MMA Roundup: Lesnar, Mir, Evans, Shamrock, Other Shamrock, Diaz and more
Man oh man, what a week it has been in the world of Mixed Martial Arts. Any week in which we have both Shamrock brothers in the news is a week I consider good…ish.
Let’s start with the news from the reigning champions of MMA, the UFC.
UFC 100 would be a huge event no matter what was on the card. The number 100 is a milestone many tried to keep MMA from reaching. Just think back to the late 90’s, when John McCain was petitioning to get MMA banned in the US, the UFC was just getting out of it’s “No Holds Barred” era, and many people viewed the sport as “human cock fighting”. Say what you will about the Feritta brothers, Dana White, and the TapouT Crew (one of whom passed away this week), but without them MMA would have never made it this far.
Just over a month ago it seemed White and company planned on relying on the number “100″ itself to sell the event. They shot down rumors of all titles being on the line that night, they made clear the superfight of our generation between Anderson Silva and Georges St. Pierre wouldn’t happen, and they had planned to have Brock Lesnar and Frank Mir have their rematch to unify the Heavyweight title at UFC 98. Well what a difference a month makes.
None of this is “official” yet, but the current plans for UFC 100 have Dan Henderson and Michael Bisping facing off in the traditional battle of Ultimate Fighter coaches, GSP is supposed to defend his title against Thiago Alves, and of course the much delayed rematch between Frank Mir and Brock Lesnar for the unification of the UFC Heavyweight Title.
While the UFC is trying to make UFC 100 something special, they still had a UFC 98 that was missin
g a main event. It was initially announced that if Quintin “Rampage” Jackson defeated Keith Jardine at UFC 96 he would face off with “Sugar” Rashad Evans for the UFC’s Light Heavyweight Title. Rampage defeated Jardine, had a face off with Evans immediately following the fight, and promptly had to pull out of the fight.
It appears Rampage will be undergoing surgery on his jaw to fix an injury suffered during training for his bout against Wanerlei Silva last December. Now Evans is set to face off against Lyoto Machida. While it is much to early to make predictions, I can tell you that the champion is the early underdog in this fight. Not that I would ever gamble online, but if I did, I may have already taken Evans at +160 in this one.
In order to move away from UFC news, I would like to mention that I will be attending Wrestlemania 25 on April 5th in Houston, Texas. What does this have to do with MMA you ask? Let me tell you, part of this week’s big news involved two former WWF/E champions.
Former UFC Heavyweight and WWF Intercontinental Champion Ken Shamrock was supposed to face the former WWE US and ECW World Champion Bobby Lashley at the upcoming Roy Jones Jr.-promoted Boxing/MMA March Badness event. Well, Ken Shamrock has since been suspended for a year from fighting within the US due to testing positive for steroids. Lashley is now scheduled to face off against Clay Guidas’ bigger, not-as-talented brother Jason. Lashley has come out in the last few days saying he wouldn’t mind taking the Shamrock fight to Japan where they don’t uphold US suspensions.
My last little bit of news involves two of the most entertaining fighters in MMA.
Frank Shamrock (adoptive and estranged brother of Ken) will be facing off against perpetual menace to society Nick Diaz. For the record, I am a Frank Shamrock fan. I want to see him fight and I enjoy his spirited verbal sparring most of the time. Nick Diaz I see as a person who has no respect for the sport and the prototype of all that is wrong with meat head fans/fighters. That being said, I am super excited that Strikeforce is making this match-up happen. It could turn into the most entertaining build up to a match since Ali Foreman. As we get closer to the April 11th Showtime fight I will preview more, but for now I will just leave you with quotes from both men. These come courtesy of Cagepotato.com:
“Someone asked me the other day how my comeback was going so I guess I’ve come back. I love fighting. I love this art. I want to thank Nick Diaz for the opportunity and just warn him that when I punch his head and he lands in the second row he’ll need someone to catch him.” — Frank Shamrock
“Frank can talk all he wants, but I’m going to beat him up. Let’s see how much he fights back.’’ — Nick Diaz
