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By Brent Henderson, MMATorch Week-in-Review Specialist
TODD DUFFEE OUT OF UFC 107
It's as if Dana and the Fertita brothers actually did sell their souls to the Devil, and that mofo came to collect. Not only are four out of the five title holders either injured or sick, but now top prospect Todd Duffee will no longer be facing Paul "Don't Fear Me, fear the…cricket noises…Fear the Consequences" Buentello due to an undisclosed injury. I was really looking forward to seeing Duffee in the Octagon again, and hopefully for a little more than seven seconds. They said it was an undisclosed injury, but I have a sneaking suspicion he may have been infected after biting someone who may have been a bit under the weather. Seriously, have you seen his vampire teeth?! Mind you, I have a cat, a lazy eye, two bad ankles, two bad shoulders, a bulging disc in my back, and the cardio of a three-toed-sloth, but you need to see these teeth!
It has been announced that Brock Lesnar is not suffering from H1N1 after all, but from mononucleosis, and his fight with Carwin would not be taking place at UFC 108 as first reported. That's bad news not only for Brock, but also for the UFC, and it's fan base. Once again, I'm not trying to diagnose Brock, or make false statements to try to sensationalize his ailment, but I am taking classes for my Physical Therapy degree, which deal with diseases, and this is bad. Let me give you just a little background on mono. A lot of you probably had mono…who are we kidding? Mono is known as "the kissing disease", so it's more likely that you knew someone with mono back when you were in middle school. The affected person would have a fever, sore throat, get fatigued easily, be treated as if they had leprosy, or their last name was Winger for a while, and then they would eventually get back to their old, slutty selves.
This is not usually the case for adults. I'd like to go on record and say that Every. Single. Person. Is. Different. Brock could rest up and be feeling great by tomorrow. Will that happen? Probably not. After doing a little research, mainly because I love you guys, and also because it makes me feel smart, I don't see Brock defending his belt anytime soon. This is the first time I've actually felt sorry for Lesnar, or even felt anything for him besides complete, and utter disdain for how he made the sport of MMA look after his WWE-style outburst at UFC 100.
We've all heard about how Brock continued to train, even though he was fatiguing quickly, which is pretty much the worst thing you can do with mono. This type of training can lead to liver and spleen damage, which could take YEARS to recover from. Hopefully the doctors caught it early on, and with a few months rest Brock could be back in competitive form. If, God forbid, he does have a case of Chronic Mononucleosis, and not just Acute Mono, we may have seen the last of Brock for a long, long time.
Go to the link below, and skip to the second paragraph to find out more about what Brock may be dealing with.
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This also leaves Carwin just kind of hanging out without an opponent on the horizon, but I'm okay with that because he still hasn't sent my friend Josh an autographed picture that he won via a Twitter contest months ago. Shane, if you're reading this, send Josh the picture. It was really heartbreaking watching him walk to the mailbox everyday like Ralphie from "A Christmas Story" waiting for his Little Orphan Annie Secret Decoder Ring.
It's no secret who I think won the Light Heavyweight championship fight between Machida and Rua. I had been looking forward to the "immediate" rematch that we had been promised after such a controversial decision, but now it's been confirmed by UFC officials that Machida had surgery on his injured hand with no timetable for his return. I'm not a fan of interim champions, but if the injury sidelines Machida for a year or more then they need to setup an interim championship bout between Rua and either Rashad, Thiago Silva, or the winner of Couture vs. Vera. Anybody have any better ideas/opponents?
NOGUEIRA VS. VELASQUEZ BOUT MAY HELP INJURY PLAGUED UFC 108
Despite supposedly confirmed reports earlier in the week, Cain Velasquez hasn't agreed to fight Minotauro as of yet. While writing last weeks column, it appeared that UFC 108 could possibly be the greatest ppv ever put together by the UFC Brass, but with Lesnar vs. Carwin, Belfort vs. Silva, and now Machida vs. Rua all being postponed or cancelled due to injury they definitely need some big names on the card. This would be the perfect opportunity for Cain to capitalize on such a dominating performance at UFC 104, and fight one of the greatest Heavyweight fighters MMA has ever known. If he were to win against Nogueira he would be the obvious frontrunner to fight the winner of Lesnar vs. Carwin for the title.
CUNG LE COULD RETURN TO STRIKEFORCE ON DECEMBER 19th
After almost two years away from the fight game to pursue an acting career, Cung Le is rumored to be making his return to the Strikeforce cage with Scott Smith being the most discussed opponent for his comeback bout. Le brings a unique style of fighting to the cage that no one seems to have an answer for yet. He is incredibly quick, and his San Shou background always makes for an exciting, explosive fight. If Smith does end up standing across from Le on Dec. 18, don't blink, because neither of these guys is scared to throw, or take a punch. I usually don't make predictions (mainly because I'm always wrong), but I see Le winning via knockout in the first round. I actually don't care who wins; I'm just pumped about seeing both of these guys back in action.
THE ULTIMATE FIGHTER 10, EPISODE 8
Finally. I was able to watch an entire episode without wanting to take a fork to my eyes. It's a shame that we had to wait all the way until episode eight to be able to have the focus be on the fighters and not so much on Rashad and Rampage. Of course there were the occasional barbs from Rashad, but Rampage didn't take the bait.
My favorite part of this season so far has to be Marcus "Big Baby" Jones laughing like a demented scientist every time he learned something new. Marcus is what I've been waiting for. He seems to truly be there to learn, he respects his coaches, and somehow respects the rest of his housemates who seem to be more interested in drama, and jokes than training.
Marcus fought Mike Wessel in the last elimination match with the winner getting the last spot in the semifinals. Marcus is a HUGE man with ever improving skills, but he's not where he needs to be yet. I assumed Marcus would come out brawling, and using his size to overpower Wessel. He did. Wessel went for a trip takedown, but Marcus used his strength to counter the takedown and take Wessel's back. Wessel defends and ends up in the mount position, but Marcus applied a very fast, powerful armbar that ended the fight, but surprisingly didn't end Wessel's use of his arm.
The quarterfinals were chosen as follows:
Roy Nelson vs. Justin Wren
Brendan Schaub vs. John Madsen
James McSweeney vs. Matt Mitrione
Marcus Jones vs. Darryl Schoonover
FIGHTER OF THE WEEK: B.J. PENN
I've been a fan of B.J. Penn since I first saw him compete at UFC 31. Whether you like him or not, you can't argue with the level of fighters he's fought since he first burst on the scene. He's only lost to one person in his natural weight class of 155 pounds, and that was back in January of 2002.
A lot of people jumped on the "I hate B.J. Penn" bandwagon after his loss to GSP at UFC 94, but he brought up valid points that needed to be said in our ever-evolving, somewhat young sport. I'll probably get a lot of negative comments about this, but if Vaseline, no matter how little, hadn't been applied to GSP's upper back it could have been a different fight altogether. Am I saying that BJ would've won? No. Do I think he would've had a much better chance to use what everyone else knows is the strongest part of his fight arsenal if the Vaseline hadn't been there? Absolutely.
If you disagree, go back and watch the fight before you argue. As soon as B.J. is on his back and tries for high guard, his legs repeatedly, and immediately slip down GSP's back. I know all of this is really old, and been talked about to death, but it did change the way cornermen are allowed to interact with their fighters before and during fights, and nothing but good can come of that change.
B.J. seems to have rededicated himself to becoming the greatest Lightweight fighter the world has ever seen, and I can't wait to see an in shape Penn go toe-to-toe with Diego in December.
FIGHTER TO WATCH: BRANDON VISHER
What do you mean you've never heard of this guy?! Okay, so neither had I until last Saturday. Visher (12-0) was recently signed by the WEC, and will be facing off against Tyler Toner (9-1) at WEC 45: Cerrone vs. Ratcliff on December 19th. I've watched several Visher fights on YouTube since Saturday, and I have to say I'm really impressed. His hand speed, and willingness to stand and bang, remind me of a cross between a young Vitor Belfort and Kid Yamamoto. His WEC debut may not be televised in its entirety, but they will at least be showing a clip at the end of the broadcast when they award the Knockout of the Night bonus.
Special thanks to King Eddie @ www.mmahawaii.com for bringing Brandon to my attention.
DUMBASS OF THE WEEK: WAR MACHINE (AGAIN)
I'm starting to think I just need to rename this section "WAR MACHINE OF THE WEEK." In case you're new to this column, let me start off by saying how sorry I am for you that you've missed the first four columns, and welcome aboard. Those of you who've read the previous columns should recognize that this is Mr. Machine's second time as Dumbass of the Week. For those not so mathematically inclined, this means War has the distinction of being the greatest Dumbass in the world of MMA 40% of the time.
Now that we've got the statistics out of the way I'll give you my reasons for giving him this honor, again. It seems the fighter, formerly known as Jon Koppenhaver, isn't quite making the money it takes to live his current lifestyle without having to go out and get a job (insert Dumb and Dumber reference here), so he did what every other hard working American would do in his same predicament. You guessed it, porn.
If that wasn't enough to earn him the top prize this week, surely the fact he posted a video online of himself getting his man-garden, and nether regions WAXED for his first scene, makes you understand my logic.
Apparently War heard that he could give a good pounding in the ring/cage, so the next obvious choice was to see if he could give one elsewhere. I, on the other hand, heard that he also could take a good pounding in the ring, so…
COMMENT OF THE WEEK
Eric wins with this comment: "I would love to see a skinny pale tattooed up white guy riding into a stadium full of fans on the shoulders of J. Peppers. The fans would cheer because they would think it's a 'make a wish' ordeal."
Good form, sir. Just to let everyone know, I still haven't received my invite from Peppers, but I'm expecting it any day now.
I almost went with Stephen's comment, but only because he used the phrase, "super star rookie writer," and I'm pretty sure he was talking about me.
If you guys learn anything at all this week, let it be known that flattery will get you everywhere with me, and you may just wind up in a column. (You can make comments or read other comments from readers at the MMATorch.com regular website. Just scroll past the ad at the bottom of this article which is likely a "before and after" picture of someone with muscles.)
FINAL WORDS
Thanks again for taking the time to read An aMMAzing Week in Review. I look forward to hearing from you guys. See you next Saturday!
To catch up on past "aMMAzing Week-in-Review" columns, please check out "The Specialists" section where you'll find my previous columns plus other exclusive weekly Specialist columnist including "DVD World," "UK Scene," "All Business," "Submission Spotlight," "Styles Clash," "What If?," and "Whatever Happened To..." SPECIALISTS SECTION
[Mike Wessel photo provided to MMATorch courtesy Spike TV]
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