn't seem to do much, he stood static out at range before leaping in with a left hook. The first time he caught Goodridge. The second time he caught Goodridge, he was dropped by the return. The third time he stepped in on Goodridge, Taktarov was left face down and stiff as a board. It was horrifying and spectacular in the same instant.

Dan Severn and Kimo Leopaldo, on the other hand, showed exactly how bad evenly matched MMA fights can be. Both experienced wrestlers decided to throw hands at each other—turning their heads away and closing their eyes when they swung. While both men were terrified of each other's blows, there were no repercussions when one was hit. At several points in the fight Severn began pulling up his knee sleeves while Kimo was hitting him in the face and seemed completely unfazed. For thirty minutes the two swatted at each other like kittens and when Severn finally shot and completed a takedown, time expired. Bas Rutten, a regular on the Japanese MMA circuit, remarked that he had never heard a Japanese crowd boo before that fight.

Finally, Rickson Gracie vs. Nobuhiko Takada showed the best way to get an exciting fight—book someone who knows what they're doing against someone who doesn't have a clue. Within five minutes Takada was taken down and arm barred but it didn't matter. He had drawn the people through the door with his talk and his star power. Some were even buying into this fight being a legitimate test of Rickson's ability based on Takada's worked matches.

The secret of PRIDE's success was in mixing the legitimate with the ridiculous. Fighting is not a sport in the sense that other sports are. It is first a spectacle. On every PRIDE card there were plenty of fights that felt like a real fair test of both men's skills and the later rounds of any PRIDE Grand Prix were composed of the top ranking fighters in that division. But equally on any PRIDE card there were freak matches, often containing Japanese professional wrestlers with little real fighting experience. For every legitimate title defense that Wanderlei Silva, Takanori Gomi, and Fedor Emelianenko made, they had two non-title fights designed to showcase their destructive ability. In many ways, keeping the big names active in unimportant matches was similar to how New Japan Pro Wrestling has its big names appear in various combinations in tag matches—showcasing them at more events without ruining the big angles. Of course there are no safe fights in MMA but even when Gomi, PRIDE's lightweight champion and Japanese superstar, lost by a shocking arm triangle choke against Marcus Aurelio, it was okay because the title wasn't on the line. They fed him another no-hoper in a non-title fight and then gave him half a year to build up to a rematch with Aurelio which he won.

Perhaps it is here worth noting that there was no bigger victim of the Japanese style of matchmaking than the aforementioned Gary Goodridge. Known for his huge power and lacking ability, Goodridge would go out on his shield and the Japanese promoters loved that. Bouncing between K-1 and PRIDE, Goodridge would take horrible beating after horrible beating. His kickboxing record from 2005 to 2010 was 2-18, with many of those losses coming by knockout, and yet K-1 kept booking him. Goodridge now suffers from pugilistic dementia and serves as a reminder of how disgusting fight promotion can be.

The Rise of PRIDE

PRIDE 1 was a roaring success and the PRIDE phenomenon was well underway in Japan. When Nobuhiko Takada and Rickson Gracie rematched at PRIDE 3 they were able to fill the Budokan in spite of the previous result and Takada's shoddy fighting skills (though Rickson was made to look very bad through the first round of this rematch).

PRIDE quickly acquired many of the best fighters in the world and the PRIDE 2000 Open Weight Grand Prix marked a watershed moment in the sport. UFC tournaments had always contained maybe two good fighters and a heap of guys who claimed unbeaten street fight records and were promptly smashed. The last UFC one night tournament contained four men: three no hopers and Mark Kerr.

The PRIDE Open Weight Grand Prix contained legitimate, world class talent. From then on PRIDE was a force as a showcase for great fighters and not just good fights. Over the next ten years PRIDE became the biggest name in combat sports and provided many MMA fans with their fondest memories.

Where Pancrase had its roots in pro wrestling and aimed for "real pro wrestling," a PRIDE event felt like a major WWE pay-per-view. The entrances and openings became grander as time went on. Takada, a hopeless fighter, was moved into the role of PRIDE's public face and often partook in these show openings. There would be a taiko drum troupe, or Takada would take the stage in a tuxedo and perform the piano backing to a singer, but the fighters were always brought out on the ramp and introduced as an entire roster, undercard and main eventers, before the event. Each fighter individually introduced by "crazy PRIDE lady" Lenne Hardt while PRIDE FC's exhilarating theme tune blared in the background.

Many underrate pageantry in what is supposed to be a sport, but PRIDE's fanfare and glamour stood in stark contrast to the awful gladiator introduction with talking heads which opened every UFC card for a decade.

Then consider how formulaic every UFC pre-fight package has been for the last few years. Joe Rogan in a darkened room tells you that someone is a monster, Dana White refers to a fighter as "this kid," then knockout clips play. Meanwhile PRIDE's pre-fight packages were more in the style of the WWE and TNA: the fight was built up to be something way more than a fist fight could ever be. Just take a look at the revenge movie trailer that played before Cro Cop challenged for Fedor Emelianenko's heavyweight crown. It's campy, and over the top, and perhaps in poor taste, but it sticks in the mind even a decade later.

Of course the downside was that PRIDE FC hemorrhaged money. They lost their TV deal in 2006 but continued to produce lavish events with pyro and drum troupes. The reason that the UFC was able to survive and then thrive after MMA was almost outlawed in the US was due to its ability to continue to host professional events with production being exactly the same and focusing on the in-cage action. Eventually the UFC won the war, buying up PRIDE and closing its doors after briefly flirting with the idea of keeping it going but it was a grand old run while it lasted and the memories it seeded are the reason that the same fighters from a decade ago are still trotted out to headline major events today.

While Takada was a bust, the Japanese did find their real pro wrestler. His name was Kazushi Sakuraba and he was a goddamned marvel. He handed the Gracies their first "L" and beat three more of them before the amount of athletic tape needed to hold his joints together made watching his fights uncomfortable.

The decline of Sakuraba in many ways reflected the downturn in the Japanese MMA scene. MMa, rather than a booming sport for the future, was more of a momentary craze over there. The days of filling the Saitama Super Arena and being broadcast on a major network on New Year's Eve are long gone and the UFC's half-hearted attempts to revitalize the market have received a tepid reaction. Twenty years after the birth of PRIDE FC we are left wondering just how that lightning could be bottled once again.

Pick up Jack's book, Notorious: The Life and Fights of Conor McGregor .

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amtushinfosolutionspage · 8 years ago

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PRIDE Brought Wrestling’s Pageantry to MMA

This week marks the twentieth anniversary of the first PRIDE Fighting Championship show in Tokyo, Japan. PRIDE is now defunct, and has been since 2007, but you need only look at the booking on any UFC, Bellator or Rizin card to realize that many of of us who are willing to part with cash to watch fights dearly long for it to still be that era. Fedor Emelianenko, Wanderlei Silva and Mirko ‘Cro Cop’ Filipovic can still fill arenas as main event attractions even though they just cannot go like they used to. That’s partly because of the fighting ability they demonstrated in their heyday, but just as much a product of nostalgia for the theatre and spectacle that PRIDE built around them.

The secret to creating the perfect mixed martial arts product—which so many have tried to imitate—was to infuse it with Japanese professional wrestling or puroresu. The new Japanese promotion, Rizin is hosting a card this weekend which lacks star power. But most of the fans who intend to watch that show will tell you the same thing: “it is the spiritual successor to PRIDE.” “No Holds Barred” was always a hit and miss sport, there were great fights but just as many thirty minute snoozers that resulted in draws. What PRIDE brought to the table was the pageantry, the storylines, and the drama before and after the match.

The Birth of PRIDE

PRIDE 1 was built around Nobuhiko Takada. A professional wrestling icon in Japan, Takada was a good worker from a classical catch wrestling lineage. Takada’s Union of Wrestling Forces International (UWFi) was built on shoot style matches with a focus on real holds and transitions rather than big slams and high spots. The UWFi drew attention to this, calling out other professional wrestling organizations as “fake” while insisting that theirs was “real.” (It is worth noting that the UWFi’s invasion angle with New Japan Pro Wrestling would also inspired the WCW’s N.W.O angle which many of our readers will have grown up with.)

The UWFi wrestlers were always keen to spin an angle and get some exposure, but also believed they could scrap. Yoji Anjo famously “dojo stormed” Rickson Gracie in 1994, only to be savagely beaten by the legitimate fighter. While he had no professional record, Takada saw himself as “legit” and was willing to work his way into a shoot if he felt he needed to. When Takada worked a high profile match with the controversial former yokozuna, Koji Kitao, the two agreed that the bout would result in a time limit draw, but at the beginning of the third round Takada stiffed Kitao with a head kick. This event was eerily reminiscent of the night in 1953 when “The Father of Puroresu,” Rikidozan, double crossed the great judoka Masahiko Kimura and knife hand struck him in the neck for real.

The UWFi’s inventive angles and interesting in ring work could not keep them afloat, however and after they folded Takada was approached by a new promotion for the possibility of a professional bout against Gracie.

Home Grown Talent

Takada was not even the only Japanese talent taking on a Gracie that night. The great Renzo Gracie was matched against the seemingly undeserving Akira Shoji. Shoji had just three fights to his name, and a 1-1-1 record. The Gracies were still undefeated as a family in the world of mixed martial arts and the Gracie legend was still in full force. Renzo had a 5-0 professional record, with one No Contest as his last fight had started a riot! Shoji surprised everyone by slithering out of Gracie’s submission attempts, but was aided greatly by the referees. When Renzo climbed on Shoji’s back, Shoji dived between the ropes onto the ring apron, ran around the side of the ring, and the two men were restarted from a standing position. When the two clinched, Shoji headbutted Gracie. Shoji landed illegal knees to the head on the ground without reprimand, then when Shoji tried to pour it on in the later going, he unleashed a flurry on underwhelming punches to the back of Gracie’s head.

Perhaps the most intriguing part of the bout was its foreshadowing of developments in the grappling game. Shoji spent much of the fight holding Gracie around the waist from inside his guard, stalling for dear life. Gracie repeatedly pulled his own foot up and tried to weave it between him and Shoji to attack the omaplata. It was a very simplistic attempt at what would develop into the knee-hugging omaplata game which has become a staple of closed guard play in no-gi and MMA environments. Gracie’s own student, Shawn Williams would go on to pioneer what is now called the Williams guard, hugging his own knee and attacking the omaplata on the trapped arm. Eddie Bravo’s rubber guard game is built on the same principle but with more chance of a meniscus tear. Gracie was unable to attack the omaplata successfully in this bout but he did demonstrate a beautiful sit-up sweep off one attempt.

While the pace was slow, the action was oddly riveting. The Gracie family had a name to maintain and Shoji had nothing to lose. Each time Gracie took the mount or attacked an armbar, his job got harder as Shoji—the better conditioned man—became slicker and slicker with sweat. Each time Shoji squirmed out and returned to his feet he screamed and the crowd went ballistic. When the end of time came, Shoji had put a draw on Renzo Gracie’s record. It wasn’t the result the Japanese fans wanted, but it was more than most expected. Akira Shoji would come to be known as “Mr. PRIDE,” competing on all but one of the first ten PRIDE cards. His record ran to an unspectacular 14-17-5 but he became a staple performer for PRIDE even after they acquired genuine world class talent.

Sumo’s Shame

Koji Kitao was a heat magnet. Through two different sporting pursuits he had turned everyone he ran into an enemy. Kitao had been elevated to sumo’s highest rank, yokozuna, at the age of just twenty two. He had been runner up in a couple of tournaments, with impressive wins over the current yokozuna , but his promotion was more to do with the glut of wrestlers ranked at ozeki. He had won no major tournaments but it was assumed that he was on the way up. Kitao proceeded to win nothing after his promotion and his bratty attitude turned his stablemates against him. After allegedly hitting the wife of his stable leader, Kitao became the first yokozuna to be expelled from sumo, also securing his place in history as the only yokozuna to never win a major tournament.

Kitao turned to professional wrestling and caused drama wherever he went. In 1990 he made his way to New Japan Pro Wrestling and was promptly fired for racism towards Korean wrestlers. Super World of Sports threw him out on his arse after he no-sold for “Earthquake” John Tenta, and grabbed a microphone to tell the audience that pro wrestling was fake and that he’d destroy Tenta in a real fight. In 1992 he went to UWFi, where Takada put a stop to his antics before they even began by kicking him upside the head.

Taking on Australia’s Nathan Jones, Kitao turned up in slacks and a belt, with sneakers like he was Ric Flair phoning it in on Monday Night Nitro. Perhaps he was contractually obliged to be a scumbag, because Kitao promptly spat on a ringside photographer seconds after the fight had begun. Nathan Jones circled the ring, threw a surprisingly quick wheel kick for a three hundred pounder, and was then bundled to the mat. Jones audibly grunted and panicked on the bottom before Kitao applied a very loose Americana to take the submission in just over two minutes. It was underwhelming and marked the end of both men’s MMA careers. Nathan Jones went on to team with The Undertaker in the WWE, while Kitao was given a retirement ceremony at PRIDE 4.

Knocking White off his feet in the opening minute, Cikatic punted him in the head on the ground and raised a ghoulish hematoma. When White’s corner protested, Cikatic acted as if he had done nothing wrong. The break in the action gave Rutten and Quadros the chance to recount other instances of Branko causing near riots in the kickboxing ring. The fight was waived off but Branko was brought back for PRIDE 2, where he was disqualified after multiple, surprisingly lenient, warnings for elbowing Mark Kerr in the brain stem while clinging to the ropes. As Cikatic and White left the ring at PRIDE 1, Quadros referenced the attempts to ban mixed martial arts that were giving the UFC so much trouble in the United States, saying “good thing John McCain didn’t see this match.”

The Extremes of MMA

No fights show the extremes of mixed martial arts more than the two billings between name fighters on the PRIDE 1 card. Gary Goodridge vs Oleg Taktarov was breathtaking. Taktarov was a UFC champion, master of sambo, and came into the fight having worked extensively on his boxing at the Wild Card gym. Gary Goodridge was an arm wrestler who hit extremely hard and was strong enough to shuck off Don Frye for a good length of time in the UFC. Taktarov’s focus on boxing during his camp didn’t seem to do much, he stood static out at range before leaping in with a left hook. The first time he caught Goodridge. The second time he caught Goodridge, he was dropped by the return. The third time he stepped in on Goodridge, Taktarov was left face down and stiff as a board. It was horrifying and spectacular in the same instant.

Dan Severn and Kimo Leopaldo, on the other hand, showed exactly how bad evenly matched MMA fights can be. Both experienced wrestlers decided to throw hands at each other—turning their heads away and closing their eyes when they swung. While both men were terrified of each other’s blows, there were no repercussions when one was hit. At several points in the fight Severn began pulling up his knee sleeves while Kimo was hitting him in the face and seemed completely unfazed. For thirty minutes the two swatted at each other like kittens and when Severn finally shot and completed a takedown, time expired. Bas Rutten, a regular on the Japanese MMA circuit, remarked that he had never heard a Japanese crowd boo before that fight.

Finally, Rickson Gracie vs. Nobuhiko Takada showed the best way to get an exciting fight—book someone who knows what they’re doing against someone who doesn’t have a clue. Within five minutes Takada was taken down and arm barred but it didn’t matter. He had drawn the people through the door with his talk and his star power. Some were even buying into this fight being a legitimate test of Rickson’s ability based on Takada’s worked matches.

The secret of PRIDE’s success was in mixing the legitimate with the ridiculous. Fighting is not a sport in the sense that other sports are. It is first a spectacle. On every PRIDE card there were plenty of fights that felt like a real fair test of both men’s skills and the later rounds of any PRIDE Grand Prix were composed of the top ranking fighters in that division. But equally on any PRIDE card there were freak matches, often containing Japanese professional wrestlers with little real fighting experience. For every legitimate title defense that Wanderlei Silva, Takanori Gomi, and Fedor Emelianenko made, they had two non-title fights designed to showcase their destructive ability. In many ways, keeping the big names active in unimportant matches was similar to how New Japan Pro Wrestling has its big names appear in various combinations in tag matches—showcasing them at more events without ruining the big angles. Of course there are no safe fights in MMA but even when Gomi, PRIDE’s lightweight champion and Japanese superstar, lost by a shocking arm triangle choke against Marcus Aurelio, it was okay because the title wasn’t on the line. They fed him another no-hoper in a non-title fight and then gave him half a year to build up to a rematch with Aurelio which he won.

The Rise of PRIDE

PRIDE 1 was a roaring success and the PRIDE phenomenon was well underway in Japan. When Nobuhiko Takada and Rickson Gracie rematched at PRIDE 3 they were able to fill the Budokan in spite of the previous result and Takada’s shoddy fighting skills (though Rickson was made to look very bad through the first round of this rematch).

Where Pancrase had its roots in pro wrestling and aimed for “real pro wrestling,” a PRIDE event felt like a major WWE pay-per-view. The entrances and openings became grander as time went on. Takada, a hopeless fighter, was moved into the role of PRIDE’s public face and often partook in these show openings. There would be a taiko drum troupe, or Takada would take the stage in a tuxedo and perform the piano backing to a singer, but the fighters were always brought out on the ramp and introduced as an entire roster, undercard and main eventers, before the event. Each fighter individually introduced by “crazy PRIDE lady” Lenne Hardt while PRIDE FC’s exhilarating theme tune blared in the background.

Many underrate pageantry in what is supposed to be a sport, but PRIDE’s fanfare and glamour stood in stark contrast to the awful gladiator introduction with talking heads which opened every UFC card for a decade.

Then consider how formulaic every UFC pre-fight package has been for the last few years. Joe Rogan in a darkened room tells you that someone is a monster, Dana White refers to a fighter as “this kid,” then knockout clips play. Meanwhile PRIDE’s pre-fight packages were more in the style of the WWE and TNA: the fight was built up to be something way more than a fist fight could ever be. Just take a look at the revenge movie trailer that played before Cro Cop challenged for Fedor Emelianenko’s heavyweight crown. It’s campy, and over the top, and perhaps in poor taste, but it sticks in the mind even a decade later.

While Takada was a bust, the Japanese did find their real pro wrestler. His name was Kazushi Sakuraba and he was a goddamned marvel. He handed the Gracies their first “L” and beat three more of them before the amount of athletic tape needed to hold his joints together made watching his fights uncomfortable.

The decline of Sakuraba in many ways reflected the downturn in the Japanese MMA scene. MMa, rather than a booming sport for the future, was more of a momentary craze over there. The days of filling the Saitama Super Arena and being broadcast on a major network on New Year’s Eve are long gone and the UFC’s half-hearted attempts to revitalize the market have received a tepid reaction. Twenty years after the birth of PRIDE FC we are left wondering just how that lightning could be bottled once again.

Pick up Jack’s book, Notorious: The Life and Fights of Conor McGregor .

PRIDE Brought Wrestling’s Pageantry to MMA syndicated from http://ift.tt/2ug2Ns6

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movietvtechgeeks · 8 years ago

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Latest story from https://movietvtechgeeks.com/mma-chael-sonnen-defeats-wanderlei-silva-hating-new-york/

MMA Chael Sonnen defeats Wanderlei Silva while hating on New York

One of the longest running rivalries in MMA was brought together on Saturday between Chael Sonnen and Wanderlei Silva. Sonnen was able to claim the victor in this bout. Chael Sonnen took out one MMA legend, called out another, then unloaded his misery about fighting at Madison Square Garden. "I hate New York," he bellowed in the cage. https://twitter.com/BellatorMMA/status/878845664897191937 Sonnen won on the scorecards, if not the adulation from MSG fight fans, and took a unanimous decision over Wanderlei Silva in a much-delayed grudge match in a light heavyweight bout Saturday night. It was a dreadful night for Silva and fellow MMA great Fedor Emelianenko in Bellator's MSG debut. Matt Mitrione knocked out Emelianenko in just 74 seconds in a heavyweight bout. But the result didn't stop Sonnen from challenging Emelianenko to another bout somewhere down the line. Bellator must love the gimmick of putting a pair of 40-somethings in the main event of a future card. "I respect Fedor, and I think he and I's paths are going to cross sooner rather than later," Sonnen said. Emelianenko, following his first fight in the United States since 2011, said he would not retire. Sonnen and Silva had feuded - and even brawled in street clothes during a taping of an MMA reality show - for years and had an anticipated bout for a UFC pay-per-view scrapped in 2014. Sonnen (29-15-1) pressured Silva and stayed on top of the MMA great for most of the three rounds. Sonnen, who can self-promote with his mouth as well as anyone in the game, was dropped once but never in any serious trouble. Silva, also 40, made his name fighting for Pride in Japan and made his Bellator debut following a nearly four-year layoff. Sonnen was choked out by Tito Ortiz in his Bellator debut in January. Ortiz was on hand at the Garden and egged on fans who cursed him out during the main event. Mitrione (12-5) and Emelianenko both connected on right hands and hit the canvas for a double knockdown in the co-main event. But Mitrione, who briefly played in the NFL, pounced and smashed Emelianenko (36-5) with uppercuts to finish off the Russian great. "He's not arguably the great heavyweight of all time, he is the greatest heavyweight of all time," Mitrione said. Emelianenko, maybe be the greatest fighter to never sign with UFC, had won his last five fights, but the days when he ruled in Japan as one of MMA's most dynamic fighters and top heavyweights are well behind him. Emelianenko, in his Bellator debut, was bloodied and looked well past his prime. Bellator, the No. 2 MMA promotion in the United States, made its MSG debut seven months after UFC christened the arena in the MMA genre with a record $17.7 million gate. Bellator will wait to find out if the pay-per-view buys (at $49.95 a clip) hit 200,000, the total the company aimed for to count as a major success. Bellator broadcast on pay-per-view for only the second time in promotional history, signaling another step in its growth as a rival for the industry-leading UFC. Bellator staged its only previous pay-per-view event in May 2014, shortly before CEO Scott Coker took over the promotion. Bellator loaded the card in front of 12,133 fans with some of the biggest names in MMA to make a splash in New York. In a sign Bellator craves star power over super bouts, neither of the two main events were for a championship. But there were title fights on the card, highlighted by Brent Primus defeating Michael Chandler in a gruesome fight to win the 155-pounds title. Chandler, one of the Bellator stalwarts, broke his left ankle and the fight was stopped in the first round. "Cut it off! Cut this thing off! I'll keep going!" he barked in the cage. If the loss wasn't tough enough, like a bad practical joke, the injured Chandler had his stool pulled away in the corner as he tried to sit and the fighter fell on his bottom. Ryan Bader defeated Phil Davis by split decision in his Bellator debut to win the promotion's light heavyweight championship. Bader (23-5) defeated Davis (17-4) in an MMA bout for the second time in his career in a lackluster bout filled with more boos than blows. Bader had edged out a split decision victory over Davis when the former Division I All-American wrestlers fought for the first time on a UFC card in January 2015. Bellator, founded only in 2008 and named for the Latin word for "warrior," has failed to build that mainstream star that UFC has in the mold of Ronda Rousey and Conor McGregor. Bellator has eschewed the PPV model and built its fan base on the strength of live TV cards on Spike (broadcast home of Saturday's undercard) and by signing past-their-primetime MMA players to the main event their biggest cards. Kimbo Slice, Ken Shamrock, Royce Gracie and Rampage Jackson all took their turn in main event bouts more spectacle than sport that delivered record ratings for Bellator. Aaron Pico, 20, was widely considered the top MMA prospect around and had advanced to the U.S. Olympic Team Trials in wrestling last year. His breakthrough will have to wait. Zach Freeman made Pico quit in just 24 seconds and stunned the crowd that had fallen for the hype. Heather Hardy, a boxer signed under promoter Lou Dibella, won her professional MMA debut with a bloody TKO over Alice Yauger. Hardy, of Brooklyn, New York, had the crowd going wild when she dropped Yauger with a vicious right. Hardy suffered a deep cut over her left eye following an accidental head-butt. Even the crowd gasped when blood gushed down Hardy's face. Hardy wiped it off, then wiped out Yauger while the crowd roared. "I think I just fell in love. I'm hooked," she said. "I can't feel it, but I have stitches in my face."

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#Bellator #Chael Sonnen #MMA #Wanderlei Silva

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writingsubmissions · 8 years ago

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UFC 210 Preview

WHAT'S HAPPENING: *Fight Night from London, once again, continued UFC's main trend of 2017, delivering a show that featured a bunch of fun, well-made fights despite not being all that overwhelming at the box office. And while people ragged on the choice for main event, it all worked out in the end, as the star of the show did indeed wind up being London's Jimi Manuwa, who knocked out Corey Anderson in scintillating fashion just three minutes into their fight. Manuwa's sneaky old for a relatively inexperienced fighter, as he's already 37, and after high-profile losses to Alexander Gustafsson and Anthony Johnson, he was looking like a bit of a bust, but after highlight-reel knockouts of Ovince St. Preux and Anderson, he's suddenly one of the top contenders at light heavyweight; honestly, if Jon Jones isn't ready to fight the Cormier/Johnson winner, the next title shot should probably go to Manuwa or, of all people, Shogun Rua. So it all worked out - admittedly, everything I said is more of an indictment of the depth at 205 than anything else, but a main event establishing an exciting title contender is pretty much exactly what you hope for. *The other big story on the night probably came third from the top, as Brad Pickett retired in pretty much the most deflating way possible, although it was still a great moment. Pickett had announced this was his retirement fight going in, and was pretty much handling late replacement Marlon Vera for the better part of the first two rounds. Vera came out more aggressive in the third and started getting the better of things, but after a bit, it looked like Pickett had pretty much stemmed the tide and would cruise his way to a decision victory...until Vera nailed Pickett with a head kick and put him out with just a minute left. It's an appropriate enough end for Pickett, whose late-career fights have been marked by sudden shifts in momentum against him, and it still wound up being sort of uplifting. First, Vera honestly probably gave a better speech than Pickett did, talking about how Pickett is a legend and how much this fight meant to him, as someone who watched a lot of Pickett fights growing up, and then Dan Hardy (who's particularly excellent at these post-fight interviews) did a masterful job of lifting Pickett's spirits and showing Brad how much his hometown crowd supports him. It looks like Pickett's already starting to corner fighters, so I assume he's going into coaching, and given his status as a British MMA pioneer, he should do quite well at it. *There were a bunch of standout performances on this card, and the most prominent was by Gunnar Nelson in the co-main - the Icelander's had an up and down UFC run, as his losses have been particularly disheartening, but this was one of those nights where he got to style on an opponent, as he absolutely ran through Alan Jouban in what might've been his best win to date. Nelson got things to the ground in fairly short order and kept them there for most of the first round, but then he stunned Jouban on the feet to open things in the second, then took him down again and slid on the fight-ending choke. Beautiful stuff, and at the very least Nelson should be prominently featured on European cards going forward. But while Nelson got the most prominent big win, the best performance was pretty easily by British prospect Marc Diakiese, who finally showed on the UFC stage what got people so excited for his arrival. UFC's been feeding him some solid grapplers, and Diakiese just blew the doors off of Finland's Teemu Packalen, using his athleticism to clown him with some flashy strikes before just destroying his consciousness with a vicious right hand in just thirty seconds flat. Diakiese still needs some seasoning, so I wouldn't rush him into deeper waters just yet, particularly in such a deep lightweight division, but Diakiese might have the highest ceiling of anyone at 155. *And there was a bunch of other fun stuff. Performance-wise, the next-best highlight was probably Joe Duffy pretty much dominating Reza Madadi, piecing up the Swedish grappler on the feet - Duffy's got top-ten level talent at the minimum and has proven himself quite well since a disheartening loss to Dustin Poirier, but the Irishman is now a free agent, and it'll be interesting to see how that plays out. One figures Japan and Russia won't particularly go after Duffy's services, so it really comes down to seeing if Bellator thinks Duffy is worth investing in as someone they can turn into a relative star. Two British prospects got big, if narrow, decision victories, as Arnold Allen and Leon Edwards beat Makwan Amirkhani and Vicente Luque, respectively. Amirkhani was able to show his prowess as a wrestler, but Allen proved to be more active and just the generally more well-rounded fighter, coming on more as the fight went on to eventually get the nod. And Edwards continues to look like a well-rounded stud, although he got himself in trouble at times unnecessarily going for takedowns - Luque pretty much showed he has a limited gas tank when he doesn't get the finish, so Edwards was able to control large swaths of the fight, though Luque did eventually bite down on his mouthpiece and sort of throw heat despite his exhaustion in the latter stages of the fight. Elsewhere on the card, Lina Lansberg beat Lucie Pudilova via decision in a really fun, bloody opener - Pudilova looked surprisingly game and had a really strong third round, but it wasn't enough to take the decision. Brad Scott beat Scott Askham in a battle of mid-tier British middleweights - like pretty much all their fights, it was a narrow decision that was pretty fun, but completely unmemorable. And the one rough stretch of the card saw Tim Johnson beat Daniel Omielanczuk in a fairly crap heavyweight fight, and Francimar Barroso once again neutralize an exciting prospect en route to a boring win, in this case over Britain's Darren Stewart. Stewart subsequently announced he was cutting down to middleweight - not a surprise, given his frame, but still disappointing given that 205 needs all the talent it can get. *Unfortunately, two of the more highly-touted prospects on the card were pulled at the last minute. Welsh bantamweight Brett Johns, who looked like a stud in his debut win over Kwan Ho Kwak, had his fight with Ian Entwistle scuttled for fairly unsurprising reasons - Entwistle, who's had weight issues in the past, missed weight and was subsequently deemed to ill to compete, enough so that Entwistle decided to retire on social media, citing the abuse he has put his body through. But the real worrisome one might have to do with Tom Breese, who's one of Britain's brightest prospects - this was slated to be Breese's debut at middleweight after moving up a weight class, but he got flagged for an elevated heart rate, and his fight was called off. The only real similar thing I could think of is Stefan Struve, who had anxiety issues before a 2014 fight, and Struve has gotten that taken care of and is now able to compete - hopefully the same winds up being true for Breese. *For once, a whole bunch of news is coming out of Bellator - I'm not sure if they're going to be an actual competitor to UFC just yet, but a whole bunch of interesting stuff is happening. The biggest one is probably Bellator announcing their own show in Madison Square Garden this June, headlined by Chael Sonnen and Wanderlei Silva, and when that fight inevitably falls through, a second try at Fedor Emilianenko against Matt Mitrione. There's also showcase spots for two of Bellator's newest big signings from UFC, as welterweight contender Lorenz Larkin will get an immediate title shot against Douglas Lima in what should be a fun fight, and Ryan Bader will make his Bellator debut against "King" Mo Lawal. Add in a title defense for lightweight champ Michael Chandler and the debut of uber-prospect Aaron Pico, and Bellator has a fascinating card on their hands. Now, the question is exactly how it'll do business-wise - this is slated to be Bellator's second-ever pay-per-view, and I'm not sure Sonnen/Silva isn't just better off as a major TV draw. Plus I'm curious to see how well tickets move - Bellator seems to be charging Madison Square Garden prices rather than Bellator prices (for comparison, these prices are way more expensive than the Jon Jones/Sonnen UFC card that took place in Jersey in 2013), so...good luck with all that. Plus there's a whole bunch of other stuff with Bellator - they also signed former UFC bantamweight title challenger Michael McDonald, who successfully got his release from UFC, and also announced a partnership with Monster Energy to put on some fights at a few different NASCAR events this year. Alright then. And weirdly, it appears that Rampage Jackson is done with the company after losing to King Mo this past weekend - apparently Jackson is set to return to UFC, to fight out that weird deal he signed back in 2015, when UFC basically signed him to a contract even though he was under contract to Bellator, and the courts temporarily allowed it. *And just a few more news and notes to wrap things up, leading off with...hey, I guess that Conor McGregor/Floyd Mayweather fight is probably going to happen now? Somehow? UFC's basically that desperate for money, that as long as they get a solid cut, they'll basically let Conor go get slaughtered, with September being the working timeframe for that sideshow to take place. Nutritionist Dan Garner announced he is working with Ronda Rousey, fueling speculation that she might fight again - Garner's primarily been a nutritionist for MMA fighters, but mostly regional-level guys, so who knows if this means anything even though the rumors are now out there. Cris Cyborg officially vacated her Invicta featherweight belt, as expected. And in another sign that UFC is backing off its former goal of global domination, it appears the UFC Network in Latin America is no more, as a bunch of sudden shifts in UFC's television deals have left Mexico and Brazil as the only countries in Central and South America with UFC content. It appears the new ownership will start negotiating individual deals in each country, and I hope they figure something out soon, since we were starting to see trickles of talent out of places like Peru and Argentina. And I guess this means no TUF: Latin America season four. ------ BOOKINGS: *Alright, UFC announced a ton of stuff (including basically entire cards for this June) over the last three weeks, so let's do the run-through chronologically. Some upcoming shows each added a fun undercard bout - the Fox show from Kansas City added a bantamweight fight between Aljamain Sterling and Augusto Mendes, which is an interesting one; Sterling has kind of regressed a bit since signing a contract extension when it looked like he'd be the next big bantamweight contender, while Mendes is a raw, but interesting BJJ convert who's coming off a big win over veteran Frankie Saenz. Also, that stacked UFC 211 card in Dallas in May added a neat strawweight bout, as Jessica Aguilar returns from almost a two-year long layoff after a torn ACL to face Cortney Casey. Before UFC implemented a strawweight division, Aguilar was pretty much considered the top fighter in the division, but was stuck under contract to WSOF - but after losing her UFC debut to Claudia Gadelha and then suffering the ACL tear, she's been sort of a forgotten woman, and could use a win here. *From there, we head to Stockholm over Memorial Day weekend, and while I wouldn't say UFC added any major fights to this card, there's still some interesting stuff announced featuring some European favorites. The biggest fight of the four new ones is probably Peter Sobotta, a German-Polish veteran who looked excellent in his last fight against Nicolas Dalby, looking to continue the momentum by facing Ben Saunders in what should be a fun one. Former Bellator title contender Marcin Held returns to face Damir Hadzovic - while Held's last fight, a decision loss to Joe Lauzon that even Lauzon said he didn't deserve, was a robbery loss, Held still needs a win at 0-2 in the UFC, and Hadzovic seems to be a setup fight for that to happen. Ghana's Abdul Razak Alhassan, who's an exciting, reckless power striker, has his sophomore UFC effort against Omari Akhmedov, and Swedish prospect Nico Musoke, who's spent about two years away from the sport, returns to face Bojan Velickovic at welterweight. Also, Sweden's Magnus Cedenblad is injured and out of his fight against Chris Camozzi, so Camozzi will instead face Trevor Smith in a weird fight for a European card. This shouldn't be a bad card, but it's by far the worst of UFC's trips abroad this spring, at least as constructed, so I wonder if they'll put together another big fight or two for this one. *After that, it's UFC 212 in Rio, which didn't add anything that looks like a main card fight, but added a few neat undercard bouts. Paulo "Borrachinha" Costa, a raw, all-offense bomber who looked good in his UFC debut last month against Garreth McLellan, returns to face Oluwale Bamgbose in the perfect sort of low-level striking match that both guys need. And speaking of dynamic finishers, Erick Silva and Yancy Medeiros square off at welterweight, as UFC seems to finally be embracing Silva's destiny of being a flawed action fighter rather than trying to turn him into a Brazilian star. And there's an interesting fight between two mid-tier lightweights, as still-improving veteran and TUF: Brazil 2 winner Leonardo Santos faces Quebecois prospect Olivier Aubin-Mercier, who's coming off one of the more impressive performances of his career against Drew Dober. *Then we get into the meat of what UFC has announced, as they've basically filled out three straight cards taking place on three straight weekends in June, starting with a trip to Auckland, New Zealand. Mark Hunt seemed like an obvious choice to headline this card, but I figured he was out of the picture with the damage he suffered against Alistair Overeem - but nope, Hunt is not like most mortal men, and headlines the card against Derrick Lewis in what will be Lewis's toughest test to date. And in what appears to be the co-main, Australian judo dad Dan Kelly, fresh off his big win over Rashad Evans, gets a chance against someone in the top-fifteen proper, as he faces Derek Brunson in what, like all Dan Kelly fights, should be a weird one. And in what I'd call the third big fight of the card, Joseph Benavidez faces Australian favorite Ben Nguyen, as UFC just continues to throw people against Benavidez while never giving him a third crack at Demetrious Johnson. A few other undercard bouts got announced - former flyweight title challenger John Moraga, who's completely fallen off a cliff lately, gets what one would think is one last chance in the UFC against debuting Australian Ashkan Mokhtarian. New Zealand prospect Daniel Hooker moves up a weight class to take on Ross Pearson at lightweight, in what might be Pearson's own last chance for a UFC win. Light heavyweights Henrique da Silva and Ion Cutelaba square off in a fight originally slated for Fortaleza this past March, and lightweight Vinc Pichel, who's been out for almost three years with injuries after beating Anthony Njokuani in May of 2014, makes his return to face Australian vet Damien Brown. *From there we go to Singapore, and while it doesn't appear a main event has been announced yet, there's some interesting stuff going on. Top welterweight prospect Colby Covington finally gets the big fight he's been asking for, as he gets to challenge top-ten stalwart Dong Hyun Kim. This doesn't seem to be the main, though I haven't seen that confirmed, which makes me wonder what's going to be - Kim seemed like an obvious choice since UFC doesn't really have a ton of prominent Asian stars, but I guess not. Also, one of the men who headlined UFC's first foray into Singapore, Tarec Saffiedine, will be the man to welcome former lightweight champ Rafael dos Anjos into the welterweight division - Saffiedine needs a win, and this doesn't seem to be it, but I guess he does make a good benchmark to see exactly how far dos Anjos can go in his new weight class. And in the only other fight that seems like an obvious main card match-up, Andrei Arlovski looks to stop the bleeding of his sudden losing streak against rising Polish heavyweight Marcin Tybura. As far as undercard stuff, it's solid, led by Justin Scoggins returning to flyweight after a one-off fight at bantamweight, taking on Japanese prospect Ulka Sasaki, who looked good in a loss to current top contender Wilson Reis. Beloved Japanese vet Takanori Gomi makes his return against Jon Tuck at lightweight, heavyweights Walt Harris and Cyril Asker square off, and in a fun bantamweight bout, Russell Doane takes on Korean prospect Kwan Ho Kwak. Plus we get some debuts - Chinese featherweight Guan Wang, who UFC seems to be pushing as their new face of the country, gets a tough first test against Alex Caceres, and debuting flyweights Naoki Inoue of Japan and C.J. de Tomas from the Philippines square off. There was also talk of Holly Holm fighting on this card against Ji Yeon Kim, a relatively unknown Korean bantamweight (which yes, means I guess even Holm isn't in the featherweight division anymore), but apparently Holm's management turned that fight down - given that it was seemingly an easy win, I'm not really sure what other fight they're holding out for. *UFC also announced a June card in Oklahoma City that filled out pretty quick, led by a really fun main event, as rising lightweights Michael Chiesa and Kevin Lee square off. A perfect choice here, in my opinion, as both are marketable young guys that deserve this spotlight. And they're getting support from a bunch of weird, veteran-filled fights. B.J. Penn is going to fight again, though at least this time it's against Dennis Siver, who's the right kind of similarly shot opponent that shouldn't make the fight too depressing. Former welterweight champ Johny Hendricks, who has a bunch of ties to Oklahoma going back to his wrestling days, keeps working his way up the ladder at middleweight against Tim Boetsch, and in a weird one that's happening because light heavyweight is light heavyweight, Ilir Latifi is taking on Antonio Rogerio Nogueira. Given Latifi's status as a bit of a star in Sweden, this was a natural fit for the Stockholm card and was apparently initially slated for there, but it's unclear exactly what happened. Further down the card, we get two interesting strawweight bouts, as Felice Herrig takes on Justine Kish and Carla Esparza takes on Maryna Moroz, plus Clay Guida returns to lightweight to take on Erik Koch, middleweights Vitor Miranda and Marvin Vettori square off, and Jeremy Kimball and Josh Stansbury face each other at light heavyweight. *Past that, we have no official fight announcements, but stuff is leaking out and a few new dates and venues have been confirmed. UFC 213, this year's big July show in Vegas, apparently has two bouts already set - Fabricio Werdum and Alistair Overeem will cap off a weird trilogy of fights at heavyweight, and we should get some awesome violence as Robbie Lawler and Donald Cerrone are slated to square off, in a fight that was initially targeted for Madison Square Garden last fall. Other than that, there's just a bunch of rumors that this will have some combination of GSP against Michael Bisping, Jon Jones against the winner of this UFC 210 main, and I guess Amanda Nunes/Valentina Shevchenko, since it appears that fight is taking place sometime around then. UFC also announced their first card from Long Island, as the July Fox show will emanate from the Nassau Coliseum - I assume you can pencil Chris Weidman into the main event, win or lose this weekend, but there's already one pretty awesome rumored fight that should be high up on the card, as "The Korean Zombie" Chan Sung Jung will apparently take on Ricardo Lamas on this card. And UFC also filled out some of its European slate for 2017, announcing two cards for the fall - the promotion will make their return to Rotterdam in the Netherlands this September, then follow that up with a trip to Gdansk, Poland in October, UFC's second card in the country. ----- ROSTER CUTS: 1) Michael McDonald (17-4 overall, 6-3 UFC, last fought 7/13/16, L vs. John Lineker): As mentioned above, McDonald successfully asked for his release from UFC and signed with Bellator, ending a bit of a weird UFC run. McDonald, a California native, made his WEC debut at age nineteen and was absorbed into UFC shortly thereafter, looking like the future of the division - he had some solid grappling and some devastating knockout power in his fists, and given his age, the sky seemed to be the limit. In fact, after a breakout win over Miguel Angel Torres, it was initially McDonald who got the call when Dominick Cruz got injured before his title defense against Urijah Faber in 2012 - but reportedly right after accepting the fight, McDonald went and broke his hand in training, and that spot eventually went to Renan Barao. So instead, McDonald took on Barao about half a year later, and frankly, lost a fairly one-sided fight - but again, McDonald was still just 22 at this point, so it figured to be the first title shot of many. The rest of 2013 saw McDonald blow the doors off Brad Pickett, but then lose to Faber in shockingly one-sided fashion, and then...silence. Word would occasionally trickle out that McDonald was continuing to deal with broken hands, and after the Reebok deal, it sounded like McDonald was ready to retire due to the dire financial landscape of the sport before he eventually decided to return in 2016, after over a two-year layoff. And, well, McDonald didn't really look like he had evolved, and the narrative of his career went from him being a prodigy to someone who probably wasted his potential by not going to a bigger camp, as McDonald has basically decided to stay in his hometown and train with his brothers. A win over Masanori Kanehara was closer than it needed to be, and John Lineker did John Lineker things and knocked McDonald the hell out last July, and then it was radio silence once again before the whole release and move to Bellator was announced. McDonald seems like a nice enough guy, so I hope he does well, even though I'm worried his story will be one of squandered talent. 2) Brad Pickett (25-14 overall, 5-9 UFC, last fought 3/18/17, L vs. Marlon Vera): As said above, Pickett's heartbreaking loss to Vera was his retirement fight, though Pickett did go out in somewhat perfect fashion. A pioneer of British MMA, particularly in the lighter weight classes, Pickett came to WEC in 2009 and had a fairly solid run, including a 2010 win over Demetrious Johnson where Pickett was able to rely on his wrestling. From there it was on to UFC, and looking back, as fun as a lot of Pickett's fights were, he was probably coming in just as his career was starting to slide downwards. Pickett hung around as a contender for a bit, even losing a number one-contender's bout to Eddie Wineland, but a one-sided loss to Michael McDonald made Pickett consider a move down to flyweight, in the hopes he could repeat his win against Johnson. But the cut down never really took, and a 2014 loss to Ian McCall started a 1-6 run that ended Pickett's career, with close decision losses eventually giving way to more one-sided losses. So Pickett's getting out at about the right time after a great career, and it looks like he's already doing some corner work, which is good news for someone who deserves to have a safe landing in the next phase of his life. 3) Ian Entwistle (9-3 overall, 1-2 UFC, last fought 4/10/16, L vs. Alejandro Perez): Entwistle announced his retirement after getting pulled from his slated fight with Brett Johns thanks to weight-cutting issues, and that's probably the right move, given that this marked the second straight slated fight where he was unable to healthily cut weight. Entwistle was a fun fighter if only for how one-dimensional he was - a stocky former soccer player, Entwistle's entire game was basically hunting for leglocks, which would often make for a weird fight. In fact, the one fight where it worked, where Anthony Birchak just pretty much charged into danger, was the most normal fight of Entwistle's three UFC bouts - his UFC debut against Daniel Hooker ended in weird fashion, with the much taller Hooker just sitting up while in a leglock and deciding to elbow Entwistle into unconsciousness, and his last fight saw Entwistle strangely accuse Perez of greasing repeatedly during the fight. UFC kept trying to book Entwistle as an interesting test for prospects since his game is so unorthodox, but he'd almost never make it to fight night - between the health issues and the fact that, frankly, Entwistle's one-dimensional game had probably already reaches its ceiling, it was probably time to get out, and I hope at the very least he's alright health-wise going forward. ----- UPCOMING UFC SHOWS: 4/15 - UFC on Fox 24 - Kansas City, MO - Demetrious Johnson ( c ) vs. Wilson Reis, Rose Namajunas vs. Michelle Waterson, Jacare Souza vs. Robert Whittaker 4/22 - UFC Fight Night 108 - Nashville, TN - Artem Lobov vs. Cub Swanson, Al Iaquinta vs. Diego Sanchez 5/13 - UFC 211 - Dallas, TX - Stipe Miocic ( c ) vs. Junior dos Santos, Joanna Jedrzejczyk ( c ) vs. Jessica Andrade, Demian Maia vs. Jorge Masvidal, Frankie Edgar vs. Yair Rodriguez, Eddie Alvarez vs. Dustin Poirier 5/28 - UFC Fight Night 109 - Stockholm, Sweden - Alexander Gustafsson vs. Glover Teixeira 6/3 - UFC 212 - Rio De Janeiro, Brazil - Jose Aldo ( c ) vs. Max Holloway (ic), Kelvin Gastelum vs. Anderson Silva, Claudia Gadelha vs. Karolina Kowalkiewicz 6/10 - UFC Fight Night 110 - Auckland, New Zealand - Mark Hunt vs. Derrick Lewis, Derek Brunson vs. Daniel Kelly 6/17 - UFC Fight Night 111 - Singapore, Singapore - Colby Covington vs. Dong Hyun Kim, Rafael dos Anjos vs. Tarec Saffiedine 6/25 - UFC Fight Night 112 - Oklahoma City, OK - Michael Chiesa vs. Kevin Lee, B.J. Penn vs. Dennis Siver, Tim Boetsch vs. Johny Hendricks, Ilir Latifi vs. Antonio Rogerio Nogueira 7/8 - UFC 213 - Las Vegas, NV - Donald Cerrone vs. Robbie Lawler, Alistair Overeem vs. Fabricio Werdum 7/22 - UFC on Fox 25 - Uniondale, NY - Chan Sung Jung vs. Ricardo Lamas ----- UFC 210 - April 8, 2017 - KeyBank Center - Buffalo, New York Well, this card is quite 2017 as hell. When UFC announced their return to Buffalo (UFC 7 took place there all the way back in 1995), people expected a big card, and rumors were flying pretty quickly - the Cormier/Johnson and Weidman/Mousasi fights were more or less confirmed for this card in pretty short order, but there were also rumors this would be where the Aldo/Holloway featherweight title bout would take place, as well as a rumored Frankie Edgar/Ricardo Lamas fight. But instead, fights just kept trickling about, and while every booking was pretty fascinating in its own way, eventually things just eventually got to thirteen fights with only the top two bouts as the "big" fights on the card. So, and it feels like I've been saying this for every card this year, we have a show that isn't that big on huge box office fights at the top, but continues the trend of UFC's matchmaking being quite fascinating and excellently done on the undercard. So, while this wound up being sort of a low-level offering for a UFC pay-per-view, once again, it should still wind up being a pretty fun show. MAIN CARD (Pay-Per-View - 10:00 PM ET): Light Heavyweight Championship: ( C ) Daniel Cormier vs. (#1) Anthony Johnson Middleweight (#4) Chris Weidman vs. (#5) Gegard Mousasi Women's Strawweight: Cynthia Calvillo vs. Pearl Gonzalez Welterweight: Thiago Alves vs. Patrick Cote Lightweight: (#9 Featherweight) Charles Oliveira vs. Will Brooks PRELIMINARY CARD (Fox Sports 1 - 8:00 PM ET): Featherweight: Mike De La Torre vs. Myles Jury Welterweight: (#11) Kamaru Usman vs. Sean Strickland Featherweight: Shane Burgos vs. Charles Rosa Light Heavyweight: (#12) Jan Blachowicz vs. (#12) Patrick Cummins PRELIMINARY CARD (UFC Fight Pass - 6:15 PM ET): Lightweight: Gregor Gillespie vs. Andrew Holbrook Lightweight: Josh Emmett vs. Desmond Green Women's Bantamweight: Irene Aldana vs. Katlyn Chookagian Flyweight: Magomed Bibulatov vs. Jenel Lausa THE RUNDOWN: Daniel Cormier (18-1 overall, 7-1 UFC, 8-0 Strikeforce) vs. Anthony Johnson (22-5 overall, 13-5 UFC): Ah, light heavyweight. While the division is thin and this is a fight that we've seen before, this should still be a pretty fun and solid fight. When Jon Jones started getting in his own way back in 2015, this time after a hit-and-run incident that got him stripped of his light heavyweight belt, this was the fight that UFC chose to crown a new champion - "Rumble" Johnson was already slated to fight Jones, and was pretty much the last man left for Jones to beat, and Cormier was still considered a top contender even coming off a one-sided loss to Jones in their big grudge match a few months prior. And it was a pretty binary fight - either Johnson would knock out Cormier in fairly short order, or Cormier would be able to get Johnson down, out-wrestle him on the ground, and eventually break him for a finish. The latter is what happened, and, well, little has changed since that fight about two years ago - Cormier has fought sparingly thanks to knee injuries and the continued misadventures of Jones, while Johnson went ahead and re-established himself as a dangerous and dynamic knockout threat with wins over Jimi Manuwa, Ryan Bader and Glover Teixeira. The stakes may be higher this time around - both guys are obviously two years older, and there are whispers the winner may get a returning Jones on the big July card this year - but in the cage, it's still pretty much exactly the same dynamic; Rumble's probably the most dangerous one-punch striker in the sport, but he also has a bully mentality that crumbles horribly under the first signs of pressure, which was essentially what happened in their first meeting. While Johnson seems to have cleaned some things up - Cormier was able to get the first big takedown of their first fight after Johnson basically swung and missed wildly going in for the kill, and I don't see Johnson allowing that to happen here - the real big factor in this fight is exactly what Cormier has left, which is somewhat hard to say. Since the Johnson win, Cormier's only had two fights - the first was a war against Alexander Gustafsson where Cormier still looked to be in peak shape, though taking the amount of abuse he did in the fight couldn't have helped DC, and Cormier's last fight was the weird one at UFC 200 against Anderson Silva. Cormier didn't really look all that hot, and some of that may have been knee surgery, but Silva coming in as a replacement for Jones on just a few days notice, and the emotional rollercoaster Cormier was likely going through as things shook themselves out, probably all contributed to the fight being kind of flat. So...now what. In the first fight, I was impressed by how Cormier basically just committed himself to walking through fire to take down Johnson, and was willing to absorb a few shots to do so (something Cormier criticized Ryan Bader for not doing in his fight against Rumble), but Johnson's also looked scarier than ever in just melting dudes, and Cormier's body seems to be betraying him as he turns 38 years old. Again, it's a fairly binary fight, and it wouldn't surprise me if it just looked exactly like the first one, but with the way everything seems to be trending, I really do have to favor Johnson to take this, and if he does so, the obvious manner seems to be via first round knockout. It'd be a sad deal, given how Jones has sort of been Cormier's white whale, and how Jones/Johnson would just be a weird-feeling fight thanks to the legal histories of both - but, well, this sport is weird and cruel. Chris Weidman (13-2 overall, 9-2 UFC) vs. Gegard Mousasi (41-6-2 overall, 8-3 UFC, 4-1-1 Strikeforce, 2-1 PRIDE): A really excellent fight here, as Gegard Mousasi looks to finally break into the ranks of the top middleweight contenders in what might be his last shot, but has to do so against Chris Weidman, who suddenly finds himself trying to hang onto his own spot in the title picture. Looking back, I don't think it's unfair to call Weidman's title reign a bit of a bust compared to what UFC may have expected - most people expected the Long Islander to be the man to finally unseat Anderson Silva as middleweight champion, a title that figured to create a future star whenever it happened. But for whatever reason, Weidman never really clicked - the way the two fights with Silva ended, with Weidman knocking out a showboating Silva in the first fight, then Silva breaking his leg in the rematch, kind of kept the focus on Silva and sort of deflated the impact of Weidman's win, and then Weidman just never really showed the personality to connect with the public at large despite some pretty fun title defenses, plus constant injury layoffs didn't help. And the last year and a half hasn't helped things for Weidman - first he lost his title to Luke Rockhold in a fight that has gotten remembered as more one-sided than it was, even if the ending was fairly drawn out and brutal, a rematch got called off thanks to another Weidman injury (opening the door for Michael Bisping, of all people, to win the title), and then in UFC's big debut in Madison Square Garden, Weidman basically got his head split open by a Yoel Romero flying knee in a fight that Weidman had been winning up to that point. So, suddenly, Weidman has gone from an important name for UFC - particularly as a guy they're trying to build their big New York cards around - to someone badly needing a win to stay in the title picture. And, well, Gegard Mousasi is no gimme, particularly in his current form. Mousasi was an interesting addition when UFC absorbed Strikeforce - the young veteran had been around forever, and it's crazy to think he's still just 31 years old. But losing two out of three to Lyoto Machida and Jacare Souza seemingly cast Mousasi's lot outside the title picture, and from there on he just sort of popped up in semi-prominent positions on random cards. That is, until a keep-busy fight against Uriah Hall went horribly wrong - Mousasi was using his wrestling and grappling to win rather handily through the first round, but the beginning of the second round saw Mousasi flukily dive right into a spin kick, giving way to a dynamic blitz of strikes that gave Hall the huge upset victory. It was a damaging loss, but it seems to have worked out in the end - Mousasi, who comes off as a fairly laid-back, monotone guy, has seemingly discovered his aggression since, reeling off a fairly dominant four-fight win streak over Thales Leites, Thiago Santos, Vitor Belfort, and a revenge win over Hall. So, suddenly, sixty fights and fourteen years in, Mousasi might be in the best form of his fighting career. It's a hard fight to call, simply because both guys are generally so well-rounded, but I tend to favor Weidman - he actually looked really good in his fight against Romero before that knockout, and without that one dynamic burst of offense from Romero (though admittedly that's Romero's entire game), the narrative around Weidman would be way different. Plus, looking at Mousasi's last real loss if we count the first Hall fight as a bit of a fluke, Jacare Souza was able to have a ton of success just pressuring Mousasi and keeping him against the fence, and I could easily see Weidman implementing a similar gameplan. Really, it's a coin flip, and I don't expect a finish either way - I'd say Mousasi's more of a finisher at the moment, but I see Weidman as almost too ridiculously tough for his own good a lot of the time - but I'll take Weidman via a narrow decision. Cynthia Calvillo (4-0 overall, 1-0 UFC) vs. Pearl Gonzalez (6-1 overall): Well, if nothing else, UFC seems to be firmly behind pushing Team Alpha Male product Cynthia Calvillo; when the Khabib Nurmagomedov/Tony Ferguson fight fell apart at UFC 209, it was Calvillo's UFC debut that surprisingly got moved to the main card, and as UFC was looking for another big main card fight for this show, they eventually wound up adding this fight, third from the top. And I can see what UFC likes about Calvillo - while she's only been a pro since late August, she has a long amateur career going back to 2012, and in that UFC debut against Amanda Cooper, she pretty much styled out when things went to the ground, using some sweet transitions to eventually clamp on the fight-ending choke. Admittedly, Cooper was pretty much the perfect type of fighter for Calvillo to look good against - Cooper's quite over-aggressive when things get to the ground, which basically left Calvillo some openings to try the weird, dynamic stuff that wound up working as good as it did. It'll be interesting to see if she can look quite as good against Chicago's Pearl Gonzalez, who's making her debut here, as while I couldn't find Gonzalez's most recent fight, there's a lot to like about her based off two fights from 2015 - she has a fairly solid submission game, and I was impressed by how much her striking had improved between the two fights I was able to watch, particularly in terms of output. Still, she seemed to have the decided physical advantage in both fights, so one wonders how she'll do against a higher-level athlete like Calvillo. I do still favor Calvillo, but she's not such an uber-prospect that it's a guarantee she'll run through Gonzalez - instead, I figure Gonzalez may give her some trouble (particularly if she can keep it standing), and Calvillo instead has to work for a decision. Thiago Alves (21-11 overall, 13-8 UFC) vs. Patrick Cote (23-10 overall, 10-10 UFC): This fight is sort of emblematic of the criticisms of this card - it's a pretty neat fight between two longtime veterans that should be kinda fun, but as possibly the third-biggest fight on a pay-per-view card, it's a bit stretched. Patrick Cote's recent resurgence was pretty fun - everyone loves the Canadian MMA pioneer, but for most of his career, he's been more or less a fringe UFC fighter, as that .500 record shows - Cote even found himself out of the UFC in 2011 and part of 2012. After cutting down to welterweight and just continuing to hang around, mostly in featured prelims on Canadian cards, Cote then went on a bit of a run - his fight against Josh Burkman was a fun brawl that Cote won with a brutal knockout, and his win over Ben Saunders to kick off 2016 was super-impressive, as Cote eventually went all hockey fight and just started punching Saunders in the clinch until he went down. But things came to a screeching halt against Donald Cerrone last June, as Cerrone pretty much dominated Cote as Cerrone spent 2016 proving himself as a welterweight contender. Still, even though Cote's 37, his striking game looks as sharp as ever, and he's still at the point where he can keep doing this as long as he wants to. Unfortunately, I kind of can't say the same for former welterweight title challenger Thiago Alves, whose career is in a bit of a weird spot. Alves was probably already trending a bit downward before an assortment of injuries caused a two year layoff from 2012 to 2014, but Alves hasn't really looked the same since he came back. Wins over Seth Baczynski and Jordan Mein were fine performances, but Carlos Condit pretty much wrecked him, and then after another year-long injury layoff, Alves made the surprising choice to try and cut down to lightweight. Given that one of Alves's calling cards was that he cut a bunch of weight for a welterweight, it wasn't surprising that he badly missed weight for his fight against Jim Miller last November, and the subsequent performance was just sort of flat. Alves can probably still beat some guys on the roster, but I haven't been all that impressed with him in the last few years, so unless Cote suddenly looks his age, this figures to be a win for the Canadian. I'll call for it to come via decision, but given that Cote's shown some more finishing ability in his recent fights, a late knockout also wouldn't surprise me. Charles Oliveira (21-7 [1] overall, 9-7 [1] UFC) vs. Will Brooks (18-2 overall, 1-1 UFC, 9-1 Bellator): A strange fight, but a fun one between two guys who suddenly need a win to get their careers back on track. As Eddie Alvarez was exiting Bellator, Chicago's Will Brooks was the guy that surprisingly took his place - Michael Chandler figured to be the new face of the Bellator lightweight division, but he just couldn't get by Brooks, who won a controversial decision in their first fight and then knocked Chandler out the second time around. And then, well, Brooks pretty much followed on Alvarez's path, defending his title a few times while grousing at his treatment from the company before fighting out his contract and heading to UFC last year. Brooks's ascent up the ladder was always going to be an interesting one - he's a guy that looks much better in five-round fights, since he's a slow starter who tends to break down his opponents as the fight wears on. And indeed, Brooks has already had a bumpy path in his two three-round fights in the UFC - his debut win over Ross Pearson saw Brooks overcome a lackluster first round to take a narrow decision, and his last fight against Alex Oliveira was just a complete disaster. Oliveira, who's a natural welterweight, basically blew his cut down to 155 and came in way overweight, and was pretty much able to bull around Brooks, even breaking one of Brooks's ribs before getting a late finish. The size difference basically makes that loss a mulligan, but still, Brooks could really use a win - and amusingly, UFC decided to book him against another Oliveira that has problems making weight. It's crazy that Charles Oliveira is still only 27 years old, since he's already had a long, strange trip of a UFC career. Oliveira came into UFC as a fresh-faced wunderkind of a prospect, tapping out his first two opponents in dynamic fashion and looking like a prodigy. So UFC immediately threw him in the deep end, and after losses to Jim Miller and Donald Cerrone, Oliveira decided to cut down to 145. And UFC repeated their matchmaking mistakes again - rather than move him slowly up the ladder, UFC gave him two more lower level wins, and then immediately rushed him to the top of the division again, where Oliveira lost to Cub Swanson and Frankie Edgar. Since then it's been a weird ride - Oliveira has alternated dynamic performances where he looks like the most dangerous grappler in the company with fights where he just starts to crumble at the first sight of danger, and his weight has been all over the place, with Oliveira sometimes coming in two pounds underweight, but sometimes missing weight completely, which really suggests the problem isn't diet or anything, but just a complete lack of understanding from Oliveira's camp about how to cut weight. And his last fight was probably the most egregious of all, as Oliveira missed weight so badly against Ricardo Lamas that the fight had to take place at lightweight - and after using the Alex Oliveira gameplan of trying to pull Lamas around, Lamas eventually reversed things into a fight-ending guillotine that gave Oliveira his second straight loss. So UFC has forced Oliveira back up to lightweight, at least for the time being, and he badly needs a win himself. It's a strange fight, and I'm concerned that Oliveira's kind of hitting the point of diminishing returns - his loss to Lamas was deflating, and his fight against Anthony Pettis before that was a weird one, where Oliveira suddenly looked shockingly solid on the feet, but was surprisingly unable to contain Pettis with his high-level submission game. Oliveira's probably still ridiculously dangerous, but the odds are probably higher than they've been in a while that Brooks will probably just be able to work his game a bit and basically just win rounds to earn a decision. Hopefully this will wind up matching up like Oliveira's surprisingly excellent fights with Nik Lentz, where Oliveira's grappling dynamism basically kept Lentz honest and active, but Brooks is savvy enough that I don't see a finish, and if anything, I could see Brooks eventually breaking Oliveira, who's one of the more notorious crumblers in the game, if things get fairly one-sided later in the fight. But my pick is Brooks via decision, and with a surprising amount of confidence given what I thought of this fight going in. Mike De La Torre (14-6 [1] overall, 2-3 [1] UFC) vs. Myles Jury (15-2 overall, 6-2 UFC): Well, judging by this fight's status as the featured prelim, UFC is still trying to make Myles Jury a thing, huh? UFC has kept giving Jury a bunch of prominent opportunities, like showcase wins over Diego Sanchez and Takanori Gomi, and I've always found it a bit weird - Jury has always been a highly touted prospect, yes, but he's not particularly charismatic and his fights aren't particularly memorable, so he's just been an odd choice for UFC to put their matchmaking muscle behind. And in 2015, things completely fell apart for the Michigan native - Jury was put against Donald Cerrone in the co-main of the Jones/Cormier pay-per-view, and wound up getting completely embarrassed, then mostly made headlines outside the cage, griping about the Reebok deal and then his fight against Charles Oliveira being slotted underneath Karolina Kowalkiewicz's debut. And speaking of that Oliveira fight, that went poorly as well - Jury was making his debut at featherweight, and we didn't really get a chance to see how well he'd do in his new weight class, as Oliveira got his hands on him and tapped him out in fairly short order. Since then, Jury pretty much dropped off the map, and he finally returns about sixteen months later, still at featherweight, to face California's Mike De La Torre. De La Torre's pretty much just fun roster fodder - he's fairly well-rounded, but aggression is pretty much the key to his game, and De La Torre's ensuing defensive lapses pretty much result in either a fun fight that goes to decision, or De La Torre just getting his doors blown off in fairly quick fashion. This really feels like the former - Jury's only real flashes of dynamism were knockout wins over Ramsey Nijem and late-career Gomi, neither of which are particularly durable - so while it's possible that Jury just catches an unawares De La Torre with a knockout blow, I see this as more of a workmanlike win for Jury. Since I don't really know where Jury's head is at, since he comes off like one of those guys who's just sort of unhappy with the current MMA financial landscape, I could see De La Torre's constant aggression giving Jury problems if he comes in flat, but even as uninspired by Jury as I've been, he still has enough natural talent that he should win a decision fairly easily. Kamaru Usman (9-1 overall, 4-0 UFC) vs. Sean Strickland (18-1 overall, 5-1 UFC): I'm not sure how exciting it'll be, but this is the sleeper fight on the card, pitting two of the best under-the-radar prospects at welterweight against each other. Kamaru Usman's been on top prospect lists for a while, and not really done anything to dissuade that - the Nigerian's an excellent wrestler and I guess would be considered the winner of that weird camp versus camp TUF 21 season, and he's pretty much dominated his four UFC fights since. Meanwhile, California's Sean Strickland didn't come into UFC with nearly as much hype - even if he did rack up a 13-0 pre-UFC record - but has had pretty much every bit the success, getting wins over a bunch of fellow prospects like Luke Barnatt, Alex Garcia, and Tom Breese. Strickland's an interesting fighter, and indicative of a trend a lot of MMA analysis community is starting to pick up on, that a lot of fighters who started MMA as teenagers are more concerned with surviving in moments and individual exchanges, rather than coming in with a gameplan of winning rounds. Strickland seems to be one of the better examples of this, though that still hasn't prevented him from winning fight after fight, albeit often by a decision and a margin closer than it needs to be. Still, I favor Usman in this fight - I tend to pretty much always favor the wrestler if a fight is close, since they can dictate where the fight goes, and while Usman flashed some pretty good striking in his last bout against Warlley Alves (who can be an explosive submission threat on the ground), Usman's been more than willing to just use his wrestling to dominate foes if it's obvious to do so. And Strickland's takedown defense is pretty much a question mark, since he hasn't really faced many opponents looking to take him down, and particularly ones as good at that skill as Usman. Strickland's enough of a talent that I wouldn't be surprised if he's just drilled takedown defense and is able to keep things standing (in which case I'd favor Strickland, albeit once again by a narrow margin), but I'll give Usman the benefit of the doubt and say he's just able to get takedowns and cruise to a rather one-sided decision. Either way this fight goes, I'm still interested to see where the ceiling is for both, though. Shane Burgos (8-0 overall, 1-0 UFC) vs. Charles Rosa (11-2 overall, 2-2 UFC): A fun featherweight prospect battle here, with the additional bonus of pitting New York against Boston. New York's Shane Burgos made his debut last December on that godforsaken Albany card, and looked good - while it was the first non-finish win of Burgos's career, he handled Tiago Trator pretty easily, showed off his crisp striking, and even got a haircut in-between rounds, as his cornermen cut off his ponytail after it was coming undone and getting into his eyes. Burgos is an interesting talent, and he gets a solid second test against Boston's Charles Rosa, who's fairly underrated. Rosa had a solid UFC debut, flying to Stockholm and losing a close decision to Dennis Siver on about a week's notice, and after a win over Sean Soriano, also took Yair Rodriguez to the limit in May of 2015, earning a scorecard in a split-decision loss to the Mexican uber-prospect. Rosa then fought on his hometown card when UFC came to Boston at the beginning of 2016, going through seemingly a million opponent changes before beating Kyle Bochniak, and has been off the radar since, apparently taking a while before deciding to re-sign with UFC. It's a weird fight for me to call - I do think Rosa is the much better fighter, but when I envision the fight in my head, I do see Burgos winning based on the style matchup. Rosa should be able to dominate if this goes to the ground, but Burgos's takedown defense looked good in that fight against Trator, and Rosa does seem like the type of fighter who can get lured into a brawl, which could get him knocked out against someone like Burgos. Basically, it comes down to if you think Rosa is just a level above Burgos to the point that the style matchup doesn't matter, which is entirely possible - but I'm not willing to go quite that far, so Burgos by second-round knockout is my pick. Still, it should be a fun fight, and of any of my picks on this card, this feels like the one I might come to regret the most. (Well, that or Patrick Cummins, but we'll get to that...well, now.) Jan Blachowicz (19-6 overall, 2-3 UFC) vs. Patrick Cummins (8-4 overall, 4-4 UFC, 1-0 Strikeforce): Ah, light heavyweight, you delightful(?) mess. In another division, both of these guys would sort of be afterthoughts, but here, they're somewhat appropriately enough tied for the #12 ranking in the division. Patrick Cummins had a notorious UFC debut - when Daniel Cormier was set to debut at light heavyweight against Rashad Evans in 2014, Evans dropped out of that fight at the last minute and in stepped Cummins, who talked enough trash to get himself noticed...and absolutely destroyed by Cormier in his UFC debut. Still, Cummins had made a name for himself, and the Pennsylvania native wound up looking like a solid prospect, using his high-level wrestling background to pretty much wreck some lower-level opponents. But once Cummins got into deeper waters, it became apparent that he has probably the worst fatal flaw someone can have in a heavier division - the dude just can't take a punch. Fights against Ovince St. Preux, Glover Teixeira, and Antonio Rogerio Nogueira all saw Cummins doing fairly well until getting wobbled with the first solid punch he took, at which point each bout was over in fairly short order. So, well, he'll obviously try to avoid getting hit by Poland's Jan Blachowicz, who's had a bit of a disappointing UFC run himself. Poland has a pretty solid MMA scene, and Blachowicz had a bunch of wins over UFC vets before entering the promotion, so when Blachowicz made his debut by knocking out Ilir Latifi, the thought was he should be able to make a name for himself in the division fairly quickly. But that all ended pretty suddenly - for his second fight, Blachowicz was the big featured local hero for UFC's debut card in Poland, and Blachowicz just completely failed under the pressure, losing an awful fight by doing not doing much of anything against an injured Jimi Manuwa. Blachowicz then looked fairly poor in a loss to Corey Anderson, but was kept around for another shot, at which point he beat Igor Pokrajac, only for UFC to turn around and pretty much feed him to Alexander Gustafsson. Blachowicz has some solid individual skills - he's got some solid power striking, and some surprising submission skills for someone who doesn't look particularly fluid or flexible - but at the UFC level it just doesn't really turn into much of anything, as Blachowicz just kind of reacts and drifts through fights rather than imposing a winning gameplan. This is a pretty binary fight - if Cummins gets his takedown game going, he should be able to dominate, particularly in the later rounds, as Blachowicz hasn't really shown much of a gas tank even when things are going his way. Except, well, fights start on the feet, and before Cummins wears Blachowicz out (and hell, maybe even after he does), there's the constant risk that Blachowicz can connect with Cummins's chin, at which point the fight should be over. I'll favor Cummins by decision, just because I don't think Blachowicz has the craft to pull the knockout off - hell, Cummins is actually a pretty solid striker, all things considered, despite his complete lack of durability - but if Cummins just gets his lights put out during a fight that he's winning, well, that'll be par for the course. Gregor Gillespie (8-0 overall, 1-0 UFC) vs. Andrew Holbrook (12-1 overall, 2-1 UFC): This should be a solid showcase fight for Long Island's Gregor Gillespie, who's one of the better under-the-radar prospects in UFC. Gillespie came in with some hype, as the former collegiate wrestler was regarded as one of the better prospects in the Northeast, but he drew a horrible style matchup against Glaico Franca for his UFC debut - Gillespie has more of a frame for featherweight, while Franca is a massive grinder who's gigantic for the lightweight division. But after some early trouble, Gillespie was surprisingly able to get the wrestling advantage, and pretty much wore down Franca to score a super-impressive debut win. Honestly, I don't really see how Andrew Holbrook is going to give Gillespie any more trouble than Franca did - Holbrook's also a grappler by trade, but he's had a weird UFC career to date; Holbrook got a debut win over Ramsey Nijem mostly by working submissions, even though nobody thought he actually deserved the nod, then got his doors blown off by Joaquim Silva before scoring an upset decision win over Australian prospect Jake Matthews, which had more to do with Matthews looking flat than anything else. So Gillespie should be able to out-wrestle Holbrook rather handily, and maybe even get the better of things on the feet, and should eventually coast to a rather one-sided decision win. Josh Emmett (11-0 overall, 2-0 UFC) vs. Desmond Green (19-5 overall, 3-2 Bellator): Count me among the many that UFC signed Desmond Green - it isn't that Green is a bad fighter, as he's had a bunch of success in Bellator and Titan FC, but it's that stylistically, he's a fairly boring grinder, who looks to take down his opponents and not do much else. Then again, his wrestling days date back to his time at the University of Buffalo, so given the location of this card, I guess signing a local favorite trumps all. Anyway, Green gets a solid first test in the UFC in Josh Emmett, a Team Alpha Male product who's done a bit better than expected in two UFC fights, beating Jon Tuck in Europe on extremely short notice, then getting a fun win over Scott Holtzman in his hometown of Sacramento. This fight pretty much all comes down to if Green can get the takedown, and while I like Emmett as a fighter and think he's pretty well-rounded, I'm not really sure he can. If he can keep this standing, I'm interested in seeing how it goes, particularly since Emmett's last bout was so fun, but it is with a heavy heart I pretty much have to predict Green taking this by decision. Irene Aldana (7-3 overall, 0-1 UFC, 4-1 Invicta) vs. Katlyn Chookagian (8-1 overall, 1-1 UFC): A really interesting fight here, as both Irene Aldana and Katlyn Chookagian are interesting talents in a thin women's bantamweight division, but both are badly in need of a rebound win. Aldana came in with a solid amount of hype - while she's typically been regarded as the lesser prospect between her and teammate Irene Aldana, everyone's been high on both for a while as Mexican fighters who have both the good looks and the exciting boxing style to help MMA make some inroads into Mexico. But Aldana's UFC debut didn't really go all that well - Leslie Smith just decided to constantly pressure her, and Aldana didn't really handle it all that well; while the fight was a fun brawl and probably the best fight on December's show from Sacramento, Aldana still got hit a lot more than she hit back, and got a clear decision loss. So she'll look to rebound against New Jersey's Katlyn Chookagian, whose UFC debut went much better, as she was mostly able to keep Lauren Murphy on the outside and box her way to a decision win. Sadly for Chookagian, things went worse against Liz Carmouche, who was successfully able to implement her wrestling game, so now Chookagian is in need of a win of her own. This might be the hardest fight on the card to call - Chookagian's proven to be better against pressure fighters, but since both her and Aldana fight more from the outside, I don't really see that as a factor here. So this'll probably just be the two of them striking at range without much else in the way of ideas, and I suppose I'll favor Aldana, even though this is probably going to be a split decision that could go either way - I just hope it's more a fun back-and-forth rather than a staring contest. Magomed Bibulatov (13-0 overall) vs. Jenel Lausa (7-2 overall, 1-0 UFC): Well, UFC went ahead and signed Magomed Bibulatov, who's been regarded as one of the better flyweights outside of the UFC for a while now - Bibulatov's yet another of those Russian hard-ass grapplers to come out of Caucuses, and he's also pretty far up on the list of those guys whose connections are fairly worrisome, with some rumors even suggesting that Bibulatov might be a trigger-man for certain regional dictators. Anyway, this figures to be a layup win for Bibulatov against Jenel Lausa, who was pretty much signed to be on last year's scuttled Manila card and is just sort of hanging around on the roster. Lausa was able to beat Zhikui Yao last November in his UFC debut, but he's still an undersized striker whose overall MMA game doesn't really seem all that developed, so I expect Bibulatov to take him down and pretty much have his way with him in pretty short order. So my pick is Bibulatov by first-round submission, and then we can all feel really weird about that.

#ufc210 #ufc 210 #ufc #mma

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newstwitter-blog · 8 years ago

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New Post has been published on News Twitter

New Post has been published on http://www.news-twitter.com/2017/01/22/la-times-tito-ortiz-wins-by-choke-ends-career-6/

LA Times: Tito Ortiz wins ‘by choke,’ ends career

Tito Ortiz capped his legendary mixed-martial-arts career Saturday night with a fitting, impressive submission victory, and insisted the end is real.

The Huntington Beach product reversed out of chokehold danger applied by rival Chael Sonnen and forced Sonnen to tap out by rear-naked chokehold two minutes, three seconds into the first round to win his self-declared farewell fight at the Forum on Saturday night.

Thanking his coaches for techniques refined in an extended 14-week training camp, Ortiz, 41, said, “I knew we’d win by choke,” after avenging a college wrestling defeat while at Cal State Bakersfield to Oregon’s Sonnen two decades ago.

He then announced, despite the impressive showing that could leave him positioned for a rematch with Sonnen or bout with other Bellator veterans like Wanderlei Silva or Quinton “Rampage” Jackson, that he was officially retiring.

“This will be the last time I’ll be in this cage, so as we do in wrestling when you retire your wrestling shoes, I’m going to let my son [Jacob] lay my gloves down in this cage because this is the last time I will fight,” Ortiz said.

Ortiz (19-12-1) was highly emotional through pre-fight publicity after enduring some harsh comments from Sonnen regarding his finances and his ex-girlfriend, former porn actress Jenna Jameson. And he again found it difficult to keep himself together at introductions, mouthing the national anthem while trying to aim a fierce stare at Sonnen.

The farewell drew an impressive gathering of UFC talent, including welterweight champion Tyron Woodley, Nate Diaz, former bantamweight title challenger Urijah Faber and former heavyweight champions Randy Couture and Fabricio Werdum.

As the fight began, Sonnen flipped out of an Ortiz hold attempt and applied a hold to Ortiz’s neck at the one-minute mark.

“He had me a little. He never had me. I was good,” Ortiz said.

Ortiz later got atop Sonnen and landed some punches to the head, getting behind Sonnen to apply the decisive neck hold that caused Sonnen to tap out as fans roared.

Ortiz bowed to all four corners as chants of “Tito!” descended upon him and he maintained backstage he’s finished as a fighter.

“I prepared for this — gave it my whole heart and soul — knowing it would be my last one,” he told The Times. “I owed my fans my best and that’s what I came out and gave them. There was not one rock unturned this camp. I want to go out my best no matter what anybody says to me.

“I want people to say I should still stay around, but I’ll be 42 on Monday, I’ve been in this business 20 years. I’ve become a millionaire, bought my dream home, car and boat. I paid for my kids’ college tuition. I’ve done everything a man can do on this earth. The next thing I can do is find a new career.”

In the ring, Ortiz thanked his mother and others for a career that included a former reign as UFC light-heavyweight champ more than a decade ago, a then-record pay-per-view against Chuck Liddell and standing in the UFC Hall of Fame.

He was so caught up in the emotion, he told his girlfriend, “You’ll be my girl the rest of my life.”

A lot of promises, but Ortiz also vowed to quiet Sonnen (28-15-1) and he did that. Sonnen left the ring without a word to the crowd.

In the co-main event, England’s Paul Daley produced the night’s highlight with a vicious flying left knee to the face that knocked out American Brennan Ward in the first round.

Welterweight Daley (39-14-2) rocked Ward (14-5) with punches earlier in the first, then amplified Ward’s unsteadiness with a spinning back right elbow.

Wobbled, Ward dipped right to the left knee that Daley delivered, and was stopped 2 minutes, 27 seconds into the round. Ward, who required a stretcher to remove him from the ring, was moving his arms upward as he left toward the Forum exit.

“I hope Brennan’s OK,” Daley said afterward, also touting his readiness for a title shot.

[email protected]

Twitter: @latimespugmire

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mahvaladara · 6 years ago

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10 for the Drabble Challenge ❤️❤️

Thank you so much! I love doing these. I had too much fun doing this. I hope you don’t mind it being a little fanfic.

A V x Wanderley (OC) DMC Fanfic - Bath Time

“V!! Are you still taking a bath?! It’s been 45 minutes! 45!”

V opened his eyes with a small tug on the corners of his lips. His green eyes fixed on the white ceiling above him, as the soft warmth of the water enveloped him. The room was filled with soft scents of almond, rose and honey from the products he callously dumped in the water before getting in.

The scents drowned him in a sense of relaxation and calm, as he set aside his book, careful not to get it wet. Slowly V reached out of the tub, his hand touching the cold glass of wine he’d left resting on the floor and he picked it up, flipping the liquid absently on the glass, watching the burgundy dance inside.

There was the sound of the door opening, footsteps towards him and a shadow peered over him.

Green eyes met angry amber ones.

“No one, and I say NO ONE, spends nearly one hour in a tub, reading poetry and drinking wine,” Wanderley angrily said. “Who in the hairy Mundus’ ass you think you are, you asswipe?! A burgeois housewife?!

“I am not no one,” V stated taking a sip of his glass of wine, a grin falling on Wanderley who crossed his arms. “If you fixed the radio I’d also be enjoying music.”

Wanderley frowned. “You little shit, just move your ass! I want to take a shower!”

V scoffed and set down the glass, one provocative leg sneaking out of the tub as V smiled at his lover, waiting.

“You have such a way with words,” V stated with an amused chuckle. “It’s almost poetic.”

“I am done asking nicely! I have been waiting for you to get done for nearly one hour!” Wanderley growled exasperated. “And your ass is drinking wine and chilling as if we have other bathrooms in the apartment!”

“You are free to join me, I do believe the tub is big enough for the two of us,” V innocently suggested, though his suggestion had nothing of innocent to it.

A flush of desire rushed up Wanderley and usually, he’d give in instantly. Usually.

Usually, he wasn’t greasy from hair to toe in machine oil from trying to help Nico fix that bloody van she crashed through a floor again - go figure out how she achieved to do such things.

He was exhausted, he was dirty, he wanted to take a shower, watch some Secret Files and cuddle with V, and his four demon familiars. Order pizza and drink something sweet.

“Vitale Vergil Junior Sparda, you’re pruning like the grapes that made your wine!” Wanderley scolded, using the name Nero and Nico mockingly had given him, which he only did when angry. “I am dirty and not in the mood. GET OFF.”

V pursed his lips to a thin line. “Those who restrain desire, do so because theirs is weak enough to be restrained.”

Damn that sultry velvety voice. “The water is getting cold V! GET. OFF.”

In answer, V tipped the faucet handle with his foot, purposefully slow, and water started pouring. Wanderley heard the tell-tale ping of the heater turning on and heating the water. In response to his expression, V took the glass of wine to those delicious pink lips.

“If you use up all the hot water again, I swear to god! You’re on the couch for a month!!” Wanderley threatened.

V could see the anger in him and it amused it far more than it should.

“Fifteen more minutes! If you’re not out of that tub by the top of the hour, I am kicking you OU-”

His voice got caught in his throat at the sight of V getting up from the water. His nude figure glistening under the white light of the bathroom, reflected on the water that ran down his slender tattooed body. He walked out of the tub, water dripping from every step as he walked over to Wanderley.

Wanderley didn’t dare move, lest the man disappeared in front of him like a phantom. Someone so beautiful could not be real.

Humanity is beautiful, Wanderley thought.

“Fifteen minutes, you say?” V asked coyly, he placed his hands on Wanderley’s shirt, slowly pulling it over Wanderley’s shoulders who allowed him. “Nothing but my deepest desires would move me from the comfort of my small satisfactions.”

Wanderley didn’t move as V placed his hands on Wanderley’s chest. His hands so soft and warm, dripping from the bath traced his tired body.

V got closer, scoffing, pressing his hands against Wanderley’s chest. Those mesmerizing green eyes locked with his.

“Your scent is intoxicating,” V chuckled.

“I stink.”

“I know.”

“I’m dirty.”

“I know,” V nearly purred. “Aren’t we lucky there’s a tub filled to the very brim with welcoming warm scented water just for us?”

“Vita.”

“Fifteen minutes more, you said. There is a lot I can devise in fifteen minutes, my Wanderer,” V smiled.

And he placed his hands around Wanderley’s head, pulling him closer. He felt that warm slender body press against his own, the water growing cold on him as he touched him.

V’s breath brushed against Wanderley’s neck, tracing up to his ear and V whyspered:

“Join me, my little Wanderer.”

#my writting #fanfic #drabble challenge #v #vitale #dmc v #dmc vitale #oc #original male character #wanderley #v x oc #elvenn-sim

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flauntpage · 8 years ago

Text

PRIDE Brought Wrestling's Pageantry to MMA

The Birth of PRIDE

Home Grown Talent

Sumo's Shame

The Extremes of MMA

The Rise of PRIDE

Pick up Jack's book, Notorious: The Life and Fights of Conor McGregor .

PRIDE Brought Wrestling's Pageantry to MMA published first on http://ift.tt/2pLTmlv

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flauntpage · 8 years ago

Text

PRIDE Brought Wrestling's Pageantry to MMA

The Birth of PRIDE

Home Grown Talent

Sumo's Shame

The Extremes of MMA

The Rise of PRIDE

Pick up Jack's book, Notorious: The Life and Fights of Conor McGregor .

PRIDE Brought Wrestling's Pageantry to MMA published first on http://ift.tt/2pLTmlv

0 notes

flauntpage · 8 years ago

Text

PRIDE Brought Wrestling's Pageantry to MMA

The Birth of PRIDE

Home Grown Talent

Sumo's Shame

The Extremes of MMA

The Rise of PRIDE

Pick up Jack's book, Notorious: The Life and Fights of Conor McGregor .

PRIDE Brought Wrestling's Pageantry to MMA published first on http://ift.tt/2pLTmlv

0 notes

flauntpage · 8 years ago

Text

PRIDE Brought Wrestling's Pageantry to MMA

The Birth of PRIDE

Home Grown Talent

Sumo's Shame

The Extremes of MMA

The Rise of PRIDE

Pick up Jack's book, Notorious: The Life and Fights of Conor McGregor .

PRIDE Brought Wrestling's Pageantry to MMA published first on http://ift.tt/2pLTmlv

0 notes