Official MMA Discussion Thread

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by The_Meach

Are we talking about his fighting ability or his crybaby running out of the ring.

---

Well I hope you paid attention to the running out of the ring like a child since he was on your list of master sportsmen.

But I'm talking about the fighting ability. He had that one craptastic playground level fight with Stefan Bonnar and then Dana said it was the best fight of all times and then everybody who looks at the TV but does not see what's going on declared him to be a great. Then he fought some bums and had a stroke of good luck and that notion became rock solid amongst the new TUFbred 'fans of the sport'. I just hope that this raw expose will help people to watch the fight instead of waiting for the joke after.

"Forrest Griffin has the stuff champions are made of"

"LOL wat"

"That was hella funny when he did all those pushups after the Tito fight"

That's a slightly dramatized yet still highly accurate example of a conversation with the type of fellow who is a big fan of Griffin. They can't understand that he has the worst standup in the history of the world but they can sure get fired up remembering that awesome time on the TV set when he shot Rampage with a net gun. WHAT A STALLION

Anyways, I'm just ranting. I've always strongly disliked the guy as a fighter. Then I see he's disseminating information on oil checking through his book and now I just fucking hate him. It was good to see him made a fool out there :tu:

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by PaCrappa

Well I hope you paid attention to the running out of the ring like a child since he was on your list of master sportsmen.

---

Yep, running away is doucher behavior; if he was hurt, mitigates it a little but still.

<3 Anderson.

This isn't the first time he ran out like a baby after getting decisively beaten.

I'm agreeing with you; I never saw him run out b/4, but it sounds familiar and I trust you, so...consider this me withdrawing Forrest as a sterling example of sportsmanship.

Crazy that Torres lost...

...first time in six years.

I didn't figure Bowles would be the guy either.

New Silva interview:

After two fight that, in the view of some people, were well under par, Anderson Silva returned to his impressive ways in MMA. In a virtuous performance, which certainly will find a place in history, the “Spider” moved up in weight groups and made former light heavyweight champion of the UFC Forrest Griffin seem like a beginner. Still in the United States, where he is helping teammate Rodrigo Minotauro prepare to face Randy Couture, on August 29, Anderson had a chat with PORTAL DAS LUTAS, GRACIEMAG.com partner website.

Portal das Lutas – After your devastating win, Forrest behaved unexpectedly in immediately leaving the octagon and rushing to the dressing room. What did you make of that?

Anderson Silva – Shoot, I didn’t get it. But I think everyone has their own way of reacting to determined situations. I consider Forrest to be a great fighter, a tough guy and there’s nothing bad I can say about him. Thank God I was better, I trained a lot and everything went my way. I’d like to thank everyone who helped me.

PDL – At a determined moment you dropped your guard and exposed your face for him to hit. Was that part of your strategy, to catch him with a counter strike?

AS – It was natural, it’s not a tactic or anything. It’s instinct, it happened naturally.

PDL – But to do so you need to be really confident standing… Beyond that, the knockout came from a jab, which hit Forrest with surgical precision. Did you do any special training to be able to do so?

AS – So, I’d like to give a special thanks to the guys who came over from Cuba to help me with my boxing, as well as teachers Doria Distak, Cesario and Claudio Coelho. Those are the guys who made it happen.

PDL – There’s already speculation regarding a title challenge for the category above yours (light heavyweight), against Brazilian Lyoto Machida. You said after the fight your problem is to deal with middleweights and, beyond that, Lyoto is your friend. Could this fight really end up happening?

AS – There’s no point in even asking. Of course I would never face Lyoto. We have a code of honor and, besides being friends, we’re like brothers. It will never happen.

PDL – You are the current record-holder for back-to-back wins in the UFC (10), middleweight champion and considered by many to be the best around. Do you have a hard time finding new goals to achieve?

AS – I seek to work hard and seriously. I owe that to everyone who participated in my career and who taught me something, ever since I started practicing the martial arts. I’m far from being the best in the world. I carry on working hard and serious to keep up the good results. That comes from lots of work and I intend to keep it up, to keep on winning.

PDL – The two fights preceding your win over Griffin were heavily criticized. Did this last performance serve to put an end to the story?

AS – It’s good you brought it up. I’d like to make it clear that I respect everyone. I’d like to apologize if, at some point, I was disrespectful to someone. I look to do my job and people criticize it. And they should criticize, because that’s how we become determined to fight better. That’s why I thank everyone and have great affection for everyone who’s keeping up with my career. We’re always struggling and it’s hard to be in the situation we’re in, people wanting things of us, with our personal problems, problems with the team, injuries, folks end up getting hurt… There’s a lot involved in getting ready for a challenge. But, thank God, we’re able to overcome the obstacles and come up with the results. Once again I’d like to say sorry to everyone who’s misunderstood me and I believe I would not have made it to this point without having been humble and if I’d been disrespectful to others. I’d like to end my career like this, respecting everyone else and with everyone respecting me.

PDL – You’re sticking around in the United States to help Minotauro prepare for his fight with Couture. How is that going?

AS – We have great expectations. Everyone’s here to help him, Jacare is on his way and Rogerio Minotouro too. We’re all training hard here and we’ll see what we can help him with. We’re thinking positive and training a lot to help Rodrigo.

Love it. Thx Pa.

Very disappointed Torres lost but honestly not surprised. He's been hit often in his last two fights against Japanese fighters and I honestly could have given his last fight a split decision/draw. I thought Bowles could knock him out but thought Miguel would get him first which he almost did. Miguel is one of those guys who seems a lot older than he is and the reason I feel that way is because he's taken his fair share of punishment.

I love Miguel Torres' fighting but first he gets all crazy cocky venomous about Brock Lesnar for no good reason and then he gets KO'd in the first by a guy with only eight fights. COME ON MIGUEL Was he thinking more about Lesnar than Bowles?

Anyway, Cachorrao is not only a big dog but serious hoss. The crazy part is bolded by me:

The day after his latest win, GRACIEMAG.com caught up with black belt Ricardo “Cachorrao” Almeida on his way home with his wife, Ally, for this exclusive interview:

GRACIEMAG.com: Before facing Grove, did you and your coaching staff have a strategy laid out before hand? Was it to take him down and submit him?

Ricardo Almeida: Truth is I wanted to stand and trade with him more, if just to make it easier to get the takedown. But, although I had been training with tall sparring partners, when it comes down to actually fighting it’s not the same thing. Kendall fought conservatively, back pedaled, waited for me to clinch, without giving me much room to take him down. Since a lot of people think I’m going to shoot in on the legs, we worked a lot on faking a shot on the leg, throwing a right and then clinching. Renzo didn’t want me to shoot on the legs, he wanted me to always go for the clinch. On the ground he’s really tall, so passing his guard was kind of complicated, I felt alright. It was a great fight.

GM: In round 2 you were caught off guard by an armbar and the fight could have turned out differently. What’s your view on this moment and how did you get out?

RA: When you fight you have to not only be physically prepared, but mentally prepared to deal with this type of change of tides when it happens. Sometimes you are doing well in a fight, a knee gets through in the thai clinch, you land and the guy starts hitting you and a bunch of things happen. At that moment [the armbar], I was pressing him up against the fencing, so he used the fencing to spin and pull me into the armbar. That armbar was fully sunk. I felt I wouldn’t be able to get out and kind of waited for my arm to pop and get loose so I could try and get out. But he ended up adjusting the grip on my wrist and it loosened a bit, so I managed to pull out my elbow and spin over. I think the fight was a good one. I kept my cool the whole time, knowing what I had to do to win one round at a time.

GRACIEMAG: In round 3 you wore out a bit, right? In your opinion, was it because you were on the attack the whole time? How do you assess your third round?

RA: I felt a bit more worn out in R3 than I generally do, but I think it has a lot to do with the pace of the fight and the way things played out. He didn’t want to go after the fight and I wanted to take him down, push him against the fencing and onto the ground, mainly. I had to use a lot more force than I expected to due to his reach. For me to hit him in the face, I had to throw a lot of weight forward, I ended up tiring a bit, but that comes with the territory, right? To fight a 2-meter tall guy, I’m 1.8 meters… He’s a tough guy to beat, he’s hard to take down – and I managed to take him down several times – so getting tired is part of the game, especially when you’re fighting someone like Kendall, who has even beaten Evan Tanner, who was champion of the UFC. I’m happy with the fight.

GM: What’s your next move?

RA: Every time I go into the octagon I improve on some part of my game. I think that’s what I have to do to remain in the UFC. First of all, you have to keep improving the whole time and second you have to win. A lot of guys want to put on a show, if I wanted to put on a show I’d be in the circus, not fighting. I fight to win.