Rocky Balboa

With the recent passing of Sage Stallone, Sylvester Stallone's son, I decided to review the last Rocky movie, Rocky Balboa.  

Rocky is a movie character who is so classic Sylvester Stallone was inducted into the Boxing Hall of Fame for his film series.  Rocky Balboa picks up many years later.  Time has not been kind to Rocky, his wife passed away, his son blows him off constantly, and all of his winnings from boxing are long gone.  But on the bright side he does enjoy daily life, even if it is lonely.  Rocky has a restaurant he owns that keeps him busy and has a few customers from the old days who hang out there.

Everything changes when there is a computer simulation comparing old vs new fighter in their primes.  Rocky vs Mason "The Line" Dixon (the current undefeated heavyweight champion).  In the simulation Rocky wins their match by KO which makes Dixon feel disrespected.  Rocky has also made some new friends and decides to box again.  He isn't looking for anything big, just some local fight, but of course promoters see a chance to make some money so they talk Rocky into taking a fight against the champ.

Even though Rocky movies take place in the world of boxing, boxing isn't really what they are about.  Rocky is about the underdog, the everyman, the average Joe, who becomes more than anything thinks he can.  He doesn't do this for the fame or money, or even to impress anyone, it's for himself.  It's what he loves to do.  The constant training, the striving to be the best you can be, to push yourself beyond what you are supposed to be able to do.  

Rocky has a talk with his son, who has become an office drone with no self-worth and also attempts to talk Rocky out of fighting again.  Of course someone could understand his son's thoughts, he doesn't want his father to get hurt, but that isn't his motivation.  He doesn't want his dad to fight because he has no faith in him (projecting his own fears on his Rocky) and doesn't want to get embarrassed when Rocky is smashed.  The speech Rocky gives him is a great motivational speech for anyone.

Needed to say, Rocky and his son grow close again and he trains hard and puts up a fight no one expected from him.  It's a great film and shows even when things are bad, even if you are old, it's never to late to chase your dreams and do what you want to do.  Like Rocky says, it's not about how hard you can hit, it's about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward. 

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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: Tito Ortiz vs Forrest Griffin

Tito Ortiz (16-10) vs Forrest Griffin (18-7)

The big news in this fight is that it's (supposed to be anyway) Tito's retirement fight.  He has been in the game for a long time but is only 1-6-1 in his last 8.  That record sounds bad but he was competitive in most of those fights, only Evans (the second time) and Lil Nog really cleaned his clock.

Tito has become more of a striker these days (which seems to happen to a lot of BJJ, Judo and Wrestling based guys for whatever reason).  His bread & butter was always to take people down and bust them up with elbows.  There is nothing wrong with expanding your game and adding more tools to your toolbox but when you completely abandon what you are good at you get results like Tito has (plus he is older now).  His key to winning this fight is to simply take Forrest down and land elbows to his face.  He may want to throw some punches as well but with the purpose of making Forrest forget about the takedown.

Forrest Griffin is a hard worker, getting by on heart and cardio more than anything else.  He has had some big highs and big lows in MMA.  He has also been talking retirement some so we will have to see what happens in this fight.  Forrest hasn't fought in nearly a year, after getting KO'd in less then 2 minutes by Shogun.  This guy is a cardio machine so I expect him to be in shape, even after the long layoff.  Forrest will want to keep this on the feet and use his high work ratio and low kicks while trying to sprawl out of any takedowns from Ortiz. 

Considering how close their first two fights have been, I wouldn't expect anything different this time.  Maybe one of them will pull out a decision this time (instead of a split decision like the first two fights).  It would be really interesting if one of them could really put a feather in their cap by finishing the other one.  It should be noted that Ortiz has been finished in his last 2 fights, both by body shots, Forrest should be paying attention to that and mix in some punches and kicks to the body during this fight.

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.