Roger Gracie vs Andrei Arlovski

Frankly one the most interesting bouts that I would like to see is Andrei Arlovski against Roger Gracie. Andrei is a solid all round guy but he has really shown that his chin can be a problem so powerful strikers lately have done well by taking advantage of this.

Roger Gracie is in my opinion the best jiu jitsu player ever and it would be exciting to see him in the ring once more. Recently he pulled out of ADCC 2009 due to illness or injury but was looking to get back in the ring in November but since then we have not heard from him.

For Roger this could be a bout that could help propel him to the top while for Andrei this could be a good way to get back in the game especially since he will almost certainly will not get knocked out this time around.

Scott Coker has recently announced that he is going to sign two more heavyweights and this matchup could go very well with the fans in my opinion. Will Andrei's hands be too much for Roger or will Roger control the ex-UFC champ and take him to the ground? This could be a very cool fight.

Strikeforce: Evolution Trailer

Strikeforce is set for the next event with Strikeforce: Evolution on December 19th.

The main card will be as follows:

Lightweight Championship unification bout: Josh Thomson (c) vs. Gilbert Melendez (ic)
Middleweight bout: Cung Le vs. Scott Smith
Middleweight bout: Ronaldo Souza vs. Matt Lindland
Middleweight bout: Robbie Lawler vs. TBA
Light Heavyweight bout: Muhammed Lawal vs. Mike Whitehead

Renato Sobral Interview, Talks About Mousasi

Where is Josh Barnett?

Josh Barnett has always been one of the best mma fighters in the world using his strong grappling abilities. After the scandal with Josh getting caught using anabolic steroids just before his Affliction fight with Fedor very little we have heard from the guy.

There was some mention of him returning to wrestling in Japan. There was some mention that maybe he could fight an MMA fight over there since there is less substances regulation over there. He also seems to have trained with Brett Rogers to prepare him for the Fedor fight he recently had for Strikeforce.

Where is he?

It looks like he is continuing to train and teach in California and took part in the 2009 California Classic BJJ Tournament 2009 where he lost by decision to Romulo Barral the BJJ World Champion and an ADCC veteran. The video I found on youtube you can see below:

Anyway Josh Barnett is a real beast and is a brutal mma warrior. check out this video with him manhandling Quinton Rampage Jackson in training.

Grappler Hall of Fame

Once every 50 or 100 years, there comes a champion so great that it is seemingly impossible to defeat him. Grappling sports have developed over decades and below are a few legends that have entered the hall of fame and will remain there for many years to come.

Judo - Masahiko Kimura

The world will never really know but most agree that Kimura was the greatest judoka that ever lived. Kimura is famous for many things. His incredible tough training is well known with training regimes averaging nine hours a day that resulted in concussion for his sparring partners. He trained by doing one thousand push-ups in a row.

At the age of only 30, the Judo legend attained 7th Dan and an unprescedented list of competition accomplishments. Today, the reverse ude-garami arm lock is commonly known as the "kimura" in the jiu jitsu and judo circles after his impressive victory of the brazilian jiu jitsu founder and champion Helio Gracie.

Sambo - Alexander Pushnitsa

Alexander is perhaps one of the greatest Sambo players that ever was having achieved more in the discipline than any other competitor throughout his exciting 20 year career span. Three years after gaining the title of master of sports he became USSR champion. His titles include 3-times World Sambo Champion (1974, 1979, 1983), 3-times World Cup winner (1977, 1980, 1987), 2-times European Champion (1976, 1984), 9-times USSR Champion (1974-1980, 1983, 1984), 7-times Russian National Champion.

Pushnitsa after becoming USSR champion in 1974 went undefeated until 1981. His trainer Vasiliy Grozin said about him "Pushnitsa is like any other fighter, just wins more often".

Freestyle Wrestling - Alexander Medved

Alexander Medved is one of the most accomplished free-style wrestlers of our time. A Soviet/Russian/Belurussian wrestler famous in his home country, he has been the first to ever win three gold medals in World Championships ever and was named the greatest freestyle wrestler of the twentieth century by FILA. He is 7x World champion and 3x European champion.

Greco-roman Wrestling - Alexander Karelin

Alexander Karelin throughout his brilliant career was the most dominant Greco-Roman wrestler of all time and universally considered so to the present day. He competed at the heaviest weight class of his day at 130kg and was known for his superhuman strength, incredible conditioning and a reverse body lift nicknamed "Karelin Lift".

Karelin's unbeaten streak was 13 years until his only defeat in the Olympic finals in 2000 to Rulon Gardner. He holds 3 Olympic gold medals (and one silver) and World Championship gold medals for every year between 1989-1999.

Jiu Jitsu and Grappling - Roger Gracie

Roger Gracie is a Brazilian Jiu Jitsu 2nd degree black belt under Carlos Gracie Jr. and perhaps the most accomplished submission fighters of all time. (and still competing) Not only has he won the BJJ World Jiu-Jitsu Championship (the Mundials) a record 8 times including 6 time in this weight class and twice at open weight but he is a multiple time ADCC Champion and the only person to submit all of his eight opponents taking Gold in his division and in the absolute.

Roger Gracie is a phenomenon that we will hear more about soon. A competitor that has proven that basic jiu jitsu fundamentals can be used to defeat even the toughest opponents.

BJJ Worlds 2009 DVD Set Out Now!

One of the most exciting events of the year for brazilian jiu jitsu practitioners is now available on DVD at BudoVideos.com. Check it out and also see trailer below!

Fedor Emelianenko vs. Brock Lesnar For Charity

The latest news in the mixed martial arts community is the proposal for Cincinnati Bengals' wide receiver Chad Ochocinco (formerly known as Chad Johnson) to fight Anderson "the Spider" Silva for charity. 

Dana White, the UFC President, has responded that he is more than open to this fighting taking place and if it does happen it could generate a great buzz for the UFC. Anderson Silva is the current middle weight champion of the UFC and is considered one of the best pound for pound fighters in the world. 

Following the Fedor Emelianenko vs. Brett Rogers fight early November, it is becoming more and more clear that the only fight left for Fedor today is Brock Lesnar. Brock Lesnar may not have the experience and technique to face the "Last Emperor" but he certainly has the UFC Heavyweight belt behind him and enormous power that many Fedor critics say will overwhelm the legend.

The big argument has always gone that Fedor Emelianenko by choosing not do join UFC following Pride demise has decided to keep his perfect record by fighting no-name fighters and wash outs that left UFC because they could not compete with the superior competition there. Tim Sylvia and Andrei Arlovski fights were given as prime examples of fighters who lost their titles and following the Fedor fight showed that their careers were at a near-end having fought awfully against no-name fighters thereafter. Strikeforce have done well to attract some of the very best in the business like Overeem and Werdum however both can be criticized for fighting weak competition or in the latter case for losing to top UFC contenders like Junior Dos Santos. It seems even obvious that the UFC division is becoming stronger with a few talented fighters entering the top-20 heavyweight rankings like Dos Santos, Carwin and Cain Valasquez. These guys are great but there is little doubt today that the current UFC heavyweight champ is seen as the greatest threat to Fedor and could be the last question left unanswered.

Now I don't like this Gary "Jerry" Millen either that joined M1-Global and is part of Fedor's entourage but his point is great. Fedor Emelianenko should fight Brock Lesnar and if the UFC want this fight then they should organize it for free together with M1. No promotional tricks, advertising or any other crap. Of course stakes are high but then Dana White tells us that he is a real mixed martial arts fan. Let's do it because after all it should not be about the money all the time. We can watch this fight on DVD and enjoy it as one of the greatest fights of all time. The fans deserve it because they were the ones that made all this possible in the first place. 

Perhaps the Most Exciting Event of 2009

Last weekend we witnessed one of the most exciting line-ups in mixed martial arts better known as MMA. Strikeforce have managed to do a good job here and despite watching an edited Russian version of the tournament, I have to say the fights were brilliant.

Here are some of my comments on the fights and then on the show itself.

Gegard Mousasi vs. Thierry Sokoudjou - nice fight where Gegard's standing skills were just too much for his opponent. It frankly looked like Sokoudjou was having a really tough time throwing any kind of punch against the talented striker and in the end the result was predictable, TKO, as expected, should have put some money on Gegard here.

Fabricio Werdum vs. Antonio Silva - Fabricio is a very talented jiu jitsu fighter and was able to show his skills in the match but was unable to submit "Big Foot" Silva who has a black belt in jiu jitsu himself. The first round was certainly Silva's, who showed some superior striking ability and counter punching but the second and third rounds were Fabricio's. I especially enjoyed some of his muay thai knees to the head Fabricio tried to deliver. A very close decision win for Werdum in my opinion that does nothing to justify him fighting Fedor in his next bout at least.

Jake Shields vs. Jason "Mayhem" Miller - both guys are actually great on the ground and although shields was given such great odds, I think we all saw that at some point Miller nearly executed a nice rear naked choke on Shields (who was saved by the end of the round). His title fight for the middleweight Strikeforce belt was basically a submission grappling match and it was sad to see Miller not being able to execute his stand up kick boxing skills. In the end, after five exhausting rounds in the cage, Shields dominated with takedowns and grappling and that earned him the decision in the end.

Brett Rogers vs. Fedor Emelianenko - every fight with Fedor is exciting to watch whether it is a grappling or stand up battle. No one can really predict what will happen. Everyone was saying that Fedor would win by submission but there you go.

Brett Rogers looked relatively solid with his big punches, ground and pound and defending himself on the ground from submissions. I think it was also visible that Rogers was able to use his size advantage but Fedor's ability to overcome that was also obvious. The first round was tough on Fedor. Rodgers managed to cut and possibly break Fedor's nose in the opening punch. Blood was everywhere which prevented Fedor from breathing through his nose (no good if you are fighting in an MMA tournament no doubt). In the second, Fedor was able to evade some nasty ground and pound (while to be fair getting hit as well) and with a nice overhand right took Rodgers down and followed up with further strikes to the head of a grounded opponent. TKO for Fedor after a powerful punch to Rodgers who was expecting a takedown from the Sambo legend.

Fedor Emelianenko keeps his perfect record and has added further to his legend. Despite injuring his hand and getting his nose broken, he was able to show that he is still the number 1heavy weight in the world.

The production, at least the Russian edited one was horrible though. I have not seen the CBS version, but the version I saw should be rated as less than poor. (it was Pay Per View and live, not some cheap recording)

You probably would not even know that Strikeforce was organizing nearly the entire thing if you saw it. A ton of M1-Challenge flashbacks from Feb 2009 where no name fighters met were shown throughout the tournament. Instead of letting us hear about the fighters that we are going to see, they showed us over and over no-name fighters from M1. It was ridiculous. The under card was completely ignored. Did not get to see the entrances (apart from Miller's and that was criticized but idiot commentators), did not hear any comments about their past accomplishments. The Russian commentator at some point actually said that he has never seen Jason "Mayhem" Miller fight and does not know anything about him. Terrible! I would just love it if Fedor ditched that Finkelstein and his M1 cronies.

Great fights but poor promotion. Would love to hear some comments about what the CBS show was like.

Watch Fedor vs Rodgers this Saturday

For those of you living in Russia, watch Strikeforce's Fedor vs Brett Rogers live on Sunday at NTV Plus PPV

In US my understanding is that the fight will air on CBS and in the UK on Bravo (bu

This is going to be the event of the year with the most stacked card this year including Fedor Emelianenko, Gegard Mousasi and Fabricio Werdum.

Also keep an eye out on Fight Camp 360: Fedor vs Rodgers that is supposed to air tomorrow on Showtime.

Enjoy!:)

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