Finally back from whatever MMA hurricane I was just trapped in for the past ten hours. As Gus Johnson would say: Sometimes these things happen in MMA. To make it up to you guys, here’s a brief summary of everything that happened today while I sat in San Jose for the Strikeforce: Fedor vs. Werdum pre-fight press conference and had the greatest ‘off the record’ conversations in the history of ‘off the record’ conversations.
Today, the rumors that spread after UFC 115 were put to rest. David Loiseau has received his walking papers for the second time in his career from the UFC. Not even a rad 3D MMA documentary can protect you from the ZUFFA’s deadly flying guillotine. We also witnessed the impossible abruptly materialize today as the Dean of Mean, Keith Jardine, has finally been cut from the UFC after racking up an unprecedented four consecutive losses within the organization. Now it looks like the only chance for a Technoviking entrance is now in the hands of Pat Barry. He’s our only hope.
Sexyama has decided that Chris Leben is indeed sexy enough to compete with him and has accepted Leben as a late replacement for Wanderlei Silva. Only Akiyama could dictate whether or not he wants to face someone based on how big of a name they are in the MMA world.
On the Strikeforce side of this giant planet, Scott Smith says that he’s guaranteed a third, ‘rubber match’ if he loses to Cung Le this weekend. We all don’t know why this bout is going down in the first place as their seems to be a virtual potpourri of Strikeforce middleweights to choose from yet there is still a chance we may have to endure yet another Smith vs. Le rematch.
Fedor also made news that after his Strikeforce contract is up, he will once again consider offers from UFC. Although, we all know that without any co-promotion heavily slapped on the contract, we will have another stalemate that will only result in Dana White calling M-1 Global ‘Russian Gangsters/Clowns/Thieves/Tricksters/Crooks/or some other derogatory term that will be picked up by every media outlet.
As for the Strikeforce pre-fight press conference, it was interesting. The food was great, everyone seemed to know who I was despite the fact that I’ve tried to guard my identity like a WWII war-criminal and above all else, there is a lot of stuff going down in MMA that we don’t know about. Sleazy stuff. Stuff that would make you slap your own mother in utter disbelief. Of course, all of this stuff was ‘off the record’ so don’t expect to see it on MiddleEasy.com (until we do our research and ensure that we won’t have any attorneys chasing us down with medieval battle-axes in the near future).
If you missed Bellator tonight, then you missed a collection of massive upsets which started off when Zoila Frausto managed to knockout highly ranked Rosi Sexton in the first round. There’s a mandatory 60-day suspension for all KOs which means there’s a good chance that we won’t be able to see Sexton participate in the upcoming Bellator women’s tournament in August. As for the Bellator middleweight finals, the +450 underdog Alexander Shlemenko spinning backfisted his way to a victory over Bryan Baker and a cool $100,000 giant check. I tried to warn the general population about Shlemenko before the Bellator tournament even started, but all you guys wanted to do was watch DVRd episodes of Top Chef. Whatever, I did my best. We also witnessed the birth of ‘The Baddest Man on the Planet’ as Joe Warren grabbed a controversial victory over Patricio Freire in a decision that makes you wonder what gross level of misconduct needs to be done in order to get a 10-8 round.
Alright, that’s it. If I left anything out, I’m sure one of you guys will knock on my hotel room door with a flaming Molotov cocktail and throw it directly at my twin-sized bed. Shame on you.
