Vote for Stacey!

Do me a fovor and go vote for my good friend Stacey. She's a wonderful girl trying to break through in this contest. She's a huge MMA fan and a very special person. (Plus I've been trying to get her to marry me for about 6 months!)

You can vote for Stacey at www.ktfo.tv/kog/kogirls.asp

Go Dolphins!!

So the Dolphins have been my favorite team for ever. I did dis-own them at the end of the 03 season when they chose to keep Dave Wannestad as their head coach. Then the whole Ricky Williams thing happened and I really didn't follow them last year. But Wannestad is now gone and the ricky thing is hopefully over so I sat down and watched them today for the 1st time in over a year. Plus I hate the Broncos so I had to see if they could beat the crap out of them.

And beat the crap otu of them they did! The Dolphin defense looked superb shutting down that offense. Gus Frerotte did a pretty solid job at the QB spot. The running game is still lacking and the recievers dropped a couple of balls but they were an underdog in this game and came out with the big "W" against the team I hate most. They can lose all other games this year and I'll still be talking about this one!

To all my friends back in Denver and WY who are Bronco fans...............

HA!

HBO Boxing After Dark

Saturday Night was a night for 2 great fights. Eric Morales squared off against Zahir Raheem right after Manny Pacquiao fought Hector Velazquez.

Manny Pacquiao 40-3-2 w/ 31 ko's Vs. Hector Velazquez 42-11-2 w/ 31ko's
This fight was a terrific one. They came out and traded blows for the 6 rounds it lasted. The normal firecracker start from Pacquiao was extinguished by a fully charged Velazquez. Velazquez seemed to have Pacquiao in trouble several times during the 1st couple rounds. Pacquiao, a true warrior of boxing, came back and ultimately knocked Velazquez down at the end of the 6th round. He was able to get to his feet before the 10 count ended and as the round ended with the 10 count he was going to get a chance for a break. Lou Moret, referee for the evening, watched as Velazquez staggered back to his corner and he ultimately called the fight. Manny Pacquiao won by TKO.

With phase one of the ultimate plan excicuted successfully it was time for Morales to come into the ring and do what he does best to set up the big pay day for Morales vs. Pacquiao II. But, in an error of judgement but the management, nobody gave Zahir Raheem the script!

Eric Morales 48-3 w/ 34 ko's Vs. Zahir Raheem 26-1 w/ 16 ko's

Morales was to go out and do what he does best to set up this rematch. Throughout most of his carreer Morales has seemed to out class everyone. His 3 losses came in some of the best boxing to ever be seen. This opponent was to get outclassed like the rest. As I said before, apparently nobody told Raheem about the plan. Zahir Raheem was a young standout and had a good chance for gold in the Olympics on our home soil in Atlanta. he lost a tough match and never seemed to recover. Last night the recovery took place in full force. In unbelievable fashion Raheem was able to do to Morales what nobody has done. Raheem dominated Morales. final punch stat numbers showed him landing double the punches. There were times in the fight when Raheem would land 7-8 unanswered punches as Morales couldn't seem to get anything going. All three judges saw the fight in favor of Raheem by a couple of rounds in a fight that could have seen every round go against Morales. He got dominated in this fight, I couldn't believe my eyes.

If Raheem gets to go on now and face Pacquiao in what was to be Manny's chance for revenge against Morales it may be another impressive night. Raheem's control of Morales does not look to be in good favor for Pacquiao. Watch out Manny, that guys good!

Are you ready for some Football

Wahoo, in addition to being a huge fight fan. I loves my football. Grew up playing, eating, sleeping and living football. My book reports in school - football. My senior project - football. My girlfriend - not a football oddly enough!
The NFL Ticket will be in the hizzouse for shizzle tomorrow! Cooking up the nachos, drinkin some beer. Scream at the refs "hey you #$^#$#$%^@ that's a lousy call." Did a little bit of that today for the college games.

Word Verification

Regular readers and commentors will notice a word verification when entering a comment. I am getting a lot of unwanted spam comments. That sucks! So I am sorry you have to go through an extra step but they'll spam anyway they can't won't they?

The Ultimate Fighter 2

On Monday's installment of The Ultimate Fighter we got to take our 1st look at the heavyweights. Brad Imes and fought Rob MacDonald.

During the entire episode Rob was whining about his shoulder being hurt but kept insisting he would not use it as an excuse, then he'd mention his shoulder again. He went to his coach, Welterwieght champ Matt Hughes and discussed the injury. Matt let Rob know what a lot of fighters, or people who compete on some level, it is extremely rare to go into a competition 100%. If you choose to fight you should get in there and fight. He choose to go into the ring and fight for his right to stay. Very admiral but his choice would prove to be an unfortunate one.

He seemed to be controlling the action when he was able to gain postion and sink in a Guillitine Choke, which would require a lot of strength from that injured shoulder. He qas quickly defeated after sinking the choke and having his shoulder give out on him. In the end he had his a lot of damage to his shoulder and arm. Part of his bicep muscle tore from the shoulder and balled up in the middle of his arm. Looked pretty nasty!

OK, if you are any kind of professional athlete you need to understand the difference between being hurt or being injured. if you are hurt you can still compete, if you are injured you cannot. If you are hurt you need to tape an aspirin to it and move on. In the immortal words of my high school football coach, "Bruceleeroy! Why are you complaining about that broken rib, you have like 13 more!? Get in there and hit someone!" Although on some level you have to be responsible to yourself. Men are proud and stubborn to a fault. Rob showed a tremendous amount of heart that many would not, but in this case he may have caused some perminant damage to himself. I truly hope not.

It was also learned in the begining of this episode we also learned that not only did Melvin Guillard break his hand in the losing effort against Josh Burkman, but Burkman also ended up out. Josh Burkman broke his elbow blocking a kick from Melvin. Now Burkman is out as well. I am sorry to hear about all these injuries during this season. It would kill me to get that far in a competition and be eliminated by an injury instead of by getting knocked out far and square.

FFC XVI

The FFC is comking back to Tunica and I'll be there again. There are rumors that some of the TNF crew will be heading down there with me which could make for an interesting weekend to say the least. This tournament, held on September 24th at The Grand Casino, will feature the 170 lbers, 8 of them to be exact. More than likely they will also announce 1 or 2 superbouts to give the fighters time to rest between rounds of the tournament. The 8 fighters who are competing in the tournament break down like this....

Kurt Pellegrino 8-1-0 Miami, Florida As member of the vaunted American Top Team, you can expect Pellegrino to be among the best prepared fighters in the tournament. He has trained with some of the finest Jiu-jitsu fighters in the including Renzo Gracie and Richardo Almieda, and had his boxing skills honed former Olympic Gold Medallist and World Champion Howard Davis.

Jake “Man of Steel” Short 9-7-0 Detroit, MI. Former AAU Greco Roman All American, Short is one of the gamest fighters in the 170lb division. A three time FFC Veteran, Short has faced the pressure of a big fight and has a great style to go deep into the tournament. Solid wrestling skills and an ever-improving striking game.

Chris Conley 1-1 Birmingham, AL. One of the most well rounded fighters in the tournament. Conley feels comfortable on his feet as well as on the ground. He is constantly looking for a way to finish the fight and that makes him one of the most exciting fighters you will ever see.

Derek Keasley 2-0 Detroit, MI. Another tough young fighter from the Motor City. Trained by Mash Team Founder James Lee, Keasley comes in well versed in wrestling, submissions and Muay Thai Kickboxing. Great athlete, very durable.

Dustin Hazellett 2-0 Cincinnati, OH. Haslett burst onto the pro scene last June by scoring an impressive victory over the heavily regarded Jason Ireland. Making the victory more amazing was the fact that he choked out a notoriously great ground fighter in the first round. Fast finishing skills are a must for a tournament fighter, and Haslett has definitely got them.

John David Shackleford 6-0 Memphis, TN Temporarily put his fighting career on hold to compete in Sport Jiu-jitsu tournaments. Years of specific submission training at the famed Memphis Judo and Jiu-jitsu academy have honed his skills and many consider him to be the best pure submission artist in the tournament.

Nick Thompson 17-8-1 Minneapolis, MN. Thompson has moved down from the 185lb division. Thompson won the FFC Middleweight Tournament held last September at Caesars Indiana and you can bet that the experience gained there will be valuable. A solid striker with a wrestling background at 170 pounds he could be a terror.

Victor Moreno 7-3 Desmoine, IA. Like Thompson, he recently moved down from the 185lb division. A strong grapple who finishes 60% of his fights via submission. He is a veteran of the midwest fight circuit so he is no stranger to a tough fight.

Figher bios obtained from www.FFC.tv

It's difficult to find solid information on these up and coming fighters. I will go with Jake Short in this tournament just because I believe he's been in the ring/cage with a better group of fighters. Short has a notable win over TUF 2's Melvin Guillard and a notable loss against TUF 1 champ Diego Sanchez. Nick Thompson should be in there in the end as well. His most notable win comes against Brian Gassaway (loser to Diego Sanchez in UFC 54), Thompson has kept himself incredibly busy this year with 10 fights already, posting a 7-3 record since January 2005.

This guy thinks they deserved it?

In the wake of Hurricane Katrina we here stories of people all over the world pitching in to help. We here stories of fat cat oil companies making large profits even though our government has got their eye out for price gouging. (Hey Mr Government, if your looking for price gouging I know it's hard to find but let me give you a hint.....THERE'S ONE ON EVERY CORNER!!!! It's kind of surprizing that the people of the fast food industry missed out on the whole mad cow thing, why didn't they raise the price of burgers 30-40%??? Not very smart, beef prices did go up? But back to my story.) I now have heard stories of how the people of New Orleans and LA deserved it. WHAT? You read right. Here in the middle of this terrible tragedy someone from the Christian Right has said the unthinkable. "this act of God destroyed a wicked city." At www.repentamerica.com/pr_hurricanekatrina.html you can find a loving report on how the people of New Orleans have let the gays have festivals such as Southern Decadence. There are many other articles that show why God did this. It's good to know there are still people out there who can explain why God does things. Unfortunately Charlie Manson is locked up, he used to tell us what God was doing and why but we can't here him anymore. Bummer!

A question for this great Christian. If God destroyed New Orleans for a bunch of wickedness and sin where gays can go and be happy......Why does Vegas still stand? San Francisco? Any major city? Better yet how about the countries in Africa where dictators are killing hundreds of thousands? (As far as I know 'the gays' aren't killing people by the hundreds of thousands) Didn't God consider the fact that the people who live in New Orleans, the people he CHOOSE to wipe out, aren't the people who participated in these parades? Aren't those people usually tourist?

All in all there are many people in this world doing horrible things to other people yet this country seems to focus on 'the gays'. Imagine if we spent as much time focusing on education or drugs or gangs? What could we accomplish?

The new guys in class

With McKenna's departure and a week to recover from not having her around I decided to get my but back into class. I hadn't been in almost 4 weeks. Since I've been out there are some new faces. If it's one thing about Nashville MMA it's the fact that they do an excellent job of not only recruiting but keeping people coming. They really do a good job of making everyone feel welcome. The class size seems to grow every time I go. Normally I'm by far the biggest one in the class. Back in April when I started I was 270 with some weight to lose! Now walking around at 230 with a little more to go. The majority of the people in the class are under 200 which has saved me in a lot of matches with more experience people. I could simply overpower the other people. There was one guy who's been coming for about 2 weeks now and he's about the same size as I am. The other guy that started on Wednesday is about 6ft 7 inches and told me he weighed 340. He's pretty damn big. Although he's new at BJJ he has been taking Judo and moves pretty well for a guy his size, once he gets on top of you it's hard to do anything with him! It's great to finally have people my size to spar with, everytime he's there I am going to try and match up with him. Hopefully he does not kill me!