Tuesday, June 16 9:11 pm PT: Sarah Kaufman (9-0) is looking forward to her six extra minutes.
The 23-year-old Canadian striker faces Shayna Baszler (9-5) for Strikeforce this Friday at the ShoWare Center in Kent, Wash., knowing she won’t get jipped on time.
Strikeforce announced Tuesday that both the Washington and California athletic commissions had greenlit Kaufman’s and another upcoming women’s bout to be contested with five-minute rounds.
California had instituted three-minute round protocol in 2006 for all fighters with five fights or less on their ledger. However, the abbreviated round seemed to stick with the women despite their growing records, and the practice even spread to other states.
Tuesday, June 16 5:06 pm PT: Darling editor Joe Hall was an intrepid soul earlier and put up the CompuStrike tallies from Saturday's Wanderlei Silva and Rich Franklin bout. While it's nice to find another sane person who scored the bout 30-27 like myself, providing CompuStrike statistics is not unlike being eight when your parents went to the supermarket. Imagine being gripped by the excitement of what sugary possibilities existed in those bags, only to find that your mother had purchased a cereal called Fruity Hoops which was make of equal parts asbestos and lye.
Thankfully, I'm here to be the good parent.
Rami Genauer, the brains behind FightMetric, has a fuller and more revealing look at the numbers behind Franklin-Silva. While I've long been dubious of numbers and their place in understanding MMA, FightMetric is as good as it gets when it comes to reflecting the real kernel of truth in an MMA bout.
If CompuStrike is like arithmetic, FightMetric is like having sex with the T.A. from your 3000-level Stats class. I mean that in the best way possible.
Note from Hall to Breen: I'm leaving that typo in your post. Dummy.
Tuesday, June 16 10:59 am PT: T.J. Grant will not participate in “The Ultimate Fighter 9” finale Saturday at the Pearl inside the Palms Resort in Las Vegas. Opponent Rory Markham has withdrawn from their welterweight contest due to injury.
Grant’s coach and manager, Scott MacLean, confirmed that no replacement would be called upon in the remaining five days and that his Canadian upstart hoped for a summer return
Tuesday, June 16 8:00 am PT: The WEC 125-pound division is still months away. Fortunately for fight freaks, Shooto promoters have quality flyweight action covered for the summer.
Leading Shooto promoter Sustain announced Monday that flyweight kingpin Shinichi "BJ" Kojima would take on unbeaten Brazilian Jucie Formiga on July 19 at the Korakuen Hall in Tokyo. Though Kojima's Shooto world 123-pound title will not be up for grabs, it is nonetheless a high stakes affair, pitting the Shooto world champion against the Shooto South American champion with flyweight supremacy on the line.
In March, the 30-year-old Kojima made the third defense of his Shooto world title against action-oriented Yuki Shoujou, and turned in arguably the most consummate performance of his entire career en route a third-round choke-out of his opponent.
Tuesday, June 16 12:22 am PT: Rich Franklin outworked Wanderlei Silva at UFC 99, according to CompuStrike’s numbers.
The former UFC middleweight champion landed 91 out of 192 strikes for 47 percent compared to Silva’s 62 of 199 for 31 percent. CompuStrike also had Franklin landing more power punch/elbow strikes (58) than Silva (35) and more kicks during the 15-minute fight, which was fought mostly on the feet.
Franklin took a unanimous decision on the scorecards, but there has been some disagreement over the call.
On one viewing, I had all three rounds for Franklin, though I wouldn’t argue for long with someone saying Silva took the second. He hurt Franklin in that period, and for a moment had him engaging in precisely the kind of firefight Silva lives for. But Franklin recovered, and Matt Hume reminded him between rounds to throw two shots and get out of there, two and out. Franklin listened, got back down to the business of circling out after throwing and won the fight.
