« The rise of top Featherweight Marlon Sandro | Home | Everyone in the business treats each other like a mark and the fans get the same treatment as well »
Steve Cofield on ESPN’s MMA Live broadcast
By Zach Arnold | June 24, 2010
He’s their “ESPN MMA Insider” and did an interview spot this week from Las Vegas. There’s a lot of people who like to bag on Steve, but his presence on this show is a much-needed boost in terms of addressing issues that the ESPN show normally isn’t comfortable with discussing. Let Steve bring the edge and handle the “dirty issues” and suddenly you have a show that could perhaps find its own voice as opposed to being simply an infomercial for Zuffa.
Speaking of MMA Live guests, Jake Rossen has a new article (CLICK HERE) about the history of PRIDE’s GP tournament. Read it.
I also think Pat Miletich is a plus on the show and hope he can make more appearances.
I was surprised at how aggressive Kenny Florian was in coming out against Fedor on this week’s show as far as Fedor not fighting the top guys. Florian said that Werdum’s one shot is to get Fedor in the clinch and get on top on the ground and “take away his hips.”
Final Bellator show of season two
It happened on Thursday night in Louisville, Kentucky and clearly while the quality of fighters in this promotion is not on the same level as UFC or even Strikeforce, the truth is that this group has a constantly entertaining product with a good mix of young prospects and veterans from minor promotions.
One of the interesting positives in favor of Bellator is just the unpredictability of this group. Zoila Frausto, who watched her sister Stephanie lose last week in Kansas City to Lisa Ward, went out and pulled off a huge upset over Rosi Sexton. It was an amazing result and one that I don’t even think the promotion expected it.
Bjorn Rebney was doing his best to hype up the fact that Joe Warren fought with an illness and could barely make the fight date, but that largely doesn’t excuse his performance against Patricio Pitbull. Pitbull played it perfectly in round one. In round two, Warren went to what he knew best — take a guy down and hold him down for the round. Much of the same in round three. Pitbull didn’t show much skill from off his back and it was the perfect situation for Warren. Smother a guy, but show little-to-no offense at all, and he was getting cheered by the Louisville crowd all night for doing this. They were chanting “USA! USA! USA” throughout the fight.
I was way more impressed with what Alexander Shlemenko did to Bryan Baker. He really tagged Baker with some shots standing and that was a real good display of striking power.
Now, a look at what the results for season two mean for upcoming title fights:
- Featherweights – Joe Warren vs. Joe Soto
- Lightweights – Pat Curran vs. Eddie Alvarez
- Welterweights – Ben Askren vs. Lyman Good
- Middleweights – Alexander Shlemenko vs. Hector Lombard
Topics: Bellator, Media, MMA, StrikeForce, Zach Arnold | 7 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
Kenny Florian is right. Of course people will say it is because he works for the UFC…. But he isn’t the first guy who has been outspoken about Fedor not fighting top guys. Of course SF fighters aren’t going to mention it. He is one of like 3 guys tops making that organization semi/sort-of/kinda credible at this point. But Florian knows what he is talking about….
I thought Warren’s grittyness was fantastic. Really showed true heart in that fight. Both of those guys need to make the drop to 135 pounds. And I believe Warren already mentioned it.
On the flip side…. I thought Bryan Baker’s gameplan was downright horrible. He didn’t even attempt a shot until he was rocked. He is way too stiff in his striking. I’m not sold on Shlemenko. He is an undersized Middleweight and would get picked apart by a more competent striker.
Laughable moment of the day…
BE released their rankings. The consensus #5 Welterweight in the world…. Based off of all the various rankings out there is….
NICK DIAZ!!
The Strikeforce fanboys in the media have no limits to their craziness!! And they wonder why Dana White doesn’t like them. Diaz beat Zaromskis and is not #5 in the world. Pathetically bad and stupid.
Ed. — He did beat Sakurai on 5/29. But Sakurai tagged him a lot in that fight…
It’s just someone’s opinion, no need to get your knickers in a twist.
There are no ‘correct’ rankings and their never will be. It’s subjective. Yours will be different from BE’s, which will be different from mine, which will be different from the next man’s.
I thought Joe Warren showed a great deal of heart. Dude was 2 seconds from getting choked out. What does he do at the start of Rd. 2? Come right at Pitbull. Say what you will, but the guy did what he had to do to win that fight IMO. While he didn’t try to pass guard(which was smart on his part) he did try to posture up and and land some shots…so he wasn’t exactly just laying and praying. Blame Pitbull for not being able to get back to his feet.
I really don’t see all where all the talk is coming from that bellator is taking all the guys who would be on the ultimate fighter.
IMO Mcgee or mybe even up to 4 other fighters on the show were better than Shlemenko and baker.
Pearson and Winner have about 10x the upside curran.
Askren is completely raw but he could probably get away with smothering Sadollah.
I don’t care if you’re critical about Fedor, but it’s a fact that no one else’s opponents get looked at with as much scrutiny. Where is Iole doing a breakdown of Anderson Silva’s last opponents? Do you think Florian talked Dan Hardy up like he had a chance to win, or dismissed him as a weak over matched opponent for GSP?
who else is being puffed up as the supposed *snicker* greatest fighter of all time?