Updated: UFC 103 Headliners Announced

On July 31, 2009, Dana White made a couple of annoucements.  The first affected this fight card.

Vitor Belfort has been signed with the UFC and he will take Hendo’s spot against Rich Franklin for the fight.  The fight will happen in the 205 pound bracket.

For the UFC’s return to Texas, the promotion is not fooling around with its card. Not only is the undercard sick, but the recently announced Main Event card is looking nice.

Here are the announced fights for the September 19, 2009 event:

Main Event: Rich Franklin vs. Vitor Belfort
Mirko Cro Cop vs. Junior Dos Santos

Under Card: Mike Swick vs. Martin Kampmann
Efrain Escudero vs. Cole Miller
Josh Koscheck vs. Frank Trigg
Tyson Griffin vs. Hermes Franca
Drew McFedries vs. Tomasz Drwal

UFC 103 Headliners Announced

For the UFC’s return to Texas, the promotion is not fooling around with its card. Not only is the undercard sick, but the recently announced Main Event card is looking nice.

Here are the announced fights for the September 19, 2009 event:

Main Event: Rich Franklin vs. Dan Henderson II
Mirko Cro Cop vs. Junior Dos Santos

Under Card: Mike Swick vs. Martin Kampmann
Efrain Escudero vs. Cole Miller
Josh Koscheck vs. Frank Trigg
Tyson Griffin vs. Hermes Franca
Drew McFedries vs. Tomasz Drwal

Ortiz and White Make Up

According to news from Dana White’s twitter, he and Tito Ortiz have made up. BFF’s? Probably not, but White had this to say:

“Yes tito and I made up…” “…Doesn’t mean he’s back it means we aren’t smashing each other anymore and we don’t hate each other.”

Will Tito be back in the UFC? Who knows? But it seems the most likely choice since Strikeforce likely won’t shell out the bucks and Tito doesn’t like fighting outside the States.

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Ring girl Arianny Celeste video after UFC 100

Arianny discusses UFC 100, worthy of a watch!

Watch Arianny Celeste: UFC Needs Brock Lesnar on RawVegas.tv

UFC 100 Recap

Questions answered I’d say.

Each of the UFC 100’s main cards went as many believed they should. Here’s a rundown of the fights in order of awesome (from least to most):

5. Georges St. Pierre vs Thiago Alves

A fight that was supposed to be St. Pierre’s biggest test of his career turns out to be another display of dominance similar to the B.J. Penn fight minus the vaseline.

In each round, St. Pierre took the bigger fighter down with ease, working him on the ground. Alves was never able to get any of consequence going in the fight, but displayed impressive strength on conditioning by continually exploding from under St. Pierre to get back to his feet.

Each round the story was the same. Alves would close in to try and get something going, and GSP would take him to the canvas. After a minute or so on the ground, Alves would fight back to his feet. Alves had no answer for GSP on the ground, and thus, the match was destined to be St. Pierre’s.

At one point in the third round, St. Pierre apparently strained his groin, but it was not very apparent in the fight as he was still able to do control Alves in the following two rounds.

St. Pierre wins all five rounds by unanimous decision.

Will a real challenger please stand up?

4. Yoshihiro Akiyama vs. Alan Belcher

Belcher looked really good in this fight. He was landing strong, painful leg kicks that were taking their toll early against the smaller Akiyama. Each fighter landed blows to the other, Belcher’s appeared to be the more damaging as he appeared to rock Akiyama a couple of times during the Japanese star’s debut UFC match.

At one point, Belcher caught Akiyama with a left-hook that dropped him, but Akiyama was up quickly revealing that he was just caught in bad position. Akiyama began to feel Belcher out a bit at the end of the second round, catching a kick and taking him to the ground. Once on the ground though, he could not do any real damage and actually gave Belcher an opening for an omplata. Akiyama escaped right before time expired.

The beginning of round 2 began with Belcher being tripped to the canvas and Akiyama working from side control. Akiyama was able to get in a few short right hands and then postured up, appearing to take a deep breath before slamming into Blecher’s chin with a hard right hand. As Akiyama passes to half guard, Belcher escapes and the fight returns to the feet. Akiyama begins checking the time, appearing to be a bit fatigued. Belcher ends the round with a decent combination of kicks and a right hand.

Round 3 sees Belcher zeroing in on Akiyama’s leg again and has closed up the eye of Akiyama. With the eye closed, it was only a matter of time before Belcher went for the head kick from Akiyama’s blind side. Akiyama knew this, too, and was able to duck under the kick when it came and countered the kick with a right hand. There was another short exchange, with Belcher landing a decent right and the round ended Akiyama throwing Belcher to the canvas.

Akiyama was out-pointed Belcher on the cards and took the split decision and let his emotions flow as he fell to the canvas in celebration when the winner was announced.

3. Jon Fitch vs Paulo Thiago

This fight would have been a fight that a casual MMA fan would not have liked. However, to the experienced fan, the positioning changes and countering between a good wrestler in Fitch and a good BJJ Black Belt in Thiago was great.

This was as close to a chess match inside the octogan as you could have gotten. Each of the fighters waiting for the other to make that one little mistake to capitalize on. This appeared to happen early in the first round when Fitch took Thiago down and wound up in an arm-in guillotine. The guillotine was tight, but Thiago had Fitch in his butterfly guard and could not get enough crank on it to put him out. Fitch stayed calm and was eventually able to escape the guillotine. Fitch then was able to transition to Thiago’s back and Thiago immediately began working for a single. Fitch beat the attacks off and eventually wound up working for a kimura when time ran out in the first round.

The second round saw quite a bit of the same with the fighters clinched against the cage. Fitch eventually slams Thiago to the mat, and begins working on from Thiago’s back. Thiago tries to slide Fitch off, but eventually wound up with Fitch working a rear naked choke as time expired.

Fitch starts the third with a takedown and winds up with Thiago’s back after a scramble. Thiago again turtles up and tries to shake Fitch, but Fitch gets double hooks and turns Thiago and gets the mount. Thiago rolls over giving Fitch his back again and was able to stand. Another scramble sees Thiago going for an anaconda, but Fitch was able to fight it off. Fitch gets Thiago’s back again and this time locks in a body triangle. Fitch begins landing punches and begins trying to snake his arm under Thiago’s chin for the choke, but time runs out on him again.

Fitch won a unanimous decision in this chess match.

2. Dan Henderson vs. Michael Bisping

Only number two on the list because it was not a championship fight, this was the fight that made UFC 100 for me. All of Michael Bisping’s trash talking throughout the ninth run of the Ultimate Fighter and the build up for this fight was about to explode. And by explode, I mean in the form of Hendo’s loaded right hand.

Round one saw Bisping doing what he normally does: dipping in for a quick combination and bouncing out and circling to his left. Henderson’s right. Anyone else see a problem with this picture? Henderson continued to stalk Bisping from the center of the ring, occasionally throwing a punch meant to shut Bisping’s mouth. Bisping proved to be a bit elusive darting in and landing jabs that do not phase Henderson. Near the end of the round, Henderson pins Bisping against the cage and begins landing some good knees to the body. Then the unthinkable happens: Bisping tries for a takedown. Henderson stuffs it and smiles and gets in a hard right before the time expires.

Naturally, Bisping’s corner is livid with their fighter. He gets scolded for circling to Henderson’s power. Bisping seems to blow it off by yelling back “I know!” at his corner. Apparently, he didn’t know.

The second round begins much like the first with Bisping jumping in for jabs and bouncing back out and circling to his left. Bisping has seemingly gone around the cage a hundred times circling Hendo. This time he comes in and connects a right hand and as he is bouncing out, Henderson lets a world-ender fly. Slow motion revealed Bisping’s head swiveling back almost 180 degrees from the punch. He drops, out cold. Henderson, caught up in the moment and maybe feeling a little angry, throws a right hand/forearm to the downed Bisping before the fight is stopped.

Bisping’s smack talk earned him a nap on the canvas and Henderson gets the win.

Will Henderson get another shot at Anderson Silva now?

1. Brock Lesnar vs. Frank Mir

Lesnar wanted revenge and called Mir’s belt a fake. Mir said he had surprises for Lesnar and that Lesnar cried “Uncle!” Thus, the Heavyweight Championship fight was underway.

Mir, though confident, could not manage to do anything with the behemoth Lesnar.

Lesnar and Mir wound up on the mat with Mir looking for a kneebar early and Lesnar stuffs it. Lesnar gets top position and smothers Mir, controlling his arms and letting his heavy hands fly to Mir’s face. These are not the “annoying” punches Mir described. These are the full blown cocked and fired cannons. Mir eventually works to get his head free and tries for a submission of some sort on Lesnar’s left arm. This only opened him up for more as Lesnar rained some more punches to Mir’s already busted face.

Round two: Lesnar takes Mir down, but decides to let him up. This almost appeared to be a mistake, as Mir attacks immediately landing some nice strikes. Lesnar presses Mir to the cage and Mir lands a couple of nice knees. The second a flying knee a-la Urijah Faber, as Lesnar had Mir’s left leg locked. This knee rocked Lesnar, but he managed to take Mir down with him and land on top of him. Lesnar recovered and worked Mir into the cage. By worked, I mean he punched Mir’s head into the cage. Brutal punches landed until Herb Dean stopped the fight.

After the fight, Lesnar greeted fans boos with middle fingers and egged them on saying “I love it! Keep it going!” Lesnar proceeded to take cracks at Mir, Bud Light and saying that he was going to mount his wife.

Let’s hope he treats her better than he did Mir.

Lesnar-Mir 2: Who will win?

Lots of talk surrounding Saturday’s rematch between a more experienced Brock Lesnar and a revitalized Frank Mir.

Lesnar has no doubt been working on his ground game and escape ability with Greg Nelson. Mir has improved his striking considerably, evidenced by his fight the Nogueira.

So the question remains: who will walk out of the Octagon with the unified UFC Heavyweight Champion belt?

Let’s put it in perspective a little. Brock Lesnar (3-1) has won each of his fights following his Octagon debut against Frank Mir (12-3) in stunning fashion. He rolled Heath Herring backwards with a single punch and bulldozed him just after, leaving no question as to his speed or strength. Most recently, he defeated then-champion Randy Couture by TKO in the second round of their title match.

Now for Mir. He has been continuing is training with Robert Drysdale’s (Brazilian Jiu-Jistu) and Ken Hahn’s (Striking Unlimited) camps in Las Vegas for the upcoming fight. His first signs of life was during his submission victory over Antoni Hardonk. Then during The Ultimate Fighter’s Coaches Fight for the Interim Heavyweight Championship belt, he showed striking ability that he has never shown. Not only did he beat Nogueira, he beat him easily, stopping him with strikes in the second round. This was the first time Nogueira had been stopped in his career.

What does all this mean? Well, the fight could either end quickly with Lesnar flooring Mir with his superior punching power. Or, this could end a little less quickly with Mir snagging Lesnar in another submission. Popular belief is that the longer the fight goes on, the better Mir’s chances.

Guess we’ll see on July 11 who wants it more, eh?

UFC 100 Odds Released! Who will win?!

Here is the line for UFC 100 :