It's going to be all eyes on London come September, as the UFC bring arguably one of their biggest cards to date to the capitol.
Quinton 'Rampage' Jackson versus Dan Henderson? For too long we thought this kind of fight was only a dream match. Cro Cop on the comeback trail against Cheick Kongo? Strike-o-rama! And with our very Mike Bisping in action, UFC 75 is going to be massive.
Check out what Dana says about the event in this interview he gave to ESPN...
Man, what a night. It was a crazy evening full of shocks, suprises and more. The atmosphere there was out of this world, and the fights rocked.
There were a few weird moments, such as Gray Maynard knocking himself out when slamming Rob Emerson and Manny Gamburyan dislocating his shoulder trying to take Nate Diaz down, but aside from that the fights were all great to watch.
Joe Lauzon showed some real heart and skill in taking out Brandon Melendez. Melendez’s stand up is badass at the best of times, but he looked super sharp in their fight. Lauzon did what he needed to though and repeatedly got to Melendez’s back, eventually pounding him out for the win in the second round.
Cole Miller stopped Andy Wang with a head kick and a series of follow up punches in their scrap. Andy showed he hasn’t earned much from his time on the show, as he didn’t take him down… Tut tut tut. As BJ Penn said, “Wang will bang”.
Jens Pulver announced he will drop to 145lbs, but its is unclear exactly how that will work. Look for an exclusive interview with Jens in a future issue of the mag to further clarify his position.
We’re leaving Las Vegas now – it’s been a great trip and we’ve met some really awesome people – if any fight fans ever fancy coming over here, keep an eye on FO for the inside info on where to go and what to do.
At the pre-UFC 72 comedy gig Joe encounters a particularly noisy drunk guy. So he invites him up on the stage. This guy was really hammered, and had made the mistake of shouting out stuff about Mike Bisping as well... not good considering Mike was sat two rows in front of him, and was not happy.
We swung by the Zuffa head office on West Sahara to see a few people, then headed over to the Palms Casino for the TUF Finale weigh ins.
Apart from some Hawaiians almost getting into a fight with some idiot loud mouth Nate Diaz supporter, it was all pretty cool - some tension between Jens (153lbs!) and BJ (a lean, mean 155 on the nose) but otherwise it was all good.
Biggest cheers went to Gray Maynard, Nate Diaz and both BJ and Jens got an equal amount of support.
After the weigh ins we went for a quick drink and the Voice of the Octagon joined us. Bruce Buffer is one of the coolest guys in the game and we talked about MMA, business ventures and one of Bruce's loves, poker... Bruce is currently ranked no. 200 in the world, and has made $85,000 this year in poker tournaments. He shot off straight after his drink away to a table, and is currently preparing the week-long World Series. Best of luck Bruce!
Dining at the exclusive N9nes restaurant, we were joined by Marc Ratner and the PR team behind the UFC. The hospitality was excellent, and Dana even swung by to say hi. Straight after the food (which was excellent) the Strikeforce show which featured Shamrock vs Baroni in the main event started playing!
We relocated to the bar and caught the fights - Nick Diaz was stood next to us watching Baroni get smashed up, and seemed pretty annoyed at it all. He's a great fighter and all, but believe us, its no persona for the TV, that guy really is one surly motherf***er.
Congratulations to Paul Daley who KO'd the feared striker Dwayne 'Bang' Ludwig in the second round of his debut on the US promotion - nice one Paul, maybe time for a feature!
We're currently getting ready to watch The Ultimate Fighter finale, which takes place this weekend. As mentioedn, day one was spent checking out the gyms and interviewing fighters.
Today was much of the same except for one thing - today we met up with Jens Pulver.
Jens is fighting on the main event of Saturday night against his rival (some say nemesis?) BJ Penn.
Jens is in good spirits and can't wait for the fight to get going - he admitted he loves the attention he gets from fans and the like, but celebrity comes at a price - he doesn't think much of the poster in his hotel elevator!
The rumours going around are that BJ looks like the BJ of old... He's said to be walking around at 158, and has actually worked with a nutritionist and strength and conditioning coach for this fight. Jens' reaction? "Apparently he's like the old BJ, which is great, because that was the one I beat!"
We flew into Las Vegas late Tuesday night to check the place out and, of course, go watch the highly anticipated TUF finale.
In the meantime we've been killing time by visiting the various gyms (very impressive), talking to fighters (too many to name) and generally enjoying ourselves (no hookers or gambling for us though).
Look for some exclusive content to pop up in the magazine very soon after we get back.
Belfast is going to be rocking this weekend. The biggest MMA event to hit Ireland is only days away, and Fighters Only will be there to cover it. We can't wait.
Believe it or not, the UFC have actually been criticised for putting on a sub-standard card for this show. The 8000-seat arena will see the likes of Rich Franklin, Forest Griffin and more in action. Could it actually be a case of that fans are being spoiled with increasingly high profile fights featuring the superstars of the sport? Whatever the vocal minority think, there will be plenty of people watching this card including, no doubt, generous numbers of the sizeable Irish-American community.
Anyway, we're looking forward to it. Former middleweight champion Rich Franklin will be headlining the event against the tough Japanese fighter Yushin Okami, and Forrest Griffin is going to face hard hitting Hector Ramirez. Also, three UK fighters will be making their UFC debuts. Go guys.
Franklin lost his belt to a fighter very familiar to UK fans, the Brazilian Muay Thai expert Anderson Silva. 'The Spider' took out 'Ace' in devastating fashion last year with a series of brutal knees. Okami is more of a ground and pound fighter but is no easy fight back for Rich.
It'll be a case of whoever wins this fight will face Silva for the belt. Silva told Fighters Only a few weeks ago that he'll bew watching this fight with interest. He'd like to fight Franklin again, but he says he particularly wants to take out Okami. The reason? He calls Okami a "samurai without honour".
Okami and Silva met in the Rumble on the Rock tournament in Hawaii, with Silva being disqualified for ilegal kicks. He says that the rules were not properly explained to him, and that Okami exploited the situation to get to the next round of the tournament. Fights are always that litle bit more exciting when there is bad blood, so it will be very interesting to hear Silva's reaction if Okami wins.
Forrest Griffin may seem like a goofball, and truth be told, he kind of is. But he takes his fighting seriously, as we saw when he cried his way out of the Octagon following his loss to Keith Jardine earlier this year. We've seen and heard good things about Ramirez, namely that he hits f***ing hard, and what with Forrest's habit of blocking punches with his face, we've been told not to blink. You heard it here first.
Look for Fighters Only sponsored fighters Jason Tan, Stevie Lynch and Colin Robinson on the weekend.
Jason Tan will be facing off against a TUF veteran Marcus Davis, a handy boxer with good submissions who wisely changed his name from 'The Irish Hand Grenade' (not a good choice of name for the land of The Troubles) to 'The Celtic Warrior'. Tan brings solid Muay Thai skills and BJJ to the Octagon, and is part of Terry Etim's coaching team.
Stevie Lynch and Colin Robinson are two tough fighters out of the UFR Team in Northern Ireland. Both guys are locals, and you can bet the crowd will go wild when they see a couple of their own feature enter the cage. The Belfast crowd are said to be loud, lets see just what they can do come Saturday.
One last thing - a source from inside Zufa told us that he had seen the ticket reports and apparently a lot of them were sold to people who live in London. It seems cheap flights have prompted fans from the capital city to make their way over to the province for a bit of MMA action.
A big hello and welcome to all our readers. The brand new Fighters Only blog is the first part of our updated website that is up and running - keep visiting here for updates on the new site, what Fighters Only is up to, the latest goings on in the MMA world and bonus content that is not available in the magazine!
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