Comments on: Thoughts on UFC 74: Fire Sobral; Guida is a star; Randy needs a new nickname; and more!

By: harleycon5

harleycon5 — Fri, 31 Aug 2007 03:37:49 +0000

Sam, MorethanUFC has a point. BJ Penn did much the same thing but I believe he said it was in the passion of the fight he did not let go quickly enough. He also embraced his opponent and they made friends after the match, which goes a long way toward forgiving his actions.

Babalu actually seems to have held for 3 seconds, unless I miscounted, then dumped his opponent like a bag of garbage. Afterward telling anyone who wanted to hear that he did it on purpose for being disrespected.
I think it was his attitude that got him fired, which was 180 degrees counter to Penn’s.

By: harleycon5

harleycon5 — Fri, 31 Aug 2007 03:32:45 +0000

Sam, it is obvious what we need to call Randy Couture from now on, regardless of win or loss: Randy “The Supernatural” Couture (I have been calling him by this nickname since he won the title)

As for Babalu the guy is out…again give credit to Dana White, who unlike the owners of most major sports franchises refuses to tolerate Steroids OR poor behavior. Kudos Dana!

GSP showed he is the real deal, and proves the same point as Couture; If you have the skills and the will, push with everything you have and you will win. Koscheck is a punk and Ortizean jerk, perhaps his loss will lend him some humility. Did you notice the intense and angry Diego Sanchez in the audience? My take is that Diego (a guy who should never have lost to Koscheck) has learned from watching this fight, and will likely disassemble Koscheck the next time they meet….

By: Sam Caplan

Sam Caplan — Mon, 27 Aug 2007 14:10:51 +0000

ACanadianPotHead:

I NEVER doubted the heart of a Canadian or Canadians. Just GSP’s. His nationality had nothing to do with it. Let’s just make that perfectly clear.

By: Sam Caplan

Sam Caplan — Mon, 27 Aug 2007 11:15:04 +0000

MoreThanUFC:

Out of curiosity, how were you able to see the fight?

BTW, please name for me some matches where a guy leaving the hold locked in after the ref had stopped the fight was more blatant?

By: RDukes

RDukes — Sun, 26 Aug 2007 23:46:29 +0000

That Sorbal fight sounds brutal. I’ll trust your judgement, Sam, that he is indeed “douche bag of the year”.

And I can’t agree more about UFC getting covered like a legit sport…it can’t happen soon enough. If I had to hear Rogan and Goldman slurp their favorite fighters anymore…

And their insights into the fight are terrible (how many more times do we have to hear that Couture wants to “impose his will on his opponent” line? Great insight, guys.)

Ironically, more and more traditional sports coverage (ESPN, ahem) is more like the UFC style of unobjective pandering.

Keep up the great work, Sam.

By: Rory

Rory — Sun, 26 Aug 2007 23:28:11 +0000

steve: I think the UFC brass is probably under the impression that now is the time to book Nogeuira in a title fight, because Couture has a very good chance of beating him. Otherwise you risk lessening his value if he gets dropped again, and hey, they already paid for Nog, right? They might as well use him.

By: ACanadianPotHead

ACanadianPotHead — Sun, 26 Aug 2007 23:26:35 +0000

Nice prediction on Kos, Im sure you have had enough told you so’s today, but heres another……

Never doubt the heart of a Canadian

By: jt

jt — Sun, 26 Aug 2007 23:08:10 +0000

Fire Sobral? Come on. Controversy = ratings, no matter which way you slice it. You thought last season of TUF was disgraceful. Did you see the promo for next season last night? UFC is a business that puts the bottom line before anything else and they will keep Sobral. The division is deep, of course, but Babalu is in the mix. He is a skilled fighter that puts on exciting fights.

By: paulaobraza

paulaobraza — Sun, 26 Aug 2007 22:49:15 +0000

Just saw babalu/heath fight now… FIRE THAT F*****ER!!!!
Babalu was malicious… but man, whats wrong with Mazagatti? Holy smokes?!?! Jump on them dude!!!! Freakin retard ref… hes like wathing babalu… check it out…

By: Zack

Zack — Sun, 26 Aug 2007 22:43:10 +0000

I ended up being wrong on Kos and Randy. F me. Honestly though – did GSP show he was that much better than Kos and a dominant 170lber? I think we saw that GSP is a more polished fighter who knew how to win a decision.

I couldn’t disagree more strongly on the broken nose issue. It looked like it completely emptied Gabe’s tank leaving the door open for Randy to close him out. Great slam though. Randy is the bomb – I agree with whoever suggested he could drop to 205 and get back THAT belt as well.

By: Jeremy

Jeremy — Sun, 26 Aug 2007 22:38:41 +0000

Garth, that is true about the Kampmann/McFedries fight, he didn’t tap but I think the point is more towards the fact that Herb Dean came in to try and literally rip Kampmann off him and he couldn’t get him off or to let go immediately. I never felt it was anything intentional by Kampmann though, and I also never heard him afterwards say it was so like Babalu did. I think that’s the biggest probably with all this. Babalu saying stuff like he did afterwards. If he hadn’t said what he did I don’t think it would have been as big a deal as it has turned out to be. It basically would have been similar to the Kampmann incident. Fighters can tap, but they always say wait until the referre breaks it up, because if he doesn’t see the tap then the ref may not end the fight.

By: a.h.

a.h. — Sun, 26 Aug 2007 22:32:37 +0000

I cant believe no one is talking about patrick cote…hes been good for a very long time in canada and hell definitly show the ufc people how good he can be

By: paulaobraza

paulaobraza — Sun, 26 Aug 2007 22:29:56 +0000

I am ashamed of what happened as a Brazilian and jiu-jitsu fighter. I haven’t seen babalu/heath’s fight yet (and don’t know if they will ever let us), but from the sound of it, it was really messed up what babalu did. He probably deserves to be fired as that is not even allowed in Vale tudo. He could’ve cause some serious damage or MORE. And believe it or not I was also rooting for Randy cause he’s just a great guy and makes it up for the reps of us MMA fans. Napao is a very good fighter and all but I think he needs to grow up as a person and as fighter too from the interviews that I’ve seen. Randy has just such a great sportsmanship. Go Randy!
On a side note, Thales Leites made me very proud and he sures talk like a champ. I hope that young man finds success.
Cheers.

By: garth

garth — Sun, 26 Aug 2007 21:06:46 +0000

in re the choke, McFedries never tapped. He went out. Heath tapped. That’s kind of the deal you make with your opponent: when they tap, and the ref says stop, you stop. The only body that can sanction this kind of stuff is the UFC and the NSAC, otherwise he gets away with it, and some time down the line someone gets braindamaged. That’s not holier-than-thou, it’s just smart.
I think BJ and Royce and anyone who keeps going after the ref says stop should be fined and suspended. Who wouldn’t? That’s just stupid. I’m a fan of Babalu’s and I hope he gets a suspension and fine. I dunno if I’ll root for him again, but i’m not going to call someone names if they do.

By: Ca?y swiat wo?a: zwolnijcie Babalu! at MMA Blog

Ca?y swiat wo?a: zwolnijcie Babalu! at MMA Blog — Sun, 26 Aug 2007 19:39:54 +0000

[...] Bloggerzy domagaj? si? rozwi?zania kontraktu z Babalu przez [...]

By: Jeremy

Jeremy — Sun, 26 Aug 2007 19:16:49 +0000

Obviously holding a choke hold, or any submission hold for longer then needed or when the referree tries to break it and you refuse is a bad thing. And certainly what Sobral did was wrong, but I think what made it look even worse then it was, was that Babalu admitting to holding it to teach him a lesson. I think in the heat of the moment, like mentioned with previous instances of it(Penn, Kampmann) it can happen, but the way Babalu commented after the fight makes it look horrible. He deserves the fine and anything else that comes from it.

By: steve

steve — Sun, 26 Aug 2007 18:30:54 +0000

How the hell does Big Nog get a shot? It makes no sense. He has one win, which wasn’t even impressive. He didn’t look like he that great of a ground game. I’m sure he was good in Pride but this is the UFC now. Track record shows that they don’t do as good.

By: glock

glock — Sun, 26 Aug 2007 18:29:11 +0000

I forgot to mention that I thought both GSP and Randy had brilliant game plans going in and then executed well- keep ‘em out of their comfort zone (like Rampage and Chuck) ….keep Kos on his back and manhandle the bigger guy that’s used to doing the manhandling by using the dirty boxing on the fence .
It’s ironic that Gabe and his camp alludeded to the big holes in Randy’s game that they meant to exploit. Even Randy found that laughable from a young guy with 9 mma fights against Randy’s pedigree.
I totally agree that Gonzaga looked like he wanted a way out with the “not able to see” halt.
Also, I ‘ll have to wait to see it again, but if pile driving his head into Gabes face when he bounced him was an “accident”, then I’ll start believing in the Tooth Fairy again as well. Did the broken nose tip the scales – absolutely. It was the keystone that made the whole rest of the design work as well as it did. without it, it still looks good on paper to me Monday morning, but Gonzaga woulda had more heart and and a better chance of something(?) happening for him.
That does not detract from Randy’s win in the least – you do what you gotta do to make shit happen. He was and is, as good as it gets in my book.
Yeah, Supernatural works just fine.

By: MoreThanUFC

MoreThanUFC — Sun, 26 Aug 2007 16:40:44 +0000

Kos huh, Sam?

If you get a chance to watch the Heath v Babalu fight, I will say that it was the bloodiest bout I have ever seen ( 16 years watching MMA in one form or another ). As far as him holding the choke, he held for an additional 2 secs. I’ve seen far worse than that, so the holier than thou crap that is flying around is just facitious. Um, where was all the rage at Penn, was Kampmann’s purse heldup after the McFedries fight? Only mistake Babalu made was admitting to it.

By: cyphron

cyphron — Sun, 26 Aug 2007 15:18:54 +0000

Couture’s dirty boxing was unbelievably sick. I was in awe at out how he manhandled Gonzaga with strikes and stayed off the ground. Great game plan. When Gonzaga wanted blood wiped off his face, you can definitely see it in his eyes that he didn’t want anymore.

Couture VS Nogueira and Couture VS CroCop… how can I bet against him now?

As for BJPenn holding on longer than he should… I don’t think it was as long as 5-7 seconds. That’s a long time considering that Heath probably waited until he’s about to pass out before he tapped. Sobral should be banned for at least six months for that. I know he’s angry at his past performances, but you can’t take it out on your opponent like that.