wandshogun09

Saw the Dan Hardy/Akihiro Gono fight for the first time too, nice little fight it might be worth checking out. Hardy's first fight in the UFC, he looked good but you have to wonder what it all have been a little differently if Gono had a little more steam behind his left hand, he caught Hardy with it constantly.

I loved Hardy-Gono.It was a real close,competitive fight and at the time I wished it would have been on the main card,Gono's entrance was main card worthy on it's own.

I was at UFC 89 and while it's not the best card we got over here it gets shat on more than it deserves IMO.

A lot of the best fights were on the prelims and were never aired.Hardy-Gono,Etim-Stout and even Eklund-Schiavo were all very enjoyable.Then the main card had the Taylor-Lytle war.

Not a great show but not as bad a card as it's made out to be.

yeh, its a great fight. That was the first fight where Diaz showed his striking chops. Strange that the punch that landed KO'd Lawler, ive seen Lawler take much bigger shots than that, guess he just hit him on the sweet spot.

 

Ive read that the rematch hasnt taken place because Diaz and Lawler are friends now, no ones wanting the rematch, which is a shame.

Fuck,friendships are ruining MMA haha.Agree on the KO punch,didn't look all that hard but just completely surprised Lawler,landed on the chin and he never saw the punch coming at all.

It should also be pointed out that the scheduled main event for this card was meant to be Kevin Randleman vs Pedro Rizzo. The fight never took place as Randleman slipped on the concrete backstage, knocking himself out and having to be taken to hospital. No mention of any of this is made on the DVD, and the disc is edited as if the fight was never scheduled to take place in the first place.

WTF never heard about that before

Watched UFC 47 last night.Great card,one of the best UFC shows I've seen.

UFC 47:It's On

Genki Sudo vs Mike Brown

Cool seeing Brown in the UFC.Good little fight too with a nice finish.Short and sweet.Shame Sudo retired,he was a really fun fighter to watch and his entrances were legendary.For some reason though,his entrance here was cut from the DVD

Jonathan Wiezorek vs Wade Shipp

Sloppy fight,not much more to say.I don't think they had either guy back which tells you something.Both guys are gassed in like 2 minutes.

Chris Lytle vs Tiki Ghosn

Tiki actually wasn't doing too badly until it hit the ground.Lytle wins by fucking headlock of all things hahaha

Mike Kyle vs Wes Sims

Wild,short fight with a brutal finish.Some controversy as usual with these 2.Sims had Kyle in a guillotine early in the fight and claims Kyle bit him to escape,in the extras he shows the bite mark on his chest.So Kyle bit him then did this

Nice guy

Nick Diaz vs Robbie Lawler

Everyone knows about this one.Crazy fight and a highlight reel finish.Nobody expected Diaz to stand with Lawler and it made for a real stand up war.Surprised Strikeforce hasn't already done the rematch by now.

Andrei Arlovski vs Cabbage Correira

This was originally supposed to be the first Arlovski-Sylvia fight but Sylvia was suspended and Cabbage stepped in on short notice.I'm sure Rogan said one day's notice which is nuts.Cabbage shows his iron chin once again and is taking everything Arlovski can throw at him until the ref jumps in when Cabbage is knocked down in round 2.

Joe Rogan said the stoppage was too early but I'm not so sure.It may have looked early but Cabbage looked fucked long before he was knocked down and like Rogan said after,Cabbage wasn't complaining about the stoppage.

Too tough for his own good.

Yves Edwards vs Hermes Franca

The only fight to go the distance.Good close,back and forth fight.Yves takes the decision but Franca gave a good showing and looked particularly dangerous on the ground at times.

Chuck Liddell vs Tito Ortiz

Huge main event.The buzz and atmosphere surrounding it was electric from the pre fight video to the entrances and throughout the fight itself.The crowd is deafening and split almost down the middle in their support.The pre fight video is awesome with Tito banging on about not wanting to fight his friend and Chuck basically calling bullshit on it and saying they never agreed not to fight.Exciting fight and another highlight reel finish.Tito's excuse this time was that he got poked in the eye

Highly recommend anyone picking up this show and it's only

speaking of Ortiz, even though he was the 'face' of the UFC for a long time (pretty much from around the times of UFC 25-44) and had a bit of a personality about him, it's never really mentioned that his fights were usually boring as shit. Ortiz tactics have always pretty much been to lie in guard and throw sporadic elbows.

 

The only time Tito's been in exciting fights is when his opponent can shut down his takedowns and force him to fight. Back around the times when he was on top though, the level of opposition couldn't do that.

 

Thoughts?

I'd agree a lot of his fights were pretty boring but I suppose his over the top personality and crazy post fight antics kinda made up for it in some cases.

The other night I watched Tito vs Vitor Belfort from UFC 51.I thought it was one of Tito's better fights.Belfort provided enough danger on the feet to keep it alive and the post fight stuff with Tito nearly starting fights with Chuck and Ken Shamrock was wild.

It was also during this fight that this happened

The most disappointing UFC ever for me has to be UFC 61: Bitter Rivals. What a fucking abortion that was. One half of the co-main event didn't get started (Tito-Ken II) and the other was the most boring, plodding affair since the Shamrock-Severn "superfight".

That was a real disappointment.Tito-Ken was a huge anti-climax after a whole season of TUF was devoted to hyping it up.I thought after that,well Arlovski-Sylvia 3 will be fireworks but they just circled around looking at each other for 5 rounds.After the first 2 I was sure it wouldn't go the distance.

revieved my two 5 event sets today...5 Rumble on the Rocks shows, 5 Superbrawl shows.

 

Looking forward to checking that shit out, cost

I maintain what I said previously about UFC 21 being a hidden gem of a show. From 22 its all about Shamrock/Ortiz and a brutal KO in the Kohler/Judson fight, 23 is one to give a miss to, and having just finished watching the show I would say the same about 24 (just search out Tiki/Cook, and maybe the early Pulver fight).

I just read your post on UFC 22,I'll have to give it a watch.Sounds better than it looks on paper for sure.

I saw 22-24 a while back and apart from Shamrock-Ortiz there wasn't a whole lot that sticks out as memorable but I'm gonna end up getting them all anyway eventually.

I didn't know either.Cool.

I remember watching Ultimate Japan a while back and it was really weird seeing Sakuraba in the UFC.I knew he was on event but it still looked strange to me.

It was the same when Cro Cop,Nogueira etc came to the UFC,seemed surreal to see them in the octagon.It will be the same with Gomi.

And yeah Shockwave 2004 was a great card and one of the best Pride put on IMO.

Fedor was scarily dominant and at times looked like he was just toying with Nog.Different fight to the first one aswell because it's mainly stand up where the first one was a brutal ground and pound demolition job.

Hunt vs Wand is still one of my favourite fights to watch from Pride.A real war and like you I thought Wand edged it but it was a close one to score.

Manhoef v Cyborg from Cage Rage is always a classic.

Forgot that one.What a wild brawl that was.

I was looking at the UFC 21-29 shows and bar seeing them for completeness, I really didn't feel they would be worth watching.

It was certainly a weak run of shows.There's still some stuff worth seeing though just maybe not whole shows.The Frank Shamrock-Tito Ortiz fight is obviously the one that stands out most from these events.

I think Pride 2005 grandprix is widely considered the best, ive just rewatched it all and despite a slow first round, the rest is epic. Great stuff and a great cast of fighters.

 

What i will say is, people always seem to think that this was the tounrnament where Shogun dominated. It's not true, he killed Rampage and Arona in the first rounds and finals, but he was getting handled by Overeem until Alistair ran out of gas, and its debatable whether he beat Lil Nog, many say he didn't. Having said that, it was unbelievable showing by Shogun, he showed if anything that he has huge heart and cemented that deadly killer instict he has. But it wasn't the dominating performance many would have you believe.

 

As for Final Conflict 2005, i will say that the Arona/Silva fight was a lot better than i remember. I always remember Arona lying on Wanderlei for a boring decision, but Arona stood with Wanderlei for much of the fight, and only took Wandy down once, the other's were from a kick and slip. Arona was busy on the ground and beat Wanderlei up. Wanderlei was as much to blame for not pulliing the trigger standing, because Arona gave him plenty of oppurtunity.

I remember Shogun had problems with Overeem both times they fought.

The Shogun-Nogueira fight was really fucking close and if they gave it to Nog I wouldn't have had a problem with it to be fair.Could have been a draw but they needed a winner with the tournament format.Just a really close,awesome fight.

You're right though,it wasn't the blowout it's remembered as but it was a great run of performances over some very tough opponents.

The Arona vs Wanderlei fights I recall being pretty boring but I haven't seen them for a long time.Hate to admit it but I remember thinking Arona won both fights and that Wand got real lucky with the judges in the second fight.

I always enjoyed the 2005 Pride Welterweight and lightweght torunament which was held through one Bushido event (9 I think) with the finals at that years Shockwave. In fact, I'd rate that Bushido show as probably the 3rd best event ever put on by Pride. Pride 25 and Final Conflict 2003 being the only shows I'd rate above it.

Agreed x100.The LWGP in particular from Bushido 9 is,in my opinion,the best of all the Pride GPs.

There's bigger names in the other GPs and some classic fights like Shogun-Little Nog but from a pure fight quality perspective the 2005 LW tournament had more great fights than any other.

I'd throw in Keith Hackney vs Emmanuel Yarbrough from UFC 3.Wild fight and brutal finish.

In fact almost anything involving Keith Hackney from the early UFC's is worth checking out IMO.His fight with Royce was surprisingly competitive if I'm remembering right.

if you get the Cage Rage dvd's you can view them without seeing any of the 2 bald twats (i actually don't Geer, he's pretty clueless but hes nowhere near as annoying as O'Donnell), by just skipping the prefight presentation.

 

I recommend you check a few shows out.

That's the beauty of DVDs I suppose.

I will deffo be checking some out just not sure what shows are best to start with.MMAUniverse only have about 8 or 9 Cage Rage DVDs.Which ones would you recommend?

On the subject of MMA companies I need to see more of does anyone know where to find good quality RINGS footage?Youtube ain't cutting it for me and I'd love to get hold of some early Fedor,Nogueira,Henderson,Randy etc.

Also Pancrase is a bastard to find in good quality aswell.

* Zaromskis/.Mason is a Cage Rage classic, well worth your time if you can track it down. There's a highlight reel of the fight on youtube. Just two guys throwing all kind of funky strikes at each other, and a crazy finish.

 

* Smiler Turner shocked everyone by beating Edson Drago, who at this point was being tipped for stardom. Drago looked a beast until gassing, but this was a good scrap. It's impossible to hate Gary Turner, if only he'd gone into MMA at a younger age, probably would have been in the UFC.

Zaromskis vs Ross Mason was a really good fight if I remember right.

I haven't seen too much Cage Rage,just certain fights here and there and a couple of shows from the Sky Sports/Nuts TV days.Need to pick up a few of them shows because a lot of the fights were very exciting.

It was just those 2 bald twats that put me off Cage Rage to be honest.

Agreed on Gary Turner,big fan of the old Smiler.I remember he used to be on the kickboxing show 'Now Is The Time..' a few years back on Five.Seems a nice bloke and very intelligent too.

I'm skint at the minute and that offer on MMAUniverse is gonna end before I next get paid.I wanted to get the K-1 Dynamite and Hero's DVDs,looks like I'll be paying full whack now

On the subject of past fights I watched UFC 37.5 last night.I'd bought it about a month or so ago off ebay but only just got chance to watch it.

This was the card

Chuck Liddell vs Vitor Belfort

Benji Radach vs Nick Serra

Pete Spratt vs Zach Light

Robbie Lawler vs Steve Berger

Tony Fryklund vs Rodrigo Ruas

Yves Edwards vs Joao Pierini

Decent show,basically a Fight Night show before they were called Fight Nights with a big main event.

Liddell vs Belfort was a good fight and very close.Chuck nicked it with the knockdown at the end.And man,Rogan's pro Chuck bias was so bad here you'd swear Chuck was dominating like Anderson was against Forrest.Seriously people complained about the Shogun-Machida commentating but this was far worse IMO.

I gave Vitor round 1,Chuck round 2 and I had Belfort slightly winning round 3 until the knockdown which tipped the round in Chuck's favour.

One thing that disappointed me was the Lawler-Berger fight was clipped down.It looked like a fun fight and the DVD is shorter than most so it's not like they didn't have time.I'm sure I read that the full fight was aired on some big station in the US so maybe that had something to do with it.

Rest of the card is decent/pretty average.Yves Edwards neck kicks the shit out of Joao Pierini,and fucks up his shoulder somehow forcing the stoppage quickly,Fryklund dominated and pounded out Ruas(Marco's nephew),Spratt pulls off a quick armbar on Zach Light.And Radach-Serra is a pretty one sided three round decision for Benji.Nick Serra had no stand up and kept just dropping to his back.

I have seen Extreme Fighting II & IV, and II is an awful card. IV on the otherhand (if it is the one that features the debuts of Kevin Jackson and Kenny Monday) is the polar opposite and is really worth making the effort to see. I am pretty sure I still have that on an old NTSC video somewhere. I will post some more detailed thoughts on II in the morning when I dig out my matchlistings and notes.

 

In regards to the WEC, dont the prelims eventually air on the Wrekcage show on Versus? I have got the first two seasons, and am pretty sure there was a season 3.

I noticed on the Extreme Fighting DVD I have the listings are a bit off.The Hume vs Paulson fight is listed for EF 2 on there when it was on the third show.The DVD I have is a 1 disc DVD with just the best/main fights from the 4 EF shows so maybe(hopefully) I'll be spared the crap fights.

I watched some of it last night and like Mikey pointed out it looks dated but the fights,for the most part,have been enjoyable.

The Hume vs Paulson fight was an excellent technical fight.Sadly it ended on a cut in the 3rd round but it was a good fight.

I did see the Carlos Newton fight you mentioned aswell.Not the worst fight I've seen but a bit disappointing,especially how it ended with Newton just tapping because of exhaustion.

ive got the Extreme Fighting 1-4 DVD, i watched it years ago when i was just starting to become a diehard, i remember them having Sperry listed as being something like 150-0 on there, doing the old 'BJJ matches included' thing, he fights Igor Zinoviev...it's abit of an MMA classic.

Even worse Sperry was billed at like 270-0

Sperry-Zinoviev was the reason I bought the DVD because I'd heard it was great.I thought it was a really good fight,especially for the time.I couldn't believe that one escape Igor pulled off,Sperry had him mounted and he somehow managed to sweep and turn him over straight into a guillotine.

Bit odd for someone with 270 fights to freak out and tap just because he got a cut though

I got one called Extreme Fighting Vols 1-4 but haven't got round to watching yet.Supposed to be good.It's got the likes of Mario Sperry,Conan Silveira,Carlos Newton,Maurice Smith and even a fight between Matt Hume and Erik Paulson which I'm quite looking forward to.

I'm also looking to get hold of some of the K-1 DVDs aswell.On MMAUniverse.com they've got a Jan sale on until the 31st,they've got K-1 Dynamite USA '07(Lesnar's debut/Royce vs Saku 2),Dynamite 2005,06 & 07,plus K-1 GPs,Hero's,Cage Rage,Cage Warriors etc.

And there's a DVD set of Rumble On The Rock shows on the US Amazon which features the BJ Penn vs Takanori Gomi fight,Anderson Silva vs Okami,Cabbage vs Tank etc.Need to check my DVD player can play NTSC before I buy that one though.

Too many DVDs I want and not enough money is my problem.

Wish they would release WEC,Dream & Strikeforce DVDs with prelims etc.WEC prelims are impossible to find if they never aired on the live broadcast.All them great fights that never see the light of day.

I know it gets addictive.At the minute I've got the 2003,2004,2005 & 2006 GPs,Shockwave 2004,05 & 06,Bushido 6-9 and Prides 11 & 12,19 & 20,25,28 and 33.Can't stop buying them.

I'd highly recommend the Pride Bushido shows too.Bushido 9 is IMO the best Pride show I've seen and one of my favourite MMA shows ever.One great fight after another.

Good idea this thread.

I've been watching a few Pride DVDs lately.Recently these ones I've enjoyed most

Pride 28:'High Octane'

Wanderlei Silva vs Quinton Jackson

Mirko Cro Cop vs Josh Barnett

Dan Henderson vs Kazuhiro Nakamura

Mark Hunt vs Dan Bobish

Alistair Overeem vs Hiromitsu Kanehara

Alexander Emelianenko vs James Thompson

Ricardo Arona vs Sergei Ignatev

Heath Herring vs Hirotaka Yokoi

Bonus Fight:Choi Mu Bae vs Soa Palelei

Very fun card top to bottom with none of the fights going to a decision.The main event makes this card though.Wanderlei-Rampage 2 is better than their first or third fights as it's more back and forth and has one of the most memorable finishes in MMA history.Plus Wand wins

Other highlights include Aleks Emelianenko and James Thompson's 12 second fireworks display,a motivated Heath Herring looking like a beast,the viciousness of Mark Hunt and Overeem's impressive Muay Thai clinch work against Kanehara.

A few fights have controversial endings unfortunately with Barnett and Nakamura both getting injured early on in their fights causing quick and strange endings which was disappointing but overall a top card from Pride.Even the bonus fight Choi-Palelei is a really entertaining slugfest.

Pride Shockwave 2004

Fedor Emelianenko vs Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira

Wanderlei Silva vs Mark Hunt

Takanori Gomi vs Jens Pulver

Dan Henderson vs Yuki Kondo

Mirko Cro Cop vs Kevin Randleman

Rulon Gardner vs Hidehiko Yoshida

Anderson Silva vs Ryo Chonan

Ryan Gracie vs Yoji Anjoh

Choi Mu Bae vs Giant Silva

Ikuhisa Minowa vs Stefan Leko

Bonus Fight:Makoto Takimoto vs Sentoryu Miller

You only have to look at that line up and you can tell it's gonna be awesome.

Fedor vs Big Nog is for the Heavyweight Title and is a rematch of the finals of the 2004 HW GP because the original GP final was ruled a no contest after a clash of heads left Fedor with a huge cut.Fedor is scarily dominant in this fight.Randy Couture is on commentary with Mauro and Bas for this fight which is interesting considering he's since fought Nogueira and left UFC in 2007 to persue the Fedor fight.

As for the rest of the card you have an absolute war between Hunt and Wanderlei,Rulon Garner's only MMA fight,Chonan submitting Anderson Silva with an amazing flying scissors leg lock,Cro Cop-Randleman 2 and a stand up battle between Gomi and Pulver.

One of the best cards Pride ever put on.The DVD is 2 discs and packed with extra stuff,interviews etc.

Jesus I can't believe that Roy Jones result.Even at this stage of his career I never expected him to ever just be destroyed in one round.It got spoilt for me too,I read it on teletext and it had a quote from Jones Jr which was something like 'well I guess now I go back into retirement'.

Great news about Mayweather vs Pacquiao.I still don't want to get my hopes up yet though.It's one of those fights where I won't really believe it's happening until I see them in the ring with Michael Buffer introducing them.If the March 13th date is accurate I really think UFC would be wise to move UFC 111 to a different date.There's no way GSP vs Hardy can compete with Mayweather vs Pacman.

Prizefighter:Light Welterweights is on next Friday at 9pm on Sky Sports 1.

Heres the list of fighters

-Gavin Rees

-Barrie Jones

-Young Mutley

-David Barnes

-Ted Bami

-Jason Cook

-Colin Lynes

-Michael Grant

First Round looks like this

-Grant vs Cook

-Rees vs Bami

-Jones vs Mutley

-Barnes vs Lynes

Looks good.Who's everyone picking to win.I'm going with Barnes,maybe Rees.

I'm looking forward to Mayweather vs Marquez,thought we'd get the 24/7 shows on Sky Sports I'll have to find them online instead.Marquez had an awesome fight against Juan Diaz earlier this year and I'm hoping he'll make a good fight of this one too but it's hard to look good against Floyd.

Mayweather will most likely win but I'm a big JMM fan so I hope he does well.And I've had a feeling for a while for some reason that Cotto will beat Pacquiao and fuck up the Floyd-Manny superfight.

And sad to hear about Darren Sutherland,I think he could have done well.Shame his life ended like that.