This Week in the Cage: No Chuck, No Love, and a Pair of Foreign Guys

Bad Luck Chuck.
It's been an interesting (to say in the least) year for Chuck Liddell, all out side the cage too. It seems that his career at the moment is destined to be riddled with circumstantial bruises. Hardcore MMA followers across the states scrambled for a pair of 'Depends' following the announcement of Shogun vs Chuck at UFC 84. It was a fight that had fireworks all over it. Legend vs Prodigy. A match-up from heaven, only to live a week. Shogun out with knee injury. Now we were all glad we we're wearing diapers, I shit myself hearing the replacement for Shogun was who? None other than Rashad "I'll Out Last You" Evans, who's unbeaten record looks impressive on paper, but with 7 of the last 11 victories coming from judges. Calling Evans a 'finisher' is a bit of a stretch. So the fight lost serious clout, now is more a stocking stuffer than headline. If that weren't it, latest word is now The Iceman, after suffering an extensive hamstring pull is forced to pull out as well. The Fighting Gods have been so unkind.

But, there is always a silver-lining.

-Chuck is already in a verbal pissing match with a potential dream fight, Kimbo. Enough has been said to have both sides seeking proper steps to set up a possible bout. Providing Kimbo's Prime Time Slice with CBS does well in May, this could almost make up for not seeing Shogun and Liddell in the first place.

-James Irvin, proven banger has stepped up to fill the spot for Chuck. Irvin has been known to dismantle people, ask Marcus Houston or Terry Martin. At least one person in this fight will be looking to end it.


"No Rest for No Love"
Following an impressive win at over K-1 Veteran Sam Stout at UFC 83, Welterweight Rich "No Love" Clemeniti ops for no downtime. The three war in Montreal was taken after a decision, Clementi left one battle to prepare for the next. Scheduled for the upcoming UFC 84, Clementi is set to toe off with a UK star of Terry Etim in Las Vegas come this May 24th. With recent wins over Melvin Guillard, Anthony Johnson, and now Sam, Rich seems to have found a stride. Great on the ground, and hands to show we're secretly hoping Mac Danzig and Clementi cross paths in the center of the octagon.

Cro Cop Next Stop
Dream 4 has officially declared the next showing of Cro Cop. Today Dream announced that Mirko and Jerome LeBanner (an explosive striker) will be meeting each other June 16th in Tokyo. Lebanner is 3-1-1, hardly enough to strike fear in the Croatian.


Fighting with Fedor.
Yes we mean M-1, but not quite what you may think. Yes, the same M-1 that supposedly contracted Fedor Emelianenko, up until they realized he'd never signed any contracts. "Oh yeah, that formality." The same company has released a statement of a new reality show in the works for the Russian, titled: Fighting with Fedor. The (Ultimate Fighter Knock Off) show will feature 16 fighters who are all competing (twist) to fight Fedor.

Heavyweights will pummel each other, to in hopes of finding the one among them worthy enough to get KO'd by one of the most all-time winning MMA fighters to date.
(FYI, Fedor now sits at 28-1-1.)

Just makes it hard calling the winner of that show, a 'winner'.


Zuffa Companies Unite
And lastly UFC and WEC announce future plans. UFC will push for the heavier weight classes, while the WEC will focus on the lower weight classes. Dana White @ MMAAnalyst with more clarification.

White says the UFC has no plans to introduce a 145-pound weight class. “That’s why we bought the WEC (World Extreme Cagefighting).”

In fact, he said they are going to take steps to make the two circuits more distinct. “We’re going to make the WEC the smaller weights and the UFC will be the heavier weights. We’ll probably take some of the guys in the higher weights, the champions over there and bring them into UFC. We’re still trying to figure that out.”

WEC features 135-(bantamweight) and 145-pound (featherweight) weight classes as well as 155, 170, 185 and 205. The UFC has 155, 170, 185, 205 and heavyweight.

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UFC 83 Breakdown/ ShoXc Fight Card

Heads up. Fighting just around the corner. Coming up next month, a huge weekend in the MMA world, aside from the obvious Title Fight the entire night is peppered with Ultimate Fighter Alumni. It should be a great opportunity to see if the talent from the show can stack up against real-world fighters. One fight to put some note on even though it's in the prelim's, do yourself a favor and catch the Stout/Cleminti fight.

Stout is a World-Class Striker from TKO, exceptional Muay-Thai, and knock out power. He's versatile on his feet and if not taken seriously can turn this into a 1 round bout. If there was a whole or chink in the armor, Florian capitalized on it. The ground. While he is improving, the ground is dry land for this tiger shark. Unfortunately Rich Clementi has shown how comfortable he down low. 5 of his last 10 wins come by submission, including heavy banger Melvin Guilliard. While we don't put Melvin and Stout in the same class technically, they do bear the same weakness. Keep and eye on this fight should be a crowd pleaser.

And of course the primed match up of George St. Pierre and Matt Serra.

This will be interesting, main reason is Matt Serra is still a wild card. He is in the exact same postion as he was in the first fight. Back against the wall, underdog, nothing (but the title) to lose. In most cases people aren't really giving it to him anyway so for him, he needs to walk out do the exact same thing. Go for broke. Nothing will matter until the bell sounds and he should do what he does, fight. He showed he does have stand up skills, and should it go to the ground all the better...his bread and butter. I'm sure he's been training his ass off concentrating on better hands skills, but his defense looked great and his poise was even better against a World-Renowned Striker. On the other side, he does realize GSP is the elite in every category. Gsp has never been beaten twice, nor does he make the same mistake twice. What Gsp will look to do is, very simple go out and dominate. Every match Gsp has won he usually took the fight to the other. Matt Hughes simple strikes, then to the ground- case and point for Koscheck. These are both fighters that prefer the ground, it matters not to Rush. His training is BAR NONE, he boxes professional boxers, he wrestles Olympic wrestlers, he grapples with abudu dhabi specialists...and holds numerous belts in traditional styles. On paper this guy is incredible, in the ring...it's just a matter of where his head is at. And sadly for Matt Serra the one thing that seems to motivate this kid, is defeat. And tasting it from the same hands is very, very unlikely. Good luck Matt.

Main Card:

• Matt Serra vs. Georges St. Pierre** UFC Welterweight Championship
• Travis Lutter vs. Rich Franklin**
• Nate Quarry** vs. Kalib Starnes
• Charles McCarthy vs. Michael Bisping**
• Mark Bocek vs. Mac Danzig**

Preliminary Bouts:

• Joe Doerksen vs. Jason MacDonald
• Jason Day vs. Alan Belcher
• Ed Herman vs. Demian Maia
• Rich Clementi vs. Sam Stout
• Brad Morris vs. Cain Velasquez
• Kuniyoshi Hironaka vs. Jonathan Goulet

**Indicates predicted winner

Don't for get to tune in-
ShoXc is on Tom Night @ 11pm Et
Showtime

• Televised Main Event: 155lbs: Malaipet vs. Thomas “Wildman” Denny
• 205 lbs: Jaime Fletcher vs. Aaron Rosa
• Marlon Mathias vs. Conor Heun
• Heavyweight: Shane del Rosario vs. Analu Brash
• 135 lbs: Chris Cariaso vs. Mark Oshiro

Non-Televised

• 160 lbs: Vince Guzman vs. Lyle Beerbohm
• 170 lbs: Devin Howard vs. Mark Kempthorne
• Heavyweight: Brandon Tarn vs. Jason Williams
• 170 lbs: Eric Jones vs. Steve Gable
• 170 lbs: Kenny “The Poet’’ Johnson vs. Michael Penafiel

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Current UFC 83 Fight Card Standings

UFC 83 Right around the corner the tensions are rising as is the anxiety. Dana White states,” This will be the BIGGEST event ever...”. While the jury is still out on the size and scope the fact remains it did sell out in the first 22 hours after announcement. If that’s the case we wanted to make sure you were up on who’s battling who...
The latest listing for the UFC 83 fight card follows:

Matt Serra vs. Georges St. Pierre (Title Unification) *
Rich Franklin vs. Travis Lutter **
Michael Bisping vs. Charles McCarthy *
Patrick Cote vs. Alan Belcher **
Marc Bocek vs. Mac Danzig
Joe Doerksen vs. Jason MacDonald
Ed Herman vs. Demian Maia
Brad Morris vs. Cain Velqaquez
Kuniyoshi Hironaka vs. Jonathan Goulet
Sam Stout vs. Rich Clementi*

Marks those we feel will be great bouts*
Marks those that have the potential to be great bouts**

This marks a pivotal moment for some fans, while many doubt the clout of the Current Interim Welterweight Champion George St. Pierre other hardcore fans are posing questions. Considering the last fight with Serra people wonder where GSP’s head is, but looking at his overall history he’s never been beaten twice by the same person. And the bigger question is the same thing we all asked Anderson The Spyder Silva earlier this month. What’s next. And pardon us for looking past Serra, the question is what’s next. Jon Fitch is in line....but where’s the challenge?

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