Friday, January 8 2:59 pm PT: The Sherdog Radio Network's new-look roundtable convened for the first time in 2010 on Friday. TJ DeSantis returned to his position as chairman, and was joined by myself, Sherdog's chief blogger Jake Rossen and Fight! magazine's Danny Acosta.
The panel broke down both of the forthcoming Zuffa cards: Sunday's WEC 46 in Sacramento, headlined by the lightweight title bout between Jamie Varner and Benson Henderson, and Monday's UFC "Fight Night" bill in Fairfax, Virginia, main evented by a clash of "The Ultimate Fighter 5" alumni in Gray Maynard and Nate Diaz.
Will Urijah Faber and Mike Thomas Brown get back into the win column at 145? Varner or Henderson? What unbeaten UFC prospect earned an emphatic clean sweep from the panel? Who will emerge victorious Monday night in Virginia, and will they usurp Frank Edgar as the leading candidate to challenge for B.J. Penn's throne?
Find out by downloading the roundtable here. here.
Friday, January 8 2:03 pm PT: The new edition of the PVT Mag is even more interesting than the first one. This volume takes a look back at the most controversial fight of 2009: Lyoto Machida vs. Mauricio Rua.
Gleidson Venga and I went to Curitiba and did a long interview with “Shogun,” who attacked the Brazilian MMA media and promised an even better performance in the rematch. After the interview in Curitiba, we spent three days with the Machida clan in Belém. In the most polemical report of the magazine, Yoshizo Machida (the father of Lyoto), revealed his desire to see a fight between his son and Anderson Silva, and discussed the possibility that Shogun has found the weak point of
Machida Karate.
The first edition from 2010 also brings an exclusive interview with MMA
coach Marco Jará, who was barbarously murdered on Dec. 22. In the second
edition of relics you can see unpublished pictures of WVC 3, the
historical debut of Mark Kerr in MMA, where he defeated Mestre Hulk, Paul Varelans and Fabio Gurgel in the same night. Click here to read the full online magazine and also check out www.pvtmag.com.
Friday, January 8 1:21 pm PT: As of January 2010, 42 states permit professional mixed martial arts contests: none have sunk into seas of fire, brimstone, and agonizing pain. (Exception: New Jersey.) So why is West Virginia still lighting torches?
According to the State Journal, lawmakers could potentially introduce a bill regulating the sport on Jan. 13 -- but it would come over the simpering of athletic commission chairman Steve Allred.
"Cutting off someone's oxygen supply until they pass out...It's no way a sport," he told the paper. “It is assault and battery."
Allred has just described the sport of Judo, the kind of assault and battery that can win you a medal in the Olympics. You can tell he’s not a detail kind of guy.
(More bizarre: Delegate Jeff Eldridge, a proponent of legalization, allegedly tried to get a bill passed that would ban Barbie dolls because of their sexist subtext. That’s some varied thinking.)
In hypocrisy typical of this type of moral outrage, West Virginia has no issue with Toughman, a completely heinous spectacle that’s known to pit couch slugs against semi-athletic types in hayseed brawls. I’ve seen more technique in people falling down stairs. What does it take for the light bulb to come on?
Friday, January 8 3:20 am PT: You will not see anything quite as unsettling this weekend as watching this footage of Randy Couture getting a virtually flawless cast made of his head and shoulders at Amalgamated Dynamics, a special effects house credited with busts and models for corpulent Hollywood features. It’s so dead-on that it’s practically repulsive. (There’s a term for that: “uncanny valley,” the natural recoil against something lifeless that mimics human expression or behavior. It’s one of many reasons you should not watch “The Polar Express.”)
According to Amalgamated’s Alec Gillis, the reason for making a Couture bust was simple enthusiasm. “I'm a big fan of MMA, and Randy Couture in particular, as are a few of our artists here at my studio,” he says. “It's an updating of ancient Greek and Roman portrait busts of wrestlers and gladiators using modern materials.” Gillis gifted the bust to Couture, but plans to field interest on a series of Hall of Fame replicas for the UFC’s use or for mass production.
On my bookshelf? No. I still get houseguests from time to time. In a UFC “Hall of Immortals,” as Gillis envisions? In Las Vegas, it would be right at home.
