Matt Hume named Vice President of One FC

Greats news for fans of Japanese MMA.  Matt Hume (older MMA fans should know who this is) has accepted the position of Vice President of ONE Fighting Championships.  With ONE FC's rule set and having Hume help lead the show, plus signing a ton of name fighters recently, ONE FC is making big progress very quickly.  It will be interesting to see where they go from here. 

Dragon Ball Z Ep 1: The New Threat

Hey guys, welcome to my first Dragon Ball Z review.  I have seen every episode before, but it's been a while so I have the pleasure of rewatching them for this review.

Where else to start but at the beginning?  The New Threat is the first episode of the series and picks up 5 years after Dragon Ball ended.  Our heroes have been experiencing a time of peace but things are about to change when a mysterious new villain arrives.

This episode mostly just introduces us to several of the main characters, including Goku, Chi-Chi (Goku's wife), Gohan (Goku's son), and Piccolo (the strongest villain from the original Dragon Ball).  It also introduces a new villain we know nothing about except that he can from another planet, somehow knows Goku (but for some reason calls him a different name) and is very strong (stronger than Piccolo). 

Though it's a fairly tame episode for this series it does it's job of showing what happened to some of the characters from the original Dragon Ball series, or introduces them to us for the first time if you have never seen the older series (you don't have to have seen the old series to enjoy this one, you will just know a lot more about the main characters back stories and connections to each other). 

This episode peaks a Dragon Ball fans interest to see what is going on and to find out who this new villain Raditz is and if he is stronger than Goku.  Though it's not that action packed it does set everything up for a future fight.

I give The New Threat a 2.5 out of 4 stars. 

UFC 148: Anderson Silva vs Chael Sonnen II

Anderson Silva (31-4) vs Chael Sonnen (27-11)

It's almost here!  This fight has been 2 years in the making and probably ranks #1 for the most smack talk leading up to an MMA fight.  There is bad blood here so we will see how it plays out in the cage.

Chael Sonnen basically earned himself a title fight from smack talk, the thing is, he actually backed it up in the cage.  He dominated Anderson Silva like no one else in the UFC ever has.  He rocked Anderson with punches, took him down repeatedly, and won the first 4 rounds of their fight without question.  The problem is, Chael has a history of being submitted (8 times).  This time he brought in BJJ ace Vinny Magalhaes to help him.  Last time Chael dominated the positions and landed numerous strikes on Silva but after 20 + minutes didn't put him away.  This time I think Chael should try to take Anderson down and submit him.  I think he may try this since it looks like he had been working his submissions in the Brian Stann fight.

Anderson is considered the GOAT at MW and rightfully so.  The good news for him in this fight is that he has superior striking and is pretty good off of his back.  The bad news is Chael is going to try to take him down a lot so I don't know how much his striking will play into it.  Anderson has also been acting different leading up to this fight, I think all of Sonnen's smack talk has gotten to him.  Will this make him fight better or come out sloppy and get taken down?  I guess we will find out here in a few hours.  To win, Anderson needs to keep this fight on the feet by using a sprawl & brawl style.  If he gets taken down he should go for submissions or use the threat of submissions to get a sweep or stand up.

This should be an action packed fight.  The worst case scenario here is that both guys come out not to lose and it ends up being boring (but I am 90% sure that won't happen). 

UFC 148: Cung Le vs Patrick Cote

Cung Le (7-2) vs Patrick Cote (17-7)

I have to start this by saying it was originally supposed to be Cung Le vs Rich Franklin which would have been an amazing fight between two aging but talented strikers.  Unfortunately Vitor Belfort got injured (for the millionth time) so Rich fought Wanderlei Silva in a rematch instead.  But oh well, that is the past so lets get on to the review.

Cung Le is amazing.  If you have never seen any of his older Sanshou fights when he was in his prime (he is 40 now and barely fights due to doing movies) do yourself a favor and check them out on youtube.  Now days, due to his extremely inactive fighting career he tends to show up and not be in the shape to really push the pace past a couple of rounds (but claims he has corrected that this time).  The interesting thing about Le, even at this point in his career, is that you have to train for this guy.  No matter who you are, you have to study his game and fight just to counter his skill set.  You can't just go into a fight with Le like it's a fight with some traditional MMA striker (sloppy boxing and low kicks) and expect to come out on top.  Even Franklin went to another Country to specifically train for Le with Sanshou fighters when he was scheduled to fight him.

Patrick Cote hasn't been in the UFC in a while now (nearly 2 years) and left before on a 3 fight losing streak.  I haven't seen him fight in a long time so it's hard to say if he will bring anything new to the table.  He is basically a boxer who can take some damage (at least he used to be able to).

I expect this fight to be something like the Cung Le vs Scott Smith fights.  Le will do some flashy kicks, side kick Cote into the cage and look pretty good.  Now the question is, which Smith fight will it be like?  He dominated Smith both times but in the first match started gassing out and got clipped with a punch and KO'd.  In the second Smith fight he fought a little more reserved and fought at his pace and worked Smith over with side kicks to the body.  I think the fight will go something like one of those fights, just depending on Le's shape and how he fights Cote.

UFC 148: Dong Hyun Kim vs Maia

Dong Hyun Kim (15-1) vs Demian Maia (15-4)


This should be an interesting fight between a high level Judoka and a high level Brazilian Jiu-jitsu fighter.  Both guys have some striking ability and both are good on the ground.  

Dong Hyun Kim has great throws and is pretty good controling the top position on the ground.  He also has a nice height and reach advantage.  As good as his ground game is, I'm not so sure he wants to mess around on the ground with Maia.  I think his keys to victory are keeping it on the feet, stuffing takedowns and mixing in a striking to takedown strategy (where he immediately stands up or stays standing after a throw).  Kim only has 1 loss in his career, to current welterweight champ Condit.  One knock on his game is he tends to tire out during a fight.

 Demian Maia is a ground wizard who seems to have forgotten he can fight on the ground.  After his 21 second KO loss to Nathan Marquardt he has worked extensively on his striking, while seemly neglecting his top level BJJ game.  He is only 1-2 in his last 3, losing 2 decisions.  While his striking has come a long way, it's not his bread and butter and he isn't a KO puncher.  His needs to go back to working his Judo and Wrestling to get a fight to the ground, where he is better than anyone at welterweight (he used this strategy to destroy Chael Sonnen in under 3 minutes).  He is also making his welterweight debut which means we have no idea how he is going to look.  Sometimes guys look better moving down, but most of the time they seem to be drained and gas out quickly.      


This should be an interesting match and could be anyone's game depending on how they show up and the game plan they decide to employ.