MMAPredictions

Photo Courtesy IFL.

This is me last Halloween with the IFL ring girls. I swear. Okay so that’s not even close to believeable. At my 5′10″, I think the helmet on Darth Vader would be several inches shorter than where it appears in that picture. Maybe that’s Ben Rothwell in there.

If you were to dress up as an MMA fighter for Halloween, who would you be? I am sure several folks out there have tried pulling off the Chuck Liddell thing for Halloween. If dressing up as an iconic MMA fighter is not another perfectly reasonable-sounding excuse (after doing several kegstands) to wind up in the front lawn doing a little MMA exhibition at a Halloween party (”We’ll go light, I swear”), then I don’t know what is.

While this isn’t exactly an MMA prediction, I bet that this year the cops will see the usual number of people being dragged down to the station after being involved in drunken fights after partying too much for the holiday. The difference is that this year the wasted combatants will have injured themselves more than their opponent with takedowns-gone-awry (Gray Maynard, anyone?) that they seem to remember watching on “that UFC”.

From the MMAPredictions headquarters here in San Diego, have a Happy Halloween. And don’t drink and drive, or I will personally deliver you some inebriated haymakers as punishment. Hey I know that doesn’t sound too scary but keep in mind I will be in my Quinton “Rampage” Jackson costume, and heavy chains on a thirty-three year old 165-pound skinny white guy can be pretty intimidating!

- Caleb

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No doubt you’ve been following - even if only passively - the public relations battle that has erupted between Randy Couture and the Ultimate Fighting Championship. The issue pits the fighter who may have the most fan goodwill of any professional combat athlete against the UFC in a very public labor dispute that erupted after Couture faxed in his resignation to the UFC’s Las Vegas offices while shooting the film The Scorpion King: Rise of the Akkadian in Africa.

Couture’s reasons on October 11 for parting with his employer, the largest and most recognized fight organization in mixed martial arts, included a perceived lack of appreciation for his efforts as reflected in his compensation, as well as wanting to fight Fedor Emelianenko, who had just recently announced he had not accepted the UFC’s offer to fight for them.

Fans have become intwined in the story in a way that no prior outside-the-cage drama has been able to do before. Upon returning to the United States from filming the film, Couture held a press conference in his gym in Las Vegas on the matter. Further, Randy Couture’s wife has even said her peace on the matter on the blog from Xtreme Couture. However the link to that story is no longer valid.

The UFC for its part denies any wrongdoing, disputes Couture’s legal footing for his resignation, and is busy countering Couture’s claims in the public. The UFC held its own unrelated-but-not-coincidental press conference at the same time as Couture’s press conference last week to divert media attention from Couture’s. Today, the UFC will be streaming its own press conference to explain its stance to the public at large at 4pm EST / 1pm PST on its own website.

As with any story in the media which encompasses consumer attention for a protracted period, interest in the saga dies with time and the actors involved continue spending whatever fan goodwill they had at the onset. This engagement does not show any signs of abating shortly so we may be in for quite a long ride before we find out Randy Couture’s status with the UFC.

- Caleb

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The results from Art of War 4 are finally in. Big props to MMAPredictions user ALPHANUMBERIC8 for passing along a link to the results as shown on MMAWeekly. At the same time I was reviewing the article over there, the phone call I placed to the Art of War headquarters in Texas was returned, and they confirmed the results for us.

The card, in which no fight went to a judges’ decision, included one fight with a last-minute change to the card. DJ Watkins was to face Kyle Gibbons, but Mike Queen replaced Watkins. As our users did not have enough time to predict on the matchup between Queen and Gibbons, who was armbarred in the first minute of the encounter, that fight has been pulled from the card here on the site.

Here’s the way things shook down on our site, as revealed by looking at the detailed results page for this event.

• 103 MMA fans did their best to predict on tonight’s card.
• No one predicted the whole event correctly, but that’s not surprising on a card with developing talent and not a correspondinly low number of folks predicting on it.
• The average correct prediction percentage on the card across all MMAPredictions users was 47.9%, which is just a tad bit lower than our current all time site average in the low-fifties range.

Next on the way is the IFL 2007 Grand Prix Round 1, which takes place Saturday and will be televised live on MyNetworkTV.

- Caleb

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K-1 Hero’s Oympia Korea took place in Japan while most of us were still in bed here in the United States, and those who attempted to predict this event will be shaking our heads for some time.

As I can’t personally claim to be familiar with all these fighters, I can only say the following based on their records: “upset, upset, upset”. A fighter with a 6-10 record, Shungo Oyama, beat Carlos Newton, who had a winning record until this fight. Min Soo Kim, a fighter who now has a 3-6 record and who will likely only be remembered for being the first person Brock Lesnar ever beat up in MMA, beat a very experienced Minowaman, whose record is now 38-26-8. Brazilian Fabio Silva was 9-3 coming into his encounter against Dong Sik Yoon, who had a record of just two wins and four losses, and yep - you guessed it - Silva lost.

For Brazilian jiu-jitsu enthusiasts out there, the news that Marcelo Garcia lost his debut MMA match will be disheartening. His opponent, Dae Won Kim, brings his record into the positive with 4 wins, and 3 losses.

Here’s the way things shook down on our site, as revealed by looking at the detailed results page for this event.

• 123 users here on MMA Predictions predicted the fights on the card.
• No one predicted the whole event correctly! Given that it’s a card from a foreign fight organization with fighters that people aren’t so familiar with, and that there were 8 fights to predict here, that’s no shocker.
• The average correct prediction percentage on the card across all MMAPredictions users was 27.4%, which is frankly abysmal. Congratulations to our two best predictors, Darcman and toxikfw and who both got 63% of the card predicted correctly.

According to FEG sources, the HERO’S Korea 2007 attracted a full house of 5,289 to the Jang Chung Gymnasium.

Next on the way is the 2007 IFL Grand Prix Round 1, which takes place on Saturday. Three of the fights on that card are scheduled to be televised live on MyNetworkTV.

- Caleb

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EliteXC on Showtime went down this evening in the Chumash Casino just north of Los Angeles.

Here’s the way things shook down on our site, as revealed by looking at the detailed results page for this event.

• 133 MMAPredictions users tried to predict the outcomes of tonight’s five fights.
• Lots of folks predicted all of the fights correctly, but that’s not too surprising considering there were only five.
• The average correct prediction percentage on the card across all MMAPredictions users was 55%, in line with our all-time average correct prediction percentage of 53%. So it was a typical fight card in terms of predictibility.
• None of our top five predictors decided to take part on this card! What’s up with that, guys?

Get your picks in for Saturday’s Art of War 4! And definitely don’t forget to get your predictions in for Sunday’s K-1 Hero’s Olympia Korea, featuring bouts with Denis Kang and Marcelo Garcia!

- Caleb

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We have a pretty exciting weekend for sure, so make sure you get your picks in!

• Friday: ShowXC on Showtime.

  Yes this event will be broadcast on the premium cable channel Showtime and I am excited to see Javier Vazquez fight tomorrow. If you’re a fan of female mixed martial arts, the Shayna Baszler fight against Jen Tate will be fun.

• Saturday: Art of War 4

  The Texas-based MMA promotion heads to Mississippi for its fourth show.

• Sunday: K-1 Hero’s Olympia Korea

  This is a very anticipated show! Denis Kang in action is always a blast, veteran fighter Carlos Newton will be fighting, and… Brazilian jiu-jitsu wunderkind Marcelo Garcia finally makes his MMA debut! The entire BJJ community will be holding their breath and hoping to hear that Marcelinho lives up to the high expectations set on him.

- Caleb

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Around noon today the California State Athletic Commission released a summary of the drug violations from March 31, 2007 through September 30, 2007. This six month time frame shows a large number of infractions by athletes under the supervision of the CSAC, which includes mixed martial arts, boxing, and kickboxing.

TOTAL VIOLATIONS: 43

Breakdown of Violations by Sport:

• Mixed Martial Arts: 33
• Boxing: 8
• Kickboxing: 2

Total Steroid Violations: 13

• Multiple Steroids in a Single Violation: 5
• Elevated T/E Ratio: 4
• Nandrolone Metabolite: 4
• Stanozolol Metabolite: 4
• Boldenone Metabolite AKA Equipoise, available only w/ veterinary prescription: 2
• Drostanolone: 2
• Desoxymethyltestosterone: 1
• Estr-4 9-dien-3 17-dione: 1
• Oxandrolone: 1
• Prostanozol Metabolite: 1

Total Drugs of Abuse Violations: 28

• Multiple Drugs of Abuse in a Single Violation: 2
• Marijuana: 24
• Cocaine: 3
• Methamphetamine: 2
• Amphetamines: 1
• Adulterated Drug Test, in which an athlete added tap water to his/her sample: 1
• Refusal to Test (Considered a violation): 1

Also in CSAC related news, in a conversation with CSAC Executive Officer Armando Garcia today, Garcia stated that none of the fights advertised to take place on the tournament portion of the Strikeforce: Four Men Enter, One Man Survives card have been formally approved by the CSAC.

Further, Garcia stated that contrary to the stated expectation of some MMA observers, he does not foresee the CSAC approving the use of knees to a downed opponent, a technique permitted in PrideFC MMA events, any time soon. To hear these details and the rest of the conversation I had with Armando Garcia, subscribe to The FightWorks Podcast in iTunes to make sure you hear it when it’s released on Sunday.

- Caleb

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Randy Couture, who announced two weeks ago that he had resigned from the UFC, will be holding a press conference from his Xtreme Couture gym in Las Vegas live Thursday, October 25 at 4:30 p.m. ET/1:30 p.m. PT on the HDNet show Inside MMA.

Many fans hope that Randy Couture will announce his plans as to where he will fight next, especially given yesterday’s M-1 Global press conference with Fedor Emelianenko. However as legal issues are clouding Couture’s status with the UFC, it is possible that that hope will remain unfulfilled for the moment. At a minimum, the press conference is to address Couture’s “reasons for resigning from the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) in every capacity”.

Update 10/24/2007 3:34PM: For those who don’t have HDNet, Proelite.com will also be broadcasting the Randy Couture press conference on their website.

- Caleb

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Strikeforce, with promotional assistance from Bodog Fight, will present the first tournament-style MMA event in California on November 16th at the HP Pavilion in San Jose. Strikeforce: Four Men Enter, One Man Survives will contain four fighters who could compete in multiple fights in the same night: Trevor Prangley (South Africa), Falaniko Vitale (USA), Jorge Santiago (Brazil), and Yuki Sasaki (Japan). The winner of the four-man tournament playoff will potentially be awarded the opportunity to challenge Strikeforce World Middleweight Champion, Frank Shamrock.

In a conversation yesterday, the California State Athletic Commission emphasized to MMAPredictions.com that the focus on fighter safety during the event was the reason that the tournament format was approved. The CSAC stated that one requirement was that every possible combination of fights had to make sense from a safety perspective. As with any fight that the CSAC would approve prior to being scheduled, no permutation of the various matchups in the four-man tournament could result in a highly-skilled veteran fighting an opponent with less skill.

Further, medical representatives will screen all fighters before and inbetween each fight to make sure that the fighter is able to continue fighting. Lastly, the rounds have been shortened below the normal five-minute length. As noted in a Strikeforce press release, “Each bout… will be completed over the course of the 10 bout fight card, will consist of two, five-minute rounds*. If a draw is declared following the second round of a matchup, an overtime round will be added to the bout to determine a victor.”

Strikeforce has not released the specific pairings of fighters that wil square off November 16th. Other fighters that will appear on the card in independent (non-tournament) competition include Bobby Southworth, Joe Riggs, Luke Stewart, and Cung Le.

* Correction made Oct 24th after Strikeforce notified the press that round length was not two minutes but five

- Caleb

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Rickson Gracie, the “lion of the Gracie family” who enjoys an MMA record of eleven wins and no losses, stated that he is in negotiations to fight on New Years Eve this year while he was at the 2007 Brazilian jiu-jitsu world championship in Los Angeles.

The news immediately spurred buzz around the internet debating whether another fight with Rickson Gracie was actually going to take place. Rickson has not fought in mixed martial arts since 2000 and will turn forty-nine years old this coming November. Those details, coupled with rumored returns to action for Rickson swirling for several years but not resulting in a fight has lead many to believe that this year will be no different.

Still, if Rickson’s own statement that he is in talks with MMA organizations to find a fight for New Years Eve is accurate, who will he fight? The list of appropriate opponents to chose from is not a long one. Some had suggested that Rickson would likely face Kazushi Sakuraba, who earned the nickname “Gracie Hunter” for his defeats of Royce Gracie, Renzo Gracie, Ryan Gracie, and Royler Gracie. However K-1 Hero’s has announced that their New Years Eve card, titled K-1 Hero’s Dynamite Fields Premium will include a fight between Sakuraba and another MMA veteran, Masa Funaki.

Another name that has been put forward as a possible opponent on New Years for Rickson Gracie is Hidehiko Yoshida. Yoshida is in his mid-forties and also has competed against Gracie brothers in the past, fighting to a draw against Royce Gracie on a 2003 New Years Eve show. With November around the corner, fans will learn soon enough whether the year of 2007 can still hold a fight with Rickson Gracie.

- Caleb

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