Frankie Edgar and His Mark

At UFC 150 on Saturday, former lightweight champ Frankie Edgar gets another crack at Benson Henderson, only this time around Henderson is wearing the belt that Edgar wore when they first met.  Can Edgar reclaim what was once his?  Or has his day passed and the era of "Smooth" is truly upon us?  Though predictions may vary on whether the "Answer" can defeat Henderson, one thing is certain: for the wars he's waged in the cage, sometimes dangling precariously over the edge of the abyss of defeat before finding the impossible win, he has thrilled us more than most fighters ever will.  Win, lose or draw on Saturday, Edgar has made his mark on the sport. 

Consider this about man from Toms River, N.J.:

  • When he first appeared in the UFC, it was for a fight that many others had turned down.  Tyson Griffin was the opponent, and at the time (UFC 67), the word on the street was that Griffin was some sort of undefeated, unbeatable monster.  Edgar smoked him, and earned a Fight of the Night bonus in the process.

 

  • When Edgar challenged B.J. Penn for the 155-pound belt, Penn was considered to be at the height of his dominance in the weight class.  The former welterweight champ hadn't simply beaten all comers at 155 (since his loss to Jen Pulver years before), he'd destroyed them.  In his rematch with "Lil' Evil", Penn treated him like a petulant jiu-jitsu white belt.  In his fight against Joe Stevenson, he made the TUF winner into a bloody mess.  He left Sean Sherk dazed on the canvas, had Kenny Florian tapping for mercy, and turned Diego Sanchez into an extra from "Dawn of the Dead".  And then came Edgar, who out-hustled Penn for five rounds to take the decision.  Was it a fluke?  Obviously not, because in the immediate rematch, Edgar did it all over again, only this time he was totally and completely dominant.

 

  • There have only been a handful of champs in the lightweight division, with Penn's reign lasting the longest at 812 days.  But having held the belt for 687 days, Edgar comes in at second, surpassing former title holders Sherk and Pulver (and current champ Henderson). 

 

Flat facts and numbers and aside, there's something else to what Edgar has done in terms of leaving his mark.  Where some fighters have made themselves memorable by dominant performances and finishes by knockout and submission, Edgar has been the one to come perilously close to getting TKO'd (by Maynard) or having a limb broken (by Griffin), only to rally back and win.  The Answer has thrilled us ? not just once, but many times.  And in ten, maybe twenty years, when we tell our kids about how the UFC was "back in the day", the clips we'll show them will undoubtedly contain a few instances of Edgar on the verge of going to sleep, yet finding some way to survive and thrive.

Duane Finley over at Bleacher Report put it nicely with this bit here:

Over the past two years Edgar has built his reputation on resilience and resolve.  The former champion displayed tremendous heart and perseverance in both of last year's fights with Maynard and then again after being rocked by Henderson in the third round of their first matchup in February.

It has been on the strength of these types of performances where Edgar has laid the foundation to his legacy and nothing has meant more to him than being a champion.

 

Who will come away with the belt when the main event at UFC 150 is over?  I don't know for sure, but what I do know is that, when it comes to the history books, Frankie Edgar has already made his mark.

Source: http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/mma-cagewriter/frankie-edgar-mark-033010068--mma.html

Arman Gambaryan Manvel Gamburyan Sean Gannon Edgar Garcia

Shawn Michaels Returns to WWE RAW (Again), Will Be Involved in Triple H?s PPV Match (Again)

Look, Shawn Michaels, you don?t get to ham it up with used-up quips about how you get exhausted making your entrance. You were just there two weeks ago. On two of the three episodes of the three-hour era, Michaels got more screen time than everyone on the roster who?s not John Cena or CM Punkand spent most of it mugging at the camera and hyping Triple H, whose character is already established as the coolest and toughest and strongest and doesn’t need yet more hype.

Okay, granted, I did laugh at HBK’s goofy-ass shirt but that’s about it.

Sorry for being such a downer, and on Shawn Michaels Appreciation Night too, but his sudden beef with Brock Lesnar doesn’t make a whole lot of sense even if Paul Heyman made a snarky joke. And like Stephanie McMahon did last week, Michaels took up valuable time and space as one more week’s worth of the former UFC Heavyweight champ’s few appearances went by, with the audience getting to see very little asskicking and very much standing around while Triple H’s music played.

HBK announced he’ll be in Triple H’s corner for his Summerslam match against Lesnar, and it makes no business sense for Michaels to do anything other than get absolutely crushed by Lesnar before all is done.

Check out Lesnar’s couple of cross words at Michaels and H below:

PHOTO CREDIT – WWE

Source: http://www.fighters.com/08/08/shawn-michaels-returns-to-raw-again-will-be-involved-in-triple-h%e2%80%99s-ppv-match-again

Marcus Aurelio  Mikhail Avetisyan Luiz Azeredo  Luciano Azevedo 

I Am A Fighter: Ronda Rousey

Strikeforce Women's Bantamweight Championship Ronda Rousey will step into the cage this Saturday night at the Valley View Casino Center in San Diego, California as she attempts to make her first title defense against Sarah Kaufman. Before the event, the face of women's MMA sat down to give fans some insight into her life with an emotional interview about how she has reached the heights at which she currently stands. "Rowdy" mentions the death of her father as the reason she quit swimming and her mother's judo accomplishments inspiring her to take part in the sport.

MMAFrenzy.com

Source: http://mmafrenzy.com/29917/i-am-a-fighter-ronda-rousey/

Josh Burkman  Mikey Burnett  Murilo Bustamante  Grant Campbell 

Mauricio Rua reacts to having not received a title-shot for TKO of Brandon Vera

This past Saturday night Mauricio Rua fought Brandon Vera in the main event at UFC on FOX 4, turning in an entertaining effort capped off by a strike-based stoppage of Vera in the fourth frame of their tilt. However, when the UFC was forced to pick between Rua?s win and an earlier triumph in the evening from Lyoto Machida in determining the light heavyweight division?s next title-contender, the organization went with ?The Dragon? rather than the headlining Rua.

Rua was asked about the UFC?s decision at the post-event press conference where he had a reaction likely surprising some fans.

?I?m cool. My obligation is to do my best and fight. Lyoto got his shot. I?ll keep training hard. That?s my job,? explained Rua, adding that he understood Machida?s opponent (Ryan Bader) was a Top 10 competitor in comparison to Vera?s recent record in the Octagon.

Machida Says “The Dragon” is Back!

No word has surfaced on what is next for Rua though it seems likely he will fight again in 2012 with the amount of time remaining in the year.

The full UFC on FOX 4 press conference can be found below:

PHOTO CREDIT – UFC

Source: http://www.fighters.com/08/06/mauricio-rua-reacts-to-having-not-received-a-title-shot-for-tko-of-brandon-vera

Jorge Gurgel Andre Gusmao Alexander Gustafsson Jaime Gutierrez

Michael Bisping On Facing Brian Stann: ?If I Beat Him, I Believe I Will Get A Title Shot?

Michael Bisping and Brian Stann each have the same focus going into their September meeting at UFC 152: Benavidez vs. Johnson. With UFC middleweight champion Anderson Silva currently without a No. 1 contender, Bisping and Stann feel like they can become that man with a convincing victory over the other. Recently, Bisping (22-4) discussed his [...]

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/mmaconvert/~3/sGB1f41uVWA/

Jorge Gurgel Andre Gusmao Alexander Gustafsson Jaime Gutierrez

AW's Firing Shows Hypocrisy Ripe in the Ranks at WWE

Recently WWE performer AW was fired after making a joke on RAW relating to NBA superstar Kobe Bryant‘s sexual assault case from years ago. AW’s joke was wildly inappropriate and deliberately insensitive to many, and that deserved appropriate consequences like Chris Jericho‘s month-long suspension for unintentionally breaking the law in Brazil. It was also years out of date and not very funny. Yet AW had a couple valid points in his recent Tweets on the matter.

This was very far from being the first, or the worst, profoundly tasteless joke on WWE TV, PG or otherwise. I could write pages about how embarrassing Jerry Lawler so often is to listen to. AW’s wasn’t WWE’s first reference to sexual assault either. And let’s take this moment to remind ourselves that Charlie Sheen, whose history with the ladies in real life is more offensive than the joke made by the AW character that got actual person Brian Jossie fired, served as “Social Media Ambassador,” whatever the hell that is, on RAW #1000 the previous week.

Yet it’s not shocking that AW provided WWE management pounced on an easy opportunity to make an example of a misbehaving performer. Though there’s a long way to go before you could call WWE’s portrayal of women anything close to progressive, the company has taken a few high-profile steps to improve that public perception. Gone are bra and panties matches and mud wrestling in favor of the occasional, relatively family-friendly bikini contest. Physical contact between men and women performers are limited to the occasional slap to the face, with very, very rare exceptions, even when Beth Phoenix could believably beat the snot out of much of the male roster…or at least Heath Slater.

Even now, though, the portrayal of women remains inconsistent at best. While AJ Lee has emerged as a complex, motivated central TV figure this year, very recent examples of major “WTF” moments with regard to women in WWE have included the awful public slut-shaming of Eve Torres a few months ago, not to mention that over the last couple of months we’ve had about eight milliseconds of women’s matches despite RAW’s expansion to three hours. John Cena not only wasn’t fired or punished for calling Torres a whore on national TV, he was actually scripted to do so.

We may never really know for certain whether his firing was motivated by Linda McMahon‘s U.S. Senate campaign attempting to distance itself from criticism over WWE’s less tasteful moments, but given the suddenness with which WWE has embraced more family-friendly content basically makes that kind of speculation inevitable. But it’s confusing to look at what content they seem to deem objectionable and which they make no effort to distance themselves from. Whichever campaign adviser who theoretically may have suggested AW’s joke required some ass-covering didn’t bother to prevent the candidate’s husband Vince McMahon from appearing in his megalomaniacal, bullying character throughout this summer.

So AW is just a surface example of much deeper problems that WWE and the McMahon for Senate campaign have to deal with with regard to women. But AW’s implication that he’s a victim of the PG era is lacking, too. When we look back at the Attitude Era as a model for good wrestling TV, we have a habit of ignoring that there was a lot more of Mae Young going full frontal, Val Venis manhood getting severed and the late Test dry-humping dudes than there were cool, rebellious Steve Austin and DX moments. (And, sorry fanboys, there were at least as many tedious, unfunny DX segments as there were genuinely subversive ones. Remember having to listen to everyone refer to a grown man as “Mr. Ass”?) Austin and The Rock and Mankind were unique, compelling characters who were charismatic enough to have succeeded even if they had stayed away from crude material, even if they decidedly did not. AW doesn’t lack for charisma himself. Arguing that he’s restricted by the PG rating is both a crappy excuse and a disservice to his own skills.

Hit at @FightersMMA or @4JonComas if you’ve got any thoughts on the matter…

PHOTO CREDIT – WWE

Source: http://www.fighters.com/08/12/aws-firing-shows-hypocrisy-ripe-in-the-ranks-at-wwe

Clay Guida Jason Guida Melvin Guillard Cody Guinn

Jason ?Mayhem? Miller Arrested for Burglarizing Church ? Naked

According to TMZ.com, former UFC fighter Jason “Mayhem” Miller (Pictured) was arrested Monday for breaking into a church and creating chaos – while naked. The O.C. Sheriff’s Office told the celebrity gossip site they received a call early this morning from the Mission Hills Church in Mission Viejo, CA about a possible burglary in progress. [...]

Source: http://www.5thRound.com/125645/report-jason-mayhem-miller-arrested-for-burglarizing-church-naked/

Yasubey Enomoto Mark Epstein Tom Big Cat Erickson Martinsh Egle