I haven’t had too much time to spend on BJ’s site, but it looks like it is really filled with lots of interesting stuff. Lots of video blogs and contests and a good MMA community. I will definitely add his site as a link.
I watched one of Dan Miller’s video blogs and it looks like he is training hard for UFC 109. I think his fight with Maia will be the one to watch.
This is without a doubt the most exciting fight card UFC has put together in about a year. The main event is 2 Hall of Famers—and the 2 grandfathers of the UFC–Couture and Coleman. Dirty Boxing versus ground and pound.
Next up: Nate Marquadt vs. Chael Sonnen. Should be a good middleweight fight. Nate the Great recently knocked out Demian Maia, which is a big win for him. He used the best strategy one can have against a black belt Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu master—keep them on their feet and knock them out.
Mike Swick vs. Paulo Thiago. Mike is coming off a recent loss to Dan Hardy in November 2009, but let’s face it, this is probably the toughest division there is. Dan Hardy will be facing Georges St. Pierre later this year in a title fight. Mike looks ripped and has been training hard. His training partner, Jon Fitch, beat Thiago recently, so hopefully he has been giving Mike lots of pointers.
Demian Maia vs. Dan Miller. 2 Brazilian Black Belts in the cage. I saw Demian Maia fight once and he looked like a snake. Dan Miller is going to try to keep this fight off the ground. Good luck to Dan, is all I have to say!
Matt Serra the Terror vs. Frank Trigg. I am rooting for Matt big time here. I just love him. He is a great coach and a great fighter–he has such tremendous spirit. My husband and I call him Jabberjaw, because that is who he sounds like. Matt has not had a fight since his loss to Matt Hughes in May 2009. Personally, I thought that decision sucked, but I don’t care much for Hughes. He appears to be totally full of himself. Matt Hughes is a great fighter, but it is difficult to like the guy.
Ooh– Heavyweight fans watchout! Brock Lesnar has healed and is coming back to the UFC. He appeared on ESPN with Dana White on January 20 to announce his return. It seems likely that he will rematch with Frank Mir for his first bout, but personally, I would like to see him in the cage with Cain Velasquez, who I think is just about the scariest looking fighter on the planet.
I like the lightweight and welterweight divisions the best, but Lesnar is fun to watch. According to one of the UFC commentators, his hands are so big that he has to have his gloves custom made. One of the commentators referred to his arms as “canned hams” and they really do look like they are.
I have not seen a date posted yet for the return of Lesnar, but will post it when I know it. I am excited about the fight card coming up for February 6th.
I don’t know why Spike TV is even bothering to replay the Lightweight title fight between BJ Penn and Diego Sanchez that originally aired in December. Ever since the 1st season of The Ultimate Fighter (TUF), I have been a big Diego Sanchez fan, but after seeing this fight, I had to rethink things.
Diego probably doesn’t deserve the title “Nightmare” anymore. At the beginning of the first round, when the camera showed a close-up of Diego, he looked like a nightmare, but his performance was less than impressive. As one of the UFC announcers stated, Diego won the scary face contest. Diego definitely won the scary face contest in the first round, but he undoubtedly lost the war.
If you are going to watch the replay tonight, the best way to get an indication of how the fight is progressing, just fast forward to the close-ups of Diego and BJ at the very beginning of each round, before they tap hands. Diego looks progressively worse and worse, whereas BJ barely even looks like he has been in a fight.
I assume that Diego trained for this fight, because he is obviously in great shape and is very disciplined, but he was outwitted and outmatched at every turn by BJ Penn in this fight. BJ never even looked winded in any of the 5 rounds and he basically beat the crap out of Diego–the fight was ended after one of BJ’s kicks opened up a big gash in Diego’s head in the 5th round, and quite frankly, I was relieved. It was actually a very hard fight for me to watch because I wanted Diego to do well.
At this point, I don’t know who will be able to beat BJ Penn to take the lightweight belt away from him. Of course, in some ways this fight was similar to the BJ Penn v. Georges St-Pierre a few years ago, where Georges basically demolished BJ in the welterweight division; I didn’t like watching that fight either. I guess I don’t like seeing my favorite fighters get the crap beat out of them. I hope Diego will keep his fierce determination to win. Maybe he just needs to switch training camps. That worked really well for Kenny Florian. Florian lost to BJ Penn last year and changed training camps and looked like a totally different fighter when he beat Clay Guida in December.
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