The Full Enchilada

The news reports are all apparently censored in regards to Serena Williams sudden pulmonary embolism which is said to follow some other medical complications or be a result of treatment for something else etc…etc…
Somewhere among the deleted lines seem to be excuses for the pulmonary embolism which leads many to conclude that Serena Williams pulmonary embolism is a not so uncommon side effect of PEDs, whether EPOs (Erythropoietin), or anabolic steroids etc…Apparently policthemia, induced her pulmonary embolism.

Many athletes try to increase their RBC, red blood cell count while escaping detection of banned substances in their system. One method they employ is to store their own blood and re-inject their blood back into their body before a tournament so that they benefit from the additional blood volume and increased concentration of red blood cells powering their muscles which increases not only their strength but stamina as well.

It’s unfortunate to hear that Fedor may need a CAT scan after the brutal beating he sustained at the hands of Antonio Bigfoot Silva. I was afraid of what might happen if Fedor couldn’t keep the fight standing and dominate with boxing. Sure I knew Fedor had great ground and pound history on his side but this was a huge guy which makes grappling and wrestling with him very risky if he ends up ground and pounding on Fedor. As I said in my previous articles on Fedor, I think he is past his prime and should think of his health, he has nothing to prove to anyone and hopefully he has enough money left to retire on ok.

For those who have not seen the fight here’s a video streaming link for you to the Fedor Silva fight (even the commentators stated that Silva was supposedly at 285 lbs in the fight, this would mean 55 pounds more of lean muscle and thick bones!):

(keep in mind the audio lags behind…)

(I look forward to seeing Fabricio Werdum versus Alistair Overeem who has packed on quite a lot of muscle, hopefully he passes drug tests. This could go either way, I think Werdum should win but Overeem has a good chance to do to Fabricioi what Silva did to Fedor.)

Although Silva was seen as the ‘underdog’, this fight was not very fair for Fedor, I say Fedor was the underdog. These days, as I’ve written on numerously, there’s no justice over 205! Meaning smaller fighters that can’t make it down to 205 lbs are forced to fight huge MONSTERS like Antonio Silva and other 265 pound guys who are not just fat Sumos but all hard bones and muscles. Fedor can not continue to dominate against such monsters when he is past his prime. In his prime, his big heart let him win, and to be fair the monsters he may have fought before perhaps were not as ’skilled’ as today’s monsters.

I’m a big advocate of public day of fight weigh-ins, in addition to the usual pre-fight weigh-ins. The truth is that huge fighters work themselves to dehydration sometimes to make the pre-fight weigh-ins and would not have done very well had they fought right then. But they are allowed to come in to the fight nice and healthy and well hydrated with an additional 10 to 20 pounds than their pre-fight weigh-ins and the bigger the fighter the bigger the difference can be. A big fighter who comes in very dehydrated, can be even 30 pounds heavier once he’s back to normal hydration.

Fedor doesn’t really play the dehydration game, and he hasn’t much reason to, he’s naturally at 230 lbs and even a little bit chubby at that! Antonio Silva on the other hand, is likely naturally at around 285 or 300 lbs! He is naturally a much bigger frame, hence his Bigfoot nickname. (Silva does in fact have acromegaly, ie a form of gigantism characterized as caused by a benign tumor in the pituitary gland that produces excess growth hormone. Silva’s tumor supposedly caused him to produce as much as 20 times the normal amount of growth hormone in the body. Fyi, some athletes take dope themselves with ‘growth hormone’ in addition to anabolic steroids for increased skeletal strength and muscle.)

It is rumored that the day of the fight, Antonio Silva stood not only about 5 inches taller (not sure how much longer a reach Silva enjoys over Fedor, looking it up..) than Fedor, but Silva was up to 50 pounds heavier than Fedor. And Silva does not have a Sumo’s flabby physique, he is quite lean for his size, Silva looks leaner and more muscular than Fedor. Even if 50 pounds is a bit high, in my opinion even 34 pounds is very considerable weight advantage if going by pre-fight weigh-ins. I had wished that Fedor would be able to take down the monster with punches but had I been his trainer I would have told him he needed several months to train muay thai leg kicks and just dance around trying to soften up the big monster by taking out his legs and then try some punching, and only when the monster was very tired would I have advocated a close quarters ground and pound game. I had always thought Fedor was lacking in the kicking and kneeing department and should have learned some Muay Thai kicks a long time ago. (ie it takes time to toughen up those shins!)

To be fair, why doesn’t the UFC make 155 pound fighters go up against 185 lb division fighters? Or even how about pitting 155 pound fighters against 205 lb fighters? Poor Mirko CroCop was even worse off in the heavy-weight scale, his frame is even smaller than Fedor and he consistently had to fight opponents who were considerably bigger and heavier than him.

There is no doubt, MMA needs more heavy weight classes to bring justice over 205. Something like a 230 lb class in honor Fedor! (The we would put all the 250+ pound guys together so the 250 and 265 pound guys can get some bad karma back from their 350 pound Bob Sapp and Eric Pele style opponents.)

So what do you think, anyone want to sign a 230 lb division request to the UFC in Honor of the Last Emperor?

Sometimes fights are quickly lost due to bad tactics or a terrible split second mistake. It was interesting to hear that Fedor was the one consoling the rest of his demoralized team-mates after his defeat. He said he was very very sorry to let any of his fans down, but that he is just a normal human not anything special and can lose a fight just like anyone can. He said if its God’s will he will win the next one.

This was the real reason I’ve always had so much respect for Fedor Emelianenko, sure his pretty much perfect record until his match with Fabricio Werdum helped but I never considered him to be invincible or superhuman or stronger/tougher than everyone else. I thought Fedor was a very intelligent fighter, and that’s what made him so successful. Yet as even King Solomon had his blunders, now so does Fedor. He underestimated the physical strength in my opinion of Fabricio Werdum compared to Minotauro Nogueira.

I clearly remember cringing and being very nervous for Fedor in his fights against Minotauro Nogueira as he seemed to be unaware of the existence of the ‘triangle choke’. Later I figured out that he wasn’t concerned because he felt much stronger physically and could power out at will. In fact, I forget the entire quote, but Minotauro himself said, “I will never be as strong as Fedor..”

Perhaps Fedor is a little bit weaker than he was in his prime when he fought Minotauro, regardless of the BS from some old (over 40) fighters that they’re better than they ever were in their prime, I think many will tell you they feel a pretty big difference even one year away from their prime…there is a big fall-off that seems to happen and then a bit of a plateau for a couple more years before another big falloff, perhaps following natural body testosterone and growth hormone levels. This aging process not only makes a fighter less agile but weaker and not able to exercise at the same high intensity as before, not only that but they can no longer take a punch as well as before, and can not recover as quickly. Not to say a fighter can’t be much better in their forties than they were in their twenties if they had no brains back then…

So Fedor lost due to fight tactics that weren’t fixed to compensate for an opponent he could not easily physically overpower, and also because of that split second mistake he made right before the lock, the split-second hesitation as he put it….had his corner fixed his tactics he would not have to worry as much about such split second mistakes anyway….

So why does Fabricio Werdum owe Minotauro Nogueira? Simple, he obviously had the advantage of watching those fights and may have realized he could catch Fedor in a triangle choke if Fedor fought the same way. With only a minute into the fight there wasn’t much sweat to make submissions more difficult either. I even wonder if Fabricio purposefully tricked Fedor into coming down for an early ground and pound by feigning being hurt and letting himself go down to lure Fedor in to his game when he was in full control of his faculties. Perhaps it was all planned ahead of time, perhaps he got lucky it just happened that way and he was smart enough to make the right move to lock in deep in the split second Fedor hesitated which way to move. Fedor himself after the fact admitted that his hesitation proves he needs to practice his ground game some more so it becomes natural ‘instinct’ again not requiring any thought…a good observation.

Personally, I think Fedor should try to avenge his loss to Fabricio Werdum and then retire. There’s no reason he should keep on fighting, there’s a new breed of heavy weight fighters these days and he’s just too small. Sure, we’d all watch and cheer him on but why risk his health anymore fighting guys with over 30 pounds of muscle more than him? Especially being past his ‘prime’ and yes I definitely believe he is past his prime, he should try to avoid fights with guys bigger than him unless he has the advantage in experience/skill ‘and’ something else (such as if he’s smaller but equal in strength, or if he’s faster, or if he has a much better chin than the big opponent..). Otherwise, if one goes into a ring against an opponent who is naturally much bigger, has a much longer reach, a tougher chin, and just as good stamina due to younger age, it will be very hard to beat them barring their lack of brains/skills etc…I think we are beginning to see some very athletic ‘big guys’ at 265 lbs, and I don’t mean fat/obese amateur fighters, but these new naturally huge 265 pound fighters with a 7 or 8 inch reach advantage!

Teach one of these behemoths how to kick like Ernesto Hoost or other muay thai kickboxers and better have those stretchers handy for their one legged opponents. (…having been at 265lbs or more for many years, their bones, shins and all will be much stronger than other fighters’…black fighters in fact generally have a higher bone density than all others, medical data shows native indians coming in second followed by mexicans…many Brazilians I’d venture have better bone density than whites also…anyway I digress…but the point is once these big guys with super skeletons learn to kick decently it will be very hard for someone 40 or 50 pounds lighter to deal with them.)

As far as I know heavyweight scale right now is 206 lbs to 265 lbs and some organizations do not even have an upper limit… PrideFC had some very entertaining fights between huge 350 lb guys like Bob Sapp and 5′9″ Minowa the 194lb ‘Punk’ and others much smaller than him. It’s too bad there seems to be no place for really huge guys over 300lbs in the UFC. Personally I think we need more weight classes to make things more fair for those who are around 220lbs and those around 230lbs, and having super heavyweight 265+ so this way these big 265 guys can get some return karma when they start facing guys 300+

Now getting back to these new 265 pound fighers, I think that Alistair “Demolition Man” Overeem is a very dangerous fighter right now. He completely destroyed Brett Rogers and Brett Rogers did give Fedor a run for his money with a bloody and likely broken nose. Overeem is very tall also, same height as Brett Rogers and from what I saw of the fight he looked like a guy on roids, perhaps he’s never used any steroids, all the more impressive, the guy is huge. It doesn’t seem that he has as thick a bone structure as Brett Rogers but that means that at about the same weight he will be much stronger than Brett and can easily man handle him in wrestling/grappling to ground and pound.

Fabricio Werdum is only an inch shorter than Overeem but will likely still be clearly out-powered by the Demolition Man unless Fabricio decides to bulk up and if he can build it with all muscle not belly fat. One thing I’ve realized with many of these Brazilian fighters is that they seem to be pretty good at taking a punch…if so, it might be worth it for Werdum to try a little chute boxing and leg kicks on Overeem and try a couple a shots to his chin when he tires him or his legs out and then go for a submission. But to wrestle with Overeem right off the bat will be very tough…

Fedor will probably continue to be my favorite heavy-weight mma fighter but I think at 5 feet and 11 and a half inches (and 229 lbs), not truly even 6 feet tall as some stats list him, he is too small of a frame to face the new generation of agile/nimble 265 lbs decently skilled fighters emerging.

I wrote before an article “Will CroCop ever get a fair fight in the UFC?” explaining why I thought Mirko Cro-Cop’s time for fame was gone…that he was especially too small of a guy and also couldn’t take a punch too well so when he lost his biggest asset, the explosiveness of his kicks, he could not stay at the top of the game due to a lack of grappling/submission skills also…with age, explosive reflexes are first to go…and CroCop relied too much on his explosiveness, his speed…
My Original post on this subject I had started on the Matt Hughes forum, it was entitled something like “There’s no Justice over 205″ see http://thefullenchilada.com/newstuff/theres-no-justice-above-205-the-ufc-badly-needs-a-new-225-230lbs-weight-division.htm I don’t think it’s on the Matt Hughes website any longer though…

Best luck to Fedor in his next and last fight on his contract…and if he decides to continue fighting and take on these new huge monsters I’m sure just about everyone will be rooting for him, the David against these Goliaths…long live the king, long live the last emperor.

Unfortunately, I must confess I’m worried that Fedor’s reign as Emperor over MMA may have ended. There is NO DOUBT that Fedor reigned supremely for an entire decade is still the King but he’s not getting any younger and the Heavyweight division is turning into a Monsters’R Us division where Fedor is just a little guy not a heavyweight. At 5′11, an inch short of 6 feet and 232 lbs, Fedor is not a very big man by current heavyweight standards with fighters standing 6′5 and 265 pounds or more. How long can Fedor last against these younger and bigger fighters?

Regardless of what some fighters might say, that they got better with age, honestly, its a bunch of BS. Nobody can fight the effects of age, if a fighter is actually better in ‘old age’ it means he was a major lazy ass or kind of mentally stupid in his younger days and couldn’t take advantage of his physical abilities. The fighters that rely the most on their speed and agility, their reflexes in avoiding getting hit, will be much more adversely affected by age than those ‘tough’ fighters that rely on pure strength and power and a tough chin. This is a physical law of nature, you can write it down….it has been proven many times over. Look at George Foreman, he had a comeback as an old guy because he was big and powerful and could take a shot from his opponents, but if you’re like poor Mirko Cro-Cop who relied mainly on his lightning quick reflexes which are the first to go with age, your career will be much shorter.

The truth is though, that the rule changes over the last years in the UFC, no longer allowing headbutts, kidney shots, kicking a downed opponent to the head, neck chops, and all kinds of barbarities, has tilted the sport a little more in favor of the man with a brain instead of the scary mindless brutes and maniacs. Back in those days, those naurally born ‘tough’ guys with thick skulls had a much easier time against anyone who tried to play wrestling with them, if you dove for their legs they’d just elbow you in the spine and break you in two, if your face was at any time within reach of theirs, they’d headbutt your face into a powder, or they’d pick you up and slam you on your head, you can’t really win against someone much more physically superior in a pretty much no rules fight.

Luckily for the not so tough but ’smart’ fighters out there some of these new civilized rules came to the rescue thus making grappling and ‘brains’ much more useful in a fight, but go out in the ‘real’ world and you’ll see it’s not the ’smart’ guys beating the crap out of everyone, it’s still the bigger dumber bullies. I’m not saying an mma fighter would not do great in a real street fight but what I’m saying is that they’d have a much harder time with tougher stronger opponents even if they’re more skilled. Let’s say if they’re so good they usually beat guys 30 pounds heavier than them in the ring with those rules, I’m saying that those extra 30 pounds might be a little more than they can handle in a street fight where if you get slammed once you might never get up.

Now tell me, who would you rather face in an alley, Fedor or the 35 pound heavier 265 lbs monster Brett Rogers?
I wouldn’t want to fight either of them, but if I had to choose I’d definitely rather fight Fedor, probably since he’s such a cool guy he’d likely forgive whatever I did to tick him off so much and let me live. Well that and I’m sure I’d have a much better chance than to fight a no rules streetfight with a monster that I probably couldn’t hurt even with my strongest punch even if somehow I could reach his 6′5 high face against his 10 inch reach advantage! What the heck could you try against such a monster, tickle him to death?

After watching the Brett Rogers vs. Fedor Emelianenko fight I couldn’t help but feel really ticked off at the quick stoppage by Big John. It was obvious Brett Rogers was not all that hurt but seemed to decide he wanted to ‘quit’ without the shame of tapping out, he wasn’t so hurt that he wasn’t unconscious so that he couldn’t think or block and defend himself, overall it seemed cowardly. Brett Rogers enjoyed handing some punches to the about 35 pounds smaller Fedor who took them like a man, but when his turn came he didn’t have the guts to tap out or verbally quit and waited for the referee to save him. Perhaps he knew he was the network’s ‘guy’ and they would do everything in their power to help him win and to save him from any real damage. I think the quick stoppage was an insult to Fedor.

Fedor deserved a second or two more to leave his calling card and force Brett to verbally submit, tap out or have his team throw in the towel for him. Of course, if Brett was really completely out of it, we would all have agreed with the ref stepping in so quick and in fact Fedor himself being the kind guy that he is (maybe too nice, if you see the Fedor vs. Mark Coleman fight when Coleman brought his young daughters to watch, Fedor obviously had pity and went easy on him when Coleman was just hanging on to his leg he could of really punished him) would have had mercy stopped the onslaught without the need for a ref to step in. I’m quite convinced though that those putting on the show would have loved to crown Brett Rogers the new champion and I bet that a lot of people may have lost quite a bit of money on bets they placed against the 6-to-1 odds they fabricated. The high odds against Brett Rogers winning were quite absurd, there was no reason Brett Rogers should not have been seen as the ‘favorite’ to win this match. He is younger, just as fit as Fedor and has a tremendous 7 inch reach advantage and 32 to 35 lbs of extra muscle and power. Not only that but the undefeated (in 10 fights) Brett Rogers had finished off Andrei Arlovski much easier and quicker than Fedor was able to do, all of these facts should make you realize there were many rich fat cats salivating at the mouth in anticipation of Fedor losing this fight.

Here’s the Brett Rogers versus Fedor Emelianenko full fight:

I feel sorry for Cro-Cop, after having seen him get pretty badly beat up by a much bigger and younger Gonzaga (a natural 255 lbs), and now by another young rising star Junior dos Santos, I wish I could give him what I know is good advice: its time to quit or time to really ‘learn’ real grappling skills, or to find some crazy diet so he can lose 15 lbs and fight at 205 lb division.

Mirko Cro-Cop was a great fighter but his greatness relied squarely on his athletic abilities, his quick reflexes and speed coupled with accuracy of his punches, and sadly with age those are the first things to quickly fade away.

A big tough guy can still rely on his size and granite chin even with age, that’s why ‘big’ and ‘tough’ heavy-weight boxers who could take a punch have done ok even well past their prime. A skilled fighter who is built tough has a longer shelf life since his physical strength and his toughness will be intact for a much longer time than any quick speed and reflexes.

Mirko never had a good chin but his speed and quick reflexes saved him, yet now that he’s considerably past his prime, that speed is gone, his kicks are now well telegraphed, not explosive as they once were. His main weapon has been lost.

Even so, I would love for the UFC to give poor old Mirko Cro-Cop a fair fight for once. Yes, you heard it right, I’d like the tables to be turned and Dana to let Mirko finally fight a SMALLER guy than him. So far, the fights he’s been given were against much younger and bigger guys. Take Junior dos Santos, the guy is in his prime, ten years younger than Mirko and 20 lbs heavier, a true heavyweight. Even Cheick Kongo was taller and heavier than him.

True, Mirko did recently beat Mustapha al Turk a 245 pounder but Mustapha just isnt’ a top caliber fighter, James Thompson with his weak chin and lack of stamina wouldn’t be a problem either. James Thompson was winning the fight against Kimbo Slice when he just gassed out, got too tired and then with his glass chin and barely able to hold his hands up he was just a punching bag.

Unfortunately for Mirko, he’s not a true heavyweight, he could fight at 215lbs or maybe even 210lbs. Why don’t they have the best 205 pounders fight Mirko? So what if they are 205 lbs and Mirko is 220lbs, Mirko had to fight guys much bigger than him also. This was not uncommon in the PRIDE days where weight divisions didn’t ’save’ fighters.

In many respects, PRIDE fights were much more entertaining, but perhaps that wasn’t just because stomping and any kicks to the head of a downed opponet were allowed but that many of the fighters were on steroids and who knows what pain killers also because they seem to have been able to take tremendous punishments and keep going. They also looked fiercly ripped, muscles bulging, they looked agitated and barely able to control themselves from jumping at each other’s throats before the referee started the match.

If you look at the MMA weight classes, it is completely unfair for the smaller fighters who barely miss 205 lbs when they have to face hugely built fighters who are naturally at 245 lbs. Even Fedor Emelianenko is a small guy compared to some of these monsters like Brett Rogers and others. Apparently Fedor is scheduled to fight Brett Rogers on Nov. 7 and good luck to him, he’ll need it against that behemoth.

I think Brett Rogers is very dangerous and has a long reach, it seemed to me that Andrei Arlovski walked right in to Brett Rogers’ punch having badly misjudged his reach advantage. Perhaps since at 6′4 Arlovski was only an inch shorter he thought he knew his safe distance but obviously he was wrong. Fedor will need to be careful, to only rush in when he can catch Brett Rogers backpedaling, and not to risk contact with a big fist while charging in like Andrei. He should dance around the ring a bit, do some low leg kicks to soften up the big guy and then take him to the ground. Trying to take him to the ground too early, unless forced to, would drain too much of his energy with such a bigger guy. This was kind of evident in his fight with the Hong-Man Choi giant, he tried to take him down too early and the giant was still fresh and too powerful and too heavy to lift. He definitely does not want to make the same mistake with Brett and be smack on his back.

If you look at boxing, in the recent Mayweather fight, the same thing happened, a bigger taller fighter won. No surprise. In boxing, even though the biggest deal was made about Mayweathers’ weight penalty, since he came in at 146 lbs at weigh-ins, two pounds over the agreed contract, that a five inch reach advantage which Mayweather enjoyed did more to win him the fight, it allows Mayweather to do what he does best, to ‘box’, to go in and out unscathed.

The true weight disadvantage is not in the mere numbers. The night of the fight I think the weight difference was about five pounds or so (would appreciate a link to exact fight night weights) which would be considerable in itself when both athletes are in shape and its extra pounds of muscle not fat. The true weight advantage though is that Mayweather is the ‘naturally’ bigger man and Marquez is just a lightweight trying to fight at welterweight. It would be nice to see Mayweather fight Sugar Shane Mosley or better yet Miguel Cotto. (In fact many have accused Mayweather of having staged the retirement to dodge Cotto because he was afraid he’d lose the fight. Personally I’d like to see Mayweather fight the top contender Paul Williams as well as Mosley and Cotto.) I think of Mayweather as a ‘boxer’ not as a ‘fighter’. Probably if Mayweather fought the same opponents he beat in the ring, if he fought them in the street, there’s a few of them that would have really given him a beating but he’s a smart guy and boxes intelligently to ‘win’, he doesn’t take risks just to put on a good show for the crowd. He gets more money for winning so why should he? But back to the weight advantage…

When Mirko Cro-Cop, a 220 lb fighter, fought Wanderlei Silva the “axe murderer”, Silva even though usually a 205 pound fighter, was heavier than Mirko by about four or five pounds on fight night. Mirko Cro-Cop went on to to win the fight in spectacular fashion, ending it with a KO courtesy of his powerful signature roundhouse kick. The point is, a bigger framed fighter has an advantage even when his smaller framed opponent bulks up to equal weight.

The reason for this has to do with the muscle fibers and joint surface area. A bigger person with larger bones and joints has a greater surface area on joints which can be populated with muscle fibers, the denser the fibers, the more fibers that a muscle is composed of, the stronger the muscle will be. When you work out and ‘bulk up’ you can only enlarge each muscle fiber so that it gets stronger but you can not create new muscle fibers. Therefore a muscle with the same muscle mass but greater number of muscle fibers would generally be stronger than a muscle with fewer but bigger muscle fibers. The bigger framed fighter might have a tougher chin and do more damage with each hit. For those who recall the Fedor versus Mirko fight, it seemed like CroCop was running away in pain from Fedor’s heavier hands and yet Fedor could not overpower Mirko on the ground, wrestling. It’s a shame that Mirko does not have good jiujitsu submission skills and isn’t much of a wrestler either because he has the physical strength to have made great use of such skills just as Randy Couture has done with his wrestling.

Mirko CroCop should be fighting guys his own size, like Quinton Rampage Jackson who could easily meet him at 220 lbs, I think I heard they might be friends though going back to PRIDE so not sure if that would happen. Now Randy Couture is a legend of course, the guy has not only fought guys in their prime when he’s as old as their fathers, but he’s won, but Randy Couture the natural, well, he’s a ‘natural’ wrestler and his physical strength is still there so when he gets a hold of someone he always has a chance to win. If only he had a bit tougher chin….oh well can’t have it all. Mirko might be too old to become a pro at jiu-jitsu or wrestling but I’d recommend it for him highly if he can discipline himself to study intensely with a wrestler like Randy and a jiu-jitsu of a Minotauro Nogueira’s caliber.

It would be nice to see Mirko fight Wanderlei in a rematch to give the axe murderer a chance at redemption while still showing he can be a great challenge with guys closer to his own size. Perhaps there should be a 225 lb weight division which would be perfect for Mirko and Fedor could probably make that too since he’s always around 230 lbs.

Then we can let all these 250 to 350 lbs monsters fight each other in Super Heavy Weight. That way when a small 220 pounder goes and fights a 250+ monster he can get the recognition he deserves for jumping out of his weight class, and chance to win a belt in two weight classes. (Besides the regular weigh-ins I’d like to see the fighters get weighed for all to see right before they step into the ring.)

A similar post made to matt hughes’ website forum apparently was deleted. As for his future, he’s a very likeable guy but he’s getting too old also, he’s a slow puncher and unfortunately though not the worst chin doesn’t have a great chin either, he’ll need to rely on his muscles and wrestle, learn to submit or just lock them up and ground and pound to win. GSP, Georges Rush Saint Pierre, now this guy is like a real life version of Jean Claude Van Damme. GSP not only looks like Jean Claude Van Damme, he even sounds like the Belgian muscles from brussels too with that French Quebec accent.
On an aside, I’d love to see Mr. Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) to do some western sequel to the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly playing Clint Eastwood’s role, Hugh Jackman has an uncanny resemblance to Clint Eastwood which really becomes apparent when he’s playing the Wolverine role with his bulging forehead vein and sideburns, but I digress…

Well Mirko, good luck to you, hopefully someone will enlighten you on what to do should you chose to continue in the career as a fighter. I’m sure no respect will be lost if the decision is its time to let the younger kids have at it but everyone will be thrilled to see a comeback CroCop with new ground skills and/or fighting in a better suited weight class with guys of the same size frame.

(guess nothing new, as I wrote in “There’s No Justice Above 205″ at http://thefulle.com/newstuff/theres-no-justice-above-205-the-ufc-badly-needs-a-new-225-230lbs-weight-division.htm )

Don’t get me wrong I’d love to see big guys fight small guys, but with proper recognition and respect. (A 205 lbs guy should be paid more if he beats a 230 pound fighter and he should have chance to walk around with TWO championship belts in two different weight classes if he’s that good. Perhaps this only worked in Japan, not sure if US sanctioning bodies would allow for jumping to higher weight class without putting on the extra weight. Which is strange in that in heavyweight division fighters are allowed to fight guys at over 25 lbs of muscle disadvantage.)

So what happened to Heavyweight Boxing? It has disappeared off the map? Are the Russians still dominating the heavyweight so there’s no more talk of it in the US? Well perhaps that’s true (says I after a quick glance at IBO Heavyweight rankings right now…) Seems like the top four fighters are from Ukraine (KLITSCHKO brothers at the top positions, Wladimir and Vitali) and Nikolai and Ruslan from Russia…don’t ask me what this has to do with good ‘ol Mirko CroCop.

There’s No Justice Above 205! The UFC badly needs a new 225-230lbs weight division. I have been searching in vain for any proof that I am wrong and there is an actual UFC weight division at 225lbs or 230lbs but in vain. Do the GREAT 220-230lbs fighters (such as Mirko CroCop who fought Gonzaga at about 25lbs disadvantage, by the way Fedor’s team/trainers have stated that after that vicious head-kick knockout any doctor would have mandated 6 month sabbatical) out there not deserve the same fairness awarded to 155 pounders? or those at 168/170/185 and 205lbs?

In any well conditioned fighter, even FIVE POUNDS can be a considerable weight advantage, yet we have fighters face opponents with over 20 lbs of pure muscle and/or bone structure advantage! (It isn’t unusual for fight-time weight advantage to be greater than at weigh-in when the ‘overweight’ fighter comes in completely dehydrated…)

How can there be a “fair fight” between a 220lb fighter and a 265lb monster? Would it be fair for a 185 pounder to face the 225lb ‘monster’? Or to force the 155 pounders to go up against the 205 lb fighters? It seems though that every fight at the lower weight divisions have fighters at exactly the same weight or within ONE POUND of each other whereas at the heavyweight level we send knights after dragons, and while entertaining, for sure, is it fair to the fighters? Why not give fighters the dignity and official recognition they deserve if they choose to go up and fight an opponent in a higher weight division?