Tales from Asia: Benson Henderson?s tour through Korea and Japan

Tales from Asia: Benson Henderson?s tour through Korea and Japan

UFC lightweight Benson Henderson will fight Frankie Edgar for the title in February, but before that, he is touring through Japan and Korea to visit with troops, meet media, and most importantly, meet his family. Read his exclusive travel blog posts at Cagewriter.

Last week, I was honored to be asked by the UFC to represent them in Korea and Japan.  This is my first time overseas, which these days seems to put me in a minority. But I am looking forward to the great events and festivities that are lined up.

The main purpose of this trip is to visit with many of our American troops here in Korea. These men and women do so much for our country, and have to spend so much time away from their loved ones to accomplish that. We sometimes take that for granted.

I also wanted to take this trip for a very personal reason. I am a second-generation Korean-American, and I am visiting my mother's home country. My Oma (mom) is accompanying me on this trip. Over the weekend, she will get to see many of her family members for the first time in years, and I will be meeting them for the first time EVER! Tales from Asia: Benson Henderson?s tour through Korea and JapanBeing able to share this trip with my Oma makes it so much more special.

I never really thought I'd come visit Korea until I was much older and retired, but the UFC has made it a reality.  As I am writing this, we are driving through a very beautiful and slightly overwhelming downtown Seoul.

So far, I've done a few interviews and had a chance to visit Camp Carroll in Daegu. There I took part in a mini-MMA clinic with the Army Combative Instructors, shook some hands and signed a lot of autographs. These men and women are huge fans of MMA and the UFC.

I've also had a chance to speak with a lot of soldiers personally. Getting a feel of how much they are sacrificing, I'm completely blown away and honored that I could come out and support them in return. That holds true even more this time of year, with the holidays around the corner. I'll be visiting a lot more bases this week, and having Thanksgiving dinner with the troops too, before heading off to Japan to promote my next fight.

Follow Henderson as he travels on Twitter.

Source: http://sports.yahoo.com/mma/blog/cagewriter/post/Tales-from-Asia-Benson-Henderson-s-tour-through?urn=mma-wp9928

John Alessio  Houston Alexander Ricardo Almeida  Eddie Alvarez Thiago Alves 

TUF 14 Finale Shows Just How Badly UFC Needs the Little Guys

John DodsonThe lessons from some fight nights are subtle -- a bit of meaning you find only after sifting through the blood, sweat, and spilled cans of Xenergy. This was not one of those fight nights.

For anyone with a little bit of sense and decent vision, the takeaways from the TUF 14 Finale were like a flashing neon billboard on the Vegas strip. You couldn't miss it if you tried. Not when a phalanx of bantamweights and featherweights puts on one great fight after another, while the main event features one middleweight who gasses early and another who simply gets tired of beating on him.

Contrasts like that are helpful at times. If you didn't know that the little guys were worth watching before, you do now. Or at least you should. And if an entire season worth of memorable reality TV fights on The Ultimate Fighter wasn't enough for you, they capped it off with perhaps the greatest full finale event in TUF history.

It's not as if we shouldn't have seen this coming, either. Even back when featherweights and bantamweights were relegated to the WEC, putting on twice the fights for half the paychecks, the hardcore fans who consistently tuned in to the Sunday night events on Versus appreciated the quality of the performances they put on. If only these guys could get a chance in the UFC, those fans said. And then they did, only to have the UFC quickly realize that it probably didn't have enough of them.

Putting 135 and 145-pounders on the Spike TV reality show was a brilliant way to both fatten up the roster and introduce the weight classes to a wider audience, and the cast wasted no time making their presence felt with a series of fantastic elimination fights in the very first episode. It went on like that more or less all season long, so maybe we shouldn't be surprised that they delivered at the finale as well.

In fairness, this card was loaded with them. In recent years the TUF Finale has featured only a handful of non-finalists, but Saturday night's event was comprised almost exclusively of reality show participants, giving the smaller fighters plenty of chances to shine.

Only two of the five prelim fights went the distance, and both of those that did (Steven Siler's decision win over Josh Clopton and Marcus Brimage's decision over Stephen Bass) were action-packed affairs that stayed busy and competitive all the way until the end.

On the main card, John Dodson showed not only his power and quickness in a quick TKO win over T.J. Dillashaw, but also his freakish agility in a post-fight celebration that included dueling flips that looked like something out of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. What's more, he did it all with a smile, which is equal parts creepy and impressive.

Then there was the featherweight finale between Diego Brandao and Dennis Bermudez, which has to be in the conversation for best one-round fight of the year. After they took turns rocking one another in frantic exchanges, Brando nearly got his jaw knocked off his face before somehow recovering to pull off a miraculous armbar with just seconds left in the first round.

Among the eight fights in either the bantamweight or featherweight division from this card, there was hardly a man who didn't seem up to UFC standards. It was a collection of well-conditioned, well-prepared athletes who gave the fans their money's worth before the main eventers even set foot in the cage.

Remind me again why we didn't have these guys in the UFC years ago?

It shouldn't surprise anyone that there are so many talented lighter weight fighters in MMA. I've advanced this theory several times before, but it seems pretty obvious to me that decent heavyweights are hard to come by because big guys who are gifted athletes have more options. You're 6'4" and 250 pounds with speed, agility, coordination, and a competitive fire? I can't blame you if you opt for the NFL over MMA. You'll make more on the practice squad there than most UFC fighters do from fighting, and you get part of the year off.

But if you're Dodson, who is 5'3" and pushing it to fight at 135 pounds, it probably doesn't matter how gifted you are. You're going to be considered too small for most high school football teams, let alone the pros. You're genetically disqualified from most major pro sports right out of the womb, which is true of most of us for one reason or another, but shouldn't be true of this guy, as anyone who's seen what he's capable of already knows.

MMA offers the rare ability to compete against someone roughly your own size every time out, and as a result there is a wealth of talent in the lighter divisions. Conventional wisdom has held that fans simply aren't interested in seeing pint-sized warriors. But then, if we adhered to that kind of thinking we never would have seen the Brandao-Bermudez fight. We never would have seen Dodson flipping around like a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle. We wouldn't have had much of a fight night at all, really, and we would have had only ourselves to blame for it.

 

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Source: http://www.mmafighting.com/2011/12/04/tuf-14-finale-shows-just-how-badly-ufc-needs-the-little-guys/

Cyril Abidi  Daniel Acacio Bernard Ackah  Terrance Aflague Yoshihiro Akiyama 

Bryan Caraway Was Very Close to Not Fighting at TUF 14 Finale

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LAS VEGAS -- Watch below as Bryan Caraway talked about beating Dustin Neace at the TUF 14 Finale, why he was close to not fighting on Saturday night, dealing with his nerves before the fight and much more.

 

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Source: http://www.mmafighting.com/2011/12/04/bryan-caraway-was-very-close-to-not-fighting-at-tuf-14-finale/

Ricardo Almeida  Eddie Alvarez Thiago Alves  Andre Amade  Dean Amasinger 

Civic pride: Writer says Nick Diaz should nab ?Stocktonian of the Year? award

Civic pride: Writer says Nick Diaz should nab ?Stocktonian of the Year? award

Stockton's reputation has taken a beating over the years. Between foreclosures, a struggling school system and climbing crime rates, the northern California city needs to something to hang its hat on. According to the local newspaper, that something may be mixed martial artist Nick Diaz.

Yes, the same Diaz who goes on foul-mouthed rants, misses drug tests, no-shows press conferences, produces hilarious YouTube driving rants and sucker punched Jason Miller on national TV, is the guy who can help remake poor Stockton's image.

MMAWeekly found a gem. Diaz was placed on this list by Stockton Record writer Mike Klocke:

» Kenya Hernandez: The then eighth-grade student at Roosevelt School in Stockton testified on Capitol Hill about issues faced in inner city schools. Hernandez was strong, forthright and powerful in her messages to policy makers.

» Sheldon Arce, Alex Pascua and Jonah Phillips: The three students at Marshall Elementary School in Stockton sat down with Record reporter Lori Gilbert and school officials to relate their personal experiences about being bullied at school. Their comments were the most compelling and powerful words in a Record interview the past year. I applaud them for their courage.

» Nick Diaz: This isn't about maturity or proper behavior and decision making. The Stockton mixed martial arts fighter has none of those. What he has is talent and presence and - if he can keep (or get) that head of his on his shoulders - the potential to be a Stockton athletic rallying cry, ala Dallas Braden. Perhaps this is a year early. If he can win a huge upcoming fight and learn to act like an adult, maybe we'll have another Yaqui Lopez on our hands.

» LaCresia Hawkins: She grew up in southeast Stockton and has become a leader in promoting healthy eating and combating childhood obesity through her work with the Community Partnership for Families of San Joaquin. She helps organize the group's grass-roots health efforts.

» Gregory Basso: The retired Stockton businessman made a video which quickly went viral and became the rallying point for a community-wide assault on Forbes magazine's misery rankings of Stockton.

All kidding aside, athletes can serve a major role in boosting civic pride. Diaz may be a little off his rocker, but his success in the cage can at least give Stockton something positive to trumpet.

Source: http://sports.yahoo.com/mma/blog/cagewriter/post/Civic-pride-Writer-says-Nick-Diaz-should-nab-S?urn=mma-wp10088

Yoshihiro Akiyama  Gilbert Aldana  José Aldo  John Alessio  Houston Alexander

Louis Gaudinot interview: Green-haired little guy fighting to secure a spot in 125-pound division

Louis Gaudinot interview: Green-haired little guy fighting to secure a spot in 125-pound divisionReality shows are rarely a true glance at reality and the same goes for "The Ultimate Fighter." Sure the fights are real, but the cast members aren't always battling in their true weight divisions.

During the 14 seasons of TUF, loads of fighters have chosen to bail from their natural weight class and move up simply for a shot at the big leagues.

Louis Gaudinot and several other flyweight did so this year on TUF 14.

The 5-foot-3 Gaudinot, a true 125er went for broke. He lost in the round of 8, but he's been invited back for tomorrow night's TUF 14 Finale where he hopes to not only win, but make a lasting impression so he can be a mainstay in the soon-to-be-established UFC 125-pound divsion.

"When I was on the show, every time I saw Dana [White], you know me (John) Dodson, (Josh) Ferguson, we used to bug him about when the division was coming," Gaudinot told ESPN1100/98.9 FM in Las Vegas. "[...] I'm a top 10 at flyweight. It's kind of frustrating that that's the only division the UFC doesn't have."

Gaudinot lost a three-round battle against Dustin Pague. The 5-9 Pague simply overpowered the diminutive  New Yorker over the final half of fight. He has the same challenge tomorrow night against another 5-9 fighter in Johnny Bedford.

"On the show, he wanted to face Josh, who's also a 125er. Then he wanted to fight Dodson, who's also 125er. So I've gone around calling him the flyweight bully because he likes to pick on people who are smaller than him," said Gaudinot.

Gaudinot says the TUF 14 Finale will be different. His lack of size will help him.

"But his size advantage isn't going to be that much of an advantage. It's going to be harder for him to shoot on me and get low," Gaudinot said. "I'm going to be able to close the distance becaus I think I have better kickboxing than he does. I don't care how tall he is."

Gaudinot is a plus-190 underdog against Bedford. In the 135-pound title fight, Gaudinot chose Dodson to pull the upset at +190 over T.J. Dillashaw. He went with the favorite in Diego Brandao (-350) over Dennis Bermudez in the 145-pound fight.

Source: http://sports.yahoo.com/mma/blog/cagewriter/post/Louis-Gaudinot-interview-Green-haired-little-gu?urn=mma-wp10119

Bernard Ackah  Terrance Aflague Yoshihiro Akiyama  Gilbert Aldana  José Aldo 

Wrestler vs. wrestler showdown on Fox: Sonnen and Munoz official for Jan. 28

Wrestler vs. wrestler showdown on Fox: Sonnen and Munoz official for Jan. 28

Chael Sonnen did all he could to throw the media and fan off the scent, but it turns out initial reports that the mouthy middleweight would be facing Mark Munoz were true. Sonnen and Munoz have been booked as the co-main event for the Jan. 28 in Chicago.

Just a few minutes ago, the UFC sent out a UFC of Fox 2 press conference advisory:

The Ultimate Fighting Championship® announced today that it will host a press conference at 1 p.m. CT on Wednesday, Dec. 7 at the United Center in Chicago. UFC President Dana White will discuss the UFC® on FOX event scheduled for Saturday, Jan. 28, 2012 at United Center.

In the night's main event, former UFC light heavyweight champion Rashad Evans battles the unbeaten Phil Davis to determine the next challenger to the 205-pound title. Plus, in the night's co-feature, controversial middleweight contender Chael Sonnen takes on "The Filipino Wrecking Machine" Mark Munoz in a bout that will decide which fighter gets the next crack at champion Anderson Silva.

With the event at the massive United Center, the UFC decided to go with an unusually low set of ticket prices:

Tickets for UFC® on FOX are priced at $250, $150, $100, $75, $50, and $40, and go on sale to the public on Friday, Dec. 9 at 10 a.m. CT. Tickets will be available at all Ticketmaster locations, online at ticketmaster.com and charge-by-phone at 800-745-3000. Tickets can also be purchased at the United Center Box Office.

Sonnen is coming off a dominant October win over Brian Stann at UFC 136. He the only fighter to give UFC middleweight champ Anderson Silva a real challenge over the last six years when he took the champ to the brink before losing via submission in the fifth round at UFC 117.

Munoz, a national champion wrestler at Oklahoma State, has plowed through the UFC middleweight division with a 7-1 mark. Sonnen was a collegiate wrestling star at Oregon and went onto a decorate career internationally on the Greco-Roman grappling scene.

Source: http://sports.yahoo.com/mma/blog/cagewriter/post/Wrestler-vs-wrestler-showdown-on-Fox-Sonnen-an?urn=mma-wp10168

Cyril Abidi  Daniel Acacio Bernard Ackah  Terrance Aflague Yoshihiro AkiyamaÂ