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« | Home | »

Heat-up for UFC 76

By Zach Arnold | September 21, 2007

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First, more bad news for boxing fans.

Mark Cuban made an appearance on The Mike Tirico Show Friday to talk about UFC and MMA (starting at the 15 minute mark – audio here).

Here is a report claiming that Pennsylvania Senator Arlen Specter gave Jenna Jameson and Tito Ortiz a tour of The White House.

All the fighters made weight in Anaheim.

The Canadian Press talking about Dana White on Chuck Liddell:

UFC president Dana White reckons Chuck (The Iceman) Liddell fell victim to a “rock-star lifestyle” when he lost his light-heavyweight title to Quinton (Rampage) Jackson in May at UFC 71.

Show previews: Bloody Elbow | Fox Sports (video) | Yahoo Sports | Steve Sievert | MMA Analyst | F4W Online | MMA Madness | The LA Times | The Houston Chronicle | The Washington Post | The Edmonton Sun | The Oregonian

Steve Cofield radio interviews: Chuck Liddell | Forrest Griffin | Kenny Florian | Greg Jackson | Nate Quarry | Keith Jardine

Onto today’s other headlines.

Dan Lauzon won his fight in 14 seconds on Friday night for World Championship Fighting.

  1. Hawaii Business: Fight Club – MMA goes from rebel sport to money maker
  2. Sherdog: Gary Shaw speaks at Cage Rage 23 weigh-ins
  3. The Dayton Daily News (OH): Rich Franklin goes all-out training for title shot
  4. CBS Sportsline: Gracie’s Pitbulls hold on for IFL team championship
  5. The Sun (UK): Matt Hughes – Serra is a bad example
  6. TV Week: Sugar Ray Leonard breaks down boxing and the UFC
  7. The Chicago Sun-Times: Big name Randy Couture backs local gym
  8. The Cincinnati Enquirer: One month to go for Rich Franklin
  9. The Richmond Review (Canada): Richmond could be ultimate fighting turf
  10. The Columbia Missourian: Cage fighters brawl at Battle of the Blue Note III
  11. The Independent (UK): Fight the good fight – preacher who knows more than most about Bible-bashing
  12. Doghouse Boxing: Tito Ortiz thinking in the long-term

Topics: Boxing, HDNet, IFL, Media, MMA, UFC, UK, Zach Arnold | 36 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |

36 Responses to “Heat-up for UFC 76”

  1. pauli says:

    that richmond review ain’t va.

  2. 45 Huddle says:

    I am excited for the UFC card tonight even with a horrible main event. The more video I watch on this Liddell/Jardine fight, the more I just could care less. Let’s put it this way…. I care more to see the IFL Team Finals on Monday then Liddell/Jardine. And I already know the results of those fights.

  3. catch says:

    I think Forrest will shock the world tonight. Also, I find it interesting that the IFL stock hit a 52 week low yesterday after the reasonably successful finals. I have no idea what the investors were expecting to happen, but for that matter I don’t know what compelled them to invest in the first place.

  4. AS says:

    I have a UFC 76 Business Preview at:

    http://mmapayout.blogspot.com/

  5. Jeremy (not that Jeremy) says:

    I think Jardine is going to beat the piss out of Chuck.

    But I’m basing that on the same sort of thinking that lead everyone to believe that GSP was going to lose his comeback fight too, so who knows.

  6. 45 Huddle says:

    I do think Liddell has gotten old and will not be world champion again. When a striker gets old, it typically doesn’t happen gradually. However, I’m not sure Jardine is the guy to expose him. I think there are more then a few who can.

  7. Bryan says:

    Uh, didn’t Rampage already expose Chuck?

  8. Grape Knee High says:

    Re: Jardine/Liddell

    I wouldn’t be surprised to see this go to a decision the same way Liddell/Belfort did. Liddell is a counterpuncher, and Jardine has always seemed calculating so I don’t think he’ll take the fight to Liddell the same way that Rampage does. If Jardine is careful, stays out of range and uses his leg kicks effectively, I think he’ll be able to steal a win. If they start brawling, that will be a bad sign for Jardine.

    Re: Griffin/Shogun

    I think the key to this fight is if Shogun can get in tight and use his clinch to take Griffin down. If Shogun has trouble taking Griffin to the ground, I smell an upset. I think it’s a bad sign when Shogun states that he has no gameplan for this fight, especially against a guy that’s being coached by Couture, the king of gameplans.

    A few notes on Griffin: The guy is huge. He implied in a radio interview on Thursday that he was cutting from 230-235 the day before weigh-ins. He’ll have a definitive height, weight and reach advantage. Whether he has a strength advantage remains to be seen. Another note, if this fight comes down to cardio, I think Griffin will win. I don’t think Shogun’s gas tank is as good as everyone else thinks it is. I also thought Shogun looked a bit soft at the weigh-ins (compare and contrast to how he looked in his fight against Rampage). For what reason, I won’t speculate, but he hardly looked like the “large LHW” everyone talks about. He looked like he could cut to 185 yesterday, the same as when he was younger when he first broke into PRIDE.

    My heart wants Shogun to win, but my head is screaming upset. I hope I’m wrong.

  9. Jeremy (not that Jeremy) says:

    I think Forest is going to go out there, he’s going to take some early hits, and then he’s going to really bring it. The guy is a real life version of Brad Pitt’s character from Snatch. The more you hit him, the more he hits back. He really enjoys the experience of being in a hard fight more than probably anyone else in the UFC. In fact, a lot of the younger guys in UFC are like that, but Griffin probably more than any of them.

    I have to admit that I’m not as familiar with Shogun as I should be, I’ve seen a couple fights, but I’m still catching up on Pride (yeah yeah).

    I’ve got to pick Griffin because I’m not familiar with Rua.

    ===

    Fitch over Sanchez
    Omigawa over Wiman
    Wellish over Junk
    Stephens over Saraiva (Stephens reminds me of my cousin, so I have a rooting interest, even if it’s a tenuous one :D)
    Rumble over Clementi
    Griffin over Tavares (everyone loses eventually)
    Kaz over Machida
    And I’ve already picked Jardine over Chuck.

  10. Preach says:

    I’m also in on Forest in this one. I think he’s really going to try and prove that he does belong where he is.

    As for Chuck/Jardine – i think Chuck will win this one. He realizes that this will be more or less one of his last chances to gain another shot at the title, with Shogun, Wand and Griffin waiting.

    My predictions for the rest of the card:

    Sanchez over Fitch
    Wiman over Omigawa
    Junk over Wellisch
    Stephens over Saraiva
    Clementi over Johnson
    Griffin over Tavares
    Nakamura over Machida

  11. David says:

    don’t see forrest winning unfortuantely. you don’t lose to Ortiz and beat Shogun, sorry guys 🙁

  12. The Gaijin says:

    I’m a little worried about upset for Shogun too…but I feel like this fight is like one of those football games where everyone is calling it to be the upset of the week and then the favourite just goes out there and blows their doors off.

    Rua TKO 2nd round.

    And as for Liddell/Jardine – I agree, I just don’t think “the Dean of Mean” is the guy to ‘expose’ Liddell. His sloppy, slap punches won’t do against Liddell.

  13. Grape Knee High says:

    Gaijin, I hope you are right about Shogun!

    Did anyone else listen to Griffin’s radio interview with Steve Cofield (linked to above). If you listen starting around 7:50, Griffin tells the story of how the matchup came about. Amazingly — and I had to listen to this multiple times to make sure I was hearing what I was hearing — is that Griffin says that Shogun is “not that much better” than Jason Lambert or Wilson Gouveia.

  14. The Gaijin says:

    Wow…I hope Shogun makes him eat those words.

    Shogun is one of the PRIDE guys that never got “protected” and rarely got an easy fight. Lil Nog, Page, Overeem and Arona in 4 months and only one of them saw the final bell. He’s taken out Nak and Randleman as well – his resume is a who’s who of the 205lb division. I guess we’ll see where he stands with the UFC quite quickly – one thing is for sure: this will be a barn burner.

  15. muhr says:

    “I also thought Shogun looked a bit soft at the weigh-ins (compare and contrast to how he looked in his fight against Rampage). For what reason, I won’t speculate, but he hardly looked like the “large LHW” everyone talks about.”

    You’re right, however, the only fights that Maurucio hasn’t looked soft was against Quinton and Rogerio.

  16. Zack says:

    Anyone watching Cage Rage? Daley looked great again. Vitor fight up now…

  17. LR says:

    Cage Rage 23 results:

    Gary Turner over Julius Francis via tapout in the 2nd round.
    Vitor Belfort over James Zikic via unanimous decision.
    Paul Daley over Mark Weir via KO in 2nd round.
    Jean Silva over Chris Brennan via TKO in the 2nd round.
    20 minute Intermission before Main Card
    Tengiz Tedoradze over Mustapha al Turk via unanimous decision, defends belt.
    Xavier Foupa-Pokam over Pierre Guillet via knockout, 1st round.

  18. LR says:

    Matt Ewin over Alex Reid via unanimous decision, wins Middleweight Belt.
    Neil Grove over Domonic Ostich via 1st round TKO, :34 seconds.
    Roman Webber over Ed Smith via unanimous decision.
    Che Mills over Ross Mason via submission (rear naked choke) in the 1st round.
    Lee Doski over Jason Barrett via unanimous decision

  19. The Gaijin says:

    How did Vitor look?

  20. JThue says:

    Vitor looked bad, was losing standing up in R1, so spent 2 and 3 taking Zikic down and laying there.

    Daley. That’s who. Re: Shields’ next opponent question from a week ago.

    Shogun may struggle standing tonight, which is why I picture him eventually just simply submitting Forrest 🙂

  21. LR says:

    Only reason Vitor won was because Zikic had the worst takedown defense known to man.

  22. Zack says:

    I thought Daley & Weir were 2 weight classes apart.

  23. JThue says:

    Weir is a tiny light heavy, a regular 185’er, and regular 170 size by American standards. This was fought at 170. Weir weighed in at 167.9.

  24. 45 Huddle says:

    Zikic has never impressed me. So the fact that Belfort couldn’t even finish him speaks volumes of how much he has gone downhill.

    According to Meltzer, the last WEC Show with Crunkilton/McCullough got a 0.5 rating. Which is the highest of the 3 shows so far. It also means that each show has improved on the previous one which is always a good sign. It was also one of the highest rated shows on the network this year…. Which shows how horrible that network is.

    If I am Zuffa, I use Versus for the next 2 years, and then turn the WEC into a Weekly ESPN Fight show.

  25. cyphron says:

    If Shogun loses tonight, I think the Pride myth will forever be broken. But he won’t lose. This is the Pride Grand Prix champ VS the TUF champ after all! The result of this unofficial main event will answer many questions.

  26. 45 Huddle says:

    It will be VERY interesting to see what is said about Pride if Forrest wins.

    Think about this…. Gomi lost twice as champion. Wanderlei lost once. Henderson got some gift decisions and never really earned a shot for a title at Silva. Misaki won a Grand Prix he didn’t deserve. Fighters like Filho, Little Nog, & Kang were constantly kept away from title shots they earned.

    And for all the things Pride did wrong (as noted above)…. And all the non-title BS they had…. Shogun & Fedor were the two legit fighters to come out of that organization. So for one of them to lose… Especially to a “TUF Fighter” is just crazy to think about.

    I know I have Rua as the #1 Light Heavyweight in the world, and I honestly believe he should be there until beaten. But that Pride legacy is all but gone if Rua loses.

    I know this sounds stupid… And Fedor has nothing to do with the Griffin/Rua fight…. But if Rua gets beaten down by Forrest…. You almost want to remove Fedor from the Top 3 until he actually fights another fighter from the UFC….. Don’t take what I’m saying about Fedor seriously… But you get my drift…. That the Pride legacy is so tainted if Rua loses… That any of their champions get demoted because of it….

  27. Jeremy (not that Jeremy) says:

    45, it’s really early in the night to start crowing at the downfall of Pride.

    They haven’t even fought yet, and they both work for the UFC now, so maybe we can pass on this “discussion” tonight.

  28. el feo says:

    all the way live at ufc 76. Wellisch got the win with the heel hook. Junk let out a painful yell before tapping. Weak drinks in the oc. Stay tuned…

  29. el feo says:

    jeremy stephens with 2 rampage slams in the first and the crowd goes wild…

  30. ajax says:

    I believe the reason Wand lost to Henderson was the fact that the shitty American rule set limited that “Chutebox” style that got me to watch MMA in the first place. There were times in the Hendo/Silva fight where Dan should have eaten Wands foot, but instead turtled and thus defended. My point is, if Shogun loses tonight, and all us old Pride fans see multiple situations where stomps, soccer kicks, knees on the ground etc. could have been implemented, I won’t give the fight to Griffen. It will just further justify my decision never to pay money to see the UFC and their flawed rules. The UFC limits the fights to the point where I never feel like the best fighter won. It’s like the BCS, there’s too many “what if’s”.

  31. Tomer Chen says:

    The UFC limits the fights to the point where I never feel like the best fighter won.

    Uh, it’s the athletic commissions that implement the rules, not the UFC.

  32. ajax says:

    Great Tomer, but can you tell me that they’re working to get them changed? Hell no.

  33. Tomer Chen says:

    Great Tomer, but can you tell me that they’re working to get them changed? Hell no.

    Nick Lembo recently asked a number of writers, fighters, etc. if the NJSACB should consider implementing knees to the head of a downed opponent. At least some commissions seem to have an interest in modifying the rules (assuming that it’s reasonable; I don’t expect to see soccer kicks or stomps in a US ring/cage anytime soon given the rather extreme appearance of the strikes in the eyes of many).

  34. ajax says:

    Thanks for the information. I get passionate about this subject really quickly, and it’s nice to know that there’s hope.

  35. 45 Huddle says:

    Politically, it is stupid for the UFC to demand knees on the ground. It looks better for them if the NJSAC does it…. Then Nevada…. Then CA…. And when the UFC is out of the loop… And some fight looks ultra blood because of them… They can put the blame on the athletic commissions.

    Sounds stupid, but that is how big companies think.

  36. […] TAGG Radio wrote an interesting post today onHere’s a quick excerptFirst, more bad news for boxing fans.Mark Cuban made an appearance on The Mike Tirico Show Friday to talk about UFC and MMA (starting at the 15 minute mark – audio here).Here is a report claiming that Pennsylvania Senator Arlen Specter gave Jenna… […]

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