Category: mma

mma

‘The Ultimate Fighter’: Season 11, Episode 2: Get off my back!

Posted on by Beau Dure

We met our 14 fighters last time as they won their way into the house. Now we’ll see what they’re really like.

Clayton McKinney, who stands out with the brightly dyed hair typical of the Tom Lawlor-Seth Petruzelli Jungle MMA camp, leads the charge into the house. Did Lawlor tell him which room to pick?

Injury update: Chris Camozzi has an infection from breaking a tooth in his bout. McKinney has a shoulder problem.

Off to team selection we go, and both coaches look prepared. Dana White decides first pick with a coin flip, which seems too conventional. Shouldn’t they arm-wrestle or compare film resumes or something? Tito Ortiz wins and has the option of picking first fighter or first matchup. He goes with first fighter, and it’s Nick Ring, who indeed looked impressive and has good credentials.

Chuck Liddell picks Kyle Noke, the guy who has a couple of decent names on his fight record. Tito goes for experience with Kyacey Uscola, who’s 18-15. Chuck follows with Rich Attonito, which is a surprise because Kris McCray is still out there and because he won his prelim with less striking and more wrestling, impressing Ortiz.

Tito, smartly, picks Kris McCray, the undefeated pro who wins fights in the blink of an eye. Chuck takes Charles Blanchard.

Continue reading →

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cycling, general sports, mma, olympic sports, soccer

Wednesday now officially renamed Messiday

Posted on by Beau Dure

The top news from yesterday: The story from Barcelona quickly changed from “Hey, can Arsenal really win at the Nou Camp?” to “Do we go ahead and put Lionel Messi alongside Pele and Maradona?” The young Argentine, just three years removed from being hyped alongside Freddy Adu as one of the potential stars of the U-20 World Cup, scored four goals to silence any talk of Arsenal advancing to the semis. Inter Milan advanced past CSKA Moscow in the other Tuesday quarterfinal.

Also:

– Soccer: Speaking of four-goal outbursts, Cruz Azul waited until the last 20 minutes to turn an aggregate tie into a rout against Pumas in the CONCACAF Champions League semis. (The Original Winger – video)

– Soccer: Former D.C. United goalkeeping prospect Milos Kocic has turned up with Toronto FC, where Mo Johnston says he can learn from Stefan Frei and Jon Conway. Kocic, though, is a year older than Frei and therefore might not have much of a future there unless Frei gets snapped up by a European club at some point — which shouldn’t be out of the question. (Toronto FC “beta” site)

– Soccer: A far more curious story from Toronto — unconfirmed reports say Jim Brennan will abruptly retire as a player and join the front office. The club has scheduled a 1:30 p.m. ET “player announcement.” (Toronto Sun)

– Curling: Pete Fenson and the USA won their must-win against Italy to move into a tie for a playoff spot in the World Championships. (USOC)

– MMA: Suspended heavyweight Josh Barnett seems resigned to sitting out a year before applying to get his California fight license again, frustrated with delays in his appeal that he blames on California authorities. He’s been busy fighting overseas and working on his “film career” along with every other MMA fighter. It’d be a pity not to give the articulate Barnett a day in court to see if he can address his second U.S. doping offense. (MMA Junkie)

– Golf: Story too strange to pass up — John Daly didn’t qualify for The Masters, so he set up shop in August selling merchandise. (Atlanta Journal-Constitution)

– Soccer: And in this amusing video, Philly defender Danny Califf aims for a cup atop Danny Bonaduce’s head and misses several times, the last one catching Bonaduce flush in the face. Bonaduce also has been KO’d by Sugar Ray Leonard in the studio, so he takes the shot pretty well. But we’d fear for his safety if fellow Union defender Toni Stahl showed up. (The Offside Rules)

TODAY’S TV

– Now: Cycling, Tour of the Basque Country, Universal Sports webcast

– 2:30 p.m. ET: Soccer, Champions League quarterfinals, second leg. Manchester United-Bayern Munich is on Fox Soccer Channel. Bordeaux-Lyon is on Fox Soccer Plus, then replayed at 5 on FSC.

– 10 p.m. ET: MMA, The Ultimate Fighter, Spike. Check back for the recap by 11:30 p.m.

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mma, olympic sports

Combat Games: New era of sub-Olympic competition?

Posted on by Beau Dure

Everybody wants to get a sport into the Olympics, but the line is long and slow-moving. The IOC hasn’t even put women’s ski jumping in the Olympics, preferring to leave a couple of ski jump ramps idle for a few days rather than admit that girls can jump, too. If you’re getting in the line now — attention, MMA fans — you’re not getting in the Games anytime soon. The Summer Games are too big, and they’ll eventually run out of permutations of ice and snow for the Winter Games. (But wouldn’t you love to see “snowboard combined,” with halfpipe determining the starting order for snowboardcross?)

And that’s why something like the Combat Games makes sense on many levels in addition to getting some extra use out of some Beijing venues. The Combat Games will have the Olympic sports of boxing, wrestling, judo and taekwondo, along with several other forms of martial arts. One drawback is that the program is focused a little too heavily on Asian sports — grappling, which actually could get into the Games as another discipline of wrestling, isn’t listed. But the concept is good.

They’re also looking at the Mind Games (chess and … something else) and the Beach Games. Not bad.

USA TODAY colleague Jeff Zillgitt and I used to talk about inventing the Pub Games. Darts is a rising sport, and pool could use a boost.

Maybe the line has to be drawn somewhere, but it’s hard to argue with the idea of giving existing Olympic sports another good stage alongside smaller sports that deserve a chance to be seen. Just work on the mascots.

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mma, olympic sports, rugby, soccer, tennis, winter sports

Friday headlines and the Weekend Watch

Posted on by Beau Dure

Not that those of us in the Mid-Atlantic will be inside on what’s shaping up to be a beautiful weekend …

HEADLINES

– Media: Best April Fool’s gag seen yesterday: ESPN to cancel Pardon the Interruption to expand Around the Horn to an hour, bring in more people sure to grate on your nerves and judge it with a decibel meter. (Sports Media Watch)

– Soccer: Houston came back to beat Real Salt Lake 2-1 with two penalty kicks in one minute, both against Jamison Olave. The second benefited from some embellishment by Luis Angel Landin, but RSL coach Jason Kreis is holding his tongue. In the second game of the night, Edson Buddle scored the only two goals in the L.A. superclasico as the Galaxy beat Chivas USA 2-0.

– Soccer: The biggest development in last night’s MLS games was the injury to Brian Ching, who’s essential to the Dynamo and very much in the forward mix for the World Cup. He fell hard, clutching his hamstring. Watch for updates.

– Swimming: As a teen, Chloe Sutton was one of the early U.S. success stories in the rough-and-tumble world of open-water swimming. Now she’s skipping college and winning in the pool. Interesting read on the winner of the 200m and 800m freestyle on day 1 of the Columbus Grand Prix yesterday. Universal Sports is airing the Grand Prix action. (USA Swimming)

– Rugby: Gotta love games decided on last-second drop goals. (AP)

– Soccer: Bobby Convey’s frustrations have boiled over in San Jose. (Mercury News)

– Soccer: West Ham is complaining that Fulham didn’t have its best players in the lineup in a loss to Hull, which is battling the Hammers in the EPL relegation zone. Hey, Dempsey played! (BBC)

– MMA: UFC’s June date in Vancouver, thought to be in doubt, has been confirmed. If you’re willing to pay expenses to send an MMA/Olympics writer back to Vancouver for a weekend, e-mail beau dot dure … (MMA Fighting Stances)

WEEKEND WATCH (all times ET)

A selective look at what’s going on …

All weekend

Curling – Men’s world championships, Universal Sports. 2006 Olympic bronze medalist Pete Fenson returns to Italy, and the Canadian Press frets that Canadian rookie skip Kevin Koe must open against against him.

Friday

1 p.m.: Tennis – Sony Ericsson men’s semifinal, FSN. Andy Roddick vs. Rafael Nadal in a matchup sure to draw more interest than the eventual final.

Saturday

7:30 a.m.: Soccer – Manchester United-Chelsea, ESPN2. Just the top two teams in the world’s biggest soccer league. Yeah, we know — Wayne Rooney will miss it.

9:30 a.m.: Soccer – Schalke-Bayern Munich, GolTV. Just the top teams in the world’s (second? third? fourth?) biggest soccer league.

12:30 p.m.: Tennis – Sony Ericsson women’s final, CBS. It’s a throwback – Venus Williams vs. Kim Clijsters.

12:30 p.m.: Rowing – The Boat Race. Yes, THE Boat Race. Oxford-Cambridge. If you know a legal way to watch, please drop us a comment. (AP preview, BBC preview)

9 p.m.*: Boxing – Did you have any questions after Roy Jones Jr. took a unanimous decision over Bernard Hopkins at RFK Stadium in 1993? Good news: They’re fighting again, just a few years beyond their peaks. *Main event will be after the Final Four games conclude. (USA TODAY preview)

Sunday

1 p.m.: Tennis – Sony Ericsson men’s final, CBS. Roddick-Nadal winner vs. Berdych-Soderling winner.

6 p.m.: Soccer – MISL championship, local TV and B2TV. Milwaukee Wave hosting Monterrey La Raza, which knocked out the Baltimore Blast in the semifinals. Milwaukee got a bye. (Milwaukee Magazine preview)

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mma, olympic sports, soccer, winter sports

Thursday: No fooling around here

Posted on by Beau Dure

Today’s headlines:

– Soccer: The U.S. women’s team beat Mexico 1-0. At least, we think that’s what happened. The snow made it a little hard to see. Can’t wait for U.S. Soccer to post the highlights. In the meantime, the Salt Lake Tribune story includes a photo gallery worth checking out. (U.S. Soccer match report)

– MMA: Kenny Florian took a comfortable third-round submission win to spoil Takanori Gomi’s long-awaited — probably too long, unfortunate — UFC debut in the main event at UFC Fight Night. Roy Nelson won the battle of big and tall against Stefan Struve, ducking under a punch from “The Skyscraper” and answering with a knockout shot. Florian and Nelson took the night’s submission and knockout bonuses, while Ross Pearson and Dennis Siver took the fight of the night honors. Jorge Rivera had the best overall performance of the night with a convincing win over Nate Quarry that didn’t last long into the second round.  (MMA Fighting Stances)

– Soccer: Not to judge a city’s politics from afar, but it looks like a one-week delay in a vote on the Houston Dynamo’s stadium deal has spawned a bit of petty sniping. (Houston Chronicle)

– Alpine skiing: You didn’t expect Bode Miller to make his mind about next season anytime soon, did you? (AP)

– Soccer: U.S. player Marcus Tracy expects to miss the rest of the club season in Denmark with a knee injury. (AP)

Today’s reads:

– Volleyball: Need to catch up with any of the 157 U.S. women’s players going to overseas club teams? They’re rounded up on one staggering roundup. (USA Volleyball – PDF)

– MMA: The toughest part of getting into the house on The Ultimate Fighter might be dealing with solitary confinement in a hotel before the first bout, according to this compelling blog entry from contestant Court McGee. (Sherdog)

– Soccer: Inside Minnesota Soccer compiled a comprehensive preview of the USSF Division II (shotgun marriage between USL and NASL) season, with one writer per team. Familiar names include Steve Ralston, Christian Gomez, Louis Crayton and Steve Cronin. Future MLS clubs Vancouver and Portland have kept a lot of players from year to year. Miami, which has Gomez and Abe Thompson, is trying to rival the MetroStars/Red Bulls for roster turnover. (Inside Minnesota Soccer)

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mma

‘The Ultimate Fighter’: Season 11, Episode 1: 14-fight whirlwind

Posted on by Beau Dure

Recapping The Ultimate Fighter, frankly, is too fun not to do. So that’s what we’ll do over the course of the next three months, each Wednesday night after the 10 p.m. ET showing on Spike.

At least, most nights, it’ll be at 10 p.m. — the premiere was delayed a few minutes by a long break in the UFC Fight Night card followed by a power outage.

Coming into the season, the rumor mill has claimed that something goes awry and coach Tito Ortiz has to drop out, replaced by ever-loyal UFC soldier Rich Franklin on the show and in the coach’s fight that comes afterwards. If so, rival coach Chuck Liddell is throwing everyone off the trail. He spent most of a conference call this week talking about how much he was looking forward to beating up Tito, saying Tito not only talked about his personal life but made stuff up.

UFC and Spike officials guard these secrets like Roy Nelson guards his spot in a buffet line, so we won’t get any sort of confirmation one way or the other. When I asked Dana White about it recently, he told me I’d just have to watch and see. OK, then.

In any case, we can count on a lot of Liddell-Ortiz back-and-forth during the season, which probably isn’t a good thing. That got a little tedious last season with Rampage Jackson and Rashad Evans, and they’re both a lot funnier than Liddell and Ortiz.

But we won’t hear much of it this week because we have to get through 14 fights. They brought 28 middleweights to the training center, but only 14 will make it into the house and the collective consciousness of UFC fans over the next three months. And here they go …

Continue reading →

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general sports, mind games, mma, tennis, track and field

Happy Wednesday

Posted on by Beau Dure

HEADLINES

– New FIFA rankings! Spain, Brazil, Netherlands unchanged in top three. Portugal leaps past Italy and Germany for fourth. Egypt surges to 14th.

But the big news is in CONCACAF: USA 16th, Mexico 17th.

Mixed bag for the USA’s World Cup opponents: England swapped places with France to take seventh. Slovenia slipped to 29th. Algeria is up five places to 27th. (FIFA)

– Big upset in Key Biscayne’s Sony Ericsson Open, one of tennis’ near-majors: Tomas Berdych ousted Roger Federer. Tennis writer Bonnie D. Ford says via Twitter that the match was long but far too sloppy to be an “epic.” (AP)

– Would North Korea really host a couple of World Cup games if South Korea lands the 2022 Cup? As rigid as North Korea has been, who knows what the geopolitical landscape will look like by then? (Reuters)

– LPGA players are just warming up this season, and yet they’re being thrown into a major already. (USA TODAY)

– Welcome to Philadelphia, David Myrie! We’re happy to have picked you up in the MLS expansion draft, and we’re planning to build a core of good young players moving forward. Take your spot in the starting lineup for the opener. … OK, never mind, you’re cut. (Philadelphia Union)

PROVOCATIVE READS

– A few years ago, Mike Penner became Christine Daniels. Now, friends of the LA Times sportswriter are mourning two people with only one physical death. (LA Times)

– Football, religion, Sabbath … OK, I didn’t get through all of this one. (Christianity Today)

– Random preview of the day: U.S. Chess Championship in May features new format. As long as Jen Shahade is doing commentary, it should be worth checking out. (USCF)

TODAY’S TV (times ET)

– 1 p.m./9 p.m.: Tennis, Sony Ericsson quarterfinals, check Fox Sports Net affiliates

– 2:30 p.m.: Soccer, Champions League, Arsenal-Barcelona, FSC (Inter Milan-CSKA Moscow follows on delay)

– 8 p.m.: MMA, UFC Fight Night, Spike. The main event is one of the most anticipated ever on a free-TV UFC card, with longtime UFC contender Kenny Florian taking on Takanori Gomi, a Japanese fighter who has dealt with a few personal demons since the dissolution of Japan’s once-dominant Pride promotion and has finally found his way to the USA. Also a good heavyweight matchup of big (Roy Nelson) and tall (Stefan Struve) fighters trying to climb the ladder. (Bloody Elbow)

– 9 p.m.: Soccer, USA-Mexico women, ESPN2

– 10 p.m.: MMA, The Ultimate Fighter season premiere, Spike.  Recap will follow tonight right here at SportsMyriad, where I’ll hopefully have a logo and some design tweaks in place this evening.

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mma

Randy Couture, Kimbo Slice … and lacrosse? Closer than you think

Posted on by Beau Dure

The NLL (National Lacrosse League) is a lot like hockey with carpet instead of ice and a different type of stick. And like NHL players, NLL players occasionally drop the gloves and throw their fists in fights governed by codes both unofficial and official — in the NLL’s case, written in exquisite detail (see the rules in PDF). Sometimes, those fights get so out of hand that they migrate from the lacrosse blogosphere to Deadspin.

Everyone involved was punished, though the “game misconduct” penalties might not mean much with all of this happening so late in the game. The Boston Blazers-Philadelphia Wings box score duly notes it all.

Also noted in the box score – this approach seems to be working. Attendance for this game in Philly was 11,241.  That’s not an outlier — last year’s league average was a shade over 10K, squarely between indoor and outdoor soccer, not too far off arena football. The league survived a labor impasse a couple of years ago, maybe not too surprising since some of the players spend more time on airplanes than they do playing and practicing. (See my 2007 interview with goaltender/Ontario teacher Anthony Cosmo.)

In an era of media hand-wringing over anything and everything, it’s surprising no one has made a fuss over lacrosse fights. Hockey fighting rarely leads to injury — fighters can’t get much leverage on their punches while they’re standing on ice. Lacrosse fights are basically bare-knuckle brawls on an unforgiving surface. Listen to the commentary in this clip, and you’ll hear someone giving a shoutout to backyard brawler-turned-UFC fighter Kimbo Slice:

A “Kimbo Slice uppercut” would be something like what you’ll see at the 1:24 mark here:

Given all this, should we be surprised that UFC legend Randy Couture has taken an interest in lacrosse and had a few fighters, er, lacrosse players training at his gym?

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basketball, mma, olympic sports, rugby, soccer, track and field, winter sports

Tuesday’s headlines: Moscow mourns, Man U in Munich

Posted on by Beau Dure

– The Champions League continues today at 2:30 p.m. ET with Bayern Munich-Manchester United (FSN) and Lyon-Bordeaux (FSC), but Wednesday’s action will have a somber tone as CSKA Moscow takes the field two days after a subway bombing that killed 39 people. The club has asked to wear black armbands (Reuters). (TV listings – Soccer America)

– CSKA Moscow’s basketball team, where Americans Trajan Langdon and J.R. Holden have carved out long careers, is in action today in the Euroleague quarterfinals against Spain’s Caja Laboral. CSKA leads the best-of-5 series 2-0. (Euroleague)

– Back to soccer’s European elite — Chelsea’s Didier Drogba has a two-match European ban. (BBC)

– Break up the U.S. men’s rugby sevens, which beat Thailand 62-0 and will play in another Cup quarterfinal. Will the USA turn into a rugby power now that the sport’s in the Olympics? (USOC)

– Tony Benshoof is the Terminator of luge. He’s having back surgery and says he might return for another season. (AP)

– Dana White talks often about the Internet being the future of broadcasting, and maybe he’s not kidding: The Ultimate Fighter will have tons of archival footage and extras online. (FanHouse)

– South Africa’s Carter Semenya, whose gender is still in question, has not been cleared to run. (AP)

– The collection of strange Diego Maradona headlines continues: He was treated at a hospital after being bitten by one of his dogs. Are the media too obsessed with him, or is his life that strange? (Reuters)

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