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« | Home | »

The heat-up for UFC 120 in London

By Zach Arnold | October 15, 2010

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The card line-up for Saturday’s event at the O2 Arena.

A reminder: Show airs on delay on Spike TV from 8-11 PM EST and same for West Coast viewers. (I criticize Showtime for this and I’ll do the same here for Spike TV — this is ridiculous). DVR highly recommended given the long time frame and commercials and promo spots during the show for next week’s UFC show in Anaheim. Speaking of which, The Minneapolis Star Tribune has a great article on Brock Lesnar’s training camp and they noted that Lesnar has never been as relaxed before a fight as he is for this fight coming up against Cain Velasquez.

Kevin Iole says it’s time to give Michael Bisping his due. I disagree with that assessment, but I do agree with Dana White’s assessment that Bisping would need a couple of more wins after beating Akiyama to even sniff a title shot. As a draw in the UK, Bisping and Hardy’s profile is certainly elevated. This show has by far the most press out of all of UFC’s past excursions to the UK.

Michael Bisping doesn’t have much desire to do judo (defense) training in preparation of his fight against Yoshihiro Akiyama.

Brent Brookhouse takes a look at Dan Hardy trying to get back on the winning track and the challenges he faces with Carlos Condit. Meanwhile, Gareth A Davies of the London Telegraph says Mike Pyle will beat John Hathaway. Sherdog has a preview of the UFC 120 undercard fights.

The Canadian Press has an interesting story about UFC airbrushing Dan Hardy’s body because he had a tattoo that they thought was anti-Chinese.

Cain Velasquez wants SB1070 eliminated in Arizona and Brock Lesnar doesn’t want to touch the subject.

A debate about the growth of MMA over the next ten years. We’ll see. Right now, UFC is in a real battle in Germany.

A Razor Rob McCullough sighting, this time in Bellator.

Topics: Media, MMA, UFC, UK, Zach Arnold | 14 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |

14 Responses to “The heat-up for UFC 120 in London”

  1. Fluyid says:

    The Hardy airbrushing thing has also gotten some coverage and commentary in the online Buddhist community, but the online Buddhist community is not exactly the type to get too terribly upset or put over something like this.

    Here’s a tiny sampling: http://www.shambhalasun.com/sunspace/?p=15726

    http://www.shambhalasun.com/sunspace/?p=16280

  2. Michael says:

    Why do you disagree it is time to give Bisping his due? 3 losses to Henderson, Evans & Silva do not make a bad fighter. Espescially considering the Evans fight could of certainly been awarded to Bisping without too much controversay and the Silva fight was incredibly close.

    • Mr.roadblock says:

      I don’t think a Bisping fan should start examining close decisions. How does a loss to Matt Hamill fit into your world view.

    • smoogy says:

      Silva vs. Bisping being a close fight is a myth perpetuated by Bisping himself. He got saved by the bell in all three rounds, and borderline knocked out at the final buzzer.

      • The Gaijin says:

        It’s nice though, because he gets so much coverage and air-time as their UK guy, so he’s repeated it so often some of the rubes actually start to believe him.

  3. 45 huddle says:

    Bisping is a gatekeeper to the elite. He would have to change something in his style to get out of that.

    There’s a clip online of Dana White being asked about who is the best Welterweight outside of the UFC. He gives some pure BS but then also says something very true. Which seems to be typical DW fashion….

    1) He said Diaz was cut from the UFC. Which might have been true. But he was also brought back and had 2 wins in his final 2 fights.

    2) He said that the UFC is a whole different level. And this is true, and somebody people continue to forget. The UFC eats up prospects for breakfast. Diaz looking unstoppable in SF is hardly any indication that he would be able to have more success in the UFC a second time around.

  4. The Germany thing is hilarious. “Selling as well as we did last time” – well, two weeks before the last event, Meltzer reported that they hadn’t even sold 7,000 tickets. Given the lack of TV, you’re probably looking at the same situation this time around. On the upside, they don’t have to close off the upper deck and move people down this time because it’ll be a smaller building. That way, when they give away 3000-4000 tickets, it’ll look totally full. =D

    As far as discussing Bisping is concerned – well, he’s not an elite fighter. His career highlight right now is beating Chris Leben. That’s not bad. Doesn’t mean that Bisping isn’t a good fighter, at least. Might even be a top 10 fighter, so long as he’s ranked #10 and you’re extremely gracious in viewing the value of just being under UFC contract. He has a significant nationalist fanbase and a high profile and those things are good, but I don’t see how he’s in the 185lb title discussion, even beating Akiyama. In the mix of Marqhardt, Belfort, Sonnen, and Okami, he’s just not there. And he’s gotta be below Wanderlei Silva too. Worse, I’m not sure he can beat any of those guys in fights next year unless Sonnen is off the juice and Belfort comes in with his head in the clouds (as he is prone to doint).

  5. david m says:

    If Bisping started roiding he would be elite. He has everything except physical strength and a brain.

    • 45 huddle says:

      I don’t think roids would help. He is afraid to get hit. That is his biggest problem. You can’t inject courage into your muscles.

      Plus, he doesn’t do anything to the elite level. His striking is good, but not great. His wrestling is good but not great. His BJJ is good but not great. Being well rounded will get you to exactly where he is…. A gatekeeper to the higher level fighters for have higher level skills.

      Like Alan said, he might be #10 in the world at best. Heck, one could argue it since the division is so weak across the sport that he might get there by default of just competing in a strong division. But I can’t see him making the next step in his career.

      • edub says:

        Steroids change the mindset. That is one thing great about taking them. Everything that you normally thought was out of the question is sudedenly possible. Not to mention it would give him better wrestling and more powerful striking.

        This is obviously very hypothetical, but I agree with David M. If Bisping took steroids he would probably be a top 3 fighter. Kinda like Chael.

        • 45 huddle says:

          All valid points. They would be more valid if when most fighters fail a test…. They weren’t on the losing end of the fight….

        • david m says:

          45 your logic only works if you think only the people who get caught are roiding. I don’t think you honestly believe that, but because you are a UFC nuthugger you want to pretend that the testing that Zuffa does is somehow adequate, when everyone knows that if you really want to catch cheating, you have to use Olympic-style testing.

        • 45 huddle says:

          Not sure what steroids have to do with the UFC. This is a universal discussion within the sport.

          So somehow guys losing get caught like 3 times as often as winners? No way that can that just be a statistical blimp.

          There is a reason why guys who get caught more often are on the losing end. It’s because they had to take something extra because deep down they knew their own natural skills weren’t good enough. And those PED’s couldn’t help them.

  6. david m says:

    Am I the only one who is pretty sure Hardy was juicing? His body looked a lot different; it reminds me of the Leben’s body against Bisping compared with it against previous opponents.

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