August 23rd, 2007 by Jemaleddin Cole

For the last year or so, I’ve been get­ting back into watch­ing Mixed Mar­tial Arts (MMA) events. Whether it’s the UFC, WEC, PrideFC, Bodog­Fight, King of the Cage, or just what­ever I can find on the inter­net, I’ve really been enjoy­ing MMA, in spite of some nasty goings-​on last winter (don’t ask). I like the phys­i­cal­ity, I like the com­pe­ti­tion, and I really like the fighters.

But what really intrigues me is the tech­nique. Or rather techniques.

What a lot of the MMA naysay­ers seem to miss (prob­a­bly from having blood splashed in their eyes) is that there are an extra­or­di­nary number of tech­niques that you need to master to have a chance in MMA. Fight­ers have to know some­thing about wrestling, boxing, Brazil­ian Jiu-​Jitsu (BJJ), and muay thai to stand a chance, and any one of those can take a life­time to master.

So with that mes­sage to my non-​MMA read­ers out of the way, here are my incred­i­bly super­fi­cial picks for UFC 74: Respect.

Randy Cou­ture vs. Gabriel Gonzaga

Randy Cou­ture is the five-​time UFC cham­pion, having held belts in both the heavy­weight and light heavy­weight divi­sions. He’s also 44 years old, and not as well-​rounded or suc­cess­ful as you might expect, being mostly a striker and wrestler (though he did choke out Mike van Ars­dale), and hold­ing a record of 15-8. They call him “The Natural” and “Captain America.

Gabriel “Napao” Gon­zaga is a black belt in BJJ with lots of national and world cham­pi­onships to back it up. He has a knock­out vic­tory over Mirko “Cro Cop” Filipović, the dead­liest striker in the his­tory of MMA. But he also has a nick­name that means big nose. ‘Nuff said: Randy by decision.

Josh Koscheck vs. Georges St. Pierre

Josh “Kos” Koscheck has an impres­sive 9-1 record with a win over the pre­vi­ously unde­feated Diego Sanchez. He was the NCAA Divi­sion I cham­pion in the 174 lb after win­ning all 42 of his matches in his Junior year. He’s a four time All-​American, and three time PSAC Wrestler of the Year.

Georges “Rush” St. Pierre is a former wel­ter­weight cham­pion with wins over some of the most impres­sive fight­ers in the world: Matt Hughes, BJ Penn, Sean Sherk, Jason Miller, Frank Trigg and Karo Parisyan. But only one thing is going to decide this fight: the French Cana­di­ans incur­sions south of the border. St. Pierre by ball kicks in the second round.

Roger Huerta vs. Alberto Crane

Huerta is 4 inches taller, and a lot stronger. Crane has only 5 sen­tences in his Wikipedia writeup. Huerta wins by TKO.

Kurt Pel­le­grino vs. Joe Stevenson

Kurt Pel­le­grino has some good wins recently, but Joe’s nick­name is “Daddy.” Daddy’s look­ing for a KO in the third round.

Patrick Cote vs. Kendall Grove

Cote is another French Canuck, so he has to pro­nounce his last name “Coatay” which counts against him, but Grove goes by “Da Spyder” which makes him a douchebag. Grove will prob­a­bly win, but I refuse to sup­port that kind of self-​nicknaming. Cote by decision.

Renato Sobral vs. David Heath

Renato “Babalu” Sobral has 4 times as many fights. Babalu by sub­mis­sion in the second.

Ryan Jensen vs. Thales Leites

Ryan who? Leites because that’s a name I can remember.

Frank Mir vs. Antoni Hardonk

Frank Mir lost his heavy­weight belt after a nasty motor­cy­cle acci­dent. That may be the most mas­cu­line sen­tence ever writ­ten. Com­bined with the fact that Hardonk is a stupid name, Mir by sub­mis­sion in the second.

Clay Guida vs. Marcus Aurelio

Clay Guida scares the hell out of me. See for yourself:

Guida quickly so I don’t have to keep look­ing at him.

And to give you all a taste of MMA and espe­cially BJJ, here’s a woman kick­ing some dude’s ass:

3 Responses to “My Latest Obsession”

1. Thanks for open­ing my eyes to a world I have never noticed. Looks like a step up from the pro wrestling I watched as a grade schooler. That was so phony I can’t believe I believed any of it.

   Arm me with a shot­gun and I’ll take on the champ. ;

   — skank August 24th, 2007 at 8:10 am #

2. Depends on which champ - I wouldn’t point a shot­gun at Quin­ton “Rampage” Jack­son for all the tea in China. That guy’s likely to bite it in half.

   — Jemaleddin August 24th, 2007 at 9:03 am #

3. I watched a couple of UFC matches tonight. It reminds me of the kick­box­ing of 3o years ago. It’s inter­est­ing a far as it goes. I didn’t see anyone who would last 30 sec­onds against a young Muham­mad Ali.

   I was sur­prised by what I didn’t see. When guys were in close they were reach­ing round their oppo­nent and tap­ping him lightly on the back of the head. If you’ve ever watched real street­fight­ing like that done by the guys I went to high school with, you’d have seen a dif­fer­ent tactic. A good fore­arm smash to the throat or face in that close would just about end the fight right there.

   And I remem­ber the fight­ing my dad used to engage in. He won most often by a knock­out in the first thirty sec­onds. Mom said he got in a fight or two every time they dated. His broth­ers and his dad said that he liked fight­ing so much he’d walk into a bar and put out his cig­a­rette in the drink of the biggest guy there. Soon they were going at it hard. He was the one who walked away. When the guys he ran with got in fights they bit off noses and ears, gouged out eyes, pounded guys’ heads into the asphalt, and kicked a down man so hard he couldn’t get up because of broken ribs or bruised kid­neys.

   I don’t know if you ever noticed but he had a scar on his nose where a guy tried to bite it off. I asked him about it once. He said it was the only fight he ever reck­oned that he had lost. He put the other guy in the hos­pi­tal with sev­eral broken ribs by wrap­ping him in a bear hug and squeez­ing as hard as he could. That guy was later con­victed of mur­der­ing two people in a dis­pute and sen­tenced to death.

   Per­son­ally, I’ve never liked fight­ing, prob­a­bly because I’m pretty lousy at it. I was in a dozen fights in school and came out on top maybe three or four times. And I felt like crap whether I won or lost. Not worth it. I do like to read fic­tion and watch movies like the Bourne series with fight­ing in them even if it’s very san­i­tized com­pared to the fight­ing I saw when the gangs fought in my high school.

   Did you learn and prac­tice hand to hand combat in the AF?

   — skank August 30th, 2007 at 10:10 pm #