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The 'Today I Learned...' MMA Thread


Egg Shen

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There was an interesting bit of information on the Weighing In podcast last week. 

Does anyone remember Mike Whitehead of TUF 2 fame? Apparently he was an absolute monster in the gym, capable of giving champion fighters absolute fits. Yet, he often underperformed on fight night.  I checked wiki to remind myself of how he fared on TUF 2. This is from a description of episode 9 (titled "The Mental Game):

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Rashad Evans defeats Mike Whitehead by unanimous decision after three rounds. The fight leaves the blue team, Hughes, and White shocked due to Whitehead's lackluster effort. White says that he choked "To the point where there is 10 seconds left and he just stops fighting, I've never seen that."

I haven't watched TUF 2 since it originally aired in late 2005, so I had obviously forgotten about all this. Still, I never knew he was such as underachiever. 

Edited by jimufctna24
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All I remember about that fight is it was fucking awful. I think Rashad got some shit for that as well and if I remember right, between his performance in that fight and his size, Dana was pretty much writing him off afterwards.

As soon as I read the name Mike Whitehead, the words ‘creepy’ and ‘pervert’ instantly sprung to mind but I wasn’t sure why. Did a bit of googling and yeah, he was arrested in 2010 for sexual assault. Then I remembered one of the team challenges on TUF 2 where the fighters had to wear long socks and chase each other around the cage trying to pull each others’ socks off. Weird as fuck. But funnily enough, it was the most enthusiastic and energetic Whitehead looked all season. Me and my brother always said he was a wrong’un after that. So when the news of his arrest broke a few years later, it wasn’t a massive shock. Look at this deviant...

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40 minutes ago, wandshogun09 said:

All I remember about that fight is it was fucking awful. I think Rashad got some shit for that as well and if I remember right, between his performance in that fight and his size, Dana was pretty much writing him off afterwards.

Funnily enough, Big John said on the same podcast that Rashad was the polar opposite to Whitehead. Crap in the gym, but came good on fight night. 

I didn't know that Whitehead was such a wrong-un either. I only remembered him as the bland fucker who was somewhat associated with Matt Hughes. 

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Not really something that I have learned, but something I have gained a fresh perspective on.

Jack Slack on the Mousasi vs King Mo fight from 2010:

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Against Lawal, Mousasi struck viciously from the bottom throughout the fight. Each time Mo stood over him, Mousasi would kick into the knee of Mo's lead leg, hoping to bring Mo's head forward and in line to kick with the other foot.

Here's another nice instance of Mousasi pushing Mo away and attempting to use the other leg to kick Mo in the head as their positioning shifted. As Mo was on his knees at the time, this would have been entirely illegal had Mousasi's left foot connected.

In round five Mousasi was docked a point for finally connecting an illegal up-kick, though it made little difference on the scorecards. All three judges had King Mo far ahead. The fight raised some questions about judging criteria, however. Though Mo held top position for most of the fight, it was Mousasi delivering the power strikes repeatedly from the bottom. Bas Rutten won his UFC belt from the bottom in a far less active performance than Mousasi's against King Mo.

 

I was a fan of both at the time and had zero problem with the decision. But Slack, who I might add utterly loathes Mousasi, has a point here. Perhaps under a different scoring criteria Mousasi would have gotten the nod. I wonder how the judges would have seen the fight under Pride's scoring criteria. 

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That Gomi apparently spent the week before the Nick Diaz on the piss. The story goes that it was Gomi's first ever trip to Vegas, and given that he was always fond of a pint or seven, he was very eager to embrace the Vegas nightlife. 

It's thus little wonder that he came into that fight with little strategy and was blowing out of his arse after 5 minutes. Throwing caution to the wind will lead to a fighter getting tired at the best of times. Doing so after spending a week on the piss is just asking for trouble. 

I still love the mental piss-head though. 

takanori-gomi-drinks-beer.jpg?w=335

Edited by jimufctna24
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59 minutes ago, Egg Shen said:

today i learned that Zuluzhino is now taking part in that Russian slap fighting thing:

 

Off topic so I apologise but this reminded me of when I was a young man agreeing to let a colleague/friend to slap my as hard as they could in exchange for a 5 second Chinese burn.

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today I learned that UFC commentator Jon Anik has an identical twin brother. He hosts a podcast with Belal Muhammad. I actually watched for 5 minutes before realising it wasn't Jon. I spent the whole time wondering how he'd managed to grow his hair so quickly.

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Edited by Egg Shen
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