Falls Count Anywhere

09-28-07

It's a nifty paper airplane.

Shogun vs. Griffith
Mauricio Shogun Rua is one of the biggest names in MMA. He’s a star in Japan. He’s a star in Brazil. He was one of the names in Pride, where he only lost once to Mark Coleman, a very tough dude indeed. He was one of the great names of Pride that were coming to the UFC to change things.

Forrest Griffin won the first Ultimate Fighter. He’s the real deal. I’ve said that he was gonna be a star from day one and I’m glad he’s worked his way up to the top level. He lost via TKO to Keith Jardine and also via a controversial split decision to Tito Ortiz. Even with those losses he was seen as a big deal. He was the underdog going into the fight against one of Pride’s best.

And of course, Pride lost.

Forrest took Rua apart and landed punches, worked on the ground and just made him look bad. It was Rua’s first UFC fight and he lost by Rear Naked Choke with 15 seconds left in the fight. No one could have given the fight to Rua (well, maybe the idiots who gave Michael Bisping the win in the last show from London) and Griffin still choked him out. As had happened with Mirko Cro Cop, he didn’t really show the same force that he had in Pride. Pride’s legend seems to have been destroyed.

What this means is that unless Fedor comes in and starts running over people, they’re not gonna make much real money off of buying Pride. They’ve challenged only a couple of them (and Cro Cop should have run over all the guys they’ve thrown at him) but the Pride guys are in the loss column far too much. The shine is gone and the call of Ring is better than Cage seems to the dead.

And maybe that’s it. Maybe the cage is much harder to deal with than fighting in a ring. Cro Cop was really good in the ring, partly from coming from a Kickboxing background, but he hasn’t shown any comfort fighting in the octagon. Griffin was solid, looked bigger than he ever has and more confident. Forrest has never had a problem with confidence, and here he looked even more self-assured. It was a really strong fight and the finish was great. I’d much rather see a guy keep working to the end and get a submission with almost no time left than to see it go to the cards. There were folks complaining that the choke was unnecessary because there was no way he could have lost. To them I say ‘Michael Bisping’ and that SHOWS you why you should never let it go to the cards.

On the other hand, Chuck Liddell has let UFC down badly. It’s rare that a single loss can make a company shake, but here was one. He had just lost to Quintain Rampage Jackson, and no one would have said that Rampage wasn’t worthy. He lost to Keith Jardine, who isn’t a slouch but there’s no way he should be beating Chuck Liddell. There’s no star power in Jardine and it wasn’t the kind of win that makes a guy into a superstar. Jardine was a better fighter than I’d seen him (even in his win against Griffin) but I wouldn’t say he should be beating Liddell. Liddell was UFC’s best drawing card before Couture came back. Couture comes back and has this miracle story and Liddell loses twice. It’s a shocker. UFC needs to start finding ways to get their guys ready because Liddell is talking retirement and that would take a lot of wind out of the sails.

RAW (A Bit)
I’ve been reporting a lot of MMA lately, and for my regular wrestling fans, I’d like to apologize and say that I’ll try and get more RAW and SmackDown! in the future, but of late, MMA has been so interesting and RAW has entered into one of those phases.

I did see a good portion of RAW this week and I won’t say it was bad, but there wasn’t a lot that brought my hopes up. They did bring back Hardcore Holly as an enforcer for Coach, it would seem. He beat on Cody Rhodes and pinned him with the Alabama Slam.

I’m afraid they’ve made Rhodes look like a chump for too long. They need to give him wins or at least book him to look strong while he’s losing. I see that Gerwirtz’s hands are all over this one because he really doesn’t understand that Rhodes is a legacy and needs to be pushed hard for people to buy into him.

I also say that Beth Phoenix is being built better than any other challenger on either brand. She got to pin Candice Michelle in a Mixed tag match. Beth teamed with Shelton and Candice with Jeff Hardy. The match was actually kinda good, which is rare for these mixed matches. I think that Beth is probably the best working woman on the roster (well, maybe Victoria) and she’s being built much better than any other Diva has in recent years (well, maybe Victoria from earlier this year). That and she’s smokin’ hot!

Can’t say I care much about what HHH is doing. They need to do the angle where they reveal that he’s been married to Stephanie and have a kid. They had Mr. McMahon add himself to the cage match and he climbed over giving Carlito and him the win over HHH. Stupid booking to say the least.

Too much McMahon. That’s what’s holding them back a lot. There’s also too many guys disappearing into the aether too often. That’s another thing that turns fans off. They better step it up if they’re gonna turn it around anytime soon.

Tidbits of News
The WWE released Marcus Cor Von, aka Monty Brown. The situation was that he had to take care of his sister’s kids and that didn’t allow for him to wrestle. I’m not sure if he asked for his release or if they dropped him. Either way it was a situation where he couldn’t handle the schedule and dropped out. It happens. He could go back to TNA, though it’s not apparent he could even maintain that brief sched either. He’s talented and he would be really over if he went back to TNA.

Ric Flair said in an interview that he was still with the WWE. There’s more to this story than is on the surface.

Kevin Thorn and his wife had a baby this week and Randy Orton got married. The over-under on that proposition is two weeks.

There’ve been a lot of little pointers to Save Us 222 and 7Oct. The likely meaning is that they’re bringing Chris Jericho back, which is good as he’s the cleanest of the big type stars that aren’t signed. He’s put up a ‘I’m comin’ Back’ message on his MySpace and everyone is talking about him. This could be the biggest non-death news item of the year and I’m betting we’ll see him pushed big. Another HHH feud is likely and I’m betting he’ll get that one run with the belt he’s deserved for years. I think Chris is 35 or so, so he needs that time right now.

That’s all for this week. I’ll do two next week and then a double the following Thursday! Con Season has begun again!

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Chris Garcia