Another week and so brings another Sky Report, though I’ve been off my job the last few weeks, I do have my reasons. Anyways, this week offered up some very interesting topics of discussion, so let’s get right into it:
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Diego Sanchez a lightweight? Well according to Dana White he is. I enjoyed watching Sanchez as a welterweight and I don’t think he absolutely needs to drop but he is small in that division and this would make him a big lightweight. Hopefully, we get a good match up to gauge his new found home soon.
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Roger Huerta signed a new five-fight deal with the UFC and is rumored to be facing Spencer Fisher in the near future. Glad Huerta and the UFC higher ups were able to mend everything out so that we can see Roger in the octagon again. Reading our editor Kelvin’s piece here on how good Huerta is, it makes you think that maybe he is as good as he’s being presented as. Spencer will be a quality opponent for the young star and let’s hope we see how good he really is.
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Wednesday we saw the UFC put on a show for the troops in Fort Bragg to help the Intrepid Fallen Heroes Fund. This was a true class act by the company, and maintaining the focus on helping these troops throughout the night and really letting people know that this show wasn’t just to showcase UFC fighters but rather to help this cause was very well done. Thumbs up for that as it's being reported that the show helped raise over 4 MILLION dollars.
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Now on to the carnage in the octagon. Many people have voiced their opinions on the night as being more brutal than your normal UFC show. Some blame the refs not stepping in quick enough, others blame the fighters themselves. It is combat sports, so these types of things happen. No one person can be blamed for anyone else’s hurt or harm in a fight because that’s what it is…a fight and had certain fights been stopped prematurely, there would be backlash that they didn’t give the fighters enough chance and so on. But anyways, the Corey Hill injury was sickening if you saw it. Nasty, nasty breakage and I wish him a speedy recovery, horrible way to lose a fight but that’s what happens sometimes. As far as the overall show, the focus as I said was not on just the fights but the cause, so at times it did lag as far as fighting goes but it was still a heck of a show. Jim Miller has opened a lot of eyes with his performance against ‘Handsome’ Matt Wiman, on short notice nonetheless. He and his brother Dan are going to be forces in their respective weight classes. Tim Credeur beat the living hell out of Nate Loughran, nothing too surprising there. I think Steve Cantwell is one of the few guys that gained a huge amount of fans and lost them within a blink of an eye in the same fight. He proved to be too much for the ‘weird stance’ using Razak Al-Hussan, who gets points for his impeccable afro. However, it was Cantwell’s post-fight comments that turned all the cheers to jeers as he was happy to have popped Hussan’s elbow out with a brutal armbar. Its fine to celebrate a win and it’s okay to be happy with the way you won, but to openly celebrate injuring someone…not so much. Moving along our co-main event of the evening lasted about as long as a new Fox sitcom, as Mike ‘Quick’ Swick made short work of Jonathan Goulet. Was anyone really surprised? I think a gassed out of shape Swick would’ve done the same, so this win in my opinion is far fro indicative of where Swick truly is on the welterweight totem pole, but only time will tell. In the main event, what I thought would be a competitive three round war, turned into a two punch destruction between Josh Koscheck and Yoshiyuki Yoshida. The two were relatively tentative in the early minutes of the first round with Yoshiyuki Yoshida being able to fend off Kos’ strikes. However, after a brief clinch, the two separated and Koscheck was able to stun the Japanese fighter which led to one of the most brutal knockouts of the year. Move over Chuck and Rashad, this was just a beauty. Josh Koscheck’s looping style was transformed into a perfectly thrown right straight that knocked Yoshida out on his feet right before another huge right had Yoshida’s eyes rolled back and him reminiscing on days of old. You never want to see a fighter knocked out to the point of fear for his life, so we all wish Yoshida a speedy recovery and the best, but that was a great cap on a great event.
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Renato ‘Babalu’ Sobral versus Sokoudjou? Yep, the recent recipient of a pink slip from the UFC has found a home with Affliction and will be in a Light Heavyweight clash at their January 24thshow against the current Strikeforce LHW champ. This will be a good gauge on things to come for the Cameroon Team Quest fighter. I think on paper, Sokoudjou could be a solid favorite because Babalu is one to be coerced into brawling but the way Sok has been exposed in his last few fights, one has to wonder whether Babalu will skip the leather tossing and take it straight to the mat.
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Pat Miletich, you know the former UFC champion, got a huge highlight reel KO this past Thursday. Knocking out EliteXC veteran Thomas Denny in the second round during the main event of Adrenaline MMA’s second event. While I missed quite a few of the ‘Croatian Sensation’s bouts in the UFC, my true acquaintance with him came in his IFL loss to Renzo Gracie. While that’s not a bad thing, he looked awful in it. Many say Pat looked in shape and very good in there with Denny, I’m already seeing threads in forums and discussions on whether the UFC should bring him in. Much like Mark Coleman, Pat’s finer days are way behind him and at 170, he’d MAYBE be able to outwork a ‘Just got off TUF’ caliber fighter but any and everyone else would beat him into a retirement home. However, for you gamers, if you can find the UFC video game on PS2, you can do some damaging things with the great Miletich.
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The TUF Season 8 Finale takes place this Saturday, so I suggest you check that out on Spike. Although this season should’ve just been known as the Junie Browning show, it had some of the better skilled fighters I’ve seen on a TUF show. In the Light Heavyweight finale, wrestler Ryan Bader will go against jiu-jitsu specialist Vinicius Magalhaes. My early prediction is a Vinny win. Bader is your typical wrestler but a good one. However I think Vinny’s jiu-jitsu game is going to have a field’s day with Bader if he doesn’t work quickly in top position and really hurt him in the early stages of the fight. I see a possible guillotine in the near future for Bader, but he will be a young prospect in the stacked LHW division sooner or later. The Lightweight finale pits Efraine Escudero against Phillipe Nover. Nover in my opinion is a beast and while I think this one has decision written all over it I think Nover will be the favorite to beat up Escudero wherever the fights goes. The rest of the card is alright, we get a middleweight clash between Wilson Gouveia and Jason MacDonald. The rematch we’ve all been waiting for between Kevin ‘I’ll Poke Your Eye Out’ Burns and Anthony ‘My Eyes Only Red Because it Got Fingered’ Johnson. And it wouldn’t be complete without the star of the show, Junie Browning having a bout as he’ll take on Dave Kaplan.
Another crazy week of MMA and more up to the minute info and opinions here at MMA4Real.net. Also stay tuned as MMA4Real will be making some HUGE changes that will benefit the site greatly in the coming weeks! These improvements to the site will be drastic and I can't wait for you guys to enjoy all the new technology we'll have at our disposal. We encourage you to join us in the discussions as we continue to build on what we have here. As always, we are thankful to the members that do actively voice their opinions. Stay tuned as we'll be coming back with our analysis and predictions for the TUF finale in a bit. Feel free to drop any comments or point out anything I’ve missed.
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