Month: February 2011

mma

UFC 126 on three days’ reflection

Posted on by Beau Dure

What we learned and what happens next after UFC 126:

– Former WEC fighters looked great. Chad Mendes and Demetrious Johnson plowed through Japanese stars Michihiro Omigawa and Kid Yamamoto. Donald Cerrone’s maturation process continued in a clinical but thrilling win against Paul Kelly. Miguel Torres left Antonio Banuelos punching at shadows.

– Jon Jones hasn’t been fast-tracked quite as quickly as Brock Lesnar, but his rise is similar. Even his one loss, he looked dominant. Ryan Bader was supposed to challenge him with superior wrestling and dangerous stand-up, but it never materialized. He has cleared out the second tier of light heavyweight challengers, and once the new rankings come out, he’ll be the highest-ranked 205er who has not yet held the 205 belt. Given that, his title shot against Shogun Rua seems early, but not too early.

– Worst corner chatter of the card: Rich Franklin’s corner saying he won round 2. He didn’t, and he didn’t seem to realize he needed to finish Forrest Griffin to beat him. Easier said than done, of course. Hard to tell where Franklin goes next, but he’s still a viable veteran who could give an up-and-comer a good test.

– The 205 title picture is as murky as ever. If Jones wins, Rashad Evans says he’ll change weight classes — perhaps back up to heavyweight, where he won The Ultimate Fighter — rather than face his friend and teammate. Maybe Griffin gets the next shot to reclaim his title?

– Let’s quit pretending Anderson Silva is going to wipe people out from the first second. Unless someone steps forward and presses him, as Forrest Griffin did, Silva is going to go through a feeling-out process with everyone he faces. Most fighters are going to be cautious against him, so you’re going to see a minute or two of circling before something happens. But when he catches you, good night.

– The first karate technique I ever saw was demonstrated by a middle-school classmate. He leaped with his left knee up as if to kick with his left, then slammed his right foot upward. (Fortunately, he was demonstrating on air, not a classmate.) I’ve often wondered if that would work in MMA. Silva’s knockout of Vitor Belfort makes me think it might. It helps, of course, to be as quick as Silva.

– So now the biggest potential fight in UFC history — Silva vs. Georges St. Pierre — hinges on whether GSP can beat Jake Shields. No pressure.

– The brilliance of the UFC at this point is that we talk about what happens next. In boxing, on the rare occasions in which two interesting fighters face off, the next superfight is always too far away to discuss. We’d talk about Pacquiao-Mayweather, but with all the stakeholders involved, we know it’s likely never to happen. Silva-GSP, on the other hand, is basically one fight away.

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olympic sports, soccer, track and field, winter sports

Midweek Myriad: Fretting over Freddy, winter winners, soccer challenge

Posted on by Beau Dure

Time for another Midweek Myriad, also known as “stuff that happened while I was at Disney World.” I’ve saved the most serious item for the end, which is either “building suspense” or “burying the lead.”

SOCCER: Americans move at transfer deadline, with only 1 of 4 going in the “right” direction

U.S. fans longing for more Americans to succeed in Europe are thrilled that Michael Bradley is leaving Bundesliga bottom-dweller Borussia Moenchengladbach on loan to mid-table Premier League club Aston Villa, though playing time is far from assured.

More worrisome are the players making what ambitious folks would consider something less than a “lateral” move. At ESPN, Jeff Carlisle worries that Jozy Altidore and Eddie Johnson are following the same career path of loans without upward progress. Carlisle doesn’t even mention Freddy Adu, who is mentioned in a similarly downcast piece by Soccer America‘s Paul Kennedy.

Altidore’s move isn’t bad, really. He’s not seeing time at Villarreal, and he gets to hop into a title race in Turkey with Bursaspor. The snag is that the club also signed Scottish striker Kenny Miller.

Johnson is a few years older and settling into Championship-level soccer. Nothing really wrong with that, and no one’s looking to him as the future at forward for the U.S. national team these days. He’s on loan from Fulham to Preston North End trying to save the club from relegation.

The stunner is Freddy Adu, who quietly went on loan to Rizespor in Turkey’s second division. Even Adu’s harshest critics would’ve had a hard time predicting that he’d be so low on the European club ladder at age 21. I’d say Freddy has to set the Turkish second division on fire to put his career back on track, but in Turkey, the fans usually set the fires.

What’s strange is that no one can really tell us why Adu’s career has taken such turns in the past couple of years. For a while, his European misadventures were easily explained — he couldn’t break into the lineup at Benfica, and he was in a terrible situation in Monaco with an American-education club chairman who brought him in without seeing if the coaching staff had any interest. But we don’t know why Greece’s Aris lost interest in him or why he couldn’t latch on anywhere else in this transfer window.

And this just in (HT to Grant Wahl): Robbie Findley, newly transferred to Nottingham Forest, may be out three months.

SOCCER: NASL, fans damn the torpedoes

The NASL is undaunted (see Brian Straus story) over an initial rejection of second-division sanctioning and the need to start a Carolina team from scratch after previous owner Selby Wellman, a leading figure in the NASL breakaway, was unable to find a a supplemental or replacement investor. The RailHawks trademark sold on eBay for $14,999.

NASL fans also are undaunted, releasing a letter to U.S. Soccer complaining about the lack of D2 status. Kenn Tomasch calmly shredded the letter, mostly by reminding NASL fans that you have to play a few seasons, or at least a few games, before boldly proclaiming yourself a model of stability.

TRACK AND FIELD: Millrose Games surprises

– Ethiopia’s Deresse Mekonnen ended Bernard Lagat’s domination of the mile.

– Jamaican sprinters were a step ahead of the Americans in the men’s and women’s 60.

– The USA shot put train keeps rolling: Youngster Ryan Whiting upset Christian Cantwell, Reese Hoffa and Adam Nelson.

Recaps from the New York Times and Universal Sports, plus full results. (Big round of applause for the Millrose site for putting its results on one easy-to-read page rather than making us click for every event. Take note, track and swimming organizers.)

In less entertaining indoor track and field, some U.S. athletes went overseas after sleeping on the floor at JFK and lost to other international “teams” at the Aviva International in Glasgow. The biggest upset was a repeat from last year, with Britain’s Jessica Ennis beating Lolo Jones in the 60-meter hurdles.

MORE MYRIAD HEADLINES

– Winter X Games: Shaun White, Lindsey Jacobellis and Kelly Clark are still really, really good at snowboarding. The only surprise in that trio: Clark landed a 1080. Nick Baumgartner upset Seth Holland in the men’s snowboardcross.

– Soccer: Ridge Mahoney points to a major issue that could derail the Cosmos-to-MLS train: the league’s lucrative adidas deal. (Update: Grant Wahl, who has done the most extensive interview on the Cosmos to date, says the club has prepared to go adidas if it gets into MLS. Ridge’s piece is still worth reading as a reminder of how much power adidas wields.

– Handball: Olympic champion France keeps rolling, winning another men’s world title with an extra-time win over Denmark. Spain edged host Sweden for third, and Croatia beat my buddies from Iceland for fifth. All close games in the world championship of the sport that have the highest popularity-to-English-language-coverage ratio in the world. (AP)

– Figure skating: The highlight of the U.S. Championships in my beloved former hometown of Greensboro was Alissa Czisny’s remarkable comeback from afterthought status to win a battle of three former national champions. Christine Brennan, who has stuck with the sport through thick and thin, has the analysis.

– Ski jumping: Not sure what to make of the fact that Sarah Hendrickson has been at the forefront of a strong U.S. showing in international competition this year but managed only 18th in the World Junior Championships.

– Luge: No stunning world championship for the USA’s Erin Hamlin this year. She finished 14th. (AP)

– Freestyle skiing: Hannah Kearney’s World Cup moguls win streak stands at five heading into the World Championships in Park City.

– Cyclo-cross: Katie Compton took second in the World Championships. Holding this event in cold mud just seems especially cruel.

– Wrestling: Olympic champion turned Biggest Loser competitor Rulon Gardner is still hawking a 1 1/2-pound sandwich and challenging people to eat it with fries and a massive drink in 20 minutes. Maybe Rulon’s hoping to match legendary competitive eater Takeru Kobayashi, who is still skinny. (AP)

Last and not least …

At BigSoccer, Bill Archer has annoyed a lot of Canadian fans, and they have the prerogative not to be Bill’s buddies.

But aside from my own “Bill’s a good guy once you get to know him” story, I can say this — if you care about the sport, you should be reading Bill’s blog. I’ve yet to see anyone else in the Americas, from basement bloggers to professional journalists, do as much work in compiling disparate reports on the issues of FIFA, CONCACAF and other international soccer bodies. I would say to my fellow journalists — Bill is doing what we should be doing.

This piece on the utter travesty of Qatar’s Asian Cup final is a prime example.

If someone can offer valid reasons why organizers locked the gates before kickoff, separated families and brought out the riot police, fine. Let’s hear from them. But let’s not act as if this isn’t news.

We the American soccer media/blogosphere shouldn’t be moving on so quickly from FIFA’s extraordinary World Cup decisions to an exclusive focus on the MLS preseason or slobbering all over the latest EPL transfers. My challenge to all of us: Keep watching FIFA and Qatar. If Qatar is an absolutely unsuitable host for the Cup and FIFA is an unsuitable guardian for the game, these things can be and must be changed. Silence won’t get it done. If Al Jazeera can talk, so can we.

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