On Sending Out Wedding Invites: “The thing you find with weddings is it’s kind of like a landslide. Once you invite one person from one clique, you really have to invite the whole clique. So it’s hard. We tried to have a wedding with about 30 people (in Savannah, Ga.). It ended up being about 50 when it was all said and done. (We invited) a bunch of guys from Hardcore (Gym) and what not. It's in their neck of the woods. I invited a lot of my friends from Vegas in hopes they wouldn't make the trek all the way back East.”
On His Honeymoon Cut Short: “We did the honeymoon. We were actually up in King's Canyon and as we were coming down the mountain -- we can't get any signal up there -- my phone starts dinging like a machine gun and it's Dana texting, 'Call me. Call me. Call me. Call me.' Did I do something wrong? And it was just the Tito fight and I was like, 'Oh that's all? Nevermind.'”
Thursday, November 19 3:25 pm PT: After some slight misdirection in declaring Saturday’s broadcast of UFC 105 “live” -- it was actually on a several-hour tape delay from Manchester, England -- Spike and the UFC have decided that the opportune time to acknowledge the stuttered feed is when discussing how it beat November 7’s Strikeforce in the 18-49 demo.
“Emanating from a European UFC attendance record setting MEN Arena in Manchester, England, the tape delayed presentation of ‘UFC 105’ outrated the LIVE broadcast ‘CBS Saturday Night Fights’ and the Strikeforce debut of Fedor Emelianenko on Saturday, November 7 (9:00 - 11:24 PM, ET/PT) in every key male demographic,” bleated the press release. (All caps? Really?) An average of 2.9 million viewers tuned in, with 3.7 million staring agog at Randy Couture’s hold-and-mold offense against Brandon Vera.
Thursday, November 19 8:08 am PT: With a proper training camp, time to prepare, and a healthy athletic base, the heavyweight division is still the sloppiest in mixed martial arts. Absent any of those things, it can produce a prizefight so bad that you will begin to believe in the theory of relative time and space.
In pursuit of a formal career in the UFC, Jon Madsen and Brendan Schaub put on this season’s latest display of plodding, monotone fighting, which Schaub mercifully ended by landing a straight right early in the second round. (To be fair, Madsen was out-numbered: Schaub teamed with the fence to stifle some takedowns, a bold new interpretation of the rules that prompted Rashad Evans to ask why he didn’t get a point deduction.) Schaub joins Roy Nelson in the semifinals. My pulse remains steady.
Though he didn’t participate in a fight, much of Wednesday’s episode focused on Matt Mitrione staring vacantly into space and trying to explain to coaches that he might have “brain swelling.” This condition does not normally allow for the kind of casual conversation Mitrione enjoyed. More often, it demands the attention of a neurosurgeon, a tranquilizer, and a quiet room in which to drill into your skull.
Mitrione’s peers were equally unconvinced. “He’s not brain damaged,” James McSweeney announced. Considering how this cast has performed so far, he’s probably right. That kind of trauma is out of their reach.
WEC 44, which aired Wednesday on the Versus network and probably pre-empted an important rodeo meet, climaxed with an indirect example of Anderson Silva’s greatness.
Silva is entering his fourth year as middleweight champion, which is not unlike being Miss Teen USA for two decades running: It is incredibly difficult to avoid making mistakes or running into someone who can deconstruct you. Despite this negativity, Mike Thomas Brown, who defeated Urijah Faber for the featherweight title and then successfully defended it twice, was believed to have a fairly solid grip on his division. (Good wrestlers who can punch often do.) But he was not able to bully Jose Aldo, a harrowing striker that seemed bent on breaking Brown’s ribs with kicks or knees. Unable to score a takedown, it was Brown who was mounted and tenderized.
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