UFC 106 & WEC 44 Degenerate Gambling Odds
Tuesday, November 17th, 2009 by Shawn
Another week and yet another chance to make a sound financial investment. But if there’s one thing you’ve learned about money in your time on this floating rock of misery, it’s that sound financial investments are for pussies. Real men take risks in situations where there’s absolutely no reason to do so.
A real man heads to the supermarket and buys more chicken pot pies than is safe or necessary, just because he saw a report on the news that they were about to be recalled for salmonella. A real man goes surfing in shark-infested waters with multiple open wounds on his legs, because fuck sharks. A real man bar-b-ques in the snow while wearing his favorite pair of Hawaiian shorts, because weather-appropriate attire, like sound financial investments, is for pussies.
If you’re a real man, then it’s time to gamble on some mixed martial arts. If not, make sure to pick up a box of douches on your way out. Here are the betting odds for UFC 106, courtesy of Betus.com, with the main card odds for Wednesday’s WEC 44 and my half-assed analysis after the jump.
Tito Ortiz +125 vs. Forrest Griffin -155
Josh Koscheck -110 vs. Anthony Johnson -120
Phil Baroni +165 vs. Amir Sadollah -210
Karo Parisyan -110 vs. Dustin Hazelett -120
Kendall Grove +160 vs. Jake Rosholt -200
Sam Sheridan on why MMA isn’t gay
Tuesday, November 17th, 2009 by fightlinker
Everyone understands why MMA is both the most and least gay sport in the world all at the same time. You’ve got guys in their skivvies rolling around on the ground together all sweaty like, grunting and groaning as they try to force their opponent into submission. Sure, they’re not doing it for any sexual purpose, but on the gay guy boner meter, it still pops higher than anything else you’re gonna find on TV that isn’t flat out ass blasting. The Daily Beast wrote an article on MMA and homosexuality, and cleverly titled it “Is MMA Gay?” This week Sam Sheridan (who is not the guy in the above picture, I was just looking for a gayish MMA picture to go with the post) completely misses the point and tries to explain why it’s not:
Having fought and trained a little, let me assure you that there is nothing sexual going on—fighters are in survival mode, the “fight-or-flight” instinct is in full swing. It’s kill or be killed, intensely claustrophobic, and a mental and physical war of counter and bait, deception, and speed. A fighter’s grappling style reflects his body type, his temperament, his training and his thoughts, just like an artist’s. There are thousands of variations on attacks and defense, “the ground game” is hard to appreciate at first, but worth the study. Is it homoerotic? Sure, if you want it to be. But, as Freud said, sometimes a cigar is just a good smoke.
And sometimes a cigar is a presidential sex toy. It’s all in the eye of the beholder, really. Trust me people: you can’t stop gay people from sexualizing MMA any more than you can stop your girlfriend from masturbating to Georges St Pierre in the bathroom with her brush handle. Grappling is no more sexual when women are going at it, but that doesn’t stop us from regularly fantasizing about getting involved with our 25 centimeter poles. What makes you think it’s any different for people who find guys hot?
Wamma’s got a brand new belt
Tuesday, November 17th, 2009 by fightlinker
Looks like you can update WAMMA’s status from ‘Dead’ to ‘Clinging desperately to relevance’ … they showed up at last week’s Strikeforce: Fedor vs Rogers event with decals on the mat and a brand new belt. The crowns (WAMMA’s new key logo component) are pretty tacky but I like the shiny red letters - reminds me of my old lego sets. Congrats to WAMMA for doing something right … if you remember their old belt, it was a velcro monstrosity. Some belt mockery after the jump.
Strikeforce: Evolution
Tuesday, November 17th, 2009 by fightlinker
The poster for Strikeforce’s next big event in December. Not featured on the poster: ugly ass Matt Lindland, who’ll be taking on Jacare. I’m just excited to hear that Matt is capable of eating solid food again after what Vitor Belfort did to him. Here’s the lineup as per MMA Weekly MMA Junkie:
Cung Le vs. Scott Smith
Matt Lindland vs. Ronald “Jacare” Souza
Muhammed “King Mo” Lawal vs. TBA
Robbie Lawler vs. TBA
Antwain Britt vs. Scott Lighty*
Also on the same night: WEC 45 featuring Donald Cerrone and his next victim. Did you know Cerrone was dating WEC ring girl Brittney Palmer? I think someone’s way overdue for a Spank Bank.
*UPDATE* Switched the lineup from the MMAWeekly rumor lineup to MMA Junkie’s lineup since it’s less wrong.
Shirt madness!
Tuesday, November 17th, 2009 by fightlinker
Esther and Casey at All Elbows weren’t just content with taking the best MMA pictures and making the best MMA videos. They just put out their first shirt, and it’s dope too. Magical rainbow look on classy charcoal fabric, this is way better than whatever eagle / skull / random jizz splatter shirts are being pumped out by most MMA clothing manufacturers.
And if you’re in the mood for shirts, we’ve still got a few Roxanne Modafferi 63Fight shirts (’Roxy’ in Japanese means ‘63′) left and next week our long awaited Just Bleed and Ultimate Drinker shirts will be out right here at Fightlinker. Just in time for Festivus!
Brock’s gut feeling
Tuesday, November 17th, 2009 by fightlinker
Depending on who you believe, Brock Lesnar is either fighting a career-ending illness or about to head home from the hospital after a few days. What we know for certain is that the problem he’s having is with his intestinal tract, a tricky area of the body Fightlinker readers from two years ago probably already know too much about.
Those who don’t like Brock Lesnar very much can get their jollies knowing he’s probably had this fun little guy stuffed up his ass a few times. Those who are feeling bad for accusing Lesnar of being a pussy can either go the Shane Carwin route and apologize or double down and say this is just another Lesnar career flake out in disguise. While I suppose it is possible for a man with a giant dick sword on his chest to check himself into the hospital just so an army of doctors can stick all sorts of bulky equipment up his rectum, I’ll take things at face value and just assume there’s probably something wrong with him.
Now for more on diverticulitis - everyone’s best guess of what Lesnar has - here’s Fighters Only:
Abdominal pain is the most common symptom of diverticulitis, accompanied by nausea, vomiting, feeling hot while having no fever, cramping, and constipation, depending on severity of infection. Symptoms are mild in the morning and worsen throughout the day as the digestive system is put to use.
Such infections are not uncommon and doctors have vast experience of treating them, but there are a number of potentially dangerous complications. One is if an infected area - which form small ‘pouches’ - bursts open and infects the interior of the abdominal cavity. This can cause peritonitis, which is potentially fatal.
However, a general practitioner consulted by Fighters Only said it would be surprising to find that Lesnar really does have diverticulitis, as the disease is more commonly found in elderly people. While patients under 50 do present occasionally with the illness, it is a rarity in someone as young as Lesnar.
The guts are a funny thing. Sometimes all it takes is some medication and they’ll get back to semi-normal. Other times they have to cut a few feet out of that fucker, and depending on how much they have to take you could end up one of those unfortunate people with lifelong shitting issues amongst other things. And that doesn’t just mean issues when you shit. It means you having issues with shitting in your daily life all the time for the rest of your life. Fun.
Well, I guess I’ll go ahead and defend the judges again…
Tuesday, November 17th, 2009 by subo…but seriously, this is getting old. Three arguments that can be made in defense of Randy Couture’s decision win over Brandon Vera at UFC 105:
1) Draws sucks. I look at a round of a fight like I do an election - if you get 50% + one vote, guess what? You are victorious (pretend for a moment that it’s a heads-up election, no third parties - sorry, Canada). The sample size of a round in MMA is typically 300 seconds, and if I’m even going to contemplate giving a 10-10, I need to see each fighter controlling/winning about half of that. Vera was nowhere close to establishing his game plan, positional preference or prevalent skill sets for the vast majority of both rounds one and three - thus, 29-28 Couture.
2) Position matters. Having your back against the cage sucks. You’re on the defensive, fighting off the body weight of your opponent as he leans into you and works to either dirty box (which Randy does, and did, excellently) or negate your attempts to get away. The only truly neutral position, in the eyes of the judges (and specifically NOT in the eyes of jiu jitsu marks that love their guard game), is when both fighters are standing. If nothing else is occurring, position counts, and Randy dominated position for the vast majority of both rounds one and three - thus, 29-28 Couture.
3) Vera should have just won. This is slightly tongue-in-cheek (at Fightlinker? NEVAR) and personal, but I feel it has merit nonetheless. Randy Couture is 46 years old. Every fight he enters could end with him retiring at the end. His skills, while still incredible, have diminished, and he was never that great at striking to begin with. Vera wobbled Couture at the very beginning of the fight, and then - multiple times - decided to abandon his biggest strength and advantage in the course of trying to engage with a world champion Greco Roman wrestler in the clinch. Over and over again. And that’s stupid. Thus, 29-28 Couture.
And just for fun (and in shrewd anticipation of the comments), one argument that cannot be used in criticism of the decision:
1) Randy looked like shit. There were two guys in that cage, and just because you look like shit doesn’t mean you can’t or didn’t win. Sometimes, you run into situations in your life - like ‘would you rather be homeless or in your mom’s basement’ or ‘either a shit sandwich or a giant douche - your call’ - that involve choosing the lesser of two evils, and for the majority of both rounds one and three, Vera sucked even more than Randy did. Thus, 29-28 Couture.
I see the majority of the bitching about this decision coming from three sources - Vera marks, people that will find something to bitch about no matter what, and the contingent of hardcore fans that look down upon wrestling as a boring, bastardized style that doesn’t even count as a martial art, and believe that position/takedowns shouldn’t be rewarded and referees should have yellow cards and stand ups/break ups on the cage should occur more frequently. Fuck all that noise. Wrestling counts, position matters, and that’s why Randy won.
GSP talks Olympics and Anderson Silva
Monday, November 16th, 2009 by fightlinker
While Dan Hardy vs GSP isn’t exactly setting anyone’s panties on fire, there are still some big things coming up in Georges’ future that everyone should be excited about. First off, Georges is emulating Randy Couture and wants to fail to qualify for the Olympics:
“There is a big difference in me saying, ‘I want to go to the Olympic games,’ and actually going to the Olympic games. It is very hard … you have to pass through a bunch of obstacles before you get there…I’m a mixed martial artist. I like to compete not only in the sport of MMA, but I like the single sports [themselves]. I love wrestling, I love boxing … for me, I love every single [discipline] of the sport. That is why I consider myself a mixed martial artist…It’s tough. It wouldn’t be easy, but maybe we’ll see what is going to happen in London.”
Maggie Hendricks (Yahoo’s hardcore Olympics blogger) details exactly what he’ll have to do to get there:
Just qualifying your country’s weight class for the Olympics is a difficult feat. It requires the wrestler to take a top eight placing at the 2011 World Championships, win their continental championship — for GSP, it would be the Pan-American Championships — or win one of the two qualifying tournaments. How hard is that? Only one country, Russia, qualified wrestlers in every weight class for Beijing. Out of eighteen weight classes, Canada qualified ten of them in 2008.
Making Canada’s team is also a time-intensive feat. GSP would need to start with the Canadian national championships in 2011 to become part of the ladder of competitors for the Olympic Trials. After that, GSP would need to win the Canadian Olympic Trials, usually held in December of the year before the Olympics. This would tie up GSP for more than a year.
And then there’s the first rumblings I’ve heard in a while of a GSP / Anderson Silva fight sometime in the future. Whether this is 2010 future or like jetpack future, who knows. Let’s just hope by the time Georges decides he’s ready, Anderson is still fighting.
