Chicks Heart Fights

Randy Couture, the UFC veteran who hasn’t fought in a year due to a temper tantrum, will return to the UFC against Brock Lesnar, who has two UFC fights to his credit. The fight will headline UFC 91 in November, and is set to be announced at a press conference today.

This brings up so many questions. By November, Randy will have been out of the Octagon for 14 months. I still happen to think that Randy is one of the best fighters on the planet, but he hasn’t trained for a fight in a long time. Before that, he won fairly easily over Gabriel Gonzaga. He hasn’t really been challenged since he won over Tim Sylvia in March 2007. Will he be rusty? Will he be sluggish in the first round?

For Lesnar, this is an opportunity of a lifetime. His fight over Heath Herring showed that he can win but he still has a long way to go. If he can pull out a win over Couture, it will catapult him to title contention. Couture, on the other hand is in a lose-lose situation. If he wins, it will be what is expected and he won’t really regain legitimacy until he beats Nog, or hope of all hopes, Fedor. If he loses, his year-long holdout will look really stupid, and will taint his MMA legacy forever.

Hot fights. Hot men. Hot month. There is no other way to describe UFC 87 than hot. I’ve been elbow-deep in the Olympics, yet I still can’t escape the heat permeating from Minneapolis, Minn. for this weekend’s event.  HOT.

Let’s get out the cold compresses and dive in:

Champ Georges St. Pierre vs. Jon Fitch (for welterweight title)

GSP has looked unstoppable in his last three fights. Jon Fitch has been the next big thing for a while now, but considering how top-heavy welterweight is, this is his biggest test. Unfortunately, it’s a test he will fail. GSP’s ground game and vicious kicks will win out.

Brock Lesnar vs. Heath Herring

Brock Lesnar is quite skilled at picking things up quickly. His first fight with Mir made the kind of mistakes that only a beginner would make. (Or a dumb veteran.) Even though Herring won over Cheick Kongo, I’m still not impressed. I think this will be Lesnar’s first win in the UFC.

Kenny Florian vs. Roger Huerta

Speaking of hotness - I need to crank the AC up for this one. This has the potential for fight of the year. Both fighters go nonstop, and are technically sound. The match-up is about as perfect as it gets. I have to pick my man Roger, because, well, he’s Roger. A gal’s gotta follow her heart.

Rob Emerson vs. Manny Gamburyan

Jason MacDonald vs. Demian Maia

Luke Cummo vs. Tamdan McCrory

Dan Evensen vs. Cheick Kongo

Jon Jones vs. Andre Gusmao

Steve Bruno vs. Chris Wilson

Ben Saunders vs. Ryan Thomas

What the web is saying…

Cage Potato 

Bloody Elbow

I hope you are all enjoying your Memorial Day. Me? I’m on my eighth straight episode of Law and Order on TNT, and there is not much chance of me changing the channel. I have a bunch of different items for your reading pleasure today.

From Combat Lifestyle. I wonder if Roger and Kenny are letting us know how their fight is going to turn out.

Leftovers from UFC 84: Michael David Smith enlightens us on the sights and sounds of a UFC event from Octagon-side. Also, Ben Goldstein from Cage Potato is not going to die from drinking ipecac. Good to hear that you’ll keep living, Ben!

If the Chaos That is UFC 85 wasn’t enough for you, UFC 87 has had a few changes, too. Mark Coleman is injured, so he will not be fighting Brock Lesnar; Heath Herring will be. Georges St. Pierre vs. Jon Fitch has been added as the main card, and Clay Guida will fight Mac Danzig. Add that to a card that already has Florian-Huerta, and Dan Evenson vs. Cheick Kongo-this gal is getting dizzy just thinking about it.

This weekend is MMA’s debut on network primetime: EliteXC on CBS. I plan to write more later this week, and liveblog the event, but I wanted to share this in the meantime. Kimbo Slice was hoping to advertise for Reality Kings on his shorts. Reality Kings brings us such wonderful sites as Milf Hunter, Round and Brown and We Live Together. (Sorry, not linking to them.) CBS said no dice, and it was the completely right move by CBS. Though advertising for the parent company might not break FCC standards, it’s still not the best idea to have MMA linked to pornography in its first time available to the masses for free.

Finally, if you haven’t stopped by Adam Frey’s blog recently, check it out and give Adam some words of encouragement. Despite good news about the size of his tumor, the daily grind of chemotherapy is starting to wear on him, and some d-bags think that it’s a good idea to leave messages saying that he is going to die. Not cool. Let Adam know that you’re cheering for him.

- The Fighting Life asks why the UFC feels the need to manufacture rivalries between fighters. This seems a little more pro wrestling than UFC, and I’m not really a fan of the tactic. I enjoy some back story from time to time when watching a fight, but the main thing that I want to see is two guys who have trained really hard try to win by any (legal) means necessary.

- No Holds Barred has a podcast interview with one of my favorite US wrestlers, Mo Lawal. The sound quality isn’t the greatest, but Mo is always entertaining. Mo talks about his aspirations for MMA, his quest for Olympic Gold, etc. (Full disclosure, Mo is a friend of mine, and I will do back handsprings if he wins Olympic Gold.) In my opinion, Mo will easily make the transition into MMA due to his athletic wrestling style, and his previous experience with boxing. He will need to work hard on BJJ, but I don’t think he’ll have a problem with it.

- Steve Mocco and Damion Hahn both won the Medved in Belarus. Hahn defeated Lawal in the finals.

- Before I give you some links on Brock Lesnar signing with the UFC, I will give you my take. I first saw Brock Lesnar wrestle at an open tournament at Nebraska, and he is the most muscular man I have ever seen in person. I have spent my life around sports, and have been around countless wrestlers, football players, baseball players, basketball players (not that muscles ever really weigh them down), and Lesnar is the muscle head champion of them all. The thing that always surprised me about watching him wrestle for Minnesota is that his size never weighed him down, and he was a fast, agile heavyweight. I am very interested to see how powerful his punches are, and how he will handle being hit. Leland Rolling of UFC Daily believes that he Brock will make an immediate impact on the heavyweight division, and here is UFC Mania’s take. MMAScoops.com reports that Brock Lesnar’s first fight could be with Brad Imes. I don’t know if that’s the best fight to make Brock Lesnar a star. Imes matches up well with Lesnar’s size, and has some decent BJJ. I doubt that Imes would win because he couldn’t defend against Lesnar’s takedown, but I don’t think that this fight would be the dominating win that the UFC may want out of Lesnar in his first fight.