Rashad is getting Chuck’s shot

It didn’t take long for Dana White to shuffle his light heavyweight plans around in the wake of Rashad Evans knocking out Chuck Liddell:

“Sugar” Rashad Evans (12-0-1) will fight Fighters.com’s Light Heavyweight Champion Forrest Griffin (16-4) for the UFC 205 title, announced UFC President Dana White Sunday morning in Atlanta.

Evans viciously knocked out Fighters.com’s fourth-ranked light heavyweight “Iceman” Chuck Liddell (21-6) in the second round Saturday night in Atlanta.

“How can you say he doesn’t deserve a title shot,” White told media after the surprise “W”.

I’m not exactly sold myself. While Rashad’s knockout power has earned him a good measure of respect, I still remember his performances against Tito Ortiz and Michael Bisping. Is Rashad the #2 light heavyweight in the UFC? Fuck no. But the UFC rides the waves it’s given, so now we’ve got Rashad vs Forrest … most likely on the New Years card.

The cool thing about this matchup is that it’s quite competitive. While Forrest fighting Chuck would have seen Forrest as a firm underdog, I’d say most people are going to recognize this fight as evenly matched. I don’t know if it’s going to generate even a quarter of the hype that Griffin vs Liddell would have, but as we learned on Friday, that fight just never seems to come together.

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Random UFC 88 thoughts

Where’s Edith?
She wasn’t at the weigh-ins, but she’s missed the weigh-ins before. But she was also absent from the event. Everything was all set up, they even had her chair set up next to Arianny’s. Just … no Edith.

Dong isn’t in Heaven
During one of Dana’s VLogs, he was making fun of Dong Hyun Kim’s request for entrance music - DJ Sammy’s Heaven. Yeah, it’s pretty gay. But when you’re going into a cage to beat someone up, you should get to hear the music you want to fucking hear. But instead of uber-cheese trance, we got some bullshit rock. Fuck that. Poor form, UFC.

Matt Brown
Is Matt good or was Dong just wiped out after the first round? Brown got outclassed hardcore in the first but then came back and made it very competitive in the next two rounds. If he’d been smart he wouldn’t have stayed on his back for the last minute of the third round, that’s what sealed his fate. I was impressed by his resilience but I can’t help but wonder if it was more Dong blowing his wad than Matt actually being that good.

Nate Marquardt
When the fuck did Marquardt learn to strike like that? If he’d put even a fifth of that striking talent to use in his fight against Thales Leites, he would have iced him. I wanna see Nate vs Hendo now.

Rousimar Palhares
Damn can this dude take a punch. I’m not that hot on his rag doll shooting method, and he’s not gonna build much of a career concentrating on leg locks as much as he did against Henderson tonight. But he was resiliant and he kept on working. Hopefully the UFC will put him up against a few easier TUF guys to let him develop into a more well rounded fighter. I can see him being a real force in a year or so.

Hamill got broke
By the end of the second round you could see it in Hamill’s eyes: Franklin had broken him.

Rashad Evans’ wife
Goddamn, woman. Goddamn.

Rashad Evans
Guess I’m gonna have to start treating him with some respect, huh.

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THE JINX LIVES!

Dana White should know by now that as soon as he makes assumptions on who’s gonna win a fight in order to set up future fights, shit ALWAYS goes awry. Like super crazy awry. Tonight was no exception as Chuck Liddell was facing off against Rashad Evans. The worst kept secret in the world was that Chuck would get a title shot against Forrest Griffin on NYE if he beat Rashad. So what happened? Rashad Evans knocked Chuck Liddell the fuck out. The jinx lives.

I’m sure this KO will be all over the internets in the next few hours, but let me try to explain to you what happened: Rashad Evans stayed on the outside dancing around like a fool, and Chuck Liddell was forced to push forward and chase him. This went on for the entire first round, with Rashad’s corner telling him to keep it up because it was pissing Chuck off. Round two starts, Chuck pushes forward again and walks right into a massive overhand right from Rashad.

When Chuck got knocked out by Rampage, it wasn’t all that satisfying. It was a beautiful ‘on the button’ punch, but it didn’t look devastating. Rashad’s punch, on the other hand, made me fear for Chuck’s life. Liddell hit the ground like a wet rag and just lay there all limp. When Dean checked him out, his head lolled like a dead 80’s action film henchman with a broken neck.

Y’all know I don’t like Rashad, but one thing I do love is chaos. And this win by Rashad throws everything we were expecting at light heavyweight in the trash. Now I don’t think anyone knows what the fuck is going to go on. Who’s next in line for a title shot? Will Rampage vs Wanderlei still happen? Will Machida get a shot now by default? Will the UFC try to turn runty lemons into shitty lemonade with Rashad vs Forrest?

The fight was pretty boring right up to that spectacular knockout. But the fallout from Chuck losing is gonna be more exciting than the best of cage fights. Chaos!

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UFC 88 Play by play right here!

Hey folks, it’s 10PM and that means time for fights. Let’s get right into this shit!

10:06 Sorry for the late start, I ran out to buy a drink and got stuck behind the slowest fuckhead in the world who was returning cans, buying scratch tickets, and splitting purchases across multiple credit cards. So no gladiator entrace for me. Can I still bring the pain bring the pain rraaar raar raar? We’ll have to see. We’re starting off right away with DONG! vs Matt Brown. I don’t think anyone expects Matt to win (unless he gets angry - MATT, HE STOLE YOUR DIP AND PUT TERIYAKI SAUCE IN THERE!)

Read the rest of this entry »

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UFC 88 chat is open!

I’m still getting my snack prep on at the moment so I won’t be in the chat till 9pm. But I figured I’d open things up a bit early for y’all.

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Pic Picks: Carlos Condit

Andrew DeMattos has some cool pics of Carlos Condit and bricks … lots and lots of bricks.

BONUS PIC SUBTITLE: Imagine Condit’s surprise when he showed up on Wednesday for the WEC show and realized it had been postponed.

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Poor Yoshida

Ryo Chonan pours some late night virtual booze on the ground for his pal Yoshida, who has just found himself out of a fight:

I’m surprised to hear about Yoshida. His opponent, Karo Parisyan, backed out at last minute. Karo said he was in the best shape when I talked to him yesterday. I wonder what happened to him. Yoshida’s mom came here to see his fight all way from Japan and he had a hard time dieting for this fight. I’m sorry for him. Charged with a role as the only fighter who represents Japan, I’m going to have a great performance tomorrow.

I’m not sure if having a fight canceled last second is worse than having to fight someone who isn’t willing to fight, but both scenarios suck pretty bad. Last second fight cancellations happen all the time at lower levels of the fight game … people pussy out, don’t show up, don’t pass medicals, etc etc etc. But this situation really blows for Yoshida since this was going to be his big coming out party. I had Yoshida giving Karo Parisyan a run for his money even before that stuff about Karo’s anxiety came up. Win or lose, I was expecting a career defining fight that would elevate Yoshida from general unknown to fan favorite.

Now that ain’t gonna happen. Now the UFC is switching up their ringside seating so Yoshida and his mom are at cageside. That sucks.

Anyways, here’s a video on Yoshida that you should check out. That way you’ll be in the know when he finally does make it big.

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The UFC 88 betting breakdown

With Parisyan vs Yoshida off the card for this week’s UFC, there’s not a whole lot of interesting shit to bet on. But let’s take a quick look at what’s there in terms of UFC betting:

Chuck Liddell (-260) vs Rashad Evans (+200)
I’m pretty amazed that Chuck hasn’t slid past -300 (note: he’s done that on several other sportsbooks, so I’d buy in on BetUS soon before their odds change too). The general consensus from everyone is that Rashad is tailor made for Chuck to KTFO. Could this be people still feeling stung over Liddell’s loss to Keith Jardine? Rashad Evans comes from the same camp and it’d be foolish to ignore the possibility that he’ll bring in the same gameplan Jardine did. But I’m still putting money on Chuck because I bet his camp anticipated this possibility and have a plan of their own. Chuck is the man, and there’s a definite edge here on him at -260.

Rich Franklin (-230) vs Matt Hamill (+180)
Rich doesn’t get the respect he deserves because most people can’t see past the two epic ass whuppings he received at the hands of Anderson Silva. On the other hand, I’m not putting money down on this fight because I just don’t know where Rich’s head is. He looked like shit against Yushin Okami and was slow to start versus Jason MacDonald and Travis Lutter. Matt Hamill is also a bad person to make your debut at 205 - he’s all retard strength. While I’m pretty confident that Franklin will win, I’m not gonna put any money down on it.

Dan Henderson (-185) vs Rousimar Palhares (+145)
I put some money on Palhares back when he was up at +185, but it’s more of a “Eh, could happen” bet than a well thought out edge identification. Palhares is too much of an unknown to be a sure thing. We’ve all heard rave reviews of his jiu jitsu skills but he’s never faced anyone like Dan Henderson and beating Ivan Salaverry past his expiry date just doesn’t prove he can hack it against the top guys. If you’re feeling like you want a decent underdog pick, you can have some fun with Palhares, but I didn’t put much action on him.

Martin Kampmann (+125) vs Nate Marquardt (-155)
I was tempted to put some money on Kampmann just because fuck Nate, but cooler heads prevailed. This fight is too close and the odds just don’t justify a play. I’m going for Kampmann … I think a lot of people are underestimating him. But again, there’s no edge here.

Thiago Tavares (-280) vs Kurt Pellegrino (+210)
I put some play on Pellegrino … the guy’s looked really good even when he’s lost and Tavares has stunk up the octagon in his last two outings. I know Pellegrino is too dumb to read and write, but he’s a crafty jiu jitsu fighter and if Tavares hasn’t learned how to fight someone using butterfly guard, he’s gonna get subbed.

Dong Hyun Kim (-450) vs Matt Brown (+275)
Dong is the man, but not at -450.

As usual, we recommend BetUS for all your MMA betting. The guys there are a huge reason why I’m able to devote my days to this blog as opposed to TPS reports and other banal real-job shit. So if you want to bet on some fights AND you want to support us, BetUS is the sportsbook to use. Just make sure to mention us when you sign up!

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