UFC on Fox 4. Who you got?

[Hockey Guy]

Event: UFC on FOX 4
Date: Sat., Aug. 4, 2012, at 8 p.m. ET on FOX
Location: Staples Center in Los Angeles, CA

Main Event:

205 lbs.: Mauricio Rua vs. Brandon Vera

If Vera wins I'll be shocked. I'm sure this will be almost unanimous.

Main card (FOX):

205 lbs.: Lyoto Machida vs. Ryan Bader
I think Machida will be able to keep it standing. If he does Bader only has a punchers chance. KO 2
170 lbs.: Mike Swick vs. DaMarques Johnson
Swick has been out over 2 years but can he lose to a guy who's lost to Amir Sodollah? TKO 2
155 lbs.: Jamie Varner vs. Joe Lauzon
Is Jamie Varner really back? Barbosa was impressive but Lauzon has been in there with the best. Lauzon RNC 2

Preliminary card (FUEL TV)

145 lbs.: Cole Miller vs. Nam Phan
205 lbs.: Phil Davis vs. Wagner Prado
145 lbs.: Rani Yahya vs. Josh Grispi
265 lbs.: Philip De Fries vs. Oli Thompson
145 lbs.: Manny Gamburyan vs. Michihiro Omigawa
125 lbs.: Ulysses Gomez vs. John Moraga

Looks like a good card especially for free TV.

Who you got & why. Hopefully this will help those who bet on such things.

[ShadyJ]

This is one of those cards ill tivo and probably never get around to watching it. Post the lines and ill give u a dog winner.

[sonatine]

I'll actually watch the Rua & Machida & Lauzon fights and probably fast forward on the slowest speed almost everything else then snap-rewinding 20 second for finishes.

[BetCheckBet]

How the hell did Vera get to be in the main event?

[shortbuspoker]

How the hell did Vera get to be in the main event?

ESPN is reporting that for some unknown reason the winner of that fight will get the winner of Jon Jones vs Hendo for the title. WTF?

[Crowe Diddly]

ESPN is reporting that for some unknown reason the winner of that fight will get the winner of Jon Jones vs Hendo for the title. WTF?

1, the only guarantee in the UFC is that Dana's guarantees are never guaranteed. And 2, who the fuck else is there?

[peter mcneil]

White has stated that whoever wins their 205lb fight in the most impressive fashion will be getting the title shot. The two fights being Machida/Bader and Shogun/Vera. I think they like the chances it will be Machida or Shogun and either of those fights are as good as any for the 205lb title.

Obviously have Shogun winning the main event but you never know, Shogun in shape wins that easy, if he comes in not at his best it could be interested. Vera hasnt looked good in a long long time, wonder why he wouldnt go back up to HW where he looked way better.

I like Machida to win vs Bader.

[shortbuspoker]

ESPN is reporting that for some unknown reason the winner of that fight will get the winner of Jon Jones vs Hendo for the title. WTF?

1, the only guarantee in the UFC is that Dana's guarantees are never guaranteed. And 2, who the fuck else is there?

To be honest I think that they are setting Rua up for the rematch as he should beat Vera fairly easily imo. In that scenario, no matter who wins in Jones vs Hendo, the UFC gets a very marketable fight for the title. That said, I could see Machida getting the shot in front of Rua if he puts Bader down in a dominant fashion.

[peter mcneil]

1, the only guarantee in the UFC is that Dana's guarantees are never guaranteed. And 2, who the fuck else is there?

To be honest I think that they are setting Rua up for the rematch as he should beat Vera fairly easily imo. In that scenario, no matter who wins in Jones vs Hendo, the UFC gets a very marketable fight for the title. That said, I could see Machida getting the shot in front of Rua if he puts Bader down in a dominant fashion.

There really isn't a downside to it unless Vera were to score some kind of great KO, even then it's a fight they can sell just because it's Jones. I agree that they probably would like to see Shogun win although if Machida gets the shot they can bill it as the only guy to give Bones trouble standing and then they can do the Hendo vs Shogun rematch assuming Hendo loses that fight. Bader does absolutely nothing for me, I think he will always be a 5-10 ranked kind of guy. 205 is a bit light on depth, a healthy King Mo would be great for the division.

[Hockey Guy]

On an unrelated UFC note Tito Ortiz was on the Joe Rogan Experience last night.

Here's the link to the podcast: http://www.ustream.tv/joerogan#recorded/24384542

Never been a Tito fan but 1 hr into it & is a pretty good candid interview so far.

[Crowe Diddly]

Forgot about the Tito-cast, will check that out later.

Continuing with unrelated shit, I won a strange little contest the other day. Ben Fowlkes and Chad Dundas (mmafighting.com and espn.com guys) have a podcast, the Co-Main Event Podcast, an hour a week on MMA. They had an essay contest, 500-1000 words, 5 paragraph essay-style, citing sources, all that bullshit. Here were the options:

1) The Persuasive Essay (a.k.a Not Just Saying Stuff): Begin your essay with some hardly tenable MMA related claim, then craft a convincing case for it using the formidable powers of your own reasoning and argumentation, as well as some credible outside sources. Bonus points will be awarded based on overall ridiculousness of topic and corresponding convincingness of argument.
2) The Compare and Contrast Essay: Who is the most underappreciated fighter in MMA history and who is the most over-appreciated fighter? Draw upon the formidable powers of your own reasoning and argumentation, as well as some credible outside sources. Bonus points will be awarded for originality, strength of argument and general compare-and-contrast-i-ness.

Prizes were just gonna be strange mma swag, like old IFC t-shirts and other crap they've accumulated over the years. The grand prize became this strange painting of Anderson Silva, by a real artist who only had an hour to do this painting and who tried to present it to Andy, but Andy had left before he could receive it.

Well, now I gotta find a place for this thing.



HEre's the podcast main page http://comaineventpodcast.com
Here's my winning essay http://comaineventpodcast.com/2012/0...rs-in-the-ufc/

essay cliffs: The Eminem walkout curse is real.

Strangest thing I've ever won, I'm pretty sure.

[Hockey Guy]

Good job Crowe. Well deserved. That was a very interesting & funny read.

Do you know how many entries they received?

[peter mcneil]

cool article Crowe, how were you able to find the data for the intro music win losses?

[Crowe Diddly]

Do you know how many entries they received?

Don't know. They said they didn't expect a lot, and got way more than they expected, is all they've really said. Could be 25, could be 50, no way to tell.

cool article Crowe, how were you able to find the data for the intro music win losses?

I read middleeasy.com fairly regularly, and after UFC's, one of their affiliated sites had been posting entrance music. http://fighterxfashion.com/tag/ufc-entrance-music/ Search eminem on that site and you get all the recorded uses of eminem in fighter walkouts. It goes back like 2 years, and it isn't totally complete (mostly misses songs on non-ppv fuel, fx, spike cards), but it was more than enough for me. I just made my argument around what was available.

[Jasep]

Great job Crowe. But that painting is terrible

[peter mcneil]

Great job Crowe. But that painting is terrible

yup, guess that is why it was their prize. Wonder if you could sell it for a few bucks?

[Crowe Diddly]

Great job Crowe. But that painting is terrible

I was just hoping for some cool old IFL gear or some shit. Wasn't expecting to win Andy at all. Its just a big, strange, goofy trophy, really.

I'm not even sure how big the thing is.

[Jasep]

Great job Crowe. But that painting is terrible

I was just hoping for some cool old IFL gear or some shit. Wasn't expecting to win Andy at all. Its just a big, strange, goofy trophy, really.

I'm not even sure how big the thing is.

The fact that it says "Your my favorite warrior" in the corner is kinda gay as well
This is one of the rare times I would recommend ebay, you may find some brazilian fan boys to get in a bidding war over it... but no way would that thing ever get hung...

Option 2 would be to cut a hole in the mouth of it so you can do bong rips through it and refer to the paining as Anderson Salvia

[Jasep]

I was just looking at the artists website, the guy is actually pretty talented, he did the leggo catalog cover and a bunch of video game work and his paintings are very good, not sure why this one sucks so bad... would be better if it looked more like this other work of his.

[Crowe Diddly]

not sure why this one sucks so bad...

He explained it on one of the podcasts. A friend of his came across Anderson Silva at a bar or some place, and knew Marco was into MMA. He called him, and the guy basically painted this and got it framed in like an hour and rushed over to a press conference where he was gonna try to give it to Anderson afterwards. Andy's mgmt rushed him out ASAP when the press conference was done, so the painting was given to a guy to try to eventually give it to Silva... years later, it makes its way to Boston, I guess.

The guy's aware it's not his finest hour, and was really cool about all this. I was even joking with the guy on twitter that I hoped the painting wasn't cursed or something... He told me to let him know if the thing came to life and front-kicked me in the face. Seems like the least I could do.