I Loved Tito Ortiz vs. Chael Sonnen

I am a sucker for the previous generation of mixed martial arts. I can't watch Michael Jordan nailing fadeaways in basketball, Glenallen Hill swinging for the fences in baseball, or, uh, Jim Miller? throwing that pigskin around at a competitive level anymore, but I can still watch MMA legends compete well past their prime. Bellator is delivering me those desired fights by matching up Tito Ortiz vs. Chael Sonnen.

I was never a big Tito Ortiz fan. His biggest run was during a pretty dark age for the UFC, and he had gone downhill by the time that MMA started to gain popularity again under new ownership and piggybacking off the success of The Ultimate Fighter. Still, he's an important part of the history of MMA, and he was known as a good trash talker back in the day. This man is a Donald Trump supporter who can barely string together a sentence, but he was able to talk circles around Ken Shamrock, who somehow managed to get worse at talking after spending years in professional wrestling.

On the other hand, Chael Sonnen was my jam. Sonnen played the part of the heel, and he enjoyed every second of it. Sonnen is incredibly intelligent, and he knows how to play the game and was the ultimate provocateur. He once accused the Nogueiras of petting a bus, because they thought it was a horse. I was nearly in tears at the ways that he insulted Brazilians, even though Big Nog and Wanderlei Silva are two of my favorite fighters ever. But when you were a fan of Sonnen, you kind of knew that you were in on the joke with him. None of it was said with animosity, and if you took it seriously, you had already lost. On top of all of this, he was a wrestler, and I have an incredible bias towards favoring wrestlers in mixed martial arts. He came incredibly close to winning titles in two different weight classes. Sure, everyone remembers how he was only a couple minutes away from completing a beatdown on Anderson Silva, but don't forget his match with Jon Jones. Sonnen got absolutely annihilated and finished in the first round, but had he lasted a minute longer, the ref would have had to stop the fight since Jones broke a toe while he was beating on Sonnen. It would have been the most Chael Sonnen win in history. Instead, we have Sonnen facing off against Ortiz.

Now was this fight objectively good? Oh, God no. But was it entertaining? Of course it was. Despite it being Tito Ortiz's retirement fight and a fight that is about three years after Chael Sonnen's retirement, I was still totally jacked to see these two fight. And for the two minutes that this fight went on, it gave me everything I needed.

Tito got some good shots in standing, looked to have a takedown but got outgrappled by the superior wrestler in Sonnen. Sonnen could have legitimately had a choke but didn't have enough confidence in his jiu jitsu to actually go all out for it. Then he did something stupid, let Ortiz mount him and gave up on the fight at that point. Ortiz finished him with a neck crank, because when things went south for Sonnen, there was no need for him to fight on; he already got paid.

Afterwards, Tito actually gave one of his best speeches for his retirement, and it's good that he goes out on "top" because he's an important figure who, with his delusions, will think that this cements his legacy, even though his legacy was decided a decade ago. Still, crazy people living in a world of crazy is the safest place they can be. Let Tito stay in his safe space.

What is most important for Sonnen is that he ran circles around Tito in the pre-match buildup, and that means he'll continue to get paid. We kind of knew that Sonnen was not likely to win the fight, and we'll likely know that he won't win his next fight. But I'll still watch. Because with both guys, winning the fight wasn't the main point. They were spectacles on their own. The fight was the sideshow.

Blame Anderson Silva for Stalling Against Daniel Cormier

I have seen a ridiculous amount of stupid shit posted on the internet regarding Daniel Cormier's performance at UFC 200. Well, it's a ridiculous amount for what happened, but basically a normal amount for an MMA event. Everybody is shitting on Daniel Cormier for taking it to the ground, but it's Anderson Silva's fault that there wasn't more action.

First off, let me just say hats off to Anderson Silva for taking the fight on two days' notice and going in there against one of the best fighters in the world at a weight class above where he normally fights. That doesn't just take guts; it takes an arrogance that very few outside of Silva possess, and I'm saying that in the most positive way possible. But he signed up for a fight. He didn't sign the contract with it in writing that Daniel Cormier had to fight a fun fight and help give him chances to win.

Fighting is actually based off a super simple premise. If you want action, you have to create space. If you want to shut down action, you have to eliminate space. Anderson Silva did everything he could in this fight to eliminate space and shut down action. He locked up Cormier's upper body and leg locked one of his legs, so there was really no opportunity for Cormier to do anything of signifance, and he still managed to fire off constant punches so he at least could do something. Still, despite Anderson Silva doing nothing to work towards submissions or try to stand up, the crowd willed the referee into standing up the fight multiple times.

If fans wanted to boo a guy for stalling on top, it should have been directed at Brock Lesnar who was just looking to maintain his position as opposed to looking for a finish in his fight against Mark Hunt. In the first round, he got full mount and did not try to posture up but instead stayed tight and threw tight punches as opposed to unleashing on him. And in round three, he easily could have moved to full mount, but he took the safe option of keeping Hunt pinned down. And there is nothing wrong with that. It was the smart decision. It also helps that Brock Lesnar is such a freak that he still threw some pretty mean blows in that tight space.

Fans booing Daniel Cormier showed how clueless they are. So what if Anderson Silva doesn't get to show off his standup skills? He barely even attempted to fight off a takedown. He didn't deserve to stand up in that fight. Anderson Silva made a gutsy decision and took a fight against an elite fighter on two days' notice, and he deserves respect for that, but he doesn't deserve a win to be gifted to him for being gutsy. Those he has to earn, and last night against Daniel Cormier, he didn't do anything to deserve it. 

Is There a Parallel for Ronda Rousey?

Ronda Rousey destroyed another opponent this weekend. She's gotten so good that she doesn't even have to use her world class Judo skills to beat her opponents. She is now the best boxer in the division as well. She's stupid good, and it's nearly impossible to come up with a relevant comparison for what she is doing right now. Here is my journey to attempt to find a parallel for what Ronda Rousey is currently doing.

First, it was pretty easy to eliminate any athlete involved in team sports. Even at Michael Jordan's level of dominance, a team sport just doesn't allow for a single person to so totally dominate all of their competition.

After that, I looked at the most dominant athlete of the last 20 years, Tiger Woods. As great as Tiger Woods was during his prime, he basically would have had to have his performance at the 2000 US Open in every major for three straight years to be as dominant as Ronda Rousey. Tiger Woods was amazing, and he's not even close to Rousey.

Then I took the logical step of looking at MMA. The most dominant recent champions have been Anderson Silva and Jon Jones. Both guys were dominant, but they had some struggles against opponents. Anderson Silva ripped off 16 straight wins in the UFC, but in there, even he had times of mortality against guys that could put him on his back like Travis Lutter, Dan Henderson, and Chael Sonnen. Jon Jones has never been beaten, but Alexander Gustafsson gave him a lot of trouble, and he usually wins by picking his opponents apart, where Ronda Rousey steamrolls them.

If you want to go old school, you can look at a guy like Royce Gracie who did completely dominate from UFC 1-UFC 4. Until Dan Severn lasted over 15 minutes, nobody made it to the six-minute mark against Royce. Still, Gracie won purely with technique, where Rousey wins with not only technique but by also just being more physical than her opponents.

If I was going for an MMA parallel, the answer would have to be Mark Kerr. Kerr was not only a world-class wrestler who became incredibly adept at submissions, but then he quickly learned how to light people up on the feet and had absolutely brutal ground and pound. He destroyed every one of his first 11 opponents, where only one man was able to last past 3:04. He was the guy picked to rule over Pride. Obviously, that didn't happen, but even if you only count those first 11 fights, the level of competition that Kerr faced was usually not the greatest, where Rousey has been taking out the best of the best since her third fight.

And that brings us up to the most common comparison, Mike Tyson. As weird as this sounds to say about Mike Tyson, he wasn't dominant enough to be compared to Ronda Rousey. Even before he won the title, he got taken to decisions by guys like James Tillis and Mitch Green, who were solid gatekeepers but guys on a level that Tyson should have steamrolled. I will give Tyson credit as he avoided his toughest possible opponent in his prime with Evander Holyfield and Ronda Rousey has avoided her toughest opponent in Cyborg. The nail in the coffin is Tyson's loss to Buster Douglas. Douglas is basically the equivalent to Bethe Correia, a beatable opponent that is meant to showcase the champion in a foreign land. Tyson got knocked out by Douglas, Rousey took less than a minute to annihilate Correia.

After going through all of these greats, it would seem like I have exhausted all of the possibilities. But then I realized the answer was standing in front of me the entire time. I don't know how I could see around his blobby existence, but I managed to do it until now.

Of course, I'm talking about Steven Seagal. He has fought the best in the world and has always come out on top. But that's the thing, he had contemporaries like Bruce Willis, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and Jean-Claude Van Damme who had similar accomplishments, but nobody made it look easier than Seagal. He annihilated his opponents without breaking a sweat and hardly ever having a single mark on his face as a sign that he had been in a battle to the death.

Ronda Rousey is incredibly impressive, and in MMA, she has had to deal with a wide variety of opponents and situations, but it is nothing compared to what Seagal has shown in his fighting career. Just take a look at this highlight video that would even impress Miss Rousey.
Ronda Rousey is great. She is the female Steven Seagal, and there is no greater compliment than that.

How Good Is Conor McGregor?

I am a Conor McGregor hater. I think the term is relative, but it seems that if you don't love Conor McGregor, you are deemed to be one of his haters. I can admit I was more of a hater in the past, as I thought he was a well-protected fighter who found the right style matchups to help him keep moving up the ladder, but after his last few fights, I had to give the guy some credit, as he's incredibly compelling to watch. Still, I thought Jose Aldo would smash him when that fight was announced, and I thought Chad Mendes was an even worse matchup for McGregor when he was brought in as a replacement.

And McGregor proved me wrong.

Good for him. He's super good, and although he talks a lot of shit, people who are around him seem to think he's a good dude. Does he seem like a sociopath? Of course he does, but it takes a very special person to rise to greatness without being a little mentally off. Michael Jordan was a sociopath, and his career turned out just fine.

Coming into the fight I wondered how good Conor McGregor was. After the fight, I still find myself asking: How good is Conor McGregor?

After watching that fight, you could come to so many conclusions. If you're a fan, you could say that McGregor proved that he can handle good wrestlers. A hater could just as easily say that he has shit takedown defense, and had Mendes not gassed super early, it could have been a very painful night for McGregor. Even with his striking, I think we can all agree that it is elite, but he got hit by some heavy shots from Mendes, and can he really count on his chin to absorb that much punishment without his lights going out? I really don't know.

The one thing that nobody can take away is McGregor is so smooth on his feet. I honestly think he is as smooth of a striker as anyone outside of prime-Anderson Silva. Now, I won't say that he's the best striker, as I think there are other guys who are more effective, and one of those guys is Jose Aldo. What Aldo lacks in smoothness (which isn't much), he more than makes up for in pure violence. Also, as I mentioned earlier, the hands down striking works well against guys who are not on your level as strikers, but Aldo can turn somebody's lights out with one mistake, as he has proven on many occasions.

So how good is Conor McGregor? Unfortunately, I don't really know if I learned much of anything about McGregor in that fight. He solidified his spot in the top-5 featherweights, but is he the best? It's impossible to say until he fights Jose Aldo, and that is why that fight will be one of the biggest in UFC history.

The Saddest Ending In Sports

I didn't expect that to happen.

There were so many ways I could have seen Anderson Silva and Chris Weidman's rematch going, but that definitely wasn't one of them.

I have long been a detractor of Anderson Silva as I thought that any good wrestler with some semblance of submission defense should be able to take him out as long as they stuck with a good game plan. I was wrong, because it didn't take a good game plan; it took a perfect game plan. Anderson Silva is so dangerous on his feet that every second that a person spends standing up is a second where they have a high risk of being knocked out. I wrote about his greatness before this fight and how excited I was for this fight, but now I am left with nothing but this empty feeling.

I'll admit I didn't see it at first. I thought that I missed him getting clipped, and then when I saw him holding his leg, I knew it was bad. Then I heard his screams. God, those screams. It was as disturbing as a child's scream, and this is not meant to compare Silva to a child, but to recognize that somebody that tough to be in that much pain is just sickening.

Then I saw the replay. And my worst thoughts were confirmed. His leg snapped in half. After that happened, nothing else mattered. Even Weidman knew, he gave a quick raise of the arms, but then went to check on Silva before being shooed away so the medical staff could take care of him.

The UFC crowd is not known for their sympathy, but everyone knew that this was terrible. As Weidman had his post-fight interview with Joe Rogan, there were no cheers, there were no boos, there was just ambient noise that seemed neither positive or negative, it just was.

No matter what happens from here, he's the greatest fighter we have ever seen, and it's going to take an incredible comeback from Georges St. Pierre or an incredible run from Jon Jones for anyone to challenge that position in the near future. The man was made to fight and reached his highest potential. So very few in any occupation can say that.

This is an unfair scenario for Anderson Silva. This shouldn't have been how his career ended. He was so great for so long. I got angry watching him, because everything he did looked so easy that it made me sick. I could make up a game specifically designed to my strengths and still not be as great as he was at mixed martial arts. Even last night, I had that feeling of inevitability that Silva was going to start picking apart Weidman after surviving that first round. He never stopped being great. Instead, greatness was taken away from him.

I have been trying to figure out the right way to end this, but I'm at a loss for words. I guess that's fitting; Anderson Silva's career was made by leaving fans speechless.

Anderson Silva And The Art Of Showboating

When it comes to sports, I have a bias towards wrestlers. I loved Robert Quinn coming out of college, because he was a state champion high school wrestler. I loved Ray Lewis for the same reasons. I don't even know what level Deron Williams wrestled at before switching to basketball full-time, but I remember an announcer mentioning it while he was at Illinois, and I still support him, even though he has been rapidly declining. Never is this more true than in the UFC. In my mind, you need to have a wrestling background to be great, because without wrestling, you have no control of where the fight ends up.

I have always underrated Anderson Silva because of this. To be fair, he has gotten a ton better at wrestling, going from childlike to a poor wrestler. He's not going to shoot for takedowns, but his sprawl and underhook defense has gotten a ton better, and really, that's the only aspects of wrestling that Silva is going to need.

It's fair to say that my underrating Anderson Silva was a huge whiff on my sports predictions. It isn't the first, and won't be the last, but even though I have been wrong, it has been a blast watching him fight. Watching him strike from his feet is poetry in motion. It's so ridiculously smooth. There is nothing in this world that I can do as smoothly as he strikes, and that includes seducing the ladies. Win or lose this weekend, Silva's career is winding down, and we should appreciate all of the opportunities we have left, even if he is no longer in peak form.

My only proof that he may not be in peak form is that he is 38 years-old. Outside of that, there isn't much video evidence to suggest he has lost a step. Yes, he lost his last fight, but he got caught while doing what Silva does, believing in his skills to the point where he feels comfortable making his opponent look bad.

We have all been taught that showboating is bad. In most cases, it is. The showboating itself is not bad, but so few athletes can be so great that they are able to back it up. Anderson Silva is one of those amazing athletes who actually benefits from showboating. He demoralizes his opponents and kills all confidence with his showboating. Outside of the first Chael Sonnen fight, he has made his opponents believe that he was better than them in every other fight he has been in. He stands there with his hands down and easily dodges all strikes that come his way. At this point, his opponent feels helpless, and it is amazing how the energy can drain from an opponent who doesn't know what to do. Anderson Silva is the water; his opponents are the helpless swimmer. The harder they work, the more dire their situation becomes.

Don't fool yourselves. Chris Weidman has looked like an absolute monster in all of his fights, but by the second round with Silva, he looked beat. He was putting his head down and charging in for shots like the world's slowest bull. Silva dismissed him, as he should have, because all visual evidence was pointing to him being done. That all changed when one of Silva's dips mistimed into a left hook from Weidman, and all of a sudden, Silva was human again.

Michael Jordan stuck his tongue out, shrugged his shoulders, and shot free throws with his eyes closed. He didn't do this because it helped his game; he did it because he could. And mentally, his opponents were defeated before the end of the first quarter. Silva is that sort of athlete. He has such a myth around himself that his opponents are fighting a mental battle before they enter the cage. The showboating just puts the nail in their mental coffin.

As I said before, Weidman has been a beast in all of his previous fights, and the one time he didn't look like a beast, against Silva, he still knocked his opponent out. If he comes in with proper cardio and has his wrestling working, it's going to take something special for Silva to win. At the same time, I can't shake the feeling that we are going to see that classic Anderson Silva performance of easily rolling away from shots while effortlessly peppering his opponents with pinpoint striking.

I don't know what is going to happen on Saturday, but I know it's going to be special. If I had to make a pick, I'm going with Weidman. I have underestimated Silva throughout his entire UFC career (I thought Rich Franklin would win BOTH times), so why stop now? But this time, I will admit, there is a little piece of me hoping that I'm wrong, because getting another opportunity to see that sort of greatness is something I don't want to miss out on.

Chris Weidman Will Beat Anderson Silva

The title says it all, but I will expand a little on my thoughts. Not only will Chris Weidman beat Anderson Silva this Saturday, it is not even going to be much of a fight. Anderson Silva is incredibly dangerous, but Weidman is literally the worst possible matchup for Silva.

1. Silva Hates Wrestlers.
We can all agree that Silva struggled the most with Chael Sonnen, especially in their first fight. Weidman is currently a better MMA wrestler than Sonnen. He dominated Mark Munoz with his wrestling, and Munoz was a NCAA National Champion. He is that good.

2. Silva's Ground Game
So Silva is facing a better wrestler than Sonnen; he's still dangerous off his back. Silva is somewhat dangerous, but his submissions are slightly overrated. He's pretty methodical in his setups, and he always tries to attack one side. Weidman not only has great submission defense, his submission offense is pretty damn impressive as well.

3. All It Takes Is One Mistake.
This is true. Silva is an incredible striker. It's amazing to watch him, but if he expects Weidman to go for a spinning back fist like it's a good idea, he's got another thing coming. In the first fight against Sonnen, he not only got dominated by wrestling, but he got oustruck by Sonnen too, because he consistently put pressure on him. Sonnen dominated the first round of the second fight against Silva, and he could have been fine had he not slipped on his spinning back fist attempt. But that's the thing with spinning back fists. They're great when they work, but they can also make people look really stupid. Expect Weidman to use more traditional striking techniques to set up his takedowns.

4. Weidman By Decision?
No. Silva is not going to last five rounds with this guy. My heart is telling me one thing, while my brain is telling me another, but I'll go with my heart and say 2nd round TKO (my brain has Silva lasting until the third). Yes, Silva's an incredible striker, but Weidman is his kryptonite. Dan Henderson could have beaten Silva had he stuck with a gameplan of taking Silva down. Sonnen was two minutes away, but he was tired and got lazy with submission defense. In the second fight, he went big and was sent home. I don't see any of those three pitfalls affecting Weidman, and that is why he is going to give Anderson Silva the beating of a lifetime.

Other UFC 162 Predictions:
Frankie Edgar over Charles Oliveira - Going with the wrestler.
Tim Kennedy over Roger Gracie - Should be able to outstrike Gracie.
Mark Munoz over Tim Boetsch - Not a big fan of either guy, but I'll continue my theme of going with the wrestler.
Cub Swanson over Dennis Siver - Cub is too dynamic in all aspects of fighting.
Andrew Craig over Chris Leben - I pretty much always pick against Leben.
Norman Parke vs. Kazuki Tokudome - I predict these two will fight. That's all I know.
Gabriel Gonzaga over Dave Herman - The UFC really hates Dave Herman, because they just keep putting him up against guys who are really tough fighters.
Edson Barboza over Rafaello Oliveira - Bad night for the Oliveiras.
Seth Baczynski over Brian Melancon - Just cuz.
Mike Pierce over David Mitchell - Mitchell saved his UFC Contract last fight; he won't be so lucky this time.

Chael Sonnen Will Beat Anderson Silva

The biggest fight in the UFC for this year is happening on Saturday when Anderson Silva defends his title against Chael Sonnen. The trash talk may be overshadowing the fact that this should be an awesome fight. Although many people rave about the first fight, it was really more shocking than great. Watching Chael Sonnen beat up Anderson Silva for 23 minutes was fun, but it was really just watching a better fighter beat up on somebody who wasn't on his level. I was one of the few people who believed Chael would beat Silva in their first fight, and my opinion is unchanged. Chael Sonnen will be crowned the Middleweight Champion on Saturday night.

Anderson Silva is a great fighter. There is no denying that. He has beaten everybody that has been put in front of him since he got to the UFC. Chael Sonnen's resume does not match up to Anderson Silva's. Looking at this matchup on paper, Anderson Silva will definitely win. However, this ain't no paper fight, and Chael Sonnen will beat Anderson Silva. He might even make it look easy.

I was born and raised in Iowa. That fact alone makes me a better wrestler than most. When I came out of the womb and the doctor was trying to cut the umbilical cord, I put him in a whizzer, because I thought he was going after my whizzer. Chael's not from Iowa, but a little thing like wrestling on the US Olympic team gives him honorary Iowan status. Wrestling is the martial art of the USA, and it's really effective against people who don't know how to defend it.

Anderson Silva is a poor wrestler. He is training down in Brazil which just shows that he is not taking this fight seriously. You know who's a good wrestler out of Brazil? Nobody; they all suck. They think a double leg is a style of pants. If he was serious about being the best he could be, he would train in the US, where he could train against wrestlers. 


Some would say that his jiu jitsu is so great that he can be taken down in the fight and still win. Although it did work out in the first fight, if he was that good, he wouldn't have let Sonnen beat him up for four and a half rounds. He went for the same move for the entire fight, and the triangle is definitely his go-to maneuver in a fight. He telegraphs what he wants to do, although I think he is very good at maneuvering his way into getting what he wants, even if he isn't sneaky about it. I really don't think Sonnen has to worry about being swept, because Silva has never shown great aptitude with leverage.

So then we have the people who believe Silva will be better in this fight, because he is 100% for it. But what documentation of an injury do we have outside of Anderson saying he had a hurt rib? A hurt rib is not an injury, it's some pain in your torso. I once bruised my rib while I was training in MMA. It hurt like hell. I told my coach about it, and he looked at me like I was the biggest pussy in the world. He was right; I am a giant pussy, but I still never took a day off, and after my coach made me realize what a pussy I was being, I never made another peep about it. Anderson Silva has been talking about his hurt rib for two years.

I understand that Chael Sonnen rubs some people the wrong way. I think he is awesome, personally, but even with my bias thrown out the window, it is really tough to make the argument that this guy is an asshole. Yes, he has talked a lot of trash about Anderson Silva, but he has also had matches with Brian Stann and Michael Bisping between his last fight with Silva. He had nothing but nice things to say about Stann, which is pretty easy, because Brian Stann is an American hero who is a really nice guy who does great things for veterans. Also, everybody hates Michael Bisping, and Sonnen still did not go out of his way to talk trash. He just hates Anderson Silva. That doesn't make him an asshole, that makes him human. We all have those people that we just don't like; it's just that Chael is open and honest about it.

Also, Chael Sonnen is a really good fighter. He's the best wrestler in the middleweight division, and his striking is very underrated. Honestly, it is tough to come up with a guy who can beat him, because Anderson Silva ain't that guy. Get ready for the greatest fighter in the Middleweight division to take his title, and don't expect him to give up that title anytime soon. Long live the title reign of Chael Sonnen.