A former college wrestler who uses his wrestliness mostly to keep fights standing so he can hit his opponent really hard in the face with his fists. That defines just about every fighter the UFC has ever enjoyed marketing. Congratulations, Johny, you’re a crazy haircut away from making yourself un-cuttable.
There exists in the UFC, right now today, a fighter with the last name Diaz who may be fighting for a title in the near future. UFC President Dana White told us it will happen, but on Saturday Dana received a call at the post-fight press conference from History who argued bitterly against it.
You may know Nate Diaz as the guy who ineffectually beat someone up in public one time. True, Nate is a professional fighter and it happened in a cage on national TV which is generally considered an acceptable forum for such things. Unfortunately, he was wearing jeans and shoes which are both expressly forbidden under the unified rules. And he wasn’t getting paid. And the guy he was punching was also getting punched by a half dozen other dudes at the time.
UFC 145’s main card is pay-per-view and begins at 10pm. The first two prelims will stream for free on Facebook and the rest of the prelims will air on FX.
Below I’ve prepared an exhaustive guide to who you should root for (until the end where I kind of got lazy).
Marcus Brimage!
He was on a season of The Ultimate Fighter recently and he’s had one fight in the UFC that I don’t remember all that well. The important thing to know about him is that he introduced the world to getting “white girl wasted.” Or at least, he introduced me and Ariel Helwani to it. Rampage Jackson interrupted his post-fight interview and what transpired is the kind of thing you expect to transpire when Ariel Helwani and Rampage Jackson are on camera together. Funny things. Awkward things. Cringe-worthy things. The only other thing you need to know about Marcus is that he takes his inspiration from Dragonball-Z. This is a thing he’s mentioned multiple times. It’s the kind of thing that in real life would make you smile, nod, and then avoid ever being seen alone with him again lest some attractive girl see you and think you’re into that kind of thing, but somehow when it’s a guy paid to fight on TV, it makes you like him more.
VS!
Maximo Blanco!
The kind of fighter you get excited about if you’re an MMA hipster because he fought in Japan, you’ve heard other MMA hipsters get excited about him, and he has a funny name. When he finally got pulled into the Zuffa family under the Strikeforce banner (Strikeforce and UFC are both owned by the same company now), he promptly lost, but I guess that was good enough to get him promoted to the UFC for some reason. He’s a fun fighter to watch and I guess that’s all that matters.
Who you should root for! Marcus Brimage. Why?? If he loses, we probably won’t get another interview.
The UFC briefly decided it was tired of making money and took a break, but now it’s back because Dana White needs to pay some bills. All fighters made weight for this event.
Free Facebook prelims begin at 12pm and the main card begins at 3pm. Don’t know who to root for? I have you covered.
Results after the jump.
It’s hard to say if Cro Cop’s kick has finally reached Mark Hunt’s brain or if Twitter has driven him completely insane.
The Internet is slowly cannibalizing yet another thing it likes by turning it into a stupid Internet meme, and it seems Mark Hunt is totally up for a serving of Mark Hunt.
Junior Dos Santos was supposed to face Alistair Overeem in May for the heavyweight belt, but Overeem failed a drug test and short of the commission buying into a Chael Sonnen-like I-was-born-with-tiny-testicles defense, Junior Dos Santos is going to need a new opponent.
That’s where Mark Hunt comes in. There’s more to his story than makes sense to write here, but the short version is that his record has only just recently peeked out over .500 to say hello and in the heavyweight division (even today’s supposedly stacked edition of the division) that’s enough to qualify you as a contender.
His recent string of impressive/hilarious victories coupled with his status as an old school, Pride-Never-Die veteran of the sport has turned him into a fan favorite. And so we arrive at the hashtag rallyformarkhunt, an attempt to get Mark Hunt the title shot. It’s really taken off in the sense that MMA blogs enjoy posting about it, probably not so much in the sense that casual fans have any idea who Mark Hunt is. Still, it was enough to make Hunt join Twitter and the results have been especially bizarre for a man known for his short, to the point interviews.
Let’s take a look.
On his special, athlete-specific diet:
@nmcc08 the diet is eat wtf Eva u like and then jump out of the building in a crazed state
— mark richard hunt (@markhunt1974) April 11, 2012
On getting knocked out by middleweight Melvin Manhoef:
@ZVSEIRE I’m still asleep from that punch
— mark richard hunt (@markhunt1974) April 9, 2012
During the press conference for UFC in Sweden on FUEL TV 2 Featuring Alexander Gustafsson, someone asked Italian Alessio Sakara how the UFC is faring in his home country. Alessio was pleased to report that everyone is very happy.
The reason for all this happiness seems to stem from the fact that unlike most UFC cards that cater to North/South American audiences, this card will air at 10pm instead of during the less reasonable 4am time slot Italians are used to. A transcript of Sakara’s nuanced response follows (you can see it at 1:45 in the clip above).
Every people is happy because every time I fight in UFC, every people need to wake up and Italian people are like to sleep. Four o’clock is very bad for me, but now I fight 10 o’clock, every people will have a pizza and see me on television. I am very happy.
Alessio’s countrymen are likely to go all out for this event, dressing in their best red or green going-out overalls and performing the traditional soccer chant, Hooked on the Brothers.
Cro Cop isn’t the kind of guy you want to associate with. I don’t mean that in the stupid cliched way everyone writes about fighters wherein I pretend he might randomly decide to beat me up. I mean that in the sense that Cro Cop’s idea of fun with friends is making sure you poop your pants repeatedly and with reckless abandon.
I don’t really know what’s going on in the clip above nor do I know which people are involved, but I do know that as soon as someone pulls a gun as a prank, I’m probably not going to engage in a hardy laugh afterward.
Cro Cop has a history with this kind of thing.
The guys who made Final Fantasies I through XXL are apparently making a new game that won’t have numbers after the title. Somehow Georges St-Pierre is involved. According to the press release posted on Joystiq, GSP “has been working with Square Enix and United Front Games on multiple elements – including combat - in Sleeping Dogs, a gritty open world cop drama set in the vibrant city of Hong Kong.”
Two things.
I’m sure there are jokes you can make about GSP employing the leg hump in his fights (“hit ‘im with your groin!”) or how it’s appropriate that he’s consulting on a game about sleeping, but that would be mean and I actually like GSP and (most of) his fights so forget I said those things.
Paulo Thiago has two jobs. They’re basically the same. In his first job he beats up bad guys, in his second he beats up guys who are paid to beat him up. Paulo Thiago also has two sons. They’re basically the same.
You see, Paulo and Thiago are the UFC fighter’s twin 6-year-old sons.
Wait… what does narcissist mean again?
Someone had to step up to the plate to bring us gladiator-themed fights once the UFC abandoned them I guess, so here we are with WAR OF THE LIONS. I don’t know why they named it that and I’m not about to do any research. All you need to know is that ONE FC has put on some great events so far. With the Japanese MMA scene in turmoil, ONE FC is starting to solidify itself as the top Asian promotion, mixing it up with recognizeable names and guys you’ve never heard of who put on fun fights nonetheless.
Hit the jump for more fights from the card. They’re all worth watching.
