Saturday, August 29 2:25 pm PT: One month to go before Megan Fox hosts "Saturday Night Live," so
you've got few excuses not to check out UFC 102 "Couture vs. Nogueira,"
airing live from electric Portland, Ore., beginning at 10 p.m. ET.
Refresh this space for updates and armchair analysis.
10:00 p.m. ET -- First newsworthy notice: the live telecast is
scheduled to last until 1:30 a.m., unusual for a normally-three-hour
block. Does that mean more preliminary footage, or is my Time-Warner
affiliate full of creeps who can't tell time? Jury's out.
10:03 p.m. ET -- Maybe Oregon will sound more exciting if I use
exclamation points. Live! In! Portland! Compared to the hedonism of
Las Vegas, this is going to be a crowd of Quakers. All nipple slips
purely unintentional.
10:04 p.m. ET -- Joe Rogan talks up Randy Couture, a man in dire need
of publicity and respect.
10:05 p.m. ET -- The familiar, soothing sounds of Mike Goldberg, as
comforting as a screeching dog on fire while simultaneously dying of
rabies.
10:08 p.m. ET -- No frosted tips for Goldberg tonight. It’s like Fonzie
without the leather jacket. Brandon Vera is talking up the Krzysztof Soszynski fight. If you listen to Vera talk, you’d think he possesses
the ability to levitate; watching him in action is another matter. The
guy doesn’t exactly have a sniper’s trigger finger. Soszynski will
press the action, though.
Saturday, August 29 1:47 pm PT: 79 years: that’s how much life experience -- give or take a few months of time in the high chair -- will be on display for Saturday’s UFC 102 main event. Strip away the excess and you have 22 years of martial artistry in the cage. That’s a lot of knowledge. A shame we’ll only see 15 minutes of it.
Both Randy Couture and Antonio Rodrigo “Minotauro” Nogueira have been hypothetical opponents for one another for years. It’s a little late, but it’s better than never. And it’s a simple premise: Couture will look to clip a sluggish Nogueira on the feet, work his way inside, and trip him down to the mat; Nogueira will look to find Couture’s chin, find an arm in a scramble, or trick Couture into a ground trap. The winner will have more fuel for another heavyweight title run; the loser is likely to get a cut of revenue, a Hall of Fame plaque, and a lot of time off.
Hinges On: Couture’s top game against Nogueira’s bottom game.
Third-Party Investor: Mirko "Cro Cop" Filipovic, who seems like a natural title elimination partner if he beats “Junior” dos Santos in September.
Who Wins: As lethargic as Frank Mir made him look, Nogueira has good boxing and a minefield of a ground game. 13 years Couture’s junior, if he’s not the fresher fighter, he needs to be donated to science. A renewed Nogueira by submission.
Saturday, August 29 12:42 pm PT: Some bullet points for Saturday’s UFC 102 card and their likely counters. And yes, this is more or less playing my own Devil’s advocate. Call a doctor.
But: There’s no striking in grappling -- similar to the no-crying-in-baseball-rule; punching Nogueira leaves Couture open for a different set of problems, as well as the additional 50 lbs. of horsepower than middleweight Souza.
Demian Maia has submitted nearly everyone he’s fought.
But: Ed Herman and Chael Sonnen get trapped with the regularity of tuna; Marquardt is light years beyond Maia’s previous conquests.
Saturday, August 29 9:35 am PT: Second prize is, you’re fired.
Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira: Having observers in a barbaric, blood-soaked industry concerned for your health is never a good sign: Nogueira needs to reassure the sport he’s more a danger to others than to himself.
Marcus Aurelio: The ground specialist has dropped his last two UFC fights in one of the most stacked divisions in the sport, but picked up two wins on the regional circuit. UFC results speak loudest, though, and a poor showing might demote him back to the minors.
Nate Marquardt and Demian Maia: Neither is going anywhere, but a snooze-button win will keep Dan Henderson leading the charge against Anderson Silva’s 185 belt; a spectacular finish here might allow the winner to cut in line.
Saturday, August 29 9:34 am PT: The WEC announced on Friday through a press release that it has selected a new venue for its Oct. 10 show, which was originally scheduled for Sept. 2 in Youngstown, Ohio.
The Las Vegas-based promotion will market a live Versus-broadcasted event on a Saturday evening for the first time since being purchased by Zuffa -- the parent company of the UFC. WEC 43 will go toe-to-toe with a primetime college football game that pits SEC powerhouses Florida and LSU against one another. The game will be televised nationally on CBS.
While NCAA football rarely packs the ratings punch that the NFL delivers week in, week out, it remains a formidable opponent in the hunt for television’s most-prized demographic: men between the ages of 18 and 34.
Nogueira is like something out of children’s television -- a leather boot that talks. Active since 1999, he’s taken more physical abuse than a crash test dummy. (Watch his 2002 fight with Bob Sapp, then marvel at how he can still dress himself.) A career in the trenches seemed to have caught up with him against Frank Mir last December; he’s had the better part of the year off to gather his bearings.
He can afford a loss -- a 2-2 UFC record isn’t cause for extradition -- but he can’t afford an ugly one.
There is a fluidity and arrangement to Demian Maia's jiu-jitsu that is often found in high-level grappling tournaments but not nearly as much in MMA. This is because intricate set-ups often fall victim to their orchestrator getting punched in the eye. Maia makes it work: he manages to fight his fight, manipulating opponents like a Rubik’s Cube while avoiding trouble.
Saturday, August 29 12:51 am PT: Following record business for UFC 100 and 101, what can the world’s leading fight promotion do for a late-season encore?
Visit Portland, Oregon.
Yes.
Having exhausted three of five titleholders in its previous two summer shows (four, if you count Anderson Silva’s pillaging of Forrest Griffin) the only gold up for grabs is what you find during a prospecting trip: UFC 102 will have to make do with bouts that have consequences only for contenders -- and the highly manipulative tactic of using Oregonian Randy Couture as a feature attraction.
Saturday, August 29 12:00 am PT: KANSAS CITY, Kansas –- Muhammed “King Mo” Lawal dispatched Mark Kerr with punches just twenty five seconds into the first round of their main event bout at M-1 “Breakthrough” inside Kansas City’s Memorial Hall.
Lawal capitalized on a Kerr low kick and took the UFC and Pride veteran down, then used heavy right hands until Kerr lost consciousness, face down on the canvas.
Kerr absorbed a couple of extra shots after he was out that sent his mouthpiece flying across the ring. Kerr was unresponsive for a few worrisome moments, until he finally sat up and responded to the physicians.
In an MMA exhibition sparring contest, former Pride champion Fedor Emelianenko tapped newly crowned Strikeforce light heavyweight champion Gegard Mousasi out with an armbar.
Emelianenko, in full-gi attire, started off with a some nice throws that put the former Dream middleweight champion on that mat. Like clockwork, once the Russian had a moment of excellence, Mousasi had a reversal or sweep of his own to make the Kansas City crowd awe with excitement. Both men had their share of crowd-pleasing moves until the contest finally concluded.
