Saturday, May 14, 2011
Liveblog: Bellator 44 Part 2
First up is Gemiyale Adkins and Jay Silva in a middleweight pairing. Adkins is short and built like a fire hydrant that shoots fists instead of water. Silva, meanwhile, begins every day with a flying knee to his bathroom mirror. Round 1 sees Adkins realize quickly that he's too short to go toe-to-toe with his opponent, so he spends half the frame playing the huggy game. Silva, of course, just blasts him on the feet and knees him relentlessy against the cage. Adkins spends all of the second and third round desperately clinging to Silva's leg while Silva punishes him nonstop, and when time runs out the judges award Silva the unanimous decision. Next is Anthony Leone and Jeff Lentz. Leone's fought everywhere, and Lentz was on TUF, so, um, yeah. The bout opens with Lentz inexplicably letting Leone kick him in the leg about two dozen times. He warms up as he goes, however, finding his range and firing back with just about everything he knows. Round 2 has Leone slowing and Lentz continuing to find his groove (and by groove, I mean pounding on Leone against the cage). The third round has Lentz high-kicking Leone and planting his big toe right in Leone's eye - which saps the shorter fighter completely and enables Lentz to batter him until the final bell. The TUF vet takes the unanimous decision.
Liveblog: Bellator 44 Part 1
MMA Journalist is here in the majestic Caesar's in Atlantic City for Bellator 44. Headlining the card is Hector "Angry Cuban" Lombard vs. Falaniko "Hawaiian Punch" Vitale, and the undercard will see the lightweight tournament finals between Patricky Freire and Mike Chandler. Know who's not on the card? Anthony Morrison, who failed to make the bantamweight limit for his bout. Now I'm going to throw some facts at you, and you make your own jokes: Morrison was supposed to make 135 and he was 146.5, and his nickname is "Cheesesteak". Ok, go.
Blogger Issues
This week Blogger, the platform that this beloved blog is hosted on, suffered some serious outage issues. With that in mind, if those problems return tonight, my liveblog for Bellator 44 in Atlantic City might be non-existent. We'll see, though. And if worse comes to worse, you can still follow me on Twitter ("jim_genia" is my account). I'm always posting live results and stuff there.
Friday, May 13, 2011
Rest In Peace Michael Tome
Last night MMA lost one of its biggest proponents. Michael Tome, a.k.a. "Snake", wore many hats in the sport - as a promoter, he ran sanctioned shows on his reservation in Upstate New York, as a sponsor he helped out many fighters, and as a coach and trainer he ran a gym that was open to anyone free of charge (he wanted to keep kids of the streets). To know him was to know a real character, and though he looked like a cross between the Kurgan from "Highlander" and Magua from "Last of the Mohicans", he was cool as hell and always willing to help. Rest in peace, Snake. You will be missed.
Wednesday, May 11, 2011
Bellator 44: It's All About the Local Guys
First, the good news: this weekend, Bellator touches down at Caeser’s Resort in Atlantic City. And now, the great news: the card features some pretty damn decent local talent. Yeah, middleweight champ Hector Lombard is taking on UFC vet Falaniko Vitale, and the lightweight tournament final between Patricky Freire and Michael Chandler promises blood splatters and death for everyone, but the meat and potatoes of the card is all about the Northeast fighters who’ve worked their way up to the Bellator stage. Let’s take a gander at them, shall we?
- Anthony Morrison – This Philadelphia native can box and he can wrestle, and last year he went from ROC champ to WEC competitor, so you can say Morrison has “been there and done that”. You can also say he’s going to kill bantamweight tournament washout Bryan Goldsby on Saturday night. All would be accurate.
- Sam Oropeza – Fight Factory exponent Oropeza has an interesting style. He’s got devastating kicks, and his wrestling (or anti-wrestling to be exact) means he’s usually going to stay on his feet long enough to land something. Oropeza should have his hands full with Giedrius Karavackas, though, who’s emerged as one of the tougher grapplers and beating-dispensers in the area.
- Jeff Lentz – Lentz may have fallen to some wannabe on TUF 12, but that doesn’t change the fact that he was a killer in the Northeast circuit. He’s taking on WEC, Strikeforce and Bellator vet Anthony Leone, who’s been on a bit of a downward slide of late, so watch for the Kurt Pellegrino-trained Lentz to smash and smash hard.
- Randy Smith – Smith is big. That is all.
- Jay Silva – His explosive striking got him into the UFC way too soon, and he got crushed by Bellator champ Lombard in six seconds last year, but Silva’s still very dangerous. At Bellator 44 he’s taking on Gemiyale Adkins – a short and stocky heavyweight who likes to bang – so my crystal ball is telling me “flying knee, flying knee, flying knee”.
Thursday, May 5, 2011
Kudos for the "New York Mixed Martial Arts" Documentary
Last night MMA Journalist went to a private screening of Kahleem Poole-Tejada and Sambo Steve's documentary "New York Mixed Martial Arts", which details the decline of the public's appetite for potato knishes. Psyche! The film is about New York MMA (duh) and the state's lack of sanctioning for our beloved sport, and it focuses on an amateur fighter named Brad Desir, a rally and a roundtable, and a ton of snippets from industry insiders. Hey, did you know Josh Barnett doesn't trust the government? Or that Gesias Cavalcante can speak pretty good English? I did not, but thanks to the documentary, now I do. Anyway, "New York Mixed Martial Arts" will be shown to the general public at the Bronx Week Film Festival on May 16 to 19, and it's worth checking out.
Lyman Good Injured, Out of Bellator 44
File this one under the heading "NOOOOOO!" Lyman Good, who was scheduled to fight Dan Hornbuckle at next weekend's Bellator 44 in Atlantic City, was injured in training and will be unable to fight. This turn of events sucks on many levels - and all those levels involved watching Good kick ass. Oh well, what can you do?
Wednesday, May 4, 2011
Tuesday, May 3, 2011
Thursday, April 28, 2011
ROC 36 Brings the Whammy
Lest we forget how awesome Lou Neglia’s Ring of Combat can be, the promotion goes ahead and reminds us by putting together what looks to be an amazing and epic card for their June 17 show. Granted, the event is almost two months away and the number of fights scheduled (19) exceeds the maximum allowed by federal law and zoning ordinance, but still, if we end up with even some of the following announced match-ups… wow.
- Pete Sell vs. Kris McCray – It’s been a while since we’ve seen “Drago” in action, but if he’s still got that same willingness to throw down as before, then he and TUF runner-up McCray are sure to have a pretty decent scrap.
- Al Iaquinta vs. Mikhail Malyutin – M-1 refugee Malyutin has been tearing it up here in the Northeast lately – if, by “tearing it up”, you mean counter-fighting like crazy and stealing decisions. But if anyone can save us, it’s Iaquinta, who punches big, wrestles big, and likely won’t let Malyutin off the hook for his passive (but strangely effective) game.
- Claudio Ledesma vs. Dustin Pague – Pague KO’d Steve DeAngelis to take the ROC 135-pound belt, while Ledesma has been kicking tail and taking names like… like… someone who kicks tail and takes names a lot. I like this bout because it can end in a variety of ways, and all of them are ugly.
- Mervin Rodriguez vs. Jason McLean – If you give him a chance to, McLean will wrestle you and grind you to death. Lately, Rodriguez hasn’t been allowing anyone to do that to him, so what we’ll probably get in this pairing is two guys thumping each other in new and creative ways until time runs out.
- Munah Holland vs. Ashley Nee – It’s good for a region to have at least one badass female fighter, and since Laura D’Auguste retired a few years ago to pursue her black belt in housewifery, Holland – who decisioned Kim Couture last year – is next in line. Both she and Nee are coming off losses, but that should just make these ladies hungry. Very, very hungry.
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