Smashing pumpkins: Show us your MMA carved pumpkins

Artist Ray Villafane created a pumpkin that reminds me of MMA's best punch-faces.

Smashing pumpkins: Show us your MMA carved pumpkins

That is an impressive work of art, particularly the flying pumpkin teeth. Could you do any better?

Here's the challenge. Create an MMA-inspired pumpkin and post it on the Cagewriter Facebook page. It can be a fighter, a fight, a logo, whatever. It just needs to be obviously related to mixed martial arts and made from a pumpkin, and not obscene, vulgar or otherwise inappropriate. We will award the best ones DVDs, fight programs and whatever else we can pull from the Cagewriter prize closet.

Read on to see some inspiration from recent fights via photographer Tracy Lee, or look through a collection of Cagewriter's exclusive pictures.

Smashing pumpkins: Show us your MMA carved pumpkins

Nam Phan and Leonard Garcia at UFC 136

Smashing pumpkins: Show us your MMA carved pumpkins

Gray Maynard and Frankie Edgar at UFC 136

Smashing pumpkins: Show us your MMA carved pumpkins

Chris Lytle and Dan Hardy at UFC on Versus 5.

Source: http://sports.yahoo.com/mma/blog/cagewriter/post/Smashing-pumpkins-Show-us-your-MMA-carved-pumpk?urn=mma-wp8429

Dean Amasinger  Jimmy Ambriz Matt Andersen  Alex Andrade  Jermaine Andrè 

You tell us: Where is the fight capital of the world?

You tell us: Where is the fight capital of the world?

At a press conference in Toronto to officially announce UFC 140's main event of Jon Jones vs. Lyoto Machida, Dana White called Toronto the fight capital of the world. Considering how Toronto sold out the 55,000-seat Rogers Center for UFC 129 in April, it's not a stretch to commend the city for its support of MMA. But is it the capital?

Las Vegas, Nev. -- The homebase for Zuffa also hosts more UFC events than any other city every year. Recently, Sin City has also become the home for Strikeforce: Challengers shows, and it is also the home of some of the best MMA gyms.

Los Angeles -- The UFC turns to L.A. for its big heavyweight bouts, and the city turns out for every bout. If Orange County is included, the Los Angeles-area also is the home to Anderson Silva, Tito Ortiz and Mark Munoz's successful gym.

Rio de Janeiro -- With the exuberant way Rio responded to UFC 134, they jumped right onto this list. They also deserve to be here on the back of the Nogueira brothers, fighters born and raised in Rio. No word on if they danced along the sand.

Sydney -- Australia has embraced MMA wholeheartedly, selling out huge events the past two winters. Not only that, but fighters like George Sotiropoulos gleefully sell their country as an MMA haven at every opportunity.

Tokyo -- Though Japanese MMA isn't what it once was, Tokyo will always have a place in MMA's lore because of its role in launching Pride Fighting Championships. Their crowds are not the raucous masses of humanity that are in Sydney or Rio, but Japanese fights are spectacles like no other.

Toronto -- Dana White's choice for the world's MMA capital has plenty of fight fans and fighters. Though it is the city that dumped Sean Pierson from their police department for being a UFC fighter, it is also the city that welcome the UFC with open arms the second it was regulated there.

Now you tell us: Where is the fight capital of the world? Did we miss any on the list? Vote in the poll, and tell us your thoughts in the comments or on Facebook.

Source: http://sports.yahoo.com/mma/blog/cagewriter/post/You-tell-us-Where-is-the-fight-capital-of-the-w?urn=mma-wp8229

Houston Alexander Ricardo Almeida  Eddie Alvarez Thiago Alves  Andre Amade 

Overeem calls for first round KO of Lesnar, Mir says ?not so fast my friend?

Overeem calls for first round KO of Lesnar, Mir says ?not so fast my friend?

There was a time Frank Mir disliked Brock Lesnar so much that he admitted his life was completely consumed by the goal of defeating the behemoth, but that doesn't mean the Las Vegas native is beyond being objective when it comes to analyzing a fight.

Alistair Overeem is confident he'll crush Lesnar in their year-end fight. Mir says it won't happen at UFC 141.

"Honestly, I think Brock will win pretty easily ? I think we're going to see the closest thing to a grappler versus striker match you'll see nowadays," Mir told ESPN.com. "Brock is going to cover up; maybe throw one jab. He'll rush Overeem to the cage, reach down for a leg and rip him down? I don't think he's going to get off his back. I'd be very shocked ? I'd applaud Overeem if he got off his back."

Mir has a pretty solid wrestling background and possesses world class jiu-jitsu skills, but he was overwhelmed by Lesnar's size (6-foot-4, 285 pounds) and knowledge/execution of positioning himself on top of a downed opponent at UFC 100.

The 6-5, 253-pound Overeem is a good striker and has added to his grappling game over the years, but is he going to be able to keep Lesnar away?

Overeem also believes it'll be grappler vs. striker, but says the guy who likes standings and banging has the advantage.

"I'm very confident. It's going to be a knockout victory in the first round. He's not going to get out of the first round. It will not come to the second round. He's a strong guy, a very dangerous guy. But, I think I've got what it takes to stop him. And I got what it takes to stop him in the first round," said Overeem (2:05 mark).

Tip via MMA Convert

Source: http://sports.yahoo.com/mma/blog/cagewriter/post/Overeem-calls-for-first-round-KO-of-Lesnar-Mir-?urn=mma-wp8508

Alex Andrade  Jermaine Andrè  Yoji Anjo  Tank Abbott Hiroyuki Abe

Eliot Marshall: I Don't Think Brandon Vera Wants It That Bad

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Eliot Marshall faces Brandon Vera at UFC 137.If things go very, very well for Eliot Marshall at UFC 137 -- which is to say, if he not only beats Brandon Vera, but also earns one of the UFC's bonus awards for the best submission, knockout, or fight of the night -- it will be a profitable night in the Octagon for the Colorado-based light heavyweight.

But if he merely wins without collecting a big bonus, he told MMA Fighting, he'll probably just break even in the end.

"That's how much I've put into this [training] camp, financially," said Marshall. "Spending money to travel, go here and do this, do that, it's not cheap. I'm a hundred percent committed."

At this point, he pretty much has to be. That's because Marshal knows he's likely just one loss away from being cut by the UFC for a second time in two years. And if that happens, Marshall said, he plans to hang up the gloves and call it a career.

His thinking on the matter is simple, he explained. He's already been cut from the organization once, and had to volunteer for a short-notice fight with Luiz Cane at UFC 128 just to get back in. He lost that one via first-round TKO, but his willingness to step up when the UFC needed someone was apparently enough to earn him this second chance.




If he gets beat by Vera this Saturday night, he'll drop to 0-2 in his current UFC run and will almost certainly get his walking papers as a result. If that happens, he's not sure what the point would be of continuing on with his fighting career.

"How many guys do you know who get brought back for a third time?" he pointed out.

That's why, at least to hear Marshall tell it now, this could very well be it for him. He knows he'll be the underdog heading into the bout with Vera, and if things go the way oddsmakers expect them to the 31-year-old Marshall might be on his way to retirement this time next week.

Maybe that helps to explain why he's invested so much time and money into this training camp. With so much at stake, he wanted to make sure he was as well prepared as possible, he said, which meant multiple trips down to Greg Jackson's gym in Albuquerque, N.M., as well as driving all around Colorado to get in the gym with as many different sparring partners as he could find.

"That way you don't get used to anybody's style," he explained. "Sometimes you get used to what guy A does or guy B does, and then when you get in the cage to really fight, the guy you're fighting doesn't do what guy A or B does and you have to adapt. I've had to adapt every sparring session. My mind and my body is used to it, so it's not so much about what they're going to do, it's what I'm going to do."

But against an opponent like Vera, figuring out a path to victory isn't so easy, as Marshall has learned from hours of watching film.

"He's very, very tough," Marshall said. "Even when he's losing, he takes it. Thiago Silva whooped his ass, and he wasn't close to being stopped. He switches stances well. Obviously, he kicks hard. I guess on paper he should be the champ of the world, right?"

So why isn't he? Instead of being champ of the world, why is Vera winless in his last three fights, and just barely holding on to a spot in the UFC himself?

"I just don't think he wants it that bad," said Marshall, who added that, in the end, that's what he believes will make all the difference.

"What's going to decide the fight is who wants it more. I don't think any one skill-set is going to decide this fight. It's going to be, who's willing to get beat up? Who's willing to suffer to win this fight?"

The way Marshall sees it, that person is him. That's because he has to win this fight. If he doesn't, his stay in the UFC -- and, so he says, his career in MMA -- will both come to an end.

That explains why he's invested so much in his own training and preparation, he said. There's no reason not to go all-in now and see what happens. At this point in his career, there might not be a next time.

 

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Source: http://mmafighting.com/2011/10/24/eliot-marshall-i-dont-think-brandon-vera-wants-it-that-bad/

Eddie Alvarez Thiago Alves  Andre Amade  Dean Amasinger  Jimmy Ambriz

Georges St. Pierre is hoping for a Super Bowl weekend return

Georges St. Pierre is hoping for a Super Bowl weekend return

When Georges St. Pierre realized that his knee was too injured for him to fight at UFC 137, he was shaken up. He admitted that he let some emotion show when he had to pull out of the bout with Carlos Condit.

"I'm not going to lie, I cried yesterday," St-Pierre told SportsNets. "I had a ton of pressure falling off my shoulders, because for the last few days I was in the mindset that I was nervous for the fight. I was excited for the fight but I was also nervous to know if I was going to be able to fight."

He sprained his MCL while training on Tuesday afternoon. Though it was an injury serious enough to pull him from the fight, it won't keep him out for too long. He is hoping to be able to fight on the UFC's Super Bowl weekend card, normally one of the bigger events on their calendar.

"I would say maybe end of January, possibly the beginning of February [for my return]?Super Bowl, around this time," St-Pierre said.

Condit told Cagewriter that he was hoping to fight GSP for the belt by the end of the year, but with GSP's timetable, Condit will have to wait a bit longer.

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Source: http://sports.yahoo.com/mma/blog/cagewriter/post/Georges-St-Pierre-is-hoping-for-a-Super-Bowl-we?urn=mma-wp8399

John Alessio  Houston Alexander Ricardo Almeida  Eddie Alvarez Thiago Alves