UFC 85: London, England: Matt Hughes Vs. Thiago Alves / The Ultimate Fighter 7

mookie blaylock 10

LOVEBOATCAPT0226 wrote:

Here is me and my new best friend Tito Ortiz at "Bookends" in Ridgewood, NJ.
I was the fourth person in line- got right in quick to chat with the former UFC Champ. He told me he will be fighting again in October, but couldn't say where yet. Keep your eyes and ears open for his return.

PS- Got his auto on his new book as well as on a Punishment Athletics shirt. Nice!

Here are a few photos of me and Tito. Hope the link works.


http://share.shutterfly.com/action/welcome?sid=2EbtGbJu4YsPO

i leave the thread for a day or so and come back to find you suddenly met tito ortz! :eek: that's awesome, lbc! complete with punishment athletics gear on, eh?!

man, that must have been amazing to meet a guy you've been a fan of for a long time. the link definitely works, and thanks for sharing your pics with us. baddass, my friend!

i was reading today that donlad trump is partnering up with affliction somehow and that there are rumours tito may be involved with them, in part, because of that. we'll have to keep our eyes and ears open, i guess.

for now, i'm sure a meeting like that will tide you over until he gets back in to fight. very happy for you, lbc.

mookie blaylock 10

mammasan wrote:

That's a great shot. That was such a good match, along with the lawler/smith match. What a fucking joke the Kimbo/Thompson match was. Every single step forward that the UFC has made to bring MMA into the spot light as a legitimate sport was set back by Elite XC and the Kimbo match.

This weekend should be 10x better with the Hughes/Alves fight.

they really got some great pictures from the event in their slideshow. both good fights had some good captures. i wish the tv broadcast had those angles!

i'm hoping the two awesome matches from the show will be what people remember...haha

starting to get excited for this weekend, as i'm an alves fan and am anxious to see how he does against matt hughes.

mookie blaylock 10

leafs4ever wrote:

that sucks man, hope you get it all fixed up soon. My sister works at a dentist office, she could get you in if you come up to newmarket

watched the interview and i can't believe gina was that good on only 3 weeks of training. definatly a "letting the pressure go" moment for her

damn, i wish i was closer to "upper canada"...i could get fixed up, meet up with you and ceg for the show this weekend! for now, sorry again about complaining!

mookie blaylock 10

leafs4ever wrote:

i'm ok with this... seems like another great fight added to a fully stacked card. I'm pretty sure i'll be picking Edgar though

we shall be at odds, my friend. i'm biased for hermes. i think edgar will get some easy takedown here, though. hermes doesn't have the best takedown defense, but he does time an excellent knee on wrestlers when they shoot. you're right, another great fight on a great card, in any case.

mookie blaylock 10

leafs4ever wrote:

that is a great shot, thanks for posting mookie, i didn't even realize it was that close.

I agree that the Kimbo/Thompson match was a joke but it did expose Kimbo and i'm happy about that. I don't think the show set back mma, there were some good fights on the card, and a couple great fights on the card. The stoppages were not that good, but every causual fan that i talk to thought it was a good night of fights so i think they succeeded to a degree. Could it have been better? definatly, hell the next night there was a better card on. But did it set them back, i don't think so.

I agree, this weekend will be alot better

good post. i can see what you are saying, mammasan, but i think you said it well here, leafs.

i've been watching the elite xc shows since the beginning (not long ago..haha...and i think we have been commenting on the last couple here in the thread, too...) and there are almost always two really good fights on each card, a couple of matches that could be "thrown away" and a contorversial finish or stoppage! it's weird...

in their very first show, frank shamrock vs. renzo gracie - frank threw at least two illegal knees to the back of renzo's neck and the fight had to be stopped when renzo couldn't contintue. gina carano vs. julie kedzie saved that show, as the only other highlight was antonio silva catching cabbage with a flying knee (a super HW throwing a flying knee!)

nick diaz vs. mike aina - the judges gave it to nick in what most people thought was a fight aina won. it was a good match, though, and robbie lawler vs. ninja probably stole that show.

nick diaz vs. kj noons and kimbo slice vs. bo cantrell - people thought cantrell took a dive (it was pretty clear he was just there to collect a cheque), and noons won by doctor stoppage when he opened up a huge cut on diaz that had still not healed proerly after the gomi and aina fights. noons was "overly zealous" in his celebration and diaz stormed out of the arena, flipping off whoever was in his way. jake shileds vs. mike pyle, and kyle noke were the only highlights here.

there are quite a few good matches from other shows too, involving people like yves edwards, shayna baszler (pretty much any match with yves or shayna in it has the chance to be exciting!), joey villasenor, etc....and that frank shamrock vs. cung le match they co-promoted with strikeforce was outstanding.

anyway, just trying to say, i guess, that one of elite xc's major problems is that they only have a couple of really talented mixed martial artists in each division and then there are others they bring in for good matches sometimes. they try to market some of their low level fighters (like a kimbo slice or brett rogers) as top teir, when they really aren't close. anotonio silva is their only relevant HW, and i don't even think they mentioned him on the cbs show!

they chose to put together a card of mostly fighters who would keep the matches standing. i'm hoping for the next one, they will put a little more variety into it. as you said, casual fans or new fans seemed to be entertained by the show, so if the catch 22 is kimbo as a headliner, then it's not so bad if other, more talented and experienced fighters are getting exposure too. as long as the arena audience doesn't have the balls to boo a match like lawler vs. smith again. that was perplexing?!

i can't believe i keep forgetting joey getting the tko on phil baroni...:)...maybe it just feels like a happy place for me...:D

edit: i'll shut up now...and start spell checking my posts before i hit submit. i think i have had to edit almost every post!

mookie blaylock 10

civ_eng_girl wrote:

sounds exciting LBC!!! great pictures too!

Mookie, ReleasH and I had so much fun meeting the fighters in Montreal! We were laughing about how we are now officially "super-fans" of all the guys we met!


(i disagree about Machida's so-called running though! ) hehehe...

i will always pick jorge gurgel and matt hamill to win from now on!

LOVEBOATCAPT0226

civ_eng_girl wrote:

sounds exciting LBC!!! great pictures too!

Mookie, ReleasH and I had so much fun meeting the fighters in Montreal! We were laughing about how we are now officially "super-fans" of all the guys we met!


(i disagree about Machida's so-called running though! ) hehehe...

That must have been cool , which fighters did you guys get to meet??

LOVEBOATCAPT0226

mookie blaylock 10 wrote:

i leave the thread for a day or so and come back to find you suddenly met tito ortz! :eek: that's awesome, lbc! complete with punishment athletics gear on, eh?!

man, that must have been amazing to meet a guy you've been a fan of for a long time. the link definitely works, and thanks for sharing your pics with us. baddass, my friend!

i was reading today that donlad trump is partnering up with affliction somehow and that there are rumours tito may be involved with them, in part, because of that. we'll have to keep our eyes and ears open, i guess.

for now, i'm sure a meeting like that will tide you over until he gets back in to fight. very happy for you, lbc.

Hey Mook, Yeah I was pumped the rest of the day after meeting him. I didn't hear the Donlad Trump thing , but he did say something about supposedly making his own fighting organization. If he went to Affliction that would be cool.

mookie blaylock 10

LOVEBOATCAPT0226 wrote:

Hey Mook, Yeah I was pumped the rest of the day after meeting him. I didn't hear the Donlad Trump thing , but he did say something about supposedly making his own fighting organization. If he went to Affliction that would be cool.

i'm sure you were pumped! that's exciting!

oh yeah, that's right too about tito's thing. i forgot. i think affliction has said they'll be doing cross-promotion, so maybe tito's new organization will be setting up a deal there...?...i don't know, i speculate! haha

great first fight on the ultimate fighter tonight! it didn't last long, but there were tons of scrambles and dan cramer was throwing lots of punches on the feet, even doing well on the ground against tim until he got caught in that heel hook. i was wanting to see more! wish it would have lasted longer.

mookie blaylock 10

my cable konked out for the first minute of the second match, but it looked like a pretty dominating win for cb. he gets the tko on cale in the first and moves on to the semi's.

mookie blaylock 10

i thought cb vs. amir would have made a better finale than a semi final match, but we'll see how it goes...

civ_eng_girl

LOVEBOATCAPT0226 wrote:

That must have been cool , which fighters did you guys get to meet??

as Mookie mentioned, we met Jorge Gurgel, Matt Hammill, and Mac Danzig, as well as Eddie Bravo and Dana White....

it was awesome.

mammasan

mookie blaylock 10 wrote:

they really got some great pictures from the event in their slideshow. both good fights had some good captures. i wish the tv broadcast had those angles!

i'm hoping the two awesome matches from the show will be what people remember...haha

starting to get excited for this weekend, as i'm an alves fan and am anxious to see how he does against matt hughes.

I think Thiago has a really good shot at beating Hughes. Alves is on a nice hot streak right now. I'm a bit pissed that I will be missing the fight. My girlfriend and I where invited by her mom to spend the weekend at her mom's summer place out in Pennsylvania and she doesn't have cable :(

civ_eng_girl

mookie blaylock 10 wrote:

damn, i wish i was closer to "upper canada"...i could get fixed up, meet up with you and ceg for the show this weekend! for now, sorry again about complaining!

i like this plan.

but i'd be happy to wait 3 more weeks, so we can catch some other shows together!! hint, hint.

LOVEBOATCAPT0226

civ_eng_girl wrote:

as Mookie mentioned, we met Jorge Gurgel, Matt Hammill, and Mac Danzig, as well as Eddie Bravo and Dana White....

it was awesome.

Did Dana White end up being a nice guy??

civ_eng_girl

LOVEBOATCAPT0226 wrote:

Did Dana White end up being a nice guy??

he was great!

as we were heading out to dinner after the weigh-ins, we passed by a small group of people crowded on the sidewalk. we peeked at what was going on, and lo and behold, it was Dana, signing autographs and taking photos with fans. He was really accessible and friendly, and didn't seem in a rush to get away. He shook our hands, smiled at ReleasH and called her "babe" , asked us all where we were from, complimented all the Canadian fans, and told ReleasH he hopes to bring an event to Nashville soon. Then his assistant took a picture with the three of us and Dana, and we went on our way.

mookie blaylock 10

mammasan wrote:

I think Thiago has a really good shot at beating Hughes. Alves is on a nice hot streak right now. I'm a bit pissed that I will be missing the fight. My girlfriend and I where invited by her mom to spend the weekend at her mom's summer place out in Pennsylvania and she doesn't have cable :(

after watching the countdown show and hearing the story about hughes rubbing the loss to spencer fisher in thiago's face, i'm really hoping he catches hughes in a triangle...just for poetic justice. he did the same thing to georges st-pierre, making fun of him for not knowing the armbar defense, only to lose by...?...armbar! to GSP. the guy hasn't lost a lot of matches, but they're all but one by submission, so i guess it's insecurities that make him feel the need to belittle others with his comments.

in any case, i think thiago wins this one on the feet. he has developed great takedown defense that will surprise a lot of people i think. i can see him coming out and feeling out the first round, maybe getting taken down, and coming on strong in the second. i'm not even going to compare alves' striking skills with hughes', as hughes has virtually none. if thiago gets confident enough to land those leg kicks and let his stiking go, he will pick hughes apart easily. (i think i recall you saying you train in muay thai and bjj, so we have to go with the muay thai guy, right? )

post-fight interview from hughes.."i thought it was a knee, i didn't know it was a punch." D

there, mamasan, i have played out the whole fight for you, so you're not missing anything! sorry you will be missing this one. sounds like a nice weekend, though.

mookie blaylock 10

had to get the picks in! the show is getting close! go little pitbull!!!

UFC 85, June 7, 2008 - O2 Arena, London, England - PPV

Main Card:

Matt Hughes Vs. Thiago Alves - alves by tko
Michael Bisping Vs. Jason Day - day by tko
Marcus Davis Vs. Mike Swick -davis by ko
Brandon Vera Vs. Fabricio Werdum - vera by tko
Nate Marquardt Vs. Thales Leites - marquardt by decision

Pre-lims:

Martin Kampmann Vs. Jorge Rivera rivera by tko
Thiago Tavares Vs. Matt Wiman - tavares by submission
Roan Carneiro Vs. Kevin Burns - carneiro by submission
Jason Lambert Vs. Luiz Arthur Cane - cane by ko
Paul Taylor Vs. Jess Liaudin - taylor by tko
Eddie Sanchez Vs. Antoni Hardonk - hardonk by tko

mookie blaylock 10

civ_eng_girl wrote:

i like this plan.

but i'd be happy to wait 3 more weeks, so we can catch some other shows together!! hint, hint.

]

yes, i know, it would be sweet! what's "hint hint"?

leafs4ever

LOVEBOATCAPT0226 wrote:

I said Tito who will beat Machida's ass. He smiled and said whoever can catch him, since all he does is run!! I told him I was going nuts when he applied the triangle and he said thanks for the suport. It turned out to be a great day, nice people in line and I got to meet my favorite fighter.

kind of what i would expect him to say lol

sounds like an awsome day