Bloody Eyebrow

You know what MMA doesn’t need any more of? Comparisons to pro wrestling. Every fucking week is another moronic essay by some blogger that grew up watching oiled-up steroid junkies pretend to slap each other around comparing what’s going on between the UFC and Strikeforce to the business antics of Vince McMahon.

What’s the point? Really? I mean, if you’re going to compare the machinations between rival MMA promotions to something, why pick pro wrestling? Is it because they both wear tight pants? They’re both on the same low-rent cable network? Shit – compare them to warring ballet companies or the on-going battle between foul-smelling deodorants.

Get a new metaphor, assholes.

Okay, first of all, check this out:

Did you see that? YouTube sensation and glass-jawed promotion-killer Kimbo Slice is stepping into the ring to fight the criminally underrated champion of the now-defunct International Fight League, Roy “Big Country” Nelson. He got knocked the fuck out by Seth Petruzelli, a TUF-reject and UFC washout, and is now stepping up to face one of the most dangerous men on the planet in a fight that will earn him scale as a bottom-of-the-barrel actor.

Meanwhile, the most highly rated, most highly touted, most amazing heavyweight fighter in the world, Fedor Emelianenko is taking on Brett Rogers, a guy who just quit his job changing tires at Sam’s Club in January. Seriously. Now Brett is currently ranked more highly than Roy, but that’s a) part of the “fighting Fedor bounce” and b) complete and utter bullshit.

The point isn’t that Kimbo is a better fighter or a better man than Fedor. It’s that Kimbo at least has the stones to go out there and test himself against the best fighters he can while Fedor is hiding behind his crooked management team so that he can fight scrubs.

Sack up, Fedor. Book a real fight.

In a post on Bloody Elbow, Luke Thomas introduces and summarizes comments form Ron Waterman, like so:

Between Lesnar and Carwin, the [Waterman] has coached, trained and worked with both. So, how does he evaluate their various attributes and strengths as compared to the other? It’s subtle, but the edge goes to Lesnar.

Which is interesting, because the article doesn’t seem to say anything of the sort. First the interviewer asks which fighter is stronger. Waterman concedes that Lesnar has a slight strength advantage – “not a huge difference” – but then negates that with:

“I might give athleticism to Brock’s side, but the technique to Shane a little more. He’s come along with his ground and stand-up. He’s got good submissions now.”

He goes on to say that even though they wrestled in different divisions (I and II), they faced similar opponents. When asked about who gets the takedown in their first fight, Waterman says:

“It’s really hard to say. If they come in to wrestle, Brock might get the first takedown. But if Shane plays his cards right and is looking to defend and keeping him away and setting it up with punching, I’d give it to Shane. It’s a chess match. It’s about who comes ready to play that day.”

Since they’re not actually wrestling, it’s unclear how you’d say that Waterman is giving the advantage to Lesnar. As a friend to both men, he tries to be respectful to both and presents them as very evenly matched with Lesnar being stronger and Carwin being more skilled. Where does Luke get the idea that Waterman is giving the edge to Lesnar? Certainly not from what Waterman said. Just more biased reporting, I guess.

There’s a disagreement brewing on the internet about Sean Sherk dropping out of UFC 104. The question is, did he drop out because he knew he’d fail the drug test or because he was legitimately injured?

Those who argue that he was scared of the test point out that he’d failed a test for PEDs in the past and been suspended for it. Since he never came clean and admitted any wrong-doing, it’s hard to suggest that he learned a lesson from that, even though his explanation that his supplements were tainted was ridiculous, based on the amount detected in his blood.

On the other hand, those who think he was injured point out that he had an MRI taken and sent to the UFC which should constitute all the proof anyone needs. They believe that without evidence of wrong-doing it would be libelous to make any accusations. And some even believe Sherk’s circular explanations for his positive test:

1. He submitted clean urine, but the testing equipment was tainted.
2. He didn’t take steroids, but his supplements tainted his urine with them.

Regardless, with Dave Meltzer reporting that Sherk’s injury occurred a few hours after he was supposed to have given his sample, I think there’s a better answer:

Both.

I like to imagine Sherk finding out about the test, realizing that he couldn’t pass a steroid screen without a few weeks of Golden Seal, and eventually flying into a rage tossing his truck tires and sledgehammers around until he injured himself. What do you think?

Michael David Smith of Fanhouse writes:

Rich Cimini of the New York Daily News reports that Jets outside linebacker Calvin Pace and Saints defensive ends Will Smith and Charles Grant — all of whom will serve four-game suspensions for using banned supplements — are going to spend that time working out at Xtreme Couture, a gym widely regarded as one of the best MMA training facilities in the world.

Which is just great news. I think the guys at Xtreme Couture can learn a lot about banned substances from these NFL players. Stephan Bonnar for one definitely needs to go back to taking steroids if he wants to get back to his winning ways. And these players may have just the insights he needs.

But if Pace and company want to up their game in the realm of performance enhancing drugs, they should really spend some time “training” at Team Hammer House – take a course from Mark Coleman who managed to defeat Bonnar in July at the ripe old age of 44. Maybe he can even give his old pal Phil Baroni a refresher on presenting real urine so he’ll be ready to head back to the UFC.

Kid Nate reporting on the news that Sean Sherk is skipping out on drug testing writes:

Sherk apparently didn’t listen when I pointed out that the CSAC random drug testing system is clearly targeting fighters who have previously failed drug tests.

Evidently Nate has convinced himself of a number of absolutely insane things:

1. He thinks Sherk is rationally using steroids to give himself an advantage when it’s clear that Sherk is completely out of control.
2. He thinks it’s okay for Sherk to use steroids, as long as he doesn’t get caught when several states now do random off-cycle testing.
3. He thinks Sherk reads Bloody Elbow. (Do we even have any evidence that he can read?)

I’m not saying Sherk couldn’t be reading that other BE site, just that his meathead attitude seems more suited to Sherdog or the UG. And let’s face it, Sherk has a full schedule of beating tractor tires to death and downing every pill he can find at the GNC. If he doesn’t have time to even read the labels on stuff he’s putting in his body, there’s no way he’s making time for blogs.

Here’s the thing – I like to pretend that when I write my love letters to Megan Fox she reads them, sighs heavily, and pastes them into her scrapbook, but once I’m done rubbing one out, I come back to reality. Sherk isn’t reading – he’s roiding.

Over at Bloody Elbow, Mike Fagan writes about a 2-month-old column from Kevin Iole that still keeps him up nights:

What I find particularly despicable about the passage is Iole’s isolation of the unfortunate eye poke as being solely responsible for the referee stoppage.  This ignores the action immediately proceeding, which saw Mirko chase Al-Turk on the fence with combinations and ultimately knocking him to the mat.

I don’t intend to be in the business of defending Kevin Iole – worst MMA journalist ever – but the guy is right: the fight was stopped because of an illegal eye-poke.

Mike is forgetting that Al-Turk was on his feet, in no way rocked, and turning away to protect his eye from any more of Mirko’s vicious eye-gouges when Dan stopped the fight. The fact that Mike doesn’t want to talk about things that actually have to do with the end of the fight and instead just wants to focus on fellating Mirko for the parts he liked says a lot. None of it good.

He obviously believes that even if Mirko hadn’t committed a foul on Al-Turk, Mirko would have won the fight. Which is fine, but we don’t have any real evidence of that. As everyone knows, anything can happen in a fight. Mirko could have slipped on the Bud Light logo in the center of the cage and knocked himself out for all we know if the fight hadn’t been stopped and misruled a victory for Mirko.

Mike should stick to what he does best – breaking the sites rules about fighter bashing in his weekly quotes column – and leave the opinion pieces to somebody who isn’t so hot for Crocop’s bod that he can’t be bothered to report the fight accurately.