Other Combat Sports News - Page 2

Brock Lesnar’s notoriety as a World Wrestling Entertainment champion and headliner has created great interest in his Ultimate Fighting Championship debut on Saturday night against former UFC champion Frank Mir. But because his fame comes from scripted entertainment, many aren’t aware of his successes in legitimate athletic competition. Lesnar was 106-5 in four years of college wrestling, winning the junior college national championship in 1998 and the Division I championship for the University of Minnesota in 2000, both as a heavyweight. High-level amateur wrestling is a great asset in mixed martial arts, as many of UFC’s biggest stars all have a substantial wrestling background, Randy Couture, Chuck Liddell, Quinton Jackson, Dan Henderson, Matt Hughes, Josh Koscheck, Jon Fitch, Diego Sanchez, Rashad Evans, Tito Ortiz, Clay Guida, Keith Jardine, Roger Huerta, Jake O’Brien, Frankie Edgar, Matt Hamill, Brandon Vera, Gray Maynard, Corey Hill, Matt Grice and others. But wrestling success is no guarantee of MMA success. For every Couture or Dan Severn, both of whom competed on the U.S. national team in international competition and are among only a few fighters in the UFC Hall of Fame, there are great wrestlers, including national champions and Olympians, who have gone nowhere in MMA.

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TNA has made a business deal with UFC regarding promotion of UFC's 2/2 PPV show, and in particular the Brock Lesnar vs. Frank Mir match. Details aren't known, but it is expected there will be heavy advertising of the next UFC during the TNA shows over the next two weeks. In addition, during the body of the shows will be hype packages to build up the match. Next week's Impact will include a Brock Lesnar training package, as well as a Kurt Angle interview, where he breaks down the Lesnar vs. Mir match. Great idea for UFC, TNA has 1.5 million wrestling fans watching every week. It's hard to say if it means anything for the future, but it may pave the way for that eventual Kurt v. Brock fight that was much talked about in the past.

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While I know that most fans have given up the boxing vs. MMA debate, I don’t want to ignore the fact that the two most popular combat sports will be going head to head tomorrow for the first time. On the boxing side, Roy Jones Jr. (51-4, 38 KO) faces Felix Trinidad (42-2, 35 KO) in a 12-round light heavyweight bout. On the MMA (UFC) side, B.J. Penn (11-4-1) faces Joe Stevenson (28-7) for the Interim UFC lightweight title at UFC 80.

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It didn't take too many occurrences of signing for a $15,000 purse and walking home with just $5,000 to sour Marcus Davis on professional boxing. He was, he says proudly, a fighter all his life and he was going to find a way to fight one way or another. But boxing was making him a miserable person and the man known as “The Irish Hand Grenade” finally had gotten fed up. "I just had so many issues and problems, with management and other things, and I was in and out of court so much with all of that," Davis said. "I pretty much got tired of the dirty aspect of boxing. I'd get half — or less — of what I was promised (in a purse). I wasn't getting the fights I wanted. Things weren't going in the direction I wanted. "After a while, I couldn't stomach it any more. It was making me sick. Literally. I had to get away from it."

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Former WWE Champion and current TNA Wrestling Champion Kurt Angle recently responded to allegations by the IFL and Ken Shamrock over Angle turning down a fight with Shamrock for a future IFL show, among other topics.

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In 2007, the sport of mixed martial arts garnered unprecedented mainstream sports acceptance, gracing the covers of ESPN The Magazine and Sports Illustrated . Media outlets that one year ago wouldn't have touched MMA were suddenly proclaiming it as the fastest growing sport in the country, and even the replacement for traditional boxing. But the reality is a little different. As this past year showed, the respective ups and downs of the UFC and pro boxing aren't related. Boxing had its biggest year ever on pay-per-view television, and while UFC didn't have the two incredible draws which turned 2006 into its biggest year – Tito Ortiz's matches with Ken Shamrock and Chuck Liddell – business solidified. Of the 15 biggest PPV events of 2007 in North America, UFC had eight, to four for boxing and three for World Wrestling Entertainment (numbers are not yet available for UFC 78 and November and UFC 79 in December, both of which are expected to crack the Top 15). In 2006, those numbers were six each for boxing and UFC and three for WWE. Boxing's record year really consisted of two gigantic fights: Oscar De La Hoya-Floyd Mayweather and Mayweather-Ricky Hatton. UFC did the most consistent business, and WWE, with the exception of a stellar Wrestlemania and strong SummerSlam, has faded in comparison.

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Great Interview, he drops the f-bomb about twenty times, but he gets his point across about what he thinks will happen to his son in MMA. Here's a small quote: "All of this he talking about right now, this martial arts s***, I’m telling you, he about to get broke the f*** up right now. I’m telling you, he could forget all of that stuff being cute and how you supposed to hit somebody with a check hook. Man, them motherf*****’s going to take that check hook motherf***er and squeeze your guts out. I’m just being real with you man."

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From one of the best boxing sites on the net (Maxboxing) is an article about Floyd Mayweather, and boxers' in general, difficulties in MMA. Marcus Davis (the most experienced boxer the UFC has right now) gives a good breakdown of how the sports differ:

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Elena “Baby Doll” Reid, the current flyweight champion of the world in boxing, makes her debut in the world of mixed martial arts against Tammie Schneider. “I’m a fighter,” explains Reid. “Whether it’s boxing, or MMA, I like to fight.” Reid becomes the first boxing world champion to participate in an MMA bout, beating Riddick Bowe and Floyd Mayweather to the punch when she meets Schneider at the Riviera Hotel in Las Vegas on Friday.

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Boxer Floyd Mayweather Jr. has said he's thinking about jumping over to MMA. One UFC fighter thinks this wouldn't be good for the sport of MMA-Joe Stevenson.

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Floyd Mayweather Jr., Joe Calzaghe, Miguel Cotto and Kelly Pavlik have combined for a 146-0 record and 111 knockouts.

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Telling the media that he had "accomplished all that I could as a fighter" following his Dec. 8 bout with Ricky Hatton, Floyd Mayweather intimated that he would be happy to retire with a perfect 39-0 record and the unofficial title of best pound-for-pound boxer on the planet. But if Mark Cuban is to be believed, the 30-year-old pugilist has a prescient sense of history and wants to add one more chapter to his inevitable self-congratulatory autobiography -- Mayweather could become the first boxer in his career prime to risk hyper-extended ligaments in a mixed martial arts contest. Mayweather, Cuban said, will be involved in some capacity with the billionaire's fledging HDNet Fights promotion and will visit MMA gyms in the coming months to gauge his interest in an open-style fight.

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This year marked the 25th anniversary of the tragic passing of South Korean boxer Duk Koo Kim, who died from blood clots sustained during his harrowing fight with Ray "Boom Boom" Mancini. As in any unfortunate passing, people try to remember the life that was lived rather than the death itself. Such has been the case in South Korea, where Kim's story has been celebrated, if tearfully, as one man's insurmountable spirit.

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Former world Brazilian jiu-jitsu champion and current Abu Dhabi champion Demian Maia started off on the right foot in the UFC when he submitted Ryan Jensen with a rear-naked choke. The Brazilian loved the experience.

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Former World Wrestling Entertainment Champion and Hall Of Famer Bret "The Hitman" Hart recently gave a Canadian website an interview where he talked about MMA. He said he does like it, but he seems not to like the more violent aspects of it when compared to wrestling.

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Today’s video-game culture and increasingly violent movies have spawned a demand for entertainment that offers clearly-visible mayhem. Meanwhile, boxing is in trouble. Not many sports have a reigning superstar who has won only twice in the past four-and-a-half years and lost three of his last five outings. But that’s Oscar De La Hoya’s recent record. Put the aforementioned realities together and one has an ideal environment for the rise of mixed martial arts as a sports entertainment phenomenon.

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White said the UFC would offer $2 million to Mayweather if he agreed to fight the promotion's lightweight champion, Sean Sherk. It sounded as though White would clearly want the fight to take place under MMA rules.

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