MMAPredictions

Today the self-declared “most visited black website in the world” MediaTakeOut.com posted that Ray Lewis, the 6′1″ 250 pound linebacker for the NFL’s Baltimore Ravens, has been considering a career change to fighting in the UFC. According to that site’s anonymous source within the UFC:

“Ray Lewis was an All-American wrestler in high school, and he’s just an all around bad a**. He’ll fit in perfectly here… We’re not looking to sign him on full-time, just a match or two a year - and he can handpick the opponent … He has such a big name that it will do wonders for the sport.”

Two things strike me about this possibility:

• If such a move were to take place it would be a tactic reminiscent of the UFC’s signing of Brock Lesnar, a famous pro wrestler who is now fighting in the UFC. Bringing Lesnar on board gave the UFC previously unheard-of levels exposure in the wrestling fan base by taking advantage of Lesnar’s pre-existing reputation. If they were to bring Ray Lewis to the UFC, the effect would be the same: large numbers of football fans who may not previously have given mixed martial arts much thought will be more likely to check out the UFC’s offering. The UFC would not have to wait time to develop Lewis publicly as he comes with a built-in following.
• UFC Executive 1: “Man, EliteXC is doing pretty good with that Kimbo character!” (frustrated)
  UFC Executive 2: “Yes, yes they are…” (furrowing brow)
  UFC Executive 1: “If only we had a charismatic fighter who appeals to folks on the same level…”

  Let’s be honest. Kimbo has an appeal that draws fans. Folks watch to see him put a whoopin’ on people. I don’t think many would argue that Ray Lewis could not recreate that sensation. In fact that’s the exact reason you watch him play football: to see him put a hurting on someone. I know I did when I lived in Baltimore.

So there are good reasons to think that such a move would make sense from the UFC’s point of view. Does anyone know whether Lewis has expressed interest in such a career move? Certainly there is the question of which sport is more lucrative for Lewis. One would expect that he would make more playing football.

There is of course the question of whether Ray Lewis actually can do something besides the NFL anytime soon. Contractually NFL players are not permitted to engage in activites that could jeoparize their football performance. Fighting MMA would likely violate Lewis’ contract. According to Ray Lewis’ profile on the Ravens website, his last contract extension was signed in August 2003. It does not say when the contract expires, but I would think that there are not many (some yes, but not many) contracts for pro athletes that are longer than five years. So perhaps the time frame when Ray Lewis could become available is on the horizon.

Of course, we will have to wait and see. For this former Baltimore Ravens fan’s standpoint, I think it would be a lot of fun to see Ray Lewis fighting MMA.

- Caleb

Win a copy of Chuck Liddell’s new book by predicting UFC 82! Details here!

Competitors in the IFL’s 185 lb championship.

The International Fight League, which held its first MMA event in April 2006, has gone through major changes since its inception and on Friday February 29th holds its first show of 2008, IFL - Las Vegas. The evening will mark a new chapter in the IFL’s mixed martial arts promotion as the team concept from which the IFL was born has been abandoned, and their Las Vegas show is the first time they will promote an MMA show based on training camps going up against one another as opposed to teams.

Fights to keep an eye on:

• Matt Horwich, who is to be married the following day in Las Vegas, takes on Ryan McGivern (Bettendorf, Iowa), who fights out of Miletich Fighting Systems.
• Ryan Schultz and John Gunderson will vie for the 155 lb belt. Schultz is the current champion after dethroning Chris Hordecki in December at the IFL Grand Prix Finals.
• Heavyweight Roy Nelson will defend his heavyweight title against Oregon’s Fabiano Scherner

The fights will be broadcast live on HDNet.

Make sure you gets your predictions in for the IFL show! You can be taken to the page to make your predictions by clicking on the images above.

- Caleb

Win a copy of Chuck Liddell’s new book by predicting UFC 82! Details here!

San Francisco Bay area fighter Jake Shields was promoted to black belt in Brazilian jiu-jitsu today at the Fairtex facility in San Francisco. Shields’ long time coach Cesar Gracie awarded the highly-coveted degree in an internal training session for the professional fighters.

Also present at the occasion were Nick Diaz and Nate Diaz. Nick received his black belt from Gracie last year and Nate is currently a brown belt.

Shields has been training with Cesar Gracie since 2001, and will fight Drew Fickett next for the Strikeforce welterweight title at Strikeforce: Cung Le vs. Frank Shamrock on March 29th at the HP Pavilion.

- Caleb

Win a copy of Chuck Liddell’s new book by predicting UFC 82! Details here!

Lots of MMA fighters these days are writing books about their lives. Matt Hughes has recently gone on tour to promote his book, Jens Pulver has a couple out, and both Tito Ortiz and Randy Couture are supposed to have books on the way soon. Chuck Liddell’s new book Iceman: My Fighting Life has been selling like crazy and at the time of this writing holds the number 16 spot on the New York Times bestseller list. Among casual readers it has been a success as well, earning 4.5 out of five stars among the user reviews on Amazon.com.

Would you like a copy of Liddell’s new book mailed to you? Well friend, I think we can help with that. We’re going to have a contest!

Here’s how it works:

1. Cut a hole in the box. Make your predictions for UFC 82 this Saturday. What’s that you say? You’re not a user here on the site yet? No prob, it’s easy to register.
2. If you pick the most fights correctly on the UFC 82 card, you win! If there is a tie between more than one user here on MMAPredictions.com, one person among those with the highest number of correct predictions will be randomly selected as the winner.

The cohost on MMAPredictions Radio and I have an internal bet between each other regarding the outcome of the Dustin Hazelett versus Josh Koscheck fight. The bet is simple: if Hazelett wins, Luis buys me a t-shirt of my choice from BustedTees.com. If Koscheck wins, I buy him a shirt.

Why am I putting my faith in Dustin Hazelett? I am supporting Hazelett for the simple reason that I used to enjoy watching him fight at the old Relson Gracie Brazilian jiu-jitsu tournaments in Columbus, Ohio. I remember the night that he actually fought Relson’s son Rhalan Gracie in MMA and won a very close decision.

Dustin Hazelett submits one of many opponents with his crafty work from the guard in 2004.

Luis is picking Josh Koscheck to win for the even simpler reason that he will always bet against me no matter what the terms. I won’t get into the bets that took place in college among us. Not fit for print even on the internet.

Good luck on your predictions this weekend. In addition to UFC 82, make sure you get your picks in for the IFL - Las Vegas event too!

- Caleb

We’re not hurting for friends, but we could always use more! Befriend us on the MMAPredictions MySpace page!

Last weekend we saw Tank Abbott, a UFC veteran from a bygone era return to action and lose against Kimbo Slice. This evening we saw two more MMA classics in Bob Sapp and Maurice Smith in Tacoma, Washington at Strikeforce at the Dome. The event turned out to be full of surprises.

Predictors here on MMAPredictions.com were very polarized towards a single competitor in each of the five fights available for predicting, but their picks were largely incorrect tonight.

Here is how our predictors performed here on MMAPredictions for tonight’s event, which you can see by going to the card’s detailed results page.

• 272 MMAPredictions users predicted on tonight’s card.
• Not one user guessed all five fights correctly. Two users came close, getting 4 of the 5 fights correct. Good job SwedishGuy and BadAzz79!
• The average of all our users’ prediction accuracies for the card’s five fights on MMAPredictions was 30.9%, which is way less predictable than our site’s overall accuracy of 52.8%.

Most easily-predicted fight outcome: We have a tie! In both Maurice Smith’s victory over Rick Roufus and ATT’s Jorge Masvidal’s win over Ryan Healy, 84% of our users knew who the winner would be.

Most surprising fight outcome: Bob Sapp’s loss to Jan Nortje came as a surprise to 97% of our users. Even after this fight, Nortje can only claim an underwhelming 2-5 record so it is no shock that most users thought Sapp would win.

Next up on MMAPredictions is UFC 82 which will feature Dan Henderson against Anderson Silva, and IFL - Las Vegas!

- Caleb

Don’t miss any MMAPredictions news! Receive postings by email!

Brazilian light heavyweight Evangelista “Cyborg” Santos‘ contract has been “terminated” according to an email sent out yesterday by Canada’s Hardcore Championship Fighting. HCF president Dave Houshiar relates:

“It is with a heavy heart we terminate Cyborg’s contract as he is one of my favorite fighters however we cannot allow fighters to dictate the terms of contracts to us as this can impact the integrity of our events.”

The HCF’s action to end their relationship with the Santos was the result of Santos’ work in other mixed martial arts promotions too close in time to a fight with David Loiseau on March 29th. Santos is scheduled to fight Japanese MMA fighter Makoto Takimoto at the upcoming World Victory Road event in Japan on March 5th, Sengoku.

According to 5 Ounces of Pain, Cyborg has signed a three fight deal with California-based Strikeforce. Cyborg has been fighting since 1997 and compiled a record of 15 wins and 11 losses. At this point in his career he certainly could benefit from the exposure he would receive from being aligned with Strikeforce.

- Caleb

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This evening Strikeforce will present Strikeforce at the Dome. The event features Bob Sapp, Jorge Masvidal, Joe Riggs, and others and will be televised on HDNet Fights.

The live HDNet broadcast of Bodog Fight Presents: “Strikeforce At The Dome” will begin at 10:30 PM ET (7:30 PM PT).

Get your predictions in on this event! Click on the photo above to be taken to the predictions page!

- Caleb

Don’t miss any MMAPredictions news! Receive postings by email!

Jon Koppenhaver (center) and his legal defense team, Cole Casey (l) and Matt Terry (r).

Although none of his fights have ever gone to decision in his MMA career, UFC fighter Jon “War Machine” Koppenhaver can surely claim a victory by way of judge’s decision today. Koppenhaver had been found guilty of an autumn 2007 assault in which he was accused of choking out a man and continuing to strike him outside his San Diego mixed martial arts training facility, Undisputed.

Koppenhaver was eligible for prison time if the court ruled his actions to be a felony assault. In a hearing that lasted less than thirty minutes, Judge Frank Brown asked the district attorney what the state recommended for Koppenhaver’s sentence. The district attorney responded that they were not opposed to a reduction in the sentence from a felony to a misdemeanor. The move echoes comments made by the assault victim (not present in court today) that he did not wish to derail Koppenhaver’s promising MMA career.

After a long pause, Judge Brown responded, “…Wow. Not a case that would normally be reduced. You hurt somebody,” he said, looking at Koppenhaver.

As the hearing proceeded, the judge’s tone softened when he explained his decision. “There is no good calling you a felon… We’re going to take a chance on you. We want you to pursue your career and we wish you well. I’m hopeful this is the right decision.”

The judge, who stated he wished to spare Koppenhaver prison time and the lifelong title of felon, emphasized that there would be no second chances in the future. “The next time this happens, the defendant will head to state prison,” warned Judge Brown.

Ultimately the twenty-six year old Koppenhaver will receive three years of probation and thirty days of public service to be completed in the next 18 months. His ability to travel and compete in mixed martial arts should not be affected by the sentence.

After the hearing, Koppenhaver’s attorney G. Cole Casey commented on the ruling. “I think Jon has benefited from a couple of things, the first being a victim that was very much a stand-up guy that came in and said, ‘Look this was an unfortunate incident’, but he didn’t want to see Jon’s career ruined. He just wanted restitution out of it and Jon made the payment and took care of that right away. We couldn’t have asked for a better judge to be in front of. Judge Brown has a reputation with the courts of dancing to his own drum. He doesn’t care what anybody thinks, he does what he thinks is the right thing. And we had an exceptionally good deputy district attorney Dave Williams… All of us working together were able to step back and say, ‘What’s the absolute right thing to do here?’ You’ve got a young man here that’s on the verge of something really big with his career. Why derail that over one incident? The court’s given him a chance. I’ve gotten to know Jon very well during this process and I know he’s going to go on, he’s going to kick ass, and do everything we expect of him and put this whole thing behind him.”

Law clerk Matt Terry, who assisted in “War Machine”’s defense added, “Jon understands, and we all understand, that Dana White as a policy does not condone or approve in any way bullies, or any of that tough guy mentality. They have a real strict policy in the UFC against that type of behavior. Justice was served here because it was understood that this was an isolated incident. Despite the grenade (tattoo) on his neck and what a bad ass he is inside the octagon, Jon’s a good-hearted guy… I think he represents the UFC well despite this isolated incident.”

Koppenhaver, who is bound to a UFC contract of three years or ten fights with the UFC (whichever comes first), has announced that he will be fighting May 24th against an as-yet-unnamed opponent.

- Caleb

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This is the second of a two-part series where MMAPredictions.com has transcribed some of the questions Randy Couture received from the audience at last weekend’s LA Fit Expo. (Click here for Part 1). As before, we’ve summarized the gist of the question from the audience member for you because their questions were not asked into the microphone and were inaudible. Head to the bottom of this article if you are interested in how to listen to Couture’s comments instead of reading them.

On protecting oneself in training

The nice thing about getting older is that we get a little smarter. We eliminate a lot of the bullcrap that we did when we were younger that we got away with, especially those peaks and valleys where we lay off training for a month, two months, sometimes longer and then try and climb back into shape. I think the older athletes realize that if they go out of shape that it’s going to be much more difficult to get back into shape. You know I am not worried about concussions. I think the grappling nature of our sport eliminates a lot of the sustained pounding to the head. When we do just focus on pure striking as a part of our sport, most of us use headgear. We’re not doing round after round of kickboxing where taking a lot of punishment to the head. Outside of a couple of fights I don’t think I’ve had more than the two concussions in the twelve years that I have been fighting, and those came from competition. I don’t think it’s ever happened in training. I don’t think that’s an age issue, I just think it’s a function of our sport. The way we train and all the rules of engagement - when you start eliminating the rules of engagement to limiting it just to striking, I think you have to wear protection. You gotta wear shin guards, you gotta wear headgear. I hate headgear! But if we’re just kickboxing or boxing, I’m gonna be wearing headgear. Because guys have a tendency with the bigger gloves to let their hands go a little more, you risk getting hit harder, and more often when you’re just focusing on that piece of our sport. If we’re doing the MMA training, wearing the smaller gloves, first of all, all the guys I train with have very good control, so you’re pulling your punches, you’re not letting go, and now you’re looking at submissions and grappling, clinching, and all the other things that are indigenous to our sport that limit your ability to sustain pounding to the head, so I think it’s a big difference. I don’t think you’re going to see a bunch of punch drunk MMA guys in the future.

On the upcoming fight between Anderson Silva and Dan Henderson at UFC 82: Pride of a Champion

If Dan will stick to a gameplan, he has the skill set to be very hard on Anderson. He’s great from the clinch, he’s got a tremendous wrestling background and pedigree. He’s not the same kind of junkyard dog fighter that Matt Lindland is. There’s nothing pretty about it, but it’s very effective. That’s the kind of style that is like the opposite of Anderson. Everything Anderson does is very smooth, very pretty. I mean, he is fun to watch. And Lindland is like the kryptonite to that. He’s gonna take you down and smother you, drool on you, just pound the crap out of you. So, it’ll be interesting to see how Danny approaches this fight. If he kinda steps into his normal fashion where he’ll feel confident in his right hand, he’s got a real nice left hook to go with that right hand, and he gets into slinging leather with Anderson, it’s not going to be good for him. But if he goes out and uses his clinch, controls the position, gets inside, and eliminates Anderson’s plum clinch, doesn’t take a bunch of those knees and establishes that good wrestler’s base on top, Anderson’s going to have a bad night. That’s what I love about that fight. You have a lot of trouble picking who’s going to win that and those are the ones you like to see because you just don’t know and you can make a case one way or the other.

On Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira

Nogueira is one of those dynamic black belt jiu-jitsu guys that finds a way to manipulate you into that chess match on the ground. His stand up is good enough and he’s got an awesome chin. He can survive to put you eventually where he wants you. So he’s definitely an interesting guy in that sense… The most impressive thing to me in the Tim Sylvia fight (at UFC 81) was the sweep, it wasn’t the submission, but the fact that he took a 6′8″ guy who weighs 280 pounds and he was able to sweep him from the bottom the way he did. That was very very impressive. Having felt Tim and Tim’s girth and everything else, that’s not easy to do, so Nogueira poses some interesting problems.

Which is better, wrestling or jiu-jitsu?

First of all, there are a lot of similarities. Jiu-jitsu on the ground is wrestling inverted. Laying on your back, you’re mechanically using a lot of the same positions from a different perspective, so there’s a lot of similarities. “Putting the hooks in”, we call “leg riding”… We have a lot of different names for the same positions and techniques. This is speaking from collegiate wrestling. Because the only real style that focuses on the ground and control is collegiate wrestling. We are the only country in the world that has that style. (In) freestyle, greco.. the ground does not apply. It’s all about turning a guy, picking him up and throwing him. Those don’t really apply to fighting. Collegiate style wrestling is all about control, holding a guy down and keeping his back on the mat. Those control positions do translate to fighting. I find way more of my collegiate wrestling background that applies to ground fighting positions, like that bottom leg Turk in half guard. There’s a lot of similarities to that and jiu-jitsu. The jiu-jitsu perspective is just better for being on your back. To a collegiate wrestler, that’s the last place he wants to be. It’s inverted in some respects. I don’t know that I’d say one is better than the other, I think it’s a matter of figuring out what works for you, your body style, your speed, strength, flexibility… Again it’s those gifts, those tools that God gave you.

We know that the more ways we provide to digest MMA information, the happier you are, so we also are providing the audio from this event in an episode of MMAPredictions Radio. Bear in mind that the sound quality is not great as it was coming from some massive PA loudspeakers about ten feet away from our recording device, but we’re offering it just in case you’d still like to hear Randy’s words in his own voice.

Click here to listen to the 16 minute mp3!

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- Caleb

Don’t miss any MMAPredictions news! Receive postings by email!

You’re an MMA fan, but you may not be a financial person. Fear not, because I am not either. But bear with me for this brief bit of background to today’s topic.

When stock prices are high in companies, company execs begin to consider ways to build on recent good fortunes and purchasing a competitor is sometimes a consideration. The WWE’s stock price is at its highest since June 2007 and has risen by 23% since its recent low in January. If you’re a hard core mixed martial arts fan and absorb as much content out there about MMA as possible, no doubt you’ve heard the recent rumors of World Wrestling Entertainment’s interest in purchashing the UFC. While the two companies’ product offerings are different they share the same target demographic of young males so the two compete for that market’s PPV dollars.

Could the UFC become a property of the Vince McMahon empire? Today on MMAPredictions Radio we tackle the subject with Zach Arnold of FightOpinion.com, who has been an observer and commentator on both professional wrestling and mixed martial arts longer than some of us have been on the internet.

Click here to listen to the 9 minute mp3!

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- Caleb

We’re not hurting for friends, but we could always use more! Befriend us on the MMAPredictions MySpace page!