Chicks Heart Fights

As I’ve mentioned before, I will be working on February 2, thus missing UFC 81 and Brock Lesnar’s debut in the Octagon. I am so not happy about this. However - if I had to work on March 1, the night of UFC 82, I would probably just quit my job. This card, which was officially announced on Saturday at UFC 80, is too jampacked to miss.

UFC 82: MARCH 1 IN COLUMBUS, OHIO
venue: Nationwide Arena

-Anderson Silva (#1 Middleweight in the World)* vs. Dan Henderson (#3 Light Heavyweight in the World)*
-Josh Koscheck (#5 Welterweight in the World)* vs. Dustin Hazelett
-Diego Sanchez (#8 Welterweight in the World)* vs. Roan Carneiro
-Cheick Kongo (#10 Heavyweight in the World)* vs. Heath Herring
-Andrei Arlovski (#6 Heavyweight in the World)* vs. Jake O’Brien
-Luke Cummo vs. Luigi Fioravanti
-Jorge Gurgel vs. John Halverson
-Jon Fitch (#4 Welterweight in the World)* vs. TBA

The rankings are from MMA Weekly. A few of my favorites, Koscheck and Kongo are on the card, not to mention the title fight between Silva and Hendo. According to MMA Junkie’s rumor page, UFC 83 is not such a loaded card, and is just a week after after UFC 82. Does that make any sense? Why load up one card and yet leave the other one so weak, and schedule it just one week after UFC 82? Since Jon Fitch is opponentless, it would stand to reason that he would be moved back to UFC 83, but will that one week difference really help the UFC find Fitch an opponent? Before fights are announced officially, a ton of rumors tend to come out about that fight. If the UFC is holding off a major fight for 83, they sure are keeping it under tight wraps. That is a shame, because that hardly gives them the appointment-television cache of UFC 82.

You got no fear of the underdog, that’s why you will not survive! - Spoon, the Underdog

If there was any theme for last night’s fights, it was the triumph of the underdog. My man Forrest came into the fight against Shogun more ready than he has ever been. Shogun looked like he was not expecting the fight to go into the third round, and he had clearly not trained for all three rounds. Granted, he sustained a pretty bad cut, but so did Forrest. He looked exhausted for most of the third round. As for Liddell and Jardine, though Chuck is an excellent striker, he does have a better ground game than Jardine. Why not try to get him on the ground? Raise your hand if you think Chuck is done? Yeah, me too. Since he is such a striker, he takes more blows to the head than your average MMA-er. Strikers walk on the edge, and one punch too many can be catastrophic. I hope that he hasn’t fallen off the edge, and that he knows when to walk away. Kudos to Jardine for a well-fought match. After the jump, what is being said around the Web. Continue Reading »

So, that was an interesting night… I clearly couldn’t pick a fight to save my life. Winners: Fitch, Forrest, Jardine. Some thoughts for the evening: Continue Reading »