7 Things You Don't Want to See in MMA in 2008

I got this idea from a sherdog forum post. Of course there are many things we need to see, but there are many things that we don't need to have any part of.

7. Horrible Judges Decisions- Seriously do we need another Hamill/Bisping, judges need to be people who are obsessed with watching fights. They need to be fans of the sport and not just people who are doing a job.

6. More Fighters being Suspended for Steroids, HGH, etc.- I've said it before and I'll say it again steroids is the ultimate form of cheating in any physical sport. If you take PED(Performence Enhancing Drugs) your already doubting your ability to win a fight.

5. Smaller Organizations Go Under- I love the UFC, but I also love Cage Rage, M1 Global, WEC, Elite XC, HDNet Fights, K1 etc.. Some of the best MMA fights you will ever see will come out of the smaller orgs. Maybe the best fight I saw of 2007 was Marius Zaromskis vs Ross Mason at Cage Rage 22, track it down and watch it you will not be dissapointed.

4. Great Pride Fighters not Fighting- Where is Takanori Gomi? One of the best most exciting fighters in history isn't fighting anywhere. How about Mark Hunt, one of my personal favorite heavyweights, he should be fighting the best in the world. Get these guys in the ring, cage, my backyard or wherever and let them scrap.

3. Wanderlei Silva, Crocop and Mauricio Shogun Rua Losing- Three of the most exciting fighters in history, I hope they can turn it around for every MMA fans sake. Whether its the rule changes, the cage or whatever these extremely entertaining fighters need to figure it out because if they keep losing we might not see the dream matches we all hope for.

2. Chuck Liddell Fighting Rampage Again for the Title- I'm sorry but when you beat a guy so decisively 2 times in a row, that guy should'nt get a third crack at it. Same goes for Rich Franklin vs Anderson Silva, there's no point in it. So if Liddell and Franklin land a haymaker in the third fight, does that mean that they're better fighters? Don't think so, we already know who the better fighter is.

1. Fedor Fighting Cans- How in the world does Aleksander get to fight Josh Barnett before Fedor does? This is the best fighter I've ever seen, he should be fighting fighters who actually have a chance at beating him. We don't need to see him fight Semmy Schilt or Bob Sapp, which are some of the new rumors going around, because we all know what the outcome will be. Hopefully the Randy Couture fight will take place this year.

Aleksander Emelianenko Expects to Fight Sought After Free Agent Josh Barnett

This news first came down on Aleksander's official M-1 Global website at alex.mixfight.ru. The alleged fight would take place in Chicago at an unnanounced M-1 Global event. MMAJunkie.com has all the details, here is a snippet from their story.

Aleksander Emelianenko (12-3), a highly ranked heavyweight (and the younger brother of famed fighter Fedor Emelianenko), will next fight April 11 for the upstart M-1 Global organization, and the Russian expects his opponent to be Josh Barnett (20-5).

Read All the Juicy Details here.

My Take- This makes absolutely no sense to me what so ever. Why would you bring in one of the most sought after and talented Heavyweight fighters in the world and not have an immediate match with Fedor? I mean a fight with Aleks is intriguing and I will be watching but why the fight that everyone wants to see is not first on the M1 Global agenda is an absolute mystery to me.

Official UFC 80 Bonuses Revealed

UFC 80 was a good show I thought, picking the Fight of the Night and Submission of the Night must of been extremely easy. Paul Kelly vs Paul Taylor easily wins the fight of the night($35,000 to both fighters) being the only televised bout to go the distance and the undercard fight that went the distance was Sam Stout vs Per Eklund which was largely uneventful. Paul Kelly vs Paul Taylor could've won fight of the night honors on alot of cards though, there was some wicked exchanges standing and the ground action was good also.

Submission of the Night($35,000) or should I say "Only Submission of the Night" went to BJ Penn for his rear naked choke of Joe Stevenson in the card's main event. Penn completely dominated his opponent and submitted the bloody mess that was Stevenson at 4:02 of the second round.

Picking knockout of the night($35,000) had to be a tough decision as 6 fights were ended via TKO/KO. UFC chose Wilson Gouveia's comeback knockout of Jason Lambert. Gouveia was getting dominated dominated by Lambert in the first round and then at 37 seconds of the secnd round Gouveia landed a beautiful left hook that sent Lambert to the canvas.

Top 10 Things I Learned From UFC 79

UFC 79 was a great event, here's what I learned.

10. Lyoto Machida is no joke, whether or not you like his fighting style, the guy wins. Soko is a talented guy, but I think we all underestimated Machida's skills.

9. Melvin Guillard and Rich Clementi should not be allowed back in the UFC. Talking shit to each other is fine, hating each other is fine, but the way these 2 guys acted is just idiotic.

8. Okay UFC we get it, you hated the Pride Fighting Championships. The whole "we're not in Japan" thing is getting old.

7. I still don't understand why the UFC doesn't show ALL undercard fights, for 40-50 bucks most people want all the action they can handle and many times the undercard fights are great.

6. Georges St. Pierre will be the welterweight champion in 2008.

5. Take it from GSP, if you wanna beat a world class wrestler(Hughes, Koscheck) put them on their back.

4. Wanderlei Silva remains on the top of my list as the most entertaining fighter ever.

3. When Chuck Liddell wins, Dana White is the happiest man on earth.

2. Biased commentary is getting a little out of control. I watched the Liddell/Silva fight 3 times and you would think Chuck was fighting a nobody. All the replays were Chuck highlights and the knock down for Silva was discredited as a simple slip.

1. I don't care what anyone says Wanderlei Silva vs Chuck Liddell is in the top 3 greatest fights I've ever witnessed and for me it lived up to the hype.

Brand New Wanderlei Silva Video Interview

Hey everyone this is a brand new interview from rawvegas.com's road to UFC 79. Good interview, if your an aspiring musician Wandy is looking for some entrance music and is accepting music through his website at wanderleisilva.com.br.

Sean Sherk Will Not Be Stripped of His Title

****UPDATE, Apparently Sherk is now being stripped! Here's a LINK to the story****
UFC Lighweight Champion Sean Sherk will remain the champion, despite testing positive for steroids. Here's the meat of the article from mmafightline.

UFC president Dana White has gone back and forth on whether he would strip Sherk of his title were he to lose his appeal to the NSAC. First, White told Yahoo!Sports' Kevin Iole that Sherk would keep the title regardless of the outcome of his appeal, then a few days later, White backpedelled on those comments stating during a conference call that Sherk would probably be stripped of his title if he were to lose his appeal.

Read the rest HERE

Sherk has denied the positive test from the beginning and some in the MMA community would question the way CSAC has handled the whole situation. In any case Sherk and B.J. Penn need to get in the cage and fight. Until that happens many fans will still consider the lightweight belt in limbo.

First M-1 Global Pay Per View Possibly Fedor vs Barnett

Sam Caplan has reported that M-1 Global could hold their first Pay Per View in the Prudential Center in Newark, New Jersey. The report below.

ProElite.com (SamCaplan.ProElite.com) has learned through multiple sources that M-1 Global is leaning towards holding their first pay-per-view event in the U.S. in Newark, NJ at the Prudential Center, the same venue that hosted UFC 78 earlier this month.

Officials from M-1 recently visited the Prudential Center and were impressed with the venue and are looking at booking a possible date in February or March.

Chicago had been receiving serious consideration for the event but logistical issues are likely to prevent it from being the first host city for M-1.

However, logistical issues could be a factor in Newark as well because it is believed there are no available dates on Saturday in February in March. If the Prudential Center is booked, M-1 Global may have to consider holding an event on a Friday.

Matchups for the first show are already being discussed. A main event between Fedor Emelianenko vs. Josh Barnett is under consideration but Barnett is currently not contracted to the promotion. - Original Source Sam Caplan Blog

This is something that any real MMA fan would pay their hard-earned money to see. A Fedor vs Barnett matchup has long been a fight that fans have begged for. If M-1 Global can pull this off, along with some decent fights on the rest of the card then they may prove to be a real contender in the business of Mixed Martial Arts.